[This is a re-post of my review from the 2013 Sundance Film Festival.  Upstream Color opens today in limited release.]

With Primer and his latest film Upstream Color, writer-director Shane Carruth has clearly established a unique cinematic voice. With the exception of a few filmmakers, Carruth demands every ounce of his audience’s attention. It’s great to have a filmmaker like Carruth out there who has an unmistakable style and knows how to keep us captivated. But in his films, holding our attention is a trick to get us to invest in solving his characters and story. Carruth hopes that his abstract, dreamlike narrative can hold us in its sway, and that by struggling to follow the plot, we will somehow care about the characters’ problems. Upstream Color is masterful at keeping our attention through its complex storytelling, but it ironically makes its emotions as nebulous as its plotting and characters.

To borrow the film’s use of mixed metaphors, the thread of Trance tangles itself up in knots to the point where you don’t care if you unlock it.  What begins as a twisty thriller eventually gets lost in those twists, and frequent attempts to double-back eventually cut off the film’s momentum as what should be an intriguing mystery becomes a tiresome parade of flat explanations and convoluted plot developments.  Despite the stunning cinematography and director Danny Boyle‘s thoughtful symbolism and thematic ambition, Trance can’t hold itself together due to the half-baked plot and the miscasting of Rosario Dawson as the woman who should keep us under her portentous spell.

[This is a re-post of my review from the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.  Simon Killer opens today in limited release.]

Antonio Campos‘s Simon Killer is an amusing film both unintentionally and unexpectedly. The film is rarely meant to be comedic and it rarely enters into so-bad-it’s-good territory. What makes the film so amusing is how hard Campos is trying to make it exciting. It is the definition of overcompensating as the aggressive direction, bizarre cinematography, and melodramatic performances try to convince the audience that the dull plot and pathetic characters are worth caring about. There’s even a moderately intriguing idea at the center of the protagonist’s motives, but it’s buried under meaningless sex, violence, and introspection.

[This is a re-post of my review from the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival.  The Company You Keep opens tomorrow in limited release.]

Chase films probably shouldn’t feature septuagenarians. Robert Redford‘s The Company You Keep is two movies: one is a surprisingly entertaining investigative thriller, and the other is the most casual, least threatening chase flick I’ve ever seen. Redford has lined-up a tremendous cast, yet spreads them around in weak bit parts, leaving the majority of the picture to himself and Shia LaBeouf. Mixed between their characters’ two stories are confused messages about the value of the truth and rallying for your beliefs (provided it’s not too much of an inconvenience).

[This is a re-post of my review from SXSW 2013.  Evil Dead opens today.]

If your goal is to give the people exactly what they want, then you better give them the best you’ve got otherwise it’s obvious pandering. Fede Alvarez‘ remake of Evil Dead does not pander. It fiercely grabs the audience by the throat, and vomits as much blood and viscera as we can stomach it, and not everyone will be able to stomach what the horror flick has to offer. Alvarez and cinematographer Aaron Morton set a creepy vibe, but their primary interest is in gleefully laying out the implements of destruction. “We know what you came for,” the film says with a devilish smile. And then it lets loose violence beyond all reason. The fear eventually fades, the emotions recede into the background, but Evil Dead delivers on the bloody mayhem that needs far more than an MPAA rating. It needs a warning label.

Enterprise had the misfortune of arriving at a low point in Star Trek’s history, as the TNG movies staggered to an ignominious conclusion and franchise burnout seemed insurmountable. Competing sci-fi series like Farscape arrived with a freshness that Trek couldn’t hope to match, and for a time it looked as if the iconic sci-fi property would fade into oblivion. Enterprise arrived with the mandate of reversing that trend, a task it simply wasn’t equipped to manage. It vanished four years after it arrived, the shortest-running series since the original. Ten years on, however, the dust has settled and the show has aged better than its detractors might think. It’s not perfect, but its attempts to find a different vibe for Star Trek produce some surprisingly good stuff. Hit the jump for the full review.

Game of Thrones returns — welcome back to Westeros, ladies and hedge knights, wenches and thieves.  You are forgiven for thinking in the episode’s first few minutes that you still had the dial on AMC and had stumbled onto The Walking Dead, but things picked right back up north of the wall where the show left them, with Sam lost in the whiteness and coming across something, well, undead.  In case you had forgotten, Winter is Coming.  In fact, it seems to be here.  And for most of the rest of the hour we checked back in on all of those poor Southren folk who know not what wickedness their way comes.  Hit the jump for more on who we saw (and who we didn’t) in this episode that moved from ice to fire.

Mr. Selfridge, the latest PBS and ITV collaboration, chronicles the exploits of the man who founded the famous high-end Selfridges department store in London, and in doing so, changed our understanding of modern merchandizing.  The series ran at the first of the year in the U.K. to mixed, though generally favorable reviews, and having personally consumed the entire ten-episode series in a matter of days I can say unequivocally that it’s worth watching.  Mr. Selfridge doesn’t ask much of its viewers, but it’s a sprawling drama adapted by Andrew Davies (who has adapted pretty much every British miniseries you can think of) from a novel, and the series’ sumptuous costume designs and whirling stories are greatly entertaining.

Hit the jump for what Mr. Selfridge, starring Jeremy Piven (Entourage) has to offer, and why the women of the series end up stealing the show.

Anaheim’s WonderCon 2013 played host to the world premiere of Warner Bros. Animation and DC Entertainment’s Superman: Unbound.  Directed by DC veteran and new supervisor of DC’s animation James Tucker (Legion of Super Heroes), Superman: Unbound was adapted by Bob Goodman (Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Parts 1 and 2) from Geoff Johns’ five-part comic book arc, Superman: Brainiac.  The story centers on Superman (voiced by Matt Bomer) and his battle against Brainiac (voiced by John Noble) who is attempting to learn what he can from Earth and its intelligent life before destroying the planet.  Also highlighted in Superman: Unbound are the relationships of Superman/Clark Kent with his secret girlfriend Lois Lane (voiced by Stana Katic) and his recently-arrived cousin Kara/Supergirl (voiced by Molly C. Quinn).

Though Tucker’s version makes some changes from the original comic arc that may displease some fans, Superman: Unbound was pure Saturday morning animated fun.  The animation is bold, bright and unafraid to splash a little blood here and there.  Superman: Unbound, which will be available on Blu-ray/DVD/VOD on May 7th, is rated PG-13 for violence, action and a rude gesture (which elicited a great crowd reaction).  DC Entertainment continues its great track record of animated fare with this newest installment.  Hit the jump for my review and be sure to check out the panel recap from WonderCon.

Writer/director Andrew Niccol’s The Host opens this holiday weekend with star Saoirse Ronan (Hanna).  Adapted from Twilight author Stephenie Meyer’s sci-fi novel of the same name, The Host centers on Melanie Stryder (Ronan), one of the last human survivors of an alien invasion.  Unfortunately for Melanie, she’s quickly captured and implanted with an alien parasite known as a Soul, which attempts to replace her consciousness and take over her body; Melanie isn’t having it. The two entities must learn to cooperate or face the loss of the loved ones they each hold dear.

While Niccol makes his best attempt at adapting this story, the fault lies with the source material.  The tension that manifests in the first two acts rapidly diminishes in a lackluster conclusion that, while certainly an original take on conflict resolution, ultimately falls flat on screen.  Hit the jump for my review of The Host.

[This is a re-post of my review from the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.  Room 237 opens today in limited release and is also available on VOD.]

Stanley Kubrick‘s The Shining is about characters who are drawn into madness by their surroundings. Rodney Ascher‘s Room 237 is about film critics who are drawn into madness by The Shining. Films that offer up numerous interpretations are like crack to film critics. Movies that are so broad that any interpretation is valid are like bad crack, but a film like The Shining, a film helmed by a notoriously meticulous director and filled with unexplained mysteries and symbolism, is the best kind of film critic crack there is. Room 237 is both a celebration and pointed critique of film criticism. The movie shows how people can think big and expand their minds by thinking deeply and passionately. It also shows how our minds can run away from us and how we’ll twist a movie apart in order to fit our theory rather, and fail to realize that our argument is crazier than Jack Torrance.

[This is a re-post of my review from the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.  Wrong opens today in limited release.]

In 2010, Quentin Dupieux‘s Rubber hit the screen to critical acclaim. The acclaim was mostly along the lines of “The best killer tire movie you’ll ever see.” Despite its odd-ball premise and protagonist, Rubber did seem to have cohesive subtext about criticizing the audience and purposely messing with their expectations. By contrast, Dupieux’s new movie, Wrong, is all killer tire and hardly anything to say. That’s doesn’t make it a bad flick. Strangeness along the lines of a killer tire can still be pretty funny, and Wrong‘s off-kilter reality offers plenty of laughs. It’s just too silly and devoted to strangeness to make any exploration of a convoluted subtext worth considering.

If you’re going to make a movie designed to sell toys, you may as well show how much fun it is to play with them.  Although almost none of the original characters remain, G.I. Joe: Retaliation continues the spirit of G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra by happily embracing big vehicles and weapons to deliver set pieces on steroids that never feel overbearing.  It’s not a particularly smart movie or one with compelling characters, but without any irony it takes one of the villain’s lines to heart: “America likes the guy who blows stuff up.”

The events of September 11, 2001 had a profound effect on the United States of America that forever changed us as a nation.  We live in a post-9/11 world, and it is impossible to go back to “the way things were before.”  Though it’s been a decade since the event, in the scope of things we’re still living in the immediate aftermath of the most devastating domestic terror attack in history.  Filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow has now dealt with these effects in two films, as she previously focused on the events of the Iraq War with her 2008 Best Picture winner The Hurt Locker, and her brilliant 2012 drama Zero Dark Thirty masterfully chronicles the decade-long hunt for the man responsible for the 9/11 attacks: Osama Bin Laden.  The result of the latter is a taut procedural thriller that not only entertains, but also provides a difficult and introspective look at America’s place in the post-9/11 world.  Hit the jump for my review of Zero Dark Thirty on Blu-ray.

It’s weird to think we’re only four movies in to Judd Apatow’s directing career, because for the last ten years he’s become a brand.  Between working with Adam McKay and Will Ferrell on their comedies, to launching Seth Rogen and Kristen Wiig (and more), he established that he was one of the biggest forces in comedy.  But his most recent film, This is 40, came out and it didn’t feel like event.  It’s a modest film that’s enjoyable enough, but feels like a B side.  Our review of This is 40 follows after the jump.