Vanishing on 7th Street is the latest horror movie by Brad Anderson. There were moments of truly creepy brilliance in this movie offset by lots of failed attempts to be creepy and uneven plotting. Brad Anderson made the darkness too concrete.
6/10
Submarine is brought to us by Richard Ayoade. This movie was described as a Wes Anderson movie set in Wales and that was what we got. Very good
8/10
The Illusionist is Sylvain Chomet's followup to his Triplets of Belleville. The story of a vaudevillian in a dying business this is a story of loneliness and failure. This depressing content is handled with some lightness and the movie itself is beautifully constructed and painted.
8/10
Bunraku is oh so flawed. I think Guy Moshe was trying to ape Robert Rodriguez's Sin City and it didn't work. The style was tedious, the plot was uneven, the editing was weak. Ron Perlman was Ron Perlman; he did the same sort of character he normally does. His character was similar to what he did in I Sell the Dead. Josh Hartnett did a credible job as the Drifter. Demi Moore, Woddy Harrelson and Gackt did credible jobs of their roles. K
The Trip is an improvised comedy starring Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan as themselves touring through fine restaurants in Northern England. It was brilliant. Bitterly sarcastic, these two share the interactions of two people who have been friends for a long time and take pleasure in making eachother laugh. It was a Brilliant movie.
8/10
Camp Armadillo is a base for military operations in Afghanistan. This documentary follows a squad of men through a 6 month deployment into a combat situation. Tearful farewells gives way to the dusty, tedious fear of existing in a guerrilla war 1000m from Taliban living among your neighbours. The highlight of the film was a firefight followed by the aftermath.
8/10
A Night for Dying Tigers is director Terry Miles' meditation on jaded excesses and troubled interactions of a quartet of siblings. The eldest is about to go off to jail which forms the pretext for an evening of eating, drinking, fucking, hate, and love. There are no innocents in this movie and all the performances are good. Most of the action takes place in the family home - soon to be sold off - which acts as a character in the show. The
Cirkus Columbia is a film by Bosnian filmmaker Danis Tanovic. It is a well balanced tale of a separation and a divorce set against the disintegration of Bosnian society. Contrasting something as deadly as the Bosnian civil war with domestic strife is a tricky prospect and can descend into offensive silliness. Tanovic walks this line with precision expertly mirroring the rising strife between individuals with the rising ethnic tensions. It
Film Socialisme is the latest outing for Jean-Luc Godard. I swear this guy is just messing with the audience. The result of superior craftsmanship, Godard loves playing with the camera technology and sound to produce a disjointed sensory assault. I was happy that it ended.
5/10
Vampires of the future take over human society and relegate them to serve as a food source. As the vampires become more numerous the humans start to run out. It is allegories for resource depletion and dramatization of epidemiology and is more of a speculative fiction movie than horror. As with any well made SF the filmmakers - Spierig brothers Michael and Peter - did a solid job of creating a consistent universe.
8/10
Who is killing the women of Juarez, Mexico? A female police captain transfers into the city and makes it her mission to shut down the system of abuse. I have to say that I sympathize with aims of the filmmakers; this sort of violence is too common even in first world countries. That being said the movie was at turns harrowing and thrilling if a little heavy handed. The lead actress - Ana de la Reguera - was an excellent lead.
7/10
Irish gangster film that has a young tough on a deadline to repay a local gangster while trying to deal with his dying father. Cillian Murphy, Jim Broadbent and Brendan Gleason form a superb cast for this adventure through twilight, sodden urban Ireland. By turns comical and morose.
8/10
Spanish film that based on a play that tracks two couples as they work through their relationships and regularly break the fourth wall and walk off set breaking the illusion of film-making. There were elements of A Cock and Bull story to this movie although the conceit was handled somewhat better in this Spanish film. At play is also the interplay between Spanish, Catalonian and Basque language and politics. There were many, many beautiful transitions between scenes that helped atone for a
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