REVIEW: Top Five [2014]

“What did the room smell like?” I’m prefacing this review with an admission anyone who reads my thoughts already knows: I think Chris Rock is a pretty terrible actor. Love the guy’s stand-up, find him hilarious in real life and on paper, but stick him in a movie and he almost looks scared. The only comedian more unnatural on screen is Jerry Seinfeld—whose cameo here helps prove it—another funny dude always seeming to be waiting for the “cut” or laugh, whichever comes first. I say this because that attitude on…

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REVIEW: Blue Ruin [2014]

“I don’t think he did” The fact Jeremy Saulnier‘s Blue Ruin came together because of a $35,000 Kickstarter only proves how viable crowdsourcing is for cool, effective art to get made for mass consumption. It’s a down and dirty revenge flick written, directed, and lensed by one man who along with his production team maxed out credit cards and refinanced homes to see it come to fruition. How great is that? Better than if the film went nowhere and they all had to declare bankruptcy, but isn’t there a certain…

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REVIEW: Wild [2014]

“Cold mush dreams” The cinematic adaptation of Cheryl Strayed‘s memoir Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail seems to be getting pigeonholed hard as being solely a tale of female empowerment. It most definitely is, but I’m not sure critics should necessarily call it a day with such a generic categorization. There’s a deeper draw to the author’s solo, one thousand mile journey along the Pacific Crest that hits at a human level way beyond gender. Was Into the Wild only thought of as a tale of…

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Posterized Propaganda January 2015: The Top 10 Movie Posters of 2014

“Don’t Judge a Book by Its Cover” is a proverb whose simple existence proves the fact impressionable souls will do so without fail. This monthly column (with a special year-end retrospective today) focuses on the film industry’s willingness to capitalize on this truth, releasing one-sheets to serve as not representations of what audiences are to expect, but as propaganda to fill seats. Oftentimes they fail miserably. I usually find myself needing to whittle down a list of around twenty posters to the fifteen showcased below. For 2014, however, my list…

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DESIGN: 2014 In Music

Tracklisting:Disc 11. “Dreaming” • Justin Nozuka • 01:39 • Ulysees, Warner Music Canada2. “Big Unit” • Adebisi Shank • 04:36 • This Is the Third Album of a Band Called Adebisi Shank, Sargent House3. “Sing” • Ed Sheeran • 03:56 • x, Asylum/Atlantic4. “No Miracles” • Kid Ink (ft. Elle Varner & Mgk) • 04:37 • My Own Lane, Tha Alumni Music Group/88 Classic/RCA5. “Everytime” • Broods • 03:41 • Evergreen, Dryden Street/Island/Polydor/UMA6. “Philosophize In It! Chemicalize with It!” • Kishi Bashi • 03:21 • Lighght, Joyful Noise Recordings7. “First”…

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REVIEW: The Guest [2014]

“Don’t feel bad” With my enjoyment of You’re Next and resounding positivity on the internet concerning its follow-up, I was excited to finally sit down and watch director Adam Wingard and writer Simon Barrett‘s latest genre hybrid The Guest. Whether this fact tainted my overall enjoyment is a toss up, but it’s not like I can’t wait to watch it again. A bona fide midnight screening cult classic in the making, this thing looks great despite oozing 80s action horror flair. Rather than be poorly made and acted as most…

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REVIEW: Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb [2014]

“They’ll burn up like tiny scarabs in Sinai” It appears director Shawn Levy and new screenwriters David Guion and Michael Handelman have thrown the jokey nature of Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant‘s Battle of the Smithsonian away to bring the Night at the Museum series back to what first made it a success. Secret of the Tomb reminded me a lot of the original installment with a thinly veiled metaphor once again providing the dramatic arc for Larry Daley’s (Ben Stiller) adventure, this time showing a need to say…

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INTERVIEW: A.J. Fries, painter

An inaugural member of the Burchfield-Penney Art Center’s “Living Legacy” artists in 2012, A.J. Fries has gone from a young boy roaming the halls of Buffalo’s cultural institutions to a respected member of its world whose work now rests in more than one local museum’s permanent collection. How’s that for a hometown success story? Winner of Artvoice‘s “Best Painter” in 2013, written about in 2008’s Buffalo Spree‘s Best of WNY issue by friend and soon-to-be exhibition partner Bruce Adams for contention in the “Best Artist” conversation, and a resident in…

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REVIEW: The Gambler [2014]

“I think you’re the kind of guy who likes to lose” I was very surprised to see James Toback‘s name as Executive Producer on The Gambler remake after reading a 2011 editorial explaining how he found out about the project secondhand after it was already announced that William Monahan was adapting his original script for Martin Scorsese. While this shouldn’t be too much of a surprise in a Hollywood where studios give EP credits to anyone they feel a need to appease and have no remorse retooling properties without caring…

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REVIEW: Castello Cavalcanti [2013]

“Tarred, feathered, and spit-roasted …” I can get behind Wes Anderson‘s Castello Cavalcanti being considered a short film. Yes, it’s a Prada ad like Candy before it, but this one actually has a story fun enough to make you forget. There is humor in the camera movements (with one pan brilliantly hitching at the scream of a man in the restaurant that the lens was about to pass); fantastic visual comedy thanks to the 1955 Italian setting, destroyed Formula One car, and stone-faced cast devoid of English; and a wonderful…

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REVIEW: Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian [2009]

“Like a Golden Fleece” While Night at the Museum is by no means a great film above family friendly theatrics, it did have heart. There was a story at its back—one steeped in magic that dealt with redemption and self-worth against insurmountable odds. A cool premise too wherein the exhibits at the Natural Museum of History come to life each night thanks to the golden tablet of Egyptian Akmenrah (Rami Malek), there was enough to entertain viewers of all ages with an eccentric stable of characters engaged in an exciting…

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