SIFF 2023: 'Irati' Capsule Review

Set in 778, director Paul Urkijo’s Irati follows a young man and woman tasked by a witch to travel deep into a strange, remote forest to retrieve a corpse and claim a birthright. Been there. 

SIFF 2017: 'Time Trap' (2017) Movie Review

When a group of college students—and two tweens named Veeves and Furby, brought along for specious reasons—head into a mysterious cave system to find a beloved professor, himself searching for a group of hippies who disappeared years before, they discover underground time is not the same as surface time. And then shit gets real weird.

'The Lost City Of Z' (2017) Movie Review

To get this out of the way up front, I hated every second of James Gray’s The Lost City of Z. In reality, that’s probably all you need to know. Everything that comes after this is simply a more specific reiteration of that larger point. I dislike this in a raw, visceral way that I don’t hate many movies.

'Kong: Skull Island' Trailer Doesn't Skimp On The Monkey

One of the biggest knocks on Gareth Edwards’ 2014 Godzilla reboot was that the titular King of the Monsters only actually appeared on screen for like ten minutes or whatever. Judging by this new trailer, that’s not going to be an issue for Kong: Skull Island. Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts (Kings of Summer) and company certainly don’t skimp on the monkey.

'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' Latest TV Spot Features Way More John Boyega

Hey, it’s been a couple of days since we’ve seen anything new from Star Wars: The Force Awakens, right? Well, now with just a month left on the clock before we see it, here’s yet another new TV spot with even more fresh, shiny footage. Spoilers live after the jump if you’re afraid of such things.

'Tomorrowland' Movie Review

As much a I love dystopian, post-apocalyptic, and otherwise bleak science fiction—that’s kind of my jam if you missed my giddy excitement for Mad Max: Fury Road—the darkness and weight can get overwhelming from time to time. So I certainly understand where director Brad Bird and writer Damon Lindelof are coming from with Tomorrowland, trying to provide a more hopeful vision of the future. Unfortunately, I wish they’d stayed where they were instead of developing this smarmy, too-proud-of-itself movie.

'The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies' Movie Review: An Epic, Mostly Satisfying End To A Troubled Journey

In the service of transparency, I’m not a fan of the first two films in Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy. We could go into greater depth, but that would take a good long while, and I’ve already detailed my issues elsewhere. I find them tedious and dull and almost completely lacking in all of the things that make me love J.R.R. Tolkien’s novel. That said, the latest and final chapter in the franchise, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, is not only the best of the series by a mile, it’s damn entertaining, and a mostly satisfying end to a troubled, overlong journey.

'Interstellar' Movie Review: Christopher Nolan's Latest Is Stunning And Crappy At The Same Time

Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar is one serious mixed bag of a film, as spectacular as it is flawed. It delivers the most breathtaking, gorgeous visuals you’ve ever seen in a movie, things that you can’t help but gawk at, slack jawed and bug eyed. Along with that, a large portion of the story is so trite and hokey that that it takes much of the shine off of the rest. Big and epic and ambitious in every way, not everything lands like it needs to, and there are incredible highs mixed with moments that leave you completely flat.

'The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug' Movie Review

When the “Lord of the Rings” movies dropped, people got crazy pumped for the release of the extended editions. A year from now, when the last of Peter Jackson’s three “Hobbit” movies has come and gone, I’m excited for someone to splice them together, hack out all the superfluous crap, and finally reveal the single good movie that I know is hidden in there somewhere. It should be about three hours long. What we’ve seen thus far, including the latest, “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug,” has been nothing but a disappointment. Overlong, bloated, and tedious, Jackson even did something that I’d have thought impossible, he made a giant, fire-breathing dragon voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch boring as shit.

Blu-Ray Review: 'Game Of Thrones: The Complete Second Season'

“Winter is coming.” That refrain echoes throughout the first season of HBO’s Game of Thrones, their adaptation of George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series of novels. Now in year two, and newly available in a fantastic Blu-ray package, the season is most definitely changing.

DVD Review: 'Spartacus: Gods of the Arena'

It feels strange to write a review of “Spartacus: Gods of the Arena” right now, just a short few days after the untimely passing of actor Andy Whitfield, who played the titular gladiator in “Spartacus: Blood and Sand”, the series that preceded “Gods of the Arena”. Despite the absence of Spartacus, and Whitfield, in “Gods of the Arena”, he looms in the background, largely because if not for Whitfield’s well-publicized battle with non-Hodgkin Lymphoma, the six-episode mini-series likely wouldn’t have happened. When Whitfield was originally diagnosed he stepped down from the show, a huge hit for the Starz network. While producers of the show frantically searched for a new leading man, eventually selecting Liam McIntyre, the idea for “Gods of the Arena” first came about. It will be curious how the series carries on without Whitfield. The more I watched “Blood and Sand”, the more he carried the bulk of the workload, and he will be missed.

'30 Minutes or Less' Movie Review

“30 Minutes or Less” is a breath of fresh air in what has overall been a stale summer. Director Ruben Fleischer’s follow-up to “Zombieland” is one of the few comedies this season that isn’t trying to be an edgy, raunchy, gross-out fest; and it doesn’t end with some heavy-handed, overly-simplified moralizing that even an idiot boy-child can see through. “30 Minutes or Less” is fun, funny, but also manages to tell a good, surprisingly tense story with solid characters. Who would’ve thought to do that?

'Attack the Block' Movie Review

What would happen if aliens invaded a tough London neighborhood populated by rough and tumble street kids who are used to scrapping and fighting for everything they have? The answer, at least in Joe Cornish’s badass feature film debut “Attack the Block”, is that these trespassers would be in for one hell of brawl. In my mind “Attack the Block” is in the running for my favorite movie this year. It works as a straight-up genre film, and those of you looking for your monster fix will get all that you can handle. But it is also tightly executed in almost every capacity. The pacing is spot on, it is tense as hell, you can feel the energy on screen, and though it isn’t an overtly political story, there is an underlying social commentary that you find in the best science fiction.

'Cowboys and Aliens' Movie Review

Cowboys & Aliens isn’t a bad movie, it just isn’t particularly good. You knew going in that it was going to be ridiculous, and possibly a little bit silly—it is called Cowboys & Aliens after all—but it commits the one cardinal sin that a movie like this absolutely cannot commit; it’s boring. This should be a wild, raucous, hootin’ an’ hollerin’ good time, but it comes across as tepid and uninspired.

'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2' Movie Review

It’s over. After seven books, eight movies, and more than a decade, the saga of teenage wizard Harry Potter has finally concluded. “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2” is the long-awaited finale to the much beloved franchise, and delivers on the promise of the previous seven movies. While a fitting end, “Deathly Hallows: Part 2” is not perfect. There are some issues, but there were issues with the final book as well, so a few bumps are to be expected. And in the end, the problems are relatively minor and easily ignored. Overall the film is appropriately gloomy, as dark and creepy as you want it to be, and action-packed for the vast majority of its two-hour-plus run time, and fans of the series should be more than satisfied. What I’m trying to say is that it is pretty damn great.

'Green Lantern' Movie Review

So far this summer movie season has been a pretty good time for comic book adaptations. “Thor” was far better than I expected, and, though I haven’t managed to drag my sorry ass to the theater yet, “X-Men: First Class” is getting thumbs-up reviews from all over the place. With “Captain America” still to come, it seemed that the summer was destined to be dominated by Marvel, but not entirely. DC gets into the act this weekend with their big-budget big-screen version of “Green Lantern”. With it, we have another worthy, entertaining superhero flick with which to while away our precious summer hours. Just a heads up, I’m not particularly familiar with the source material, so I can’t comment on how closely the story sticks to comics, or how many little in jokes there are, but even from my removed perspective it is a damn blast.

'Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides' Movie Review

Did anyone actually expect “Pirates of the Caribbean” to be as good as it was? Sure, it’s a movie about pirates and Johnny Depp’s tipsy Keith Richards impersonation, but it’s also based on ride at Disneyland for Christ’s sake. It certainly surprised the hell out of me. The sequels, “Dead Man’s Chest” and “At World’s End”, both sucked, but the original holds up. And while nowhere near as good as the first, the latest film in the franchise, “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides”, is exponentially better than the second and third installments.

'Hanna' Movie Review

In “Hanna” a young girl, oddly enough named Hanna, lives a simple existence in a cabin in the woods with her doting father. That sounds nice and picturesque, right? Not exactly. The title character (Saoirse Ronan) is a pale, and I mean looks-like-a-ghost pale, 16 year old that lives a life similar to that of an arctic ninja. She hunts with a homemade bow and arrow, chases down wounded animals, and her father, Erik Heller (former stand up comedian Eric Bana), randomly sneaks up and attacks her just to test her reflexes and preparedness. She may be gutting a dead deer, or sound asleep in the middle of the night, it doesn’t matter. He’s likely to spring when least expected, to keep her on her toes, even when unconscious.

'Sucker Punch' Movie Review

Watching “Sucker Punch” is like watching some creepy old dude’s rape fantasy masquerading as a female empowerment story for young women. Apparently all teenage-looking girls need to do to transcend sexual assault is to do a seductive (read awkward) dance to hypnotize their would-be attackers and flee into their imaginations. One of the five female leads is almost raped every few minutes. People are going to describe “Sucker Punch” with words like “hot”, “sexy”, and “sensual”, but more accurate words are gross and skeevy, not to mention painfully long and repetitious.

'The Walking Dead Season One' DVD Review

The Show:

Robert Kirkman's “The Walking Dead” is one of the best monthly comics in recent memory. Though it may be about zombies on the surface, like the best of the genre, the heart of the story is the human element. Kirkman uses the plague of the undead to heighten and intensify the emotions and personalities of his characters. When faced with the destruction of everything you know, you find out who people really are, and what is really important. Frank Darabont’s adaptation of “The Walking Dead” for AMC shares this outlook, was an enormous popular and critical success, and Season One has just hit DVD/Blu-ray.