Movie Review: The Iceman (2012)

Stone cold crazy

Based on the true story of a New Jersey hitman, The Iceman tells how Richard Kuklinski became a notorious contract killer.  For me, Michael Shannon makes the movie what it is.  His physical stature alone is amazing.  He has such a talent for playing severely messed up people (Take Shelter, The Missing Person, Boardwalk Empire).  In general it is a very solid film and I liked it a lot. 

The Iceman gets 3.5 out of 5 stars!

Director: Ariel Vromen
Writer: Morgan Land (screenplay), Ariel Vromen (screenplay)
Starring: Michael Shannon, Winona Ryder, Chris Evans, Ray Liotta, David Schwimmer
Rotten Tomatoes: 67%
Metacritic: 60%

Trailer: These Final Hours

If the world was ending, what would you do?  This film explores that idea.  Looks like a quality film.

Movie Review: Kill List (2011)

When things go from bad to worse to weird

Jay, combat veteran hooks up with his friend, Gal, to do a job.  As contract killers, the two have a list of people who need to get gotten.  The jobs start out fairly run of the mill but become more bizarre as they work their way through them.  This film is tense, funny, gruesome, and surprising.  Mr. Wheatley, who also directed Down Terrace as well as he upcoming A Field in England, is definitely one of my new favorite directors.

Kill List gets 4 out of 5 stars.

Director: Ben Wheatley
Writer: Amy Jump, Ben Wheatley
Starring: Neil Maskell, MyAnna Buring, Michael Smiley
Rotten Tomatoes: 76%
Metacritic: 67%

Somos lo que hay (We Are What We Are) 2010))

Keeping the ritual

When the patriarch of a Mexican family dies unexpectedly, his family is left to carry on in his wake.  And the way that they carry on is quite brutal.  The family are actually cannibals who are obligated to reenact some sort of ritual.  I watched this because I'd heard there was an solidly made American remake of it.  Since I personally prefer originals over remakes, I went right to the source and was not disappointed.

There are so many things to love about this film.  The story is crazy good.  One of the biggest things I love about the narrative is the sheer mystery of the family's actions.  The story is also very compact and tightly told.  The creepy, off-kilter feel of the film is constant. 

Somos lo que hay gets 4 out of 5 stars!

Director: Jorge Michel Grau
Writer: Jorge Michel Grau
Starring: Francisco Barreiro, Alan Chávez, Paulina Gaitan (Sin Nombre)
Rotten Tomatoes: 72%
Metacritic: 65%

Movie Review: Resolution (2012)

Time for an intervention

Michael leaves the city to help his friend Chris, a drug addict, to get clean.  As expected, Chris is very reluctant to comply.  But Michael does his best to help.  Meanwhile, some really bizarre things start happening and Michael believes that someone is watching them and leaving clues for him to follow.  I've read comparisons between this film and Joss Whedon's Cabin in the Woods.  Some traits might be shared such as both of the films deconstructing the horror genre.  For a very small indie horror film which has very little in the way of in your face horror, this is a very good film. 

Resolution gets 4.5 out of 5 stars!

Director: Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead
Writer: Justin Benson
Starring: Peter Cilella, Vinny Curran, Zahn McClarnon
Rotten Tomatoes: 100%
Metacritic: 78%

The Purge (2013)

Oh say can you see...

In the year 2022, and the New Founders of America control the nation.  Each year the Purge is held.  On this one night of violence and mayhem, the NFA allows almost every crime to go unpunished, even murder.  The powers that be consider the Purge a way for people to cleanse themselves of their anger and hatred so that they can get on with their lives.  For 12 full hours, anything goes.  The idea behind the plot has mouthwatering potential, kind of a Battle Royale or Hunger Games for the whole nation.  Sadly this very flat thriller is a predictable and mildly entertaining execution of an intriguing concept.  It tries to be creepy and suspenseful, but ends up being neither.

The Purge falls too easily into cliche and only comes away with 2.5 out of 5 stars!

Director: James DeMonaco

Writer: James DeMonaco

Starring: Ethan Hawke, Lena Headey, Max Burkholder, Adelaide Kane, Edwin Hodge, Rhys Wakefield

Rotten Tomatoes: 38%

Metacritic: 41%

 

The Hunter (2011)

Eye of the tiger

An American mercenary is hired to track down the supposedly extinct Tasmanian tiger.  When he arrives in Australia, he is not met with open arms.  And then the rest of the plot painfully unfolds over the next 90 minutes or so.  Willem Dafoe put me to sleep with this one.  It wasn't horrible, but it didn't hold my attention either.  It lacked tension and gravitas found in most good thrillers.

In the end The Hunter missed the mark with only 2 out of 5 Poblanos!

Director: Daniel Nettheim
Writer: Julia Leigh (novel), Wain Fimeri (original adaptation)
Starring: Willem Dafoe, Sam Neill, Morgana Davies, Frances O'Connor, (A.I. Artificial Intelligence) 
Rotten Tomatoes: 70%
Metacritic:63 out of 100

Gravity 3D (2013)

Oh the wonder

A routine space shuttle mission to repair the Hubble telescope goes horribly wrong.  The next two hours is a white knuckle ride through space.  My buddy Landon who saw it with me described Gravity with one perfect word - wonder.  It is rare than a film provokes a sense of wonder.  I think the last film I saw that really did this was Terrance Malick's Tree of Life. Gravity is a showcase for Cuarón's mastery of writing, imagination, and film making.  He resists the tendency to focus on anything else but the action.  And even when things slow down in this film, it is still tense.  Actually calling this film 'tense' is an understatement, like calling the new pope a nice guy.  Gravity is pure thriller at heart.  This film singlehandedly convinced me that I never ever want to go into space.  Lastly, I don't care for the new Hollywood wave of making almost every film a 3D movie, but having seen this one in 3D, I can't even imagine seeing it in regular 2D.  The 3D presentation was as much a character as the actors and added so much to an already amazing film. 

Gravity 3D showed some serious wow factor to get 5 out of 5 Poblanos!!

Director: Alfonso Cuarón
Writer: Alfonso Cuarón, Jonás Cuarón
Starring: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney, Ed Harris
Rotten Tomatoes: 97%
Metacritic: 96%

Woman in Black (2012)

Something's rotten in this town

Young Arthur is budding lawyer sent by his firm to finalize paperwork on a property.  When he shows up in the village, tragic things begin to happen.  Arthur soon realizes that all the strangeness is connected to the property.  And the rest is mildly thrilling.  The film does manage to capture a good bit of eeriness.  It also has some quality British actors.  Daniel Radcliffe is doing a fair job of trying to break out of the Harry Potter pigeonhole (Although it will always be hard for me to think of him as anything else).  This film is a respectable, if not memorable, addition to his filmography. 

Woman in Black gets a less than thrilling 2.5 out of 5 Poblanos!

Director: James Watkins
Writer: Susan Hill (novel), Jane Goldman (screenplay)
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Janet McTeer, Ciarán Hinds (There Will Be Blood, Game of Thrones)
Rotten Tomatoes: 65%
Metacritic: 62 out of 100

Upstream Color (2013)

So dreamy...

Two people's lives are intertwined when they are infected by the same parasite.  Sounds weird?  It is, a little, but in a good way.  Shane Carruth (Primer) returns with a very different, yet equally engaging film.  Watching it made me feel like I was seeing a Terrance Malick film.  Carruth gives us narrative wrapped in a dream-like atmosphere which is part sci-fi, part thriller, part love story.  This is one of those rare films that is good on every level.  Carruth is one of my favorite younger filmmakers and I can't wait to see what the rest of his career looks like.  Bring it on Shane!!

Upstream Color earns every one of its 5 out of 5 Poblanos!

Director: Shane Carruth
Writer: Shane Carruth
Starring: Shane Carruth, Amy Seimetz, Frank Mosley
Rotten Tomatoes: 86%
Metacritic: 81 out of 100

Incendies (2010)

 One plus one equals one

When the mother of a set of adult twins passes away, she leaves them with some bizarre final instructions.  They are instructed to find their father and their brother, both of whom they've never met.  The interwoven narrative moves seamlessly between the past and the present to tell the story from two perspectives - the perspective of the twins in the present and their mother's perspective in the past.  This is a very engrossing film.  It is hard to pigeonhole into one genre.  It has some thrilling elements, a lot of drama, but there is also some mystery.  Overall, I love this film because of the strong story and the way the story is told.  Plus its in French!

Incendies gets 4 out of 5 Poblanos!

Director: Denis Villeneuve
Writer: Wajdi Mouawad, Denis Villeneuve
Starring:  Lubna Azabal, Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin, Maxim Gaudette
Rotten Tomatoes: 92%
Metacritic: 82 out of 100

Essential Killing (2010)

How did I end up here?
When a man kills a soldier and two civilians with a rocket launcher, he is taken into custody by the military.  Disoriented, imprisoned, interrogated, he is then transferred to an unknown location.  When the van he's in crashes, he gets free from his captors.  He runs, but has no idea where he is or where he is going.  His only goal is to survive.  Essential Killing transcends the medium and becomes an experience unlike few films I've ever seen.  There is almost no dialogue.  The film consists almost entirely of action.  The general tone of the film is tense.  This is an experience in film watching. 

Essential Killing earns all 5 Poblanos!

Director: Jerzy Skolimowski
Writer: Jerzy Skolimowski, Ewa Piaskowska
Starring: Vincent Gallo and Emmanuelle Seigner
Rotten Tomatoes: 85%
Metacritic: not reviewed

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (2011)

Seriously?
Sally is sent to live with her very inattentive father and his girlfriend who live in a big old house.  The house has a history which Sally discovers, but no one believes her.  Much to everyone's dismay, she's not making any of it up.  This film skips from cliche to cliche and whilst doing so manages to be not be scary or even interesting.  I watched the second half mostly in fast forward.  It is doubly disappointing since I am a big fan of both Guillermo del Toro and Guy Pearce.  Verdict: seriously not scary and quite disappointing. 

Don't be Afraid of the Dark barely scares up out 2 of 5 Poblanos!

Director: Troy Nixey
Writer: Guillermo del Toro & Matthew Robbins
Starring: Katie Holmes, Guy Pearce and Bailee Madison
Rotten Tomatoes: 59%
Metacritic: 56 out of 100

Exam (2009)

Time's up, pencils down

Eight candidates competing for the same job are seated in a room for an exam. Each is given a piece of paper, a pencil, and very little instruction. Told that the first candidate to answer their question is the winner, they are given 80 minutes and the instructor leaves the room.  Each candidate turns his or her page over to find it blank. And the next two hours are pretty wild. Exam explores the limitations, possibilities, and dangers that one room can hold. I put this film right alongside Hitchcock's Rope or Rodrigo Cortés' Buried. Minimalistic and intense, this film is a great thriller which had me hooked from the opening credits.

Exam passes the test with 4 out of 5 Poblanos!

Director: Stuart Hazeldine (Exam is his feature film directorial debut. He has written screenplays for Knowing with Nicholas Cage, Scott Derrickson's remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still, and the upcoming screen adaptation of Milton's Paradise Lost.)

Writer: Stuart Hazeldine, Simon Garrity

Starring: Luke Mably,  Adar Beck, Chukwudi Iwuji, Jimi Mistry, and Nathalie Cox

Rotten Tomatoes: 63%

Metacritic: not reviewed

Hanna (2011)

Raise your child up in the way she should go
Hanna has been raised in the wilderness by her father.  She can hunt, track, and fight, plus she's multilingual and very smart.  When her father presents her with a button, she declares herself ready presses it, and launches herself into the world of espionage.  Hanna is an international thriller which winds its way from Scandinavia to North Africa and across Europe.  Teenage actress Saoirse Ronan who plays Hanna holds her own next to international superstars Cate Blanchett, and Eric Bana.  Well written, very nicely shot (watch for the long shots as Eric Bana leaves the bus station), and very entertaining.

With a good mix of revenge, action, intrigue, and espionage, Hanna gets 4 out of 5 Poblanos!

Director: Joe Wright (Pride & Prejudice, The Soloist)
Writer: Seth Lochhead and David Farr
Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Cate Blanchett, and Eric Bana.
Rotten Tomatoes: 71%
Metacritic: 65 out of 100