Category: film spiel

Earlier I answered a survey question on Yougov that asked if I ever enjoyed watching a movie that was so bad it was good. I clicked the first choice which was something like “Hell yeah, all the time!” Then, as if to prove it, I went to a screening of Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula at…

The perfect film for the adventurous viewer who laughed during the climax of The Substance, or anyone who misses cinema that makes you react on a visceral and more instinctual level. It’s also my favorite girl-power film and one of the most surgically precise dissections of bro culture in any language. Satirical, surreal, and psychotic…

This film is the first of four that director Yorgos Lanthimos has made in collaboration with actress Emma Stone. I’ve seen the other three and, like them, this is a deeply satirical story filled with dark humor and (smaller) bursts of violence, all of it brought to life by a punchy script and a well-chosen…

I just got back from my second viewing of Ari Aster’s latest film – so you know I liked it – but I probably shouldn’t recommend it to you, even if I tell you that I laughed even harder this time. If you’ve read as many reviews as I have you’ll have been told repeatedly…

Jon Favreau seems like a straight-up guy, likable even. I noticed him early on in his career but never really thought much about him until the ‘Iron Man‘ franchise. He directed the first two, both of them insanely profitable and hugely satisfying, and co-starred to good effect in the third. He reminds me a little…

Some musings inspired by the remastered 40th anniversary release of ‘the Texas Chain Saw Massacre. >some company should make little Texas Chain Saw Massacre cheese cubes, like the Laughing Cow ones (and what is that damn cow so happy about?), but with a nice picture of Leatherface, maybe wearing his “pretty woman” dinner mask with…

Guaranteed summer fun from Luc Besson. Tight like an overwound watch at the beginning, the second half gets weighed down by the overuse of Matrix-style effects and conceits, and the seriously provocative ideas the director presents at the beginning de-evolve into the sort of pseudo-philosophical platitudes that seemed profound when you were 15 and getting…

I was just thinking about how truly creepy Bong Joon-ho’s “Salinui Chueok” (aka “Memories of Murder“) was. Then I thought about how scary ‘Paranormal Activity‘ wasn’t (NOTE: I mean the original, not the new one ‘Paranormal Activity 24‘). I watched it at 3 a.m. just to maximize the middle of the night willies with my…

I had a great weekend when it comes to the number of films watched (five). The journey began Friday night with back-to-back viewings of Darren Aronofsky’s ‘Noah‘ and the latest chapter in Marvel’s Asgardian series, ‘Thor: the Dark World.” ‘Noah‘ had cool rock monsters and a scaly dog, two things I don’t remember reading in…

Watching Bill Murray’s performance in ‘St. Vincent’ is not dissimilar from watching a frog hopped up on crystal meth try to jump while covered with a wet blanket: you’re amazed how strong that frog is but the whole activity seems a little sad and pointless. Occasionally there are some impressive heights hit, but mostly the…

‘Life After Beth’ is my “take notice of Aubrey Plaza” film and the beginning of my celeb infatuation. I’ve always liked her in ‘Parks and Recreation’ and now I’m completely won over. The young lady conveys like a champ and is gorgeous to boot (in fact, there is shot of her at a beach house…

I’ve always loved science fiction. I was born a geek. My first visit to the library as a kid (which immediately followed my equally revelatory first visit to a bakery on the same block) was science-y: a book on bats, another on dinosaurs, and the third on the solar system. I was a curious and…

I had planned on seeing the Barbie movie from the moment it was announced, in part because I’m a fan of director Greta Gerwig since seeing her 2012 film Frances Ha, as well as enjoying every performance I’ve seen by lead actress Margot Robbie, but mostly because I think co-writer and -producer (and also Greta’s…