JOHN CARPENTER'S LOST THEMES II

Read all about it, bitches...

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You can expect reviews of KEANU and CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR coming up at Slaughtertime.com.

BATMAN v. SUPERMAN Review

CLEEK EET.

Next week, you can expect that Growler interview I mentioned, and a new installment of SPINEMA at Cinapse.co

THE GROWLER, MSPIFF, 10 CLOVERFIELD LANE and other new reviews!

Hello!

Here comes them updates...

I just finished my interview with the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Film Festival Director! The interview will run at THE GROWLER's website in a couple of weeks. You should check it out by clicking the link below:

http://growlermag.com/

You should visit that site frequently, because there is the slight chance I could do more writing for them in the coming months!

I also have new reviews up at SLAUGHTERTIME on:

10 CLOVERFIELD LANE

ZOOTOPIA

and

WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT

All for your reading pleasure.

I will also have new installments of SPINEMA and THE ARCHIVIST in coming months over at:

Now go get to readin'!

MONDO music, SPINEMA, and the OSCAR SHORTS

This week, I finally continued my Spinema column at Cinapse. MONDO was kind enough to send me a limited edition copy of their JURASSIC WORLD soundtrack on vinyl! Click the image below to read up.

In the near future, Spinema will feature a new documentary detailing the early days of Michael Jackson's rise to pop royalty, another MONDO vinyl release of the BACK TO THE FUTURE scores, more documentaries, and a review of John Carpenter's follow-up to LOST THEMES.

Next week, look to Slaughtertime for my reviews of the mixed-bag that is the Oscar-Nominated Shorts.

Love you. Bye bye.

DEADPOOL, Oscar Season, And Moooooooore

I just can't quite remember to post here these days, but here comes a long-time-coming update for those of you who still occasionally check this place for new information.

Clicking the Slaughtertime logo above will take you to my review of the mostly refreshing and completely fun DEADPOOL. There, you can also poke around to find several reviews of the fall's best films, including...

CAROL

THE BIG SHORT

ANOMALISA

...and plenty more. Click the MOVIES link on the left column and you can find quite an archive of Oscar contenders... if you're into that sort of thing.

You can also read reviews at:

Covering Spotlight, The Peanuts Movie, and others.

Also... you've probably noticed the ol' podcast never became available. Well, that's all thanks to some confounding technical shortcomings, but the dream isn't dead, yet. We will regroup, get the trouble sorted, and start the show up... maybe in the spring? We will just have to see what happens. While you wait, you should watch some videos created by my co-host, John Valley by clicking these...

New Reviews!

HEY EVERYBODY!

Looks like our first episode of the podcast was a bust, but we are regrouping and will post a few thingies on horror films for your listening pleasure in October!

For now, click this banner

... for a review of BLACK MASS, and head over to The Archivist while you are at Cinapse to see my latest piece there, as well.

"The Visit" Review

A generous-for-Sunday-afternoon turnout has paid its dues at the local multiplex. The theater’s obnoxious animated self-promotions have ceased. The trailers, uncut to a taxing length, have finally come to an end, and the feature presentation, welcomed by the fanfare of twitchy, whispering teens, has begun. I hadn’t the occasion to see a horror film with its target demographic in some time, and their nervous unrest reminds me of the small joy the experience can offer. The words, “A film by M. Night Shayamalan” fade in, white on black.

A handful of my fellow theater patrons laughs.

Just in case I had forgotten the disgraced auteur’s name has become a punch line, some strangers in the dark refresh my memory, carrying-on as though they didn’t realize whose movie they had come to see. They, and the rest of the audience would laugh several more times at what appeared on the screen throughout the film, but they would also scream, gleefully, like the ecstatic patrons of a well-orchestrated haunted attraction.

Paula Jamison (Kathryn Hahn) has not been in touch with her parents for fifteen years, since eloping with her high school teacher. Her children, Rebecca, a bright fifteen-year-old documentarian (Olivia DeJonge), and Tyler, a rapping, girl-crazy germaphobe (Ed Oxenbould) have decided they want to meet their estranged grandparents, potentially for the sake of reuniting them with their mother. So, with Paula on a weeklong cruise with her new boyfriend, the siblings take a lengthy train ride to the old family farm, and their elderly relatives (played perfectly by Peter McRobbie and Deanna Dunagen) greet them with warmth and open arms. The arms stay open, but the warmth wanes as the geriatric Doris and John begin exhibiting disturbing behavior. Before long, it becomes impossible for the children to abide by the one household rule: Don’t leave your room after 9:30 PM.

I’d love to tell you more. I’ve been seeing a lot of thrillers lately which require the revealing of too many details for proper analysis, and this is certainly one of them. You’ve been hearing Shayamalan is back on his game, and although The Visit is no masterwork, it does manage to breath new life into the found-footage format, and the filmmaker’s favorite forms of storytelling are as sturdy here as ever, if not flawlessly constructed. The young characters have fears to overcome, and the action toward the climax becomes meaningful, and then there is that other common Shayamalan trait… which I would rather not discuss here.

What is absent from this new film, unlike excellent performances (especially from the young stars), is the director’s need to tie the events together with some fictional spiritual order. Higher powers, in fact, don’t seem to play a role here at all, and that is a welcomed change after the goofy Christian sophism ending films like Signs. The Visit is allowed to descend into bleak chaos, and if it weren’t for a few specific character growths in the finale, one might be of the impression this was a brand new filmmaker.

It’s too bad he isn’t brand new. If it weren’t for M. Night’s abysmal recent outings, I believe most critics would be hailing him as a promising young talent after seeing this small film. Honestly, it’s the most enjoyable and logical found-footage movie I can think of, and it’s perfectly unnerving at nearly every turn. It’s so creepy, in fact, that it’s a wonder how effortlessly the abundant comedic moments cut through the darkness.

DeJonge and Oxenbould are more than comfortable with their characters, and that is mostly thanks to the dialogue written by Shayamalan. You know who these kids are the minute they open their mouths, and they are so authentically teenaged, that for the first several minutes, I was almost too irritated by them to care. Magically, as cinema would have it, they worked their way under my skin, as they slowly revealed the complex and endearing creatures they truly are behind the façade. They are sad, in danger, and a little lost, but most importantly, they are both hilarious. Neither one even slightly cool, their attempts to deal with the events of their bizarre stay make this one of the funniest movies I’ve seen all summer.

Shayamalan may not be back, but he is on his way, and I don’t see anyone laughing at HIM for this horror/comedy.