Tagged with genre films

Review: Bellflower, 2011, dir. Evan Glodell

Review: Bellflower, 2011, dir. Evan Glodell

Flamethrowers, precarious romance, badass muscle cars, and directionless, angry young men make for a potentially cataclysmic cocktail. So goes the narrative of Evan Glodell’s Bellflower, a tale of love and apocalypse and slackerdom and possibly the most aesthetically unique film of the year. Glodell, who not only directed the film but also wrote the script … Continue reading

Review: Hanna, 2011, dir. Joe Wright

Review: Hanna, 2011, dir. Joe Wright

Hanna makes a sound argument that action movies need not be artless, though maybe when the person at the helm is Joe Wright the final outcome can only inevitably attain a level of artfulness worth observing. Wright is responsible for 2007’s Atonement, a strikingly beautiful film that remains mostly empty despite its impressive craftsmanship; where … Continue reading

Review: The Last Circus, 2011, dir. Álex de la Iglesia

Review: The Last Circus, 2011, dir. Álex de la Iglesia

Coulrophobics, rejoice: Álex de la Iglesia has made your Citizen Kane. The Last Circus marks the scary clown film to end all scary clown films, a high-volume nightmare factory for those who suffer from a crippling fear of tumblers, jesters, jokers, and harlequins with painted faces and outrageous costumes. In theory, it’s also a bit … Continue reading

Review: Attack the Block, 2011, dir. Joe Cornish

Review: Attack the Block, 2011, dir. Joe Cornish

You’ve seen movies like Attack the Block before– movies where an enemy-of-all emerges and threatens to destroy, devour, or dominate all life until being defeated by a thoroughly ordinary hero or group of heroes– yet Joe Cornish’ directorial debut stands out as one of the year’s most thoroughly original and memorable releases regardless. Largely, this … Continue reading

Review: Meek’s Cutoff, 2011, dir. Kelly Reichardt

Review: Meek’s Cutoff, 2011, dir. Kelly Reichardt

Meek’s Cutoff feels something like an oddity in the western genre, and I mean that in the best way possible. There’s no denying the western influences clearly embedded in its cinematic DNA; Kelly Reichardt’s fourth feature very much draws from that celluloid tradition, but she’s not telling a story about cowboys and Indians or marshals … Continue reading

Review: Hobo With a Shotgun, 2011, dir. Jason Eisner

Review: Hobo With a Shotgun, 2011, dir. Jason Eisner

During the last act of the felicitously named Hobo With a Shotgun, Rutger Hauer’s eponymous vagrant delivers a speech to a hospital nursery filled with babies that may set your meta-sense tingling. There’s a feeling that Hauer’s almost talking about himself and his own life decisions which have led him to star in a brisk, … Continue reading

Review: Super 8, 2011, dir. J.J. Abrams

Review: Super 8, 2011, dir. J.J. Abrams

J.J. Abrams is short of a single meticulously crafted script before he creates his masterpiece; he knows how to make an entertaining, fulfilling movie that resonates with his audiences, but each of his cinematic endeavors has been hamstrung by virtue of lacking a highly polished, impeccable piece of writing that elevates his work from “good” … Continue reading

Review: Monsters, 2010, dir. Gareth Edwards

In Monsters, the debut picture of newcomer Gareth Edwards, colossal alien beasts roam the lands south of the US/Mexico border after landing on Earth six years ago. The territory they inhabit, stretching south from the border through much of northern Mexico, has been deemed the “infected zone” and is considered hostile for human beings to … Continue reading

Review: Centurion, 2010, dir. Neil Marshal

In roughly AD 117, Rome’s 9th Legion disappeared while on the march through Britain. What happened to them has been the subject of much debate and speculation amongst scholars; some assert that they were wiped out by Celtic tribes of Britain, while others believe that they simply disbanded, and still others suggest that they died … Continue reading