Iron Man 3 is the fourth time—fifth if you count this—that we’ve seen Robert Downey, Jr. as Tony Stark. At this point, there is no avoiding the touch of franchise fatigue that haunts the latest in Marvel’s “Cinematic Universe”, Iron Man 3. But, amazingly, for all that Tony and his world feel well-worn and lived in, Iron Man 3 manages to surprise and delight in turns, bringing an unexpected freshness to the official start of Marvel’s Phase Two. It’s a bit like a pair of old jeans you’d forgotten fit, only to put them on one day and realize—hey, these jeans make my ass look great! Iron Man 3 makes Tony Stark’s ass look great. Read more »
If you think you know Michael Bay, let me tell you, you don’t know Michael Bay until you’ve seen Pain & Gain. You haven’t even begun to tap into the Michael Bayness of the world until you’ve stewed in two hours-plus of pure, unadulterated Michael Bay.
Pain & Gain sucks. It takes sucking to new, previously unexplored heights. It sucks so hard that the only logical explanation for its unmitigated suckitude is that Michael Bay must, in fact, be the son of Mega-Maid. Because he only has two settings: Suck and blow. And once Pain & Gain has sucked so much that its eyeballs implode from the internal pressure, it switches gears and blows. It blows hard, and long, and with the unrelenting precision of projectile vomit. Read more »
If someone walked up to me today and said, “Make a biopic of Mother Theresa but don’t do any research and you only have ten thousand bucks and two months to make it,” the result would look something like iSteve, the first feature film—though at a lean 78 minutes we’re pushing that line—produced by internet comedy site Funny or Die. I know Mother Theresa was a nun, and she helped poor people, but that’s all I’ve got. If I had to flesh out a three-act story with no research, there would be a lot of made up shit and an over reliance on the tropes of bildungsroman. Which is how iSteve played out. Written and directed by FoD regular contributor Ryan Perez and starring Justin Long as Steve Jobs, iSteve is a multi-part experiment that works, for the most part, and even hits on a few truly inspired comedic moments. Read more »
Our resident horror expert, my big brother Steve, is back with a review of the new remake of the 1980’s horror classic Evil Dead. This movie has been pretty divisive with fans and critics, but Steve, a seasoned viewer of horror cinema, loved it. He even went so far as to demand it be seen in theaters, saying it creates the kind of fear-frenzy that makes watching horror movies so fun.
Being somewhat of a horror nerd (Sarah: Read—he’s a huge horror nerd), I’ve watched numerous documentaries on the genre where guys like Tom Savini, Wes Craven, and John Carpenter describe the atmosphere at the original screenings of their movies. The mood is electric. Nervous tension runs rampant. Screams and flying popcorn litter the air…the audience is genuinely scared. This is the experience I want to have when going to a horror flick and Fede Alvarez’s version of the Sam Raimi classic, Evil Dead, delivers just that. Read more »
The first exposure I had to thinking about movies as more than just pure spectacle was watching Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert flay each other over who liked what movie and why on their weekly television show, Siskel & Ebert. The cultural impact of Siskel & Ebert is enormous–just think of how saturated “two thumbs up” is in our pop-culture lexicon–but Roger Ebert had a more personal resonance to me as a film writer working on his turf in Chicago. Read more »
We leave behind the bone yards of January and February for the doldrums of March. Things get marginally better this month, thanks largely to the first round of festival pickings from TIFF holdovers and Sundance premieres, but the mainstream offerings remain decidedly slim. This is the stuff that wouldn’t cut it in the more competitive summer months, like “Gerard Butler saves the White House” and “G.I. Joe but with Bruce Willis and The Rock this time” and “Please like this as much as you liked Twilight”. March is always a weird month to me because there are genuinely good movies on offer, but there’s a lot of studio dross, too.
March 1
21 and Over
Half as grown up as The Hangover and twice as funny as Project X. Just once I’d like to see a young Asian character in a movie NOT trying to get into med school.
