While trying to chase both sentimentality and laughs, Ken Marino’s ensemble canine comedy ends up barking up the wrong tree. This piece was originally posted on Alcohollywood If you knew Ken Marino from his roles in cult comedy TV shows and movies (The State, Wet Hot American Summer, Party Down), you might go into his ... Ken Marino’s Canine Comedy Dog Days is Ruff Around the Edges
Jim McKay’s tale of the plight of undocumented workers in America is soulful, sensitive, and a potent rebuke to modern rhetoric about the humanity of immigrants. This piece was originally published on Alcohollywood It’s easy to demonize an entire group of people when you know nothing about them. Murderers, rapists, thieves, and drug-dealing gangsters are ... En el Séptimo Día Is a Naturalistic, Humanistic View of the Immigrant Experience
Kirby Dick’s documentary on the evils of the medical device industry is a shocking call to action, stressing the need for regulation in a field that endangers people’s lives. This piece was originally posted on Alcohollywood I finished watching Kirby Dick’s newest documentary The Bleeding Edge about nine hours ago. Following the film I was ... The Bleeding Edge Is a Rage-Inducing Exposé on the Medical Device Industry
Blumhouse’s latest thriller is tense and deceptively clever, but undoes its thrills with no shortage of irritating fakeouts. This piece was originally posted on Alcohollywood Trauma appears to be the monster in Sonny Mallhi’s Hurt, but things aren’t exactly as they seem. While the Blumhouse-produced thriller maintains an almost uncomfortable sense of tension, it suffers ... Fantasia 2018: Hurt Is Blumhouse’s Latest, Spookiest, Most Uneven Scare-Fest
Andy Milton’s atmospheric haunted house film is inscrutably scary and beautifully lit, balancing bone-chilling existential horror with compelling domestic drama. This piece was originally posted on Alcohollywood Here it is, 2018’s version of The Witch and It Follows, a horror movie in which half its audience will appreciate its slow, moody burn, and the other ... Fantasia 2018: The Witch in the Window Scares Without a Drop of Blood
The web-footage sequel to the first Unfriended sees the series move in more believably conventional directions, eschewing supernatural scares for more haunting domestic terrors. This piece was originally posted on Alcohollywood We live in an age of overwhelming technology. Most of us spend most of day in the digital world, our computers becoming individual microcosms ... Unfriended: Dark Web Elevates Its Premise to Scarier Screen-Based Dimensions
Justin McConnell’s lean, fascinating horror-drama blends an intriguing structure with some novel investigation into the psychology of its shape-shifting horror monster. This piece was originally posted on Alcohollywood There’s stalking, and then there’s what the narrator of Lifechanger does. Canadian horror-drama from writer-director Justin McConnell, it jumps right into the action right away, with Drew, ... Fantasia 2018: Lifechanger is a Bleak & Eerie Story About Identity & Never Letting Go
The writer/director of Fantasia-debuting horror film Lifechanger talks about the origins of the project and getting into the mind of his film’s main monster. This piece was originally posted on Alcohollywood Lifechanger is a sneakier, more fascinating thriller than it might seem at first glance – the tale of a man doomed to feed off and ... Fantasia 2018: Lifechanger’s Justin McConnell on Shape-Shifting, Memory and Toxicity
Lisa Brühlmann’s Swiss coming-of-age mermaid tale is admirably shot and performed, but inadvertently hews too closely to similar teen-horror dramas of recent years. This piece was originally posted on Alcohollywood It’s almost a shame that Lisa Brühlmann’s Blue My Mind came out so close on the heels of Julia Ducournau’s Raw. One of the freshest, ... Fantasia 2018: Blue My Mind Is a Different Kind of Mermaid Story
A loose remake/prequel to the 1980 film of the same name, Satan’s Slave is a chilling story of how the sins of our parents haunt us in the present from director Joko Anwar. This piece was originally posted on Alcohollywood A grief-stricken family comes face-to-face with the aftermath of their recently deceased mother’s deal with ... Fantasia 2018: Satan’s Slave Review – Ghosts, Zombies and Sex Cults, OH MY!
Superbly acted and beautifully shot, Neomanila is a morally ambiguous tale about what we do to survive and crimes we commit for the ones we love. This piece was originally posted at Alcohollywood Set against the backdrop of President Duterte’s war on drugs in the Philippines, Neomanila is a grim and gritty tale of family ... Fantasia 2018: Mikhail Red Explores Violence, Morality and Family in Neomanila
Despite a charismatic performance by Vincent Cassel, this meditative biopic of the French painter fails to match the vibrancy of the artist’s work. This piece was originally posted on Alcohollywood Often, in biographical films, we are given glimpses of the subject’s genius, while supporting characters wait on deck to expound on the profundity of his ... Gauguin: Voyage to Tahiti is a Meditative Portrait of Depression and Obsession
Hausu’s Nobuhiko Obayashi starts wrapping up his 60-year career in filmmaking with a deeply weird, compellingly stream-of-consciousness wartime drama. This piece was originally posted on Alcohollywood Nobuhiko Obayashi is one of Japan’s veteran suppliers of the weird and fantastical – despite a career spanning nearly forty films, his most famous international export is 1977’s kaleidoscopic, ... Fantasia 2018: Hanagatami Review – The Director of Hausu Confuses and Delights in His Final Epic
While the Rock maintains his larger-than-life presence, this taller Die Hard knockoff buckles under the weight of its sizeable lack of humor. This piece was originally posted on Alcohollywood Ever since my childhood days of watching professional wrestling, I’ve wanted Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson to succeed. Whether it was in the ring (where he would ... Skyscraper Review: The Rock Cooks Up Another Underdone Summer Thriller
Showcasing her career from punk provocateur to a mainstay of English culture, Westwood is a love letter to one of fashion’s most iconic personalities This piece was originally posted on Alcohollywood Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist details the creative passions of Vivienne Westwood, the English designer who helped catapult London’s punk aesthetic into the mainstream. While ... Review: Westwood Provides a Compelling Portrait of the Godmother of Punk
The third entry in Sony Pictures’ kids’ films about animated monsters is fun, flighty and surprisingly layered, with solid jokes and a heartwarming message. This piece was originally posted on Alcohollywood I was more than a little ambivalent about the third installment of the Hotel Transylvania series. While I enjoy the franchise, and thought the ... Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation Review: Fun in the Spooky Sun
This piece was originally posted on Alcohollywood (This review and interview originally ran as part of On Tap’s previous run as its own separate feed. We’re re-running it here in conjunction with All the Queen’s Horses’ release on Netflix.) This week for our On Tap minisode, Clint discusses the new indie doc from Kartemquin, All the ... All the Queens Horses Interview: Kelly Richmond Pope on Rita Crundwell and Documentary as Education
This piece was originally posted on Alcohollywood If you want festivals full of soulful contemplation of the human condition, and solemn documentaries about Serious Issues, Cannes and Sundance have you covered. Want to see blood, gore, sleaze, and Nicolas Cage getting in a chainsaw fight? You go to Fantasia. Fantasia is a genre film festival ... Four Crazy Horror Flicks We Want to See at Fantasia
Boots Riley’s wild feature film debut throws racial politics, consumerism, and magical realism in a blender, making for a comedy that’s as unpredictable as it is hilarious. This piece was originally posted on Alcohollywood Capitalism is a hell of a drug – it lulls you in with the promise of wealth and success, and all ... Sorry to Bother You Review: Boots Riley Takes On Consumerism, Race in Scorchingly Funny Debut
We interview queersploitation provacateur Bruce LaBruce about queer cinema, working on a low budget, and his latest feminist satire The Misandrists. This piece was originally posted on Alcohollywood Arthouse queer enfant terrible Bruce LaBruce has crafted an interesting career as an underground director of gory, sexy, splatter-ific screeds on radical topics like terrorism, feminism, and gay ... INTERVIEW: Bruce LaBruce on The Misandrists, Pornography and Feminist Brain-Swapping
Bruce LaBruce’s reputation as a bad-taste provocateur gleefully continues with this campy exercise in sex, sleaze, and political satire. This piece was originally published on Alcohollywood A transgressive artist’s main job should be to make people uncomfortable, and director Bruce LaBruce does his job very well. For over thirty years, LaBruce has been mixing art ... The Misandrists Review: Bawdy, Transgressive Satire from Bruce LaBruce