at the 20th anniversary of ‘Titanic,’ where are all the knockoffs?
We should be absolutely sick to death of all the cash-ins, pseudo-remakes and imitators. Where are they?
Blair Witch Project
Blair Witch movie review: more like blah witch…
An entirely superfluous attempt to recapture the magic of the original film. A remake masquerading as a sequel that goes nowhere and has nothing new to say.
The Gallows movie review: hang it high
Unpleasant characters do things that make no sense in “found footage” clearly edited together from multiple sources. Negligent storytelling at its worst.
cinematic roots of: ‘The Last Exorcism’
In the mock-documentary *The Last Exorcism,* a charismatic Baton Rouge preacher who gets more than he bargained for when he embarks on what he plans will be his final ceremony to drive out evil spirits. This flick sprang from (among other films)…
Paranormal Activity (review)
So I finally saw this Paranormal Activity flick that all the kids are into today, and all I could conclude was, Really? They think this is pants-wetting scary?
October 16: DVD alternatives to this weekend’s multiplex offerings
We know how it is: You’d like to go to the movies this weekend, but there’s all this vengeance to be doled out and all those injustices to be put right. But you can have a multiplex-like experience at home with a collection of the right DVDs. And when someone asks you on Monday, “Hey, … more…
trailer break: ‘Paranormal Activity’
Take a break from work: watch a trailer… Someone asked me recently why I hadn’t seen or reviewed Paranormal Activity, and the answer was easy: the film was not scheduled to open in New York, and there had been no press screenings of it. It’s just started playing here now, and I’ll have to make … more…
Wolf Creek and Hostel (review)
Bad Things Happen When You Leave the City Well, there goes my dream of driving across Australia. I used to think, Hey, if I’m ever gonna go to all the expense of traveling to the opposite side of the planet, and spend 24 hours on a plane to get there, I’m not gonna go for … more…
Repo Man (review)
Kinda cheap-looking and with a quasi-indie, ‘who gives a shit if we ever make any money’ attitude that Miramax and The Blair Witch Project have all but wiped from the face of studio filmmaking, 1984’s Repo Man reminds us that once, not so long ago, weird-ass movies were not verboten in Hollywood. Deadpan humor, throwaway visual jokes, and oblique political and social satire may have doomed this way-cool flick to the neverland of sci-fi cultdom, but it has good company there, like its similarly themed contemporaries The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai and the TV series Max Headroom.
top 11 movies of 1999
Like Nigel Tufnel’s amp, this one goes to 11. I agonized over this, trying to whittle down a list of about 25 great movies of 1999 to a mere 10, and I just couldn’t go that far. It pained me to eliminate some wonderful — and wonderfully adult — dramas from the list. The Cider … more…
