Friday, June 26, 2020
Revenge (2017)
Revenge is a “revenge” film. It can be compared to the seminal I Spit on Your Grave (1978), but a more accurate comparison would be to Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003). With its stylish cinematography and unrelenting exploitation atmosphere, Revenge delivers the promised goods topped with a generous helping of blood.
The film builds its tension slowly and only becomes shoot-em-up schlock in the final sequence. This is perfect pacing for sci-fi fans, and it’s no surprise considering Fargeat previously made a sci-fi short called Reality+ (2014).
Love & Pop (1998)
Love & Pop is a film about how a few aimless schoolgirls respond to escort clients. Contrary to certain beliefs, it’s not really about anything else.
Anno Hideaki’s first live-action feature, the film echoes the director’s prior experience with animated productions. The style is so striking that it almost prompts criticism for its frenetic editing and postmodernist shot-on-MiniDV camerawork. However, over the course of the film, the frenzy subsides into calm. It has the same emotional arc as most other Anno productions, something that feels authentic.
Tuesday, June 23, 2020
Bone Tomahawk (2015)
It has been said that films are not timeless but timely. Bone Tomahawk knows exactly what it is and when it is, making it as timely as a Quentin Tarantino film.
S. Craig Zahler’s feature directorial debut is a dark film that dances around the edge of the “weird west” genre without going all the way in. It doesn’t have heavy doses of other genres. It does have Kurt Russell, tomahawks, and bones. It’s pretty good.
Sunday, June 21, 2020
The Last Days on Mars (2013)
The Last Days on Mars is a mid-size action sci-fi film in the typical niche of such fare, a niche which this critic is no stranger to. We used to call them “summer movies”. Now they’re called historical artifacts.
Zombies are once again on Mars. Terraforming hasn’t happened yet, and the space suits actually look like they work. Space zombies presented as hard science may be a hard sell for some people, but if you want to see the details of the space zombie fungus, the Mars habitats, and all the other cool space visuals, this movie was made for you.
2013 was a strange year for film.
Wednesday, April 29, 2020
The King of Comedy (1982)
The film opens with an insane crowd flocking around a Jerry Lewis-like character (played by Jerry Lewis). It’s intentionally nauseating. The movie knows more than the audience at this point, presenting an alien world of televised comedy and the surrounding fandom. This is Scorsese’s world, a world of extreme characters in the American excess of the last century.
Scorsese presents a century unburdened by soulless tech giants, fraud, deception, and insincerity. A century in which you can either talk to Jerry Lewis’s secretary over the telephone or go in person. A wonderful century. The century presented is one in which the protagonist, an aspiring comedian played by Robert De Niro, is free to approach the business however he wants, and he carves his path right through the man who he thinks is his friend.