The dry humor that surrounds Familiar Ground (En Terrains Connus) is just that, dry–a lifeless, suburban enclave of Quebec where the most interesting amusement comes in the form of a giant blue inflatable something or other in front of a car dealership. This is not to say the film isn’t good, far from that actually. […]
Film Festival
LAFF Film Review: ‘Haunters’ (Choneung ryukja)
From Korea comes Director Kim Min-suk’s Haunters. A film centered around two men specifically who both harbor exceptional abilities. Kyu-nam (Koo So) believes himself to be ordinary. Having just lost his job at a junk yard he is seeking employment. He finds work at a pawn shop, and believes this is the moment his life […]
LAFF Film Review: Hot Coffee
Frivolous lawsuits, tort reform, caps on damages, just a few legal terms that if you asked the average person on the street the likelihood they would know what these things are is questionable–or at least that is the belief Director Susan Saladoff wants you to have given her on-the-street interviews in the documentary Hot […]
TCM Classic Film Festival: The Tingler (Dir. William Castle, 1959)
In the late 1950s, horror movie schlockmeister William Castle pioneered interactive in-theater gimmicks as a way to drum up audience cash (and buzzy word-of-mouth) at a time when television threatened to steal away the same moviegoers who had made the 1930s and ’40s boom years for the U.S. film industry. Whereas other filmmakers of the […]
TCM Classic Film Festival: ‘West Side Story’ (Dir. Jerome Robbins/Robert Wise, 1961)
Years from now, people all over the world will remember where they were when an American Navy Seal team caught and killed Osama Bin Laden in a daring raid. Me? I was watching Riff and Bernardo dance-battle at the TCM Classic Film Festival in West Side Story.