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Orbita 9: Watch The Trailer For The Spanish SciFi Romance
2 hours ago
Helena is a young woman who has spent her entire life in deep space, born en route to a distant colony and left alone when a malfunction in her craft made it impossible for both her and her parents to arrive safely forcing her parents to turn back and leave Helena to continue her journey to a better life alone. It's a lonely but simple life until her craft rendezvous with an engineer sent to fix the fault and it turns out everything has been a lie, nothing but an extended social experiment. And Helena has been on earth the entire time. This is the premise of Hatem Kraiche Ruiz-Sorrilla's upcoming scifi romance Orbita 9, and while it kind of seems as though the actual...
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Interview: Samurai Jack Actor Phil Lamarr Gets Back to the Past
3 hours ago
Long ago in a distant land, Cartoon Network abruptly, mysteriously, cancelled one of their most critically-acclaimed series about a foolish Samurai warrior wielding a magic sword, who stepped forth to oppose Aku, the shape-shifting Master of Darkness. After a full decade of fans refusing to forget the groundbreaking, Emmy award-winning show, Samurai Jack returns to television to finally put an end to Aku’s unspeakable evil and Get Back to the Past. Samurai Jack himself, actor Phil Lamarr, from Pulp Fiction and MADtv, and voices of Futurama's Hermes and Static Shock, told me what it was like to return to a very different Samurai after a decade. The Lady Miz Diva: What is it like to return to this character after a decade? ...
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Review: Canoa: A Shameful Memory, Who are the Bad Hombres?
4 hours ago
It's always a nice surprise to come upon a completely unfamiliar film that is, in fact, a seminal entry in its national cinema history. It's all the more surprising, upon first viewing, to find oneself a bit stunned by that designation. Such is the case with my recent exposure to filmmaker Felipe Cazal's 1976 Canoa: A Shameful Memory. Being admittedly unfamiliar with most Mexican cinema outside of crossover faves Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuaron and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (the former two participate on this disc's bonus features), a large amount of ignorance must be pleaded. But that said, the film's predominant static, faux vérité quality did prove testing. Based upon actual accounts of a 1968 lynch mob assault on a small group of visiting University...
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SXSW 2017 Review: Three Dystopian Narcissists and an Infinity Baby
5 hours ago
In the not too distant future of Infinity Baby, stem cell research has caused a freak side effect wherein a certain breed of newborns will not age, rather they'll stay babies for their entire lives. Society has deemed them "infinity babies", and rather than pressuring pharmaceutical companies to create drugs that reverse the stifled growth effect, the government has allowed one company, whose name is bleeped whenever it’s spoken, to grow rich selling pills that make parenting eternal babies a breeze, thereby normalizing the freak evolutionary occurrence. Food is dished out in the form of a pill to prevent laboring over meal prep, and for those guardians who agree to care for infinity babies, not only is there incredibly generous compensation, but there will also...
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Hong Kong goes West - When Hong Kong film makers attempt to break the Western market - part 5
5 hours ago
2010’s In my previous article there was a comment regarding a film that I had left out. I apologise in advance if there are any films that I miss out. This may be due to me simply forgetting or just not seeing a particular film. After the Forbidden Kingdom, Jackie Chan would return to Hong Kong to work on Director Derek Yee’s Shinjiku Incident (2009). A total change of pace for Chan, with a purely dramatic role, it seemed it was a step in the right direction for the ageing action star. Unfortunately Chan’s next leading role would be in the family movie The Spy Next Door (2010), which is not only Chan’s poorest American made film, but one of the poorest of his career....
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70s Rewind: The Disappearance, Melancholy Blooms Slowly in the Winter
6 hours ago
A man returns home after a business trip and discovers that his wife has disappeared. In the moody drama The Disappearance, directed by Stuart Cooper (Overlord), Jay Mallory (Donald Sutherland) appears to be a successful businessman, living on the top floor of a comfortable residential complex in Montreal. It's the dead of winter and the city is covered in snow. From his apartment, Mallory can look down upon the foggy river(s) below; the season matches his mood. Mallory begins to search for his wife Celandine (Francine Racette). Simultaneously, he is pressed to move on to his next work assignment, for which he has already received a hefty advance. Burbank (David Warner) visits him at home, and it is then that we begin to understand what...
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Hong Kong goes West - When Hong Kong film makers attempt to break the Western market - part 6
6 hours ago
It would turn out that Enthiran wouldn’t be the only Indian film that Yuen Woo Ping would work on. He would go on to create the fight scenes for the romantic thriller I (2014). Although it does have some well directed fight scenes throughout the film, its excessive length and overstretched plot don’t do the film any favours, making viewing of I a decidedly mixed bag. It also pales in comparison to his work on the previous year’s Man of Tai Chi. In some cases, there are a number of films that have fleeting appearances from Hong Kong stars, like Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014). Although Li Bingbing plays a main role in the film as Stanley Tucci’s assistant, there is blink and you will...
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Climate Change Doc The Age Of Consequences: Make Plans to Watch It Now
7 hours ago
After debuting at Hot Docs in Toronto last year, Jared P. Scott's documentary The Age of Consequences enjoyed a theatrical run in January and now it's heading to home video. We have an exclusive link for advance purchase of the climate change doc. First, here's the official synopsis: The Age of Consequences investigates climate change impacts on increased resource scarcity, migration, and conflict through the lens of national security and global stability. Through unflinching case-study analysis, distinguished U.S. military admirals, generals and veterans lay bare how climate change stressors interact with societal tensions and spark conflict. Water and food shortages, drought, extreme weather and sea-level rise function as 'accelerants of instability' and 'catalysts for conflict' in volatile regions of the world that will lead to...
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Screen Anarchists On Kong: Skull Island
9 hours ago
Unless you've been living under a (skull-shaped?) rock, you're probably aware there is a new King King film in theaters. It's called Kong: Skull Island, and opinions about it within Screen Anarchy are divided, to say the least. Kwenton Bellette was the first of us to see it, and he wrote our official review. He was not benevolent-minded towards it. In fact, Kwenton basically tore Skull Island a new eye-hole. Here are some nice quotes, taken from Kwenton's article: ...As if to revert expectations, the direction instead drains all the interest, intrigue and humanity, resulting in a bloodless theme park ride. (...) The bad direction ensures the film remains surface-level shallow, with genuine ideas and moments thrown at the screen, and almost discarded in...
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North Hollywood CineFest announces 2017 Awards Nominees
13 hours ago
The North Hollywood CineFest just announced their 2017 Awards Nominees for their highly anticipated 4th edition. This year's festival will run from March 24-30 in Los Angeles and the fantastic line-up includes new work from established and fresh filmmaking talent. Look out for Speak Now by Melissa Vitello, Ghost in the Machine by Brock Humphrey, The Lady Killers by Phil Leirness, Bear with Us by William J. Stribling, Red by Branko Tomovic, Welcome to Willits by Trevor Ryan, ToY by Patrick Chapman, American Fango by Gabriele Altobelli, House By The Lake by Adam Gierasch, H.O.M.E. by Daniel Maldonado and many more... The festival kicks off on March 24 with I Had a Bloody Good Time at House Harker by Clayton Cogswell and offers many La and world premieres in the following days, including American Fango, Bear with Us, The Big Day and Speak Now. The 4th annual film...
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Criterion in June 2017: Mizoguchi's Ugetsu, Pagnol's Marseille Trilogy, Plus Hitchcock, Ray and Peckinpah
22 hours ago
Come June, the Criterion Collection will be presenting some mighty fine alternatives to the Hollywood blockbuster machine. It starts with Mizoguchi Kenji's Ugetsu and includes two early works by Alfred Hitchcock (The Lodger) and Nicholas Ray (They Live By Night), as well as Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs, which continues to stir controversy. For those with a taste for French cinema, a newly restored version of Marcel Pagnol's Marseille Trilogy arrives on Blu-ray for the first time. Click through the gallery below to see all the Blu-ray covers and read the official descriptions from Criterion....
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SXSW 2017 Review: David Lynch - The Art Life Sheds Light on Darkness
16 March 2017 11:00 AM, PDT
David Lynch is one of the great mysteries in the filmmaking world. His films are meticulously constructed enigmas, which require the same type of open minded approach to understanding as it likely takes Lynch himself to paint with images. His films come from an otherworldly plane of consciousness that must be met with a susceptibility - like a dream you’re powerless to its experience, and any attempt to describe it in the aftermath will fail to replicate the actual feeling, which is the only real language in which dreams function. It is no accident that Lynch’s DVDs often come a la carte - without special features and elaborative featurettes. In fact, many of Lynch’s films’ DVD releases don’t even offer chapter selection, prohibiting viewers from...
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Review: It's Oh So Quiet in Kore-eda Hirokazu's After The Storm
16 March 2017 10:00 AM, PDT
In Kore-eda's world, the storm is not a cause of destruction and pain but a helping agent to bond with each other- something the current Japanese society has lost due to modern life taking its course. But the film is so old-fashioned and soft-edged, it hardly registers on an emotional level. Still a great little film. But after the greatness that was Our Little Sister, After the Storm feels like a minor Kore-eda.
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Review: Atomica, Strong on Thriller, Light on Sci-Fi
16 March 2017 9:00 AM, PDT
Science fiction stories, especially in film and television, can often set up a sci-fi scenario only to put it almost entirely to the side (making a case for why such a scenario would be used at all). Atomica, directed by Dagen Merrill, is a sci fi thriller that focuses perhas more on the 'thriller' part than the sci-fi, but is solid and engaging in its execution, creating its suspense through character conflict, rather than the sci-fi scenrario in which the story is placed. In this not-so-distant future, a company has created technology to utilize nuclear radiation as an energy source, all but eliminating the need for other sources. When the first of these energy plants seems to have stopped functioning properly, a safety inspector, Abby...
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Let The Corpses Tan: First Teaser For Amer Duo's Western Arrives!
16 March 2017 8:30 AM, PDT
Fans of Bruno Forzani and Helene Cattet rejoice! We've been waiting for the latest from the Belgian duo behind dazzling neo-giallo pictures Amer and The Strange Color Of Your Body's Tears for some time now and the first teaser for their upcomign western Let The Corpses Tan (Laissez Bronzer Les Cadavres) has arrived and it is clearly, unmistakably theirs. The Mediterranean summer: blue sea, blazing sun….and 250 kg of gold stolen by Rhino and his gang! They had found the perfect hideout: an abandoned and remote hamlet now taken over by a woman artist in search for inspiration. Unfortunately surprise guests and two cops compromise their plan: the heavenly place where wild happenings and orgies used to take place turns into a gruesome battlefield….Relentless and...
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Review: The Belko Experiment, Bloody, Brutal Terror in the Office
16 March 2017 8:00 AM, PDT
Ferocious, brutal and audacious, The Belko Experiment is also empathetic and funny. It starts the blood pumping from the first frame, then jacks it up with brains, brawn and recognizable humanity. In Bogota, Colombia, employees report for a normal day of work at Belko, a non-profit corporation located in a lonely high-rise building overlooking the city. But something is not quite right, as noted immediately by executive-type Barry Norris (Tony Goldwyn); he is questioned by new, heavily-armored security guards at the parking lot gate, and he wonders why some employees are being turned away and sent home. In the human resources office, new employee Dany Wilkins (Melonie Diaz) is welcomed by Vince Agostino (Brent Sexton), who quickly runs down a checklist; Dany asks about one...
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Review: The Devil's Candy, Fierce and Fabulous Horror
16 March 2017 7:00 AM, PDT
It was back in 2009 that Australian writer-director Sean Byrne burst onto the scene with his debut feature film, The Loved Ones, igniting a firestorm of positive praise that seemed poised to light the world on fire for this brash and seemingly fully formed talent. But, praise or not, 2009 was a difficult time for the independent film industry, with business models and release platforms seemingly changing by the day and, much like fellow festival darling All The Boys Love Mandy Lane, The Loved Ones became a victim of the changing landscape, languishing on the shelf for a frustrating length of time while the industry-at-large tried to get their shit together and ultimately squandered all that love and leaving Byrne spinning his wheels for far,...
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Blood, Fire, & Betrayal Rule In Baahubali 2: The Conclusion Trailer
15 March 2017 11:37 PM, PDT
We had to wait a little but longer than expected for this day to arrive, but fans of SS Rajamouli's intense period epic Baahubali: The Beginning back in 2015 can finally get a taste of what they have to look forward to in the sequel. The trailer for Baahubali 2: The Conclusion arrives today and it's somehow even more ambitious than the first film, bursting with flames and fury from every direction. I don't know that further words are even necessary for this trailer, if you saw the first film you have some idea of the scope and breadth of Rajamouli's imagination and his uncanny capability to deliver amazing action like no one in India can. However, I think it's safe to say that the...
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SXSW 2017 Review: Mayhem, So Fast on Its Feet That It's Almost Out of Control
15 March 2017 9:59 PM, PDT
With great lead performances by Steven Yeun and Samara Weaving, a great musical score by Steve Moore, and great bloody action masterminded by director Joe Lynch, Mayhem is almost too much fun. It's the perfect example of a movie that knows what it is and is more than happy to deliver that to an audience eager to devour it. Lynch burst onto the genre scene with Wrong Turn 2: Dead End, a direct-to-video sequel that was far better than it had any right to be. More recently, Everly featured Salma Hayek in a furiously entertaining action picture that, again, exceeded expectations. Mayhem spreads that same action spirit out over a larger cast trapped in an office building after an outbreak of the so-called 'red eye'...
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New Directors/New Films 2017: 6 Must-See Selections
15 March 2017 8:30 PM, PDT
The 46th edition of the Film Society of Lincoln Center and Museum of Modern Art's New Directors/New Films Festival screens from March 15 through 26. As always, it's an eclectic international showcase of interesting new talents and approaches to cinematic expression. In the gallery below are my picks of particular highlights of this year's selection. For more information, visit the festival's website....
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