Why do the righteous suffer? That is the question at the heart of Terrence Malick’s latest meditation, Tree of Life. This is a film that is so abstract it is hard to believe it was even made.
If I were to claim I understood it after just one viewing, well, I would be lying. This is some pretty heavy stuff. Read more…
Up is exactly the type of movie that viewers should expect from Pixar Studios by now. Beautiful CG animation, a whimsical story line that is directed at both adults and children, and humor that is chuckle-worthy but hardly ever belly laugh inducing. If you liked previous Pixar movies, you will undoubtedly enjoy Up. If you have grown tired of the trend pioneered by Toy Story and Shrek, Up will not be the movie that changes your mind. Read more…
With the release of Bioshock 2 around the corner I fired up this old favorite of mine. Bioshock is a spiritual successor to the System Shock series. It is almost identical in style and gameplay but bears no fictional connection to the predecessor such as characters and plot.
System Shock 2 was brought to us by Looking Glass Studios and Irrational Games in 1999. It was published by EA which still holds the rights to this day.
For a comic book movie to be successful, the director has to have an obvious affection for the source material. In his first two Spiderman films, Sam Raimi conveys his fondness for the Spiderman series by earnestly painting a delicate and surprisingly human relationship between Peter Parker and Mary Jane and by using highly kinetic cinematography that mirrors the style of the comic book. In Batman Begins, Christopher Nolan displays his passion for the Batman comics by stripping away the cartoon elements and shifting the focus back on the more dangerous undertones running through Gotham. Unlike the aforementioned filmmakers and their respective films, Bryan Singer never demonstrates a love or understanding for what makes the Superman series work. In fact, in Superman Returns he makes Superman boring, stilted, and ultimately interchangeable with any other superhero. Read more…
Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock is not just a chronicle of the historic 1969 music festival. And it is more than a mere attempt to capitalize upon baby boomers’ nostalgia on the 40th anniversary of the event (even though I am sure that it will transport some viewers back to more idealistic times.) Rather, Taking Woodstock is one man’s personal story set amidst the hoopla and hullabaloo of the 400,000 people attending the generation defining concert. Demitri Martin plays Eliot Tiber, an intelligent but reserved interior designer who lives and works in New York City. During the summer he returns home to Lake River, a small town in The Catskills, to help his parents’ run the El Monaco, a dilapidated motel that has been on the brink of foreclosure for years. Despite Eliot’s efforts, his domineering and stingy mother (Imelda Staunton) does not appreciate his work while his dejected father (Henry Goodman) would just rather sell the place and retire to Florida. By all indications it appears that The El Monaco will be foreclosed upon, that is, until Eliot develops an idea to save the family business: host the hippie ‘aquarian exhibition’ that recently got kicked out of nearby Wallskill. Read more…
In the history of stupid, vapid movies, Prom Night (2008) may actually be the stupidest and most vapid. Based loosely on the 1980 Jamie Lee Curtis snooze fest of the same name, Prom Night follows three teenaged couples on the night of their senior prom. The dance, set at the high class Biltmore Hotel, has all of the extravagance of a Hollywood premiere. Crowds of photographers wait to take pictures of the attendants, searchlights blaze high into the sky, and students wave excitedly at their peers while hanging out of the sunroofs of stretch limousines. Essentially Prom Night is an episode of MTV’s My Super Sweet 16, but with a cast of actors in their mid-twenties and an obsessive stalker yielding a huge bowie knife. In between unoriginal murders, the cast talks about who will win prom king and queen, college ambitions, relationships, and other inane discussions that will only appeal to highschoolers with a huge sense of entitlement and “Go Seniors” scribbled on their car windows. Of course teens are Alliance Films’ target demographic, but despite the stupidity of most teenagers, give them a little credit, they are not that dumb. Read more…
Tom Waits as 'Mr. Nick'
Terry Gilliam is fascinated by the power of the imagination. In Brazil he presents a Hollywood happy ending that only exists within the protagonist’s unconscious mind. With Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, he shows us what the imagination can turn the real world into when under the influence of heavy hallucinogens. With the Fisher King a catatonic homeless man played by Robin Williams hallucinates attacks from a dark knight. In 2005′s Tideland, a young girl uses her imagination to escape the horrors of her own life. Now with The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Terry Gilliam once again explores the imagination to its most convoluted and perverse depths. This may be his most surreal work to date. Read more…
Star Trek is a spectacle of a movie. J.J. Abrams obviously comes from the school that bigger, faster and brighter is better. The story sprawls time and space. The ships are massive and beautifully animated. The cameras are constantly sweeping, weaving and zooming. The strikingly vivid colors cause lens flare to streak the camera. And extreme longs shots are employed just to show how incredibly fucking large everything within the Star Trek galaxy is. Is Star Trek sensory overload? Yes. Is it a pure, adrenaline-filled joyride? Hell yeah.
Throughout his career, Terry Gilliam has been met with polarized responses; he has been applauded for his distinctly imaginative visual style while being criticized for the lack of cohesive plot structures within his films. He has inspired a legion of cult fans that ritualistically watch Brazil, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen while enduring many critical and box office failures. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus will surely continue this trend of divisiveness.
Ale and his sister Isamar in their small one-mattress room in 'Chop Shop' (2007)
Chop Shop, the second feature from Ramin Bahrani, is a rare breed. It is a film that tells a story not usually found in American cinema, that of the of a minority living in poverty. It is a work of simple beauty. Shot on location in Queens, New York in the shadows of Shea Stadium, Chop Shop is neo-realism to the core. Featuring a cast of non-actors, it has more in common with Vittorio De Sica’s classic Bicycle Thieves than anything made in the United States. There is no score or soundtrack, all the music and sounds are diagetic. Watching it feels like watching a great foreign film, it takes us to another world because it is so uncommon to see. However this other world is not post-World War II Rome or Istanbul or New Delhi, it is contemporary New York City. Read more…
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