Breaking News in Yuba County, Review: Last one standing gets the millions It’s genre-defying film, with a most unlikely protagonist, and several parallel tracks, all intertwined. Re-affirming the myth that, in America, anybody can get away with anything, and that killing and violence are about as common as pizza and burgers, Breaking News in Yuba County makes a messed-up attempt to say that amidst all this mayhem, loyalty to your wife and love for her are values worth cherishing. But it...

Spider-man--Far From Home, Review: PP, HH, Ray, May, MJ, Ned, E.D.I.T.H., Nick and Beck Can a pulsating teenage romance between a super-hero’s alter ego and a beautiful schoolmate over-ride inherent flaws in a film’s scripting and logic? Is the inability to go “aw..so cute!” every time you see an awkward boy mustering up the courage to approach his love interest, to utter the three magic words, a sign of aging and fossilisation? Is the need to look beyond the obvious, ...

“Critique is so limiting and emotionally draining.” - Morf Vandewalt   Uninspired, a total lack of originality, derivative, void of spiritual awareness. These are only a few of the harsh critiques that Gyllenhaal fires off as he moves briskly from scene to scene, emoting in such a way that we have not seen from the Nightcrawler actor.   Dan Gilroy and Jake Gyllenhaal reunite for a brutally comedic satire on the world of fine art. They cover art’s destructive nat...

  “Critique is so limiting and emotionally draining.” - Morf Vandewalt   Uninspired, a total lack of originality, derivative, void of spiritual awareness. These are only a few of the harsh critiques that Gyllenhaal fires off as he moves briskly from scene to scene, emoting in such a way that we have not seen from the Nightcrawler actor.   Dan Gilroy and Jake Gyllenhaal reunite for a brutally comedic satire on the world of fine art. They cover art’s destruc...

Movie memories, by Siraj Syed—Brokeback Mountain (2005): Rough terrain, smooth ride Friendship between the two protagonists of Brokeback Mountain turns to a homosexual relationship that survives their respective conventional marriages and fatherhoods. Director Ang Lee tackles this taboo theme, placed in the Wyoming of half a century ago, and treats it with old-world unravelling, at a gentle pace and accompanied by slow background score. The dialogue is highly accentuated and mumbled, wh...

by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Corresponden   t   What is it with ‘ripped from the alt-news headlines’ movie plots lately? KONG: SKULL ISLAND has a hollow earth slash reptilian b-story, even a CIA mind control “Monarch” reference on a briefcase. Now LIFE, starring Ryan Reynolds and Jake Gyllenhaal, has a waterborne microbe from Mars mass-extinction horror twist. While scary stories about hostile life on Mars is a running theme since B-movies in the 50&r...

Demolition, Review: Shun If ever there was a practical example of ‘deconstruction for the sake of reconstruction’ being taken too literally, here is one. Our protagonist, a tormented and meandering soul, cannot cope with the loss of his wife, which tragedy has benumbed him. So, he remembers what his father-in-law once said, that in order to rebuild something, you have to demolish it first. His father is a more than sane investment banker and his own boss (which means that our hero...

Demolition, dir. by Jean-Marc Vallée, US 2015  By Martin I. Petrov    A normal man’s reaction to his wife’s tragic death would be grief and depression. For Davis Mitchell (Jake Gyllenhaal), is a chance to rediscover his own self in a loud, tragelaughic and destructive emotional torpedo, involving a lot of… deconstruction.  Davis is a successful investment banker who suddenly loses his wife in a car accident. No matter how hard he tries to adapt...

Southpaw, Review: Loses on points South is to left what north is to right, and paw stands for hand, in boxing parlance. So, a ‘southpaw’ is a boxer who takes a right side on stance, but leverages his left-hand to telling effect. In other sports, southpaw is often used to describe a person who is left-handed, as a left-handed batsman in the game of cricket. Southpaw, the film, derives its title from this terminology. In the film, the protagonist makes very little use of his left, a...

SPOTLIGHT MEDIA PRODUCTIONS   Cannes Festival Insider, 2015    By Adrienne Papp  Since 1978, Un Certain Regard composes the heart of the Official Selection with the Competition.  Presided over by Isabella Rossellini, the Un Certain Regard Jury is this year exclusively composed of film-makers, directors and actors. President Isabella Rossellini, film-maker (United States, Italy) Members of the Jury Haifa...

by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent When Michael Keaton “was frozen” in a scene for the newly released Birdman, directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, according to Edward Norton, who appeared with him at an AFI conversation on 11/8, “you could see he was having trouble.” “I mean, I don’t know if this story is apocryphal,” Norton offered, “but there’s this story I heard (from a director), that when Greta ...

                                             Nightcrawler is a ‘media thriller’, set in the nocturnal underbelly of contemporary Los Angeles. Lou Bloom, a driven young man desperate for work who discovers the high-speed world of L.A. crime journalism. Finding a group of freelance camera crews who film car crashes, fires, murder and other mayhem, Lou muscles into the cut...

On Friday night, another mob scene waited outside the Arlington for their honoree and ultimately filled the house.  Every year the Santa Barbara International Film Festival presents a Director In Residence and this year the versatile David Fincher opened up at the Q & A, dishing the 411 on his film career and the industry in general. Jake Gyllenhaal and Taraji P. Henson were also on hand making additional contributions as per their experience working with Finch with Pete Hammond on deck ...

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