Primarily coming from a background in television and documentary filmmaking, for his feature-length effort Last Breath, director/co-writer Alex Parkinson adapts one of his docs of the same name that chronicled this same story of a stranded and submerged saturation diver. During some underwater pipeline maintenance, a disruption leads to a snagged, and ultimately severed, oxygen supply for the diver. As his team works to save him, the diver tries to conserve the last of his…
By: Addison Wylie After being lauded for his work as a documentarian on The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence, I suppose Joshua Oppenheimer was itching to cash in some clout; deciding to do so with an apocalyptic musical titled The End. Sporting impressive art direction and a well-regarded cast including Tilda Swinton (I’m Not Here), Michael Shannon (The Night Before) and George MacKay (1917), Oppenheimer fuses components of a survival thriller, a dynasty drama, and…
Conclave is an efficient chamber piece; evoking curiousities of how a pope is chosen as well as suggesting what cutthroat decisions happen before smoke bellows out of the Vatican to update the unsuspecting public. Overseen by Cardinal-Dean Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes of The Menu), the voting procedures that follow the death of a former pope strike Lawrence at a time of doubting his faith. He keeps this vulnerability close to his chest, but is called…
By: Addison Wylie Preceding an amicable exchange between ex-lovers, Andy Goodrich (Michael Keaton) is asked by his former wife Ann (Andie MacDowell) how he’s doing. “I’m okay,” Andy answers. “You’re always okay,” Ann teases. She isn’t wrong. Throughout Goodrich, the audience observes Andy doing okay. He occasionally has an awkward conversation that sometimes references his past as a flawed father but, otherwise, he’s a well-respected and levelheaded dude.
The assumption to presume there’s a personal connection between director Ellen Kuras and photographer Lee Miller, the subject of Kuras’ feature-length narrative debut Lee, isn’t that rash. An obvious interest for camerawork is shared between Kuras and Miller, and the passion for the craft may have also rubbed off on star Kate Winslet (who Kuras has worked with previously on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and A Little Chaos, and is credited as an executive producer on Lee). …
While a filmmaker who commits to their premise is usually worth commending, The Front Room repels the viewer towards condemning it.
Robot Dreams is a nice slice of easygoing entertainment, and it’s simple to see why it nabbed a recent Oscar nomination for Best Animated Film.
The iconic “crossing the streams” scenario, originally pitched by Ghostbusters, has served to be an effective comparison when describing debacles. Such is the case for another supernatural film, Handling the Undead. Norwegian filmmaker Thea Hvistendahl essentially”crosses the streams” by running a metaphorical subtext with more literal examples. Hvistendahl aims for nuance, but misses and creates heavy-handed deliveries and drawn out results.
