A Seattle moviegoing lifestyle magazine
An attractive forty-something, semi-successful actor from New York, Michael (Andy Karl), dies single. He’s told by a magical CEO (Christina Ricci) in a high rise in the sky that he has to find his soulmate to ascend and there’s a ticking clock to find them before he literally ceases to exist. So… eternity with a partner or you literally disappear never to be heard from again; useless and unloved.
I had really high hopes for this quirky British comedy about a woman, Frankie (Maeve Dermody), who is sick and tired of being dumped. We meet her as she’s left by her “perfect man” via his little brother Wilbur (yes, he broke up with her by proxy) and through some awkward interactions with this little messenger (Rory Stroud) , she finds out there maybe a gene that consistently makes you the dumpee at the end of a relationship rather than the dumper. For the rest of the film she tries to fix this defect.
What could possibly go wrong? Two low-level crooks, both near strangers to each other, are asked to “babysit” a man’s family while he retrieves some documents for their employer. Well… everything; everything can go wrong, and did, in this maze-like crime drama about the mob, murders, lies, and corruption. A couple of infamous criminals, Curt Goynes (Don Cheadle) and Ronald Russo (Benicio Del Toro), in 1950’s Detroit fall deeper and deeper into a scandal as they uncover the layers of a well-hidden secret. Attempting to use it to their advantage and up their payout, both try to double-cross their employer, the other players, and each other to come out on top. Based on a true story surrounding the automotive industry at Detroit’s height of success, No Sudden Move proves what a scuzzy industry it really was (and let’s be honest… still is).
The concept was a good one and the trailer had me intrigued, but this “buddy detective” style dark comedy fell sadly flat of its potential. The two daughters, Nic and Ping, of life-long friends and partnered detectives are thrown into the seedy underworld of trying to find out why their fathers met an untimely death…
That it is based on a book of the same name, which is in turn based on the author, Judith Kerr’s, early life and her family’s escape from Nazi Germany adds stark reality to this sweet, yet stirring film.
The first thing that I should tell you about this weekend’s Shoreline’s drive-in film festival is that, as of this writing, there …
My love for comedies has no bounds. Typically I watch films to escape, and I realize that seems pretty limiting considering all the documentaries, dramas and thrillers out there but comedies will forever be my first love. Over the last year as I binge watched like I’ve never binged before, I started to realize Netflix originals, new releases and even HBO are all full of dramas and downers, murders and destruction, depression and angst. I welcome any and all stories, but during a pandemic I don’t find comfort in reality or looking down the barrel of our dismal ecological future. Can a girl just laugh? Damn. The three movies I’m going to talk about below may have had a little strife here and there but they were just fun and heartfelt, exactly what I needed right now.
I find creating a complete and beautiful short film (whether it’s 4 minutes or 14), is a more difficult task than a well-crafted feature. With such little time you have to fit a fully fleshed-out concept from beginning to end that leaves the viewer satisfied. In many ways a short film director has the ability to get stuck in your brain for days or weeks after, because they have to hit you like a freight train with the story line or it just falls flat. It more often feels like a poem in motion rather than a story. I had the great pleasure of experiencing several beautiful poems at this year’s SIFF so I’m going to tell you about a few (in no particular order).
I mentioned in our mid-week catch-up that I was really impressed with the focus on diversity, and I don’t mean the surface type of diversity where you talk a good game but present your audience with little-to-no viewpoints outside of one or two token POC directed and/or acted films. SIFF has always done a decent job with this, but in 2021 they’ve exploded with a great lineup including a few “packages” that put a spotlight on regions and cultures that rarely see a single spot in a festival like this, much less a cluster of films. I’m so excited to talk to you about this set of films created by artists specifically in Taiwan. Even in just these three features there’s a diversity in emotion, experience and expression and you’ll love them all.
Well, it’s halfway through SIFF and here at The Sunbreak we’re neck-deep in films from horror to comedy, short animation to feature …
