Posts Tagged ‘film review’
 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Film Review: “X-Men: Days of Future Past”

  X-MEN:  DAYS OF FUTURE PAST:  Buy A Ticket – For Once, The Script Is As Mighty As the CG After the money-making meatball that was Godzilla, X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST serves welcome notice that a movie can cost ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Review: “Black Mass”

  Scott Cooper’s BLACK MASS is a beautifully put together and wonderfully acted true-life drama about Boston gangsters and the law, but it has a void at its center that holds it back from greatness.  That center isn...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

AFI FEST Film Review: “Lone Survivor”

  LONE SURVIVOR:  Buy A Ticket – A Powerfully Visceral Tale of War Peter Berg’s LONE SURVIVOR, which was shown at the AFI Film Festival tonight in advance of its release late next month, is a docudrama in the ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto 2014 Review: “Nightcrawler”

  NIGHTCRAWLER (Open Road) – Opens October 31 – Worth A Ticket Over the past few years, Jake Gyllenhaal has seemed determined to scrub the wholesomeness out of his screen image, in movies like Zodiac, Brothers,...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW: “Prisoners”

  The prevailing atmosphere in Denis Villenueve’s PRISONERS will be familiar to anyone who’s been watching cable TV drama for the past few years.  Gloom, grief, hopelessness, helpless rage–it’s h...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY SUNDANCE REVIEW: “Happy Christmas”

  Joe Swanberg, the director, writer and co-star of HAPPY CHRISTMAS, which premiered at Sundance earlier this week, makes Woody Allen look lazy.  He’s had something like a dozen features to his credit since the sta...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Review: “The Lobster”

  The allegory is piled on so thickly in Yorgos Lanthimos’ THE LOBSTER that after a while, it’s not clear just what the underlying subject is supposed to be.  Lanthimos is a cult-favorite filmmaker (the cult m...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW: “August: Osage County”

  The writer/producer/director John Wells made his reputation as the showrunner of ER, and he’s known as one of the most consistent, professional producers in the network business, with impeccable shows like The Wes...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Film Review: “Maleficent”

  MALEFICENT:  Watch It At Home – Only Jolie Casts a Spell The conflicting agendas driving the new MALEFICENT don’t leave much room for the movie itself.  Like Wicked and Once Upon A Time, it’s a revisi...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Review: “Room”

  Despite its compact scale, Emma Donoghue’s bestselling novel ROOM was a daunting candidate for film adaptation, because so much of its impact depends on its very specific narrator’s voice, a 5-year old named ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

AFI FEST Film Review: “Inside Llewyn Davis”

  INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS:  Buy A Ticket – 1960s Folk Music A La The Coens INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS, which screened as the Closing Night presentation of the AFI Film Festival in advance of its regular run next month, is Joe...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW: “Tracks”

  There’s no cutesiness to be found in John Curran’s film TRACKS, a bracingly non-Disneyfied true-life nature tale.  In the mid-1970s, a young Australian woman named Robyn Davidson decided to walk across almo...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY SUNDANCE REVIEW: “The Sleepwalker”

  For SHOWBUZZDAILY’s full set of Sundance capsule reviews, click here.   What kind of filmmaker does Mona Fastvold want to be?  It’s an existential question that comes up often at Sundance, where artisti...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Review: “The Martian”

  Ridley Scott’s THE MARTIAN is the jaunty sci-fi offspring of Apollo 13 and McGyver, Scott’s least self-important movie in years and not coincidentally his most enjoyable.  Drew Goddard’s expertly craft...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW: “Under the Skin”

  A film festival is certainly the place for a feature-length semi-linear flow of unscripted dialogue and bizarre imagery if anywhere is, so welcome to UNDER THE SKIN.  The writer/director Jonathan Glazer has gradually b...
by Mitch Salem