There is no one way to grieve. There are certainly customs and traditions within communities and cultures, but there’s no single way in which each person is meant to process loss. With the digital age, though, the manner in which… Read More ›
film festival
How can you plan “To Kill a Wolf” when foe and friend share the same traits? [SBIFF]
Trigger Warning: The narrative of To Kill a Wolf grapples with difficult topics involving sexual abuse. The two earliest written versions of the Little Red Riding Hood story come from author Charles Perrault (1697) and from The Brothers Grimm (1800s), each providing… Read More ›
Documentary “Third Act” captures self-realizations and the discovery that they run generations-deep. [Sundance]
History can only be buried for so long before the truth comes out. This relates to large revelations (the purposeful attempts to control and reduce Indigenous populations through residential schools in the U.S. and Canada) and interpersonal discoveries that wield… Read More ›
Beware the creature of the night who promises peace in “Touch Me.” [Sundance]
Trigger Warning: The narrative of Touch Me grapples with difficult topics involving sexual abuse and addiction. Additionally, there are a few brief sequences of light-strobing that might be difficult for photosensitive viewers. “And crawling on the planet’s face, some insects,… Read More ›
Halina Reijn’s erotic thriller “Babygirl” reinvigorates the genre. [TIFF]
Going from directing a whodunnit millennial comedy in Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022) to creating a power dynamic that blends Fifty Shades of Grey (2015) and Eyes Wide Shut (1999) (maybe that’s just because of the lead actress, but there are… Read More ›
Andrew DeYoung’s cringe comedy “Friendship” provides endless joy. [TIFF]
In his first time writing and directing a feature, Andrew DeYoung manages to craft the quintessential perfectly unhinged cringe comedy of the 21st century, Friendship. It’s a movie that is so absolutely and unabashedly insane, it causes the audience to… Read More ›
Hoult, Law, and Sheridan enthrall in Justin Kurzel’s latest project, true crime thriller “The Order.” [TIFF]
From Zach Baylin, the writer of Creed III (2023), King Richard (2021), Gran Turismo (2023), Bob Marley: One Love (2024), and The Crow (2024), and Justin Kurzel, the director of Macbeth (2015) and Assassin’s Creed (2016), comes one of the… Read More ›
A strong cast cannot lift “The Last Showgirl” above its mundane tropes. [TIFF]
Movies are like baseball, three strikes and you’re out. Every artist has a bad outing or something that gets lost along the way, not communicated as intended to their audience, so benefit of the doubt has to be instilled. However,… 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 ›
Collective student Project “Mysterious Behaviors” utilizes sci-fi trappings to explore concepts of humanity. [NOFF]
The popular idiom “Many hands make light work,” first stated by John Heywood, is incredibly true, especially when working toward the same goal. Professional and large or amateur and small (or some combination), all film productions have some kind of… Read More ›
“Rowdy Friends” examines lives of varied risks and rewards. [NOFF]
“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 ›
“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 ›
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 ›
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 ›
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 ›
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 ›
Open Dialogue with “Jazzy” director Morrisa Maltz. [Nashville Film Festival]
EoM Senior Interviewer Thomas Manning recently attended the Nashville Film Festival on behalf of Meet Me at the Movies and sat down with director Morrisa Maltz to discuss her film Jazzy. Starring Jasmine Bearkiller Shangreaux as herself, Jazzy is a… Read More ›
Coming-of-age film “Bird” captures the drama of needing to grow up too soon. [TIFF]
In what could be described as a movie that lives in the same spiritual world as Daina Oniunas-Pusić’s Tuesday (2023), Andrea Arnold’s Bird, similar in vibes and tonal elements in storytelling, focuses on coming-of-age and growing up faster than needed… Read More ›
“The Shadow Strays” delivers on all aspects anticipated in filmmaker Timo Tjahjanto’s latest bloody crime action thriller. [TIFF]
If you’ve never heard of the name Timo Tjahjanto (The Night Comes for Us; The Big 4) then there is something you need to fix, immediately. One of the most exciting directors to exist today, he never misses and continues… Read More ›