Outside Noise Ted Fendt’s body of work is at least in part characterized by its very purposeful progression. His films are all dryly comedic character studies of some sort or another; his earliest works were short comedic sketches akin to those of Éric Rohmer…
Nine Days angles toward profundity, but is a largely maudlin, intellectually bankrupt genre-exercise of self-congratulation. In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, prisoners sit facing a wall on which the shadows of puppets are projected; with no conception of a world beyond their own, the prisoners…
Never Gonna Snow Again harnesses is an oddball, observational film that manages to comment on much without veering into obviousness. Premiering at the 2020 Venice Film Festival, Never Gonna Snow Again is the latest from prolific director Malgorzata Szumowska, who has teamed up with her…
Can You Bring It is a sumptuous, intelligent work about the beauty and infinity of the creative process. Following the evolution of the titular groundbreaking dance piece, D-Man in the Waters, in the three decades since its release, Can You Bring It weaves together…
Broken Diamonds at least steers clear of the offensive depictions that sink so many schizophrenia flicks, but it doesn’t rise much above this low bar. The portrayal of schizophrenia in film is often problematic, to say the least, as the afflicted are often presented…
Before We Vanish by Daniel Gorman Film
Rock, Paper and Scissors | Martin Blousson & Macarena Garcia Lenzi
Rock, Paper and Scissors starts off beguilingly odd, but fails to ever realize its genre potency and soon falls into wheel-spinning. There’s something very wrong with Maria Jose (Valeria Giorcelli) and her younger brother Jesus (Pablo Sigal). Living a hermetic existence in the dilapidated…
The Man with the Answers aims for restraint but instead fails to either properly probe or articulate its characters. A well-meaning and tentative entrant into the realm of slow-burn road trip romances, Stelios Kammitsis’ The Man with the Answers is perhaps most noteworthy for…
Long Story Short is occasionally pretty to look at but otherwise gruelingly repetitive and dull. From the guy that played Kano in this year’s Mortal Kombat reboot comes Long Story Short, an Australian romantic comedy that basically takes the third act of Adam Sandler’s…
Unlike its subjects, Rebel Hearts is too conventional and not daring enough. Uplifting and unashamedly radical, Rebel Hearts, the sophomore effort from Pedro Kos, traces the history of the shockingly progressive Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary from their start as a rebellious…
Snake Eyes is all boring backstory and cliched tropes, and not remotely as weird as the material demands. Apparently, it’s absurdly hard to make a good movie out of a beloved ’80s cartoon that was essentially a glorified toy commercial for children. Although there…
