Every week this summer, we’ll be taking an historical tour of the Hollywood blockbuster by examining an older film that is in some way a spiritual precursor to one of the weekend’s wide releases. This week: Marvel’s Ant-Man shows us the fun side of being so small that you have to look up to an […]
A second review requested by Gabe P, with thanks for contributing twice to the Second Quinquennial Antagony & Ecstasy ACS Fundraiser. The hook of the dark comedy Drop Dead Gorgeous is that contestants at a small-town beauty pageant are being killed off, which isn’t quite what it’s about, actually. Some contestants are killed; more are […]
So you’d have to be such an idiot that there’s not a word for it in English to expect a film titled Nail Gun Massacre to be even a little bit classy. Still, the speed with which it reveals the incorrigible depths to which its not-classiness reveals itself caught me by surprise – it’s not […]
Bad movies are one thing. We know how to deal with them. But Minions isn’t bad, exactly. It’s perfectly neutral – the most impressively flavorless movie in many a long age. I’ve found preparing to review it has been something of an exciting race against the clock: would I be able to finish writing before […]
Every week this summer, we’ll be taking an historical tour of the Hollywood blockbuster by examining an older film that is in some way a spiritual precursor to one of the weekend’s wide releases. This week: director Tarsem Singh shows us the terrible things that can happen when two personalities are stuffed into one brain […]
Look at that poster and despair! Every aspect of it – the purple, the lighting, the woman’s pose, the woman’s deeply inefficient clothing, and every last piece of text – promises a sultry erotic drama. The only thing, and even then it’s questionable, that tips us off that it’s anything even near to the vicinity […]
A review requested by James P, with thanks for contributing to the Second Quinquennial Antagony & Ecstasy ACS Fundraiser. If there exists a more pleasant, humane story of the constant horror of life during the London Blitz than John Boorman’s Hope and Glory, of 1987, I am thoroughly unfamiliar with it and frankly don’t know […]
As this final Summer of Blood arrives at the slasher boom of the 1980s, it feels like a homecoming. For this is where we belong, truly: in the gutter trash world of miserably formulaic thrillers, propped up only by their most exploitative element and frequently by nothing at all. And while it’s surprisingly willing to […]
Biopics are bad enough, but biopics about genius artists tend to be the worst, and biopics of genius artists who are particular icons to the Baby Boomer generation? You might as well try to survive a nuclear strike. So the simple fact that Love & Mercy, the story of Beach Boys songwriter, producer, and artistic […]
There is an exact line of descent, and it curls around the spine of the early ’70s Zeitgeist like smoke coiling over a burning log. First there was Rosemary’s Baby, the book, and it got people talking, and then it begat Rosemary’s Baby the movie, and it was an explosive moment. The story of a […]
“The best Terminator movie since Terminator 2: Judgment Day” is a statement like “Jai Courtney’s best-ever performance in a movie”: they both have the functional shape of a compliment, but they’re not actually saying very much that’s complimentary. And they’re both true of Terminator Genisys, the little movie that couldn’t, currently on pace to be […]
A second review requested by Michael R, with thanks for contributing twice to the Second Quinquennial Antagony & Ecstasy ACS Fundraiser. The credit for the production company glides into the movie so subtly you barely even notice: A VIRGIN PICTURES PRODUCTION hello HELLO is this a story? YES what type? FAIRYTALE FOR COMPUTERS name? ELECTRIC […]
