REVIEW: Transcendence [2014]

“They say there’s power in Boston” With a trailer digitizing Johnny Depp and electronic machinery created out of thin air, it’s an understatement to say I was surprised the beginning of Transcendence introduced a world without power. I thought the film was about new technology and the advancement of artificial intelligence harboring a potential for hubristic power grabs and the genocide of organic thinking/emotional response. Instead I saw broken screens on the street and a shop owner wedging a chewed-up keyboard into the gap between his door and the ground…

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REVIEW: Proxy [2014]

“Cause we all need someone to listen” I learned something while watching Zack Parker‘s horror (psychological thriller is a more apt genre label) film Proxy: Richmond, Indiana is a hotbed for crazy. He and cowriter Kevin Donner inject a little Münchausen syndrome, Prenatal Depression, and some run-of-the-mill psychopathy to round out the quartet of main characters. Each seemingly normal on the surface until a chaotic mind or the potential for psychotic break under tragic circumstances is exposed thanks to carefully unfolding revelations, the people populating this tale are regular folk…

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REVIEW: Enemy [2014]

“Chaos is order yet undeciphered” When you read a synopsis for the late Nobel Prize-winning author José Saramago’s The Double you’ll find a very straightforward tale of doppelgangers. There’s the alpha, the pushover, and the innocent victims caught between; the insanity of seeing an exact replica in the flesh paired with the infinite possibilities such a discovery could mean. One is married; one has a girlfriend. The latter injects himself into the former’s world through curiosity, the first into the second’s purely for unfounded revenge and sexual desire. They exist…

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REVIEW: Non-Stop [2014]

“Status?” This film could have just as easily been called Deflection as Non-Stop because screenwriters John W. Richardson, Christopher Roach, and Ryan Engle (none of whom instill a stellar track record for Hollywood blockbuster success) have a lot of fun making sure to inject as many red herrings into the mix as possible. Even at start we wonder if our prospective hero Bill Marks (Liam Neeson) could be the perpetrator despite trailers leading us towards a frame job. His U.S. Marshal is an alcoholic, hot-tempered, and forlorn. A semi-threat to…

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REVIEW: Down and Dangerous [2014]

“Who says I’m not having fun?” If you’re familiar with writer/director Zak Forsman’s work you’ll know that it was only a matter of time before he branched out from subtle character pieces to the action genre. Whether the stoic performances, attractive compositions, or pulsing beats by composer Deklun, Forsman and his team at The Sabi Company have found the talent necessary to make Hollywood-caliber productions on a shoestring budget. And while the diptych of his Heart of Now and producer Kevin K. Shah’s White Knuckles aligns more with that independent…

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REVIEW: Avant que de tout perdre [Just Before Losing Everything] [2013]

“You have to do it, Miriam” Whoa. Xavier Legrand‘s screenwriting and directorial debut Avant que de tout perdre [Just Before Losing Everything] is a tense piece of filmmaking that will have you holding your breath throughout. It starts with a young boy walking the opposite way from school before being stopped by his teacher. He says he’s buying cigarettes for his father and will be in class soon, yet he’s seen waiting at a bridge upon her dismissal until a woman pulls up in her car. From here the two…

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REVIEW: Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit [2014]

“No. This is geopolitics, not couples therapy.” Even though The Sum of All Fears made a boatload of cash with Ben Affleck at its center, you can’t help but know his Gigli demise played a big role in the Jack Ryan saga not continuing. Why let Tom Clancy‘s cinematic legacy go down with the ship? So a few years passed, Chris Pine started rising through the ranks as an A-list action star, and Adam Cozad‘s script Moscow seemed ripe for a makeover to reboot Ryan and see where his ex-Marine,…

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REVIEW: Vic + Flo ont vu un ours [Vic + Flo Saw a Bear] [2013]

“I cried so much while waiting for you” Writer/director Denis Côté‘s latest, Alfred Bauer Prize-winning (Berlin International Film Festival) Vic + Flo ont vu un ours [Vic + Flo Saw a Bear] is a mysteriously captivating creature. Looking from afar, you realize you know almost nothing about the circumstances thrusting his characters together. Yes, titular leads Victoria (Pierrette Robitaille) and Florence (Romane Bohringer) are ex-con lovers holing up in the former’s invalid uncle’s defunct sugar shack on probation and away from society, but we don’t necessarily know why. We infer…

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REVIEW: Dead Ringers [1988]

“Don’t make me dream that again” The last line of David Cronenberg‘s Dead Ringers is on the nose and yet still disturbingly surreal. Jeremy Irons (playing twin gynecologists Elliot and Beverly Mantle) phones his lover Claire (Geneviève Bujold) only to hear the telling reply, “Who is this?” While we too find ourselves uncertain which is on the line, his inability to answer shows the disturbing truth that it may be both or neither. Ellie and Bev have been inseparable from birth, challenging each other and working together to gift the…

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REVIEW: Redlands [2014]

“I want to push beyond reality and become immortal through art” As an art-house piece, AMOK Books founder/owner John Brian King‘s debut feature film Redlands is pretty much what you’d expect from someone who’s curated an exhibit of John Wayne Gacy‘s “clown” paintings, produced an S&M performance entitled “Nailed!”, and interviewed Charles Manson at San Quentin Prison. It’s a darkly serene drama focusing on an outgoing Ohio girl trying to jumpstart a nude modeling career in California by confidently showcasing its naïve starlet amongst a slew of misogynistic males within…

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REVIEW: L’inconnu du lac [Stranger by the Lake] [2013]

“I won’t get tired so fast” Lust is a powerful drug that makes us do stupid things. We mistake it for love, brainwashing ourselves into thinking truths about the object of our affection don’t matter because what you have together is special. Did he treat his ex badly? Is he a jerk unwilling to see his obvious faults yet too much of a fairy tale embodiment of absolute beauty for you to care? How far would you go to be with you’re infatuation once he smiles at you? How much…

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