All posts by Alex Brannan

All Movie Reviews, Drama, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Snowden (2016) Movie Review

A movie by a veteran (yet perhaps out of touch) director starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt depicting a true story that was previously depicted in an acclaimed documentary. Is this The Walk. No, this is Snowden.

Snowden follows the CIA career and subsequent “whistleblowing” of Edward Snowden (Gordon-Levitt), as well as his relationship with Lindsay Mills (Shailene Woodley).

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Snowden’s script at times reads more like a civics lesson than a drama. Feeling the need to Continue reading Snowden (2016) Movie Review →

Film Philosophy / Editorials, Horror

The Blair Witch Effect, Reboot Culture, and the Question of Quality Horror

A few months back I wrote an article pertaining to the cliches of the horror genre and how these cliches could possibly be subverted in order to make a refreshingly unique horror film. It was something I wrote on a whim while thinking about screenwriting, and it is more light in an attempt to be humorous than it is indicting or inquisitive.

With the upcoming release of The Blair Witch Project reboot, I find it pertinent to revisit the classic horror film and how its innovation was at the same time historic and sadly prophetic.

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1999’s The Blair Witch Project has, since its inception, been the origin of a deeply passionate debate. The question is simple: Is the film Continue reading The Blair Witch Effect, Reboot Culture, and the Question of Quality Horror →

2017 Academy Awards, Award Ceremonies, Movie News

2017 Oscar Movie Season Preview

The first weekend of September 2016 has brought us two major disappointments (The Disappointments Room and When the Bough Breaks) and one movie with some early Oscar buzz. Clint Eastwood’s biopic Sully is earning attention, particularly for Tom Hanks’ usual strong performance. With Summer behind us and the mediocre lot of September ahead, I feel the need to look a few months down the line at some movies that promise to be some of the best of the year.

Oscar-nominated movies can come around at any time during the calendar year. We will more than likely see Continue reading 2017 Oscar Movie Season Preview →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Drama, Leave it

When the Bough Breaks (2016) Movie Review

A happily married couple (Regina Hall and Morris Chestnut) are looking for a surrogate to carry their child. The young woman they choose (Jaz Sinclair) is sweet, kind-eyed, and 100% on-board. However, she is looking for more than a simple payment.

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As simple as the tactics used are, the film takes its time to establish sympathy for the relationship of our protagonists, and it does this well. You’d be surprised how Continue reading When the Bough Breaks (2016) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Horror, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

The Disappointments Room (2016) Movie Review

The title of The Disappointments Room begs the question: Is The Disappointments Room a disappointment? The short answer: Yes.

The film begins similarly to Haneke’s Funny Games, only without the amazing sound cues. A couple (Kate Beckinsale and Mel Raido) and their young son (Duncan Joiner) move out to the country for a new beginning after a terrible accident. The house, which from certain angles looks more like a castle, is a mess: broken light fixtures, leaking ceilings, junk everywhere. We follow this nuclear family, unassuming and entirely banal, as they fall victim to a strange presence in their home (maybe; it becomes impossible to tell).

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The Disappointments Room is a film that is utterly basic. It checks all the boxes of a basic horror movie and then Continue reading The Disappointments Room (2016) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Drama, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Sully (2016) Movie Review

Sully is literally marred by explosions. They are the nightmares of the title character—pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger (Tom Hanks), who successfully landed a crashing plane into the Hudson River in 2009—a streaking jet plane striking into Times Square. These are the volatile internal demons of an outwardly calm man.

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Clint Eastwood’s latest directorial outing works on two levels of conflict. There is this internal struggle, and there is the closed-door politics of the man’s otherwise heroic actions. The divide between the two, stylistically, is two different movies. It is arguably more effective to Continue reading Sully (2016) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Documentary, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World (2016) Movie Review

“Lo,” the first message ever sent across the internet. “Lo” as in “Log” without the g, as the computer sending the message crashed before the message could be completed. This is the beautiful irony of the internet that director Werner Herzog tries to capture in his new documentary Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World. The inception of the world wide web was at one point a “revolution” that was about to irrevocably change the course of the modern world, and it is at another point an inception that is as archaic-sounding as a recovered fossil.

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Video games that map molecules, cars that drive themselves, online class rosters that academically blow Stanford students out of the water. The internet is a mesmerizing world of possibilities that we all take for granted every day. The problem with this premise is that Continue reading Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World (2016) Movie Review →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Like It

Blood Father (2016) Movie Review

John Link (Mel Gibson) is a sober ex-con who scrawls tattoos on upper thighs out of his trailer in the California desert. When his long-disappeared daughter suddenly re-enters his life with a criminal past trailing her, he must take drastic actions to protect her.

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Blood Father does not have a stellar narrative. It has a crass script with little nuance. But it is Continue reading Blood Father (2016) Movie Review →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Drama, Like It

Imperium (2016) Movie Review

Nate Foster (Daniel Radcliffe) is an FBI new recruit working in counter-terrorism in Washington D.C. He is unassuming and isolated in his eccentric brand of intelligence. When a possible White Supremacist terrorist plot surfaces, Foster is called upon to go undercover within the group to stifle any attack plan.

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There is a fury to Imperium, first evidenced in an expository montage containing still images of real-life neo-Nazism. This fury becomes more Continue reading Imperium (2016) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Comedy, Like It, Romance

Bernie and Rebecca (2016) Short Film Review

Oh, the tale of the blind date. It is always equal parts sad, desperate, and inexplicably sweet. Bernie and Rebecca may take place at the tail end of such a story, but it still maintains these identifiable tones. It begins at Rebecca’s (Brianna Barnes) front door, where Bernie (Kyle Davis) explains that he does not go by the name Bernard. It is an intriguing opening monologue, explaining the personality differences between shorthand vs. formal names.

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The film continues with dialogue of this nature. It is what you would expect from date conversation, but it is not Continue reading Bernie and Rebecca (2016) Short Film Review →