KNIVES OUT takes a brisk pace with its cinematic legerdemain as its cast expertly calibrate their performances so that arch never strays into the certain disaster of becoming artificial. The result is a giddily entertaining, emotionally engaging film that sets a new standard for its genre, and, if there is any justice, will launch the Benoit Blanc franchise.
READY OR NOT
READY OR NOT has one of the great cinematic punchlines. It’s much better in context, so I won’t give it away, but suffice to say that it’s not only pithy, it’s also all too relatable. So is the film itself, in a deliciously twisted way. This very black comedy plays on the fine line between… Read More »
A Choppy CHAPPIE
CHAPPIE is a cross between Pinicchio and ROBOCOP with a dash of DISTRICT 9. That last is unsurprising because CHAPPIE is the brainchild of Neill Blomkamp, and many of the elements at work in that earlier film about the meaning of humanity are at work in this one. The battleground is still South Africa, Blomkamp’s… Read More »
Tom Dolby — LAST WEEKEND
It was only right that when I spoke by phone with Tom Dolby about LAST WEEKEND on September 12, 2014, he was on his porch overlooking a lake. LAST WEEKEND, which Dolby co-directed with Tom Williams from his own script, is set on Lake Tahoe during an emotionally tumultuous Labor Day Weekend for the affluent Green family. One of the… Read More »
Ursula Meier Finds A Brother for SISTER
Ursula Meier knew she had found her muse in Kacey Mottet Klein when she discovered him in 2008, casting him in her film HOME. When I spoke to her on October 29, 2012, we talked about his evolution as an actor, and how she managed to keep that unselfconscious quality that he had shown in… Read More »
Tom Dolby Savors the LAST WEEKEND
It was only right that when I spoke by phone with Tom Dolby about LAST WEEKEND on September 12, 2014, he was on his porch overlooking a lake. LAST WEEKEND, which Dolby co-directed with Tom Williams from his own script, is set on Lake Tahoe during an emotionally tumultuous Labor Day Weekend for the affluent Green family. One of the… Read More »