Films That Matter
Night Terrors
Unlike most other memorable Hammer horror movies, the 1964 mystery thriller Nightmare, directed by Freddie Francis (perhaps better known as the cinematographer of films like David Lynch’s The Elephant Man and Martin Scorsese’s Cape Fear) eliminates all of the monsters for an old fashioned quasi ghost story... the piece deserving to be remembered up there with those Hammer horror films centered on vampires, resurrected corpses, and lycanthropes. Shot in shadowy black and white, the story follows struggling seventeen year old Janet (Jennie Linden), who is currently away from home living at a finishing school for girls.
-
The Long and Short of It
The Big ShortFebruary 16, 2016Adam McKay, the comedic director best known for films like Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby and Step Brothers, takes a much more serious turn in the Academy Award Best Picture nominee The Big Short.
-
Star Pick with Marcus Ovnell
A Road Less TravelledArlington RoadFebruary 14, 2016As you probably read previously, Marcus Ovnell, the writer/director of the outstanding Swedish dramatic thriller The Break-In, explained that his favourite film of all-time was the 1990's classic Shawshank Redemption. Though he said that this was his clear favourite, he also highlighted a lesser known movie as one that I (and others) should watch – the 1999 thriller Arlington Road.
-
A Thrilling ‘Sub’ject
Black SeaFebruary 9, 2016A recent movie that has sadly gone completely under the radar is the 2014 submarine heist thriller Black Sea.
-
A Tale of Two Cities
BrooklynFebruary 7, 2016I can only imagine how difficult, lonesome and melancholic a solo journey across the Atlantic Ocean must have been for the numerous immigrants who travelled from Europe to North America – especially those who made the journey before technology and ingenuity made things, for lack of a better word, easy.
-
Make Space for this Room
RoomJanuary 31, 2016Though most people would call the highly regarded Academy Award nominated film Room a searing drama, to me, if you boil it down to its base element, it is a horror picture – not the type that we now call horror, with chainsaws, gore and excessive violence, but one that causes the viewer to feel fear and shock in the most realistic and human of ways, thus making it a very powerful and hard-hitting viewing experience. And a highly worthwhile one at that.
-
Going Off the Rails On This Crazy Train
SnowpiercerJanuary 24, 2016There is something that has always drawn me to movies that are set on trains. This unique setting boasts many themes that a screenwriter and director can play with. Not only does it lend itself to a claustrophobic place for a mystery thriller, but it also may symbolize the old world, romance or an epic journey. There is also the thinly veiled partition that separates class divisions (travel through a door and you may have plain economy style or lavish burled walnut compartments with sleek curtains where the richest of the rich relax).
