Sundance Film Festival has long been known for its notorious quirkiness. Often programming American indie films from a wealthy, nepotistic scene, filmmakers like Miranda July got started at American indie’s largest festival. Past the 2000s Golden Era of twee, it lives on through a millennial BuzzFeed style humor, much to the chagrin of many. This…
The Prom wasn’t exactly what you would call a massive Broadway hit, but that gave it an advantage at the start of the process of becoming a film. While lacking the household name status of Phantom of the Opera or Cats, the more simple high school story of a lesbian’s fight to have prom after…
Exactly how did Dinner in America go so wrong? It can’t help but warrant a comparison to Babyteeth, with its sheltered life growing into a punk rock youth rebellion, and messy family dynamics. Where Babyteeth makes tenderness out of its mess, focusing on a desperation for connection and a lust for life, Dinner in America…
Luz: The Flower of Evil is a sort of Southwestern The Wicker Man. It is also the third film of Glasgow 2020 I have published a review of in which I refer to its “pastoral nature” uplifting its “overall dullness.” In this case, at least the dullness is occasionally interrupted by violent outbursts, which are…
Nicolas Pesce’s remake/reboot/rendition of The Grudge is perplexing. Not only because it’s an awful film from an incredibly promising up-and-coming filmmaker with two excellent features behind his belt, but it’s somehow even more painfully dull and incoherent than the regular horror trash we’ve seen churned out in recent years like Countdown and Truth or Dare.…
I want to begin this review by saying that I am perfectly aware that independent filmmaking is hard. I have not made a feature length film, though I have worked on multiple short films and written and directed my own. All tiers of filmmaking deserve the same amount of respect, be it Disney’s ninth production…
Jay Roach’s Bombshell, having had little in the way of preceding fanfare, dropped onto our collective radars with the unveiling of its memorable teaser trailer back in August. Memorable because it said so much with so little – even if one didn’t recognize Charlize Theron’s Megyn Kelly, or Nicole Kidman’s Gretchen Carlson, or had any…
“We got twenty-one bridges in and out of Manhattan. Shut them down. Three rivers. Close them. Four tunnels. Block them. Stop every train and loop the subways. Then we flood the island with blue“. I’d like to start off this review by stating that my brother and I entered this film expecting to have a…
I don’t think I’ll be breaking any hearts by saying that Playing with Fire, also known as “Keegan-Michael Key Really Wants a Summer House: the Movie”, isn’t very good. In fact, it’s downright awful, and exactly the sort of movie you’d expect from the director of Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2. Billing itself as the…
“I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve“. Like a Grumman TBF Avenger riddled with bullet holes, Midway, Roland Emmerich‘s (Independence Day, The Patriot, Stargate) latest attempt at history, just barely maintains its glide above wreckage. While not necessarily considered a remake, it is…
Cinema Etc. 