Back on the Strip is a guilty pleasure in the sense that I feel like I need to apologize to somebody for laughing as much as I did. This unleashed movie isn’t very perceptive or thoughtful, but it knows how to deliver a payoff and a punchline. I suppose in these circumstances you have to be fair and give credit where credit is due, but it feels like I’m rewarding bad behaviour.
By: Jolie Featherstone Talk to Me, by brothers Danny and Michael Philippou (a.k.a. RackaRacka of YouTube fame), is a modern folk tale charged with the rush and hook of viral trends, and the desperate compulsion of grief.
Master Gardener is the third entry in writer/director Paul Schrader’s “man in a room” series, and it’s a satisfying albeit modest finish to a contemplative trilogy the filmmaker hadn’t initially planned.
I haven’t kept up with Gerard Butler’s action vehicles since being disappointed by 2013’s Olympus Has Fallen. A grudge hadn’t kept me away from Butler. In fact, his action flicks have looked appealing by the promotional material as I find myself distracted with other titles. After missing this year’s Plane, I didn’t want to miss the boat on his second outing of the year. I sat down for Mission Kandahar with excitement running through my…
Showing little regard for the intelligence of its audience, One True Loves stretches the suspension of disbelief until its final fray.
By: Jolie Featherstone Marlowe, Neil Jordan’s adaptation of John Banville’s (a.k.a. Benjamin Black) novel The Black-Eyed Blonde, brings Philip Marlowe (a character created by novelist Raymond Chandler) to life in a sunny noir set in a luscious, pre-WWII Californian town where everyone is trying to climb the ladder of success – no matter the cost.
Orphan: First Kill, to an extent, pulls off its ambitious goal of being a prequel to a 13-year-old movie using the same leading actor.
I’m not afraid of heights. However, as I watched Fall with bated breath, I felt chills and quivers in my back and my legs which I’ve never felt before. Watching the movie’s climb-savvy leads (wayward friends played by Grace Fulton and Virginia Gardner) scale a 2,000 radio tower in the middle of the desert was enough for me to clasp my armrest. Watching them dangle from the tower after being stranded at the top was…
By: Jolie Featherstone John Michael McDonagh’s grim social drama, The Forgiven, explores the intersections of class, race, and culture. Based on the 2012 novel of the same name by author Lawrence Osborne, the film constructs a world beyond time. Indeed, the story feels as if it could be set today or many decades ago and it would still be just as relevant.
