Filed under: Columns, Horror, Cinematical

Welcome to Framed, a column at Cinematical that used to run every Thursday, celebrating the artistry of cinema — one frame at a time. It’s time to say goodbye, though. Thank you for reading and for all your support.

[Spoilers]

Wes Craven returns to the director’s chair for another installment in the ‘Scream’ series, which hits theaters April 15. His 1996 film reinvigorated and redefined the rules of classic slasher cinema, effectively changing the face of the genre for a whole new audience. The movie’s opening was an intense sequence that immediately made one thing clear: anyone in the film could die. Kevin Williamson‘s script reads like a standard horror flick about a group of high school students being terrorized by a masked killer, but all bets are off once the limp body of the movie’s top-billing star (Drew Barrymore) is seen swinging from a tree. Craven and Williamson lampoon the same slasher clichés that their characters are acting out on the screen. The cast essentially knows they’re in a movie, and does all the things horror audiences have been trained to believe will get them killed: people have sex, people party, people say, “I’ll be right back” and never return.

A high school girl is brutally murdered, which rocks the lives of her classmates — especially Sidney (Neve Campbell) who recently lost her mother to a terrible tragedy. When the killer then sets his sights on her, everyone in the small town becomes suspect, but Sidney fights for her life and tries to unmask the killer in the process. The whole time, Sidney and her friends are living out the roles we’ve become so accustomed to seeing in horror movies, and each character flaunts that self-awareness in the process. Randy, played by Jamie Kennedy, is a movie nerd who even muses about which actors would play the parts of him and his friends.

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Filed under: Best Movies Ever, Columns, Cinematical

As the reviews for Zack Snyder’s ‘Sucker Punch’ come rolling in (you can read Todd Gilchrist’s take on it over here) the movie about a young girl who creates a fantasy world to escape from her dark reality got us thinking. Babydoll, played by Emily Browning, is the lead player whose sanity is in question. She empowers herself with a team of ass-kicking friends to help her find her way through things. Girl gangs who buck the system and take control aren’t a new phenomenon, but as Moviefone’s Gary Susman asked the other day, “Why aren’t there more movies like this?”

It’d be an easy task to come up with a list of male-dominated movies where groups of guys bond through a shared experience — some through the trauma and exhilaration of violence, and some that actually manage to be meaningful. The female spectrum of films like this does exist — and while some revolve around a romantic plotline, others are just about a bunch of woman trying to find themselves and beating incredible odds to do it. Whether the gang arrives at that juncture through an exploitation, comedy, or documentary lens isn’t as important as the journey. Here are seven films that take a variety of approaches and kick some serious ass along the way.

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Filed under: Columns, Cinematical

Welcome to Framed, a column at Cinematical that runs every Thursday and celebrates the artistry of cinema — one frame at a time.

When the American movie cavalry ran out of steam on the Western genre front, the Italians quickly swooped in. If you aren’t terribly familiar with Italian cinema, this might seem like a cheap trick with even cheaper imitators piggybacking off the success of their predecessors, but not all of it was a fast cash-in. Some of the reimaginings were uniquely unforgettable, and that’s where ‘Django’ enters the picture.

Sergio Corbucci’s 1966 gunslinger doesn’t aim to be as operatic as Sergio Leone’s groundbreaking ‘Dollars’ trilogy, but its violence and pulp style was certainly grand. Of course you can’t discuss Leone’s films without acknowledging Akira Kurosawa’s ‘Yojimbo,’ which by defalt Corbucci’s gritty western also makes nods to. The film has its own admirers, however, and spawned over 30 unofficial sequels who tried to bank off its success.

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Filed under: Columns, Cinematical

Zip out for the weekend before our great Friday night content? Miss a day of movie coverage? Check here every Friday afternoon for all the great original content Cinematical published over the last week and play catch up!

Reviews

‘Mars Needs Moms’ Review: Laughs Are Also in Short Supply
William Goss ventured into the latest Zemeckis mo-cap adventure and surmised: “As a purely technical exercise, ‘Moms’ boasts remarkably immersive environments and well-rendered textures, par for the course from the ImageMovers crew. Alas, all these pixels are in service of eerie character design for the humans and Martians alike.”

‘Paul’ SXSW Review: Funny and Sweet Fan Boy Pandering
Todd Gilchrist reviews the latest Pegg/Frost flick and is torn between the references and the lack of deeper meaning: “‘Paul’ is a film that seems to too often pander to genre fandom without finding deeper meaning beneath it, or maybe more accurately, celebrates the people who share our affection for nerdy stuff but neglects to provide a meaningful reason why we should feel it in the first place.”

‘The Lincoln Lawyer’ Review: A Film That Offers a Thrilling But Bumpy Ride
Jenni Miller reviews McConaughey’s latest. Though the script manages to be “both fairly convoluted and incredibly simple in hindsight, and suffers from several false endings,” the film “is an enjoyable thriller buoyed by the unrelenting charisma of McConaughey.”

Also check out our full coverage of SXSW — reviews, interviews and more.

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Filed under: Columns, Cinematical

Welcome to Framed, a column at Cinematical that runs every Thursday and celebrates the artistry of cinema — one frame at a time.

To say that Jean Cocteau suffered for his art is an understatement, as evidenced by his account of the making of his surreal masterpiece, 1946′s ‘Beauty and the Beast.’ In ‘Diary of a Film,’ Cocteau recounts a list of never-ending hurdles that plagued the French fairy tale film. Interestingly enough, many of these difficulties managed to transform themselves into something poetic, enhancing the movie’s magical premise.

Production started after the war, and the director faced difficulty gathering the materials he needed, including enough of the same film stock to complete the lavish picture. The various textures worked to Cocteau’s advantage, however, adding a certain depth to the striking visuals.

Electricity was scarce and several of the crew had to work by candlelight, which seems lyrical considering the appearance of candles throughout the movie.

During the production, an intensely painful skin condition and other illnesses hospitalized Cocteau. The director tried to be diplomatic about his suffering, given star Jean Marais’ extensive and uncomfortable makeup application to transform into the Beast. Although the “cracks, wounds and itches” and his “bleeding hands” plagued Cocteau, “the face and the hands of Jean Marais [were] covered with a so painful crust” serving as a humble reminder of their mutual suffering. I suppose it helps that they were lovers. It’s said that Cocteau’s disfiguring disease may have helped shape the creation of the Beast, which the director seemed to profoundly identify with.

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Filed under: Columns, Cinematical

Welcome to Where Everyone Has Gone Before, the weekly column where I continue my film education before your very eyes by seeking out and watching all of the movies I should have seen by now. I will first judge the movie before I’ve watched it, based entirely on its reputation (and my potentially misguided thoughts). Then I will give the movie a fair chance and actually watch it. You will laugh at me, you may condemn me, but you will never say I didn’t try!

The Film: ‘Mystery Train’ (1989), Dir. Jim Jarmusch

Starring: Youki Kudoh, Masatoshi Nagase, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Cinque Lee, Nicoletta Braschi, Elizabeth Bracco, Joe Strummer, Rick Aviles, Steve Buscemi, Tom Noonan and the raspy tones of the great Tom Waits.

Why I Haven’t Seen It Until Now: My first exposure to director Jim Jarmusch was when Teenage Me (perhaps you remember his only slightly stupider earlier incarnation 12 Year Old Me) plucked ‘Dead Man’ off a Blockbuster shelf expecting a traditional western and receiving a darkly comedic, surreal, acid trip of a western deconstruction. Man, Teenage Me decided that he hated Jarmusch based on that one film alone.

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Filed under: Columns, Cinematical

Sometimes it’s difficult to reconcile being an animal lover and a film fan. How many movies kill off the hero’s horse in the midst of battle? Quite a few. How many manage to find comedy in dogs being crushed by pianos? Not quite as many, but more than you’d think. As someone who sat through ‘Dogtooth’ with a cat on his lap, I’ll admit to laughing maniacally at a hilarious but truly horrifying sequence involving a harmless cat and a pair of garden shears, but I can guarantee that I felt really bad for a good while afterward.

For those of us who count the furry, the feathered and the scaled among our closest companions, some movies can instantly rub us the wrong way (and Cinematical’s own Scott Weinberg thinks that the MPAA should take notice). However, we can usually take solace in knowing that these scenes are staged — that thanks to good ol’ fashioned movie magic, no animal was actually killed. This has not always been the case, though.

What about movies that feature actual animal deaths? No makeup, no animatronics, no dummies — but the actual killing of an animal for dramatic purposes. Most of the time, actual animal deaths are associated with a certain breed of trashy horror movies (oh, Italy), but sometimes more famous and respected films can feature the real on-screen death of an animal.

This begs the question(s): If the film is “art” as opposed to “junk,” is the death justified? Why would it qualify as exploitation in some cases and not in others? Is this ever OK?

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Filed under: Columns, Cinematical

Welcome to Framed, a column at Cinematical that runs every Thursday and celebrates the artistry of cinema — one frame at a time.

It’s been called the “bitchiest” movie ever made, but ‘All About Eve’ doesn’t rely on a showgirl’s timely push down the stairs, or a ballerina’s self-loathing to make the cut. While it’s easy to dismiss the tear-stained story of a girl down on her luck and the marvelous rantings of Bette Davis and George Sanders as a campy melodrama about wayward women, its smart set-up and sophisticated performances elevate it to the realm of classic Hollywood cinema.

Joseph Mankiewicz writes and directs this tale of aging theater starlet, Margo (Davis), whose competition arrives in the form of a dewy-eyed, young thing with a convincing sob story to tell. Eve (Anne Baxter) shows up on a theater house’s backstage doorstep — where she’s apparently spent every night of the show’s run — hoping to catch a moment with her idol, Margo. When Eve is swept up by the actress and her circle, her entry into the grand dame’s exciting world of designer ball gowns, cocktail parties and watchful critics eventually betrays that she’s not the innocent she claims to be.

[spoilers ahead]

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Filed under: Columns, Cinematical

Welcome to Where Everyone Has Gone Before, the weekly column where I continue my film education before your very eyes by seeking out and watching all of the movies I should have seen by now. I will first judge the movie before I’ve watched it, based entirely on its reputation (and my potentially misguided thoughts). Then I will give the movie a fair chance and actually watch it. You will laugh at me, you may condemn me, but you will never say I didn’t try!

The Film: ‘Return to Oz’ (1985), Dir. Walter Murch

Starring: Fairuza Balk, Nicol Williamson, Jean Marsh and Piper Laurie.

Why I Haven’t Seen It Until Now: Oh, I tried. In my early years of perusing the VHS stacks at my local video rental establishment, I kept a vigilant eye open for it and consistently came up empty-handed. Considering how it seemingly traumatized everyone I know, maybe this was a good thing.

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Filed under: Columns, Cinematical

The only thing more annoying than all the non-stop coochy-coo romance of Valentine’s Day is the endless deluge of complaints from those cleverly cynical folks who just realized that, hey, Valentine’s Day is sponsored by Hallmark Cards … but since I’m single these days, I actually side with the cynical grouches. So in celebration of all things unlovable and anti-romantic, we offer this: Five Flicks to Avoid If You Actually Like Valentine’s Day. (Yep, just like in the headline.)

‘War of the Roses‘ — Still the finest anti-romantic comedy of the modern era, Danny De Vito’s twisted masterpiece reunites the three leads from ‘Romancing the Stone’ and ‘The Jewel of the Nile,’ but replaces adventure tropes and witty quips with venomous nastiness and overt unpleasantries. Plus it’s funny as hell, provided you’re watching the flick in the proper (cynical) state of mind.

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