Last week I went and saw the horror film Goodnight Mommy, and as my brain was crying and the audience was epically disturbed, I realized that this was possibly the last release I would see under the Radius-TWC banner. Earlier this year Tom Quinn and Jason Janego, the co-founders of the independent distributor, left the …
Hugh Jackman has played Logan aka Wolverine in seven different films. It’s an impressive number that will shortly increase with a third solo Wolverine film and possibly X-Men:Apocalypse, although at the time of writing he has yet to be officially cast. A few other names are snapping at the heels of Jackman, notably the cast …
15. The Immigrant – If one were to rank the films of 2014 based solely on innovation, The Immigrant would probably end up near the bottom. Writer-director James Gray’s languid melodrama tells the tumultuous story of a resilient Polish woman looking to find a slice of the American Dream, without much in the way of …
40. Night Moves Since 2006, Kelly Reichardt has found a way to reach inside of the hearts of her audiences, plucking out strings one by one with desolate re-imaginations of the American Pacific Northwest, seen through the eyes of people not so different than ourselves. With Meek’s Cutoff, she departed from her typical genre and moved …
David Bordwell, one of film criticism’s eminent scholars and arguably most knowledgeable film historian working today, took to his blog, Observations on Film Art, Sunday to criticize the New York Times for a new series they’ve launched called “The Moviegoers“. In his piece titled “Zip, Zero, Zeitgeist“, Bordwell addresses a trend in film criticism he calls …
The premise to Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer (2013) is one of emancipation from a class system specifically designed for a superficial idea of balance – if there is no poor then there can be no elite. The elite in Snowpiercer enjoy showers and sushi, bright clothes and music; the poor freeloaders enjoy jelly protein bars and a ball that doesn’t bounce. This class system is deemed necessary for the insurance of humanity’s survival, perhaps because it is society’s longest lasting trait – the division of power, the subjugated and the subjugator. To lose this in 2034 is to lose humanity, at least that’s what the haves like to say to the “have nots”. So the impetus behind this revolt is to give equality to all the citizens of the train by taking over the engine – he who controls the engine controls the train and thus the system by which everyone lives.
Trains in cinema have always made for an excitable source within the realm of the comedy, drama, mystery or suspense pertaining to the plot of a particular film. The setting for the featured trains as the driving force of entertainment serves as the heart and soul of the action for the most part. In some …
In addition to still-life model at MoMA and dance leader at Ebertfest, Tilda Swinton has now added “Redditeer” to her resume. She was on hand Monday for an AMA to promote Snowpiercer and put on her signature arty charm, earning a few nicknames (T-Swinny), declaring her love of Alt-J and revealing she’s actually a clone …
15. Stranger by the Lake Directed by Alain Guiraudie Written by Alain Guiraudie France Though Stranger by the Lake premiered at last year’s Cannes Film Festival (and appeared on Sound On Sight’s best of 2013 list), it finally reached North American audiences in January of this year. Alain Guiraudie’s stunning noir-tinged thriller is …
Picking the best movies that come out in any given year is no easy feat. For film fans, a quality feature can come out at any time, from any one, and discovering an enjoyable and well-crafted feature is truly a pleasure. As we reach the halfway point of the year, many excellent films have already …
South Korean filmmaker, Joon-ho Bong, has never been afraid of mixing genres. In his latest and most challenging film to date, Snowpiercer, Bong mixes action, sci-fi and satire to create a delightfully twisted prison break story. Snowpiercer owes much of its effectiveness to an ingenious script that uses 3 discrete acts to effortlessly shift its …
From The Host director Bong Joon-ho comes Snowpiercer, a sci-fi pic starring Chris Evans, Song Kangho, Tilda Swinton, Jamie Bell, Octavia Spencer, Ewen Bremner, Alison Pill, John Hurt and Ed Harris. The film takes place during a new ice age with the world’s sole survivors living on the titular train and who struggle with the …