In my limited estimation, there are few things more anxiety-inducing than the thought of getting up onstage, all alone but for a sweaty drink and rickety stool, and surrounding yourself with a room full with people waiting for and expecting you to make them laugh out loud. Nina Geld (Mary Elizabeth Winstead, “10 Cloverfield Lane”)…
I watched Support the Girls right on the heels of “We the Animals” and “Crazy Rich Asians,” and it requires no stretch of the imagination to view this coincidental triple-feature as three distinct and distinctive representations of the meaning and function of family. The employees of Double Whammies — particularly the young, attractive, well endowed…
“The slipping grip of what once was that will never be again, slowly turning faded and acid washed until its nothing but a feeling you can’t put a name to.” — September Rose, Nostalgia Boxes are stacked in the living room of six-year-old Frida’s (Laia Artigas) house as she prepares to go and live with…
By virtue of shared history and experiences, siblings are pack animals, asking blind loyalty in return for fierce protection. They inspire imitation and a sort of “in it together”-ness. In Jeremiah Zagar’s first narrative feature, We the Animals, brothers Manny (Isaiah Kristian), Joel (Josiah Gabriel, “Night Comes On”), and Jonah (Evan Rosado) are likewise. They…
Tackling topics as trendy as gentrification, police brutality, and the post-prison life of convicted felons, there may not be a film more timely than Carlos López Estrada’s Blindspotting. Written by and starring Rafael Casal and “Hamilton” star Daveed Diggs, the film is as much a social observation of the aforementioned themes as it is a…
They say that reading is fundamental, but the romantic goings-on in the mature rom-com Book Club should be more of a page-turner especially when it involves some of Hollywood’s all-time seasoned and decorated actresses. In a way it is quite refreshing (and rare) to encounter an unconventional romantic comedy catering to senior citizens as the…
Ása Helga Hjörleifsdóttir, director and screenwriter of The Swan (“Svanurinn”), a low-key Icelandic film (adapted from the 1992 novel by Guðbergur Bergsson) was asked in an interview how she tackled the job of transforming a novel written with a preponderance of interiority into a movie. The question can be answered by examining its cinematography, which…
