Henry Hill returns to review the first episode of Jordan Peele’s The Twilight Zone titled ‘The Comedian’ starring Kumail Nanjiani and Tracy Morgan. You can now stream the show on CBS All Access.
#TheTwilightZone #TwilightZone #JordanPeele #TVReview
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Review – Rushmore (1998)
With Bottle Rocket being a critical hit, it only made sense for another studio like Touchstone Pictures to come calling and give Wes Anderson the skills to become the filmmaker that he is today. Due to its larger budget and higher profile, it’s no doubt that Rushmore is truly a Wes Anderson movie. I remember it being the movie that introduced me to Wes Anderson. Because of his unique style, no movie was like it at the time to me. Not to mention that it stood out from many other high school movies of its time such as Can’t Hardly Wait or American Pie. He knows how to use his style to create an immersive world that’s so meticulously detailed that he’s able to flesh out the characters and the story in a more convenient and subtle way than other filmmakers would probably do. Watching it now was somewhat unexpected. While I don’t think I can tout it as the masterpiece I once did, it was still an entertaining movie.
Review – Bottle Rocket (1996)
Sometimes, I get bored reviewing new movies so for some reason, I wanted to go through all the Wes Anderson movies in chronological order in the meantime. It’s just something that gives me a challenge to do and maybe there will be unexpected feelings and unique thoughts I never saw coming. So, without further delay, let’s begin with his 1996 debut, Bottle Rocket. I remember this being a movie that got a lot of play on Comedy Central back in the day and it was always the kind of movie that I never felt compelled to watch when it’s on. Honestly, I was never impressed with the bits I’d seen, but there were always interesting sequences that made the rest of the movie worth it. So, in subsequent years, I would watch bits and pieces because there was sometimes nothing to watch on cable. When I last watched this movie, I rated this movie rather highly back when I was more of a snob when it came to movies. But as anyone who has read my Phantom Thread review, I’ve decided to just to watch movies as their own individual self, judge them as their own thing no matter who’s involved in terms of the directors, the writers, or the actors. Watching this again was interesting. As a movie directed by someone who would be later become one of the most idiosyncratic and quirky filmmakers of our time, younger middle school me who watched this on cable was right. Outside of a few well directed sequences, it’s fine.
Review – High Flying Bird (2019)
Director Steven Soderbergh is nothing if not unconventional or unique. I may not always be crazy about the final product he might provide, but he’s at least playful with the medium. With High Flying Bird, he continues the trend of making unconventional choices by filming his second movie on an iPhone. It’s not an ideal choice, but I was willing to see what he was going to do with it. This unusual decision ends up working out in the end as it effectively fits with the narrative of the protagonist’s DIY plan to bring the game of basketball back to its players. High Flying Bird may not fully coalesce from a narrative standpoint, but the actors and the snappy screenplay by Moonlight writer Tarell Alvin McCraney help to make it a breezy watch.
Review – Fyre Fraud and Fyre: The Greatest Party that Never Happened (2019)
Recently, the world has gone Fyre Festival crazy due to the release of two documentaries on that very subject, courtesy of Netflix and Hulu. Because I want to write more reviews in the new year, I wanted to get out of my comfort zone and actually review a documentary (or in this case, two) for once and maybe more in the future. But I also wanted to write about these movies because this is a subject that speaks to me as a millennial and probably to many others like me. I mean, when I saw all those girls in bikinis and Ja Rule was going to be in this festival. I thought this is something I have to sell everything I own as this festival is going to be the thing that’s going to make our lives worth it, and nothing else will add up. Seriously, if I ever say those last few sentences genuinely, you’re legally allowed to give me a Stone Cold Stunner.
Review – Phantom Thread (2017)
The 90’s independent film boom was quite a ride as there were so many unique voices that would be hard to replicate. Not only that, a lot of these filmmakers and their works just carried so much swagger to them that you had to impressed by how confident they came across. Many of them seemed to stay with made them work, but Paul Thomas Anderson seems to always want to challenge himself in a way that sets him apart from the pack as he seems to have a tendency to get out of his comfort zone. While I wasn’t crazy about his last movie Inherent Vice, it was still one of those movies that you had to admire for its weirdness even if it doesn’t totally come together. This was in some ways a return to form for him in some ways even if this isn’t a movie I can say that I totally could embrace. When I first saw this in the theater earlier this year, I remember being really impressed by how well made it was, but that’s to be expected from Anderson. This is still apparent on a second viewing. It’s also different and unpredictable in some ways so it had that going for it in addition to excellent performances from Daniel-Day Lewis and Vicky Krieps.
Review – First Man (2018)
by Kevin Muller
From the halls of renowned musical school to the hills of Hollywood, Academy Award winning director, Damien Chazelle, who still is the youngest director to win the award, has a love affair with ambition and what it takes to be the best. Andrew, from Whiplash, and Mia and Sebastian, from La La Land, sacrificed their wants and needs in order to attain their dreams. This time, the stakes are a bit higher. This life or death mission to space shows the many lives lost from countless failures to one of America’s proudest moments. Does Chazelle pull it off?
Review – Macabre aka Rumah Dara (2009) **31 Days of Horror**
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Comes to Indonesia
by Nile Fortner
A young group of naïve kids pick up a hitchhiking stranger and their kindness will lead to suffering and gore. We’ve seen this horror formula again-and-again in films. The 2009 Indonesian horror film Macabre does follow this similar formula and the usual clichés. However, Macabre is worth sinking your teeth into and delivers on the cannibal carnage.
Summer of ’84 – Review & Interview with Graham Verchere
‘Summer of ’84’ Is a Splash of Brilliant B-Movie Nostalgia
by Nile Fortner
Even though I wasn’t born yet, I know that 1984 was a fantastic year that gave us classics that would later go on to become classic nostalgia. The year 1984 gave us a Schwarzenegger as a futuristic killing-machine cyborg hunting down anyone named Sarah Connor in The Terminator. The year 1984 also taught us that Gremlins can’t get wet, Molly Ringwald was the O.G. red-head babe before Jessica Chastain (sorry Jessica), and that counting after “five and six you better grab your crucifix” before a red-and-green striped sweater wearing serial killer haunts your dreams.
Review – Extinction (2018)
Netflix’s ‘Extinction’ is a Blend of B-Movie Galore and a Big Budget Blockbuster
by Nile Fortner
Extinction is a new Netflix original Sci-Fi thriller starring two actors who are fresh off some Marvel roles, Michael Pena from the latest Marvel Studios flick Ant-Man and the Wasp and Mike Colter who is fresh off season two of Luke Cage. The film also stars Lizzy Caplan (known for Now You See Me 2) and the film is directed by Hounds of Love director Ben Young.
Cinephellas 