Bunraku
Film review by: Witney Seibold
Bunraku is a centuries-old form of Japanese puppet theater, that employs all kinds of puppets, wherein the characters are all typically ancient archetypes of Japanese folklore. It shares its roots with Kabuki, as the performances are all highly affected, and the stories are all familiar ancient tales.
Bellflower
Film review by: Witney Seibold
Woodrow (Evan Glodell) and Aiden (Tyler Dawson) have a dream. In the near future, when the world runs out of oil and begins to resemble the desert wasteland of their favorite movie, “Mad Max,” they want to be the first badasses on the scene in the first muscle car, to lead the first future gang of misfits to flame-crackling, muscle-car glory. To that end, they spend much of their time souping up their cars to be extra fast and noisy, giving them loving nicknames, and installing whiskey spigots in the dashboard. They are also building a homemade flamethrower. ‘Cause, y’know, flamethrowers are way badass. (more…)
The Beaver
Film review by: Witney Seibold
Mel Gibson‘s recent extracurricular activities should not diminish the fact that he remains a fine and charming performer. In Jodie Foster‘s “The Beaver,” he plays a damaged man, who manages to relate to people anew by charming them with a goofy-looking hand puppet. Gibson is such a strong performer that we actually see the affable and gregarious man underneath all the damage. Indeed, it’s our outside knowledge of the equally damaged Gibson that lends a lot of necessary oomph to his performance. (more…)
Bazaar Bizarre
Film review by: Witney Seibold
Benjamin Meade’s “Bazaare Bizarre” is a documentary film about the Missouri serial killer Bob Berdella, who kidnapped, raped, and murdered anywhere from six to 48 young men in the mid-to-late 1980s. (more…)
Black Death
Film review by: Witney Seibold
In its look, Christopher Smith‘s film “Black Death,” set in the early 15th century, and following a group of hard-ass knights on a quest to rid the world of witchcraft, looks like another dull action-laden period piece in the line of equally dull features like “300” and “Centurion” and “King Arthur;” that is: the action scenes are cut so quickly and shot so haphazardly that you can’t really tell what’s going on in the film for long stretches. (more…)
Biutiful
Film review by: Witney Seibold
Several things are going on in “Biutiful,” and they’re all turgid, dank, dull, and insufferably melodramatic. It’s baffling to me as to why Mexican director Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu has been so copiously lauded for his string of dully-shot, heavy-handed “message” pictures. (more…)
Black Swan
Film review by: Witney Seibold
Darren Aronofsky‘s “Black Swan” is like getting a soothing massage while a demon breathes directly into your face. (more…)
Big Money Rustlas
Film review by: Witney Seibold
The Insane Clown Posse is a baffling phenomenon. Based out of Detroit, they are a horrorcore rap group of white men who wear garish, frightening clown makeup, espouse the typical gangsta criminal lifestyle (often singing about rape and murder), and, as was recently revealed, are vitriolically anti-intellectual, and even claim to be Pentecostal Christians posing as popular entertainment. (more…)
Perfectly Ordinary Americans
A Film Essay by: Witney Seibold
“We wish to express our gratitude to the enemies of crime and crusaders against crime throughout the world for their inspirational example. To them, and to lovers of adventure, lovers of pure escapism, lovers of unadulterated entertainment, lovers of the ridiculous and the bizarre — to funlovers everywhere — this picture is respectfully dedicated. If we have overlooked any sizable groups of lovers, we apologize.
-The Producers”
-The dedication from “Batman.” (more…)
Best Worst Movie
Film review by: Witney Seibold
In 1989, an Italian film director named Claudio Fragasso (“House 5,” “Zombi 3”) went to Utah to film “Goblin,” a horror film he wrote with his wife Rosella Drudi. (more…)
