Reviews and coverage from major film festivals including Sundance, SXSW, SIFF, TIFF, and Cannes, the best and the rest of festival cinema.
Recovery is a marathon not a sprint, not that the snarky wheelchair-bound protagonist of Gus Van Sant’s Don’t Worry would be able to stand for either. Telling the true story of celebrated, irreverent Portland cartoonist John Callahan, from his reckless drinking days to his untimely paralysis to his long tenure at AA, Van Sant’s latest...
Nick Offerman plays a hipster record shop owner/has-been musician/doting father to the talented and driven Sam (Kiersey Clemons in a vibrant coming out party of a performance) as the two start an unlikely band in Brett Haley’s lovely indie musical Hearts Beat Loud. The pair share wonderful screen chemistry – Offerman has never been better...
Not even children are spared in this gritty Mexican fantasy-thriller from writer/director Issa López. Both grounded in dark realities and anchored by larger-than-life fantastical elements, Tigers Are Not Afraid shares DNA with Guillermo del Toro’s Spanish-language horrors movies (think Devil’s Backbone), which smuggle pervasive social commentary in with spooky, mythic thrills. A 10-year old girl...
Eddy Galland, David Kellman, and Robert Shafran had their lives turned upside down with the discovery that the three 19-year olds were long-lost triplets. Overnight media sensations, the long-separated trio discover a nefarious plot to settle the argument on nature vs. nurture in this stranger-than-fiction type documentary from Tim Wardle. Equally compelling and fascinating, Three...
This concept horror from Preston DeFrancis tries to combine the shlocky guesswork of a whodunnit in with the craze of Escape Rooms to middling effect. When ex-addict Alexandra (Marcienne Dwyer) accompanies boyfriend Nathan on Slasher Sleepout, the orchestrated haunt becomes menacingly real and the pair must fight for survival. Some of the narrative twists work...
Following 2010’s Winter’s Bone, Debra Granik continues to peer into the grungy sideshow of backcountry American life in the delicately told Leave No Trace. About a father and daughter who attempt to live off the land, Granik’s third feature film tackles heavy themes with a soft touch, allowing Ben Foster and Thomas Harcourt McKenzie’s soulful...
This moody slow-burn from writer-director Michael Pearce is a psychosexual tone-poem of quiet desperation. On a reclusive island, Jessie Buckley’s misfitted Mal falls for Pascal (Johnny Flynn) who just so happens to be the chief suspect for a string of heinous murders perpetrated against the communities’ women. Pearce’s seductive romantic thriller plays a tantalizing game...
Sorry to Bother You is on its own level of strangeness. Like stranger than tentacle porn strange. Bold, experimental, and loaded with rich, cryptic and powerful themes of the African American and working-class experience, Boot Riley has crafted a sashimi raw, energetic manifesto exploding with purpose, despite flaws. Seeing Lakeith Stanfield’s lackadaisical mystique dominate a...
Joseph Kahn’s battle rap satire is a dish delish of sick burn served hot and heavy. Exuberant slashes of searing bars and ill rhymes punctuate this come-up story of an unlikely friendship broiling in the maw of an oft-unseen underground culture. Kahn’s electrifying feature takes down the hip-hop scene, collegiate PC culture and the unquenchable...
A bighearted DM of awkwardness and warmth, Bo Burnham’s transportive comedic-drama debut Eighth Grade will return audiences to those pimple-pocked middle years; when being cool was synonymous with having no personality and anxiety over self-identity dominated every waking thought. The drama from A24 marries a tender coming-of-age saga with perfectly-layered cringe-comedy in a universal story...