Category Archives: Brought to You by the OFCS

This Week at the Movies

This Week at the Movies (Dec. 6, 2019)

Leave a comment

Here are some reviews of films coming out at the theater this week as well as others that may be in theaters or newly on home video.

Opening: Dec. 6, 2019

Wide (United States)

Playmobil: The Movie

For member reviews of this film, follow this link

Limited (United States)

Daniel Isn’t Real

For member reviews of this film, follow this link

Marriage Story

For member reviews of this film, follow this link

The Aeronauts

Jared Mobarak @ JaredMobarak.com

  • Excerpt: [The fictitious] James and Amelia provide us a century’s worth of triumph and excitement in an hour-and-a-half. It’s a wild appetizer for history’s more expansive meal.

The Aeronauts

Aaron Neuwirth @ We Live Entertainment

  • Excerpt: The adventure aspect is quite compelling and looks great.

I See You

Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum

  • Excerpt: A solid mystery achored by strong performances that manages to lull you into one direction while pulling the rug out from under you in a compelling way.

In Fabric

Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See

  • Excerpt: A giallo-inspired horror film about a literal killer dress? Sign me up.

Knives And Skin

Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum

  • Excerpt: Writer/director, Jennifer Reeder, wears her influences on her sleeve, but she uses those influences to create a timely and visually striking mood piece.

A Million Little Pieces

Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage

  • Excerpt: [The filmmakers are] bound to [its] shortcomings because the text’s drama is born solely from James’ fear while everyone around him distracts from the redundancy of that truth.

2019 Films In Theaters Now In Select Areas

Continue reading This Week at the Movies (Dec. 6, 2019) →

The Grab Bag

From Our Members’ Desks (Dec. 2, 2019)

Leave a comment

OFCS members don’t just write film reviews. Here are several articles you might find interesting.

Interviews

Interview with Waves director Trey Edward Shults

Josh Taylor @ www.forgetfulfilmcritic.com

  • Excerpt: I recently had the opportunity to speak with director Trey Edward Shults in anticipation of the release of his new film Waves. Don’t worry, I was sure to ask him what you’re all dying to know: whether he considers Marvel movies to be cinema or not.

Ken Loach / Passámos Por Cá: Brexit é uma distração

Paulo Portugal @ Insider [Portuguese]

Knives Out — Rian Johnson Interview

Andrea Chase @ PRX.org

  • Excerpt: Rian Johnson talks being human, toying with an audience, and how the late, great Ricky Jay makes a cameo

Awards Coverage

92nd Oscars: The Precursors Are Coming

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

92nd Oscars: Upcoming Precursors – December

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

The Friday Face-Off Round One #15

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

Oscar Preview: Precursor Winners & Losers, Week 1

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

Oscar Preview: Weekend of Nov. 22-24, 2019

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

Poll: Remaking Production Design, 2012

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

Precursor: 3rd Hollywood Critics Nominations

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

Scandalous: The Untold Story of the National Inquirer

Paulo Portugal @ Insider [Portuguese]

Reviews of Short Films

Alien: Harvest

Paulo Peralta @ CinEuphoria [Portuguese]

Meat Wagon

Paulo Peralta @ CinEuphoria [Portuguese]

  • Excerpt: Buried Alive Film Festival coverage

Playtime’s Over

Paulo Peralta @ CinEuphoria [Portuguese]

  • Excerpt: Buried Alive Film Festival coverage

Toothache

Paulo Peralta @ CinEuphoria [Portuguese]

  • Excerpt: Buried Alive Film Festival coverage

Other Types of Articles

5 Favorites Redux #6: Favorite Films Starring the Cast of Knives Out

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

Oscar in Box Office History (Week 47, 2019)

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

Poll: Now That You’ve Seen “Frozen II”

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

Poll: What Are You Most Anticipating? (Dec. 2019, Limtied)

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

Poll: What Are You Watching? (Nov. 29-Dec. 1, 2019)

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

Preview: Beyond the Law

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

Preview: Cats, updated

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

Preview: Sonic the Hedgehog, updated

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

Preview: The Death and Life of John F. Donovan

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

Preview: The Divine Move 2: The Wrathful

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

Preview: The Irishman, updated

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

Preview: The Two Popes

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

Preview: The Way Back

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

This Day in Oscar History: November 22

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

This Day in Oscar History: November 23

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

This Day in Oscar History: November 24

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

This Day in Oscar History: November 25

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

This Day in Oscar History: November 26

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

This Day in Oscar History: November 27

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

This Day in Oscar History: November 28

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

Classics & Other Film Reviews

Classics & More on DVD (Nov. 26, 2019)

Leave a comment

Here are our latest reviews of films on DVD.

Pre-2017 Film Reviews

Apocalypse Now – Final Cut

Marco Albanese @ Stanze di Cinema (1979) [Italian]

Christmas in July

Peter Nellhaus @ Coffee, Coffee and more Coffee (1940)

  • Excerpt: Sometimes I feel like we need Preston Sturges more than ever. What makes Christmas in July continually endearing and enduring is the sense of optimism.

The Nice Guys

Dragan Antulov @ Draxblog VI (2016) [Croatian]

The Grab Bag

From Our Members’ Desks (Nov. 25, 2019)

Leave a comment

OFCS members don’t just write film reviews. Here are several articles you might find interesting.

Interviews

Mr. Rogers’ Compulsive Intimacy: The Writers Behind A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Nell Minow @ rogerebert.com

  • Excerpt: I’ve really come to look at interviews that I do with people as a profound human experience and I try to honor that in the things that I write. I always had a hunch that there was something more going on in an interview than me just asking questions and people answering but Fred’s the person who confirmed that for sure.

Awards Coverage

2019 Oscar Nominations Predictions: November

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

The Friday Face-Off Round One #14

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

Oscar Preview: Weekend of Nov. 15-17, 2019

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

Poll: Remaking Best Production Design, 2011

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

Precursor: 31st PGA Documentary Nominations

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

Precursor: 35th Spirit Award Nominations

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

Precursor: 62nd Grammy Award Nominations

Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Sight

Essays

Continue reading From Our Members’ Desks (Nov. 25, 2019) →

This Week at the Movies

This Week at the Movies (Nov. 22, 2019)

Leave a comment

Here are some reviews of films coming out at the theater this week as well as others that may be in theaters or newly on home video.

Opening: DATE

Wide (United States)

21 Bridges

For member reviews of this film, follow this link

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

For member reviews of this film, follow this link

Frozen II

For member reviews of this film, follow this link

Limited (United States)

Dark Waters

Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews

  • Excerpt: Haynes makes a radical departure from the lushly produced period films where he’s explored the personal ramifications of societal norms with this bleak investigative procedural laying bare the personal ramifications of taking on corporate America.

Dark Waters

Aaron Neuwirth @ We Live Entertainment

  • Excerpt: I am either all for a solid legal thriller that succeeds because of the craft or just a big fan of movies where Mark Ruffalo gets to a breaking point, shouting, “They knew!” at a co-worker.

2019 Films In Theaters Now In Select Areas

Continue reading This Week at the Movies (Nov. 22, 2019) →

Classics & Other Film Reviews

Classics & More on DVD (Nov. 19, 2019)

Leave a comment

Here are our latest reviews of films on DVD.

Pre-2017 Film Reviews

Bad Day at Black Rock

Tynan Yanaga @ (1955)

Black Cat Mansion / The Ghost of Yotsuya

Roderick Heath @ Film Freedonia (1958 / 1959)

  • Excerpt: Nabuo Nakagawa shared distinct traits with his major western counterparts of the same period, Terence Fisher, Mario Bava, and Roger Corman. Like them he developed an intensely atmospheric visual style, and tried to invest horror cinema with new aesthetic force and style to fit in with an era of widescreen and blazing colour.

Border Incident

Tynan Yanaga @ (1949)

The Fearless Vampire Killers

Roderick Heath @ Film Freedonia (1967)

  • Excerpt: The familiar heroic figure of the Van Helsing-type vampire slayer, the iron-willed and well-versed enemy of evil, is perverted into an extended and acerbic joke about intellectual dilettantes, taking on monolithic evil with tunnel-visioned confidence and book learning.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers / Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Roderick Heath @ Film Freedonia (1956 / 1978)

  • Excerpt: Most good films detailing the eruption of the fantastic amidst the familiar hinge upon the question as to just when what’s logical – in the sense of what conclusion about a situation that can be reasonably deduced from the facts – ceases to obey one set of presumptions and dictates another.

The Man Who Laughs

James Jay Edwards @ FilmFracture (1928)

Peeping Tom

Roderick Heath @ Film Freedonia (1960)

  • Excerpt: The funny thing about Peeping Tom is that it’s a thriller without thrills.

Riot in Cell Block 11

Tynan Yanaga @ (1954)

Sátántangó

Josh Taylor @ www.forgetfulfilmcritic.com (1994)

  • Excerpt: You don’t just watch Sátántangó, Hungarian director Béla Tarr’s 7.5-hour paean to slow cinema. It seeps into your bones.

Son of Dracula

Roderick Heath @ Film Freedonia (1943)

  • Excerpt: Son of Dracula is probably the best of the works Universal made in the 1940s. Although it lacks the tragic stature of The Wolf Man, it makes up for it in the beauty of its imagery, the sly perversity of its story, and the clear imprint of a fraternal creative team, Carl and Robert Siodmak.

Thieves’ Highway

Tynan Yanaga @ (1949)

The Grab Bag

From Our Members’ Desks (Nov. 18, 2019)

Leave a comment

OFCS members don’t just write film reviews. Here are several articles you might find interesting.

Best of Lists

25 Essential Films of the 2010s

Roderick Heath @ Film Freedonia

  • Excerpt: The last decade of cinema has skidded about like a seismograph chart, agonising, terrible, brilliant, endlessly inventive, profoundly lazy, embattled and almighty.

Interviews

Ed Skrein & Luke Kleintank on Playing Legendary Fighter Pilots in Midway

Nell Minow @ The Credits

  • Excerpt: ACTOR, INTERVIEWS, MOVIES Ed Skrein & Luke Kleintank on Playing Legendary Fighter Pilots in Midway NOVEMBER 4, 2019 Print BY NELL MINOW Midway is a stirring tribute to the immeasurable courage of the men we now call part of the Greatest Generation. Premiering on November 8, Veteran’s Day weekend, it is the story of the early days of WWII, from Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor to America’s first major battle victory in the Pacific, the battle of Midway. The all-star cast includes Woody Harrelson as Admiral Chester Nimitz, Dennis Quaid as Admiral William “Bull” Halsey, and Aaron Eckhart as Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle. But the thrilling air combat scenes are at the center of the film, with stars Ed Skrein and Luke Kleintank playing two of the most decorated Navy pilots of the war, Dick Best and Clarence Earle Dickinson respectively. In an interview with The Credits, they talked about their research Did you create your characters based on the script or did you do your own independent research? Ed Skrein: I’m always known to go head over heels into my research and leave no stone unturned.

Interview With Beth Moran, Director of the Short Film Missing a Note

João Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]

Interview With Marie-Louise Damgaard, Swedish Star and Director of The Confirmation

João Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]

Interview: Edward Norton on “Motherless Brooklyn”

Nell Minow @ rogerebert.com

  • Excerpt: The book is set in 1999 and we made this big decision to take the essence of the character’s isolation, his relationship with his boss, with the guys around him, and to transpose it back into the ’50s because in the novel they feel like men living in this pocket of Brooklyn that hasn’t moved in time.

Interview: For All Mankind

Nell Minow @ rogerebert.com

  • Excerpt: We said, “Okay, once the Russians beat us to the moon, what are the events that would change after that?”

Leslie Odom, Jr. Refuses to Take Success For Granted

Candice Frederick @ Shondaland

Paulo Carneiro sobre ‘Bostofrio’

Paulo Portugal @ Insider [Portuguese]

Festivals: Individual Reviews

Continue reading From Our Members’ Desks (Nov. 18, 2019) →

This Week at the Movies

This Week at the Movies (Nov. 15, 2019)

Leave a comment

Here are some reviews of films coming out at the theater this week as well as others that may be in theaters or newly on home video.

Opening: Nov. 15, 2019

Wide (United States)

Charlie’s Angels

For member reviews of this film, follow this link

Ford v Ferrari

For member reviews of this film, follow this link

The Good Liar

For member reviews of this film, follow this link

Limited (United States)

Line of Duty

Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum

  • Excerpt: Despite a clunky and underdeveloped script, there is some enjoyment to be had in Line Of Duty due to Aaron Eckhart’s commanding performance and some fun action beats.

Mickey and the Bear

Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage

  • Excerpt: Morrone poignantly portrays [a] war within by always showing the sadness beneath each smile. Dale is a force as he runs the full spectrum of emotions.

The Report

Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews

  • Excerpt: Cross cutting back and forth between the present dreary institutional settings of the U.S. government in Washington D.C. and the past horrors of unidentified black sites…Burns creates atmospheres of hidden secrets, one light the other dark.

The Report

Charlie Juhl @ Citizen Charlie

  • Excerpt: Director Scott Z. Burns champions the untested crusader vs. powerful vested interests more concerned with protection rather than any sort of truth seeing the light of day.

The Shed

James Jay Edwards @ FilmFracture

The Shed

Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See

  • Excerpt: Sheds are where murder happens. That’s just a fact of life.

The Warrior Queen of Jhansi

James Jay Edwards @ FilmFracture

The Warrior Queen of Jhansi

Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood

2019 Films In Theaters Now In Select Areas

Continue reading This Week at the Movies (Nov. 15, 2019) →