The Good Neighbour reminds viewers that just because a movie is a guilty pleasure, that doesn’t always indicate that it’s a bad movie. Stephan Rick’s thriller is far from great but, as far as meeting expectations, I had a lot of fun with his movie.
Craig Roberts’ The Phantom of the Open, while slightly flawed, is a surefire crowd-pleaser with a clever sense of humour, wholesome wit, and an excellent headliner performance by Oscar winner Mark Rylance (Bridge of Spies).
NBA talent scout Stanley Sugerman (Adam Sandler) is loyal to his beloved Philadelphia 76ers, and is reputation is respected throughout the industry. However, he’s burning the candle at both ends and he’s growing more restless towards the required travelling that keeps him away from his family. Management is rearranged, as well as Stanley’s brief raise, and the pressure is on to find the next big star.
A family’s secret unravels in A Chiara, much to the surprise of a formally unaware titular teenager (played well by newcomer Swamy Rotolo, confidently leading the film). Chiara is worried and paranoid about her family’s safety, but she’s also angry that nobody will explain the situation to her. She receives reassurance, but that isn’t enough when she’s witnessed her father fleeing a scene before their family car was blown up.
Firestarter is not only a disappointment, it’s a strange disappointment. It promises to deliver on multiple levels and, yet, fails at every attempt. It’s billed as a horror, but it’s not scary. It’s billed as a thriller, but it doesn’t pull the viewer towards the edge of their seat. It’s also billed as a family drama and science fiction, which it certainly sports elements of, but neither genre is interesting or exciting in this movie….
Nitram is by no means an easy watch, but I do implore readers to go into the movie knowing very little about it. The movie is outstanding in its own right, but to have limited knowledge of the Australian drama makes it more powerful. I’ll do my best to provide as much interest as possible with this review, but it’s no spoiler to mention Nitram starts as a character study and ends in a real-life…
A young woman is caught between the expectations of her Pakistani family and her growing independence in writer/director Haya Waseem’s haunting coming-of-age drama, Quickening.
There’s a lot of ambiguity at foot in Jane Schoenbrun’s We’re All Going to the World’s Fair and, for some, the film will offer too many “inconclusive” story threads. However, that ambiguity is what makes Schoenbrun’s movie creepy and disturbing, and opens the film up to various discussions about selling your life to the Internet.
All My Puny Sorrows, directed by One Week’s Michael McGowan, is cut from similar cloth as last year’s outstanding, sad drama Our Friend. Carried by a small yet mighty cast who are all approaching sensitive material under the guidance of a cautious filmmaker, All My Puny Sorrows tracks how deep mental illness can run within a family’s dynamic, and how it affects its members.
