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‘Westworld’ 2.09 Recap: “There Is No Place for You in the New World”

Josh Zyber — Tue, 19 Jun 2018 12:00:09 +0000

For its penultimate episode of the season, ‘Westworld’ makes a curious choice not to dole out the expected abundance of shocking plot twists and reversals (though it has a couple), but to deliver a very character-focused episode instead. This may be a better decision, but it sure leaves next week’s finale with a lot to...

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‘Westworld’ 2.01 Recap: “Have You Ever Questioned the Nature of Your Reality?”

Josh Zyber — Tue, 24 Apr 2018 12:00:15 +0000

HBO’s ambitious sci-fi Western ‘Westworld’ returns for a second season to both dazzle and confound viewers. Now that we know some of the show’s secrets from last year, will the story be easier to follow this time? I doubt anyone will be shocked if I say that the answer is “yes and no.” First off,...

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TIFF Journal: ‘Kodachrome’

Philip Brown — Tue, 19 Sep 2017 15:00:27 +0000

You know you’re deep in the midst of Oscar season when you see a movie that exists exclusively due to a single performance. ‘Kodachrome’ is based on a true story that’s inspirational and blah blah blah… The truth is, the only reason this movie will be released and discussed is because Ed Harris delivers one...

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‘mother!’ Review: Nightmarish Metaphors (or Something)

Philip Brown — Thu, 14 Sep 2017 19:00:13 +0000

If nothing else, it’s astounding that Darren Aronofsky was able to get ‘mother!’ produced at a Hollywood studio and spat out into wide release. The film starts off like a queasy paranoid psychological horror thriller, but eventually departs into full-on surrealist nightmare territory. What the filmmaker is getting at (beyond unsettling and freaking out his...

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‘Rules Don’t Apply’ Review: Megalomania Squared

Philip Brown — Mon, 28 Nov 2016 16:00:56 +0000

Warren Beatty has been obsessed with making a Howard Hughes movie for decades and it’s not hard to see why. After all, Beatty is a notorious control freak who meticulously supervises all aspects of any film he’s involved in, whether he’s directing or not. As you may have heard, Howard Hughes also had issues with...

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‘Westworld’ 1.05 Recap: “Whoever You Were Before Doesn’t Matter Here”

Josh Zyber — Wed, 02 Nov 2016 13:00:14 +0000

As if ‘Westworld’ didn’t already have enough other unanswered questions and mysteries, this week I’m left wondering just how large this theme park is. We’ve already seen a massive construction project so far away that none of the guests know about it. Now we visit a whole new town, with suggestions of an even more...

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‘Westworld’ 1.02 Recap: “Figuring Out How It Works Is Half the Fun”

Josh Zyber — Tue, 11 Oct 2016 19:00:44 +0000

The second episode of ‘Westworld’ clarifies a couple of things I found confusing in the premiere. At least, it seems to. With a show like this, it’s far too early to know what to trust just yet. Some readers chastised me last week for writing that the Man in Black (Ed Harris) was a robot,...

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‘Westworld’ Pilot Recap: “We’re Miles Beyond a Glitch Here”

Josh Zyber — Tue, 04 Oct 2016 13:00:55 +0000

Adapted from the 1973 sci-fi thriller written and directed by the late Michael Crichton, ‘Westworld’ is the biggest and most ambitious high-concept event series HBO has launched since ‘Game of Thrones’. The pilot episode leaves me with a lot of questions, not all of which I’m certain the series will be able to answer satisfactorily....

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‘Run All Night’ Review: ‘Cause When the Feelin’s Right…

Philip Brown — Fri, 13 Mar 2015 15:00:51 +0000

The strangest thing about ‘Run All Night’ is the fact that it just can’t decide what movie it wants to be. For a while, it seems as though it will be a hardboiled crime thriller littered with movie stars playing street toughs. Then someone threatens the life of Liam Neeson’s son, and we all know...

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‘Planes: Fire & Rescue’ Review: Fire the Studio Execs and Rescue the Audience

Philip Brown — Thu, 17 Jul 2014 17:00:51 +0000

Released barely a year after the first ‘Planes’ and boasting a running time that barely qualifies as feature length, ‘Planes: Fire & Rescue’ was clearly conceived as a direct-to-DVD cash-grab, but couldn’t be released exclusively that way since that market dried up. Now the turd is coming out in theaters and painfully bored parents will...

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‘Snowpiercer’ Review: Unjustly Neglected Sci-Fi Thrill Ride

Philip Brown — Fri, 27 Jun 2014 13:00:31 +0000

Thrilling, satirical, beautifully designed and packed with stars, ‘Snowpiercer’ is one of the finest and most satisfying movies of the summer. And yet, because it’s a Korean production that landed in the hands of the Weinstein Company, it’s barely getting released at all. Seek it out. You won’t regret it. 2013 should have been the...

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Sundance 2013 Preview: The Premieres

Aaron Peck — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 20:00:16 +0000

Independent films? Really? Nah. The Premiere section at Sundance is always a collection of films designed to draw a crowd of well-known movie stars to the summit of Park City. The big names, in both acting and directing, are huge draws at the festival every year. It’s been my experience that, within the Premiere section,...

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