Kobayashi Magoo

by Ryan Syrek

Star Trek Into Darkness

If modern nerd culture has a “patient zero,” it was Mr. Trekkie (or Miss Trekker, if you’re nasty). Their legendary attention to detail is exceeded only by their willingness to speak Klingon in the most intimate of settings. And they’re really, really going to hate Star Trek Into Darkness.

Director JJ Abram’s 2009 reboot got a surprising free pass from the community despite a...

No Bull! Shh…

by Ryan Syrek

Blancanieves

A silent film reimagining Snow White shot in black and white and set in Spain, in which the heroine is a bullfighter, is not an easy sell. Who knows what lengths writer/director Pablo Berger had to go through to secure financing for this gothic reworking of a famous fairy tale, set in 1920s Seville. But whatever he did was worth it. Blancanieves is what The Artist wants to be when The Artist...

Twisty Pig Tale

by Ryan Syrek

Upstream Color

Writer/director Shane Carruth’s 2004 film, Primer, isn’t just a great time-travel movie; it’s one of the best science fiction films in the history of ever. But, hey, no pressure on the follow-up or anything, Shane. For nearly a decade, cinemaphiles waited for omni-hyphenated actor-editor-musician-producer to create something else, anything else. And just when all hope seemed lost, here comes...

Puttin’ on the Fitz’

by Ryan Syrek

The Great Gatsby

If “director Baz Luhrmann” and “restraint” have ever appeared in the same sentence together, they were the word-bread creating a sandwich around the phrase “has absolutely no.” Considering that the gaudy Jay Gatsby is basically Luhrmann’s spirit animal, the union made sense, even if the alleged $200 million budget for a 3D version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel set to music selected by...

Don’t Love Thy Neighbor Too Much

by Ryan Syrek

Beyond the Hills

There was a shot so slow and quiet in Beyond the Hills (or Dupa Dealuri if you’ve got Romanian skills) that it appeared to be accidentally freeze framed. Nope. Writer/director Cristian Mungiu did that on purpose. Ostensibly, the unfathomably slow pace is to heighten reality; practically, it reduces themes that are complicated but totally obvious to a snail’s pace…and the snail isn’t a fast...

Up and Downey

by Ryan Syrek

Iron Man 3

Although traditionally necessary for filmmaking, the original Iron Man was rumored not to have had much of a real script, just an outline of key moments and the note “fill in gaps with Robert Downey Jr’s swag.” Much to the chagrin of the WGA, it worked. But writers’ karma is a harsh mistress, and Iron Man 2’s attempt to “wing it” soared like a penguin. Enter writer/director Shane Black, known...

Cybersucks

by Ryan Syrek

Disconnect

Here’s one of the more damning comparisons to a Best Picture Oscar winner you can make: Disconnect is basically 2004’s Crash, only instead of solving racism, everybody just texts and Facebooks a lot. Quasi-poignancy frequently gives way to simplistic moralizing and preachy behavior-modification in this triptych of stories that show how the Internet is gonna getcha!

The interlocking tales are...