Is there anything more unpleasant than being stuck with another squabbling family’s seething Thanksgiving drama? The Humans, Stephen Karam’s film adaptation of his Tony Award-winning answers: Being stuck with it in a cramped old Chinatown apartment with no furniture, a bunch of secrets, thin walls and shoddy wiring!
Month: September 2021
TIFF 2021: Last Night in Soho
The Toronto International Film Festival kicked off this weekend in hybrid form. Among the splashier in-person screenings was the long-awaited premiere of Edgar Wright’s Last Night in Soho.
Everybody’s Talking about Jamie is a heap of joy in this dreary lingering pandemic
Jamie New has never felt ordinary, and fitting in with the rest of the kids wasn’t a priority but it wasn’t easy to go to school every day feeling like an outsider. Dreaming of becoming a performer, a star, is a desire he’s always known and can’t seem to live without and he’s just waiting to get out of high school to burst onto the drag scene. Based on the very real story of a kid wanting to be more than he is but finding resistance at every turn, this is the third in a line of productions based on his life starting with a television show, evolving into a broadway play and (maybe) finishing with this movie. The story is so universal every iteration is a success, including the film, so why keep telling it? It’s uplifting, we all want to feel like we belong and we’ve found a place, a thing and avocation that calls to us… helps us to feel comfortable in our own skin. This one hits the spot.
Seattle-set Malignant sees director James Wan letting loose with a movie defined by a completely outrageous finale
It made me feel like my head was going to explode while also putting my mind at ease once it settled into what it really wanted to be. It is full speed ahead and Wan is the maniac in the driver’s seat taking us off the cliff.
Nature is healing … Orcas Island Film Festival Returns for 2021
Like most other film festivals, the much-beloved Orcas Island Film Festival took 2020 off for the pandemic. It’s usual fall dates coincided …
Small Engine Repair is an incisive portrait of masculinity in crisis that takes a play to the big screen
An incredible calling card of a feature debut, Small Engine Repair is a remarkably well-written and acted character study of three deeply flawed men trying to reconnect with each other.
The Evening Hour is a heartbreaking portrait of addiction and desperation
Set with the gorgeous backdrop of Appalachia all around them, The Evening Hour is an indictment on how little opportunity and a lot of desperation can push a man to thing he never would have considered otherwise. Cole (Philip Ettinger, First Reformed) was born and raised in a small town destroyed by corporate greed and coal mining and living day to day the best he can. An orderly at the local senior home, he also makes ends meet by selling opiates around town. We’re immediately drawn to him for his good deeds around town: bringing groceries to elderly locals, giving cash to his grandmother, but he’s still part of a system that creates and keeps folks addicted.
Telluride 2021: Cow, Petite Maman, the Card Counter
In this dispatch from the Telluride Film Festival, Andrea Arnold on a farm, Celiné Sciamma in the woods, and Paul Schrader at the poker table.
Telluride 2021: Spencer, C’mon C’mon, the Power of the Dog
A dispatch from Saturday at Telluride featuring films from three master directors, each of whose primary action is catalyzed by a challenging marriage.
Yakuza Princess, a gritty, bloody hallucination set in São Paulo
in her lap along with a stranger (Jonathan Rhys Myers) who can’t remember who he is, much less why he’s drawn to her. Running on instinct and a small bit of info from friends of her grandfather, she travels to a hidden compound where things begin to reveal, and unravel, themselves. She discovers her destiny and for some reason knows the stranger fits into it.