Side Shots Film Blog

Side Shots Film Blog is a movie review blog from Identity Theory managed by Matthew Sorrento. Subscribe: RSS | Email

Big Ideas – Alien: Covenant

By Jake Rutkowski | Published: May 19, 2017

Covenant does a bit more than just lay out intertextual reference to spice up a familiar narrative.

Posted in Side Shots Film Blog | Tagged Alien, Ridley Scott, Science Fiction | Leave a comment

Everyday Noir: Old Stone

By Jake Rutkowski | Published: May 12, 2017

For all the faults of his screenplay, Johnny Ma has a strong hand for visual storytelling.

Posted in Side Shots Film Blog | Tagged Film Noir | Leave a comment

Tower: A Blind Eye Towards Evil

By Jake Rutkowski | Published: May 5, 2017

Tower glows with the kind of heroism that represents the best qualities of humanity in spite of its worst.

Posted in Side Shots Film Blog | Tagged Crime, Documentaries | Leave a comment

A Nightmare in Tune with the American Dream: The Founder

By Jake Rutkowski | Published: April 11, 2017

Somewhere near its core, underneath the corporate-friendly narrative and the neon-tinged nostalgia, The Founder is a nightmare to the tune of the American Dream.

Posted in Side Shots Film Blog | Tagged Americana, Biographies, Film | Leave a comment

A Bold Look: Robert Kenner’s Command and Control

By Jake Rutkowski | Published: October 15, 2016

Command and Control gives a mostly eyewitness account of an otherwise ordinary workplace accident at a nuclear warhead storage facility that could have led to full-scale devastation in the American South.

Posted in Side Shots Film Blog | Tagged Documentaries, Eric Schlosser, Military | Leave a comment

25 Years After: Die Hard, A Degenerative Retrospective

By David C. Ryan | Published: December 23, 2013

John McTiernan’s Die Hard opened twenty-five years ago to a mixed reception, receiving both popular praise and critical loathing.

Posted in Side Shots Film Blog | Tagged Action Films, Christmas, Die Hard | Leave a comment

DVD Review: Jiro Dreams of Sushi

By Mike Wood | Published: January 9, 2013

Jiro Dreams of Sushi is a subtle meditation on art and the price it exacts from those who would seek its peaks, in the fascinating context of the sushi world.

Posted in Side Shots Film Blog | Tagged DVD Reviews, Food, Jiro Dreams of Sushi | 1 Response

Prometheus and the Complexities of Interpretivism

By David C. Ryan | Published: January 2, 2013

The critical reception for Prometheus has stimulated an interesting and extended discussions regarding the film’s synthesis of religion, science, and society.

Posted in Side Shots Film Blog | Tagged Prometheus, Ridley Scott | 2 Responses

Film Review: Sergei Loznitsa’s My Joy

By Mike Wood | Published: July 25, 2012

This Ukrainian film set in Russia and directed by documentary filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa offers no reason or explanation for why the boring, the tragic, the senseless and the funny happen in our daily lives.

Posted in Side Shots Film Blog |Leave a comment

Film Review: Square Grouper

By Mike Wood | Published: July 5, 2012

Square Grouper is pretty even-handed in its telling of the exploits of a Florida religious group who funded their faith by moving piles and piles of its main sacrament.

Posted in Side Shots Film Blog | Tagged Marijuana, religion, Square Grouper | Leave a comment

Film Book Review: Every Night the Trees Disappear: Werner Herzog and the Making of “Heart of Glass” by Alan Greenberg

By Mike Wood | Published: June 27, 2012

Every Night the Trees Disappear: Werner Herzog and the Making of “Heart of Glass” gives a portrait of an artist even more enigmatic and frantically creative than his films make him seem.

Posted in Side Shots Film Blog | Tagged Alan Greenberg, Werner Herzog | 1 Response

The Dude Abides: The Gospel According to the Coen Brothers

By Mike Wood | Published: May 22, 2012

The Dude Abides: The Gospel According to the Coen Brothers makes a mostly successful case for the brothers’ classic films as a treasure trove of teachable moments about the human condition.

Posted in Side Shots Film Blog | Tagged Barton Fink, Blood Simple, Burn After Reading, Coen Brothers, Dude Abides, No Country For Old Men, religion, The Big Lebowski | 1 Response

Fassbinder “Wired” into Speculative Fiction

By Matthew Sorrento | Published: May 20, 2012

Beneath all science fiction lies a dilemma, one solved by the best storytellers: whether the speculative devices are more interesting than the characters created to experience them.

Posted in Side Shots Film Blog | Tagged Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Simulacron-3, Speculative Fiction, World on a Wire | Leave a comment

Book Review: Plague Town: An Ashley Parker Novel

By Mike Wood | Published: April 19, 2012

Dana Fredsti, novelist and former swordswoman in charge of training on Sam Raimi’s Army of Darkness, manages to squeeze some fresh juice out of an idea that Buffy did better on the small screen.