True/False 2023 Dispatch: “R 21,” “Feet in Water, Head on Fire,” “Paradise”

As this nourishing few days of documentary cinema at the 2023 True/False Film Festival approaches its conclusion, I’ve got mini reviews of 3 more films I’ve watched this weekend. R 21 AKA Restoring Solidarity presents rare and recently restored films created in solidarity with the Palestinian fight for freedom, while Feet in Water, Head on […]

Review: “Palm Trees and Power Lines”

It’s been a long time since I’ve been in school, but I remember that liminal space known as summer vacation. Days bleeding into each other with no job or commitments that require you to keep track of time, the overbearing heat prompting you to shuffle between the sunny poolside and dim air-conditioned interiors. When we […]

Review: “She Is Love”

It’s a classic romantic comedy set-up: after years apart, exes catch a glimpse of each other through a doorway. The catch? One of them runs a boutique hotel in the countryside, and the other is an unsuspecting guest. But in writer/director Jamie Adams’ She Is Love, there’s nothing cute about this awkward meeting, and the […]

Review: “The Old Way”

There’s a moment in the climax of director Brett Donowho’s “The Old Way” where baddie James McCallister (Noah Le Gros) and gunslinger Colton Briggs (Nicolas Cage) finally confront each other face-to-face after having spent the entire movie on each other’s heels. McCallister tells Briggs that they’re going to resolve this conflict “the old way”—i.e., with […]

Review: “Please Baby Please”

As young men clad in leather jackets leap and twirl down a dark street, the opening scene of “Please Baby Please” immediately draws a visual parallel to the classic romantic musical “West Side Story,” which begins with rival gang members dancing around the city until they meet and conflict ensues. But Amanda Kramer’s “Please Baby […]

SLIFF 2022 First Time Female Filmmakers Roundup

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending the 31st annual Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival, which was held in person from November 3-13 in venues across the St. Louis area as well as online. Among the films I got to watch in person were Nikyatu Jusu’s stunning debut feature “Nanny” […]

Review: “Something in the Dirt”

Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead’s latest film, “Something in the Dirt,” concludes with a dedication: “to making movies with your friends.” This is the fifth feature film the pair have written and directed together (they also star) in a filmography that includes everything from indie (“The Endless”) to big budget sci-fi (“Synchronic” for Netflix), as […]

TIFF Review: “Corsage”

Toronto International Film Festival 2022 North American Premiere Romy Schneider made such an indelible impact playing Empress Elisabeth of Austria in the “Sissi” trilogy as a teenager in the mid-1950s that not only did the success of the films launch her into the celebrity stratosphere, but they have become a tradition in Austria and other […]

TIFF Review: “Susie Searches”

Toronto International Film Festival 2022 World Premiere It’s exciting when movies take ambitious swings, but sometimes the final product is too messy to be even admired. At the beginning of Sophie Kargman’s feature debut “Susie Searches” (based on her 2020 short of the same name), the story appears to be moving in a predictable direction, […]

Review: “Alone Together”

We’re over two years into this thing now, and I think I’ve figured out at least partially why no movie that centers around the COVID-19 pandemic has been good. In fact, they’ve almost all been almost excruciatingly bad, with the exception of Steven Soderbergh’s straight-to-HBO Max thriller “Kimi,” which tied the protagonist’s anxiety to the […]