sandwichjohnfilms

The surprisingly good No Escape more than holds its own against the driftwood of August films. Review by Matt Cummings August films are a lot like the game of kickball we all played as kids. The best (June and July films) get picked first, while the poor fat ones (August) get reluctantly chosen and for good reason. Simply put, August has seen more than its fair share of bombs and utter disappointments (see Vacation , Fantastic Four ); luckily, the family survival thriller No Escape is not one of them. It's easily the most refreshing, surprising, and intense films of the summer, even though its miscast lead is totally out of his league. When Engineer Jack Dwyer (Owen Wilson) is forced to take a job with an American corporation in an unnamed South Asian country, he relocates his young children Beeze (Calire Geare) and Lucy (Sterling Jerins), along with his wife Annie (Lake Bell). Just as they arrive, the prime minister is assassinated, instigating a violent coup. M...

Although it tries for something new, the horror flick As Above So Below delivers the same old thing. The found-footage/shaky camera genre feels irrevocably stuck: once a celebrated visceral experience, directors now make us more motion-sick than truly terrified, letting half-baked scripts and shoddy acting turn things into decidedly B-level fare. But rather than evolve it by utilizing standard camerawork and handheld devices - thus celebrating the best aspects of both - we've seen just the opposite: a move to add more cameras and even more shakiness. Such is the state of As Above So Below , a film that dabbles in pseudo-science, dispenses too many horror film cliches, and tries its best to frighten us. Scholar/explorer Scarlett (Perdita Weeks) is a kind of female Indiana Jones: impetuous but highly intelligent, she's carrying on the good work of her deceased father, looking for the mythological Philosophers Stone. Her early journey takes her to Iran, where she bar...