Fantastic Fest 2011 is under way, and contributor George Hickman is filing his reports each day as the festival and its movie events continue. Here are a couple condensed-reviews of new films at Fantastic Fest this year. We Need to Talk About Kevin (solid rock fist up) “We Need to Talk About Kevin” is the […]
Fantastic Fest 2011 is under way, and contributor George Hickman is filing his reports each day as the festival and its movie events continue. Here are a couple condensed-reviews of new films at Fantastic Fest this year. Headhunters (rock fist way up) The Norwegian crime comedy “Headhunters,” based on a bestselling novel, tells the story […]
The Human Centipede 2 Full Sequence movie review from Fantastic Fest 2011
Coming of age stories often come in two forms. Some explore the expansion and depth of a life just begun. Films like “My Life as a Dog” follow young adolescents as they blossom into a proto-sexual adulthood. The other type of coming of age story deals with the fleeting nature of life. In films like […]
“Drive” is probably gonna piss off a lot of casual movie-goers.
With most films about sickness or contamination, the virus is employed as a socio-political metaphor either for other more emotionally charged illnesses such as HIV or for the fear and distrust surrounding cultural, ethnic or racial lines. In his new film “Contagion,” director Steven Soderbergh understands that a global epidemic is scary enough on its […]
This review originally appeared on KTKA-TV and KSNT-TV, Kansas First News. An expanded review appears below. Here’s a scary fact about how easily disease can spread: The average person touches their face 3,000 times in a day. If the new global pandemic thriller “Contagion” was directed by anybody else, it would have had an enormous […]
The word “bunraku” refers to form of Japanese puppet theater where the puppeteers, usually dressed in black, are visible on stage. “Bunraku” the film combines elements of classic samurai and cowboy films and sets it in a gunless future that feels more like an alternate past. The aesthetic feels both unique and familiar. While it […]
Some movies get rushed through production and hit theaters mere weeks after the final frame of film is shot. Others, for a variety of reasons, go through multiple edits and end up sitting on the shelf for years. A Good Old Fashioned Orgy (which was filmed back in the Spring of 2008) is the latter. […]
As a mediocre to dismal summer for films marked by remakes, reboots, and revisits comes to a close, “The Debt,” a movie chock full of the familiar – international espionage, maniacal Nazis, and beautiful counteragents – arrives in theaters. Can three Israeli operatives stationed in East Germany to hunt a notorious war criminal save the […]
“The Devil’s Double” takes a healthy production budget and a compelling true story complete with a character in impossible psyche-ravaging situations, and manages to turn a sure win into a dud. Based on the life of Latif Yahia, the double for Saddam Hussein’s psychopathic son Uday, “The Devil’s Double” should have been a fascinating character […]
One Day is the type of movie that women are likely to enjoy far more than men. It has two likable stars, is less clumsy (in spots) than most romantic comedies, and wants desperately to be better on-screen than it is on the printed page. Sadly, the movie is nothing more, or less, than a […]
“Sarah’s Key” tells two intertwined stories. The first takes place in present day Paris. Julia Jarmond (Kristin Scott Thomas), an American journalist, lives with her architect husband, Bertrand Tezac (Frédéric Pierrot). While they renovate an apartment that has been in Bertrand’s family since the 1940s, Julia, for one of her articles, investigates the infamous Vel’ […]
The germ of the idea for “30 Minutes or Less” may have come from a tragic true story of a pizza delivery driver forced to rob a bank with a bomb strapped to his chest, but this raunchy new comedy isn’t going for realism. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. This is big, broad humor […]
Nick (Jesse Eisenberg), a mild mannered and lead-footed pizza delivery guy, has lost his way. While his friend Chet (Aziz Ansari) has finally landed full time employment as a Jr. High teacher, and Kate (Dilshad Vadsaria), the girl he’s in love with and Chet’s sister, just got an opportunity that will take her to Atlanta, […]