A teenage sleepover classic. Domino's delivery and splitscreen Xbox till 2am.
Before I even knew what colour grading was I sensed Twohy was making choices. Truly hideous on DVD back in the day, though certainly better (deeper blacks) on Blu-ray -- think I get what he was going for now. Fantastic cast of character actor dependables (and, given the genre, dispensables) peppered with random Australian TV actors which is always nice, coming out of that golden age of Hollywood actioners…
Lovely to watch Jude Law degenerate into Gene Hackman over the decades. Kept thinking about his casting in A.I. twenty years ago, where he very plausibly embodies the polished-plastic, manufactured ideal of human perfection. And here he is hunched and hairy, rocking a subtle paunch and exuding practically visible stink lines from his person.
A lot to like here as a vibes piece, as a fairly shallow but pleasurable emulation of a gritty seventies film-making ethos (despite being set in…
I really miss the ethos and aesthetic of late 90s to mid 00s Sundance fare. American independent cinema is so stylised and fashion-adjacent now and there's still plenty of good stuff, but something has been lost. Filmmakers like Todd Solondz, Peter Hedges, Kenny Lonergan, Kelly Reichardt, Tom McCarthy, and Alexander Payne were doing something almost forgettable, but genuinely valuable in this era. Back when I was just starting to get into film, I'd hire a stack of random DVDs every…
