Olympus Has Fallen
White House In Peril – Again Review written by Tom Bevis Starring: Morgan Freeman, Gerard Butler I’ll be the first to admit that all of this 9/11 reminiscent terrorist imagery needs to disappear from popular media. I am tired, bored, and annoyed watching planes and/or tanks crash into every single American landmark that comes to mind. That being said, Olympus Has Fallen has only two or three of these said scenes in...
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Of Spies and Sedatives Starring: Gary Oldman, Colin Firth Review written by Robert Patrick Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy must have sounded like a great idea. An espionage thriller based on the acclaimed, serpentine book of the same name. Shifty-eyed spies in dapper suits, mulling around cafes and hiding behind baguettes, all while carrying around pistols under their pant legs. Once you have the plot from the 1974 book down, the next...
The Skin I Live In
Marionettes Made of Tissue Starring: Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya Review written by Robert Patrick Moral compasses are caked with mud, emotions are pulled like teeth without anesthetic, and colors are spattered like paint cans perforated by bullet holes. The world of sixty-two year-old Pedro Almodóvar is one of ghosts, obsessions, frothy malaise. Never innocuous, the films of the Spanish auteur have always been met by a volley of...
Kaboom
Stream of Consciousness Directing Yes, I am calling TRL so that they play Jared Leto’s newest single. Starring: Thomas Dekker, Haley Bennett Review by Robert Patrick Gregg Araki’s newest opus, “Kaboom”, is akin to being Rick Rolled by a lobotomized David Lynch. Nothing really makes sense in this film, aside from the fact that it has to do with a first year college student that, after taking some drugs, is...
Metropolis
It’s Not Road House, But… Starring: Brigitte Helm, Gustav Frohlich By Robert Patrick I can see the 25 minutes of lost “Metropolis” footage, in all of its holy glory, being unearthed from a dusty vault in Argentina. In the background, much like an “Indiana Jones” movie, a John Williams score inundates the scene with acute tension. The 16 mm reduction, having been seen by the mad eyes of film...
Iron Man 2
The New Suit is a Lot Like the Old Suit Starring: Robert Downey, Jr., Mickey Rourke By Tom Bevis Remember Iron Man? Remember, despite quick comic book clichés and at least one ridiculous mood-killing one liners (this is the very reason that made 2008’s Incredible Hulk better than the first Iron Man picture) how good it was? And do you remember how fans walking out of the film had already convinced themselves that they loved the...
A Nightmare on Elm Street
They Were More Like Finger-Knives Starring: Rooney Mara, Jackie Earle Haley By Tom Bevis Freddy Krueger and his line of Nightmare films can easily be considered one of horror’s greatest and most influential contributions to the horror genre, but what a lot of people forget about him – the very same thing people forget about most of the slasher movies to come our way – is the undeniable and overwhelming camp involved with them. It’s...
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Journalism: Another Step into Looking Boring Starring: Michael Nyqvist, Noomi Rapace By Robert Patrick “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” is a mystery about a young woman, missing since the late nineteen-sixties, whose photograph finds itself sardonically perched against the weathered hands of one her family members. Where did she disappear to? To what fate did she meet? These blurred questions, posed by her uncle Henrik Vanger, an...
The Crazies
More Bad Press for Small Towns Starring: Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell By Tom Bevis The town is burning. The audience is greeted with the ominous sounds of burning timbers and the whistling of wind. The night hangs over the chaos like a hungry reaper, then the screen blinks out, and just like that, the story begins. There are no opening credits. The story, a fast-paced thriller about a military quarantine of a small town in Iowa...
Shutter Island
The Grand Marshal of a Ghost Parade Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo By Robert Patrick “Shutter Island” is oozing with gloom and anxiety. Martin Scorsese knows better than anyone how to craft mood, slip it into every crack and crevice, slather it over every frame with artisan care. The shadows of doubt and madness have certainly fallen upon, if not entirely swallowed, an asylum hosted by an island off the coast of...