Mark Olsen

With his impulse to sensationalize, Japanese filmmaker Sion Sono broadcasts the internal minutiae of his characters as something bolder, transforming Cold Fish from an exploration of jealousy, desire, pride, ego and personal disappointment into a perversely comic Grand Guignol. The owner of a struggling fish store is unexpectedly taken under......

For a movie called Larry Crowne, it sure is tough to get a solid read on the character of Larry Crowne. Directed, co-written by and starring Tom Hanks in that title role, the film seems to want to be some kind of post-recession pick-me-up, an "It Gets Better" video for......

Discovering the films of Radley Metzger is not unlike uncovering a stash of vintage Playboy magazines and realizing they are, actually, worth reading for the articles. Ostensibly a maker of dirty movies, at his best Metzger is in fact a top-notch filmmaker, a sharp social satirist with an eye for......

Sometimes you feel bad for movie marketers, tasked with connecting any given film to an audience as large as possible. Take, for example, The American. Judging by the film's trailers and advertisements, it's a fast-paced Euro-stylish thriller starring George Clooney as a dashing, conflicted hero. Yet it quickly becomes apparent......

"I have nothing against the word exploitation." If anyone can claim ownership of the idea of fast, cheap, freewheeling filmmaking, it's Roger Corman. In a career that stretches back to the 1950s, from the drive-in to the download, Corman has directed nearly 60 films and produced a staggering 300-plus movies......

Strange, disorienting and unexpectedly affectionate, the documentary 45365 weaves together an emotional tapestry from life in the small town of Sydney, Ohio (the location of the zip code of the film’s title). Directed by brothers Bill and Turner Ross, the film won the jury prize at last year’s SXSW Film......