Author Archive
Film Review – Mother of George
Kierkegaard once said that marriage brings one into fatal connection with custom and tradition, and traditions and customs are like the wind and the weather—they’re altogether incalculable. This might have been a fitting epigraph for Andrew Dosunmu’s new film, Mother of George. While in many…
READ MORE
Film Review – The World’s End
The World’s End is a nostalgia trip. Primarily because this film is the coda to a trilogy that began nearly ten years ago, but also because the film’s subjects are five middle-aged men attempting to recreate, however more triumphantly, a failed pub crawl from twenty…
READ MORE
Film Review – Lee Daniels’ The Butler
There is a fine line between sentiment and sentimentality, and for the greater part of its running time, Lee Daniels’ The Butler performs a stunning balancing act. This was a relief for me, because seeing the words “Based on the True Story” appear before the…
READ MORE
SIFF Film Review – Cockneys vs Zombies
Zombie movies are a dead genre—or perhaps even an undead genre (despite being dead, they just keep coming and coming and coming). It wasn’t always this way. I fondly remember a time when I would look forward to a new zombie movie, when the zombie…
READ MORE
Film Review – Girl Most Likely
The best screwball comedies have the ability to create a surreality that operates on a sort of dream logic, where oddball characters and plot developments inconsistent with reality exist harmoniously within the universe crafted by the film. Charlie Kaufman films, for instance, display this quality.…
READ MORE
Film Review – Maniac
Apparently growing up watching your mother snort lines and prostitute herself out to random strangers can lead to some pretty severe mommy issues. In Maniac, a fairly faithful remake of the 1980 cult classic, it leads to violent, homicidal urges. This gory horror film “stars”…
READ MORE
SIFF Film Review – Town Hall
For Katy Abram, it all started at town hall. In 2009, she passionately railed at then Pennsylvania state senator Arlen Specter about how this country was slipping into socialism. “I don’t want this country turning into Russia,” she said. The once quiet stay-at-home mother was…
READ MORE
SIFF Film Review – 9 Full Moons
I know these people. I am these people. Well, not exactly. There is a specificity of character that separates me from Frankie and Lev, but their inner struggles and their situation touches on the universal. 9 Full Moons, an independent film from Tomer Almagor and…
READ MORE