Mar
26
Hunger will compel people to some extreme acts: lie; kill; volunteer your child to appear on TODDLERS & TIARAS. Who knew it could also lead to one of the best movies of the year? The highly anticipated THE HUNGER GAMES takes the first book of the popular young adult series — about a dystopic future …
Mar
09
New Zealand couple Mike Wallis and Inge Rademeyer faced a choice: buy a house together, or use the money to make their first film. Rather than take a gamble on a dodgy proposition with, at best, 50/50 odds, they decided to do the sensible thing and plow their savings into GOOD FOR NOTHING (hey, have …
Mar
02
Call it a cultural difference. Here in the U.S, our serial killers are quiet loners who nurse secret agendas and conduct their grim business on their own. In Australia, the most notorious case of serial murder involved the personable, charismatic John Bunting (Daniel Henshall), who came into the poverty-stricken community of Snowtown, staged neighborhood watch …
Feb
29
You can’t get away from the ads on TV, and now PROJECT X has invaded MMP as well. The premiere is tonight, to be followed by an after party featuring performances by Tyler the Creator, A-Trak, and Hundred in the Hands (none of whom I’ve ever heard of, but I’m sure they’re all lovely young …
Feb
27
The universe of the genre film is filled with many strange and wonderful things: heroes; demons, attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion (oh, Roy Batty, we miss you). But nothing is so strange or, at times, wonderful as the sight of movies that, by accident or design, have fallen out of copyright …
Feb
25
Trying something new here: a radio show evocatively titled Indie on Demand Movie Reviews. They’re short, snappy reviews of indie films that have recently been released on-demand. This episode’s on the gritty Brazilian police/political thriller, ELITE SQUAD: THE ENEMY WITHIN; new eps will post on a weekly basis. Check it out and let me know …
Feb
24
Fiddler on the Roof notwithstanding, there are probably some traditions that are best to be abandoned. At the beginning of THE FORGIVENESS OF BLOOD, a longstanding feud between two Northern Albanian families results in murder, and the kin of the now-fugitive killer finds itself paying for the crime by imprisoning itself at home as a …
Feb
19
In a pair-up as enticing as a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, GHOST RIDER: SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE combines the rich, nutty goodness of Nic Cage with the tasty junkiness of the Neveldien/Taylor directing team. Transporting Marvel’s tortured, soul-sucking biker to Eastern Europe, the sequel has him joining forces with Idris Elba and Violante Placido to save …
Feb
03
What starts out as common, garden-variety crime thriller turns… bizarre, and then frightening, in director Ben Wheatley’s twisty new film, KILL LIST. The tale of middle class hit-man Jay (Neil Maskell), who with colleague Gal (Michael Smiley) goes out for one more job and discovers blood oaths, strange rites, and disturbingly grateful targets have been …
Jan
23
The UNDERWORLD franchise’s relentless, death-dealing vampire, Selene (Kate Beckinsale), goes under ice at the beginning of UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING, and so does most of the series’ political intrigue, swapping out the power struggles from the previous entries in favor of even more chases, gunplay, and explosions — lots and lots of explosions. Awakened into a (nominally) …
