The Father
The Father is a really interesting Oscar contender, and not just within this year’s nominees – it would be a stand-out during any year.
Imogen Poots
Castle in the Ground
As the world struggles under this catastrophic pandemic, it seems prudent to remind us of another epidemic currently ravaging North America: the opioid epidemic. Consequently, Joey Klein’s timely Castle in the Ground depicts a band of young people struggling with addiction amid the trauma of their personal lives. While dramatically powerful and compellingly acted, the film has surprisingly little to say about the structural issues surrounding addiction and mental illness.
Vivarium
Vivarium works as jet-black satire about the pressures of fulfilling roles that have been imposed by a seemingly unanimous understanding of tradition. It’s existentially dour, but these dissatisfied emotions from director Lorcan Finnegan and screenwriter Garret Shanley are supposed to identify how normalized expectations are not so much a failsafe plan for people, but actually a suffocating framework.
The Art of Self-Defense
Oscar nominee Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network) has recently dodged being typecast as timid characters, but he leans back into those traits to headline The Art of Self-Defense.
Mobile Homes
I can’t decide whether Mobile Homes is genuine or not. Its portrait of off-the-grid living and underground ugliness looks real to an upsetting extent, but the characters are unbelievable.
Sweet Virginia: Wylie Writes’ One-On-One with Director Jamie Dagg
Sweet Virginia is an ant hill of a movie – if you look underneath its still surface, you’ll find many working parts. There are many strengths, but director Jamie Dagg, screenwriters Benjamin and Paul China, and the phenomenal cast do a very good job at subtlety concealing them; allowing the film to wash over the audience from start to finish.
Green Room
Green Room is unappealing – that’s a compliment. Dishevelled characters, dingy lighting, seedy locations, and punk tunes that sound like they’ve been chewed up and spit out contribute to the stress within this thriller.
Green Room
Jeremy Saulnier, the director of the unusually and undeservedly lauded Blue Ruin, concocts a second feature where hot punk rock meets cold blooded murder.
She’s Funny That Way
By: Addison Wylie Peter Bogdanovich (director of The Last Picture Show, Paper Moon, and What’s Up, Doc?) must have tons of clout. This would explain the overconfidence in his latest film She’s Funny That Way. This star powered, ode to screwball farces couldn’t help but remind me of when the Farrelly Brothers made a feature-length Three Stooges movie. Bogdanovich has made the movie he wanted to make, but the film itself reinforces that it’s currently hard…
Need for Speed
By: Addison Wylie Need for Speed is an awesome movie. And, not in the way you call Patrick Swayze’s Road House “awesome” after a couple of beers. It’s a film that legitimately has so many exhilarating moments, you’ll want to watch it again as soon as the credits start rolling. Don’t get me wrong though. The film has plenty of corn and cheese to go around. Luckily, it all happens within the first 30 minutes….