Author Archives: The Filmsmith

Drive is the coolest film of the year

Nicolas Winding Refn should be mandatory viewing for film nerds.  The audacity and craftsmanship of his filmmaking put him on par with the likes of Darren Aronofsky (see Refn’s Bronson), but with a sense of subtlety (Valhalla Rising).  Pair Refn with the magnetic Ryan Gosling (Half Nelson, Lars and the Real Girl) and a high concept heist film that co-stars Bryan Cranston, and you have an unholy concoction of brilliant variables unseen since the release of the Double Down (with less heart disease).  But this is far from an action film… Continue reading

Hesher filled with Anarchy and Heart

Joseph Gordon-Levitt has been building a name for himself as a dynamic, charismatic actor since 2005’s Brick.  But in his latest role, Hesher, Gordon-Levitt goes deeper down the rabbit hole than ever before, playing a loathsome, repulsive character well enough for us to love him. It’s a film about grief and anger, but it illustrates how most of us refuse to show those emotions, and Gordon-Levitt’s character has the wonderfully cathartic ability to draw us out of it. The result is both heartwarming and vulgar. Continue reading

New Schedule

As previously mentioned, The Filmsmith is going through a few adjustments.  After being on a brief hiatus, we will return to a scheduled format that will include an update every Monday that will either be a review of a film in theaters or an upcoming DVD release.  Ben Creech will handle this review, while I, Remington Smith, will occasionally post films of interest, but until my feature length script is completed I will not post under a regularly scheduled format.

To receive notification of new postings you can subscribe to the site via the RSS feed icon on the right hand side.  This way you’ll receive an e-mail each time we post something.

We appreciate your interest in our site and hope to return to a Monday, Wednesday, Friday format as soon as our schedules allow it.  You can support our ongoing work by clicking the donate button on the right hand side.  We do this for free because we love to share great cinema and interesting ideas, but as with anything, if you receive money to do what you love it makes it easier to keep doing it.

Thanks,
Remington Smith

Hiatus

Since I will be starting my MFA in Film Production this week and Ben Creech will be starting his senior year as an undergraduate, we’re in a bit of a transitional period and decided to go on hiatus.  After Labor Day weekend we’ll have a new posting schedule from Ben, but I won’t be back until I finish a script I’ve been talking about all year.

When we both return to the M-W-F format, there will also be some changes to the site we hope you’ll appreciate.

Thanks for your support.  We’ll post new info as it comes.

-Remington Smith

The New Generation of Comedy Filmmakers

Comedic auteurs are few and far between, or they were, until recently. The last decade has offered up so much fresh talent, as alluded to in my recent review of the second season of Eastbound and Down, that we seem to be in a veritable age of comedy. Somewhere between Judd Apatow’s ubiquitous productions, and Adam McKay’s strange blend of raunch and politics, for the first time in recent memory funny movies are becoming quite good. Continue reading

The Best of 2011 so far

We’re a little more than half-way through the year and given the plethora of films I, Remington Smith, and writer co-hort Ben Creech, review, we thought it would be a good time to chat about our favorite films of the year so far.   Here’s that conversation: Continue reading

30 Minutes or Less: Uncomfortable funnies

Any trailer that has a gag about a guy bringing a bomb to a school is the type of dark comedy I’m intrigued to explore.  30 Minutes or Less is a fun, race-against-the-clock ride, but it never gets into the black comedy its trailer suggests.  Furthermore, the fact that it’s based on a real-life situation that yielded less than upbeat results does make you question the film’s moral compass. Continue reading

Final Destination 5: Are we dead yet?

I spent a whole chapter of my Master’s dissertation in Film Studies discussing how the term “torture-porn” is an eye-catching, hyperbolic phrase that should be swapped out for “torture horror.”  Which is to say, I’m not an exaggerating ninny anytime some gore hits the screen.  Final Destination 5, however, does make that term “torture porn” come to life in unsettling ways. Continue reading

Eastbound and Down – Offensive, vulgar, yet touching.

The second season of HBO comedy series Eastbound and Down came out on DVD a couple weeks ago, and having had a chance to peruse it, I feel obligated to say that it is without a doubt one of the best shows on television. Created by Adam McKay (Talladega Nights, The Other Guys), Jody Hill (The Foot Fist Way, Observe and Report) and David Gordon Green (Pineapple Express), the show boasts an inordinate amount of fresh, young comedic talent, and with the second season they take the show to new heights, allowing the characters and plots to develop far more than you ever thought they could. They elevate the typical raunchy TV comedy by adding pathos, and when it comes to a head in the second season, all you can do is sit back and be amazed. Continue reading

Lineups for Venice and Toronto Film Fests – Proof that 2011 is Far from Over

The film year, just like the real one, is split into seasons. There’s the time around May through August, which is filled with Summer blockbusters; there’s January through April, which contains all of the buzz from Sundance and Berlin and a hefty slew of off-kilter picks. And then there’s September through December, better known as Oscar season. It kicks off every year with two events, the Venice and Toronto International Film Festivals. Between these two weeks, early picks for Best Picture, as well as the acting awards, surface and separate themselves from the rest of the chaff; films that do well here are practically guaranteed a good run a few months down the line. This year’s lineups were announced two weeks ago, and if nothing else, they reveal that the best of 2011, cinematically speaking, is yet to come. Continue reading