Festivals Reviews
Udine 2024 Review: CITIZEN OF A KIND, A New Kind of Hero Rises in Delightful Female-Centric Vigilante Drama
If its films and dramas are to be believed, South Korea is a land teeming with vigilantes. They are typically brooding, sharply dressed and very attractive characters with dark pasts who mete out justice with brute strength or elaborate schemes,...
Fantaspoa 2024 Review: THE COMPLEX FORMS, How Classic Auteur Cinema Would Be If It Had More Monsters
Strange things are happening at an ancient villa in the literal middle of nowhere. A bunch of men are gathered here, all of them with a peculiar contract. A middle-aged man named Christian (David White) is in the process of...
Calgary Underground 2024 Review: HUMANE, The Family That Slays Together Stays Together
Apocalypses in Canadian cinema tend to occur in slow motion, and have a subversive touch of quiet absurdity. The two undisputed classics of the genre are Don McKellar’s Last Night, and Bruce McDonald’s Pontypool. Caitlin Cronenberg aims for that lofty...
Fantaspoa 2024 Review: THE ISLAND BETWEEN TIDES, Supernatural Mind-Teaser About Time, Ghosts and Complicated Relationships
When Lily (Remy Marthaller) was a child, she followed a mysterious melody and wandered onto a tidal island, disappearing for several days – though, when she returned, she claimed she was actually gone for mere minutes. Sixteen years later, it’s...
Fantaspoa 2024 Review: MASTERGAME (Mesterjátszma), Visually Compelling Thriller with Chess, Trains and Bathroom Fights
It’s November 1956, and Russian tanks have just invaded Budapest, crushing the revolution. A young couple, István (Gergely Váradi) and Márta (Varga-Járó Sára), rushes for the last train that can get them out of the country. When aboard, they are...
Panic Fest 2024 Review: THE BUILDOUT, Beautiful Meditation on Grief and Friendship
Writer/director Zeshaan Younus' feature debut flirts with genre in the same way Tarkovsky and Malick flirt with genre. The film follows two friends as they venture into the mysterious remote area in a vast Southern California desert that a religious...
Panic Fest 2024: Spanish Shorts APOTEMNOFILIA and FACIES Wow With Extreme Violence and Exciting Ideas
Panic Fest offers up another fantastic selection of shorts this year, but two in particular have stuck with me. Facies and Apotemnofilia both deliver shocking, stomach-churning moments of extreme violence that are memorable enough for the bodily reactions they elicit....
Panic Fest 2024 Review: OFF RAMP Celebrates Found Juggalo Family As Only Juggalos Can
Off Ramp is never subtle. Within the first five minutes, when Trey (Jon Oswald) is released from prison and says a heartfelt goodbye to correctional officer and fellow Juggalo (devoted fan of Insane Clown Posse) Faith (Laura Cayouette), the film...
Panic Fest 2024 Review: WORLDS Asks a Lot of Questions, Offers No Answers
Like its fellow found footage/mockumentary and Panic Fest 2024 film Jeffrey’s Hell, Worlds begins with an interview. Morgan Williams (Nikki Neurohr) talks about how she and some friends began to see a strange man (Nick Dailey), who always wore all...
Panic Fest 2024 Review: JEFFREY'S HELL Is a Brilliantly Self-Reflexive Found Footage Film
Writer/director Aaron Irons’s debut film Chest marked him as someone to watch. His sophomore effort, Jeffrey’s Hell, confirms that he’s one of the most interesting filmmakers working in the found footage horror genre. Chest follows a documentary crew investigating an...
SXSW 2024 Review: SMUGGLERS, Korea's King of Action Ryoo Seung-Wan Delivers A '70s Set Crowd-Pleaser
Two women’s lives transform when their diving careers move from harvesting shellfish to high stakes smuggling in Ryoo Seung-n’s ‘70s set comedic action thriller, Smugglers. After a healthy theatrical run in South Korea and a North American premiere at TIFF,...
Rotterdam 2024 Review: ROME: TALES FROM THE BLOCK, A Slight Alien Invasion Satire
La Guerra Del Tiburtino III has as its international title Rome: Tales From the Block, which shows you how much this film wears its influences on its sleeve. From the opening segment, in which an alien creature leaves a meteor...
Rotterdam 2024 Review: KING BABY Is A Royal Triumph
King Baby, by directors Kit Redstone and Arran Shearing, could've gone wrong in so many ways. The film is a send-up of masculine power plays, toxic machismo and the thin veneer of social niceties that hide volcanic violence waiting to...
SXSW 2024 Review: HOOD WITCH, Golshifteh Farahani Runs For Her Life In This Literal Witch Hunt
A trafficker of rare animals finds herself in the crosshairs of a literal witch hunt when a young boy plummets to his death following a visit in Saïd Belktibia’s Hood Witch, celebrating its international premiere at this year’s SXSW Film...
SXSW 2024 Review: CIVIL WAR, Is Not What You Think It Is. It's So Much More.
Civil War follows a quartet of war correspondents in the last days of the American republic as the Western Forces of the secessionist states of Texas and California advances on Washington, D.C. with harrowing results. Leading this motley crew are Lee...
Berlinale 2024 Review: DYING, Darkly Humorous Gaze Into Family Dysfunction
Michael Glasner's dramedy explores the dissonant lives of the Lunies family, intertwining themes of death, reconciliation, and the complexities of human relationships.
SXSW 2024 Review: FAMILY, Ruth Wilson Gives The Performance Of A Lifetime In This Heart-breaking Horror
A little girl with a dying father reaches out to the heavens for a spirit to protect her family, but what reaches back has other ideas in Benjamin Finkel’s SXSW Midnighters selection, Family. Having just moved across the country in...
Berlinale 2024 Review: A TRAVELER'S NEEDS, Hong Sangsoo's Minimalist Odyssey of Connection and Wonder
Hong Sangsoo and Isabelle Huppert reunite to explore themes of existential wanderlust and the complexity of human connections.
SXSW 2024 Review: THINGS WILL BE DIFFERENT, Timey-Wimey Two Handed Thriller Delights And Befuddles
A pair of siblings on the run after a robbery take refuge in a house with mysterious time-warping qualities, only to find that the law isn’t the only thing they have to fear. Things Will Be Different, the latest from...
SXSW 2024 Review: ARCADIAN, Rich Relationships And Terrifying Monsters Make This A Winner
The old world is dead and the new one wants to kill us in Benjamin Brewer’s solo feature directing debut, Arcadian. A post-apocalyptic survival horror with strong character work and some incredible monsters, Arcadian packs an emotional punch rarely seen...
