Gif Review: 12 Years a Slave

Full disclosure: Though I've heard excellent things about both, I've never seen Hunger or Shame, director Steve McQueen's pre-12 Years a Slave flicks. They're on my list… but so are a ton of other movies. Like E.T.. All the movies I watch, and I've still somehow hit 29 without seeing E.T.. I know, I know. What I'm trying to say is that if I had seen Hunger or Shame I probably wouldn't have gone into 12 Years a Slave expecting something Oscar...

Review: Blue Caprice

Director Alexandre Moors doesn't play around. For Blue Caprice, his first feature, he chose a, shall we say, heavy subject: The Beltway sniper attacks of 2002, specifically the relationship between shooters John Allen Muhammad (Isaiah Washington) and Lee Boyd Malvo (Tequan Richmond). In the hands of a lesser director the story of these two men could've come out as an awful, a hackneyed, offensive Lifetime-style movie, or worse. And yet Moors...

Gif Review: Riddick

In which Rebecca has some things to say and some gifs to post about Riddick's treatment of its sole female character...

The Grandmaster: A Weinstein-Cut Wong Kar-Wai Film Is (Much, Much) Better Than No Wong Kar-Wai Film At All

I was a bit anxious going into The Grandmaster, the first film in five years by legendary Chinese director Wong Kar Wai. The source of my anxiety was neither its director, whose films I love, nor its subject matter. In fact, the latter increased my excitement exponentially. See, the subject of The Grandmaster is Ip Man, the legendary martial arts teacher and mentor to Bruce Lee who's been brought to the silver screen in several straightforward kick-'em-up...

My Reaction to Ben Affleck as the New Batman, In Gifs

At first I was like: "Ben Affleck as Batman? That's weird." Because over the last few years he seems to have been making a concerted effort to transition from actor-very-few-people-take-seriously to director-that-lots-of-people-take-seriously. He's not the last person I would expect to jump into spandex for a high-profile popcorn movie role. That would be this guy: But still, Affleck definitely doesn't fit the comic book movie casting rubric,...

Fruitvale Station Will Kick You To The Ground And Make You Cry, And You'll Want To Thank It For Doing So

I had mixed emotions going into Fruitvale Station. It's gotten a lot of buzz—and I mean a lot—since it debuted at Sundance earlier this year, particularly focused on lead actor Michael B. Jordan. I've heard nothing but good things about it. Which concerned me, because what if my expectations are too high? It's not like I've never been disappointed by one of The Weinstein Company's adopted Oscar babies. For example: The King's Speech and Silver Linings...

An Open Letter to Johnny Depp on the Subject Of Whitewashing

Hey, JD. Can I call you JD? I don't mean to come off as aggressive or anything. I'm sure you're a great guy. But I just have to ask... ...What the hell are you smoking, dude...