Documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock organized a daytrip to Altoona, PA, to help promote his latest movie "Pom Wonderful presents the greatest movie ever sold, Altoona, Pa." Screen Comment's Eric Isaac was on the plane] I met documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock at JFK airport early in the morning. He wore a two-piece suit festooned with the logos of the numerous companies (fifteen in all) ... more >
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Pom Wonderful Presents the Greatest Movie Ever Sold
Morgan Spurlock bought out a town and we were there
Scream 4
There's someone at the door
Lucy Hale, Shenae Grimes, Neve Campbell and Dane Farwell
Directed by Wes Craven
The saying goes, “There are no more original ideas”. Whether you agree or not, there are still films that push boundaries, tell original stories and, especially in the horror genre, scare the hell out of us. Wes Craven continues his Scream saga by stating the obvious – these films rehash the same story line and really aren’t that scary. Then he presents us with exactly that. "Scream 4" is ... more >
Hanna
Kids a-gunnin. What next?
Saoirse Ronan, Eric Bana and Cate Blanchett
Directed by Joe Wright
In 1994 Luc Besson directed “The Professional,” a stark drama about a contract killer who befriends a preteen rebel. In that movie a young Natalie Portman wielded her gun for about fifteen seconds but the distorted image was a memorable one, and the ploy was used in other movies like “Kick Ass” and, most recently, in “Hanna,” directed by Joe Wright. Our gun-toting, gravity defying, ass-kicking ... more >
Henry’s Crime
Big-hearted guy gets wrongly accused of robbing a bank
James Caan, Vera Farmiga and Keanu Reeves
Directed by Malcolm Venville
Provoked by his cellmate’s (James Caan) dream lecture, Henry Smith (Keanu Reeves), a lackluster hero who has just served three years for a robbery he didn’t commit, discovers his dream: he's going to commit the very bank robbery for which he was wrongly convicted three years ago. With the help of his former cellmate, he devises a plan to break into the bank via the theater across the street, but ... more >
Fire in Babylon
From the Tribeca Film Festival's 2011 edition
It’s not often that you’ll find me watching a documentary on a subject that I know very little about. And it is even less likely that you’ll find me walking into a documentary about sports. But “Fire in Babylon” is so much more than a sports film, and you don’t have to know anything about cricket to understand this Tribeca Festival-offered documentary about how a West Indies Cricket Team adopted ... more >
The double hour
New Italian thriller looks and feels like the real thing
Kseniya Rappoport, Filippo Timi and Antonia Truppo
Directed by Giuseppe Capotondi
Plot twists and critical turns are key to making successful thrillers. A successful twist pulls the audience in a specific direction and then seizes what they thought to be true, leaving them dumbfounded and duped - "The Sixth Sense," "Unbreakable," "The Others" and "The Usual Suspects" come to mind well executed plot twists. These are the benchmarks by which other films are beholden to. "The ... more >
Rubber
[rating=2] In "Rubber," directed by Quentin Dupieux, why does a tire inexplicably come to life and devote that life to killing things? No reason. This film, as bizarre a concept as it might be to wrap your head around (not the-tire-coming-to-life part, but the part about things happening incessantly for no reason), is quite a comical film. The movie opens with a nervous-looking man holding a ... more >