“The Call” is three parts “Cellular” and one part “Buried.” It’s a phone-driven thriller that sees a 911 operator on the line with a kidnapped girl as the girl’s captor transports her to the site of what will be a gruesome death. The high-concept premise doesn’t yield much new outside of its unusual setting, but […]
Review: “The Call” Read More »
As the San Diego Latino Film Festival enters its final weekend, there’s still plenty of good stuff left to see (I have five selections slated for today and tomorrow). It’s been tough to find time to write about the festival films I’ve already seen—in addition to my usual load of regular screenings and reviews, I’ve
SDLFF 2013: Dispatch #3 — “¡Atraco!” and “Post Tenebras Lux” Read More »
The world of egomaniacal, spray-tanned Las Vegas magicians in which “The Incredible Burt Wonderstone” takes place is perfect fodder for a comedy, and I have no doubt that Christopher Guest would have gotten a lot of milage out of this premise. But director Don Scardino and writers Jonathan Goldenstein, John Francis Daley, Chad Kultgen, and
Review: “The Incredible Burt Wonderstone” Read More »
Films about oppressive regimes tend to have a flair for the dramatic, either focusing on the tyrannical leaders themselves (as in “The Last King of Scotland” and “Downfall”) or the worst atrocities committed under their reigns (as in “Hotel Rwanda” and “The Killing Fields”). This is not a criticism, as the films I’ve mentioned (and
Hello and welcome back to Box Office Beat, the column in which I predict the upcoming weekend’s box office results. My accuracy doesn’t get much better than it was last weekend: I nailed “Oz the Great and Powerful” down to the decimal and I came within $400,000 of “Dead Man Down.” I’d quit the predictions
Box Office Beat: Weekend of March 15 Read More »
Three days into this year’s San Diego Latino Film Festival, I’m still very much enjoying myself. Festival fatigue—that inevitable wave of exhaustion one gets from watching several movies in a row, then returning home to write about them—has not yet set in, though I’m sure it will in a few days. So I’m committed to
SDLFF 2013: Dispatch #2 — “The Body” and “Nostalgia for the Light” Read More »
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t envious of fellow film bloggers who are reporting from South by Southwest in Austin, Texas this week—I haven’t been back there since I first attended in 2009—but plenty of cinematic discoveries await me at the local San Diego Latino Film Festival. Now in its twentieth year, the
SDLFF 2013: Dispatch #1 — “De jueves a domingo” and “La sirga” Read More »
“Oz the Great and Powerful” will inevitably (and unfairly) be judged against the 1939 classic for which it serves as a technologically modernized prequel, but a more apt comparison is the Wachowskis’ “Speed Racer,” another film built less around story and character than its unique CGI world. One’s liking of “Oz” will mostly be determined
Review: “Oz the Great and Powerful” Read More »
Hello and welcome back to Box Office Beat, the column in which I predict the upcoming weekend’s box office results. After a completely uneventful February—the only film to post strong numbers was the atrociously unfunny “Identity Thief”—we now have our first potential blockbuster of the year on this first weekend of March, courtesy of Disney.
Box Office Beat: Weekend of March 8 Read More »
Bryan Singer’s “Jack the Giant Slayer,” an action-packed spin on the fairy tale “Jack and the Giant Beanstalk,” is the type of film that does a lot of things acceptably, but doesn’t excel in a single area. Budgeted at a whopping $195 million, it’s filled to the brim with stuff, both narrative and visual, but
Review: “Jack the Giant Slayer” Read More »
