REVIEW: Profile [2021]

All I want is a Kalashnikov. It was only a matter of time before Timur Bekmambetov took the plunge and directed his own entry within the cinematic style he coined (and anecdotally created) as “Screenlife.” Even if we forget how Brian De Palma played with YouTube-style vignettes in Redacted circa 2007, the short film Noah debuted at TIFF a year before Unfriended at Fantasia, and Nacho Vigalondo‘s Open Windows hit SXSW a few months before the latter too, the filmmaker’s claim always remained a bit far-fetched simply because the films…

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REVIEW: The Commuter [2018]

One little thing. If the timeline is to be believed, the fourth meet-up between director Jaume Collet-Serra and Liam Neeson entitled The Commuter was the result of the latter rather than the former. Byron Willinger and Philip de Blasi‘s story went through the hands of at least two other stewards as well as a rewrite by Ryan Engle before finally going in front of the cameras. So one could hypothesize Collet-Serra was brought in as someone familiar with the genre, tropes, and especially the lead actor to bring things home.…

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