Kids is one of those films more interested in realism than creating a traditional three-act narrative. Its running time is spent following a crew of ratty teenagers who spend their time doing drugs, having sex or trying to do either. The film exudes a grotty verisimilitude; the dialogue may be rambling and inarticulate, but true…
Trance, Danny Boyle’s latest, uses hypnotherapy to venture deep into James McAvoy’s head, aiming to find out the location of a missing painting after an art heist goes wrong. Appropriately, it’s more a film for the head than the heart, presenting an interesting, intricate puzzle that keeps you thinking long after the film is over…
I imagine, for some people, that “The Dead and the Dying,” the penultimate episode ever of Spartacus, will stand as an engrossing, exciting episode of television. It features Spartacus, upon hearing word of Crixus becoming the defeated Gaul, turning the tables on Crassus with some clever deception, then staging a battle in the arena to…
The recent death of Jess Franco inspired me to revisit his filmography (well, some of it). Like many of his films, A Virgin among the Living Dead is laced with an erotic energy, but it’s built on a seductive, languorous atmosphere rather than just flashes of naughty bits (though there’s plenty of them, natch). Discovering…
It took me a while to watch Downton Abbey. The idea of lords and ladies sitting around discussing their worries over a cup of tea didn’t sound like my cup of tea. The pilot quickly changed my mind. The show is gorgeous: sumptuous sets and picturesque period trappings filmed with brilliant camerawork. It’s much warmer…
Prom Night III may have been an average film, not as clever or funny as it thought it was, but at least it was clear that the producers had a good time making it. There’s no such vibe here, with this third sequel coming across a cheap cash-in (or possibly a rough adaptation of an…
“What relationship? You kill them; I bury them in the football field! This is not your basic boy-meets-girl!” The gradual shift of the Prom Night series into Nightmare on Elm Street is complete here; Mary Lou even comes complete with retractable blade-nails. Except this time she murders not to avenge her unjust death (Prom Night…
Prom Night II: Hello Mary Lou follows the titular Mary Lou: she’s burnt alive at her 1957 prom and returns thirty years later to seek vengeance or become prom queen or …something. The ghost story lets the film embrace creepy, surreal imagery as the spirit of murderous Mary Lou possesses virginal Vicky (Wendy Lyon). It’s…
I have a soft spot for ‘80s slasher films. It’s because they remind me of the enticing, illicit possibilities that young adulthood holds when you’re a young teenager. The promise of freedom, fun, forbidden pleasures and, naturally, sex. Paired with temptation is an all-consuming sense of danger, and slasher films generally personify that as some…
Who would have thought, watching the Justified pilot, that the line separating Boyd Crowder and Raylan Givens would become so blurred? The two men, inextricably bonded, have always been two sides of the one coin, but after the season finale “Ghosts,” it’s not clear that they don’t deserve to inhabit the same, grimy side of…
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