Weird Reviews
Fantasia 2024 Review: FRANKIE FREAKO, Steven Kostanski's Chaotic Puppet Adventure Is Freakin' Great!
A painfully bland office worker gets his world turned upside down by a trio of tiny cosmic weirdos in Steven Kostanski’s latest gonzo comedy, Frankie Freako. After hit cult comedy gold with 2021’s Psycho Goreman, Kostanski and his usual bunch...
Fantasia 2024 Review: CHAINSAWS WERE SINGING, A Gleefully Gory Musical Ten Years In The Making
Bursting with ingenuity and good old fashioned, “come on pals, let’s make a movie!” can-do energy, Sander Maran’s debut feature, Chainsaws Were Singing, is a gleefully gory musical romantic horror comedy that really hits the spot and proves that sometimes...
Karlovy Vary 2024 Review: TROPICANA, A Middle Age Coming of Age With Seidlian Touch
Omer Tobi's debut feature sees a weary supermarket cashier in the Israeli desert embarks on an unexpected journey of self-discovery in the echoes of Ulrich Seidl´s poetics.
UHF 4K Review: Shout Factory Helps Bring Joy Decades Later
What can be said about UHF that hasn’t been said before? “Weird Al” Yankovic and his manager/the director of the film, Jay Levey, pulled off something that was originally released in 1989. Oh, simpler times. The film is a ridiculous,...
KINDS OF KINDNESS Review: Everybody's Looking For Something
Everybody’s looking for something in Kinds of Kindness, director Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest attempt to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. Three tales of lost souls on a desperate search for meaning and wholeness take the audience on a wild...
Chattanooga 2024 Review: NOCLIP Goes Nowhere On Purpose
NOCLIP opens with a silly animated commercial for the Kansas City Missouri mall Crown Center. It's a real mall that's existed for more than half a century now, though I haven't been able to determine whether or not the commercial...
FAMILY PORTRAIT Review: A Disconcerting Disappearence Makes a Haunted Gathering
For many families, the yearly portrait is not just a ritual, but an custom inviolate. Maybe there's only one person in the family that actually wants the portrait and might even enjoy the process - but it gets done nonetheless....
Chattanooga 2024 Review: SWEET RELIEF, Or, BLUE VELVET for the 21st Century
While many films, including some of its festival mates at the Chattanooga Film Festival this year, regurgitate some of David Lynch's images and ideas, Sweet Relief offers something comparable to, rather than derivative of the master of modern dark surrealism....
Annecy 2024 Review: SPERMAGEDDON, Outrageous Comedy Meets Heartwarming Sex-Ed in Year's Most Unlikely Family Film
Directors Tommy Wirkola and Rasmus A. Sivertsen deliver a hilariously heartwarming 3D animation romp that intertwines a wild microscopic adventure with the awkwardness of the first sexual experience.
HUMANIST VAMPIRE SEEKING CONSENTING SUICIDAL PERSON Review: Coming of Age When You Don't Age
Sasha is a bit of a disappointment to her parents. Not only is her body a little slow to catch up to lend the family the survival help they need, she also has no desire to participate in their most...
Tribeca 2024 Review: SHE LOVED BLOSSOMS MORE, Elegiac Paean to Loss and Memory
An elegiac past seeks resurrection even though it has never really left in Yannis Veslemes’s (Norway) latest directorial feature, She Loved Blossoms More, premiering at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. Opening with a bit of a rambling dialogue over images...
Zlín 2024 Review: SKUNK Offers Brutal Adolescent Saga
Director Koen Mortier ('Ex-Drummer') dives into the harrowing reality of adolescent abuse and resilience, offering a stark, unflinching look at a system that perpetuates trauma.
Tribeca 2024 Review: THE A-FRAME, A Gooey Black Comedy With Heart From Calvin Reeder
An ambitious amateur physicist makes some big promises to a desperate cancer patient in Calvin Lee Reeder’s latest feature, The A-Frame. Well known for his lo-fi avant garde nightmare features The Oregonian and The Rambler, Reeder steps into a more...
Cannes 2024 Review: THE SUBSTANCE, One of the Year's Best Genre Movies
Without much expectation – because Revenge, director Coralie Fargeat's debut film, wasn’t as thrilling to me as to most genre cinema specialists – I went to a night screening of The Substance at the Cannes International Film Festival. The decision...
Cannes 2024 Review: In THE SECOND ACT, Quentin Dupieux Continues to Amuse
Quentin Dupieux’s new film The Second Act (Le deuxième acte) opened the 77th edition of the Cannes International Film Festival. It’s noteworthy that it’s a Netflix co-production and, although this could mean that Dupieux eventually reaches many more people, there’s...
Book Review: THE SWEETEST TABOO: AN UNAPOLOGETIC GUIDE TO CHILD KILLS IN FILM
This one’s for all the weirdos out there, and I say that with love. There’s a brand-new book out that explores the theme of wee ones getting offed in cinema… and it’s hilarious. At least it is if this subject...
TIME OF THE HEATHEN Review: Lost Indie Feature Showcases a Bleak Post-WWII America
It's safe to say that the post-WWII years were not as good as many people had claimed for many years. Despite propaganda lauding those years as a time of prosperity and success for all, it didn't take long for that...
FOIL Review: Finding Aliens and Restoring Friendships in the Wilderness
Like many who think they are leaving their hometown behind in a cloud of dust, Dexter (Zach Green) has found himself returning, somewhat with his proverbial tail between his legs. His big dreams of a indie film career in Hollywood...
POOLMAN Review: Earnest Performances Almost Save a Misguided Comedy-Noir
A few years ago, I was taking an Uber back to my airbnb in Los Angeles; the driver, it turns out, was something of a conspiracy theorist. At first he was just telling me about the politics of the city,...
Calgary Underground 2024 Review: CUCKOO, Delightfully Analog Sensory Overload
Two characters, having barely survived a traumatic and violent ordeal at a hospital, try to leave, only to find the doors locked. But wait, it is one of those situations where one door is locked but the other one works...
