Spring Breakers‘ audience will be divided into two groups of people: those who get the joke, and those who don’t. Of course, Harmony Korine’s new film operates on such blatant, overt levels of exploitative debauchery that it’s difficult to imagine how anyone could miss the point (subtlety isn’t his forte). If some still see 1999’s Fight Club as an endorsement of its ideas and behaviors rather than a rejection, though, then anything is possible. But Spring Breakers practically invites mainstream viewers to fumble with its meaning while Korine sits on the other side of the camera smirking; he’s almost daring his patrons to take up his film’s central mantra and leave…
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G-S-T Review…The Croods
It’s not odd or unusual that to find timeless advice which benefits our future we should look to the past. However it is odd that we should find sage-like advice and a timeless tale about family values in an animated film about cave men. Yet here we are getting a “Father Knows Best”, rather thinks he knows best life-lesson in the form of this charmingly witty and heart-warming tale from DreamWorks Animation. The plot of The Croods is standard familial fare; a young girl Eep (Emma Stone) yearns for the freedom beyond the confines of her house (in this story, a cave) and the conservative restraints put upon her by her over-protective father Grug (Nic Cage).…
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G-S-T Review…Olympus Has Fallen
Time has not been kind to Antoine Fuqua. Over a decade ago, he became an Oscar-caliber filmmaker (for whatever that label is worth) after Training Day vaulted him into mainstream prominence on the back of its gritty violence, no-nonsense artistry, and mesmerizing performances; in between then and now he’s output nothing but a handful of mild hits (Brooklyn’s Finest) and flops both small (Shooter) and large (King Arthur). Is his fall from grace an example of success eating a director alive? Was Training Day just an anomaly in an otherwise middling filmography? Giving credit where it’s due, Fuqua’s descent isn’t really due to lack of trying, but the trajectory of his career…
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G-S-T Review…Ginger & Rosa
Ginger & Rosa, the latest and possibly most accessible picture to come from British filmmaker Sally Potter, represents a coming of age for Elle Fanning as much as it does for the character she plays. Structurally, the film is pretty standard stuff; as the Ginger of the title, Fanning confronts or falls into situations beyond her age bracket and goes through the painful emotional transformation from child to woman in a scant eighty four minutes of narrative. But Potter has never been a standard director, nor should Fanning be seen any longer as a standard actress. Amazingly, Ginger & Rosa proves an astronomical leap forward for the latter and a…
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G-S-T Review…Admission
There’s a temptation in writing about Admission to make it all about Tina Fey. This is a mistake on several levels; she’s only contributing to the film in an acting capacity, for one, and for another she’s watchable even though she’s essentially playing the exact same role she’s predicated her entire career on. Admission itself is the product of Karen Croner’s script, adapting Jean Hanff Korelitz’s 2009 novel of the same name, and Paul Weitz’s direction, which can be described as “incongruous” at best. That’s where the real conversation lies, but if you find yourself winding around back to Fey, there’s a good reason for that. She’s one half of the likability equation that…
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G-S-T Review…The Call
There’s a serviceable thriller to be found in The Call; in fact, you don’t even have to look very hard to find it. Even better, that thriller happens to be wrapped up in a police procedural yarn that sees the events of a crime unfold from a perspective that we’re not used to. Have you ever called 9-1-1? Have you ever thought for a second about what the person on the other end of the line does day in and day out for a living? Brad Anderson apparently has, and in The Call he anchors his story within that exact point of view. The results aren’t next-level or anything, but his approach makes…
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G-S-T Review…The Incredible Burt Wonderstone
Is there anything more depressing than the sight of a star being devoured by their own persona? The Incredible Burt Wonderstone spends an hour and forty minutes shamelessly cannibalizing Steve Carell’s Michael Scott shtick, even though it’s been two years since he left The Office; apparently, nobody bothered informing director Don Scardino that the puffed-up incompetent buffoon act grew stale before 2011. The real disgrace here is that Carell really does know how to perform, even if movies like Date Night and Dinner For Schmucks give the opposite impression by building themselves around his most overwrought and inorganic routine- just like Burt Wonderstone does for a hundred shapeless, aimless minutes. Here, Carell plays the titular…
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G-S-T Review…Stoker
You owe yourself to give a film a chance beyond the first few minutes. Whether it is finding its own rhythm or for you to allow it to weave its web, the opening experience isn’t always going to be the best foot forward. That’s exactly how I felt while watching Stoker, Park Chan-wook’s English-language debut. In fact, I was caught by the mixed emotions I had felt towards the film afterwards. Somehow I had gone from gently laughing at the film to joining in on its zaniness about half way and downright enjoying myself by the end. In just under 100 minutes, Stoker grew on me by leaps and bounds.…
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G-S-T Review…Dead Man Down
Typically, a chorus of disapproval accompanies the arrival of celebrated foreign filmmakers in Hollywood. The studio system, so goes the familiar song and dance, will suck the life right out of their work and excise everything special about them in favor of formula and higher box office returns. There are, of course, exceptions. Alfred Hitchcock and Paul Verhoeven, for instance, produced some of their best films their respective Tinseltown tenures, but they could well be examples that prove the rule; far more often we see directors visiting from overseas, like Susanne Bier and Fernando Meirelles, get chewed up and spat out on the sidewalk, their style rendered unrecognizable courtesy of…
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G-S-T Review…Greedy Lying Bastards
Get ready to get angry. Of course, if you pay attention to the social and political dialogue surrounding climate change, you probably already are, and that spells trouble for Craig Rosebraugh’s outrage-doc, Greedy Lying Bastards. Provocative and inciting, the film very much preaches to the choir; if you believe, as you should, that global warming is happening right now, then Greedy Lying Bastards won’t do much more than serve as an ideological affirmation. On the other hand, Rosebraugh probably won’t change the minds of anyone who falls on the same side of the fence as career climate change deniers, at least not while he’s so busy being sarcastic and self-righteous.…