Award-winning cinematographer Paul Cameron, ASC has shot some of the most stylish action-thrillers in recent years, with credits including Collateral, Man on Fire, Swordfish, Déjà vu, Total Recall, Dead Man Down, Gone in 60 Seconds, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, and the pilot to the HBO series Westworld. His newest feature…
This film is note-perfect in every scene. Paul Mazursky always cut to the heart of things and this sort of movie is directly up my cat-loving, cinematic alley. I’ve watched this film a few times and each time I love it even more and I find new things to get excited about. Sentimental and very…
Ingrid Goes West is a fabulous movie. Totally fucked up and completely of the moment, this down and dirty comedy-thriller gets a ton of mileage out of its superb cast, with a beyond-dedicated Aubrey Plaza bringing “the crazy” as a social media obsessed whack-a-do who stalks a vapid Instagram celebrity (brilliantly played by Elizabeth Olsen,…
Tony Scott’s slick, gritty and highly influential 2004 revenge thriller Man on Fire holds even more fiery resonance today than when it did upon first release. Brian Helgeland’s hard-nosed, straight-ahead screenplay set a simple foundation for Scott to run amok with his distinct brand of directorial tricks. The film is a stylistic tour de force…
Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled is a ravishing film to look at, and I’m not surprised that she won Best Director at Cannes. This is a Cannes movie if there ever was one, and on a production/aesthetic level, it’s one of the richest pieces I’ve seen this year. I’d have to assume that the utterly stunning…
It’s truly a shame that not enough parents with young children took a chance on this movie in America (it died a quick box-office death a couple of years ago), but thankfully the rest of the world knows what’s up, and the film became a success in the long run. From where I sit, Shaun…
The Netflix romantic comedy series Love is one of my favorite recent television addictions, and I can’t wait for season three to launch – does anyone have any news as to a premiere date? The show centers on two lost Los Angeles souls, Mickey (the absolutely amazing Gillian Jacobs) and Gus (the goofily charming Paul…
Feeling more relevant than ever, Abel Ferrara’s vivacious and scandalous film Welcome to New York possesses an intense sexual energy that’s largely been absent from movies in recent years. Yes, sex is constantly on display in the movies, but this film resonates with a fierceness that feels exciting and troubling all at once. It plays…
Tonight’s feature presentation is Tony Scott’s Spy Game. Playing like an unofficial sequel to Three Days of the Condor in the same way that Enemy of the State feels separated at birth from The Conversation, Spy Game is a refreshingly adult and smart espionage tale, mixing slick action with just enough brains, but one that…
Kelly Reichardt’s films all have the same tone and atmosphere, whether she’s exploring two men walking, talking, and camping (the wonderful and incisive Old Joy), a spiritually lost woman and her beloved dog in rainy Oregon (Wendy & Lucy, still my favorite films of hers), the dangerous and dusty open range (Meek’s Cutoff, brilliant), or…
They finally did it! The Foreigner is exactly what I’ve been recently asking for – a crisp and clean action programmer with robust production values that has been designed solely to entertain. Honestly – THAT’S the sort of movie I want to see a few times a year – the lean, mean, and totally efficient…
Ken Nolan co-wrote this year’s critically acclaimed drama Only the Brave, which examines the tragic Yarnell Hill fire that occurred in Arizona in 2013, and which claimed the lives of 19 out of 20 “hotshot” firemen. Nolan also wrote the screenplay to Ridley Scott’s iconic war film Black Hawk Down, and also worked with director…
Make no mistake – we’re living in an increasingly infantile cinematic landscape; what the hell is going on with the American ticket-buying populace? Part of the problem starts at the studio level, as they’ve shifted away from the mid-range, big-star programmer, as well as classic dramas made for adults outside of a few year-end “prestige…
Surburbicon is a deranged, vile film, and I really enjoyed watching it! In order to get made in our cookie-cutter and grossly homogenized studio-dominated movie landscape, this fucked-up little piece of cinematic depravity could only have been independently produced (it was) by some major creative forces (it was), and while I have no doubt that…
Scream still stands tall as a milestone horror film and as a reminder of how clever and rewarding movies can be when written with supreme, genre-loving skill and directed with total finesse. I can remember seeing this film on opening weekend back in 1996 with some high school buddies, and we were probably the only…
Joseph Kosinski’s heroically sad film Only the Brave tells the true story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, a group of firemen working in Prescott, Arizona who died in the tragic Yarnell Hill blaze in 2013; out of the 20 man crew, there was only one survivor. Written with intelligence, dignity, and macho-swagger by Ken Nolan…
