My Salinger Year is a gently romantic, old-fashioned love letter to literature and those irrevocably shaped by it. Philippe Falardeau’s My Salinger Year is the film adaptation of Joanna Rakoff’s memoir of the same name, depicting the author’s year spent working for the literary agency…
The Vault offers plenty of slick, heisty fun, but is hampered a bit by some unfortunate, charisma-sucking casting choices. Best known as the writer and director of three of the four films in the found-footage horror series REC, Jaume Balagueró makes a huge leap in…
Happily is heady, genuinely hilarious, and a work of impressive tonal balance from director BenDavid Grabinski. The law of diminishing returns dictates that, over time, optimal output will ultimately level off as new variants are introduced into the equation. The same goes for relationships; the…
Exodus tantalizes with the possibility of incisive critique, but ultimately paints a fairly empty picture. Exodus, the debut feature by cinematographer-turned-director Logan Stone, is a peculiarly insular version of a standard post-apocalyptic thriller. Stone’s vision of America seven years after the Rapture is nearly indistinguishable…
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…
Pixie delightfully channels Tarantino and Ritchie to playful, arch effect. After spending the last few years delivering stellar second-fiddle performances, Olivia Cooke steals the show in Pixie as the eponymous character, a witty and equally dangerous daughter of an Irish gangster, out to avenge her…
The Devil Below is unfortunately hamstrung by its shoestring budget and liberal cribbing of better horror properties. Being a horror fan is sometimes like taking a leap of faith, willingly subjecting oneself to reams of cheap, bottom-of-the-barrel monstrosities while desperately digging for that elusive diamond…
Shoplifters of the World is bad enough that all it really accomplishes is a reminder of how great The Smiths were. Set in 1987, Stephen Kijak’s Shoplifters of the World follows four friends on what might be both the most catastrophic day of their young…
A Ghost Waits is a slight but impressive calling card of a film boasting two genuinely notable performances. An oddball, micro-budget supernatural rom-com, Adam Stovall’s A Ghost Waits absolutely radiates with easy-going charm. Cute without being cloying, sweet but not saccharine, it’s as far from…
Sator is a distinctive, genuinely novel and unsettling contribution to the horror genre. Made almost entirely by one person — writer/director/producer Jordan Graham also built his own sets, recorded the sound, and acted as his own editor and cinematographer — Sator feels markedly different from…
