Undertones: Volume 6 The classic science fiction film emerged during a period of great societal paranoia in the US in the early 1950s. The post-WW2 environment saw an increased concern with nuclear armament and a fear of the infiltration of communism on the American way of life. Essentially, the sci-fi film was Hollywood’s great metaphor [...]
Wes Anderson’s stop-motion-animated adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox has leaked it’s second trailer. Anderson collaborated with Henry Selick who previously worked witht eh director on The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. The film stars the voice work of Meryl Streep, George Clooney, Jason Schwartzman, and Bill Murray and is set for release November [...]
The Stepfather 2 Directed by Jeff Burr The Stepfather, one of the most effective psychological thrillers made in the early 80′s, may have been a flop in theaters, but it found a second life on cable and videocassette, gaining enough of a cult following to result in a sequel. The original Stepfather was a complex [...]
Claireece Precious Jones endures unimaginable hardships in her young life. Abused by her mother, raped by her father, she grows up poor, angry, illiterate, fat, unloved and generally unnoticed. So what better way to learn about her than through her own, halting dialect. Winner of the Sundance Jury Prize and the audience award at this [...]
Delivering on the promise he showed with his 2005 feature Kinetta, Yorgos Lanthimos deals a masterful blow below the belt. In his latest triumph, sex is everywhere, tucked away in the David Hockneyesque set pieces, sabotaging the actors’ speech patterns and hiding behind the director’s undisclosed intentions. One of the best pieces of cinema you [...]
< Delivering on the promise he showed with his 2005 feature Kinetta, Yorgos Lanthimos deals a masterful blow below the belt. In his latest triumph, sex is everywhere, tucked away in the David Hockneyesque set pieces, sabotaging the actors’ speech patterns and hiding behind the director’s undisclosed intentions. One of the best pieces of cinema [...]
Gyorgy Palfi, the auteur of the highly polished, offbeat festival darlings Hukkle and Taxidermia, returns with the intimate, improvised and low-budget I Am Not Your Friend. A provocative little package held together by a single concept: the determination to sustain individuality. Every choice made, every kiss exchanged is a statement of absolute liberty. Shot over [...]
After four long years out of the movie industry, Toshiaki Toyoda director of “Blue Spring” and “9 Souls” is finally coming out with a new movie called The Blood of Rebirth (Yomigaeri no Chi), a hallucinatory samurai film in the tradition of Alejandro Jodorowsky.
Mother Directed by Bong Joon-ho Following the smash success of his previous films, Memories of Murder and The Host, Korean sensation Bong Joon-ho returns with a stylish thriller that is both detective story and psychological horror After an asocial loser is framed as the perpetrator of a horrific murder, his hard-headed mother goes on the [...]
Koji Wakamatsu (Go Go Second Time Virgin), Japan’s most controversial filmmaker, brilliantly reconstructs the most troubling episode in the bloody history of Japanese student-radical extremism through the true story of the United Red Army faction, which had its roots in the 60′s when Japanese students protested America using Japan as a staging base for its [...]
Mandrill Directed by Ernesto Díaz Espinoza Chilean director Ernesto Diaz Espinoza and his action star collaborator, Marko Zaror, are three films deep now, with a fourth (in 3D!) on the way. Clearly they’ve found a formula that works for them, but I’m not as convinced. There’s plenty of buzz around these guys, and they’re hyping [...]
Love Exposure is often gratuitous, low-brow, and even tasteless–you will never again see as many shots of young girl’s panties in one place–but is also sneakily poignant. Directed by Shion Sono Sion Sono’s new film covers a lot of territory. It’s a romance, a revenge tale, a heartbreaking tragedy, a truly zany comedy, a blood-splattered [...]
On October 27, Troma Team Video will unleash upon US audiences Shameless, Tasteless: Trash Cinema from the Soviet Underground – a collection of sleaze gems by infamous Ukrainian filmmaker Yakov Levi. With casts composed of real-life criminals, prostitutes, and narcotic addicts, this depraved anthology chronicles the misled adventures of degenerate hookers, possessed sadomasochists, and homicidal [...]
Zombieland (2009) Directed by Ruben Fleischer It’s been a couple of years since critics started calling the zombie trend dead and yet new films featuring our favourite brain gobbling monsters continue to fill theaters and draw crowds. Subgenres like the zom-rom-com have breathed a little life into things, but the question remains whether there are [...]
Simon and Rick take on three more TIFF highlights that didn’t quite slot in anywhere else – John Hillcoat’s long-delayed adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, starring Viggo Mortenson; Miguel Arteta’s Youth In Revolt, featuring a sneering, mustachioed, French Michael Cera; and Jason Retiman’s follow-up to Juno, the George Clooney sorta-comedy Up In the Air. [...]
The American: Visions of damnation
A look back at “Wings Of Desire”
Abre los ojos (Open Your Eyes)
8: The Mormon Proposition
This Movie is Broken
The Last Exorcism: A surprisingly invigorating horror film
A Look Back At Spielberg’s Masterpiece “Jaws”
Fausta: The Milk of Sorrow
MIFF2010: The Illusionist
Piranha 3d
The Switch
Afterschool
Rampage
Stonewall Uprising
Toronto After Dark 2010: Doghouse (Review #1)
The Expendables
Toronto After Dark 2010: Last Lovecraft (Review #1)
