HELLBOY (Directed by Neil Marshall, 120 minutes, USA, 2019) BY DAN TABOR FILM CRITIC Hellboy is an odd sequel/reboot mashup that simultaneously ties up the loose narrative threads left behind by Guillermo del Toro’s Hellboy (2004) and Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008) while introducing a new cast and the fresh hell that will befall them. In this incarnation helmed by Neil Marshall (The Descent, Dog Soldiers), Hellboy (David Harbour) is assisted by spirit medium Alice Monaghan (Sasha Lane) and Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense agent Ben Daimio (Daniel Dae Kim) as he attempts to stop a Gruagach, which […]
CINEMA: Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
THE BEACH BUM (Directed by Harmony Korine, 95 minutes, USA, 2019) BY DAN TABOR FILM CRITIC Everyone I know seems to have a Harmony Korine story. From the friend who once told me about how an applicant at the video store he used to work at listed the director as a reference — and how they called the number only to have Korine pick up. To another friend in whom Korine confided that he once lost almost 70 never-produced scripts in a bizarre house fire. Like the director himself, The Beach Bum is a study in larger-than-life chaotic personae that […]
CINEMA: This Is America
US (Directed by Jordan Peele, 116 minutes, USA, 2019) BY DAN TABOR FILM CRITIC Us, Jordan Peele’s white-hotly anticipated follow up to to his 2017 breakout hit Get Out, is a stylish, cerebral and visually stunning creepshow that rings loud and true and in the process solidifies his status as our next great American auteur. Peele dodges the sophomore slump serving up another suitably jaundiced meditation on American dysphoria that smartly delivers the requisite scares and yucks. Starring Black Panther break out Winston Duke and Lupita Nyong’o, its a film that’s bigger in scope than than his previous outing and […]
INCOMING: The Horror, The Horror
Cinepunx, the Philadelphia cinema podcast collective, whose love of film is rivaled only by their love of hardcore music, will be screening Starfish March 18th at 7:30pm at The Rotunda. The feature-length debut by director Al White, who is probably best known for being the front man for the UK band Ghostlight, will also be in town for a post screening Q&A. Starfish world premiered at Fantastic Fest, where I caught it back in September and genuinely dug it. The film is a thought provoking look at grief and loss as a young woman, Aubrey (Virginia Gardner), loses her best […]
CINEMA: Bikini Kill Kill
CAPTAIN MARVEL (Dir. by Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck, 124 min., USA, 2019) BY DAN TABOR FILM CRITIC Captain Marvel arrives at an interesting inflection point in the Marvel Comics Universe, preceding the apocalyptic events of Infinity War by decades, while introducing what could possibly be their most powerful superhero yet. The film is directed by the husband/wife team of Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, who have a demonstrable knack for complex character building, which is surely why they were chosen to bring Marvel’s first female led superhero film to theaters. Brie Larson was recruited for the title role […]
CINEMA: Q&A With Acclaimed Director Neil Jordan
BY DAN TABOR FILM CRITIC Neil Jordan has been creating thought provoking cinema for decades and last week I got a few moments to chat with the director of such films as Interview With The Vampire, The Crying Game and The Company Of Wolves. His latest film, Greta, which opens today, is a captivating thriller about Frances, a young woman (Chloë Grace Moretz) in New York who befriends an older woman Greta (Isabelle Huppert) when she finds her purse on the subway. As Frances gets to know Greta, we soon find she is not exactly the harmless, little old […]
CINEMA: Sim City
ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL (directed by Robert Rodriguez, 122 minutes, USA, 2019) BY DAN TABOR FILM CRITIC If you got into Anime in the 90’s, you were undoubtedly indoctrinated with Yukito Kishiro’s Battle Angel, the bleak cyberpunk love story cribbed in equal parts from Blade Runner and The Terminator. Hollywood’s take on this animated classic hits the big screen this week thanks to Robert Rodriguez (Sin City), who took on the project that has been in gestation under James Cameron (The Terminator/Avatar) for almost two decades, who also penned the script. Alita takes the larger than life worlds Cameron is known […]
CINEMA: Black Mirror
“Hey man, I don’t mind bein’ a vampire and all that shit, but a man has got to see his face!”– Scream Blacula, Scream (1973) BY DAN TABOR FILM CRITIC As a lifelong horror fan, I was humbled by Horror Noire, the dense and informative documentary on the Black Horror film genre, based on the book with the same title by Robin R. Means Coleman. This homegrown project, written and produced in Philadelphia by Stage 3 Productions is masterclass in horror that every genre fan needs to take. While I like to consider myself a fan of black horror […]
CINEMA: Shattered
GLASS (directed by M. Night Shyamlan, 129 minutes, USA, 2019) BY DAN TABOR FILM CRITIC Like most critics and moviegoers, I have a love/meh relationship with M. Night Shyamalan’s body of work. While I enjoyed his last film, 2016’s Split, a genre-bending story of a man with 24 distinct personalities, I didn’t love it until those final moments when Night served up one of his patented pretzel plot twist endings. The big reveal at the end of Split is that the whole time you’ve been watching quasi-sequel to 2000’s Unbreakable, a film that I will argue birthed the superhero […]
CINEMA: Dan Tabor’s Top 10 Films Of 2018
SUSPIRIA (Directed by Luca Guadagino, 152 minutes, USA, 2018) What can I say about Luca Guadagnino’s mesmerizing and profoundly unsettling re-make of Italian horror master Dario Argento’s Suspiria that I haven’t said already? This film about a young girl recruited by a dance school run by a coven of witches still has me firmly under its spell even looking back on it all these months later. It mirrors Guadagnino’s previous film Call Me By Your Name in that both are a coming of age and a love story that leaves you speechless and completely enraptured in its final moments. […]
CINEMA: Water World
AQUAMAN (Directed by James Wan, 143 minutes, USA, 2018) BY DAN TABOR FILM CRITIC Aquaman, the latest offering of the much-maligned DCU, is more or less a sequel to Justice League this time focusing on Arthur Curry AKA “The Aquaman” (Jason Momoa) and his origin story. Taking place a year after the battle over the Mother Boxes in Justice League, the film has the half-Atlantean/half-human now reluctantly falling into the role of superhero, when he is suddenly confronted by his past. As garbage and warships are cast from the ocean showing up on our shores, Arthur is tasked with stopping […]
CINEMA: All Work No Play Makes Jack A Dull Boy
THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT (Dir. by Lars von Trier, 152 min., USA, 2018) BY DAN TABOR FILM CRITIC Lars von Trier is no stranger to controversy and his latest effort, and The House that Jack Built, may be his most controversial film to date. The film that prompted about 100 walkouts in Cannes has the Danish filmmaker tackling the horror genre in his most audacious film to date. When it comes to auteurs no one personifies this term more than the eccentric von Trier, who while sometimes problematic, is still responsible for some the best cinema of last two […]
CINEMA: Can’t We All Get Along
GREEN BOOK (Directed by Peter Farelly, 140 minutes, USA, 2018) BY DAN TABOR FILM CRITIC ‘Based on a true story’ Green Book borrows its title from the Negro Motorist Green Book, informally called the “Green Book”. This mid-20th century guidebook was meant for African-American travelers, to let them know which hotels would be willing to host them in the Deep South. The film, which takes place in the mid-1960s stars as Viggo Mortensen as Tony “Lip” Vallelonga, a cardboard cutout of an Italian American stereotype who was a bouncer for the local night club. When the club closes for renovations, […]