Every so often, an overly confident filmmaker comes along to lighten the mood around taboos. There was Josh Lawson’s comedic approach to bizarre sexual fetishes in The Little Death, then Dave Schultz’s tasteless handling of suicide and death in Considering Love & Other Magic, and now Stephen Wallis with Defining Moments, an exhausting flume of individual stories dealing with heavy subject matter (like mental health) and the writer/director’s unbearably quirky perspective.
By: Trevor Chartrand Everyone’s favorite spooky family is back in The Addams Family 2, the sequel to 2019’s animated stinker featuring a re-imaged version of the classic Addams family characters. This go-round is, surprisingly, a slight improvement on the first installment (which isn’t saying much), but ultimately both titles in this series so far feel like ‘babysitter’ movies – stuffed full of filler and thin on the narrative front. It’s something parents can plop their kids…
I liked The Eyes of Tammy Faye, but I loved the dynamic and on-screen chemistry between actors Jessica Chastain and Andrew Garfield. As infamous televangelists Tammy Faye Bakker and Jim Bakker, Chastain and Garfield are excellent and shine through their make-up and prosthetics with believable performances and vibrant personalities. We’re constantly having to remind ourselves that we’re watching a contemporary film; not the 2000-era documentary of the same name that serves as source material.
Though its measured pace and dialogue-heavy approach could turn off audiences seeking a more thrilling cinema experience, the European-produced Adventures of a Mathematician is an engaging and deeply human portrait of a fascinating moment in history.