Trees, shrubbery, betrayal, blood, black magic, love in disrepair, hopeless terror. Paint a picture of hell on Earth using these shades, and the ensuing portrait is a glimpse into a nightmare. Not just any old nightmare, the kind without a true exit, in which all doors lead to the same prison. You’re not in your right mind, you’re scared, you’re in danger and …
Adaptations of comic books into movies has become serious business. Not only do they make an extraordinary amount of money, but their tone (with the exception with a rare few) are becoming increasingly dour, despite some quips and one-liners to break the tension. Then there is Deadpool, the adaptation of Marvel Comic’s Merc with a Mouth.
Stitched loosely together from the pages of Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley’s Game and a few borrowed conventions from film noir, Wim Wenders’ The American Friend is a stylish and enigmatic thriller that acts as a superb demonstration of how atmospheric elements can be more vital than story. Character…
The Coen Brothers, Joel and Ethan, have often been accused of mocking the characters and the topics they make comedies about, and it’s easy to make that leap if you don’t understand that poking fun at someone or something is often a form of affection. In every film they make, their love and appreciation for their characters and their…
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend us your ears (or really, your eyes and only for a few moments). We come here not to praise William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (it’s received no shortage of acclaim over the last five or six centuries), but to praise the Coen Brothers’ latest film, Hail, Caesar!, an utterly delightful, unapologetically…
With Hail, Caesar!, the Coen Brothers’ shared ability to arrange an extravagant basket of cinematic fruits, and unapologetically present that gift to their audience, proves to be undying. Here in particular those fruits are ripe as ever, making for one of the directing duo’s most chaotic films, and in turn one of their most interesting. Within, a …
Announcing its cinematic intentions in the first frames, the third and final installment of Wim Wenders’ “Road Movie Trilogy” (a series of films that started with Alice in the Cities in 1974 and continued with The Wrong Move in 1975) Kings of the Road (1976) is the work of a master filmmaker who chooses not only to work in black and…
If there is not a Kung Fu Panda 4, this film will be an excellent end point for the series. It brings the story to a fulfilling and satisfying ending, growing all of the characters well beyond anything we would have thought possible at the beginning of the first film.
The Revenant is a work of art by director Alejandro G. Iñárritu. It is visceral, grim, hopeful, beautiful, frightening and joyful. At its core a story of survival and revenge, the film unabashedly comments on humankind’s place and relationship with nature and each other. Set against a breathtaking backdrop of mountains, rivers, trees and…
The best movie epics offer different levels of storytelling as a way of maximizing their scale and sense of adventure. These mammoth films should transport the audience beyond the screen and allow it to experience many stabs, jolts and gusts of emotion, then leave us with the lingering feeling we just embarked on a wholesome, emotionally satisfying …