Posted in: Review

Randy Rhoads: Reflections of a Guitar Icon

Randy Rhoads was not supposed to die young. The shredding, heavy-metal guitarist barely drank. He really didn’t do drugs (his biggest vice was cigarettes). He loved his Mom, had a longtime girlfriend, and spent his spare time endlessly practicing acoustic guitar. So when he died, at age 25, in a plane crash – trying to […]

Posted in: Review

Murder, Anyone?

Murder, Anyone? is a movie about two people trying to write a movie called Murder, Anyone? It’s a tricky, inside-out idea that ends up being more fun than you’d expect. The story, by the late Gordon Bressack, features two aging writers, George and Charlie. They’ve decided to write an “avant-garde, surrealistic, mind-bending, neo-noir thriller.” But […]

Posted in: Review

You Resemble Me

Terrorists aren’t born. They’re made. But how? The fascinating drama You Resemble Me has some ideas. Bring a child into a poor, dysfunctional, on-the-fringes family. Have her grow up beaten and bouncing around foster care. Add in sexual abuse, and then a drift into prostitution and drugs. And then let her watch, riveted, as a […]

Posted in: Review

I’ll Find You

The movie — about a wartime romance, a wrenching separation, and a tireless quest – is called I’ll Find You. But the truly interesting discovery at its heart —at least, potentially — is the reappearance of its director. Martha Coolidge made her debut in the 1970s, when female filmmakers weren’t just criminally underrepresented – like […]

Posted in: Review

The Valet

They’re the people you don’t see. They clean your home and watch your kids. They mow your lawn and deliver your food. They’re not truly invisible, obviously. But do you ever really look them in the eye? The Valet gives one of them a starring role. Antonio is a parking attendant in Los Angeles and […]

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Forbearance

Crises test our characters. But they reveal them, too. Josh and Callie Sunbury have been married for twenty-odd years, and they’ve fallen into a routine. He works a hated factory job, while trying to keep his family’s small Idaho farm afloat. She teaches at the local high school. They barely talk except to argue. And […]

Posted in: Review

Sunspot

Just how minimalist can a film get before it begins to disappear? That’s the high-stakes risk Mark Mihok seems to be taking in Sunspot, a movie which strips away all non-essentials. A few essentials too, perhaps, as it pares itself down to nearly nothing. Set in small-town New York, the film boasts a diverse cast […]

Posted in: Review

Eradication

The oddest, and perhaps longest lasting, after-effect of Covid has been the “pandemic pictures.” You know them within five minutes. Remote locations and limited sets. Small casts of characters and no crowd scenes. Lots of people talking on Zoom. They can be comedies, dramas or horror films. They can inventive, or they can be forced. […]

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