You know what you’re getting into when you watch a film with a title like Cheerleader Massacre. Bad acting is par for the course: the actors might look like the Days of Our Lives type, but their thespian ability falls short of even that mark. There’s no reason to be surprised by home-video quality cinematography…
This isn’t going to be a review of Prince Avalanche. Stop by Rotten Tomatoes and you can find a raft of those, talking about the charming atmosphere of David Gordon Green’s buddy comedy, the laidback performances of leads Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch and the way the fire-ravaged California forest and Explosions in the Sky…
There’s been a wealth of conversation recently about the increasing homogenisation of superhero films: Matt Zoller Seitz kicked off the discussion with his piece on “Things Crashing Into Other Things” and I can’t dispute his points. Even if you enjoy most of the new wave of big budget superhero pictures, it’s hard not to notice…
X-Men: First Class is a breezy slice of blockbuster. It’s fun while dabbling in the conventional superhero stuff – origin stories and brief banter, all interspersed with the mandatory action – but stumbles when it tries to be something more than disposable entertainment. There’s a lot to like here. Matthew Vaughan frolics through the sixties…
Bad Milo has everything it needs to be a modern cult horror-comedy classic, from an eclectic, impressive cast (Ken Marino, Gillian Jacobs, Kumail Nanjiani, Peter Stormare) to a perfectly silly conceit: a monster living in the rectum of sadsack Duncan (Marino) that emerges in a homicidal rage whenever he’s overcome with stress. Why, then, does…
It’s a rare film that can balance the supernatural and the psychotic. It requires walking the razor’s edge of taut surrealism without toppling into ridiculousness or incoherency. A few films have succeeded – Repulsion, The Innocents, The Shining, Eraserhead. And now, The Babadook. A feature length adaptation of Aussie director Jennifer Kent’s 2005 short Monster,…
Child’s Pose mounts a stinging attack on Romanian bourgeois corruption that avoids didacticism or familiarity by assuming an unconventional perspective. The story is found in the ripples resulting from a car accident that leaves a child dead and the driver potentially facing charges; however, it is not told from the point of view of the…
On the Job is a grim yet likeable Filipino crime thriller, where cops and hitmen are pitted against one another while corrupt politicians pull their strings. It’s a familiar story, and while there are surprises lurking within an impressively dense narrative, there’s no spark of originality to distinguish it from any number of other crime…
As an introduction to a film series that’s still going fourteen years later, X-Men did everything it needed to. Specifically: be an adequate film with an amazing cast. There’s not much to X-Men. It’s more like a feature length television pilot than a complete movie, spicing up its introduction to this world of superpowered mutants…
Beneath the quietly sparkling waters of this lake is something dark and terrible. The lake is the focal point for a cruising spot for gay men. A rumour circulates that a 30-foot predatory fish lurks in the water. This alleged silurus may not exist, but when Franck (Pierre Deladonchamps) watches Michel (Christophe Paou) murder his…
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