SXSW ‘22: ‘LINOLEUM’, A Life from Orbit

March 13, 2022 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Colin West, Jim Gaffigan, Katelyn Nacon, Linoleum, Movie Reviews, Rhea Seehorn, Roger Hendricks Simon, SXSW 2022, Tony Shalhoub Leave a comment

Jim Gaffigan stars as astronomer and public television personality Cameron Edwin in Colin West’s science fiction-tinged festival dramedy Linoleum. A bodega-version Bill Nye, Cameron leads the failing daily children’s show ‘Above & Beyond’ which after years of existing in obscurity has been picked up by a major network. The rub? Cameron will be replaced as the show’s host by his straight-laced doppelgänger Kent Armstrong (also played by Gaffigan), a more successful, better looking version of himself whose arrival signals a series of enigmatic occurrences. Not everything is as it seems. Read More

SXSW ’22: Self-Help Influencer ‘SISSY’ Canceled in Satirical Psycho-Thriller

March 13, 2022 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Aisha Dee, Emily de Margheriti, Hannah Barlow, Kane Senes, Sissy, SXSW 2022 Leave a comment

Bullied as a child, Sissy (Aisha Dee) thought she left behind her childhood name. She‘s Cecilia now and she’s a self-help influencer. Popular on social media under the handle “Sincerely Cecilia”, the trendy twenty-something shares glossy selfie videos about mindfulness and self-love, topics she actually knows nearly nothing about. Deep down, she’s a traumatized child; projecting security, suppressing scars. Her 200k followers see Sincerely Cecilia™ but they don’t see Cecilia sincerely. They don’t know the true Sissy who lurks beneath. Read More

Sundance ’22: Finnish Horror ‘HATCHING’ Gives Birth to Fowl Play

January 24, 2022 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Hanna Bergholm, Hatching, Siiri Solalinna, Sophia Heikkilä, Sundance, Sundance 2022 Leave a comment

An ooey, gooey suburban creature feature about motherhood and maintaining the illusion of perfection, Hatching expertly blends the weirder side of horror with a deeper message. Motherhood – at any age – requires great sacrifice. It’s often nasty, inglorious business. Hatching is not elevated horror. Nor is it shlock. Instead, this Finnish import about a newly hatched bird-human hybrid pulls from E.T. and Troma films, utilizing great practical effects to pluck at ideas of puberty and motherhood. Read More

SUNDANCE ’22: Love and Lust Challenges High School Girls in Thoughtful ‘GIRL PICTURE’

January 24, 2022 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Aamu Milonoff, Alli Haapasalo, Eleonoora Kauhanen, Girl Picture, Linnea Leino, Sundance, Sundance 2022 Leave a comment

Mimmi (Aamu Milonoff) and Rönkkö (Eleonoora Kauhanen) are Finnish High School students and ride-or-die best friends. In Alli Haapasalo’s Girl Picture, the inseparable duo attend school before working together at the mall where they hawk smoothies with names like “It Takes Two to Mango” or “Just Breathe”. On the clock, they dish about romantic trysts and the upcoming Friday’s party, sometimes to the chagrin of their customers. When Emma (Linnea Leino), their classmate and an obsessive figure skater who dreams of becoming the future European Champion, falls into Mimmi’s orbit, the pair flirt with first love. Meanwhile Rönkkö struggles through a series of unsatisfying romantic entanglements with a revolving door of expectant young men. Read More

SUNDANCE ’22: The Hefty Cost of Righteousness in ‘GOD’S COUNTRY’

January 23, 2022 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged God's Country, Jefferson White, Joris Jarsky, Julian Higgins, Kai Lennox, Reviews, Sundance, Sundance 2022, Thandiwe Newton Leave a comment

When a red truck is left parked on her property, a public speaking professor inadvertently begins an escalating feud with two townie hunters. Based on the short story “Winter Light” by James Lee Burke, God’s Country is a frosty thriller about bad blood in the Alaskan backcountry where an attempt to be reasonable breaks down into white hot confrontation. Led by a commanding turn from Thandiwe Newton, the debut film from Julian Higgins spotlights the spurned Sandra approaching a breaking point, as her better judgment is overtaken by frustration with a community that doesn’t see her as an equal or want to take her seriously. Read More

Sundance ’22: ’Til Distance Do Us Part With ‘ALICE’

January 23, 2022 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Alice, Common, Jonny Lee Miller, Keke Palmer, Krystin Ver Linden, Sundance, Sundance 2022 Leave a comment

’Til distance do us part. Not death. These are the vows of the slave – or “domestic” – in Krystin Ver Linden’s Alice. But death may always interfere. And distance – through space and through time – proves to be but an illusion. Alice (Keke Palmer) is a slave. She wants for liberation, daring for escape from the Spanish moss-covered Georgian plantation where she was raised. Freedom, it turns out, is just beyond her front door. All she needs is distance. Read More

Sundance ’22: ‘CHA CHA REAL SMOOTH’ Channels ‘The Graduate’ for Zoomer Generation

January 23, 2022 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews, Most Popular Tagged Cha Cha Real Smooth, Cooper Raif, Dakota Johnson, Evan Assante, Leslie Mann, Vanessa Burkhardt Leave a comment

In life, one always has the option of just being nice. With the endearing SXSW Grand Jury Prize winner Shithouse – an overtly sensitive college-campus drama that riffs on the sub-genre of conversation-driven romance films like Before Midnight – and now with Cha Cha Real Smooth, writer/director/star Cooper Raif has proven this to be his modus operadi. Raif’s second feature is an unironically nice film about a recent college grad who falls for the attractive – and engaged – mom of a middle schooler with autism. The kind-hearted temperament of Raif’s films are disarmingly genuine, if skirting the line with being almost – to put it in middle school terms – lame. But for those who can vibe on Raif’s decidedly kind wavelengths, Cha Cha Real Smooth is a feel-good crowdpleaser – with enough complications to keep things interesting. Read More

Sundance ’22: Bizarro Satire ‘DUAL’ Sees The World Through a Hazy Reflection

January 22, 2022 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Aaron Paul, Dual, Karen Gillan, Reviews, Riley Stearns, Sundance, Sundance 2022 Leave a comment

In the near future, a process called “replacement” allows dying individuals to clone themselves in Dual. The goal: their living loved ones will no longer have to miss them. When Sarah (Karen Gillan) starts vomiting blood one day and is told stiffly that she will assuredly die very soon, she decides to gift her loved ones with a double of herself. When she later finds out that her terminal illness is in sudden remission, she must legally fight her double to the death in a broadcast dual, as only one of them is allowed to survive. Read More

Sundance ’22: Losing Life’s Popularity Contest With ‘WHEN YOU FINISH SAVING THE WORLD’

January 22, 2022 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Alisha Boe, Billy Bryk, Finn Wolfhard, Jesse Eisenberg, Julianne Moore, Sundance, Sundance 2022, When You Finish Saving the World Leave a comment

Jesse Eisenberg‘s debut feature When You Finish Saving the World is a cantankerous study of an insufferable family trying – and failing – to live together peacefully. Ziggy (Finn Wolfhard) is pouty and dense. Evelyn (Julianne Moore) is self-important and overbearing. He livestreams his folksy music to an eclectic mix of international audience members for crypto tips. She (admirably) runs a women’s shelter. But no one at her workplace really likes her. And no one at Ziggy’s school really likes him either. Neither get enough praise in their estimation. Both are an absolute drag to be around. Read More

Sundance ’22: Maika Monroe is Alone and Stalked in Romania in Creepy ‘WATCHER’

January 22, 2022 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Burn Gorman, Chloe Okuno, Karl Glusman, Maika Monroe, Sundance, Sundance 2022, Watcher 2 Comments

Take the helplessness you feel when you’re in a foreign country but don’t speak the language and add in an inattentive husband and a possible stalker and you have a formula for a very bad trip abroad. In Watcher, this is Julia’s life now. Stranded in Bucharest, Romania, the unemployed actress and wife to an ambitious marketer tries her best to grin and bear the transition. But every night, she sneaks a peek out the curtains of her apartment. And every night, a man across the street watches her back. Julia’s sanity and marriage unfurl as the specter of being watched grows larger and more dangerous with each passing day. Read More