Indie Reviews
THE BRUTALIST Review: Big Canvas, Real Intimacy, Human Grace
Brady Corbet directs; Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce and Joe Alwyn star.
RESYNATOR Review: Rather Amazing and Completely Fascinating
Alison Tavel's documentary about her father's invention of a revolutionary musical instrument is a compelling watch and even better than I had hoped.
NICKEL BOYS Review: Important Story, POV Troubles
Ethan Herisse, Brandon Wilson, Hamish Linklater, Fred Hechinger, Daveed Diggs, and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor star in director RaMell Ross' adaptation of Colson Whitehead's prize-winning novel.
Dances With Films 2024 Review: ITCH! A Low-Budget Horror Banger From Bari Kang
A struggling widower and his daughter become trapped in his convenience store as a mysterious affliction ravages the world outside, but the danger turns out to be closer than he thinks in Bari Kang's debut feature, Itch! Still reeling from...
Imagine 2024 Review: MI BESTIA
It's almost funny how well puberty and horror mix, especially for women. It's not just bodies and moods that change with hormones, but also the behavior of everyone else. Some see an innocent cherub changing into a possible sexual conquest,...
THE END Review: A Song For the Discordant Last
Perhaps because we feel, more so than ever, at the edge of a possible fall of civilzation as we know it, the destruction of the environment to the point of unsustainability, but likely many of us have thought about (either...
SEPARATED Review: The Past Is Prologue on US Immigration Policy
In the first half of the first Trump administration, several thousand children were forcibly separated from their parents in a ‘zero-tolerance’ deterrence policy that was cynically designed to discourage Latin American migrants from seeking entry into the United States of...
Y2K Review: A Whole Lot Of Exciting Build-Up With A So-So Follow Through. Sounds Familiar.
It’s New Year’s Eve 1999, and all of our worst millennial nightmares are about to come true in Kyle Mooney’s high energy sci-fi comedy Y2K. Eli (Jaeden Martell, Knives Out) and Danny (Julian Dennison, Hunt for the Wilderpeople) are a...
HEAVIER TRIP Review: Impaled Rektum's Sophomore Odyssey Is Worth The Trip
Impaled Rektum, the world’s foremost symphonic postapocalyptic reindeer-grinding Christ-abusing extreme war pagan Fennoscandian metal band is back with a headbang in Heavier Trip, Juuso Laatio and Jukka Vidgren’s follow up to their 2018 underdog cult classic Heavy Trip. This time...
London Fantastic 2024 Review: THE KILLER GOLDFISH
This last week London International Fantastic Film Festival kicked off its inaugural edition with Tsutsumi Yukihiko genre mashup extravaganza, The Kiler Goldfish. The filmmaker, perhaps best known for his intense tale of neighborly discord 2LDK, has expanded his scope with...
Camerimage 2024 Review: RUST, Haunted By Death
Alec Baldwin, Travis Fimmel, Frances Fisher, Josh Hopkins, and Patrick Mcdermott star in Joel Souza's film, marred by cinematographer Halyna Hutchins's tragic death during production.
DOC NYC 2024 Review: UNION, A Film That Won't Be Streaming on Amazon
In a world of plutocracy, the working-class struggle is not a left or right issue.
HIPPO Review: Uncomfortable Laughs, Ludicrous Characters, and Much More
An unusual family lives an unusual life in Mark H. Rapaport’s Hippo, one of the stranger films that has played at the Fantasia Film Festival. Rapaport drops us into a suburban dystopic home where society’s rules don’t seem to apply,...
DREAM TEAM Review: Analogue Aesthetics and Conspiring Coral
Imagine it's the 90s, in the early days of wide home computer use, with dial-up models, compact discs as the main mode of music listening, and you've fallen asleep in front of your television. You wake up in a dark...
ELEVATION Review: Nothing Is Elevated in This Unexciting Sci-Fi Action
Director George Nolfi's film stars Anthony Mackie and Morena Baccarin.
A REAL PAIN Review: Dueling Character Studies on Unusual Road Trip
Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin star in a film written and directed by Jesse Eisenberg.
CHASING CHASING AMY Review: Self-Discovery, Acceptance, and the Dark Side
Revisiting cinematic legacies has become a genre unto itself. In 2021, the Tribeca Film Festival showcased Eddie Martin's documentary The Kids, a behind-the-scenes expose of Larry Clark's cult classic, revealing a web of collective trauma, exploitation, and victimhood. This...
HERETIC Review: A Diabolical Hugh Grant Takes Two Mormon Missionaries On A Hell Of A Ride
A pair of Mormon missionary sisters find themselves in a dangerous battle of wills with a charming but sinister spiritual seeker in Scott Beck and Bryan Woods’s religious themed horror puzzle box, Heretic. Sisters Paxton (Chloe East) and Barnes (Sophie...
SPIRIT IN THE BLOOD Review: Coming of Age Surrrounded by Monsters
I don't want to discount the possibility of the supernatural, since there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy, but most 'monsters; do turn out to be human. And more often than not,...
Lausanne 2024 Review: MAKAMISA: PHANTASM OF REVENGE Confronts the Ghosts of Colonial Power through Subversive Silent Cinema
Filipino provocateur Khavn de la Cruz reimagines colonial-era Philippines through a fractured cinematic lens, blending experimental visuals with silent cinema aesthetics to unravel a surreal and haunting exploration of history, violence, and national trauma.
