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The Magnolia’s monthly 50 Years of Bond! films series continues with a screening of Goldfinger (1964), 7:30 and 10pm, July 10, at the theater. Details The Texas Theater resumes its Tuesday Night Trash series with a free screening of the science fiction comedy-exploitation classic The Lost Empire (1985), 9:15pm, July 10, at the theater. Details Cinemark Theaters and Paramount … Continue reading
Cool rationale over tired melodrama and methodical storytelling as opposed to cheap set pieces are the key factors in Steven Soderbergh’s docudrama-thriller Contagion, a disturbingly realistic movie about a relentless viral outbreak that may do for sales of hand sanitizer and surgical masks what anthrax did for duct tape and plastic sheeting in the early … Continue reading
A formulaic thriller from the Tony Scott-Joe Carnahan school of filmmaking, Safe House is exactly what its name implies — a safe, watchable, and ultimately forgettable espionage drama that provides a couple of hours’ slick worth of diversion that evaporates shortly after the credits roll. It’s Three Days of the Condor stripped to bone. Ryan … 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
While it’s a cheap thrill to see Hammer Film Productions — purveyor of so many other cheap thrills during the 1930s-’80s — back in business after decades in purgatory, their first post-revival production is a reminder of what drained the life from the iconic schlock factory and sent it into limbo to begin with: cheap, … Continue reading
Alex Proyas followed-up his directorial debut of The Crow with this , inventive, and unabashedly stylish work of sci-fi noir. While The Crow demonstrated that Proyas had the makings of a great director, it was overshadowed by the tragic on-set death of its star, Brandon Lee; Dark City (1998) gave the filmmaker a chance to show what … Continue reading
The latest entry in the wave of Nordic noir that has renewed American interest in crime fiction, Morten Tyldum’s Headhunters is a slick, twisty, and sometimes gruesome little thriller that invokes the best of Hitchcock and the Coen’s Blood Simple, though it doesn’t always run as smoothly. Aksel Hennie stars as Roger Brown, a man of bland name and … 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 tepid high-concept thriller, The Raven is nice to look at but it only timidly delivers the macabre thrills, tragic romanticism, and oppressive fatalism necessary for a movie that draws heavily from the life and works of Edgar Allan Poe. Set during the final days of the author’s life, quickly introducing us to a Poe … 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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