One per-centers are taking it on the chin at the movies these days with recent releases like “The Founder” and “Get Out,” and now the latest cinematic smack out of Sundance, Beatriz at Dinner, a sly and telling exposé of class in America as seen through the eyes of a Mexican immigrant woman named Beatriz…
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…
When one titles a film using a human emotion or condition (i.e., “Frantic” or “Frenzy” or “Psycho” or “Vertigo“), the bar needs to be set fairly high. In the case of Paranoia, however, that bar could not possibly get any lower. And despite starring several Academy Award-caliber performers (previous nominees Harrison Ford and Gary Oldman,…
Crime’s hit an all-time low in The Purge, but the neighbors of James Sandin (Ethan Hawke, “Sinister”) are still scrambling for one of his signature security systems, which promises to turn any home into an impenetrable fortress. That’s because, to keep these rates so minimal, the United States has instituted the annual “Purge,” a 12-hour…
If Terrence Malick is the master of the unnecessary voiceover, and Ang Lee is the master of the unnecessary split screen, then surely Baz Luhrmann is the unequaled master of the unnecessary — and over-the-top — mix of garish glitz, flash and explosive cinematechnics. His latest, The Great Gatsby, an ambitious tackling of the 1925…
I often feel like I don’t have enough time in the day to get everything done (I could always use a few more hours for movie watching!), but such complaining pales in comparison to the plight of the citizens of Andrew Niccol’s sci-fi parable In Time. For them, time is their lifeblood and not having…
Here is an interesting concept — what if people don’t age until they hit year 25 and then lose or gain time off of their lives depending on the goods they consume and the jobs they work? That’s how the world is in 20th Century Fox’s new science fiction thriller In Time. Yet, just like…
