City of Dreams
Picture this: you’re at a decent-sized gathering, you know a few people but are mostly left to just socialize on your own, and you strike up a conversation with a fellow party-goer who seems...
View ArticleSlingshot
Slingshot isn’t your typical sci-fi space thriller — just your typical thriller. The film revolves around three astronauts, John, Nash and Captain Franks — played by Casey Affleck, Tomer Capone and...
View ArticleRediscover: The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover
The final scene of Peter Greenaway’s The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover involves an ultimate comeuppance – a display of such savagery that it must, more than anything else in this work of...
View ArticleTokyo Cowboy
The premise of Tokyo Cowboy is nothing new: an uptight main character serendipitously ends up having their life changed after experiencing time amongst people who don’t always color inside the same...
View ArticleThe Wasp
Who doesn’t love a good story about a woman trying to kill her shitty, good-for-nothing, cheating husband? Over the years, some excellent stories have been told about the feminine urge to take control...
View ArticleOut Come the Wolves
“Nature has a way of showing you who you really are.” That’s Sophie (Missy Peregrym) explaining her late father’s philosophy in the gory forest thriller Out Come the Wolves—and dad was right. Though...
View ArticleAcross the River and Into the Trees
Based on one of Ernest Hemingway’s lesser-known works, Across the River and Into the Trees is a quietly melancholic drama set in Venice, Italy, at the close of World War II. It tells the story of...
View ArticleCriminally Underrated: Tank Girl
Long ago, in the Before-Time, not all action-adventure movies were based on comic books. The few films that did originate from pulpy pages with half-tone drawings tended to wear their stylistic roots...
View ArticleMerchant Ivory
Ismail Merchant and James Ivory did not invent the tasteful costume drama, but they did perfect it. Over the course of half a century and 44 feature films, the producer and director specialized in...
View ArticleOeuvre: Spielberg: 1941
When you think of the legendary Steven Spielberg, easily one of the most successful, iconic and influential American film directors of all time, you think of the classics: E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,...
View ArticleBeetlejuice Beetlejuice
It’s difficult to fully convey how groundbreaking Beetlejuice was when it premiered 36 years ago. Tim Burton’s second feature film followed the charming and quirky Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, which had...
View ArticleThe Thicket
What’s the point of a Western nowadays? At minimum, every filmmaker who decides to make one should have an answer to that question. If we asked Jane Campion, writer and director of The Power of the...
View ArticleOff Ramp
Where does one even begin to discuss the Juggalo? The hyper-dedicated, passionate fans of Detroit’s hip-hop duo Insane Clown Posse have solidified themselves, for better or worse, as part of the pop...
View ArticleRediscover: Hamburger Dad
In the summer of 2003, best friends Kevin Clarke and Wil Long, Seattle-based comedians, comic book artists and independent filmmakers, decided to make a movie together. Utilizing their Hi-8 Analog...
View ArticleHoard
Grief and trauma can take many forms, and in 26-year-old British writer-director Luna Carmoon’s debut film, Hoard, we meet a young woman who finds catharsis from the effects of a troubled childhood in...
View ArticleThe Mother of All Lies
Is it really surprising that it’s still so easy for atrocities to be pushed under the rug? Were it not for the advent of social media or other platforms where images can be created and disseminated...
View ArticleThe Cowboy and the Queen
In the ‘30s, two children grew up on either side of the Atlantic; one was a talented horse trainer who worked on Hollywood movies and won rodeo competitions, the other was a princess, with a father on...
View ArticleFrom the Vaults of Streaming Hell: Frogman
The Blair Witch Project’s influence on the horror genre is difficult to overstate. The 1999 film’s gargantuan box office haul — then an indie film record — from a miniscule production budget had...
View ArticleDon’t Turn Out the Lights
Is the monster real, imagined, or somewhere between those two states of existence? That’s the fascinating question at the center of Don’t Turn Out the Lights, a horror-thriller that was clearly made on...
View ArticleRed Rooms
Filmed largely in the ugliest parts of a beautiful city, Red Rooms examines the dark side of modern humanity. Writer-director Pascal Plante does this not, as his film first appears, through the tale of...
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