Road to Perdition (2002)

RtP is adapted from a graphic novel of the same name by Max Allan Collins, itself inspired by Kazuo Koike's Lone Wolf and Cub manga. The importance of the father and son relationship in both books is maintained throughout.
It's set in 1931, Illinois. The father is Michael Sullivan Sr. (Hanks), a man who goes to great lengths to keep his sons from becoming aware that his boss, John Rooney (Newman), is the head of the mob and that their father is his best enforcer. But Sullivan's methods create a gulf between him and the boys.
With that established early on, the remainder of the film addresses it, but not in the way you might think. Through moments of tragedy, circumstance and sincerity, carefully distilled with shadows and light, we're drawn into their story, into the era and, if you're sympathetically equipped, into the understanding of why the swallowing of emotions that's sometimes necessary to get the job done isn't always the best course of action for either party.

4½ accounts settled out of 5

DRIVE THRU [2007]

I didn't think I could resist Drive Thru, a schlocky horror film where the crazed killer is a fast-food mascot named Horny the Clown.
I should have known better, considering this pathetic excuse for a so-bad-it's-good shitfest was written and directed by the "geniuses" who wrote The Scorpion King 3.
What a piece of shit.

½ an AC/DC song that was clearly not an AC/DC song out of 5

LIGHTS OUT [2016]

Based upon David F. Sandberg's popular 2013 internet horror short, Lights Out, (with an animated gif that is probably more well known), the director adapts his own material into a feature length film.
A broken up family is haunted by the silhouette of something or someone uber-creepy that unfortunately can only be seen and at it's deadliest when, you guessed it, the lights are out.
The first half-hour scared the feck out of me but ruins it all by explaining the mystery and thereby neutering the threat into nothing more than cheap jump scares.  Maria Bello and Teresa Palmer deliver some pretty strong performances for their thinly written characters.  It's loaded with all the usual Boogeyman tropes but will probably be just fine for those looking for some effective inferior thrills that aren't too regrettable.

3 shitty times for a power outage out of 5

MISS PEREGRINE'S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN [2016]

Without the aid of Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter or Danny Elfman, director Tim Burton steps out of his comfort zone for the best with his adaptation of Ransom Riggs' Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.
When his storytelling grandfather dies, young Jake travels to England where he discovers the tales are true, after he time travels into the 1940's to a hidden orphanage that houses a group of bizarre super-powered children.
Like the black & white photos that litter the novel itself, Burton's film can get immensely creepy and oddly disturbing, so don't take the wee ones to this one.  It's filled with beautifully frightening imagery and fantastical music, so naturally it's going to please fans of the director's earlier works.  The characters are a little thin and things are a bit rushed in moments but overall it's the perfect answer to the over-exposure of dystopian future YA stories.

3½ delightfully tasty eyeballs out of 5

BASKIN [2015]

Director Can Evrenol's surreal horror piece, Baskin, is only the 8th Turkish film in history to ever get a North American release.

It's not exactly normal but I think it's about 5 police officers that get a call to a remote town where they are transported through logic & time and find themselves in some sort of Hell dimension.
If you can imagine what would happen if Nicholas Winding Refn was asked to mix Hellraiser, Silent Hill and Jacob's Ladder then you get a better idea of what this is all about.  While there's plenty of disturbingly horrific imagery, I didn't find myself necessarily frightened until I started thinking about it long after it was over.  Sadly, there's not a whole lot of character building here and instead it's a disorienting series of beautifully shot grotesque visuals that will be sure to please the rabid gore fans.

3 mutilated goat-lady fuckers out of 5

ZABRISKIE POINT [1970]

Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni's second American film, Zabriskie Point, felt like one the most colossal waste of times of my life.
In an attempt to attract the counterculture youth of it's time, the film tells the story of two young adults who attempt to go against authority and succeed, but in reality if you heard these self-absorbed characters speak you'd wonder how they tied their own shoelaces.
There's some interesting ideas of frustration brought up that pose an even greater problem in America today but the film is so terribly written it comes of as nothing but dull, dull and dull.  If not for some of the wonderfully shot photography and music by Pink Floyd & Jerry Garcia I never would have gotten past the 20 minute mark.

1 sexy roll around in the sand out of 5

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters (2007)

While there are some chortles to be mined from it, the Aqua Teens’ silver-screen soirée is sincerely sub-par. I’m pretty convinced this is the exact reason the episodes are only around ten minutes apiece. The best things on display are by far the music and, appropriately, MC Pee Pants. MC Chris is a legend, now and forever. Just grab the soundtrack and call it a day, as this rivals the video game as the most disappointing thing related to the franchise. Robots Everywhere is actually the bonus video included on the latter. At least they wrapped their shame into two neat little packages.

2 Cool For School(ly D) out of 5

Nutted by NEG.

Man with a Movie Camera (1929)

You don't need to study Shakespeare to be a writer. But you really ought to study Dziga Vertov and Sergei Eisenstein if you want to be a film editor because the two Russian filmmakers really, REALLY understood their craft!
MwaMC is Vertov's most famous and celebrated work. A simple viewing is like a masterclass in editing condensed into just 68 mins. It'll even teach you most of what you need to know about perspective, framing and composition, too.
It's an experimental documentary, so there's no story. It's a series of images captured in four Russian cities showing life as it happens. Contextually there's comparative and contrasting imagery placed close to each other but the meaning is never explicit, it's mutable, distinctly open to interpretation.
I don't have room to detail the groundbreaking techniques used, but many will be clear to see because while it comments on life it also comments on itself.

5 tricksy tripods out of 5

NOTE: Because it's a silent film you'll probably want to find a version with a musical score. I recommend Michael Nyman's. It adds an urgency to Vertov's pure art. I'm not exaggerating when I say it elevates it to the Nth degree.

CARNAGE PARK [2016]

In his ode to 70's survival horror films, director Mickey Keating attempts to emulate Quentin Tarantino's vibe in Carnage Park.
Ashley Bell is great as a woman who starts her shitty day as a hostage to a couple of bumbling bank robbers which leads to her being hunted down by a crazed ex-sniper in the middle of the California desert.
It starts out as your standard Tarantino rip-off, minus the snappy dialogue, with a crime gone horribly wrong but slowly transforms into a pretty disorienting horrific thriller that reeks of The Hills Have Eyes and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  Originality or unique characters is not it's strong suit but suspense and unsettling atmosphere is where it excels.

3 warped vinyl out of 5

SUNA NO ONNA [1964]

aka Woman in the Dunes

Director Hiroshi Teshigahara's 2nd social issues/mystery collaboration with Kōbō Abe is based on the writer's own novel Suna no onna.

It's the story of an upper class man trapped in the quarry of an underprivileged village, where he's forced into a Sisyphean job of shoveling ever-falling sand, with a woman whom he doesn't know, in order to keep their lives from buried beneath the dunes.
There's a strong sexual under-currant but it's never really played for pleasure and instead comes off with a deeply unsettling pathos that reminded me of David Lynch's use of sexuality.  It's fairly quiet, slow-burning tale that rewards should you have the patience and curiosity in exploring numerous unanswered questions hidden within the grains of sand.  It's eerie music, desolate atmosphere and haunted performances make for one helluva a hypnotizing experience that won't soon leave you.  

4 pinned insects out of 5

INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE [2016]

20 years later, FX-driven director Roland Emmerich returns to his popcorn sci-fi blockbuster ID4-verse with Resurgence.
After developing their own technology based off the weapons found within the alien wreckage from the first invasion, Earth must defend itself again from an extraterrestrial invasion only this time without Will Smith.
While it might be a welcome breath of fresh air compared to all the gloomy cynicism of today's sci-fi films, the brainlessness leaves way too much to be desired.  This time around the multiple mini-plots revolving around it's ensemble cast doesn't quite flow as smoothly as the first and instead is a jumble of mismatched moments of "sentimental" mush.  It delivers quite nicely when the destruction begins but after 45 minutes or so you begin wondering "is this it?" and it keeps your mind hostage from wandering away with it's offensively loud noise.

2 doomed landmarks out of 5

THE MERMAID [2016]

Kung Fu Hustle director Stephen Chow gives The Little Mermaid fairytale a modern twist in his goofy oddball fantasy The Mermaid.
A mermaid is sent to land to assassinate a business tycoon that threatens to destroy the merpeople's home with environmental destroying technology.
Like Chow's previous works, the film is filled with ridiculously strange humor and makes bizarre use of slapstick mixed in with a care-free sense of warmth and heart.  Don't be fooled because it isn't afraid to get disturbingly violent when it needs to, so it's not exactly for the young ones.  Unfortunately the humor is occasionally bogged down by the save-the-environment message it constantly bashes you over the head with.  Still, it's a uniquely fresh take on the fantastical comedies that don't come around quite enough.

3½ mer-dicks out of 5

TRANSFORMERS [2007]

Huge explosions director Michael Bay aims for the hearts of 12-year old boys everywhere with the big-screen live-action adaptation of beloved '80's Hasbro toy line Transformers.
In the first installment of the film series, Earth becomes the battlefront for two giant robotic races known as the Autobots and the Decepticons.
There's a decently thematic Spielbergian story here that gets trampled all over with Bay's love of the military, juvenile bullyish jokes and shiny things that go boom.  There's supposed to be a lot of emotion in this story but it's hard to feel anything when clearly Bay knows how to speak better from his fists than from his heart.  Still keeping it somewhat simple, compared to the stupidly cluttered films that come after it, this one manages to muster up some mindless excitement and wide-eyed special effects thrills that scrapes the bottom of the guilty pleasures barrel.

2½ spectacles out of 5

SHUTTER [2004]

Thai film-makers  Banjong Pisanthanakun & Parkpoom Wongpoom hop onto the popular Asian horror movie "sub-genre" of vengeful scary long-haired ghost girls in the spooky slow-burn thriller Shutter.
After a fatal hit-and-run accident, a young couple begins seeing ghostly images in all their photographs and the wiggins ensue.
It examines the rarely explored topic of spirit photography and it's authenticity but that's about all that really generates any sort of lasting interest.  The film wears it's influences on it's sleeves and makes no attempt to really separate itself from them either, so much that the story, atmosphere, actions and scares are all predictably tiresome.  Fortunately the strong acting and steady pacing help it move along to the final 10 minutes that payoff quite nicely compared to the rest of this snoozefest.  

2 empty rolls of toilet paper out of 5

The Black Dahlia (2006)

Like The Untouchables (1987), Black Dahlia has a few exceptionally good scenes strategically placed within a historically interesting background that nevertheless feels overwhelmingly empty and lifeless.
Josh Hartnett is okay in the lead role, but a De Palma film needs a protagonist more than just 'okay' if he or she is to hold their own and not be swallowed up by the director's self-interests. The only two characters that manage to do just that are the murdered Dahlia (Mia Kirshner – amazing!) and the actual murderer (whom I can't praise directly because it would be spoiler).
It was reportedly three hours long cut down to a more palatable two, but while the pacing may have been improved if the additional footage was put back it's unlikely the overall feeling of boredom would've changed much.

2½ veneers out of 5