A lone woman wakes at night in her expansive house and explores the strange noises that awoke her. The space, familiar and comforting in the day, is cloaked in shadows that sometimes seem to move of their own volition. As the woman searches, shapes shift behind her, until something prompts a sudden jump . ….
On June 6, 1982, exactly 38 years after D-Day, roughly 60,000 Israeli troops and more than 800 tanks, heavily supported by aircraft, attack helicopters, artillery, and missile boats invaded Southern Lebanon, a country already involved in a decades-long civil war. Israel’s publicly-stated objective was to push PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) forces back 40 kilometers (25…
No Small Matter, a 74-minute documentary about early childhood development, is narrated by the actress Alfre Woodard (“Mississippi Grind”), who also served as executive producer. The “elevator pitch” for this documentary could be, “The dearth of quality child care services is alarming and we need to do something about it.” The doc presents dire statistics,…
A group of students entering into the shady confines of the woods is a familiar horror premise that we all recognize, not least of all in what has become the very embodiment of the idea; “The Blair Witch Project.” However, Peter Callow’s The Circle manages to keep its own sense of originality whilst drawing from…
As lazy and obvious a comment as this is, Little Monsters is the Australian answer to “Shaun of the Dead.” From the interweaving of domestic and personal issues with the problems of a zombie outbreak, to the referential rendering of the undead and how they operate, writer-director Abe Forsythe displays a snappy wit, a warmth…
Over the last twenty years, the Dardenne brothers’ (“The Unknown Girl”) social realist dramas about the forgotten and the marginalized have been honored at the Cannes Film Festival with two Palme d’Ors, two Best Performance awards, one Best Screenplay award, and one Grand Prix. Their magic is still in evidence in their latest film, Young…
A high school student’s essay discussing radical philosopher Frantz Fanon’s belief in the necessity of violence by oppressed people raises certain eyebrows in Nigerian director Julius Onah’s (“The Cloverfield Paradox”) thought-provoking but over-determined Luce, a drama about race that challenges us to impose our own expectations on the main character. Onah says that, “Every other…
