When the memory-detective protagonist of Anna informs his eponymous charge, the sixteen year-old daughter of a wealthy family who’s suddenly refused to eat, that the movie’s chief technological conceit “doesn’t work like that”, it’s telling that he never offers an…
There’s something deeply discomfiting about the idea of being watched. Not only is it invasive in the usual way, depriving you of your privacy and security, there is something more insidious there. The idea that you are being watched takes some control away from you. If you can be seen wherever you go, if you can be known whatever …
Hellion has familiar elements of the “Sundance drama”. It stars a famous actor in a promising director’s debut. We watch that famous actor take on an unfamiliar role. Children act mischievously. A shimmering glow washes over a depressed American town. While Hellion is a little too typical, it does have its positive points …
All Cheerleaders Die is the new horror comedy from directors Lucky McKee (The Woman) and Chris Sivertson (I Know Who Killed Me) that is not funny, scary or fun. It unfolds over an eternity (well, a really slow 90 minutes) and fails on almost every level. For the first forty minutes, the film is a bottom of the barrel high school film. All …
This harrowing movie from Ti West is a penetrating look at cults and their monstrous, yet enrapturing theologies. Framed as VICE documentary, The Sacrament presents unadorned footage of hipster journalists A.J. Bowen, Joe Swanberg and Kentucker Audley as they journey to a church commune in an undisclosed location to ostensibly film Audely reuniting with his ….
If the recent TV remake of Rosemary’s Baby didn’t quite whet appetites for fresh new takes on bringing the antichrist to term, its almost unanimous dismissal evidenced at least the demand for distinction in how storytellers approach familiar material. Enter Delivery…
Mankind plays by a different set of rules at night. For most of us, the daylight hours are defined by work, routine, and the pursuit of a paycheck. The nighttime offers something far more alluring: the chance to pursue our own, more radical ideas. In Night Moves, characters toil on an organic farm and collect towels at a health spa during …
Cold in July opens in East Texas, 1989 as we see Ann Dane (Vinessa Shaw) suddenly wake up late at night, bathed in foggy blue light. She says, “I think I heard something.” Her husband Richard (Michael C. Hall) nervously finds their gun. He walks into the living room with a humorously silly looking mustache/mullet combination, still bathed…
Ryan Gosling’s debut feature received pretty controversial reactions by polarizing the audiences at Cannes. Lost River, previously known under its working title How to Catch a Monster, was written, directed and produced by actor and director Gosling. It is quite obvious that he was visually and thematically inspired or influenced by surrealist art-house directors…
The title of the Argentinian-Spanish co-production (including the Almodóvar brothers) “Relatos Salvajes” that translates to Wild Tales could not be more appropriate and fitting since the feature competing for the Palme d’Or is as wild as it can get. Written and directed by Damián Szifrón, Wild Tales consists of six self-contained stories connected through the common…