"Less Than Zero" by Josh Medcalf
Director Marek Kanievska seems to take the scared-straight approach, and of course a lot of that has to do with the studio’s efforts to clean up much of the X-rated, meandering existentialism of...
View Article"The Woman in Red" by Josh Medcalf
I would say it runs out of steam at that point — but for a movie to run out of steam, it has to at least have some in the first place. The way the narrative is set up only distanced me from the comedy....
View Article"Article 99" by Kyle Kogan
Article 99 is a really bad movie, but it can be enjoyed under the pretense that inherent within is a truly ludicrous story with outlandish situations, zero note characters, shoddy sets, and...
View Article"Jack" by D. B. Bates
Director Francis Ford Coppola realizes Jack leads a life of deep sadness and loneliness, despite having loving parents. Because of his freakish qualities, they keep him indoors most of the time. He...
View Article"Navy SEALS" by Josh Medcalf
The premise is simple. We see both “sides” of the lives of the men on a rough-and-tumble Navy SEALs team: one side when they’re on mission, the other when they’re off, with a few highlighted dramatic...
View Article"Funny Farm" by Matt Wedge
Funny Farm boasts a surprisingly impressive pedigree for a light Chevy Chase comedy. It was directed by George Roy Hill, a man who delivered two certifiable masterpieces in The Sting and Butch Cassidy...
View Article"Flirting with Disaster" by Mark Dujsik
David O. Russell’s Flirting with Disaster finds the farcical in the emotionally fragile events surrounding a man’s search for his biological parents. At a crossroads in his life — new son (for whom he...
View Article"Harry and Tonto" by Kyle Kogan
Not for one moment did I feel I was watching a film, but rather a manifestation of a real man’s memoir onto celluloid. It’s a rare treat that I get to witness such a fun, tender, and rapturous film.
View Article"Regarding Henry" by Mark Dujsik
Regarding Henry’s sincerity is at once the movie’s crutch and its downfall. It is the story of a man of loose moral sensibilities who awakens to the recognition of treating his fellow human beings with...
View Article"Powder" by Matt Wedge
Let’s just get this out of the way, right up front: Powder is a mess of a film. But it wouldn’t be such a mess if there weren’t some interesting ideas and promising plot developments buried beneath a...
View Article"Freaked" by Josh Medcalf
When you reflect back on what you’ve seen, it’s like stringing together the random, bizarre segments of a half-remembered dream from the night before. Nothing makes sense; what seemed to work in...
View Article"The War of the Roses" by D. B. Bates
The second hour of the film wouldn’t work at all without those reaction shots — moments that show us both Oliver and Barbara are still recognizably human. Their faces express the guilt and...
View Article"High Plains Drifter" by Josh Medcalf
This is an early example of the “Weird West” subgenre, a fusing of the Western with, in this case, the occult or supernatural. Eastwood plays the Stranger, a rugged gunfighter appearing out of the haze...
View Article"Executive Decision" by Kyle Kogan
Specifics don’t matter because the surprises and suspense are what make the film so enthralling. Sure, you can see the end coming from a mile away and there is nothing here that you haven’t seen...
View Article"Gattaca" by Mark Dujsik
Andrew Niccol’s Gattaca seems a bit quainter than it did upon the film’s release fourteen years ago. What was a revolutionary premise about chiseling away the façade of a false utopia based upon the...
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