Film Reviews
I’m Thinking of Ending Things Will Crush You: Review
The Pitch: A young woman (Jessie Buckley) travels with her boyfriend of six weeks, Jake (Jesse Plemons), for a long snowy drive to meet his parents for the first time. She’s not sure about this guy; he’s nice, but insecure, a bit of a know-it-all. She’s thinking of ending things. But something’s off about the whole affair as soon as she arrives at the farmhouse where Jake grew up. His father (David Thewlis) and mother (Toni Collette) are giddy to see her — almost a little too giddy. She sees herself in pictures of Jake as a boy. The dog won’t stop shaking itself dry. She sees Jake’s parents as older, and older, and older, and younger. What is happening? Who is Jake? Who is she? Many a New Day: And now, dear reader, the unenviable burden of unpacking and explicating a Charlie...
Christopher Nolan’s Tenet Is a Technical Marvel But a Narrative Dud: Review
Pitch: For months, Christopher Nolan’s Tenet has been promoted more as a canary in a coal mine than an actual film. With every shifted release date, the reality of the dangers surrounding COVID-19 only increased, all while the film flirted with those same hazards. Nolan had hoped his blockbuster would bring back theaters, but that dream still feels fanciful — even as the blockbuster nears its questionable release. Given his insistence for the theater experience, Nolan’s reputation has likely taken a hit, but his rank as a cinematic puzzlemaker remains intact. Mirroring the film’s perplexing route to release, Tenet is a murky globetrotting spy thriller, elevated by cinema-changing set pieces, and yet lowered by a classic case of visual ambition thwarting basic storytelling. The Past: To des...
Unearth Is a Slow Burn Metaphor for Parasitic Capitalism: Fantasia Fest Review
This review is part of our Fantasia Festival 2020 coverage. The Pitch: Kathryn Dolan (Adrienne Barbeau) and George Lomack (Marc Blucas) head neighboring rural families struggling to make ends meet in a crumbling economy. Tensions arise when one family signs a contract allowing fracking on their land, but their fates intertwine when this decision inadvertently releases a parasite previously locked within the earth. John C. Lyons and Dorota Swies’ tale of economic horror presents a compelling if uneven picture of the devil’s bargains working class people are often forced to make in order to survive. Parallel Parasites: Unearth is a timely metaphor in the midst of a pandemic which has crippled the US economy. We meet both families when they’re tottering on the edge of financial ruin and ...
Julia Fox Dominates Surprising and Sexy Pitch-Black Rom-Com PVT CHAT: Fantasia Fest Review
This review is part of our Fantasia Festival 2020 coverage. The Pitch: Jack (Peter Vack) is a lonely boy in the big city. He lives in a rundown apartment—the only kind anyone can afford in New York City–where his windows are duct-taped over and his day-to-day involves either bowls of Maruchan ramen or online poker games. But he also engages in BDSM scenes with a number of cam girls, and one in particular has caught his eye. Enter Scarlet (Julia Fox), who dominates Jack from afar, making him a human ashtray as smoke billows out from her big beautiful lips. As time ticks away and more and more money is dropped, Jack and Julia begin to connect on a deeper level, a connection that sets both parties up for twists that audiences will never see coming. I’ll Always Love You New York: With PVT CHAT...
12 Hour Shift Brilliantly Brings Hospital Horror to the Working Women Comedy: Fantasia Fest Review
This review is part of our Fantasia Festival 2020 coverage. The Pitch: Mandy (Angela Bettis) was having a bad day before her double shift at the hospital. She’s expected to provide a kidney transplant to some local gangsters. The only catch is that Mandy’s new courier Regina (Chloe Farnworth), who just so happens to be her half-cousin, has lost said kidney en route to the hospital. Frantically, they both try to get their hands on a replacement kidney as the clock keeps ticking. Fortunately for them, there’s a whole lotta fresh meat to choose from… Working 9 to 5: Angela Bettis should be familiar to horror fans, thanks to her iconic performances in a trio of Lucky McKee movies: 2002’s May, 2005’s The Woods, and 2011’s The Woman. She’s a stunning presence, who wears the stress of every one o...
Perdida Offers an Indelible Spin on the Hitchcock Thriller: Fantasia Fest Review
This review is part of our Fantasia Festival 2020 coverage. The Pitch: Eric (José María de Tavira) is a rich conductor living in a gorgeous modern home. So, why when we meet him is he getting fall-down drunk by himself at a dive bar? Enter Fabiana (Cristina Rodlo), the bartender on the night Eric causes a scene. Feeling curious, Fabiana brings Eric back to her place to let him sleep. When he wakes up, Eric rewards Fabiana with a pleasant afternoon date that leads to sex and a fast-tracked relationship. After practically moving into his apartment, detectives arrive with questions surrounding the last of Eric’s girlfriends. Seems one went missing not too long ago, though Eric insists it’s less nefarious. She left him. Fabiana’s not sure what to think, but then she starts hearing strange soun...
Tesla Wildly Reinvents the Biopic with an Inventive Ethan Hawke Performance: Review
This review originally ran as part of our Sundance 2020 coverage. The Pitch: By now, we all know the story of Nikola Tesla, spurned early 20th-century inventor and rival of Thomas Edison who invented alternating current, only to die penniless, his name largely lost to history until Christopher Nolan, Elon Musk, and the Fuck Yeah Science! corners of the Internet rehabilitated his unconventional genius. (Best not to mention the fact he was also a eugenicist, but that’s neither here nor there.) Now, one of America’s most under-appreciated minds has a full-throated biopic, with Ethan Hawke in the title role, charting his rags-to-riches-to-rags story. Of course, this being a Michael Almereyda joint, things get deeply weird. Welcome to Your Life: Make no mistake: Tesla ain’t your ...
Russell Crowe Taps Into His Inner Nicolas Cage for Maniac Motorist Movie Unhinged: Review
The Pitch: Ever wander on to YouTube, watch a few “Fail” videos, and suddenly find the algorithm inundating you with “Epic Fail” and “Expensive Fail” videos? YouTube sees your morbid curiosity for mayhem, and takes note. A day later, confident of where society seems to be heading, emboldened and in conjunction with your social media habits (a steady diet of Caucasian sociopaths refusing to wear masks), YouTube suggests more videos of people refusing to wear masks, getting into fistfights in grocery stores, and dash-cam footage of these folks trying to run people off the road with their cars. This genuinely happens to me all the time. In a way, the existence of Unhinged was algorithmically inevitable. Unhinged is a film particularly interested in road rage. Who are these guys? What drives a...
Peninsula Isn’t Nearly as Refined as Train to Busan: Review
The Pitch: In 2016, a near-perfect South Korean zombie flick crawled across the consciousness. Back then, Yeon Sang-ho’s Train to Busan—premised upon an extremely contagious virus turning people into man-eating monsters—reaped a whirlwind of success. When Sang-ho returned to make the sequel Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula, he couldn’t have predicted the prescient nature of his action-horror film. But amidst the resultant lockdowns and quarantines from Covid-19, the concept plays vastly different today. Following a former army captain and a small family surviving in Incheon, Peninsula combines components from I Am Legend, Mad Max, and the Fast & Furious series for a nonsensical joy ride that, while entertaining, lacks the sharpness of its predecessor. In Your Head: Peninsula opens to...
The One and Only Ivan Isn’t Nearly as Compelling as Its One and Only True Story: Review
The Pitch: Disney’s made the shift once more with The One and Only Ivan, a family adventure drama that was originally slated for theatrical release but has since moved to Disney+. Like many of their classics, this new movie is all about a group of scrappy, heroic animals banding together to go on an epic journey, replete with an A-List cast and computer effects. But does it work on the small screen? A True Story … Kind Of: The One and Only Ivan is a halfway decent live-action/CGI fable that makes a fatal mistake at the very end. Based on the children’s novel of the same name by K.A. Applegate, this film is inspired by a true story of a silverback gorilla who rose to fame as the star attraction of a circus in a suburban American mall all while tapping into his artistic abilities as a painte...
Project Power Gives Netflix Another Slick Action Rental: Review
The Pitch: In New Orleans, there’s a new drug hitting the streets — Power. Take it, and for five minutes you activate whatever latent superpower you may have. You might get super strength. You might turn invisible. You might just blow up within seconds of swallowing it. No one knows who’s… Please click the link below to read the full article. Project Power Gives Netflix Another Slick Action Rental: Review Clint Worthington You Deserve to Make Money Even When you are looking for Dates Online. So we reimagined what a dating should be. It begins with giving you back power. Get to meet Beautiful people, chat and make money in the process. Earn rewards by chatting, sharing photos, blogging and help give users back their fair share of Internet revenue.
Joe Keery Gets Five Stars As a Psycho Driver in Spree: Review
The Pitch: A rideshare driver (Joe Keery) attempts to conquer social media by turning his day-to-day into nightmare entertainment. He doesn’t care for your safety. He has no interest in reaching your destination. He’s not worried about a five-star rating. He only wants more followers — and nothing is off… Please click the link below to read the full article. Joe Keery Gets Five Stars As a Psycho Driver in Spree: Review Michael Roffman You Deserve to Make Money Even When you are looking for Dates Online. So we reimagined what a dating should be. It begins with giving you back power. Get to meet Beautiful people, chat and make money in the process. Earn rewards by chatting, sharing photos, blogging and help give users back their fair share of Internet revenue.
