Brian Holcomb

Features

Fireflies and Failureboys

By Brian Holcomb

Digital filmmaking has provided independent filmmakers with the tools to produce watchable films, but then there's the matter of enticing people to actually watch them. An interview with indie filmmaker, Peter Marcy. [28 January 2008]

The Head Trauma of Independent Filmmaking

By Brian Holcomb

PopMatters' interviews Lance Weiler, Director of The Last Broadcast and Head Trauma and who, along with his former partner Stefan Avalos, is one of the real pioneers of digital filmmaking and distribution. [10 July 2007]

From the Inside, Looking Out

By Brian Holcomb

Holcomb speaks with writer-director Djinn, director of Perth. Djinn hails from Singapore, a small nation of avid movie goers who, like their film industry and their country, says Djinn, are 'always looking outward.' [9 February 2007]

Reviews

Dirty Money (Un Flic)

By Brian Holcomb

For Jean-Pierre Melville, the classic cops and robbers crime story was simply a vehicle to place his flawed heroes through ritualized situations of life and death. [23 September 2008]

City of Vice

By Brian Holcomb

Educated men outraged about crime face situations in which they do not fully comprehend the true moral horror. [12 August 2008]

Dead Man’s Bounty

By Brian Holcomb

This oddball film's closest progenitors are Fassbinder’s Brecht-influenced and just plain weird Whity, and Cox’s Americanized Spaghetti western, Straight to Hell. [29 May 2008]

Sleuth

By Brian Holcomb

Both dazzlingly brilliant and incredibly irritating, often most irritating when it catches itself being brilliant. [10 April 2008]

Damages: The Complete First Season

By Brian Holcomb

A superbly acted, complex serial story, this show is well-suited to the DVD medium as it can followed at your own pace without fear of missing some of the story. [7 April 2008]

Zodiac-The Director’s Cut

By Brian Holcomb

Even though Zodiac attempts to achieve a sort of documentary-like reality, there is an underlying surrealism, a poetic and nightmarish vibe that hangs over the whole film. [8 January 2008]

Days of Heaven

By Brian Holcomb

Malick puts the visual and aural emphasis on a vast, natural world that would be nothing more than a backdrop to the human story for most filmmakers, creating a breathtaking visual experience. [20 December 2007]

Witchfinder General

By Brian Holcomb

Witchfinder General fits less in the genre of horror than in the kind of films that would follow in the ‘70s with tales of torture, survival and revenge like Straw Dogs and Deliverance. [20 November 2007]

Puzzlehead

By Brian Holcomb

A scientist creates an android that becomes more humane than he is. But is he human? Their battle for the affections of young girl raises disturbing questions on the nature of humanity, identity and love. [26 September 2007]

Honor Among Thieves

By Brian Holcomb

Charles Bronson's character wears a Chesire grin throughout that makes it seem like he knows everything about everyone; apparently, he's the only one who knows what this film is about, too. [4 September 2007]

Hedda Gabler

By Brian Holcomb

Is she just pulling the wings off a fly, without care or motive? [31 August 2007]

The Nightcomers

By Brian Holcomb

If you’ve never seen Jack Clayton’s film version of the James story, The Innocents or are just a fan of Brando, The Nightcomers will be mildly entertaining. [31 July 2007]

The Good German (2006)

By Brian Holcomb

Instead of a deeply involving present-tense drama, we get an essay on how such dramas used to look and work. [27 July 2007]

Abandon (2002)

By Brian Holcomb

This is one of the best horror films in some time; not sacrificing itself to irony or parody but committed to the dark corners of human nature and the complex labyrinths that exist in the mind. [26 July 2007]

Head Trauma

By Brian Holcomb

Head Trauma is a truly scary film that continues to disturb long after it’s ended. [10 July 2007]

The Tower

By Brian Holcomb

Until one can get to London, this is an eight hours well spent. [8 June 2007]

Jailbait (2004)

By Brian Holcomb

Trapped in a cell / trapped in stage-to-film translation. [19 April 2007]

Rocky Balboa (2006)

By Brian Holcomb

This may be the most truly independent and heartfelt piece of filmmaking released by a major studio last year. [4 April 2007]

Fabulous! The Story of Queer Cinema (2006)

By Brian Holcomb

This was never intended to be a conventional movie, but more like a personal industrial film illustrating the process that brings the corpse of a cow to your dinner table. [8 March 2007]

Apartment Zero (1988)

By Brian Holcomb

Roman Polanski’s shadow looms large, here. His signature themes of alienation, paranoia, and identity are built into the plot and the tone is his specialty: part thriller, part jet black comedy.

The Dean Martin Double Feature (1960)

By Brian Holcomb

These films are perfect for a rainy weekend at home; almost four hours of light nonsense you won’t have to think about at all. [27 February 2007]

Perth (2004)

By Brian Holcomb

Djinn has created a film whose characters spill off the screen on all sides and continue to live in the mind long after the movie is over. [9 February 2007]

Night Skies (2006)

By Brian Holcomb

This is close encounters of the drive-in kind. [23 January 2007]

Dreamland (2006)

By Brian Holcomb

Though far from perfect, Dreamland is better than most, thanks to Bruckner's amazing intimacy with the camera and that peculiar face of hers; both plain and extraordinarily unique in its beauty. [22 January 2007]

Who Killed the Electric Car? (2006)

By Brian Holcomb

In Chris Paine’s witty and very partisan documentary, we are presented with the sad but familiar tale of corporate greed and corruption shaping our daily lives -- shaping it without our support, but with our apathy. [10 January 2007]

Adventures of Robin Hood Vol. 15

By Brian Holcomb

This version of Robin Hood will remain mostly an historical interest for its role during a dark era of fear driven politics; the Red Scare.

The First 48: The Most Intense Investigations

By Brian Holcomb

Perhaps this real life detective show is a little too much like real life: a lot of tedium with only an occasional interesting happening. [18 December 2006]

Inside the Actors Studio - Dave Chappelle

By Brian Holcomb

This conversation between James Lipton and Dave Chappelle is an example of an honest dialogue from an artist who sees himself as a mass of contradictions requiring further analysis. [13 December 2006]

The Greatest American Hero: Seasons 1, 2 & 3

By Brian Holcomb

The Greatest American Hero's FBI man, Maxwell, was clearly a Reagan era conservative, and Hinkley was the idealistic liberal -- the aliens clearly had something in mind when they made these two work together. [26 November 2006]

They Filmed the War in Color: The Pacific War (2005)

By Brian Holcomb

This films lifts the veil from the gray representation of the past that we've come to expect, and the colors bursting off the screen make the familiar both strange and wonderful. [22 November 2006]

Feast (2005)

By Brian Holcomb

Feast is too knowing and in its own way, too high profile to be cult cinema, but it deserves a look from the genre connoisseur. [14 November 2006]

Joyeux Noël (2005)

By Brian Holcomb

"Strange-But-True: Stray Cat Executed for Espionage" and other hard to believe events in the trenches of World War I. [8 November 2006]

Abominable (2006)

By Brian Holcomb

In many ways, Shifrin can be seen as the contemporary version of Don Glut, that monster movie obsessed kid from the '60s who hung around with Forrest Ackerman and made Super-8mm epics in his backyard featuring all of his Favorite Monsters of Filmland. [2 November 2006]

Murder à la Mod / The Moving Finger (1986)

By Brian Holcomb

While not perfect by any means, Murder A La Mod should be essential viewing for fans of Brian De Palma's work. [30 October 2006]

Roy Shaw - Brute Force (2006)

By Brian Holcomb

Roy's story is riveting stuff and would've made a great honest documentary or at least an amazing '70s crime picture. Instead, we get a series of "dramatic" recreations all photographed on cheap video processed with a "film look" filter which insures that the image will look even cheaper on video. [5 October 2006]

Edmond (2005)

By Brian Holcomb

An excellent noir, or a tragicomedy, about the repressed beliefs in all of us. [3 October 2006]