Scuttlebutt on Escape From Tomorrow started brewing during this year’s Sundance Film Festival, so those of you with your ears to the ground have probably been waiting for the most unusual Disney film of 2013 for quite some time. What makes Randy Moore’s picture so unique, though, is that Disney contributed nothing to its production save for location; Moore shot the entirety of his vision firmly within the bounds of both Disneyland and Disney World, and without securing a word of permission from the Mouse House. Is that dangerous? Not really. Is it subversive? Oh yes. And that’s what’s pulling attention to Escape From Tomorrow: that anarchic, guerrilla spirit. In…
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G-S-T Review…Hell Baby
Dubbing Hell Baby as a funnier version of A Haunted House or any entry in the reprehensible (and apparently endless) Scary Movie franchise feels like a serious kick in the pants to The State and Reno 911! veterans Robert Ben Garant’s and Thomas Lennon’s dryly funny exorcism farce. That’s sour news for the film, especially since many critics might end up making the exact same comparison, but on the bright side of things, Hell Baby happens to be a legit comedy; it’s funny on its own terms, and not just as a superior – if slightly uneven – alternative to the recklessly terrible and laughter-challenged garbage that passes as parody in the mainstream.…
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Sweet 2nd Trailer…'Don Jon'
What can’t Joseph Gordon-Levitt do? Since reasserting his focus on acting in 2004 with Mysterious Skin, the man has appeared in an impressive tally of films, ranging from indies (2005’s excellent Brick), to blockbusters (The Dark Knight Rises), to genre movies of several stripes (Looper, (500) Days of Summer), and he’s even founded hitRecord, an “online collaborative production company”. (Whatever the hell that means.) This year, he’s branched out even further by taking on directing and writing duties on Don Jon, in which he also stars as the title character. Guess he’s a student of da Vinci. Or, at the very least, Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx. Gordon-Levitt’s film is…
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G-S-T Review…In a World…
On paper, a career in the movie trailer voiceover business doesn’t suggest much by way of glamor, and in truth, In a World…, the feature directing, writing, and producing debut of the multifaceted Lake Bell, doesn’t little to shake that perception. Instead, Bell’s film builds a lived-in and authentic world where people ruthlessly vie for coveted gigs which appear so minor from a distance that their ability to inspire cutthroat competition is almost puzzling; it also happens to absurdly engaging and very, very funny, but the punchlines feel natural, unfussy, and not at all dependent on getting the audience to laugh at the misery and humiliation of the characters on…
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G-S-T Review…jOBS
Joshua Michael Stern’s Jobs has one question to answer, and one question only: can the towering genius of the late Steve Jobs be adequately embodied by Michael Kelso on the big screen? Every critic reviewing the film will inevitably struggle to utter, “yes”, if only because no one wants to risk their credibility by going to bat for an Ashton Kutcher performance. But, miracle of miracles, he’s actually pretty good, good enough at least to warrant real praise instead of yawning skepticism or begrudging acceptance, but not necessarily good enough to raise Jobs above the sub-standard, thoroughly muddled biopic Stern crafts around his lead’s portrayal of Apple’s driven, visionary, and utterly ruthless…
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G-S-T Review…Drafthouse Films’ The Act of Killing
Describing The Act of Killing as a film unlike any made in the medium’s short lifetime almost feels like the definition of hubris, or at least hyperbole. But Joshua Oppenheimer’s wholly unique exploration of the genocidal horrors lurking in Indonesia’s recent history earns every bit of the praise accorded it since making festival rounds this Spring (notably IFFBoston) and beginning its limited theatrical run in July; if critics describe it as a masterpiece, that’s because it is a masterpiece, an exceptional display of daring that will secure Oppenheimer’s name in the annals of cinema. That The Act of Killing also happens to be one of 2013’s most unsettling and insightful releases should…
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G-S-T Review…Crystal Fairy
If you hate being the one guy at a party who doesn’t dig recreational drug use, you’re probably going to have a rough time with Crystal Fairy. Oscillating between road trip shenanigans and drug-induced catharsis, Chilean filmmaker Sebastian Silva has the makings of a good film lying right out in the open, but the film’s better elements -an absolutely fearless performance by former child actress Gabby Hoffman chief among them – never gel cohesively with the areas where Crystal Fairy ends up failing. For a story that hinges entirely on a journey of personal realization and cactus-derived hallucinogens, the film exhibits a shocking lack of profundity and doesn’t end up…
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G-S-T Review…Fruitvale Station
How can anyone review, much less watch, Fruitvale Station without bringing up the 18th Florida circuit court’s verdict in the George Zimmerman trial? The film, which comes courtesy of newcomer Ryan Coogler and marks one of 2013’s most noteworthy debuts, doesn’t reignite national discourse on social justice, race, and the second amendment in the US so much as it reinforces it; to call Fruitvale Station “timely” would be an understatement, though that’s not at all to imply shrewd, heartless planning on Coogler’s or the studio’s behalf. Chalk the picture’s release up to a happy (or unhappy, depending on how you look at it) coincidence, and then gird yourself for a…
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G-S-T Review…Blackfish
Blackfish director Gabriela Cowperthwaite throws a lot of information at us in less than an hour and a half, and it’s all crucial to making sense of the narrative she follows in her searing, heartbreaking, somber film. The good news is that she’s an ace filmmaker, and she knows how to convey everything that we need to know effectively, efficiently, and with clarity, but that knowledge must be served with a simple caveat: you can’t unlearn what Blackfish teaches, and that’s both a blessing and a curse. Cowperthwaite’s picture documents inhuman abuses inflicted upon non-human creatures in stunning enough detail to turn even the most dedicated SeaWorld fanatic into an outraged protester. In…
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G-S-T Review…The To Do List
Someone needs to start a Kickstarter campaign to get Aubrey Plaza some acting lessons. That comment sounds infinitely more cruel than intended; Plaza has long been a pivotal, hilarious supporting figure on NBC’s fantastic sitcom Parks and Recreation, and just last year she took a solid starring turn alongside Mark Duplass in Safety Not Guaranteed, but the numerous delights of her work in both underscore the limits of her range as a performer. There’s nothing wrong with having a niche, of course, but her schtick – “deadpan, apathetic, couldn’t-care-less twenty-something” – is not only specific in the extreme but also incapable of sustaining a feature-length picture for its total running…
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G-S-T Review…Pacific Rim
Let’s begin this review on the bluntest note possible: Pacific Rim is the summer’s best blockbuster by several leagues. That may read as grotesquely biased coming from someone who grew up on Ultraman, Ray Harryhausen, and Toho films and discovered mecha anime titles in his college years; it probably doesn’t help my case that Guillermo del Toro happens to be one of my favorite contemporary filmmakers, either. But if my loyalty to del Toro and my passion for the kaiju films he has modeled so much of Pacific Rim after give me a clear dog in the seasonal fight for popcorn supremacy, my sentiment about his latest film remains as…
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Sweet Red-Band Trailer…'Oldboy'
I’ll be honest: even after reading official press releases and early (albeit potentially untrustworthy) reactions, part of me still didn’t totally believe that somebody, somewhere, had actually funded a remake of Oldboy with Spike Lee positioned at the helm and Josh Brolin, Sharlto Copley, and Elizabeth Olsen installed in the principal roles. Yesterday, though, the first trailer – of the red band persuasion, no less- for the film hit the web, so I can kiss that delusion goodbye and just accept that my favorite all-time film is being repackaged for an American audience and will kick off its theatrical run this fall. Of course, the above is nothing more than…
