Madison Miller was named after "Splash." Her love of film (and mermaids) inevitably followed. She keenly observes the inflight entertainment selections of her fellow travelers, and judges them accordingly. More of her musings can be found at www.reviewfromthetop.com.
Piggybacking on the commercial (if not critical) success of other overstuffed vignette-driven holiday-centric movies such as “Love, Actually,” “Valentine’s Day,” and “New Year’s Eve,” Berlin, I Love You is the fourth installment in the “Cities of Love” franchise. This iteration, like those lovingly set in Paris, New York and Rio previously, follows way too many…
For a film ostensibly about people in the throes of existential crises, the characters in Under the Eiffel Tower still make a show of enjoying life’s simple pleasures. But not even classic romantic comedy clichés, the beautiful French landscape, market day montages, plates of good food, glasses of better wine, parties al fresco, acoustic guitar…
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…
In my limited estimation, there are few things more anxiety-inducing than the thought of getting up onstage, all alone but for a sweaty drink and rickety stool, and surrounding yourself with a room full with people waiting for and expecting you to make them laugh out loud. Nina Geld (Mary Elizabeth Winstead, “10 Cloverfield Lane”)…
I watched Support the Girls right on the heels of “We the Animals” and “Crazy Rich Asians,” and it requires no stretch of the imagination to view this coincidental triple-feature as three distinct and distinctive representations of the meaning and function of family. The employees of Double Whammies — particularly the young, attractive, well endowed…
By virtue of shared history and experiences, siblings are pack animals, asking blind loyalty in return for fierce protection. They inspire imitation and a sort of “in it together”-ness. In Jeremiah Zagar’s first narrative feature, We the Animals, brothers Manny (Isaiah Kristian), Joel (Josiah Gabriel, “Night Comes On”), and Jonah (Evan Rosado) are likewise. They…
Nelson Mandela famously said, “There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.” As Billy (Adam Pally, “The Little Hours”) returns to his hometown for Thanksgiving, in the new comedy Most Likely to Murder, he is confronted with the myriad ways the place…
