Let’s Talk About: The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot (Slightly Abridged)

Posted on by James R.D. Hilton

EDITOR’S NOTE: In the spirit of writing significantly shorter pieces (i.e., not fourteen pages long) I would like to kick off a new phase of Snooty Film Critiques with a revision of my piece on The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot… now slightly abridged.

When the title of your movie is a whopping eleven-syllable salute to exhibitionism like ‘The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot,’ I would argue that it’s not unreasonable to expect it to feature Bigfoot prominently, or even occasionally. Curiously, this debut feature for writer/director Robert D. Krzykowski – which premiered at the Fantasia Film Festival in Montréal last July – has surprisingly little to do with Bigfoot. Or anything at all, for that matter.

Continue reading Let’s Talk About: The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot (Slightly Abridged)

A Ghost Story: The Indie-est Story Ever Told

Posted on by James R.D. Hilton

There are few things in this world I hold in greater disdain than stupid movies. I’m talking about the action-dependent, spectacle-driven, CGI-saturated, studio-spawned, soul-sapped, Frankenstein’s monster-type movies that dominate the summer cinemascape by pandering to the lowest common denominator. Movies like the upcoming Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and The Meg, which both already look more nauseating than a bucket of KFC chicken in a carnival Zipper and so thinly-written to have only used single-sided script paper.

A Ghost Story is the exact opposite of those sort of action-heavy movies. In fact, it’s so far in the opposite direction of those movies that there’s almost no action in it at all – not even simple actions like moving, talking, or facially expressing. That featured image heading my article? That’s a GIF!

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Mayhem: It’s Exactly What it Sounds Like

Posted on by James R.D. Hilton

Ahh, Christmas time – a festive season of peace, love, and goodwill extended to everyone you spent the rest of the year flipping off. Families congregate under chintzy decorations and pretend to tolerate one another over extravagant feasts, Die Hard loops endlessly on an impulsively-purchased 4K TV, and everyone represses all their inner rage that’s been mounting since the last election and forces some good cheer on a holiday that’s devolved into a cynical capitalistic cash-grab.

Seems like a good a time as any to discuss Mayhem – no, silly reader, not the state of Warner Bros’s accounting department following Justice League’s opening weekend; I’m talking about the new action-horror-comedy extravaganza by world-famous director (reads off cue card) Joe Lynch. Since premiering at Cannes back in May it’s been heralded by critics as Office Space meets The Purge, and since viewing it myself I’d personally add the endorsement ‘on cocaine’ to fully capture its spirit.

Continue reading Mayhem: It’s Exactly What it Sounds Like