Film Reviews
Saint Maud Is Wholly Terrifying: Review
This review was originally part of our coverage of the 2020 Beyond Film Festival. The Pitch: Maud (Morfydd Clark) does palliative care for a private healthcare facility and becomes the maid for Amanda (Jennifer Ehle), a former avant garde dancer and choreographer. Maud has found God following a traumatic event at work, hinted at through flashbacks and haunting visions, and has now taken a pious approach to work that borders on fanaticism. Faced with antagonism from Amanda, Maud slowly spirals more and more into religious fueled actions and experiences — talked to and touched by God — that will lead to a string of actions that have an irreversible impact and her and those around her. This Cast and Crew Are Doing the Lord’s Work: British writer and director Rose Glass boldly shows off her ch...
The Reckoning Is Neil Marshall’s Biggest Whiff Yet: Review
This review was originally part of our coverage of the 2020 Beyond Film Festival. The Pitch: It’s late 17th century England, and although the plague is no longer running as rampant as it once was, a new pandemic has taken over: witchcraft. The era of scapegoating women for anything and everything is prevalent and the main conflict in The Reckoning. Grace Haverstock’s husband has committed suicide, himself afflicted with the plague, and has left Grace and their newborn daughter to care for their small farm. When she falls behind on rent, her landlord attacks her and suggests she make payment with sexual favors. Grace spurns his advances. With his fragile male ego damaged, he accuses her of witchcraft, and Grace is put into bondage and undergoes a series of physical and psychological torture...
Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga Steal the Screen In Passing: Sundance 2021 Review
This review is part of our Sundance 2021 coverage. The Pitch: Based on Nella Larsen’s 1929 novel of the same name, Passing follows Irene (Tessa Thompson) and Clare (Ruth Negga), two mixed-race women who can walk through life passing for white. While Clare revels in this, Irene wears it with disdain, and when the duo reunite, all hell breaks loose up in Harlem. The Standout: It’s like director Rebecca Hall knew 2021 would be the perfect time to premiere her debut film at Sundance. Her first feature tackles the issue of colorism–something that’s so pervasive and transparent now more than ever. It’s a subject that’s previously been explored in films such as Queen, Imitation of Life, School Daze, and Skin, but Passing stands out by compounding the challenges of colorism and the violence of the...
Viggo Mortensen’s Falling Is Exhausting: Review
This review was originally part of our coverage of the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival. The Pitch: In Viggo Mortensen’s directorial debut, gay Air Force pilot John (Mortensen) struggles to care for his ailing conservative father, Willis (Lance Henriksen). Malcontent and never afraid to shy away from a racist, homophobic or sexist rant, Willis offends everyone from John’s husband Eric (Terry Chen) to his daughter Sarah (Laura Linney), all while he slips in and out of flashbacks, including his two marriages to wives Gwen (Hannah Gross) and Jill (Bracken Burns). Grumpy Old Man: Early in Falling, as the relationship between John and Willis is being established, it’s clear that Henriksen is exceptional in the role. Willis is the kind of curmudgeonly character whose edges are too often ...
PVT CHAT Gets Kink Right: Review
This review was originally part of our Fantasia Festival 2020 coverage. The Pitch: Jack (Peter Vack) is a lonely boy in the big city. He lives in a rundown apartment—the only kind anyone can afford in New York City–where his windows are duct-taped over and his day-to-day involves either bowls of Maruchan ramen or online poker games. But he also engages in BDSM scenes with a number of cam girls, and one in particular has caught his eye. Enter Scarlet (Julia Fox), who dominates Jack from afar, making him a human ashtray as smoke billows out from her big beautiful lips. As time ticks away and more and more money is dropped, Jack and Julia begin to connect on a deeper level, a connection that sets both parties up for twists that audiences will never see coming. I’ll Always Love You New York: W...
John and the Hole Works Best as a Series of Vignettes: Sundance 2021 Review
This review is part of our Sundance 2021 coverage. The Pitch: A wealthy nuclear family comprised of father Brad (Michael C. Hall), mother Anna (Jennifer Ehle) and teen daughter Laurie (Taissa Farmiga) awaken one morning to discover youngest child John (Charlie Shotwell) has drugged and abandoned them in an underground bunker in the middle of the woods. As sociopath John explores and rejects the responsibilities of maintaining the family home and eluding detection by friends and the police, his family is forced to bond together for survival. In time, they all must accept the truth that none of them truly paid attention to the lives of the others before this ordeal. Elegant Decadence: John and the Hole is an elegant feature debut from visual artist Pascual Sisto. In addition to sweeping dron...
Ben Wheatley’s In The Earth Is a Surprising De Facto Sequel to Annihilation: Review
This review is part of our Sundance 2021 coverage. The Pitch: In The Earth is Ben Wheatley’s welcome return to horror after last year’s Rebecca, his disappointing foray into Netflix-approved gothic romance. The film follows city dwelling scientist Dr Martin Lowery (Joel Fry) and intrepid park scout Alma (Ellora Torchia) as they set out on foot through the Arboreal Forest to investigate the welfare of his colleague Dr. Olivia Wendle (Hayley Squires), who has been radio silent for months. After Martin injures his foot, the pair seek help from Zac (Reece Shearsmith), an enigmatic recluse who has been living illegally in the forest. It quickly becomes clear that not all is right and the pair lose their sense of time and become increasingly disoriented. A dangerous discovery reveals that their ...
Edgar Wright’s The Sparks Brothers Crams 50 Years of Art Pop Into Two Giddy Hours: Sundance 2021 Review
This review is part of our Sundance 2021 coverage. The Pitch: Sparks has been around for just shy of 50 years, and have influenced just about every major pop act since the 1970s –from New Order to Weird Al Yankovic. They’re one of the greatest bands of all time, but you probably haven’t heard of them. That is, of course, unless you’re Edgar Wright, pop culture vagabond and Sparks superfan, who brings his giddy, high-tilt cinematic energy to a two-and-a-half-hour chronicle of two California-born brothers who made it to the top of the pop charts, and have spent the last several decades reinventing themselves with every new album and experimentation. Along the way, he talks to artists and fans who’ve grown up with their work (Jason Schwartzman, Amy Sherman-Palladino, Fred Armisen), and i...
Jerrod Carmichael’s On the Count of Three Is A Harsh and Bold Bromance: Sundance 2021 Review
This review is part of our Sundance 2021 coverage. The Pitch: Longtime best buddies Val (Jerrod Carmichael) and Kevin (Christopher Abbott) love each other about as much as they hate living. The latter is in a mental institution after his latest in a lifetime of attempts to kill himself; the former is deeply depressed, with a dead-end job and a fractious relationship with girlfriend Tasha (Tiffany Haddish). After Val breaks Kevin out of the joint, they hatch a scheme: live one last day to the fullest, finish their business, then shoot each other at the same time with a pair of handguns Val picked up. It’s a murder-suicide pact born of a lifetime of trauma and love, and that bond will be tested in more ways than one by the time the day is done. It’s a Great Day to Be Alive: Directo...
Knocking Offers Plenty of Style, But Not Nearly Enough Narrative: Sundance 2021 Review
This review is part of our Sundance 2021 coverage. The Pitch: After a traumatic incident involving her girlfriend Judith (Charlotta Åkerblom), Molly (Cecilia Milocco) emerges from a one-year stint in a psychiatric ward, ready to rejoin the world. She moves into a housing development, but almost immediately, her life is disrupted by a strange knocking from the floor above. No one – not super Peter (Krister Kern), not shifty neighbors Kaj (Ville Virtanen) or Per (Albin Grenholm) — believe her. As the knocking persists, Molly’s paranoia increases as her grip on reality decreases. Is the knocking a cry for help or has she lost her mind? Familiar Territory: Knocking is an adaptation of Swedish novelist Johan Theorin’s text of the same name (his work was previously adapted into 2013’s Echoes Fro...
Summer of Soul Is Questlove’s Thrumming Ode to Black Music and Culture: Sundance 2021 Review
This review is part of our Sundance 2021 coverage. The Pitch: In 1969, the same summer as Woodstock, a different music festival played just 100 miles away in Harlem. It was the third annual Harlem Culture Festival, a weeks-long celebration of soul, Motown, blues, and gospel where nearly 300,000 people gathered and celebrated the sounds of Stevie Wonder, Mavis Staples, Nina Simone, and a host of other Black artists at the time. But the festival was more than, as it would be haphazardly marketed, the “Black Woodstock”. It was a nexus around which so many facets of Black life at the time would intersect, from Afrocentrism to the Black Panthers (who would provide security for the event) to the renewed reclaiming of the word “Black” to identify themselves in print and in person. The music ...
Censor Is A Hallucinatory Look at the 1980s Video Nasty Phenomenon: Sundance 2021 Review
This review is part of our Sundance 2021 coverage. The Pitch: Enid Baines (Niamh Algar) is an uptight film censor with a tragic past. After becoming embroiled in a murder scandal that the press link to a violent horror film she edited, Enid becomes obsessed with Alice Lee (Sophia La Porta), an actress who bears a striking resemblance to her missing sister, Nina. Her pursuit of Alice leads Enid into the shadowy world of underground horror films and the company of questionable men like smarmy producer Doug Smart (Michael Smiley) and director Frederick North (Adrian Schiller). As Enid’s obsessive hunt for the truth intensifies, she begins to lose track of what is real and what is a movie as both her sanity and her life come under threat. Video Nasty: The most intriguing aspect of Censor is ho...
