While Jean of the Joneses may be predictable, the film is the work of an exciting new voice in cinema. Writer/director Stella Meghie truly knows how to write fully developed, sympathetic characters; it’s an absolute pleasure to spend 82-minutes with her creations.
After a long, ten-year stint in filmmaker jail, Mel Gibson has returned with Hacksaw Ridge: a gruesomely violent WWII biopic about Desmond Doss, a medic and devout Seventh Day Adventist, who saved the lives of over 75 soldiers during the Battle of Okinawa without killing a single enemy combatant. Hacksaw Ridge features Gibson’s typical heavy-handed religious symbolism to great effect here, and serves as an unnerving contrast to the graphic violence in the film’s third…
Doug Martin (Nick Jonas) is sidetracked by an alluring neighbour, Lena (Isabel Lucas), during a summertime escape. Her husband (Dermot Mulroney) is too unpredictable for comfort, which leads Lena to warm up next to her unassuming and equally randy neighbour. The pair go to great lengths to protect their affair, even if that means resorting to crime.
There’s a scene in Chad Hartigan’s Morris from America where its title character Morris (Markees Christmas) asks his German tutor (Carla Juri) if she can teach him to be charming. That’s an ironic moment for the audience who fully understands just how damn charming the film is.
Dinesh D’Souza could’ve been a decent documentarian, but that potential has been critically harmed by Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party. Judging by this drastic misfire, I’m thinking that maybe the filmmaker’s next project should be a popcorn political thriller loosely inspired by his own far-right, abrasive political opinions.
The Violin Teacher is a conflicting feature. The music is beautiful and the message is inspiring, but the story’s pace constantly swings back and forth from tight captivation to a sluggish crawl. Sérgio Machado’s film is both the most uplifting film I’ve seen lately, and the most boring.
The People vs. Fritz Bauer is a good film driven by a stellar central performance by Burghart Klaussner (Good Bye Lenin!).
The David Dance is a stage-to-film adaptation from actor/screenwriter Don Scimé. I haven’t seen his original stage play, but I can figure out a couple of things from the movie: Scimé is a passionate artist who cares very deeply about the themes acknowledged in his work, but not enough compromises have been made by director Aprill Winney to make his original material fill feature film britches.
Christine Chubbuck was a woman who managed to do what no one else could – shock America. In 1974, in the midst of countless political assassinations, mass murders and serial killings, it would take a truly jarring event to shake the American public, which turned out to be a suicide on live television; “the latest in blood and guts, in living colour”. Chubbuck’s suicide has been an object of morbid curiosity since and it has…
Sometimes, it becomes difficult to separate an artist’s work from their personality; sometimes, this is because the artist has done something horrible and unforgivable. Director, writer and leading actor Nate Parker is one of those people: this is not the space to get into his actions, but I would recommend all uninformed readers to do their research before deciding if they wish to give him their money. With that out of the way, it became…