John Maclean's SLOW WEST is foremost a showcase film. His first full-length directorial effort, the film seems to exist to demonstrate and validate Maclean's cinematic acumen. Described as a European road trip movie, it follows Jay Cavendish (Kodi Smit-McPhee), a sixteen year-old Scottish aristocrat who journeys to America seeking his lost love Rose Ross (Caren Pistorius). Along the way he is ... more >
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Entering the world of “ParaNorman”
Every kid has that movie that’s going to scare the crap out of them for the first time. The stop-motion animation studio Laika, which was behind 2009’s fantastic “Coraline” and now this Tim Burton-meets-low-rent monster movie mash-up “Paranorman,” again manages a good first step for scary movie virgins. Norman (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is a young kid living in Blithe Hollow who’s a bit of an oddball, ... more >
Let me in
Life is unfair to middle children and remakes. If Matt Reeves’ vampire coming-of-age story "Let Me In" had been made before the Swedish original--Tomas Alfredson’s “Let the Right One In”--would we automatically think it was the better of the two? It didn’t work that way and we’ll never know. What I can say? "Let Me In," written and directed by "Cloverfield"’s Reeves, underlines and ... more >