To describe Cold In July as being like five films rolled into one may cause eyebrows to raise, spark immediate concerns of an unfocussed mess or trigger assumptions that it was like a Twilight Zone rip-off. However, it is none of these things. There is one storyline, yet it takes us through a gamut of styles, emotions and twists that would indicate director Jim Mickle and his…
The zombie as a metaphor for dysfunctional and alienating systems in our society is a popular since the Night of Living Dead. The concept of living flesh, as in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, is a manifestation of feeling alien in your own skin and in your environment.
Although it’s tempting to start this review with a bunch of nasty quips riffing off of the film’s title (such as, “they could deliver us from evil, but not mediocrity”), it seems beneficial to try to resist. Not that the film doesn’t deserve all the slander it can get, but if we’re just playing the name calling game, then we’ll never get a chance to…
Melissa McCarthy has created quite the career niche for herself. From her success with Bridesmaids to her role in The Heat, the actress has played characters that are lost in their own delusions, much to the chagrin of their straight-laced counterparts. She is the wisecracker and the lovable goof, but…
Jake Paltrow’s Young Ones had its world premiere at this year’s Sundance and celebrated its German premiere at Filmfest Munich this week. The dystopian drama, almost a futuristic Western, explores a dried out world in which water is rare and people are willing to do anything to gain access to a…
Joe Berlinger, the Academy Award-nominated documentarian behind Paradise Lost and Some Kind of Monster, collaborated with CNN Films to make his newest film about Whitey Bulger and the recent legal proceedings surrounding his case. The film doesn’t cover much about Bulger’s personal history as a criminal, opting more to …
The documentary is a narrative which tells the story of Manipur, a north-eastern Indian state trying to heal itself through the American game of baseball. Manipur has had a long history of conflicts with the Indian army which has resulted in the martial law. This martial law gives Indian army the liberty to arrest anyone who could be a part of …
The romantic comedy, like all genres, has familiar rhythms and tropes, ones that connoisseurs know by heart. David Wain’s new comedy They Came Together attempts to jam all those tropes in a blender, set it on obliterate, and come up with the ultimate satirical smoothie of rom com blandness. It’s a terrific conceit, admirably executed …
They don’t make ‘em like this anymore. Then again, I don’t think they’ve ever made them quite like this. Joon-ho Bong’s futuristic pic Snowpiercer, his first English-language outing, is unlike anything you have ever seen. It’s a grand story told on an intimate level, bursting with intrigue, excitement, and real…
The fight for marriage equality in California has been long and circuitous. Same-sex marriage has been legalized then illegalized, deemed unconstitutional and held to be required by the state’s constitution. Every time victory seemed clear over the last decade-plus, it was snatched away. As The Case Against 8, the new documentary from …