The Gracefield Incident begins with a home movie — a man and his wife on their way to their second ultrasound appointment. Matt Donovan (Mathieu Ratthe) can barely contain his excitement as his wife, Jess (Kimberly Laferriere, “White Night”) chastises him, asking whether he plans to record everything. “It’s his journal!” Matt replies, insistent that…
Have you ever been so happy to be wrong? I remember when “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” was being advertised, and I wanted no part of it. I loved the original series in its high and lows, but the Tim Burton remake had completely soured my desire for any new take on what…
In 1940, more than 300,000 Allied soldiers were trapped and surrounded by German forces in Dunkirk, France. It was a devastating blow and a key victory in the Battle of France; Hitler would not be stopped for five more years. However, the evacuation and rescue of the troops by British destroyers and other smaller vessels,…
To capture the autobiographical awakening of sexual urges in teen boys, filmmaker Eyal Resh put all his faith in the hands of his young lead actors. Resh’s Boys is a short film that is content to objectively observe the friendship between Brian (Wyatt Griswold, “The Loud House” TV series) and Jake (Pearce Joza, “Mech-X4” TV…
Can an independent comedy about 14th-century religious debauchery involving naughty nuns be a legitimate rib-tickler in a sluggish summer movie season of wacky, yet toothless, farces (e.g., “The House”)? Refreshingly it can be, especially if it is writer-director Jeff Baena’s boisterous and bawdy The Little Hours, a corruptible comedy that brings its satirical cynicism to…
How to know if a tattered contraption is the harbinger of horror? Sense the way it affects reel people on real people. Commendable then is the Chinese musical wish box at the center of veteran genre cinematographer John R. Leonetti’s latest film where, after each of the lead’s wish is realized, a swath of our…
The camera loves Sam Elliott, and why not? He has a tall, lean body with thick gray, unruly hair hanging over a furrowed brow, a trademark horseshoe mustache to go along with dark chest hair; it all blends so well with the unforgettable masculinity in his deep, golden voice that seems to descend directly from…
