By Darin Skaggs 15. CHI-RAQ Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq is a movie made for social issues happening right now and is based on the Greek play called Lysistrata. In that way it makes the movie already seem timeless. It is a furious picture all about race relations and the unnecessary violence it has caused. It […]
Read more "My Top 15 Favorite Films of 2015"By Darin Skaggs In my earlier years as a film fan, I would make a point to watch all of the Best Picture nominees just so I could say that I saw them all. In the last two years or so I backed down on this and basically just saw the ones I wanted […]
Read more "Best Picture Nominations 2015 Ranked"By Darin Skaggs The big gimmick in Sabastian Schipper’s Victoria is that it is an over two hour film that is all done in one take. This is a huge accomplishment on a technical level and should always be seen as such, but that does not mean anything about the quality of the film. […]
Read more "Review: VICTORIA (2015)"By Darin Skaggs Director Sion Sono is known for his off the wall, homage filled, near parody filmmaking which includes the sexual desire driven four hour epic Love Exposure and last year’s love letter to filmmaking Why Don’t You Play in Hell? In the latter film, which is the only other Sono film I […]
Read more "Review: TOKYO TRIBE (2015)"By Darin Skaggs Throughout Quentin Tarantino’s career, with a huge focus on the most recent two Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained, there has been a huge focus on giving off a big sense of fun, an argument for why we go to the movies. It is no secret the man has a passion for […]
Read more "Review: THE HATEFUL EIGHT (2015)"By Darin Skaggs Todd Haynes’ Carol is one of the most hauntingly beautiful romantic stories to come out in a long while. It is a tale of two women who start a friendship, and eventually more, in the 1950’s. The film successfully juggles the romantic angle, the taboo of the nature of their situation […]
Read more "Review: CAROL (2015)"By Darin Skaggs Most artist creations come from a certain degree of pain or inner turmoil whether it be movie makers, painters, musicians and so on. In Rick Alverson’s Entertainment the nameless protagonist, played by Gregg Turkington, goes around as a stand-up comic performing seemingly unnecessary crude jokes. You wonder why he is telling […]
Read more "Review: ENTERTAINMENT (2015)"By Darin Skaggs Roy Andersson’s A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence is what could be best referred as film nerd feed. It has no real plot, contains many scenes of melancholy that are equally a black comedy at its finest, a bleak, yet beautiful visual style and not to mention the […]
Read more "Review: A PIGEON SAT ON A BRANCH REFLECTING ON EXSTENCE (2015)"By Darin Skaggs There is no film so far this year that has moments I absolutely love and scenes that I equally hate. It is the most tonally confused movie that mixes the political seriousness of All the President’s Men and the odd, slapstick comedy of Step Brothers. David Gordon Green, who directed the […]
Read more "Review: OUR BRAND IS CRISIS (2015)"By Darin Skaggs At first glance Lenny Abrahamson’s Room is a tragic tale about a woman named Joy (played by Brie Larson) who was kidnapped at seventeen and now lives with her five year old son, Jack (played by Jacob Tremblay) in a locked backyard garden shed. It is not though; Room is a […]
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Schmuck For A Lifetime 