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Consider it an unabashedly guilty pleasure: Cabin Fever (2002) is a tongue-in-cheek, low-budget indie horror comedy with a wicked sense of humor that was sorely missing from the brainless horror schlock of the early 2000s. While those movies were content to rehash the same slasher tropes ad nauseum with little irony, writer-director Eli Roth made his feature … Continue reading
As its title implies, writer-director-actor Tanner Beard’s The Legend of Hell’s Gate: An American Conspiracy is an ambitious, sprawling, and muddled take on the allegedly true story associated with the Possum Kingdom Lake cliff formation. There’s a good western romp in there somewhere, but viewers have to sift through a lot of superfluous detail to … Continue reading
An ode to what it’s like to be 12 years old an in love, Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom isn’t the writer-director’s smoothest feature, but it feels like his purest. It’s difficult not to label Anderson’s filmography as “twee” — sure, the term fits, but it also overlooks the emotional depths he plumbs via his parades of eccentric square … Continue reading
A wasted opportunity if there ever was one, Oren Peli’s (Paranormal Activity) anemic Chernobyl Diaries could have been an inspired bit of B-movie gold if it had been a little less half-assed. The story features the usual stock horror movie victims — er, characters — six young vacationers hanging out in the Ukraine who … Continue reading
Something best described as the misbegotten offspring of John Waters and The Rocky Horror Picture Show and best watched in an altered state of mind, writer-director Richard Elfman’s 1982 slice of bizarro cinema is masterpiece of, uh, well, something. Equal parts artsy and vulgar, it functions remarkably well along the lines of cartoon logic applied … Continue reading
The Magnolia’s two-part Sir Ridley films series presents a rare public screening of Ridley’s fantasy epic Legend (1985), 7:30 and 10pm, May 22, at the theater. Details The Lone Star Film Society’s and Red Productions’ Backlot Film Series continues with an outdoor screening of the Coen Brother’s comedy Raising Arizona (1987), at sunset, May 24, in Foch Alley near Red Productions (1075 Foch St., Fort … Continue reading
Though the marketing of Catfish may have unwary viewers believing it to be a thriller of sorts, it’s actually something a bit more conventional. This doesn’t stop it from being suspenseful and, at times, unsettling, through the final payoff. The movie is a documentary on a young New York photographer named Nev Schulman, filmed by his … Continue reading
Women In Film.Dallas presents a preview screening of the comedy The Perfect Family, 7pm, May 15, at the Studio Movie Grill — Dallas/Royal. Tickets are $10 ($5 for WIF.D members) via the organization’s website, with proceeds benefiting their grant and scholarship programs. Written by Dallas-based screenwriter and WIF.D board member Paula Goldberg and directed by … Continue reading
Standard spy-fi fare presented in a very atypical style, Haywire arrives in time to perk up a dull movie month. Written by Lem Dobbs (Kafka, The Limey) and directed with a boldly minimalist approach by Steven Soderbergh (still keen to play with every known movie genre and thankfully not yet making good on his threat … Continue reading
A young boy witnesses the brutal beating of his father and violent death of his mother one horrible night on an isolated street. Flash forward several years later, and the kid is now a 17-year-old obsessed with finding the killer and extracting vengeance. Any semblance writer-director Michael Morrissey’s harrowing drama Boy Wonder (2010) may have to … Continue reading
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