If Sleepwalk With Me does one thing well, it’s strike a balance between truth and delusion. For a film that grounds itself so heavily in reality while simultaneously reveling in the dreams of its protagonist, equilibrium is paramount; mercifully, the line between waking life and fantasy is never irreparably, irresponsibly blurred. We may not be able to immediately identify when our protagonist is dreaming– neither can he– but Sleepwalk With Me clues us in quickly enough so as to avoid leaving us in the lurch, establishing a clear relationship between the stages of awareness experienced by Matt, the aimless, disconnected, would-be comedian serving as our anchor. And why not? Dreams…
-
-
G-S-T Review…Detention
(Author’s note: a few weeks ago I participated in a round table interview with Detention director Joseph Kahn. That feature was published over on my site, A Constant Visual Feast; it makes for a great read in conjunction with the review itself. Go here to read the interview if you haven’t already!) There’s really no good preamble one can fashion to properly introduce Joseph Kahn’s sophomore feature length film, Detention, in a review; temptation and delusions of wit both want to nudge me into describing it as a film so utterly, enthusiastically, uniquely bonkers that it would behoove any cinephile to pay the purchase price of a ticket to watch it.…
-
G-S-T Review…Wrath of the Titans
I, like Jonathan Liebesman’s Wrath of the Titans, am wracked with indecision. On the one hand I want to go to bat for the film on the virtues of its better elements– excellent eye candy, including, but not limited to, some eye-popping creature design– but Wrath’s tonal incongruity holds me back. There’s a place in the Hollywood ecosphere for fantastical sword and sandal films boasting either serious or silly makes, but Wrath can’t decide which of the two models it wants to follow and ends up existing as an unsatisfying halfway point between them; it’s silly, but not silly enough. It’s epic, but it’s not epic enough. If the film needs anything, it’s direction,…
-
G-S-T Review…21 Jump Street
Phil Lord’s and Chris Miller’s 21 Jump Street shouldn’t be as brilliant as it is. In fact, on paper, it’s a film that seems ripe for evisceration at the hands of critics and cineastes for whom kvetching about Hollywood’s modern culture of property recycling has become as much a pastime as actually watching movies. Maybe 21 Jump Street is an easy target; its premise is so hopelessly cheesy that it could only be a product of the late 80s, while Jonah Hill’s comedic stock has been wavering since 2010’s Get Him to the Greek. Tack Channing Tatum on and you have a project that reads like a fake film-within-a-film from Entourage. Who gave a…
-
Interview…’Silent House’ Directors Chris Kentis and Laura Lau
In conjunction with the release of Open Road’s one-take horror exercise, Silent House, I was presented with the opportunity to interview Chris Kentis and Laura Lau, the writer-director team behind the film, who many will remember as the duo behind 2003’s Open Water. I can’t deny that I was nervous; this marks my very first interview, for GoSeeTalk and in general, so naturally I felt anxious and a lot of pressure to represent myself, GST, and, ultimately, my subjects well. Luckily for me, Mr. Kentis and Ms. Lau made for one great, insightful, informative interview, providing a ton of detail about the process of making Silent House and working with star…
-
G-S-T Review…Silent House
I have a feeling that a lot of people are going to peg Silent House as the latest horror film to engage in gimmickry through its apparent adoption of the found footage conceit, and they’ll be completely incorrect to do so. In the first place, it’s not a found footage film whatsoever. Marketing for the picture seems geared toward presenting it as another entry in that engorged horror sub-genre, and maybe the very presence of Chris Kentis and Laura Lau– the duo behind 2003’s effectively nerve-wracking Open Water— hints at a shared ancestry with the likes of Paranormal Activity. But Silent House is closer to movies like The Strangers, and certain contemporary French gore fests, and while…
-
G-S-T Review…Wanderlust
Wanderlust could well be the best thing David Wain has done since 2001’s Wet Hot American Summer. Maybe that’s not the best way to start a review of a well-liked director’s latest film; I feel like I’m stacking the deck, immediately, against Wanderlust, but at the same time the movie contains and emphasizes many of the same characteristics that made Wet Hot so great and have since established it as a modern comedy classic. The humor here is big, broad, and shamelessly silly, the characters are well-drawn, endlessly funny individuals, and the satire at the film’s core is well-realized. Where the two movies differ lies in the way Wain’s latest rambles, which is only appropriate to a…
-
G-S-T Review…The Innkeepers
Editor’s Note: Go,See,Talk presents this review of The Innkeepers from our staff writer Andrew Crump (of A Constant Visual Feast.) Have a look at what he had to say about Ti West’s sophomore effort and offer your thoughts below. Categorizing Ti West’s The Innkeepers accurately seems tricky at a glance; is it a horror film with comedy elements, or the other way around? Invariably, the film falls under the horror umbrella without much debate but its blend of scares, charm and laughter makes it a genre standout among more recent haunted house fare. Dread builds over the course of The Innkeepers, and inevitably that leads us to a suspenseful, frightening climax in which our worst fears…
-
G-S-T Review…The Grey
Editor’s Note: Go,See,Talk presents this review of The Grey from our staff writer Andrew Crump (of A Constant Visual Feast.) Have a look at what he had to say about Joe Carnahan’s tense survival flick and offer your thoughts below. Ten years after the release of Narc, Joe Carnahan has returned to where he started as a filmmaker with survival thriller The Grey, eschewing hyper-stylized shoot-outs and outrageous, impossible action scenes for something grim, grounded, and surprisingly poetic. While a film set in the Alaskan wilds feels like a far cry from a gritty urban tale of narcotics investigations, The Grey shares far more in common with Narc than Carnahan’s recent outings, studio tent-pole hopeful The A-Team and the Tarantino-influenced Smokin’ Aces. The…
-
G-S-T Year In Review – Andrew's 2011 Wrap Up
2011 is almost over and our new writer Andrew Crump of A Constant Visual Feast has compiled his list of year end Award Winners for Go,See,Talk. Not content to have just one wrap up post, Andrew actually created 2 “Best Of” lists (the other you’ll find here and here on his site). Have a look at everything he had to say about the good and bad of ’11.
