REVIEW: The Purge: Anarchy [2014]

“We’ve lost our souls to attain this peace” I enjoyed last year’s suspense horror The Purge a lotā€”despite high expectations for the premise actually going where it needed to prove more than another generic home invasion flick. Writer/director James DeMonaco gave us the graphic brutality its conceit promised through its claustrophobically bottled skirmish between malicious debutantes and an (not so) innocent family trying to survive while also lending the social commentary at its back a voice. I use the parentheses because it just so happened that the Sandin’s patriarch was…

Read More

REVIEW: Answers to Nothing [2011]

“Why should I wait six months to be happy?” So much happens in Matthew Leutwylerā€™s Answers to Nothing, but how much is actually relevant? An adulterous husband with a rockstar mistress and lawyer wife, a police detective best friend and her key suspect in a child kidnapping case, a recently graduated police officer and his grade school teacher neighbor, a racist black television writer and the soundboard mixer she meets while walking their dogs, and a recovering alcoholic caring for her brain dead brother all cross paths in Los Angeles.…

Read More

REVIEW: Post Grad [2009]

“Cheers, to your dead mother” Ah, the plan. You know the one, get good grades in high school, earn that college scholarship, continue the straight-A regimen, and land that dream job youā€™ve wanted since grade school. If the first three occurred without a hitch, of course that interview is a mere formality standing as a thin wall in front of the bright future ahead. Well, life is never that easy, and Post Gradā€™s Alexis Bledel finds that fact out very quickly. Her Ryden Malby somehow managed to not only keep…

Read More