In Jon Watts‘ simplistic thriller, Kevin Bacon portrays a shady police officer who oozes unsavory from the very first moment we see him. Forget that the film starts with him dragging a body to dump in makeshift, yet well-worn pit in some clandestine location. Most of the time, Bacon has a uniquely effortless way of telegraphing that he’s a bad dude with very little effort. Still, his insidious delivery can be as charming as it is nebulous. Playing a corrupt Sheriff, he’s prepared to go great lengths to conceal his nefarious deeds, but also keep the fact he’s a dirty cop under wraps. Yet, like a modern-day Scooby-Doo episode, he would have gotten away with it…
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G-S-T Review…The Martian
What can you say about Ridley Scott‘s work that hasn’t already solidified him as one of the more amazing and versatile filmmakers of our time? Well here’s some more praise – The Martian is easily one of the best movies you’ll see this year, and certainly one of the best of the last five. Scott’s adaptation (of the book of the same name) showcases a multitude of competent decisions and finesse that make The Martian a win in all categories as well as an entirely fun-filled cinematic experience. On the surface level, the film might appear to be a drama, but with healthy injections of Matt Damon charm, this one-man show looks like a variety act…
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G-S-T Review…Drafthouse Films’ The Keeping Room
Simply stated in the title cards of Daniel Barber‘s bleak and understated narrative, “War is cruelty“. And at the start of his film, Barber spends little time getting to the needless and hateful violence of people all but removed from morals, and the gravity of their actions. Hardships and loneliness for women abound, and The Keeping Room is but a small sampling of how vulnerable wives, daughters, and the like can be with a war on. Yet these women are hard and driven when their lives are at stake. There will always be pain and misery on the battlefield, but the same hardships can spill over and affect those left to…
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G-S-T Review…Digging For Fire
Joe Swanberg makes films a little off the beaten path and that’s his charm. His latest effort, Digging For Fire, is a weird trip down the rabbit hole for Jake Johnson and Rosemary DeWitt, as they portay the seemingly normal, seemingly pedestrian married couple who unknowingly spend a few days way outside of their element. Together they are mostly fine, and deal with issues we all face. Apart, however, these banal individuals are faced with a number of what if? moments that has them looking, digging rather, for something they think is missing in their lives. You never know what you’re going to get with an independent film as ambitious…
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G-S-T Review…Ant-Man
If you think that comic book movies have reached their potential, and have gotten far too gritty and realistic, Ant-Man is the perfect palate cleanser. What is amazing about the film is that, barring the drama from Edgar Wright’s withdrawal, it works at all. A highly unlikely hero, and a diamond in the rough, Paul Rudd brings charm, delight, and that working class hero appeal to the role of Scott Lang (even though he is a burglar in the film). Ant-Man works on multiple levels and mainly, much like the success of famous horror movies, the familial element is what keeps this from being just a mindless, confusing and overblown action piece…
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G-S-T Review…Spy
In the world of comedy, there is funny, and there is Paul Feig. The man just knows how to make people laugh, and so much so that it hurts. He’s already got a lovely working relationship with Melissa McCarthy and he himself is a writing/directing dynamo, but it is very unclear where Feig’s brilliance ends and McCarthy’s begins. Perhaps it’s not worth wasting too many brain cells as their latest collaboration is ten kinds of funny, and that’s all that matters. Spy films and their ilk have seen countless, and we mean countless, spoofs, homages, or blatant copycats. Spy is bits of all three and yet still manages to put focus on what is…
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G-S-T Review…Mad Max: Fury Road
Ah, to ride through the gates of Valhalla, shiny and chrome. Tis the dream of any action junkie, right? That wouldn’t be a bad way to go. If you haven’t seen Mad Max: Fury Road yet, you have probably been just too busy or, like me, tied up with a new baby. But we’ll let you in on a little secret…it’s spectacular! It’s also everything every critic, everywhere, has said about it. Now the film is really something special, but even more remarkable is that at 70 years of age, George Miller is still making some of the best entertainment out there. He not only raised the action bar, he broke it,…
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G-S-T Review…Pitch Perfect 2
In the spectacular finale of 2012’s Pitch Perfect, the girls, the “Barden Bellas”, sing a mash up of several songs. Yet one in particular actually transcends the film and appropriately describes what’s being set up in the sequel. Thinking of those Jessie J lyrics in the context of Pitch Perfect 2, “everybody look to their left, everybody look to the right“, this sequel is about the girls finding strength by looking to the Bella standing beside them. This sequel is indeed that sappy, but it’s not the whole story either. Elizabeth Banks takes the helm, and makes sure there’s plenty of irreverent glee in this follow-up effort. It’s absurd, self-aware, and insensitive,…
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G-S-T Review…The Age of Adaline
Is there such a thing as the one? One person who causes us to let our guard down, and then turns our world around? If you’re lucky, you find that person in your lifetime. But contrary to the words of the philosopher Jagger, time is not on our side. Adaline however has that envied yet double-edged luxury, only she uses her borrowed years to stay away from love. Not out of fear of her own heart breaking…but those of whom she meets. Lee Toland Kreiger’s The Age of Adaline is a charming and endearing love story, one that has all the makings of a modern classic. It’s also not the…
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G-S-T Review…Man From Reno
Editor’s Note: This review has been republished. It originally posted with the rest of our reviews and coverage at Fantastic Fest this past September. Even though it’s a slow-boil mystery, Man From Reno is film that engages quickly and keeps you transfixed. Like the hard-boiled detective films, and noir fiction which inspired it, Dave Boyle‘s involving story is layered with sly, pensive and effective reveals. Further, it’s punctuated by just the right amount of wrong elements that help keep us in suspense for the duration. In San Francisco, hugely popular Japanese novelist Aki (played by Ayako Fujitani) becomes caught up in something more elaborate than one of her best-selling books. On…
