Happy Christmas
Christmas Blights Starring: Anna Kendrick, Joe Swanberg Review written by Robert D. Patrick The tepid, doldrums approach of lo-fi cinema is evident in minimalist director Joe Swanberg’s latest drama, Happy Christmas. The film is grainier than a bag of wheat, but at least the camera isn’t bobbing like a buoy in a directionless ocean (all that often, anyway). Swanberg has been entrenched in the often-hazed genre of...
10 Great Dark Movies: Vacations or Traveling
A disgusting volley of unforgivable deeds and molar grinding abandon. Tire screeching, bone-jarring, guttural madness. My list for the Ten Great Dark Movies About Vacations or Traveling expunges weirdness. Bad drug trips, villains with halitosis, the eradication of childhood optimism – it’s all here! Fasten your seat belt and get ready for the spinout. Spring Breakers was a sawed-off shotgun blast of repetition compulsion...
Mood Indigo
Watercolors and Wild Flowers Starring: Audrey Tautou, Romain Duris Review written by Robert D. Patrick From the hallucinatory hopscotch of Eternal Sunshine and the Spotless Mind to the wonky fabric of Be Kind Rewind, French director Michel Gondry is known for dipping his paintbrush in clouds. The animated aesthetic of the auteur is on display in his newest opus, Mood Indigo. Adapted from Boris Vian’s book, Froth on the Daydream,...
Le Chef
Pots and Panned? Starring: Jean Reno, Michaël Youn Review written by Robert D. Patrick Ah, flippant movies about virtuous chefs and serpentine critics. Exorbitant portions are subdued in favor of strategic plating and multi-tiered flavor profiles. And how about those plates that flourish with primary colors? Daniel Cohen, the director behind Le Chef, sets his movie in the eccentric battlegrounds of affluent kitchens. Alexandre Lagarde...
Life Itself
All Things Once and Forever Review written by Robert D. Patrick It’s the most labored, arduous, sometimes portentous profession. Bereft of pity – “you watch movies? that cant be hard” – and pockmarked with confusion. The film critic is irascible and snooty; a divisive force with cloven hooves. A film critic, to the public’s eye, is often times an affluent, pear-shaped Magoo. They exist to be pelted...
