Category Archives: Review

Review

The Little Stranger: A Spiritless Haunting

Roderick Ayers escapes a hellish flame fueled by archaic books

When reports surfaced saying that the production company Focus Features was cancelling screenings of The Little Stranger, it would have been safe to bet that the haunted-house horror was dead on arrival. This, combined with its avoidance of the film festival circuit, made for a flaming red flag. But this, if anything, was an overreaction, especially when its only competition in the box-office is the pungent Happytime Murders.  Based on a 2009 gothic novel of the same name,The Little Stranger is a slow-contorting, lackluster end to a summer booming with breakneck blockbusters.

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Features, Review

2001: A Space Odyssey Journies Back to the Big Screen

On April 3, 1968, the enduring classic 2001: A Space Odyssey was released and now, fifty years later, film enthusiasts will have an extraordinary opportunity to see the picture in all of its brilliance.

Nolan inspects the reprinted reel of 2001.

Almost a year ago, filmmaker Christopher Nolan (Memento, Inception, Interstellar) released his war drama Dunkirk in 70mm around the country to critical acclaim and commercial success. It was around this time that he learned of a film reel of 2001 that had been made from the original camera negative but couldn’t be reprinted due to lack of funding. Nolan, empowered by the success of his 70mm screenings, went to Warner Bros. with his idea of making new prints of A Space Odyssey and releasing them, in the same way that Dunkirk was exhibited. This year at Cannes, Nolan debuted the new print of the film, which he makes clear is not a restoration — no digital work has been done — but rather a reprint  created through an entirely photochemical process from reels that Warner Bros. developed in the late 90s.

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Review

Solo A Solid Entry Into Star Wars Canon

The Star Wars universe is immense. Following Disney’s acquisition of the property some years ago, there was a hard reboot on the expanded universe which saw much of what was once considered canon being rebranded as “Legends”. Since then, there have been several Disney-sanctioned pieces of media which repaint the history and future of the main Skywalker storyline. Ron Howard’s Solo, which was plagued by reshoots and bad word-of-mouth, is the newest installment in the Disney-era of Star Wars, shedding some light on the backstory of a certain scruffy-looking nerfherder.

Ron Howard was brought on board to direct Solo after Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were let go from the project.

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Review

Hot Fuzz: A Scorching Good Time

The tragedy of comedy films is that very few hold up over the years. In many cases, a comedy can fall into the abyss of awkward silences, and stilted, forced laughs. Thankfully, such a fate hasn’t come over Edgar Wright’s Hot Fuzz (2007). With Coral Gables Art Cinema screening the film later this month, now was a good time for me to experience the film. I can comfortably say that as the second entry in Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s Three Flavors Cornetto trilogy, Hot Fuzz sits comfortably between Shaun of the Dead (2004) and The World’s End (2013) as one of the great comedy films produced in the last few years.

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Review

MCU Culmination Avengers: Infinity War Delivers On Promise

“I’m here to talk to you about the Avenger Initiative.”

Ten years have passed since Nick Fury uttered those words to Tony Stark in 2008’s Iron Man, the film that kicked off the Marvel Cinematic Universe. What felt like nothing more than a tease of an unlikely promise eventually came to fruition four years later in what was, at that point, one of the most daring ensemble features: The Avengers. Since then, Marvel Studios never looked back, expanding the world that once featured a mere six heroes to a galaxy that features over 30. With Avengers: Infinity War being pegged as the final chapter in the MCU as fans currently know it, audiences knew that the first of this two-parter, one which sees the long-anticipated Thanos (Josh Brolin) finally make his way to earth, would come at a high cost.

(Light spoilers ahead)

Avengers: Infinity War is an ambitious crossover that sees dozens of Marvel heroes come together to fight Thanos.

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Review

I Feel Pretty is Hideously Self-Absorbed

The idea that a woman in modern society can feel confident about her appearance and capable of success is apparently a foreign concept to the creators of Amy Schumer’s latest comedy film, I Feel Pretty. The film has faced some pretty harsh backlash from the release of its first trailer and I have to say, after watching the film, that it is absolutely deserved. This is a film which attempts to convince women to feel better about themselves and what they look like, but it doesn’t even believe in its own message.

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Review

Dare You Not to Watch Blumhouse’s Truth or Dare

I hope you’re scared by bad CGI, because this is about as good as scares get with Truth or Dare

When I first saw the trailer for Blumhouse’s Truth or Dare (2018), I was excited at the prospect of a horror film with a premise so laughably dumb that some sick enjoyment could be taken from it. Unfortunately, Truth or Dare is yet another embarrassing, pandering, and tone-deaf horror flick, suffering from mediocre characters, inconsistent logic, and a general lack of originality.

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