I’m not totally sure if A Vigilante — the feature debut from writer-director Sarah Daggar-Nickson — is meant to be soaked up as entertainment so much as a reconciliation between movies-as-art and movies-as-therapy. The small-scale story is interested in a single dominating issue, that of domestic violence, though in ways that feels inconsistently intentioned, despite…
What would the Christmas season be without another movie where a dysfunctional family comes together in a star-studded ensemble production to sort out their personal problems and realize that their past histories and neurosis cannot keep them down? That despite what hatred and apathy they may feel for one another, in realty, like almost ALL…
At St. Paternus University in Berkeley, CA, a small group of researchers has spent the last three years experimenting with the Lazarus serum, a discovery they hope will help the medical community escape the pressures of time, saving more patients while avoiding negative side effects and loss of cognitive function. Frank (Mark Duplass, “Tammy”) and…
Formula 1 isn’t often considered movie material for two main reasons: Firstly, recreating such high-speed action in a way that’s even close to reality is incredibly difficult, and secondly, these races last somewhere around 60 laps, and mainstream audiences aren’t going to pay just to see fake cars zoom around fake laps when they could…
When it comes to films about relationships, whether they are platonic or romantic, we’re all going to have different takes on them. Naturally, how we view any film has a lot to do with our own experiences, but with such a personal topic, the influence of our feelings on the issues at hand are bound…
“At some point you have to choose between life and fiction. The two are very close, but they never actually touch.” These words of Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal apply as much to their directorial debut, The Words, as they do to the story within it. A touching drama about the world of writing, this…
Second-time director Jim Field Smith offers more than the recommended daily allowance with Butter, a comedy that lets political satire slip straight through its fingers, if you’ll excuse the puns. In truth, the film, centered around an elaborate butter-carving competition, is an admirable attempt at parody, but while it offers a lot by way of…
