• First Look: “Iron Man 3″
  • Week in Review: 4/29 – 5/5
  • Review: “Pain & Gain”
  • Review: “To the Wonder”
  • Review: “Oblivion”
  • Review: “Trance”
1 2 3 4 5 6

Courtesy of IMP Awards

How do you even begin to explain a film as unconventional as Upstream Color that defies categorization, description, and total understanding? Let’s start here: Shane Carruth, an engineer turned self-taught, multi-hyphenate filmmaker, only had a $7,000 budget when he first made himself known in stumping us with 2004′s nifty, knotty time-travel puzzle Primer, which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. Nine years later and still wearing multiple hats, Carruth is the writer-director-actor-producer-cinematographer-editor-composer and self-distributer—a fiercely independent and ambitious auteur, wouldn’t you say?—for his more accomplished sophomore feature.

Upstream Color, an experimental tone poem about hypnosis, ice water, grub worms, pigs, and Henry David Thoreau, is as intellectually demanding as it is frustratingly baffling and unique as it is obtuse. No dinky description can really do justice to the experience of watching it for yourself, but here goes nothing. Kris (a fragile, heartbreaking Amy Seimetz) is accosted at a bar, only to become the guinea pig for a mind-control experiment by a mysterious thief (Thiago Martins). Being drugged with special grub worms that float around her system, she completes a series of rituals, steals from herself as instructed, and harms herself. Later, snapping out of the spell, she is stripped of her memory, depleted of her life savings, and unemployed. On a commuter train, Kris meets Jeff (an understated Carruth) and they begin a relationship. The couple starts finding their memories to be entangled and part of something bigger. Perhaps The Sampler (Andrew Sensenig), who has a pig farm and records ambient noises, has something to do with it. Continue reading

Posted in Drama, Features, Independent Films, Indie Features, Sci Fi | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Courtesy of IMP Awards

F. Scott Fitzgerald probably had no idea his 1925 “Great American Novel” would receive three more film adaptations after 1926′s silent version. If any director could bring Gatsby’s rich, decadent, and grandiose lifestyle to the screen, it would thought to be Baz Luhrmann. Evidently drawn to tragic love stories, Luhrmann brought vibrant, dizzyingly audacious visions to 1996′s Romeo + Juliet and 2001′s Moulin Rouge! For all their hyperkinetic energy, visual pizzazz, and boldly anachronistic music choices, the stories themselves still felt tragic and deeply romantic. One would be ready to call The Great Gatsby an exhilarating, rhapsodic gush, but in effect, our chaperone renders the glitz and gloss all too literally, regrettably making the film ring hollow and artificial. It’s very much razzle-dazzle over substance, and that’s disappointing.

Told through a flashback framework, Luhrmann & Craig Pearce’s screenplay uses penniless, disillusioned writer/bondsman Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) as our narrator and conduit through the summer of 1922 in New York. From a sanitarium, he tells a doctor who’s treating Nick for morbid alcoholism about the time he moved into a little cottage on the coast of Long Island’s West Egg. During that time, Nick visits his cousin, Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan), who’s married to old-money athlete Tom Buchanan (Joel Edgerton), Nick’s Yale chum. They live directly across the bay in East Egg from Nick, who comes to realize he’s living next door to the elusive Jay Gatsby (Leonard DiCaprio). Gatsby holds lavish, champagne-flowing parties at his mansion and opens the doors for anyone; Nick only observes them, until he receives a formal invitation. Rumors circle the true identity (is he a war hero, a criminal, a bootlegger, etc.?) of their generous, self-made 32-year-old host, who rarely shows himself to his guests. That one night, Gatsby shows his face and befriends Nick, asking to reunite him with Daisy, whom he’s been in love with all this time after they met five years earlier. As it turns out, everything has been for Daisy all along. Then the party is over when Tom finds out, but you already know Gatsby cannot repeat the past if you did your English homework. Continue reading

Posted in Drama, Features | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Courtesy of IMP Awards

Once a week or so, I will be looking back at films that have garnered negative reviews in the past and I will try to find some redeemable quality about them. The key to this being that I have to like that quality un-ironically. Enjoy!

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2011): French Idris Elba (played by British Idris Elba) recruits the Ghost Rider (Nicolas Cage) to find a child that very well may be the Anti-Christ. Things happen.

Let’s get this out of the way right now. This film is directed by the duo of Neveldine/Taylor, the same duo responsible for films like Crank, Crank: High Voltage, Gamer, and the script for Jonah Hex. I don’t care for what they do. I find them classless and artless. They teeter on the edge of insanity without going over, which becomes increasingly frustrating because they don’t make the restraint worthwhile. They aren’t enhancing their work with any kind of stellar dialogue or directing. They should let themselves embrace all of the insanity. This is going to be unpleasant and off-putting. And I don’t want to hear stock comments like, “If you turn off your brain, you can enjoy it” or “Why can’t you just enjoy yourself?” Does anyone really think that is a valid answer? Continue reading

Posted in Action, Features | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Ray Harryhausen Dead at 92 - Special effects genius Ray Harryhausen passed away this week at the age of 92. Harryhausen was pioneer of stop-motion animation, effectively changing the world of cinema forever. His most notable work can be found in Mighty Joe Young, Jason and the Argonauts, and The Three Worlds of Gulliver. Most famous of all is the above scene from Jason and the Argonauts, in which the heroes battle skeleton soldiers.

Marvel Having Trouble Keeping Its Heroes Happy – The time has come for some actors to negotiate their contracts for Avengers 2, and thus far, things are not going smoothly. Primarily, the road block is Robert Downey Jr., who plays Tony Stark/Iron Man. Downey Jr. earned a whopping $50 million for The Avengers, while his co-stars earned less than $5 million. It’s reported that Chris Hemsworth, who plays the Norse God Thor, only received $500,000 for the part.

Downey Jr. has become somewhat of a leader for the rest of the cast, by standing up to Marvel and demanding they give his colleagues a worthy paycheck. As for him, Downey Jr. doesn’t seem keen on sinking below the $50 million he originally earned, and it’s likely that his monstrous paycheck will keep him from returning for Iron Man 4, if that film ever comes (which it will). Continue reading

Posted in Week in Review | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Courtesy of IMP Awards

In The Great Gatsby, the eponymous Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio) throws extravagant parties at his Long Island mansion in hopes of attracting his beautiful former love Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan). Director Baz Luhrmann takes the same approach in trying to get a hold of his audience. His The Great Gatsby is an over-indulgent, bombastic facade, compensating for its shallow host/director.

Based on the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby is told in hindsight by Nick Carraway (played flatly by Tobey Maguire). Once a spry, hopeful war veteran hoping to make a living selling bonds in 1922 New York City, Carraway now resides in a sanitarium trying to cope with the events of the previous summer. After moving into a humble cottage in the “newly rich” West Egg, Long Island (modeled after Great Neck), Carraway soon became aware of the scandalous life that seemed to inherently come with being wealthy in NYC.

Across the water lies East Egg (Port Washington), home of the “old rich” and in particular, Nick’s cousin Daisy. She’s married to the cocky, racist, Tom Buchanan (a serviceable Joel Edgerton), whose mistress has a tendency to call during dinner. Daisy seems hopelessly content in her life, aware of her cheating husband but without the desire to create a commotion about it. Little does she know that across from her home, right next door from Carraway, is a man from her past that admires her obsessively: Jay Gatsby. Continue reading

Posted in Drama, Features | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Courtesy of IMP Awards

At this point, any film presented, written or directed by “Splat Pack” horror guru Eli Roth (2006′s Hostel and 2007′s Hostel: Part II) prevents us from wanting to vacation to another continent ever. Aftershock, his latest independently funded project—which he co-wrote, produced, presented, and co-stars in—is now in the hands of director Nicolás López, working from their script with Guillermo Amoedo. Though Roth’s bloody, gory fingerprints are all over it, this is not another “torture porn” item but a subpar hybrid of an Irwin Allen-type disaster pic and horror-exploitation schlock. Merging an ample Hostel-like setup with mother nature and man’s inhumanity to man bringing on the mayhem, Aftershock is an amateur hour and a half that doesn’t refresh the genre as the makers probably hoped.

Nice, divorced San Diego father “Gringo” (Eli Roth) and his two obnoxious, tail-chasing Chilean buddies, Ariel (Ariel Levy) and Pollo (Nicolás Martínez, who could be Zach Galifianakis’ South American brother), party their way through Santiago, Chile. Then, at a nightclub, the guys meet up with wild, spoiled 21-year-old Kylie (Lorenza Izzo) and her overprotective half-sister, Monica (Andrea Osvart), along with Russian model Irina (Natasha Yarovenko). Instantaneously, as Kylie and Monica are having an argument, an earthquake strikes. Chaos, tsunamis, splatter, and rape ensue — fun! Continue reading

Posted in Features, Thriller | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Courtesy of IMP Awards

Fervent readers of author Lee Child’s popular series may have trouble with the discrepancy of title character Jack Reacher being 6’5″ and built like a 250-pound brick shithouse and the casting of the 5’7″ Tom Cruise. But so what if the star would be picked last for the basketball team or lose the title for Mr. Olympia 2012? Jack Reacher is, first and foremost, a vehicle for Cruise to be Cruise, who is a movie star that invented charisma and tough-guy posturing. Best known for writing the Oscar-winning The Usual Suspects and only helming one feature before (2000′s pulpy disappointment The Way of the Gun), writer-director Christopher McQuarrie adapts Child’s book One Shot for the screen.

The quiet, clinical, heart-pounding opening sequence of a sniper looking through his scope and taking down random passersby across from the Pittsburgh Pirates’ PNC Park seems uncomfortably opportunistic in the wake of the tragic events at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Fortunately, the queasy coincidence and unfortunate timing don’t hurt Jack Reacher, which is, on its own terms, just a slickly made, plainly enjoyable retro action-thriller for winter escapist fare. Said sniper is thought to be James Barr (Joseph Sikora), a seemingly disturbed Iraqi soldier. After the suspect is brought in and jots down, “GET JACK REACHER,” on a notepad before slipping into a coma, a detective (David Oyelowo) and D.A. (Richard Jenkins) are quickly dropped in by the one Jack Reacher. Now living off the grid, he is an ex-military ghost without any driver’s license, residence, or credit history (he takes the bus and uses pay phones instead). Saddling up with a lawyer, Helen (Rosamund Pike), who’s working to keep the accused gunman off death row, Reacher begins uncovering a conspiracy and isn’t bluffing when he says he’s going to bring the bad guys to justice. Continue reading

Posted in Action, Comedy, Features | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Courtesy of IMP Awards

There must be some unwritten rule in Hollywood that the summer tentpole season begins the first weekend in May. The third and allegedly final Big Event in the man-and-machine franchise, Iron Man 3 officially kicks off the summer. Looking back, 2008′s Iron Man was a rarity, simultaneously a colorful, entertaining superhero action picture and a human story with a brain, heart and soul. Its overstuffed 2010 sequel, Iron Man 2, spun a lot of plates with more explosions than substance, but was still a minor diversion, despite being a mere place-holder for The Avengers. The inspired casting of the heavily charismatic Robert Downey Jr. as dynamo Tony Stark, along with his metal-suited alter ego Iron Man, has certainly been a major asset, and now with writer-director Shane Black on board, Iron Man 3 is the funniest, most entertaining, and more cohesive of the three.

Following the saving of mankind from demigods and aliens in New York City (and then wolfing down some yummy shawarma as a reward) in The Avengers, billionaire weapons-inventor Tony Stark has returned to Malibu with Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), his CEO and main sweetie, only to be plagued by insomnia and anxiety attacks. As he sleeplessly tinkers with new, duplicated versions of his suit, a bin Laden-esque terrorist who calls himself “The Mandarin” (Ben Kingsley) makes himself known, recording his nefarious deeds for the world to see on TV. This new bad guy on the menu has connections with Stark’s past, back in 1999 during a New Years Eve party in Switzerland when he turned down a pimply, limping scientist named Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), who is now suave and has made bank with Extremis, an experimental regenerative treatment for crippled soldiers. Once Stark’s bodyguard, Happy (Jon Favreau, who gets a running joke about TV’s “Downtown Abbey”), falls into a coma after the Mandarin’s latest bombing attack, our hero with a big electric-generated heart isn’t afraid to be put himself in the cross hairs of Killian and the Mandarin. As a little holiday greeting, Tony sends out a threat: “You just died, pal; I’m gonna come get the body.” Continue reading

Posted in Action, Comedy, Features | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Courtesy of Cinema Blend

The following article contains a MAJOR SPOILER regarding Iron Man 3. It is strongly recommended that you do not read this until after you’ve viewed the film.

If you saw Iron Man 3 last week (given the $175 million opening it enjoyed, chances are you did), you were probably caught off guard by The Mandarin. Given how he was displayed in the trailers, fans fully expected him to the primary villain facing off against Iron Man. His measured speech delivered in an undeterminable accent threw a cloud of mystique over the character, played by Ben Kingsley. Where did he come from? Who are his allies? What does he want? He wears lavish robes, is adorned in jewelry, and sits on a throne. All of this means he MUST have power, and this is why we should fear him. Continue reading

Posted in Action, Comedy, Features | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Courtesy of Collider

Screenwriter Oren Uziel Set to work on Two High Profile Sequels - Oren Uziel may not be a recognizable name for many because, well, he hasn’t really done anything in Hollywood yet. But back in 2012, Uziel wrote the script for Kevin Tancharoen’s demo trailer for a new Mortal Kombat film. The clip went viral and eventually got Tancharoen the funding to start a MK web-series. 

Uziel has been relatively quiet since then (he wrote a script for a horror-comedy called The Kitchen Sink), but now he’s been handed two high-profile projects by Sony. Men in Black 4 and 21 Jump Street 2 are now in the hands of Uziel. While MIB4 will be from scratch, Uziel is being brought on to re-write the 21JS2 screenplay. After the nightmare production of MIB3, it’s tough to say if stars Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones will want to return for another go around. As for 21JS2, the new film will find Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum back in their original roles, this time posing as college students.

Nolan’s Interstellar Adds a Familiar Face, and Maybe One New One - Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar is easily one of the most anticipated films in coming years, and we know practically nothing about it. What we do know is that the two leads will be Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway. What we know now is that Nolan will once again be dipping into his bag of favorite actors and has pulled out Michael Caine to join the film. Joining him (potentially) will be Jessica Chastain, fresh off her Oscar nomination for Zero Dark Thirty.

What roles Caine and Chastain will play is impossible to determine, given the secretive nature of the project. Continue reading

Posted in Week in Review | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment