Jean-Paul Sartre famously wrote that hell is other people. Ben Wheatley and Amy Jump’s adaptation of J. G. Ballard’s 1975 novel takes this premise to its (il)logical conclusion, as, in an ironic twist on the title, High-Rise depicts a steady descent into class war-induced delirium, as social and financial divisions steadily turn the eponymous building…
Finding fantastic art that captures your amazement can be an exhilarating experience. So many thoughts will sprint through your mind as you try to figure out how and why a magnificent piece of work came to be. But sometimes, we don’t have to be alone in that process. We often share things that are fascinating…
Sometimes embracing an insufferable and delusional movie character can be a rewarding cinematic experience especially if the redeemably-challenged protagonist brings something to the table beyond the obvious despicable platitudes. In the crass sporting satire, The Bronze, the audience is supposed to unleash their wicked funny bones at the door for a former foul-mouthed Olympic blonde-haired…
Writer-director Graham Jones (“The History Student,” “The Randomers,” “How to Cheat in the Learning Certificate”) can be astutely described as a lyrical Irish filmmaker with moving narratives that seem so personal and profound in dramatic simplicity. In Jones’s latest indie drama Nola and the Clones he helms yet another soulful exposition grounded in the given realities of…
In the summer of 2007, I sat at the drive-in theater, waiting excitedly for Michael Bay’s “Transformers” to begin (it was my childhood on screen! Peter Cullen’s voice!!), and I was blown away by a trailer that no one saw coming. Choppy home-movie footage showed us a New York party that descended into chaos when…
Generally, part of the charm of international cinema is that it’s specifically and obviously not Hollywood cinema. So when something like the Norwegian disaster drama The Wave tries so desperately and artlessly to ape similarly themed Hollywood blockbusters, there’s a sense of overwhelmingly suffocating futility that plagues the project. Of course, if The Wave actually…
Ok, so this means not to be a partisan review, OK? Yes, it means to broach its subject from a reasonable, logical standpoint. Yes, it in no way wills to oversee the bear gut and occasional sentimentality of the film it sets to look at. Yes, it wants to talk about current issues while taking…
