I’m sorry but I just have to have respect for a man who creates a vision like “One-Day Seminar” and performs a trick where the crew pays homage to the show in the process. For a nineteen minute comedy short, director Binder kept me in near stitches by scenarios that were turned catastrophic thanks to stubbornness by main character Tommy Murray and the intense rudeness received by him when he decides to host a seminar.
It’s attack of the murderous Razr’s: the remake, in what is easily one of the worst horror movies of 2008, one of the worst movies of 2008, and one of the worst remakes of all time. And that’s not hyperbole, suckers. The remake of the 2003 Takashe Miike horror film stars a veritable cast of B listers dragging us through the doldrums of bland performances, limp tension, and a series of jump scares that go to ridiculous lengths to keep audiences awake; how else to explain a shock from a deafening asthma inhaler, and a falling marionette puppet?
You have to appreciate the interesting new twist added on the tale of one of the more famous biblical figures of all time; Di Franco definitely has the right idea with this movie adding an entirely new perspective that not only made the final act of one character understandable, but also added some hint of dimensions behind his motivation in the grand scheme of the final events. The filming is beautiful with some gorgeous landscapes and wonderful set pieces. Di Franco definitely has an eye for breathtaking scenery and gives the film a flair it needs.
I was admittedly very skeptical with Robbins’ war time documentary for the simple fact that I’m frankly tired of seeing war time documentaries that attempt to sway me one way or the other. I’m either watching a cleaned up war through the eyes of the soldiers who beg for sympathy, or through some pundit bemoaning the Iraq War endlessly and harping on our doomed country in a war that may not end too soon.
Too often we’ve found films that some great director is presenting and too often we’ve been let down, disillusioned and left to wonder why said director would approve of such a horrible title. This is thankfully not the case with “The Orphanage.” Executive Producer Guillermo Del Toro, currently the best director in modern film, presents a film that’s very much in the gamut of the man’s past titles. “The Orphanage” has the touch of Del Toro all over it, and like the previous films, Bayona’s supernatural drama is a wonderful tale about innocence lost, and children ravaged by cruelty.
The Irish musical “Once” by John Carney is very much of a gentle and quaint little elegy of life and love much like the subtle whisper that was “Me You and Everyone We Know.” Going in and out of theaters with barely a notice, it’s a shocker something so powerful as “Once” could go almost completely unnoticed. It’s just a painful crime that something as beautiful and utterly riveting as Carney’s “Once” could just completely be dismissed as another indie drama when really it’s a truly powerful musical.
Around the time of the attacks of September 11th 2001, America was at its all time high of security, ignorance, idiocy, anger, hatred, sadness, etc. But most importantly, filmmakers were compelled to express their sheer rush of emotions responding to this attack. Some gave us patriotic films, some paid homage to that day, and others preferred to examine more original views. Director Siddiq Barmak instead gives us an inside look at the practices and cruelty of the Taliban, and a society paralyzed under the control of the Taliban.