News

How To Train Your Dragon Movie Review Rating:

Star Cast: Mason Thames, Nico Parker, Gerard Butler, and Nick Frost.

Director: Dean DeBlois

How To Train Your Dragon Movie Review (Photo Credit – Instagram)

What’s Good: The new CGI on the dragons makes them look just amazing, and while some of the designs don’t translate well to live action, overall, the dragons’ look is a huge win.

What’s Bad: The film just doesn’t justify its existence other than keeping the IP alive, while worsening some secondary characters with questionable casting.

Loo Break: The film is as tight as the original one, so there are no breaks to go to the loo.

Watch or Not?: Watch only if you’re a massive fan of the original, or if you have never seen the original animated film before.

Language: English (with subtitles).

Available On: Theaters

Runtime: 125 Minutes

User Rating:...

Dan Da Dan: Evil Eye continues the adventures of its central pair with an almost aggressive refusal to slow down. The story operates with a particular brand of genre-blender whiplash that feels unnervingly appropriate for our times.

We are reintroduced to Momo Ayase, the spirit medium, and Okarun, her compatriot cursed with alien abilities, characters who treat paranormal catastrophe as a slightly inconvenient after-school activity. Their dynamic remains a chaotic ballet of adolescent awkwardness and world-saving necessity.

Into this mix comes the next stage of the plot, centered on their friend Jiji. The mission seems straightforward enough for their line of work: travel to Jiji’s sleepy hometown, famous for its hot springs, and exorcise whatever is ailing his parents. But the film quickly signals that a simple haunted house is the least of their concerns.

A deep-seated local legend about a sacrificial serpent, a town that is just a little too quiet,...

Some disturbing news has arrived this morning that alleges former Boardwalk Empire star Michael Pitt of some very serious crimes. Should these allegations prove to be true, Pitt is going to find himself in a world of legal trouble that could result in serious consequences.

Per The New York Post, court records out of New York City indicate that Pitt was arrested and arraigned at Kings Supreme Court in Brooklyn on May 2 following allegations of sexual abuse against his former girlfriend. The incidents go back to April 2020, with the actor being charged with two counts of first-degree sexual abuse, along with additional counts of assault injury with several blunt objects and strangulation.

The Alleged Abuse Gets Even More Disturbing Warner Independent Pictures

The court records go on to show that the charges are associated with four alleged domestic incidents that began in 2020, with the last coming in August 2021. The detailed...

The kids are not all right in Clown in a Cornfield. Based on Adam Cesare’s bloody breeze of a book, which spawned a trilogy, the horror comedy goes big on kills and laughs. Behind all the carnage, though, there’s a John Hughes-esque respect for the teens, the heroes in Clown in a Cornfield.

The problem isn’t “kids today.” It’s adults today.

As Frendo the Clown rips through one kid after another in a midwestern town, Quinn Maybrook (Katie Douglas) and her friends are left to fight and survive on their own. Tucker & Dale vs. Evil director Eli Craig brings his reliable eye for fun to the material. The adaptation is more comical than the book, but the soul of the story remains intact.

The fact that Cesare taught high school isn’t surprising. He writes students with more respect than irony. The author wrote...

Brady Corbet, director of the upcoming A24 film The Brutalist, is already looking ahead to his next project. Following The Brutalist, centering around an architect (Adrien Brody) fleeing post-war Europe in 1947 and pursuing the American Dream, Corbet will do something completely different. He revealed in a New Yorker profile that his next film, a horror-Western also centering around immigration, will “shake viewers.” According to The New Yorker:

The new project, which is set in the nineteen-seventies and early eighties, will also deal with immigration, this time of the Chinese to California. Its style will be looser; genre-wise, it will draw on horror and Westerns.

Apparently, the seed of the idea came to the director when he hosted a Halloween watch party for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre with his partner and collaborator, the filmmaker Mona Fastvold. Their 10-year-old daughter Ada and various friends were also in attendance.

Related The Brutalist Review:...

Plot: A washed-up boxer (Michael Pitt) prepares for the biggest match of his career – his first in ten years – while trying to patch up the various frayed relationships in his life.

Review: Day of the Fight marks actor Michael Pitt’s (billed here as Michael C. Pitt) first leading role in many years. A former heartthrob best known for The Dreamers, the American remake of Funny Games, and his role on Boardwalk Empire, he recently turned up in the underrated Benicio del Toro film Reptile but otherwise has been out of the spotlight for years. If you google his name, you can see that he had to deal with some personal issues we’re not going to dredge up here, but suffice it to say that Day of the Fight offers him a strong star vehicle that could help him make a comeback if the right people see it.

The...

Warning: Spoilers ahead for all the movies mentioned in this article.The horror genre continues to terrify audiences with great sequels like Smile 2, and new, original movies such as the Hugh Grant thriller Heretic. It's a genre that has consistently provided audiences with moments of pure terror, by either introducing new characters like Art the Clown in the Terrifier series, or with wildly inventive body horror films like Coralie Fargaet's The Substance. However, many horror movies are iconic because of their shocking endings.

The Substance's ending is a great example of a modern film with a sick, gruesome final act that lingers long in the memory. What's so great about it, is that it isn't just done for shock value. The scene is a great culmination of the protagonist's journey, and is a great way to close the movie's narrative. The movie joins a long list in the horror genre,...

In 2014, Creep creators Mark Duplass and Patrick Brice unleashed a bizarre new villain on the horror world: Josef, an overstepping extrovert who makes well-meaning strangers afraid of hurting his feelings, when they should be afraid for their lives. This strategy may sound familiar to fans of films like Straw Dogs, Speak No Evil, and Funny Games, in which the protagonists are too civilized to stand up for themselves, but The Creep Tapes levels up with a clever critique of modern masculinity.

In Speak No Evil, a predatory rural couple uses shameless displays of sexuality and machismo to intimidate and manipulate uptight tourists — a story derived from Sam Peckinpah's controversial thriller Straw Dogs. In Funny Games, an upper-class family is disarmed by the killers' antisocial antics. The Creep franchise's antihero also uses his prey's social training against them. Uniquely, though, he leverages the cultural stigma around emotional openness between men in order to get way,...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Bam

A series of “silent” movies includes films by Tati, Miguel Gomes, and Chaplin.

Film at Lincoln Center

The new 4K restoration of Sergei Parajanov’s Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors continues.

Museum of the Moving Image

The Seventh Victim and The Fog play on Friday; a Godzilla series gets underway; The Indian in the Cupboard plays on 35mm Saturday and Sunday.

Metrograph

Rio Bravo, Funny Games, Insomnia, Kung Fu Hustle, The Outfit, and The Good, the Bad, the Weird show on 35mm; My Crazy Uncle (or Aunt), Insomnia, and Crush the Strong, Help the Weak begin.

Roxy Cinema

Dancer in the Dark and Scream play on 35mm, while Suspiria and Without You I’m Nothing also screen.

Museum of Modern Art

A massive retrospective of Portuguese cinema continues, while the films of Mohammad Reza Aslani screen.

IFC Center

4K restorations...

Indie horror films have long been the breeding ground for some of cinema's most daring, imaginative, and unsettling works. Unlike major studio productions, independent horror often pushes creative boundaries, employing a low budget to deliver raw, unfiltered storytelling that haunts audiences.

From psychological torment to merciless gore, certain films embody the spirit of indie horror at its finest, showcasing the vision of filmmakers who make fear palpable without relying on blockbuster effects. The best indie horror movies have left a permanent mark on the genre by offering standout elements that challenge, frighten, and, in many cases, disturb audiences long after the credits roll. Also, when it comes to certain indie masterpieces, they are essential viewing for anyone looking to experience horror's depth and diversity, whether someone is a seasoned horror fan or a newcomer to the genre.

Movie Title

Rotten Tomatoes' Tomatometer

Rotten Tomatoes' Popcornmeter

Cannibal Holocaust (1980)

67%

61%

Funny Games (1997)

73%

83%

Creep...

A monument of independent filmmaking is coming to a cinema near you. Brady Corbet’s 3.5-hour-long, seven-years-in-the-making historical epic The Brutalist finally secured a U.S. distribution deal over the weekend. The movie, which won Corbet the Venice Film Festival’s best director prize Saturday, will be released by indie tastemaker A24 sometime later this year with a major awards season campaign expected to follow.

The buzz around The Brutalist has been building into a roar ever since its first press screening in Italy a little over a week ago. First came the curious talk surrounding the 10-minute intermission that bisects the movie — a commercially challenging choice that nonetheless feels integral to its construction. Then there were excited comparisons to Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood, or favorable references to the works of László Nemes and Jonathan Glazer. Awards season pundits, meanwhile, have already projected the film’s star,...

The English remake of Speak No Evil risks losing the original's terrifying element of miscommunication between European families. Big names like James McAvoy in the remake may attract viewers, but the psychological aspect may not add much to the original story. The new setting of a British country estate in the remake may offer new cultural dynamics, but the original's impact from the language barrier may be lost.

The remake of Speak No Evil starring James McAvoy is risky because of one crucial element from the Danish original. The film sees James McAvoy return to horror, and is released only a couple of years after the 2022 horror movie of the same name. The positively reviewed original Speak No Evil was a foreign language film, but an English remake takes away some of the original film's most terrifying and effective elements.

The original Speak No Evil is about a Danish and...

We’re obviously completely self-aware that we’re publishing this list the Monday after Deadpool & Wolverine made $205 million at the box office. That’s the whole point of being meta, right? Or if you want to get Merriam-Webster involved, something that “shows or suggests an explicit awareness of itself or oneself as a member of its category: cleverly self-referential.”

That said, when it comes to movies, this kind of self-awareness can cover a wide range of narrative devices. A character quietly acknowledging the audience can be meta. Other times, meta scenes can intentionally break apart a film’s reality. Meta doesn’t even necessarily need to be done for the sake of humor either, as plenty of movies — from Frederico Fellini’s 8½ to the horror thriller Funny Games — get meta without much humorous intention.

But for the purposes of this list, which Cracked writers Tim Grierson and Matt Solomon and...

Judging by his director’s statement, Chris Skotchdopole had bigger ideas for the allegorical “Crumb Catcher” than his messy debut feature pulls off. That won’t matter to the right audience who, when self-selected, ought to resemble a perfect Venn diagram of Eli Roth’s “Knock Knock” fans and apologists for Michael Haneke’s American “Funny Games” remake.

This bizarre four-hander drama turned psychological thriller — about newlyweds harassed on their honeymoon by a shady couple hocking a mysterious culinary invention — doesn’t quite match the filmmaker’s lofty ambition to say something…anything…that hasn’t already been said about marital malaise and the American Dream. Still, there’s a tasteful sort of nausea contained in Skotchdopole’s sloppy blackmail plot as chunky as it is tragicomic. Set mostly inside a nondescript rental home in upstate New York, this incohesive experiment in escalating tensions and false niceties will whet the...

The grimly effective 2008 home invasion shocker gets a strange semi-remake that sucks out all of the suspense

In a genre in which innovation is increasingly resigned to the furthest outskirts, there’s something almost admirable about just how staggeringly redundant The Strangers: Chapter 1 is, early contender for 2024’s most pointless horror movie. It’s the third in a series that should have stopped after one, a reboot that’s more of a remake but sold as a prequel while also acting as the start of a new trilogy, an over-complicated attempt to squeeze new life out of old IP. The 2008 original, which starred Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman as a couple menaced by three masked invaders, was a short, sharp shock to the system, a bare-bones exercise in drip-drip suspense made scarier by its cold, motivation-less villains (“Because you were home”).

There was a stark, naturalistic nastiness to it, closer...

Even after decades of masked killers armed with increasingly ludicrous weapons, cinemagoers still flock to theaters to experience the raw thrills of watching homicidal maniacs hunt the most dangerous game. And while there’s nothing wrong with filmmakers choosing to rely on tried-and-true formulas when depicting classic cat-and-mouse conflicts, the sheer amount of these movies means that horror fans often find themselves wishing for riskier takes on these familiar ideas.

Thankfully, there are some brave filmmakers out there that use of the basic premise of a slasher as a jumping off point to tell more creative stories. A recent example of this is Chris Nash’s highly ambitious In a Violent Nature, a Friday-the-13th-inspired horror film told from the melancholy perspective of the undead killer himself. And with the film impressing genre fans with its artsy reinvention of common clichés, we’ve decided to come up with a...

The Fallout: London mod offers an original storyline in post-apocalyptic London. Bethesda has no plans to take future Fallout games outside of the U.S. Fallout fans seeking non-u.S. settings may need to rely on mods, as Bethesda remains focused on America.

The Fallout universe has begun a pretty significant expansion with the release of the hit TV adaptation released on Prime Video. There are more than 100 vaults located across the U.S., each of them holding a different horrific experiment inside but longtime fans have pondered about what life outside of the U.S. must look like. Unfortunately, it doesnt seem as though Bethesda plans to give us any answers.

In an interview with the Kinda Funny Games podcast, Bethesda Executive Producer Todd Howard shared that he currently has no plans to take future Fallout games outside of the U.S. My view is part of the Fallout...

If you’ve played the Fallout games, it’s likely you’re aware of how American it can feel. Not only with its setting and cultural aspects but also the philosophies honed by its narrative. As it turns out, Todd Howard pretty much aligns his views with this, keeping aside the feelings of Fallout: London developers.

In an interview, Todd made it very clear that the games are supposed to stick to a cultural approach that is familiar to most of its fans. Now that the TV show is out, this is even more evident. Sorry Fallout: London fans, this one’s gonna sting.

Todd Howard Would Like to Keep Fallout American, and That’s It Todd is pretty clear about the Fallout history (and future).

In an interview conducted by a Kinda Funny Games podcast, Hodd Toward didn’t hold back when he spoke about Fallout’s true nature...

Starfield fans, some exciting news has just emerged for all you space-faring adventurers eagerly waiting for the next big update for Bethesda’s sci-fi open-world RPG.

In a recent interview, Todd Howard, the director and executive producer at Bethesda Game Studios, dropped some interesting hints about what’s in store for players in an update that’s coming in the next few days, completely separate from the Shattered Space Dlc.

Get Ready to Customize Your Ship in Starfield Upcoming Update

Starfield is set to get some major free updates in the next few dates

Howard didn’t spill all the beans during the Kinda Funny Games interview, but he did tell viewers there’s an update coming in a few days that’s different from the much-anticipated Shattered Space Dlc releasing later this fall.

He hinted that the update will feature shipbuilding features and city maps, some of the things...

Warning: This article contains Spoilers for Speak No Evil (2022)

The original ending of Speak No Evil is too dark for a mainstream Hollywood horror movie, posing a challenge for the upcoming 2024 remake. The shockingly bleak conclusion of Speak No Evil was what made the film a viral hit, but replicating it in the remake may be problematic. The remake risks redundancy if it sticks to a shot-for-shot redo without changing the original ending, which is no longer a surprise for audiences.

This article contains potentially distressing discussions of murder, including violence against children.

Although Speak No Evil's 2024 remake looks promising, the movie has an almost impossible ending problem. 2022’s Speak No Evil became a viral hit upon release thanks in part to its brutal ending. At first, the Danish psychological thriller plays out like a cringe comedy. A Danish family befriends a Dutch family while on holiday and visits their isolated countryside home,...

Icon Film has released a brand new trailer for the 4K restoration of Bernardo Bertolucci’s modern classic ‘The Dreamers’.

When Isabelle and Theo invite Matthew, an American student, to stay with them in their Parisian apartment, what begins as a casual friendship transforms into a sensual voyage of discovery and desire in which nothing is off-limits, and anything is possible…

From Academy Award-winning director Bernardo Bertolucci, the original cut of modern classic The Dreamers has been remastered for its 20th anniversary in stunning 4K. The restoration was completed by Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna under the supervision of director of photography, Fabio Cianchetti.

Set against the tumultuous background of the ’68 Paris student riots, experience this unforgettable love letter to cinema and the French New Wave like never before. Starring Michael Pitt, Louis Garrel (Little Women), and BAFTA winner Eva Green in her daring cinematic debut.

Also in trailers – Teaser trailer...

While horror movies don’t always have brutally bleak endings, some of the genre’s cruelest twists have been so dark and shocking that they left viewers utterly devastated. While horror movies often have killer opening scenes, it is infamously tough for the genre to stick the landing. If a horror movie ends on a hopeful note, this is likely to be satisfying for mainstream audiences but will also sap the preceding story of its intensity. Meanwhile, if a horror movie offers viewers no hope, it stays true to the genre’s dark heart but risks alienating its audience and making the entire enterprise seem pointless.

Luckily, this hasn’t stopped some filmmakers from pulling off endings that make the entire movie feel like a waste of time. These horror movies feature twist endings that aren’t just nasty but are so ingeniously bleak that they cast a dark shadow over the entire preceding plot.

When it comes to exploiting our deepest, darkest fears, nothing jangles the nerves more effectively than a well-made home invasion flick. We all want to believe we're safe once we lock the doors and windows, but unless you live in a fortress, you know that if someone really wanted to get in your house, they could do so with relative ease. Typically, we're worried about burglars, but we know vicious people exist. We've read Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood" and watched Michael Haneke's "Funny Games," and know, deep down in our hearts, once intruders cross the threshold, it's not going down like Kevin McCallister versus the Wet Bandits. Because anyone bold enough to break into a house is either desperate or disturbed, and this places us at a severe disadvantage.

No 21st-century film has exploited this to more terrifying effect than Bryan Bertino's "The Strangers." The premise...

If you don't know the name Grant Singer, chances are you're familiar with his work as a music video and commercial director. Singer has been behind some of the most visually striking videos of the past few years and has worked with artists such as The Weeknd, Sky Ferreira, Lorde, Taylor Swift, Sam Smith, Ariana Grande, Ariel Pink, and Skrillex. Now, Singer is following in the footsteps of filmmakers like Michael Bay, David Fincher, Gus Van Sant, McG, Joseph Kahn, Daniels, and Spike Jonze by delivering his first narrative feature. With a star-studded cast and a compelling story, Singer's new Netflix thriller looks and sounds like a refreshing addition to the streaming juggernaut's library of original projects. Check out the film's official synopsis below:

Following the brutal murder of a young real estate agent, a hardened detective (Benicio Del Toro) attempts to uncover the truth in a case where nothing is as it seems,...

Australian Film Television and Radio School

Australia’s leading screen arts and broadcast school benefits from a beautiful Sydney campus and a deep pool of industry lecturers and close ties with the Australian film community. Notable alumni include multi-Oscar nominee Jane Campion (The Power of the Dog), Phillip Noyce (The Quiet American) and Black Widow filmmaker Cate Shortland, plus a slew of esteemed craftspeople like Margaret Sixel (editing on Mad Max: Fury Road), David White (sound editing for Mad Max: Fury Road), Andrew Lesnie (cinematography for The Lord of the Rings) and Tony McNamara (best original screenplay Oscar nominee for The Favourite).

Beijing Film Academy

The USC of the world’s second-largest film industry, China’s most prestigious film school offers its graduates a wealth of industry ties to some of the country’s most prominent working actors and directors. Bfa also now has an undergraduate film program taught in English.

When it comes to horror movies, one of the most well-known subgenres is slashers. Each film follows this familiar formula -- a killer brandishing a blade of some sort tries to murder a group of people (usually teenagers), with only a final girl surviving at the very end. Over the years, this murderous modus operandi has expanded and evolved to create some truly terrifying flicks. One slasher movie that does not get enough attention for its innovation of the genre is 2015's The Final Girls. Directed by Todd Strauss-Schulson and starring American Horror Story's Taissa Farmiga and Malin Akerman from horror comedy Slayers, The Final Girls uses the slasher standard audiences have known for decades and infuses it with a clever meta concept that does not seem to get the credit it deserves.

Yes, the idea of meta-horror is nothing new, especially in this age of cinema. The Scream franchise is early evidence of that,...

In “Red Rooms,” Pascal Plante didn’t want to show explicit images of violent killings. He wanted to talk about them instead.

“During the pandemic, we have been spending all this time in front of our screens, consuming violent images in a very detached way. Realizing that led me to the dark web, basically,” he tells Variety.

His “sort of cyber thriller and sort of courtroom drama” – world premiering at Karlovy Vary Film Festival before opening Canada’s genre fest Fantasia – revolves around the high-profile trial of Ludovic Chevalier (Maxwell McCabe-Lokos), accused of murdering teenage girls and selling videos of his exploits.

“It was very deliberate not to show it. I have been listening to crime-related podcasts and they feel even creepier. This way, the audience almost wants to see them. In a weird, morbid way,” he says.

“This film is about the psychological consequences of extreme violence. I really...

(From left) Nicholas Crovetti, Naomi Watts, and Cameron Crovetti star in Goodnight Mommy. Photo: Prime Video Remaking successful international productions, particularly European ones, is a tried and true Hollywood tradition. In most cases we end up with a rehash that loses whatever edge the original had; in the process of...

My primal reaction when watching Goodnight Mommy was extreme unease and discomfort. Directed by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala, the mysterious thriller left me feeling emotionally drained after its screening at Fantastic Fest in September 2014. My fellow writer Pierce Conran was in much better shape to write about it, which he did with his superb elegance. So it is with mixed emotions that I report on a remake that is coming out next month. On the plus side: Naomi Watts. She is excellent in just about everything she has done, and is a big bonus in a remake, such as The Ring or King Kong or Funny Games. In the original Goodnight Mommy, her character was the one who was placed in danger by...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Naomi Watts certainly has a predilection for leading English-language remakes of Austrian psychological horror hits. After starring in Michael Haneke’s remake of his own Funny Games, the actress is now taking part in Matt Sobel’s Goodnight Mommy, a retelling of Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s 2014 horror feature. Ahead of a September 16 release on Prime Video, the first trailer has now arrived.

The film follows twin brothers (Cameron and Nicholas Crovetti) who arrive at their mother’s (Naomi Watts) country home to discover her face covered in bandages. The result, she explains, is from recent cosmetic surgery, but they immediately sense that something doesn’t add up. She sets strange new house rules, smokes in her bathroom, and secretly rips up a drawing they gave her—things their loving mother would never do. As her behavior grows increasingly bizarre and erratic, a horrifying thought takes root in the...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Bad Vacations

I imagine your summer plans didn’t go as expected, but in at least a few films in a new Criterion Channel series, some characters have it worse off than having to quarantine inside. Titled Bad Vacations, the collection includes Bonjour tristesse (Otto Preminger, 1958), La collectionneuse (Éric Rohmer, 1967), The Deep (Peter Yates, 1977), House (Nobuhiko Obayashi, 1977), Long Weekend (Colin Eggleston, 1978), The Green Ray (Eric Rohmer, 1986), The Comfort of Strangers (Paul Schrader, 1990), The Sheltering Sky (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1990), Funny Games (Michael Haneke, 1997), Fat Girl (Catherine Breillat, 2001), La Ciénaga (Lucrecia Martel, 2001), Unrelated (Joanna Hogg, 2007), and Sightseers (Ben Wheatley, 2012).

Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel

Epicentro (Hubert Sauper)

“This is utopia, bright and burning.

If you, as I, are the type to presume that a “dramaturgical assistant” is some form of midlevel job in a hospital’s oncology department you might be startled to see that none other than the great Michael Haneke is credited on the promotional material of To The Night–an unrelenting new work from filmmaker Peter Brunner–as being that very thing.

We are, naturally, being rather facetious here. The film in question, which follows an artist/arsonist’s (artsonist’s?) creative attempts to get over the horrific loss of his family–who perished in a fire from which he himself was the lone survivor–is in fact the third feature film from Brunner, a 35-year-old Austrian director who was, as it turns out, a student of Haneke’s at the Vienna Film Academy. If one’s old professor happens to have two Palme d’Ors and an Oscar lying around,...

The debut film by Veronika Franz - the wife of Ulrich Seidl - is the Haneke-esque story of a woman swathed in bandages and her potentially vengeful twin sons

Veronika Franz, the journalist and wife of Austrian film-maker Ulrich Seidl, makes her debut, co-directing with Severin Fiala for this chilly, angular, ultra-violent arthouse horror showing in the Venice film festival’s Orrizonti sidebar. Seidl himself produces, and the result is a technically proficient and at times unwatchably horrible ordeal set in an elegant modern lake-house bordering sinister forests and fields. It’s all topped off with a huge psychological twist, and this ending would appear to be influenced by a very specific director and very specific film. Naming these would be unsporting, but it is generally comparable to Haneke’s Funny Games and Jessica Hausner’s Hotel.

Elias is a nine-year-old boy who appears to be enjoying an idyllic summer...

Year: 2011

Directors: Vladan Nikolic

Writers: Vladan Nikolic

IMDb: link

Trailer: link

Review by: Ben Austwick

Rating: 2 out of 10

There.s nothing wrong with being pretentious if you.ve got the intellect and ideas to back it up. Why not rewrite the rulebook and sneer at those around you if what you.re doing is better than everyone else? But it really has to be very good, otherwise you.re going to come over a complete idiot.

This confusing and badly-written film is set in the near future, where a population genetically modified into a permanent state of happiness seek out black market drugs just so they can feel something, even if that feeling is pain. Jack is a drug dealer, inhabiting a familiar underground of graffitied streets and sterile, gothy raves, who uncovers a murky conspiracy explained in a series of numbered tapes, discoveries of which introduce each chapter of the film.

What's your favorite scary movie, a deep unfamiliar voice questions on the other end of the phone in the Scream series. What's scarier then supernatural terrors? People just like you and me that one day just snap. People are the scariest creations out there. Not restricted by sunlight or a full moon or to haunt a home single home. People have free will. Human beings can go anywhere and do just about anything. To me there is nothing scarier than that. Horror movie villains are not all monsters, demons, and ghosts. In fact some of the most menacing villains in cinematic history have been realistic completely plausible human villains such as Hannibal Lecter in "The Silence of the Lambs", the masked killers from "The Strangers", and Peter and Paul from "Funny Games".

My favorite human villain is Leslie Vernon (Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon). Sure this film...

Some directors react angrily to remakes of their films, particular when it’s the title that helped launch their career. Others – such as Funny Games’ Michael Haneke – go so far as to tackle the remake themselves. Nicolas Winding Refn is taking the supportive approach as the UK version of his drug thriller Pusher announces a cast including Paul Kaye, Richard Coyle, Bronson Webb and Agyness Deyn.Refn’s 1996 original found Kim Bodnia as Frank, a drug dealer whose life seems to be a big bucket of win until a deal goes badly wrong and is busted by the police. He gets away and is able to ditch the dope in a lake, but that leads to a new problem – he’s now in serious debt to his supplier, and that’s a man you don’t want to be in trouble with. Frank’s world becomes a mad scramble to...

Based on its trailer, The Perfect Host appears to be one part Funny Games, one part Weekend at Bernie’s, and one part Frasier. And if that description isn’t enough to pull you in, watch the teaser purely for David Hyde Pierce’s hauntingly hysterical portrayal of a twisted man who turns the tables on a bank robber (Clayne Crawford) hiding out at his house by making him the abused subject of an eccentric dinner party. I do not want to know what Pierce’s host is preparing to do with the party’s tossed salad and scrambled eggs.

Craig here with Take Three. Today: Michael Pitt

Take One: Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)

Pitt’s weedy teenage wannabe rock imp Tommy Gnosis (The Jesus freak army brat formerly known as Tommy Speck – then, very nearly, Tommy Ache) got to grapple with Hedwig’s Angry Inch in unconventionally inventive ways back in 2001. John Cameron Mitchell’s slip-up-operation rock opera, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, was like nothing else on screen at the time. If you could avert your eyes from internationally ignored “icon” Hedwig’s shining beacon of starlight, then hidden in the flared remnants, and on the sidelines, was Pitt’s Tommy. He was initially willing to dote on her every word but eventually reluctant to acknowledge his own sneaky appropriation of her back catalogue. He became the big star; Hedwig toured the fish restaurants of America.

Pitt does the naive, overtly adoring rock moppet well. He also does the non-committal,...

There is a terrific series titled ”Auto-Remakes” starting today at Anthology Film Archives in New York. The series, which runs through March 31, pairs films made and remade by the same director (in the way Michael Haneke did recently with Funny Games). C. Mason Wells, one of the programmers, writes “Anthology surveys the history of auteurs who – per Ken Jacobs – returned to the scene of the crime. Whether out of dogged perfectionism, playful abandon, or, yes, monetary gain, they changed their own films from black-and-white to color, from documentary to reenactment, from tragedy to comedy, from silent to sound, from noir to Western, from video to celluloid – reimagining the same stories, characters, or ideas with new collaborators, technologies, and formal strategies.”

What’s interesting about the pairs of posters for these films is that they are markedly similar. Aside from the casting, you can’t tell much about what differentiates the original and the remake,...

Trailers are an under-appreciated art form insofar that many times they’re seen as vehicles for showing footage, explaining films away, or showing their hand about what moviegoers can expect. Foreign, domestic, independent, big budget: I celebrate all levels of trailers and hopefully this column will satisfactorily give you a baseline of what beta wave I’m operating on, because what better way to hone your skills as a thoughtful moviegoer than by deconstructing these little pieces of advertising? Some of the best authors will tell you that writing a short story is a lot harder than writing a long one, that you have to weigh every sentence. What better medium to see how this theory plays itself out beyond that than with movie trailers? I'm interrupting this column to announce a sweet contest open to budding filmmakers who not only love the fake trailers that played during Grindhouse but...

A new online movie service specializing in independent and international films launches today. For $10 a month, Fandor gives members unlimited access to movies they can stream at any time. The company bills itself as a “curated” service that offers movies of artistic and historic merit. According to Fandor, “the catalog consists of a mix of film festival favorites, award-winning documentaries and short films such as ‘Happy Together,’ ‘Old Joy,’ ‘Carcasses,’ ‘Funny Games,’ ‘Searchers 2.0,’ ‘Black Gold’ and ‘Cairo Station.’” Jonathan Marlow, Fandor’s founder and VP content development and acquisitions, told TheWrap that the...

I should first say, for those of you just joining us, that my “Flashback” posts are not necessarily recommendations of each film; usually my intent is to point out something specific about each film, whether good or bad, or just revisiting them for no reason other than I recently watched them again.

Surviving The Game, directed by Ernest Dickerson, is a 1994 loose adaptation of Richard Connell’s 1924 story, The Most Dangerous Game, starring Ice-t, Rutger Hauer, Gary Busey and Charles S. Dutton.

It’s a low-budget, b-grade exploitative genre flick; but I’d also consider it something of a guilty pleasure, with Ice-t being the weakest link. This was made 3 years after New Jack City (another guilty pleasure), and Ice’s acting skills don’t seem to have much improved over that time period, during which he co-starred in 4 other films.

It’s one of several adaptations of Richard Connell’s short story,...

If Naomi Watts had only done Mulholland Drive she would be secure in movie history. She deserves a lot of camera time

Who ever heard a bad word about Naomi Watts? And don't expect to read one here. Still, her latest film, Fair Game, where she plays the outed CIA agent Valerie Plame, with Sean Penn as her husband, made too little impression on all of us who like her. It seemed promising: attractive married people plus international intrigue, along with the suspicion of there being more to the case than we ever heard. Directed by Doug Liman, the movie turns out rather dull. Is playing opposite Sean Penn anti-chemical (this was the third time Watts had tried)? Or did the drama need to be shifted towards comedy? Being married to a "spy" may play best as a version of "Can you trust your wife?"

But if the Anglo-Australian Watts...

James Marsden and Patrick Wilson are both currently in talks to star in a dark indie thriller entitled Loft. Based on Erik Van Looy’s disturbing 2008 Belgian film, the plot follows five men who hold keys to a penthouse apartment where they go to exorcise their lustful demons. But when a dead woman turns up in the apartment, chained to a bed, all hell breaks loose. Taking his cue from Funny Games helmer Michael Haneke, Van Looy will direct the English-language remake of his earlier film, with a script from A Nightmare On Elm...

.

So yet another not very old foreign film is getting the remake treatment. And much like, say, Funny Games, it's getting remade by its original director. The film is called Loft, a remake of a 2008 Belgian film from director Erik Van Looy (The Memory Of A Killer), about "five married friends who decide to rent a loft together where they can bring their mistresses. When the body of an unknown woman is found in the loft, they realize that they don't know each other as well as they...

How well do you know your friends? It’s a subject tackled by tricky Belgian thriller Loft, and now Patrick Wilson and James Marsden are putting the idea to the test, signing on to star in the American remake.The 2008 original, directed by Erik Van Looy, followed five married blokes who all chip in to rent a swanky pad together as a place they can bring their mistresses for a little extra-marital fun away from the prying eyes of their other halves.But then a seemingly unknown woman turns up dead in the loft, and the five turn on each other as their suspicious minds start trying to figure out which among them may be (insert dramatic musical sting here) a murderer!Wesley Strick, whose last attempt at writing a remake script brought us the rebooted A Nightmare on Elm Street, is scribbling the screenplay. And in the tradition of Michael Haneke and Funny Games,...

Reviewed at the Sundance Film Festival 2011.

There are bleak films and then there's "Tyrannosaur," a movie so dark it's like a cinematic black hole, a film from which no light escapes. Just how dark is it? The most cheerful scene in this movie is a funeral.

By the end, "Tyrannosaur" arrives at a deeply moving place, but before it arrives at that deeply moving place the viewer must endure one of the tougher sits of any movie in recent memory. Put this one alongside "Requiem For a Dream" and "Funny Games" on the Mount Rushmore of One-Timers, movies you have to see once, but can't imagine seeing twice. It's a powerful film you can't shake and won't want to revisit anytime soon.

It tells the story of two desperately sad people in Leeds in the UK, a man and a woman, united by their shared sense of helplessness. Joseph (Peter Mullan...

"Five tales that will mess you up for life." That's the tagline for Burning Palms, which opens in limited release on January 14. Written and directed by Christopher B. Landon (who wrote Disturbia, Paranormal Activity 2), the film follows five separate stories all across Los Angeles that delve into very taboo territory. It stars Zoe Saldana, Jamie Chung, Dylan McDermott, Paz Vega, Nick Stahl, Shannon Doherty, Rosamund Pike and more. Check out the trailer - which has a very Funny Games feel - after the jump. Thanks to Shock Till You Drop [1] for the below trailer. But first, read the plot description. It helps inform the trailer immensely. Burning Palms is a dark comedy, interlacing multiple stories where no taboo is left unexplored. Framed as a graphic novel come to life, the film unfolds in five popular neighborhoods of Los Angeles. Each story from the sandy beaches of Santa Monica, the...

While his sure to be rip-roaring tale of elderly decay was set to be titled These Two, writer and director Michael Haneke (or someone higher up) has apparently decided that the title doesn’t quite work for him. It’s been given the new, possibly ironic title of Love, according to Cineuropa (via IonCinema and ThePlaylist).

But, have no fear, this minor change won’t mean that production is delayed. It’s still set to begin in February with a quick 40-day shoot; excitingly, this means that it could premiere anywhere from Cannes in May to Tiff in September. As I said above, there’s possibly a sense of irony to the new name, and this isn’t anything new, as it could be similar to something like his previous Funny Games, both the Austrian and American versions. When you consider his filmography and the fact that this seems like...

I love that a heated discussion over Titanic’s infamous Oscar sweep of 1998 has already begun over at Laurent’s excellent retrospective. I guess it’s just the nature of this particular film. There is something about Titanic that hits a raw nerve in people and they feel a need to defend/criticize it so passionately.

As it happens, I fall in the ‘unconditional love’ category and I’m not afraid to admit it. To this day I have a passion for Titanic, a film that so perfectly matches what a glorious, spellbinding, big spectacle romance against an historic backdrop should be, and those films are so rare, especially when they are made with such precise and meticulous detail from James Cameron.

We shouldn’t be embarrassed over how much we loved Titanic in the 90′s. We should embrace it. So as our third ‘Choose The Winners’ article, we are...