When it was announced that Columbia’s new version of Stephen King’s “Carrie,” originally immortalized by Brian De Palma’s 1976 film, would be directed by Kimberly Peirce, there was reason to be optimistic. Peirce, who has made just one other movie since her groundbreaking 1999 debut “Boys Don’t Cry” (the overlooked soldier drama “Stop-Loss”), presumably would […]
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It’s a big week for the Critic Speak Podcast, as James and I are joined for nearly a full half-hour by Tommy Wiseau, the writer/director/producer/star of the 2003 cult sensation “The Room.” Wiseau joined us to promote his appearances at Landmark’s Ken Cinema in San Diego at Midnight on October 11 & 12 (this coming
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“Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz” were cleverly referential, skillfully made comedies, but the final installment in Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost’s so-called Cornetto Trilogy, “The World’s End,” is in another league because it adds a rich human element to the equation. There’s plenty of the previous fun—popular allusions and action tomfoolery—but
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This week on the Critic Speak Podcast, James and I tear into the narrative incomprehensibility and clunky leftism of Neil Blomkamp and Matt Damon’s “Elysium,” we accept “We’re the Millers” because it contains more laughs than any other “comedy” this year, we split on Larry David’s HBO Movie “Clear History,” and we review the new
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Joshua Oppenheimer’s “The Act of Killing” may be the most shocking documentary I’ve ever seen, in the way that it asks the viewer to confront evil head-on. For two hours, the film retains a near-singular focus on its subject, Anwar Congo, an unrepentant executioner of over 1,000 people in the Indonesian genocide of 1965-’66. Congo
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Given the media storm surrounding Ryan Coogler’s “Fruitvale Station,” which has linked the events depicted in the film to those of the recent Trayvon Martin case, you might be surprised to learn that the film doesn’t explicitly take the position that its subject, Oscar Grant, was killed because of his race. In fact, Coogler doesn’t
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“Blue Jasmine” is a type of Woody Allen film that Allen hasn’t made in over a decade: a dramedy that’s more drama than comedy, but isn’t heavily concerned with plot. Perhaps even more than 2011’s “Midnight in Paris,” the movie feels like “vintage Allen,” though I use that term with some level of trepidation because
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“Blackfish” is the latest addition to the recent wave of activist documentaries that exist exclusively to promote awareness of and involvement in their cause. You won’t find much rhetorical nuance or discourse with the opposing side here, but such tactics don’t spawn headlines, which is clearly what director Gabriela Cowperthwaite and her subjects saw a
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It’s ironic that the creator of “Saw,” the first film in the defining franchise of the “torture porn” movement that represents everything that’s wrong with contemporary horror filmmaking, would go on to become Hollywood’s leading director of old-fashioned ghost stories that overtly reject current genre trends, but such has been the fascinating career path of
Review: “The Conjuring” Read More »
We’re back! Now that James has returned from a three-week trip to Mississippi, we’re ready to talk movies at you. On our new episode, we discuss Jim Carrey’s disavowal of “Kick-Ass 2” due to his views on gun control, play a round of “Who Would You Rather Sit Next To?” with scenarios submitted by listeners,
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