Sailor Suit and Machine Gun is a film built on dichotomy. The lead character, Izumi (Hiroko Yakushimaru), is a high school teen, suggesting innocence or, at the least, a touch of naiveté. She’s not old enough to have been touched… Read More ›
Reviews
Celebrate director Barry Sonnenfeld’s “The Addams Family” 30th anniversary with a brand-new 4K UHD edition.
Artist Charles Addams is most widely known for his cartoon series “The Addams Family” which ran in The New Yorker, which then became the even more popular ABC television program which ran for two seasons between 1964 and 1966. While… Read More ›
“The Emperor’s Sword” seeks to immortalize the legends of Chinese lore, but fails on just about every level in its attempts to do so.
Ideas are often one thing, whereas execution is entirely another. There are plenty of films which sound incredible, but the finished product seems entirely devoid of the potential. This is the best way to describe the frustration that comes from… Read More ›
Enjoy all the horror and humor of “Black Friday” without setting your alarm for 3am.
The moment the clock hit 12:01am, most of my social media had flipped from Halloween content to Christmas. Out with the spooky and in with the jolly! Skipping over the fact that Hanukkah starts sundown November 28th this year (slow… Read More ›
Writer/director Abel Ferrara’s “Zeros and Ones” is not just a drama, but a full-circle experience.
Written and directed by Abel Ferrara, Zeros and Ones opens with a video message directly from lead actor Ethan Hawke, even before the actual narrative of the film gets going. This video from Hawke looks to have been shot on… Read More ›
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “tick, tick…BOOM!” adaptation is a love-letter to both a lost artist and the medium he so loved.
Your musical theater tastes are all but defined by when you were first introduced. It doesn’t mean that you can’t shift or grow in tastes, but there certainly comes a heavy influence or leaning based upon your start. While I,… Read More ›
Halle Berry’s directorial debut is “Bruised” but not broken.
It’s perfectly natural to want to find ways to grow in your craft. Someone who starts as an intern likely has their eyes on a manager’s seat, wanting to absorb as much as possible in order to get there faster…. Read More ›
Don’t blink. Don’t move. Writer/director Jane Campion’s western thriller “The Power of the Dog” compels you to heel.
Director Jane Campion’s (The Piano) latest project is an adaptation of author Thomas Savage’s 1967 novel The Power of the Dog. Her film, a taunt western-drama, chronicles the intersecting lives of two families across several months in Montana 1925. Each… Read More ›
Enjoy a little “Respect” when you get home — the anticipated Aretha Franklin biopic starring Jennifer Hudson is now available.
Great performers like Aretha Franklin are remembered for much more than their God-given talents. They’re also remembered for their ability to connect with their audience. A good performer will practice and train for years to master their craft, but a… Read More ›
Come for Italian drama, stay for Swamy Rotolo’s scene-stealing performance in “A Chiara.” [Film Fest 919]
Quickly think of a gangster movie…what’s the first thing that comes to your head? The Godfather? Goodfellas? Scarface? Maybe even Boyz n the Hood? It’s a widely diverse genre, but the missions are generally all pretty similar, focusing on the… Read More ›
Historical drama “The War Below” reenacts the explosive real events of the Battle of Messines with a strange fizzle.
The war film genre is a strange beast. Many of the films are entirely propaganda, pontificating on the successes of the old made by the sacrifices of young, celebrating the loss of life by infusing it with self-aggrandizing nationalism. Weird… Read More ›
“Don’t Breathe 2” is a horrible follow-up to an outstanding horror film, but a surprisingly great home release.
One of the most underrated horror/thrillers of the past decade was easily Fede Álvarez’s Don’t Breathe. The tense, heart-pounding suspense and brutal, but surprisingly pared back (at least compared to the absolute bloodbath that was Álvarez’s first feature 2013’s Evil… Read More ›
Writer/director Lisa Joy’s neo-noir feature debut “Reminiscence” offers a new perspective on a time-tested genre.
There’s an interesting line in writer/director Lisa Joy’s Reminiscence, which suggests that our past doesn’t haunt us. It’s gone. We, however, through our memories, haunt it by revisiting moments in our mind over and over. There’s psychological proof of this… Read More ›
Action thrill-ride “One Shot” goes far beyond intense stunt sequences and camera trickery.
Pain is a fantastic motivator and a terrible teacher. It moves us to make decisions that feel right, justified even, in the moment, but, with a bit of time, reveal themselves to have been the poorer of the options. By… Read More ›
Using the natural world as a fantasy playground, “Petite Maman” is able to explore loss and grief with tenderness. [Film Fest 919]
Two years ago, even during the height of Parasite-mania, there was one film that stole the entirety of Film Fest 919 for me: that being Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire by a country mile. Presenting truly one… Read More ›
Thriller/dramedy “Nightshooters” brings the action amid laughs and horror.
For all the talk of major releases like Dune (2021) or Eternals (2021) or the bemoaning of limited access of films like Last Night in Soho (2021) or Antlers (2021), all films which were released by large studios, it’s easy… Read More ›
“Hell Hath No Fury” but it has a long memory and a demand for justice.
The reason why such great offense is taken when the Holocaust is invoked regarding any potential inconvenience (re: not injustice) is multi-layered and complex. The folks trying to make the connection are trying to attribute, for example, the wearing of… Read More ›
Sean Baker’s “Red Rocket” is not without his signature style or flourish, but it’s missing that emotional connection found in past works. [Film Fest 919]
Sean Baker does good white trash. I really don’t know how to put it in any less crude terms than that. Even when his films don’t necessarily focus on low-income white people, the air of that world lingers in the… Read More ›
Joachim Trier’s “The Worst Person in the World (Verdens verste menneske)” is a beautifully nuanced love letter to those who have yet to get their shit together. [Film Fest 919]
My name is Hunter, I am 25 years old, and I don’t need a governess…I also am having a severe quarter life crisis right now and am struggling. I’ve been having trouble as of late deciding what I want my… Read More ›
In a sea of manufactured biopics, Reinaldo Marcus Green’s “King Richard” takes the crown with its pure sincerity. [Film Fest 919]
To be completely honest with you, I thought Will Smith was doing a period piece where he would play King Richard I in what I thought was one of the more daring pieces of casting I had heard about in… Read More ›