A sniper duo sent to the edge of a war zone to kill the head of a dangerous organization end up wandering the woods followed by something, before killing the incorrect target from bad intel and needing to stick around until they can eliminate the correct target. Something is definitely following them and getting closer.
It’s pretty disheartening when a movie like “Flamin’ Hot” is released that offers a different take on the whole rags to riches story. Then you learn that none of it is even remotely true, and all you can really do is invest in a myth, or shut it off halfway. I decided to stick with it because, hey if you can’t be given a true story, maybe there’s an entertaining one to be found. But “Flamin’ Hot” is just another in a line of “Rah Rah Capitalism!” movies to be found on the market with movies like “Tetris,” “Blackberry,” and the obnoxious “Air.” I don’t know what the goal is behind making movies about the creation of various products, but I’m just not on board.
Inside “Heroes of the Golden Mask” there’s a great film desperate to bust out. It has a cool concept, some solid animation, and a neat mythology behind it. It’s just once you get down to the nit and grit of the narrative and some lingering plot holes, it never rises above being just average. It’s definitely a direct to video kind of animated movie better suited for basic cable, despite its best efforts. That’s not for lack of trying, though. Director Sean Patrick O’Reilly has a large career in producing budget animation. He and Arcana Studios have helped engineer titles such as “The Steam Engines of Oz,” and the mildly amusing “Howard Lovecraft and the Frozen Kingdom.”
The search for meaning, and why we exist is a question that plagues most sentient things on the planet. Although we’d probably be better off merely surviving day to day there’s the curse of the conscious being that we have to know why. That’s basically the premise for “SILEO.” Three years in the making, director and animator Demeter Lorant has build a dystopian, cold world where everything and every facet of society is run by machines. The machines have evolved to such a point that even the older models are being rejuvenated bit by bit. When GEFF 325520-BD, a fixer unit robot, decides to halt production, he goes on a quest to figure out why he’s there.
Director Tina Satter’s account of the interrogation of agent Reality Winner is perhaps one of the more tense thrillers of the year. It’s filled with so much suspense and tension from the moment Reality Winner pulls up to her drive way. Although the movie is simplistic and relies on a very small cast, Tina Satter is able to evoke a ton of really edge of the seat interplay between the characters. Based on the play “Is This a Room,” the dialogue is based almost completely on the transcripts between the federal agents and Reality Winner, and the respective cast is remarkable.
Tickets are now on sale at Fathom Events; coming to theaters nationwide for a special one-night engagement on Wednesday, June 21st at 7pm, local time.
A lot of the media likes to use the words “Indie film” whenever referring to a movie that isn’t entirely mainstream. The word has been homogenized over the years, as films like “Mad Heidi” are lost in the shuffle. “Mad Heidi” is a real indie film that worked hard to get a distribution deal, and it is here for us to gorge on. According to the press release, “Mad Heidi” initially made waves for its innovative crowdfunded approach, bypassing traditional financing tactics to ensure that the film’s original vision was preserved while placing profits back in the hands of the creators and backers. Even if neo-grindhouse isn’t your cup of tea, “Mad Heidi” deserves a lot of love for its willingness to embrace its indie roots, while also being literally as cheesy as it can possibly be.
Chris McKay’s take on the Dracula dynamic with Renfield has a lot going for it, but it also has so much stacked against it from the starting gate. In a year teeming with Dracula iterations, “Renfield” has a real shot at standing out among the other interpretations of Bram Stoker’s lore, but never really rises to the occasion. That’s mainly because while the concept is interesting “Renfield” never decides what it wants to be. It wants to be a satire on “Dracula,” and a commentary on abusive relationships. It tries to be a cop action, a buddy comedy, a vampire film, and straddles the dangerous line of being a satire on the abuser and abused relationship at times.