What the hell did I just watch? I mean I know I finally watched the infamous 2010 film "Enter the Void," but I'm still stuck between choosing whether I was in more of a state of hallucinatory awe or complete shock from some of the beyond graphic scenes I witnessed. It's a rare occurrence where I'm so conflicted on a film where I don't know whether to rate it average, or just grant it a grade that's slightly above passing. However, I'm going to try my absolute best to pour out my extremely conflicted thoughts on this mindf*ck of a film.
Back in the year 2005, an independent movie titled “Brick” helped both resurrect the fading neo-noir genre and serve as a strong tribute to the genre’s most notable conventions. Last year in 2011, the previously well-known silent film genre was brought back from the dead by up-and-coming French filmmaker Michel Haznavicus’s “The Artist.” As a long-time film buff, I’ll admit that I surprisingly have never seen a silent film in my life, but “The Artist” was quite the experience for an introduction to the famous genre.
Ever since his bravura underrated performance in 2002's "One Hour Photo," Robin Williams seemed to be back on track to delivering dramatic performances. Unfortunately though, his career took a steady downturn by starring in supremely mediocre comedies including "RV," "Old Dogs," "Man of the Year," and "License to Wed." However in 2009, Williams returned to his dramatic roots in 2009 with "World's Greatest Dad," a dark comedy indie that was a festival hit, but didn't get a whole lot of attention during its theatrical run. Fortunately however, the film has attained a cult following over the years, which it highly deserves because of its no-holds barred approach to the dark comedy subgenre.
Everyone is aware that the romantic comedy genre has turned into the biggest cliche in Hollywood over the past few years. However once in a while, there's at least one movie a year that attempts to do something new with the fledgling genre, and surprisingly ends up succeeding with it's innovations. The most important example of that kind of film is 2004's "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," which not only added a science fiction/fantasy twist, but also now stands as one of my favorite movies of all-time, too.
Welcome to Trailer Time, the segment where I take several trailers released from this week, and give my review on them in addition to my anticipation rating, too.
ATM
First up is "ATM," the newest thriller starring Josh Peck, Alice Eve and Brian Geraghty. The plot is three friends out at late night in town but one of them needs cash, so they stop at a dimly lit ATM. However when they're about to leave, they see a man outside that's staring them down and it turns into a game of surviving in the cold in addition to trying to outwit the psychopath outside. I'm one that's usually up for a people-trapped-in-a-place thriller movie, but this just looks so silly! The three lead actors are all talented, but they look completely wasted of their potential. If these characters had their phones on them, then none of this would ever happen. I expected a better sophomore feature for writer Chris Sparling (2010's Buried), but he has stopped down so low considering the material shown in the trailer along. Overall, "ATM" has forgettable thriller written all over it, so my anticipation is...
