Author Victor Hugo was once quoted as saying, “There are no such things as bad plants or bad men. There are only bad cultivators.” The idea that unjust law and prejudice infect communities for generations only to create more monsters along the way is still prevalent today, especially in media. In his third directorial effort,…
The Host is an example of what happens if you put multiple films into the meat grinder, chop them up and compress the pieces together. Incorporating tropes across genres as well as referencing specific films, Andy Newbery’s film shows little originality or stylistic élan but does offer an enjoyable narrative and plenty of homages for…
In the current stressful climate of cautious people keeping their safe distance from one another because of a crippling pandemic, it is bewildering to think an off-the-wall, road trip sex comedy involving mismatched personalities would suffice to ease the blues of quarantine. Nonetheless, co-writer/director Nico Raineau’s loose-minded sex farce, Hooking Up, looks to do just…
The Von Trapp family singing their way across the Alps from Austria to Switzerland in “The Sound of Music” is an iconic image in cinema history. While it has its devoted fans, “The Sound of Music” also attracts criticism for its sugar-coating of one of the darkest chapters in human history. A more somber tale…
School teacher Gemma (Imogen Poots, “I Kill Giants”) and gardener, Tom (Jesse Eisenberg, “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice”) are a young, contented couple looking to settle down and buy their first home. While out driving one afternoon they happen upon a showroom with a strange display of model houses, overseen by an eccentric man…
It is a reunion of sorts for those connected to the witless cop caper Spenser Confidential. First, the film’s star, Mark Wahlberg, returns home to his beloved Boston as the famed native son struts his reckless stuff around Beantown. Second, the film’s director, Peter Berg, reunites with Wahlberg, his “Mile 22,” “Patriots Games,” “Deepwater Horizon,”…
The Invisible Man has been the cinematic subject of effects extravaganzas (most notably James Whale’s 1933 adaptation of H.G. Wells’ classic novel), wartime propaganda (“Invisible Agent”), deadpan comedy (“Memoirs of an Invisible Man”), and psychosexual satire (“Hollow Man”), but rarely has he ever led a straight horror film. This is the hole that filmmaker Leigh…
