Forty years and numerous sequels and/or reboots have passed, and there’s not a moment in any of them to rival the slow thrust of steadicam butterflies at play in John Carpenter’s original. The well-ordered stalking and resultant butchery of a pair of morbidly obsessed fanboy and fangirl public radio podcasters …
Korea in the 1930s: a young woman (Tae Ri Kim) is hired to care for a mad (or is she?) Japanese heiress (Kim Min-hee), who lives a life of seclusion on a sprawling countryside estate. “What does a crook know about love?” inquires a character in the latest from Chan-wook …
For those who exited The Hangover Part II feeling their time and money well spent, this is the hair of the dog that bit you. The rest of humanity might consider a rabies vaccination before entering. This time, franchise creator Todd Phillips does away with the customary Mike Tyson cameo, …
A surprise departure from Margarethe von Trotta, Germany’s answer to Ingmar Bergman. This softball biopic, filmed in the manner of a stiff '60s melodrama, chronicles a crucial point in the life of the famed German-Jewish philosopher. It also pays homage to her mentor, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and his cinematic skipper, …
In this surprisingly faithful retelling, Gretel (Molly C. Quinn) and her boyfriend Ashton (Andrew James Allen) are stoners who get their hands on a gnarly quarter-ounce of Black Forest, the El Dorado of weed. It hails from the enchanted forest, a labyrinthine grow room in the basement of the wicked …
The only honest one in the cast of this fractured fairy tale is Famke Janssen. When asked why she took the role of the witch, the actress acknowledged that she had a mortgage to pay off. Director Tommy Wirkola, who knew full well how to wrangle Nazi-zombies in Dead Snow, …
Director and co-writer Juho Kuosmanen’s stab at a boxing movie is so played down, there’s no room for a musical score. It runs just a little over 90 minutes, and you’d be hard-pressed to recall a film in this genre that spends less time in the ring. Based on the …
Harper (Mackenzie Davis) invites Abby (Kristen Stewart) to meet her parents and two sisters, all of whom are are operating under false pretenses: Abby was assured by Harper that her potential in-laws would be accepting of their “lifestyle choice,” while the clan are firm believers that a gay daughter has …
Oh, the perils of conformity. Tom (Joel McHale) and Janet (Kerry Bishé) have been happily married for fourteen years. Disgustingly so: the PDA-afflicted twosome can’t keep their hands off each other. At a friend’s annual cocktail party, the couple arrives separately and winds up having sex in the bathroom. It’s …
Werner Herzog happened upon a friend who was screening four films about professional trappers in the Siberian taiga, tradesmen who for centuries have used the same system of capturing animals because they are “unable to invent something new." Herzog contacted its creator, Dmitry Vasyukov, and asked if he could change …
The violence in animation maverick Ralph Bakshi’s 1977 apocalyptic fantasy Wizards could be interpreted as the director’s excuse to get even with TerryToons for all the cute, cuddly creatures he was obliged to draw while under contract with the cartoon studio. Not surprisingly, audiences stayed home in droves. Even today, …
The worst day of a man’s life is about to take a turn for the macabre. Bounding home from his mother’s funeral, homicide detective Gu-Soo (Lee Sun-kyun, gracefully piling on the frustration) accidentally strikes and kills a pedestrian. Wondering where to stash the stiff, the remarkably resourceful Lee converts mom’s …
Writer-director Kôji Fukada goes to great pains (and even greater focal lengths) to make the viewer question the existence of perfect human depravity, only to turn around and confirm it in this exquisitely told puzzler. Is there anything more gratifying than a sweepingly downcast story told in a uniquely exhilarating …
Quentin Tarantino's restaging of the Civil War in a Wyoming bar owes more to Agatha Christie than it does John Ford’s Stagecoach. What was it about this cramped, underdeveloped parlor drama – the majority of which takes place on one set – that caused Tarantino to think 70mm? The frigid …
Quentin Tarantino's restaging of the Civil War in a Wyoming bar owes more to Agatha Christie than it does John Ford’s Stagecoach. What was it about this cramped, underdeveloped parlor drama – the majority of which takes place on one set – that caused Tarantino to think 70mm? The frigid …