Reviews of albums, films, concerts, and more from the Bay Area Music and Movie Nerds
Anyone who thinks Hollywood has no original stories left should immediately go see The Substance. It’s one of the most unique, startling, and unforgettable films you’ll see this year. It also happens to be one of the most insane, visceral, and downright gory pictures in recent memory, so if you’re at all squeamish, this movie isn’t the best choice for your Friday night cinema outing.
If you live in California, Nicolas Cage is a Prius. If you live in Alabama, Nicolas Cage is an F-150. If you live in Colorado, Nicolas Cage is a Subaru. Ubiquitous, omnipresent, universal don’t begin to describe his career. Simple descriptors, most adjectives, even words themselves, fail to cover the sheer, gargantuan, remark-ability of the man’s effect on our collective souls. Continue reading “Film Review: “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent””
After almost two weeks of screenings that ran daily from 8:30 am to midnight, the Sundance Film Festival wrapped up last weekend with its awards presentation. All the winners can be found here, but below I present my personal highlights from my week exploring the Fest’s good, bad, and downright weird. Some of these may be widely released during the year, so I offer my advice on the films you should SEE or SKIP.
1.) Most Over the Top Rip Off of The Office that Feels Like it Was Written At 3:00 am After Smoking Way Too Many Joints: Corporate Animals (Category: Midnight)
Not only does director Patrick Brice (who also directed the much better Sundance offering The Overnight) use a corporate retreat setting for his horror satire, replete with a who’s who of standard office types (Demi Moore as the hard driving boss; Jessica Williams as the dispirited protégée; and Callum Worthy as the eager to please intern, to name a few), but he even casts Office alum Ed Helms as a guide who leads the team on a caving expedition that goes awry, to put it mildly. Trapped deep in a collapsed New Mexico cave (the scenery at least holds its own), the cast is forced to deliver too many stereotypical jokes, especially at the expense of Moore, whose cutthroat boss is little more than a caricature. The group’s descent into cannibalism is played for laughs, but the film isn’t half as edgy as it thinks it is, and the entire exercise feels like writer Sam Bain somehow managed to get his snickering Office fan-fiction greenlit. — SKIP Continue reading “Film Feature: Highs and Lows from the 2019 Sundance Film Festival”