While watching a film about dysfunctional relationships, regardless of its drama or comedy slant, one cannot help but measure their own relationship against the examples they are observing on screen. The judgmental reactions, either spoken or unspoken, cannot be contained. To capitalize on that drawing power without going to far, frankness and believability become key. Debuting on VOD on June 3, the film festival favorite "BFFs" can call those two storytelling essentials allies and welcomes the fun of esteem-boosting judging.
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When a crime is committed, an unfortunate convergence of fate, luck, and coincidence occrs between people that would otherwise be strangers. The violent and emotional sting of that event then spreads to the family and friends of all parties involved, from perpetrator to victim. Like ripples in a pond, one incident can affect dozens. Actor/director Tim Blake Nelson's new film and fifth directorial feature, "Anesthesia," probes that social reverberation in a provocative way.
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For quite some time, I've been meaning to add more momentum and engagement to my presence on Facebook and Twitter. I'm active with posting my reviews and shared fun stories, but that content is more random than formal or thematic. It lacks a guiding regularity. So, as of this new year and new work week, I'm adding daily themes to my posts and threads shared on my Facebook and Twitter pages. I have a blast talking to all of you casually and I would like to do more. Here's the plan:
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As I say every year, plenty of regular everyday people make New Year's Resolutions, but I think bigger entities, namely movie makers and movie moguls, need to make them too. Over the life of this website, this is my absolute favorite editorial to write every year. I have fun taking the movie industry to task for things they need to change. I'm sarcastic, but I'm not the guy to take it to the false internet courage level of some Twitter troll. This will be as forward as I get all year.
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The western film genre has always had a violent backbone. Even in the sunniest and most heroic of examples, more often that not, we're watching a struggle of survival where it is kill or be killed in a raw rural landscape. We label, separate, and celebrate heroes from villains, but all are killers with only opposing morals and justice of different degrees separating them. The violence is ever present. Few traditional westerns embrace its violent reality. "Bone Tomahawk" surges head first into it with absolute courage and graphic disregard.
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Bankrolled overseas for just under $10 million, the new film "Big Game," playing concurrently in limited theatrical release and Video On Demand, stars a sizable cast of Hollywood players stealing easy money and cashing quick paychecks. "Big Game" is a dumpster fire. It might be so incredibly terrible that it's too bad to ever become a "so-bad-it's-good" guilty pleasure and cult favorite. This might be beyond the boys at RiffTrax to mock, and that's saying something.
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"Welcome to Me" is a Mobius strip of a trainwreck. The film is a trainwreck... of a trainwreck. Starring an extremely invested Kristen Wiig, the film is, to its credit, a bold character piece and black comedy that seeks to put a trainwreck of a person on display in an effort to preach larger moral questions. As bold as it is in that intention, "Welcome to Me" doesn't achieve that and overshoots every landing possible. It's that really well planned gag or stunt that can't match the real thing because it's been too manufactured to where the unpredictability is taken away or feels forced. It's the second coming of "Dinner for Schmucks," in terms of cringe comedy, and that film was bad but at least funnier.
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We men can’t resist a good western. On paper, the new film opening in Chicago this week, “The Homesman,” starring and directed by Tommy Lee Jones could sell tickets to us men just by his presence alone. His gruff persona is perfect for the genre in every way. The “guy film” potential and exterior stops there at Tommy Lee Jones. “The Homesman,” adapted from the novel of the same name from notable western writer Glendon Swarthout dives deeper, darker, and fervently towards a different perspective.
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“The One I Love” is a thinking film that skews much closer to the romantic comedy vein of its trailer, but offers just enough icy and sobering implications to get that hamster wheel moving in your head that will nudge you ever so slightly to the edge of your seat. You won’t be gripping your arm rest or partner’s hand in tension. Rather, you’ll be retreating to crossed arms of curiosity and chin-rubbing intrigue and attention. Clever smiles outnumber dropped jaws.
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