The Brag

Welcome to the end of the ride. Please alight from The Man With The Iron Fists and walk away quickly. DO NOT LOOK BACK. Unless you want to be sucked into a postmodern vortex and never seen again.

Posted: December 3rd, 2012 under Arts, Brag 491, Film Reviews.
Tags: Eli Roth, Nikos Andronicos, RZA, The Man With The Iron Fists

So I got this awesome job with some Albanian sex traffickers, and on my first day we got to go on an excursion to Turkey to find Liam Neeson, take him back to our village and sprinkle his blood around the place, because apparently he killed everyone who lived here. Except for all of us who he didn’t kill.

When we got to Istanbul, we checked into the local Slavic Torture House, and a few of the guys went off to the hotel where the star of the hit movie Taken was staying. And they got him straight away! I was pepped about getting his autograph but the boys said it wasn’t very professional.

Posted: October 2nd, 2012 under Arts, Brag 482, Film Reviews.
Tags: Liam Neeson, Nikos Andronicos, Taken 2

With Hurricane Isaac winding towards New Orleans, it’s a poignant time to take in this post-apocalyptic swamp tale. Sure, Obama wouldn’t have abandoned the Big Easy like George W. did, but the questions Katrina raised seven years ago are no less relevant at the screening today. How should a government deal with people displaced by rising sea levels? Should we eventually give up on seemingly doomed land? Are cute kids still cute after Armageddon hits?

Writer/director Benh Zeitlin sets up a convincing world in which to explore these issues. It’s set in the bayou, after the polar ice caps have melted, on an isolated isle off the Mississippi coast known to locals as “The Bathtub”. Inhabited by a motley crew of moonshine swiggers, banjo players and fried gator eaters, the Bathtub is essentially uninhabitable, but folks don’t want to leave because it’s their home, and because Kevin Costner hasn’t shown up to scare them off with his gills.

Posted: September 18th, 2012 under Arts, Brag 479, Film Reviews.
Tags: Beasts of the Southern Wild, Nikos Andronicos

Mumblecore director Lynn Shelton directs mumblecore stalwart Mark Duplass in Your Sister’s Sister, the latest mumblecore flick to mumble its way onto screens and then get confused when the distinctly non-mumbly Emily Blunt shows up and enunciates too well. Actually, that’s far too concise a summary for a film that lets its actors improvise so much. From here on, this will be a mumblecore review.

Posted: September 11th, 2012 under Arts, Brag 477, Film Reviews.
Tags: Lynn Shelton, Nikos Andronicos, Your Sister's Sister

Leos Carax’s Holy Motors is one of those Cannes-selected films that earns both standing ovations and mass walk-outs – which is exactly what happened when it screened on the Riviera earlier this year. If you like movies that explore huge concepts like identity and reality, that pose countless questions and don’t answer them all at the end, you’ll be in the ovation camp. If you’re not into that kind of thing, I suggest putting on your well-worn copy of A Few Best Men and avoiding this film at all costs.

Posted: September 4th, 2012 under Arts, Brag 476, Film Reviews.
Tags: Holy Motors, Leos Carax, Nikos Andronicos