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Blu-ray Review: Oscar-Nominated ‘No’ Demands Your Attention
14 hours ago
Chicago – Rarely have two letters wielded more power than in Pablo Larrain’s excellent “No,” a 2013 nominee for Best Foreign Language Film and recently released on Blu-ray. Starring Gael Garcia Bernal, “No” tells the true story of how arrogance and advertising collided in Chile in 1988 to help depose a ruthless dictator. It’s a very strong drama with yet another great performance from Bernal.
Rating: 4.0/5.0
In 1988, Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet thought that the plebiscite he was calling on his leadership was merely posturing against international pressure. He had no idea that the people would actually rise up and remove him from office. To do so required courage and the changing of minds around the country, spearheaded by an advertising campaign led by the brilliant Rene Saavedra (Bernal). Larrain and his star perfectly capture the intellectual and intestinal fortitude required to pull off the near miracle that occured in Chile in »
- adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
Blu-ray Review: Scream Factory Releases Two 1980s Greats in ‘The Howling,’ ‘Lifeforce’
16 hours ago
Chicago – When I was a teenager discovering horror films for the first time, I naturally gorged on ’80s genre classics and was drawn to the trendy characters like Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, and Leatherface. Films like Tobe Hooper’s “Lifeforce” and Joe Dante’s “The Howling” didn’t have what I was looking for. I wrote them off as dumb kids often do. Only over time have I come to fully appreciate both films, recently released in glorious HD restoration editions from the great Scream Factory. They’re must-owns for genre fans, as so many Sf titles have been lately.
Rating: 5.0/5.0
Hell, for a lot of horror fans, these are must-owns just for the gorgeous cover art. Looking beyond the beautiful illustrations, the films have been perfectly restored. “The Howling,” in particular, looks remarkable. I had never considered the film one of Dante’s strongest. I had considered wrong. It’s a smart, »
- adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
TV Review: ‘Survivor’ Meets ‘Lost’ on NBC’s Strange ‘Siberia’
18 hours ago
Chicago – Every Summer needs a guilty pleasure. (Anyone else watch “The Glass House”? Just me? Ok. Moving on.) This Summer’s guilty pleasure could easily be NBC’s truly bizarre “Siberia,” premiering tonight at 9pm Cst. This hybrid of “Survivor” and “Lost” has some truly rough edges but also contains an addictively strange premise that could separate it from a lot of the bland network offerings this season. Sure, most of the new must-sees are on cable this season (“Ray Donovan,” “The Bridge,” “Low Winter Sun”) but those programs are intense. If you want something left of center, you may come back to NBC.
Television Rating: 3.0/5.0
For at least the first half of “Siberia,” viewers unfamiliar with the conceit of the show are likely to think it’s a reality program. The editing, the to-camera interviews, the host, the structure — it feels like a “Survivor” clone, a genre unto itself in the last decade. »
- adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
Interview: Nat Faxon, Jim Rash Direct ‘The Way, Way Back’
22 hours ago
Chicago – Nat Faxon and Jim Rash are nothing if not spontaneous beings. Upon accepting their Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar, which they shared with Alexander Payne for the 2011 critical darling, “The Descendants,” they struck a comical pose, satirizing presenter Angelina Jolie’s leggy posture. It was a small moment, but it provided the dreary telecast with its biggest laugh.
While making “Descendants,” the Groundlings vets-turned-filmmaking duo studied how Payne would “pull back in a scene, not allowing things to get to a saccharine, syrupy level.” They applied those lessons to their own directorial debut, “The Way, Way Back,” a Sundance smash poised to become a potential summer hit. The film stars an endearingly awkward Liam James (of AMC’s “The Killing”), as Duncan, a teenage outsider forced to spend the summer at the beach house of his bullying stepfather, Trent (an uncharacteristically cold Steve Carell). As Duncan finds himself drifting away from his mother, »
- adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
Feature: 5 Signs of the Apocalypse in ‘The Bling Ring’
30 June 2013 7:55 PM, PDT
Chicago – “The Bling Ring” is the latest film from director Sofia Coppola. Her universe of the American Dream is filtered through a circumstance of Hollywood privilege. Who better to understand the end of the world than a director in the grasp of the modern film industry? The end is near.
The following are five signs of the coming apocalypse as filtered through “The Bling Ring.” The white hot nature of the left coast comes through as they are closest to the flame of the end, and therefore produce entertainments that presuppose those days. “The Bling Ring,” besides being excellent social commentary on L.A. society, has the following signs of the essential end of times.
L-r: Taissa Farmiga, Israel Broussard, Emma Watson, Katie Chang and Claire Julian are ‘The Bling Ring’
Photo credit: A24
The Celebrity Culture Becomes Culture
The worship of celebrity becomes so acute in “The Bling Ring »
- adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
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