‘JACKASS FOREVER’: A Confederacy of Dunces
'Jackass Forever' is the same stupid buffoonery that it's always been - and it's still just as scatologically funny.
REVIEW
FESTIVAL
Sundance ’22: Finnish Horror ‘HATCHING’ Gives Birth to Fowl Play
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...
REVIEW
SUNDANCE ’22: Carla Juri Shines in Understated Romance ‘BLOOD’
Bradley Rust Gray’s unhurried drama may move too slowly for some viewers but richly-layered performances and tender direction yield a thoughtful and emotionally evocative study of the human heart. Carla…
FESTIVAL
SUNDANCE ’22: Love and Lust Challenges High School Girls in Thoughtful ‘GIRL PICTURE’
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...
REVIEW
Sundance ’22: Existential Sci-Fi ‘AFTER YANG’ Grapples With the Great A.I. Beyond
‘After Yang’ is a stunningly beautiful, emotionally yearning science-fiction drama about what it means to be family; and what it means to lose family. Grounded in emotional depth and philosophical…
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SUNDANCE ’22: The Hefty Cost of Righteousness in ‘GOD’S COUNTRY’
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...
FESTIVAL
Sundance ’22: ’Til Distance Do Us Part With ‘ALICE’
’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...
FESTIVAL
Sundance ’22: ‘CHA CHA REAL SMOOTH’ Channels ‘The Graduate’ for Zoomer Generation
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...
FESTIVAL
Sundance ’22: Bizarro Satire ‘DUAL’ Sees The World Through a Hazy Reflection
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...
FESTIVAL
Sundance ’22: Losing Life’s Popularity Contest With ‘WHEN YOU FINISH SAVING THE WORLD’
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...