Part family drama, part mystery, part slapstick comedy, and part mad-scientist movie, Men & Chicken is one of the most bizarre and original films I’ve seen. Writer and director Anders Thomas Jensen combines all those elements like a mad-scientist himself, conjuring up an absurd story full of grotesque characters, and translates it on-screen in an…
Short films can achieve many things in their compact running time, but the teasing out of a character-driven mystery is surely one of their most intriguing aims. Oliver S. Milburn’s tight little real estate drama Dunroamin is seemingly about nothing more than a young man touring a nice country house that is up for sale,…
Whether one thinks Edward Snowden is a patriot or a traitor for revealing CIA and NSA (National Security Agency) secrets will probably not depend on this movie, Snowden, as those who believe one way or the other will still hold those opinions after this 2-hour, 15-minute presentation. Still, director Oliver Stone (“Savages,” but better known…
The ambitious psychological drama Blessid is sobering and challenging because of its unique brand of storytelling ambivalence. On one hand, director Rob Fitz’s (“God of Vampires”) unflinching narrative embraces the conventional elements of melodramatic mechanisms (i.e., the harried heroine, love and loss, strained marriage, the unlikely guardian angel, psychotic suitors, tortured childhood memories complimenting adulthood…
Tokens on a coffee table. Tokens on a different one. Tokens on the wall and on the shelves next to the bookcase of an old TV with VHS included. Tokens of a family life that has spanned for years, for decades, for the better part of one century. Portrayals of a timeline that starts and…
There are three distinct musical features in the Jason Bourne franchise. The most obvious is Moby’s “Extreme Ways,” played over the credits of each film in various versions. There is also the fast, pulsing rhythm of John Powell’s score, a musical heartbeat to the dizzying action on screen. And there is a mournful refrain that…
Unable to sleep one night, young Martin (Gabriel Bateman, “Annabelle”) ventures from his room to investigate some whispering he hears in the hallway. He discovers his mother, Sophie (Maria Bello, “The 5th Wave”), talking in hushed tones to someone in the shadows. She apologizes, asking, “Did we wake you?” and sends him back to bed….
