We are part of a fortunate and collective audience. Through films, we can go back in time and we be part of history by the recreation of our past, as dark and uncomfortable as it may be. I believe the exposure to our past — especially by younger audiences — is essential. By exploring the…
Early in Emerald Fennell’s biting and insightful Promising Young Woman, protagonist Cassie (Carey Mulligan, “Suffragette”) is catcalled by a group of workmen. It is a depressingly common scenario — a woman subjected to sexual objectification, for little reason other than men want to and can. But writer-director Fennell and star Mulligan strike a pose in…
The Virtuoso, an edgy, slow-burn thriller directed by Nick Stagliano, hosts an impressive cast of pedigreed actors recognizable from a breadth of film and television appearances. We’re treated to Sir Anthony Hopkins, who, now acting in his 80s, has remarked that he’s having a lot of fun nowadays, choosing from a bin-load of scripts that…
Within the current world of digitally-released cinema, it can be easy to discover what are the treasures versus the trash. And somehow, within the span of only two minutes into Lionsgate’s latest production, Vanquish, I knew what I was looking at was easily the second category — the 2021 equivalent of discovering a mangled DVD…
Directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini return with Things Heard & Seen, a film with so many things going on, you can’t classify it as belonging to one particular genre/subgenre. It’s a psychological horror film, a ghost story, a couple drama, and a spirit flick that becomes imbued with religious imagery. If anything, you…
2021 has been an incredible year for absurdist comedies that push the boundaries of socially acceptable humor to the extremes. Josh Greenbaum’s “Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar” is still the funniest (and best) film of the year (so far), but there’s a new competitor in town that dares to go back to…
Conceptual films are always a welcome change from the norm. It takes vision and courage to put together a complex film of this nature and form a whole world without necessarily having to explain it all. Phobias, although an anthology, falls in this category. It has a backdrop that serves as a through subplot that…
