Sinister 2 Movie Review & Film Summary (2. Supernatural domestic abuse drama .
Neither story is, independent of the other, particularly imaginative. But when seen as extensions of each other, both the film's demonic possession/ghost story main narrative and its tragic domestic drama subplot are eccentric enough to make you wish they were much better. Director Ciaran Foy (.
Robert Cargill take on more than most horror films do, but fail to bring anything novel or thoughtful to a story about the cyclical/inherited nature of victim/bully roles. Patch Town (2015) Streaming. The film's creators have the right ideas, in that sense, but no clue as to how to develop them, making the film's formulaic characterizations, and cheap jump scares that much more frustrating.
Haunted, unnamed former deputy sheriff (. The Catholic priest on the other end of Ransone's rant does the smart thing, and shoos Ransone's character away, indirectly leading Ransone's haunted ex- cop to try to save Bughuul's latest prospective victims: single mom Courtney (Shannyn Sossamon) and her two nine year- old sons, Dylan (Robert Daniel Sloan) and Zach (Dartanian Sloan). Courtney and her kids' story is easily the better half of .
A nerdy, technical novel becomes a nerdy, technical, gripping, funny movie in director Ridley Scott’s best work in ages. The story of an astronaut, played by a. Tangerine is a movie so vivid and real that you feel like you’re walking the streets of Los Angeles with its main characters. The film takes place on Christmas Eve.
Ransone's character cozies up to Courtney while Dylan and Zach, formerly a tightly- knit pair, become divided after Dylan starts making late- night visits to their new home's basement, where he and a group of kiddy ghosts watch snuff films starring the kids' families. Courtney has, in her haste to flee her abusive ex- husband Clint (Lea Coco), inadvertently settled herself and her two boys into an abandoned farmhouse haunted by Bughuul's victims. But when Dylan isn't reluctantly trying to rid himself of mysterious nightmares by watching his life- challenged friends' die in home- made super 8mm documantaries, he's fulfilling a role that not many children get to try out in horror films: pint- sized survivor. Here's the part of .
Dylan even explicitly blames Courtney for doing nothing to stop Clint. But for the most part, . Which is a shame since Bughuul doesn't seem like an extension, or a thoughtful compliment to Dylan and Zach and Courtney's familial struggles.
Bughuul, a fright- mask- and- tuxedo- wearing demon better known as . Itunes Movies For Ipod Angry Birds (2016). Then he abducts the kids he just tricked into becoming murderers. Advertisement. At first, that anti- familial impulse looks like an intriguing commentary on the nature of passively receiving vs. This is, as a stereotypically nervous egghead scientist explains to Ransone's character, an . For this reason, everything unimaginative and rote about the film feels like a personal affront. Scenes where Bughuul pops up everywhere—On a laptop monitor!
In a barnyard hallway! In a bedroom closet! In an old CB radio!—get tiresome fast since they're a superficial and monotonous way to jolt viewers out of their chairs. And gruesome, super- granulated scenes of violence, including images of families being burnt alive on crucifixes, and devoured by hungry rats, are graphic, but never really disturbing since they all suffer from Clive Barker- itis: tense, effective build- up leading to a juvenile and unimaginative climax. There are also several scenes where Ransone's character says something that's supposed to be funny, but the line he delivers feels more like a place- holder line that was never filled in with an actual joke, like when he rambles to the above- mentioned priest about never knowingly taking confession or any other kind of sacrament from the church. Likewise, Ransone's battery of facial tics, including pursed lips and furrowed brow, seem to be even more annoying since they appear to be compensating for his character's lack of definition.
But again, Ransone's performance isn't really terrible since the material he has to work with is victimizing him just as surely as Clint victimized his sons.
The 1. 0 Best Movies of 2. From space yarns to music epics to lesbian romances to dystopian adventures, these were my favorite movies of the year. Because it’s hard to stop at 1. I’ve added a few honorable mentions at the bottom. And hey, if the still unseen Star Wars: The Force Awakens proves as good as we all hope, maybe we’ll make that number 1. The Martian. Courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox. A nerdy, technical novel becomes a nerdy, technical, gripping, funny movie in director Ridley Scott’s best work in ages.
The story of an astronaut, played by a deeply likable Matt Damon, struggling to stay alive after he’s stranded on Mars, The Martian gleefully balances humor, science, and suspense with winning moxie. Drew Goddard’s witty, buoyant script keeps the action moving at an engaging clip, while the supporting cast—including Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jessica Chastain, Kate Mara, Sebastian Stan, and Jeff Daniels—grooves perfectly as one of the best ensembles of the year. The Martian also serves as a nice bit of stumping for the space program, reminding us what marvelous ingenuity smart, dedicated people are capable of when they work together. A pure cosmic delight.
Steve Jobs. Courtesy of Universal Pictures. There are two towering things working in concert in this beguiling triptych about Apple’s creative visionary: Aaron Sorkin’s whizzing, voluble script and Michael Fassbender’s dexterous, keenly realized lead performance. Director Danny Boyle adds dashes of corny sentiment here and there, but for the most part Steve Jobs is lean and propulsive, imagining the behind- the- scenes drama at three major points in Jobs’s life to create a fascinating portrait of a brilliant, tempestuous mind. With stellar supporting work from Kate Winslet, Michael Stuhlbarg, Jeff Daniels, and Seth Rogen,Steve Jobs is, like an Apple product, sleek and stylish and accessible. Here’s a good example of what could disrupt the staid biopic formula—a compelling, formalist character study that illuminates its subject’s inner workings instead of blandly running down a timeline of events. Recursive and lyrical, Steve Jobs plays like a crisp, elegant, surprising piece of music. Eden. Courtesy of TIFF/Films.
We. Like. Ostensibly a chronicle of the rises and falls of an aspiring French electronic dance music D. J. Creativity, ambition, passion, and the meander and rush of time are all depicted beautifully in Eden, a film that’s alternately joyous and wistful, hopeful and resigned. Not much happens in Eden, and yet everything happens, as our hero Paul (F. Paul hits rough spots as he grapples with failure and jealousy, but by the film’s affecting end, Eden has asserted itself as a humane, warmhearted paean to magical, possibility- filled youth, and the uncertain world that lies beyond it. The End of the Tour. Courtesy of the BFI London Film Festival.
Another film about creativity, James Ponsoldt’s gracious, empathetic recreation of journalist David Lipsky’s brief time on the road with celebrated novelist David Foster Wallace, in the winter of 1. The film, adapted masterfully from Lipsky’s compiled transcripts by Donald Margulies, finds Foster Wallace, thoroughly realized by Jason Segel in a career- best performance, inundated with obsessive praise following the publication of his seminal tome Infinite Jest, but more than a little wary of all this newfound fame and adoration. Lipsky, played with just the right amount of nervous itch by Jesse Eisenberg, is envious and intimidated, but the two eventually find an enriching rapport.
As they talk and talk and talk, mulling over the writing life and pop culture and artistic identity, The End of the Tour takes on a philosophical inquiry that proves genuinely nourishing. What does it mean to be a person who thinks and feels and observes? How do we come to value or prize one person’s experiences of the world over another’s?
Ponsoldt’s happy, aching film doesn’t answer these questions, but it doesn’t need to. It’s heartening enough to have them posed at all, no less in such wise, moving fashion. Tangerine. Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures. Shot entirely on i. Phones and starring two non- professional actresses plucked out of obscurity, Tangerine initially appears to be a nervy indie gimmick, more stunt than substantial film. But Sean Baker’s zippy, riotous comedy, about two trans sex workers’ misadventures one crazy Christmas Eve in Los Angeles, is the real deal, loaded with comic flair and laced with an arresting poignancy. The film’s stars, hyper Kitana Kiki Rodriguez and soulful Mya Taylor, are true finds, pulling us gamely along through their seedy/charming world of pimps, johns, donut shops, and laundromats.
Tangerine slows its high- heel trot at a few key moments to show us the inner yearnings, fears, and sadnesses of its varied cast of characters, creating a sense of true understanding, rather than rubbernecking voyeurism. It sets a pretty high bar for future movies about sex work, or trans issues, or the multi- culti liveliness of a city like Los Angeles. In that regard, the timing of Tangerine feels just right, a positive document for our sociopolitical era. But with its sharp humor and sincere good nature, it’s also timeless. Oh, and it has one of the loveliest, sweetest final scenes of the year.
Ex Machina. From Moviestore Collection/Rex USAHere’s a rare science- fiction film that references old classics, like Blade Runner, while inventing its own strange, haunting vernacular. Director Alex Garland’s mesmerizing, thoroughly frightening chamber piece about artificial intelligence has the smooth, polished hum of a meticulously made machine. But there’s something dark and chaotic lurking under its skin.
The cast—Alicia Vikander, Oscar Isaac, Domhnall Gleeson, Sonoya Mizuno—performs with intensity and deep focus, Isaac and Vikander in particular, as a mad scientist and his wondrous creation, lending something both alienating and undeniably alluring to this slippery story of consciousness and deception. Credit also to Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury’s eerie score, each metallic fuzz and ping creating a mood of uncanny beauty and foreboding. Ex Machina is a chiller with whirring intelligence, and an uncommonly, almost scarily good directorial debut. All rights reserved. Todd Haynes’s sumptuously tailored period piece could easily have been just an affecting romantic melodrama, all pain of repression and unrequited longing. And there is plenty of that in this transfixing film.
But Haynes and screenwriter Phyllis Nagy, adapting from Patricia Highsmith’s landmark lesbian novel The Price of Salt, also do a deeper, more intellectual investigation into the story of two women who fall in love in 1. New York City. Carol is as much a picture about the vast, validating, unifying power of gay connection, the thrill and tingle and ache of seeing the same in another person, than it is about the specific romance between Rooney Mara’s quiet shopgirl and Cate Blanchett’s older, more experienced married woman. With Haynes and Nagy at the helm, Carol is a gay movie made by gay people, with all the particular intimacy that comes with that. The performances are superb, as are all the technicals, like Carter Burwell’s dreamy score, but there’s something beyond the tangible that really gives Carol its remarkable strength. It’s rare that a film so gracefully, fluently understands something deep and innate about the lives it’s depicting, and the lives it’s speaking to. Carol can be wintry and aloof, but it is always there, close by, whispering something like, “Me, too.”3. Spotlight. Courtesy of Open Road Films.
Proof that a film can flourish without a bunch of fussy technical stuff, as long as the storytelling is smart and precise, Tom Mc. Carthy’s. Spotlight is probably the most lo- fi movie on this list. But it still tells an extraordinary story extraordinarily well, detailing The Boston Globe’s reporting on the Archdiocese of Boston’s massive sex- abuse cover- up in a way that’s exciting, informative, infuriating, and galvanizing.