Where Wes Anderson may now typecast his own style of direction, there were those features he made before the sickly perfect designs of The Grand Budapest Hotel catapulted him to stardom and typical outings that rang truer and grounded. Rushmore does not rely on the bright colours or deeply saturated endeavours found in his later, more colourfully experimental works, but on the casting and variety Jason Schwartzman and Bill Murray can bring to his work. They are not alone in that, and the perfect pairing of quality performances and Anderson’s typical design choices would come together time and time again, but less so as he breached the almost self-parodical voyeurism of his later features. Rushmore, at least, is grounded.
Tag Archives: Brian Cox
25th Hour Review
Impossible it may be to have a clear vision for how to spend a final day of freedom, Spike Lee’s 25th Hour goes a fair distance in showing what could be possible for those faced with time behind bars. A darker side to New York is thrown into the spotlight but at the core of it all is a particularly light and real message. Lee would manage those far better with his push into the 21st-century and Edward Norton aids him particularly well with a leading role in 25th Hour. It is an ambiguous and entertaining breakdown of greed in the Big Apple. A look at the series of events that broke Norton’s leading character down and build him back up with a moral core to him. Lee takes this character study to fascinating highs and career-best moments.
Red Eye Review
Buckle up for a heavy dosage of turbulence, a complex conspiracy and a couple of overly righteous customers in Wes Craven’s incredibly effective 2005 thriller, Red Eye. 90 minutes of claustrophobic hell that is among the upper echelons of the thriller genre.
Fantastic Mr. Fox Review
Survival in film is often presented to audiences as a human struggle. One that people like you or me can relate to or find hobbies and interests to revel in. Anthropomorphic components to foxes, badgers and rats are the comfortably strange middle ground between exceptional stories and cutesy cannon fodder. Such is the appeal of Fantastic Mr. Fox and the craft Wes Anderson presents. Conjuring up the emotive, colourful flair for writing Roald Dahl had, Anderson works tirelessly to bring it to the big screen in all of its animated glory. His first foray into animation is an interesting piece, not just because it is engrossing to see how his directing style stays the same in stop motion as it does in live-action, but also to see how the film fares over a decade later.
Manhunter Review
Michael Mann’s exceptional eye for action makes Manhunter a resounding adaptation of Hannibal Lecktor’s vicious crimes. Far removed from the spine-chilling brilliance of The Silence of the Lambs, instead offering a cat and mouse game that has similar tropes, but completely different consequences. Hunting down a serial killer known only as The Tooth Fairy, this mid-80s thriller follows the work of a recently retired detective, hauling himself back into the fray to finish up one last case. Using information fed to him by Lecktor, the man he put behind bars, Will Graham (William Petersen) tracks down various leads and red herrings to solve one last case before returning to his family and his home comforts.
Zodiac Review
More or less everyone who has even the slightest interest in crime knows of the Zodiac Killer and the intrigue of his crimes that plagued America throughout the late 1960s and 1970s. Such a famous case, one littered with the unsolved mystery that will, most likely, go unanswered for the rest of time. Such intrigue leads to inevitable adaptations, and this Gyllenhaal led thriller provides more or less everything you’d expect for a biopic on such a broad topic.
CULT FOLLOWING 