Mafia Mamma is a badly executed fish-out-of-water movie that features rushed filmmaking and a slipshod script, as well as lavish destination scenery and good-looking men and women practically straddling the leading lady. Not a good look for either director Catherine Hardwicke (Thirteen, Twilight, Miss Bala) or producer/star Toni Collette, who reunite since working together on 2015’s Miss You Already.
I’m Thinking of Ending Things is a melancholic psychodrama with spurts of deliberate awkwardness, but should you expect anything else from writer/director Charlie Kaufman?
By: Jolie Featherstone Director Rian Johnson (Looper, Star Wars: Episode XIII – The Last Jedi) makes a triumphant return to his whodunnit-loving form with Knives Out. Fourteen years after his much-loved debut feature, Brick, a passionately-told film noir set in a modern-day Southern California high school, Johnson’s Knives Out charmed audiences with one of the most talked-about films at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.
There seems to be a new trend where every Summer, audiences receive a musically-savvy indie. Two years ago, movie goers relished in Sing Street, followed by Patti Cake$ the year after. This season, move goers will be put under a spell by Hearts Beat Loud, an effortlessly charming and heartwarming dramedy from writer/director Brett Haley (The Hero).
By: Nick van Dinther It’s so difficult to pull off a horror film that’s truly frightening. Many movies rely on jump scares or violent deaths, but the results rarely stick with you after the fact. It’s a genre that’s incredibly divisive between both fans and critics, and fails more often than it succeeds for both. A filmmaker needs to bring something genuinely special and memorable to the table to appeal to all. Writer/director Ari Aster…
By: Nick van Dinther Birthmarked isn’t a bad movie, but it still feels like a missed opportunity.
Filmmaking is certainly an important form of self-expression, but not all films are created equal; sometimes a film comes out that serves no purpose, makes no impact and leaves no impression. Gerard Barrett’s Glassland is a perfect example of such a film. His film completely lacks any purpose other than to be a series of images giving an illusion of motion on a screen. Glassland never rises above a TV-movie-of-the-week, and its attempts at slow and…
