Review – Independence Day: Resurgence (2016)

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by Armando Vanegas

Independence Day: Resurgence continues 20 years since the events of the first movie and the Americans have been using alien technology to defend the world from aliens and the whole world has achieved world peace as a means to work together to avoid any future attacks on Earth. It turns out that the aliens are about to make another attack on Earth. Things seem to be going okay until signs of another attack begin to appear and it’s up to Bill Pullman’s former US President Whitmore, who’s been left traumatized by the aliens and Jeff Goldblum’s David Levinson, who’s now serving as an advisor as he investigates the recent signs appearing around the world.

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Review – The Man Who Was Thursday (2016)

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by Old King Clancy

Hearing that a film is based on an existential novel that’s over 100 years old, you should expect some level of confusion and indeed controversy. That’s what The Man Who Was Thursday delivers: it’s a film that examines themes of religion, anarchy, faith, dictatorships and metaphysical consequence and never allows its audience to get too comfortable with what is really going on. It’s a challenging piece and no doubt some of the elements will be controversial, but there’s still something interesting here that’s worth trying to crack open.

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Review – Hunt For the Wilderpeople (2016)

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by Old King Clancy

New Zealand director Taika Waititi has been around for a few years, but it wasn’t until his breakout What We Do In The Shadows that his name become recognizable. While I’m not a huge fan of Shadows, Waititi did do good work with the material. Recently Waititi was named as the director for the upcoming Thor: Ragnarok; an odd choice, perhaps, but there was word that it was Waititi’s work on his upcoming Hunt for The Wilderpeople that put Marvel’s faith in him. And having now seen it, there’s no doubt why. Not only is Wilderpeople a great double-act comedy, it’s also perhaps the best family film of the year.

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Review – A Patch of Fog (2016)

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by Old King Clancy

One of the most difficult things about festival viewings is that in today’s society of social media and the ease of throwing out an opinion on everything, you’re sometimes among the first people to actually see a film. With little to no prior thoughts on the film out there you have to choose your interest carefully. I bring this up because it was the central cast that brought A Patch Of Fog, the feature debut of Michael Lennox, to my attention. With Conleth Hill (Varys on Game Of Thrones) and Stephen Graham (Capone on Boardwalk Empire and more importantly, Combo from This Is England), the film plays into this modern day obsessive thriller. The result is a very successful piece, but one that falters a bit when trying to decide how far into the fog it wants to go.

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Review – The Neon Demon

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by Kevin Muller

The simplistic story of a young girl finding fame, fortune, and independence, while losing her innocence, is as old as time itself. Even before movies visualized it, the story was told as a cautionary tale for the young. How do you sell it in a new way that hasn’t been done to death? Well, Nicolas Winding Refn has done it with his new movie “The Neon Demon” and it is one hell of a mind trip. 

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Classic Review: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

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by Armando Vanegas

I don’t think I ever stopped loving Ferris Bueller’s Day Off in all my time on this earth and if I ever change my pick for my all-time favorite movie, please have me checked out at the nearest hospital because my body was most likely taken over by a body snatcher. I admit there was maybe a short window of time where a part of me that wondered if it wasn’t just nostalgia masking what I might have really felt as there was a lengthy amount of time between viewings then. But the truth is as I got older and I finally revisited it, I still had the same amount of fun that I had growing up with it. It’s still as exciting and exuberant as it was the first time. You guys, this movie holds up a lot on repeat viewings.

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