Tagged with 2015 Films …

Review: Queen of Earth, 2015, dir. Alex Ross Perry

Review: Queen of Earth, 2015, dir. Alex Ross Perry

“Is Alex Ross Perry America’s best contemporary filmmaker? If your voice is counted among the uproar raised over Perry’s 2014 film, Listen Up Philip, that shouldn’t even be a question, but that film plays only to palates honed to withstand the acrid taste of wanton awfulness. Perry makes lovely, fractured movies about hideous people. Watching … Continue reading →

Review: American Ultra

Review: American Ultra

“Like the protagonist of his film, Nima Nourizadeh’s American Ultra suffers from an identity crisis. The package sounds great on paper: A stoner targeted for elimination by the CIA learns he’s a highly trained government superspy of the Jason Bourne persuasion who gets reactivated in the face of imminent death and becomes a very, very … Continue reading →

Review: Youth, 2015, dir. Tom Shoval

Review: Youth, 2015, dir. Tom Shoval

“Brothers Shaul (Eitan Cunio) and Yaki (David Cunio) Cooper are as close as two siblings can be: They watch movies together, they pee together, and, when their family’s financial chips are down, they kidnap and ransom people together. Israeli filmmaker Tom Shoval’s film Youthbegins with Shaul hatching the brothers’ plot as he follows their target—wealthy … Continue reading →

Review: Prince, 2015, dir. Sam de Jong

Review: Prince, 2015, dir. Sam de Jong

If you’ve seen the coming-of-age movies and crime flicks that influence Sam de Jong’s Prince, you can guess where it’s heading within its first 10 minutes. Teenage boys with too much free time and too many hormones, menacing older boys who haunt their inner city neighborhood, pulsing house scores, adolescent infatuation, misguided masculinity, material obsession, … Continue reading →

Review: Final Girl, 2015, dir. Tyler Shields

Review: Final Girl, 2015, dir. Tyler Shields

“Have you ever sat through a movie so ponderous and pointless that you felt the minutes ticking by as your patience slowly dwindled to zero? That’s more or less the experience of watching Tyler Shields’ immeasurably boringFinal Girl, a film injudiciously stitched together out of so many retread genre tropes that they wind up leeching … Continue reading →

Review: Fant4stic, 2015, dir. Josh Trank

Review: Fant4stic, 2015, dir. Josh Trank

“If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again.” When W.E. Hickson popularized this crusty old Thomas Palmer aphorism back in the 1800’s, he couldn’t have known that one day, one of America’s most high profile movie studios would take the phrase to heart with not one, not two, but three attempts at building a franchise … Continue reading →

Review: Felt, 2015, dir. Jason Banker

Review: Felt, 2015, dir. Jason Banker

“If there’s one objective statement to make about Felt, the third film by Jason Banker, it’s that it’ll make you deeply uncomfortable. Felt is easier to admire than to straight-up love, a symptom of the ways it uses unease as a tool for setting atmosphere and tone. But whether we like or dislike movies like … Continue reading →

Review: Big Significant Things, 2015, dir. Bryan Reisberg

Review: Big Significant Things, 2015, dir. Bryan Reisberg

“Channeling its theme of millennial ennui and disaffection, Bryan Reisberg’s handsomely crafted indie road trip comedy Big Significant Things has little to say, but says it with wit and style. Reisberg doesn’t pretend to have the answers, which doesn’t feel like a cop out since Craig Harrison–the neurotic, effete protagonist–doesn’t have any solutions. Harry simply … Continue reading →