Latest

2022

Reviews

Apples

Produced and completed during our current era of COVID, Apples is a strange and accidentally timely import from Greece, following a vacant mind (Aris Servetalis) during the early stages of a pandemic that’s quietly sweeping over the public.  Victims who are affected by the unknown sickness lose their memory at the drop of a hat.  Those who don’t have any immediate support are referred to a rehabilitation program for the unidentifiable where they must complete…

Reviews

Stanleyville

By: Jeff Ching I was excited when I found out that Stanleyville was the feature directorial debut of Maxwell McCabe-Lokos, who wrote 2013’s The Father – one of the most criminally underrated dark comedies of all time.  The Father was a Canadian film about a husband and father trying to move on with his life after dealing with the shocking news of his wife getting arrested for cheating on him…with a minor.  What a concept, and a hilariously…

Reviews

American Werewolves

In rural Michigan, dozens of individuals have reported sightings of a terrifying bipedal creature stalking forests and country roads at night.  Standing six-to-seven feet tall, with fearsome glowing eyes and a head resembling a canine, the Michigan werewolf (or “dogman”) is a well-documented urban legend.  Startlingly similar is the so-called “Beast of Bray Road” sighted in the neighbouring state of Wisconsin.  Like the Michigan dogman, the beast stands upright on two legs and has the…

Reviews

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On has always found a way to make people laugh through short films and literature.  For their next trick, creators Dean Fleischer-Camp and Jenny Slate effortlessly expand on their concept to include more of an emotional core to Marcel’s world in this self-titled, feature-length debut.

Reviews

Morbius

The output of movies based on comic book properties isn’t slowing down any time soon, which is why I appreciate filmmakers who take a different crack at the genre. While some of these anomalies are laughed off or forgotten by their demographics, I tend to stick up for these weird flicks (I got a kick out of the buddy comedy dynamic in Venom) . What I’m trying to say is that I wanted to be on…

Reviews

Lux Æterna

I’ll be reviewing Gaspar Noé’s Vortex very soon, and I wanted to use the filmmaker’s latest short Lux Æterna as a gateway to his latest feature.  I’m a fan of Noé’s polarizing work from what I’ve seen (Irreversible, Enter The Void), but his latest projects utilize a split-screen technique I haven’t seen him play around with before.  As a provocateur, the writer/director has been know to explore and experiment with “gratuitous filmmaking”.  It’s overkill for…

Reviews

The Forgiven

By: Jolie Featherstone John Michael McDonagh’s grim social drama, The Forgiven, explores the intersections of class, race, and culture.  Based on the 2012 novel of the same name by author Lawrence Osborne, the film constructs a world beyond time.  Indeed, the story feels as if it could be set today or many decades ago and it would still be just as relevant.