[ The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! ] Beneath its slick production values, gory special effects (including, but not limited to: shattered teeth, gouged-out eyes, mangled limbs, and bitten-off fingers), and zany slapstick gags (many of the aforementioned injuries are played for dark comedy), Send Help  is a movie about society in its purest form, exploring what happens when traditional hierarchies crumble and two people on very  different levels of the...

Attended the Orphans at MoMA: At Play—Amateurs, Animators, and Avant-Gardes  program at the Museum of Modern Art today. What a delightful celebration of the miracle of film preservation! The showcase (a recurring component of the venue’s annual To Save and Project  festival) revolved around an eclectic grab bag of obscure cinematic oddities: avant-garde  experiments, documentaries, early talkies designed to be viewed in the comfort of one's own home, and much, much more. The highlight of the...

[ The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! ] As a cinematic adaptation of Konami’s Silent Hill 2 , director Christophe Gans’ Return to Silent Hill  fails spectacularly. I don’t resent it for taking liberties with its source material, of course. Indeed, I’d argue that some of its changes—e.g., the revised setting of the climax—are elegantly pragmatic. Many of the more foundational alterations, however, are absolutely detrimental to the story, diminishing the thematic...