Archive | March 2015
You are browsing the site archives by date.
Song of the Sea
I’ll be getting to “Big Hero 6”, last month’s Best Animated Feature Oscar winner, at some point in March. And it better be good! Here’s the thing, “How to Train Your Dragon 2” was the expected winner, and while nothing extraordinary, I found it to be smart and fun. “The Boxtrolls” was even better, and […]
John Wick
A pretty incredible exercise in style, with a marvelously effective Keanu Reeves as the title character. And it’s the simplest of plots imaginable–but sonofabitch, it works. John Wick (Mr. Reeves), loses his loving wife (the briefly seen Bridget Moynahan as Helen) to an undisclosed illness. Devastated and alone in their sprawling beach front home, Wick […]
“Avengers: Age of Ultron”…it had me at Pinocchio!
Umm…maybe you’ve heard of this one? It’s getting a little bit of press: sequel to a giant blockbuster from 3 years ago, promises to be bigger and better and more explosive than the last. And was that a haunting rendition of Pinocchio’s “I’ve Got No Strings”, from the immortal 1940 Disney feature, in that first […]
Citizenfour
So, this Eric Snowden guy…is he a hero? Villain? Little bit of each? It may be a conundrum for some…even considering that the film sets it up decidedly one way. Hey, I believe that most people who know me, and/or consistently read this blog, know my politics–I don’t exactly hide it. But I don’t want […]
The Cronenberg Chronicle-Phase Nineteen: Maps to the Stars (2015)
And here we are again. It’s been a long time coming, for a film that I was certain would see a NYC area release, at some point during 2014. Now, “Maps to the Stars” did open at Cannes almost a year ago, where it garnered Julianne Moore the Best Actress Award from the festival. It […]
“It Follows” on Friday the 13th
Hot on the heels of last fall’s “The Babadook” (dubbed by horror legend William Friedkin “the most terrifying film he had ever seen”), is the latest scare film being lauded for its horrifying ability to haunt and disturb audiences–David Robert Mitchell’s “It Follows”. With a style that’s being compared to the early work of fright […]
Force Majeure (Turist)
What would you do? Could you accurately answer that, without actually being in the situation? And how would you feel about what you did afterwards? I’ve seen these questions posed cinematically before, in a pretty damn brilliant film called “The Loneliest Planet” from 2012. Sweden’s “Force Majeure”, from director Ruben Ostlund, ups the ante though, […]
“American Sniper” becomes 2014’s domestic box office champion.
I wish it hadn’t become such a polarizing political football, because Clint Eastwood’s “American Sniper” is actually a pretty good movie. As usual with these things, it’s neither as “fantastic” as the right-wingers would have you believe, nor as “poorly done” as the other side says. Consumers should beware of anything that purports to be […]
“Chappie”, Neil Blomkamp…and the spectre of “Alien 5”.
In August of 2009, I battered everyone who would listen, with my towering praise of Neil Blomkamp’s feature film debut, “District 9”. “No, it’s not some silly sci-fi, creature-feature”, I insisted, “it’s a sly, anti-apartheid, social segregation allegory, in the guise of an action thriller–utilizing spaceships and aliens”. That was my argument then, and I […]
Reviewed by Mark Leonard 