Making her directorial feature-length debut, Land is an unusually small effort from actor Robin Wright (The Congress). Atmospherically dour with beautiful cinemtaography, Land is also in the same meditative spirit as 2007’s Into The Wild, a film written and directed by Wright’s former husband Sean Penn.
The World to Come, the second feature from Norwegian filmmaker Mona Fastvold (The Sleepwalker), is a plodding meditation on love and grief that is salvaged from mediocrity by the palpable chemistry between its lead actors. Still, the film doesn’t offer much that is fresh of exciting and rehashes some tired lesbian period piece tropes.
Directed by William Olsson and written by Canadian author Catherine Hanrahan (adapting from her semi-autobiographical novel of the same name), Lost Girls and Love Hotels follows Margaret (Songbird’s Alexandra Daddario), an American with a steady job in Tokyo who fills in her loneliness with alcohol, one-night-stands, and kinky sex. One evening, she crosses paths and has a sincere connection with a stoic gentleman named Kazu (Takehiro Hira). Kazu doesn’t feel as enamoured as she does at first…
In Minari, a Korean family travels from California to build a new homestead in Arkansas; in hopes that they’ll be able to create a farm and make a decent living selling their culture’s food to local markets. This premise, however, is merely a clothesline for writer/director Lee Isaac Chung to hang up different moments in this family’s life that will, eventually, piece together their memories and future.
By: Jolie Featherstone Based on Mohamedou Ould Slahi’s best-selling memoir “Guantánamo Diary,” The Mauritanian details the harrowing true story of Slahi’s fight for freedom after being imprisoned without charge – or any solid evidence – by the US government in the wake of September 11.
The Sinners is a messy blend of gothic teen-thriller and slasher horror that bites off more than it can chew with a convoluted plot and a cringe-worthy narrator.
By: Jolie Featherstone With the stately air and solid bones of a 1940s crime drama, The Last Vermeer is a respectable debut feature film from Dan Friedkin, a former stunt pilot and producer.
Over the course of its direct-to-video sequels, the Wrong Turn franchise has built an impressive cult following; starting with the fun 2003 original that gave viewers a surprising amount of thrills and kills. But, it also fell back on a genre stereotype that even Wrong Turn fans have deemed rote – mangy country folk will always be portrayed as villains. With 2021’s Wrong Turn, in an attempt to breathe life intro this outdated trope, director Mike…
Written by Justin Benson and directed by Benson and Aaron Moorhead, Synchronic is the filmmakers’ follow-up to 2017’s The Endless and boasts the same brand of trippy, time-travelling science fiction.
