Claire Denis’ 35 Shots of Rum turned out to be 2009’s biggest movie – in film snob circles, that is. Since we’ve already discussed that film, Rick, Simon and special guest Olivier Creurer tackle three of Denis’ other acclaimed features – Beau Travail, Trouble Every Day, and L’Intrus – with varying degrees of success. And [...]
Director Tim Burton never grew up. Normally, this would mean that he should be making Rob Schneider movies. But since he seems to have spent his never-ending childhood making pets out of things he dug up in the graveyard, his dark, simplistic, highly stylized films have taken on the form of gothic fairy tales, [...]
Our Pedro Almodovar spotlight concludes with his 1997 breakout hit All About My Mother, which endeared the Spanish filmmaker to a wide international audience. We’ll also be talking about Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank, which recently took home the BAFTA for Best British Feature, bating out such heavyweights as An Education. Special guest Eduardo Lucatero, freshly [...]
Horror director George A. Romero has always been known for the social commentary of his films, the political subtext his fans claim transform his gore flicks into the equivalent of a Jackson Pollack painting made with intestines. The Crazies, from 1973, is just such a film; a story about a bioweapon that’s more a [...]
It’s hard to believe that after nearly 200 hous of programming, we’ve never had an episode tailored around the singular talents of one of America’s most revered filmmakers: Martin Scorsese. Shutter Island, the Dennie Lehane adaptation that was unceremoniously delayed for five months, found its way to theaters this past weekend and brought in Scorsese’s [...]
Our focus on European cinema continues with part three, in which we finally get around to Revanche, the Austrian film nominated for Best Foreign Feature at the Oscars last year, which has gotten a swanky DVD release courtesy of Janus Films and the Criterion Collection just this past week. Additionally, with the help of returning [...]
We continue our spotlight on international cinema with one of last year’s most widely praised features, Jacques Audiard’s epic crime/prison drama “A Prophet,” which makes its Montreal debut this week, and is up for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Feature. We also continue our look at Pedro Almodovar’s filmography with what may be his [...]
Studio patch-it man Joe Johnston returns to revive the beleaguered werewolf movie genre with the The Wolfman, which triumphed over a long and troubled production history to prowl multiplexes with its mediocrity. (Sorry, spoilers.) In…celebration?…Al, Mariko and Simon take a look at Johnston’s opus as well as the 1941 original, along with two more allegorically [...]
Last Tuesday morning, the Academy of Arts and Sciences released its list of nominations for the 82nd annual edition of its awards – better known as the Oscars. It’s the first time in about seven decades that its coveted Best Picture field has expanded to ten slots, thereby leaving room both for more mainstream fare [...]
This week on Sound on Sight, we kick off our first Director Showcase, in which we’ll discuss one filmmaker’s work, one film at a time, over a month. This time out, Spain’s Pedro Almodovar, that purveyor of cinema buff porn and layered melodrama, has his number up, and we’ll be starting off on his latest [...]
He’s been nominated for four Academy Awards, and by Tuesday morning, in all likelihood, it’ll be five, but Jeff Bridges isn’t necessarily thought of as a prestige figure. That may change thanks to the release of Crazy Heart, in which he plays a broken-down, aging country star. To celebrate Bridges’ coming into critical favor, Al, [...]
Albert and Allen Hughes, better known simply as the Hughes Brothers, have been kicking around since the early nineties, but you’d be forgiven for a bit of confusion thanks to their schizophrenic filmography. After helming some music videos, the twins made an envious feature debut at Cannes in 1993 at only 21 years of age [...]
As the dregs of January wear on, with our spirits low, sometimes it helps to pretend that there’s a higher power up above who as a place for us lowly movie reviewers in his divine plan. Unfortunately, if this week’s movies have it right. God is a petulant, fickle, bloodthirsty creep with a taste for [...]
Thanks to the Hollywood Foreign Press, awards season is officially underway, and that means the fine art of movie-geek prognostication can begin in earnest. Of course, a whole lot of well-received films will never see the inside of a ballot box, so besides taking some time to discuss the Golden Globes (and other pressing business), [...]
If I were to make a movie using only my own funds and a home computer, I probably wouldn’t be original enough to do anything other than wire a webcam into my Playskool murder shack. Thankfully, Australia’s Spierig brothers are considerably more inventive then I am. With 2003’s The Undead, they fused home made CGI [...]
