I’ll say this about Your Name.: as much as I love it (and I do, a lot), I really cannot begin to understand why this was the film struck such a huge chord, becoming the fourth-highest-grossing film in the history of the Japanese box office (the second-highest Japanese production on that list) and the highest-grossing […]
A second review requested by Chris D, with thanks for contributing twice to the Second Quinquennial Antagony & Ecstasy ACS Fundraiser. First, shame on me. I’ve known for years that seeing Battle Royale was a thing I certainly ought to do, and I’ve had access to it for a number of those years, even during […]
At some point, I’d really like to see John Carney make a different movie, since he’s clearly got talent to spare as a director of actors, and his writing is an irresistible combination of aching sincerity and clear-eyed, raw naturalism. But as long as the one film he keeps making over and over again – […]
Poor The Divergent Series. I mean it. You come into the world raring to be the new Hunger Games – made by the same studio no less, Lionsgate – with a new Hot Young “It” Actress to pin your hopes on, and then it’s all downhill after a kind of solid start. Eventually, you flare […]
A review requested by Carter Smith, with thanks for contributing to the Second Quinquennial Antagony & Ecstasy ACS Fundraiser. There’s going to be a lot of wholly subjective, first-person claims in this review, I am sorry to say. But comedy is notoriously subjective and this is a specifically notoriously subjective comedy we have in front […]
As a rule, I try very hard not to write film reviews of the “consumer report” style, but sometimes it’s important to look a potential ticket-buyer square in the eye, grab them firmly by the shoulders, and state clearly and urgently, “it’s important that you know this”. And there is something that it’s important for […]
If we were to start off by directly comparing Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials to 2014’s The Maze Runner – and why shouldn’t we? For here we are, with Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials just dropped there right in front of us with all its petulant awfulness, like something the dog did on the carpet, […]
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 […]
There was always going to be a mash-up of the nuclear monster movie and the beach movie sometime in the mid-’60s. B-movie producers, as a breed, are too good at mimicry and chasing the latest fad with Terminator-like focus for the two biggest subgenres of cheap drive-in programmer to go unwed for too very long. […]
There is very little about 1958’s The Blob, on paper, that distinguishes it from all the other God knows how many dozens of films from that decade that pitch a bunch of small-town teenagers against some kind of monster from outer space, a mad scientist’s lab, or maybe just a good old-fashioned nuclear disaster. It […]
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: Pitch Perfect 2 is the sequel to one of the most beautiful and rare creatures in this heavily market-researched […]
All due respect to the recent spate of high-profile horror movies to be critically fêted on account of being actually good, but one of the things that The Babadook and It Follows have in common is that they’re both immensely well-made versions of something that’s already been done. Now, quite unexpectedly, we have the opposite, […]
