Rob Grant’s Harpoon is another entry in the perennial argumentative-people-stranded-on-a-boat sub-genre, and it’s a cut above the average. It is, however, a stranger to subtlety, and juvenile at times, but it’s never boring and consistently bold in its narrative choices. Take the opening scene for example. Richard (Christopher Gray, “The Mist” TV series) storms over…
South Korean director Bong Joon-ho (“Okja”) says that he always tries to overturn viewer expectations and hopes that his latest film succeeds in this way. Palme d’Or winner at the 2019 Cannes Film festival, Bong’s Parasite (Gisaengchung) does indeed thwart expectations, but the question is — to what end? Defying any strict genre classification, the…
As far as random indie comedies starring a mix of rising and veteran stars go, the darkly silly Corporate Animals is a surprisingly digestible serving of oddball nonsense. For starters, it concerns itself with a team-building retreat that goes awry when employees of a company that makes edible utensils are suddenly forced to consider each…
The battle towards achieving any sort of self-esteem is tougher than anything Marvel’s catalog of heroes endure on a movie-to-movie basis. And in writer/director Paul Downs Colaizzo’s first film, Brittany Runs a Marathon, the lead character’s inner struggles are cartoonishly amplified to an almost disturbing degree. But with a stellar performance by comedy darling Jillian…
Ready or Not was one of the highlights of London’s horror film festival FrightFest. Wonderful in its balance of scares and laughs, it brings together a fine cast with a viciously vibrant script and highly inventive direction. Much of the film’s genius comes from its central device of games, a device that structures both the…
Haunt was written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, writers on “A Quiet Place”; and while this is similarly high concept, it couldn’t be more different in tone. It aims for brisk, bloody and blackly comedic, and on those terms it delivers. The conflict in “A Quiet Place” was as much psychological as…
It’s Sam’s (Hayley Griffith, “Five Years Later”) first day delivering pizzas, and what a day — and what a night — it will be. She must deliver to a property in an exclusive estate — specifically, the residence of a Satan-worshiping cult, led by the fearsome Danica (Rebecca Romijn, “X-Men 3 – The Last Stand”)….
