As the year ends and holidays approach, more and more Oscar bait gets churned out for Academy consideration. Lost in this glut is the release of lesser-known foreign films that get quickly shoveled into American obscurity after getting viewed by a privileged select few. Lost in Paris, sadly, will likely become of those undiscovered gems….
Here’s the thing about travel nightmares and existential crises, we’ve all had them. Jungle, based on Israeli adventurer, author and humanitarian Yossi Ghinsberg’s memoir of the same name, puts both on display to horrifying effect. This travel diary gone awry does to hiking in the Amazon what “Brokedown Palace” did to Thailand (in my 14-year…
By now those chosen few who’ve sought out Ben Wheatley’s latest, Sightseers (his next film, the English Civil War-set “A Field in England“, opens in UK cineplexes in July), have gotten their fill and hopefully developed an opinion. The film, unleashed upon U.S. audiences in limited release, is one of the darkest I’ve experienced and…
It was considerate that director Bradley Parker (a visual technician in films such as “Lake Placid” and “Fight Club“) followed a similar path as “Cabin in the Woods” director Drew Goddard did in turning the old teenage slasher/horror/mutant genre on its head with Chernobyl Diaries. However, while Goddard and company opted for an intricate, multi-layered…
Nothing spells vacation like taking a tour of abandoned, radioactive towns in Russia. From the mind of Oren Peli (he brought you “Paranormal Activity“) comes his latest horror flick that, even though the title Chernobyl Diaries lends itself to a found footage flick, isn’t a found footage flick. It may as well be as it…
