The grand searches for meaning and the combination of their little ventures are not quite expressive or poignant enough to sear hearts and call upon the need to tug on the tissues, despite a promising effort from Julia Stiles taking on a new role in her lifelong medium. While Wish You Were Here may not fully succeed for many, she deserves more chances in the big chair.
Read MoreAs the flashbacks thicken the ugly and sordid details, every call for caution is correct, and every sincere attempt at concern is warranted. But, with every chewed fingernail of unchecked nerves, Jane refuses to talk or share any shred of explanation. Through its sobering effort to present an always-successful-until-now young woman carrying unhealed pain, Disfluency sheds light on an ominous emotional burden far too many people have experienced and far too many people have sought to carry silently.
Read MoreWhat could possibly hurt the good intentions and try-hard effort of Autumn and the Black Jaguar? The answer, unfortunately, manifests in one abundantly blunt place. It’s the insertion of a distracting supporting character that steals the oxygen and becomes the movie’s regrettably more dominant mouthpiece.
Read MoreCount Somewhere in Montana writer-director Brandon Smith as a wiser gentleman who avoided, for the most part, reaching for those types of low-hanging fruit. These featured men are surprisingly deeper than their outward tropes, and their qualities thicken, ever so slightly, what could have been a narrow movie.
Read MoreBy Ross’s own words, the camera intensifies objectivity and that speaks volumes for Nickel Boys. Its well-executed impact begs audiences to become further informed on the tragedy after finishing the film. In the end, we cannot let go of what the eyes and arms want, especially if those needs cannot be attained due to the grim circumstances of the story. Better than many works by peers and contemporaries, Nickel Boys longs for us to hold dear the bonds of protective brotherhood with a fascinating filmic experience.
Read MoreThis past fall, the eclectic western Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Illinois put on their inaugural film festival. The Oak Park, Illinois Film Festival. Divided into five thematic programming blocks, the festival organizers and leading board members curated a total of 17 films. Three of them were feature-length, and two of those were documentaries. Holding firm to local roots, each film entry had to have an Oak Park connect in front of or behind the camera to be eligible.
Read MoreThe narratives are constructed to build these tipping points of success with suspense. If the journey has been framed right, the characters have earned their chance at rewards from their exhaustive hard work and preparation. Likewise, viewers come to sports films for those cathartic moments of satisfaction and savor their inspiration power long after. Rachel Morrison’s The Fire Inside follows that very finely-tuned trajectory but does something different with its cinematic stamina and steadfast platform.
Read MoreUnlike other biopics which love to end on jubilant peaks of superstardom, A Complete Unknown rests on the aforementioned anti-victory of a future greatest hit met with fan derision. That contemptuous exclamation point couldn’t be more appropriate for the main subject. At that time, misunderstood fans didn’t know what they had—and still have with the man still writing songs and touring today in his 80s. Thanks to the sensational flair of Chalamet and Barbaro crooning and swooning, A Complete Unknown won’t let old purists and new fans make that previous mistake.
Read MoreStrong with the aforementioned wisdom and historical truth channeled through Medina, Los Frikis was unafraid to present the squalor the brothers rose from and, unfortunately, how AIDS would sever and silence any cultural growth or lasting personal legacies. The result is a difficult and no-less-impressive film that smashes the spirited human condition against aspects of fulfilling indepdence people should never take for granted.
Read MoreThe trouble is The Brutalist cannot decide whether to peck at that facade with an awl or swing at it with a sledgehammer. Too often, it hands the wrong figurative tool to the actors for the wrong moments. Appreciably, Adrien Brody and Guy Pearce are formidably locked into their roles and stalwart in their respective characters’ competing visions and varying sins of pride. However, big moments get unsuccessfully needled while small ones get overly demolished, which ultimately betrays more characters than Brody’s and Pearce’s
Read MoreThe question for each Babygirl viewer becomes how long that captivation holds between those orgasmic bookends. Even though Halina Reijn’s film boasts a nervewracking electronically-tinged musical score by Cristobal Tapia De Veer amplified by an inserted chorus of huffing-and-puffing human voices and snarling animal sounds, Babygirl is not wall-to-wall copulation. A labyrinth of conflict and kink awaits to push and pull the people of this story.
Read MoreThis 95-minute voyeuristic thriller morphs into a solemn drama right on cue for a powerful viewing experience, granting moments for the cast to shine and react with the historical swerve occurring before them. By shedding up close and personal light on these secondary, yet distinctive witnesses, Fehlbaum’s film adds a strong, confident, and respectful new cornerstone to the critical legacy of what happened in Munich 52 years ago which still echoes today.
Read More
