The first thing one will notice about Logan, after a prologue/advert that you will not see coming, is that this is not Bryan Singer’s X-Men. Logan is the ninth film in the X-Men franchise and the third standalone Wolverine film. And it is a grizzled, grisly action tragedy. Not what one would expect from this comic book franchise.
An opening action sequence promises brutality not seen in comic book cinema to date, and it Continue reading Logan (2017) Movie Review
The first note I wrote down about A Cure for Wellness, which I wrote after the film’s opening scene, was as follows:
“Is A Cure For Wellness a masterfully shot slog?”
This notion came out of how the trailer clips and first scene of the film is shot and that I knew how long the film was going to be (this was, I should mention, my second film of the day). So my assumption going in was that this film was going to be a struggle between patience and style.
Is the film a well-shot slog? Well…yeah.
Rising white collar man (Dane DeHaan), referred to throughout the film only by his surname of Lockhart, takes hold of that next rung of the corporate ladder, and as a result is thrown into a legally questionable Continue reading A Cure for Wellness (2017) Movie Review
Let me get the positives of Fifty Shades Darker out of the way so we can start making jokes. 1) Star lighting showcases our “steamy” talent quite adequately. 2) As with its predecessor, the production design is well-conceived. 3) Academy Award-winner Kim Basinger appears, and should be in a better movie than this.
BDSM is still viewed in this film as a Continue reading Fifty Shades Darker (2017) Movie Review
The opening shot of Tim Sutton’s Dark Night, coming after almost a minute of music playing over a black screen, is a beautiful yet unceremoniously conventional shot. It is the reflexive kino eye shot, showing the awareness of artifice and mediation within a filmic representation.
Gorgeous red and blue neon washes over the eye of an onlooker. We can see the approaching police car in her pupil. It is tragedy in a snapshot; fundamentally artistic even if the eyeball shot has appeared everywhere from Un Chien Andalou to LOST.
Dark Night chronicles the lives of those affected by the 2012 Aurora shooting that took place in a Colorado screening of the film The Dark Knight Rises. The film is proposed as a Continue reading Dark Night (2017) Movie Review
The premise of The Ring has always seemed silly. “You ever hear about the videotape that kills people in seven days?” This is one of the first lines of Rings, this third English-language installment of the franchise, itself a remake of the J-Horror sensation Ringu.
On a plane, two people who watched the tape are killed by Samara, the pallid, greasy black-haired monster of the film, as she climbs out of a monitor in the cockpit. This essentially unrelated cold open is the shoddiest scene in the entire film; a strange way to Continue reading Rings (2017) Movie Review
At the age of three, Owen Suskind “disappears.” He changes: awake all night, speaking in gibberish, a loss of motor function, an inability to understand what people are saying. Diagnosed with autism, Owen’s life changes forever.
But a love for animated movies, particularly those of the Disney Corporation, allows Owen an outlet from which he can Continue reading Life, Animated (2016) Movie Review
Son of the headmaster of his prep school, Jason Hodges (Alex Saxon) gets more than he bargains for during a mundane field trip to the U.S. Mint. While Jason attempts to get the school “hacker” to change his bio grade, his father is arrested for embezzling.
In the fallout of this, the school is forced to enact cuts to all extracurricular activities. And this is an adequate amount of parts for a Continue reading Coin Heist (2017) Movie Review
The cold open to M. Night Shyamalan’s new venture, Split, features an intriguing mix of directorial choices. There is a Hitchcockian motivated mobile POV, one that starts as an innocent track. There are motivated pans and tilts that follow our protagonist Casey’s (Anya Taylor-Joy) increasingly cautious gazes. There is a sense of impending dread with each edit.
This opening kidnapping was shown in almost its entirety in Split‘s trailer, which presents the premise of a man with multiple personalities (James McAvoy) who steals away three teenage girls (Haley Lu Richardson, Jessica Sula, and Taylor-Joy). Ignore the ridiculous notion that Continue reading Split (2017) Movie Review
Ray Kroc (Michael Keaton) travels from food joint to food joint trying to sell a five-spindle milkshake mixer. No one bites, but as he sits defeated at these drive-in restaurants, he notices a trend. A trend of slowness, inaccuracy.
When a small, bustling outfit out of San Bernadino named McDonald’s orders an inexplicable eight mixers for one location, Kroc is Continue reading The Founder (2016) Movie Review
Jesuit priest Cristovao Ferreira (Liam Neeson), amid a 17th century Japanese mission environment of torture and persecution, reportedly apostatizes the Christian faith to prevent more Japanese converts from being harmed.
Two young priests who were raised into the faith under the tutelage of Ferreira, Father Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Father Garupe (Adam Driver), decide to venture to Japan to find Ferreira and an explanation.
When Rodrigues and Garupe land on the Japanese shore, it becomes clear that their resolve may not be enough for what they are up against. In a delightfully simple move, Scorsese shows the two Portuguese priests with Continue reading Silence (2016) Movie Review
CineFiles Movie Reviews 