It’s hard to classify or compare Bong Joon Ho’s (Snowpiercer, Okja) Parasite to any other movie I’ve ever seen. From the first frame until the last, it comes together as a unique film that reminded me of Get Out and A Quiet Place in the sense that you know you are seeing something extraordinary and something that you have no idea where it comes from or where it’s going. These three movies are entirely different but follow the same formula of capturing your audience in the first scene and never giving them a chance to spin out of the web you hope you are creating for them.
Category Archives: Drama
Before the Devil Knows Your’re Dead (2007)
Murphy’s Law. Everything that can go wrong will go wrong.
Sidney Lumet’s (Guilty As Sin, Dog Day Afternoon) Before the Devil Knows Your Dead is a good-old-fashioned robbery gone wrong that involves older brother Andy (Philip Seymour Hoffman – Capote, The Savages) and younger brother Hank (Sinister, Before Sunrise) fleecing the strip-mall jewelry store of their parents Charles (Albert Finney – Erin Brokovich, Tom Jones) and Nanette (Rosemary Harris – Spider-Man, Tom and Viv) on a day where neither parent was expected to be there.
Joker (2019)
A movie that didn’t need to be made often will benefit from the doubt if that same movie pays due diligence and does the movie right. Those wondering why we need a Joker origin story when there is a perfect origin story in The Dark Knight (one of the 25 best movies ever made) should find some relief in knowing that the Christopher Nolan trilogy story will not be confused with Todd Phillips’ (War Dogs, Old School) Joker. This film never mentions the word Batman nor refers to anything related to, perhaps, the most iconic comic book franchise of all time other than references to Gotham City and a billionaire businessman named Thomas Wayne.
Ad Astra (2019)
“To The Stars” is the Latin translation for Ad Astra, James Gray’s (The Lost City of Z, The Yards) powerfully ambitious space travel movie that features astronaut Roy McBride (Brad Pitt – By the Sea, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) going from Earth to the moon to Mars to Neptune in an attempt to stop pulse bursts that have been devastating the Earth that has taken thousands of lives are a poised to take thousands more. The perceived bursts are thought to be coming from The Lima Project, a missing exploration ship piloted by Roy’s father, Clifford (Tommy Lee Jones – The Fugitive, The Company Men), presumed destroyed decades earlier. Taking the story out of it for a second, Ad Astra is a visually stunning masterpiece that deserves a viewing on the largest screen possible. It doesn’t quite feel like you are floating in outer space (like the equally brilliant Gravity does), but it’s not that far off.
By the Sea (2015)
Just because two people embark on an extended vacation to one of the most beautiful places in the world doesn’t mean that happiness is guaranteed to come with them. Such is the tale of Vanessa (Angelina Jolie – Girl, Interrupted, Changeling) and Roland (Brad Pitt – Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Moneyball), a married couple of 14 years who set out for a remote French seaside town for some quiet time together in a local hotel that offers a stunning view of the landscape it sits next to, which happens to be the Mediterranean Sea. He’s a writer looking for inspiration. She’s a retired ex-dancer. But, unfortunately, all is not well and has not been well for quite some time in the Angelina-directed (Unbroken) By the Sea.