By: Addison Wylie If you think you know Divine, think again. At least, that was the thought swimming through my head as I discovered new information about the drag queen turned actor turned musician turned superstar. As a high school movie fanatic eager to watch anything and everything, I thought I had found the ultimate lost artifact when I picked up a copy of John Waters’ Pink Flamingos. When I saw Divine’s Babs Johnson compete…
By: Addison Wylie A tragically troublesome story involving a 14-year-old executing a fellow eighth grader by aiming and shooting a gun at their head during class seems about as open-and-shut as cases come. However, filmmaker Marta Cunningham explores the event from every angle to get every side of the story that she can in Valentine Road. It isn’t because she’s suspicious and smelling something fishy in the events leading up to this kill. As a…
By: Addison Wylie The quiet character study In The Name Of is driven by a superb performance by Andrzej Chyra. His character of Father Adam is mesmerizing to watch. Chyra handles the subtleties that lie within his role and Adams’ motives so carefully. His readings and lines are filled with sincerity, subdued frustration, and hurt, but Chyra is able to tell all of this with a single hopeful glance. I really liked Malgorzata Szumowska’s film….
By: Addison Wylie The documentary Shooting Bigfoot follows three expeditions led by four different devoted and off-kilter trackers. One subject is Rick Dyer. Dyer has had his name besmirched in the world of hunting Bigfoot due to a scam that took the media by storm. Once he finds Bigfoot, he plans to capture it and take its life. Another hunter is Tom Biscardi, a well known tracker who has no interest in killing Bigfoot, but…
By: Addison Wylie It’s hard to make a solid judgement on the indie hit Beasts of the Southern Wild. On the one hand, it deserves praise for doing what it does so well. On the flip side, it does what it does so well, that it becomes frustrating. Based on her one-act play called Juicy and Delicious, Lucy Alibar and director Benh Zeitlin adapt the story of survival after a tremendous flood for the big…