Film Reviews

The third day marked fewer people in animal costumes (at least at first), and a few more attendees pacing their steps with hungover deliberation. Day three consisted of animation, a VHS autobiography, a dramedy about God’s defiant daughter, and a cathartic study of the confines of civilization. Here’s how the movies in day three stacked […]

The second day of the world’s largest genre film fest, brought with it a longer schedule and an increasingly varied choice of events to Austin, including some held off-campus, away from the festival’s bustling headquarters. It was filled with subtitles, man-children, intergalactic beings bent on the destruction of our planet, gallery exhibits, and one incredibly […]

[rating=7.00] From the mind that brought us The Holiday, Li-Lo’s The Parent Trap, The Father of the Bride series, Private Benjamin, and Baby Boom comes another impossibly adorable film dedicated to the lives of affluent white people. Nancy Meyers has created a world in which lovely, almost magical events are not only possible, but commonplace. […]

It was a day filled with genre-film fun and lots of Christmas cheer (no, really) at the kickoff day for Fantastic Fest 2015. People from all over the world crowded together in and around the theater’s lobby to wait out the collective interims between everyone’s own personal viewing marathon. Day one’s marathon, for me, consisted […]

Austin and festivals go hand in hand. Each spring, the eyes of the world turn to the Texas capitol in search of the next big thing as SXSW takes over downtown. Music is, of course, never in short supply in Austin, but in recent years movies have gained a higher predominance in this bustling college […]

The Emmy’s is sort of like that dweeby cousin you hated spending time with as a kid. You couldn’t talk to them about anything because they immediately run home and tell your aunt everything. You couldn’t play too hard because they were afraid of the sun and too much fun led to an anxiety attack. […]

[rating=7.00] The allure of Mount Everest is almost mythical. The world’s tallest mountain has captivated explorers and thrill seekers for time immemorial with its elusive summit, first reached in 1953 by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. Its awe is matched only by its treachery, with over 250 deaths attributed to the beast; most recently, in […]

[rating=6.00] The story of James “Whitey” Bulger is one of the more fascinating true crime tales of the last forty or so years. As a low level, South Boston, Irish mobster, Bulger gained a notoriety for ruthless violence, cunning strategy, and illicit money making in his rapid ascent as the head of Boston’s Winter Hill […]

[rating=6.00] M. Night Shyamalan is in desperate need of a hit. Despite coming out of the gate strong with a trio of unforgettable films—The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and Signs—the director has floundered in recent years with one lackluster film after another, becoming a pale imitation of himself and losing some ground in the process. He’s […]

[rating=4.00] It was only a matter of time before someone attempted to make a grand cinematic statement about the wants and desires of millennials. Their ubiquity in pop culture and media makes them ripe for catering to—they are, after all, a significant and not-to-be overlooked demographic, and every generation needs that one defining film that […]

[rating=9.00] Despite its saccharine sounding name, Diary of a Teenage Girl is a film that will challenge audiences with its no holds barred depiction of teenage lust and infatuation. I imagine that reactions will be mixed pretty evenly into two camps: Those who are compelled by the unflinching look inside the mind of a fifteen […]

[rating=8.00] Writer-director Noah Baumbach has made his name on the backs of quirky characters and their foibles. Greenberg, The Squid and the Whale, and Frances Ha are all, at their hearts, character studies that explore the realities of the dreamers and wishers. It’s his wheelhouse, frankly, and he has become a modern master of zany […]

[rating=5.00] No Escape is the sort of mindless fodder that somehow works best in these late summer months. Perhaps it has something to do with the brain-frying effects of spending several months staring at screens witnessing round after round of city crumbling, earth shattering, mind numbing action that so entrenches itself in mid-year box offices. […]

[rating=7.00] First the bad. American Ultra is, quite possibly, about as dumb a movie as you can see. It’s a genre mashup that offers nothing new for either of its genres, taking stock stoner characters and putting them into stock superspy situations. Nothing you see here is anything you haven’t seen before in a hundred […]

[rating=5.00] The Man from U.N.C.L.E. had the potential to be a lot of things. Crime noir, a period piece, even a solidly cheesy remake of the television show the film was based on. Instead, U.N.C.L.E. reached for all and lost itself in the fold. An early Bond throwback, and spy thriller, this Guy Ritchie directed […]

[rating=8.00] N.W.A. hit the world like an atom bomb, exposing a side of life that existed unseen by the majority. Safe in suburban enclaves, much of America reacted to their debut record, Straight Outta Compton, with revulsion—its gritty depictions of life as a young, black male in California were too much for many to bear. […]

[rating=9.00] The following is a facsimile of the existential freak out had by our critic after screening The End of the Tour. What the fuck am I even doing with my life? I don’t even know anymore. I had goals once, man. I had dreams. I was going to take shit over, hit the world […]

[rating=2.00] Watching Irrational Man can be best described as watching a bunch of WASPs doing and saying a bunch of WASPy things amidst a sea of head-up-your-ass intellectualism that’s every bit as tedious and shallow as a conversation in an all-night coffee shop with an undergrad who’s taking introduction to philosophy. It’s a peek behind […]

[rating=1.00] To call Fantastic Four a monumental piece of shit would be to give it too much credit. For better or for worse, a piece of shit (monumental or otherwise) is something tangible. You could, if you so desired, hold it in your hands and it is the result of a lot of hard work […]

[rating=9.00] Typically, the longer a movie franchise goes the worse the series gets. I think this accounts for the rise of the trilogy as a cultural powerhouse over the last decade. Somewhere along the line, the studios figured out that the law of diminishing returns tends to kick in around entry number four as that’s […]