Having viewed Wrong, written and directed by Quentin Dupieux, I suspect his motto might be “Weird for Weird’s Sake.”
The Last Days on Mars
(First published on blogcritics.org) The Last Days on Mars grabs you right at the beginning and doesn’t let go. It is a text book example of how to make a sci-fi thriller. Based on Sydney J Bounds’ 1975 short story,The Animators, the film focuses not on landing on Mars, but on the crew’s last day of a six-month […]
Dallas Buyers Club
(First published on blogcritics.org) Opening night of the 2013 Film Independent (FIND) Forum, a three-day intensive on filmmaking at the Directors Guild on Sunset Boulevard, featured a preview of Dallas Buyers Club and a question and answer session with its producers, Robbie Brenner (Escape Plan, Immortals) andRachel Winter (Brooklyn Rules, The Lather Effect). Starring Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner and Jered Leto,Dallas Buyers […]
Alameda Writers Group: Kickstarting Your Film
(Originally published on Blogcritics.org) “What the suits want isn’t always the same as what the fans want,” explained screenwriter and author Marc Zicree at the October meeting of the Los Angeles based Alameda Writers Group (AWG). Zicree and his wife Elaine spoke to over 100 writers at AWG’s monthly meeting about non-traditional ways of getting […]
Let Me Out
There are two ways that films illuminate difficult truths about growing up: painfully, as in The Spectacular Now, and charmingly, as is done in Let Me Out.
Movie Review: ‘Argento’s Dracula 3D’
(Originally published on Blogcritics.org) It would be unfair to say that Argento’s Dracula 3-D was the worst adaptation of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel. I haven’t seen them all. It does deserve two superlatives, however; least scary Dracula and most nudity. Dario Argento is considered a modern master of the horror genre. I was attracted to this film […]
Anthem Film Fest – Telling the Truth Could Get You Killed
(First published on blogcritics.org) Filmmaker Reaves Washburn quoted Oscar Wilde: “Wilde said, ‘If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise, they’ll kill you.’ For us,” he continued, “that means give them good themes, peak their interest, ease people in and make it fun in every way.” Washburn, whose film Knocked Down won the short […]
Anthem Film Fest: ‘Sick and Sicker’
(First published on blogcritics.org) Since l was old enough to comprehend such things, sometime in the 1960s, I’ve heard stories of how bad things can be in countries with socialized medicine. Until Saturday, July 13, 2013, at the Anthem Film Festival, I had no idea just how bad it could be. Logan Clements in his […]
Anthem Film Fest – Trust the Government, NOT!
(First published on blogcritics.org) Two sci-fi films with different twists on dystopian futures made the Anthem Film Festival a scary place. The Pilgrim, winner of the festival’s Audience Choice Award, by filmmaker Sean Buttimer, creates a global-warming-freaks-gone-wild world dominated by EPA bureaucrats. Silver Circle, by Pasha Roberts, takes us into a world where individual rights are crushed by an out-of-control […]
Anthem Film Fest – ‘The Conversation’ in the Bag
(First published on blogcritics.org) This is my second year at the Anthem Film Festival; when I registered I received the typical conference bag of goodies. To my delight, this bag include a DVD of The Conversation, the film that stood out most in my mind from year one. The Conversation, by Korchula Productions, does what most people might […]
Anthem Film Fest: Two for the Culture
(First published on blogcritics.org) There no shortage of either documentaries or polemics at the Anthem Film Festival, and they serve their role to advance the cause of Libertarian thought. But, and I heard this message last year and even more this year, before you can have an impact on the political system, you must change […]
Anthem Film Festival – Gutsy Truth and Economic Truth
(First published on blogcritics.org) Two approaches to serving up the truth were offered on Thursday, July 11, at the Anthem Film Festival: the gutsy, gritty, in-your-face truth of main stream media vitriol in Hating Breitbart, and the complex, subtle and intellectual economic truth of I, Pencil. Hating Breitbart Filmmaker Andrew Marcus began filming Andrew Breitbart’s life two days […]
Anthem Film Festival – ‘The Last Week’ on the First Day
(First published on blogcritics.org) You don’t have to do anything wrong to be destroyed by litigation. That is the message of The Last Week, a documentary which screened the first day of the Anthem Film Festival, in Las Vegas. It chronicles the last week of Blitz USA, a company that manufactured gas cans and provided jobs […]
Anthem Film Fest: Rand in the Desert
This article originally appeared on blogcritics.org I started reading works by Ayn Rand in high school 50 years ago, and I’ve never been able to shake entirely free of her ideas. Now I go to the desert to contemplate those ideas. OK, it’s not quite as mystical as it sounds, because that part of the […]
LA Film Fest: Bits and Pieces
(First published on blogcritics.org) This year’s LA Film Fest, sponsored by Film Independent, continued to be a remarkable cultural achievement. But within its 10-day run there were highs and lows. Family Day, coinciding with the premier of My Little Pony: Equestria Girls was a great event for kids and parents. I’ve attended a lot of film festivals and this […]
LA Film Fest – ‘Europa Report’
(First published on blogcritics.org) Europa Report is “hard” sci-fi. That means that its plot cannot be separated from the science involved. This distinguishes it from, for instance, the original Star Wars, which I love, because the plot of Star Wars could be easily moved to a pirate ship, the old west or WWII. Does that mean Europa Report is nerdy or […]
LA Film Fest: ‘The Spectacular Now’
(First published on blogcritics.org) As this film got underway, I found myself thinking, “I’m not going to enjoy this. Well, that scene was pretty good, but I’m going to write a bad review.” The protagonist was a jerk. OK, he was a charming jerk, as many of them are. He also reminded me of a […]
LA Film Fest: ‘My Stolen Revolution’
Originally published on blogcritics.org “My brother refused to tell the authorities where I was hiding, and because of that he was executed,” explained Nahid Persson Sarvestani, creator of the documentary My Stolen Revolution, which held its North American premiere at the LA Film Fest. Sarvestani was a member of the resistance to the Shah of Iran, participating in the […]
LA Film Fest: When (Creative) Worlds Collide
(First published on blogcritics.org) On June 23, 2013, at the LA Film Fest worlds collided. This was no hokey sci-fi flick, but a discussion of the impact of new media on the movie industry and the art of storytelling. Hollywood and Silicon Valley Collide: Immersion, Interactivity and Narrative Expansion brought together panelists Florian Henckel Von Donnersmark (The Lives of Others, The […]
LA Film Fest: ‘Ain’t Them Bodies Saints’
Originally published on blogcritics.org Writer/director David Lowery has what seems like a cliché story. In 1970s Texas, an outlaw escapes from prison to find the wife and the daughter he’s never met. But Lowery paints this story with a different, intimate, film-noir brush. Lowery’s Ain’t Them Bodies Saints opened at the LA Film Festival Saturday, June 15. He is aided in […]