Review: “Sleep”

The scary part is the lack of control. When you’re asleep, anything can happen. Your mind can dream up things wonderful and terrible. You can talk out loud. You can get up and move and walk with zero conscious control over your limbs. Recently, I fell asleep at my desk while working on a job […]

Fantastic Fest Dispatch: “What Happened to Dorothy Bell?”, “The Draft!”, “Ghost Killer”

Ghosts and supernatural entities are common threads weaving together these three films that premiered at Fantastic Fest 2024— the annual festival in Austin, Texas highlighting genre films— but those horror trappings also give way to character studies that are accomplished with varying degrees of success. Read on for my reviews of the found footage horror […]

TIFF Review: “Querido Trópico”

Fractured mother/daughter relationships make ripe stories for some of the most compelling cinema, even when they are versions of the same tale we’ve seen time and time again. That statement certainly applies to Querido Trópico (Beloved Tropic), a Panamanian drama that is the first narrative feature from director Ana Endara (who has four feature-length documentaries […]

Review: “Close Your Eyes”

Close Your Eyes is Victor Erice’s old man movie, but it feels reductive to say so. It’s also his love letter to cinema, but that is an even more inadequate attribution. After all, all of the filmmaker’s works, scattered as they have been over the decades, celebrate cinematic magic in some fashion. In The Spirit […]

Review: “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice”

From just casually scrolling on the internet, it seems like so many people have heralded Beetlejuice Beetlejuice— the much-delayed sequel to Tim Burton’s 1988 horror comedy Beetlejuice— as a return to form for the director, in no small part due to its irreverent sense of humor and generous employment of practical effects. But watching the […]

Review: “Blink Twice”

When we first meet Frida (Naomi Ackie), she’s squatting on the toilet in the bathroom of the dingy apartment she shares with her best friend Jess (Alia Shawkat), compulsively scrolling through Instagram on her phone. She’s sent down an exposition-heavy rabbit hole after landing on a video apology from billionaire tech mogul Slater King (Channing […]

Review: “Sing Sing”

Sing Sing opens on a darkened stage, a sole figure in its center bathed in glowing blue light as he delivers a powerful, Shakespearean monologue. He closes the scene to thunderous applause and walks backstage, chatting and congratulating his castmates. As they remove their regal costumes, they all don the same neutral green jumpsuits and […]

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 […]

Review: Caligula: The Ulimate Cut

It only takes a mere skimming of the original theatrical cut of Caligula to realize that the new Ultimate Cut is quite a different movie— at least, in the details. A lengthy series of title cards that kick off the film— which runs around 20 minutes longer than the previously available version— details the production’s […]

Review: “Crumb Catcher”

Crumb Catcher opens with a sensory assault that sets the tone for the film’s all style, no little substance (or at least, confounding substance) approach: Leah (Ella Ray Peck) and Shane (Rigo Garay) stand in front of a backdrop, taking post-wedding photos in their dress and tux. Flashbulbs fire as chaotically as the photographer issues […]