While lying awake one night in the bedroom they share, Fabietto faces a question from older brother, Marchino: Would he rather have sex with their gorgeous, flirtatious Aunt Patrizia or have soccer legend Diego Maradona play for their hometown team. Ah, a conundrum made for a teenager. What else would a young man in 1980s […]
Single Mother by Choice
So how did you spend the pandemic? Did you launch a new side-hustle? Explore a new hobby? Bake an awful lot of bread? Selina Ringel had a baby, and co-wrote and starred in a movie. And did it all at once. Single Mother by Choice is the appealing, and impressive result. Directed and co-written by […]
Drive My Car
In some of the most effective storytelling, there is precision. Not just in the details, dialogue, and settings, but also in how a tale is told. In Drive My Car, celebrated filmmaker Ryûsuke Hamaguchi emphasizes the “how”, creating an elegant, reflective movie that moves beyond plot and conversation to examine – and enjoy – the […]
Outlier
“I’m only doing this for your own good.” Most of us first hear, and learn to distrust, those words as children. This is for my own good? Eating liver, sitting through Sunday school, going to this crummy sleepaway camp? No thanks. The line can be infuriating coming from a parent. It’s terrifying coming from a […]
Lotawana
Forrest has gone adrift – literally. Unsure of where he’s heading in life, he’s decided to head nowhere. Retreating to a small sailboat on a big Missouri lake, he meanders, living off his small savings and whatever catfish he can catch. And then he meets a pretty young woman, Everly. And things take a new, […]
Look Away, Look Away
Ah, sleepy, magnolia-scented Dixie. You know, old times there are not forgotten. And maybe that’s the problem. Patrick O’Connor’s documentary Look Away, Look Away takes a cold, clear-eyed look at the Deep South, race relations and cultural warfare. And keeps its focus by narrowing it down to one issue, the Confederate flag, and one place: […]
Implanted
Imagine that little voice from Google Maps lives inside your head. Except, instead of telling you when to turn left, it tells you everything. Go to sleep, Wake up. Eat lunch. Kill that man. Wait, what? That’s the idea behind Implanted, a smart movie from director Fabien Dufils that deftly mixes plausible science-fiction with Bourne […]
Hell or High Seas
Just because you’re out of uniform doesn’t mean you’re out of danger. The sad truth about our men and women in the armed services is that they’re more likely to die at home from suicide than on the battlefield from enemy fire. Every day, more than 20 veterans take their own lives. And that doesn’t […]
Eternals
Marvel Studios has a habit of handing the reins for its latest comic-book franchises to accomplished filmmakers whose previous work is mostly in indie film or TV. From James Gunn with Guardians of the Galaxy to Joss Whedon with The Avengers to Joe and Anthony Russo with Captain America: The Winter Soldier, this approach has […]
Marionette
Marionette has all the hallmarks of a horror movie: a creepy kid, a gloomy setting, and a central character with some serious baggage. Yet, the film is far more interested in psychological chills and philosophical musings than it is in jump scares or gore, an approach that mostly works in its favor. Based on co-writer […]
Ron’s Gone Wrong
Ron’s Gone Wrong arrives wrapped in a shiny package of bright animation and zany humor, but the filmmakers have more on their minds than showcasing the madcap adventures of a defective robot. The story is a combination of very of-the-moment observations about the potentially negative impacts of social media and a timeless message about friendship […]
Bergman Island
As Chris and Tony make their way from mainland Sweden to the beautiful shores of Fårö Island, there’s an unmistakable sense the journey is transportive. Maybe it’s the general difficulty of the trip – traversing narrow roads, locating a port, parking on a boat, and floating casually to the island – but it’s hard to […]
Needle in a Timestack
Nick (Leslie Odom, Jr.) and Janine (Cynthia Erivo) are deeply in love – or at least that’s what Needle in a Timestack wants us to believe. The couple lives in a near-future where time travel is not only possible but something the rich do for fun. This leads to so-called “time shifts” that change the […]
Mass
There are few topics more galling and volatile than gun violence, no emotional terrain more ravaging than the murder of a child, and no venue more uncomfortable to explore all of the above than a small, sterile room. In a feat that is equal parts daring and frustrating, Mass centers both its narrative and its […]
The Way
Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage. But they can make a smart idea for a pandemic movie. Limited characters, small settings and lots of alone time – what makes incarceration so soul-numbing can also make a script easier to shoot under Covid restrictions. And not only do those limits […]
Another Girl
In the world of social media, it’s all about authenticity – and learning how to fake it. These days online, it’s not the person who matters, but the persona. That’s one of the main messages of Another Girl, a dark drama from Allison Burnett. Who’s the real person at the other end of a tweet? […]
Mayday
The young women at the center of Mayday lure men to their deaths by broadcasting distress calls over the radio of the grounded submarine they call home. However, when the men set off to save them, they quickly find they’re the ones who need help. Their shouts of terror sound over the radio until there’s […]
Dear Evan Hansen
A film adaptation of Broadway sensation Dear Evan Hansen was likely inevitable, but on the basis of the resulting film, perhaps the forthcoming reckoning was just as inevitable. Not only is this particular musical difficult to translate in a cinematic context, its basic story represents such a dangerous tonal balance, regardless of the medium, that […]
Lady of the Manor
Lady of the Manor is the slight but funny feature directorial debut of actor Justin Long (New Girl, Live Free or Die Hard) and his brother Christian Long, who also wrote the script together. A Savannah-set comedy in which willful slacker Hannah (Melanie Lynskey) is forced to change her ways by the ghost of Lady […]
Prisoners of the Ghostland
The work of Nicolas Cage brings to mind a sort of gonzo, off-kilter approach to characters that has solidified him in the hearts of fans everywhere, even when he’s taken parts in movies that aren’t nearly as good as he is. So Cage should be the perfect choice to lead idiosyncratic Japanese auteur Sion Sono’s […]