“Do you wanna drink, hey do you wanna party? Hey, this is old Hank, ready to get your summer started I cooked a pig in the ground, we got some beer on ice And all my rowdy friends are coming… Read More ›
Reviews
“Lavender Men” trips through history with Abraham Lincoln and Elmer E. Ellsworth. [Micheaux Film Festival]
In a year where most corners of the art form — horror, action blockbusters, dramas, comedies, etc. — have been uneven in the wake of the WGA-SAG-AFTRA strikes, it’s been a pretty great year for queer cinema. I Saw the… Read More ›
Sean Wang’s teen coming of age dramedy “Dìdi (弟弟)” receives an unceremoniously released home edition.
When done right and a movie captures the time period in which it’s set pitch-perfectly, it is a reflection of its audience and resonates so much deeper and more personally with those of that era. Some movies that come to… Read More ›
“A Real Pain” emotionally ensnares the audience due to sharpened talent in front of and behind the camera.
While his first directing/writing feature, When You Finish Saving the World (2022) met with some very mixed reception, Jesse Eisenberg’s latest, A Real Pain, is a hilarious, heartfelt, soul-touching 90 minutes exploring grief (past and present). It’s indicative of a… Read More ›
Mystery thriller “Blink Twice” lacks bonus features but delivers on visuals in its Blu-ray release.
When a new director arrives on the Hollywood scene, they often come in one of two distinct flavors: they’re either a fresh “voice” in the industry or someone who can be molded to be a studio darling. The second category… Read More ›
Book adaptation “It Ends with Us” disappoints as much as a home release as it does as both a drama and rom-com.
Trigger Warning: It Ends with Us explores domestic abuse and includes an instance of attempted sexual assault. In 2024, a film released in theaters in which a woman has a meet-cute with a man, finds herself falling love, struggles to… Read More ›
Animated adventure fable “Sirocco and the Kingdom of Winds” envelopes for a pleasant sensory experience.
There are fables that challenge children (The NeverEnding Story), that push children (Labyrinth), and that are not safe for children (Pan’s Labyrinth). In each instance, no matter their differences, the perspective of the child is the focal point through their… Read More ›
Techno-thriller “AFRAID” comes home, but should you let it in?
Artificial Intelligence, more commonly referred to as A.I., is a staple of science fiction. The incorporation of it within novels, television programs, film, and video games is often in a supportive role toward humanity. Batman uses it to help solve… Read More ›
4K release of “Trap” is absent satisfying trimmings.
Whether the films work for you or not, there’s no denying that an M. Night Shyamalan film is going to provoke a reaction; we’re not talking heavily divisive so much as generating conversation with audiences heralding the best parts and… Read More ›
A contentious U.S. President receives an equally contentious film in “Reagan.”
I stand by that title. Reagan (2024) is an astonishingly incompetent and cynical attempt to pass off pseudo-religious myth as history. Written by Howard Klausner (Space Cowboys) based on the book The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism… Read More ›
Irish-language horror film “An Taibhse (The Ghost)” reaches toward a haunting quality that it can’t quite achieve. [NBFF]
Touted as the first Irish-language horror film, John Farrelly’s An Taibhse (The Ghost) is a well-intentioned mix of folk horror, disturbing imagery, and narrative references to the horror genre in general (mostly The Shining (1980)). With an all-too familiar setting… Read More ›
“Emilia Pérez” dazzles with its operatic style and frustrates with its masked hollowness.
Redemption stories come in a great many forms. Time loops stories utilize the constriction created by a repeated day(s) to force introspection and change, the loop broken in comedies (Groundhog Day), dramas (The Map of Tiny Perfect Things), and horror… Read More ›
Family dramedy “Removal of the Eye” highlights the difficult of parenting, especially across generations. [NOFF]
It requires a specific dedication and abdication of self to become a guardian of another person. To that end, the truest lesson I’ve learned as a parent is that it’s not for the weak. In the days where a “village”… Read More ›
Twisted rom-com “Your Monster” delights with familiar nostalgic aesthetics.
As a New Yorker born and raised, there’s one specific sub-genre that has always been a comforting media blanket for me: fantasies that take place in the Big Apple. From the time-traveling hijinks of Kate and Leopold to the animated… Read More ›
Filmmakers Van Tran Nguyen and Alex Derwick bring audiences “The Motherload” of emotionally heartfelt and biting satire. [NOFF]
Sometimes the best way to get an audience to consider something, to battle with the way they perceive or process something, is to give it to them wrapped in something else. In the parlance of the 2024 action rom-com The… Read More ›
Dramedy “Goodrich” further affirms Michael Keaton’s return to cinematic stardom.
Hallie Meyers-Shyer hasn’t written or directed a feature (or anything) since 2017’s Home Again, which was a very schmaltzy movie with Reese Witherspoon (Sing 2). So, when her new movie cast Michael Keaton (Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance))… Read More ›
First-time feature filmmaker Robie Flores explores the liminal spaces and mundane moments of life in experimental doc “The In Between.”[NOFF]
“And so he told me his secret formula for happiness. Part one of the two-part plan was that I should just get on with ordinary life, living it day by day, like anyone else. But then came part two of… Read More ›
David Cronenberg’s “The Shrouds” is an ambitious personal project from a master of body horror that crumples under confusing messaging. [TIFF]
When we think of directors who are famous for what they’ve done in a specific genre, it’s weird to see a movie from them that is so enriched by their personal life and feels like an incredibly personable film. That… Read More ›
You know the cameos of “Deadpool & Wolverine,” so go under the hood with the home release edition to learn everything else.
In the history of cinema, there are more stories of the films not made than of the ones made — the stories deemed uninteresting or lacking an audience; the stories deemed unsellable or absent in creativity. Sometimes there’s a happy… Read More ›
What a twist! You may want to wait on this 4K UHD edition of M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Sixth Sense.”
By this point in 2024, there’ve been three M. Night Shyamalan projects released in theaters or on streaming. In August, serial killer thriller Trap starring Josh Hartnett (Oppenheimer; The Faculty) and Shyamalan’s daughter, Saleka Shyamalan, landed in theaters and comes… Read More ›