Posts Tagged ‘Movies’

Wolf Creek 2 Review

Posted: April 12, 2014 in Horror, Reviews
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Wolf-Creek-2-Photo-2-610x406The irony of the Wolf Creek movies is that if the Australian Tourist Board were looking for a filmmaker to deliver images to entice tourists to take the long trip Down Under, director Greg Mclean would be a natural choice. At the beginning of both films – the original in 2005 and the sequel which opens shortly in the United States – the varied landscapes of Australia are highlighted beautifully, from the wonderful sand beaches of the coast to the surprisingly lush pockets of green in the interior to the stark other-worldliness of the Outback.

Yet, writer Greg Mclean, who penned the screenplays for both features, even more effectively dissuades any outsiders contemplating a walkabout by means of his creation, Mick Taylor (John Jarratt), the ever amiable serial killer, who stalks, slices and skins travelers to the isolated Wolf Creek National Park.

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Død Snø 2 (Dead Snow: Red vs. Dead) Review

Posted: April 10, 2014 in Horror, Reviews
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Dead-Snow-Red-vs-Dead-Martin-StarrThere’s a simple two-step method to enjoying Død Snø 2 (Dead Snow: Red vs. Dead).

Step A: Watch the original Død Snø.

Step B: See the new movie in a theater filled with people who loved the first one.

Step A is optional.

Yeah, the ZomBoys are back in town, and it goes without saying that if you only see one Nazi zombie movie this year, it should be the latest flick by director Tommy Wirkola. (more…)

Geung Si (Rigor Mortis) Review

Posted: April 8, 2014 in Foreign, Horror, Reviews
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rigormotis_01Director Juno Mak, in his maiden effort behind the camera, has made an almost spoiler-proof movie. At any point in Geung Si (Rigor Mortis), up to and including the ending, you have no idea what the hell is going on. You might think you know who’s dead or dying or destined to die, but chances are excellent that the next scene or the one after that or certainly the final scene will have you going back over that assumption.

“The twins now possess the vampire,” is a line delivered by a character indicating a key turning point in the movie. Good luck explaining that to someone unfamiliar with jiangshi or the hopping vampire myth. And any recap of the action will include relaying the fact that if a malignant spirit takes over a living soul, the correct approach is to kick its ever-loving evil ass, kung fu style.

Rigor Mortis is absolute nonsense, but it is gorgeous, grotesque nonsense that is visually thrilling, never less than enthralling, over-the-top, must-see Hong Kong horror. (more…)

Afflicted Review

Posted: April 6, 2014 in Horror, Reviews
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Derek_Lee_Afflicted_2-570x294Voluntary restraint has failed. A name-and-shame approach in the media has not been a deterrent. Local and state authorities seem unwilling or unable to address this crisis. The federal government, as usual, is nowhere to be found. A United Nations convention may be the last, best hope to rid society of this terrible scourge.

The found footage horror movie must be stopped.

How many more times must audiences suffer through ninety-minute close-ups of a snotty-nosed twenty-something hyperventilating into a video camera while the Evil One occasionally lurches into the frame from the side? How is it that supernatural forces always ensure that a dropped camera lands in perfect filming position? (more…)

The Unknown Known Review

Posted: April 5, 2014 in Documentary, Reviews
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unknownknownIn 1985, Claus von Bülow, the man who was twice tried for attempting to murder his wife by injecting her with an overdose of insulin, posed for photographer Helmut Newton while wearing a heavily zippered leather jacket and jeans and looking like an aging sexual deviant. “Why would he do that?” people asked.

Learning that Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense under President George W. Bush during the beginning of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, had fully cooperated with filmmaker Errol Morris in a documentary focusing on his career in public service, provokes the exact same response.

Why would he do that?

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Snowpiercer Review

Posted: April 4, 2014 in Action, Reviews, Science Fiction
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snowpiercer-15In 1979, NBC broadcast nine episodes of one of the worst and, at the time, most expensive television series ever aired: Supertrain. Boasting a disco, swimming pool and shopping mall, not to mention a weekly turnover of B-list celebrities, this was no ordinary train. This was Supertrain.

Thirty-five years later, director Joon-ho Bong brings Supertrain to the big screen, only it’s called Snowpiercer, and it’s not as awful.

But it’s not good.

In the near future, mankind attempts to reverse the effects of global warming by releasing a chemical into the upper atmosphere, and it basically works, with just one niggling problem. The earth is plunged into an ice age that freezes everything and everybody, except for a train that is filled with the remainder of humanity traveling the world in an endless loop.

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Enemy Review

Posted: March 31, 2014 in Drama, Reviews, Science Fiction
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2e7fb8ef-ce51-43bd-ad5a-51217108b046_ENEMY_DAY17-0034-FINALIf you like blueberries, would your doppelganger like them as well?

If your wife is blonde, would your doppelganger’s girlfriend also be blonde?

If you had a doppelganger, which of you would be the evil one?

Who am you? Who are I?

These are the questions asked, but not answered in director Denis Villeneuve’s and screenwriter Javier Gullón’s new feature, Enemy. In order of appearance, Jake Gyllenhaal stars as history teacher Adam Hall and actor Anthony St. Claire, two men of no seeming significance outside of their circles of friends and acquaintances and no apparent relation beyond an uncanny resemblance.

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Captain America: The Winter Soldier Review

Posted: March 28, 2014 in Action, Reviews
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timthumb.phpCap is back, and so is the franchise.

With two misfires in the first two superhero movies after the megahit The Avengers, quality control questions in the Paramount Galaxy of the Marvel Cinematic Universe surfaced. Iron Man 3 was little more than an empty shell in comparison to its predecessors, and Thor: The Dark World was execrable, playing like a Roger Corman-ripoff of the Hobbit movies. A lot was riding on the shoulders of Steve Rogers, but like with every fight he’s been in since World War II, the Super Soldier prevails. Captain America: The Winter Soldier is the most crowd-pleasing comic book flick since the original Iron Man.

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After The Fall (aka Things People Do) Review

Posted: March 25, 2014 in 2014 Berlinale, Drama, Reviews
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Note: This film premiered under the title Things People Do at the 2014 Berlinale. The title has been changed to After The Fall prior to its U.S. release in December 2014.

Nothing stays buried.things-people-do02 Family secrets about a dead relative can’t be kept from the kids. Uncomfortable facts about a husband’s ability to provide are discovered by the wife. Even a hastily buried stray animal won’t stay under the earth. And more than anything else, the American Dream is exposed as a sham.

The truth will out in Things People Do, a modest film that looks at one man’s struggles in Middle America in the face of the fallout from the financial crisis. (more…)

The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden Review

Posted: March 22, 2014 in 2014 Berlinale, Documentary, Reviews
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ImageIf hell is other people, then paradise is the place without neighbors – or so it seemed to Dr. Friedrich Ritter and his patient and lover, Dore Strauch, who together abandoned Berlin, Germany, and their respective spouses in 1929 and settled on the uninhabited island of Floreana in the Galapagos Islands. While not desirous of neighbors, the pair had no such problem with courting publicity and became known in the international press as “the Adam and Eve of the Galapagos.” That attracted the attention of another German family – the Wittmers – who fancied themselves as a potential Swiss Family Robinson of the Galapagos and moved to the island in 1931. Later that year, a woman claiming to be an Austrian Baroness also made her way to Floreana in the company of her two German lovers with plans to build a lavish resort hotel. Not long after, Paradise Lost turned into Lord of the Flies.

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