Month: July 2023

Reviews

Afire is a slow-burning seaside chamber piece until it isn’t

by Josh

We meet twentysomething friends Leon and Felix, just as their working holiday home gets off to a rough start. Getting away from city life to focus on creative pursuits, their Benz stops firing correctly, breaking down a rustic lane, out of cell service, in the middle of a forest. Felix optimistically runs ahead to find a path, leaving Leon alone in the woods to stew over this inconvenience. It’s a portentous beginning, and a pattern that will repeat itself often in their time by the coast in German director Christian Petzold’s take at a “summer film”.

Reviews

Oppenheimer is a masterclass in filmmaking

by Chris Burlingame

As long as I’ve been writing about the arts (somewhere near twenty years now), I’ve tried to keep any effusiveness in check, lest I feel like one of those critics whose names appear on movie posters declaring some Hollywood dreck like a Transformers movie life-changing. So when I left the theater after watching Oppenheimer, my emotions were almost foreign. I felt wonder and astonishment and like I had seen one of the best films I’ve seen in my life.

Reviews Roundtables

Roundtable: We Are Become Barbenheimer

by Sunbreak Staff

Given the monumental event in summer blockbuster history, Chris and Josh collected ourselves and convened a quick roundtable to chat about our experiences with Christopher Nolan’s atomic age biopic and Greta Gerwig’s big budget fantasia about the original American Icon. 

Joy Ride press photo
Reviews

It’s time to take a Joy Ride, the summer road-trip movie you won’t want to miss

by Morgen Schuler

Audrey (Ashley Park), is headed to China to make the deal of her young career. With her best friend Lolo (Sherry Cola), unpredictable but loyal as can be, in tow acting as translator and Lolo’s odd cousin Deadeye (Sabrina Wu) tagging along for the ride, Audrey is already on edge. For a little moral support they meet up with her college roommate and Chinese soap star Kat (Stephanie Hsu) when they arrive. Audrey is drowning in the unfamiliar culture and to save her job and this deal she has to dig into the past she’s avoided for so long.