It goes without saying that Labyrinth is a thoroughly strange kids’ film. For better or worse, they don’t make them like this anymore. It’s hard to imagine any decade but the cocaine-addled ‘80s producing an apparently commercial children’s movie populated by grotesque puppets about which a sinisterly sexual David Bowie cavorts, with only the barest…
Chef is clearly a personal film for Jon Favreau. This film of food trucks, caviar eggs and molten fillings is as much a tale of artistic resilience as it is the beauty of cooking. It stars Favreau (writer and director besides) as celebrity chef Carl Casper. We watch as he crafts the perfect toasted sandwich,…
In my interview with 52 Tuesdays director Sophie Hyde, she described her first feature length drama as “a very flawed film.” I don’t disagree. But this is a film whose flaws aren’t failings; rather evidence of an exciting, refreshingly different movie. Flaws are to be expected with such an unconventional approach to filming: per the…
Bad Neighbours (titled just Neighbors in the States) is a mash-up of two “classic” – or, if you’re feeling less generous, clichéd – comedy conceits. The film modifies the ‘slobs vs snobs’ frathouse formula by repurposing the ‘snobs’ as 30-something stoners struggling with the demands of adulthood. There’s little originality in the Bad Neighbours screenplay, but thankfully…
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 seems like it could be the first feature film to take inspiration from AAA videogame development. That isn’t a good thing. You see, many weaker big-budget videogames suffer from creative inconsistency born of farming out their writing to dozens of writers; this guy wrote the lore, that guy writes the journal…
The Goldfinch is the third novel in just over twenty years from Donna Tartt, an author whose first novel The Secret History remains one of my favourite books of all time. The Goldfinch is an inspired, excellent work with much in common with her debut, even if it’s not quite on the same level. Like…
As we were dutifully informed before the preview screening of Transcendence, Wally Pfister not only shot this movie on film, but he also developed the film photochemically rather than digitally. This isn’t surprising for Pfister, acolyte of fervent film fetishist Christopher Nolan, but it is reflective of this cinematographer-turned-director’s old-fashioned approach to the material. Old-fashioned…
Game of Thrones – and the book series that inspired it – is renowned for its high bodycount. What defines the series, of course, is not just the number of characters its happy to kill off, but the choice of characters and the timing. Ned Stark is the Ur-example; the shining paragon of nobility who…
“Times have changed.” So says Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham) to Young Writer (Jude Law) as he luxuriates in the baths of the Grand Budapest Hotel. Except luxury is now in short supply; once a thriving symbol of opulence, the Grand Budapest Hotel is no longer so grand (and it’s not even in Budapest; the…
Any Day Now tells a powerful story. Based on the real-life case of a gay couple in the ‘70s who fought for legal guardianship of a mentally handicapped boy, this is an important story that demands to be told. Unfortunately, while the story itself is moving, Any Day Now fails to distinguish itself as a…
ccpopculture 