In a scene near the end of Downhill, a scowly, bald-headed ruffian mutters, “What a waste” just before blowing someone’s head off. The statement could also serve as an unfortunate slogan for the movie itself: An interesting premise and a gorgeous setting undermined by spotty writing and hysterical overacting. It’s almost bad enough to someday…
First of all, despite the title, The Birth of a Nation, this film is in no way connected to the 1915 silent classic directed by D. W. Griffith. Secondly, I was led to the “Confessions Of Nat Turner” (the real jailhouse interviews in 1831, not the 1967 William Styron novel) from an article in “The…
Upon the release of “The Human Centipede (First Sequence),” many were rightfully disgusted and offended. Despite feeling very amateurish in its filmmaking, it garnered legs by playing on its audience’s morbid curiosity, and it often did so through mere suggestion rather than explicitly showing you horrifying things. However, once the the film’s popularity was at…
ClownTown is definitely not a movie for all you coulrophobics out there. It is, after all, a movie about killer clowns, and they’re not even from outer space this time. There’s no humor to be found here either, because they’re, well, killer clowns. It’s intended to be a scary, scary film, and it largely succeeds….
Crimson petals. Red rose. Scarlet sheets. Silk shirt. That’s Julieta’s torso, moving with a breath of agony as she packs her stuff. When we finally see her face, we see the evened eyes of long held pain, the kind that leaves deep-carved scars in what seems to be a life-long depression. It would not be…
Indian filmmaker Mira Nair (“Amelia,” “New York, I Love You”) presents a rather uniquely touching, emotional and winning spirit in the coming-of-age biopic/sporting drama Queen of Katwe. Nair concocts an uplifting and personalized story of hope and adversity that should be profoundly inspiring especially for young females from all walks of life that face daily…
Gorgeous colors and graceful poetic images mark The Red Turtle (La tortue rouge), a wordless 80-minute animated film co-produced by the famed Japanese Studio Ghibli and Dutch animator Michael Dudok de Wit. Made in France, the dialogue-free film was produced by Takahata Isao and co-written by French director Pascale Ferran whose 2014 film “Bird People”…
