Horrors of Malformed Men, Or: Why Not To Emulate Dr. Moreau
Making hideous human/animal mutants on your own private island, what could go wrong?
Category Archives: Active Observation
Elle: If Verhoevenesque Is A Word, This Movie Is It
Paul Verhoeven is back, and while he may not be pole-dancing or blowing up bugs, he ain’t messing around.
Arrival Breaks Your Heart for Good
Not in the ‘for eternity’ sense, but in the ‘for the best’ sense
Let’s Have A Chat About The Morality of Eye In The Sky
Hazy thoughts on an interesting movie.
Doctor Strange, or: Let’s Enjoy A Corporate Acid Trip!
In which Marvel gets trippy.
The Handmaiden, In Which Park Chan-Wook Spills Less Blood Than One Might Expect
Not to fear, any lack of blood has been made up for by all the sex.
Command And Control, Or: All The Times We Almost Blew Ourselves Up
Thousands upon thousands of nuclear warheads lying around–what could go wrong?
Convoy: Ain’t She A Beautiful Sight?
Short answer: No, she ain’t.
Snowden, Oliver Stone’s Hero
In which Oliver Stone makes a movie I didn’t hate. Weird.
O.C. And Stiggs: The Strange World of A Trashy ‘80s Teen Comedy As Directed By Robert Altman
A movie made for absolutely no one. You’ll love it!
Buzzkill! (Or: What I’d Call My Remake of the Fly-Revenge Film Eega)
It is a story, told to a child, about a vengeful insect and the woman who loves him.
Embrace of the Serpent and Other Critical Darlings
Every year there needs to be Best Films and buzz and pieces of cinema to enthuse over. This year Embrace of the Serpent was one of them.
On Sausage Party And The Fine Art of Cursing
I have trouble believing there’s enough weed in the world to make this movie funny.
On John Landis, The Monster and The Girl, and An American Werewolf In London
A look at one of John Landis’s weirder inspirations.