REVIEW: Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk [2016]

“What else is there?” Here’s an Oscar-winning director doing something no one else has—shoot an entire film at 120 frames per second (standard is 24, the previous high 48 with The Hobbit)—and movie theaters couldn’t accommodate. At a time when it’s difficult to get butts in seats with Netflix and VOD, an opportunity for a legitimate must-see theatrical event is squandered. Venues dropped the ball. Buffalo, NY isn’t the biggest of cities, but you’d think sustaining six-plus movie houses earns a chance to see Ang Lee‘s vision as intended. Sorry,…

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REVIEW: Friday [1995]

“Ya’ll ain’t never got two things that match” By age twenty Ice Cube had proven himself an originator of gangsta rap with the seminal Straight Outta Compton from N.W.A and AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted as a solo artist. Two years later his role in Boyz n the Hood garnered enough critical acclaim to cement the Los Angeles native a red-hot commodity in Hollywood as well. And the successes kept coming with more albums, producing credits, and eventually a stoner comedy. Yes, the man known for his socio-political raps and controversially honest…

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TIFF12 REVIEW: Silver Linings Playbook [2012]

“Is that song really playing?” I know it’s misguided, but my interest in David O. Russell films kind of ended after The Fighter. This was a guy who used to pave his own path with challenging material and comedies that made you think. It’s not even that I disliked his true-life boxing tale—actually I loved it. But where was the eccentricity? Where was the promise of subversive insanity that his sadly unfinished Nailed possessed? He showed he had the skills for the big time and I’m ecstatic he now has…

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REVIEW: Tower Heist [2011]

“It seems like there’s a gauntlet of lesbians” Josh Kovacs takes care of his own—it’s his job as the manager of a luxury apartment complex in the heart of New York City. With company policy refusing employees from accepting tips, his workers must treat every resident with the utmost care, compassion, and patience. Josh knows every bellhop, cleaning lady, bankrupt squatter, billionaire Wall Street mogul, and septuagenarian lothario within this glass palace and he treats all as family. Just a guy from Astoria, there is something kind and generous to…

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REVIEW: The Fifth Element [1997]

“Negative, I am a meat popsicle” After making heavy movies like La Femme Nikita and Léon, it is somewhat of a departure for Luc Besson to do this comic, pulp, sci-fi film The Fifth Element. Looking at his work now, with such high-octane humor as The Transporter series, among others, (written by Besson, but not directed), it doesn’t seem that out of place. He just must have decided to only direct his more serious fare and leave the fun stuff to others. However, The Fifth Element is by no means…

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