Mad Max: Fury Road
Cars 3: Car-cass Starring: Charlize Theron, Tom Hardy Review written by Robert D. Patrick Windshields are matted by fingerprints, rust-colored sand envelopes the world, and blood specked incisors tear away at any semblance of humanity. Director George Miller’s easel is made of bones and sinew, the canvas lacquered with saliva and sweat. Mad Max: Fury Road is punctuated with filleted wheel rubber and scudding gasoline. With his...
Adult Beginners
Kroll Over, Play Dead Starring: Nick Kroll, Rose Byrne Review written by Robert D. Patrick A thirty-something has an existential crisis, burrows into depression, and has some snarky, impertinent bile to spew against the walls of their loved ones’ home. This is an insipid, burgeoning genre that began with the tired eyelids of Owen Wilson in the aughts, and just hasn’t slowed down since. Jeff, Who Lives at Home, Happy...
True Story
Close-Ups: The Movie Starring: Jonah Hill, James Franco Review written by Robert D. Patrick The gossamer web that director Rupert Goold weaves is more of the plastic bag, Halloween variety. Fake, difficult to pull apart, and without a genuine aesthetic. True Story is a film about two desperate men interrogating one another by spitting venom through their incisors. It’s a film that prides itself on the weight of a clock’s...
Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter
Panic at the Mythos Starring: Rinko Kikuchi, David Zellner Review written by Robert D. Patrick The first image that emblazons the screen is that of a woman, wearing a red sweater. The heat radiates like a crimson-hot coal streaking over an unknown shoreline. Imagine a lipstick smudge or a shock of red paint. The figure’s feet putter over wet, malleable sand to some uncharted destination. It’s an erudite image that...
Serena
Love In a Time of Bore Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper Review written by Robert D. Patrick Dust-licked North Carolina aches and trembles under the oppressive weight of the depression. In the shadow of a land dipped in sadness comes an irascible, headstrong businessman with his eyes set on timbre. His employees are lacquered in sweat and exhaust, but no problem will keep the aforementioned entrepreneur from rolling up his...
A Most Violent Year
1970s Cinema, 1980s Landscape, 2015 film Starring: Oscar Isaac, Jessica Chastain Review written by Robert D. Patrick A Most Violent Year is about the most blood-specked 365 days in New Year City’s history (1981 somehow eclipses the carnage of the Five Points in the 1860s?). Perennially overcast and painted with broad strokes of chrome and fog, writer and director J.C. Chandor’s latest opus is a sock full of marbles being...
American Sniper
Through the Scope Clint Eastwood’s newest opus, based on the life of America’s most technically proficient sniper, is smeared with charcoal and flecked with blood. The late marksman in question, Chris Kyle, served his country with pride. Eastwood’s geographic devotion shadows that very theme, bringing the sweat and teeth-gnashing sacrifice of military service into the fray with overcast results. The typical, almost...
Inherent Vice
Smoke on the Water Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Josh Brolin Review written by Robert D. Patrick Inherent Vice is a Rubik’s Cube comprised of sand and California sunshine. The thwacking reverberations of weathered sandals on heat baked concrete. Hushed whispers and drowsy head tilts form the hazy aesthetic. Paul Thomas Anderson eases off the pedal in a film that has the urgency of a swinging hammock. Based on novelist Thomas...
Selma
In Search of a Director Starring: David Oyelowo, Tom Wilkinson Review written by Robert D. Patrick Martin Luther King, Jr.’s fervent cogency was an unmovable force; he splintered all forms of bullheaded resistance in his toilsome path to equality. The Atlanta born pastor’s power was built around strategic diction – each word was crafted with ardor and articulation. Punctuation, delivery, and restraint were weapons in...
Top Five
The Numbers Game Starring: Chris Rock, Rosario Dawson Review written by Robert D. Patrick Bumbling lunacy, plumes of weed, and anatomy jokes – that’s been the popular well for comedies in recent years. Writers and directors, such as Judd Apatow and Evan Goldberg, make their money drilling for this kind of crass oil. Sometimes the affable schlubs in these buddy comedies come across as exhaustive and stale. Sometimes they...
