For better or worse, Free Time operates like an audience tolerance test on the topic of the Millennial lifestyle. Little events and narrative turns occur that viewers will either identify with to a certain degree or downright disdain. The examinee for this inquest is Drew, played by emerging writer/actor Drew Burgess (who also headlines the indie Dad & Step-Dad this month), and the first exercise of this filmic inquest occurs in the opening five minutes of Free Time.
Read MoreSleeping Dogs is one of those murder mystery thrillers where motive construction and character placement is the whole kit and caboodle. Simply put, it’s one of those movies where every main and supporting character– and I mean everyone– looks guilty the majority of the time they are seen on-screen. To its credit, there’s a heightened mood created when there is such a deep pool of potential threats.
Read MoreThe Animal Kingdom manifests a present-day landscape where an unexplained divergence of evolution has been causing citizens to gradually metamorphose into animal-human amalgamations. Set in the modernized nation of France, these occurrences over the last two years are being treated and investigated like a disease or contagion. This precariously established environment of mutations puts director Thomas Cailley’s film closer to the disturbing pages of H. G. Wells than some uncanny Marvel comic adventure.
Read MoreWith a different approach, One Life could have very easily veered into horn-tooting hero worship or some kind of indulgent salve applied to reduce the horrors of the Holocaust. That’s not the case with the work of director James Hawes and screenwriters Lucinda Coxon and Nick Drake to depict this history with little to no extra flamboyance. The film’s style and attitude matches the central figure who never put the glory first. The history speaks for itself and needs no assistance for heft.
Read MoreLeaning on this hastened and rapidly emptying hourglass, Michael Keaton has formed a dramatic backbone in Knox Goes Away that is simultaneously blunt and poetic. Composer Alex Heffes (Mamma Mafia) floats a muted trumpet score cue that shapes a grim and fittingly noir vibe between the soft scene-to-scene camera fades. That said, as insightful as it strives, this is still a dive into the spine of a faithless killer, a person distant from the complete sincerity of a hero.
Read MoreThe moving experiences come from sharing the expressed gastronomical artistry. The art of those fears is in unique masterful cooking. The cooking comes from the two-decade partnership between Eugénie and Dodin. Their partnership has blossomed to a long-term love of understanding and freedom that has avoided the culminating step of marriage. Simply put, food is merely the setting of shared quality time for the rest of life.
Read MoreFor Adam to approach these strangers with his “I’m looking for my father” story and burning questions, it takes a sit-down. That kind of talk can’t be rushed and Franco lets those opportunities fully breathe. Moreover, each of the important exchanges create their own emotional transitions for Adam. He needs every springboard he can get from these talks, and so does Oakes Fegley playing the character.
Read MoreThe Zone of Interest doesn’t go there, and it wasn’t going to. The cold and taciturn performances from Freidel and Hüller are designed to not create sympathy for the subjects, which is perfectly fine. Rather this film was just going to sit there and listen. That’s the experience it was aiming for, and, in doing so, it participates in a layer of its own “how could they.” The trouble is, like the Nazis portrayed in the film, the answers to that question are “quite easily” and “quite comfortably.” Because their needles don’t move, neither do yours against its painful pace.
Read MoreWithout looking, you would think the two titular romantic prospects were strolling through autumnal city parks wearing cozy knit sweaters and sipping cups of hot or cold refreshment. It’s when you open your eyes that perspectives radically change for Molli and Max in the Future because there’s not a tree or stitch of wool in sight. Instead, the last three words of the film's title come into play. Our two will-they/won’t-they lovebirds are two intergalactic citizens crossing spacefaring paths in a future stocked with aliens, demigods, and advanced technology.
Read MoreAll that frost and frost is precisely the sordid tone and temperature of Cold Copy. The drama at hand is not seeking comfort or heroism within the championed profession. It’s a duel of who prods enough to get the last word or final competitive undercut. While plenty interesting, Cold Copy may or may not be the kind of seedy dive you are willing to embrace.
Read MoreForging this more mature path, Ariana DeBose and Masha Mashkova become the invaluable and cautiously wise characters willing to contemplate risks before acting on them. They are welcome and instantly engaging presences for discerning science fiction audiences. Still, those more casual crowd arriving to I.S.S. thirsty for spectacle will wish– and not be entirely wrong in doing so– the movie set off more incendiary moments higher in the sky than the ones far away on the ground.
Read MoreThe movie is here to make people feel by beautifying truths, creating kindred spirits, and it does so without losing or skimping an ounce of the subject’s powerful commentary smoldering with fire-branded parallels spanning the globe. One now exists to enhance the other. Origin can and should be a door-opener to Wilkerson’s work and the immense amount of testimonies, reflections, and avenues of learning that do not fit in a single film or book. Few movies generate as much library homework as tissue boxes to replace, but here we are, lifted better in our lives for receiving both assignments.
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