Overall, Sister Midnight swings for the absolute fences which is bold and refreshing to see when it has a cast that supports it, but if the effort ends at the cast’s execution, it can become tiresome and messy. Kandhari throws… Read More ›
English
Gerard Johnson’s “Odyssey” is a narrative thriller about misogyny and the real estate markets. [SXSW]
“Men are so quick to blame the gods: they say that we devise their misery. But they themselves- in their depravity- design grief greater than the griefs that fate assigns.” ― Homer, The Odyssey Pulling ones’ self up by bootstraps… Read More ›
Marianne Jean-Baptiste delivers a masterclass performance in Mike Leigh’s somber slice-of-life dramedy “Hard Truths.”
“I don’t understand you. But I love you.” These are key words said towards the climax of Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths, a somber slice-of-life film about two disparate sisters in a Black British family. Mike Leigh, a veteran indie darling… Read More ›
Criterion’s 4K edition of “Cronos” offers nothing new past the restoration.
If anyone knows me, then you know I champion Criterion and their releases. They’re usually some of the best of the best, bar none to any other release in terms of quality of release (and quality control) and features. While… Read More ›
Dark comedy “Timestalker” deconstructs tropes of love and romance.
As a child of the ‘90s, fantasy tales of romance have always felt like the coziest of blankets. Could it be that true love always won in the end? Or, having existed in a world filled with divorce, addiction, and… Read More ›
Oscar-nominated documentary “No Other Land” deserves your attention and a distributor.
Content Warning for descriptions, images, and reporting on violent scenes of oppression, police brutality, and genocide. There are special movies, and then there are films that you’ll never forget. No Other Land, an on-the-ground account of a Palestinian West Bank… Read More ›
“Eternal You” explores the promise of extending one’s lifespan through digital transitions.
Once something to be imagined in your favorite sci-fi tale, artificial intelligence (A.I.) is now being forced into everything from your smartphone to your toaster. Instead of being used to expand human consciousness through exploratory play like Star Trek: The… Read More ›
Pedro Almodóvar’s first English language film, “The Room Next Door,” is an ode to a life lived and what comes next.
As painful as it can be for everyone involved, death is inevitable. You might be able to delay its arrival, but ultimately, death comes for all of us, and we will all leave someone behind to grieve our passing. Grieving… Read More ›
Johannes Grezfurthner’s latest body horror “Solvent” dissolves its cast and audience on several levels.
When it comes to horror, most modern audiences jump to places like Blumhouse with Paranormal Activity (2009) and Happy Death Day (2017), A24 with It Comes at Night (2017) and Talk to Me (2023), or even Lionsgate with Frailty (2001)… Read More ›
“The Beast” appears … on shelves thanks to Janus Contemporaries.
Janus Contemporaries’s newest unnumbered entry into the Criterion Collection is priced just right at $20.99. The Beast, the latest film from Bertrand Bonello (House of Tolerance; Saint Laurent), is a surreal tale starring two of the best actors working today,… Read More ›
The betrayal and revenge of “The Count of Monte Cristo” gets the Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre De La Patellière treatment.
“He who seeks revenge digs two graves.” – Confucius In December 2023, director Martin Bourboulon’s The Three Musketeers – Part I: D’Artagnan released into U.S. theaters, kicking off a brand-new adaptation of author Alexandre Dumas’s classic novel. It currently remains… Read More ›
Aardman’s signature duo Wallace and Gromit return in family comedy “Vengeance Most Fowl.”
In the world of animation, most know names like Walt Disney, DreamWorks, Illumination, and Studio Ghibli. Either in hand-drawn or CG animation, they have created stories that move audiences by stirring their emotion. But there’re also studios like LAIKA and… Read More ›
“There Was, There Was Not” keeps the reality of a recently-gone homeland from fading into fairytale. [NOFF]
In our era of perpetual information, it’s nearly impossible to keep track of all the horrific embattlements going on across the world. The two most top of mind are the Russo-Ukrainian War and the Israel-Gaza War, but there’s also violence… 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 ›
Irish hip hop underdog story “Kneecap” stays on-brand with a DVD-R home release.
If you haven’t heard of Rich Peppiatt’s newest feature, Kneecap, it’s because it flew so under the radar for everyone and its theatrical window was relatively short. However, it has now hit home release on DVD only, but don’t be… 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 ›
“Frankie Freako” has come to party at your place in Shout! Studios’s home release.
Frankie Freako and his freaks are ready to dominate your television sets, so don’t adjust the motion smoothing (actually turn it right off), kick your feet up and get ready to get lost in this absolute maddening blast-from-the-past nostalgia kick… 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 ›
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 ›
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 ›