Of all of Stanley Kubrick’s eclectic films, none endure more in the minds of conspiracy lovers than The Shining and Eyes Wide Shut. Continue reading
THE SHINING
Author: Cinemaniac
Greta (2018)
Neil Jordan’s Greta is a campy affair best described as Isabelle Huppert does the Big Apple and stalks two hot New York singles after a purse she left on the subway is returned back. And while too reductive, it is not entirely off the mark as this is not the legendary actress’ first rodeo in America. Continue reading
Alien: Covenant (2017)
Having had to see it in two sittings, over a round-trip flight and at altitude, of all conditions, when it was nigh time I saw Alien: Covenant in one go, on a real screen… I’m not sure what happened. Continue reading
Prometheus (2012) Re-Appraisal
To anyone familiar with the film, one of my favorite scenes in Alien occurs right after entering the boomerang-shaped spaceship, the Derelict. Inside, the ribbed, bowel-like walls of its corridors lead to the ceiling of a massive dome. The explorers, then only responding to a distress signal, rappel down to an eggs nest surrounding the fossilized space jockey—the ship’s pilot. The group returns to their ship and the rest is history, more or less, untold as far as subsequent titles allowed. Continue reading
It Comes At Night (2017)
If I had one bone to pick with Trey Edward Shults it is that he delivered the almost perfect cinematic undertaking only to abruptly break pattern when it behooved sensibility not to; right near the end. How can you write about a horror film with palpable scares and an unresolved diversion without outright denouncing it, because this is precisely the feeling this chamber piece had left me with? Continue reading
Nocturnal Animals (2016)
Childish Gambino. James Franco. Take note. The name you want to emulate is Tom Ford. And I suppose for it to fly under the radar for one cinephile is one thing. For one married to a brand-savvy consumer of all things constitutes a double dosage of shame. Ah, had to have been his fragrance or cosmetics line now that I remember. Continue reading
Days of Grace (2011)
The oft-imitated Pulp Fiction endures to the tune of two decades at a minimum when taking in Days of Grace. It's not an imitation but the influence looms nonetheless. Of this charge, it is absolved. Continue reading
El Topo (1970)
“Credit the sixties for giving us the acid strip, jazz and now the Western,” I assume was the opening line of many an El Topo review had there been edgy online publications like Cinemaholism in 1970. Alas there wasn’t. And so it was now, in 2017, certainly overdue but not quite too late, that somebody had the opportunity to open with those precise words. And if it were up to me I’d go one further except modern time constraints prevent me from doling out more puns. Continue reading
The Cinema of Kubrick in Irreversible?
For better or worse, cinema's enfant terrible of yore and current hack artist Gaspar Noe is, to many, above any introduction except yours truly will dispense one anyway, so I promise to keep it short. Continue reading
Thesis on a Homicide (2013)
Your reception to Thesis on a Homicide will vary depending on your appreciation for ambiguity and tolerance for redundancy. Thankfully, Thesis keeps both criteria to one instance of each. But before another word is said, it is incumbent upon your boy to point out that this is a film literal in name and intentions. There are no thematic allusions or double meanings. Thesis, you guessed it, revolves around a law school murder with the added caveat of the thesis in question being an actual fucking murder investigation! The school of applied sciences, indeed. Political sciences, that is. Granted, the story (ahem) freely plagiarizes a similarly conceived film by none other than Chile film ambassador to Spain meaning not even the colossal Andes range can stop these two nations from adhering to boundaries. Continue reading
