In the tradition of other monster movies such as The Meg, Piranha 3D, Lake Placid, and Anaconda, where the beasts of nature wreak havoc on the community, comes Alexandre Aja’s (High Tension, The Hills Have Eyes) Crawl. This movie is a lot of fun. And by this, by no means am I suggesting it is perfect. It is far from perfect. However, it is a good escape film built around horror.
Category Archives: Genre
The Jacket (2005)
There is something inherently unique about John Maybury’s (Man to Man, The Edge of Love) that has me wanting to watch it every few years to see if I can pick up something more with it. I’m not sure I’ll ever truly have it figured out, and I’m wondering if it’s a movie meant to be figured out completely. I think Maybury wants you to draw your own conclusions about his film. Sometimes I love that. Sometimes it drives me mad. With The Jacket, I find it riveting because this is a small-budget movie with some big ideas and aspirations. While not a hit with audiences ($6.3 million) or critics (44% on Rotten Tomatoes), The Jacket is one of those movies I refer to as a hidden gem. You might not even know about it unless someone suggests it. This is me suggesting it.
Transsiberian (2008)
At eight days, the Transsiberian Express from Beijing to Moscow is the longest train journey in the world. So why wouldn’t it be the perfect backdrop to one of the most suspenseful journeys in quite some time? Paul Anderson’s (Beirut, The Machinist) presents the Transsiberian in a way that makes you think of Alfred Hitchcock. It’s dark. It’s moody. It’s twisted. It’s purposeful. It’s rooted. It’s intense. It makes you feel like a fellow passenger on this train, watching everything unfold next to you rather than on a screen projected in front of you. Oh. And it’s cold. It’s like an Arctic cold. We feel that sense of dread in the deepest of winter in the coldest places. Yet, it never feels like we are even close to approaching freezing. So it certainly adds to the ambiance of our film.
Lost in Translation (2003)
Sofia Coppola (The Virgin Suicides, The Bling Ring) struck gold with the Bill Murray/Scarlett Johansson dramedy Lost in Translation, one of the most original films of all time and one of the best movies of 2003. This instant cult classic explores themes of isolation, loneliness, broken relationships, boredom, cultural shock, existentialism, and instantaneous friendship, all in a quick 102-minute gem where each scene matters and every word carries a vast amount of weight.
Gold (2017)
Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyer’s Club, Mud) stars as a balding, crooked-toothed, potbellied Nevada gold prospector in a movie that, without his acting talent, would have been completely sifted through the Hollywood stream of consciousness. Instead, while flawed, Stephen Gaghan’s (Syriana, Abandon) Gold is a watchable experience that takes audiences on a wild goose chase along with most of its stars. It ultimately makes the destination an endpoint and the journey worthwhile.