The end times are already here in writer/director/co-producer/star Lauren Cooney’s loudly dramatic end-of-the-world short Pendulum, but good luck taking the situation seriously. Something has been lost in translation between concept and execution for this story of a couple grappling with how to spend their final hours on Earth. As explained in a clunky manner via…
Dennis Quaid’s perverse Peeping Tom is the central psycho in director Deon Taylor’s home invasion hokum, The Intruder. Formulaic and faceless, Taylor’s (“Traffik”) domestic drama merely echoes the familiar foundations of other generic goosebump-instilling thrillers chronicling the exploits of a stalking menace out to majorly inconvenience the tranquility of a passionate married couple. From yesteryear’s…
Write When You Get Work starts off with promise. The opening image is that of a young couple, rolling about on the beach, caught up in their own little sensual bubble. This is a good enough tease, where we are invited into their relationship but not bogged down with details, the movie excelling in the…
German Angst is a movie for the “V/H/S,” “Zombieworld,” “The ABCs of Death” crowd in that it is technically a collection of three shorter films — “Final Girl,” “Make a Wish,” and “Alraune,” respectively — full of extreme violence and horrific fun. With “Final Girl” as a quiet, graphic, and personal revenge fantasy, “Make a…
The resiliency of the human spirit is pummeled by a squall of sentimentality in Baltasar Kormákur’s based-on-a-true-story survival drama Adrift, which long vacillates between prettily photographed seafaring and soggy backstory. The movie opens thrillingly in the chaotic aftermath of a storm that has left a luxurious sailboat in ruins and protagonist Tami (Shailene Woodley, “Allegiant”)…
Gogo (Michael S. New, “Night Kill”), a wacky Bangkok taxi driver straight out of a “Hangover” sequel, picks up Jim (James Landry Hébert, “Gangster Squad”) and Julie (Scout Taylor-Compton, “Halloween”) from the airport. They’re a happy-go-lucky American couple who unfortunately haven’t seen the prologue for Ghost House, in which a homeless witch shoves her fist…
Does anyone want to play a game? Shake your head if it’s Max (Jason Bateman, “Office Christmas Party”) and Annie (Rachel McAdams, “Doctor Strange”) asking, unless losing is your thing. In a slickly assembled montage, the couple is revealed to be “all day, every day” champions of trivia, scrabble and charades. But they’re only game-night…
