**½/****starring Nicolas Cage, Julian McMahon, Nic Cassim, Miranda Tapsellwritten by Thomas Martindirected by Lorcan Finnegan by Walter Chaw A time or two during Lorcan Finnegan’s The Surfer, I wondered if it wasn’t at least a spiritual cousin to Frank Perry’s The Swimmer, seeing as how both films offer an overarching metaphor of going home while examining an aimless, tortured masculinity on the existential skids. Indeed, there’s a literary quality to The Surfer that smells like the ...| FILM FREAK CENTRAL
ZERO STARS/****starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Tom Hiddleston, Annalise Basso, Mark Hamillwritten by Mike Flanagan, based on the short story by Stephen Kingdirected by Mike Flanagan by Walter Chaw I admit it: I have an allergy to sentimental treacle. I get that this shit is like mother’s milk to some–that fading stars and, indeed, entire cable channels have tied their strings to the “shameless tearjerker” to great if niche fame and fortune; it’s a “me” problem, and I accept that. I r...| FILM FREAK CENTRAL
DRACULA (1931) ***/**** Image C Sound C|A (with Glass score) Extras A+ starring Bela Lugosi, Helen Chandler, David Manners, Dwight Frye screenplay by Garrett Fort, based on the novel by Bram Stoker and on the play by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston directed by Tod Browning DRÁCULA (1931) ***/**** Image C+ Sound B- starring Carlos Villarias, Lupita Taylor, Pablo Alvarez Rubio, Barry Norton screenplay by Garrett Fort, based on the novel by Bram Stoker and on the play by Hamilton Deane an...| FILM FREAK CENTRAL
My mom died this year, but I lost her decades ago. Our relationship was radioactive, and I had neither the courage nor the resolve to even begin to repair it–or to investigate whether there was anything left to repair. I lost a mentor this year, too, because I wasn't interesting enough to maintain as an apprentice. I turn 50 in 2023. It's an age that seemed absurd to me as recently as a few years ago. If I live to 54, I'll be how old my dad was when he died. My mom's death brings an end to ...| FILM FREAK CENTRAL
****/**** Image A Sound A Extras A+ starring Lisa Yang, Chang Chen, Chang Kuo-Chu, Elaine Jin script and dialogue by Edward Yang, Yan Hong-Ya, Alex Yang, Lai Ming-Tang directed by Edward Yang by Walter Chaw My family fled mainland China to Taiwan in 1949, just ahead of the communist takeover. My grandfather on my mother’s side, a member of the Chinese military, asked his aide to fill out the paperwork necessary for their emigration. In his haste, the kids were given sequential birth dates (...| FILM FREAK CENTRAL
THE DEAD ZONE (1983)****/**** Image C Sound Astarring Christopher Walken, Brooke Adams, Tom Skerritt, Herbert Lomscreenplay by Jeffrey Boam, based on the novel by Stephen Kingdirected by David Cronenberg by Walter Chaw Michael Kamen’s score for The Dead Zone sounds so much like Howard Shore’s work that if I didn’t know better… Maybe something about Cronenberg inspires doomed Romanticism in his collaborators. What’s sometimes lost in the focus on body-horror in his pictures is how li...| FILM FREAK CENTRAL