Review: “Sunfish (& Other Stories on Green Lake)”

An anthology movie that drifts by with the laziness of a summer day on the lake where it is set, writer and director Sierra Falconer’s debut feature never builds to a profound crescendo, but it’s accomplished in style and substance all the same. A loosely autobiographical series of stories set around the Michigan lake near […]

Review: “A Christmas Party”

We’ve all been there before, regardless of what precisely we celebrate or believe in: the family holiday party. The tense reunions, the awkward introductions of new partners, the petty squabbles over everything from politics to what’s for dinner. And we’ve all seen it depicted on screen countless times, too. So it’s a testament to Alexander […]

Venice 2025: “Mother,” “Hijira,” “Milk Teeth”

The Venice Film Festival may be a beacon for its buzzy premieres and starry red carpets, but there are plenty of other intriguing projects making their world premieres here that could easily be overlooked. The three films I’m highlighting in this dispatch involve crisis of family and faith: Mother and Milk Teeth, which both premiered […]

Review: “Sorry, Baby”

A few weeks ago, while rummaging around a cabinet in my office in search of a notepad with some blank pages that I could bring with me to the theater, I stumbled across a morbid little artifact: a thick notebook with gilt-edged pages and a soft, textured pink cover held in place by a metal […]

Review: “Dead Lover”

Dead Lover isn’t shy about its status as a Frankenstein riff. In fact, it opens with a quote from Mary Shelley’s novel: “There is something at work in my soul, which I do not understand.” In the story, this line is delivered by the doctor Victor Frankenstein, as he ponders what force may be compelling […]

Review: “The Encampments”

On April 17, 2024, a group of pro-Palestine students began an encampment on New York City’s Columbia University campus, standing in solidarity with Gaza in the broader context of the Gaza war that began on October 7, 2023, and demanding that the university divest from Israel. The immediate and global impact of the movement happened […]

Review: “The Pee Pee Poo Poo Man”

Situated somewhere in the neighborhood of a ripped-from-the-headlines true crime tale, absurdist comedy, tech age paranoid thriller, and slice-of-life indie, you’ll find The Pee Pee Poo Poo Man. Writer and director Braden Sitter culled the inspiration for his bizarre feature film from a viral news event that occurred in Toronto in 2019, when a man […]

Review: “Eephus”

I am not a baseball fan. This has plagued me for most of my life. Having lived in St. Louis— widely regarded as one of the nation’s most fanatical sports towns— for over half of my life now, I’m used to shrugging off the question I receive most from people when I’m out of town […]

Review: “Rats!”

Rats! is very much a your-milage-will-vary sort of movie. Writers, directors, and producers Maxwell Nalevansky and Carl Fry’s debut feature film’s blend of satire, gross-out comedy, and social commentary drew comparisons to the filmography of John Waters following its award-winning world premiere at Fantastic Fest in 2024, a comparison that turns out to be an […]

Review: “Dìdi”

It would be all too easy to dismiss Sean Wang’s Dìdi as the exact sort of semi-autobiographical, coming-of-age comedy/drama that seems to become the Sundance darling on an annual basis. In fact, when Dìdi premiered at the festival earlier this year, it won the Audience Award, cementing its position as a sturdy crowdpleaser. Sure, in […]