House of Cards: Season 3 Episode 1 Recap/Review
Note: major spoilers ahead.
In the opening scene of the Netflix Original Series’ third season premiere, we see Continue reading House of Cards (2015) S03E01 Recap/Review
The Lazarus Effect (2015) Movie Review
The Lazarus Effect is a thriller/horror film from director David Gelb. The film stars Olivia Wilde, Mark Duplass, Evan Peters, and Donald Glover as four grant researchers testing the effects of a special serum on dead animals. During their research, the manage to revive a dead and blind dog. The dog, miraculously healthy (even regaining his eyesight), shows extreme activity in his brain from the serum, which doesn’t seem to be decaying from his body as the scientist’s expected it would. Clay (Peters) points out that the increased neural firing will have an adverse affect on the aggression center of the dog’s brain, causing the animal to become dangerous.
When a pharmaceutical company takes over their research, Continue reading The Lazarus Effect (2015) Movie Review
2015 Academy Awards: The Winners
Best Picture
- American Sniper
- Boyhood
- Birdman
- The Grand Budapest Hotel
- The Imitation Game
- The Theory of Everything
- Selma
- Whiplash
Academy Awards 2015: Reaction & Surprises
Best Makeup & Hair-styling
The Grand Budapest Hotel started racking up the wins early on with their shoo-in win for Best Costume Design and a more surprising win for Best Makeup and Hair-styling. The transformations in Budapest, were fine, sure, but it doesn’t quite live up to the other nominees in my opinion. Guardians of the Galaxy should have taken this one by a light year for the intricate makeup work.
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014) Movie Review
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is a horror film written and directed by Iranian-American filmmaker Ana Lily Amirpour. It is Amirpour’s directorial debut. In it, The Girl (Sheila Vand), a silent vampire, stalks the empty streets of fictional location Bad City at night, preying on the seedy people that inhabit the same empty nighttime landscape. Soon swept into the world of this vampiric prowler are an aging drug-addict Hossein (Marshall Manesh), his drug dealer, and his son Arash (Arash Marandi).
This film isn’t a traditional horror film.The tagline for it reads: Continue reading A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014) Movie Review
Scary Movie 5 (2013) Movie Review
Scary Movie 5: A Scene-by-Scene Analysis (sort of) and Movie Review
Caution: Spoilers ahead
From the opening scene, it is clear that the Scary Movie franchise lost its comedic value at least two installments ago. In the cold open, Continue reading Scary Movie 5 (2013) Movie Review
Fifty Shades of Grey (2015) Movie Review
Fifty Shades of Grey is an erotic romance film adapted from E.L. James’ novel of the same name. In it, nervous lip-biter Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) is subbed in to interview billionaire playboy Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) for a graduate school newspaper. During the interview, sparks fly (I’m using this phrase loosely) and they become romantically involved. But Mr. Grey is oddly distant and afraid of commitment. Ana soon finds out Grey’s secret: a hidden life of playing out a sexual domination fantasy. Virgin innocent Ana doesn’t know how to handle this news at first, but soon becomes wrapped up in the “taboo” world of BDSM, falling for Christian in the process.
From the title sequence, we are immediately flooded with exorbitantly sleek mise-en-scene, namely with shots of Christian’s wardrobe. We are also given beautiful landscape shots of the Seattle skyline. All the while, Annie Lennox singing “I Put a Spell On You” fills the scene with soulful body. This lush opening is enticing and inviting. It is only when characters begin to speak that problems arise.
Hits (2015) Movie Review
“Get ready to laugh more than three times, but less than 10,” comedian David Cross says in the pay-what-you-want intro to his directorial debut Hits, warning the audience that what they are about to see is a dark comedy and, as such, not a laugh riot. This is a humble opinion of the film. Dark as it is, there are plenty of opportunities for deep belly laughs.
The film, which Cross wrote and directed, follows a hapless dump worker Dave Stuben (Matt Walsh) and his daughter Katelyn (Meredith Hagner), who is determined to Continue reading Hits (2015) Movie Review
Dead Snow: Red vs. Dead (2014) Movie Review
CAUTION: Spoilers of the original film’s ending are present in this review.
Dead Snow: Red vs. Dead is the sequel to the 2009 splatter horror film Dead Snow by Norwegian filmmaker Tommy Wirkola. The beginning of this sequel recaps the events of its predecessor: a group of friends travel to a cabin in the Norwegian mountains and are, one-by-one, mutilated by Nazi zombies hell-bent on Continue reading Dead Snow: Red vs. Dead (2014) Movie Review
Better Call Saul Premiere (2015) Television Review
The black and white cold open to AMC’s Breaking Bad spinoff shows Bob Odenkirk’s seedy lawyer Saul Goodman sadly working the Cinnabon counter in a mall, sporting large glasses and a mean ‘stache. Saul is on edge, paranoid about an intimidating person in the store. At his home, he drinks scotch and anxiously looks out the window. Saul pulls out an old VHS tape and pops it in to the television. The tape is a series of ad spots from his old profession. He watches the tape glumly until it cuts away to the title card. And that’s it. The first scene Breaking Bad fans get after a year of withdrawal from the mythos they fell in love with. It is simple but all too gratifying.
Continue reading Better Call Saul Premiere (2015) Television Review
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