Elegy

With a name like Elegy, it’s unfair to expect anything but sadness.  For a lot of people, sadness equates to gravitas, or grandeur.  This is true to an extent.  Films like Atonement, Million Dollar Baby, Gladiator, they manage to express feelings of sadness in a beautiful way.  Other films want to beat you to death with the idea, but never can, it comes across as faux-self pity.  Elegy falls somewhere in the middle.  There are brilliant shining moments, and there are... Read More

I Love You, Man

It takes a bold set of filmmakers these days to release a big-budget comedy at the beginning of the summer when Judd Apatow’s name isn’t attached to the project at all.  If you check his imdb page here, you’ll see that he is in some way responsible for most of the blockbuster comedies that have hit our theaters in the last few years.  But I Love You, Man boldly puts itself out there for all to see, proud of the fact that despite being clearly influenced by... Read More

An American Crime

Remember that sinking feeling in the spring of 2005, when it was announced that Michael Bay would be directing Transformers?  The world’s population of cinema buffs took one big collective sigh and gave up on the hopes of a worthy homage to one of the most beloved toys of the eighties.  It’s a perfect example of how a good idea can go so, so wrong in the hands of the wrong director.  The same is true of the 2007 Sundance film An American Crime, although it’s... Read More

Wendy and Lucy

In these tumultuous financial and political times, little indie gems like Kelly Reichardt’s Wendy and Lucy strike a chord that everyone can relate to, in a very real, and very terrifying way.  Its minimalism paves the way for some truly genuine and touching moments that are many times glossed over in bigger films.  This sad ode to poverty, and to an America where even the most deserving sometimes can’t find a place for themselves offers little in the way of inspiration,... Read More

Two Lovers

I, for one, was not upset when Joaquin Phoenix announced his recent retirement from acting to focus on some sort of freestyle rap career. While being touted as one of the greatest actors of his generation by highly esteemed critics such as Rollingstone’s Peter Travers, he’s managed to display an extremely high level of douchebaggery. And if this does turn out to be a publicity stunt engineered by Joaquin himself, Casey Affleck, and Joaquin’s freaky sister,... Read More

[REC]

When I reviewed the film Quarantine a few months ago, I had some not very nice things to say about it, or [REC] which it’s based on.  I’m ashamed to admit, this is what I wrote: I’m so tired of people bagging on this film because it’s a remake of[rec] since [rec] is a rip off of The Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield, and every other film that has done gonzo before them.  Let’s just be straight right now, neither of these films are original. Understandably so,... Read More

The Last House on the Left

Dennis Iliadis’ The Last House on the Left had some mighty big shoes to fill.  It must have been pretty intimidating remaking the Wes Craven (who also produced this modern update) cult-classic that is based on one of Ingmar Bergman’s most disturbing films.  Both of it’s predecessors are highly praised by many (if you need convincing, watch Ang Lee practically lose his load as he introduces The Virgin Spring on the Criterion Collection edition of the DVD). ... Read More

Watchmen – Very Am-bitch-ious.

The only thing better than the blogosphere tossing out reviews of Watchmen, is the blogging world blogging about bloggers tossing out reviews of Watchmen; which I am now guilty of.  But it’s true.  I would feel so redundant trying to verbalize how I feel about this film when I can just steal the opinions of other people who have 1) read the graphic novel (yes, I’m one of the 15 people in the world who haven’t), 2) already posted something that I can leech off... Read More

The Class (Entre les murs)

The Palm D’or awarded at the Cannes Film Festival each year is a precarious award. Sometimes they get things right, sometimes they don’t. For example: it was awarded to Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction in a year when even the Oscars couldn’t pull it’s own head out of its ass. But some years, it acts as childish as the Emmy’s, throwing a bone to movies like Fahrenheit 9/11.  Ugh.  However, it seems the 2008 festival got it right when it recognized... Read More

WTF

I like to think that I’m mostly in the know about movies.  I have a pretty good idea of who’s doing what project with whom, what’s notable at the most recent film festivals, (a large part of this is due to all my blogging friends who attend TIFF, thanks for the heads up guys), when stuff will be hitting theaters, etc., etc.  There are a few exceptions, like when I totally missed Danny Boyle’s Sunshine in theaters even though I had been looking forward... Read More