Movie Reviews
(This review was originally published on October 31, 2011 at The Rogers Revue) A FOUR DAY INDULGENCE OF ZOMBIES, SLASHERS, PSYCHOTIC DEVIANTS (AND FEW THINGS I’M NOT SURE THEY HAVE A NAME FOR YET), THE FESTIVAL BOASTS AN ECLECTIC AND TWISTED SELECTION OF HORROR FROM A BEVY OF INDEPENDENT FILMMAKERS. AND JUST IN TIME FOR HALLOWEEN – […]
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(This review was originally published on October 28, 2011 at The Rogers Revue) “Martha Marcy May Marlene” begins as a quiet, unsettling psychological thriller that plants a seed of apprehension within its eerie first minutes and patiently grows into something considerably more terrifying. We see a young woman emerge from a cabin with a backpack, seemingly in […]
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(This review was originally published on October 21, 2011 at The Rogers Revue) Tim Chambers didn’t seem concerned about much other than preserving a piece of sports history when he wrote and directed “The Mighty Macs”, a film that endured four years of adversity, three of which involved seeking distribution after its completion. Along with co-producing […]
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(This review was originally published on October 7, 2011 at The Rogers Revue) Director Shawn Levy inaugurates the fall movie season with “Real Steel”, a frustrating effort that proves the rope-a-dope can be just as effective on a human audience as it is against a 2,000 lb. robot with nitrous-fueled jabs. Set in the year […]
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(This review was originally published on September 23, 2011 at The Rogers Revue) “Killing is easy. Living with it is the hard part,” says Danny Bryce, Jason Statham’s character in “Killer Elite”. Though this nugget of wisdom is not imparted until well into the second half of the film, it’s a pretty good meter of […]
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(This review was originally published on September 16, 2011 at The Rogers Revue) A Straw Dog – highly regarded, but when no longer need, discarded. In 1971, Sam Peckinpah’s psychological thriller “Straw Dogs” created a ripple in a generation of filmgoers with its unprecedented depiction of human brutality. Censors struggled with an appropriate rating in England […]
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(This review was originally published on September 9, 2011 at The Rogers Revue) We’ve seen plenty of pandemic films before. Varying from big budget successes like “Outbreak”, independent pictures like 2009′s “Carriers” and Danny Boyle’s gruesome vision “28 Days Later”, the possibility of a global health emergency has been explored in movies for decades. It’s no wonder that this fictionally enhanced topic continues […]
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(This review was originally published on August 31, 2011 at The Rogers Revue) Oftentimes when thrillers attempt to weave the realism of a historically relevant era into their plot, they get wrapped up in the mechanics of what the characters are doing instead of the characters themselves. “The Debt”, John Madden’s re-imagining of the 2007 Israeli thriller […]
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(This review was originally published on August 26, 2011 at The Rogers Revue) For a film as dependent on visual texture as “Don’t be Afraid of the Dark”, it makes sense that Guillermo del Toro would choose graphic novelist Troy Nixey to direct his updated vision of the 1973 made-for-television horror classic. Stepping behind the […]
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(This review was originally published on August 21, 2011 at The Rogers Revue) “Summer Pasture” is a keen, unimposing observation of Tibetan culture that finds an emotional common ground with its audience, a curious comparison to our own domestic lives and how we interact. Directed by Lynn True and Nelson Walker (with co-director Tsering Perlo), this 86 […]
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