Articles Written by Brian Holcomb
The Prestige (2006) Movie Review
There has been a kind of silent rule in classic mystery fiction, from Agatha Christie to John Dickson Carr, that an author must play fair with readers and resolve their stories without resorting to the occult or speculative science. This is not an iron-clad rule, and Carr himself achieved success with a novel, “The Burning [...]
November 1st, 2006 | Brian Holcomb | 1 Comment | Read MoreThe Departed (2006) Movie Review #2
What makes a good cover song? Different, but not too different. We still need to recognize the melody. Transformed by the cover artist’s own personal style so that the style is illuminated in relief. But not so transformed that we lose the essential power of the original. About halfway through Martin Scorsese’s cover version of [...]
October 20th, 2006 | Brian Holcomb | 0 Comments | Read MoreThe Grudge 2 (2006) Movie Review
There seems to be a grudge held by the media against director Takashi Shimizu for his “naked greed” in making the same damn film seven times over. It seems that it’s okay for a filmmaker to make a profit so long as it’s just collateral damage from the production of art. It also seems as [...]
October 15th, 2006 | Brian Holcomb | 0 Comments | Read MoreThe Woods (2006) Movie Review
Lucky McKee thanks God for little girls, for without them he would have no muse, no “raison d’être” as Maurice Chevalier might have said. He would also have made no films at all since the three he’s made on his own, “May”, the “Masters of Horror” episode “Sick Girl” and now, finally, “The Woods” are [...]
October 8th, 2006 | Brian Holcomb | 0 Comments | Read MoreSpring Break Shark Attack (2005) Movie Review
Read that title aloud.
Spring. Break. Shark. Attack.
It has a nice alliterative sound, a sleek look, and a “Captain Obvious” clarity only topped by “Snakes on a Plane”. Most movie titles play coy with their subjects. “The Silence of the Lambs”, for example. Now what could that be about? A mute shepherd in the [...]
The Black Dahlia (2006) Movie Review
Brian De Palma’s “The Black Dahlia” is quite simply the best movie to have been released so far this year. Ignore all of the cinematic philistines who have brought the collective ax down on the film with the unique rage they save for the work of this most underrated and misunderstood filmmaker. According to this [...]
September 18th, 2006 | Brian Holcomb | 4 Comments | Read MoreFlyboys (2006) Movie Review
The First World War was fought with 20th century technology within a 19th century mindset, and the result of this Molotov cocktail was massive casualties on a scale never before seen or even imagined. It was also the first war to make use of the still new technology of motion pictures as a tool of [...]
September 18th, 2006 | Brian Holcomb | 0 Comments | Read MoreForbidden County (2005) Movie Review
“Jackson County Jail” gets a revival in “Forbidden County”, the latest offering from producer David Heavener and “star” Steven Bauer. Heavener is a filmmaker whose website features ecstatic blurbs by the likes of Isaac Hayes (”Amazing! How he does it all…and well.”), Jim Brown (”This man can make a movie!”) and even Sally Kirkland [...]
September 12th, 2006 | Brian Holcomb | 1 Comment | Read MoreBleeding Rose (2006) Movie Review
Producer Val Lewton was the driving force behind a series of innovative B-horror movies for the RKO Studios beginning with “Cat People” in 1942, and ending with “Bedlam” in 1946. He developed a new style of horror film storytelling by presenting credible characters living and working in the real world amid real day to day [...]
August 20th, 2006 | Brian Holcomb | 0 Comments | Read MoreLady in the Water (2006) Movie Review
The myth that M. Night Shyamalan is the new Alfred Hitchcock or even the old one is something that the director himself seems eager to cultivate. It reminds me of the publicity sponsored by Brian De Palma around the time of “Dressed to Kill” appointing himself heir to the throne of Hitchcock and labeling himself [...]
August 1st, 2006 | Brian Holcomb | 0 Comments | Read More
personally everyone has been waiting for this film in anticipation.
everyone has had opinions about it forever, my feeling was if ...
I was imagining Edward Cullen in the book to be very handsome, pale, broad-chest, very manly, (so many things in ...
Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a sign that you have neither ...
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