If “Limitless” were mixed with “Dude, Where’s My Car?” and perhaps “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” you’d end up somewhere near to John Dies at the End. Directed by Don Coscarelli (best known for cult hits “Phantasm” and “Bubba Ho-Tep”), the trippy feature blurs the lines of reality as it follows around best friends…
Movie 43 is basically the first new comedy of 2013 (“A Haunted House” does not count). It’s not, however, a comedy in the normal sense. 12 directors — Elizabeth Banks, Steven Brill, Steve Carr, Rusty Cundieff, James Duffy, Griffin Dunne, Peter Farrelly, Patrik Forsberg, James Gunn, Bob Odenkirk, Brett Ratner, and Jonathan van Tulleken —…
If a horror film’s story is strong enough, then there is no need for it to resort to “cheap scream” techniques to manipulate the audience. A loud, closing door during a quiet period will elicit the same scream as will a figure walking by a window with a sudden, shrieking violin. There is no earthly…
The on-going feud between Israelis and Palestinians over land in the West Bank is extremely politicized. Most days, only harsh words fired back and forth between Palestinian villages and Israeli settlements and some days rock projectiles and even bullets escalate the situation to tragedy. What Emad Burnat’s camera does is watch the back-and-forth chest pounding….
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…
In a film within a film, director Sebastian (Gael Garcia Bernal) and producer Costa (Luis Tosar) are shooting in Cochabamba, Bolivia in the year 2000. The film they are working on proposes to depict Christopher Columbus’ exploitation of the indigenous native population in his voyage to the Americas and the effort of two priests to…
In Michael Haneke’s Amour, Palme d’Or winner at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) watches over his loved one, Anne (Emmanuelle Riva), as she gradually loses control of the precious attributes of body and mind after a series of strokes. In his usual austere style, Haneke avoids sentimentality and even outward displays of…
