When a film relies so heavily on tropes from other iconic comedies it becomes actually quite difficult to not begin mentally comparing it to many predecessors of its kind (the list is rather extensive). Such is the case with Literally Right Before Aaron. Written and directed by Ryan Eggold, it is a comedy that does…
For Iranian-born Swiss director Barbet Schroeder, venturing into the picturesque Mediterranean paradise that is Ibiza is something he is familiar with, shooting his 1969 debut film “More” in the country, now famed for its exuberant party life and strong love dedication to the hypnotic epidemic of electronic dance music. It is in this unsuspected concept…
The end of a relationship is chronicled convincingly and compellingly in Danish filmmaker Kristian Håskjold’s short Forever Now. It begins with the start of a breakup and ends with, well, the end of the breakup, so there are few plot-based surprises in its compact running time that barely exceeds 15 minutes. Instead, Håskjold is content…
To find an uninteresting interview with a survivor of the holocaust is an impossible task. These are, after all, firsthand accounts of nightmares made real; memories from the extremist boundaries of the human experience. It’s akin to watching Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin discuss landing and walking on the moon, describing experiences…
Abbie Cornish (“Seven Psychopaths”) finds herself battling ghosts both metaphorical and literal in mystery thriller Lavender, which manages to be a decent enough flick in spite of its wholly derivative construction. Cornish plays Jane, mother to a precocious daughter (Lola Flanery, “The Mist” TV series), wife to a possibly philandering husband (Diego Klattenhoff, “Pacific Rim”),…
Despite taking place largely in a single location, Fabio Guaglione and Fabio Resinaro’s film, Mine, manages to tell a varied story of life experiences, a story that touches on family history, personal regrets and misunderstandings, and even a subtle political critique of US militarism. Playing like a cross between “The Hurt Locker” and “127 Hours,”…
In “Neighboring Sounds,” Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho’s first feature, the focus is on the anxiety that grips a middle-class neighborhood in Recife (Brazil’s fifth largest city), that has residents so fearful of their safety that they hire security guards to protect their buildings. Also set in Recife, Mendonça Filho’s Aquarius narrows its focus to…
