Despite some reluctance, Wes Craven is a name-brand filmmaker. The phrase “Wes Craven Presents” comes with certain expectations thanks to the financial success of the Scream franchise and The Hills Have Eyes series before that. But what cemented Craven’s reputation is A Nightmare on Elm Street, a deathless cycle of…
In Devil’s Due, co-directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (V/H/S) and first-time screenwriter Lindsay Devlin offer an uninspired found-footage riff on Roman Polanski’s demon-spawn classic, Rosemary’s Baby (1968). On their Dominican Republic honeymoon, the squeakily innocent Samantha (Allison Miller) and Zach (Zach Gilford) are drugged by a cult who draw…
Tomorrow is the day this year’s Oscar nominations are revealed, also known as national Gah! What Were Those Idiot Voters Thinking Day. We can’t wait, so in the meantime, we give you this: 1. Marvel Films has become Taco Bell, with plenty of sour creamy, cheesy wrap-up menu items scheduled…
Don’t Talk – Siri from Alamo Drafthouse on Vimeo. The Alamo Drafthouse has a strange monopoly in the movie business on public service announcements that find new and creative ways to tell their patrons to shut off their phones. Their latest entry into their PSA vault is nothing short of…
Some big announcements came out of SXSW yesterday. Supernova heartthrob/astrophysicist/author/educator Neil deGrasse Tyson will participate in a keynote interview for Interactive on Saturday, March 8 at 2 p.m. So for the love of laminates, if you’ve ever known anyone in a power position at SXSW, now is the time to…
New Zealand stuntwoman-turned-actress Zoë Bell is fully aware of her unique position as an action star that also does her own stunts. After working as Lucy Lawless’s stunt double on Xena: Warrior Princess, Bell was discovered by Quentin Tarantino on the set of Kill Bill. After that, Bell has enjoyed…
In Spike Jonze’s new sci-fi romance, Her, Joaquin Phoenix plays a divorcee who rebounds by falling in love with his smartphone. On a recent Wednesday, however, he’s a delinquent boyfriend, leaving his iPad abandoned on a chair in a Lebanese restaurant as he bounces off to the parking lot for…
Here’s a movie that’ll flop in Kabul. Lone Survivor, the latest by Battleship director Peter Berg, is a jingoistic snuff film about a Navy SEAL squadron outgunned by the Taliban in the mountainous Kunar province. After four soldiers — played with muscles and machismo by Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Emile…
The terrible reality of modern life is that even beautiful young people on a first date can’t go a whole evening without checking their phones. We need to be potentially connected to every possibility at all times; just allowing the present to happen has become increasingly foreign. That’s the idea…
Without big truth-telling scenes, grand, great-lady, Meryl Streep-type actors would be out of work. Hell, Meryl Streep would be out of work. But for now, at least, August: Osage County, John Wells’ film adaptation of Tracy Letts’ Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway hit, keeps her out of the bread line. Streep plays…
Three types of artists hinge on authenticity: punk bands, folk singers, and rappers. Actors, like Oscar Isaac, are by definition phonies. But the star of Joel and Ethan Coen’s new film, Inside Llewyn Davis, gets that pressure to keep it real. In high school, he was a straight-edge punk frontman…
Here’s where I write about how hard it is to draw up a 10-best list at the end of the year. Except it isn’t: I think of drawing up a list as an honor and a necessity, a way of putting 12 months of moviegoing into some sort of perspective…
I could write a Shakespearean sonnet about each film on my Top 10 of 2013, but we know we’re all here for the agreements and arguments. (Plus, have you tried writing about Joe Swanberg in iambic pentameter?) Ladies and gentlemen, let’s begin. The Act of Killing — The year’s best…
January! Just the time to snuggle up with a 3D swordandpectoral extravaganza. And although some of its more imaginative plot details would make Edith Hamilton blanch, Renny Harlin’s Legend of Hercules fulfills every silly, flimsy promise that it makes in the first place: There are lots of battles (albeit rather…
James, By now, your buddies have forwarded you the Reddit Ask Me Anything where a 24-year-old man with Diphallia — aka two penises — says he wants to give you a facial. Say yes. Let’s get through the superficial reasons first. This magical male unicorn (er, twonicorn?) is anonymous, which…
Follow @VoiceFilmClub !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=”//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js”;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,”script”,”twitter-wjs”); Subscribe to the Voice Film Club podcast Story by Chris Packham Community returns for season 5 on January 2 with a two-episode block that plants its feet on the study room table and regrounds the characters after a fourth season of viewer discontent and lost purpose…
Editor’s note: The author is British, so this thing is, like, authentic. And you might be saying “Hey, didn’t you run an almost identical drinking game last season?” Actually, yes! We considered writing a new one, then remembered how enraged we were by the Season Three finale and just posted…
Found footage films are an interesting art form. We don’t mean those shaky movies where the director forgot to pack a tripod. We mean movies that were actually found in garage sales, Blockbuster liquidation sales or some dusty thrift store that still has a VHS section. Thanks to the efforts…
As awards season draws nearer and best-of-the-year lists keep rolling in, there’s only one thing left to do: Get excited about what comes next. Here are 10 films you won’t want to miss in 2014. 1. Adieu au language (Dir. Jean-Luc Godard) Jean-Luc Godard, former master of the French nouvelle…
Rosemary’s Baby notwithstanding, it’s usually only white suburban people who fall prey to movie ghosts and demons — they’re always the ones opening doors to rooms that shouldn’t be entered, stepping witlessly into pentagrams painted on the floor in goat’s blood, and wondering aloud, “You think this is some sort…
Toby Halbrooks is on a roll. The local film producer and director is an integral part of the film community quietly earning Dallas a reputation. For the second year in a row, Halbrooks will return to Sundance Film Festival in 2014 with two projects. Last year he co-produced Shane Carruth’s…
In the 20 years since Reality Bites, his directorial debut, Ben Stiller has metastasized from sketch comedy lunatic to Generation X darling to blockbuster king. Among the funny men, most of whom have calcified into cliques (yawn, Anchorman 2), he’s the last of the triple-threat writer-director-stars, and the only one…
