Posts Tagged ‘murder’

  • 16 Jun

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    Trailer: The Last Circus

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    Want to know why I (sometimes) have a habit of bagging on lifeless hollywood sludge? Here is a good example! While I never managed to write a review for Alex de la Iglesia’s mind blowing The Last Circus (aka Balada Triste) during last years TIFF, it was still in my top 5 films of last year. An allegory of Franco era Spain re-envisioned as an absurd killing joke by way of a grotesque opera. Of bread and circuses! Think Alejandro Jodorowsky with geek-ier sensibility (and a bit more of an understanding on how to get a performance from his actors) and a whopping sized budget. Destined not to find a wide audience, but instead be wholeheartedly embraced by a fervent cult following, The Last Circus is as as off-putting and gross as it is brilliant. I love how this trailer plays out somewhere in the middle ground between Se7en and Life is Beautiful. Go Spain.

    The trailer (A red-bander! *Fair Warning*) is tucked under the seat. Play it with the volume cranked!

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  • 02 May

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    HotDocs 2011: Wisconsin Death Trip Review

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    Can a place be evil? Can it’s bad mojo be transferred upon an unsuspecting settler or to a wide population of lifetime residents? This question is asked in a baroque and highly unconventional manner in Wisconsin Death Trip. The film is getting the retrospective treatment here at the HotDocs Film Festival in Toronto and midnight is definitely the fuzzy witching hour to best experience it.

    Before James Marsh (justly) won the Oscar for 2009′s Man on Wire, or in the same year, directed the stand-out chapter in the excellent Red Riding Trilogy, he made this Maddin-esque, Lynch-ian (this is film-nerd shorthand for poetic, feverish, surreal and weird, for those keeping score at home) documentary on the madness in the air of the midwest. Filming stylized re-creations of the multitude of tragedies in 19th century Wisconsin contrasted (occasionally) with modern footage. Eisenstein-ian connections are bound to be made. It all adds up to ask the question, to paraphrase Bob Hope, “Hey, what’s up with all those crazy deaths in Wisconsin?” (alternatively, “How about that Wisconsin Death Trip?!”)

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  • 12 Nov

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    Review: Down Terrace

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    Upon being released from custody for some petty larceny, Ben and his son Karl, small time gangsters both, return home more or less in silence for an awkward couple of beers and stale pound-cake with their mates. Karl’s girlfriend comes by to celebrate, but her belly belies a quite pregnant figure. Karl’s reaction is perfect in its purity: “Fuck!” The following, well that’s that then on the surface, panic very much underneath, encapsulates the dysfunction and overall incompetence of the men in the family, and how they project their issues upon themselves and their kin. Nobody does people behaving badly towards one another with a low key passive-aggressive narcissism (played for pathos and laughs, naturally) quite like the Brits. Equal parts sitcom-from-hell and verite-family-drama, Down Terrace makes the most of its low budget and limited location by virtue of a wonderful collection of actors and non-actors ripping each other to shreds (both figuratively, literally) due to far to close proximity. Insofar as Reservoir Dogs is a heist movie without the heist, Down Terrace is a gangster picture without the gangster stuff, trading instead in uncomfortable family anxieties and loaded banter until things come to a head. If the film came out in the Sundance heyday of Quentin Tarnantino and Kevin Smith, writer-director Ben Wheatley would quite likely be a made man.

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  • 11 Jul

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    Review: Down Terrace

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    Fans of The Sopranos will be hard pressed to not come away from Ben Wheatley’s Down Terrace with their jaw dropped to the floor. Wheatley’s first feature film is a deep look into a family that is held together for all the wrong reasons. Bill (Robert Hill), the patriarch and head of a small collection of British Criminals has just been released from prison. Bill is a tough as nails, say it like he sees it bastard with a taste for playing folk music with his friends. Karl, Bill’s son with a temper (Robin Hill) has also just been released from after serving a short sentence. Both father and son believe that they have an informant in their midst are set about to remove the threat. Julia Deacon is Karl’s mother and in many ways is the most vicious of them all. All three of the family talk about what they have to do in order to find and remove the informant none of them have a problem taking the actions needed but the weight of their lives seems to be destroying their humanity.

    The remainder of the cast consists of relatives and friends of the family who are associated with the family. There is only one non criminal and that is Karl’s girlfriend who shows up pregnant. Instead of Bill and Karl’s mom being happy they can’t help see but see her as an outsider and a threat, even going so far as to eventually saying that she needs to “disappear” for the good of the family. From this point on the film plays out with family members working for what they believe is the good of the family. There are several deaths as friend and family meet their end.  

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  • 28 Jun

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    DVD Review: Tell Tale

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    Tell Tale Movie Poster

    Director: Michael Cuesta (Twelve and Holding)
    Writers: Dave Callaham, Edgar Allan Poe (short story)
    Producers: Michael Costigan, Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, Martin Shore, Christopher Tuffin
    Starring: Josh Lucas, Lena Headey, Brian Cox
    MPAA Rating: R
    Running time: 93 min.

    (2/5)

    Josh Lucas. He’s handsome, charming and has the makings of a great romantic lead but he’s working outside of the Hollywood machine. I’m not certain that’s necessarily his choice but his last two projects have been well under the radar. I disliked Death in Love so much I didn’t finish it and yet I returned to see Tell Tale but with a cast that also includes Lena Headey and Brian Cox, the attraction shouldn’t come as too much of a shock.

    Tell Tale Movie StillLoosely, very loosely, adapted from Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” Josh Lucas portrays Terry Bernard, a single father who has recently received a new heart. His daughter suffers from a rare genetic disease and between the two illnesses, his second home is the local hospital. Lena Headey plays Dr. Elizabeth Clemson, the specialist Terry deals with regarding his daughter’s illness and after a regular appointment, Elizabeth makes a move and the two start, reluctantly at first, dating. Terry’s post heart transplant recovery is going well until he comes into contact with a paramedic, causing his new heart to do all sorts of strange things. Though at first he thinks it’s in his mind, Terry soon finds himself in the midst of solving the mystery of were his new heart came from.

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  • 29 Apr

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    Hot Docs Review: Life With Murder

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    Anyone who is a parent will walk a fine line between empathy and judgment for the Jenkins family of Chatham, Ontario (Canada) while watching this documentary whodunit. When their 18-year-old Jennifer is brutally murdered in 1998 and their 20 year old son is the prime suspect, well, there are certainly some difficult loyalties to be sorted out. Especially when she was shot multiple times and dragged around the house a bit before passing on. Despite the lurid nature of the crime, the fact that it appears to be done within a family, and in a small town that probably has only a few murders a decade, director John Kastner (Rage Against the Darkness) manages to lay out the facts of the narrative with a look a the small details, both during the case, and of course, the difficult aftermath. This does indeed generate quite a bit of empathy for the parents, Brian and Leslie, although there is not much left in the tank for their incarcerated son, Mason, who is clearly an idiot. But nevertheless is still their son.

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  • 17 Nov

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    Russel Crowe and Laura Dern in Tenderness Trailer

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    TendernessMovieStillI was going to ask how a film about a murderous teen starring Russel Crowe and Laura Dern managed to get under my radar but considering the fact that this is directed by John Polson of Swimfan and Hide and Seek, it may not be as surprising.

    Tenderness stars Crowe as Detective Cristofuoro, a man without a family who becomes obsessed with trying to figure out if a teen (played by Jon Foster) killed his family and whether he’ll strike again. It’s a bland looking little picture, one I’m surprised managed to attract both Crowe and Dern.

    It was shot in 2006, shopped around AFM last year, opened in a few markets but has only recently been picked up by Lionsgate for North American distribution. Doesn’t look promising but Crowe and Dern have me curious to see if this is better than the trailer suggests.

    Trailer tucked under the seat!

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  • 16 Oct

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    VIFF 09 Review: Mother

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    MotherMovieStill

    A few years ago, South Korean director Joon-ho Bong was essentially mobbed by adoring fans after a screening of The Host. At the time, many of us knew nothing about the director other than the fact that he’d made a monster movie that was more than a monster movie but since then, he’s become a recognizable name (at least among film fans) and the announcement of a new project brought much joy to my heart.

    As expected, Mother is more than a mystery. It’s a story of love, devotion and ultimately, sacrifice. Hye-ja Kim provides a tour-de-force performance as a slightly offbeat herbalist/rogue acupuncturist. She lives a meagre life with her son who appears to be a little slow on the uptake. When a girl turns up dead and her son is charged with the murder, Kim takes it upon herself to track down the true killer. Using her considerable skills and a knack for getting people to talk, she beings to pull back the layers of the mystery surrounding the girl’s death but what she finds at the end of the tunnel isn’t exactly what she expected.

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  • 26 Sep

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    TIFF 09 Review: Bitch Slap!

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    As a kid, I remember being haunted by a magazine article I had come across which spoke of “very natural” group masturbation sessions among young males. In this phenomenon pubescent boys, apparently in the winters of their respective latency periods, raid their fathers’ and brothers’ smut collections and all have it out together.

    Rick Jacobson’s “Bitch Slap”, which premiered at last week’s Toronto International Film Festival, carries on this rich tradition handily. » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 21 Sep

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    Possibly Horrifying, Definitely Gorgeous: Van Diemen’s Land Trailer

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    In 1824, Alexander Pearce, an Irish penal convict, was hung in Hobart, Tasmania. In and of itself, that act isn’t necessarily one of great importance considering how many individuals died by hanging during that time but Pearce is notorious for another reason.

    Pearce, a convict who had made his way through a number of penal institutions, gained notoriety as a bushranger who escaped from the Macquarie Harbour Penal Settlement and made his way across the rugged terrain of Western Tansania. As the story goes, Pearce escaped with a number of convicts, most of whom eventually turned themselves in, and when he was finally captured, stories surfaced that he had resorted to the cannibalism of a few fellow escapees in order to survive. Initially, it was believed that he was exaggerating the story until his second escape. When was captured 10 days later, he was found to have remains of the co-escapee in his possession even though he still had plenty of food.

    It’s a fascinating story, one I’d never heard of although in the past it has been the subject of both songs and films, but it appears the story is about to gain a whole new level of attention with the release of Jonathan Auf Der Heide’s first full length feature film Van Diemen’s Land.

    Part adventure story, part human drama and part man vs. nature, this trailer feels like a mix of John Hillcoat, Werner Herzog and Terrence Malick. I have every hope that this will eventually see a North American release otherwise, I may be looking for a good Australian DVD importer.

    Van Diemen’s Land is currently making the festival rounds and opens in Australia on September 24th.

    See the beautiful trailer at Apple.

  • 17 Sep

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    House of the Devil Delivers Old School Horror

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    When Ti West’s The House of the Devil unveiled its one sheet, people took note of the cool retro feel but not because it felt like some poor rip-off of something we’d seen before but because it looked like something directly out of the period. It looks like the poster isn’t the only thing harkening back to the 80s.

    Set in the 1980s, the film stars Jocelin Donahue as Samantha, a college student who takes a babysitting job that coincides with a full lunar eclipse. She slowly comes to realizes her clients harbour a terrifying secret: they plan to use her in a satanic ritual.

    This looks like a whole lot of fun and frankly, I look forward to seeing something on Halloween that resembles a horror movie and preferably not the newest entry into the Saw franchise.

    The House of the Devil opens on October 30th.

    House of the Devil Trailer [ 0.01 MB ] Play Now | Play in Popup
  • 11 Sep

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    Another Round of Antichrist

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    The name Lars von Trier is on everyone’s lips. The buzz started generating at Cannes but it seems as though TIFF has really blown the top on this film and if the poster, the first trailer and Kurt’s review aren’t enough to convince you that this is the film to see this year, this trailer may not help.

    For the rest of us, here’s a little more of von Trier’s horror, a film so disturbing it left me shaking and unable to sleep. Will I see it again? Not anytime soon but maybe in a few years when my little heart has turned into stone and I need to feel something again; even if that something is pain.

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