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Cannes Journal: The Dead Don’t Die

Jason Gorber — Thu, 16 May 2019 19:00:27 +0000

Jim Jarmusch’s The Dead Don’t Die has all the parts to make a terrific film – a stellar cast, a smart and resilient indie director, and a cinematically literate tale about the undead that should appease fans of George Romero. Instead, like the corpses that litter the ground, the bits never quite assemble in a...

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Sundance Journal: The Souvenir

Jason Gorber — Fri, 15 Feb 2019 16:00:05 +0000

It’s relatively rare to have such austere, auteur-ish films as The Souvenir play at Sundance. Park City is normally the home of brash, sometimes clumsy indie fare, not the rarefied (some may chide as arrogant) Euro-style films that litter Cannes. The fact that the movie won the Grand Jury prize for international cinema is even...

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Suspiria (2018) Review: Una Versione Inferiore

Jason Gorber — Fri, 02 Nov 2018 12:00:15 +0000

Before talking about Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria redux, we should probably be honest about what made Dario Argento’s original a classic for fans of the horror genre. First, above all, is the music, that incessant prog rock Goblin score that sets the audio mood. Then was the wallpaper and the film’s deliriously over-the-top visual sense. Somewhere...

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Fantastic Fest Journal: Suspiria (2018)

Deirdre Crimmins — Wed, 26 Sep 2018 19:00:16 +0000

Horror fans can be a tough audience to please. Speaking as a lifelong member of that tribe, I know we can be curmudgeons. We complain about remakes and sequels, while also complaining when films don’t offer the fan-service that franchises serve up on a platter. When it was announced that Dario Argento’s beloved giallo Suspiria...

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Weekend Roundtable: From Oscar Gowns and Tuxes to Capes and Tights

Josh Zyber — Fri, 16 Feb 2018 18:00:25 +0000

The producers of superhero movies have been very aggressive about casting Oscar winners and nominees to lend some prestige and class to their silly comic book fantasy epics. Among others, Anthony Hopkins, Robert Downey Jr., Benedict Cumberbatch, Tilda Swinton, and now Lupita Nyong’o have traded their Oscar cred for big Marvel or DC paydays. Let’s...

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‘Doctor Strange’ Review: Marvel Embraces Stranger Things

Philip Brown — Thu, 03 Nov 2016 12:00:04 +0000

As the Marvel Cinematic Universe expands exponentially, Kevin Feige and the gang have reached a point where they need to start throwing wrenches into their works. The movies are feeling increasingly familiar. The heroes are increasingly similar. It’s all getting a bit samey. Thankfully, here’s comes ‘Doctor Strange’, a movie that might not reinvent the...

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‘A Bigger Splash’ Review: Not the Mermaid Sequel You May Be Expecting

Philip Brown — Thu, 12 May 2016 16:00:52 +0000

A few years ago, who would have ever guessed that Ralph Fiennes could be considered a brilliant comedic performer? Yet here we are after ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ and Fiennes has delivered his second hilarious performance of the year following his scene-stealing work in the Coen brothers’ ‘Hail, Caesar!’. Not that ‘A Bigger Splash’ should...

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‘Hail, Caesar!’ Review: A Very Coen Goof

Philip Brown — Thu, 04 Feb 2016 20:00:38 +0000

The thing about the Coen brothers is that no matter strange, dark and personal their movies get, they also still enjoy a good laugh. Their latest film. ‘Hail, Caesar!’, comes after three fairly ambitious pictures that wrestled with some hefty themes. This time, the brothers merely hint at intellectual ambitions. This movie is a goof,...

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‘Trainwreck’ Review: Filthy, Feminist and Oddly Old-Fashioned

Philip Brown — Fri, 17 Jul 2015 13:00:29 +0000

It’s been a hell of a year for Amy Schumer, who seemed to pop up almost everywhere as her cable sketch-comedy series hit its stride. She’s at once on point with the social climate of her time and willing to push boundaries. Most importantly, she’s really goddamn funny. It only makes sense that this summer...

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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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‘Only Lovers Left Alive’ Review: The Hipster Vampire Chronicles

Philip Brown — Thu, 24 Apr 2014 19:00:40 +0000

Jim Jarmusch emerged as a filmmaker with a unique style from his first feature, and one of the most interesting aspects of following his career has been watching the director bend genres to his will. Jarmusch’s latest, ‘Only Lovers Left Alive’, takes the vampire genre and transforms it into a deadpan hangout movie with bloodsucking...

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Now Playing: Grand ‘Hotel’

Philip Brown — Thu, 06 Mar 2014 20:00:58 +0000

In his latest movie, ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’, Wes Anderson has created a murder mystery wrapped in a caper, hidden in action movie, that’s ultimately another of his broken family fables. Somehow it all works. In fact, it’s rather wonderful and just might be his finest film since ‘The Royal Tenenbaums’. Like all Anderson movies,...

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