“A screaming woman running down the street with her throat
cut.” That’s the image Nina (Rene Russo) evokes when describing her news
program in director Dan Gilroy’s tremendous thriller Nightcrawler.
It’s tempting to adopt that as a metaphor for the entire film—Gilroy’s first,
by the way, which makes his achievement doubly impressive—but while that is
definitely part of the equation, what drives this movie forward is the menace
that lurks just below the surface, beneath a calm exterior personified by Jake
Gyllenhaal’s Louis Bloom.
Thursday, October 30, 2014
'Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor' #4 Adds Much Needed Weight And Substance
It took a couple of issues to really find a groove, but
Titan Comics’ Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor has found a
nice groove over the two installments of the continuing adventures of Matt
Smith’s incarnation of the venerable Time Lord and his new companion, former
library assistant Alice Obiefune. Each new book still functions very much like
a standalone episode, but in issue #4, writer Al Ewing has struck a solid
balance between that and the larger narrative arc that gives these tales a more
substantial texture.
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
7 Sci-Fi Halloween Costumes You May Want To Avoid
Halloween is coming, and while there’s always a lot of talk
about potentially awesome costume designs, every year people don and assortment
of truly questionable outfits. To help steer your holiday in the right
direction, we’ve compiled a list of sci-fi themes you may want to steer away
from to ensure a smooth, hassle free night of handing out candy and getting
wasted.
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
'Nightbreed' Director's Cut Blu-Ray Review: This Is The Release Fans Have Been Waiting For
Clive Barker’s Nightbreed is the very
definition of a cult movie. The 1990 horror fantasy has legions of rabid fans,
a swirling mythology both inside the film and without, and is one of those
films intended to be the start of a franchise, but is destined to forever
remain as is. At least it was. Stories of studio interference, and censors
demanding that somewhere in the neighborhood of 17 scenes be cut before the
film could screen theatrically, make it readily apparent that the
Nightbreed we’ve been watching all these years is not the
version of the film Barker initially intended. Now Scream Factory has delivered
the definitive director’s cut of the film on Blu-ray, and put together one hell
of a package. This is an absolute must for every Nightbreed
fan lurking out there in the darkness.
Sunday, October 26, 2014
'The Walking Dead' Season 5 Review: "Four Walls And A Roof" Proves Pretty People Taste Better
As we approached the premiere of season 5 of TheWalking Dead, AMC’s mega-popular zombie drama, my biggest question
was whether or not they could maintain the progress and momentum created over
the second half of season 4. By far the best run in the entire series, I wasn’t
a huge fan of the season finale, but here we are, three episodes into the young
season 5, and they not only kept it going, they’ve started building even more.
The season started out with a tense, action heavy debut, and followed that up
with a more introspective episode, which brings us to tonight’s installment,
“Four Walls and a Roof. And this is the episode fans of the comics have been
waiting for.
It should go without saying, don’t read this unless you’ve
already watched the episode, or you just don’t give a damn, because we’re going
wade through some deep ass spoilers.
Thursday, October 23, 2014
'John Wick' Movie Review
Keanu Reeves may not be the greatest thespian of his
generation, but you have to give the man points for doing the unexpected. After
hits like Speed and The Matrix trilogy,
he could easily have coasted by on name recognition, collecting big paydays and
headlining spectacle level action tentpoles (okay, he tried on occasion, with
films like Constantine and The Day the Earth Stood
Still, but those are relatively few and far between). Instead,
however, he’s chosen offbeat projects, like A Scanner Darky,
and made his directorial debut with an old school martial arts film,
Man of Tai Chi, where he plays against type as a villain.
He’s even taking a turn on TV with the upcoming miniseries
Rain. John Wick, a gritty, throwback
revenge actioner, helmed by two stuntmen making their own directorial debut, is
another unusual choice, and it may be my favorite movie of the year thus far.
It’s definitely up there.
'Birdman: Or The Unexpected Virtue Of Ignorance' Movie Review
Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman: or (The
Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) is a big, bold movie, the kind that
takes aesthetic and thematic risks, and that grabs you from frame one and
practically screams at you to pay attention. It’s also very convinced of its
own cleverness. The film made the rounds at all the prestigious fall festivals,
garnering praise and adulation at every stop, and it’s become impossible for
anyone to mention it without discussing awards possibilities. Surely this will figure
into those races, in many respects justifiably so, but while
Birdman is a very good film, even coming near greatness, it’s
not necessarily the paradigm shifting, perception altering feature that some
have made it out to be. There’s a fine line between genius and pretension, and
Birdman walks on both sides. As much as there is to praise,
there’s always a ‘but’ looming.
'Dazed And Confused': It'll Never Be This Good Again
Like many of you, my introduction to Richard Linklater came
in high school with his first feature, Slacker, which,
to this day, is one of the first images that pops into my mind when I hear the
phrase “independent film.” Made on the cheap, using non-professional actors,
and told in an unusually structured, seemingly plotless way, it’s the kind of
movie that, especially at the time, when the new wave of American independent
cinema was quietly building steam on the down low, a 15- or 16-year-old kid
might spend weekends getting high on a couch in a buddy’s basement and
watching, dissecting the philosophical ramifications of each individual
segment, as well as the movie as a whole. Linklater’s follow-up feature,
Dazed and Confused, served a similar purpose, though in a
very different way.
Wednesday, October 22, 2014
'Avengers: Age Of Ultron' Trailer Leaks Online, Marvel Blames Hydra
Initially, I wasn’t going to write about this because it was
a leak, and while I won’t get into the legal or ethical explanations, I would
have just felt like a dick doing it, so I didn’t. But now it’s official, so
what the hell. Marvel was going to unveil your first look at Avengers:
Age of Ultron next week during their regularly scheduled episode of
Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., but since it got out, they decided
to release it in an official capacity. So here it is.
Sunday, October 19, 2014
'The Walking Dead' Season 5 Review: "Strangers" Carves Off A Chunk
Despite having drastic ups and downs over the course of the
series, the last half of season 4 of AMC’s The Walking Dead
was, by far, the best run in the series, giving me hope, guarded as it was, going
into season 5. And thus far the young season hasn’t let me down. After starting
with last week’s high-paced, action-centric season premiere, “No Sanctuary,”
the massively popular zombie drama returns with “Strangers,” a quiet, moody,
contemplative episode that continues to ratchet up the tension and build
towards something even bigger.
If you haven’t watched the episode, stop reading now,
because we’re going to talk about it, in depth, and this will include a great
many SPOILERS.
Blu-Ray Review: 'Leviathan'
When I was a kid I absolutely loved
Leviathan. And just to be clear, we’re talking about the
1989 Alien knock off, not the Leviathan
from this year, also known as Russia’s official entry into the foreign language
Oscar race. They’re two very, very different movies.
Thursday, October 16, 2014
'The Book Of Life' Movie Review
As far as animated kid’s movies go, Jorge R. Gutierrez’ The
Book of Life is simultaneously wildly inventive and totally familiar,
which are the film’s greatest strengths and weaknesses, respectively.
Fortunately for the viewer, one totally supersedes the other, and the end
result is a stunningly beautiful movie with a story that, while not
particularly original, could be much, much worse, and has enough going on at
the periphery that it is still interesting. And to be honest, there aren’t
enough children’s movies about death, let alone ones that deal with it as
positively as this one.
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Comic Review: 'Doctor Who: The Twelfth Doctor' Issue #1
As Doctors Ten and Eleven continue to live on in the pages
of new comic books, one series for each Time Lord, Peter Capaldi’s twelfth
incarnation has been bringing layer of dark grittiness to the airwaves every
week for the last few months. But that’s not enough for him, oh no, the newest Man from Gallifrey is also
getting his very own monthly title from Titan Comics. Clara is along for the
ride, too, though she’s still having some issues coming to terms with the
Doctor’s new face, and personality. It’s also getting increasingly difficult to
juggle her teaching duties with adventures through space and time—she’s one of
the cool teachers, even though the kids call her Ms. Oddwald or Ms. Oddbod.
Sunday, October 12, 2014
'The Walking Dead' Season 5 Premiere-"No Sanctuary"
Well that’s one way to start off a season. A couple of years
ago, if I told you the biggest show on television would kick off its fifth
season with cannibals, blood spurting from sliced open throats, and one group
of people preparing to gouge out the eyeballs of another group of people, you
might not have believed me. But we live in a world where AMC’s The
Walking Dead is more popular than we ever could have imagined, and
that, and more, all happened within the first few minutes.
It should go without saying that if you haven’t watched the
season 5 premiere, “No Sanctuary,” you might want to stop reading right now, as
we’re going to get into all manner of spoiler type things, like spoilers.
Friday, October 10, 2014
5 Things 'The Walking Dead' Season 5 Needs To Do
Season 4 of AMC’s hit zombie drama The WalkingDead is easily the best in the show’s history, especially the eight
episodes that comprise the second half (okay, the first seven of those, I
wasn’t super impressed by season finale, at least not until the very end). I
give a lot of this credit, rightly or wrongly, to new showrunner Scott
Gimple—these episodes in particular, and their narrative approach, bear the
trademarks of those he wrote before landing this gig—and I’m more excited and
interested in seeing what happens to these characters than I’ve ever been.
Thursday, October 9, 2014
'Automata' Movie Review
Gabe Ibanez’ new sci-fi feature Automata
is not a terrible movie by any means, but it is very, very familiar, to the
point where little, if anything, comes across as original. If you were to break
it down, you could damn near name the movie where each individual scene
originates. You can’t help but notice direct lifts from Blade
Runner, I, Robot, Dredd,
Mad Max, District
9/Elysium, and countless others. Not to mention a
variety literary allusions—Asimov and Philip K. Dick especially. This is like a
hodgepodge of genre influences all thrown together, and all of this combined
adds up to a movie that is wildly okay.
Sunday, October 5, 2014
Book Review: 'Fringe: Sins Of The Father' Just Makes You Miss The Long Gone Series
Fringe is gone, that’s just a hard fact
of life that I’m going to have to accept. Luckily, I’ve had a couple of years
to get used to this, which is more than enough time to marathon the entire
series, a couple of times, just in case you’re wondering. And if you’re also a
fan, it’s good to resign yourself to this, because these
Fringe novelizations—they’re really tie in novels, full of
cursory stories from the lives of the main characters—just aren’t cutting it.
Star Wars, Spoilers, And What The Hell Were They Thinking?
In this line of work, I’ve become fairly immune to spoilers,
partly out of necessity, partly because, as long as the story is structured
well, the reveal can still have the appropriate impact. One example is that,
going into season three of Game of Thrones, I already knew
all about the events of the “Red Wedding.” It’s a hazard of the trade, and
since I don’t have HBO and had to wait until it hit Blu-ray months after the
fact, there’s only so much you can ask out of the internet. But it is told in
such a way that I was still floored when it went down, even though I knew what
was going to happen. That’s the sign of a strong story, I knew what was going
to happen from a mechanical standpoint, but that didn’t dilute the ultimate
impact.
Thursday, October 2, 2014
'Gone Girl' Movie Review: Low Trash As High Art
When David Fincher’s “Gone Girl” starts out, Ben Affleck’s
Nick Dunne is just a normal guy, taking out the trash on what looks like just
another normal morning. But this day is anything but normal. First, it’s his
fifth wedding anniversary, and you know from word one that it’s not a happy
marriage. It’s also the day that his wife, Amy (Rosamund Pike), goes missing
and Nick becomes the most notorious man in the media-hungry world. What follows
is part mystery, part thriller, and part razor sharp indictment of our
news-as-entertainment society, all wrapped up with constantly shifting ground
and a wicked sense of humor you don’t see coming.
'Annabelle' Movie Review
Remember that evil doll from “The Conjuring”? It’s the kind
of hellish looking children’s toy that you think no one would ever possibly
give to a real child because just looking at that nasty smile would give it
nightmares. Obviously, the first thing you thought walking out of James Wan’s
film was, “that creepy doll needs its own movie,” right? Didn’t everyone think
that? It sure seems that way, because that’s exactly what we now have with the
prequel “Annabelle.” And if you think making a feature-length movie out of the
backstory of a sinister doll—from the director of “The Butterfly Effect 2” no
less—might be stretching the concept a bit thin, you are correct.
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
Comic Review: 'Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor Issue #3'
By now we’re well into the reign of Time Lord number twelve
on Doctor Who, played with swagger and an edge of
dickishness by Peter Capaldi. Still, there are likely some, possibly many, of
you out there who miss the human cartoon that was Matt Smith’s eleventh
incarnation of the character. But fear not, that version of the long-lived,
beloved character is still alive and well, albeit in a drastically different
form, that of comic books. It does actually seem like a fitting medium for a
rendering of Smith, and the newly minted continuing series is back with issue
#3, “What He Wants…” and it has what you need.
'Star Wars Rebels' Review: The Spark You Need To Love Star Wars Again
It’s that time. We finally have our first addition to the
Star Wars canon in the Disney-owned Lucasfilm era, with the
animated series Star Wars Rebels. The premiere episode,
“Spark of Rebellion,” recently debuted, and it’s a damn good time, setting the
stage for a series that looks to be a ton of fun. Definitely aimed at kids, but
never in the cheap, cloying way that George Lucas’ prequels were, kids are
absolutely going to flip their wigs over this, but at the same time there’s
more than enough here to keep you interested and watching right along with
them. It isn’t the movies we’ve been waiting for, but it just might tide you
over until Episode VII drops next December.
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