Hope Gap is one of those typical independent movies, where mood, atmosphere and setting dominates more than the narrative. There are no complaints here, because the film’s frequent dallying at these seaside locations and our watching the characters walk along the shoreline or climb up various rocky features is quite beautiful to look at. I…
“What love actually is, is the experience that someone else is all right exactly the way they are.” — Werner Erhard Noah Baumbach’s (“The Meyerowitz Stories”) Marriage Story is a penetrating look at the spiraling effect of divorce American style on those involved, one that radiates compassion for its beleaguered characters Nicole (Scarlett Johansson, “Avengers:…
Writer-director Peter Strickland’s strange and stimulating retail horror/comedy/romance In Fabric takes on a whole new meaning to making a startling fashion statement. Brilliantly bizarre, sardonically twisted and eerily suggestive, Strickland’s off-kilter, creepy confection to skewering consumerism, misplaced affections, and fetish-induced impulses makes for an ambitious, seedy sales pitch of weird sorts. His sense of warped…
Meredith Danluck’s State Like Sleep is one of those films that, despite disguising itself as a slow-burning mystery, reveals its thesis within the first 30 seconds. During a televised press interview, Belgian actor Stefan Delvoe (Michiel Huisman, “The Ottoman Lieutenant”) elaborates on the greater significance of being an actor, a filmmaker, and a person, “We…
“You don’t have to go looking for love when it’s where you come from” — Werner Erhard Isabelle (Juliette Binoche, “Ghost in the Shell”), a divorced fiftyish artist, is attractive, urbane, and highly intelligent but her relationships seem to have a built-in mechanism for self destruction. The men in Isabelle’s life offer her little except…
The irony and timely arrival of the conscientious and stirring drama Shot should not be lost on a majority of savvy movie-goers and television addicts. First, the film’s lead, Noah Wyle (also one of the many producers behind this urban narrative’s stark commentary on senseless violence), played a young dedicated doctor used to helping critically…
In Monogamish, director Tao Ruspoli (“Being in the World”) explores the benefits and constraints of the union of marriage while grappling with his own public divorce. The film — part documentary, part self-help journey — opens with Ruspoli penning a letter to relationship and sex columnist Dan Savage. The camera captures Ruspoli as he hand…
