“Guido screws his annoying mistress and hides from his financiers, drifting away mid-conversation into baroque childhood reveries, mostly sexual in nature. The entire time, hundreds labor away building the set for his still-unwritten opus – a giant phallic spaceship that’s going nowhere. Yes, the central visual metaphor here is an enormous, useless cock.” – Movie Mezzanine, 08/06/2014
“What follows is McDonagh’s rotted-out take on the Stations of the Cross, explicitly positioned in the wake of the Catholic Church’s molestation cover-ups and the Wall Street financial crisis, with Gleeson tending to his broke, wildly dysfunctional flock as he slouches towards Golgotha. Calvary is a strange film, often hilarious but always heavy and forlorn.” – Movie Mezzanine, 08/06/2014
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY * * *
Starring Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel. Screenplay by Nicole Pearlman and James Gunn. Directed by James Gunn.
LUCY *** 1 / 2
Starring Scarlett Johansson, Morgan Freeman, Amar Weked, Julian Rhind-Tutt and Choi Mi-sik. Written and directed by Luc Besson.
HAPPY CHRISTMAS * 1 / 2
Starring Anna Kendrick, Melanie Lynskey, Joe Swanberg, Mark Webber and Lena Dunham. Written and directed by Joe Swanberg.
THE PURGE: ANARCHY * * 1 / 2
Starring Frank Grillo, Carmen Ejogo, Zach Gilford, Kiele Sanchez and Michael K. Williams. Written and directed by James DeMonaco.
“A free-flowing, wackadoo meditation on stardom, identity, illusions, ageism, technology, the life and work of Robin Wright, chemical dependency, kites and whatever else crossed the filmmaker’s mind at any given moment. Then about halfway through it becomes an animated adaptation of a Stanislaw Lem book. Yeah, there’s a lot going on here.” – Movie Mezzanine, 07/17/2014
DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES * * 1 / 2
Starring Andy Serkis, Toby Kebbell, Jason Clarke, Keri Russell and Gary Oldman. Screenplay by Scott Z. Burns, Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver. Directed by Matt Reeves.
“The slightest, least peculiar, most audience-friendly Aaron Katz picture I’ve seen. So I guess all of my quibbles probably sound like some fucking hipster whinging about when his favorite indie band signed to a major label. It’s so very Sony Pictures Classics, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I just wish there was a little more to it, that’s all.” – Movie Mezzanine, 07/10/2014
VENUS IN FUR * * * 1 / 2
Starring Emmanuelle Seigner and Mathieu Amalric. Screenplay by Roman Polanski and David Ives. Directed by Roman Polanski.
SPLICED PERSONALITY 