Short Film Review: Spilled Paint (2019)

The plot of the Spilled Paint short film begins as an old-school jazz tune - full of beat and with rising tension. In the movie, the audience is quickly introduced to Patrick, a painter, who is very unpleasantly (even though not yet extremely violently) questioned by a crime boss. The painter made a mistake: he borrowed $10,000 from the same criminal and now it is time to pay up.

Of course, he also made an additional mistake which has been ongoing for some time: he is disorganized, unable to focus and on moments, not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer.

But, he gets a break. The boss will give him a week to get the money. Naturally, with nowhere to turn, the painter realizes his only option is to create a masterpiece of end up very hurt or even worse.

Two Paragraph Review: Dragged Across Concrete (2018)

I really loved Bone Tomahawk and I didn't like Brawl in Cell Block 99. Now, there is the new film by S. Craig Zahler and this is his biggest undertaking so far. Featuring a cast led by the always good Mel Gibson, Zahler did his own version of the Poliziotteschi genre (don't worry, I never heard about it either). In the movie, the vibe of the entire plot is an almost intangible mesh of personal drama, background political commentary and quick bursts of almost senseless violence.

This is something that on moments works great and sometimes fails completely, especially because of the weird script Zahler wrote. Here, the idea of repeated dialogue lines, like "being smarter by a yard post" and similar stuff reminded me of film school student trying to write like Tarantino. The presence of these dorky and completely unnecessary elements is hard to figure out but they often break the immersion and any weird-but-good magic this director can clearly deal out to its audience. Still, no one could argue that for a neo-noir film Dragged Across Concrete doesn't cover its genre basis pretty well.

Indie Showcase: The Bachelor Party (2018)

When it comes to parodies, the basic principle for successful films in this genre doesn't change over time. Today, like always, the more over the top, the better. This is why The Bachelor Party promises a great ride for anyone who is into these types of comedies. Here is how the film describes itself:

Internationally mega-viral superstar Shawn "The Showstopper" Valentino is "The Most Famous Bachelor in the Galaxy." After his hero Hefner passes away, Shawn faces the most impossible mission of his life: a choice to settle down with 1 of his 5 girlfriends or to continue his playboy lifestyle of decadence and fantasy in this ridiculously over-the-top parody of spy films and romantic reality TV.

Two-Paragraph Review: A Private War (2018)

I'm not sure if it's really possible to perceive a film like A Private War without having some kind of position towards the conflicts it features. Sure, the film tries to be objective and somehow shift the focus from the wars to the journalists who were brave to traverse them, but it is hard to gauge how successful is it in the same design. This is especially true when it comes to Libya and the war that took place there (and still goes on), now with all that we know in 2019.

Across all of this, A Private War review should, in theory, avoid the choking geopolitical ramifications of the role Western media played in all of that and focus on Rosamund Pike and her great depiction of Marie Colvin. Yet, for me, the focus of the film is not the Colvin’s personal life but the editorial decisions back in London and the how and the why of those moments. In that setup, it is Tom Hollander as Sean Ryan of the Sunday Times who is actually the main character. Sadly, the film offers no answers to the same questions. Marie Colvin might have not been interested in which plane or artillery piece bombed a village, but I can’t help but wonder who sold and shipped those weapons there, as well as those on the other side.

Two-Paragraph Review: Roma (2018)

The thing about Roma is that it follows and depicts a particular kind of childhood, which took place in the turbulent years of the 1970s in Mexico. Yet, at the same time - and this is the thing that makes it so relatable - it is also about everyone’s childhood and their slight absentness from it. In the film, the children and the family that are experiencing the whole snapshot of this part of their lives is only one side of the story.

The second one, in some ways the major tale, is that of the maid working in the same home. Her life is separate from the family but at the same time, it is also fused with their stories as well as a kind of living but an ever-present prop. In spite of this, the family is mostly barely aware of her, as if she is the same complex and undefinable emotional development through which they became adults. She, like the same process, might be forgotten later on, but Roma shows that its actual influence is both unmistakable and irrevocable.

Two-Paragraph Review: Overlord (2018)

Overlord is a great movie and there should be no doubt about that - it’s one of my biggest positive surprises in this hybrid horror genre since Bone Tomahawk. Its director, Julius Avery, does a precise and very technical, but at the same time bold and unexpected slalom run through horror, war movie, and splatter adventure comedy genres. In the film, there are parts that are in equal measure worthy of Saving Private Ryan, Inglourious Basterds, and The Dirty Dozen.

At the same time, Avery managed to make a really good movie without the use of practically any big actress or actor. Regardless, through the use of plenty of German and French being mixed up with the English language, its cast pulls off an engaging movie. The plot tells the story of a small band of survivor paratroopers on a mission to blow up a Nazi installation on D-Day - there, however, they find things much more dangerous than a radio jamming facility.  In the hell ride that comes after this discovery, the actors and Avery do much more and present it as a great and very gory adventure. You don’t want to miss out on this gem of a film, especially if you find war films and those from the WW2 era at list slightly interesting.