LowbrowCinema

Beautifully balanced and perfectly directed, Yimou Zhang's COMING HOME takes bites out of your soul while examining the impact of China's cultural revolution in oh so delicate fashion. Zhang who has made hugely spectacular features is here back in small mode but his topics could not be larger, bigger or greater. And all is held together by the wonderful face of Gong Li. COMING HOME is a lovely, powerful achievement.

It's not bad. It's not good either. THE VISIT sort of lays there producing a few nice tricks and pretty neat performances. You won't scream, you won't really be scared, and the best scenes are already in the trailer. Except for a great moment involving a soiled adult diaper. Gotta love that at least!

The dog days of August are here! But where are the deliciously bad, in a good way, movies? Was hoping for that with HITMAN: AGENT 47. Got instead a dull faux video game with dreadful performances and very sad attempts to mimic Tarantino. AIM LOWER GUYS! And sorry Zachary Quinto, you're destined to win a Razzie for this one. But again, just for being bad. Not truly BAD. And poor Rupert Friend, Why? You finally got respect with HOMELAND only to do this? Time for a new manager.

The opening sequence is so dreadful I nearly plotzed in anticipation. Bad movies like this don't come around often BUT then NO ESCAPE actually gets quite damn good. Another xenophobic B-movie in the tradition of TAKEN. BUT, yest another but, the whole things just falls apart and becomes an unwelcome bore. Totally bummed me out because I was really enjoying myself.

Like a short story, Z FOR ZACHARIAH is delicate and beautifully produced. The first half is quite lovely with Margot Robbie delivering a very genuine performance as someone who believes she is the last person left alive after a nuclear **** then two men enter the scene and the film becomes a dull love triangle with no purpose whatsoever. You'll want to go to sleep.

Who was Sophie Tucker? Beats me and I just sat through THE OUTRAGEOUS SOPHIE TUCKER. This doc is so bad, so inane, it belongs on the list of films where you ask, "Have these people ever seen a movie?" Poor Sophie deserves much better than this.

The trailer made me groan but then those glowing reviews! GRANDMA is like an annoying person you don't want to be around. But worst of all is just how utterly contrived and typical it is. OK, it's better than the really crappy trailer, and thank god it's only 75 minutes long. Even Tomlin is nothing special. In fact, she's actually better in the truly dreadful FRANKIE & GRACE. So she may be on a roll but a roll down Niagara Falls is still the end of your life. Yikes. You can skip GRANDMA. Really no reason to see it. Small thing, please let me age like Sam Elliott.

Possession meets the military industrial complex! WOW. You'd think THE ATTICUS INSTITUTE would be just a total mess but it's not. Surprisingly effective and anchored by a number of really terrific performances especially from Rya Kihlstedt as the possessed woman at the center of it. A really nice discovery.

TOM AT THE FARM finally hits US theaters. And we are lucky to have it! Xavier Dolan's kind of latest (the film was actually made before MOMMY) is sexy, funny, creepy, romantic, and downright scary. This wonderful examination of self hatred, sexual confusion, and mommy love (again from Dolan) is pitch perfect until a last act that meanders and may leave you wondering what it was all about. But Dolan proves he is one of our great living directors. So TOM AT THE FARM is not perfect but still well beyond most of what you will see this year. And no matter how you react, you will be haunted.

The first half of AMERICAN ULTRA made me feel the way I felt when I first saw THE TERMINATOR--ballsy, modern, fresh, mean, violent, and outrageously fun! AMERICAN ULTRA is just as good at first with a lovely depth of feeling emanating from Kristen Stewart who once again steels the show. But then there's a character shift that undermines the pleasure and the film eventually becomes just too chaotic with fight scene after fight scene. AMERICAN ULTRA is on to something but it misses the mark unfortunately. Still a terrific time and again, Stewart proves she is a presence to be reckoned with.

Yikes! RICKI AND THE FLASH is one contrived disaster. Can this really be directed by Jonathan Demme who gave us the masterpiece SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and an odd assortment prior to that? Has Meryl Streep become such a one note, annoying and cloy actress? Was JUNO a fluke for Diablo Cody? I say yes! All of these talented people have been coasting and resting on their laurels for many years. Demme is truly the worst of all not having made a decent film since SILENCE OF THE LAMBS almost 25 years ago. The less said about RICKI the better but I will add two saving graces--the lead character does not apologize for who she is and the club numbers are quite good. These are the only moments when Streep comes alive and feels like the actress we used to love so much. God, please save them from themselves!

CHILD 44 is basically an incomprehensible mess of a movie. Tom Hardy and Noomi Rapace do their best to save it but it's ultimately a sinking Russion ship of espionage hooey.

With THE GIFT, actor Joel Edgerton makes a wonderfully auspicious feature film debut as writer, director and producer. THE GIFT will not scare you nor will it drive you to the edge of your seat. It's actually much better than that! Edgerton plays with the generic elements of the contemporary revenge thriller but then switches gears and delivers an extremely pointed drama on bullying, greed, and the past. The film is not perfect, all too often being more interesting for what it is not that what it is, but THE GIFT is a frightening tale of how we can never really know each other and what we are capable of. And bravo to Edgerton for finally giving Jason Bateman a lead role that truly suits him. This Bateman's best screen performance. He's a total **** and you actually feel sorry for him.

Director Christian Petzold and actress Nina Hoss have now brought us a string of accomplished films exploring Germany's past and present, culminating with the extraordinary BARBARA. What a disappoint it is to report on PHOENIX. A metaphorical conception of a concentration camp survivor given a new face (literally) only to come back to Berlin to follow her husband, the man that betrayed her. PHOENIX is worthy of Sirk or Fassbinder. Petzold's direction is without merit and he gives one of our best actresses nothing to do. A total misfire that I found downright dull.

ALLELUIA is an overly arty and unnecessary remake of the underground, amazingly brilliant THE HONEYMOON KILLERS from 1969. This French language Belgian film is basically incomprehensible and removes all the strange ultra-bizarreness of this crazy story.

What can one say about LILA & EVE? Brought to us by Lifetime Films, LILA feels like the kind of film Lifetime never makes anymore but with actors well above par. Viola Davis is truly awesome in every way, delivering a performance that does not depend upon her usual over wrenching weepy. And JLO is pretty perfect, showing what a super actress she can be. The film kind of **** but I loved it. Full of strange twists and turns. It's not the movie you expect which is what makes it quite wonderful.

TANGERINE is one terrifically modern, gritty film. The first indie in a while that truly engaged me and made me feel the excitement of the street. Director Sean Baker perfectly captures the real LA in less than 90 minutes. And it's all in service to one terrifically wacky, funny, old fashioned, but profoundly current story. Kudos all around

THE GALLOWS is a truly dreadful affair. So inept it hurts with some of the worst acting I have witnessed in decades. BUT, see it on a weekday summer night at a late show with a crowd of 16 year olds, and you will have a ball. What a great audience!!! I give them a 10.

Pardon me for not jumping on the Amy Schumer bandwagon, but she is one more example of a supposedly "daring" comedian who is actually quite status quo and mainstream. The perfect complement to director Judd Apatow who litters his tales with dirty words and sex but is actually as innocuous as a Kate Hudson rom-com from the last decade. In fact, I would argue that BRIDE WARS has a more cutting and daring message to deliver than TRAINWRECK or any of Schumer's or Apatow's work. Pile on to that, TRAINWRECK is simply too long, lethargic, and just not very funny. And perhaps worse than anything, poor Brie Larson, who is quite the actress, is here relegated to playing the sister/homemaker with no bite or attitude. TRAINWRECK just made me feel sad in an unintentional bad way. Perhaps we will soon get the truly daring female comedian we really need. Otherwise, I'll stick to ROSANNE re-runs.

WOMAN IN GOLD totally took me by surprise. I've actually now watched it back to back twice because its subtlety and clear purpose can be quite disarming. The film is clunky at times and not particularly dramatic, but the statements it makes about the past and how as individuals and a society we are our pasts is quite poignant. And then there is the film's exploration of true restitution. How do we move on? Be the people and society we want to be? WOMAN IN GOLD asks and actually answers these questions! It's a haunting work despite itself.

It may not be a work of art, but SPY is that rare spy spoof that is actually funny from start to finish. Sure the film is too long and they really don't know how to use Jason Statham but the rest of the cast is totally game and the filthy script actually very funny. A terrific time at the movies. A good summer flick.

A MURDER IN THE PARK may not be great art but it is a riveting documentary that will totally piss you off. Watching MURDER, I got so antsy and angry I could have screamed at the injustice, hypocrisy, and self-involvement perpetrated against so many innocent and not so innocent people. MURDER plays like a thriller with real villains, some nasty folks, and a few good intentions. This is a film produced to make you angry. To make you realize how imperfect our justice system is and how easy it is to manipulate the whole damn thing. A terrific doc.

Not quite the masterpiece it was hailed at Cannes, AMY is a good solid doc that uses mainly found footage. A lot has been written about the no talking heads structure which is actually not accurate. The heads are talking but we don't see them. This all points to one thing--AMY is actually a very standard bio doc about a very talented woman that none of us really knew. The early scenes of her talent, wonderful humor, and true wit, underscore the tragedy and sadness of it all. I actually think the film would be better if it simply ended as her alcohol and drug use started. Then we would see the young woman so ready to find herself and we would only question what became of her. But back to AMY. Really just a standard film with some nice moments. The film also lacks a central focus or point, so it just becomes a lot of stuff about Amy.

Paul Dano totally captures Brian Wilson. John Cusack captures a very disturbed but sweet man. Ostensibly they are both playing Wilson, though you'd never really know it. We learn a bit of the truth about Wilson but LOVE AND MERCY is too full of music and entertainment industry cliches to have any impact. And then the fantastical sequences are too sloppy to work in any way. But there is one major standout--Elizabeth Banks who is simply translucent while being totally grounded. Really cool.

A LITTLE CHAOS is pure fiction and one wonders, why was this film made exactly? Utterly pointless, but very engaging. You leave confused by the whole work. One thing you can't deny, Kate Winslet is perfection and director Alan Rickman includes two masterful scenes that show the humanity beneath all the pomp and circumstance of the French court. So I guess... see it but don't expect much.

WHAT HAPPENED, MISS SIMONE? is that rare documentary which manages to be both personal and political. In fact, it is that rare film that examines the full complexity of a human being and the times they live in. Filmmaker Liz Garbus, like her subject Nina Simone, understands the complexity of human experience and a society where the personal is political, and the political very personal. Every time the film heads in one direction or feels like other films you've seen, it veers off in totally different ways perfectly encapsulating a very complex life. If you thought you knew Nina Simone, you didn't until WHAT HAPPENED, MISS SIMONE? One more extraordinary music doc in 2015.

LORDS OF DOGTOWN is like two movies in one. Sadly, one is by the book Hollywood melodrama of rise and fall. You've seen it a million times in mediocre music, film and theater tales. BUT, the second film is a gritty lovely celebration of skateboarding anchored by pretty amazing performances by Emile Hirsch and John Robinson who you just want to wrap your arms around and kiss. Finally caught up with this uneven work that may just haunt me in the future.

I have a true passion for heroin culture. This started when I was around 8 years old. Perhaps best to discuss this with my shrink but nonetheless I was very excited to see HEAVEN KNOWS WHAT, a grungy real tale of heroin addiction on the contemporary streets of NYC. Unfortunately, HEAVEN KNOWS WHAT is all cold examination, no depth or insights. A lot of screaming. I was drawn in but left cold and empty. If only that were intentional.

GOOD KILL is a good attempt to deal with the complexity and ethics behind drone warfare. Director Andrew Niccol is back to more adult terrain after some pretty dreadful misfires but like all of his films, a great central conceit falls apart by the third act. So you're left with very little about a very important topic. A total misfire.

George Miller is back! Sadly, he's just as good but not better. MAD MAX: FURY ROAD has the same exciting flow that the first two films had (let's ignore the monstrous THUNDERDOME) but the non-stop action simply does not feel new. For the first hour, I was just bored. Lulled into tedium. Then kick ass visuals jump in and Charlize Theron truly steps up. On that point, there is little Max in MAD MAX. He's barely there fading into the clutter. But what super clutter! Great to see real trucks and cars bang up without CGI. Finally, Miller is back but his new MAX is a bit of a bore. A dullard.

HOT PURSUIT is so bad that you simply feel sad for the talent involved. And there is talent. Reese Witherspoon in particular has proven herself time and time again. I'm sure everyone related to this pic wishes it had turned out bettter. The distributor could have saved them all the embarassment by going straight to video.

ABOUT ELLY begins simply and joyfully, then turns into a suspenseful quasi-L'AVENTURA but eventually becomes an indictment of a repressive system that leads to subterfuge. Asghar Farhadi is not a show off but ABOUT ELLY feels more modern and contemporary than any other film out there. Farhadi's talent is nowhere more visible than in a scene of a woman flying a kite that seems both happy and terrifying at the same time. A wonderful film.

Excluding two extraordinary scenes featuring Aymeline Valade and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, SAINT LAURENT is all surface and no insight. After 150 minutes of rich drug abuse, I just got bored. The film lacks any central conceit so you're lost and mired in a lot of "stuff." Sadly, the director has no cohesive vision about the man who was SAINT LAURENT.

Totally blown away by KURT COBAIN: MONTAGE OF HECK. The best doc I have seen in years and that rare film whose style and format is totally in keeping with the spirit of its subject. You feel immersed. You understand. You see what's important in all new ways. A staggering achievement!

Brooding and contemplative, BLACK SOULS examines the endless cycle of violence and vendettas in Italian crime circles. The film leads to a logical conclusion, "all must die to stop this cycle of corruption." A sad statement on Italy's inability to rid itself of organized crime. As a film, BLACK SOULS will leave you cold. Director Francesco Munzi does not draw out the required intensity from his filmmaking or his cast. So until the very tragic end, you may find yourself very bored. I was.

TAKEN 3 is not even a movie. I love the first TAKEN. Really love it. This flick is totally incomprehensible. Did no one making this film realize that it is Neeson and his interactions that make his films work? Instead he's like the terminator. Action, action, action, but nothing you ain't seen before and done much better.

Sometimes you are just in the mood for a light entertaining doc so my expectations were low for DIOR AND I. My expectations were met. Not very insightful or particularly new, DIOR AND I is a good time. Not much more. Raf Simons, the central figure in the doc, is not very interesting and there are far too many elements thrown in making the film feel totally unfocused. A good editor could have saved this one.

A movie trapped in the past about not being trapped in the past, CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA is one more mixed bag of pretension from Olivier Assayas. The ideas are there, the depth, the themes but the execution once again fails. Kristen Stewart, however, is a revelation! She gets it, breaking through the pretense to explore the depths only imagined by the rest of this film. Her shifts from "reality" to "acting" are quite frankly, awesome and amazing. And exactly what CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA is all about.

His second feature, HEARTBEATS is not Xavier Dolan's best but as always, the film shows an energy and talent that's modern and truly captures the way we live now. However, this is the only one of Dolan's features that feels immature. A film about the young from the young. And Dolan is young. Only 22 when he made HEARTBEATS but still a step back after the amazing I KILLED MY MOTHER.

Not at all the disaster claimed at Cannes, Ryan Gosling's directing debut LOST RIVER is actually quite captivating but it feels like a film from a sophomore at NYU. Too many missed ops that make you think of far better fillms esp from David Lynch. And like so many first time filmmakers, Gosling keeps cutting away from all his great scenes. Not much to write about.

Polished to the max, EX MACHINA feels heartless and over thought. Yet, it really didn't make me think of much than how it great it looks. You've seen it all before. Filmmakers have been exploring this terrain for at least 50 years. Even the structure with its naive young man brought to a compound by a wealthy bully has been done to death. We need something new and unfortunately, EX MACHINA does not deliver.

Like a slap in the face to middle aged men, AUDITION is an audacious and pitch perfect examination of true misogyny and the real fear men have of women. The film works on too many levels to count. As astounding today as it was in 1999.

FOR A GOOD TIME CALL is one of those buoyant lovely films about friendship that just totally thrill me. It's also really dirty and funny. Try to ignore the 3rd act required conflict moment and you'll love it! And Ari Graynor is sublime.

Wonderfully directed, shot and performed, A WOLF AT THE DOOR dares to show the ugly side of an extra-marital affair and it's brutal consequences. The end will make your jaw drop as nice people do very bad things.

WHILE WE'RE YOUNG is yet one more pseudo-intellectual clap trap of a film from the grossly untalented Noah Baumbach. There is not an ounce of originality or genuineness in this utterly false film that contradicts itself at every turn and is just as self-indulgent as its banal characters.

Meticulously directed by Jessica Hausner, AMOUR FOU should not be confused with the many French films called L'AMOUR FOU. This story of poet/playwright Heinrich von Klest and his desire for an amorous double suicide in 1810 is amazing to look at and experience. Wonderfully acted and quite bizarre--a German story told by Austrians will always have a wit and crazy sophistication no German could dream of. Despite all this, AMOUR FOU simply doesn't jell. Once again, a talented filmmaker shot down by lack of focus and too many ideas. I kept asking, "What does this romance have to do with Prussian social change?" which actually takes up more screen time than the double suicide but to little avail. But there is brilliance here such as a scene when von Kleist once again pursues a singer to be his love in the double suicide. All in a totally whacky scene that seems downright pompous and, dare I say it, normal. And bravo once again to the dogs in this film which nearly steal the show!

More premise than film, INTERIOR: LEATHER BAR seems to want to shock but it can't. There's simply nothing there. The less said the better about this total misfire made by people with very little on their mind other than to riff on other people's far better works. See CRUISING instead. It may be a mess, but CRUISING is also some kind of masterpiece of its time and unlike INTERIOR has too much on its mind rather than too little or almost nothing.

RUN ALL NIGHT is not as bad as it should be or I wanted it to be. Actually pretty decent with good performances and terrific atmosphere. Nice to see NYC look like NYC in a movie again. Way too long, RUN ALL NIGHT doesn't know when to end and it would be so much better if it did. But still not a bad day at the movies with some cool guys.

Once again I thank god for TCM! THE VISITOR is something special kind of like THE OMEN meets THE BIRDS meets THE EXORCIST directed by Jodorowsky. Sound compelling? Well it is! The kind of film that truly does not get made anymore with a star studded cast of amazing and infamous people. Franco Nero opens the show as a kind of bizarre christ-like character with the most beautiful eyes and wacky blonde hair. Then you get John Huston, Mel Ferrer, a young Lance Hendrikson, Glenn Ford, Sam Peckinpah, and one truly good performance from Shelley Winters who seemed to make a lot of money making American inspired Italian flicks in the 70s. Sadly, THE VISITOR is a bit of a bore and doesn't have that one great moment that will keep you talking for days but it's still pretty darn super.

Is IT FOLLOWS the revisionist horror, critics want it to be? No. Actually, I think the great reviews hurt a film like IT FOLLOWS. It's a super little indie horror. The film borrows from other films especially the original HALLOWEEN and then yanks the rug from under you. What I found most interesting is that up until the past few years American teens were portrayed as fun-loving, drug and sex addicted crazies out for a good time. Now it's the 40+ that are fun loving. In IT FOLLOWS, the teens are morose and sad. The middle class world they live in is no better than the horror of downtown Detroit. So many cool ideas. Amazing cinematography, nice perfs, and super music. I totally enjoyed myself, so what's missing? A truly great horror that moves the genre forward needs to feel fresh and visceral. IT FOLLOWS is really terrific but far too intellectual to be visceral. Too much Cronenberg and Lynch to be stellar. One last thing, the horror becomes menacing. Such a mistake. It would way cooler if "it" just followed you. Then you'd lose your mind. And that's a great horror! Make me lose my mind.