Soundtracks of Television: ‘Open Your Eyes’
‘Open Your Eyes’ Soundtrack: A Vague Visages guide for every featured song in season 1 of the Polish Netflix series.
Review: Eddie Arya’s ‘Risen’
“‘Risen’ won’t fare well with impatient streamers. Writer-director Eddie Arya should be applauded for his creative ambition, but even the most forward-thinking filmmakers need strong performances to sell their product.”
Know the Cast: ‘Reminiscence’
‘Reminiscence’ Cast: A Vague Visages guide for every main performer and character in Lisa Joy’s 2021 movie.
‘The Flesh Eaters’ and Early American Gore Cinema
“Jack Curtis’ 1964 feature ‘The Flesh Eaters’ deserves consideration as a lost figurehead of the gore genre, and one of its more formative efforts.”
WOMAN: At the Heart of James Cameron’s Filmmaking
“If you’re looking for feminism, don’t look at James Cameron — look at his films.”
VVoices: Best M. Night Shyamalan Film
VVoices #7: Vague Visages Contributors on the Best M. Night Shyamalan Film
Review: Cate Shortland’s ‘Black Widow’
“Shortland brings her keen feature filmmaking chops to ‘Black Widow’ as a welcome addition to the talented pool of storytellers who can match the Kevin Feige house style without any significant artistic compromise.”
Review: John Krasinski’s ‘A Quiet Place Part II’
“‘A Quiet Place Part II’ depicts quietness as a strength, and the film’s release shows that the quietness of the past year can be resolved through the mutable, powerful sensibilities of cinema.”
Review: Ryan Kruger’s ‘Fried Barry’
“‘Fried Barry’ is busy and overstuffed, but it’s also an incredibly promising and deeply weird reinvention of the body invasion thriller; a strange, disorienting and ultimately rewarding experience.”
Netflix Review: Alexandre Aja’s ‘Oxygen’
“Oxygen’s relevance strikes like lightning in a year when time is measured less by Earth’s tilt and more by first wave, second wave, red phase, yellow phase; not by time passing daily, but by how much danger remains in the room.”
Review: Steven Kostanski’s ‘Psycho Goreman’
“‘Psycho Goreman’ is delightfully dark, whimsical, charming and frequently laugh-out-loud funny.”
Review: Anthony Scott Burns’ ‘Come True’
“Stone has the look of a teenager with the earned maturity of someone who’s been through some heavy shit, which lends itself well to her teenage prostitute in ‘Honey Bee’ and works just as brilliantly in ‘Come True.'”
Sundance Review: Ben Wheatley’s ‘In the Earth’
“The most surprising thing about ‘In the Earth’ may be just how much of a return it is to the pitch black humour that characterised Wheatley’s earliest films.”
Review: Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead’s ‘Synchronic’
“Benson and Moorhead’s typically dark, cynical tone is well-suited to the material until a too-neat ending tries to retcon ‘Synchronic’ into something else in the most jarring way possible.”
London Film Festival Review: Brandon Cronenberg’s ‘Possessor’
“There is so much stuff in ‘Possessor’ that you might think you’re at a venerable cinematic feast. But take away the squelching and splatter and there’s barely enough to fill an episode of ‘Black Mirror.”
Fantasia 2020 Review: Noah Hutton’s ‘Lapsis’
“‘Lapsis’ offers the intriguing and hopeful possibility that our technologically dependent future may not be so bad after all.”
Review: Egor Abramenko’s ‘Sputnik’
“‘Sputnik’ is a thoughtful, knotty sci-fi thriller that’s firmly character-driven and also boasts a horrifyingly beautiful creature.”
Tearing Down the Monument: Sean Connery’s 1970s
“In my hatred for the Bond franchise, I feel I may have done a disservice to its star. I have always had a tendency to discount Sean Connery as an exquisitely sculpted statue, capable of filling out a tuxedo very nicely but little else.”
‘Death Race 2000’: Camp Then and Now
“Perhaps the exaggerated disregard for human life in the name of national pride, entertainment and prosperity in ‘Death Race 2000’ is a timely trigger for reassessing priorities as we await a return to normalcy.”
The Disaster Area: From ‘Airport’ to ‘Airplane!’ – Part One
“It is during the 70s that the disaster film’s most pure and admirable entries were made, bookended by two significantly different stories involving air travel fiascos.”