Movie Review: A Bigger Splash (2016)
Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino’s English-language debut entitled A Bigger Splash takes place in a specifically chosen setting at a villa hillside getaway on Pantelleria, a volcanic island that’s suspended between Italy and Tunisia on the Strait of Sicily. Conceived as an overt homage if not a complete replication of Jacques Deray’s stylish romantic thriller La … Continue reading
Movie Review: The Hateful Eight (2015)
Filmmaker and cinephile Quentin Tarantino’s celluloid occupied brain seems to resist being encumbered by meticulously absorbed cinema history, always being able to refocus his influences beyond simplistic homage and into a refreshing expressive purpose. His unique brand of creativity—admired both by actual film lovers and wannabe movie fans who think liking Tarantino equals cinematic sophistication—is … Continue reading
Movie Review: The Revenant (2015)
The tabula rasa quality of nature brings with it numerous interpretive contradictions that are often times difficult to decipher. It’s a plain of undeniable physical beauty, yet horridly cruel in its impending indifference; it can grant some spiritual tranquility, yet also act as an unforgiving tormentor; and for some it’s proof of the divine, yet … Continue reading
Movie Review: Youth (2015)
Over the course of his relatively short feature film career, Italian filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino has done his part in revitalizing the lost art of experimentally thought-provoking and amorously lush cinema that defined the olden European greats. As a devotee to both the surrealism of Federico Fellini and to the romanticism of Bernardo Bertolluci, Sorrentino creates lyrical … Continue reading
Movie Review: Macbeth (2015)
William Shakespeare’s Macbeth might very well be his most potentially cinematic of plays, or “visually superb” as the great Shakespearean translator and actor Laurence Olivier once remarked. Ingrained within the Bard’s ruthlessly swift, diabolically intriguing, and theatrically murderous text are grand themes with complimentary visual possibilities: monstrous ambition amidst desolate scarcity; a guilty paranoid descent … Continue reading
Movie Review: The Danish Girl (2015)
There’s something strangely amiss about director Tom Hooper’s Jazz Age transgender portrait, The Danish Girl. By all accounts the film seems as though it would be initially considered as a monumental achievement for its controversial subject matter alone, not to mention its established pedigree of Academy-Award winning talent behind and in front of the camera. … Continue reading
Movie Review: Creed (2015)
Sylvester “Sly” Stallone’s original Rocky (1976) was a full embodiment and genre pioneer of the inspirational sports drama; a blend of iconic imagery, underdog truisms, and a piercing populist charm to the heart that has always made for a rousing crowd-pleaser of a film. On and off the screen it was a tale of unwavering … Continue reading
Movie Review: Legend (2015)
The myths, tales, and legends (sorry, it had to be done) about criminality, thuggery, and all out gangsterdom have regularly been glossed over with an elegant shine of corrupt romanticism. Even the most vehemently critical of films have adopted a fascination for the gangster’s achievement of an opulent lifestyle—filled with refined sleekness, venomous power, and … Continue reading
Movie Review: Carol (2015)
On the surface, all of Todd Haynes filmography, including his latest film Carol, share all the same defining characteristics. His films—which include his suburban alienation study in Safe (1995), his gravitated portrayal of anguish in Mildred Pierce (2011), and his Douglas Sirk melodrama homage in Far From Heaven (2002)—are all stylish, delicate, and precise period pieces … Continue reading
Movie Review: Trumbo (2015)
In the realm of Hollywood, journalism, and first-amendment pioneer circles, Dalton Trumbo—one of the infamous Hollywood ten brought before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947 for communist affiliations—has been canonized as some sort of civil liberties saint. Creating a heroic mythos of a man blacklisted from being able to create does a disservice to … Continue reading
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