In my review of this month’s Sinister, I wrote, “Crafting an extremely effective genre film is never an easy task, but it always seems especially challenging when the genre is horror. Most obviously, this seems to be because everyone is frightened by different things…one man’s torture porn could be another’s tasteless comedy.” For me, there’s nothing more horrifying than a really effective psychological thriller. While horror films like Saw, Hostel, and even The Exorcist provide creepy-crawly chills in the moment, most horror films never really keep you up at night. A seriously good psychological thriller, however, will do just that: give you an unnerving, nightmarish sense of dread that will keep you up for days. While The Shining is an easy and obvious choice, last year alone, three exceptional psychological thrillers were released that define, for me at least, true and utter horror. With Halloween upon us, it couldn’t…
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This weekend, directors Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski, and Tom Tykwer unleash their nearly 3-hour epic Cloud Atlas, one of the most ambitious films of ever made with one hell of an ensemble cast, from Tom Hanks to Halley Berry, Jim Broadbant, Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess, Doona Bae, Ben Whishaw, James D’Arcy, Keith David, Susan Sarandon, and Hugh Grant (whew, out of breath?). Though Cloud Atlas tells 6 interconnective stories over the course of centuries, it won’t be the first film that spreads a star-studded ensemble cast out across multiple countries and/or time periods. From Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction to Robert Altman’s Nashville, Hollywood has had a long tradition of telling ambitious stories with several big name actors in small roles that all add up to create one riveting whole. In honor of Cloud Atlas continuing this trend in exhilarating fashion, we thought we’d take a look back to discuss 5…
There’s a moment in director Lee Daniels’ new film, The Paperboy, when Nicole Kidman urinates on Zac Efron’s face and body to help heal his serious jellyfish stings. While that sounds unusual enough, Daniels shoots the scene with a close up of the urine; for about 15 seconds, the frame is occupied by nothing but an extreme close up of pee, a stream of urine dripping down from top to bottom on the left side of the screen. And guess what? That’s perhaps the least disturbing scene in the entire film. After leaving a powerful impression with Precious, a film which landed him an Oscar nom for Best Director, The Paperboy is a ballsy and confounding choice for Daniels, a film that is so dirty, grimy, and uncomfortable that it’s hard to really say anything about it or react to it in any particular way.
In 2010, the Academy made headlines when, for the 82nd Academy Awards, they announced they would be extending the number of Best Picture nominees from five to ten. At the time, it seemed like a valiant decision, especially after the previous year failed to see Best Picture nominations for either The Dark Knight or Wall-E, two exceptional masterpieces. In retrospect, however, the decision was pointless in 2010, for no matter the competition, be it Cameron’s Avatar, the Coen. Brothers’ A Serious Man, or Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, there was no way any film would ever top Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker, a tour-de-force of a movie that’s easily the best and most powerful post 9/11 war film of all time (at least as of now). For that reason alone, it’s impossible not to anticipate Bigelow’s follow up, Zero Dark Thirty, a film about the dangerous operation…
As a cinephile, it’s never comforting when an award show bombs. The bottom line is that despite a critic’s best attempt to dictate to the public which films are good and which are bad, nothing ever designates the must-sees from the must-skips better than ceremonies like the Golden Globes and the Academy Awards. As a result, the stress to find a perfect host, who in many ways is a mediator between the public and the hierarchal critics of the HFPA or Academy, is always crucial. A good host will entertain the viewer while putting the movies of the year front and center, but a bad host will take away the spotlight from the movies and become the main tabloid fodder himself/herself (trust me, there is nothing more annoying than that). This year, however, I don’t see the latter happening; in fact, with Seth MacFarlane and Tina Fey & Amy Poehler…
The awards season is always a tricky time; just when I felt extremely confident enough to call Moonrise Kingdom and The Master the top two films of the year, the latest trailer for Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained is released and I realize that nothing can ever be set in stone when it comes to the movies. The seventh film from the pulp movie master, Django Unchained looks to be a ferociously entertaining mash of violence, comedy, wit, and everything Tarantino, and if that doesn’t sound like one of the best films of the year than I’m not sure what does. Although we have to wait until Christmas for the film to come out, Columbia Pictures recently released a second trailer for Django, further wetting our appetites for what is poised to be one hell of a time at the movies; check out the new trailer below:
Crafting an extremely effective genre film is never an easy task, but it always seems especially challenging when the genre is horror. Most obviously, this seems to be because everyone is frightened by different things; one man’s horror film could be another man’s psychological thriller, while one’s torture porn could be another’s tasteless comedy, and so on. It is with this in mind that Sinister, the new horror film from director Scott Derickson (The Exorcism of Emily Rose), underwhelms despite being solidly scary. With its disturbing images and its tortured performance from star Ethan Hawke, Sinister achieves scares that’ll have you jump out of your seat, something many horror films these days only dream of, but does that necessarily make it true, frightening horror? I’m not so sure.
If there was ever a name to dramatically shake up the traditional awards season races, it would have to be Alfred Hitchcock. In production since 2005 and shot earlier this year (principal photography ended at the end of May), Fox Searchlight made headlines at the beginning of the Fall Season when they announced that Hitchcock, a biopic of the legendary director and his attempt to bring the controversial Psycho to the big screen, would bow on November 23rd, right in the dead center of the awards season. Now that the film’s first trailer has been released, however, the move to open the film so quickly after production in order to utilize Oscar buzz appears to have been a wise one; between a fascinating story and an extraordinary ensemble cast, Hitchcock seems ripe not only for the Academy Awards but also for any cinephile with a burning love…
As a director, is there anything worse than a creative dry spell? Throughout much of the late 80’s and 90’s, Tim Burton was Hollywood’s most daring and demented visionary with films like Beetlejuice, Batman, and Edward Scissorhands. Flash-forward a couple of decades and his name has become synonymous with films that provide nothing more than style over substance. Between directing the dreadful Dark Shadows and producing the abysmal Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, 2012, in particular, has been Burton’s deadliest year thus far. And yet, just when you thought Burton was running on empty, he roars back to ghoulish life, in the month of Halloween no less, with Frankenweenie, a freaky little tale with spooks and heart to spare. Get ready, folks, this is the best thing Burton has done in years!
When you write a review for a film as extraordinary as The Master, the words come rapidly and overflowing with praise. When you a write a review for a film as contrived as Trouble With The Curve, the words come equally as fast but stuffed with painstaking annoyance. When you write a review for a film as ridiculous as Pitch Perfect, however, the words come frustratingly slow and packed in a big dilemma. Here is a movie constantly played for such immature laughs that it’s difficult to tell people to drop upwards of $10 to see it, yet it’s so shamelessly over-the-top that it’s also hard not to be infectiously entertained.
SHARF @ THE MOVIES 