I can remember the Beltway sniper attacks of 2002, but the memories are vague. It’s perhaps harsh, but it seems that every few months there’s yet another senseless mass shooting in America. Of course, these shootings were different – no apparent motive, without obvious culrpits, the sense of all-pervading fear they must have created is…
As with last week’s premiere, “Uh… Oo… Aw…” is a messy and not-exactly-great episode of television, but it’s to be commended for considering the ramifications of its characters’ actions with some degree of realism, rather than putting them at the mercy of plot contrivances. The episode wasn’t perfect, incorporating one of 24’s favourite clichés, the…
I’ll give Texas Chainsaw this – it’s a very different take on remaking a classic horror film. The 2003 remake of Tobe Hooper’s classic was essentially a repackage of the main plot points (basically: Leatherface kills people), modernized with a higher budget and more attractive cast but none of the twisted charm of the original…
If you’ve seen the trailer for Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring, you already know the plot: Rich kids steal from richer celebrities, get caught. This kind of plot-certainty isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as it frees up the filmmaker to focus on tone and character rather than story. The Bling Ring portrays its protagonists’ crime…
It feels misleading to describe Gravity as a “simple” film. It’s a survival tale, a story built not on character drama and plot twists but on the fundamental, bloody-minded human need to fight for life. The minimalist storyline is at odds with the wide expanse of outer space that is the film’s setting. Gravity’s dizzyingly…
The main drawcards of the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. pilot were a charismatic lead performance from Clark Gregg and some appealing Joss Whedon banter. The sophomore episode pulls back considerably on both of these elements to its detriment, choosing instead to focus on a “the team pulls together” action-heavy storyline. The quality of the banter is…
Cannibal Holocaust is advertised as “the most controversial film ever made,” and the claim is not without justification. Its director was arrested upon release under suspicion of making a snuff film, and the film features real animal mutilation. It uses the characteristics of the found footage genre better than the majority of its successors; despite…
The opening titles of John Frankenheimer’s Seconds, created by the inimitable Saul Bass, turn normality into grotesquery. Extreme close-ups of the human face warp and distort, taking the ordinary – a human mouth, a human eye – and rendering it horrifyingly unfamiliar. The mutability of human appearance is at the core of the science-fiction conceit…
“Tin Man is Down,” the season three premiere of Homeland, is a long way from the best episode of the series. Nonetheless, it makes me very happy. Homeland began with a simple, but instantly engaging premise – could this war hero actually be a terrorist? – and built and built upon this premise (and its…
Towards the end of “Felina,” Walter White scrabbles on the floor with his car keys, pressing the button again and again. We know – or can guess – that it’s about to unleash death upon Walt’s enemies. But for a few seconds, it doesn’t. Nothing happens. In another universe, Breaking Bad ends there. Walt’s final…
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