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REVIEW: Los cronocrímenes [Timecrimes] [2007]

REVIEW: 7:35 de la mañana [7:35 in the Morning] [2003]

REVIEW: Men in Black II [2002]

0 Comments 21 May 2012

“I see you neuralyzed another partner” There’s nothing like a lost memory trope to allow lazy screenwriters the opportunity to explain their film within the construct of its plot. Despite an inventive, tongue-in-cheek reenactment program hosted by Peter Graves about mysterious conspiracy stories ushering us back into the Men in Black universe, Robert Gordon and [...]

action/adventure, comedy, film reviews, science fiction

REVIEW: Men in Black [1997]

0 Comments 17 May 2012

“May I ask why you felt little Tiffany had to die?” Fresh off the success of Get Shorty two years prior, director Barry Sonnenfeld‘s still young but effective career found it’s biggest hit in the rollicking science fiction comedy Men in Black. Unfortunately for him, the film also proved to be his last cinematic work [...]

action/adventure, film reviews, science fiction

REVIEW: Battleship [2012]

0 Comments 17 May 2012

“It’s the North Koreans—I’m tellin’ ya” Screenwriters Erich and Jon Hoeber actually made paying Hasbro a boatload of cash for their seemingly unnecessary board game property a relevant story point in their big budget, science fiction actioner Battleship. The fact they had to conjure up a humanoid alien race with reptilian characteristics and cloaking technology [...]

action/adventure, comedy, film reviews

REVIEW: Grosse Pointe Blank [1997]

0 Comments 12 May 2012

“Well thank you for profiting from my childhood” Despite having most likely seen John Cusack in previous films, I do believe black comedy Grosse Pointe Blank was the first to put him firmly on my radar as an actor to follow. While the last few years haven’t necessarily been a great showcase of his talent, [...]

comedy, film reviews

REVIEW: The Dictator [2012]

0 Comments 10 May 2012

“Where’s the trashcan?” After starring in three films and on television in two countries by engaging unwitting audiences in a guerilla-style ambush of often cruel and lewd comedy proving he hadn’t a shred of modesty, Sacha Baron Cohen‘s days of anonymity have officially ended. Utilizing many of the same collaborators behind the scenes as his [...]

comedy, fantasy, film reviews, horror

REVIEW: Dark Shadows [2012]

0 Comments 08 May 2012

“You’ll have to imagine us on a better day” At present, the Tim Burton discussion can be answered in two ways. One: I’ve become too old and jaded to ‘get’ the farcical nature of the auteur’s darkly comic worlds anymore. The satiric tongue-in-cheek tonality he so brilliantly cultivated in grotesque-lite universes either doesn’t have the [...]

drama, fantasy, film reviews, suspense/thriller

REVIEW: Keyhole [2012]

0 Comments 07 May 2012

“I’m returning what was lost” Like the crackled overlay of two radio stations playing from a dial meticulously tuned equidistantly between them, Guy Maddin‘s haunting Keyhole concurrently projects the tenuous holds of reality, dream, and afterlife onto its fixed environment inside the Picks’ residence. Apparently the return of the household’s patriarch after an extended absence, [...]

action/adventure, film reviews, science fiction

REVIEW: The Avengers [2012]

0 Comments 04 May 2012

“In the end you’ll always kneel” It’s hard to believe the new Marvel cinematic canon began just four years ago—if anything just for the simple fact these actors have been contractually obligated to continuously work in the world for its duration. The new The Incredible Hulk released with much less poetic atmosphere and more action-based [...]

comedy, drama, film reviews

REVIEW: Damsels in Distress [2012]

0 Comments 27 April 2012

“I’d like to thank you for that chastisement” Leave it to Whit Stillman to ensure decadence never dies. The king of creating a haughty air onscreen during the 90s returns after a prolonged absence with Damsels in Distress, a film existing in the present but populated with a wealth of characters keeping one colloquial foot [...]

comedy, drama, film reviews, romance

REVIEW: Salmon Fishing in the Yemen [2012]

0 Comments 26 April 2012

“In that case I can fish” Much like how an absurd notion of satisfying a wealthy Sheikh’s whim to bring British salmon into the Yemen could actually occur—so Anglo-Middle East relations can attain a meaningless victory against a highly destructive war—the film adaptation of Paul Torday‘s novel Salmon Fishing in the Yemen is a feel [...]

comedy, film reviews, romance

REVIEW: The Five-Year Engagement [2012]

0 Comments 24 April 2012

“The Taxman waits for no one” Writer/actor Jason Segel and writer/director Nicholas Stoller have been working with each other for years now, both cementing their membership in Judd Apatow‘s comedic entourage on “Undeclared”. It was their first cinematic collaboration—Forgetting Sarah Marshall—however, that put them on the map as a creative team worth keeping in the [...]

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