TheRetroCritic

Over the years, Paul Thomas Anderson seems to have perfected his journey into tackling big themes through personal stories and through flawed, toxic characters. Case and point: The Master . Religion was a prominent theme in Anderson's previous effort There Will Be Blood and you could say that the whole film, despite outlining the rise and fall of Daniel Day Lewis' oil tycoon, was indeed about the relationship between business and religion. With his latest, we take a look at cults, yes, but also humanity in general. Here we have a Scientology-style organisation, "The Cause", based on the idea that Man is not an animal and, in fact, is far more important and deeper than he realizes and along comes Joaquin Phoenix's drifter, a down-and-out alcoholic drifter with a sex fixation. Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffmann), the cult's "master", decides to make him his pet-project, his guinea-pig. But it seems that proving the core theory that man isn

Just when you thought Charlie Kaufman couldn't possibly have anymore mind-melting tricks up his sleeve, out comes Synecdoche, New York to blow everything out of the water. Like David Lynch's epic  Inland Empire , Charlie Kaufman goes all out to create an incredibly dense, complex and unique work of art like there's never been before.  His decision to direct turns out to be not only daring but a blessing as it makes Synecdoche as bleak and real visually as it is in its philosophy and tone. Philip Seymour Hoffman proves once again why he's one of the best actors around with a subtle, touching and heartbreaking performance which should receive an Oscar gong come next year, if there's any justice. The rest of the cast is unexpected but absolutely spot on with everyone giving it their best shot.  Charlie Kaufman's fascination with the human mind reaches its peak here and this is by far his deepest and most fascinating work to date. Synecdoche New York is by no m

Philip K Dick film adaptations come and go. Usually we get either the Good ( Minority Report ), the Bad ( Impostor ) or the Silly ( Next ). Here though, Duncan Jones appears to have found a good balance. The Moon director being no stranger to sci-fi flicks about guys stuck somewhere trying to make sense of a crazy, brain-twisting puzzle, Source Code seemed like the perfect project. As outlandish as the Moon story was, he made it work and you soon forgot you were watching a Sam Rockwell twin movie with a cute Kevin Spacey robot. With Source Code, he also manages to make a potentially lame throwaway sci-fi B movie into a very decent A-list thriller. Jake Gyllenhaal is good fun, as are Jeffrey Wright and Vera Farmiga, the whole thing is entertaining, well paced and pretty gripping throughout. Plus it looks fine and has some neat Dickian twists and turns here and there. Annoyingly, it trips on its own shoelaces near the end as Russell Peters takes over with some awkward, cringe-wor

You've seen Quantum Leap , you've seen the Source Code trailer...

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Only David Cronenberg could make us take exploding heads seriously. Not to mention make the out-there concept of mind scanning believable! Then again, out there is kind of Cronenberg's whole deal. After all this is the guy behind such wacko creations as Crash and Videodrome . If anything, Scanners is one of his most straight-forward ventures. Scanners is sci-fi/horror done right: from the tense, unsettling opening scene to the final bloody showdown, this is a ride through a dark and disturbing near future that's hard to forget. Michael Ironside is particularly good as the demented, powerful vilain Stephen Lack's somewhat bland scanner is up against and The Prisoner 's Patrick McGoohan offers fine support as the doctor who trains him. Overall, Scanners is an atmospheric, often chilling sci-fi story with some welcome gore and impressive special effects. One of Cronenberg's best.

Philip K. Dick film adaptations are hit and miss. For every Minority Report or Blade Runner you get Paycheck or Next . Based on one of the legendary sci-fi writer's short stories, Impostor is sadly not one of the good ones. It's not terrible but about as bland as a sci-fi film can get. Dick's stories never really rely too much on their final twists, usually the stories themselves are told on a twist after twist basis. Here however, the film has little else to offer so it really builds up to the final revelation...which fails phenomenally. The entire film is based around Gary Sinise's identity: is he actually an an alien spy or is he being set up? Unfortunately early on he freaks out and basically yells out "I am a Centauri!" before escaping. This is never mentioned again during the film so when it is finally revealed that he is, in fact, a Centauri...imagine my lack of surprise. Aside from the ending, Impostor doesn't go to great lengths to look gr