Stories like Ghost in the Shell are comic book and animated presentations for a reason. Their futuristic imagination is often beyond the capabilities of feature film, or certainly the creative ingenuity of what can and more importantly should be adapted into live action. Sadly, the lines of what is live action (real) and what is […]
At the rate Hollywood is turning out space films, there isn’t much left to discover in the genre it seems. Director Daniel Espinosa (“Child 44”) certainly makes a run at it though, reteaming with his “Safe House” star Ryan Reynolds. “Life” is an action thriller, it’s sort of a contagion film mixed with all the
He will forever be known as The Kingslayer to Game of Thrones fans, but Danish actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is one of the more successful actors outside of the hit television show. A supporting actor in Black Hawk Down, Kingdom of Heaven, and 1000 Time Goodnight, Waldau finally earns a leading role in Small Crimes. Here
Nathan Morlando’s second feature Mean Dreams has an awfully familiar narrative. It’s a forced coming of age story, with Hellion’s Josh Wiggins, still coming of age on his third feature. Intentionally or not, this small-town thriller with corrupt cops and abusive family themes has Frailty vibes (which was directed by Paxton) and more recently reminiscent
This film was introduced as a movie with an important message. The way the title sequences opens, showing a bachelor reality show gone horribly wrong, really grabs the viewers’ attention. This is Your Death is the second film from actor turned director Giancarlo Esposito (Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials). It seems he wants to challenge
This marks the 5th big screen adaptation of King Kong, and only twelve years after Peter Jackson (“The Lord of the Rings”) put him back on screen. Jordan Vogt-Roberts’s sophomore film is an enormous leap from the tiny independent movie “The Kings of Summer” (2013) to this nearly $200 million dollar monster flick. What works;
Aside from that embarrassing Cruise/Diaz action flop Knight & Day, director James Mangold has a solid track record working with actors. Both Angelina Jolie (Girl Interrupted) and Reese Witherspoon (Walk the Line) won Academy Awards under his direction. Mangold was the ideal choice to close out the Wolverine saga, ending with Hugh Jackman playing the
Another film with good intentions; dark history that deserves to be on the big screen, weakened by a terrible script and amateur direction. C-rate television director George Mendeluk and screenwriter Richard Bachynsky Hoover use the “Titanic Movie” model to convey a love story set inside the horrific events of Ukraine’s man-made famine that killed around
Zombie movies are a dime a dozen these days, but this British production offers something slightly off the beaten path. Mike Carey’s novel and screenplay takes ideas from superhero films like “X-Men” and expects the audience to already know quite a bit of zombie history from other films. There is an appreciated balance here between
The first major misfire of 2017 reunites the writer and director of The Lone Ranger (2013) for another cinematic misfortune. What begins as a layered and complex suspense thriller, continues to pile on subplot after subplot until the two and a half hour mystery becomes an endurance test for the audience. Gore Verbinski (The Mexican,