Search for Pain

After watching Intruders, I was forced to ponder a question: Why do so many horror movies that begin with promise fall apart in the final act? Intruders is the latest example of what has become a trend: scary films adept at drawing viewers in but i...

With the freedom offered to him by Netflix, Martin Scorsese has crafted a narratively complex, visually arresting account of mob hitman Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) and, in the process, reunited with some old friends and brought new ones to ...

Jamon, Jamon, a "tale of ham and passion" (and literally translated Ham, Ham) could perhaps be described as a "Grade B art film." Although possessing a biting wit and excellent sense of the offbeat, too much of Jamon, Jamon follows obvious paths. ...

Filmmaker Pedro Almodovar (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!) never does anything in a conventional manner, and Kika is no exception. A black farce on sex, violence, and the attraction of both for the general publ...

In Gladiator, director Ridley Scott transported movie audiences to the year 180 AD. Five years and four motion pictures later, the Oscar-winning director has again immersed himself in the blood and gore of hand-to-hand combat, although this time t...

In recent years, the term "director's cut" has undergone a devaluation. It has become a marketing term, appended to DVDs to enhance their salability. Often, a "director's cut" will be essentially the same as the theatrical cut, except with a fe...

The Limits of Control is a modern fable set within the approximation of a thriller. The slow, repetitious nature of the film, as well as the lack of a strong narrative, limits the level of suspense writer/director Jim Jarmusch is capable of genera...

Almodovar. To those familiar with his body of work, that name is more than just a way to identify one of today's premiere directors -- it offers valuable insight into the scope and intent of a movie. Since his debut in 1980 with Pepi, Luci, Bom, ...

A noir horror movie of the most un-classic kind, Brad Anderson's The Machinist takes you into the unstable mind of an insomniac with a dark secret whose life has become a bleak emotional wasteland devoted only to going through the motions of workin...

Mama follows an unfortunate recent pattern that has emerged in low-budget horror films, especially those with PG-13 ratings. It starts out strongly, using evocative visuals and an unsettling backstory to establish a creepy tableau, but it proves un...