Drama
Netflix’s I Care a Lot Is a Brutal Indictment of the American HealthCare System: Review
The Pitch: Marla Grayson (Rosamund Pike) cares a lot. She’s the legal guardian of dozens of elderly people who desperately need her help. This “care” comes in the form of decision making powers regarding her client’s finances and medical treatment. With a simple doctor’s recommendation and signature from a judge, she essentially has the legal right to decimate the lives and accumulated wealth of anyone who falls into her trap. But Marla’s newest client, Jennifer Peterson (Dianne Wiest), is more than she seems and may end up causing the conniving entrepreneur’s downfall. Writer/director J Blakeson’s new Netflix film is a black comedy that feels infuriatingly familiar given the rampant authoritarian greed and hypocrisy we see daily. Dressed up as a stylish thriller, I Care a Lot is a brutal ...
Robin Wright Tries to Ground Herself in the Sumptuous But Hollow Land: Review
The Pitch: Edee (Robin Wright) wants to get away from it all — life, family, civilization. She’s mourning something, or rather, escaping, but we don’t know precisely what. Flashbacks to a husband (Warren Christie), a son, and a concerned sister (Kim Dickens) give us plenty of clues, though. Packing up a U-Haul and driving across the country from Chicago to a remote cabin in Quincy, Wyoming, Edee makes it clear that she wants to be left alone to fend for herself. Edee sends the truck and U-Haul away, leaving only herself and a sparse collection of canned food to fill her new home. Naturally, the city slicker doesn’t make it long before weather, starvation, and dangerous wildlife force the intervention of a kind stranger named Miguel (Demián Bichir), who helps her back on her feet and t...
Debating the Essential Hannibal Lecter
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Art is subjective. Music and movies aren’t about competition; they’re about artistic expression. Well, for those of you who know better than to believe those lies, welcome to another installment of Vs. This time, Justin Gerber, Clint Worthington, and Dominick Suzanne-Mayer debate over who played the best Hannibal Lector as Ridley Scott’s Hannibal turns 20 and Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs turns 30. Mind you, this piece originally ran in 2016. Justin Gerber: I grew up on Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal. It earned him an Academy Award for Best Actor. It gave his career a boost it desperately needed, and he’s been pretty much riding the waves ever since. He’s great. No question. However, there’s something about the laissez-faire performance of Brian...
CODA Hits All The Right Notes: Sundance 2021 Review
This review is part of our Sundance 2021 coverage. The Pitch: 17-year-old Ruby (Emilia Jones) doesn’t have your typical adolescence: the child of a Massachusetts fishing family, she splits her time between the awkwardness of high school and helping her family out on the boat, doing her best to help her family keep the business afloat amid union disputes and predatory fish buyers who try to take advantage of them. There’s another complication: Ruby is the only hearing member of her family, the rest of whom — father Frank (Troy Kotsur), mother Jackie (Marlee Matlin), and brother Leo (Daniel Durant) — are deaf. This places added pressure on her as the one person who can translate ASL to the world around them; she’s inexplicably tethered to them. Of course, Ruby soon discovers she has dreams o...
Tokyo 2021: Japan, medical experts disagree over safe Olympics
Japanese infectious disease specialist Atsuo Hamada wants to see the Olympics happen in Tokyo this summer, but admits if they were being held anywhere else, he’d probably support a cancellation. “Even without the coronavirus pandemic, the Olympics as a mass gathering fosters all sorts of infectious diseases,” Hamada, a professor at Tokyo Medical University, told AFP. With less than six months until the pandemic-postponed Games, organisers say they’re confident the event will be safe. But some medical experts aren’t so sure, and think cancellation is safer. “I do understand the athletes’ sentiments,” said Michael Head, a senior research fellow in global health at Britain’s University of Southampton. “But I think from… the global public health point of view, there’s nothing about the Olympic...
Viggo Mortensen’s Falling Is Exhausting: Review
This review was originally part of our coverage of the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival. The Pitch: In Viggo Mortensen’s directorial debut, gay Air Force pilot John (Mortensen) struggles to care for his ailing conservative father, Willis (Lance Henriksen). Malcontent and never afraid to shy away from a racist, homophobic or sexist rant, Willis offends everyone from John’s husband Eric (Terry Chen) to his daughter Sarah (Laura Linney), all while he slips in and out of flashbacks, including his two marriages to wives Gwen (Hannah Gross) and Jill (Bracken Burns). Grumpy Old Man: Early in Falling, as the relationship between John and Willis is being established, it’s clear that Henriksen is exceptional in the role. Willis is the kind of curmudgeonly character whose edges are too often ...
Jerrod Carmichael’s On the Count of Three Is A Harsh and Bold Bromance: Sundance 2021 Review
This review is part of our Sundance 2021 coverage. The Pitch: Longtime best buddies Val (Jerrod Carmichael) and Kevin (Christopher Abbott) love each other about as much as they hate living. The latter is in a mental institution after his latest in a lifetime of attempts to kill himself; the former is deeply depressed, with a dead-end job and a fractious relationship with girlfriend Tasha (Tiffany Haddish). After Val breaks Kevin out of the joint, they hatch a scheme: live one last day to the fullest, finish their business, then shoot each other at the same time with a pair of handguns Val picked up. It’s a murder-suicide pact born of a lifetime of trauma and love, and that bond will be tested in more ways than one by the time the day is done. It’s a Great Day to Be Alive: Directo...
50 Most Anticipated Movies of 2021
Anticipating movies these days is a fool’s errand. Unless it’s guaranteed to be hitting a streaming platform, the release date of any film should have an asterisk appended to it. That’s not cynical, but the nature of covering this industry amidst the pandemic. So, you could imagine how fun this list was to put together. (Spoiler: It wasn’t.) Dragging over last year’s offerings to this one seems like an easy task, but the shift opens the door for so many questions, all of which boil down to: “What are the odds?” For many features — you know, like Ghostbusters: Afterlife, or No Time to Die, or Halloween Kills, or any film without a streaming opt-in — the release date is as certain as we are about anything right now in life. “We’ll see” is the name of the game. Having said that, a few studios...
Regina King’s One Night in Miami Is a Quiet and Powerful Meditation on Race: Review
This review was originally part of our coverage of the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival. The Pitch: On the night of Cassius Clay’s (Eli Goree) historic win over Sonny Liston in 1964, the man who would become Muhammad Ali gathers his friends — Muslim Brotherhood activist Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir), football player Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge) and singer Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.) — to celebrate, debate, and plan for a new world. Play It Again, Sam: Based on real events, Kemp Powers’ 2013 play is a speculative consideration of what happened when the four African American icons gathered together for one night in 1964. Historically, this is the year that Cooke would be murdered; Malcolm X would be assassinated the following year in 1965. Expanding upon his original source material, Powe...
‘Christmas village’ boost Akwa Ibom economy with N1 billionn revenue – official
Mr. Orman Esin, the Akwa Ibom Commissioner for Culture and Tourism, has said the ‘Christmas Village’ generated more than N1 billion to the state economy since Dec. 1, 2020. Esin announced this to newsmen in Uyo on Friday. He said that the opening of the village had brought some life back to holidaymakers and citizens of the state. “The Christmas village has created value of more than N1 billion since it was opened on Dec. 1, 2020,’’ he said. “More than 600 vendors attract thousands of visitors every evening, adding that the Christmas village became a must-visit place in Nigeria every December. “With the ravaging Covid19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown, the 2020 Christmas season looked bleak. “Annual events were cancelled all over the world including the record-setting annual 999 events in...
Vanessa Kirby Stands Tall In Netflix’s Shrugworthy Pieces of a Woman: Review
This review was originally part of our coverage of the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival . The Pitch: Pregnant couple Sean (Shia LaBeouf) and Martha (Vanessa Kirby) go through a dangerous labor with a new midwife, Eva (Molly Parker), only for the worst possible outcome to occur. In the months that follow, they each process their grief and anger in different ways. Meanwhile, Martha’s mother, Elizabeth (Ellen Burstyn), pushes for legal justice that may or may not offer the closure that the family needs. Labour Pains: When people discuss Kornél Mundruczó’s Pieces of a Woman, the discussion will inevitably be broken into two parts. Most will focus on the film’s first 33 minutes, which takes place entirely on September 17th and follows – in one long, mostly uninterrupted take – the night...
Ghana army steps in to quell parliament clash ahead of swearing-in
Ghanaian soldiers intervened overnight to quell a clash between opposing parties in parliament ahead of the body’s swearing-in set for Thursday. Chaotic scenes erupted after a ruling party deputy tried to seize the ballot box during the vote for parliament speaker. The ensuing clash lasted several hours until the army stepped in, with national television broadcasting the drama live. “There was total breakdown of law and order,” said MP-elect Kwame Twumasi Ampofo of the opposition National Democratic Congress. “Looking at a member of parliament and a minister of state snatching ballot papers… was so shameful.” The new parliament will be virtually split down the middle between the two main parties, posing the risk of gridlock with key issues on the agenda including how to turn around an econ...
