As I have grown in press credentials and professional affiliations nationally, I have found myself landing in circles with other film critics of various levels. Recently, I was included in a poll for voting critics for Jordan Ruimy of World of Reel, a fellow Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic. His survey was to collect picks for the best films of Steven Soderbergh from over 100 critics and other industry folk.
Read MoreStarring the multi-talented Lilly Singh, the sex farce comedy flies a bunting’s worth of freak flags, all of them willfully fluttering with pride and wantonness in the face of pearl-clutching prudeness and opposition. While it stumps for modernity to do away with antiquated thinking on a few topics, Doin’ It also turns back the clock to bring back a downright horny level of raunch, a tone setting long abandoned by studios and missed by plenty of audiences.
Read MoreTrue to the old recipe, the improvisational nature of the conversations and interactions shows its essentialness for the cast and storytellers. For the audience who has missed the casualness of this style, The Baltimorons is comfort food not unlike the hearty plates both these characters wouldn’t mind partaking in with loved ones before the day is out.
Read MoreMissing children are an unsettling movie crisis, often rapt in thriller-sized peril. The helplessness is crippling, even if a happy ending arrives. As well, the fear and uncertainty hit very close to home, even if the viewer is not a parent themselves. More often than not, films about missing or kidnapped children amplify the danger to an exasperating and overwrought level. Stranger Eyes encapsulates the aforementioned proliferating dangers in an almost entrancing, methodical way
Read MoreAs I have grown in press credentials and professional affiliations nationally, I have found myself landing in circles with other film critics of various levels. Recently, I was included in a poll for voting critics for Jordan Ruimy of World of Reel, a fellow Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic. His survey was to collect picks for the best films of the Coen Brothers from over 120 critics and other industry folk
Read MoreThe Knife’s suspense stirs from the thoroughness on display inside and outside of the film’s events. Getting involved with every character, Melissa Leo is granted an excellent showcase, prying truths from lies and pushing this plot along, proving, once again, her sizable screen presence in the right role. For her detective, specifics and details matter, and the screenplay from Asomugha and prolific writer/actor Mark Duplass masks them in a taut and efficient movie
Read MoreThe hypothetical consideration of time traveling for love, even in this medically induced manner of Daniela Forever, carries an instant appeal. That commonality of challenging the human condition of mortality in favor of romance has tickled our brains and pulled our heartstrings before in movies, big and small.
Read MoreHomage was clearly the goal of Danny Turkiewicz with Stealing Pulp Fiction. Matching Tarantino, our two leads of Rudnitsky and Soni are a mismatched pair of buddies with loser exteriors and ambitious interiors with their own acronym-filled lingo and hangout vibe. Jonathan and Steve are a pair classic QT chatty Cathys who incessantly talk and finish each other’s sentence. Choosing some easy traits to match, the movie is edited into several titled chapter sections, includes similar musical cues, and emulates some of the framing and slow-motion camera moves of Quentin’s motifs and techniques.
Read MoreFilming for Familiar Touch was done in collaboration with the residents and staff of Villa Gardens Continuing Care Retirement Community in New York. Backed by casting agent Betsy Fippinger (Eighth Grade and Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret), 67 residents, 13 staff members, and 12 caregiving and geriatrician consultants were credited for their involvement in making the movie, granting a tangible and uplifting authenticity that we’re being shown a positive standard of care and not an entirely sugarcoated movie version, just to perk up a plot with conflict.
Read MoreOne could go on and on, playing out those hypothetical scenarios and more after the movie. If you can reach this plane of empathetic understanding through the abnormal twists and turns of The Life of Chuck, you have found yourself one marvelous movie. If you can’t, or swaying between bliss and death makes you cynical or uncomfortable, you might be a little dead inside. That’ll be on you and not Mike Flanagan.
Read MoreNormally, one confidential love affair is all a movie needs to emphasize and feature to get that desired effect. Based on Shannon Pufahl’s 2019 page-turner, On Swift Horses dangles as many as four. While promiscuity or parallel threads do not have to be frowned upon from a movie standpoint, four dangling possibilities prove too many for veteran television director Daniel Minahan stepping up to feature films.
Read MoreAs a short film, Death is Business dips its toe into the seedy underworld of murder-for-hire. For the specific and highly coordinated type of crime being committed on screen, the toe being dipped isn’t coming out explicitly bloody. It may even look stylishly clean, but make no mistake, there is an unchecked dirtiness clinging to the extremities. With an intellectual meticulousness matching its felonious acts, Dirty Business puts diabolic impetuses under an intriguing microscope.
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