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| EFC STATS |
| Movies Listed: |
32146 |
| Total Ratings: |
248994 |
| Total Reviews: |
28241 |
![[180044054 Hits]](/cgi-bin/gd.cgi?180044054)
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| ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD |
"Tateville"
Peter Sobczynski says... "There has been much talk that after completing his next project, currently rumored to be, of all things, a “Star Trek” movie, Quentin Tarantino plans to retire from filmmaking altogether. While he has long spoken of stepping out of the game after making ten features, I have a sneaky suspicion that even if the “Trek” movie pans out, it may not prove to be his swan song after all. For one thing, it sounds more than a little odd that one of the most dependably unique and idiosyncratic filmmakers of our time would choose to bow out with a project not of his own design—this is not to say that a QT sci-fi joint wouldn’t be interesting, just that I would rather see one born entirely of his sensibility rather than one in which he applied said sensibility to someone else’s vision. Another reason, and one far more pertinent in the long run, is that with his ninth feature, “Once Upon a Time. . . in Hollywood,” he has created a film so daring, so audacious and so flat-out entertaining that to follow it up with a “Star Trek” film, no matter how good, would be like a musician presenting a grandly original opus as a penultimate work and following that with an album of bar-band covers—it could be entertaining but it would almost certainly seem like a bit of a comedown by comparison. And yes, “OUATIH” is just that kind of opus, a kaleidoscopic love letter to Tarantino’s beloved Hollywood set during one of its occasional periods of seismic change that may be the most daring of all his works to date and is certainly the most deeply felt." (more)
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| LION KING, THE (2019) |
"The Imagination Sleeps Tonight"
Peter Sobczynski says... "I don’t know if McDonald’s is doing any sort of promotional tie-in with “The Lion King,” Disney’s hugely hyped remake of their 1994 animated blockbuster but if there is a Happy Meal involved, they should make the box in the shape of an accountant’s briefcase. After all, they are the only group of people who could conceivably come out of the film feeling genuinely happy and that is simply because of the enormous sums of money that their clients will presumably reap in the wake of its almost-certain box-office success. For everyone else, it will prove to be one of the most mystifying experiences that they will have at the multiplex this summer. Here is a film that has marshaled together a number of immensely talented people, given them a budget larger than the annual GNP of entire small nations and gotten nothing in return but a half-hearted and largely lifeless retread that fails to find its own footing and instead sticks so closely to the source material that it almost feels like the family entertainment equivalent of Gus van Sant’s shot-for-shot remake of “Psycho.”" (more)
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| WE ARE LITTLE ZOMBIES |
"There really is no one way to grieve!"
Jay Seaver says... "SCREENED AT THE 2019 FANTASIA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL: "We Are Little Zombies" is the sort of movie that needs four kids for its story but only has enough attention for a couple of them, with most of that going to the one most designed to get on a person's nerves. That's not always ideal, to be honest, but it is something that a person can get used to over a couple hours, especially when the filmmakers are committed to being the right sort of creative and energetic. Director Makoto Nagahisa attacks grief and the increasingly self-aware people trying to deal with it in a way that may be a lot for people multiple times the age of its 13-year-old heroes, but even they will likely wind up impressed." (more)
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| LION KING, THE (2019) |
"In the photorealistic jungle, the photorealistic lion sleeps tonight"
alejandroariera says... "Let us immediately address the elephant on the room. A beat-by-beat, shot-by-shot photo realistic remake of “The Lion King” is as unnecessary as Gus Van Sant’s shot-by-shot remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho.” More so, given that Disney released an improved version of the 1991 animation classic on IMAX on 2002, followed by an equally successful 3D release on 2011. And, let us not forget that after being tested at Minneapolis’ Orpheum Theatre in 1997, the daring theater adaptation directed by Julie Taymor debuted later that year on Broadway where it went on to win more than a dozen Tonys and is still going strong not only there but around the world. Talk about milking a cash cow. Then there is Disney’s financially successful strategy of cannibalizing its back catalogue with live action or photorealistic versions of its entire back catalogue (the delightful “Zootopia” may actually be the last original films to come out of their animation studios). This year alone has seen back to back remakes of “Dumbo” and “Aladdin.” And yet, I thoroughly enjoyed this new version of “The Lion King.” Not only is it as entertaining and emotional as the original film directed by Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff. Director Jon Favreau and scriptwriter Jeff Nathanson have elevated the material by tapping into and drawing out the original’s Shakespearean and mythical undertones." (more)
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| DARLIN' |
"Perhaps not spun far enough off from its predecessors."
Jay Seaver says... "SCREENED AT THE 2019 FANTASIA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL: "Darlin'" is a weird one, strange enough to make me wonder if it would play better or worse if I'd seen the previous films in this somewhat loose series. You don't actually need "Offspring" or "The Woman" to make sense of it, but even so, it's not hard to sense that something isn't quite right here, like it would be a stronger movie if it were more free to be entirely its own thing or a more direct continuation." (more)
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| ASTRONAUT (2019) |
"Richard Dreyfuss still yearns for space."
Jay Seaver says... "SCREENED AT THE 2019 FANTASIA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL: There are times when I lament modestly-scaled movies being lucky to get a blip of a release in theaters as they head to the small screen, and there are other times when the likely-small theatrical release they will receive alongside their on-demand premieres seems like a nice little bonus. "Astronaut" falls into the latter category, pleasantly intimate but losing little when played for a crowd." (more)
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| WHITE STORM 2: DRUG LORDS, THE |
"Worth sitting through to get to the insane car chase."
Jay Seaver says... "As much as I liked "The White Storm" when I saw it in 2014, I didn't know it was successful enough to become a crime-movie brand, in that apparently any movie about former allies turned enemies in the drug trade could wind up released under that banner. That's what this film is - a similar outline with new characters that has to work to reach the same melodramatic highs, although there's no arguing against the action when the gloves come completely off." (more)
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| ART OF SELF-DEFENSE, THE |
"A comedy with the subtlety and technique of a well-executed karate chop."
Jay Seaver says... "SCREENED AT THE 2019 FANTASIA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL: From the big desktop computers in the offices to the jokes built around answering machines rather than mobile phones, it seems likely that Riley Stearns's "The Art of Self-Defense" takes place too early for the phrase "toxic masculinity" to have been in common use, so he has to address that sort of issue even more plainly. The result is a delightfully weird deadpan comedy that is laser-focused on how something can be both awful and absurd, filled with laughs for those who enjoy dark, screwy humor. It's got no place for subtlety but that's far from the only way to land a good joke." (more)
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'YOU THINK WE WATCH ANY OF YOUR MOVIES, HARRY? I'VE SEEN BETTER FILM ON TEETH.'
- Bo Catlett, Get Shorty
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