On its face, Where Is Kyra? tells the story of an unemployed divorcée, Kyra Johnson (Michelle Pfeiffer, “Dark Shadows”), whose life falls into further disarray following the death of her mother. Struggling to make ends meet, her judgment clouded by grief, she soon resorts to desperate measures in order to avoid being evicted from the…
As audiences screamed and jumped in the mostly silent screenings of “A Quiet Place” over the weekend, I found myself facing a pregnancy-related horror film of a different type. Leena Pendharkar’s 20 Weeks follows a young couple as they deal with an unplanned pregnancy and then subsequently with the baby having a physical disability and…
Following the release of “Lady Bird,” Anne Helen Petersen wrote a moving essay on the supporting roles of mothers in relation to their daughters’ central stories entitled “Moms Are Main Characters Too.” Petersen writes, “But something you learn after high school is that, without the momentousness of ‘firsts’ . . . and societally ordained milestones…
The topic of “Papa Was A Rolling Stone” is more than a classic tune from the legendary Motown musical act The Temptations — it also happens to be the breezy theme behind the clunky comedy, Father Figures. The “who’s your daddy” premise is a woefully tired one, but it did not prevent director Lawrence Sher…
“Some people survive and talk about it. Some people survive and go silent. Some people survive and create. Everyone deals with unimaginable pain in their own way, and everyone is entitled to that, without judgement . . . Remember how vast the ocean’s boundaries are. Whilst somewhere the water is calm, in another place in…
The initial success of Brannon Braga and Adam Simon’s series “Salem” (2015-2017) and the staggering impact of Robert Eggers’ “The Witch” seems to have made American Puritans into high fashion for horror entertainment. Director Martin Koolhoven and producer Els Vandevorst had, for several years before the releases of the aforementioned titles, been producing their own…
In Chinese culture, the number three is considered lucky for its similarity to the character meaning “life” or “to give birth.” As such, Mountains May Depart makes no small use of significant triptychs in telling its story. The film is segmented into three disparate chapters and time periods; its three main characters are caught up…
