Paul Greengrass is known for making some rather hard-hitting films. Regardless of whether those hits land physically (see: his Bourne films) or emotionally (see: United 93) he’s a no nonsense director who tells taut and weighty white-knuckle tales about survival and the potential power of the human spirit. His latest effort Captain Phillips, the adaptation of the autobiographical novel “A Captain’s Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALS, and Dangerous Days at Sea” written by the actual Captain Richard Phillips is, in short, a tense and involving kidnapping movie. In a way it is very much the maritime counterpart to United 93 which makes Greengrass the right man for the job. We live in a…
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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 TV: Low Winter Sun (S1 Finale, Ep 9/10: Ann Arbor/Surrender)
10 is a nice round number – it seems substantive, concise and to the point, right? How fitting it is that AMC’s Low Winter Sun also has 10 episodes? The answer is not at all. As season 1 comes to a close it was clear, even before its collective midway mark, there was nothing substantive or concise about this mini-series. You can’t say things have been easy for the gritty series. Full of drama that can hardly be described as melodramatic it took a stab at being a hard-edge police show (original we know) but one about conflicted individuals dealing with the consequences of their actions as they furiously and…
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G-S-T Review…Blue Caprice
Technology being what it is today; almost anyone can make a movie and do it rather quickly. However, there is a clear difference between the heavy-handed CGI summer blockbusters and oh say, Blue Caprice. What matters is what you are looking for in a movie. Indy films today are raw and gritty and have a much more realistic feeling to them. While the title of this film doesn’t tell you anything about the movie itself, it also doesn’t tell you it was inspired by true events. True and tragic events that led to the Beltway sniper attacks in 2002. Take the raw desire of an independent film, and the lack…
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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…Metallica: Through the Never
It’s a kind of weird and awesome experience to grow up listening to band finally getting to see them in concert. Yes, concert, and we say that because Metallica’s new “movie”, a term to be used very loosely in this situation, can only be called a movie because it was 1. filmed by a camera and 2. will be exhibited theatrically. Held together with what generously can be phrased as a flimsy narrative finds Dane DeHaan, the lead in the 2012 surprise hit Chronicle, as a roadie for the iconic thrash metal band sent on an urgent mission during their sold-out concert. Other than than it’s a bona fide concert that becomes…
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G-S-T Review…Ron Howard’s Rush
With so many box-office bombs populating cineplexes, it’s really comforting and refreshing to see another Ron Howard film on the big screen. Does anyone realize that there’s been 6 Fast & Furious movies made between Rush and A Beautiful Mind? Guess you can say it takes time to make a quality product, but it’s not to say Howard hasn’t kept busy since his Oscar win. While Howard’s films haven’t all been great, it’s safe to say he’s never made a bad film (we’re gonna cut him some slack and just forget about The Dilema, ok?). That said, when he’s on, he is on and most of his films – specifically the…