The A24 studio has become exponentially popular over the last decade, particularly within the horror genre, by offering opportunities to inexperienced filmmakers to venture into the field with original stories that are less accessible to mainstream audiences. But before A24, there was IFC Films and its secondary label, IFC Midnight, …
The documentary genre is well acquainted with the strangest facets of the human experience, but *smiles and kisses you* – the sophomore documentary feature from director Brian Carberry – broaches an unorthodox relationship with an almost reckless candor. The film follows Chris, a 36-year-old gas station cashier in rural North …
Stories of young adulthood’s unique growing pains are familiar fodder for feature films, and writer, director, and film editor Axel Cheb Terrab’s first feature Gala & Kiwi is a startling, rough-around-the-edges look at a friendship gone awry in these turbulent years. This time of life immediately after leaving one’s family …
After opening with a quote from Herman Hesse’s famous novel of social and spiritual isolation, Steppenwolf – the latest from director Adilkhan Yerzhanov – moves away from the German-Swiss author’s work that shares its name into another interpretation of “a wolf of the steppes.” This takes the form of an …
All cinephiles have certain filmmakers or actors whose names alone are enough to make us sit in any theater or couch without knowing anything else about the film. Elizabeth Olsen (Captain America: Civil War) is that celebrity for me, as I consider her one of the best actresses of her …
Well there, Circle Fam, it’s that special occasion that only rolls around twice a year; that’s right, a new season of Netflix’s The Circle is just around the corner! Everyone’s favorite social media competition is back with 13 new episodes full of twists and turns. What’s at stake? Only 100,000 …
I often state that I don’t have a least favorite genre. I enjoy all kinds of filmmaking and storytelling styles, but that doesn’t mean I have the same knowledge and experience with every genre. Westerns, for example, perhaps due to the lower number of annual new releases, aren’t films one …
Greg Kwedar’s Sing Sing opens from the wings of a theatre. The camera moves hazily through sparkling streamers hanging from the stage ceiling before emerging on John “Divine G” Whitfield (Colman Domingo) performing a monologue from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Rapturous applause breaks out, and the entire cast joins …
One of the most devastating issues society is facing today is gun violence. It strips away the sense of safety and security from communities, tearing families apart and causing long-lasting trauma to survivors. There have been several movies and TV shows depicting how gun violence can be so lethal for …
The empty nest is notoriously difficult for parents to deal with, but My Everything (Mon Inséparable) has taken a fresh angle to this ordinary dilemma: the adult son who’s ready to flee the coop has an intellectual disability. Joël (Charles Peccia Galletto) is in his late twenties/early thirties and lives …
One of the quintessential members of the newest Brazilian cinema, the movement of authors, was the renovation of filmmakers working with diverse topics and smaller budgets. Karim Aïnouz built a reputation for himself. His melodramatic tropes resembling Douglas Sirk and Fassbinder added to his decisive colors and narrative construction of …
Although only a few short films manage to capture the depth of human emotion, Danielle Baynes’ latest film The Dog does that work impeccably. The short movie takes the viewers on an emotional ride and talks about a subject that is not tackled frequently in conventional cinema. It recently screened …
It’s a difficult thing to create and maintain dread in a narrative. Horror takes many shapes and approaches, but the best of horror films can dig in under your skin, and take hold of a part of you. Cuckoo is a film like this, that slowly but surely digs into …
In mega-popular franchises like Alien, it’s common to have a primary filmmaker whose role can either be to continue as a director or to shift into a producer role, serving as a sort of supervisor of the original vision of the saga. Ridley Scott is that person, starting in 1979 …
About two weeks ago, Netflix released yet another original flick titled The Union. In my review of that film, I mentioned that it exemplified the worst characteristics often associated with the term “Netflix flick,” which carries a rather negative connotation, at least in the online world. This problem isn’t exclusive …
“Nature has a way of showing you who you really are.” It’s a simple truth, if a little on the nose for a survival horror film that pits people against nature with bloody consequences, but it’s still true. It’s also a fair way to describe director Adam MacDonald’s latest film, …
“The most detestable habit in all modern cinema is the homage. I don’t want to see another goddamn homage in anybody’s movie. There are enough of them when you’re unconscious.” – Orson Welles, 1982 Fede Alvarez’s Alien: Romulus is a competently made movie. It has some of the most stunning cinematography …
At this point in my life, I’ve seen so many horror films and series that nothing surprises me. There are so many horror films on the scene nowadays, and the twists they attempt to present can be boiled down to the basics of storytelling. They become predictable, which isn’t necessarily …
Rally festival is a new spot on the festival circuit, permanently cursed to take place on the one wet day in August – based in the small Southwark park, its two main stages and two DJ venues provide a welcome respite from those brave enough to not only venture down in …
Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice screened out of competition at the 81st Venice International Film Festival on August 28, 2024. There are few directors in which can truly be accredited with the title of ‘auteur’, but Tim Burton, with his affinity for the macabre, can be called just that. Over a …