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FilmCatcher5
FilmCatcher 5: Each week, one of our curators chooses five films we can’t stop obsessing about. ...
Multiplex: The UnbornExorcism, body horror, vampirism, ghosts, a creepy kid, monstrous transformations, and a lip-smackingly luscious Last Girl (Odette Yustman). What doesn’t this horror flick harbor in its sickeningly derivative, shit-your-pants approach to titillating teen thrill seekers? Mummies? A feral leprechaun? Well, originality is not Michael “Armageddon” Bay’s strong suit: he’s already ... read morePosted on 01/05/2009 by FilmCatcher5 
Arthouse: Silent LightMexican filmmaker Carlos Reygadas may be unknown in his home country, but he established a built-to-last reputation on the festival circuit with Japón and the provocative Battle in Heaven. His latest, set in a Mennonite farming community in Chihuahua, Mexico, concerns an extramarital love affair that has divine implications. Nodding ... read morePosted on 01/05/2009 by FilmCatcher5 
DVD: Blind MountainChina has its ravishing costume epics and high-flying martial-arts ballets courtesy of Fifth Generation artists like Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige, whose epic pictures are tailor-made for middlebrow Western tastes. But if you want to know what China (or at least the rural provinces) look and feel like in the ... read morePosted on 01/05/2009 by FilmCatcher5 
Online: The Discipline of DE a/k/a Do EasyGus Van Sant’s short-film adaptation of this dryly hilarious how-to text by Naked Lunch novelist William S. Burroughs (“DE simply means doing whatever you do in the easiest, most relaxed way you can manage”) is, to put it in the easiest, most relaxed way we can manage, a hoot. Taking ... read morePosted on 01/05/2009 by FilmCatcher5 
TV: Key LargoFor this hypercanonical and somehow ageless thriller, John Huston and screenwriter Richard Brooks teamed up to adapt Maxwell Anderson’s Broadway play about a World War II veteran (Humphrey Bogart) holed up with edgy, trigger-happy gangsters at a dilapidated resort as a bad storm approaches. The Bogie-Bacall magic is part of ... read more Posted on 01/05/2009 by FilmCatcher5 
Multiplex: The SpiritMovies (and specifically the film-noir genre) have done wonders for the career of geeky comic-book artist turned Sin City director Frank Miller. But what has Miller given back to the cinema? RoboCop 3? Zack Snyder’s 300? We suppose, as penance for critics’ mixed reception of The Dark Knight, that Harry ... read morePosted on 12/29/2008 by FilmCatcher5 
Arthouse: Theater of WarIf you don’t know squat about brainy Weimar playwright Bertolt Brecht, political engage and theorist of audience alienation, then consider this behind-the-scenes doc a lively primer, with Meryl Streep in performative-instructor mode. Mother Courage is one of Brecht’s most famous works, and a lot more complex than it appears at ... read morePosted on 12/29/2008 by FilmCatcher5 
DVD: Woman on the BeachHow does this plot strike you: A manipulative film director vacationing at a beach resort meets two women, each of whom unlocks in him some disquieting self-revelations, which of course become raw material for his script-in-progress about miracles and “the soul.” Hong Sang-soo’s intriguing study of male hostility, aggression, and ... read morePosted on 12/29/2008 by FilmCatcher5 
Online: WaspFor a short film, Andrea Arnold’s Oscar-winning Wasp packs quite a wallop. Nathalie Press is riveting as Zoe, a chronically stressed, emotionally desperate single mother of five living in abject poverty in a Dartford, England housing project. The film’s tense, harried energy contributed much to Arnold’s equally great follow-up, Red ... read morePosted on 12/29/2008 by FilmCatcher5 
TV: The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. TWritten and set-designed by the beloved author of Green Eggs and Ham, who also wrote lyrics for some of the film’s outré, oh-so-Seussy songs, this oddball live-action fairy tale concerns Bart, a boy who dreams he’s trapped in a nightmare world and forced by the evil Dr. T to play ... read more Posted on 12/29/2008 by FilmCatcher5 |
