A bewildering little cryptid curio from David Zellner and Nathan Zellner, a.k.a. the Zellner Brothers (Kumiko the Treasure Hunter, Damsel), Sasquatch Sunset is entirely its own vibe. Wholly free of dialogue and featuring a family of four Sasquatchs living their feral lives somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, their film is an arthouse experiment with form that weasels its way under the skin to draw out questions of man’s impact on the natural world. Including the fictional Yeti living in their forests. Despite featuring plenty of Sasquatch defecation, Sasquatch genitals, and Sasquatch fornication, the Zellners’ latest film, as if made for those who thought the opening shot of 2001: A Space Odyssey could have sustained an entire creature feature, is oddly affecting, couching an environmental plea inside an otherwise obscene portrait of untamed existence. Read More
Sundance ‘24: ‘A REAL PAIN’ Interrogates The Overlap Between Individual and Family Trauma
Kieran Culkin shines in Jesse Eisenberg’s tender sophomore feature A Real Pain. A poignant meditation on loss, grief, and family history that’s part autobiographical and entirely heartfelt, Eisenberg has seemingly found his groove as a creator interested in melding melancholic human stories with relationship-driven good humor. “Anything that I’ve written that’s good is very personal,” Eisenberg shared at the premiere and with A Real Pain, he’s excavated situations and characters from his own life and translated them into a good-natured and provocative little drama with wide-reaching appeal. Read More
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 crypto tips. She (admirably) runs a women’s shelter. But no one at her workplace really likes her. And no one at Ziggy’s school really likes him either. Neither get enough praise in their estimation. Both are an absolute drag to be around. Read More
He Did It, He Actually Did It: The Journey of ‘ZACK SNYDER’S JUSTICE LEAGUE’
Pluck the plumage off the bird because I’m prepared to eat some crow. For years, I doubted the fact that the long-rumored Zack Snyder director’s cut of Justice League would ever exist in a format suitable to be watched outside of a producer’s screening room. It just didn’t make one iota of sense. With WB having moved on from Snyder’s vision after the director was forced to leave the film mid-production when his daughter tragically committed suicide, the “Snyder Cut” was incomplete, with tens of millions of dollars in VFX shots never even brought into post-production. Read More
Suburban Sci-Fi ‘VIVARIUM’’s Solitary Metaphor Is Stretched Way Too Thin
“I don’t like the way things are. It’s horrible.” Little did Vivarium screenwriter Garret Shanley know how piercing this sentiment might be when his film about a couple forced into seclusion was released. No one could have predicted that in the midst of the film’s rollout, the world over would be forced into mandated seclusion. Schools shuttered. Concerts, political rallies, and festivals pinched off. Everyone shut into their whatever square footage their budget affords. At least Jesse Eisenberg’s Tom and Imogen Poots’ Gemma have access to toilet paper. Read More
‘ZOMBIELAND: DOUBLE TAP’ Is Mindless Zom-Com with Neither Bite Nor a Point
Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), Wichita (Emma Stone), and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) have taken up residence in the White House to brave the lingering zombie apocalypse. Their days spent coiled like dragons atop stockpiles of munitions and supplies have led to a general sense of longing. For Tallahassee, it’s the road that’s calling. Witchita meanwhile can’t calm her fear of committment while Little Rock longs for a romantic companion of her own. It’s only the group nerd Columbus who seems to enjoy a sense of post-apocalyptic calm, probably because the apocalypse has afforded him the impossible scenario of hooking up with Emma Stone. When the ladies unexpectedly pack up and head out one night, Tallahassee and Columbus meet a new tagalong in Madison (Zoey Deutch) and brave the great zombieland unknown to reunite the group. Read More
SIFF ’19: Deadpan ‘THE ART OF SELF-DEFENSE’ Brilliantly Sharpens Riley Stearn’s Dark Wit
Fight Club by way of Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster), Riley Stearns’ screed on “might is right” toxic masculinity is a giggly black comedy that cowers down a twisty-turny rabbit hole. Jesse Eisenberg plays a neurotic weakling (shocker) who gets mugged and turns to karate to boast his manliness and self-confidence via the transformative power of foot punches and heavy metal. Importing the welcome strangeness of producers David and Nathan Zellner (Kumiko the Treasure Hunter), The Art of Self-Defense is hysterically dark, niche cinema, a deadpan mockery of the sanctity of life and the sacredness of death. It kicks ass. (A-) Read More
The Steep Price of Legacy in ‘THE HUMMINGBIRD PROJECT’
Commerce is a wheel beneath which much is crushed. And once that wheel is in motion, there is no stopping it. Not for epistemological discourse. Not for environmental factors. Not even for late-stage stomach cancer. In Kim Nguyen’s unorthodox The Hummingbird Project, there simply ain’t no mountain high enough, no river wide enough to keep the Zaleski cousins from installing a direct line of high-speed fiber cable from New York City to Kansas. The wheels of commerce roll on and they intend to be its primary highway. Read More
Out in Theaters: ‘CAFE SOCIETY’
Woody Allen can’t get the cross-contemporary relationship off his mind. He’s obsessed with it. Fascinated by it. He strokes it like Gollum does his precious. He stokes the fires of inter-generational relations year after year after year. As if he’s constantly reworking and reframing his own internal logic. Grooming his Dylan Farrow defense and justifying his Soon-Yi marriage. The latest in Woody’s old man dates young woman romantic comedies is Café Society, a venture into the lifestyles of the rich and the famous that can be as hollow and pretty as the doe-eyed starlets and pocket-squared producers littering the Hollywood Hills. Read More
Out in Theaters: AMERICAN ULTRA
Everybody knows that smoking weed can make you paranoid. And anybody who’s spent much time in Cannabis Culture probably knows that guy, who spends too much time getting high, drawing weird comics and spouting weird theories. But what if those weird, paranoid theories turned out to be true? This is the premise around which Nima Nourizadeh‘s unlikely new stoner/action/comedy/romance American Ultra is built, and ultimately succeeds. Read More