Eva Victor on Turning Trauma into Auteur Filmmaking with Festival Darling ‘SORRY, BABY’

May 24, 2025 by Matt Oakes Posted in Interviews Tagged Eva Victor, Interview, Sorry Baby 1 Comment

Eva Victor’s Sorry, Baby doesn’t announce itself. And yet, it arrives fully formed, like someone who’s spent enough time in therapy to know that the best medicine is to laugh at their own ridiculous idiosyncrasies. Premiering at Sundance, closing out Director’s Fortnight at Cannes, and now screening at SIFF, the film has quietly (and then not-quite-so-quietly) become one of the most talked-about directorial debuts of 2025. And yet, talking to Victor, there’s no sign they’re taking the acclaim too seriously. Read More

SIFF ‘25 Capsule Review: ‘COLOR BOOK’ Opens a Window into the Specificity of a Widower’s Grief

May 24, 2025 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Color Book, David Fortune, Jeremiah Alexander Daniels, SIFF, SIFF 2025, William Catlett 1 Comment

Rich in both place and emotion, shot in evocative black and white, and scored with delicate precision, Color Book is a heartbreaking tale of grief and perseverance. William Catlett gives a tremendous, pathos-drenched performance as Lucky, a father navigating sudden tragedy, alongside his son Mason (Jeremiah Alexander Daniels), who has Down syndrome, after the loss of their wife and mother in a car accident. Their woe-begotten journey to attend their first baseball game together in Atlanta becomes a soulful odyssey, riddled with the everyday detours of the financially-unstable and the challenges beset by a father and son suddenly jettisoned into a completely new orbit. Read More

SIFF ’25 Capsule Review: Irish ‘FOUR MOTHERS’ Juggles Pride, Parents, and Predictability

May 23, 2025 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Darren Thornton, Fionnula Flanagan, Four Mothers, James McArdle, SIFF, SIFF 2025 1 Comment

A perfectly pleasant — if ultimately forgettable — Irish dramedy about gay author Edvard (James McArdle), who juggles the stress of an impending U.S. book tour while caring for his stroke-recovering mother (Fionnula Flanagan) and looking after the elderly mothers his friends abandoned to attend an overseas Pride Fest. Writer-director Darren Thornton delivers a quietly charming, poignant meditation on dignity: both in balancing personal, professional, and romantic aspirations, and in aging with some semblance of grace. Its somewhat formulaic optimism may not linger and the jokes about getting older all seem overly familiar, but the film’s heart is in the right place and makes for a geriatric crowd-pleaser. (B-)
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‘MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – THE FINAL RECKONING’ Sees One Last Sunrise

May 22, 2025 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Christopher McQuarrie, Esai Morales, Hannah Waddingham, Hayley Atwell., Henry Czerny, Holt McCallany, Katy M. O'Brian, Mission Impossible, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, Nick Offerman, Rolf Saxon, Simon Pegg, tom cruise, Trammell Tillman, Ving Rhames Leave a comment

Allegedly, the mission is over. You can see it in the weathered map that is Tom Cruise’s face. Feel it in his and frequent collaborator Christopher McQuarrie’s willingness to get a little saccharine and sentimental with this nearly 30-year-old property. It lingers in the final acknowledgments exchanged across the ragtag team—the old, the new, and the totally WTF. This is the end. And yet, after The Final Reckoning, I wish that Mission: Impossible—much like Cruise himself—could run forever. Read More

‘BRING HER BACK’ Is As Bleak As A24 “Prestige Horror” Comes

May 20, 2025 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged A24, Bill Hinzman, Billy Barratt, Bring Her Back, Danny Philippou, Horror, Jonah Wren Phillips, Liam Damons, Michael Philippou, Mischa Heywood, Sally Hawkins, Sally-Anne Upton, Sora Wong, Stephen Phillips 1 Comment

Australian writer-director twins Danny and Michael Philippou are quickly redefining a kind of no-holds-barred prestige horror filmmaking. With their sophomore feature Bring Her Back, absolutely nothing is off-limits. This bleak and deranged story of a brother and sister taken into the home of a foster mother, played by Sally Hawkins (who is most definitely not the kindly counselor the world believes her to be), lands among the most disturbing entries in the “elevated horror” genre, mostly by inflicting gruesome body horror upon children in ways that is as horrifying as is it narratively compelling. It’s a tough film to stomach, not just for its barbaric depictions of violence against kids, but for its thematic notes of child abuse and the grief of losing a child. Bring Her Back is horrifying in its premise, but it’s dramatically anchored by its mirrored narratives about families in grief: one side of the coin desperately trying to stay intact after a tragedy, the other willing to go to truly ungodly lengths to reconstruct what’s been taken. Read More

‘FRIENDSHIP’ is 100 Minutes of Pure Tim Robinson Cringe

May 13, 2025 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged A24, Andrew DeYoung, Friendship, Jack Dylan Grazer, Josh Segarra, Kate Mara, Paul Rudd, Tim Robinson 5 Comments

Tim Robinson has one speed. Ever since he wrote and co-starred in Detroiters before becoming a sainted meme, ascending to viral sketch-comedy royalty with the gut-bustingly hysterical I Think You Should Leave, Robinson has specialized in playing a singular, ever-mutating archetype: the emotionally volatile social misfit. It’s a character he’s twisted into a hundred different shapes, but the core is always the same: an unhinged cocktail of cringe, indignation, and deeply funny despair. Whether he’s feeding eggs to his office monitor, melting down speed-ordering fast food (“55 burgers! 55 fries!”), or demanding a party host eat a receipt to prove he liked a gift, Robinson excels at crafting men living on the verge of complete and total social collapse. Read More

‘THUNDERBOLTS*’ Asterisks The Future of this Flailing Franchise

April 29, 2025 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged David Harbour, Eric Pearson, Florence Pugh, Hannah John-Kamen, Jake Schreier, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Marvel, MCU, Sebastian Stan, Thunderbolts, Wyatt Russell 2 Comments

There was a time when Marvel movies were actually kind of fun. They weren’t always particularly good, sure, and they leaned heavily on a tried-and-true formula — to the point where you could watch one trailer and predict every algorithmic story beat, crocodile tear moment, and ironic quip that would tumble out over the next two hours. But despite that heavy-handed template, they still managed to be a good time most of the time: actually playing at inspiring heroics rather than just paying lip service to the idea, wringing out a handful of genuine laughs (largely thanks to some truly terrific casting), and occasionally conjuring up an impressive set piece or two. Thunderbolts* doesn’t manage any of that. It’s both humorless and weightless, unable to decide if it wants to be taken seriously or not. The character work is thin, the drama feels half-hearted, and the whole movie hovers awkwardly between grim and goofy without ever committing to either. Read More

‘THE LEGEND OF OCHI’ a Technically Impressive but Familiar A24 Fable

April 23, 2025 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged A24, Cheech Manohar, Dean-Charles Chapman, Emily Watson, Finn Wolfhard, Helena Zengel, Isaiah Saxon, Reviews, The Legend of Ochi, Willem Dafoe 3 Comments

The Legend of Ochi harks back to an earlier era of children’s cinema. Set in the not-quite-magical, not-quite-real world of Carpathia—where mythical bipedal creatures roam the mossy forests, but stick-shift cars and terrestrial radio also exist—writer-director Isaiah Saxon crafts a vibe-heavy feature in which the all-natural landscapes and often jaw-dropping creature design take center stage. Tell me if you’ve heard this one before: a young girl bonds with a mysterious creature and sets out to return it home. It’s a story we’ve seen dozens of times, though few recent iterations arrive with this level of craft. It’s a film equally indebted to the works of Steven Spielberg and Wes Anderson, though it lacks the signature touch that gives those directors’ films such vivid life and clear sense of purpose. Read More

Gothic Vampire Epic ‘SINNERS’ is the Movie of the Year

April 15, 2025 by Matt Oakes Posted in Most Popular, Out in Theaters Tagged Delroy Lindo, Hailee Steinfeld, Jack O'Connell, Jayme Lawson, Li Jun Li, Lola Kirke, Ludwig Göransson, Michael B. Jordan, Miles Caton., Omar Benson Miller, Ryan Coogler, Sinners, Wunmi Mosaku 2 Comments

There’s an ironic poetry in the fact that it took Ryan Coogler walking away from the MCU (and Marvel quietly shelving Blade) for a Coogler-made vampire film to just appear out of nowhere. And thank God it did, because Sinners is the early contender for best movie of the year. A Gothic Southern vampire tale layered with the legacy of Jim Crow and pulsing to the rhythm of the blues, Sinners is a soulful, thoughtful, sexy, funny, riveting piece of big-ish budget studio filmmaking that actually has something to say. And says it with bloody fanfare. It’s the rare work of a genuine auteur embracing genre thrills while coloring outside the lines of what is expected within that genre, enriching the narrative with real history, spirited music, and undeniable soul. The real thrill of Sinners is in how it balances traditional vampire movie pleasures with embedded deeper ideas, making them textual rather than ornamental. Read More

Overwhelming ‘WARFARE’ A Gonzo Descent into Garland’s Hellish Sandbox

April 10, 2025 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged A24, Adain Bradley, Alex Garland, Allon Reich, Andrew Macdonald, Charles Melton, Cosmo Jarvis, D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, David J. Thompson, Evan Holtzman, Fin Oates, Finn Bennett, Henry Zaga, Joseph Quinn, Kit Connor, Matthew Penry-Davey, Michael Gandolfini, Noah Centineo, Peter Rice, Ray Mendoza, Taylor John Smith, Warfare, Will Poulter 1 Comment

Warfare, the immersive Iraq War survival thriller from Navy SEAL veteran and first-time filmmaker Ray Mendoza and co-writer/co-director Alex Garland, is a blisteringly intense procedural experience. On one hand, it’s an incredibly effective piece of transportive filmmaking, one that leans into both the numbing banality of war plans and its most barbaric excesses. Told through a real-time, boots-on-the-ground POV, the film drops us alongside a platoon of Navy SEALs tasked with infiltrating a seemingly innocuous position and establishing a sniper nest. That’s all the context we’re given. No grander mission, no tie-in to some greater geopolitical scaffolding. Just a squad, a target, and a whole lot of code words. Which may very well be the point: a war without meaning, with boys playing at war. Read More