For film fans, one of the most enticing films coming out of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival was Room 237, an experimental documentary directed by Rodney Ascher which explores wild theories buried deep in Stanley Kubrick‘s masterpiece The Shining. It made my best of the fest but there were doubts fans would ever get to see it because of all the licensed footage in the film.
Apparently, that’s not an issue as IFC Films has acquired the awesome film and will release it theatrically and on VOD later this year. Read more after the jump. Read More »
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As a follow-up to the movie Down Terrace, director Ben Wheatley made the tense and rather strange film Kill List. The picture defies typical categorization, because it blends elements of domestic drama, a hitman thriller and a much weirder sort of suspense story that will, I think, earn a few pleasingly shocked reactions from viewers.
There is an ambiguity to the movie, as Wheatley declines to explain every element of the story, but enough info is present that no viewer ever has to be lost. Disoriented, definitely, but that’s part of the plan. Kill List is like a realization of many familiar modern male anxieties, and it also contains a few truly unexpected turns that surprised me more than anything else I can remember in the last year. In short, it’s good stuff. I’ve thought about it quite a lot since the credits rolled.
Mondo will soon release a poster designed by Iron Jaiden (who did great images for Videodrome and Repo Man, among others) to help promote IFC’s limited theatrical release of Kill List. See the full image after the break. Read More »
Chris Sparling wrote the ‘man in a coffin’ thriller Buried, and he followed that script up with another tightly confined thriller, ATM. Sparling’s script was directed by first-timer David Brooks, and the resulting thriller finds three people (Brian Geraghty, Alice Eve and Josh Peck) trapped inside an ATM in the middle of a parking lot thanks to the menacing presence of a murderous figure just outside.
The first trailer has just been released, and while it doesn’t look like anything truly outstanding, ATM does look like the sort of movie I’d watch just to see where the story goes. Check it out below. Read More »
I only know a few things about Kill List, the latest film from Ben Wheatley (Down Terrace). I know that some friends who have seen the movie have raved about its ability to manipulate genre conventions and audience expectations. Even those who have seen it and not loved it, such as Germain, had things to say that intrigued me. (Germain’s Fantastic Fest review mentioned the film posing “really screwed up and fascinating questions.”)
And I know that the trailer that has been released to begin the promotion for the limited February release, via IFC, looks great. But I’m reluctant to discover any more, because those I’ve talked to about the film suggest going in cold if at all possible.
All told, Kill List seems like a movie that should be on your radar. Have a look at the trailer below. And not to worry — it seems to be light on potential spoilers. Read More »
Perfect Sense, once called The Last Word, debuted almost a year ago at Sundance 2011, and is just now finally starting to get a little promo push in the US. The concept of the film is pretty simple: what happens if our senses started to disappear, to the point where things get a bit dangerous?
It’s a bit like Contagion with added romance as Ewan McGregor plays one of the people who are experiencing the disorienting loss of senses, and Eva Green plays the girl he falls for, who also happens to be an epidemiologist who has a line on the viral outbreak that may be causing the problem. What are the odds? There’s a new trailer that is similar to one released around the Sundance debut, but has some new looks at the movie, and you can check it out below. Read More »
The titles Carnage and Kill List sound like they could be the same movie. Kill List: Carnage. Carnage: The Kill List. I’d see that movie. In reality though, they’re two movies which, besides their ominous titles, couldn’t be more different. One is a comedy, the other a thriller. One is American, the other British. One is from a well-known filmmaker, the other an up and comer. And one has four of our most celebrated actors while the other is populated by unknowns. Yet despite being so different, these two films, both of which played at AFI Fest Presented by Audi, make nice bed fellows because they’re so different. Read some thoughts on both of them after the jump . Read More »
I imagine that most of our readers have strong feelings about the death penalty, one way or the other. It’s not the sort of topic that leads to indifference. Whether you support or protest the right of a state to kill specific citizens that are convicted of heinous crimes, I expect there will be something in Werner Herzog‘s new movie to challenge your opinion. And what good is an opinion if it can’t take a challenge?
Into the Abyss: A Tale of Death, a Tale of Life is a documentary that follows the stories of a few death row inmates in Texas. Herzog talks to the inmates, and to some of the officers who investigated their crimes, as well as others who are involved in the lives and crimes of these inmates. By many accounts the film is a very even-handed look at those sentenced to die, and I can’t wait to see the film. After the controversy over the execution of Troy Davis here in Georgia, the film seems very timely. Check out a trailer below. Read More »
William Monahan, screenwriter of Kingdom of Heaven and Oscar-winning writer of The Departed, directed his first film back in 2009. London Boulevard opened quietly in the UK last year and is opening even more quietly in the States this fall.
The movie is an adaptation of a novel by Ken Bruen (who also wrote the books on which The Guard and Blitz were based) and stars Colin Farrell, Keira Knightley and Ray Winstone in a London-based gangster movie. Reviews haven’t been particularly good — hence the quiet opening — but the cast is top-notch and the material looks fun and difficult to resist despite the tepid reviews. Check out a new US trailer below and get a taste of the action. Read More »
