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Review: 'Wish You Were Here' Starring Joel Edgerton & Teresa Palmer

  • By Todd Gilchrist
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  • June 8, 2013 12:16 PM
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  • 1 Comment
Reviews
Although its title implies either a whimsical journey of self-discovery or an ironic riposte to the vacation from hell, the story of “Wish You Were Here” is, in either context, a disappointingly pedestrian experience. The story of a husband and father trying to return to his normal life after a vacation with his wife and her sister that ends in the disappearance of his sister-in-law’s boyfriend, Kieran Darcy-Smith’s Australian import inspires a deluge of possibilities and provocative thoughts in its audiences’ heads, but languid pacing undermines the too-simple and ultimately too-conventional revelations that wrap up its simmering mysteries. Nevertheless, strong performances from the four leads sustains its unhurried approach far longer than the payoff deserves.
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More: Joel Edgerton, Teresa Palmer, Reviews, Review, Wish You Were Here

Review: 'World War Z' Starring Brad Pitt

  • By Oliver Lyttelton
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  • June 7, 2013 8:56 AM
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  • 18 Comments
Reviews
"World War Z" was always going to be a difficult nut to crack. The book of the same name, by son-of-Mel Max Brooks, was a bestseller a few years back, and a somewhat atypical one; a brainy, grim faux oral history of a zombie apocalypse that wiped out most of the world's population. It made enough of a dent in pop culture to warrant a movie adaptation, but it wasn't going to be an easy translation with no main character and a documentary-like format. So it's no surprise that the film was several years in development, and that even once filming got underway, it had one of the more publicly troubled shoots in memory, with reports flying of budget overages, script triage and extensive pick ups.
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More: Reviews, Review, World War Z, Marc Forster, Brad Pitt, Mireille Enos, James Badge Dale

Review: Alain Resnais' 'You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet!'

  • By Peter Labuza
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  • June 6, 2013 6:29 PM
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  • 0 Comments
Reviews
Alain Resnais is no stranger to the absurd. For over fifty years, his films—beginning with “Hiroshima, Mon Amour,” have asked questions through their oblique narratives about the way we think about story, performance, and cinema. But such a serious statement also obscures the pure delight it is to get lost in the filmmaker’s lush imagery and his pure sense of magic. Surrealism can spark at any moment, and never feels unnatural. And in “You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet!,” the filmmaker’s purported last film, he’s gone to new wild imaginations of delight, a true send off from one generation of cinematic legends to the next.
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More: Alain Resnais, You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet!, Reviews, Review

Review: Joss Whedon's 'Much Ado About Nothing'

  • By Christopher Schobert
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  • June 5, 2013 7:35 PM
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  • 4 Comments
Reviews
How does one follow the biggest superhero film in box office history? Perhaps a better way to phrase it is, how does the man behind some of the most beloved cult TV series and characters in recent pop history follow the biggest superhero film in box office history? If we're talking about the much-loved Joss Whedon – who else? – you decamp to your home, grab a camera, invite over your friends, and create a delightful, DIY, modern-day black-and-white adaptation of Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing." Duh.
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More: Joss Whedon, Much Ado About Nothing, Reviews, Review

Review: 'Evocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie'

  • By Gabe Toro
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  • June 5, 2013 6:28 PM
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  • 2 Comments
Reviews
A charlatan, a ringmaster, and, at his most charitable, an irresponsible pig. This was Morton Downey Jr., and “Evocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie” is probably the film he deserves. Destined to provoke knowing nods from his fanbase, and predictable tsk-tsks from his detractors, 'Evocateur' examines the seeds that were planted in the late eighties when “The Morton Downey Jr. Show” hit the airwaves to a cacophony of pop culture noise.
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More: Reviews, Review

Review: ‘The Internship’ Starring Vince Vaughn & Owen Wilson

  • By Rodrigo Perez
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  • June 5, 2013 2:05 PM
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  • 15 Comments
Reviews
It’s hard to believe that after 2005’s “Wedding Crashers,” Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn waited eight years to team up again (especially given that they were offered countless re-up options after that R-rated comedy surprisingly soared to almost $210 million domestically). Anyway, they're back together for “The Internship” of all movies; a watered-down PG-13 version of these same characters -- it really might as well be them only almost a decade later -- only this time older, more obsolete and jobless. It’s “Google Crashers” minus the piquant humor (for the most part anyhow) right down to the same rapport and character archetypes the two shared in the original ‘Crashers.’
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More: Reviews, Review, The Internship, Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson

Review: 'The Source Family' Documentary

  • By Brandon Harris
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  • June 4, 2013 7:03 PM
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  • 0 Comments
Reviews
The allure of cults has always escaped me. Collectivism, communism, various forms of communal religious experience, even The Borg on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" not so much; since I don’t lump especially egregious forms of each in with the garden variety pejoratives often associated with cults and their members, perhaps I’m giving in to convention. Yet whether the flavor of the month is eastern inflected or based on the ramblings of a burly sci-fi writer, I don’t have the time of day. Especially anything proselytized by folks like Jim Jones or David Koresh or Aleister Crowley I could do without, but the extreme examples always grab all the headlines. It’s not just in "Martha Marcy May Marlene" that one may glimpse modern culthood. Where previously unforeseen spiritual clarity and emotional intelligence in some newfound way is promised alongside a simple, back to the basics lifestyle, the cynical, post-aughts side of my consciousness always veers toward thinking I’ve encountered a scam. I’m sure Father Yod would be no different.
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More: The Source Family, Review, Reviews, Documentary

Review: 'The Purge' Starring Ethan Hawke & Lena Headey

  • By Drew Taylor
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  • June 4, 2013 10:57 AM
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  • 10 Comments
Reviews
Rarely do horror films these days luxuriate in big ideas. Instead, they are usually a simple formula, based on a rudimentary conceptual framework (cameras capture supernatural activity, madman devises ingenious torture traps), stretched painfully thin over 90 minutes or so. One of the things that makes "The Purge," a new high-concept horror movie about a utopian society with a very dark secret, so refreshing, is that it actually takes the time to engage in some truly provocative and subversive ideas, and what's more -- these thematic interests never come at the expense of the thrills. "The Purge" manages to be smart, scary, and subversive. In the current horror landscape, this is much rarer than a demonic possession or capturing a ghost on videotape.
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More: The Purge, Reviews, Review, Ethan Hawke, Lena Headey

Review & Recap: 'Game Of Thrones' Season 3 Episode 9, 'The Rains Of Castamere' Is A Shocker

  • By Katie Walsh
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  • June 3, 2013 9:57 AM
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  • 49 Comments
Television
So is everyone as horribly traumatized by episode 9, "The Rains of Castamere" as I am? We can work through this together. Recap therapy. We can do it. Yes, once again "Game of Thrones" lived up to its Penultimate Episode Promise of being bananas batshit crazy insane! We now must always fear episode 9, because you can't trust anyone in these games of thrones, especially director David Nutter, who helmed this truly shocking episode. Trying to look past the events of the plot though, it's an action-packed episode, as swords clash in Westeros, across the narrow sea and in the North. It's also an expertly plotted and paced episode, building to an unexpected and effective climax, with some unbelievably stellar performances to boot.
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More: Television, TV Reviews, HBO's Game of Thrones, Reviews, Review

Review: 'This Is The End' Starring Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, James Franco & Danny McBride

  • By Kevin Jagernauth
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  • May 31, 2013 12:00 PM
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  • 21 Comments
This Is The End
Reviews
While Jonah Hill and James Franco have each earned Oscar nominations, with Danny McBride finding roles both dramatic and comedic on the small and big screen, Jay Baruchel showing new shades on the stage and Craig Robinson adding textures to his comic persona, it's really been Seth Rogen who has more or less continued to play a version of himself since day one. Even in parts that potentially stretched his skills in "Green Hornet" and "50/50," the affable goofball with a predilection for weed was never too far away. And so, perhaps it only makes sense that he would co-write and co-direct (with Evan Goldberg) as well as co-star in "This Is The End," which requires nothing more than everyone involved offering riffs on their established personas. It's certainly not rocket science, but your mileage with the movie will depend on how much you like these guys to begin with, because even if you're a fan, the one joke premise has a hard time sustaining a full length movie.
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More: This Is The End, Reviews, Review, Danny McBride, James Franco, Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, Evan Goldberg

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