With this being his first feature film (beyond his two written/directed short films), like his father before him Brandon Cronenberg is no stranger to an odd style of filmmaking. That is to say with Antiviral, despite what Brandon says in the Q&A about not wanting to make a film like his father, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Right off the bat, family name not withstanding, Antiviral will be a tough sell for most audiences. Yet, underlying all the weird and macabre elements and a brutally focused performance from Caleb Landry Jones is something brilliant. Like Videodrome, this Cronenberg takes a common societal theme and analyzes it under such scrutiny that the result is a wild exaggeration of celebrity…
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G-S-T Review…The Perks of Being A Wallflower
In the feature film adaptation of the popular (and semi-controversial) young adult novel of the same name writer/director Stephen Chbosky recounts part of his younger life as puts a difficult time in his life on display for the world to see. A bold film told in a retrospective manner we, through a series of letters Chbosky has the main character write to himself, get to know and see life through the eyes of a troubled high schooler named Charlie (Logan Lerman). A kind of therapy for the author who lived through some of the events depicted this story is about balancing friendship against estrangement and inner turmoil. It becomes a fascinating…
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G-S-T Review…Liberal Arts
If you’ve ever mused on the appeal of Josh Radnor, Liberal Arts quite handily offers the most succinct, sincere answer possible. Why do people like him so much? Because he’s likeable. Maybe this is an unsatisfactory conclusion to a burning question for some of you, but regardless, it’s true. Whatever other qualities Radnor possesses as an actor (and a writer, and a director), he has amiable, if snooty and uptight, charm in spades. Whether he’s giving a physical presence to Bob Saget’s voice-overs in How I Met Your Mother or serving as the centerpiece and the architect of his own films, he’s harmlessly agreeable, though for some that could be…
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G-S-T Double Take Review…End of Watch
What’s better than one GST staff writer’s perspective on a film? How about two? For this round of Double-Take reviews, Bill and Andrew crack their knuckles and dig into David Ayer’s latest street cop drama, End of Watch: By Andrew Crump: If insanity can truly be defined as doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results, then Einstein would’ve immediately pegged David Ayer as a bona fide lunatic. Since his runaway success with Training Day in 2001, Ayer has done nothing but write and, more recently, direct crime films set in Los Angeles at large or South Central in the specific, crafting narratives that are embedded either…
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G-S-T Review…The Master
Sitting down to write about Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest cinematic marvel can make you feel inadequate. There’s so many things going on in this 138-minute film that it stays with you hours, if not days, after walking out of the auditorium of your choice. Putting that kind of experience into words can be disorientating. Yet, the film begs to be expounded upon and dissected. If you’re familiar with Anderson’s films, you’ll know the familiar themes here. The film may receive a lot of press and talk because the setting is based in and around “The Cause,” which seems to bear striking similarities to Scientology, but the film is not about that as much as it is about…