Sundance ‘26: ‘THE MUSICAL’ Is Elite Crash Out Cringe Comedy

January 31, 2026 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews, Most Popular Tagged Alexander Heller, Gillian Jacobs, Giselle Bonilla, Rob Lowe, Sundance 2026, The Musical, Will Brill 3 Comments

Doug Leibowitz (Will Brill) is an ostensibly mild-mannered but deeply disillusioned middle school theater teacher and once maybe promising playwright. When the Cedarhurst Middle School teacher is forced to confront the reality that his ex-girlfriend Abigail (Gillian Jacobs), who he thought he was still “on a break” with, has started dating the smarmy, aggressively politically correct school principal Brady (Rob Lowe), Doug suffers a near-total mental breakdown. In a bid for revenge and recognition, Doug decides to tank the school’s reputation, and alongside it Principal Brady’s, as the two are competing for a blue ribbon of academic excellence. To do so, Doug shelves his class’s production of West Side Story in favor of a secret musical he wrote about 9/11. Read More

The Cinematic Equivalent of the Phrase “Spooky Season”, ‘COME PLAY’ A Scare-Free Dud

October 28, 2020 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Azhy Robertson, Come Play, Gillian Jacobs, Horror, Jacob Chase, John Gallagher Jr., Out in Theaters, Reviews 1 Comment

Continuing in the not-so-grand tradition of horror shorts adapted into feature films, Come Play attempts to breathe more life into its premise of a gangly boogeyman named Larry. Operative word being “attempts”. Jacob Chase writes and directs, stretching his five-minute viral short “Larry” into 100 minutes of humdrum haunting. Stretching and pulling to fill it with air but not necessarily more flavor, Chase works his material like taffy. And like the sugary confection, Come Play is little more than horror empty calories, another slickly-made PG-13 studio dud that fails to scare up much reaction or leave much of an impression. Read More

SIFF ’16 Capsule Review: ‘DON’T THINK TWICE’

June 10, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Don’t Think Twice, Gillian Jacobs, Keegan-Michael Key, Mike Birbiglia, Reviews, Seattle International Film Festival 2016, SIFF 2016 Leave a comment

Improv is about following the germ of an idea until it’s reach its most preposterous conclusion and with emotionally honest and rib-tickling seriocomedy Don’t Think Twice, Mike Birbiglia has, like a great improv thread taken to its most radical extreme, tangentially bloomed into himself as a director. His comedy manifesto has always tilted at harvesting truth over triviality and his framing of lifelong relationships splintering and fraternal bonds fracturing creates a heartrending account of the invoice of self-interest as a group of comic friends/collegaues infight to land a gig on an intellectually-bankrupt SNL-type sketch show. Watching Birbiglia drive a wedge between this collection of funny people who feed off each other’s energy for a living makes for powerful, character-driven work and the cast, including a standout Keegan-Michael Key and Gillian Jacobs, is more than game bringing dramatic gravitas, in addition to comedic jabs aplenty, to the table. (B+)