The Woman in the Yard finds Blumhouse Productions singing a different tune compared to their back catalogue of modern horror classics. It’s a tune that’s still worth singing, but it isn’t without some unnecessary vibrato that may rub some people the wrong way. The premise starts out simple enough: a single, depressed mother, Ramona (Danielle Deadwyler of Netflix’s western The Harder They Fall) and her two kids (Peyton Jackson, Estella Kahiha), who already have a tense…
Sharp Corner is a character study of repressed, prickly ambiguity from writer/director Jason Buxton (Blackbird). The McCalls feel as though they’ve moved into the perfect house, until they discover an unfortunate wrinkle behind their rural address. Their new house looks out to a winding backroad that challenges vehicles to its turn. The drivers that succumb to the rough road turn up in the McCalls’ front yard where they’re either fatally injured or dead. This becomes…
Star power carries On Swift Horses, which isn’t necessarily a negative criticism in this case. Jacob Elordi, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Will Poulter, Diego Calva, and Sasha Calle have incredible chemistry with each other, and with the audience. Their charming, and often seductive, appeal has the powerful potential to attract a younger crowd towards period dramas without cheapening the quality of the film or lowering the expectations of the viewer. While light on plot and long in…
The Island Between Tides is an adaptation of Mary Rose, a play by Peter Pan author J.M. Barrie. The movie is also a folk tale, a melancholic ghost story, a character driven mystery, and a slow-burning psychological thriller. It is not, however, very good. Single mother Lily (Riot Girls’ Paloma Kwiatkowski) doesn’t feel “normal”. As a young girl, she innocently wandered off and crossed onto an unfamiliar island, only to come back shortly after to…
St. Vincent co-stars Bill Murray and Naomi Watts are briefly reunited in The Friend, a pandering would-be weeper from Bee Season filmmakers Scott McGeehee and David Siegel who are adapting Sigrid Nunez’s novel of the same name. While New York writer Iris (Watts) wrestles with her conflicted emotions over her mentor Walter (Murray) after he takes his own life, the writer takes on the additional challenge of caring for Walter’s elderly Great Dane, Apollo. Driving home how everyone…
Home Free is the feature-length directorial debut from trailblazing indie producer Avi Federgreen (Moon Point, Lifechanger, Things I Do For Money). The movie is a routine family drama that, frankly, comes as a surprise considering this is the type of movie formula that Federgreen must be hip to. However, maybe he’s wearing that producer cap of his and channeling what audiences want. Certainly, there’s an audience for Home Free. With premium cable outlet Hollywood Suite being one…
Jonathan Majors gives one of the best performances you’ll ever see in Elijah Bynum’s Magazine Dreams. Bynum’s sophomore feature (co-produced by Nightcrawler filmmaker Dan Gilroy) is centred around an aspiring bodybuilder, Killian Maddox (Majors), who works as a bag boy at a local supermarket when he isn’t pushing himself at the gym or demonstrating his muscular build at competitions. Maddox takes his passion for body building very seriously, which also means that Killian eats, sleeps, and breathes his…
Academy Award nominee May December and, now, Atom Egoyan’s Seven Veils are cut from the same cloth. Yet, I don’t know how to classify these types of heightened melodramas. These movies are not outright funny, but they have strange moments that are so deliberately jarring, the audience can’t help but giggle out of confusion. While this is a unique concoction, and can help the filmmaker achieve a specific brand of campiness, juxtaposing heavy themes within this…
Parthenope (Celeste Dalla Porta) is an intelligent and challenging anthropology student who impresses her teachers and peers. When she’s not in class, the Naples native embraces life with her brother, Raimondo (Daniele Rienzo), and lifelong best friend Sandrino (Dario Aita). The men around Parthenope are infatuated with her, and the women admire her. Is there anything she can’t do? The answer: no – she can in fact do it all; such as take a break from…
Take one of Tyler Perry’s earlier melodramas, use the same bundling the filmmaker/playwright uses when trying to tell multiple stories, give Madea some heart-wrenching secrets, and her husband Joe some internal conflict. That well-adjusted flick would be the closest comparison to Hard Truths, a memorable tragicomedy from writer/director Mike Leigh (Naked, Happy-Go-Lucky, Mr. Turner). Leigh’s character-driven story is centred around a black-Caribbean family in London. While trying to make ends meet, they’re constantly reminded of their failures…