To describe the plot of One Cut of the Dead is to (slightly) spoil it, but it is also to highly recommend it. Without giving away too many details, director Shin’ichirô Ueda delivers a film within a film within a film (plus a bit extra), making it a gloriously meta-meta movie about movie making. If…
The Assistant is no doubt the ultimate reflection of the current times, where the implication of sexual harassment — in part due to the #MeToo Movement — is at its highest alert. In it, filmmaker Kitty Green (“Casting JonBenet”) delves into the tattered psyche of a young woman destined for career-oriented greatness, but gets caught…
What is it about “Movie-That-Never-Was” stories that endlessly fascinate us? You’d think we’re better off not knowing what could have been. From “Lost in La Mancha” to “Jodorowsky’s Dune” there’s always that stinging compulsion to know what sank the ship. And given the continually escalating popularity of the superhero genre, I find it appropriate to…
“I’ve become so disturbed by younger people. They upset me so much that I’ve closed my doors” – Henrik Ibsen from “The Master Builder” Now 44, childless, arthritic, and stuck in career limbo, Josh Svebnick (Ben Stiller, “The Watch”) has the good sense to realize that life is passing him by. Though Josh and his…
I had the opportunity to meet Adam Green almost exactly three years ago, at a screening of his horror/comedy sitcom “Holliston” at Emerson College in his native Massachusetts. What I appreciated about him the most — and what clearly shines through in all of his work that I have seen — was his unapologetic enthusiasm…
The opening sequence of Howard Goldberg’s Jake Squared bears a striking resemblance to Paolo Sorrentino’s modern Italian classic, “The Great Beauty,” however the two films are worlds apart in style and cohesiveness. Director Jake Klein has everything a man could want. He lives in a beautiful Los Angeles home and decides to let the cameras…
There’s a unique sprinkling of cinematic magic that touches the infamous shower scene in “Psycho” so memorably and effectively that watching the scene, dissecting the scene, experiencing the scene is great fun from any angle. So with this automatic reaction hardwired to my senses, I very much enjoyed seeing the scene recreated with moderate gusto…
