Feb
03
What starts out as common, garden-variety crime thriller turns… bizarre, and then frightening, in director Ben Wheatley’s twisty new film, KILL LIST. The tale of middle class hit-man Jay (Neil Maskell), who with colleague Gal (Michael Smiley) goes out for one more job and discovers blood oaths, strange rites, and disturbingly grateful targets have been …
Jan
02
So, there, that’s one New Years resolution out of the way for me. A few months after the theatrical release of KUNG FU PANDA 2, I was able to score an interview with its director, Jennifer Yuh Nelson. With the home video release of the film (in just about every format available, including Amazon Instant …
Dec
15
You’ve got to admire the man who, having reached the highest pinnacles of human achievement, still finds it within himself to make the occasional descent and spend time with us lesser mortals. God knows, comedian and actor Judah Friedlander doesn’t need to bother with our petty activities; as universally acknowledged World Champion, he exists on …
Dec
08
Long for the heady, Cold War days of espionage, when spies were spies, ideologies were economics-based, and there wasn’t all this religious brouhaha muddying up the motivations? (Enhanced interrogation, though, was still pretty much the same thing.) Well, director Tomas Alfredson (LET THE RIGHT ONE IN) takes us back to that furtive, paranoia-laced era in …
Dec
06
I know the past can come back to haunt you, but who knew that my childhood icons would be making guest appearances at this late date? Hanna-Barbera’s classic cartoon character, Yogi Bear, had his debut some fifty-three years ago, yet when my sponsor, Müller, built an epic commercial around a whole host of pop culture …
Dec
02
Award-winning novelist Julia Leigh makes a hell of a directorial debut with her quiet fantasia, SLEEPING BEAUTY, the story of a young college student (Emily Browning) who becomes immersed in a strange world of desire when she signs on as employee of a service that drugs women and allows men — frequently much older — …
Nov
30
“World’s richest political prisoner,” now there’s a term you don’t hear much. And while OWS can make a case that there are select representatives of the 1% that deserve to see the inside of jail cell, in the case of Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, now serving time in his home country for charges of tax …
Nov
25
Of all the film clips director Edmon Roch uses to compose his WW II documentary, GARBO THE SPY — and they include such eclectic sources as documentaries, dramas, both Allied and Nazi propaganda, and cartoons — the ones that he seems to rely on most come from Carol Reed’s OUR MAN IN HAVANA, the film …
Nov
18
David Cronenberg is no stranger to exploring how people undo themselves by venturing into the boundaries of human sexuality. In A DANGEROUS METHOD, though, he delves into the historical figures who helped set those boundaries, and creates a drama where intellect and science are pitted against human passion and sexual politics. The story — as …
Nov
11
Like DIRTY HARRY with a social conscience, the Brazilian film ELITE SQUAD: THE ENEMY WITHIN manages to kick all kinds of righteous ass while delving into the pernicious effect of corruption on those allegedly pledged with looking after the public welfare. The follow-up to 2007′s ELITE SQUAD, ENEMY WITHIN picks up Rio de Janeiro’s hard-line …
