Written & Directed by Shane Carruth Starring Amy Seimetz, Shane Carruth, Andrew Sensenig, and Thiago Martins Not Rated, 96 minutes Upstream Color is a uniquely magnificent and sometimes confounding experience. A film that makes us accept what we are seeing with little explanation as to what is going on. It trusts audience enough to figure…
Blockbuster franchises are hard to come by. When one comes along, studios will do all they can to hold onto their respective cash cows. The Spider-Man franchise proved to be as much in 2002 with the release of the mega-blockbuster Sam Raimi film Spider-Man. This success followed into 2004’s superior effort Spider-Man 2 (a film…
Written and Directed by Abel Ferrara Starring Willem Dafoe, Shanyn Leigh, Natasha Lyonne, Paul Hipp, Anita Pallenberg, Pat Kiernan and Paz de la Huerta R, 84 minutes *This film was released domestically in 2012 but I just saw it recently so I thought I would share my views on this mostly unseen film. When the…
What is it that makes a man? Heineken®, as part of its latest global campaign ‘Voyage’, wants to answer this age-old question by seeing what happens when are taken out of their daily lives and dropped into the great unknown. Imagine the situation; you, an out-going and confident man, are chosen for a legendary adventure….
Sometimes I feel like a hoarder. Not in the traditional sense, mind you, where the garbage in my apartment gets out of control and I’m soon using old boxes that KFC biscuits come in as a hat. No, I’m talking about the kind of hoarding where every single DVD, CD, Videogame, hell, even VHS…
The term “mind-blowing” has been used so pervasively when it comes to describing a movie that it seems somewhat disingenuous to label a movie as such these days. How can so many movies be mind-blowing when the marketing campaigns for each try to pass it off as a game changing adventure the likes of which…
When director Alfonso Cuaron last presented his work to the world, the year was 2006 and the result was Children of Men. An unconventional post-apocalyptic tale where the human race is on its way out due to an epidemic of infertility, the movie was toasted with great reviews but underwhelmed at the box office. I…
Director Paul Verhoeven had quite an eccentric filmography after breaking out with American audiences in the late 1980’s, perhaps more so than any other working at the time. Following his success with the classic satirical science fiction actioner Robocop in 1987, the Dutch born filmmaker went on to direct Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1990 blockbuster…
Directed by Danny Boyle Written by Joe Ahearne and John Hodge Starring James McAvoy, Rosario Dawson, Vincent Cassel, Danny Sapani, Wahab Sheikh, Matt Cross and Tuppence Middleton R, 102 minutes Trance is a “whodunit” made with scintillating visual style and a mind-bending narrative that pulsates every scene. Actually, “whodunit” isn’t the correct term for what…
Every so often, a movie comes along that seems like it’s a perfect idea coming at just the right time. It’s a wonderful feeling. You see trailers for these kinds of pictures and your mind buzzes immediately with the possibilities of what this movie can offer. Armed with a stellar cast, can’t miss premise, and…
Written and Directed by Neill Blomkamp Starring Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Sharlto Copley, Alice Braga, Diego Luna, Wagner Moura and William Fichtner R, 109 minutes Science fiction and social commentary go hand in hand in many cases. In fact, great science fiction has a way of using its fictional premise and diegetic elements to comment…
Directed by Sebastian Cordero Written by Philip Gelatt Starring Chrstian Camargo, Embeth Davidtz, Anamaria Marinca, Michael Nyyqvist, Daniel Wu, Karolina Wydra, Sharlto Copley, and Dan Fogler PG-13, 90 minutes The found footage genre isn’t on the firmest of foundations these days. After a major revival with the popularity of Paranormal Activity and Cloverfield, we’ve been…
