Category Archives: All Movie Reviews

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Love It, Quickie Reviews (<400 Words)

Captain America: Civil War (2016) Movie Review

May 6, 2016 Alex Brannan

The premise of Captain America: Civil War is exactly what it sounds like: a legislation called the Sokovia Accords will put restrictions on the power of superheroes, and it threatens to tear the Avengers in two. Divided, faction leaders Cap (Chris Evans) and Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) face off in a heated battle for the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).

Narratively, the film juggles many balls, but few of them get dropped. Sure, they are Continue reading Captain America: Civil War (2016) Movie Review →

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

Entertainment (2015) Movie Review

May 6, 2016 Alex Brannan

The opening shots of Entertainment are largely static. The Comedian (Gregg Turkington, essentially playing in this film a fictionalized version of himself and his comedic alter-ego Neil Hamburger), stands in an airplane fuselage, looking down. He watches as a clown, Eddie the Opener (Tye Sheridan), prepares for a set at a prison. He looks on dour-faced as the clown “wows” the crowd of prisoners by simply bouncing a ball and clapping his hands.

The first spoken dialogue in the film comes from a tour operator who encourages The Comedian and others to “by all means, go ahead and wander.” Yet the film does the opposite. Continue reading Entertainment (2015) Movie Review →

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

The Comedy (2012) Movie Review

May 4, 2016 Alex Brannan

Rick Alverson’s The Comedy is not a comedy. It is an anti-comedy. A satire of a self-destructive generation gazing on their own broken world. The film opens on a group of people, mostly slightly overweight men, drinking and dancing, spitting beer and stripping nude. This is a commonplace setting for this group of “friends.”

The film stars Tim Heidecker of Tim and Eric fame. Comedy partner Eric Wareheim co-stars, and their presence in the film in one instance is Continue reading The Comedy (2012) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Horror, Indie Films, Like It, Short Films

Heir (2015) Short Film Review

May 4, 2016 Alex Brannan

A father (Robert Nolan) takes his son to spend a day with an old college friend (Bill Oberst Jr.), but the activities they engage in are far more insidious than simply “gone fishing.” The father, on top of the strange goings-on in his friend’s home, experiences a stigmata-like wound that oozes a sticky pus.

The short quickly deviates from reality, surreal imagery and special effects work becoming Continue reading Heir (2015) Short Film Review →

All Movie Reviews, Comedy, Like It, Quickie Reviews (<400 Words)

Keanu (2016) Movie Review

April 28, 2016 Alex Brannan

After his girlfriend breaks up with him, Rell (Jordan Peele, also co-writer) comes across cute kitten Keanu, who proves to be the saving grace from his post-breakup blues.

Rell gets unnaturally attached to Keanu, to the point that when the cat is kidnapped (dare I say cat-napped?) by gangster outfit the 17th St. Blips, he and cousin Clarence (Keegan-Michael Key) must infiltrate the gang and literally save the cat.

The lion’s share of comedy in Keanu derives from Continue reading Keanu (2016) Movie Review →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Horror, Indie Films, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Green Room (2016) Movie Review

April 24, 2016 Alex Brannan

In Green Room, a group of young and conceited punk rockers travel to one last unscheduled gig after their tour bottoms out. The White Supremacist punk scene of the club proves to be more shady than it first appears. The mosh pit is slowed to a balletic chaos as they perform. The atmosphere of the audience is unforgiving. And the green room backstage is an environment of violent undoing.

The film, like the music it portrays, is unrefined, but it is a purposefully stylized unrefined. The low key lighting and grimy aesthetic is what has become “torture porn chic.”

What writer-director Jeremy Saulnier, whose 2013 microbudget indie thriller Blue Ruin received critical success, does differently than torture porn is deliver a Continue reading Green Room (2016) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Like It, Quickie Reviews (<400 Words), Sci-Fi/Fantasy

The Jungle Book (2016) Movie Review

April 16, 2016 Alex Brannan

In The Jungle Book, the live action adaptation of the famous Disney retelling, a boy (Neel Sethi) raised by wolves is put in danger by his own humanity, as the bloodthirsty Bengal tiger Shere Khan (Idris Elba) vows to kill the child.

CG burdens many films, which become over-dependent on them for spectacle’s sake. In the case of this film, the Continue reading The Jungle Book (2016) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Drama, Indie Films, Like It, Quickie Reviews (<400 Words), Romance

Wedding Doll (2016) Movie Review

April 16, 2016 Alex Brannan

Hagit (Moran Rosenblatt) works as a packager in a struggling toilet paper factory. Suffering from a cognitive disability, she lives with her mother Sara (Assi Levy), who sacrifices various aspects of her life in order to be there for her daughter.

What is immediately evident with Wedding Doll is the Continue reading Wedding Doll (2016) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Comedy, Drama, Indie Films, Love It, Quickie Reviews (<400 Words)

Age of Cannibals (Zeit der Kannibalen) (2014) Movie Review

April 15, 2016 Alex Brannan

Age of Cannibals follows two German business consultants on a business trip in Lagos, Nigeria. While moving about their hotel, they try to convince a businessman to move his resources from India to Pakistan, deal with a new, young co-worker, and brashly handle cultural differences.

Stylistically, the films is fairly cut and dry. There is little out of the ordinary, save for Continue reading Age of Cannibals (Zeit der Kannibalen) (2014) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Comedy, Drama, Indie Films, Love It

Cosmos (2015) Movie Review