Weird Reviews
ENYS MEN Review: The Primary Haunting of a Lonely Existence
While British folk horror has people frightened with visions of isolated Scottish islands, forests that run down its spine, to me, Cornwall has always held particular creepy fascination. Maybe it's that this lonely peninsula jutting out into the Atlantic feels...
Kaboom Animation 2023: UNICORN WARS Is Awesomely Bonkers
Today sees the start of the 2023 edition of the Utrecht-and-Amsterdam-based Kaboom Animation Festival, which focuses on animation worldwide. All audiences are catered for: the festival's programme has a kids section, a great selection of queer movies, many amazing shorts,...
Blu-ray Review: INLAND EMPIRE, Lynch's Abstract Masterpiece Comes to Criterion
I have to keep reminding myself that Inland Empire is, in fact, Lynch's most recent feature film. Since 2006, Lynch has directed music videos short films, and of course another season of his ground-breaking television series Twin Peaks. But no...
SXSW 2023 Review: CHRONICLES OF A WANDERING SAINT, A Magical Realist Triumph From First Time Filmmaker Tomás Gómez Bustillo
A magical realist fantasy, first time director Tomás Gómez Bustillo’s Chronicles of a Wandering Saint imagines the path to heaven for a pious woman with dreams of sainthood. Combining old world, small town charm with modern technology and gentle humor, Saint...
COUNTRY GOLD Reviewed: The Poetry of Has-Beens
Mickey Reece, prolific indie filmmaker, is no stranger to tackling stories of famous musicians (according to my partner, Reece's film Alien is a far superior look at the life of Elvis than the recent Baz Lurhmann film). After his previous...
Berlinale 2023 Review: INSIDE, Heist Drama Turns Into Something Else
Willem Dafoe wrecks a luxury apartment, creating conceptual art in a bid for survival in director Vasilis Katsoupis' feature-length fiction debut.
CALVAIRE Review: Love Born in Isolation Twists into Cruelty
Isolation isn't just about physical location; it can be cultural, social, and psychological. It can come as much from class, or strange arbitrary social constructs, as well as those roles set by a patriarchal society whose rules are so convoluted...
Review: ATTACHMENT, The Truth Will Keep You Trapped
Maja (Josephine Park) has not had much success as an actress, being best know as a storytelling elf from an old television series for children. But this did give her the opportunity for a meet-cute with the somewhat younger Leah...
Review: THE CIVIL DEAD, Uncomfortably Smart Take on the Boredom of Death
Probably most of us, at one time or another, have had a friend in our lives, whose friendship, after a time, became more of a burden than a gift. The friend who can't seem to read social cues or take...
Review: SKINAMARINK, The Dark Call Is Coming From Inside the House
If you are a Canadian of a certain age, or perhaps are familiar with this particular children's tune, prepare to be scarred for life. Well, I could really say that to anyone who watches Skinamarink. This both feels and looks...
Tallinn 2022 Review: HIT BIG, Mayhem Becomes a Family Affair in Finnish Crime-Com
Tarantino meets John Waters in a Finnish crime caper with booze, filth and violence that turns into a genre demolition derby.
Review: CHRISTMAS BLOODY CHRISTMAS, Joe Begos Paints The Holiday Season With Neon And Blood
It's Christmas Eve and fiery record store owner Tori just wants to get drunk and party, until the robotic Santa Claus at a nearby toy store goes haywire and makes her night more than a little complicated.
Cork 2022 Review: ARVÉD, Occultist Biopic as Transcending Ritual
Czech director Vojtech Mašek's feature debut folds a psychological and political thriller into a mystery drama, enwrapped in a biopic about the infamous Czech occultist drawn to the dark side.
Jihlava 2022 Review: KUNSTKAMERA, Czech Surrealist Maestro Jan Švankmajer Opens His Private Cabinet of Curiosities
The documentary reveals the private chambers of the surrealist filmmaker and artist materializing his mindscape full of strange objects, fetishes, and taxidermy.
Blu-ray Review: DAISIES, Still Fresh, Subversive, and Relevant, Now Beautifully Restored
While there might be filmmakers who more readily come to the minds of cinephiles when you mention Czech New Wave cinema of the 1960s, I'd argue that there is no more important film of that era than Daisies. Věra Chytilová's...
Review: PLEASE BABY PLEASE, A Queer Neon-Noir Musical Seduction
For those in the queer community, and allies of it, we're (hopefully) aware that sexual and gender identity is still that strays outside the heteronormative is still taboo (to put it mildly) in much of the world, even in societies...
Blu-ray Review: LA LLORONA, The Haunting Cries of the Oppressed
There are some historical events, ones whoe political and social impact is so devastating, on large and small scales, that realistic depiction is insufficient. This is, often, where folk tales, mythologies, and legends come from: not always from good things,...
Sitges 2022 Review: STORIES TO KEEP YOU AWAKE Season 2 Delights, Terrifies, Intensifies the Fears
Narciso Ibáñez Serrador's series Historias para no dormir remains one of the most important and influential in Spanish television history; part Twilight Zone, part horror anthology, it has been revived a few times, in the early 2000s with works by...
Sitges 2022 Review: UNIDENTIFIED OBJECTS, Close Encounter of the Queer Kind
The road trip movie is tailor-made for the journey of self discovery; more so perhaps in North America, where the distances are long, the population sparse, and the lack of anything to do besides face yourself dominates. This can be...
Sitges 2022: PIAFFE, Embracing Animal Behaviour
We too often forget than humans are animals. Too many of us have divorced ourselves from the natural world, the world of our, for lack of a better phrasing, animal instincts. We clothe ouselves, eat (usually) with utensils, as if...
