Author: Jason Morgan
Summer of the Sharks
Rows of razor sharp teeth. Black, lifeless eyes -- killer's eyes. The shark's predator personality has allowed the species to survive for more than 420 million years. And the blood-curdling yell of "SHARK!" sends most...
Movie Review posted on 28th May 2009
The Poughkeepsie Tapes
Why do we watch serial killer documentaries? Because they delve into the depths of a psychopath; we're shocked by the brutality, but captured by disbelief. The Poughkeepsie Tapes takes its faux-doc structure one step further...
Movie Review posted on 13th May 2009
Empire Of Passion
Love does funny things to men. Logic and reason go out the window to satisfy an emotional craving -- up is down, together is apart, and death is life. To quench Toyoji and Seki's lustful...
Movie Review posted on 9th May 2009
[REC]
"It gets up and kills. The people it kills get up and kill," said a TV show host in the seminal Dawn of the Dead (1978). While he understood the undead threat, Spanish TV personality...
Movie Review posted on 30th April 2009
The Insect Woman
In name alone, director Sh?hei Imamura's The Insect Woman sounds like the story of a nuclear-mutated lady who wreaks havoc on Japan -- leveling cities and destroying lives. While the film's protagonist Tomé doesn't sprout...
Movie Review posted on 2nd April 2009
Magnificent Obsession
Restrained passion, brooding desire, and undying love are painted on the screen in glorious Technicolor. Obsessed with the suffering of the American over-privileged upper class of the 1950s, director Douglas Sirk created several Hollywood blockbusters...
Movie Review posted on 19th January 2009
Shadows
Long before Hollywood studios sold "independent" films to the masses and digital video filled the screen with directionless angst, independent cinema had a purpose and a master -- John Cassavetes. Although Cassavetes' directorial debut Shadows...
Movie Review posted on 8th December 2008
W.
As President Bush's second term winds down and the race for 2008 spins at fevered pace, now is the time to make a statement -- reflecting on the failures of the current administration and projecting...
Movie Review posted on 17th October 2008
20 Million Miles To Earth
Bursting from clouds of sulfuric acid on the planet Venus and crashing into the sea by a small Sicilian town, the first U.S. rocket returns carrying deadly cargo -- a Venusian monster that grows in...
Movie Review posted on 8th October 2008
An Autumn Afternoon
Waking up, going to work, having a drink with co-workers, and visiting with friends make up the mundane stories that family members have to suffer through when you finally arrive home. Although these events hardly...
Movie Review posted on 3rd October 2008
Chungking Express
If Happy Together and In the Mood for Love are director Wong Kar Wai's Hong Kong art house ballads, Chungking Express is his smash-hit pop song -- light and fun with a hint of truth....
Movie Review posted on 27th August 2008
Au Hasard Balthazar
You won't read about Robert Bresson's Au Hasard Balthazar in any art history book. You won't go to a museum to see his work on display or study his theory about actors as models. Unless...
Movie Review posted on 23rd July 2008
Day Watch
We feel the pull of the metaphorical light and dark everyday: Should I lie? Steal? Cheat? Have that second bowl of ice cream? Or should I do the "right" thing? Taking this push-pull of desires...
Movie Review posted on 7th July 2008
Prom Night
Many prom nights are filled with over-the-top spectacle, excitement and an air of anxious mystery. Director Nelson McCormick's Prom Night is not. Its story of teens being stalked by a crazy ex-teacher is a miscolored...
Movie Review posted on 15th April 2008
Shine a Light
Gimme Shelter this is not. The disillusions and stabbings of the 1969 concert have been replaced by the Clinton Foundation's benefit for the Natural Resource Defense Council and snapping camera phones. But Shine a Light...
Movie Review posted on 4th April 2008
Shutter
The horror genre has imploded. Wrought with remakes, horror is being strangled to death by a lack of creativity on the filmmakers' part and interest on ours. Having run out of worth-while Japanese horror (J-horror)...
Movie Review posted on 2nd April 2008
Crime Fiction
Here's a secret -- every writer wants his or her name to be famous.Whether driven by popularity or a quest for validation, it's an egotistical desire that stems from the feeling that what he or...
Movie Review posted on 2nd April 2008
The Last Emperor
Toy trucks and accessorized dolls are common props of the wide-eyed two year-old's wonderment. While Puyi, who was appointed China's last emperor at that tender age, might have substituted fine silk curtains for plastic as...
Movie Review posted on 6th March 2008
P.S. I Love You
Several times a year, greeting cards clutter up a mantel -- their words are filled with sentiment, but they don't really say anything and mean even less to others who idly pick them up, flip...
Movie Review posted on 21st December 2007
Paris, Texas
There is a mysticism that enshrouds Paris. The grand cityscape of the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe situated on the River Seine gives the city of lights its romanticism. But in Paris, Texas, there...
Movie Review posted on 11th December 2007
Beowulf
From the advent of sound with 1927's The Jazz Singer to the computer-generated effects breakthrough of 1989's The Abyss -- advancements in technology have had a major impact on cinematic storytelling, for better and worse....
Movie Review posted on 16th November 2007
Imagination
Avant-garde cinema is an acquired taste -- mainly because, as the viewer, you have to give every benefit of the doubt to the "artist." It's a genre that focuses more on cinema as a visual...
Movie Review posted on 6th November 2007
Lars and the Real Girl
Lars and the Real Girl is not a comedy, despite the urge to laugh at a man who is romantically infatuated with his life-like sex doll. The title character is a socially maladjusted young man...
Movie Review posted on 12th October 2007
The Seventh Seal
Throughout his extensive and impressive filmography, Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, who passed away in July 2007, wrestled with the existence and role of God in everyday life. From struggling with mortality toward the end of...
Movie Review posted on 26th September 2007
Battleship Potemkin
Classic films are tricky beasts -- their cinematic reputation builds to monstrous proportions. Seminal titles such as Citizen Kane, 8 1/2, and Battleship Potemkin resonate through the historical cinematic mind. While the first two retain...
Movie Review posted on 22nd September 2007
The Brave One
Violence is inherent. Brought on by fear, anger, despair or ignorance, it's a side of humanity we'd rather forget -- until it rips into our lives and forces us to change. It comes without warning...
Movie Review posted on 14th September 2007
The Brothers Solomon
There are moments when time seems to stretch into infinity -- seconds are a lifetime and minutes are an eternity. You usually encounter this phenomenon while sitting in a dentist chair, waiting out that last...
Movie Review posted on 7th September 2007
Halloween (2007)
Halloween's Michael Myers has seen many incarnations during his 29-year reign of terror. While he hasn't yet seen the vastness of space (boldly not going where most horror franchises eventually go), he has met a...
Movie Review posted on 2nd September 2007
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