Films That Matter
Stealers Wheel
A film noir with some eccentricities, The Big Steal (1949), directed by then third time film maker Don Siegel (who would go on to make such greats as Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Dirty Harry, and Escape from Alcatraz), plays like a long chase within a longer chase, while the meeting between gent and femme is something akin to a will they/won’t they screwball comedy. The usually laconic Lt. Duke Halliday (Robert Mitchum) is in quite the conundrum, as he has been robbed of a U.S. Army payroll totaling a whopping three hundred grand by swindler Jim Fiske (Patric Knowles). On the lam in Mexico (a rather rare noir location, also think Ride the Pink Horse and Touch of Evil), Halliday is on his trail... but the problem is, so is his superior – Captain Vincent Blake (William Bendix), who, of course, thinks it was actually the Lieutenant who ran off with the money.
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The Break-In Breaks Out
The Break-InDecember 16, 2015As I sat in the dark theatre waiting for the projector to light up the New York State premiere of The Break-In, a Swedish film written and directed by Marcus Ovnell, I had two things running through my mind . . . and both related to my high hopes for the film. The first was that I had attended a panel discussion featuring Ovnell and Nathan Jacobs (writer/director of Killing Poe) on the continuing influence of Edgar Allen Poe on the world of film. The panel provided a nuanced discussion on the two movies (while also making sure to provide no spoilers of the upcoming showing of either film) and being that I am a gargantuan Poe fan, this had me enthused for the premiere. The second was that I have yet to see a poor film or television show come out of Scandinavia over the past several years (whether it is the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo trilogy, Jo Nesbo’s Headhunters or television series such as Wallander and Borgen, to name of few).
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A Wild Ride
The NymphetsDecember 14, 2015Sometimes the opening credits of a film can signal the type of experience you are in for and this is clearly the case with Gary Gardner’s The Nymphets. The credits are large, bold and frantically paced, which, along with the similarly themed musical score, highlights that we are in for quite the ride.
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Audition Mesmerizes
AuditionDecember 12, 2015Matt Herron’s Audition is an exciting and original quasi-documentary that fuses together footage from an audition process where fifty couples (yes, that’s one hundred actors) vie for the final position of being the leading man and woman in a movie; the footage the couples film are then taken and spliced together to form the narrative movie they are auditioning for.
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Mountain of Madness
Black Mountain SideDecember 10, 2015There has long been a history of films that deal with isolation and seclusion – some being big budget blockbusters while others are low-budget flicks. Movies such as The Shining, Cabin Fever and The Thing each created a sense of impending dread by using these two themes effectively. The low budget Canadian film Black Mountain Side continues the tradition.
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Darkness Shines Bright
Darkness on the Edge of TownDecember 8, 2015It is not often that I am able to review a movie that claims to be an Irish Shakespearian Western, but that is simply, or perhaps complexly, what Patrick Ryan’s feature film directorial debut Darkness on the Edge of Town is.
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Eye Opening Experience
The Corpse of Anna FritzDecember 6, 2015The last ten years or so have been an extremely exciting time for horror and thriller films coming out of Spanish speaking countries. Whether a classic from Guillermo del Toro (The Devil’s Backbone, Pan’s Labyrinth), or other greats such as J.A. Bayona’s The Orphanage, Guillem Morales’ Julia’s Eyes or Oriol Paulo’s The Body – to name but a few, these films introduce interesting, unique, original or classic ideas and offer a scary spin on the horror/thriller genre. The Corpse of Anna Fritz adds to this golden age of Spanish language horror thrillers (with a warning that this one pushes the limits more than some of the others).