“The Room” has been celebrated a hundred times over, ad nauseaum, since it became a small midnight movie hit years after its initial release. Since then every critic and columnist far and wide has had their chance with it, and every respective movie buff has seen it, combed over it, and even read the book “The Disaster Artist.” Based on the film’s co-star Greg Sestero’s experiences with its eccentric director and working on the inexplicably demanding film, “The Disaster Artist” by director James Franco and writers Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Webe, is a love letter to Wiseau’s ambition that asks why.
Category Archives: Movie Reviews
Christmas Dreams (2017)
Andrew Repasky McElhinney, the critically acclaimed underground filmmaker responsible for such offbeat gems as “A Chronicle of Corpses” (2001) and “Georges Bataille’s Story of the Eye” (2003), has created a whimsical holiday season feature.
Told without any dialogue, this feature presents a series of inventive dance sequences linked to the simple tale of a contemporary Little Drummer Boy (Conrad Sager) trying to win the heart of a pretty girl (Francesca Flamminio). A magical toymaker keeps an eye on this youthful pair as their dreams spin into vibrant fantasty detours before settling in a delightful reality.
The Breakfast Club (1985) [Criterion Collection] [Blu-Ray]
It’s apt that John Hughes’ “The Breakfast Club” would be granted a Criterion release, as it’s still one of the most riveting character studies ever released. While it’s often imitated, Hughes’ 1985 drama stands alone as a hallmark of simplicity, grabbing a cast at the top of their game in a decade, offering up truly remarkable performances in already seasoned careers. “The Breakfast Club” was basically “The Big Chill.” Except for a drama being about people in the middle of their lives, we’re able to sit down for ninety minutes with five young people at the beginning of their lives pondering on what they could become as adults, what they don’t want to become as adults, and what they fear they will become as adults.
Bright (2017)
It’s David Ayer with another cop drama except rather than a socially relevant tale about mismatched officers of a different race or gender or religion—it’s got Orcs! “Bright” is by no means as clever as it thinks it is, as it uses fantasy tropes not to move the story forward or to lend a new twist to the cop drama, but to hammer us over the head with clumsy allegories and symbolism. Max Landis’ script is painfully stale and lacks any kind of idea as to what it’s trying to get across. It’s much too serious to take as a fantasy film, and not silly enough to take it as a meta-cop movie. Even the opening scene of Will Smith’s character beating a fairy to death on his front lawn with a broom is flat and never quite played up as a meta joke, so much as a poorly delivered device to alert us that we’re watching a “different” kind of cop movie.
Cracking Cancer (2017)
Judith Pyke’s documentary, which was originally presented as an episode on the long-running CBC Television series The Nature of Things, highlights the groundbreaking research conducted by the BC Cancer Agency in Vancouver on Personalized OncoGenomics (POG), an experimental treatment for individuals with incurable cancer.
Darkest Hour (2017)
I am not certain where Gary Oldman culled inspiration to play Winston Churchill in this new cinematic equivalent of a comic book history lesson. With a blubbery voice and a penchant for cutesy physical movements, Oldman does a smashing impersonation of Benny Hill’s Mr. Scuttle, but the resemblance to Britain’s wartime leader isn’t quite there. An excess of make-up and generous body padding only succeeds in turning Oldman into living Madame Tussaud wax statue.
Hell Night (1981): Collector’s Edition [Blu-Ray/DVD]
Director Tom De Simone’s “Hell Night” usually gets lumped in together with a lot of the other eighties slashers, but in reality his genre offering is so much more unique than a simple hack and slash. “Hell Night” is a great Halloween horror romp that feels like something pulled out of a haunted house Gothic novel. It’s the perfect fixture for the holiday delivering a relentlessly bleak tone that makes it quite an unnerving experience all the way through. Linda Blair can do these kinds of horror movies in her sleep and she plays final girl Marti quite well, doing her best to battle a deformed monster in its territory.