Review: A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES

Review: A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES


Review: A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES

Posted: 19 Sep 2014 03:00 AM PDT

You know that film starring Liam Neeson where there's a kidnapping, and a series of phone calls and negotiations take place, and there are gun fights and stuff? While this broad description easily describes a slew of his films from the last couple of decades (as a friend described it, Neeson is the Irish Denzel Washington), what's kind of remarkable is that in each of these films, Neeson is usually the best part. You can see why he's offered these roles; he gives the right amount of gravitas to the roles, a believability in a kind of action hero that's quite rare these days. A Walk Among the Tombstones is probably more frustrating than most of these projects because it actually has the trappings...

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Fantastic Fest 2014: CUB, A Campfire Story That Fizzles Out

Posted: 19 Sep 2014 01:00 AM PDT

Cub is another of those genre films that has a terrific premise, some really nice moments, but overall comes across as pretty flat and uninteresting. The story begins when a group of cub scouts are led out into the woods for a camping retreat. As is the case whenever a bunch of young adults are put in charge of adolescents, the kids are treated to things that'll mess them up - namely, stories of Kai, a creature that lives in the woods and likes to harass campers. This amusing diversion turns out to be fact, as a young masked individual (think a very short, shirtless kid dressed as Groot) starts making havoc in the camp site, resulting in conflict, drama, and eventually death. The...

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Fantastic Fest 2014 Review: DEAD SNOW 2: RED VS DEAD Is Batshit Crazy

Posted: 18 Sep 2014 09:00 PM PDT

For those of you that want one sentence, consider this movie splattastic! Of course Dead Snow (2009) itself freaking rocked. It started with a hoary cliche. A group of horny young adults on a remote weekend retreat but it reintroduced one of the most under utilized movie monster concepts in the modern horror film. Nazi Zombies had been seen before in the atmospheric and deliciously cheesy Shock Waves (1977) and a couple of other more or less completely forgettable exploiters of that period.  though Shock Waves had created some iconic images, the Nazi zombie was less a part of the zombie narrative than it could have been. So when director Tommy Wirkola single handedly revived it cheers went up around horrordom. This was what fans...

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Fantastic Fest 2014 Review: CLOSER TO GOD, A Scientist Clones, While Everyone Else Fights About It

Posted: 18 Sep 2014 05:00 PM PDT

Turning a hot-button issue into a dramatic soap opera would be the easy way out. Skipping over the procedures and processes that would be involved, Closer to God goes directly to the creation of a clone and then asks, "What now?" As opposed to the army of movies that imagine clones in the future, writer/director Billy Senese wrestles with the essence of the issue, right here, and right now. Victor Reed (Jeremy Childs) is a scientist who is obsessed with cloning. He's not a "mad" scientist, though his obsessive behavior is certainly reminiscent of Mary Shelley's famed scientist, Dr. Victor Frankenstein. What this modern-day Victor exudes is devotion to his important work and single-minded focus on success. He conducts interviews, but he is not at...

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Macabro 2014 Review: Leopoldo Laborde's PIEL ROTA, No-Budget Horror At Its Best

Posted: 18 Sep 2014 04:00 PM PDT

Leopoldo Laborde is a veteran Mexican guerrilla filmmaker. Piel Rota his 19th production. It world premiered at Macabro 2014 and it is another no budget movie, but one in which you can see the director's experience of 20+ years reflected on the screen. In other words, it's a really well made effort that allows you to stay focused on the story and performances rather than on any technical issue. Piel Rota's protagonist is a male teenager named Diego whose head is still full of images of his ex-girlfriend Karina. Eventually, she will appear again in his life, but there might be an extra motive aside of a regular reconciliation. In fact, the boy is still angry with her, though that doesn't stop them from reviving...

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Watch The Trailer For Sundance Winning FISHING WITHOUT NETS

Posted: 18 Sep 2014 03:30 PM PDT

While we've had an interesting string of films about Somali pirates, Cutter Hodierne's feature debut is the only one of these that is from the perspective of the pirates themselves.Fishing Without Nets follows a young Somali fishermen who is thrust into the intense world of high seas, high stakes piracy. When our own Ryland Aldrich reviewed the film at Sundance (where Hodierne won the jury prize for directing) he stated that the film "takes a world to which we've been recently introduced, and expands it to magnificent results... Hodierne has crafted a visceral cinematic experience. You can practically smell the burning trash fires in the village and feel the spray of the surf as the small boats crash through the overhead waves."Ahead of its theatrical...

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Exclusive Stills For Drafthouse Docu THE OVERNIGHTERS

Posted: 18 Sep 2014 03:00 PM PDT

One of the most talked about documentaries at Sundance last January was Jesse Moss's powerful film The Overnighters. The film, which looks at the influx of workers in North Dakota through the lens of a pastor who runs a work center, won a Special Jury Prize at the fest. Drafthouse has scooped it up with an eye to the Best Documentary race and is bringing it to screens on October 10 (New York) and October 31 (LA). A modern-day Grapes of Wrath, award-winning documentary The Overnighters is an intimate portrait of job-seekers desperately chasing the broken American Dream to the tiny oil boom town of Williston, North Dakota. With the town lacking the infrastructure to house the overflow of migrants, a local pastor starts the...

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Win Some Cool Swag With Twitch's 'Toke And TUSK' Giveaway

Posted: 18 Sep 2014 02:30 PM PDT

You may have heard the hilarious news about The Tusk-branded pot strain, well the good folks at A24 are now giving away some cool swag to celebrate the release of Kevin Smith's new film this Friday (sorry kids, no weed). Send an email by Monday to contests@twitchfilm.net with "Toke & Tusk" in the subject and your contact info to enter to win. A chilling horror tale about the perils of storytelling, Tusk follows a brash American podcaster as he braves the Canadian wilds to interview an old man with an incredible past--only to discover the man's dark secret involves a walrus. 1 grand prize winner will receive a signed poster, T-shirt and metal grinder. 5 runners up will receive a T-shirt and plastic grinder. Check...

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Marko Zaror Kicks Ass In First Exclusive Clip From REDEEMER

Posted: 18 Sep 2014 11:30 AM PDT

Chilean martial artist Marko Zaror will explode on screen at Fantastic Fest with the world premiere of Redeemer - his latest team up with writer director Ernesto Diaz Espinoza - tomorrow afternoon but for those who can't wait to see the Latin Dragon in action, well, you don't have to because we've got the exclusive first clip from the film for you below.Former hitman Nicky Pardo (Zaror) has made a deal with God. Pardo will begin every day by holding a gun to his own head and pulling the trigger. And every day he does not die he will take it as a sign that he is meant to continue hunting down the men he used to work for. A bit of grappling, a bit...

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Udo Kier Joins Jury For Viewster Online Film Fest #3

Posted: 18 Sep 2014 09:30 AM PDT

If you submitted your film to the third annual Viewster Online Film Fest (#VOFF), then watch out! Cult film icon Udo Kier is going to judge you! The third annual festival began last Friday and will continue through September 25. This year's festival focus was on genre cinema and 500 films have been accepted from over 60 countries worldwide. All of the entries can be seen online at viewster.com.Kier joins other jurors, including film producer Ted Hope (21 Grams, American Splendor, Martha Marcy May Marlene), Iron Sky director Timo Vuorensola, and German actress Nora Tschirner (Keinorhansen). Once the jury has deliberated and made their decision, the #VOFF winners will be announced at the London Raindance Film Festival Closing Night Gala on October 5, which is being held in...

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Review: Great Performances And A Gritty Ending Make THE QUISPE GIRLS A Must See

Posted: 18 Sep 2014 09:00 AM PDT

One of the most anticipated Chilean movies of last year was this particular approach and almost austere way of film-making that was The Quispe Girls, but no film festival in Chile managed to snag it in 2013. Being selected in some major international festivals, any fanatic of Latin American cinema would salivate at the mention of the title, but we Chileans had to wait until 2014 to see it in a theatrical run.Based on a real story, the film follows three sisters, Justa, Lucía and Luciana Quispe, who live in the outbacks in the north of Chile, in the middle of the desert. They make goat cheese and herd their cattle through the mountains and under the scalding sun. Their life is simple and austere,...

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INDEX ZERO: Watch The Teaser Trailers For A Humanist Sci-Fi Film

Posted: 18 Sep 2014 08:30 AM PDT

Italian filmmaker Lorenzo Sportiello is making his feature film debut with a character driven science fiction film called Index Zero. Sportiello released a second teaser the other day. We have a bit of catching up to do so we have included the first teaser as well.In the near future, KURT and EVE were born over the United States of Europe barrier, in the abandoned lands after the great global economic crisis. She is pregnant and, in order to provide a future for their child, they try to enter Europe illegally. In this world, an 'Index of Sustainability' is given to every citizen, calculated on the personal productivity and wellness. Here a pregnant woman is considered 'not sustainable' and she must be expelled. Sportiello says in the...

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Review: THE MAZE RUNNER Will Find Its Way To The Right Audience

Posted: 18 Sep 2014 08:00 AM PDT

The Maze Runner is yet another young adult trilogy that has been adapted to film. Similar themes of science fiction and dystopia that are rife in The Hunger Games and Divergent films are on full display here. Despite all its shortcomings, average direction and watered-down screenplay, the film will find its intended market immediately.Although this fan base guarantees a financially viable franchise, as a non-reader of young adult fiction I still found enough mystery and progression in The Maze Runner to warrant an entertaining if forgettable experience.The film throws you immediately into a perilous situation as protagonist Thomas (Dylan O'Brien) rapidly ascends in a cage from an unknown place to the glade; a forest clearing that he soon finds out is in the middle...

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THE DEAD LANDS: Magnet Releasing Snatches NA Rights For Kiwi Flick

Posted: 18 Sep 2014 07:03 AM PDT

The North American rights for the Kiwi action flick The Dead Lands have been picked up by Magnet Releasing, according to Deadline. There are plans for a theatrical release next year, although no date has been set yet. The deal was negotiated by Magnet's Peter Van Steemburg and XYZ's Nate Bolotin. (Full disclosure: Twitch Film's editor and founder Todd Brown is a partner in XYZ Films, but was not involved in the writing or editing of this article.) Twitch Films's Jason Gorber caught the film when it had its World Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and had this to say in his review:Toa Fraser's The Dead Lands is a slow burn, one that sprinkles moments of action and violence into what's really a quite convincing Campbellian...

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Review: THE ZERO THEOREM, A Step Back Into The Future

Posted: 18 Sep 2014 07:00 AM PDT

In Terry Gilliam's The Zero Theorem, the old master of visual overload and absurd humor heads back to his "Brazilian" roots. He tells the story of Qohen Leth, a schizophrenic futuristic data mathematician trying to find a solution for the Zero Theorem, which says that everything will add up to nothing. Online relationships, a computer generated psychologist and the nerd son of his employer help Leth, played by a surprisingly changed Christoph Waltz, fighting his own fears and finding an impossible solution. Gilliam invites his audience once again for a visual trip with wide-angle orgies and color schemes inspired by rainbows. It is easy to feel sympathy for Gilliam, who like so many times before, heavily struggled to make this picture and ended up doing...

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