“When the student is ready, the teacher appears.” – Tao Te Ching The concept of religion never quite seemed like a casual topic of conversation, but it has grown to be quite the sticky wicket. It often seems that around… Read More ›
Reviews
“Blue Moon” boasts a career-best performance from Ethan Hawke as Richard Linklater lovingly brings the 1940s to life.
Director Richard Linklater (Nouvelle Vague) has been actively communicating with the past, meaning he has released two films within the past year that pay homage to the figures behind classic films and musicals. Alongside Nouvelle Vague, a film about the… Read More ›
Filmmaker Mamoru Hosoda’s “Scarlet” riffs on Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” in a time-bending animated adventure that challenges the validity of revenge.
Photosensitivity Warning: Several scenes in Scarlet may prove triggering for photosensitive viewers through the use of stylized lightning. It occurs a handful of times in the film and can often be predicted, enabling a viewer to shield oneself, but it’s… Read More ›
Documentarian Rustin Thompson’s “The Last Picture Shows” explores what’s lost when local picturehouses disappear from communities. [SBIFF]
Photosensitivity Warning: In one of the later segments of archival photos, they are stylized like old film footage with light blips and visible scratches which may prove triggering for photosensitive individuals. The evolution of the movie-watching experience is fairly straight-forward…. Read More ›
Jonny Campbell’s sci-fi comedic thriller “Cold Storage” is a hilarious midnight creature feature for any time of day.
Photosensitivity Warning: The film takes place primarily in a storage facility which uses sensors to turn on lights, resulting in several moments of unexpected light activation that may prove triggering for photosensitive viewers. Stop me if you’ve heard this one:… Read More ›
Documentary “Mockbuster” or how the process of making a low-budget feature made me enjoy what I love without guilt. [SBIFF]
Of all the terms to be used to describe media consumption, “guilty pleasure” should be stricken from the record. The phrase implies that, regardless of perceived quality, the thing itself is not good in some way and that the enjoyment… Read More ›
“Magellan:” Everything is Magellan now.
In the opening shot of Magellan (2025), an Indigenous Malaysian woman walks into a stream, filling a vessel. Suddenly, she spots a white man past the fourth wall of the proscenium and takes off running. She shouts through her village… Read More ›
“Twisted” comes up short taking the road well-traveled.
Twisted is a new horror film from Darren Lynn Bousman, a director whose fingerprints are permanently etched into the genre thanks to his work on the Saw series. Bousman helped elevate that franchise into a cultural phenomenon, and while he… Read More ›
A complex love story brilliantly masked in a survival story and political thriller, “Kiss of the Spider Woman” receives a beautiful digital restoration, courtesy of The Criterion Collection.
Two prisoners. Two different pasts. One love story that keeps them going. Set within the Brazilian military dictatorship, Héctor Babenco’s 1985 film Kiss of the Spider Woman (adapted by Leonard Schrader, based on Manuel Pieg’s 1976 novel) is about two… Read More ›
Edward Yang’s “Yi Yi” gets a boost to 4K UHD as it enters The Criterion Collection
Life is like a dyad-god, both finite and infinite. Your life is finite because it ends, but Life goes on regardless of how you live yours. Few things narrow as quickly as the infinite possibilities of a newborn’s life, except… Read More ›
“Shelby Oaks” uses chilling found footage to solve a mystery of a missing YouTuber and is now available on Blu-ray from NEON.
Chris Stuckmann is a YouTuber, author, film critic, and filmmaker, who started his career posting short-form movie reviews on YouTube called “Quick Movie Reviews” in 2009. He eventually began making longer movie reviews as well as reviews of television shows,… Read More ›
Gore Verbinski’s darkly comic sci-fi actioner “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” is a hilarious harbinger for our digital times.
Photosensitivity Warning: The climax of the film includes an extended sequence of flashing that may prove triggering for photosensitive individuals. Take precautions. “Information devours its own content. It devours communication and the social.” – Jean Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation from… Read More ›
Jason Statham-led action thriller “Shelter” is a simple tale that’ll satisfy your January cinematic doldrum needs.
A figure living a controlled life is interrupted, ripped even, from his organized lifestyle when the unexpected happens and the man is forced into action. This is the general premise that applies to countless action titles and thrillers (even with… Read More ›
Jodie Foster est magnifique in French dark comedy thriller “A Private Life (Vie Privée).”
Born in Paris, French filmmaker Rebecca Zlotowski initially planned to be a teacher and graduated from École Normale Supérieure before earning an Agrégation higher degree in literature. Then she joined the screenplay department of La Fémis and met several students… Read More ›
“The Voice of Hind Rajab” masterfully utilizes subtle dramatization to portray the real experiences of those who try to save lives in Gaza.
When the world first stopped to hear the voice of Hind Rajab, the little girl from Gaza hiding from bullets in her family’s car, Kaouther Ben Hania was standing frozen in the airport. Now, she’s delivered a masterpiece that asks… Read More ›
Derek Cianfrance’s “Roofman” is far more character study than crime antics.
Director Derek Cianfrance is a filmmaker who is near and dear to my heart. His 2013 film The Place Beyond the Pines hit me on a deep emotional level with its themes of fatherhood and legacy. Even with its heavier… Read More ›
Reginald Hudlin’s feature film directorial debut and seminal teen comedy “House Party” receives a 4K UHD edition via The Criterion Collection.
“All my memories are movies.” – George Clooney as Jay Kelly in Jay Kelly (2025). As a child born on the cusp of 1981, I reside firmly on line between Gen X and Millennial, meaning that I can remember a… Read More ›
Gordan Chan’s folktale adaptation “King of Beggars” receives a 2K restoration from Eureka Entertainment.
Cinema borrowing from folktales is a natural fit given that folktales often elevate figures or events and cinema does this innately through projection. Who wouldn’t want to see the figures or events of lore cast upon a 40-foot screen or… Read More ›
Actor Jason Biggs adds ‘Filmmaker’ to his resume with darkly comic “Untitled Home Invasion Romance.”
Whom among us hasn’t thought that it’s the effort that matters in a relationship — that if you work hard enough, want it bad enough, everything will be ok? This line of thinking often discounts the hard reality that “wanting”… Read More ›
In examining the past, documentary “Who Killed Alex Odeh?” illuminates aspects of the present we’d rather not acknowledge. [Sundance]
It didn’t used to feel complicated to be Jewish before October 7th, 2023, and the Israeli-Gaza Conflict began. Having grown up in a Reform Jewish household, I believed in the existence of and even the right of a Jewish state… Read More ›