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…
The second season of Netflix’s fall flagship show, Stranger Things, does exactly what a sequel needs to do; it surpasses and exceeds the first season. The SAG-winning ensemble returns, meet new challenges, and once again saves the world. The Carpenter-esque score is back, as loud and haunting as ever, and a plethora of seminal 80s…
Back in 2004 Saw was unleashed to the world courtesy of James Wan and Leigh Whannel. A horror franchise so unique that it captivated many and birthed the torture porn genre. Thirteen wonderful years later and seven glorious films later the most profitable franchise of all time returns. Jigsaw is his name and he’s back…
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…
I absolutely loved The Meyerowitz Stories, but this doesn’t surprise me, as I’m obsessed with all of the movies that writer/director Noah Baumbach has been responsible for, with personal favourites including The Squid and the Whale, Greenberg, and While We’re Young. He’s an auteur in the truest sense of the word; all of his films…
Netflix has just released yet another Stephen King adaptation this month in the form of 1922. The film stars Thomas Jane and Molly Parker as a couple whose marriage is falling apart, and they are arguing over whether to sell their farm and seek prosperity in a big city or stay together and work it…
From producer Joe Carnahan and starring Frank Grillo comes Netflix’s latest original feature, Wheelman. The story follows Grillo as a driver for higher where the stakes of a botched bank robbery force him to make life or death decisions that boy only affect his well being, but that of his daughter and estranged wife. Ninety…
When a strange virus quickly spreads through a safari park and turns all the zoo animals undead, those left in the park must stop the creatures before they escape and zombify the whole city. Just looking at the poster you know this movie is destined for the SyFy channel. This Sharknado / creature feature ‘so…
There is an immeasurable bizarreness and incoherence to Tomas Alfredson’s latest feature, The Snowman, that suits the film perfectly. What was once billed as the next Martin Scorsese picture, it quickly morphed into the Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy auteur’s follow-up feature film. Scorsese stayed on as an Executive Producer and Thelma Schoonmaker stayed on as…
A Serious Man could have been called A Private Man. Because that’s what this film is – private. It’s the sort of movie that only gets made by a powerful entity, in this case, the Coen brothers. Hot off the Oscar and commercial success of No Country for Old Men, they followed up with the…
I’m very picky when it comes to audio products in general. I always have to get a full range of sound if for whatever reason I can’t review movies in my home theatre. If I’m on the move or if I’m lying in bed watching a film on my MacBook the headphones have to be…
From the opening credits, Christopher Nolan assembles a sequence that not only clues us in on what is about to unfold but also tells us there is nothing but darkness and despair in what lies ahead. Insomnia may just be Nolan’s most overlooked film, and his most underrated. Pitting a dreary Al Pacino against an…
Netflix just released their new original series from David Fincher and creator Joe Penhall titled Mindhunters. Fincher directed four out of the episodes in what was heavily advertised and promised as a spiritual follow-up to Fincher’s most seminal and finest work, Zodiac. The series looks great, the cinematography is on point, the score is what…
Brawl In Cell Block 99 isn’t quite the film one would think it would be. Yes, it’s a gruesome and unrelenting film from S. Craig Zahler whose first film BONE TOMAHAWK is an unnerving horror western, but for as raw and unprocessed as BRAWL can be, this film has something to say. It is very…
The Lovers is basically a perfect movie, at least from where I sit on the couch and watch movies. Everything clicked into high-gear with this one, from the skillful leading performances by Debra Winger and Tracy Letts, to the observant writing and patient direction from Azazel Jacobs, who after some sterling work on HBO’s underrated…
Our Souls at Night is a thoroughly lovely film that feels as if it could have been made 20 years ago at the studio level, but now because we live in a movie-world where the studios don’t care about this sort of low-key, adult-minded material, Netflix is here to save the day and continue to…
