Director Richard Linklater explores the rarely touched upon trope of the romance. What happens after “They lived happily ever after”? When the dust has settled and Jessie and Celine have built a life together, what happens when reality interferes in the romantic fantasy. Surely for two films, Jessie and Celine had a wonderful whirlwind romance, then an amazing reunion, but will Jessie’s love for his child and his obligations ultimately destroy the true love he yearned for years?
I wish more zombie movies could be like Jeremy Gardner’s “The Battery.” The problem with most modern zombie films is that the writers forget that the humans should be the centerpiece of the film, and not the zombies. Director Jeremy Gardner’s “The Battery” is the prime example of how to handle this kind of genre entertainment with a low budget. Rather than flood the screen with zombies, the monsters are used sparingly and for great moments of terror and memorable scenes, while Gardner focuses primarily on character, building two complex and unique people we can love and hate, in many ways.
Director and writer Matthew Saliba has managed to amass an interesting and unique body of films that delve in to the underbelly of sexuality. Sex, pain, and death always seem to go hand in hand. He usually has a keen eye for detail and provides wonderful statements about excess and revenge, but “Eroticide” really is a step down for the director.
If I could have one wish, it’d be to interview Richard Linklater.
It’s a bit selfish to test my luck in that regard, only because you’re only granted so many wishes in life before the well runs dry, but I mean it, if I could, I’d pick that man’s brain for at least an hour.
Gifted auteur Chan-wook Park has made his US cinematic debut with “Stoker,” a film that is easily one of the most brilliant horror films of 2013. Park is one of the few Asian imports that’s managed to really debut with a bang, and “Stoker” shows that Park is well worth making it to the states. As well, he has potential to deliver a high pedigree of genre films if he has the chance.
Director Wes Bencoster’s short horror film is a master stroke of a commentary on war and the inherent futility of the Vietnam war. Much like a horror film, “Hold Your Fire” begins with a gas masked soldier in a dusty land rooting through a landfill, and watches as a figure slowly creeps up on him. He fires shooting the figure in the head, and walks over to investigate the corpse. “Hold Your Fire” is based heavily on metaphor and symbolism paired with a thick irony that never spares a single second in displaying a world still affected by the Vietnam war, and how it still affects so many.
May Dove Canady’s upbringing is eerily very similar to Michael Myers. While there isn’t a hint of abuse or neglect in the opening shots that chronicle life as a child in her family house hold, we get the sense that the somewhat grating goal for perfection is the key to May’s abundant madness and psychosis. When we meet May, she’s a fairly normal and meek child who has been inflicted with a lazy eye that gives her poor sight. Though it’s a small imperfection that can be adjusted over time, her mother spends a majority of the time focusing on the imperfection to notice May is a very beautiful young girl. Though she doesn’t entirely experience unusual cruelty for her small affliction, the abundant idealizing of her mother, as well as the fawning over a china doll that is clearly the manifestation of what her mother originally pictures would be May, causes her to grow in to an isolated and mal adjusted young woman.