Velvet Buzzsaw (2019) - Movie Review

After two very solid and quite grounded character pieces, the latest from writer/director Dan Gilroy is a beast of a different palette. Oh, it shows him still in his highly cynical wheelhouse, once again taking inspiration from the Los Angeles cultural landscape to show another story of people who are mainly in it for themselves, but his methodology this time around shows him in new territory.

The Intern (2015) - Movie Review

Some films give me a bad impression from the trailer, while others make me weary just from finding out who is working on the film. This might be a first, in that it was the poster that made me want to give this film a pass. First off, advertising that the writer/director also worked on the painfully generic-sounding 'It’s Complicated' and 'Something’s Gotta Give' isn’t going to convince me that this is worth seeing. And secondly, as much as I wish it still were, Robert De Niro as your lead is no longer an accomplishment nor something to gloat about. Combined with my general dislike for MOR generi-drama, this all spells trouble. But these are just my pre-film assumptions at work; how does it actually turn out? This is The Intern.

Nightcrawler (2014) - Movie Review

Directorial debuts are kind of a bizarre thing to see happen in real time. Sure, looking at films like Alien 3 or The Pleasure Garden can be interesting considering what their respective directors David Fincher and Alfred Hitchcock would go on to make, but that’s only because of the gift of hindsight and knowing that they did go on to make more movies and become regarded as great directors. It’s another thing to see a directorial debut and it being the only thing to go on: It could be a great film and then the director drops off of the radar; it could be awful and yet the director goes on to make even more like it; or any happy medium between the two. A recent example of this going right would be Chronicle, an excellent found footage movie (Yes, those exist) whose director Josh Trank is currently working on the new Fantastic Four movie. Will we get such a success story with this?