Letterboxd — Your life in film

Film #1, Norway, in the 30 Days, 30 Countries challenge.

Well that was a fun little ski resort slasher.

Cold Prey is really effective in that it has a fantastic location, a menacing villain, and generally builds the tension and terror really well as it goes along. I liked the intimacy of the movie, as it really only has five people plus the killer. In staying small, the film is able to create a lot of character details and enhance…

Watched for the Adapted April Challenge.

Everything that L.A. Confidential does is pure movie bliss in my eye. Its got an awesome crime story that doesn't feel formulaic even if it isn't wholly original, a setting of Los Angeles that really shines and is as much of a character as the people involved, the pacing is remarkable and doesn't drag at all even though the film runs nearly two and a half hours, and shows us some of the best…

Watched for the Adapted April Challenge.

Driving Miss Daisy seems to become more saccharine and slight every time you see it, but I still always find it fairly enjoyable because of the great chemistry between Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman.

One of the things I like most about the film is also an example of its lack of substance. I think it is great how we follow Hoke and Daisy throughout the years and watch their friendship evolve. The sense…

Watched for the Adapted April Challenge.

I haven’t hate watched something as maddening or frustrating as Bully in quite some time. I’m not sure what end result that the film is trying to reach. All I saw was a jumbled mess that combines a superficial dealing of a nearly non-existent subject matter, poor characters, character building and acting, and a garish style that can’t even be enjoyed due to the misguided direction of the film.

Lets start with the premise,…

Watched for the Adapted April Challenge.

Far North is a very, very slow boil of a thriller. Great performances and and a gorgeous setting really helped carry me through the sometimes tedious first half. As things come together it gets infinitely more tense, but I'm unsure if the payoff is completely earned.

What comes in the final act is so shocking and horrendous that I feel as though I really missed something during all of the buildup. I would be…

I watched this movie with an audio commentary provided by Matt Patches, Da7e Gonzales, and Devindra Hardawar through their Republic City Dispatch podcast. There will be two smaller sections to this review, one for the movie itself and one for the commentary.

The Movie

Ultimately, The Last Airbender just left me disappointed more than anything else. I do believe that M. Night Shyamalan could have made a decent movie here, but there are a few core decisions that really make…

Miracle Mile is a weird movie.

I didn't really enjoy this for the first hour. It feels pretty dated and nothing really happens for quite a while. I'm also fairly averse to Anthony Edwards just on general principle. I just don't think that the guy is a good actor and I can't really stand to look at or listen to him.

But as the film goes on everything comes together pretty well. The paranoia and escalation of anxiety and madness…

Upon rewatching Zero Dark Thiry, I liked it even more than I did the first first time around.

When I saw this in theaters, I was anticipating the raid that all of the trailers were showing off. This time around, I really got to focus on the 2 hours before that and how the characters acted and changed over the 10 years plus that are shown in the film.

Bigelow's craftsmanship is impeccable. The film is perfectly paced, and the…

The Collector is a refreshingly brutal horror film with a lot of emphasis on the kills, but the traps themselves seemed a little underwhelming and the horror was a bit too torture-centric for my personal taste.

I bought into and got excited for the central premise of the The Collector right away. Arkin, our ex-thief leading man is pulled back into the game to support his family. While attempting to rob a house where the owners are on vacation, he…