Confidence in critiquing a film is often fleeting. You feel inspired to write about certain points, but are unclear of the intangible things that make a film ultimately enjoyable or flat. That’s part of the process of reviewing and being able to adequately touch on those aspects. A Good Day to Die Hard makes it easy to pick apart. The villains are flat and ultimately unworthy. The highlight of the film, a car chase showcasing an enormous military vehicle and various others through crowded Russian streets, utilizes seemingly endless camera angles to thoroughly confuse you before settling into a zany rhythm five minutes later. We are provided action sequence after action sequence, as both star Bruce Willis…
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G-S-T Review…Side Effects
Medication and depression these days go hand-in-hand. However, it wasn’t always this way. If you were unhappy, you often put on a brave face and dealt with it. If you were over a certain age, you couldn’t sit and pout. Nowadays, medication has taken away the fear, anxiety, and depression from everyday life for a lot of people. Are we better off with being in a medically-induced euphoria? At one point a character in Stephen Soderbergh’s latest—and possible last—film, Side Effects, tells their patient that these drugs simply allow us to be our real selves. That’s a tricky idea to grapple with. What is our true selves? The one aided by a pill to be more…
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G-S-T Review…Promised Land
Subtlety, when making a strong point, is never easy. In Promised Land, the heavy-handed apparition rears its ugly hand at the end and wrecks most of what proceeded. Despite this, the film works as a tool to make you question things openly and refrain from becoming emotionally attached to the people making the arguments for or against. Matt Damon’s character Steve is a confusing character first and foremost because he is real. He’s a man we aren’t often used to. He will go off on verbal tangents after working up to something, but if he is faced with someone that has the upper hand in information or personality, he becomes flustered. At one point, Steve gets…
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On Second Thought, Bill's Take: G-S-T Review…The Hobbit
Bagginsis? What is… Bagginsis? Is it chewy? Is it crunchy? There’s a sense of familiarity throughout The Hobbit that never quite plays in its favor. Whether it is the musical cues we are so familiar with after his first three Lord of the Rings films, the insertion of characters that never appeared in the source material to help us remember the other films, or the painfully similar arc The Fellowship of the Ring has to The Hobbit, director Peter Jackson is giving us exactly what we expect. Which is precisely why I’m so disappointed with his latest journey into Middle Earth. While it never rings of phoning it in because of the production values and the…
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G-S-T Review…Killing Them Softly
Not every crime film has to appear the same. There can be grace and beauty, even in death, and time and time again, director Andrew Dominik proves this in Killing Them Softly. Raw, thought-provoking in unexpected ways, and supremely well acted, this is a crime film that stands out from the crowd for good and bad reasons. There’s a filthiness to one character in particular who you actually root to get knocked off. In fact, he gives such a disgusting and down-and-out performance you are left with a bad taste in your mouth. The amount of perspiration he seems to conjure up compared to everyone else is mesmerizing and loathsome…
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G-S-T Review…Silver Linings Playbook
The most startling thing about Silver Linings Playbook is its complete embrace of being unhinged. A film that revolves around mental health issues should feel unpredictable, even if people stubbornly want to shoehorn the film into the romantic comedy genre. Let me be clear here, then, that I never felt Silver Linings fell into that genre. In fact, it doesn’t play fair. This isn’t a neat film. When Jennifer Lawrence’s Tiffany is introduced to Bradley Cooper’s Pat, we see his gaze drift to her breasts ever so casually. When he looks up, we see recognition in her eyes. She doesn’t admonish him there, but later we understand this attention isn’t uncommon for her nor unwanted. Which is…
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Interview…’Silver Linings Playbook’ Writer Matthew Quick
David O. Russell‘s vivacious new film, Silver Linings Playbook, is perhaps his best yet. While being full of charm and humor, it also has something to say about how fragile the mind is and what this world can do to someone on the brink. Bolstered by a barrier-breaking performance by Jennifer Lawrence and a surprisingly great turn by Bradley Cooper, the film will both shock and bewitch you. A lot of what Russell displays on the screen, however, is drawn from the novel of the same name by writer Matthew Quick, who was gracious enough to recently sit down with me to discuss the mixed emotions of watching his book on screen, his thoughts on…
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G-S-T Review…The Master
Sitting down to write about Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest cinematic marvel can make you feel inadequate. There’s so many things going on in this 138-minute film that it stays with you hours, if not days, after walking out of the auditorium of your choice. Putting that kind of experience into words can be disorientating. Yet, the film begs to be expounded upon and dissected. If you’re familiar with Anderson’s films, you’ll know the familiar themes here. The film may receive a lot of press and talk because the setting is based in and around “The Cause,” which seems to bear striking similarities to Scientology, but the film is not about that as much as it is about…
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G-S-T Review…The Dark Knight Rises
A third film seems to be the biggest pitfall in nearly every trilogy. Some see it as a challenge, and that’s likely what propelled director Christopher Nolan to return to the helm of the franchise he rebooted in 2005 with Batman Begins and hit out of the park in 2008 with The Dark Knight. Nolan has been trending steadily upward and seemed to be making strides to not only top his second Batman film, but also send him off with the knowledge that he created one of the greatest trilogies of the modern age and avoided the common trappings of the blockbuster films in the post-Avatar 3D era. Perhaps that was simply too much…
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Interview…’Beasts of the Southern Wild’ Writer/Director Benh Zeitlin
Benh Zeitlin‘s acclaimed Sundance and Cannes bayou fantasy hit Beasts of the Southern Wild is more than a unique exploration of familiar themes in extraordinary situations. It stands as one of the few current films sure to inspire formal discussion and wide-ranging opinions. Earlier this month I had the chance to sit down with the film’s two stars and director for a roundtable discussion and, below, you can find a talk with director Benh Zeitlin — it covers working with Quvenzhané Wallis, the affect of the BP oil spill on the set, difficulties in editing, favorite moments, and getting to work at Skywalker Sound. ———————————————————————————————————————- When dealing with this young cast — especially so many that haven’t acted before…
