Sword fights, like one-on-one fights, target the emotion and power of each individual fighter, but are amplified by the extension of their weapon. Whereas one-on-one fights test the might and bronze of our competitors, sword fights add an extra element of intelligence and skill. A fighter can scrape by through luck in a brawl of …
You know an action hero is the baddest of badasses when he or she walks in and the room goes silent. The drug lord’s bodyguards, the mastermind’s henchmen, or even the foolhardy pack of drunkards outside a roadside bar stand at attention, ready for a challenge. It’s just one person. This shouldn’t be too hard. …
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 …
Some years are just great for certain genres, and this year was a great one for action. All across the board were films within different subgenres stepping up and delivering great action set pieces and characters. Consider the shot on the revolving tank gun revealing the totality of carnage in Dawn of the Planet of …
Movie poster artists are without a doubt some of the most vital yet overlooked contributors to cinematic history. Long before the invention of the television and the internet, filmmakers relied on movie posters to persuade audiences to watch their films. Ever since the late 19th century, posters (or then simple 8 x 10 inch lobby …
The Raid 2 Written and directed by Gareth Evans Indonesia, 2014 If there is an art to the visceral brutality of cinematic violence, Gareth Evans may well be one of the new masters. His breakout 2012 feature, The Raid: Redemption, was a master class of simplicity, placing a rookie cop (Iko Uwais) in the middle …
The Raid 2 Written and directed by Gareth Evans Indonesia, 2014 The first reaction to Gareth Evans’ highly anticipated sequel to his blistering 2012 action movie is to complain to the Advertising Standards Authority. Despite the title’s implication, there is no specific raid here, at least not upon a single, individual location, a design mandated by the …