The Pitch: Millie Kessler (Kathryn Newton) is a year removed from her father’s death and her family is still grieving. While her sister Char has fittingly taken the role of matriarch, appropriate considering her career in the police force, her mother has taken to the bottle. It’s also senior year for Millie at Blissville High and things aren’t particularly promising; the boy she likes doesn’t seem interested, she’s constantly picked on by teachers and students alike, and she’s anxious at the idea of leaving her mom behind. Keeping her grounded are best friends Josh (Misha Osherovich) and Nyla (Celeste O’Connor). Things take a very sudden turn, however, when she’s attacked by the legendary Blissfield Butcher (Vince Vaughn) with a mystical knife that has them swap bodies. Now, she has 24 hou...
The Pitch: Paramedics Dennis (Jamie Dornan) and Steve (Anthony Mackie) work together in the same ambulance and are also longtime best friends. Running the Garden District route in New Orleans, the two run into a string of incidents linked to a new synthetic designer drug, Synchronic, which is having preternatural effects on users. When a one-two punch of personal tragedy afflicts the friends, their lives are thrown into turmoil as they become inextricably linked to the dangerous narcotic. The Best Time Travel Stories Are Not About Time Travel: Time travel in film is usually best used when it’s a plot device but not the coda of the movie. Genre vets Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson are magicians here, using the script and pacing to nimbly carry us through a science-fiction adventure that tr...
The Pitch: It’s late 17th century England, and although the plague is no longer running as rampant as it once was, a new pandemic has taken over: witchcraft. The era of scapegoating women for anything and everything is prevalent and the main conflict in The Reckoning. Grace Haverstock’s husband has committed suicide, himself afflicted with the plague, and has left Grace and their newborn daughter to care for their small farm. When she falls behind on rent, her landlord attacks her and suggests she make payment with sexual favors. Grace spurns his advances. With his fragile male ego damaged, he accuses her of witchcraft, and Grace is put into bondage and undergoes a series of physical and psychological torture tactics in an attempt to have her admit her allegiance to the dark arts. <img ...
The Pitch: COVID-19. Sorry, but there really are no breaks from this fucker until we have actual, steady control over this present strain of novel coronavirus. When the culture is illness, you don’t hide under coats until the whole thing blows over. You deal head-on. And this review for this particular movie will treat the issue in that way. Despite President Trump’s assertions that COVID-19 is “totally under control,” no, it’s not. And that, in a dish served cold and fast, is the case of the new documentary Totally Under Control. With 210,000 dead in the United States and rising, millions infected, and a president unwilling to acknowledge the hubris of his actions while himself testing positive for the disease, we’re far away from anything remotely resembling “control” at this present mom...
The Pitch: Maud (Morfydd Clark) does palliative care for a private healthcare facility and becomes the maid for Amanda (Jennifer Ehle), a former avant garde dancer and choreographer. Maud has found God following a traumatic event at work, hinted at through flashbacks and haunting visions, and has now taken a pious approach to work that borders on fanaticism. Faced with antagonism from Amanda, Maud slowly spirals more and more into religious fueled actions and experiences — talked to and touched by God — that will lead to a string of actions that have an irreversible impact and her and those around her. This Cast and Crew Are Doing the Lord’s Work: British writer and director Rose Glass boldly shows off her chops and gives viewers a lot to appreciate and more importantly a lot to look forwa...
This review is part of our coverage of the 2020 New York Film Festival. The Pitch: Continuing his probing look at the lives of the West Indian immigrant communities of 1960s-1980s London, Steve McQueen concludes his Small Axe anthology with the real-life tale of Leroy Logan (John Boyega), who’d eventually become one of the Metropolitan Police’s most decorated superintendants. Before he got there, though, he was a young research scientist who decides to fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming a police officer — much to the chagrin of his father Kenneth (Steve Toussaint), a proud Jamaican who’s experienced the racism and brutality of the British bobbies firsthand. As a young recruit, Leroy excels; he’s top of his class, physically fit, and immensely principled. But the minute he str...
This review is part of our coverage of the 2020 New York Film Festival. The Pitch: Laura (Rashida Jones) is in crisis. From the outside, it might not seem so: She’s a published author with another book deal on lock, she’s got a handsome husband named Dean (Marlon Wayans) and two beautiful girls, and they live in the kind of well-furnished Manhattan apartment you only see in sitcoms. But Dean’s started to spend more time outside of the home, ostensibly to work on his social media startup with his tall, gorgeous colleague Fiona (Iron Fist‘s Jessica Henwick), and his excuses for his absence have grown increasingly flimsy. Hence, the crisis: She can’t concentrate on her book, she’s increasingly aloof to her school pickup mom-partner Vanessa (Jenny Slate), and she can’t quite get Dean to c...
This review is part of our coverage of the 2020 New York Film Festival. The Pitch: In 1968, Notting Hill was a slowly-growing hub of Black culture in London, filled with West Indian immigrants of various stripes who congregated at Frank Crichlow’s (Shaun Parkes) Mangrove Restaurant for spicy food, pumping beats, and a sense of community. But when sustained police interference with the restaurant — constant raids, fines and charges for prostitution and drug possession — led to a protest that turned violent, Crichlow and eight other defendants were brought in front of the Old Bailey on charges of incitement to riot. But this trial wouldn’t be like Black Power trials of the past: the Mangrove Nine, including Crichlow, Black Panther activist Altheia Jones-LeCointe (Letitia Wright), Darcus...
The Pitch: Recently widowed Jessica (Jules Willcox) attempts to leave her past by absconding into the Pacific Northwest wilderness. Unfortunately for her, those plans are literally derailed after a harrowing run-in with a cold-blooded killer. Following a series of very unfortunate events, Jessica finds herself kidnapped, beaten, and locked away in a remote cabin. But there’s hope! She manages to escape her captor, only to find herself in the middle of nowhere … completely alone … except for her pursuer. Bare Bones: Screenwriter Mattias Olsson adapts his 2011 Swedish thriller Gone for American audiences with Alone. He keeps things lean and mean, though, eschewing any of the fat that traditionally comes with Hollywood remakes. Instead, subtlety is survival with this reimagining, and that’s p...
The Pitch: In London’s West Indian community in 1980, a house party brews. The men haul furniture out to the backyard and bring in huge speakers to replace it, while the women crowd into the kitchen, cooking goat curry and plaintains while singing and laughing with each other. Men and women file in one at a time, paying the bouncer while the DJ pumps in the songs of Carl Douglas, Sister Sledge, Janet Kay — romantic reggae, “Lover’s Rock”. This is the setting for Steve McQueen‘s Lovers Rock, a glimpse into the Blues parties that served as an important space for Black Londoners of the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s to find community, solidarity, and love, as a rotating ensemble of characters sing and scrub throughout the evening. And in the middle of it all, a young woman named Martha (Amarah-Jae...
This review is 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 softened in ...