Film Reviews
Nobody Is the Premier Dad Film of 2021: Review
The Pitch: Hutch Mansell’s the name, and accounting is his game. Bob Odenkirk is Mansell, a five o’clock shadow of a human being, working in a warehouse as the back-office calculator. He drones day in and day out, running the numbers for louder and more macho men. His son hates him. His wife sleeps with a pillow between them. His life is the very model of suburban repression and depression, but beneath the pale exterior lies a sleeping giant. Prior to accountancy, Hutch was a homicidal “accountant” for “all the places with acronym names”, as he puts it. He was once a veritable James Bond, with an affinity for swift completions and anonymity. Now, no more. It’s all Restoration Hardware décor and vinyl collections for lame old Hutch. But where most men spend their midlife crises on cars, boa...
The Spine of Night Is a Gory, Retro Throwback to Ralph Bakshi: SXSW Review
Editor’s Note: The following review is part of our coverage of the 2021 South by Southwest Film Festival. Stay tuned for further reviews straight outta Austin — well, virtually, of course. Below, Clint Worthington reviews Philip Gelatta and Morgan Galen King’s animated fantasy horror. The Pitch: In a mysterious fantasy world, an enchanted flower known as The Bloom holds the secret to many dark and powerful magicks. The tale of the Bloom, and its effect on the many inhabitants of this strange land, is told by a nearly-naked swamp witch named Tzod (Lucy Lawless) to the flower’s enigmatic Guardian (Richard E. Grant) atop a snow-capped mountain. Among her many tales are heroes and villains, religious zealots and diligent scholars, and buckets of blood and shattered bone along th...
Delia Derbyshire: The Myths and the Legendary Tapes Is A Beautiful, But Disappointing Tribute: SXSW Review
Editor’s Note: The following review is part of our coverage of the 2021 South by Southwest Film Festival. Stay tuned for further reviews straight outta Austin — well, virtually, of course. Below, Rachel Reeves checks out Caroline Catz’ experimental documentary on electronic wunderkind Delia Derbyshire. The Pitch: In 1962, Delia Derbyshire began working at the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop. While many employees ended up being assigned to the department out of necessity, Derbyshire requested it. Fueled by her continual fascination with mathematics, music, sound, nature and the way they interact, Derbyshire was on a mission to create new and usual sounds. While best known for her contributions to the iconic Doctor Who theme song, it’s her hefty influence on the world of electronic musi...
Jakob’s Wife Sinks Its Fangs Into a Complicated Feminist Message: SXSW Review
Editor’s Note: The following review is part of our coverage of the 2021 South by Southwest Film Festival. Stay tuned for further reviews straight outta Austin — well, virtually, of course. Below, Jenn Adams dances in the darkness with Barbara Crampton’s latest feature. The Pitch: Anne Fedder (Barbara Crampton) is the epitome of a church mouse. Married to Pastor Jakob Fedder (Larry Fessenden), she dutifully stands by his side as he cares for his flock and listens to his sermons on what a good wife should be. But something strange is happening to Anne. She’s got a new look, a newfound swagger, a new bite mark on her neck and a new thirst for blood. During a clandestine tryst with a former flame, Anne is attacked by a vampire and begins to transform into one herself. Rather than fea...
Charli XCX’s Alone Together Is a Cyber-Dusted Love Letter To Her Fans: SXSW Review
Editor’s Note: The following review is part of our coverage of the 2021 South by Southwest Film Festival. Stay tuned for further reviews straight outta Austin — well, virtually, of course. Below, Rachel Reeves checks out Charli XCX’s new doc. The Pitch: Charli XCX, born Charlotte Aitchison, has never been an artist to play by conventional industry rules. Ever since she began posting songs on MySpace in 2008, her avant-garde approach to pop music has rallied fans and defied common practice. Collaborating with everyone from Iggy Azalea, Carly Rae Jepsen and Troye Sivian to Dorian Electra, Brooke Candy and Sophie, her genre-defying sound and conscious approach to inclusivity quickly resulted in a passionate LGBTQIA+ forward fanbase. Then, just as she was wrapping up her 2019 arena-p...
Offseason Is a Terrifying Road Trip to Nowhere: SXSW Review
Editor’s Note: The following review is part of our coverage of the 2021 South by Southwest Film Festival. Stay tuned for further reviews straight outta Austin — well, virtually, of course. Below, Jenn Adams covers Mickey Keating’s spooky new feature. The Pitch: There’s something mysterious about Lone Palm Island. Marie Aldrich (Jocelin Donahue) and her friend George (Joe Swanberg) head to the island community after receiving a letter from the caretaker of her mother’s grave notifying her that it’s been vandalized. They arrive to find the island closed to tourists for the offseason, not to reopen until Spring. While searching for answers, and for the mysterious caretaker, Marie and George realize they may be the latest to fall into a horrific trap spanning generations. Mickey Keat...
Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched Is a Comprehensive, Spellbinding Folk Horror Doc: SXSW Review
Editor’s Note: The following review is part of our coverage of the 2021 South by Southwest Film Festival. Stay tuned for further reviews straight outta Austin — well, virtually, of course. Below, Clint Worthington learns all about folk horror. The Pitch: The history of folk horror is far richer and more expansive than is typically thought of by horror neophytes: More than The Wicker Man and Midsommar, folk horror has its roots all the way back to the 18th century and extends beyond the Anglocentric perspectives of ’70s British horror film fans. Director Kier-La Janisse knows this, and in Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched, she’ll show you an entire syllabus’ worth of cinematic folk horror from across nations, time periods, and forms of media (folk horror exists on T...
Demi Lovato Shares Hard Truths In Dancing With the Devil: SXSW Review
Editor’s Note: The following review is as part of our coverage of the 2021 South by Southwest Film Festival. Stay tuned for further reviews straight outta Austin — well, virtually, of course. Below, Jenn Adams kicks things off with Demi Lovato’s tragic new documentary. The Pitch: In 2018, singer/songwriter Demi Lovato suffered a near-fatal overdose on drugs and alcohol. She survived, but just barely. This followed six years of very public sobriety in which she was often held up as a poster child for addiction and recovery, a dangerous variation of her childhood spent as the literal poster child for Disney perfection. Directed by Michael D. Ratner, Dancing With the Devil is an honest and unflinching account of her relapse, overdose, and recovery and an open discussion of the sexual assault,...
Tom Petty Breezes Through His Wildflowers Era in Somewhere You Feel Free: SXSW Review
Editor’s Note: The following review is as part of our coverage of the 2021 South by Southwest Film Festival. Stay tuned for further reviews straight outta Austin — well, virtually, of course. Below, Clint Worthington reviews Mary Wharton’s Tom Petty documentary. The Pitch: While Tom Petty’s work with The Heartbreakers gave us some of the most iconic country-rock tunes of the past half-century, Petty purists likely cite his second solo album, 1994’s Wildflowers, as his arguable creative apex. But for all the relaxed charms of songs like “You Wreck Me” and “Only a Broken Heart”, the album was made at a particularly tumultuous time for the artist, including creative struggles with MCA, clashes with Heartbreakers drummer Stan Lynch, and the end of his first marriage. While Petty...
Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché Is Hardly Cliché: SXSW Review
Editor’s Note: The following review is as part of our coverage of the 2021 South by Southwest Film Festival. Stay tuned for further reviews straight outta Austin — well, virtually, of course. Below, Rachel Reeves checks out the new rock doc on Poly Styrene. The Pitch: Marianne Elliott-Said, aka Poly Styrene, is a punk rock icon. She was the first woman of color to front a successful UK punk band. She defied stereotypes and inspired countless women to do the same. She was also a highly flawed individual who struggled with mental health issues, a misogynistic industry, her personal identity and relationships. She was all of these things and so much more. Now, years after her passing, Styrene’s daughter Celeste Bell and co-director Paul Sng have released an incredibly personal tribute to...
Zack Snyder’s Justice League Is An Audacious Mess: Review
The Pitch: Well, it’s finally here: the infamous “Snyder Cut.” The rallying cry of DC fanboys for nearly half a decade, Zack Snyder’s original version of the DC cinematic universe’s Avengers equivalent before studio meddling and a tragic death in the family led the oft-maligned director to step away and let Joss Whedon get his grubby, quippy little hands all over his self-serious, baroque baby. The 2017 version was visibly, obnoxiously, the product of two directors with warring approaches wrestling with a single project: Snyderesque aesthetics clashed mightily with repetitive, snarky repartee that didn’t seem to befit the DC verse’s grumpiest heroes. It was a bit more fun, but incredibly uneven, and featured one of cinema’s most horrifying upper lips. But now, amid enormous, organized...
Kid 90 Is A Personal Portrait of ’90s Teen Celebrity: Review
The Pitch: Comprised almost entirely of home video tapes, audio recordings, and journal entries — interspersed with interviews conducted in the present day — ’90s child star Soleil Moon Frye reflects on her star-studded upbringing in Hollywood and grapples with the nature of growing up in front of the camera as she unearths firsthand accounts of stardom from her youth. Teen Idol: At the risk of speaking too soon, 2021 seems like the year of documentaries about young women growing up in the spotlight. There was Framing Britney Spears, Billie Eilish’s The World’s a Little Blurry, and now kid 90. Though they have the same subject matter, they each tackle coming-of-age for young women in the limelight through three drastically different points of view. Kid 90, crucially, is directed by Frye he...
