Summer 1996 — I was 15 and spent several days with a childhood friend, Glen, his sister and her friend, and his father at a beach house on the Outer Banks. To this day, I remember the days we spent… Read More ›
Reviews
Creating a near-first person perspective places audiences in the experiences of director Reid Davenport in “I Didn’t See You There.” [SFFILM Festival]
After directing a series of shorts, filmmaker Reid Davenport jumps to features with documentary I Didn’t See You There, an experimental film exploring identity, visibility, and the continued consequences of the circus freak show from his perspective as an individual… Read More ›
Available on home video, you can ride or die with “Turning Red” never leaving your side.
After landing on Disney+ in March to a largely positive bang, director Domee Shi’s feature-length debut Turning Red is headed home for purchase. Much like the Oscar-winning Encanto from Walt Disney Animation Studios, Shi’s Pixar film explores generational trauma through… Read More ›
Sarah Jones’s docu-drama “Sell/Buy/Date” effectively blends the stage with the screen to create a challenging exploration of sex work. [SFFILM Festival]
Tony Award-winning playwright Sarah Jones (Bridge & Tunnel) has developed and performed in several one-person shows over her career. They’ve explored immigrants, prejudice, community, feminism, sex work, and more, tackling complex topics with humor without losing insight. Inspired by people… Read More ›
Animated comedy “Pompo: The Cinéphile” is powered by the magic of celluloid and freshly made popcorn.
If there’s one thing that all cinephiles share, it’s that excited feeling when the house lights turn down low, the screen lights up, and the possibilities are endless for the adventure to come. It doesn’t really matter if you’re in… Read More ›
Animated action caper “The Bad Guys” asks what makes a good being a good being.
July 15th, 2015, saw the release of Aaron Blabey’s kids book “The Bad Guys: Episode 1.” It introduced the world to Mr. Wolf, Mr. Piranha, Mr. Snake, and Mr. Shark and their quest to shift how the world sees them… Read More ›
Kate Tsang weaves magic and grief throughout “Marvelous and the Black Hole.”
**Trigger Warning: Brief scenes of self-harm.** When loss occurs, there is no single right way to grieve. There’s no time limit on how long, no requirement beyond what your community expects. For Jews, for instance, there’s a tradition of sitting… Read More ›
Director Vittorio De Sica’s fantastical dramedy “Miracle in Milan (Miracolo a Milano)” is the latest release to join the Criterion Collection.
“You have to keep me in shoes.” Of all the stories my late grandmother Naomi Pearl Russin Royal told, the one involving my late grandfather’s proposal and her response always amused me. As she told it, she had larger feet… Read More ›
“We’re All Going to the World’s Fair” but should we?
Before anyone asks: no, this is not a spiritual musical successor to Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1945 musical State Fair, so don’t get your hopes up like I did. The internet — a beacon of hope and knowledge in modern human… Read More ›
“Chariot” misses on almost all of its potential.
Sometimes what sounds good on paper does not necessarily translate well past that. What is worse than an idea that doesn’t fully flourish is when the plot description that is plastered over the internet gives away the entire movie itself… Read More ›
Warm and unimposing, yet “Mothering Sunday” withers under its less conventional approach.
Working at the box office of an independently owned arthouse cinema gives you insight to a lot of things, mostly that not many people want to come to the movies anymore, which is a damn shame. However, there are still… Read More ›
Before the multiverse explodes into madness, journey though the final entry in the “Homecoming” Trilogy with “Spider-Man: No Way Home” on home video.
“When you can do the things that I can, but you don’t, and then the bad things happen? They happen because of you.” – Peter Parker, Captain America: Civil War (2016) Since 2016, actor Tom Holland as had the unenviable… Read More ›
When the mystery remains, Korean action drama “Spiritwalker” crackles with energy and intrigue.
There can be just as much enjoyment in going on a journey you do know as in venturing on one marked by unfamiliar terrain. The predictability of something brings comfort, while something peculiar offers its own enticements. Writer/director Yoon Jae-keun… Read More ›
Rita Moreno is the teacher you love to hate in Maureen Bharoocha’s “The Prank.” [SXSW Film Festival]
School days offer bored kids the opportunity to imagine wild scenarios about notable teachers. Students love to speculate on the personal lives of their instructors and wonder what goes on after the bell. What if the rumors turn out to… Read More ›
A heavy-handed atmosphere hampers “The Long Night.”
For many, the search for self is the hardest journey one can engage in. Maybe you don’t feel like you belong with your blood relations, maybe you don’t feel like you belong among the general public, heck, maybe you don’t… Read More ›
“Death on the Nile” and in your home, thanks to the home release.
Continuing their reimaging of Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot detective stories, Oscar-winning actor/director Kenneth Branagh (Belfast) and screenwriter Michael Green (Murder on the Orient Express) re-team for Death on the Nile. This star-studded crime drama not only offers thrills, chills, and… Read More ›
Return to Woodsboro in the latest entry of the beloved “Scream” franchise, now on home video.
Legacy — those who create it rarely live to see it last. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton has a line in which legacy is described as “planting seeds in a garden you never get to see grow.” In 1996, master filmmaker Wes… Read More ›
Nadine Crocker’s drama “Cont;nue” explores venturing on when all seems lost.
**Trigger Warning: The film involves self-harm and suicidal ideation.** There are two phrases that repeat often in my head. The first is an old one, “depression lies.” Not sure where it came from — a meme, a research article, a… Read More ›
Director Sam Jones’s Tony Hawk documentary “Until the Wheels Fall Off” can be shortened to three words: ‘Ride or Die.’
Born May 12th, 1968, to Nancy and Frank Hawk, Tony Hawk is the youngest of four kids, a difference of more than a decade between himself and the next youngest, older brother Steve. At the age of 12, he was… Read More ›
Minimalism speaks volumes in Bishrel Mashbat’s dramatic romance “Beloved.”
אֲנִי לְדוֹדִי וְדוֹדִי לִי (I am my beloved’s, my beloved is mine). – Song of Songs 6:3 These are the words inscribed upon the wedding bands my wife and I share, the phrase split between the bands. I forget how… Read More ›