Movies I absolutely loved. Love, of course, is a subjective term. For me, loving a film means being wholly drawn into it or being intrigued into watching the film again. If I left a movie with my mouth agape or nodding my head contently, chances are “Love It.” is my short-form review.
Genesis (Cliff Curtis), a severely bipolar man, walks through the rain into a game shop after escaping from an institution. He begins playing a game of chess with himself, mumbling all of the possible moves to himself.
The savant is later released into the care of his brother, who has social troubles of his own that leaves little time to accommodate Genesis. Genesis finds an old friend who runs a chess club, and he strives to Continue reading The Dark Horse (2016) Movie Review
Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), in the process of leaving her boyfriend, suddenly becomes party to a car wreck. She awakens in a concrete room chained to the wall. An effectively desperate Winstead struggles just to reach her phone in a tense scene that culminates in the menacing introduction of Michelle’s captor Howard (John Goodman).
This early standoff between Winstead and Goodman is fascinating, although it would have played better with Continue reading 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016) Movie Review
The Witch follows the trials of a 17th century New England family banished from society to a home on the outskirts of a threatening woods. They struggle to survive: the crops die, the hunting traps bear no food, the chicken’s eggs bear stillborn chicks. But what is to blame for the family’s misfortune? For the Puritanical family, their misfortune becomes a hysteria over religious heathenism.
The film is marked by quiet. At the film’s outset, we get a flurry of Continue reading The Witch (2016) Movie Review
From minute one of Deadpool, it is clear that we are dealing with a wholly unique film. If you didn’t know what you were getting into with this film, the opening credits sequence explains it for your rather efficiently.
Given a film that never Continue reading Deadpool (2016) Movie Review
Jafar Panahi’s Taxi begins on an extended POV take of a taxi picking up passengers in Tehran. These passengers engage in a long debate over the ethics of execution as a deterrent of crime. It is a strangely humorous meditation in the poetic form of bickering.
Taxi is a series of vignettes told exclusively from Continue reading Taxi (2015) Movie Review
World of Tomorrow, the Oscar-nominated short film from Don Hertzfeldt, follows the journey of a young girl Emily (Winona Mae) as she is shown through the memories of the future by her clone (Julia Pott).
The short is a densely-packed 15 minutes that meanders through complexities of time travel, artificial sentience, and love. The simplicity of the Continue reading World of Tomorrow (2015) Short Film Review
The Revenant has the viscera of a Braveheart or a Gangs of New York, with the now familiar touch of director Alejandro G. Inarritu. His style shows through with an even stronger flourish than that of his previous film Birdman, as it links itself more naturally with the thematic elements that are in play in the film.
The film centers on Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio), a hunter on a fur trading expedition who seeks vengeance after becoming severely wounded and left for dead in the 19th century wilderness.
The only true way to describe this film is to call it Continue reading The Revenant (2015) Movie Review
As far as mumblecore goes–a genre defined by its hyper-naturalism–Your Sister’s Sister comes off as one of the most natural.
Unmotivated and perhaps alcohol dependent Jack (Mark Duplass) has just spent a year without his late brother Tom. He has no Continue reading Your Sister’s Sister (2011) Movie Review
The Oscar shortlisted short film Stutterer begins with a tight extreme close up of a man’s mouth as he attempts to speak on the phone about an issue with a bill. The man’s speech impediment is insufferable, but his thoughts are lush and elegant.
The man, Greenwood (Matthew Needham), works–understandably–best with the written word. He has a flourishing Continue reading Stutterer (2015) Short Film Review
The “Roadshow” 70mm exhibition of Quentin Tarantino’s eighth film, The Hateful Eight, begins with a three minute overture. It is a haunting piano, string, and xylophone melody that plays over a red splash screen. This overture, and the films full score, are handled by master film composer Ennio Morricone.
Morricone’s career spans decades, and his work has included iconic scores in Sergio Leone Westerns. It is thus apropos that he tackles this films soundtrack, which is at times the dominant attraction, crescendoing into Hellish tremolos from thunderous strings. It is a brilliant score that mixes Western and Gothic motifs.
Tarantino begins The Hateful Eight by Continue reading The Hateful Eight (2015) Movie Review
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