Reviews

The science fiction genre is no stranger to themes of artificial intelligence surpassing human capacity, the exploration of space and the discovery of space creatures, or even the pursuit of immortality through social media or other means of preservation. World of Tomorrow, the latest piece from Oscar nominated writer/director Don Hertzfeldt (Rejected), manages to wrap all of these themes into a 16 minute animated short film. Too much to cover in too little time you say? Hertzfeldt's short masterpiece will prove you wrong, taking its audience on a mind bending journey into the future and acting as a humorous allegory for the dangers of human disconnection in a world lived via the internet.

World of Tomorrow follows Emily, a young girl voiced by Winona Mae (Hertzfeldt's own four-year-old niece who was recorded at play with the recordings subsequently being fit into the film). Emily receives a video call from 227 years in the future when humans live between space and earth and survive in what is known as the outer- net, a vast empty space which is the...

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In today's digital age it is sometimes hard to remember the long standing practices that gave rise to cinema as we know it. Writer/director Quentin Tarantino hasn't forgotten, shooting his latest film, an old school western titled The Hateful Eight, in beautiful 70mm. But Tarantino is too smart a filmmaker to fall prey to a simple gimmick and one realizes shortly after the film begins that there is a dual purpose to every magnificent shot, every movement on screen and every line spoken. Tarantino's violent, tragic, irreverent and humorous screenplay truly sets the stage for the fantastic cast and superb designers to explore the world of The Hateful Eight and bring it to glorious, entertaining life so much so that the message of the story settles in the back of your mind before you even realize there is one.

The Hateful Eight takes place shortly after The Civil War when frontier justice reigns supreme and bounty hunters are a dime a dozen. John "the hangman" Ruth (Kurt Russell/Silkwood, Furious 7) is trying to beat a blizzard to Minnie's Haberdashery before moving on to the town of Red Rock with his bounty in tow, one Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh/Anomalisa, Weeds) who we are assured is very dangerous but...

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https://davidnthedark.wordpress.com/2016/01/06/hatefuleightreview/#m ore-1852

Pixar burst onto the computer animation scene with Toy Story, the first feature film to be fully computer generated. Since then, the studio has won 15 Academy Awards, boasting a number of successful films including Monsters, Inc, Ratatouille, and most recently Inside Out. Always on the cutting edge of animation technology, nearly every Pixar film finds a healthy balance of quality entertainment for children while also catering to the adults who bring them to the theater. The Good Dinosaur, the latest feature from Pixar to hit theaters, succeeds admirably in taking computer generated animation to the next level but tends to get lost in the grey area of its vastly age-different target demographic.

Supposing that the meteor which led to the dinosaurs' extinction missed the Earth, the screenplay by Meg LeFauve (Inside Out) opens on a time in history near the beginning stages of man's evolution. Dinosaurs have continued to evolve and they can speak, farm, herd livestock and greedily wallow...

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https://davidnthedark.wordpress.com/2015/12/04/thegooddinosaurreview /

When I became a man I put away childish things. Or drugs. Or self- doubt. Or irresponsibility. The Night Before, the new Christmas stoner comedy from writer/director Jonathan Levine (Warm Bodies, 50/50) follows three life-long friends as they go through a night of debauchery, hitting a prescribed series of locations and events that will be retired after this night as they each face a new challenge of adulthood. Very funny, if a little dated in its humor, The Night Before is a rollicking comedy written for 30-somethings which still manages to have a touching message for the holiday season.

Ten years ago Ethan's (Joseph Gordon-Levitt/The Walk, Brick) parents suddenly died just before Christmas. His friends from high school, Isaac (Seth Rogen/Steve Jobs, The Interview) and Chris (Anthony Mackie/Our Brand Is Crisis, Captain America: The Winter Soldier) refuse to let him wallow in self-pity, taking him out on Christmas night and creating...

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https://davidnthedark.wordpress.com/2015/12/04/growing-up-on- Christmas/

Some movies you watch. They may be touching, they may be entertaining, but sitting in the dark you are always aware that you are watching a movie that has been created to entertain you. Some movies sweep you along, caressing your empathy and tugging at your heart, enveloping you in the experience of the movie itself. So it is with Room, the new and exciting film that captures the wonder and joy of life's simplicities and celebrates the power of human resilience. With a unique voice from director Lenny Abrahamson, breathtaking, nuanced performances from Brie Larson and the young Jacob Tremblay and a rich visual world captured through the eyes of innocence, Room is not to be missed!

Seven years before Room begins, a seventeen year old girl was abducted and trapped in a sound proofed, electronically locked shed by a man known only as Old Nick (Sean Bridgers/Trumbo, Sweet Home Alabama) who has kept...

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https://davidnthedark.wordpress.com/2015/11/30/roomreview/

Unless they were talking to an adult about the topic, I personally have never heard any young person say "I was bullied." I've heard "they were teasing me" or "those kids are mean," but never "I was bullied." While it is a topic that is very important to address and bring attention to in the media, that is where my accolades for the new film #Horror end. Long time bit part player and first time writer/director Tara Subkoff's tries to wrap the emotional turmoil caused by cyberbullying into a horror film which would seem to be a perfect and entertaining outlet for her message. With a screenplay full of clichés and trite dialogue though, it feels more like we're watching an after school special littered with phrases to remember and way too much blood to be seen on network television. #notrated

#Horror takes place in 12 year old Sofia's elaborate and expansive pseudo-mansion which has supposedly been home to a slew of famous murders committed by an artist who owned the house decades before. Her rich friends from private school are coming over to...

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https://davidnthedark.wordpress.com/2015/11/24/horrorreview/

Love is a tricky thing. It can lift you to heights of joy and creativity and give you a sense of purpose and the promise of an exciting future sharing your life with someone. It can also plunge you into the depths of despair and make you perform horrible acts due to jealousy and pain, destroying the object of your affection for selfish gain. If you love truly though, no matter how it manifests, you will discover something new and honest about yourself for better or worse. This is the theme that underscores Carol, the new and engrossing film from director Todd Haynes. Guided by a stellar screenplay by Phyllis Nagy, Haynes has created a nuanced tapestry of love in all its splendor and horror, chronicling its joy and destruction leading to a journey of self-discovery.

Carol, based on the novel "The Price of Salt" by Patricia Highsmith, opens in New York City in the 1950s. Carol Aird (Cate Blanchett/Truth, Cinderella) is having a quiet, somewhat intense and unheard dinner conversation with Therese Belivet (Rooney Mara/The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Her). The conversation is cut short when...

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https://davidnthedark.wordpress.com/2015/11/23/carolreview/

A friendship that lasts a lifetime is a beautiful thing. To find that person who will be there through thick and thin, that person who knows instinctively when you need to laugh and when you need to cry is extremely rare and must be celebrated. This is the theme at the heart of Miss You Already, the new film from director Catherine Hardwicke (Thirteen, Twilight). Miss You Already tells the story of Jess, a woman who is fairly down to earth and trying to start a family with her husband, and her lifelong friend Milly, a freewheeling rocker chick-type who is diagnosed with breast cancer. While the film leaves a little something to be desired, one thing is certain: Hardwicke has directed a moving love letter to the trials and beauty of friendship, a sentimental portrait of the pain that can touch our lives and the friends who know that sometimes you just have to laugh in order to cope with the tears.

Jess (Drew Barrymore/Donnie Darko, 50 First Dates) and Milly (Toni Collette/The Sixth Sense, Little Miss Sunshine) have shared decades of experiences, laughter and hardship and rely on one another for comfort and support. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the easy chemistry that Barrymore and Collette have on screen. There is a fine balance to a friendship like theirs and the two actresses have found...

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https://davidnthedark.wordpress.com/2015/11/16/sometimes-you-just- have-to-laugh/

There is nothing scarier than being denied the liberty of individuality and the freedom of thought inherent in the human personality. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened during the Red Scare, a time in US History during the Cold War when the country was afraid that Communist influences would overrun the country. This led to the House Un-American Activities and the McCarthy trials which resulted in a larger number of individuals being blacklisted, unable to work or even walk down the street without being ridiculed and threatened by so-called patriots who seemed to forget about the first amendment and that America was built on the idea that no one's individuality should be silenced. Nowhere was this hypocrisy so evident as with "The Hollywood Ten," a group of screenwriters and directors who were arrested for their political ideals including Oscar nominees like director Edward Dmytryk (The Caine Mutiny, Crossfire) and Oscar winners such as writer Dalton Trumbo (The Brave One, Roman Holiday).

The new movie, Trumbo, written by John McNamara (The Magicians, Aquarius) and based on the book by Bruce Cook, recounts Dalton Trumbo's fight for The Hollywood Ten, and indeed the entire blacklist, to be reinstated in Hollywood and seen not as Russian spies, but as Americans with unique views and talents that are independent of political beliefs. The film is ambitious in scope, attempting to...

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https://davidnthedark.wordpress.com/2015/11/15/eloquence-chiseled- into-a-rock/

We tend to see trends in theme hitting movie theaters around the same time. This usually has something to do with where our national focus or collective social consciousness lies. For example, with all the talk recently about marriage equality and racism and the #blacklivesmatter campaign, we are seeing a number of movies about the fight for a group's individual rights such as Suffragette and Freeheld. With international tensions mounting over possible nuclear arms in North Korea we are seeing Cold War era films such as Bridge of Spies and Pawn Sacrifice. Or Trumbo, which deals with both of those themes! What, then, is it about large-scale bureaucratic cover up that is drawing our attention? I'm not sure, but Truth is currently playing which tells the story of the military hiding discrepancies in President George W. Bush's service history and Snowden is scheduled to be released soon, a narrative feature chronicling the Edward Snowden scandal that was captured so wonderfully in last year's Oscar winning documentary Citizenfour. Even Steve Jobs is about one man taking credit for the work of an entire team, in effect covering up their contribution by means of bureaucratic red tape. It has also given us Spotlight, the gripping new film to hit theaters about the investigative journalism at The Boston Globe that uncovered the world-wide pedophilic scandal within the Catholic Church. And, true to its theme, the star of Spotlight is not any member of the stunning cast, but the investigation itself.

Based on actual events, the screenplay co-written by Josh Singer (The Fifth Estate, Fringe) and Tom McCarthy (The Cobbler, The Visitor), who also directs, follows the Spotlight team at The Boston Globe. Spotlight is an elite department made up of four investigative journalists who take their time in breaking major stories, exhausting every resource before printing the article. In 2001, it is brought to their attention that...

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https://davidnthedark.wordpress.com/2015/11/08/another-spotlight-on- bureaucratic-cover-up-2/#more-1265

It's 2010 and we open in the bathroom of a modest, suburban home in Orlando, Florida. Reflected in the mirror is a leg hanging over the bathtub's edge and blood splatter on the wall. The camera pans left, giving us the briefest glimpse of the dead man's body before focusing on real estate agent Rick Carver who is all business. He walks through the house and outside to his car, juggling the police who are investigating the homeowner's suicide brought on by his eviction, a construction crew ready to empty out the house, and phone calls to his family and the home office as he races off to the next eviction, seemingly upset not that a man is dead but that the man's death has created more work for him. In this single, beautifully unedited shot the world of 99 Homes is established and we all remember this world. It is a world just after the housing bubble burst in which this scene was not uncommon and the government bailed out the big banks with little thought for the individual families affected by adjustable rate loans and easy-to-get second mortgages who were dumped onto the streets or into seedy motels with little monetary resources. Though laws and regulations have helped repair the real estate market in America, there is still a rapidly growing socioeconomic disparity between the working class and the so-called 1% that must be addressed and this is what makes a film like 99 Homes, a story seemingly about our past, still relevant and needed today as a warning for the future.

99 Homes is about Dennis Nash (Andrew Garfield/The Social Network, The Amazing Spiderman), a young father who supports both his son, Connor (Noah Lomax/Safe Haven, Playing for Keeps), and his mother, Lynn (Laura Dern/Wild, Rambling Rose). Needing to work, Nash borrowed against his home in order to buy tools so that he could be employable as an independent contractor. When the housing bubble burst, the work dried up and now he is unable to pay back the loan. Enter Rick Carver (Michael Shannon/ Revolutionary Road, Freeheld) who is...

Check out the full review on David 'n the Dark! https://davidnthedark.wordpress.com/2015/10/09/it-only-takes-one- man/

An orchestral piece of music is made up of many different components. There is rhythm and melody, brass and strings, percussion and keys, adagio and allegro. With so many individual musicians playing their respective instruments it is the conductor who plays the orchestra, bringing all of the pieces seamlessly into the fold of a cohesive piece of art. This is how Steve Jobs describes his position as the head of technical development teams in director Danny Boyle's newest film, Steve Jobs. This is also how I would describe Boyle's stunning direction of the first true masterpiece of cinema to hit theaters in 2015.

We all know the story of Steve Jobs and his troublesome rise to becoming the front-runner of technology as CEO of the Apple Corporation. Before his death, he had a reputation of being difficult to work with and for claiming credit for work that his designers and software developers were responsible for on numerous projects, just as the conductor takes a bow on behalf of the entire orchestra. Only Jobs didn't took the credit for himself without acknowledging his instrumentalists. Based on the book by Walter Isaacson, Aaron Sorkin's (The Social Network, Moneyball) screenplay tells the story of the key players in Jobs' orchestra, the designers and developers without whom Jobs would have...

Check out the full review on David 'n the Dark! https://davidnthedark.wordpress.com/2015/10/15/a-perfect- orchestration/

Steven Spielberg, the Oscar winning producer and director of such masterpieces as Saving Private Ryan and Schindler's List has been a household name for decades, and with good reason. One expects a Spielberg film to be a huge box office success while receiving numerous award nominations, but not everything he touches turns to solid gold (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull anyone?) With Bridge of Spies, the new Cold War thriller starring Tom Hanks and Mark Rylance, Spielberg has given us another fine film worthy of attention and accolades although he is just shy of being at the top of his game. Handed a screenplay co-written by Matt Charmin and Oscar winners Joel and Ethan Coen, Spielberg has assembled a top notch cast and a stunning and much heralded design team. Each contributes work worthy of merit to the film, but the pieces don't always fit together quite right in the final product.

Set in 1957 during the Cold War, Bridge of Spies is inspired by the true story of Insurance Attorney James B. Donovan (Tom Hanks/Philadelphia, Forrest Gump). Donovan was assigned to defend captured Russian spy Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance/The Gunman, Days and Nights) in court in order to prove that the US is fair, affording a POW all of the same rights as any American subject to due process. Of course, no one...

Check out the full review on David 'n the Dark! https://davidnthedark.wordpress.com/2015/10/19/spielberg-almost- does-it-again/

One of the trademarks of a good film is a natural ebb and flow to the pacing. When successful, this keeps a story interesting and draws us in emotionally though sometimes we can find ourselves distracted during a lull or confused during a sudden burst of activity. One of the trademarks of a great film is pacing that pulls us in from the first shot and, whether it's a moment of ebb or a rush of flow, doesn't let go. So it is with the new German import Victoria which has already won a slew of German Film Awards (Germany's equivalent of The Oscars) including Best Actor and Actress, Score, Cinematography, Direction and even Best Picture. Unfortunately, the Academy here in America has deemed that there is too much English spoken in Victoria for it to be eligible for a Foreign Feature nomination this year. I sincerely hope that this doesn't lead the voters to overlook the film entirely because Victoria could easily be this years' Birdman, claiming many of the top awards.

With the tag line "One city. One night. One take," Victoria, like Birdman, is a one shot wonder that pulls us into a night of joy, debauchery, danger and despair that plays out in real time over nearly 2½ hours. The film opens on the distorted image of a dance floor in a club at 5am. There is a thumping techno beat and strobe lights everywhere. Victoria (Laia Costa/Palm Trees in the Snow, Fort Ross) is dancing alone. She is a young woman from...

Check out the full review on David 'n the Dark! https://davidnthedark.wordpress.com/2015/10/21/a-captivating-ride- through-berlin/#more-1170

Mike Smith: Why did you get into journalism?

Dan Rather: Curiosity. Why'd you get into it?

Mike Smith: You.

These three simple lines cut right to the heart of Truth, the new movie from established writer and first time director James Vanderbilt (Zodiac, The Amazing Spider-Man). The news used to consist of hard hitting investigative journalism, a public service that would expose relevant stories to shed light on the true condition of a deceptive world. Now, instead of covering stories like The Watergate Scandal or what was really happening in Vietnam, newscasters have become mouthpieces. They have become the personalities on TV who we look to for a recap of what happened last night on American Idol or what President Obama had for breakfast this morning. Truth attempts to shed light on the corruption of investigative journalism by corporate greed and political agendas which make it impossible for respected newscasters and their producers to do their jobs, and in so doing it shows us a dangerous future of smoke and mirrors that is already taking hold. Despite some of the film's minor faults, Truth is a beautiful and moving Requiem for The News.

When a scandal does come along that could rock the foundation of American politics, such as the surfacing of the so-called Killian Documents, there are factions that will try to kill the story no matter how much evidence of proof exists. This is the story of Truth, based on the book written by...

Check out the full review on David 'n the Dark! https://davidnthedark.wordpress.com/2015/10/25/a-requiem-for-the- news/