With THE NIGHT, Kourosh Ahari has fashioned a deeply disturbing, elegantly told tale of horror that resonates not so much for its supernatural elements, as for the fear that lurks within us all that one day, or in this case, night, we will get what we deserve for our transgressions. Ahari may be using familiar… Read More »
THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS — Tim Wardle Interview
Click here to listen to the interview. Click here for the KMR review of THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS. Almost the first thing I said to Tim Wardle when we spoke on April 8, 2018, was that my greatest hope for the interview was that we wouldn’t give too much away. I hope we succeeded. His documentary, THREE IDENTICAL… Read More »
TWENTY TWENTY-FOUR
You could, if so inclined, sit back and enjoy Richard Mundy’s counterintuitively dynamic film, TWENTY TWENTY- FOUR, merely as an engrossing study of a loner going slowly mad in isolation. As the difference between reality and madness builds to a fever pitch, the mystery of what exactly is happening in Roy’s underground bunker matches the… Read More »
LONDON ROAD
LONDON ROAD brilliantly uses the unreality of ordinary people breaking into song to evoke the unreality of a serial killer on the loose on the otherwise unremarkable eponymous street in the otherwise unremarkable small town of Ipswich, England. Based on the Royal National Theatre production, original cast intact, that was, in turn, based on the… Read More »
Jenna Ricker on THE AMERICAN SIDE
Star and co-writer Greg Stuhr sat in on my interview with co-writer and director Jenna Ricker. You can almost hear him off mic adding a word or two, but he chose to remain a suitably enigmatic, though thoroughly affable, presence rather than a participant as Ricker and I discussed their intriguing film noir, THE AMERICAN SIDE.… Read More »
THE ONES BELOW — David Farr Interview
I didn’t have the best phone connection when I spoke with David Farr on May 6, 2016, but that didn’t diminish the perceptive, and even provocative things that the filmmaker had to say about his bone-chilling film, THE ONES BELOW. This tale of enforced intimacy and primal bonding between couples who are both expecting babies… Read More »
PAWN SACRIFICE
Chess has never been more compelling cinematically than in PAWN SACRIFICE. Whether you know nothing about the game, or you are a grand master, the story of Bobby Fischer’s rise to the world championship, and the toll it took on his already fragile psyche, has all the suspense and intrigue of an espionage thriller. That… Read More »
Perry Blackshear, MacLeod Andrews & Evan Dumouchel Insist that THEY LOOK LIKE PEOPLE
THEY LOOK LIKE PEOPLE is a first-rate existential horror film, as well as a psychological thriller. I got the same vibe watching it that I had gotten watching PI and BRICK, the maiden efforts of Darren Aronofsky and Rian Johnson respectively. Writer/director Perry Blackshear understands more than just how to create evocative, even sumptuous, visuals, he knows… Read More »
DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, THE
There is a moment in THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, one of many actually, that tells you that this is no ordinary sci-fi flick. Michael Rennie as the alien visitor Klaatu has gone undercover in a Washington D.C. boarding house in order to learn more about the Earthlings hes been sent to contact. He… Read More »
CHILDREN OF MEN
In a here-and-now where the primacy of children is given ample lip service by proponents of any and all social issues, it is refreshing, and not a little thought-provoking, to see in Alfonso Cuaron’s CHILDREN OF MEN, based on the P.D. James novel of the same name, a world in which this is actually the case.… Read More »