By Phil Parker — Just like people, movies are more interesting when they don’t fit a particular type. The director Danny Boyle won an Oscar for Slumdog Millionaire, a love / gangster / game-show flick that left us smiling despite hints of pedophilia and torture. 28 Days Later is a modern zombie classic whose key … Continue reading »
By Phil Parker — The budget for the original Evil Dead, from 1981, was $375,000 (according to the Internet). It was directed by Sam Raimi, then 20, and starred Raimi’s high school buddy Bruce Campbell. The budget for the remake, out now, was $14 million. The difference between those figures is where Evil Dead gets … Continue reading »
By Phil Parker —No one gets gutted in Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park. This is probably a good thing, for obvious reasons, but it makes it easy to miss the harsh existential lesson of this blockbuster man-versus-nature story. Jurassic Park is out now in 3D movie theaters, 20 years after it was first released to the … Continue reading »
By James A. Montalbano — From the DVD files, two takes on teens. And we’re not grading on a curve. Finally, a Christian film with nuance and smarts, worthy of serious consideration. Thank God. The Wise Kids (A-minus) is a sweet, heart-swelling drama centering around three teens in Charleston, S.C., on the brink of adulthood, … Continue reading »
By Marya Errin Jones — I’ve got to hand it to you, Quentin. Django Unchained is an absolute masterpiece. It is as cinematically satisfying as it is raw and brutal. Django is also a fun movie, a little bit Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid with a dash of Blazing Saddles—which is needed to balance out … Continue reading »
