Directed by: J. J. Abrams
Written by: Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof
Featuring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Benedict Cumberbatch, Alice Eve, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Bruce Greenwood, Peter Weller
Star Trek: Into Darkness might just be the perfect summer blockbuster. (Yes, I know it's still spring, but my thesis stands.) It's big, it's loud, it's well crafted, it's immensely entertaining and quite clever (or, more important, feels clever in the moment). What else could you want from a major Hollywood popcorn flick?
It's a good day for comedy, because we now have a trailer for The World's End, the new film from director Edgar Wright.
Directed by: Justin McConnell
Featuring: Greg Sommer, Jason Pluscec, Shane Patterson
Justin McConnell's new documentary, Skull World, focuses on the fun but eclectic Greg Sommer and his alter ego Skull Man's Box Wars cardboard-based combat league.
It's going to be hotter than usual in Houston, Texas, this Memorial Day weekend. Comicpalooza is back, and thanks to a new partnership with Battlestar Galactica fest GalactiCon, it's bigger and better than ever.
Directed by: Ivan Zuccon
Written by: Gerardo Di Filippo
Featuring: Debbie Rochon, Tiffany Shepis, Tara Cardinal, Domiziano Arcangeli, Suzi Lorraine
From the trailers, I expected Wrath of the Crows to be in the vein of the classic Italian exploitation films, and in a way it is, with a generous amount of extreme gore and a scream queen in fetish gear throughout the film. But what I wasn't expecting to see was a very personal, metaphysical exploration of life after death told through heavy symbolism.
Directed and written by: Éric Falardeau
Featuring: Kayden Rose, Émile Beaudry, Eryka Cantieri, Roch-Denis Gagnon
Directed by: Shane Black
Written by: Drew Pearce, Shane Black
Featuring: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Guy Pearce, Ben Kingsley, Don Cheadle, Jon Favreau
On the sliding scale of big Hollywood blockbusters, you could put the Transformers films at one end of the spectrum and the Dark Knight films on the opposite end. One franchise is big, dumb plastic eye candy, where the plot is nothing more than a way to trigger the FX setpieces. The other is a thought-provoking, highly artistic set of films disguised as popcorn movies. The Iron Man movies fall somewhere between those extremes and tend to slide up and down the scale depending on which film in the series you are talking about. Sadly, the latest entry, Iron Man 3, slides a little down the wrong side of the scale.
Steven Kostanski is part of the brilliant collective that makes up the Canadian production company Astron-6. Their warped indie feature, Father’s Day, was released last year to great fanfare and quickly garnered a devoted fan base for the company. Their newest subversive release, Manborg, a celebration of '80s sci-fi exploitation, was released this week on DVD. Recently, writer/director Kostanski spoke with Planet Fury about his first solo foray into feature film directing.
This is my second year in a row reviewing The TCM Classic Film Festival, which is quickly becoming one of the largest, most important, and most fun fests in Los Angeles. Like last year, I ran from screening to screening, giddy with excitement and wired from the constant stream of images.
Directed by: Steven Kostanski
Written by: Jeremy Gillespie, Steven Kostanski
Starring: Matthew Kennedy, Adam Brooks, Meredith Sweeney, Connor Sweeney, Ludwig Lee, Jeremy Gillespie
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