post

SIFF ‘23: The Toxic Workplace is a Silent Killer in ‘NEXT SOHEE’

by Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged , , , Leave a comment

A contemplative and unique Korean thriller, Jung Ju-ri’s Next Sohee is artfully directed and performed with reserved grace. Sohee (Kim Si-Eun) is an “extern”, a student worker exploited for their labor, mandated to work a call center as a precondition for graduation. Ju-ri turns the office worker grind into a mental prison that chisels away Sohee’s identity, dulling her sparkling presence to a nub. Gaslit by her superiors, manipulated into manipulating customers, subject to degrading psychological warfare, it’s no wonder Sohee is falling apart. Ju-ri paints a portrait of a young adult’s evolution from student-to-worker that’s deeply dehumanizing, revealing a shockingly broken system that’s intentionally stacked against the Sohees of society. Powerful stuff. (B+) 

Capsule Review for Seattle International Film Festival 2023. 

post

SIFF ’23: Gothic Thriller ‘MOTHER SUPERIOR’ A Tight Haunt

by Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged , , , , 1 Comment

The occult dabblings of the Nazi party casts a dark pall over the estate of a witchy Baroness circa 1975 Austria in Marie Alice Wolfszahn’s Mother Superior. The  atmospheric, feminist midnight movie tells the story of deep-cover nurse Sigrun (Isabella Händler) as she attempts to puzzle out the mysteries of her lineage, only to stumble upon the bewitching practices of the Blood Moon Templar. Wolfszahn’s direction is economical and effective, the film clocks in at just a smidge over 70-minutes but never skimps on mood or narrative tidiness. The result is slight, spooky, and impactful; a calling card for an emerging horror talent in Wolfszahn. (B-)

Capsule Review for Seattle International Film Festival 2023. 

post

SIFF ‘23: Daddy-Daughter Dramedy ‘SCRAPPER’ a Delightful Diversion

by Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged , , , , , 1 Comment

Georgie (Lola Campbell) is a 12-going-on-30 type, living on her lonesome in her London flat following the death of her mum in Scrappers. When her estranged deadbeat dad (Harris Dickinson) hops the fence and re-enters her life one day, Georgie has to navigate her newfound feelings towards her out-of-the-woodwork parental figure in writer-director Charlotte Regan’s pleasant but lightweight debut. This airy dramedy, clocking in just over 80-minutes, succeeds by virtue of the strong chemistry between its two leads, though there’s not a lot of texture to any of the other characters or character dynamics, making it a somewhat one-dimensional – though pleasant – distraction. What it lacks in narrative complexity, it makes up for in scrappy charm. (B-)

Capsule Review for Seattle International Film Festival 2023. 

post

SIFF ‘23: Horrifying ‘20 Days in Mariupol’ is As Traumatic as it is Necessary 

by Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged , , , 1 Comment

Dying babies. Dead bodies. Mass graves. Shelled maternity wards. War crimes. 20 Days in Mariupol is not for the faint of heart. It is however an urgent and unblinking reminder of the atrocities occurring to this day in Ukraine, with director Mstyslav Chernov documenting indiscriminate violence in horrifying detail. This makes for a documentary that’s a necessary but exceedingly difficult watch. Chernov documents the horrors of war waged on the civilians of Mariupol with the resolute courage of a wartime journalist and the pressing eye of a documentarian, making for a glimpse inside the war in Ukraine that’s utterly horrifying while also being must-watch. Extremely heavy stuff. (B+)

Capsule Review for Seattle International Film Festival 2023. 

post

SIFF ‘23: Belgium Drama ‘WHEN IT MELTS’ a Painful Kick in the Feels

by Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged , , , , Leave a comment

A feel-bad Belgium coming-of-age story, Veerle Baetens’ When It Melts focuses on increasingly predatory pubescent children as they learn the art of exploitation. Icky but powerful – and powerfully performed (young Rosa Marchant is outstanding) – this somber drama is incredibly uncomfortable but packs an emotional wallop. Though it becomes increasingly obvious where things are headed, it remains an entirely engrossing – and at times rather gross – watch. Ultimately, Baetens’ film is a poignant, seething indictment of parents who fail to protect the innocence of their children. Trigger warning indeed. (B+)

Capsule Review for Seattle International Film Festival 2023. 

post

SXSW ’22: Punchy ‘BODIES BODIES BODIES’ Subverts Slasher Formula

by Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Everyone’s always a suspect in any slasher movie worth its salt and that’s true up until the very last moments in Halina Reijn’s Bodies Bodies Bodies. The film, which stars a slew of established and rising talent in the form of Maria Bakalova, Lee Pace, Amandla Stenberg, Chase Sui Wonders, Peter Davidson, and a scene-stealing Rachel Sennott, cleverly subverts what we know of the genre trappings and what we – perhaps falsely? – assume to be true.  Read More

post

SXSW ‘22: Yearning Homoerotic Thriller ‘IT IS IN US ALL’ 

by Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged , , , , , , Leave a comment

When out-of-tower Hamish (Cosmo Jarvis) gets in a head-on-collision with Irish teenagers Callum and Evan (Rhys Mannion), only the later survives. Reeling from the fallout, the unscathed Evan and banged up Hamish wind up in a complicated dance, caught somewhere between trauma bonding and flirtation in a film that’s slow to reveal its hand. Their relationship becomes bizarrely intimate but undercut with a simmering level of foreboding in actress-turned-first-time-director Antonia Campbell Hughes‘ introspective thriller It Is In Us All. Read More

post

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

by Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged , , , , , , , , 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

post

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

by Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged , , , , , 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

post

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

by Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged , , , , , 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