I Am Love / Io Sono L’amore Directed by Luca Guadagnino The poster for Luca Guadagnino’s film shows a regal Tilda Swinton in an eye-catching red dress surrounded by her sober-looking family. In another version, the frock has undergone a cheeky digital makeover to a shocking pink that matches the movie’s bold, declaratory title. The …
“The principal difficulty in making a story like this work is that the central contrivance is, of course, utterly preposterous and potentially irritating.” The Trotsky Directed by Jacob Tierney What a horrible mess The Trotsky might have been. Saddled with a dreadful-sounding high-concept premise (privileged high schooler thinks he’s the reincarnation of Leon Trotsky), Jacob …
The WIld and Wonderful White of West Virginia Directed by Julian Nitzberg Synopsis: Shoot-outs, robberies, gas-huffing, drug-dealing, pill-popping, murders, and tap dancing.” Way stranger than fiction, this wild jaw-dropper of a documentary will forever corrupt what pops in your mind at the mention of “family values.” At first glance, the White family are like something …
Kick-Ass’ soundtrack contributes substantially to the tongue-in-cheek humor and applause-provoking action that has been making the blockbuster movie such a hit. The film’s lead teen takes his first superhero steps to the beat of “Stand Up” by The Prodigy. This British band’s punk rock style dominates the soundtrack, with their more anxious “Omen” blaring later …
I would just like to take this moment and thank every one of our readers and listeners and everyone who has contributed in some way, both to the radio show and website. I could not have produced 200 episodes of Sound On Sight without the help of each and everyone of you. Let’s hope our …
Lynch, Soderbergh, Rush, babies…every film festival has its own hype machine, even one as pridefully heady as Hot Docs, North America’s largest documentary film festival and an international gathering place for those in the art and business of non-fiction. For eleven days, downtown Toronto will become a smorgasbord of doc and I am wicked stoked and salivating. …
70- Love Exposure (2008) Directed by Shion Sono Genre: Comedy, Romance Over its four-hour running time, Love Exposure unfolds an extremely bizarre odyssey revolving around an unusual love triangle, advanced techniques in upskirt photography, Japanese Catholicism, perversion, guilt and obsession amongst another dozen or so motifs. Masterfully directed by Sion Sono (Suicide Club, Hair Extensions), …
Patrick Jean over at the studio One More Production created this fun little short, Pixels, that is visually stimulating and a great throwback to great video game classics. As a giant swarm of pixels draw near, more and more video game characters start attacking New York City. From Donkey Kong to Tetris, this short holds …
Big news in the Marvel Universe has been released recently that sheds more light leading towards The Avengers in 2012. New directors, new castings, new cameos and more heroes? The Marvel Universe is putting the final touches to their epic superhero franchises that spark excitement in many fanboy’s pants.
Greenberg Directed by Noah Baumbach Ben Stiller has spent the most lucrative part of his acting career refining his screen persona as a sullen, narcissistic pratfall factory. History has suggested there is more to him–both as a comedian and as a dramatist–but history also suggested that he did two Night at the Museum movies and something called Meet …
From Hong Kong we have Ho-Cheung’s DREAM HOME, an unbelievably brutal, imaginative horror film. CLASH (Bay Rong) is Vietnam’s Le Thanh Son’s high-speed martial arts movie set to an epic soundtrack. Brillante Mendoza’s latest LOLA paints a really touching portrait of two older women in the impoverished Philippines who are grieving their grandsons, one murdered, …
Characters in this year’s selection of horror films are all faced with confronting an overwhelming and insatiable evil urge, either within themselves or another. Find out what happens when a young successful woman loses the house of her dreams, and consequentially her sanity in DREAM HOME. Viewers of OPEN HOUSE witness a man struggling between …
Cult Cinema : Volume 1 Religion is a beautiful thing. Provided you’re a Paleolithic savage who needs fairy tales and a lumpy fertility idol in the shape of a BBW centerfold to explain where babies come from. Anyone else still believing in magic and wizards should read a book that wasn’t written before humanity invented …
A conversation with Gerard Johnson By Nick Martin Movies about serial killers have an odd niche in our cultural lexicon. A sub-genre that was first embraced by cult filmists now walks a fine line between obscurity and mainstream. Films such as Jonathan Demme’s Silence of the Lambs and David Fincher’s Se7en seem to strike an …
100- Morvern Callar (2003) Directed by Lynne Ramsay Genre: Drama On Christmas Day, Morvern finds her boyfriend dead and a note on a computer telling her to be brave and to sell his novel. She does, but only after pocketing the funeral money and claiming the book’s authorship. Morvern Callar is assured and confidently-made while …
90- Happy-Go-Lucky (2008) Directed by Mike Leigh Genre: Comedy / Drama In a shift away from his usual exploration of the dark and dreary, director Mike Leigh takes a lighter look at life with Happy-Go-Lucky. Sally Hawkins is a comic revelation as the lead character Poppy, delivering a nervy, utterly captivating tour de force performance. …
On April 9, 2010 at 2:15pm, I stepped into my local movie theater to culminate my goal of watching 365 movies I have never seen before within the time frame of an entire year. I have accomplished my goal in 328 days from when I first started on May 17, 2009. It’s been a pretty …
While the soundtrack to The Runaways may not be revelational, it, like the film, provides a satisfactory, if somewhat fast-paced, dip into ’70s sleaze-rock. In a film that focuses women trying to make their way in what was essentially a man’s world, it seems a bit odd that only Suzi Quatro gets top billing on …
Poultrygeist Directed by Lloyd Kaufman When I was younger, I used to eat a lot of McDonalds. I had it so often, they knew me by the sound of my voice at the drive through. I loved me some big macs. I also loved some chicken nuggets, double cheeseburgers and all other varieties of value …
Get Low Directed by Aaron Schneider After the screening for director Aaron Schneider’s debut film, most of the audience questions were some variation of “Who are you and how the hell did you swing Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, and Bill Murray?” The answer, though, seems clear enough after seeing the picture. Get Low, the story of an infamous hermit …
For some moviegoers a revealing moment always has to involve people taking off their clothes. In fact, they only want to watch the kind of films that involve the rapid shedding of any and all garments, followed by pretty much wall-to-wall nakedness. Plot, dialogue and artistic considerations are all of minor importance. Well, I’ll admit …
Cyrus Directed by Jay and Mark Duplass The Austin based Duplass brothers made a name for themselves as vanguards of the mumblecore movement–a movement in film which emphasized uber-tiny budgets and naturalistic acting. Their first two features, The Puffy Chair and Baghead, drew immense, if hesitant, praise from festivals like SXSW, and skyrocketed them to …
110- Headless Women (2009) Directed by Lucrecia Martel Genre: Thriller This masterly, disturbing and deeply mysterious film is an astounding portrait of a person entirely out of sync with her own existence. Headless Woman doesn’t fit neatly into a clear storyline, and will frustrate most viewers, but after just three features Lucrecia Martel has firmly …