[Editor’s note: The following story contains major spoilers for the ending of “Immaculate.”]
If you’ve been praying to the genre movie gods for a pregnant final girl to wreak bloody havoc in the last act of a horror movie, “Immaculate” has answered you.
While the first hour or so of director Michael Mohan’s “Immaculate” is laden with familiar jump scares and ominous Catholic portent, all hell breaks loose in the last act. Sister Cecilia (Sydney Sweeney), who embraced religious piety after surviving nearly drowning in a frozen lake as a young girl, is the new nun in town at an exclusive Roman convent that doubles as a hospice care center for dying nuns in their last days. Despite coming to the convent a virgin, Cecilia is stunned to discover she’s pregnant.
That’s because Father Sal Tedeschi, a former geneticist before he became a priest, has been running DNA experiments for decades on the sisters, with Cecilia his first...
If you’ve been praying to the genre movie gods for a pregnant final girl to wreak bloody havoc in the last act of a horror movie, “Immaculate” has answered you.
While the first hour or so of director Michael Mohan’s “Immaculate” is laden with familiar jump scares and ominous Catholic portent, all hell breaks loose in the last act. Sister Cecilia (Sydney Sweeney), who embraced religious piety after surviving nearly drowning in a frozen lake as a young girl, is the new nun in town at an exclusive Roman convent that doubles as a hospice care center for dying nuns in their last days. Despite coming to the convent a virgin, Cecilia is stunned to discover she’s pregnant.
That’s because Father Sal Tedeschi, a former geneticist before he became a priest, has been running DNA experiments for decades on the sisters, with Cecilia his first...
- 3/25/2024
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
Plot: A young nun (Sydney Sweeney) accepts a position at a secluded convent in Italy. While there, she mysteriously becomes pregnant, despite being a virgin, and soon the convent becomes convinced she’s carrying the resurrection of Christ. However, something much more sinister might be happening.
Review: For most of its running time, Immaculate is a decent throwback to Dario Argento-style Italian horror movies, with it getting a lot of mileage out of its picturesque Italian scenery and cast of old pro actors from the region. It’s a slow-burn and not particularly scary, but it builds up to an incredibly strong final scene, which is good enough that it really makes the entire film worth seeing just for the superb payoff.
Too bad then that the eighty-minute build-up to the dazzling final sequence is such a mixed bag, with it really feeling like the writer, Andrew Lobell, and director,...
Review: For most of its running time, Immaculate is a decent throwback to Dario Argento-style Italian horror movies, with it getting a lot of mileage out of its picturesque Italian scenery and cast of old pro actors from the region. It’s a slow-burn and not particularly scary, but it builds up to an incredibly strong final scene, which is good enough that it really makes the entire film worth seeing just for the superb payoff.
Too bad then that the eighty-minute build-up to the dazzling final sequence is such a mixed bag, with it really feeling like the writer, Andrew Lobell, and director,...
- 3/21/2024
- by Chris Bumbray
- JoBlo.com
"Immaculate" isn't.
Michael Mohan's new nunsploitation thriller doesn't possess the artistry or thoughtfulness to be a stirring analysis of Roman Catholic sexism, nor does it have the temerity to be an enjoyably trashy, violent, sex-soaked drive-in flick. To be sure, it possesses elements of both arthouse and grindhouse, but Mohan hasn't mastered either, leaving "Immaculate" in a frustrating middle-ground that will please no one. Some may be temporarily distracted by cinematographer Elisha Christian's clever, classy lighting choices -- there is a late-film chase through pitch-black catacombs that provides some modest thrills -- or by the funereal, liturgical score by Will Bates, but many will surely recognize a B-movie when they see it.
"Immaculate" clearly wants to be, in its heart, fun/violent and ultra-salacious; it features multiple characters who clumsily wield a nine-inch nail that is said to have once affixed Christ's hand to the cross. There...
Michael Mohan's new nunsploitation thriller doesn't possess the artistry or thoughtfulness to be a stirring analysis of Roman Catholic sexism, nor does it have the temerity to be an enjoyably trashy, violent, sex-soaked drive-in flick. To be sure, it possesses elements of both arthouse and grindhouse, but Mohan hasn't mastered either, leaving "Immaculate" in a frustrating middle-ground that will please no one. Some may be temporarily distracted by cinematographer Elisha Christian's clever, classy lighting choices -- there is a late-film chase through pitch-black catacombs that provides some modest thrills -- or by the funereal, liturgical score by Will Bates, but many will surely recognize a B-movie when they see it.
"Immaculate" clearly wants to be, in its heart, fun/violent and ultra-salacious; it features multiple characters who clumsily wield a nine-inch nail that is said to have once affixed Christ's hand to the cross. There...
- 3/19/2024
- by Witney Seibold
- Slash Film
It doesn’t take a theologist to see that “Immaculate” director Michael Mohan probably grew up a devout Catholic.
His new horror movie stars Sydney Sweeney as a flung-from-innocence novice nun who arrives at a Roman convent bubbling with religious fealty — only to become the vessel for an immaculate conception gone horrifically wrong. Taking advantage of the film’s on-location shoot, Mohan, who previously directed the “Euphoria” and “Anyone but You” breakout in his erotic thriller “The Voyeurs,” steeps the shocker in religious iconography that veers from the saintly to the satanic.
“I grew up super devout Catholic,” Mohan told IndieWire. And “every Catholic person has guilt and trauma.” That’s for sure, as the Neon release mashes references to Ken Russell’s “The Devils,” Roman Polanski’s “Rosemary’s Baby,” and even Darren Aronofsky’s “mother!” in charting Sister Cecilia’s (Sweeney) psychological undoing in the process of being emblemized...
His new horror movie stars Sydney Sweeney as a flung-from-innocence novice nun who arrives at a Roman convent bubbling with religious fealty — only to become the vessel for an immaculate conception gone horrifically wrong. Taking advantage of the film’s on-location shoot, Mohan, who previously directed the “Euphoria” and “Anyone but You” breakout in his erotic thriller “The Voyeurs,” steeps the shocker in religious iconography that veers from the saintly to the satanic.
“I grew up super devout Catholic,” Mohan told IndieWire. And “every Catholic person has guilt and trauma.” That’s for sure, as the Neon release mashes references to Ken Russell’s “The Devils,” Roman Polanski’s “Rosemary’s Baby,” and even Darren Aronofsky’s “mother!” in charting Sister Cecilia’s (Sweeney) psychological undoing in the process of being emblemized...
- 3/19/2024
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
In director Michael Mohan’s Immaculate, evil lies not in the efforts of Satan and his demons but solely within the hearts of the men running a convent in the Italian countryside and, to a lesser degree, the women who answer directly to them. In the opening scene, we witness a terrified young nun (Simona Tabasco) desperately trying to escape the convent, only to be hunted down and restrained by a creepy quartet of red-masked nuns. From this point on, it’s abundantly clear that something is off at Our Lady of Sorrows, even if it takes a young American nun, Cecilia (Sydney Sweeney), who’s freshly arrived at the convent, quite a while to figure out that serious trouble is brewing in this little corner of paradise.
While Cecilia arrives in Italy as a doe-eyed innocent, even she’s all too aware of the Catholic Church’s recent scandals,...
While Cecilia arrives in Italy as a doe-eyed innocent, even she’s all too aware of the Catholic Church’s recent scandals,...
- 3/14/2024
- by Derek Smith
- Slant Magazine
Ever since resurrecting the erotic thriller with the respectably lurid 2021 drama “The Voyeurs,” it was clear Sydney Sweeney and director Michael Mohan were interested in second comings. So it was only a matter of time before they’d turn their attention to Christ himself in “Immaculate,” an enjoyable if uneven horror film cut from a slightly different cloth than its religious brethren with a captivating turn from its star as a virginal nun whose pregnancy inspires questions beyond the health of the child, and a hell of an ending.
Refreshingly free of the pseudo-theology that usually bogs down films set inside the church, “Immaculate” simply suggests that My Lady of Sorrows is no place for a young woman. A resting home for older sisters to spend their final days, it seems from the nun (Simona Tabasco) trying to make a break for it in its energetic opening sequence, age doesn...
Refreshingly free of the pseudo-theology that usually bogs down films set inside the church, “Immaculate” simply suggests that My Lady of Sorrows is no place for a young woman. A resting home for older sisters to spend their final days, it seems from the nun (Simona Tabasco) trying to make a break for it in its energetic opening sequence, age doesn...
- 3/13/2024
- by Stephen Saito
- Variety Film + TV
In the realm of religious horror, one filled with tales of divine terror, Immaculate emerges as the latest contender. Yet despite its promising setup within the shadowy confines of an Italian nunnery and a cast led by Sydney Sweeney, the film struggles to carve out a niche for itself. Directed by Michael Mohan and written by Andrew Lobel, the movie treads familiar ground, recycling familiar elements without delivering the novel twists, deeper insights or genuine horror in a genre that thrives on the exploration of faith’s darker dimensions.
The opening scene grips the audience with a woman’s desperate attempt to escape from a nunnery, only to be thwarted and mysteriously buried alive. The story then shifts to Sister Cecilia (Sweeney), a novitiate embarking on her spiritual journey at the nunnery, undeterred by skepticism at customs and cautionary advice from Sister Mary (Simona Tabasco) about her vows. Her encounter...
The opening scene grips the audience with a woman’s desperate attempt to escape from a nunnery, only to be thwarted and mysteriously buried alive. The story then shifts to Sister Cecilia (Sweeney), a novitiate embarking on her spiritual journey at the nunnery, undeterred by skepticism at customs and cautionary advice from Sister Mary (Simona Tabasco) about her vows. Her encounter...
- 3/13/2024
- by Valerie Complex
- Deadline Film + TV
The terror beneath the evil spirits and unexplained phenomena in Family is based on a cruel reality: a young girl’s well-founded dread of her father dying. In his self-assured first film, writer and director Benjamin Finkel wraps this fear in horror tropes, taking us inside the mind of a child imagining the worst. The film becomes increasingly tense and emotionally wrenching, even as Finkel ramps up genre touches that come to feel superfluous.
Johanna (Cameron Dawson Gray) is a lonely 11-year-old whose family has moved to another part of the country so her father can receive better cancer treatment. Finkel’s director’s statement makes it clear that this is a personal story, inspired by what he felt when his father suffered from cancer for much of Finkel’s childhood. Echoing that experience, the film is almost entirely from Johanna’s point of view. From the start we are in her nightmares and imagination,...
Johanna (Cameron Dawson Gray) is a lonely 11-year-old whose family has moved to another part of the country so her father can receive better cancer treatment. Finkel’s director’s statement makes it clear that this is a personal story, inspired by what he felt when his father suffered from cancer for much of Finkel’s childhood. Echoing that experience, the film is almost entirely from Johanna’s point of view. From the start we are in her nightmares and imagination,...
- 3/9/2024
- by Caryn James
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
“Don’t go into the woods,” altogether too many characters have been warned through the annals of spooky literature and cinema, only to do so anyway, but Rebecca Hall has no choice because she already lives there in The Night House. Director David Bruckner clearly relishes the tropes of the horror genre and everything that comes with them. Honestly, though, we’ve been down this dark and woodsy path so many times that, no matter how many scares and shock cuts can be squeezed out of this crafty little thriller, this is a tree that’s long since been shorn of most of its leaves.
Searchlight paid a hefty $12 million for this Midnight favorite at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, only to have Covid slam the door in its face and force a year-and-a-half wait to get the film in front of a paying public. It opens on Friday and, in the long run,...
Searchlight paid a hefty $12 million for this Midnight favorite at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, only to have Covid slam the door in its face and force a year-and-a-half wait to get the film in front of a paying public. It opens on Friday and, in the long run,...
- 8/17/2021
- by Todd McCarthy
- Deadline Film + TV
Searchlight Pictures announced today that it has acquired worldwide rights to David Bruckner’s psychological thriller The Night House following its world premiere in Park City as part of the Sundance Midnight program of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. Based on an original screenplay by Ben Collins & Luke Piotrowski (Stephanie), The Night House follows a widow (Rebecca Hall of The Town) who begins to uncover her recently deceased husband’s disturbing secrets. Bruckner returns to Sundance with this film, having most recently premiered his first solo-directorial feature, The Ritual, at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival. The Night House was financed and produced by Sébastien Raybaud’s company, Anton. David Goyer’s Phantom Four developed the script, and also produced. The producers are Phantom Four’s David Goyer (The Dark Knight), and Keith Levine (47 Meters Down), and Anton’s John Zois (Hotel Artemis). Executive Producers are David Bruckner, François Callens, Ben Collins,...
- 2/7/2020
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
The haunted house/supernatural sub-genre often turns on grief and its discontents, transforming and externalizing its varied, contradictory effects into literal and literally terrifying manifestations of psychological ruptures or breaks from objective reality. It's difficult, if not impossible, to find a better recent example than David Bruckner's deeply unsettling supernatural horror film, The Night House. Filled with all the expected - and some unexpected - jolts, shocks, and scares typically associated with the haunted house/supernatural sub-genre, The Night House benefits from Bruckner's finely calibrated direction, Elisha Christian's moody cinematography, and Rebecca Hall's utterly committed central performance as a schoolteacher profoundly mourning the seemingly inexplicable, unimaginable loss of her architect husband to suicide. Left alone in an empty, too-big-for-her lake house,...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
- 2/4/2020
- Screen Anarchy
While summarizing The Night House before the screening at Sundance, David Bruckner offered up this thought to the audience—what is more frightening: that ghosts actually exist, or that they don’t? And as far as film introductions go, you can’t get more on point than that.
Marrying grief and the horror genre isn’t exactly new territory, but in Bruckner’s The Night House, we see it explored in a much different fashion than before, thanks to an effective and thought-provoking script from writers Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski. At the center of the film’s story is Beth (Rebecca Hall), whose husband Owen (Evan Jonigkeit) recently killed himself and she’s left to pick up the pieces of her life without him. As Beth immerses herself in old home movies and wine to try and quell the grief that is consuming her, the widow is left unsettled...
Marrying grief and the horror genre isn’t exactly new territory, but in Bruckner’s The Night House, we see it explored in a much different fashion than before, thanks to an effective and thought-provoking script from writers Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski. At the center of the film’s story is Beth (Rebecca Hall), whose husband Owen (Evan Jonigkeit) recently killed himself and she’s left to pick up the pieces of her life without him. As Beth immerses herself in old home movies and wine to try and quell the grief that is consuming her, the widow is left unsettled...
- 1/31/2020
- by Heather Wixson
- DailyDead
It’s about 20 minutes into The Night House that it finds its footing. The school year has just ended and Beth (Rebecca Hall), a high school English teacher, goes back to work to input a few more assignments. When a soccer mom type (Samantha Buck) comes in to contest her son’s grades, Beth isn’t having it, to say the least. She stares her down with a trace of empathy that manages to undercut her dead eyes and Hall, ever the solid actor, pinpoints and explores the sarcastic humor latent to the script. When mom continues to press her, Beth flatly explains that her husband, Owen (Evan Jonigkeit), has just shot himself. If this woman wants her son to get a B, he can get a B. It really doesn’t matter.
The scene continues from there, but this moment is the finest representation of what the script from...
The scene continues from there, but this moment is the finest representation of what the script from...
- 1/28/2020
- by Matt Cipolla
- The Film Stage
A knack for creepy atmospherics and individual scares goes a long way in the horror genre, and it takes “The Night House” pretty far. Though this tale of a new widow’s apparent haunting gets progressively lost in a narrative maze that’s complicated without being particularly rewarding, .
Rebecca Hall plays Beth, an upstate New York schoolteacher reeling from her husband of 14 years taking his life just a few days before we meet her. Completely blindsided by that event — particularly since as far as she knew, she was the only party in their marriage who suffered from depression — her immediate reaction is one of anger. Friends (notably Sarah Goldberg as colleague Claire) and neighbors (Vondie Curtis Hall’s Mel) offer support, but Beth fends them off, preferring to process bitter grief alone, with a drink or 10.
Yet while she may feel abandoned, she doesn’t actually feel alone, as disturbances...
Rebecca Hall plays Beth, an upstate New York schoolteacher reeling from her husband of 14 years taking his life just a few days before we meet her. Completely blindsided by that event — particularly since as far as she knew, she was the only party in their marriage who suffered from depression — her immediate reaction is one of anger. Friends (notably Sarah Goldberg as colleague Claire) and neighbors (Vondie Curtis Hall’s Mel) offer support, but Beth fends them off, preferring to process bitter grief alone, with a drink or 10.
Yet while she may feel abandoned, she doesn’t actually feel alone, as disturbances...
- 1/27/2020
- by Dennis Harvey
- Variety Film + TV
“Euphoria” star Sydney Sweeney and “Detective Pikachu” actor Justice Smith have been cast in “The Voyeurs,” an indie currently in production from Amazon Studios.
The film, which will debut exclusively on Amazon Prime Video, is the first in a planned series of “sexy date night” thrillers that studio chief Jennifer Salke promised earlier this year for subscribers.
“The Voyeurs” follows a young couple (Sweeney and Smith) who move into their dream apartment, only to find their windows look directly into a unit across the street — a volatile and attractive couple who captivate the pair. When they attempt to anonymously intercede in their lives, they unwittingly set in motion a chain of events that will lead to disaster.
Michael Mohan (“Everything Sucks!”) is writing and directing the project, which is currently shooting in Montreal, Canada. The cast also includes Natasha Liu Bordizzo and Ben Hardy (“Bohemian Rhapsody”). Greg Gilreath and Adam Hendricks...
The film, which will debut exclusively on Amazon Prime Video, is the first in a planned series of “sexy date night” thrillers that studio chief Jennifer Salke promised earlier this year for subscribers.
“The Voyeurs” follows a young couple (Sweeney and Smith) who move into their dream apartment, only to find their windows look directly into a unit across the street — a volatile and attractive couple who captivate the pair. When they attempt to anonymously intercede in their lives, they unwittingly set in motion a chain of events that will lead to disaster.
Michael Mohan (“Everything Sucks!”) is writing and directing the project, which is currently shooting in Montreal, Canada. The cast also includes Natasha Liu Bordizzo and Ben Hardy (“Bohemian Rhapsody”). Greg Gilreath and Adam Hendricks...
- 11/5/2019
- by Matt Donnelly
- Variety Film + TV
Stars: John Cho, Haley Lu Richardson, Parker Posey, Michelle Forbes, Rory Culkin, Erin Allegretti, Shani Salyers Stiles, Reen Vogel, Rosalyn R. Ross, Lindsey Shope, Caitlin Ewald, Jim Dougherty, Joseph Anthony Foronda, Alphaeus Green Jr., Wynn Reichert, Jem Cohen | Written and Directed by Kogonada
Casey lives with her mother, a recovering addict, in a little-known Midwestern town haunted by the promise of modernism. Jin, a visitor from the other side of the world, attends to his estranged, dying father. Burdened by the future, they find respite in one another and the architecture that surrounds them. Filmed on location in Columbus, Indiana, this tender meditation on love, loss and architecture is the directorial feature debut for writer/director Kogonada.
Kogonada’s Columbus is cross between the thematic threads of family showcased in the works of Japanese auteur Yasujirō Ozu and structure of place and setting reminiscent of both Stanley Kubrick and Derek Jarman.
Casey lives with her mother, a recovering addict, in a little-known Midwestern town haunted by the promise of modernism. Jin, a visitor from the other side of the world, attends to his estranged, dying father. Burdened by the future, they find respite in one another and the architecture that surrounds them. Filmed on location in Columbus, Indiana, this tender meditation on love, loss and architecture is the directorial feature debut for writer/director Kogonada.
Kogonada’s Columbus is cross between the thematic threads of family showcased in the works of Japanese auteur Yasujirō Ozu and structure of place and setting reminiscent of both Stanley Kubrick and Derek Jarman.
- 12/7/2018
- by Jak-Luke Sharp
- Nerdly
On the day before the Oscars, the Film Indepdnent Spirit Awards were handed out. In what may be a warm up for the Academy Awards, Get Out took Best Film, marking an excellent night overall for the movie. Impending Oscar winners Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell both won as well for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, while the rest of the winners you can see below… Here are all of the Spirit Award winners: Best Feature “Call Me by Your Name” “The Florida Project” “Get Out” (Winner) “Lady Bird” “The Rider” Best First Feature (Award given to the director and producer) “Columbus” “Ingrid Goes West” (Winner) “Menashe” “Oh Lucy!” “Patti Cake$” John Cassavetes Award – Given to the best feature made for under $500,000. (Award given to the writer, director and producer. Executive Producers are not awarded.) “Dayveon” “A Ghost Story” “Life and Nothing More” (Winner) “Most Beautiful Island” “The Transfiguration” Best Director Sean Baker,...
- 3/4/2018
- by Joey Magidson
- Hollywoodnews.com
Chicago – It’s time to choose the Ten Scariest Donald Trump Tweets, excuse me, The 10 Best films of 2017 (got a lot on my mind). Selected by HollywoodChicago.com’s Patrick McDonald, the “Über Critic,” it is a list that celebrates redemptive spirit, love of the love and just all-out fun at the flickers.
In keeping with list-o-mania, and the need for fuller disclosure, here are the films – according to the Über – that came at 25th-11th (click highlighted titles for reviews/interviews)… 25th - Patti Cake$, 24th - Wonder Wheel/I Love You, Daddy, 23rd - Norman, 22nd - Novitiate, 21st - Free Fire, 20th - Coco, 19th - mother!, 18th - Beatriz at Dinner, 17th - Their Finest, 16th - Wonder Woman, 15th - Call Me By Your Name, 14th - Happy End, 13th - Bpm (Beats Per Minute), 12th - The Square, 11th - Beauty and the Beast.
In keeping with list-o-mania, and the need for fuller disclosure, here are the films – according to the Über – that came at 25th-11th (click highlighted titles for reviews/interviews)… 25th - Patti Cake$, 24th - Wonder Wheel/I Love You, Daddy, 23rd - Norman, 22nd - Novitiate, 21st - Free Fire, 20th - Coco, 19th - mother!, 18th - Beatriz at Dinner, 17th - Their Finest, 16th - Wonder Woman, 15th - Call Me By Your Name, 14th - Happy End, 13th - Bpm (Beats Per Minute), 12th - The Square, 11th - Beauty and the Beast.
- 1/6/2018
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
“A cinematographer is a visual psychiatrist — moving an audience through a movie […] making them think the way you want them to think, painting pictures in the dark,” said the late, great Gordon Willis. As we continue our year-end coverage, one aspect we must highlight is, indeed, cinematography. From talented newcomers to seasoned professionals, we’ve rounded up the examples that have most impressed us this year. Check out our rundown below and, in the comments, let us know your favorite work.
All These Sleepless Nights (Michal Marczak, Maciej Twardowski)
Using the combination of a Steadicam and computerized gimbal, Michal Marczak and Maciej Twardowski float in and out of crowded dance floors, house parties, lush gardens, and sun-kissed beaches, all in a way that would make Emmanuel Lubezki proud. Coupled with a near-constant soundtrack of the latest in electronic and pop (as well as a Polish version of Pocahontas‘ “Colors of...
All These Sleepless Nights (Michal Marczak, Maciej Twardowski)
Using the combination of a Steadicam and computerized gimbal, Michal Marczak and Maciej Twardowski float in and out of crowded dance floors, house parties, lush gardens, and sun-kissed beaches, all in a way that would make Emmanuel Lubezki proud. Coupled with a near-constant soundtrack of the latest in electronic and pop (as well as a Polish version of Pocahontas‘ “Colors of...
- 12/21/2017
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
(l-r) John Cho and Haley Lu Richardson on the steps of Columbus City Hall, in Columbus. Photo credit: Elisha Christian. Courtesy of Superlative Film and Depth of Field ©
Columbus is not a film about the Italian explorer but about an American city named for him. No, not Columbus, Ohio, but the lesser-known Columbus, Indiana. This small Midwestern city is home to a surprising number of buildings designed by big names in mid-century Modern architecture, such as Eero Saarinen, I.M. Pei, Deborah Burke, Harry Weese and others.
St. Louisans might recognize Eero Saarinen as the designer of the Gateway Arch but architecture buffs will know those names are some of the biggest of the Modern style of architecture. If you are a fan of mid-twentieth century architecture, or of Columbus, Indiana, then Columbus is the film for you. But even if not a fan of either, viewers might give this thoughtful,...
Columbus is not a film about the Italian explorer but about an American city named for him. No, not Columbus, Ohio, but the lesser-known Columbus, Indiana. This small Midwestern city is home to a surprising number of buildings designed by big names in mid-century Modern architecture, such as Eero Saarinen, I.M. Pei, Deborah Burke, Harry Weese and others.
St. Louisans might recognize Eero Saarinen as the designer of the Gateway Arch but architecture buffs will know those names are some of the biggest of the Modern style of architecture. If you are a fan of mid-twentieth century architecture, or of Columbus, Indiana, then Columbus is the film for you. But even if not a fan of either, viewers might give this thoughtful,...
- 9/22/2017
- by Cate Marquis
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Kogonada is one of the most well known video essayists on the internet, but he’s about to become one of the best new voices in indie film. “Columbus,” which premiered to acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, is a hypnotic and intimate debut that’s bound to leave an impression on anyone who sees it.
Read More: Supercut Guru Kogonada: How He Leapt from Small Screens to Sundance Next with the Mysterious ‘Columbus’
Kogonada’s debut stars John Cho as Jin, a man who finds himself stranded in the titular Indiana town after his father falls gravely ill. It’s here where he strikes up a friendship with an architectural enthusiast (Haley Lu Richardson) struggling with her own parental issues. The pair spark a connection rooted in soul-searching.
Entertainment Weekly has debuted the official trailer for the movie, and to say it looks visually striking would be the understatement of the year. Working with cinematographer Elisha Christian, Kogonada draws your attention to architecture and blocking like a master filmmaker.
“Columbus” opens in select theaters August 4. Watch the trailer below.
Related storiesHere Are The 555 Times Michael Bay Has Used Product Placement -- Watch'The Untamed': Amat Escalante's Insane Alien-Centric Erotic Horror Film Gets a Wild New Trailer -- Watch'Person to Person' Trailer: Michael Cera Stars In A Summer Indie That Evokes the Best of Woody Allen...
Read More: Supercut Guru Kogonada: How He Leapt from Small Screens to Sundance Next with the Mysterious ‘Columbus’
Kogonada’s debut stars John Cho as Jin, a man who finds himself stranded in the titular Indiana town after his father falls gravely ill. It’s here where he strikes up a friendship with an architectural enthusiast (Haley Lu Richardson) struggling with her own parental issues. The pair spark a connection rooted in soul-searching.
Entertainment Weekly has debuted the official trailer for the movie, and to say it looks visually striking would be the understatement of the year. Working with cinematographer Elisha Christian, Kogonada draws your attention to architecture and blocking like a master filmmaker.
“Columbus” opens in select theaters August 4. Watch the trailer below.
Related storiesHere Are The 555 Times Michael Bay Has Used Product Placement -- Watch'The Untamed': Amat Escalante's Insane Alien-Centric Erotic Horror Film Gets a Wild New Trailer -- Watch'Person to Person' Trailer: Michael Cera Stars In A Summer Indie That Evokes the Best of Woody Allen...
- 6/23/2017
- by Zack Sharf
- Indiewire
There was a secret festival favorite at Sundance 2017. That film was Columbus. This quiet drama is Korean director Kogonada's first venture into the feature length realm. He is most known for his video essays on Vimeo, and damn did all of that study of film pay off. Kogonada's Columbus covers a lot of ground in the most elegant gestures and proves Kogonada knows his craft inside and out. From the absolutely exquisite cinematography by Elisha Christian, to the subtle yet powerful performances from lead actors Haley Lu Richardson and John Cho: this quiet film finds its way right into your soul. Okay, so here's the thing about Sundance: this festival screens films that I, personally, wouldn't necessarily watch at home on my sofa. That's not to say I can't enjoy a quiet, brooding indie film with a glass of wine and my dog, but these are typically...
- 2/2/2017
- by Chelsea Christer
- firstshowing.net
The path to becoming a director is one generally accompanied by a profound knowledge of film history, but that passion is rarely more public then when it comes to kogonada. After years of working on visually detailed video essays for The Criterion Collection, Sight & Sound, and more, he’s now made his directorial debut with Columbus, an impeccably composed drama of quiet humanity and curiosity. If his nickname wasn’t enough of a hint, traces of Yasujirō Ozu’s influence can be found, but this first-time director has created something distinctly his own.
Before the title appears, we see the father of Jin (John Cho) fall to the ground in Columbus, Indiana, where he was due to give a talk about the city’s remarkable modernist architecture. Now in a coma, his estranged son comes from Seoul to be by his side, but with no signs of improvement, Jin begins...
Before the title appears, we see the father of Jin (John Cho) fall to the ground in Columbus, Indiana, where he was due to give a talk about the city’s remarkable modernist architecture. Now in a coma, his estranged son comes from Seoul to be by his side, but with no signs of improvement, Jin begins...
- 1/27/2017
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Columbus certainly doesn’t look like a standard American independent film: even if you didn’t know debuting director kogonada’s background as a video essayist primarily concerned with High Art (Bresson, Tarkovsky et al.), it’s clear this is made by somebody who’s studied the framing of Hou Hsiao-hsien, Edward Yang et al. quite closely. No matter how mundane the setting — average small downtown streets, a drab university library — kogonada and Dp Elisha Christian stick to the visual philosophy espoused by architecture-obsessed protagonist Casey (Haley Lu Richardson) as she annotates one building’s properties, noting how it’s “asymmetrical but also still balanced.” I […]...
- 1/23/2017
- by Vadim Rizov
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Anyone familiar with great television comedies of the last decade should be familiar with the main cast of Save The Date. The film stars Lizzy Caplan (Party Down), Martin Starr (Party Down, Freaks and Geeks), Alison Brie (Community), Geoffrey Arend (Super Troopers), and Mark Webber (Scott Pilgrim vs. The World), and is one of two Lizzy Caplan films at this year's Sundance to feature a wedding theme - the other being Bachelorette. Despite the fantastic cast, I'm sad to say that this film didn't resonate with me.
The biggest problem with Save The Date is that I didn't feel like it added anything new to this type of story. We've seen it hashed and rehashed tons of times before - a young woman rejects her current life in favor of a spontaneous new relationship - and even this week, I've seen two variations on it with Hello I Must Be Going and The First Time.
The biggest problem with Save The Date is that I didn't feel like it added anything new to this type of story. We've seen it hashed and rehashed tons of times before - a young woman rejects her current life in favor of a spontaneous new relationship - and even this week, I've seen two variations on it with Hello I Must Be Going and The First Time.
- 1/24/2012
- by benp
- GeekTyrant
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