Film and TV Reviews and Podcasts
Narrative Feature / Festival Award Winner / USA Director: Andrew Nackman Writer: Aaron Dancik Cast: Evan Todd, Parker Young, Jon Gabrus, Chord Overstreet, Kate Flannery This review is part of my coverage of 2015’s Heartland Film Festival in Indianapolis. Click here for more of my coverage of the festival. You can find my coverage of other Indianapolis area film and […]
Ask Me Anything‘s cover art and description on Netflix are deceiving. The cover displays star Britt Robertson (Tomorrowland, Under the Dome) haphazardly wearing a man’s shirt and tie with a disheveled bed behind her and a befuddled, “look what I’ve gotten myself into” expression on her face. Netflix’s elevator pitch plot description reads: “On a yearlong break between high school […]
About 45 minutes into Fantastic Four‘s meager 85 minute runtime, the 5 year old sitting a few rows in front of me loudly asked her parents “Which one of them turns into the rock thing!?” I usually have zero tolerance for movie talkers and theater disruptions. However, instead of quietly wishing that theaters would double charge parents who bring their […]
Alex Garland is responsible for writing two of my favorite movies in the last fifteen years. 28 Days Later and Sunshine were both collaborations between Garland and director Danny Boyle that told thought-provoking stories about humanity’s flaws and its willpower in a familiar but somehow original sci-fi or horror premise. Garland’s directorial debut Ex Machina follows this trend and leaves […]
Richard Linklater’s Boyhood is an ambitious ode to American childhood and an intimate portrait of how time affects on people. Filmed intermittently over 12 years, Linklater enlisted the same group of actors throughout the process. The result is an aesthetic that guides the viewer through the formative years of its main character Mason (Ellar Coltrane) and his family.
Stretch, from director Joe Carnahan (Narc, Smokin’ Aces, The A-Team), is a fun action/thriller comedy starring Patrick Wilson. Stretch (Wilson) is a down on his luck aspiring actor/limo driver who suddenly finds himself having to pay his bookie $6000 by midnight. In the hope that he’ll be tipped enough to cover the debt in time, Stretch takes a job chauffeuring an […]
In The Theory of Everything, director James Marsh paints a gripping and beautiful portrait of world-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking (Eddie Redmayne) and his relationship with wife Jane (Felicity Jones). The movie chronicles the pair’s relationship from its beginning and into the present day, charting the toll that Hawking’s amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease) takes on their marriage.
Last year I reviewed Lone Survivor and found it to be an offensively jingoistic piece of American military propaganda that disrespected most of the people who lost their lives in the real life incident the movie depicted. As such, my expectations going into American Sniper really weren’t that high. I also made a conscious effort not to research Chris Kyle […]
“I don’t know. Maybe we were doomed from the beginning. I mean, it’s not like dad was Mr. Sunshine. Sometimes I think all our problems came directly from him. But a lot of the good stuff did too. Remember what he always called us? The Gruesome Twosome. He told us to stick together. No matter what. God, what the hell […]
Tusk’s origin is fascinating to me, both as a podcaster (check out The Obsessive Viewer Podcast, by the way) and as a movie fan. On June 25th 2013, Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier recorded “The Walrus and the Carpenter“, an episode of their Smodcast podcast in which they stumbled into developing the movie that would become Tusk. A year later […]
With the release of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (formerly subtitled There and Back Again), Peter Jackson has completed his journey into Middle Earth. I’ve seen five out of the six installments in the theater and double dipped on owning the Lord of the Rings extended editions when they were released on blu-ray. While Jackson won’t rule out more Tolkien movies, I really do hope […]
Adaptations & Remakes is an ongoing feature where I take a movie or a book and compare it to its remake and/or adaptation. Each post follows the same basic format: General plot overview/source material Original movie/first adaptation How I would adapt and/or remake it. How they adapted/remade it And don’t forget, you can follow around the internet with the links […]
In “Men, Women & Children”, director Jason Reitman navigates the waters of human relationships and delivers a poignant and witty film about how we conduct ourselves in “private.” The movie takes the perspective of several teenagers and their parents who all intersect here and there in a Texas town. The movie was adapted from the novel of the same name […]
Before The Conjuring, there was Annabelle. After The Conjuring, there was a rush to capitalize on its success. Hence, a year later, we have Annabelle.
After Scream resurrected the slasher genre in 1996, studios quickly jumped on the bandwagon and produced teen slashers to capitalize on the craze. For the most part, these movies were cheap imitations, utilizing the same techniques and dialogue as Scream and populating the cast with TV teen drama actors. 1998’s Urban Legend is no different. In fact, it was perhaps […]
The Obsessive Viewer 