It has been two years since I attended Showmasters and one quick type of Showmasters into Google and my review ‘The Showmasters Shambles‘ isn’t far behind. 2015 was probably the worst con experience of my entire life. I completely avoided the 2016 Showmasters convention because of the experience the year before. I heard major improvements…
The Savages is one of those dark comedies which nails a perfect balance between sad and funny, but make no mistake, at times, this is a painful movie to view, as it examines the loss of a parent’s faculties in an upfront and explicit manner. Why has it taken writer/director Tamara Jenkins (Slums of Beverly…
Ridley Scott’s iconic sci-fi classic Blade Runner is one of those motion pictures where its legacy and lore nearly outweigh the finished product itself. Notice I said nearly. This is an all-consuming piece of cinematic art, a film that blew my mind open as a kid, and has continued to haunt and fascinate me as…
Written by James Cullen Bressack and Zack Ward this movie instantly reminds of House on Haunted Hill (1959) with a modern twist. The story revolves around Balthazar Kane (Tim Abell) a once famous Horror circus magician who sends a group of social media stars a special invitation. This invitation states that any individual who can…
Atomic Blonde promised one thing. A Sexy Charlize Theron shooting bad guys in the face as a mash up of Jason Bourne and James Bond. Doing all of that whilst getting it on with women instead of a male lover. It’s pretty obvious that this movie is guided towards a largely male audience but…
It’s that time of year again when I get my geek on and head to comic con! What’s even better this time around thou is that it was my birthday weekend. This double whammy made for one hell of a trip to Manchester! I was pumped, running on one hour of sleep, let’s do this!…
Not many films instilled as much wide-eyed wonder in me as a youthful movie-lover as The Flight of the Navigator, which was released in the summer of 1986, and while not attaining the runaway big-screen blockbuster status that it truly deserved, has lived on throughout the years as an all-time cult favorite for many children…
Macon Blair’s directorial debut I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore, which he also wrote, is a black comedy with serious balls, and as such, this film won’t be for everyone. I love subversive and unexpected material, and this nasty little Netflix acquisition goes to some truly bizarre, and often times (for me…
The recently released Criterion Collection Blu-ray Special Edition of Michelangelo Antonioni’s masterpiece Blow-Up is a thing of pure beauty. From the gorgeous packaging to the wonderful and thoughtful full-color booklet to the plethora of bonus features, they’ve given one of the best films of all time superb physical media treatment. Blow-Up is a true study…
I don’t really feel that I can add all that much new to the chorus of praise that Christopher Nolan has rightfully received for his tour de force action film Dunkirk. Just go out and see it. You don’t need me, or anyone else, to tell you how superb it is. I thought it was…
This short Chinese love story takes the emotional impact of a feature and crams it into nine minutes of brilliance. 90 coins takes you through emotions of happyness, sadness, joy. A film that revives your own personal memories and experiences all in nine minutes. It’s not just a film, it’s an experience of self…
Richard Sarafian’s 1971 road movie Vanishing Point essentially puts on a 98 minute clinic of “being cool.” The cinematography by the amazing John A. Alonzo (Scarface, Chinatown, Harold and Maude) is out of control awesome, the swift editing by Stefan Arnsen keeps a beyond-fast pace, and the on-location shooting and stunt driving is truly tremendous….
War for the Planet of the Apes is Grade-A blockbuster filmmaking. I will forever judge and compare the CGI in every movie that I see moving forward against the FLAWLESS work done in this film. Seriously. What the hell? I couldn’t believe what I was watching. Everything about this movie works like gangbusters, from the…
French short film Vesper tells the story of Marge Ofenbey. A woman who isolates herself in her own home after fleeing her sinister and manipulative husband. She asks her nephew Christian for help but there is more than meets the eye. What is Marge hiding and why is she so afraid of the stars? Agnes…
The thoroughly unnerving and slow-burn psychological drama Christine will almost certainly send a shiver down your spine, especially if you have no clue about the real events that inspired this deeply unsettling motion picture, which was directed with a continued sense of cinematic implacability by the sharp and extremely talented filmmaker Antonio Campos (Afterschool, Simon…
I’m a fan of all of the works from writer/director Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, Her, Where the Wild Things Are), but the 2002 meta-comedy Adaptation is probably my favorite piece from idiosyncratic and deeply thought provoking cinematic voice. Written with his singular brand of existential dread and tack-sharp satire by Charlie Kaufman (Synecdoche, NY,…
