It borders on parody as it tries to portray its hero as martyrdom-bound genius, which makes the film feel as if it was made by Franco’s vain, art-fetishizing character from This Is the End.
Mouton presents a French coastal town as a fully realized universe that feels as if it lives beyond the confines of the screen.
The filmmakers’ very particular sense of lighting and framing, though handsome, often exudes a formality that perpetually stifles the story’s sense of spontaneity.
The audience becomes conditioned to expect the action a few moves before the film makes them, which quickly renders the story tedious.
The film may not put itself above the uninitiated, but director Mark Levinson oftentimes appears almost too eager to present his material with affectation.
The rich and deceptively radical The Front is given a justly rewarding transfer, proving that its deft handling of tone can be even more engrossing.
The film turns the miscommunication between cultures into an utterly lifeless romantic comedy best appreciated as a travel guide for first-time tourists to Paris.
This Blu-ray disc’s disappointing sound mix is still not enough to detract from the film’s gleeful mumblecore-assaulting pleasures.
The film’s tension doesn’t come from the why or how, but more from the idea that one becomes so settled into habit that seemingly nothing is capable of interfering.
As sumptuous as it is immensely shallow, the film practically revels in its attention to lush English landscapes as a means to distract from its derivative storytelling.
It isn’t until the rushed conclusion when director Patrick Creadon shows the possibilities of what the documentary could have been.
Director Blair Erickson surely has style to burn, even if he oftentimes betrays his atmospheric shorthand and gets cold feet at the most inopportune moments.
An unsettling psychological freak-out that takes cinema and the senses to its farthest extremes.
The Unbelievers isn’t as galvanizing as it would like to be.
The film is most endearing for refusing to characterize its central friendship solely on the grounds of common isolation.
Paprika Steen’s astounding performance isn’t given any favors in Kino’s barebones release of this post-Dogme 95 character study.
A subversive detective story, this atmospheric film is proven more so in Warner’s beautiful upgrade.
Though it begins by spending far too much time talking up the comic’s quality, it gradually finds a groove as an incisive portrait of an insecure industry.
Jo-Anne McArthur’s cause draws sharp comparisons with the never-mentioned PETA, a seemingly insignificant omission that discloses a lingering problem of willful insularity.
The film owes more than a debt to the unwieldy narrative schematics of Susanne Bier’s work.