In the Buddhist tradition, breathing grounds us in the present moment. According to Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, “Breathing opens the door to stopping and looking deeply in order to enter the domain of concentration and insight.” For Roman Kogler (Thomas Schubert) in Karl Markovics remarkable debut film Breathing, it is simply the means to…
The tough guy renaissance is already drying up. The revival of macho 80s stars in action vehicles specifically designed to emulate the look and feel of the violent flicks these guys made a couple decades ago was never for everyone, but for a brief while, it was most certainly for me. Seeing Sylvester Stallone, Dolph…
Farts, dogfights, and miscarriages. In part, the perfect additions to a horror flick. Right? Well, not really. But the 26 directors (and 12 producers, and 14 writers) of The ABCs of Death certainly believed so. Otherwise they wouldn’t have added those and a host of other topics involving bodily functions and strange dreamed up shit…
Zombie movies are always shot from the point of view of the last few and scared survivors. They are outnumbered, running out of ammo, their friends are bitten one by one, and the zombies just keep on coming after their brains. What about a zombie story from the zombie’s point of view? They experience the…
Every act has a consequence. In 2002, Fisher Stevens directed “Just a Kiss” which offered an absurd view on what can happen in the case of gross misunderstandings and infidelity. In Stand Up Guys, he proffers an absurd view on what could happen if one were to accidentally kill a kingpin’s son. Only this time…
Parker is the laziest movie to come down the line in a long time. It is a remake of a remake. Among other films, the director, Taylor Hackford, made “Ray,” “The Devil’s Advocate,” and “An Officer and a Gentleman.” The writer, John J. McLaughlin, wrote “Hitchcock” and “Black Swan.” Did they just want to make…
In my high school days, I wrote a script about a hitman who does drugs with Jesus. I thought it was edgy. Fortunately, you’ll never see it to know otherwise. Occasionally though, juvenile ideas like that land on the desks of eager producers. In rarer cases, they’re blessed with a million dollars and a distribution…
