Monday is a derivative, dull, and altogether flat effort that captures none of the carefree spirit it partially peddles. With an overly familiar and intentionally simple plot, one that, on its face, resembles Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy, and boasting camerawork that lightly mimics the images…
Voyagers is a shallow, bland, and empty-headed space-set riff of Lord of the Flies that fails to choose either heady futurism or sci-fi eroticism. It’s not a great sign that even attempting a description of Neil Burger’s banal Voyagers is a bit of a…
Rightly considered one of the most prominent figures for the Argentinean new wave of cinema, Martín Rejtman first stepped into the attention of a small group of local cinephiles through his debut feature, Rapado in 1992, when the Argentine narrative film industry was struggling…
Mamade Claude isn’t much more than shallow period dress-up and empty provocation. Set, for the most part, in the final tumultuous years of the Swinging Sixties, Sylvie Verheyde’s Madame Claude follows the life and career of one of the most infamous French icons of…
The Winter Lake angles for slow-burn thriller mode, but manages only to be slow as it brings little of substance to the table. Set in a rural, rain-soaked Irish countryside, Phil Sheerin’s The Winter Lake starts solidly enough. As the film focuses mostly on the…
Tom Petty, Somewhere You Feel Free is one of those documentaries that is arguably most suitable for a festival like SXSW. That’s not simply because the platform is one where music and cinema merge, but, more notably, because it feels like a match for…
For her sophomore feature, Fucking with Nobody, Finnish director Hannaleena Hauru opts to play an on-screen alter-ego of herself. Hanna is a filmmaker who, after losing a project to her nemesis Kristian, gets involved in a fake Instagram catfishing scheme with a group of…
At first glance, the plotting of Bradley Grant Smith’s directorial debut feature Our Father would seem to offer plenty of promise. Beta (Baize Buzan) and Zelda (Allison Torem) are distant sisters from entirely different worlds — one an uptight, white-collar girl and the other…
Distractions isn’t the most high-profile release from Tindersticks, but it symbolizes a step in a bold direction for the band as they embark on their fourth decade together. Distractions marks Nottingham outfit Tindersticks’ 13th studio album, and while the sessions were certainly affected by the…
Moxie boasts a surprisingly lush visual design, but its soft script and weak character development leaves a lot to be desired. Adapted from Jennifer Mathieu’s 2017 novel of the same name, Amy Poehler’s Moxie will likely give rise to a tumult of mixed feelings for many…
