Ti West on THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL
Ti West sure digs his retro. In THE ROOST — his tidy little horror film about a group of travelers threatened by some really nasty bats — he added a wraparound featuring Tom Noonan in tacky butler drag, holding forth in front of a cardboard set as host of a local Saturday Night Chiller Feature [...]
Anthony Fabian on SKIN
You could probably forge a good, absurdist, dark comedy out of a government where racial identity can be declared and reversed by official decree, and white parents whose child’s skin is, because of a genetic quirk, darker than theirs struggle to get their kid designated Caucasian. I can imagine Terry Gilliam going to town on [...]
ANTICHRIST: A Conversation
“Lars von Trier doesn’t like to fly.” “Lars von Trier isn’t going to talk to a lot of press.” Yeah, yeah; yadda-yadda. But just because he isn’t talking to us doesn’t mean we can’t talk about him, particularly about his childhood. I have it on good authority that he refused to eat his sandwiches until [...]
New Sponsor: THE FOURTH KIND
It appears that close encounters of the first, second, and third kind are pretty benign, but when you get to number four, that’s where things get nasty.
Usually, it’s not advisable to try to go Spielberg one better, but the folk at Universal are giving it a shot. Check out the trailer:
Mira Nair on AMELIA
You’re going to have to trust me on this one: I am a romantic. ONCE is one of my favorite films; I teared up at both UP and MARY AND MAX (animated characters struggling for their small bit of happiness just hit some special spot in me). But when you’re telling the tale of Amelia [...]
(Almost) Live from London: PIRATE RADIO vs. THE BOAT THAT ROCKED
So I figured, while I’m in London interviewing some of the people involved with PIRATE RADIO, Richard Curtis’ film about those intrepid souls who in the 60’s brought the UK their daily dose of rock when the BBC was loathe to, why not try a little experiment in whether one dude with a netbook, a [...]
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Sebastian Silva on THE MAID
New York Magazine’s David Edelstein pretty much called it: About midway through, you could be forgiven for worrying if THE MAID was teetering on the precipice of going the full, THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE route — a concern that’s only enhanced when a stray cat turns up that seems to have “I [...]
Nicolas Winding Refn on BRONSON
You wanna talk extreme? Charles Bronson, ne Michael Peterson, has spent thirty-four of his fifty-six years of life in incarceration of one form or another — most of that time has been in solitary confinement. The system has been violent to him, but he’s been violent back, and an anti-authoritarian cult has risen around his [...]
9 Opens in UK on October 28th
Hey, lookee here: Focus Features’ 9, which opens in the UK at the end of October, is willing to throw a little financial support our way. (Thanks, guys!) So, in honor of all our brothers and sisters across the pond, I figured it’d be a good idea to re-offer the Tim Burton roundtable ep, and [...]
Tom Hooper on THE DAMNED UNITED
To be clear, I’ve got nothing against sports films that exult in good sportsmanship and the triumph of the underdog and the sheer joy of human competition. THE NATURAL? Sure. BAD NEWS BEARS? No prob. THE MIGHTY DUCKS? Let’s not go crazy, now.
But to be honest, I’m more favorably inclined towards films like THE DAMNED [...]
