Get Out is a cool, entertaining movie. I had heard a deafening chorus of hype before walking into the theater (99% at Rottentomates; $135 million in 24 days), so my expectations were very high. Writer/director Jordan Peele has crafted a nifty and witty low-budget social satire masquerading as an occasionally violent psychological thriller; comparisons to…
Don’t Knock Twice is a horror film about a mother desperate to reconnect with her troubled daughter who then becomes embroiled in the urban legend of a demonic witch. This Horror film throws you through every single genre and moves a Horror movie can make you experience. Throughout the entire movie you are questioning…
A film that strips away any narrative pretense and bloat, favoring classical and exquisitely shot and cut fight sequences with a terse screenplay (written by Soderbergh frenemy Lem Dobbs) that only divulges exactly what you need to know and nothing more. Gina Carano, a former MMA star, isn’t a particularly expressive or emotive screen presence,…
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is two weeks away from DVD and Blu Ray release and I for one am not in the slightest bit interested. Heaps upon heaps of 5-star reviews and quotes claiming the movie is equal if not better than Harry Potter is the kind of bias bullshit i’m used…
I very much enjoyed last year’s much-derided thriller The Girl on the Train. It’s not the best movie I’ve ever seen, and it’s hardly the worst. I like a good, steamy, erotic thriller, the types of movies that used to be original screenplay spec sales back in the 90’s. But nowadays, these genre thrillers are…
Gus Van Sant’s “death trilogy” started in 2002 with the unique and intimate film, Gerry, kicking off a run of small, super low budget and very internalized pieces of work, which also included 2003’s Elephant and Last Days in 2005 (while similar, 2007’s Paranoid Park isn’t considered part of this unofficial grouping). Certainly not for…
Spike Lee has always been a very politically and socially conscious filmmaker, with much of his work touching on topical elements that link us all together as human beings. This makes his straight-up genre picture, Inside Man, all the more atypical, as it’s one of the few gun-for-hire pictures that he’s put his name…
Lately the experiences and events I’m being invited to never seem to be movie related but always have some movie motive or connection. This is one of those times. Floyd Mayweather has recently been working on a film with Jamie Foxx called All Star Weekend, so in a way, we’re on the right track. Floyd…
Totally buried by Paramount Vantage at the end of 2012, David Chase’s Not Fade Away is a funny and nostalgic time portal back to the 60’s, with a fantastic soundtrack, and a killer supporting performance from James Gandolfini. While the film possibly feels incomplete (I really would love to see a miniseries that picks…
Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk is not a good movie. It pains me to report this, as Ang Lee is a master storyteller and filmmaker, and I’ve been a fan of all of his films (yes, even Ride with the Devil, which is hugely underrated). However, nothing about this movie worked for me as a…
For the first time ever Back to the Movies was invited down to the London Olympia to attend the Walker Stalker convention, a very popular comic-con style set-up where many of AMC’s The Walking Dead cast members attend and meet the fans. We hopped on the train down to London, and just like at the…
It seems nearly insane that this film was nominated for Best Picture in 1993, not because it’s not fully awesome, but rather, this genre would NEVER be paid attention to by members of the Academy in our current cinematic climate. Harrison Ford delivered a quintessential movie star performance, eliciting sympathy right from the outset, and…
Shoot ‘Em Up is a wildly silly R-rated cartoon of a movie, tremendously fun and berserk and made with low-budget zeal and ingenuity. Playing like a Looney Tunes adventure on a few hits of PCP, this is pure comic-book-movie shenanigans, but instead of superheroes from another galaxy, the characters in this oddly eccentric actioner bounce…
This review contains no spoilers only basic plot elements. Logan is without a doubt the best Marvel movie that Marvel didn’t technically make. There are so many things they got right about Logan that I just don’t know where to begin. Hugh Jackman really did the character Logan justice this time around. It’s by far…
Currently streaming on Netflix and available on disc via The Criterion Collection, a piece of work that has come into full view after more than one screening. Shot on location all over Europe at a variety of obscenely photogenic locations by cinematographer Yorick Le Saux on 35mm film(!), Olivier Assayas’ dreamy film, which he wrote…
It’s a hard quality to have as a director, to make your films feel crazy and antic and wild, but at the same time still pay attention to mise-en-scene, performance, and technique. Rush’s 1970 effort Getting Straight is a wild beast, an anti-establishment picture made as one turbulent decade was ending and another socially questionable…
