Tim Burton provides such a distinct look, feel, and texture to every one of his films — regardless of how you might feel about them — that he’s very much a genre unto himself. Taking a heavy influence from landmark German Expressionist films, he’s pioneering this generation’s brand of wacky, dark-tinged cinema as his creations have danced across the screen for more than a quarter of a century. Yet, as we’ve seen in his recent efforts, a little too much creative freedom — as in all of it — can yield the most unwieldy or disastrous of narratives. For his latest effort, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, the eccentric director gets to do what he…
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[Fantastic Fest Review]…The Young Offenders
“There are two things you need for a good adventure: a treasure map, and someone dumb enough to go with you.” If you were to read that, you might just be inclined to follow the person who said it. If not, you might just miss out on one hell of a wild ride. The Young Offenders, the debut feature from Peter Foott, is a story about never-do-wells just trying to get ahead despite being completely out of options. Essentially, this can be seen as a comical call to action for those with zero opportunities. As someone once said, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.” And these…
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[Fantastic Fest Review]…They Call Me Jeeg Robot
If you’re just about numb to comic book films these days, then allow this quaint Italian picture to cleanse your palette. The debut feature-length effort from from Gabriele Mainetti seems like a fresh yet familiar take on this type of film; it also reminds once how much fun this type of story can be sans all the machismo and infighting. They Call Me Jeeg Robot is an impressive piece of work, with violence to spare, but it doesn’t glamorize heroes or villains. That’s an important thing to note because it also earns points for originality even if the story is of the passé “hero born of toxic waste” variety. It’s rare to pair the words “origin…
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[Fantastic Fest Review]…A Dark Song
At Fantastic Fest, the largest genre film festival in the United States, you tend to get two types of films. First, there’s the wacky, chimerical, excess-for-the-sake-of-it, ratings-be-damned insanity. Then you get the very pensive, David Fincher- or David Lynch-type narratives. A Dark Song, the debut effort from Irish film director Liam Gavin, is very much the latter. An expertly constructed film, and one that moves at a snail’s pace, asks you to not just have the patience of the main character, Sophia (Catherine Walker), but also have faith that the payoff is worth all the prep. A Dark Song is a claustrophobic picture about a woman who, following the traumatic loss of her son, has…
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[Fantastic Fest Review]…Terry Teo
Four years ago, Danger 5 screened at Fantastic Fest to a welcome response. In 2014, Wastelander Panda was met with similar acclaim. Now, a similarly entertaining and fairly wacky television show arrives, this time from Housebound writer/director Gerard Johnstone no less. We’d like to introduce Terry Teo. Whether you’re familiar with book series that inspired this (and the popular ’80s children’s television series it spawned) is irrelevant. In less than 60 seconds, we learn a whole lot about Terry, the teenage cat burglar, as soon as he opens his mouth. After entering a property that is clearly not his dwelling, Terry takes off his shoes and proclaims, “I know I’m robbing the place, but that’s no reason to be disrespectful.” And so…
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[Fantastic Fest Review]…Dearest Sister
People say that there is art through adversity. As such, to begin, it’s worth stating that Mattie Do‘s latest feature is the 13th film to come out of Laos… in its history. Furthermore, it is worth noting that she is a female filmmaker in a Marxist state. So while the country is fraught with local censorship, Do is able to deliver quality films in a place where there is no film industry or infrastructure for that kind of entertainment. Creative struggles are one thing, but judging the finished product, Dearest Sister is an admittedly hard film to review. The premise seems straightforward, yet vague enough to pique your interest: “After moving to the city, a poor…
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G-S-T Review…Suicide Squad
It’s depressing when you look at a film and think how it could have been done better. In short, Suicide Squad is hyper-styled, over-produced, and yet very underwhelming. But one must realize that what we see on screen doesn’t just happen. These productions have a lot more hands in the pot than you might comprehend, especially considering a studio with clout like Warner Bros. Pictures. Even a competent director like David Ayer probably had his hand forced in a number of situations which recalls that saying that goes, “what is a camel? It’s a horse designed by a committee.”. Looking past the colorfully gritty versions of some of DC’s darkest…
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Off the Shelf…Hollywood in Vienna: The World of James Horner
To anyone even remotely interested in film or film music, James Horner should be more than a household name. With over 130 original compositions for a variety of film and television productions, Horner has put an indelible stamp on the entertainment world and, as a result, pop culture in general. Horner’s work became so essential to the project that he was not merely a consultant to each production, it was the narrative, characters, and editing that needed to keep pace with and adapt to what he’d written. That’s an exaggeration, sure, but to film fans, it sure feels that way. Arguably the poster child for the profession, John Williams, will be remembered…
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G-S-T Review…The Nice Guys
Whatever narrative nugget come from the mind of Shane Black, it is most likely guaranteed to be gold – comedic, dramatic, or something in between. Given that this hilarious detective yarn seems culled from any number of buddy cop films, or seminal TV shows, The Nice Guys is an uproarious outing, and one that allows Black to prove that what’s old is new again. Filmmakers can fall into a rhythm (or a rut) where they more or less make the same movie. The Nice Guys seems familiar, but Black is able to make this different by making it what he wants it to be. That does however mean a few too many…
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G-S-T Review…Midnight Special
When it comes to Jeff Nichols, the man knows how to keep you in suspense while teetering on the edge of boredom. That’s meant to be a compliment, not an insult, but the banality, or better, normalcy in his films help ground both the protagonist and the viewer in the real world. A combination of roughly 85% practicality, and a very alluring 15% sci-fi, he repeatedly succeeds in these dream-like narratives because his stories draw on viewers’ imaginations and really hit home on an emotional level. Midnight Special, an homage as much as it is a stylized throwback, is light and fast, and gets the job done with nothing more…
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G-S-T-Review…Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
If you saw one movie last weekend, it was most likely Zack Snyder’s follow-up to Man of Steel. A cinematic event both hotly anticipated and highly divisive in the movie-going community, this iconic “match up” is something of an anomaly. On paper (both the story from David S. Goyer and Chris Terrio, and the various seminal comics they culled from) this big screen throw down was a grapefruit that Snyder and company should have knocked out of the park….but sadly, BvS is a bit of a mess. While the intent was to craft a reverent adaptation, what fans got was a sluggish affair – one mashed together so hastily that very…
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G-S-T Review…Zootopia
You really have to give Disney a hand for getting back in the animation game. Thanks to hits like Wreck-It Ralph, Frozen, and last year’s Big Hero 6, Disney is once again a major force in the industry. Change is inevitable, and as things go, producing features using drawn animation could only have lasted so long. CGI powehouse Pixar hit their stride long ago, but now it is the Mouse House who is seemingly ahead of the curve when it comes to pixels and the digital arts. As the studio has come in and out of greatness, one thing has been constant – they are fantastic storytellers who are able to draw in…
