So you want to make a movie -- a hit movie, no less -- in the 2010s, one that truly captures the zeitgeist of pop culture in the Tens? Here are ten Tens trends that all should consider when making a new movie:
The problem with Dark Shadows is that it is not a comedy. It isn't a drama either. It is part camp and part horror flick and none of it works.
Based on the 1960s-era cult-classic TV soap opera, Dark Shadows has a whole basket of nutty plot details, punctuated at every turn by 200 years of wacky time-warp humor.
How often does that happen to a non-famous person? What did I possibly do for such a thing to happen to me? I've asked those questions of myself a lot lately, and I may have an answer.
Maiwenn Le Besco's Polisse is tough and compelling, a police drama with no real plot but, rather, a snapshot slice-of-life of a group of Paris cops coping with what may be the most demanding assignment on the force.
Bobcat Goldthwait is mad as hell, and he's not going to take it anymore. At least, the two main characters of his dark comedy God Bless America won't.
I was a little taken aback when I saw the overtly male-focused trailer for What to Expect When You're Expecting. After all, What to Expect is a chick flick, right? Well, yes and no.
At a carnival, inside a fun house or around a campfire, the recitation of disturbing information serves to create a certain mood. Basically, New Orleans is an amusement park where you can get killed.
Two hundred years is a long time to revive a vampire, but then again, 40 years is long time to revive the first horror soap opera (not counting an earlier, feature adaptation and a TV reboot in the '90s).
"Capitalism is not natural, it's just brainwashed into us," Antonino D'Ambrosio, director and producer of Let Fury Have The Hour, tells me. Political art impacts our consciousness, it can change our votes. It redirects anger.
Chaos, confusion and irritation best describe this forced gothic nightmare, based on the vampire soap opera from 1966.
Despite the tendency of many Americans to think that the whole world revolves around them, the phenomenon of bullying takes place in any society where power games lead to one person attempting to dominate another.
Even if I'm aware that Mother's Day is yet another attempt by greeting card companies to part me with my money, I can't refuse an opportunity to honor the woman who brought me into this world.
What had started as a concert film about the Rolling Stones, a follow-up of sorts to the Maysles' The Beatles: The First U.S. Visit, turned into a Zapruder-like document that sounded the death knell for the flower power of the 1960s.
Why French films? If you watch the below five titles, you'll know it. But to put it into words, French film to me is: aesthetics, subtleties, sensuality. Like no other filmmakers, the French understand the art of communicating without telling.
With sequels, explosive superhero adventures and eye-popping animated flicks taking over theaters this summer, it might be hard to decide what films are worth your family's time.