Shakes the Clown, Sleeping Dogs Lie, World’s Greatest Dad, God Bless America…Willow Creek. One of these things is not like the other, but that’s what makes Bobcat Goldthwait an exciting filmmaker: he’s capable of stepping out of his comfort zone (which, ironically enough, encompasses uncomfortable pursuits and ideas) and trying his hand at something that’s totally atypical of his filmography. Why make a found footage picture about two people searching for the truth about Bigfoot? Why not? If the results of Bobcat’s foray into the gimmicky horror sub-genre don’t mesh with his other work, they still make for a great midnight movie and represent an interesting evolution in his directorial career. Of course,…
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[IFFBoston Review]…Much Ado About Nothing
There are two distinct halves to Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing: one is a modern rendition of what’s arguably Shakespeare’s wittiest comedy, and the other is, well, a Joss Whedon film. Diehard fans of the Avengers director and all-around geek god will naturally flock to it, and for them, the joy of the project may well come down to the endless delight they experience at every single appearance made by members of Whedon’s regular stable of performers- Clark Gregg, Amy Acker, Alexis Denisof, Nathan Fillion, Fran Kranz, Sean Maher, and others still. It’s fanboy nirvana- Fred and Wesley verbally spar while Mal Reynolds and Agent Coulson yuck it up…
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[IFFBoston Review]…V/H/S/2
Last year’s horror anthology V/H/S (our review from IFFBoston ’12) may only be half a good movie, but it wound up being an exciting experiment even though it didn’t live up to its full promise. Two hours of horror embodied in a succubus, a slasher, demonic possession, aliens, and killer lesbians sounds like a great concept for a midnight movie on paper, and it remains such even in practice; the problem with V/H/S was the utter lack of craft or thought put into several of its segments, which yielded an uneven movie that worked in fits and spurts but with no real consistency beyond how ugly the entire picture looked.…
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“What’s New on Blu?” – Week of 04/29/13
Whether you rent or buy movies, Blu-ray offers the ultimate in sight and sound. Streaming is convenient, but if you plan on watching the movie more than once, you need Blu. So, What’s New On Blu? you ask. Well, good, bad or indifferent, Go,See,Talk offers up a trio of titles that are being released each week. Check out what’s hitting the shelves this Tuesday… ——————————————————————————————————————————— A former high school history teacher gets out of a mental hospital and is placed in the care of his mother. His goal is to win back his ex wife. But he winds up in a romance with a kooky neighbor who also has mental…
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[IFFBoston Review]…The Way, Way Back
If there’s one problem with The Way, Way Back, it’s that it takes about twenty minutes to find its groove. In that span of time, we’re kept in the company of unpalatable characters ranging from mostly terrible adults to mostly petulant teens, while our anchor in the setting, the painfully awkward protagonist, Duncan (Liam James), remains staunchly introverted and passive toward the world around him. We should feel sorry for the kid right away, of course, except that he does nothing but mope and squint through the torment of being on summer vacation in Marshfield, MA with his mom, Pam, (Toni Colette) and her obnoxious boyfriend, Trent, (Steve Carell); he’s…
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[IFFBoston Review]…The Spectacular Now
If The Spectacular Now, director James Ponsoldt’s follow-up to his 2012 sophomore effort, Smashed, can be described in a word, it’s “candid”. Of course, there are many other words well-suited for conveying the film’s numerous positive qualities- sweet, funny, insightful, vital, bold, and even original- but contemporary coming-of-age dramedies usually don’t bother with being this frank about their subject matter. Ponsoldt, however, isn’t one to move sideways around his material and instead plows into it head-on, weaving a narrative that flows with ease between moments of tenderness, drunken juvenility, love, heartbreak, and straight-up shock without ever feeling inauthentic or forced. Teenage fare this genuine is a rare thing indeed. How…
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G-S-T Review…Drafthouse Films’ Graceland
Writer/director Ron Morales gives us a new spin on a familiar kidnapping yarn but tells a story that’s so believable and grounded you’d think it was a documentary. A superbly paced and intense flick, this is the kind of film we don’t get to see every day but would wish there were more of. In a world where we have films like Ransom and Taken, people walking out of Gracelandmight likely comment that Morales’ film is taken, er, taking its sweet time because this is a slow film. Yet that’s the point, it’s not about wiretaps, SWAT teams, a Tony Scott style of camera work, or an adrenaline-fueled rescue. Not at all. The focus of Morales’ film…
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G-S-T Review…Pain & Gain
What does Michael Bay unhinged look like on celluloid? That’s not a question most of us really need answered; eighteen years spent making glossy, lunkheaded action films, blockbusters based on toy lines, and useless horror remakes speak volumes on the subject of Bay’s auteurdom. But maybe the Transformers mastermind has been done an injustice. Maybe, beneath the frat boy wit and visual chaos of his cinema, Bay has kept his one Big Idea squirreled away for safekeeping, waiting for the right opportunity to unleash his unspoiled artistic vision on his audiences. Or maybe Pain & Gain is just an erroneous high water mark in bad taste filmmaking. Whatever the case may be,…
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G-S-T Review…The Angel's Share
Lest anyone form an early reaction to The Angel’s Share that unfairly paints the film as a riff on Alexander Payne’s Sideways, there are two characteristics present in the former that distinguish it from the latter: social drama and a heist caper. Put another way, Ken Loach’s twenty fifth picture (and also his latest production with screenwriter Paul Laverty) engages on a macro, political level instead of a micro, personal level while managing to disguise itself as frothy entertainment. For another comparison, let your mind wander back to 1997’s The Full Monty; that may offer a better idea of what The Angel’s Share has to offer in its mixture of legitimate…
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Interview…’Graceland’ Writer/Director Ron Morales
Writer/director Ron Morales’ Graceland is a gripping and all-too-real feeling story of a kidnapping gone wrong. Ron’s work is very limited but his sophomore feature Graceland is so well-crafted and engaging you’d think he’d culled this from a lifetime of working in the film business. Before making his debut film Santa Mesa (with Melissa Leo) Ron had been working in the industry (in the camera/electrical department and as a key grip) for about 13 years and it’s likely he’s picked up a more than a few things watching/working on high profile films like Spider-Man 3, Michael Clayton and The Departed. His passion project Graceland, shot entirely in his home country of the Philippines,…
