Born to Be tackles important subject matter but too often treats the individuals at its heart as subjects rather than partners in the documentary’s creation. Born…
Spontaneous tries to be too many things at once, and ultimately doesn’t scratch the surface of any of them. Spontaneous is a lot of things:…
Ham on Rye is a welcome departure from the typical trappings of a coming-of-age film. Coming-of-age narratives make up a significant proportion of contemporary independent…
The Antenna is a strange amalgam that might hold some intrigue for horror fans but is otherwise just another drab, generic Eastern Bloc allegory. Director Orcun…
La Belle Èpoque is superficial at best, and an endless string of clichés at worst. Time travel is a popular mechanism throughout film history for…
Once Upon a River is frequently pretty to look at, but Rose fails to build much depth into the film’s fable-like narrative. Once Upon a River…
Let’s Scare Julie fails to deliver on even its most basic promises, leaving the viewer unscared and uninterested. The big hook of the new teen…
Death of Me begins on a promising note, but lacks any follow-through or unique experience to warrant its making. There’s a scene early on in…
Beasts Clawing at Straws is a derivative, charmless bit of Tarantino-aping nonsense. The new Korean crime thriller Beasts Clawing at Straws is a derivative, charmless bit…
With direct-to-video/streaming action films now a bonafide cottage industry with their own tropes, star filmmakers and performers, and aesthetic trappings, the real mediocrities are becoming…
Trump Card was always going to be pathetic, but it surprises in demonstrating new lows of argumentation and cohesion from its soft-minded director. Dinesh D’Souza has,…
Laura Gabbert has a knack for pairing gastronomy and film — as in her 2016 documentary, City of Gold, which profiles Jonathan Gold, the first…
Pierre Cardin, indisputably, is one of the most iconic names in the realm of fashion — known to many as a genius, a hyper-modernist, an…
One of 2020’s greatest mysteries is how a film like Guest House received funding? Ostensibly conceived as a star vehicle for the Laurence Olivier of…
Rent-a-Pal, the debut feature from writer-director-editor Jon Stevenson, is unrelentingly bleak, a 108-minute cringe-fest masquerading as a character study. Not that there is much to…
Space Dogs finds directors Elsa Kremser and Levin Peter misty-eyed and looking up at the stars, convening mythologies surrounding the Space Race. But the filmmakers…
The long-standing theoretical association made between watching cinema and being in a dream-like state is one that’s rooted in a firm misunderstanding about the autonomy…
Kris Rey’s latest has moments that delight, but the final product feels distinctly undercooked. Kris Rey (formerly known as Kris Swanberg) is no stranger to…
The Pale Door is a tonally mismanaged botch job that unsuccessfully cribs from stronger genre entries. There’s a bit of a shared cinematic history between the…
An effort of self-serious arthouse aspiration, Song Without a Name brings nothing new to the table. Melina León’s Song Without A Name is representative of a…