Did you completely forget that there’s a reboot in the works for Dutch filmmaking master Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop? Full disclosure: I sure did, and ignorance definitely felt an awful lot like bliss. The first trailer hit the Interwebs last night, and after taking a look, I’d be grateful to return to that idyllic state of not knowing. Hachi machi, this looks like a tone-deaf dud. I’ll admit right off the bat that I’m not giving the movie much of a chance, but I’ll also quickly point out that my wholesale disinterest in the production and my immediately prickly reaction to the footage has more to do with the fact that…
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Sweet Trailer…'Gravity'
How do you sum up seven years of anticipation in succinct, clean prose? Alfonso Cuarón hasn’t had a film in theaters in nearly a decade, but he’s been hard at work on his latest, Gravity, for nearly that entire span of time; couple the movie’s long gestation period with an observation on the quality of his preceding work, Children of Men, and Gravity immediately becomes the sort of project any dyed-in-the-wool cinephile worth their salt will accord their attention and their unabashed excitement (both of which are sure to be intensified in light of the wildly positive early reviews out of VIFF). So, with that in mind, here’s the full…
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‘Blue Jasmine’: Empathy For The Elite
Blue Jasmine is a film about the 1% and Bernie Madoff that actually isn’t about either of these things at all; they’re elements of window dressing rather than substance, as Woody Allen’s eponymous heroine might herself declare. They only comprise the film’s backdrop, against which Allen fashions his examination of Jasmine’s shame, guilt, and inability to assume personal responsibility over her life, while also posing a fundamental question whose answer invariably shapes our response as the audience. Can we accord sympathy to a has-been member of America’s obscene wealth culture? If no, then Blue Jasmine may resemble a variation on cruel revenge fantasy, or simply play out as a colossal waste of time.…
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Interview…Jason Lapeyre & Robert Wilson Talk ‘I Declare War’
Do you remember being twelve? Jason Lapeyre and Robert Wilson do, and they want you to share in their reminiscences with I Declare War (read Marc’s review here and mine here), a cinematic reverie that’s all about the clouds hovering just above the bright spots of childhood. It’s also a film where twelve year olds run around with automatic weapons and rocket launchers, but don’t worry; that’s just their imaginations talking. Sticks and balloons become assault rifles and grenades in their variation of capture the flag, where death can be conquered after counting to ten steamboats (unless you get pasted with one of those grenade first). Turns out that the real harms…
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Lighting The Affleck Signal
Preface: I don’t really have a dog in the entire “who should play Batman next” fight, and as a general rule I don’t find rampant fan-casting to be either productive or a rewarding use of my time*. More than that, I don’t really care for the current big-screen iteration of Batman (outside of The Dark Knight, a film I enjoy but consider flawed, I think Nolan’s Bat-franchise happens to be one of the most overrated contemporary movie trilogies), and I presume that DC’s intention going forward is to rely on those films as canon when building their Justice League brand in time to counter Marvel’s Avengers pictures. And yet here…
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G-S-T Review…You're Next
There’s a pivotal moment in Adam Wingard’s You’re Next where the film upends viewer expectations entirely, not with witty meta twists (though those are valuable), but with the simple plunge of a kitchen knife. Normally, we flock to horror films to observe the wanton butchering of the cast by a brutal, unidentifiable psychopath; in nearly any other movie , the blade would be in the murderer’s hands. Here, though, it’s actually swung by Erin (Sharni Vinson), You’re Next‘s final girl, which comes as almost as much of a surprise to us as to her would-be attacker. Apparently, home invasion victims aren’t as helpless as they used to be. Truthfully, people designated as…
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Sweet Trailer…'Witching & Bitching'
One thing can be said about Spanish filmmaker Alex de la Iglesia: he knows how to compose strikingly weird imagery. Truthfully, a lot more can be said about him than that, as he’s one of Spain’s most visually inventive contemporary directors; one only needs to watch The Last Circus or 800 Balas for proof of his gifts as an artist. But even if you’re well-versed in his filmography, the trailer for his latest, Witching & Bitching, may yet leave you scratching your head in puzzlement, wonder what it is that you just subjected yourself to. And that’s kind of a good feeling. Witching & Bitching is a clear cousin to horror films like From Dusk till Dawn and Doghouse, pitting…
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Sweet 2nd Trailer…'Don Jon'
What can’t Joseph Gordon-Levitt do? Since reasserting his focus on acting in 2004 with Mysterious Skin, the man has appeared in an impressive tally of films, ranging from indies (2005’s excellent Brick), to blockbusters (The Dark Knight Rises), to genre movies of several stripes (Looper, (500) Days of Summer), and he’s even founded hitRecord, an “online collaborative production company”. (Whatever the hell that means.) This year, he’s branched out even further by taking on directing and writing duties on Don Jon, in which he also stars as the title character. Guess he’s a student of da Vinci. Or, at the very least, Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx. Gordon-Levitt’s film is…
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G-S-T Review…In a World…
On paper, a career in the movie trailer voiceover business doesn’t suggest much by way of glamor, and in truth, In a World…, the feature directing, writing, and producing debut of the multifaceted Lake Bell, doesn’t little to shake that perception. Instead, Bell’s film builds a lived-in and authentic world where people ruthlessly vie for coveted gigs which appear so minor from a distance that their ability to inspire cutthroat competition is almost puzzling; it also happens to absurdly engaging and very, very funny, but the punchlines feel natural, unfussy, and not at all dependent on getting the audience to laugh at the misery and humiliation of the characters on…
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G-S-T Review…jOBS
Joshua Michael Stern’s Jobs has one question to answer, and one question only: can the towering genius of the late Steve Jobs be adequately embodied by Michael Kelso on the big screen? Every critic reviewing the film will inevitably struggle to utter, “yes”, if only because no one wants to risk their credibility by going to bat for an Ashton Kutcher performance. But, miracle of miracles, he’s actually pretty good, good enough at least to warrant real praise instead of yawning skepticism or begrudging acceptance, but not necessarily good enough to raise Jobs above the sub-standard, thoroughly muddled biopic Stern crafts around his lead’s portrayal of Apple’s driven, visionary, and utterly ruthless…
