By: Addison Wylie I don’t regret liking HBO’s Entourage even though Doug Ellin’s cinematic continuation of the hit TV series stinks. The television show offered a sleek albeit heightened look into the politics and smooth-talkers behind Hollywood. Actor Vincent Chase was a lucrative asset to any major motion picture, and his friends witnessed this as they tagged along for the ride. Frequently vulgar and overtly macho, Entourage was amusing escapism that made filmdom look and…
By: Shannon Page Written and directed by Jeff Lipsky (Twelve Thirty, Molly’s Theory of Everything), Mad Women aims to challenge audience’s perceptions of desire and family by fearlessly ripping into taboo territory – but whether it succeeds or not is up for debate. Nevada Smith (Kelsey Lynn Stokes) is an attractive young woman struggling to find her place in a family of over-achievers that include her older sister, a doctor working overseas; her father (Reed…
By: Mark Barber The Creeping Garden – a documentary about the professional and amateur fascination with slime mould in the scientific community – is a film without an argument; a particularly troublesome direction to take with the documentary genre. The film begins misleadingly with archival news footage detailing the discovery of an unknown, slimy substance found in Texas, suggesting that the direction the film will be a generic blend between documentary and horror; similar to two…
By: Addison Wylie Life With Derek’s Michael Seater gets his directorial feet wet with the ensemble dramedy People Hold On. It’s a good place for the budding filmmaker to start. The film itself is contained within few environments and doesn’t call for visual tricks, which leaves Seater a lot of time to draw characters and connect with his tight-knit cast. The filmmaker must’ve also felt another level of comfort and confidence knowing co-star Paula Brancati – whom…
By: Addison Wylie “Have you ever exceeded the limits of pain?” Now, I have. When Your Flesh Screams is in need of more lighting, more rewrites, more experienced actors, and more time in an edit bay. Most of all, Guillermo Martínez’s low-rent ode to exploitation-horror is in need of someone to show it the door. This is a film made by people who have seen raw works like Last House on the Left and are only interested in the…
By: Addison Wylie We’ve all seen some variation of “crazy” in supermarket tabloids and on afternoon television programming, but Finders Keepers looks past what some would define as “too wild to be true” and finds the humanity behind the headlines. That’s not to say the story this documentary follows isn’t wacky – it absolutely is. In what could only be described as fate, John Wood and Shannon Whisnant were brought together after Whisnant found Wood’s…
By: Addison Wylie New Yorkers must’ve sensed something was up when the Big Apple was suddenly populated by topless female protesters. Then, celebrities like Miley Cyrus, Cara Delevingne, and Lena Dunham were throwing their support behind trending hashtag #FreeTheNipple. Something was definitely up. Alas, it was all for Lina Esco’s movie Free the Nipple and the empowering mission supporting it. Esco and various other activists seen in Free the Nipple feel very passionately about inequality…
By: Addison Wylie I go out of my way to see faith-based movies – I’m oddly obsessed with them. Not because of the beliefs and not necessarily for the theatregoing experience itself, but because for two-hours, I get a glimpse into a whole other world. A world where prayer can be described as the only reliable resource and be discussed as a way to salvation, and problems can be solved by asking the lord for…
By: Addison Wylie The Stanford Prison Experiment is fascinating as it is disturbing. It’s too bad such an inhumane procedure had to take place in real life in order for us to receive this excellent and provocative dramatization. Stanford’s Dr. Philip Zimbardo took a leap of faith when designing an experiment which positioned 18 young men as guards and prisoners in a makeshift jail located in the basement of the university’s Jordan Hall. The two-week long…
By: Addison Wylie Veteran actor Bruce Greenwood and budding actress Ella Purnell are two performers who benefit the most from Frank Hall Green’s weak drama Wildlike. Purnell plays fragile teenager Mackenzie who has been taken advantage of, and in turn can’t trust anyone. Greenwood plays heartbroken wanderer Rene who hopes for a future of clarity and eventual happiness. When Purnell and Greenwood are together, their chemistry is suitably akin to oil and water, but they’re both convincing in their own right. Unfortunately, despite reccomending Wildlike’s…