The iconic “crossing the streams” scenario, originally pitched by Ghostbusters, has served to be an effective comparison when describing debacles. Such is the case for another supernatural film, Handling the Undead. Norwegian filmmaker Thea Hvistendahl essentially”crosses the streams” by running a metaphorical subtext with more literal examples. Hvistendahl aims for nuance, but misses and creates heavy-handed deliveries and drawn out results.
Filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher is on the cusp of making a good movie with La Chimera but, in a feigned and suspicious manner, the writer/director can’t help but break the reality of her story to satisfy her own needs.
By: Jolie Featherstone [CW: Violent punishment, religious trauma, forced birth, miscarriage, newborn murder] IT girl Sydney Sweeney (Anyone But You, Madame Web) puts herself in motion to be the next Scream Queen in the blood-soaked, religious horror film Immaculate.
Perfect Days is a balm for the soul: clearing carried-over pessimism, reminding audiences of how astounding life can be, not shaming solitary lifestyles but also suggesting that our hearts should be open to the communities around us. All of these epiphanies orbiting around the routine of public washroom cleaner Hirayama (Kôji Yakusho, who won Best Actor at last year’s Cannes Film Festival for his introverted performance).
News of Kitty Green’s The Royal Hotel had me excited. Previously impressing me with her strengths as a documentarian with Ukraine Is Not a Brothel, Green would be drawing inspiration from another documentary that I really admired – 2016’s Hotel Coolgardie.
By: Jolie Featherstone Origin is Ava DuVernay’s latest film and it is, quite simply, a masterpiece.
Brett Morgen is a brilliant documentarian as seen in The Kid Stays in the Picture, Jane, and Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck – the last flick mentioned being, what I believe, is one of the best movies ever made about a musician. His latest endeavour Moonage Daydream, a documentary about enigmatic artist David Bowie, is cut from the same cloth as Montage of Heck with the movie resembling a mixture of mediums but, this time,…
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.
Pleasure is an incredibly explicit movie about the porn industry. The filmmakers and the cast are allegiant to the movie’s cause and, by doing so, allow boundaries to be crossed in terms of what a movie can usually show. The results are eye-opening, thought-provoking, absurd, disturbing, and sometimes too hard to watch. However, I can’t imagine a “clipped” or “watered down” version of Pleasure. Without its mature assurance and commitment, Ninja Thyberg’s movie wouldn’t strike…