Festivals Reviews
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.
SXSW 2025 Review: LIFEHACK, Raw Humanity, Vibrant Storytelling
Ronan Corrigan's crime thriller is like a buzz haircut.
SXSW 2025 Review: $POSITIONS, Money Changes Everything
Brandon Daley's wildly funny film stars Mike Kunicki, Vinny Kress, Trevor Dawkins, and Kaylyn Carter in a compelling tale of friendship, obsession, and a p--- bomb.
SXSW 2025 Review: TOUCH ME, The Tentacled Erotic Horror Comedy You Didn't Know You Needed
Joey (Olivia Taylor Dudley) and Craig (Jordan Gavaris) are besties. Joey is a single gal trying to find something to inspire her ambition, and Craig is a relatively lazy – but charming – guy living off his family money. When...
SXSW 2025 Review: SWEETNESS, Deceptively Sour, Completely Unhinged
Kate Hallett gives a brilliantly layered performance in writer/director Emma Higgins' lacerating tale of friendship, fantasy, and brutal reality.
SXSW 2025 Review: WE BURY THE DEAD, Daisy Ridley Leads This Genre Heavy Exploration of Grief
After a tragic accident leaves hundreds of thousands dead, a woman volunteers for clean up duty in an attempt to find her missing husband in Zak Hilditch’s meditative zombie thriller, We Bury the Dead. After an accidental nuclear detonation by...
SXSW 2025 Review: REDUX REDUX, A Woman Travels Across Dimensions Exacting Brutal Revenge
A woman travels across dimensions to take repeated revenge upon the man who killed her daughter in The McManus Brothers’ SXSW Film & TV Festival selection, Redux Redux. Irene Kelly (Michaela McManus) is a broken woman. Following the murder of...
SXSW 2025 Review: FRIENDSHIP, It's Hard Out Here For Dudes
Cringe comedy master Tim Robinson makes his feature lead debut alongside an always dependable Paul Rudd in Andrew DeYoung’s hilarious bromantic-comedy, Friendship. Craig Betterman (Robinson) is a man in a rut. He lives his life in an unending triangle between...
Berlinale 2025 Review: LESBIAN SPACE PRINCESS Merges Irreverent Humor with Queer Sci-Fi Coming of Age
Leela Varghese and Emma Hough Hobbs directed the funniest film of this year's Berlinale, a campy queer coming-of-age space opera.
SXSW 2025 Review: DESCENDENT, A Father-to-Be's Alien Abduction Exposes Male Anxieties
One night while on patrol at his job as late-night security for an elementary school, soon-to-be father Sean (Ross Marquand) spots strange floating lights in the sky. As they flit around, he marvels, then when he goes to change a...
