Cloverfield
Film review by: Witney Seibold
From Matt Reeves, the director of the David Schwimmer vehicle “The Pallbearer,” comes the most thrilling kaiju film since… well, actually I think I can safely say this is the best American kaiju film ever made. (more…)
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Film review by: Witney Seibold
Vicky (Rebecca Hall) is pragmatic, engaged to be married, not given to flights of romantic fancy. Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) is passionate, has a short attention span, and can only feel romance if it’s borne of drama and impulse. (more…)
The Midnight Meat Train
Film review by: Witney Seibold
These days, it’s rare to see a horror film in American theaters that isn’t a remake, either of a mildly popular American film or an obscure J-horror hit, so the appearance of “The Midnight Meat Train” is something of an event. (more…)
Film article by: Witney Seibold
I had a lot of nightmares as a kid. My dad tells me a story of when I was not yet three years old, how I would wail in the middle of the night that beasts and monsters were slithering around under my bedcovers with me. (more…)
Frozen River
Film review by: Witney Seibold
One of the first shots in “Frozen River” is an extreme close-up of Melissa Leo’s face. There seems to be an eternity of hurt etched into every unwanted wrinkle. (more…)
Crash (2005)
Film review by: Witney Seibold
The story goes that writer/director Paul Haggis (of Million Dollar Baby recent fame) was carjacked by two young black men, and, in response to his feelings of violation and outrage, as well as a startling streak of racism he never thought he had, he wrote the screenplay to Crash (No relation to the Cronenberg film of the same name, although this film would have been a lot more fun had there been more car wreck eroticism). (more…)
When a Stranger Calls (2006)
Film review by: Witney Seibold
Dangit, stop remaking horror films! (more…)
Night Watch
Film review by: Witney Seibold
So the film is a bit confusing. And the David Fincher-inspired photography is dizzying (do we really need pans through a truck’s innards, indicating exactly which parts are igniting?). And it does have the same kind of alienating teen fanboy overenthusiasm akin to genre flicks like Underworld and Constantine that chooses special effects over common story semblance. But Timor Bekmambetov’s Night Watch, the first post-Soviet Russian supernatural action thriller I can think of (and the first part of a proposed trilogy), is actually kind of fun. (more…)
The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things
Film review by: Witney Seibold
Author J.T. Leroy had a terrible childhood. His life as a young prostitute, he explains, was caused by an unhealthy bond with his mother, a prostitute herself, a drug addict, an abuser, a transient. He was forced, he claims, by drugs, a bad example, and not a little bit of madness into a hurtful life which he was convinced was a comfort. Oh, By the way, J.T. Leroy, it has recently been revealed, does not exist. (more…)
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