A half-assed mélange of incomplete characters, throw-away visual cues, and incompetent story-telling, it’s almost as if director Sebastian Silva made Magic Magic so that he could sit in the back of the theater, and watch his audience squirm.
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‘Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters’ is a gory, R-rated splatter-fest that uses its cartoonish violence as crutch rather than an anchor. It wants desperately to be on the same level as Sam Raimi’s slapstick horror Evil Dead trilogy, but it’s nowhere near as fun or clever.
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Well acted and well directed, Quartet stands on the edge of schmaltziness, with one foot dangling. But thankfully, it never fully jumps off. It’s not necessarily memorable for the right or wrong reasons. And while it doesn’t do much to be outstanding, it is a perfectly pleasant film.
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We’re doing something a little different with this week’s podcast. Eric took part in a Critics Vs. Oscars panel along with several other Kansas City film critics and we’ve got the entire discussion here.
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What’s the purpose of cinema if not to engage its audience on a level (or levels) that both entertains, but also broadens their understanding of a particular theme or notion? A Teacher fails in both of these endeavors, for it is not only a shitty time (this movie is a slog), but it doesn’t bring its audience to a new place by the time it fades to black.
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Universal probably wanted an exciting film filled with fast cars and faster women that would match up with their souped-up tagline for the movie: “Their lives begin at 140 m.p.h.!” What they got was a quiet, existential masterpiece that has turned into a bonafide cult classic.
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Easily the frontrunner for the best picture going at Sundance right now, Breathe In is a film about adulthood, marriage, compromise, and how love, true, pure love, isn’t always a good thing.
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Concussion is a film about a New York wife and mother who suffers a little head trauma, an injury that leads her to a stunning realization: she doesn’t much care for her life, and wants to try something new. Yet this is hardly an American Beauty reboot.
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‘Halley’ is a quiet, challenging film about a man who keeps going long after his time in the universe has passed. Check out this review of ‘Halley’ from the 2013 Sundance Film Festival.
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A very frustrated, fatigued, and self-aware videogame soldier named Brooks laments how many friggin’ times he’s had to play this particular level in this Sundance 2013 selection.
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A good chunk of the people bumped into on the Park City sidewalks are lean, fit, well-tanned, immaculately dressed out-of-towners who look like they’ve used the phrase “money is no object” at least twice this week.
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Eric, Trey and Trevan talk about two new releases (Mama and Broken City), discuss disappointments and pleasant surprises of The Golden Globes and The Critics Choice Awards before speculating on The Oscars, and finally recap some of their favorite moments from 2012 in film. Subscribe to The Scene-Stealers Podcast on iTunes or our RSS. Also, check it out! Here’s […]
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‘Broken City’ is a detail-oriented neo-noir that actively plays with and subverts the tropes and characters so often associated with the genre.
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What makes Zero Dark Thirty such a fascinating film is that it plays both as an engaging procedural thriller and a serious examination of the country’s moral compass. It is already doing what great movies do—starting conversation.
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‘The Tin Drum’ is a fascinating blend of magical realism and black comedy, all told from the point of view of a super-intelligent three-year old boy in Danzig, Poland who realizes the ridiculousness and futility of adulthood at a young age and refuses to grow older.
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