Derek Cianfrance's "The Light Between the Oceans" disappoints, but why?


"A lighthouse keeper and his wife living off the coast of Western Australia raise a baby they rescue from an adrift rowboat." That is how IMDB describes Derek Cianfrance's "The Light Between the Oceans," an adaptation of M.L. Stedman's best selling novel. A soapy, dragging and -ultimately- messy film that doesn't do justce to the talent involved. The above IMDB description also does not reveal a crucial twist that happens around the one hour mark.
I can't say I have been the biggest fan of Cianfrance's past work. "Blue Valentine" had some real strong moments, but I found it too facile and predictable in its take on relationships. "The Place Beyond the Pines" had an exceptional start with the Ryan Gosling story, but failed to match the quality in its ensuing back two stories.

This latest Cianfrance doesn't really have the redeeming qualities of his previous efforts. I do remember a time when there were high expectations for this film, but it all evaporated in the last few months probably from toxic word of mouth among the execs and also the fact that they decided to release the damn thing a week before TIFF or Telluride even started. The problem with Cianfrance's film, I believe, is that they had a best-selling book that lent itself well to some tremendous cinematic imagery, but once shooting of the film began Cianfrance and company must have been wondering "what the hell did we get ourselves into?" I mean the film does have Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander, two movie stars that soothe intimacy and restraint in their performances. Hell, add Rachel Weisz and you could have a recipe for movie magic.

"The Light Between the Oceans" is too passable. It is being distributed by Disney with a very safe PG-13 rating and is dragged out by its 132 minute running time to bring out scope and ambition. But instead we are treated to half-baked PG-13 Oscar bait product that won't have the Academy buying its well-intended saccharine. This is the kind of melodrama I thought Hollywood was done producing. I guess I was wrong. C-

Venice: "Arrival" gets good reviews, "La La Land" gets raves

Well, can we say it officially? Fall movie season is upon us. Venice kicks it all off with two titles that we'll be keeping close attention to at Telluride and TIFF, which I will be attending from September 8th to the 18th.

First off, there's Denis Villeneuve's "Arrival" getting the kind of reviews I thought it would be getting: solid, thoughtful entertainment that doesn't necessarily rise above being very good. I'm fine with that. This could crack my top ten list because, well, I'm just a big Vileneuve nerd, especially his three French Canadian films "Maelstrom," "Incendies" and "Polytechnique." He showed a lot of promise with his American films and is being a kind of Hollywood auteur. "Sicario" definitely had some tightly-knit sequences that would not have been possible with cinematographer Roger Deakins, but Villeneuve shot that film magnificently as well.


Damien Chazelle's "La La Land" is where things get very interesting. The reviews are raves and it looks like many Oscar nominations are awaiting the latest film from Chazelle, who completely floored me at TIFF 2 years ago with "Whiplash." This one is a movie musical ode to the 1950s MGM, the trailer looked like it had a "Punch-Drunk Love" type of vibe. Reading these reviews it seems like it only hints at a surrealism that I wish it had more of. One thing's for sure, Chazelle has some kind of particular eye for musical numbers, maybe that's what he will build his career as a director on.

Check out that 9.2 rating. Yowsers. It is supposed to be screening here in advance on Tuesday, but I will not be in town, which saddens me because I will be catching "La La Land" at TIFF after practically every single big name critic has seen it.


The 10 Great Movies of Summer 2016

Ah, summer. The time when movies are promoted for hormonal teenage boys and adult males that seem to have grown up for their childhood obsessions with Superman or Captain America. This primarily male demographic is ready to drool over next superhero movie or unnecesary remake. They are the ones that keep pushing the industry to the brink of creative collapse. That's life now at the movies. "Captain America: Civil War" is a good movie, in fact the best of all the barrage of superhero movies we have gotten all of this year. But it feels like it's from a different cinematic universe, one where product placement is key to achieving long-term worldwide success, that feels robotic and untouched by human hands ditto "Finding Dory" the other well-reviewed hollywood film this summer. I'm not down for that. Instead the best movies of summer 2016 came from the small studio system. There were no special effects in these 8 above-average films, nor were there any artistic concessions for high box-office draws.

(1) "Indignation" (James Schamus)

"Indignation" James Schamus’ directorial debut is a thing of beauty. Although this peculiar love story might be thought of on paper as “conventional” by some, the surprise is that it’s far from it. In fact, some of the movies breathtaking set pieces are so daringly imagined and produced. Based on Phillip Roth’s difficult, but brilliant novel Indignation concentrates on a Jewish student’s (Logan Lerman) sexual and cultural dissatisfaction of a society gone astray. The small Ohio college he decides to attend wakes him up in alarming ways, so does a troubled, attractive blonde played by the talented Gloria Gadon."

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(2) "Hell or High Water"(David mackenzie)

"On paper it sounds trivial and almost too clichéd to work, yet Marcus is a crowd pleaser, a man with so much wisdom and no-bulls thoughts that Bridges’ performance turns almost transcendentally comic. The bank-robbing scenes are impressively shot and choreographed and rank among the very best the genre can offer. Mackenzie is about to hit the big time with this one as Hollywood will no doubt be knocking at his door with a lot more opportunities."

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 (3) "Weiner" (Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg)

"My jaw dropped more than a few times while watching Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg's Weiner, a behind-the-scenes account of Anthony Weiner's rise and fall. The film is an examination of how this New York congressman, a front-runner for mayor of NYC, single-handedly shot himself in the foot and got involved in a sex scandal of the highest proportions, by not only getting caught once, but a few other times, thus sabottaging a perfectly constructed campaign by his team. It is not only a story about the times we live in, but a scathing depiction of the mdeia and today's political landscape."

little-men

 (4) "Little Men"(Ira Sachs)

"Ira Sachs' best movie to date was greeted with the ravest of reviews, well deserved. Theo Taplitz and Michael Barbieri are the titular best friends whose bond gets tested by a shop lease battle between both kids' parents . This subtle, nuanced character work by Sachs recalls the very best of 1970's european cinema, yet goes by its own vision. The coda might seem a little out of place, but a closer look reveals the emergence of an Auteure of the highest order. Only a fool would ignore the delicate nature of this extraordinarily simple story. It's a slice of life, but done with the more cinematic of restrain-filled tension."



(5) "Gleason"(Jay Tweel)

"ALS has not really been tackled that much as far as film goes, but if there ever was a film that could define and give cinematic language to the disease it's this documentary about former NFL-er Steve Gleason who was diagnosed with ALS in 2011 and not too long after found out he was going to be a father. It just so happens that he was filming himself the entire time, from the moment he found out about the diagnosis to the way his body disintegrates into nothingness over the next 4 years of his life. The slow and painful way he loses his motor functions is heartbreaking, but so is the way director Jay Tweel manages to edit and make a coherent movie out of Gleason's personal video journals for his unborn son. His wife Michel turns out to be the heart and soul of the picture, battling her way through the demons that haunt her and the life she never expected she'd have to live as caretaker of Steve's. This is a movie that is more important and revelatory than any ice-bucket challenge ever could be."

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 (6) "Don't Think Twice" (Mike Birbiglia)

"You know for a moment "Don't Think Twice" veers towards being some kind of masterpiece of the comedy world. It doesn't because it does try to tie up things a little too easily near the end, but that's ok because the 80 some odd minutes that came before it were great! Filled with detailed views on how comedians actually get through life. The saying goes "life ain't easy being a comedian" and, yeah, I kinda actually agree. You really have to love what you do and the popular New York City improv troupe depicted, in writer comedian Mike Birbiglia's directorial debut, start to realize that not everyone is going to be making it to the finish line."




 (7) "A Bigger Splash"(Luca Guadagnino)

"What is there to say about this vicious valentine to what turns us on at the movies. There's murder, there's sexuality, there's mystery and there's an abundance of beautiful, sensual film-making. Makes sense when you realize the director is Luca Guadagnino, a man who turned heads a couple of years ago with "I Am Love." This new film riffs on the most Hitchcockian of sensibilities, it's what would be considered a ripoff if it weren't for the way Guadagnino brings forward a post-modern take on Hitch. Another film the movie might be inspired by as well is Francois Ozon's underseen 2003 surrealist film "Swimming Pool."



 (8) "The Nice Guys"(Shane Black)

 "It worked wonders in Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang and, for the most part, it does as well here. But we are not entering any fresh territory here, this is a redux of the latter. If you're fine with that, as I was, then you'll find some nice textural treats in this film. Gosling and Crowe seem to build chemistry as the story goes along, that's the key really with this and Kiss Kiss - There has to be chemistry, if there isn't then the whole megilah is screwed. You have to be sucked into the likeability of the characters. It's not hard for that to happen when you have Ryan Gosling who is known to be one of the great personality actors of the industry. Crowe just needs to play his serious-dude shtick the right way and what you get is a winning formula"



(9) "Don't Breathe" (Fede Alvarez)

 "Don't Breathe" is already being described as the scariest movie of the year. It's a tightly knit and terrifying treat to watch three thieves trying to break into a blind war veteran's home to steal a cool million dollars in cash. Not only does the plan fail, but it turns out the blind war vet is quite capable of taking care of himself. It makes for a claustrophobic film. 80% of the film takes places in the man's Detroit home. A labyrinthine thriller that reminded of this year's other genre-exercise Jeremy Saulnier's "Green Room" in terms of hard-edged technical prowess.I wouldn't say that Alvarez' horror film is as masterfully executed as Saulnier's grim B-movie, but damn it if it doesn't come close for almost 2/3 of the movie, more specifically when the film turns to the house invasion. It really turns the screws on the suspense and action"













(10) "Lo and behold: Reveries of the Connected World" (Werner Herzog)

"Lo and Behold is Werener Herzog’s most ambitious documentary to date focusing on the internet — then, now and on to the future. At the film’s premeiere the eccentric filmmaker even admitted to not owning a cell phone, ever going online or even owning an email address."

Sex, drugs and white privilege: "White Girl"


White Girl - Actress Morgan Saylor as Leah

Elizabeth Wood's White Girl was a little perplexing for some people back at Sundance, but I dug it all the same. Think Larry Clark's Kids directed by a woman and starring Homeland's Morgan Saylor as a New York City girl that falls hard in love for a street thug and embarks in the most harrowing of sexual and drug-infused journey's ever seen on film. The wild extremes Saylor goes through are bound to disturb parents all around the country, but once you find out that all the events depicted in the film were based on Wood's actual past, then you're left speechless. This is as feminist a film for 2016 as any I have seen so far this year. But not just that, its also a pertinent and resonant depiction of race in America as you have never wanted to see before. It goes to extremes on gender roles and race and in ways that would be deemed too taboo or hardcore for the mainstream or even indie audiences. You are bound to hear very divisive takes on White Girl in the weeks to come, but Kudos to Wood and Saylor on their singular achievement A-

Thoughts on HBO's "The Night of" finale.


Jordan Ruimy
17 hrs
HBO's "The Night of" finale was sheer brilliance! At the end of the day the show was always more about the characters than the actual case. Also I don't think I've ever seen a more thorough, in-depth and informative movie or TV show about the legal system than this.

At the end of the day this show was unlike any I had ever seen. It is easily one of the very best things I have seen on TV this year, right up there with "Made In America: OJ Simpson", "Better Call Saul" and "The Americans."

 I was almost dead-on last WEEK when I said there would be no resolution. That would have been the true letdown, if there ever was one. And so, Steve Zaillan has earned some great numbers in my books with this new mini-series. John Turturro has single-handedly proved he can be the lead in a movie and Riz Ahmed has had a career breathrough as Naz. I got a feeling we will remember this series for many years to come. Zaillan and Richard Price should work together more often.

Oscar Predix 8.29.16

With Telluride, TIFF and Venice looming ever so closely it is time to assess the race. Not much has happened in terms of actual films that came out in theaters, but Festivals such as Sundance and Cannes have kicked off the race in unexpected ways. Never too early to predict what will go down, but I will be updating these every few weeks.

 We will start with the four major categories:

Best Picture
(1) Billy Lynn's Long Half-Time Walk
(2) Manchester by The Sea
(3) Silence
(4) Loving
(5) Moonlight
(6) Sully
(7) La La Land
(8) Arrival
(9) Patriot's Day
(10) The Birth of a Nation

Best Actor
Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea
Tom Hanks, Sully
Michael Keaton, The Founder
Joel Edgerton, Loving
Denzel Washington, Fences

Best Actress
Viola Davis, Fences
Ruth Negga, Loving
Meryl Streep, Florence Foster Jenkins
Isabelle Huppert, Elle
Emma Stone, La La Land

 Best Director
Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea
Ang Kee, Billy Lynn's Long Half-Time Walk
Martin Scorsese, Silence
Damian Chazelle, La La Land
Cliny Eastwood, Sully

"Snowden" has definitely screened for a select few critics

Yesterday I reporter that I knew a critic that saw Oliver Stone's much delayed "Snowden." Well now I've gotten another few emails, one of which is another negative view of Stone's film, but there is a positive one and it goes along with what I pretty much expect from this film. This is Oliver Stone, it won't be a boring watch, but cinephiles are looking for more than just that. They want the artful, intriguing Stone that seemed so unpredictable during the peak years (1986-1991) when he released "Salvador," "Platoon," "Born on the Fourth of July," "Wall Street" and "JFK."



"Low key but engaging, smartly done, tells the tale. The story is the story. Not an infantilized CG fantasy but adult, real world, complex & highly intelligent. Loved the CG digital sequence that shows how surveillance works on a personal, always expanding, ultimately global & nearly infinite basis. This is Oliver's best film since "Any Given Sunday" -- a return to form.  JGL delivers a grimmer, more concerned, less mild-mannered version of Ed Snowden than the Real McCoy. Shalene plays the proverbial girlfriend who gives the protagonist shit over being too work-oriented or being too closed off or emotionally inaccessible. Nic Cage as the olde marginalized CIA guy who shares Snowden's assessments & concerns. Dr. Spock delivers a good Glenn Greenwald. Open Road has been shifting release dates & treating this like a hot potato, not giving it the award-season treatment but it's a solid, entirely decent film -- a disciplined, fully respectable dramatic narrative complement to "Citizenfour." Yes, it's an "Oliver's point of view" film. And that's fine. Yes, most Americans will say they prefer security over freedom from constant surveillance. This is the price we pay in an era of radical jihadist Islamic terror but the movie explains that the ability to organize and campaign against this or that governmental abuse or shortcoming or worse is essential to maintaining a strong working Democracy. What if God forbid a real bad guy with a fascist agenda were to be elected President? The NSA apparatus is in place to recreate Orwell's "1984" and then some. I suspect that Laura Poitras is perhaps a tiny bit unhappy about being played by the always excellent Melissa Leo, simply because ML looks a good five if not ten years older than Laura's age & is somewhat less attractive." 

"Kate Plays Christine": @PlaysChristine is one of the best documentaries of the year

1970s TV Reporter Christine Chubbuck was infamously known as the reporter that shot herself on TV while delivering the news. This year’s Sundance gave us not one, but two immaculate portraits of the mysterious woman, whose life story still remains a bit muddy. Not much actual video footage can be found of Chubbuck and the infamous suicide video has been locked out in a vault somewhere with no sign of it ever coming out. Kate Lynn Sheil and Rebecca Hall both played Christine — Sheil in a gratifyingly original documentary and Hall in Antonio Campos’ intense film. The fact that both movie managed to come out of Sundance as one of the very best reviewed films of the fest shows just how fascinating of a story this is.

Campos' "Christine" is coming out later this fall, but will be screening as part of the 41st Toronto International Film Festival. I will be there and have an interview lined up with Rebecca Hall, who is most likely Oscar-bound for her incredible performance.







"Kate Plays Christine"is the first of the two to get released. The doc is a behind the scenes look at actress Kate Lyn Sheil preparing to portray the role of Chubbuck. This in turn becomes an indelibly thoughtful meditation on acting and storytelling. You have never seen a doc quite like this one. But what the film ultimately finds fascinating is our meta obsession with tragedy. Chubbuck's story is a tragedy that has sadly not been deftly told or investigated by anyone. Until now. Sheil is followed by director Robert Greene's camera as she researches her role. It's the discovery of her character that ultimately becomes the core of the story. Why did Chubbuck kill herself on live television? What inner-demons were brewing in her sensitive head? The twists are too juicy to reveal, but "Kate Plays Christine" ends up playing like some kind of twisted, fascinating morality tale for our times.

Someone has actually seen "Snowden" and it's not looking good.

"I received an email from a legitimate big paper critic around an hour ago. He had seen "Snowden" and promise to report on what he though it was. The email response I got said "Don't repeat this pls but it's a dud. Oof." Figures, of course. Did anyone think this would turn out okay? My response: What was the last good Oliver Stone movie? "U-Turn" back in 1997? It's been a long time. He keeps tackling these relevant to the zeitgeist topics such as "W." in 2008, "World Trade Centre" in 2006, "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" in 2010 and now "Snowden," but he keeps fucking it up. How many chances is this guy going to get? He also managed to make a historical story as riveting as Alexander III of Macedonia into such a stale, boring and laughable epic.


Jefferey Wells over at Hollywood-Elsewhere somewhat agrees, he tells me: "Any Given Sunday ('99) was the last completely solid Oliver Stone film. Alexander ('00) was more in the realm of underwhelming than a disaster. But W. ('08) was reasonably decent, good Brolin performance. And the '09 doc South of the Border was impassioned, novel, ballsy. The real downturn began with Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps."

MrRuimy's response? "W." was a watchable comedy, Brolin was great, but there was so much potential with that project that it ultimately was a letdown for me. "Any Given Sunday" Yes! I can agree with that. A bone-crunching good time, but a little overlong." "U-Turn" was such a breath of fresh air. No politics. No bullshit. Just pure adrenaline. It wasn't well-received back in 1997 due to its grimy Tarantino-esque pulp violence, plus "Pulp Fiction" was only three years-old at the time. He tried to tackle similar territory just a few years ago with "Savages," but that was a miserable fail.

Why is Mulholland Drive the best movie of the last 15 years?

Here is a little something I wrote on Facebook concerning the film, which is also number 1 on my list of the greatest of the last 15 years:

 "How about because it's the kind of film that is exactly about why we go to the movies in the first place. A dreamy, surreal, almost unexplained work of art. It intrigues you, frustrates you and passionately reaffirms your undying love for the movies. David Lynch dared us to get inside his bag of magic tricks and the epiphanous result felt like a religious re-awakening. In Scorsese's "Hugo" George Melies says concerning the cinema: "If you've ever wondered where your dreams come from, look around this is where they're made. Come and dream with me." Lynch invited us to dream with him as well back in 2001 and we haven't been able to shake it ever since."


The Best Movie of the 21st Century: Why Critics Keep Voting for David Lynch’s ‘Mulholland Drive’
Film critics and one of the producers of “Mulholland Drive” weigh in on the movie’s extraordinary staying power.
INDIEWIRE.COM/2016/08/DAVID-…|BY GRAHAM WINFREY

Harvey's thoroughbred

I'm not sure when it was said this summer, but Harvey Weinstein gave us a warning about Garth Davis' "Lion" possibly becoming a major contender. Of course, this is Harvey Weinstein. He owns the movie. I do fear he is stuck in the 90s and aughts mindset of what an Oscat contender looks like. These kind of prestigious, lesson-learned, self-discovery epics have not aged well at all. Weinstein practically invented the genre of Oscar bait 101, that is until people caught on and realized it was pure sugar coated emptiness.  That was near the tailend of Miramax's days, but lest us we forget that Weinstein is part of the reason why Indie cinema boomed in the early 90s: "The Grifters," "Reservoir Dogs," "The Piano," "The Crying Game," "Clerks," "Pulp Fiction among many others.

Anyway, Harvey thinks you should watch this. It doesn't look very good, but it does look a lot like "Slumdog Millionaire", the kind of tale that could possibly have audiences cheering in their seats and Academy dilpickles voting for it. Never has Google Maps figured this prominently in a big-budget studio movie. Great product placement  though.


Here’s the official synopsis:

"Five-year-old Saroo finds himself alone and travelling on the wrong train away from his home in northern India. Frightened and bewildered, he ends up thousands of miles away, in chaotic Kolkata. Somehow he survives living on the streets, dodging all sorts of terrors in the process. Eventually ending up in an orphanage, Saroo is adopted by an Australian couple, and finds safety and love as he grows up in Hobart. Not wanting to hurt his adoptive parents’ feelings, he buries his past, his emotional need for reunification and his hope of ever finding his lost mother and brother. But a chance meeting with some fellow Indians reawakens his secret yearnings. With just a small store of memories, and the help of some newly-developed satellite-imaging technology, Saroo embarks on one of the greatest needle-in-a-haystack quests of modern times."

#TIFF2016 @TIFF_NET: This critic's much pondered "highlighted films"

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This looks more or less like the list of films I will be catching at TIFF. I do not believe I will be able to watch all fiftyy or so films, but I'd love 40 by day 10 - The lineup is, again, just spectacular this year. Somewhere in there, lurking slyly. are a few classics in the making.

Re(Assignment), Walter Hill
All I see is You, Marc Foster
American Pastral, Ewan McGregor
Arrival, Denis Villeneuve
the Bad Batch, Ana Lily Amirpour
Barry, Vikram Gandhi
The Belko Experiment, Greg McLean (James Gunn penned screenplay)
The Birth of A Dragon, George Nolfi (Bruce Lee bipoic)
Bleed For This, Ben Younger
Brain On Fire, Gerard Barrett
Buster's Mal Heart, Travis Stevens
The Bleeder, Philippe Falardeau
City of Tiny Lights, Pete Travis (Dredd director)
Chrstine, Antoine Campos
Collossal, Nacho Vigolando
The Commune, Thomas Vinterberg
The Death of Louis XIV, Albert Serra
Deepwater Horizon, Peter Berg
Denial, Mick Jackson
Fire at Sea, Gianfranco Rosi
Frantz, Francois Ozon
Free Fire, Ben Wheatley
In Dubious Battle, James Franco
Into the Inferno, Werner Herzog
Jackie Pablo Larrain
JT + The Tenessee Kids
La La Land, Damian Chazelle
LBJ, Robe Reiner
Lion, Garth Davis
The Magnificent Seven, Antoine Fuqua
Mascots, Christopher Guest
Maudie, Aisling Walsh
A Monster Calls, JA Bayona
Moonlight, Barry Jenkins
My Entire High School Sinking Into The Sea, Dash Shaw
Neruda, Pablo Larrain
Nocturnl Animals, Tom Ford
Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer, Joseph Cedar
A Quiet Passion, Terrence Davies
The Promise, Terry George
Queen of Katwe, Mira Nair
Rats, Morgan Spurlock
Raw, Julia Ducournau
The Rehearsal, Alison Maclean
Salt and Fire, Werener Herzog
The Secret Scripture, Jim Sheridan
Sing, Garth Jennings
Snowden, Oliver Stone
The Finest, Lone Scherfig
Things to Come, Mia Hanse Love
Trespass Against Us, Adam Smith
Una, Benedict Andrews
Voyage Through Time, Terrence Malick
Wakefield, Robin Swicord

@Petertravers has seen a few Oscar contenders, including "Sully"

No mention of "Silence," just like in EW's "Fall Movie Preview." That film's prospects are looking slimmer and slimmer by the day. Hopefully we do end up catching Scorsese's latest Opus before the year is done. 

 I wasn't holding out much hope for the new Tim Burton and Clint Eastwood's "Sully," but consider me intrigued now by both of them. 

You can catch the entire Fall Movie Preview HERE

 A few notes from the article that should be taken down: 


 "Loving"
Put Ruth Negga high on your list for a Best Actress Oscar. She plays Mildred Loving, a black woman prosecuted in Virginia in 1958 for daring to marry a white man (a superb Joel Edgerton). Unbelievable? Sadly, it's a true story, and director Jeff Nichols wisely lets the drama and pathos come out in Negga's haunted eyes.

 "Sully" 
"Tom Hanks hits a new career peak as Capt. Sully Sullenberger." 
"Director Clint Eastwood, shooting with IMAX cameras, nails the visuals, but it's as personal drama that Sully soars."

 "Manchester By The Sea"
"No film this year will move you more with its humor, heart and humanity than director Kenneth Lonergan's Manchester by the Sea.Casey Affleck gives the performance of his career as a handyman torn by family tragedy. Michelle Williams, as his ex-wife, has never been better. In his third film (after You Can Count on Me and Margaret), Lonergan turns life's turmoil into a masterpiece."

"Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" 
"It's Burton's best blend of visuals and emotion since Edward Scissorhands"

"The Birth of a Nation" 
"Get ready for a new landmark in American cinema. Star, writer and debuting director Parker is brilliant and blistering in all departments. Even when he overreaches, Parker electrifies, showing that, then and now, black lives matter."

"Don't Breathe" is the scariest movie of the year

Fede Alvarez' "Don't Breathe" comes out this Friday and it's a real kicker. Sitting right now at 92% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes this could turn out to be a late-summer sleeper. It has the content and quality to become a cult classic of the genre. I believe it is the scariest movie of the year. "The Witch" is maybe the "better" movie because of its atmospheric virtues, but "Don't Breathe" is a flat-out jolt fest. 

Here is an excerpt of my review from this past summer's 20th edition of the Fantasia Film Festival:

 "There are people out there that believe Fede Alvarez' remake of "Evil Dead" is better than the original. It's better conceived, that's for sure. More professionally shot, no doubt overall better? Debatable, but definitely not a ludicrous claim. The original 1981 film is a cult classic, but that doesn't mean it's a great movie. Alvarez tried his best to maintain the B-Movie horrors, but expertly direct the whole thing. Good on him.

"Alvarez is back with "Don't Breathe" which is already being described as the scariest movie of the year. It's a tightly knit and terrifying treat to watch three thieves trying to break into a blind war veteran's home to steal a cool million dollars in cash. Not only does the plan fail, but it turns out the blind war vet is quite capable of taking care of himself. It makes for a claustrophobic film. 80% of the film takes places in the man's Detroit home. A labyrinthine thriller that reminded of this year's other genre-exercise Jeremy Saulnier's "Green Room" in terms of hard-edged technical prowess."

"I wouldn't say that Alvarez' horror film is as masterfully executed as Saulnier's grim B-movie, but damn it if it doesn't come close for almost 2/3 of the movie, more specifically when the film turns to the house invasion. It really turns the screws on the suspense, action and" B+

The best movie I have seen in 2016 finally has a trailer



"The indisputably great movie of Sundance 2016 was Kenneth Lonergan’s meditative film about loss and loneliness. Starring a never-better Casey Affleck, the film was snatched up by Amazon Studios for a whopping $10 Million. A great investment, as this stunner of a bold, sprawling movie got audiences proclaiming the most heralding of words towards its way. The first 100 minutes are better than any movie I saw last year and its final stretch, brilliantly edited by Jennifer Lane, is a masterful display of restraint and intimacy." Taken from my review for "The Young Folks" at Sundance on 1.20.16

What!? Another goddamn list from the @BBC? Of course I'm intrigued.

I love this kind of list-making because it precisely is a very educational study for cinephiles. It's about the movement of cinema, where is it going? what has aged like fine wine? what hasn't? It's always important to reassess the state of the game. Sight and Sound does it every 12 years with their Critics and Director's poll of the greatest movies ever made.

This was how my ballot looked like for the BBC poll. A non-definite ranking because, well, these kind of things change all the time. But that top 10 definitely has the movies that have redefined the language of cinema for me. Each and every one of them. The BBC's list can be found HERE

Best Movies of the 2000s (1-10)
(1) Mulholland Drive
(2) The Tree of Life
(3) There Will Be Blood
(4) The Master
(5) No Country For Old Men
(6) Spirited Away
(7) Children of Men
(8) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind  
(9) Cache/Hidden
(10) Margaret

(11) Upstream Color (12) Y Tu Mama Tambien (13) Son of Saul (14) Holy Motors (15) Inside Llewyn Davis (16) Memento (17) The 25th Hour (18) Zodiac (19) A Separation (20) Dogtooth  (21) Dancer In the Dark (22) Enter the Void (23) Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (24) WALL-E (25) Mad Max: Fury Road (26) The Social Network (27) 4 Months, 3 Weeks and Two Days (28) Hunger (29) Oldboy (30) The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (31) Borat  (32) Selma (33) The Lord of the Rings (34) Lost in Translation  (35) Under the Skin (36) The Fantastic Mr. Fox


Podcast time!



It was s pleasure hooking up with Jeffrey Welles over at Hollywood-Elsewhere for his Oscar Poker podcast. His site is a daily blast for many in the industry and for good reason. It's the kind of writing that is richly-detailed, witily humored all that with an anti-PC open-mindedmess that feels very welcome in contrast to much of today's film blogging clutter. This week we tackled quite a few things that resulted in a kind of Fall Movie preview. Telluride, Martin Scorsese's delayed Silence and Personal Shopper were among the topics.

HBO's "The Night Of"

Image result for the night of hbo show

The more "The Night Of" goes along, and now it's headed towards its 8th and final episode next weekend, the more you start to realize that we are not going to be getting any sort of complete closure in the finale. We might not even know who actually committed the crime. It won't matter. The justice system created a murderer in Naz. He's an accomplice to one in jail. That's for sure.

The show is one big fat example of the justice system failing in every account. Everyone's a loser at the end of this. I have never seen such a thorough and detailed account of the justice system and, yet, I feel like 8 episodes is still minimal and that a fuller picture could have been created with the addition of 2 more episodes. Nevertheless, this will do. It's a series with a lot on its mind, sometimes it stumbles, Naz and Chandra kissing was awkward, but it is a work of art.



2016 is shaping to be the most cinematic year in Television history: "The Night Of," American Crime Story: The People vs OJ Simpson," "Better Call Saul," and "The Americans" all share cinematic influences that are undeniable and pertinent. If want a better example of that look no further than last year's exceptional season 2 of FX's "Fargo," which I believed was artistically better than anything released at the movies. No offense "Carol," 'Son of Saul" "Ex-Machina" and "Mad: Max: Fury Road"