Articles by Travis Mackenzie Hoover

The Val Lewton Collection

PUBLISHED Feb 4, 2008

Few American oeuvres are as singular as that of B producer Val Lewton. Given shoestring budgets and lurid titles by RKO, he gave the world...

Normal

Carl Bessai

PUBLISHED Jan 31, 2008

It’s from Canada. It’s called Normal. What are the chances that the title would be ironic? Sure enough, Carl Bessai’s latest is a bubbling...

An Affair to Remember: 50th Anniversary Edition

Leo McCarey

PUBLISHED Jan 25, 2008

There’s a mist of awe that floats over this classic romance, and it isn’t entirely warranted. Still, the Affair is a solid film of its type...

The John Frankenheimer Collection

PUBLISHED Jan 25, 2008

If John Frankenheimer hadn’t directed The Manchurian Candidate, we probably wouldn’t know his name at al. Certainly nobody would have justi...

Waiter

Alex van Warmerdam

PUBLISHED Jan 24, 2008

Sharp-eyed readers will note the similarity of this Dutch meta-farce to last year’s Stranger than Fiction: both films posit a fictional cha...

Still Life

Jia Zhangke

PUBLISHED Jan 24, 2008

This latest from China’s bad seed Jia Zhangke arrives two years after its Berlin premiere — better late than never, as it’s the first must-...

They Wait

Ernie Barbarash

PUBLISHED Jan 24, 2008

An interesting, long overdue premise can’t stop this pathetic chiller from constantly reminding you that "they suck.” The "they” in questio...

How She Move

Ian Iqbal Rashid

PUBLISHED Jan 24, 2008

Canada throws its hat into the Stomp the Yard dance genre ring, only without the emotional heft or the pleasure of the dancing you’d normal...