Top Five Songs of 2015
5. A Long Walk Home for Parted Lovers – Yumi Zouma Cavalier and cold as a flickering liquor store light, Yumi Zouma’s “A Long Walk Home for Parted Lovers” is, deep down, a pyre of nuanced emotion. Detached, ethereal samples bore through the song, like the white noise of memories lost. The delivery bounces and sways, confidently, but the lyrics are bruised fruit. It’s a carousel of sadness and nighttime...
The Hateful Eight
Crude Grit Starring: Kurt Russell, Samuel L. Jackson Review written by Robert D. Patrick Beginning with a suffocating, taut score that is so tight it leaves rope burns, Quentin Tarantino’s blood flecked roadshow of cigar masticating hate refuses to bury the lead. The dialogue, per usual, is a cat’s cradle of gasoline and saliva charged machismo. Every garish syllable spewed is a sizzling wick for future carnage. To say too...
The Big Short
Bale of Slay Starring: Ryan Gosling, Christian Bale Review written by Robert D. Patrick Upon first inspection, there’s no possible way that Adam McKay, director of such films as Anchorman and The Other Guys, had this movie in him. The slinger of saliva and suds, McKay is known for the “Brozone Lair” genre – infantile buddies with anger problems. And, come to think of it, maybe The Big Short – a film about...
Youth
The Abandonment of an Audience Starring: Michael Caine, Paul Dano Review written by Robert D. Patrick Paolo Sorrentino is a gifted filmmaker, capable of sweeping, operatic moments that swell and crash. The quietest moments, after these emphatic visuals, stew in their own power like sea foam. There is bombast in his brush strokes, and because of his imperious aesthetic, much of his films become polarizing and cold. But what to do with...
Legend
Multiplici-ZzZzs Starring: Tom Hardy, Tom Hardy Review written by Robert D. Patrick Legend may be billed as a liquor-lacquered, knuckle-thumping barrage of brogue and barrels, but the film has a neutered temperament and a barely palpitating heart. Tom Hardy is present, growling in a thick cockney accent that would put curdled milk to shame. But behind the frame of this classic car are the pedals of a Big Wheel. Director Brian...
Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict
SurrealiZzzZzm Review by Robert D. Patrick Long-lost tapes are the documentary theme of 2015. Interviews, unearthed in some Indiana Jones-like warehouse after years of dormancy, is the hottest type of runway dress for directors this year. Someone is sending Sam Neil – complete with his Jurassic Park hat – down to dust for these fossils. First, Listen to me Marlon, comprised almost exclusively of the previously unheard...
Brooklyn
Not Starring Cillian Murphy Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Emory Cohen Review written by Robert D. Patrick Flushed with pastel dust and cobalt skies, director John Crowley’s Brooklyn is swathed in a cinder-like charm. There is hardly a moment when the film doesn’t feel pastoral, wide, and free of boundaries. Most of this is due, of course, to Saoirse Ronan’s inherent kindness and verisimilitude. The actress, who has...
Interview w/ Reptar
Graham Ulicny’s hypnotic, carbonated, and electric vocals create a sort of kaleidoscopic dye spiral. As the singer of the buoyant live wire that is the Athens, Georgia-based band Reptar, Ulicny uses his staccato and whirlwind-like delivery to fingerpaint images of memories gone by. Before they hit the stage this Wednesday at the Soda Bar in San Diego, Cinema Spartan caught up with the band to discuss the loneliness of the...
Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead
Sex, Drugs, & Blah, Blah, Droll Review written by Robert D. Patrick Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead is a slack-jawed hagiography that is content to bay at the moon with self-reverence. Director Douglas Tirola examines the crude craftsmanship behind the bedraggled throng of comedians, artists, and tittering hyenas known, affectionately, as National Lampoon. The documentary follows the wily troupe of booze soaked satirists with a...
The Visit
Old Man Take a Look at My Knife Review written by Robert D. Patrick Starring: Olivia DeJonge, Ed Oxenbould Homemade cookies and the warm, intense scents of cloves have been the tinder of horror stories since Hansel and Gretel. The unassuming guise of coziness hides a jack-o-lantern smile, and a venomous agenda. Here, writer/director M. Night Shyamalan drills into our subconscious fear of age, and the curious maladies that come with...