One Night in Miami is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video. By I. Simon Actors going onto directing features often tends to fascinate me, a reason being that I like seeing whatever they might’ve learned from directors they’ve worked with and how they apply that to their own feature. In the case of One Night […]
Malcolm & Marie premieres February 5 on Netflix. By Ariba Bhuvad Over the course of this year, we’ve seen television and film productions figure out a way to continue their work while following strict COVID-19 safety protocols. But perhaps none are more impressive than director/producer Sam Levinson’s latest Netflix movie, Malcolm & Marie. Levinson wrote, […]
Malcolm & Marie (2021) – Review
Multi-hyphenate Armando Iannucci might be the best working satirist today (all seven seasons of Veep are streaming on HBO Max and DirecTV). His take on the transfer of power in the USSR circa 1953 is so loaded with jokes you have to watch it twice to get it all. From backstabbing to assassination, pajamas and concert recordings, […]
By the time it reached streaming screens in 2021, The Empty Man was so buried that it might as well have never existed. Although filming wrapped in 2017, 21st Century Fox didn’t release it before they were acquired by the Walt Disney Company in early 2019. Realising that this type of horror didn’t really sit […]
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 5 out of 5. Our memory can play tricks on us as we age. We may end up forgetting our loved ones because our brain is no longer able to return the images it previously could. But what will happen in times of global pandemic, when even a young one loses their memory? […]
Film Review: “Little Fish” (2020)
The great François Truffaut was born 89 years ago today, in Paris, France. This French director would go on to prove that cinema is a universal language and it’s hard not to think about what type of films Truffaut would have gone on to make, if not for his tragically early death at the age of 52. As far as I am concerned, today is a holiday dedicated to one of the most important cinematic voices of all time. The […]
6 Shots From 6 Films: Special François Truffaut Edition
“Tazmanian Devil” is a Nigerian-American morality fable that might more accurately have been titled “How I Learned to Stop Preaching and Love the Frat.” It’s about a kid who moves in with his Nigerian pastor father so that he can attend college in Texas. But the child the father always called “My young pastor” gets […]
Movie Review: An African preacher’s son contemplates Fraternity life as a “Tazmanian Devil”
Not to be a broken record, but what are they NOT teaching in film school about editing and pace these days? Is everybody taking their filmmaking cues from limited series (streaming) television? Because up here and Down Under, I’m seeing scores of movies that drift like an ice flow, taking forever to get to whatever […]
Movie Review: “Rage” rage at this pokey thriller from Down Under
Zendaya and John David Washington are two of Hollywood’s rising stars. Both actors had breakout moments in 2020 – Zendaya gave an award winning performance in HBO’s Euphoria and Washington was the lead in Christopher Nolan’s Tenet. Writer/director Sam Levinson (Euphoria) brings the two stars together in Malcolm & Marie. It’s a simple story that […]
Bereft from some ambiguous tragedy, some half-crazy white lady drops everything to go live on a mountain, totally alone, without being adequately prepared. No phone, no car, nor running water even, this scenario spells disaster to absolutely everyone except her, who persists against all common sense. Edee (Robin Wright) seems not to have thought of […]
Hey everyone! I am writing this having finished the 2021 virtual edition of the Sundance Film Festival. I definitely missed my normal festival experience but there were some good parts of being at home. I got to connect with all of my online friends watching movies and the experience wasn’t as grueling as the live […]
Sundance Log 2021 Day 6 (The World to Come, Amy Tan, Users)
Known as the caviar of the Balkans, ajvar is a Serbian roasted red pepper spread that originated in southeastern Europe. In the Kosovo-set drama “Hive,” the very act of making and bottling it becomes an act of rebellion for one woman, Fahrije (Yllka Gashi), who has no choice but to acquire an entrepreneurial spirit after…
‘Hive’ Review: Pepper Spread Becomes a Sign of Rebellion in Kosovo Drama That Swept Sundance
Talk about an unexpected yet intriguing pairing. In the new film “Bliss” Owen Wilson and Selma Hayek are two people traveling back and forth between vastly different realities. But soon perceptions of what’s real and what’s a simulation begin to blur. This catchy concept comes from the mind of writer-director Mike Cahill whose indie sci-fi […]
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 5 out of 5. Many famous actors are now turning into directors. Most of them are quite successful such as Angelina Jolie, George Clooney, Olivia Wilde, Robin Wright, and now, Rebecca Hall. If you compare the above-mentioned names, I think Rebecca Hall has beaten all of them by directing the truly masterful portrayal […]
Written, directed, produced, and co-edited by Lyle Mitchell Corbine Jr., “Wild Indian” tells the unsettling story of two men inextricably linked by a violent crime from their childhood. It’s a piercing and clear-eyed examination of trauma, guilt and embracing identity rather than running from it. Told through a deeply authentic indigenous perspective, “Wild Indian” contextualizes […]
SUNDANCE REVIEW: “Wild Indian” (2021)
Her name is Enid, and she’s a film censor, the person who negotiates the bad language, graphic violence, drug use, and nudity of a film, deciding just how much can be kept in and retain an R rating, and which films will either need to be edited, or bumped up to NC-17 and so on. […]
Imagine waking up in the bottom of a hole – you, your spouse, your kid. You’ve been drugged, and now you’re being held hostage. There’s no way out. Worse, your son is missing. What happened to him? Is he hurt? Worse? Who’s doing this, and why? Imagine waking up in the bottom of a hole […]
Sundance 2021: John And The Hole
Hello readers! It is the end of the day at that means time for another one of my Sundance Film Festival viewing logs. Here I give my mini reviews for every film I saw at the festival. Yesterday I gave all positives but today was more mixed. Here goes! Ailey This film is a documentary […]
Good storytelling skates by on the tension between what we see, read or hear unfold, and what we hope or fear might happen as the tale unfolds. Dickens or “Dumb & Dumber,” it’s all about meeting or willfully defying our expectations, great or otherwise. “Happy Cleaners” is a Korean-American immigrants and their children drama, a […]
Movie Review: “Happy Cleaners” and the burden of Korean-American expectations
Whatever you do don’t confuse Jayro Bustamante’s “La Llorona” with 2019’s promising but ultimately disappointing “The Curse of La Llorona”. The two couldn’t be more different, their only real connection being the ubiquitous Latin American folk tale of “The Weeping Woman”. Bustamante has a much more sobering ambition, using the ghostly legend as a means […]
