The Final Take with Parker Mott

Rating: 18A – Coarse Language, Sexual Content, Graphic Violence
Run Time: 104 minutes

Killer Joe (McConaughey) meets with the dimwitted Chris Smith (Hirsch) in Friedkin's vile yet effective "Killer Joe".

Killer Joe is a deep-fried practical joke on humanity. It’s a murder story that doesn’t even have the curtesy of showing the murder and features a scrumptious chicken leg that doesn’t even get eaten. This is an uncompromisingly twisted and disturbing movie, but it is not a thriller. It would be less terrifying if it was. I suppose it can be called a Southern gothic dark comedy, but that still might be oversimplifying things. (continue reading…)

2 Stars out of 4
(112 minutes)

Barnabus Collins and family in "Dark Shadows".

Dark Shadows is a goofy little movie in search of a story. Directed by the uber-eccentric and visionary Tim Burton, Dark Shadows has the sets, visual effects, and costumes down to a tee but these elements can only take the film so far. Eventually, we need a screenplay. We need the characters to engage. We need the plot to develop. We need to laugh more. By golly, we need to care. (continue reading…)

2.5 Stars out of 4
(104 minutes)

Tara Lynne Barr as Roxy in "God Bless America".

Here’s a movie that’s really upset. Its title, to say the least, is an irony. Caustic and unforgiving, God Bless America is an ordeal of a movie that reaches out to American popular culture only to grab it by the neck. I imagine this film premiering back in the New Hollywood period of the late 1960s, where taboos were – sometimes literally – blown to hell. With God Bless America, Bonnie and Clyde‘s cynicism has been reinvigorated and its explosive ending completely preserved. (continue reading…)

3 Stars out of 4
(95 minutes)

A disturbing discovery in the horror-comedy "The Cabin in the Woods".

There have been enough horror movies about a cabin in the woods that you would think lodging would be out of fashion. Instead of the good ol’ rest and relaxation you typically end up with some death and decapitation. And it’s about five minutes into Drew Goddard’s The Cabin in the Woods when my mind starts spinning on the usual axels – “here we go again,” I’m thinking. (continue reading…)

3 Stars out of 4
(94 minutes)

Mavis is dressed in style in "Young Adult."

Mavis Gary is someone I would have hated in high school. She is shallow, intrusive, whiny, and downright cruel. How on earth do you make a drama about her, even more so a comedy? Sure, reality shows like Jersey Shore and The Real World depict characters of similar vainness, but the laughs stem from a considerable amount of tasteless, unearned pity. We laugh because they – not to mention any names – have become exploits of the lowest form of entertainment. (continue reading…)

3 Stars out of 4
(80 minutes)

Acting civil in Polanski's "Carnage." You haven't seen nothing yet.

In one of my favourite comedy plays Noises Off, after a theatre company’s production goes through hell and back to finish a show, the stage manager Timothy murmurs something that says it all: “this is getting farcical.” You would laugh, but that line is too damn true. I was waiting for a similar moment in Roman Polanski’s new film Carnage, his most vile title since “Repulsion” in 1965. (continue reading…)

3.5 Stars out of 4
(112 minutes)

Mother Eva (Swinton) and father Frank (Reilly) are not great communicators in "We Need To Talk About Kevin."

The irony in the title “We Need To Talk About Kevin” is that little is said about Kevin. The film is all through the traumatic memories of mother Eva Khatchadourian (Tilda Swinton), who scans her tragic past for clues towards her son’s behavior – like he was his own crime scene. To expect a solution, however, is foolish; We Need To Talk About Kevin only quietly, fastidiously sifts through its enigmas and cannot ascertain the pieces. (continue reading…)

The kids counterattack in Attack the Block.

3 Stars out of 4
(87 minutes)

Attack the Block features unlikely young heroes and, for its context (2000s UK), very unlikely villains. Don’t aliens belong in 1970s America, where they were often mistaken for Russians? I think Super 8 reinstated that claim. At any rate, Attack the Block is a B interpretation of B-quality ’70s alien movies. The first “B” is for British. It’s title should really be “The Block Attacks” as the film is, like all alien movies, not about the extra terrestrial invaders but the terrestrials and their struggle to defend humanity. (continue reading…)

3 Stars out of 4
(93 minutes)

Oliver Tate (Craig Roberts) in Submarine.

Submarine’s quirky axels spin on the twisted, deeply ruminative thoughts of Oliver Tate (Craig Roberts). He’s a Welsh boy with a thick black overcoat, scruffy dark hair, and a voracity for poetry and classic novels – he’s nothing short of a young John Lennon. Remember Nowhere Boy? Submarine though is not about a discovery of music, but a young boy’s attempt to conceive the music of life. Oliver has his notions on how life should be, but it’s more chaotic, disoriented, and translucent than he wished it was. (continue reading…)

2.5 Stars out of 4
(82 minutes)

Rubber: a tire has psychic powers. The film has a brain.

Rubber is a film with a questionable premise but is ridden with enough ideas that its plot kind of exists in the background, like a rain cloud. Director Quentin Dupieux uses a philosophy of No Reason, which feels very tacked on for a movie that is motivated to ask many urgent questions about the purpose of cinema, and maybe life. Unfortunately, I think the No Reason philosophy (let’s just call it “nihilism”) subsists not as a commentary but only to support Rubber’s greatest contrivance: a tire has come to life and is exploding heads with its psychic powers. Why? How? No reason. (continue reading…)