Seven out of ten times, I’m going to come out enjoying a film that operates on its own terms. It’s the first and best thing I can say about Michael Mann, which just adds to my fanboy nature when it comes to his work. As a more recent example, the Coen Brothers’ A Serious Man [...]
It is up to you to decide.
That’s about as far as the creators of The Fourth Kind are really willing to go in confirming the ‘truth’ behind their new film. Ultimately, that’s probably as far as they should go considering all of the events and ‘footage’ presented in this 90-minute treatise on alien abduction and extraterrestrial paranoia. [...]
If you push the button on the titular box in Richard Kelly’s new sci-fi opus, two things will undoubtedly happen. The first is that somewhere in the world, a person you do not know will die. The second is that after pushing the button, you will receive a briefcase filled with 1 million U.S. dollars [...]
I sit in my seat and look about to see my surroundings; I start to hear clicking sounds getting louder and louder. I start to fly around the city of London, looking around I see people having snowball fights with each other, singing Christmas songs. This might sound like the Star Tours “The Christmas [...]
Is it possible to hold a film like Amanda Gusack’s In Memorium in a truly objective, critical light after seeing Oren Peli’s Paranormal Activity? I would have to say probably not, considering that’s the first question I asked myself when sitting down to write this.
But here’s the thing: In Memorium, a haunting film that spans [...]
The London penal system has no idea what to do with Michael Peterson, famously on record as its most violent criminal. If the film Bronson can be believed, their solution was to beat him intensely and often. Strangely, that’s also director Nicolas Winding Refn’s answer to his subject. Bronson, so named because Peterson adopts the full [...]
Here now, a brief four months after his untimely death, is the vindication that Michael Jackson’s fans have been waiting for. This Is It, for better or worse, is the last word on Jackson as a performer and it’s presented here as the ‘dream’ of a concert that no one will ever get to see. [...]
If the balletic and elegant fighting styles of Jackie Chan and Jet Li are the tap and swing of the martial arts world, then Tony Jaa and his Thai cohorts are practicing the Lambada. Jaa, who rose to international popularity in 2005 with Ong Bak, introduced the mainstream to the brutal and direct art of [...]
Although he may not be familiar to U.S. audiences, Astro Boy is no newcomer to the animated universe. Engineered for young Japanese audiences in the 1950’s by manga artist Osamu Tezuka, the mechanical moppet has long been a cultural icon in his native country; think Mickey Mouse with electronic innards. Drawn like a hybrid of Bob’s Big [...]
It’s a difficult tightrope to walk, making a film adaptation of a book, especially if the book is well-loved. On one hand, if you change the book’s content too much, you run the risk of angering the fans who will turn on you for all the differences between the story in their heads and the [...]
Oh, the Coen brothers. Where do I start?
If you’ve heard anything about their new film, A Serious Man, you may have heard the comparisons to the story of Job. (The guy in the bible.) That’s certainly a good starting place, but I think it’s best to use that story as an influence, and consider the [...]
In 2003’s The Yes Men, Mike Bonanno and Andy Bichlbaum set up a website mimicking and lampooning the World Trade Organization, a corporation they oppose. Their website, however, was mistaken for the real thing and they were invited to speak at important meetings and functions as representatives for the WTO. They decided to use the [...]
