Russell Crowe tries to leave an overcrowded party.
Formerly titled Bear Country, Derrick Borte’s The Get Out arrives with a premise that sounds deceptively simple: a nightclub owner decides he has had enough and decides to get out of the business.…
Tag: dark comedy
The Nice Guys is Kiss Kiss Bang Bang with a fun ’70s retrofit
The Nice Guys is your standard Shane Black neo-noir buddy comedy with a ’70s retrofit but that’s no bad thing.
The film is a wild and seedy ride from the top of the derelict Hollywood sign, through — occasionally literally — the deluxe shag pads of Beverly Hills, and all the way down through the mean streets of L.A.
Cooties is a indie zombie flick that won’t give you the lurgy
There are many opportunities for dread offered by the zombie genre. The shambling, increasingly putrefying undead. The threat of losing one’s own humanity. Cooties introduces in a new one: chickens.
A new horror comedy from first-time directors Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion, Cooties the gruesome passage from battery farming to school meal via flies, maggots, and pink sludge.…
Ryūzō and His Seven Henchmen is a bit of a rabble
For those among us who know him only for cult TV export Takeshi’s Castle, the news that Takeshi Kitano has just made an absurdist comedy might not be surprising.
For fans of both his double-act “Beat” persona and his work starring in/directing the resurrected Zatoichi franchise, Ryūzō and His Seven Henchmen promises cinematic mana.…
Les combattants (Love at First Fight) is a romcom at war with itself
All’s fair in love and war, as the saying goes, and in Les combattants (AKA Love at First Fight) those two things aren’t so far apart.
The directorial debut of Thomas Cailley — he also shares writing duties with Claude Le Pape — this French-language film is a romcom but only in the most superficial of terms.…
What We Do in the Shadows is silly, macabre fun
For all the variations of the zombie movie out there – standard horror, Nazisploitation, the zomcom – it’s a bit of a surprise there aren’t more takes on the vampire.
Their slightly more refined brethren, for all that velvet, lace, and eyeliner, have been played surprisingly “straight”.…
The Interview is less the end of the world as we know it and more just business as usual for Rogen & Franco
If ever a film came close to ending the world, The Interview was it.
Admittedly it’s hard to tell how much is just North Korea posturing – they do that a lot, posture – but the impact, both fascinating (the Sony leaks) and terrifying (the threat of terror attacks), is undeniable.…
The Men Who Stare At Goats is a hippy-dippy look at an unlikely New Age army training unit
Meet the Jedi Knights.
They can become invisible to the human eye, phase through solid objects, even kill you with a single touch (though it may take several decades to come into effect). And they work for the U.S. Army. This was the remit of the First Earth Battalion and they were real.
For all its ideas, Zero Theorem is simply an entertaining zero-sum game
Terry Gilliam’s first film since the ill-fated, but enjoyable Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Zero Theorem showcases the former Python animator’s uniquely discordant worldview, as well as confirming Christoph Waltz as a supreme resource for any talented director.
The bald-headed, hunched-over, strangely grotesque Qohen is light years away from the smooth Hans Landa or charming Schultz.…
Does Ayoade replicate the success of Submarine with The Double?
