Festivals: Sundance
THE UGLY STEPSISTER: IFC Films And Shudder Announce Theatrical Date For Dark Satire Fantasy Horror
IFC Films and Shudder have announced the theatrical date for Emilie Blichfeldt's feature directorial debut, The Ugly Stepsister. The dark satire and fairy tale horror flick from Norway will arrive in cinemas on April 18th. Elvira battles against her...
Sundance 2025 Review: JIMPA, Generational Queer Drama Elevated By Authentic, Heartfelt Performances
With a career spanning six decades, two centuries, and more accolades than could fit in a single review, John Lithgow could have retired long ago to bask in much deserved critical acclaim and popular consideration. Even as he approaches...
Sundance 2025 Review: PREDATORS Unveils a Dark Legacy
David Osit's documentary revisits 'To Catch a Predator,' a popular television show with a controversial legacy.
SLY LIVES! (AKA THE BURDEN OF BLACK GENIUS) Review: Sly Stone Doc Enlightens, Entertains
Win a well-earned Academy Award on your first try and chances are, you’d be tempted to call it a day and quit while you were ahead. For Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, though, winning a Best Documentary Oscar for Summer of...
Sundance 2025 Review: RAINS OVER BABEL, Singularly Enthralling Retro-Futuristic Queer Fantasy
In the retro-futuristic, pop-punk imagination of Spanish Columbian writer-director Gala del Sol (Natalia Hermida) and her unmissable, queer-coded feature-length debut, Rains Over Babel (Llueve Sobre Babel), Cali, Colombia exists in a sublime liminal space, at the crossroads between the real...
Sundance 2025 Review: 2000 METERS TO ANDRIIVKA, Brutal Realities of Modern Warfare
Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Mstyslav Chernov offers an unvarnished and unflinching look at the frontlines of the Russo-Ukrainian war.
Sundance 2025 Review: THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR Looks at Stand Your Ground Laws
Elections have consequences, as pundits keep reminding us. One of those is Florida's "stand your ground" legislation, which allows the use of deadly force if people feel they are in imminent danger. Composed almost entirely of bodycam and surveillance video,...
Sundance 2025 Review: OH, HI!, Anti-Rom-Com Promises Much, Delivers Less
The title of writer-director Sophie Brooks’s feature-length debut, Oh, Hi!, an anti-rom-com, appears almost immediately in an exchange between longtime best friends, Iris (Molly Gordon) and Max (Geraldine Viswanathan). Usually saved for a moment combining surprise and levity, here...
Sundance 2025 Review: DIDN'T DIE, Post-Apocalyptic Zom-Com, Short on Zombies, Short on Comedy
In co-writer/director Meera Menon’s (Equity, Farah Goes Bang) post-apocalyptic zombie tale, Didn’t Die, the zombie-filled life is barely worth living. As always, staying alive means not just dodging the unwashed walking dead and their insatiable appetite for tender human...
Sundance 2025 Review: BUNNYLOVR, Gen Z Cam-Girl Faces Existential Crisis
Pace everyone’s favorite Greek philosopher, Socrates, if the unexamined life isn’t worth living, then the unexamined cam life — as in cam-girl life — is probably a close second or even a distant third. That lack of self-exploration, of...
Sundance 2025 Review: COEXISTENCE, MY ASS!, Comedian's Pursuit of Middle East Peace
Director Amber Fares follows comedian Noam Shuster Eliassi, who uses humor to navigate the fraught landscape of Israeli-Palestinian relations.
Sundance 2025 Review: In GEN_, Doctor Fights for Equitable Healthcare
Gianluca Matarrese's documentary offers an emphatic exploration of the delicate balance between personal aspirations and systemic limitations, as seen through the humanistic lens of Dr. Maurizio Bini within Italy's conservative healthcare system.
Sundance 2025 Review: OBEX, Oddball Lo-Fi Sci-Fi/Fantasy Redefines Vibe Flick
Writer-director Albert Birney’s (Strawberry Mansion, Tux and Fanny, Sylvio) latest film, OBEX, an almost non-categorizable sci-fi/fantasy/comedy-drama, stands out as a vibe film through and through. If you’re on OBEX’s wavelength or frequency, i.e., attuned to its oddball charms, quirky humor,...
Sundance 2025 Review: THE UGLY STEPSISTER, Grim, Grotesque, Gory Take on the Brothers Grimm's Folktale
There’s a singularly cringe-inducing moment in Norwegian filmmaker Emilie Blichfeldt’s brilliantly conceived and vividly realized fairy/folk tale, The Ugly Stepsister (orig. Den stygge stesøsteren), where the doomed-to-fail title character, Elvira (Lea Myren), the subserviently obedient daughter of a ruthless, amoral social...
Sundance 2025 Review: REBUILDING, Loss, Grief, and Rediscovering Family
Despite the contrarian, anti-science protestations of some on the right, climate change is real. The effects thereof have been and will be felt in the years to come, including extreme weather events, such as the recent devastating wildfires that tore...
Sundance 2025 Review: LOVE, BROOKLYN, Performance-Led Romantic Triangle Engages, Enthralls, Entertains
A catch-all phrase popularized over a decade ago by Meta (formerly Facebook), “It’s complicated,” meant to describe romantic relationships that didn’t fall into one particular category or another, finds its clearest, nearest, and obviously it’s most recent application in director...
Sundance 2025 Review: THE THINGS YOU KILL, A Professor, the Patriarchy, and a Psychological Breakdown
Ali (Ekin Koç), the professor-protagonist in Iranian-born, Canada-residing writer-director Alireza Khatami’s (Terrestrial Verses, Oblivion Verses) perception- and consciousness-bending film, The Things You Kill, suffers from a debilitating existential/spiritual crisis. After returning to Turkey after more than a decade in...
Sundance 2025 Review: OMAHA, Poignant Character- and Performance-Driven Family Drama
For the disheveled, unnamed father (John Magaro, September 5, Past Lives, First Cow) in first-time feature-length director Cole Webley and writer Robert Machoian’s (The Killing of Two Lovers) poignant family drama, Omaha, a new dawn brings a new, ominous day....
Sundance 2025 Review: SPEAK, Heartfelt, Hopeful, Uplifting Doc
Every year, approximately 6,700 high-school students from 1,500 schools around the country participate in the National Speech and Debate Tournament (NSDT) in 42 distinct categories. Chief among them is the Original Oratory category, the subject of the captivating documentary...
Sundance 2025 Reviews: What We Saw, Liked and Loved
Updated 2/17/25. On January 23, 2025, the center of our genre-film loving world moved to Park City, Utah, US, where the Sundance Film Festival unveiled a broad and diverse selection of films. Our own Mel Valentin attended the festival in...
