We’re living in a time when the phrase “unfilmable novel” can no longer serve as an excuse for poor page-to-screen adaptations of quintessential stories on the receiving end of the Hollywood treatment. Over a decade ago, Peter Jackson shouldered the burden of that challenge by taking J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings books and turning them into a trilogy of three hour and change films (or one ten hour film, depending on your perspective) whose joint success led to criminal cultural misuse of the word “epic”; nobody can so cavalierly write off their inept filmmaking based on a text’s inclination toward being transposed onto celluloid. It’s a blatant cop-out. Which…
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G-S-T Review…About Time
About Time‘s central romance doesn’t involve Rachel “Mean Girls” McAdams or Domhnall “Son of Brendan” Gleeson; the real lovers here are Richard Curtis and the tricky notion of time travel. How else to punch up a story that’s all about the rich existential rewards we reap from living a boring, ordinary life? Curtis employed the deceptive pleasures of coincidence to achieve the same effect in 2003’s Love Actually, though admittedly there’s nothing humdrum about the personal relationships of Prime Ministers and rock gods (or divine intervention, even if that never made the final cut). Here, he overturns a similar stone by using a far more incredible narrative tool for his…
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CONTEST CLOSED – Win A Copy of ‘The Conjuring’ On Blu-Ray
Attention: CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED. All winners have been notified. Thanks for your interest in The Conjuring.—————————————————————————————————————————— We may have missed talking about The Conjuring back when James Wan’s well-received horror gem enjoyed its theatrical run, but that’s not going to stop us from giving away a copy of the film on Blu-Ray following its release on home video last week. After all, it’s October! This is the perfect time of year to hunker down in front of your TV and willfully spook the daylights out of yourself (and your friends), so consider us your Halloween fright enablers with this contest. The Conjuring is based on the true exploits of Ed…
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Sweet Trailer…'Captain America: The Winter Soldier'
When it comes to the first Captain America film (well, the first one in Marvel’s slate of movies leading into 2012’s The Avengers), I tend to feel like I’m in the minority of people who dug its pulpy pleasures. I’m calling it right now and predicting that reaction won’t be quite so split for Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which frankly stands to be the best Marvel production to date. Maybe this is just a case of trailer shock, but I don’t think so – watch the above two minutes and forty seconds’ worth of footage to see for yourself. Now that’s more like it, Marvel. Now that Phase One…
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A 3D Movie In Any Other Format Would Be As Great…
“Great movies are the ones that stay great no matter where you watch them.” Seventy three characters never read so compellingly. This little nugget popped up in my Twitter feed Friday afternoon on October 4th, a direct result of the mid-afternoon jamboree that took place on the opening day for Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity. You may be familiar with this film by now; it’s the one where Sandra Bullock and George Clooney spin aimlessly through space for roughly ninety minutes in the long, unbroken shots that serve as Cuarón’s calling card (and have done since 2001’s Y Tu Mamá También). According to the Internet, you should probably – probably – make a…
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G-S-T Review…The Fifth Estate
Here’s the big question hanging over the head of The Fifth Estate: do we contextualize it based on content or structure? Bill Condon’s first post-Twilight film bites off more than it can chew, but it’s difficult to say whether that’s because of the subject matter – being the origins and rise of both Wikileaks and its controversial founder, Julian Assange – or because of the production’s unavoidable biopic bent; even at the tender age of only seven (which amounts to light years on the web), Wikileaks can already claim a rich, storied, complex history, so much so that two hours feels scarcely enough to scratch the surface of its conception…
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G-S-T TV: American Horror Story: Coven (3.1, "Bitchcraft")
In one episode, American Horror Story: Coven (“season 3”, in typical television vernacular) has established a keener focus than was seen in the whole stretch of last year’s Asylum. That’s an achievement in and of itself; Asylum, unlike the series’ premiere installment, Murder House, went all over the place and brought the kitchen sink back with it. Aliens, Nazis, the devil, killer Santa clause, evil children, an Ed Gein-alike, Anne Frank (yes, Anne Frank), and all the joys of a clergy-backed nuthouse gave Asylum the sensation of weightless indecision. On first impression, the witchcentric Coven won’t have that problem in the slightest, though there’s always room for clutter. For now, we can all rest…
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Interview…Jim Mickle On Religion, Horrror Taboos, & Writing What You Know In ‘We Are What We Are’
As you might be able to ascertain from my review of Jim Mickle’s We Are What We Are, I really, really dug the film – it’s a serious breath of fresh air in an October that’s bizarrely lacking in horror releases (in fairness, the Carrie remake opens next week, but I have a feeling that’s going to be scary for reasons other than its horror beats). Cannibal fare might be relatively niche even in horror, the most niche genre umbrella of them all, but every element that makes up the film’s whole plays in a way that’s universally pleasing; gorehounds don’t get to claim exclusive dibs on what Mickle has done…
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G-S-T Review…We Are What We Are
Last year, horror fans took part in the genre rumpus of Drew Goddard’s masterful The Cabin in the Woods, a movie that by design reminds us why we love horror in the first place. This year, We Are What We Are teaches a variation on the same lesson: it’s the sort of horror film that rewards the diligence and patience that comes part and parcel with true horror fandom. Dig through the mounds of garbage that comprise an average year’s release slate of cinematic skeletons, spirits, and haunts, and you’ll generally be rewarded with priceless gems for your troubles (though there’s a question as to whether it’s worth suffering through…
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G-S-T Review…All the Boys Love Mandy Lane
Where would Jonathan Levine be today if the Weinsteins had actually released All the Boys Love Mandy Lane in 2007? Few indie, D.I.Y. slashers have a history that’s quite so storied as this one’s; Levine started work on the project in 2003, completed it and sold it to Bob and Harvey in 2006, and then went on to make a name for himself with The Wackness in 2008 while Mandy Lane languished in obscurity. (And that’s just the short version of events.) If you’re wondering why a play on “kids go to isolated wilderness, kids get dead” exploitation wound up sitting on a shelf for nearly seven years, chalk it…
