Lars von Trier has spent his career striving to be unconventional, and to push limits. Lately this has made him probably the most controversial director in the world. His recent film Antichrist, an exercise of grotesque masochism, divided audiences and offended many with its graphic scenes of genital mutilation. This year during a Cannes press conference, von Trier came off as somewhat of a Nazi sympathizer (he later apologized and said he would no longer talk to the press).

What can easily become buried in all of this madness is the fact the Dane is an extremely talented filmmaker. With Melancholia, this talent shines through. Here, von Trier is not trying to offend anyone, stir up controversy, or send viewers into a deep depression. Here he is executing his vision beautifully. Read more…

In 1988 Werner Herzog’s close friend Errol Morris released his documentary The Thin Blue Line. It was about a man falsely accused of murder in Texas and sentenced to death. Today it still stands as a timely and powerful argument against capital punishment.

Now, nearly a quarter-century later, with state-sanctioned killing still going strong, Herzog himself has traveled to Texas to make a film on the subject. Read more…

Moneyball, directed by Bennet Miller, ranks with the great Bull Durham as one of the best baseball movies ever made, and there may not be five minutes worth of actual baseball scenes.

No, this is a movie about the front office and the statistical revolution that occurred at the turn of the century in Major League Baseball. It’s about the new guard versus the old guard. The new guard is lead by Billy Beane, played by Brad Pitt, the esteemed Oakland A’s general manager. Read more…

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…

Fritz Lang envisions the cities of the future

The most important ingredient to make a dazzling special effects film is not cutting-edge technology, it is the imagination of its creator. Fritz Lang’s silent science-fiction classic Metropolis (1927) is all the proof needed. A restored version, featuring 30 minutes of newly discovered footage, is now available on DVD and can be streamed on Netflix.

Lang loads Metropolis with unforgettable images. The factory from hell, the 10-hour clock used by the workers to implement shift changes, the flashing and bustling city of the upper-world, the mad scientist with his laboratory and his mechanical hand, the robot Hel, the dazzling futuristic city with massive its skyscrapers and super-highways; the list goes on. Pretty much every sci-fi film since has referenced Metropolis, but where did Lang get all his visual ideas? Read more…

In the real world, people don’t usually communicate through witty dialogue and grand gestures. More often our sentences are interrupted with awkward pauses filled in by meaningless words like ‘um’ and phrases like ‘you know’. True feelings are communicated via minute facial expressions and reactions. This is one of the things that Steven Soderbergh’s Bubble, with its non-professional actors, does so well. Most the dialogue is improvised, leading to empty conversations. The characters communicate like people you’d run into in real life.  This may sound like it would result in a boring movie, it doesn’t. Bubble is as captivating as the most intense thrillers. Read more…

Let me start by saying I am not an expert on martial-arts movies. I have never watched Way of the Dragon, or for that matter any Bruce Lee film in its entirety. That being said, I was not impressed by 2003′s Ong-Bak, which spring-boarded the career of Tony Jaa.  Well, I was not impressed with Ong-Bak as a film. I was very impressed by Tony Jaa’s mind-blowing ability as a martial artist . As far as I know, all the stunts in this film were really performed by Jaa, no strings or CGI attached. That is refreshing, but after 105 minutes I longed for something resembling substance. Read more…

Hey I'm Troy Duffy. One time I watched this awesome movie called Pulp Fiction so I decided to make this fucking more awesomer movie Boondock Saints! Look I'm in da papers!

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Two homicide detectives arrive at the scene of a murder. A woman has been stabbed through with a saber in a suburban San Diego home. A man walks casually through the crowd outside the house drinking coffee out of a large mug with the words ‘Razzle Dazzle’ imprinted on it. He looks at one of the detectives and says, ‘razzle them, razzle them, razzle dazzle them.’ The man walks to the house across the street, has a conversation with a couple Flamingo’s, calling them his ‘eagles in drag,’ and enters the house. Soon after the detectives learn that he is the victim’s son and the murder suspect. Read more…