Jesse Eisenberg

‘Louder Than Bombs’ is an audacious and uncompromising collage of the joys and sorrows that punctuate our humanity.

‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’ will probably give you what you expect, but not what you’re looking for.

As entertaining as it is flawed, ‘American Ultra’ is sure to divide audiences with its haphazard mix of ultra-violence and heartfelt romance. A gleefully-belligerent experiment in style that thumbs its nose at your expectations.

There is that old adage that states if one does not stand for something they very well could fall for anything. Well, this apt sentiment certainly applies in co-writer/director Kelly Reichardt’s simmering eco-terrorism thriller Night Moves. Methodical, moody and breezily reflective, Reichardt’s suspense piece has a slow-footed pacing but registers with quiet resonance in its message about lingering environmental indifference and the retaliation against the establishment that allows for such blatant negligence.

The Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky has been well served by cinema, especially his major works Crime & Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, and The Idiot, all of which have received numerous adaptations throughout the decades. The latter was lavished with a recent Estonian take, after receiving a Japanese decoding by Kurosawa no less, as well as Indian and (naturally) Soviet versions. It has taken until 2013 for a filmmaker brave enough to approach Dostoyevsky’s binary second novel; there is a certain numerical sense of doubling, since Richard Ayoade has decided to allocate his second film as The Double, an ambitiously promising plea following Submarine back in 2010.

In the midst of a horrific zombie apocalypse that has put paid to much of civilization, an action survivor anti-hero attempts to make an escape from a parking lot with a small crowd of diseased flesh devourers in hot pursuit. He reaches his car, but in his haste drops his keys to the ground, losing vital time.

Better to have an ungainly surplus of ideas than none at all; that seems to be Richard Ayoade’s philosophy behind The Double, a wild, uneven, but never dull sci-fi black comedy that purports to tackle Dostoevsky’s novella of the same name, but is at least as interested in pilfering visual ideas from films gone by while marrying them to Ayoade’s winningly dry comic sensibility.

“Some things are better left unexplained,” a character intones at one point in Now You See Me, a wise lesson that the film’s trio of screenwriters should’ve taken to heart. This heist film, in which a quartet of magicians are highly intelligent thieves (or are they?), becomes more nonsensical and inexplicable the more we learn about how these tricksters have robbed banks (or have they?) and sent federal agents on various wild-goose chases (or were…well, you get the idea).

The term ‘movie magic’ has, alas, lost much of its once proud luster. Film savvy folks can now read in-depth articles, watch online interviews with filmmakers and dive into the ogles of behind-the-scenes content available on home media formats that reveal the tricks of the trade in impressive detail.

Holy Rollers Directed by Kevin Asch 2010, USA, 93 mins. The title of this film does not refer to Pentecostal churchgoers. Rather, it refers to Hasidic Jews smuggling ecstasy during the late nineties. An unlikely story inspired by actual events (a market that Jesse Eisenberg, who plays Sam Gold, seems to have cornered), Holy Rollers …

Jesse Eisenberg, the star of The Social Network never met the Mark Zuckerberg (the creator of Facebook) in  real life until this past the weekend on Saturday Night Live. For those of you who missed it, you can now watch it online. Enjoy!

The Social Network Directed by David Fincher Privileged due to his intelligence and in spite of his personality, Mark Zuckerberg’s (Jesse Eiseinberg) need for success runs far deeper than his need for money or acceptance. His primary drive initially seems to be to become a member of a Harvard Club, but shortly after that opportunity …

The Social Network Directed by David Fincher Privileged due to his intelligence and in spite of his personality, Mark Zuckerberg’s (Jesse Eiseinberg) need for success runs far deeper than his need for money or acceptance. His primary drive initially seems to be to become a member of a Harvard Club, but shortly after that opportunity …

Zombieland (2009) Directed by Ruben Fleischer It’s been a couple of years since critics started calling the zombie trend dead and yet new films featuring our favourite brain gobbling monsters continue to fill theaters and draw crowds. Subgenres like the zom-rom-com have breathed a little life into things, but the question remains whether there are …

As a huge fan of Natural Born Killers and White Men Can’t Jump, I used to look forward to every Woody Harrelson movie. For awhile we were spoiled with excellent performances but in the past decade, I’ve been thoroughly disappointed with almost every role WH has signed up for. Well, believe it or not, you …