7 years ago
All posts by Marshall Shaffer
Adam McKay: From “The Other Guys” To “The Big Short”
Director Adam McKay’s jump from some of the most notorious bro comedies of the millennia (Anchorman, Talladega Nights) to The Big Short, a film about the global economic recession, might seem extreme even to discerning moviegoers. But those familiar with McKay...
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“Son of Saul” Is Utterly Devastating
Note. This review was originally published as part of our Fantastic Fest 2015 coverage.
László Nemes' Son of Saul boasts one of the most rigorously committed aesthetics in recent memory. Without subduing the roving camera of DoP Mátyás Erdély to the limitatio...
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Josh Mond on “James White” And The Close-Up’s Comeback
Often, when interviewing talent around the release of a film, you can count on them having settled into a rhythm of call-and-response after fielding questions from the media all day. Not so Josh Mond, writer/director of the new film James White, who told Movie...
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How the Dardennes Inspired John Crowley’s “Brooklyn”
This year’s awards season has already begun ascribing narratives to various directors: Ridley Scott the overdue master, Alejandro G. Iñárritu the brash visionary, Todd Haynes the committed chronicler of marginalized women. And yet, amidst all the noise, a movi...
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Interview: Davis Guggenheim of “He Named Me Malala”
In just the time from seeing He Named Me Malala at a press screening in early September to talking with director Davis Guggenheim in early October, the documentary has already become more urgent. Certainly, the Syrian refugee crisis calls out for a humane resp...
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Fantastic Fest Review: “The Club”
When great filmmakers tackle religion, they do not just talk about God – they show God in their visual schema. Witness Scorsese’s tortured characters warping their bodies into the shape of a crucifix, or the camera-eye of Malick constantly looking up in awe at...
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Fantastic Fest Review: “The Witch”
Forms of storytelling never really die – the functions they serve simply migrate and reappear somewhere else. The folk tale is one such manner of expression that seems rather obsolete in the modern world, not yielding any overtly major works in the past two ce...
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Fantastic Fest Review: “Green Room”
Jeremy Saulnier’s breakout film Blue Ruin depicted violence as an elemental force; a practically innate disposition of the human condition. In that spin on a classic revenge tale, Saulnier metes out precious little information on the characters hell-bent on de...
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