It’s the start of a normal working day. People mill about on the streets and in cafes, procuring the tonics they need to begin their mornings in earnest and setting off on their commutes to make it to the office; in the space between these separate but related endeavors, they catch up on current events on television. The news, as it so often can be, sings a dour note to match the day’s cloudiness, but that’s okay, because bleakness and dreariness are the tragic standard for the crowds filtering through the city’s winding, compressed avenues on their way to their respective jobs. A thundering crash, the acrid scent of burning…
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Sweet Trailer…'The Hunger Games: Catching Fire'
We’re more than a year out from the release of last year’s The Hunger Games– which we here at Go, See, Talk! really dug– and still around eight months away from the theatrical run of the next installment in the series, Catching Fire. That’s enough to drive a fan of Suzanne Collins’ dystopian young adult sci-fi novels nuts, so we should all be thankful that Lionsgate is throwing us a bone with the release of the first official teaser for the film- even more so since the clip is pretty darn great. Catching Fire, for the uninitiated, picks up right where the last movie leaves off, putting Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence, plus…
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‘Willow Creek’ Gets An Amazing Poster
Let’s keep this short and sweet since it’s the end of the day: I might not love all of Bobcat Goldthwait’s films (I found God Bless America to be pretty repugnant despite being really, really well-crafted), but he’s an incredibly magnetic and interesting character and an exciting filmmaker. So it stands to reason that I’m pretty much guaranteed to see Willow Creek, his next picture, which happens to be premiering at this year’s Independent Film Festival of Boston. There’s really no way I can say no to kismet of that variety. But wait- there’s more. Willow Creek shows Goldthwait stepping outside his wheelhouse of dark, uncomfortable, comedy blended with social commentary- at least, that’s…
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G-S-T Review…'42'
If Jackie Robinson’s fate had seen him turn out an unsung hero, 42 might be more worthy of protest. Taken at face value, it’s strictly inoffensive; it’s the tale of how Jackie Robinson broke the glass ceiling in baseball, diluted into a series of uplifting bullet points before coming to an abrupt and all-too-convenient close (because nobody wants to end a feel-good movie with reality). There’s a blueprint to this sort of cinema, and Brian Helgeland follows it doggedly in his third- technically fourth, if you count Payback*- directorial outing, hitting beat after crowd-pleasing, expected beat. Maybe that’s not a crime worthy of filmmaker jail, but it’s certainly not a guaranteed path…
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G-S-T Review…To The Wonder
To the Wonder‘s very existence serves as a topic of conversation unto itself, never mind the wholly singular experience of watching Terrence Malick’s cinema. Since when does this man have the gumption needed to make and release two films in as many years? A cursory glance over his working history should prepare even a novice viewer to wait for at least twice that amount of time in between Malick projects, and yet here we are with 2011’s The Tree of Life barely in our collective rear view and To the Wonder looming right in front of us (and two more films, which Malick apparently shot back-to-back, lurking in the shadows for potential…
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Interview…’Gimme the Loot’ Writer/Director Adam Leon
So, I kinda really liked the graffiti/coming-of-age street yarn, Gimme the Loot, and you can check out my review here if you don’t believe me. As it happens, I also recently had the opportunity to chat with director Adam Leon about the film- what inspired and influenced it, how the production came together, the process and preparation that went into it, and the importance of maintaining cultural authenticity. Read on to absorb his insights into the movie: Go, See, Talk!: The first thing that I have to ask, as a fan of hip hop: I’m really curious about the title. Is that something you all came up with while you were shooting, or is that…
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G-S-T Review…Evil Dead
There’s a caveat that needs to be applied to any review of Fede Alvarez’s remake of Evil Dead, Sam Raimi’s unassailable 1981 horror staple: the new version isn’t as good as the old. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be, because nobody should reasonably expect genre remakes to live up to or exceed the masterpieces that spawn them. The better news is that Alvarez actually has a great movie on his hands- perhaps one that’s not capable of creating the same lasting, resonating impact within its categorical boundaries as Raimi’s original movie did, but certainly one that brings the blood-soaked goods with the sort of unhinged, fearless…
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G-S-T Review…Gimme the Loot
Who knew a street-centered narrative could be so sweetly buoyant as Adam Leon’s Gimme the Loot? Modern storytelling tends to look only at one side of a life lived in the hood, wading through the mud to capture and romanticize the difficulties inherent to an existence where simply getting by day to day proves to be a Herculean feat. Gimme the Loot almost feels like a response to those cliches, except that Leon actively chooses not to follow the polar opposite tract by indulging in straight-up fantasy about the world his protagonists, Malcolm (Ty Hickson) and Sofia (Tashiana Washington), inhabit; he instead aims for balance, harmony between exuberance and struggle…
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G-S-T Review…Beyond the Hills
What’s most impressive about Romanian filmmaker Cristian Mungiu’s morally complex drama, Beyond the Hills, may well be his insistence upon remaining firmly in the grey rather than taking sides. Another filmmaker might have examined this tale, based on a real-life exorcism, and turned it into an anti-religious parable in which science- and only science- possesses the sense and rationality necessary to make sense of and survive in the modern world. That’s hardly the point Mungiu’s making, of course, but some might draw that precise conclusion regardless of his efforts to make nearly every character in his film culpable in its central tragedy. Just like in life, though, there are no easy…
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The Criterion Files: The Killing
The Killing Directed by: Stanley Kubrick Written by: Stanley Kubrick, Jim Thompson Starring: Sterling Hayden, Colleen Gray, Vince Edwards, Jay C. Flippen, Elisha Cook Jr., Marie Windsor Cinematography by: Lucien Ballard Music by: Gerard Fried Release: May 20, 1956 When you think of Stanley Kubrick, which of his many films come to mind? The Shining? 2001: A Space Odyssey? A Clockwork Orange? Perhaps Dr. Strangelove? If there’s a single common throughline linking each of these pictures together- though many might argue that there are many- it’s influence, as in the influence that his work has had on cinema as a medium from the 60’s going forward. Note, for example, how much impact The Shining had…
