When I first saw the trailers for When the Bough Breaks, I was excited. It looked like “Obsessed,” “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle,” or “Single White Female,” except with fewer white people (something most movies these days could benefit from). When I first sat down in the theater, I was still excited. The pacing…
Unable to sleep one night, young Martin (Gabriel Bateman, “Annabelle”) ventures from his room to investigate some whispering he hears in the hallway. He discovers his mother, Sophie (Maria Bello, “The 5th Wave”), talking in hushed tones to someone in the shadows. She apologizes, asking, “Did we wake you?” and sends him back to bed….
Evidently filmmaker Garry Marshall cannot seem to get away from his tediously formulaic playbook of themed movie-making and certainly the tepid and toothless Mother’s Day reinforces this cinematic sentiment. Marshall is determined to exploit these cornball conveyor belt holiday-based movies that shamelessly boast an all-star cast, shallow sentimentality, heavy-handed and forced nuttiness and the gimmickry of…
Racism is still alive. We know that very well, even when, sometimes, some still have the nerve to deny it. Racism was an entirely economic enterprise through which something utterly immoral was justified on the very grounds of morality (i.e., white supremacy) — and the US had never done better, economically speaking, than when racism…
Manipulation comes in all forms of misleading faces — misguided love, abuse, aggression, guilt, fear, disillusionment, sadness, blackmail, etc. However, when manipulation is used as a tool from one of the most nurturing souls imaginable (read: Your mother) then there is a disruptive element bound to tarnish the special bond meant to connect between mother…
Needs to wake up. Must open his eyes. But he’s not asleep. The guy’s not sleeping; he just doesn’t want to be awake. John’s days aren’t at all a source of motivation, not even of mild excitement. He looks tired. He is tired. Tired of needing so much and of being needed even more. Tired…
The laser-like focus afforded by a compact running time is used to intensely impactful use in Phil Sheerin’s North, a 20-minute short about a teen boy wrestling with the inevitability of his ailing mother’s impending death. It’s rough subject matter, bleak and tragic, the kind of thing that would tempt many filmmakers to tug at…
