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…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…
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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…A.C.O.D.
In comedy, timing is everything; timing can mean the difference between an audience erupting in belly laughs or awkward chuckles because they’re too polite to stay quiet. So when we sift through the individual pieces that constitute A.C.O.D.‘s whole, the element of timing emerges as chief among them. You need good timing to make bland jokes work, and without a good cast, there’s no good timing. How first time director Stu Zicherman managed to assemble his immensely talented group of actors and actresses- which starts with Adam Scott and ends with Jane Lynch – is a wacky mystery, but bully for him for finding the right people to make his…
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G-S-T Review…Gravity
The written word is a poor medium for articulating Gravity‘s many wondrous qualities neatly and efficiently; more than any other film released in 2013, this one – hailing from virtuoso Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron seven years after the monumental Children of Men – may be best described as an experience. That’s a pretty way of saying that Gravity demands to be seen in a properly calibrated theater, which is itself a passive aggressive, mildly pleading clarion call for all bored moviegoers to bum rush their local multiplexes and ruthlessly run box offices out of tickets stubs for the picture. More so than other mainstream contemporary spectacles, the film must be…
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G-S-T Review…Parkland
For those of us who weren’t alive in the 60s, the assassination of John F. Kennedy was a very, very, very bad thing for the United States of America, and for the entire world. So bad, in fact, that Peter Landesman took upon himself the task of dedicating an hour and a half’s worth of narrative solely to convey that exact idea. The result of his blunt-force artistry is Parkland, a movie that bursts with promise on the page but never manages to fully live up to its latent potential on the screen; branding the film a total failure would be dishonest, but so too would calling it anything above…
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G-S-T Review…Don Jon
Few stars working today enjoy the same degree of near-universal adulation as Joseph Gordon-Levitt, now nine years out after ending his acting hiatus and all grown up from his stint on TV sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun. His latest film, Don Jon, a modern riff on the licentious legend of classic literary anti-hero Don Juan, may best evince how far he’s come from his Tommy Solomon salad days; here, he not only serves as leading man, but as writer and director, tasks he’s previously taken on with short films (produced by and distributed through hitRECord, the studio he and his brother founded in 2004) but never with a feature-length effort.…
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Interview…Joseph Gordon-Levitt Talks ‘Don Jon’, Jersey, & the Ritual of 35mm
After returning to acting following his post-3rd Rock From the Sun hiatus, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s star remains on the rise, and yet it’s impossible to argue that he’s still growing up. Part of that stems from the smart choices he’s made following his second coming – he’s picked a blend of independent projects and more commercially available films, ranging from Brick to Inception – but more than anything, it’s because of Don Jon, his latest production and his first stint directing and writing on a feature-length movie. Anchoring his film in New Jersey, Gordon-Levitt steps in front of the camera to bring his hero, a modern take on that classical literary…
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G-S-T Review…The Family
The Family is a lot of things; a deliriously violent black comedy, the first real Luc Besson film Luc Besson has made since 2011’s The Lady (which was itself preceded by a string of children’s movies and fantasy fare), the latest entry in his filmography well beyond his retirement date, and further proof to fuel suspicions that the ever-lovely Michelle Pfeiffer keeps a magical painting hidden somewhere in her attic, to name a few. But it’s primarily a film that’s about Robert De Niro, not just in his capacity as its leading man but as a fixture in mob cinema iconography, so much so that The Family wouldn’t make a lick…
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Sweet Trailer…'Escape From Tomorrow'
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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Off the Shelf…’Dredd’
The list of rules set in place for rebooting bygone films is relatively anemic; general wisdom dictates that such practices should be verboten, but movie studios rarely allow little niggling details like hindsight and foresight get in the way of a quick buck. So the reboot machine churns, plopping recycling garbage onto a conveyor belt that empties straight into your local multiplex year after year, producing little of interest or note and giving audiences very little reason to leave their homes and attend the theater. Wonder why VOD has become so popular? Wonder no longer. Yet even in the realm of rebooting – not quite the same as “remaking”, be assured,…
