“Read the cards Shorty” This review contains spoilers Kimberly Peirce’s Stop-Loss is the perfect example of a film that can show whether you like the medium or the stories. I think I can tell myself that I am a true film fanatic after watching this because I thought it was a great piece of work. I’ve come to this conclusion because while I would see it again and recommend it to friends, I cannot condone one iota of it. It is blatantly anti-war, anti-American, and probably the worst thing that…
Read MoreMonth: March 2008
Buffalo Niagara Film Festival 2008 Recap
I give my experience an A for effort, but a C+ for execution. Sure I only went to one screening, but there was just too much that went astray…hopefully it was a blemish on an otherwise top-notch festival, but if not, at least the workings are there and maybe next year can continue to improve. I understand that The Natural was the big centerpiece and the Buffalo debut of Run, Fatboy, Run was a close second, but one would hope everything else would get the same kind of respect and…
Read MoreBNFF08 REVIEW: The Cake Eaters [2008]
“What are we, elephants?” Mary Stewart Masterson’s film The Cake Eaters is a very well done piece of cinema. A slice of rural life in a sleepy town, we are privy to a period of turmoil and discovery for two families living there. The Kimbrough’s have recently lost their matriarch and a second family is dealing with the hardships of raising a child with Friedriech’s Ataxia. Both groups are thrust together with some chance meetings, helping each other get through the tough times and remember the good in living life.…
Read MoreBNFF08 REVIEW: Sympathetic Details [2008]
“I could be a farmer” Benjamin Busch’s Sympathetic Details showed here at the Buffalo Niagara Film Festival as the “short” film of a double-header bill with a feature length work. It is tough to call this film a short because its 57 minute runtime puts it on the cusp of being more. I don’t think anyone would ever release a movie under an hour, however, so I guess it becomes a short by default. As is, I think Busch did the right thing in not trying to expand on it…
Read MoreREVIEW: So I Married an Axe Murderer [1993]
“HEAD, Move!” Sometimes nostalgia makes a film even better when watching again after a long hiatus. Heck, I didn’t even really view it as I was doing work while it played in the background. The memories I had of So I Married an Axe Murderer allowed me to fill in the blanks and create a seamless experience for when I did look at the tv screen. The script itself is very funny and Mike Myers shows all the potential he had a decade and a half ago. Not to say…
Read MoreREVIEW: Tape [2001]
“Verbal persuasion” I don’t think anyone does small, dialogue-heavy indie film like Richard Linklater. He is the master of them and that only makes me madder when he remakes movies like Bad News Bears. Before Sunrise and Before Sunset are beautiful films shot simply and effectively, showing that cinema can rely on words and actors without the need for cranes or effects. Tape is one that works very well with those as a darker companion. Adapted by Stephen Belber from his own play, Linklater gives us a claustrophobic account of…
Read MoreREVIEW: Run, Fatboy, Run [2008]
“A son? Did you know he had a son?!” Do not let the Hollywood marketing machine fool you. Yes Simon Pegg stars in Run, Fatboy, Run and yes he has cowriter credit on it, however, this is not a Pegg/Wright/Park production like Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead, and “Spaced.” No this is a story from the warped mind of Michael Ian Black, he of “The State” fame. It appears from the “story by” credit to Black that maybe Pegg came in late with some tweaks and rewrites after he…
Read MoreREVIEW: Doomsday [2008]
“You don’t see that everyday” Forget all the subtle and nuance of mood from Neil Marshall’s taut thriller The Descent; he decided to go all out with the new flick Doomsday. Call it 28 Weeks Beyond Thunderdome if you’d like as Marshall seems to cull all the best aspects of past cinema B-movie greats to create a pastiche that is one helluva ride. With a plot that serves only to give us an excuse for action and borderline comical characters introducing us to the punk-metal cannibal way of life as…
Read MoreREVIEW: August Rush [2007]
“The music is all around us; all you have to do is listen” I don’t know if August Rush shows the makings of success like her father Jim, but Kirsten Sheridan has crafted something beautiful. Credit the writers for sure, however, Sheridan has put it all together into a very nice package. This is a fairytale above anything else and one should overlook any eccentricities or impossibilities of real life, this is not meant to show truth. Instead we are shown a romantic tale of conquering all odds in order…
Read MoreREVIEW: We Own the Night [2007]
“Light as a feather” Writer/Director James Gray has made three films with six or seven years in between each. His newest is the cop drama We Own the Night, a pretty basic tale of brothers on different sides of the law and a crime that brings them together. Truthfully, it is very straightforward, clichéd, and quite convenient at many turns. One must give credit to the cast for doing all they can to mask the banality of it all as they do make it interesting to follow through. One can’t…
Read MoreREVIEW: Hitman [2007]
“That’s not a woman” Now I have never played nor really heard anything about the video game for which Hitman is based off of. Besides the whole “hitman” aspect, I guess it is a first-person shooter and pretty popular. Right now, the only reference I have is of the screenshot used in the film, (honestly was that type of nod really necessary?), but from that it seems they at least got the title character’s look down. As for the rest, I wouldn’t be surprised if it actually gets everything right.…
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