A friend commented last year that Rian Johnson’s Looper made her feel “stupid” for having to read a plot synopsis to understand a sci-fi action film. Of course, Looper was an astoundingly complex film (to its benefit), and the same attributes are found in Johnson’s directorial debut, Brick. But where Looper’s complexities held audience attention…
It’s difficult for ghost stories to maintain the careful balance of tension and release across the length of a feature length film. Most feature some good scares, but thin characterisation necessitated by poor decisions leads to boring, uneventful stretches. James Wan overcomes this problem with Insidious by breaking the film up into three sections: a…
The producers of 50/50 had the unenviable task of turning a surprise cancer diagnosis into a light-hearted comedy (based on screenwriter Will Reiser’s own experiences with cancer), and for the most part they’ve done a good job. Appropriately, given the title, 50/50 spends half its time as a hang-out comedy (focusing on Joseph Gordon-Levitt as…
I watched Lifeforce with high expectations. After all, it’s a sci-fi/horror B-movie written by the director of Return of the Living Dead, from the director of Texas Chainsaw Massacre and adapted from a novel called … Space Vampires. But the first hour of the film lowered those expectations dramatically. Sure, there’s a gorgeous, completely naked…
Frailty is the kind of film that poses challenging, ambiguous questions and then, unfortunately, answers them. Director Bill Paxton stars as the deeply religious working-class father of two young boys. He believes that God has delivered him a message: that he must destroy – not murder – “demons” in the local community. He enlists his…
Spring Breakers is a fluorescent dream, an elusive ode to excess. Korine’s film is gorgeously ugly, illuminating the worst of human behaviour in swathes of hypercolour; neon bikinis pulsing in streaky, candy-coloured lights. Spring break is an escape, an emblem of the modern American dream – not to work hard for success, but the aspiration…
(Double Feature is a series of “double length” (400-word) posts where I’ll discuss two related pop culture artifacts) William Friedkin’s The Exorcist and Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now have a great deal in common: both are supernatural horror films released in 1973, both now regarded as genuine classics. They’re each impeccably directed and feature rightfully…
Evil Dead isn’t a movie. It’s a rollercoaster. Typically the metaphor of a rollercoaster is used to describe something with extreme highs and lows. But good rollercoasters have a slow accumulation of tense anticipation during the rickety ascent to the highest point, then the terrifying exhilaration of the descent – and that exhilaration doesn’t just…
JJ Abrams’ reinvention of Star Trek is best described as “good enough.” It’s good enough to earn enough money to prompt a sequel, Into Darkness. It’s good enough to balance the expectations of both avid Star Trek fans and those largely unfamiliar with the original series (though the fan service is a tad overdone). But…
Blue Valentine tells a simple story of a marriage: how Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy (Michelle Williams) meet, experience that thrill of infatuation … and how, years later, that thrill stagnates and calcifies as their relationship is on the precipice of collapse. It’s a drama, but it avoids easy dramatic clichés like tragic accidents, disease…
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