Most horror movies achieve their scares by jolting the viewer. They grab them by the collar and shake them about with a blood-curdling scream or a quick explosion of strings from the soundtrack. But nobody screams in Let The Right One In, an atypical horror movie that possesses the skill and discipline to engage its audience, not with jump scares and orchestral swells, but with chilling, unrelenting quiet.
Archive for the 'film reviews' Category
Given the recent setbacks in the struggle for gay rights, it can be difficult to view Milk without the specter of those disappointments looming just outside the screen’s borders. The film, which depicts the rise to power of Harvey Milk, America’s first openly gay political figure, serves as a stirring call to arms for gay rights activists, and as a reminder that sometimes progress is possible only through dedication, perseverance, and sacrifice.
The trailer for the French film A Girl Cut In Two would have you think that the film is a taut, sexy, tense thriller about the violent love triangle between a beautiful girl and the two men who compete for her affections. What the film actually delivers is about as sexy and tense as Rush Limbaugh enjoying the effects of a painkiller binge.
In 1999, the film adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club became an obsession for aimless twenty- and thirty-something males, who closely identified with its examination of the alienation felt by the so-called “middle children of history”. The film continues to resonate with disenchanted corporate drones and Ikea shoppers everywhere who work jobs they don’t want so they can buy things they don’t need.
Though Palahniuk has written nearly a dozen books since that movie premiered, it has taken until now for a second adaptation of his work to reach the screen, but it remains to be seen whether Choke, another tale of young men struggling to give their lives meaning through questionable means, will have a comparable impact.
Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 failed in ousting the Bush administration from the White House in 2004. Slacker Uprising, the new film by Moore documenting the 2004 tour of the same name, gives him one more chance to proclaim, “Mission accomplished,” and be correct this time. (On a personal note, I don’t see how this film could fail in getting rid of Bush.)
In the past ten years, screenwriter Alan Ball has given us two of the most scathing examinations of the frailty of human nature in general, and American life in particular.
Ball’s screenwriting debut, American Beauty was nothing short of a cultural phenomenon when it was released, and though the film doesn’t quite hold up under close scrutiny, its strongest moments likely remain etched in the minds of viewers. His HBO series Six Feet Under benefited from having five years rather than two hours to examine human nature in all its contradictory glory, and its insights into what makes people tick tended toward subtle incrimination and unbearable heartbreak. In Towelhead, his film directing debut, Ball once again tries to walk the razor’s edge of placing flawed but sympathetic characters in shocking but realistic circumstances.
Ethan and Joel Coen (not to be confused with Etan Cohen, co-writer of the great Tropic Thunder, or Joe Colen, my adult-film pseudonym) put the audience in a privileged position with Burn After Reading. In fact, we feel that we are in cahoots with the Coen brothers.
This dark comedy oozes tragic irony, which the Sarcasm Society, if they can be believed, defines as the “form of irony [in which] the words and actions of the characters, unbeknownst to them, betray the real situation, which the spectators fully realize.” We know more than the characters and sit uncomfortably at times, and elatedly at others, as bits of information are misunderstood or imperceptibly slip by the characters in an intolerably cruel way.
I am so horribly offended by I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, and I hope that whatever defamation league that fights for a comedy’s right to be comedic comes out to protest this juggernaut of hackneyed material and predictability.
Adam Sandler and Kevin James, the ostensible stars of this film, deliver, perhaps, their most inspired performances, which is to say lackluster. They play lifelong pals who feign to be a homosexual couple in order to reap the legal benefits of domestic partnership for the children of the widowed Larry, played by James (don’t think I didn’t consider making a King of Queens joke, Mr. James).
Continue reading ‘I Now Pronounce You Chuck and…Oh, Who Cares?’
The Dark Knight is 150 minutes of intensity—a well-done action film that, unlike Batman Begins, focuses less on character and more on the ca-razee Joker (played by a nearly scenery-chewing Heath Ledger) and Batman’s quest to stop him.
2007, Sony Picture Classics
Written/Directed by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud
Starring: Chiara Mastroianni, Catherine Deneuve, Danielle Darrieux, Danielle Darrieux, Simon Abkarian
I have a bit of a thing for French/Iranian far-left cartoon women, so this movie was kind of my territory. If you don’t know, Persepolis is a beautifully hand-drawn film based on an autobiographic graphic novel of the same name by Marjane Satrapi. It has a few flaws, but it’s very entertaining–assuming you can get past its blatant socialist message.
I’m Not There kind of depends on the fact that any straightforward Bob Dylan biopic wouldn’t live up to expectations, and director Todd Haynes has lovingly exploited that fact by making a film so deliberately obtuse that it’s hard to actually criticize.
2007, 20th Century Fox
I’ve been waiting 10 years for a Simpsons Movie, and it’s finally arrived. Is it perfect? No. But it’s more than sufficient. I saw a midnight showing last Friday morning, and I was impressed.
2007, First Look International
It’s easy to imagine this one fucking up a family of four that thinks they’re in for another family-friendly superhero movie.
Continue reading ‘Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters’
Call me critical, but a film billed as one of the greatest films ever made should be damn mindblowingly good.
Looking for some fun at the movies? Look no further. Style? This is your film. Substance? Go see something else.
