BOFCA MID-WEEK ROUNDUP – 1/21/15

Norm Schrager reviews STARRED UP

Evan Crean looked at IN A WORLD

Jared Bowen talked embargos, art and geopolitics with the owner of Boston’s Galeria Cubana

Sean Burns offers a Michael Mann retrospective

Bob Chipman joined an Oscar Podcast and talked the proliferation of superhero movies

John Black reviews a slew of new-release DVDs including BOYHOOD, WETLANDS and JESSABELLE

Spoilerpiece Theatre aims at AMERICAN SNIPER and more

Andy Crump talked controversial GHOST IN THE SHELL casting and praised the career of Scarlett Johansson

Kris Jenson interviewed FISH & CAT director Shahram Mokri

 

A NOTE FROM BOFCA:

The advent of a new year brings with it many changes, and The Boston Online Film Critics Association is no exception to this. BOFCA would like to officially welcome Max Covill and Sam Cohen as the newest members of our fine organization. You’ll now find their reviews, writings and other offerings right here on this site.

In addition, BOFCA also extends its gratitude and wishes of good luck to departing member Inkoo Kang, who may have left Boston and the Boston-area media behind for sunny San Francisco but will be fondly remembered here for her unique perspective on all things cinematic and spirited, thoughtful contributions to the Boston film-criticism scene. We wish her good luck in future endeavors and as part of the San Francisco Film Critics Circle.

BOFCA REVIEW ROUNDUP 8/16

 

KICK-ASS 2KICKASS2

“In between the swearing and the violence – some of it cartoonish and some of it not – this is really an adolescent anxiety movie.” – Dan Kimmel, North Shore Movies

“A sick, dirty, vile piece of work; but the real shock is how earnest it is in it’s call for self-acceptance and embrace of real do-gooder heroism.” – Bob Chipman, Escapist

“These are ordinary, everyday people acting out a fantasy of being fantastic surrounded by loads of violence, murder and mayhem. However, this sequel loses it’s innovative spirit early on, resulting in it being merely a warmed over rehash of a much better story told the first time around.” – Tim Estiloz, Examiner

“The most frustrating aspect of KICK-ASS 2 is how horrendously written all of the female characters are.” – Evan Crean, Starpulse

“I found KICK-ASS 2 to be not quite half as fun as the first one but probably a quarter as coherent.”-Monica Castillo, Cinema Fix

 

BUTLERLEE DANIELS’ THE BUTLER

“The excitement of THE BUTLER comes from watching the director’s rude energy chafe up against the stodgy constraints of a traditional Oscar-bait biopic.” – Sean Burns, Philadelphia Weekly

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, here’s Dr. King to explain how you are supposed to feel about the title character you have spent almost two hours supposedly getting to know.” – Bob Chipman, Escapist

“Its arrival at the cineplex could not be more timely or fortuitous. Too bad it’s not a better, more solid film.” – Kilian Melloy, Edge

“For all the bad dialogue—try not to think of Bill Cosby when someone yells, ‘I brought you into this world and I’ll take you out’—the actors redeem it and manage to transcend some of the clunky things they have to say.” – David Riedel, Santa Fe Reporter

“It would be a mistake to pigeonhole this as a film for ‘black viewers,’ as if the American history depicted here hasn’t impacted us all. This is a film that deserves a wide audience.” –Dan Kimmel, North Shore Movies

 

JOBSJOBS

“Do we need to spend five minutes experiencing one of Jobs’ collegiate acid trips as the camera cuts between ill-contextualized moments of his travels to India and whirling shots of Kutcher frolicking through a field of grass?” – Andrew Crump, Go-See-Talk

“After a while you wonder why you should care.” – Dan Kimmel, North Shore Movies

“Soon-to-be-famous people wandering through idyllic College quads in montage to the tune of Cat Stevens’ “Peace Train”? In a Baby Boomer hero-worship flick? You don’t say!” – Bob Chipman, Escapist

“Steve Jobs would have HATED this movie.” – Joyce Kulhawik, Joyce’s Choices

 

SPECTACULAR NOWspectacular-now

“Ponsoldt’s ambiguity marks one of the more brilliant flourishes he brings to a film full of them, but nothing impresses more than the deftness with which he turns genre convention on its head and mines the unexpected from the cliched.”- Andrew Crump, Go-See-Talk

“It’s human, soulful, and not at all what you’d expect a high school drama to be.”- Monica Castillo, Dig Boston

“The shots are clean, but the ideas and actions and feelings depicted are messy, they’re not easily articulated – they’re lifelike.”- Jake Mulligan, Edge Boston

“This film contains the same type of beautiful highs and bittersweet lows as Michael H. Weber and Scott Neustadter’s previous collaboration 500 DAYS OF SUMMER.” – Evan Crean, Starpulse

 

IN A WORLD…in-a-world_300_300_80

“It’s a film of its moment, a film that holds a spot in contemporary discussions about women in cinema (and arguably in society at large, too), but most of all, it’s the film that will secure Bell’s place in our cultural consciousness.” – Andrew Crump, Go-See-Talk

“There’s enough plot to IN A WORLD… to cover three comedies, but Bell has some tricks up her sleeve to keep the stories flowing without seeming forced, shortened, or unnecessary.” –David Riedel, Raw Denim

 

ATTACKTHE ATTACK

“THE ATTACK is viscerally disturbing, morally and even physically frightening; it lays out in stark and unflinching terms what we deal with, and how it changes us, when we come face to face with the sort of absolutism— or desperation — cut, dried, and implacable enough to die, and to kill, for a cause.”- Kilian Melloy, Kal’s Movie Blog

“Those gleaning for subtext will find only what they project onto it, and they’ll only see the baggage they bring in.”-Jake Mulligan, Edge Boston

“The action doesn’t ratchet up like it would in standard fare, but we do get a resolution of sorts. A complicated one, filled with confusion and sadness, true to the fact that real events like this don’t play by rules and don’t offer many answers.”-Norm Scrager, Film Racket