Successfully following up on an Oscar-winning documentary is not an easy task, but directors E. Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin (“Free Solo”) more than accomplish that with The Rescue, the tension-filled story of the rescue of 12 young soccer players, ages 10-16, and their coach trapped in the Tham Luang Nag Non cave in Northern…
Robin Wood’s “The Wicker Man” casts a giant, well, wicker man-shaped shadow over horror cinema, especially folk horror. From “Deliverance” to “Get Out,” from “The Blair Witch Project” to “Kill List,” the conceit of confident people from “mainstream” society going to a distant location and regretting it has yielded great results for horror filmmakers. Director…
On paper, Changeland has several of the components to success: The movie is set in scenic Thailand, it teases the promise of an emergent bromance between estranged friends Brandon (Seth Green, “Sex Drive,” who is pulling triple duty as director, writer and actor) and Dan (Breckin Meyer, “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past”), and it enjoys the…
A middle-aged man (Surapol Poonpiriya) picks up a teenage girl (Prapamonton Eiamchan) from school. The way he’s smiling at her, you’d think he’s her adoring father. Suddenly he punches her for swearing and expects her to give him a handjob. He drives her to his shabby “love hotel,” Motel Mistress. Tot Niyom (Wissanu Likitsathaporn) is…
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…
Cinematic sentimental gestures don’t come much more desperately inspirational than the slow motion shot of a person reaching skyward with a swelling score accompanying their ascent. In his syrupy drama The Impossible, director J.A. Bayona reserves this moment for the third act, but it’s not like the sentimentality sneaks up on us. This kind of…
