Up In The Air
Matinee with Snacks
Who better to play a man ho eschews human connections and possessions than George Clooney, career bachelor and ladies man? His character, Ryan Bingham, is an axeman for hire – sensitive to the toll of his work, but shielded by his own capacity to live as an island. [...]
By now, most of you with an interest in this topic will have read Fast Food Nation or seen its odd film adaptation, or enjoyed the gastronomic minefield of Supersize Me. Food, Inc. is less about the horrible contents of processed food and more about the unseen machinations in boardrooms and government buildings, as [...]
I’m not giving anything away when I say that 2012 is about the day our world ends. No stakes could possibly be higher. It’s not just human civilization (though there’s some of that being lost certainly) but the whole freaking planet. By now you have seen some of the spectacular previews with [...]
War movies – they’re everywhere. The terror of battle, the difficulty reintegrating after battle, man’s inhumanity to man, the heroism, it’s all been explored in film in different eras, different political climates, but we have never seen anything like the Messenger. The details are contemporary, but the heart of the story could [...]
It’s a tough sell, a film about the 1986 stoning of a woman. And yes, I mean the barbaric execution sort of stoning, not anything with a bong. It came and went in theatres like a flash; when I received my screener DVD, I eyed it with trepidation. It is a difficult topic and an [...]
After a truly fantastical opening credits sequence, I worried that Cirque du Freak might have exhausted its quality potential. Thankfully, it had not. Adapting the first three of Darren Shan’s books and having a whimsical and sardonic dark tone, this film will inevitably be compared to Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. [...]
Based on Lynn Barber’s memoir, An Education plays out rather like a diary read. When you write of exciting moments in your life, you don’t need to elaborate on certain things, like best friends’ names or schoolwork, and this film doesn’t bother to either. Jenny (Carey Mulligan) is a schoolgirl, almost but not [...]
Not unlike its inevitable comparison film, The Blair Witch Project, one of the most exciting things about Paranormal Activity is how while you are watching it, it feels real enough that you feel unsure whether it’s a movie or a found-footage presentation. I dissected various actions and moments in the film, searching for the cinematic [...]
Like any proper spoof (not like Date/Scary/Epic/Dance Movies, actual
spoof), Zombieland serves also as an example of the genre it’s
spoofing. Unlike the inevitable comparison with the British Shaun of
the Dead, this movie feels less like a spoof and more like a
straightforward zombie movie with just some comedy thrown in. Zombie
movies already have some comedy in them, [...]
Ricky Gervais was himself reason enough to see the Invention of Lying, but I was also interested by the premise. Without having given it much thought before entering the theatre, while watching, I was perpetually reminded of the fruitful nature of what seems so simple: In a world where no one is capable of uttering [...]
