Buddha's Rhubarb Of Opinions On Media

Glib Reviews Of Recent DVD Releases Nightcrawler - Directed By Dan Gilroy Everybody talks about how great Jake Gyllenhaal is in this very 70’s vibed flick. They are right to do so, but longtime screenwriter and first time director Dan Gilroy deserves a lot of credit for a tight noir script and masterful direction that make this one of the better LA Noirs in ages. Renee Russo also brings the hot older News lady who has survived on nothing but grim cynically derived urban crime’ stories, with the kind of non cliched femme fatale vibe we are hoping for when we hear the name Renee Russo.  One of the best shot at night (if it was ‘ day for night ,’ it does not look it) movies I have seen. The ‘ambulance chasing’ scenes are well choreographed and edited. The whole film has such a creepy vibe, which matches Gyllenhaal’s masterful and very award worthy performance. I doubt he will beat Redmayne’s ‘transformative’ part in the Theory Of Everything, as those kinds of stories d...

Reviews Of Recent DVD/Blu Ray releases Tom At the Farm - Directed by Xavier Dolan I haven’t watched the last couple of Dolan films, but damn this kid knows what he is doing. Tom At The Farm is a director at the top of his game, there is nothing flashy, but so much that is effective. Dolan plays the title character, Tom, whose boyfriend has just died somehow that we are unclear of at the beginning.  He goes to the small Quebec farming community where the BF is from, for the funeral, to grieve with his partner's family. He quickly learns that the family not only didn’t know who he was, but that the mom at least didn’t know he was queer. These are not spoilers, but the description from the box.  The description, though is just that, it does not convey the so perfectly paced small town horrors that await Tom as he gets to know his dead lover’s family. There are so many Hitchcock, Truffaut references and transgressive twists to the story that it has a suspenseful c...

Noirfest 2014 So I think this 5 movies over a couple of weeks mini festival thing I am doing works pretty good. I can’t guarantee weekly updates, but at least twice a month. I am also posting these reviews individually, usually right after viewing the films. I want to keep doing some reviewing, and eventually maybe also some book reviews....  I usually do quick reviews on my Goodreads page, so I will figure out how to crosspost those reviews. I am toying with also doing some comic reviews/panels of the week, again. I’m trying to slowly increase my writing output, until it is something I am doing most of the time, eventually finding a way to make it pay whatever meagre pay it can.  But on to my latest mini festival “Noir Fest 2014” I chose 5 noirs that I either hadn’t seen, or hadn’t watched in quite some time. A fairly random group actually. I am trying to decide on my next mini fest genre... I may do an actor (Yul Brynner has been suggested to me) or a dire...