Posted in: Review

Donna: Stronger Than Pretty

When Donna and Nick got married, they pledged to be together forever, for richer or poorer, for better or worse. Except it gets worse pretty quickly. Unfortunately, so does their movie. And unlike Donna, audiences are unlikely to stick around, hoping it’s going to get better again. Donna: Stronger Than Pretty is a portrait of […]

Posted in: Review

Wander

You’d better pray Arthur Breznik is crazy.  Because otherwise, we’re in real trouble. An ex-detective with post-traumatic stress, Arthur’s currently living way off the grid and battling bad dreams and horrific hallucinations. He’s also convinced there’s a government conspiracy to kidnap people and implant them with tracking devices. But, you know, just because he’s a […]

Posted in: Review

The Sounding

What do you call it when you keep trying to fix something even when it isn’t broken? In The Sounding, you call it psychiatry. A strikingly unique debut from director and star Catherine Eaton, it’s the moving story of Olivia, a 30-something woman who doesn’t speak. She can, of course. There’s been no physical injury, […]

Posted in: Review

Shooting Heroin

When you see what most “faith-based” films turn out like, it’s a sin. Modestly budgeted indies made for church-going audiences, their aims are small and their methods predictable. They star a publicly devout actor. They have a central tragedy, which makes the hero question his faith. And then he finds it again, and all is […]

Posted in: Review

Toss It

The romantic comedy Toss It starts with someone flipping a coin – but ultimately it’s the audience that’s the loser. The lead actress is unappealingly cold. The script is overly talky. And the director seems unsure of how to help the star, or the screenwriter, solve their problems. Of course, the fact that the director […]

Posted in: Review

Burning Dog

Video games are not movies, but a lot of movie makers haven’t gotten the message. Every so often, directors still try to turn at-home entertainment into an in-theater event. Problem is, they’re different things meant for different audiences. Film fans love movies that tell them a story. Gamers like to tell the story themselves. Burning […]

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Chameleon

Almost anyone is capable of anything, and in noir, they’re always capable of much worse. More of a mood than a genre, film noir is filled with sadistic husbands, femme fatales and poor jerks who always get left holding the bag. There are no happy endings. Sometimes there’s barely an ending at all. The tight, […]

Posted in: Review

Champs

It’s the only sport that matters. Feverish fans of hockey, football, baseball and basketball can argue all they want, of course. But  boxing is fundamentally different. Two warriors enter a ring. One walks out victorious. The other may not walk out at all. It’s stakes like that which give the sport its savage excitement, a […]

Posted in: Review

Holy Lands

Holy Lands isn’t a bad movie. It’s four mediocre movies mixed together. There’s the fish-out-of-water film. There’s the cranky-old-performer/Oscar-bait film. There’s the dysfunctional family film. There’s the lightly literary art film. Except in this case, the total is less than the sum of its parts. Directed and written by Amanda Sthers, adapting her own novel […]

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