Festivals Reviews
Calgary Underground 2025 Review: BROKEN BIRD, A Beautiful And Muddled Provocation
We meet Sybil confidently applying for a new job as undertaker’s assistant with the sharpest of black bangs, and a fashion sense that is both vintage and arthouse-modern. She is a seasoned pro with several references, and a balm for...
Calgary Underground 2025 Review: TWO WOMEN, A Modern Remake of Quebec Sex Comedy
A tiny camera move during a scene at a Montreal Canadiens hockey game demonstrates what good direction can do: the storytelling happens via the camera itself, revealing the gag (which I will not) and surprising the audience with something possible...
Calgary Underground 2025 Review: EEPHUS, Where Baseball Contains Multitudes
Eephus, Carson Lund’s wonderful ode to small stakes baseball and gruff Americana, needs its odd title explained: The Eephus pitch is a throw that is so unnaturally slow that it confuses the batter. It makes him swing too early, or...
Calgary Underground 2025 Review: REVERIES: THE MIND PRISON, One Story Ends, Another Story Must Begin
You know that dream where you are running, to nowhere in particular, for no reason, and you trip, fall, and wake up? Reveries: The Mind Prison is the movie version of that dream. Only here, you are walking, and thus...
Rotterdam 2025 Review: THREE DAYS OF FISH Proves You Can Never Go Home Again
Peter Hoogendoorn debuted very strongly almost ten years ago with Tussen 10 en 12 (Between 10 and 12), a rigidly structured movie set in a limited time-space. In it, a family one by one get told bad news by two...
Rotterdam 2025 Review: VIDEOHEAVEN, Alex Ross Perry's Juggernaut Essay About Video-stores
Alex Ross Perry's new film is a video-essay in the style of Thom Andersen's seminal Los Angeles Plays Itself, in that it focuses on a place and location, and explores this place solely through deep analysis of footage from films...
Panic Fest 2025 Review: THE HEDONIST Confirms a Distinct New Voice
Writer, director, and actor Nick Funess' new film also stars Amrita Newton and Izzi Rojas.
Panic Fest 2025 Review: DOOBA DOOBA, A Cult Classic in the Making
Amna Vegha, Betsy Sligh, Erin O'Meara, and Winston Haynes star in writer/director Ehrland Hollingsworth's adventures in babysitting, found-footage style.
Panic Fest 2025 Review: THE LOST EPISODE, Found Footage COPS
It's always funny when a movie has a clear reference point but can't afford the rights to directly reference it. The Lost Episode opens with on screen text informing us that what we're about to watch was originally recorded on...
Berlinale 2025 Review BLUE MOON: Lyricist Lorenz Hart at a Crossroads
Richard Linklater's new film follows lyricist Lorenz Hart as he tries to salvage his career. Ethan Hawke, Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale, and Andrew Scott star.
Cinequest 2025 Review: I'M NOT AN ACTOR, A Long Distance Drama Unfolds
A man and a woman audition for a film; he from Frankfurt, Germany, her from Mumbai, India. He is a banker, she is a serious actor, but the only way they get the job is by working together over a...
Cinequest 2025 Review: VOICES CARRY, Grim Generational Trauma Thriller
If countless genre films have taught us anything, returning to a lake house where you spent your childhood and where some troubling events may have occurred is never a good idea. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what Sam (Gia Crovatin) and her...
SXSW 2025 Review: BROTHER VERSES BROTHER, A Live Cinema Musical With A Huge Heart
Twin brothers roam the streets of San Francisco in search of their AWOL father in Ari Gold’s blissfully introspective live cinema musical, Brother Verses Brother. The fact that Brother Verses Brother recently added Francis Ford Coppola to its credit block...
SXSW 2025 Review: ODYSSEY, A Super Tense Thriller With A Bloody Edge
Natasha Flynn (Polly Maberly) is a hustler. She runs an estate agency, selling and leasing properties all over London. Working from a flashy office with a cadre of hungry employees, on the verge of a profitable merger with a bigger...
SXSW 2025 Review: GLORIOUS SUMMER, Three Women Seek Freedom From Their Gilded Cage
Three women exist in an abandoned castle, bound by rules and rituals disseminated by disembodied voices, unburdened by want, but trapped in a dystopian wonderland they cannot leave in directors Helena Ganjalyan and Bartosz Szpak’s Glorious Summer. An ennui laden...
SXSW 2025 Review: NIRVANNA THE BAND THE SHOW THE MOVIE, Matt & Jay Go Back to the Future!
A pair of lovable losers come up with a series of ridiculous schemes to get their band a gig at Toronto’s legendary nightclub, The Rivoli in Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol’s Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie. A feature...
SXSW 2025 Review: THE SURRENDER, A Mother Attempts to Save Her Husband From Death Through Black Magic
Megan returns home after a long time away to support her mother, Barbara, as her father enters his dying days in writer/director Julia Max’s black magic horror film, The Surrender. Barbara’s (Kate Burton) husband has been ill for a very...
SXSW 2025 Review: CAPER, Toxicity Does Not Pay
Dan Imperial's comedy is a bitter pill to swallow for six New York City men.
SXSW 2025 Review: DEEPER, How Deep Is Your Love?
Jennifer Peedom's documentary goes deep on Harry Harris' pursuit of something that is always out of reach.
SXSW 2025 Review: FLIGHT 149: HOSTAGE OF WAR, Flown into a War Zone
Directed by Jenny Ash, the film asks why civilian passengers were used as pawns by powerful forces.
