TRIBECA22 REVIEW: A Wounded Fawn [2022]

All your secrets are escaping. This weekend is supposed to be a rebirth for Meredith (Sarah Lind). After battling the demons of an abusive relationship, she’s accepted an invitation of romantic seclusion from a man (Josh Ruben‘s Bruce) she’s just met. Her friends demand to know all the details, but she’s not quite ready to share them. This might just be an isolated yet necessary sexual encounter that ends upon her return to the city. No reason to let him move into her head psychologically or her inner circle prematurely…

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TRIBECA22 REVIEW: Natten har øjne [Attachment] [2022]

Was that somehow my fault? Leah’s (Ellie Kendrick) reasons for being in Denmark are purely academic. At least, that’s what she tells former actress Maja (Josephine Park) upon meeting by accident at a bookshop. It’s a cutely fateful collision, the former with a stack of research and the latter dressed as an elf while running to an engagement to read to a bunch of school children. Maja’s haste causes a mix-up in their attempt to pick everything up, ensuring they must come together once more in calmer circumstances. A mug…

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TRIBECA22 REVIEW: Huesera [2023]

Bleed from the inside. According to Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés in Women who Run with the Wolves, the “Bone Woman,” or La Huesera, “collects and preserves that which is in danger of being lost to the world.” A Mexican myth sees her scouring the mountains and riverbeds for the remains of wolves, assembling what she finds to recreate the animal as though an ivory sculpture which will eventually become reanimated and ultimately reborn as a human woman freely laughing towards the horizon. They say she provides a glimpse of the…

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TRIBECA20 REVIEW: Socks on Fire [2020]

It’s hard to get ahead of a forty-year hurt. The hope is that the sorrow of losing a loved one proves the extent of the pain we must suffer before we set about sifting through what’s left of that expired life. It’s why we throw parties after funerals to try and approach a sense of normalcy through a celebratory remembrance of yesterday’s good times together despite today’s tough truth making it possible. We take a deep breath, confront our grief, and await the will reading meant to put every duck…

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TRIBECA20 REVIEW: Banksy Most Wanted [2020]

He’s someone who hits where it hurts. It’s always funny in a crisis like the current COVID-19 pandemic to see people screaming about how they don’t believe artists should receive financial relief. Unless they’ve been sitting on their lawn and staring at the sky these past two months, however, they’ve dealt very extensively with art on a daily basis. Maybe it’s entertainment like books, TV, movies, or music. Maybe it’s property such as homes, furniture, or interior design. And if we dig a bit further, we discover these people are…

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TFF18 REVIEW: Phantom Cowboys [2018]

Give it hell. Turn left. It would be easy to dismiss Nick Reyes, Larry Young, and Tyler Carpenter as three variations on the same thing: poor American youth. The simple fact their stories are combined within Daniel Patrick Carbone‘s poetic look at nature, nurture, opportunity, and struggle in rural areas of our country entitled Phantom Cowboys makes the case. But anyone who watches these parallel journeys will reveal this thought’s error. You’ll see how role models can improve one’s outlook on the future. You’ll see how the stigma placed upon…

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TFF18 REVIEW: All These Small Moments [2018]

And then, somehow over time, I stopped smiling. It’s called All These Small Moments for a reason—one that becomes clear with a final, out-of-nowhere moment of voiceover narration in case you hadn’t figured it out yourself by acknowledging how formative, complex, and emotionally draining each one of writer/director Melissa B. Miller-Costanzo‘s dense scenes prove. Whether her current focal point is young Howie Sheffield (Brendan Meyer), one of the other teenagers at her disposal, the older object of his affection (Jemima Kirke‘s Odessa), or his on-the-brink-of-divorce parents (Molly Ringwald‘s Carla and…

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TFF17 REVIEW: Tilt [2018]

“Can we get away with anything we want?” If only we could go back to the days when mid-life crises happened at fifty-years old and at best meant buying an expensive car (at worst asking for divorce to marry younger). Now this existential breakdown occurs much earlier—let’s say thirty-years old. This is what happens when millennials are born of an era with more time to think about their futures. Rather than needing to buckle down and secure a career straight out of college, your drive for the “best fit” leads…

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TFF17 REVIEW: The Endless [2018]

“Please, be quiet” To resolve is to settle, finding the determination to do something rather than simply wait for something to happen to you. A resolution isn’t therefore a firm ending. On the contrary, it serves to provide beginnings. That decision has the potential to set you onto a path towards freedom either from the danger of outside forces or the complacency rendering you immobile within. So to look upon the conclusion of Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson‘s debut feature (as a tandem) isn’t to relinquish hope. The being—their riff…

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TFF15 REVIEW: Jackrabbit [2016]

“Rebuilding Our Future Today” Dystopian sci-fi is trendy. Anyone who has any knowledge of today’s pop culture could tell you that and it’s no surprise Hollywood has jumped on its collective consciousness with The Hunger Games, Divergent, and The Maze Runner. I enjoy them all, don’t get me wrong, but the reality of their monumental success removed from classics like 1984 or Fahrenheit 451 is a more glaring commentary on twenty-first century society than the political messages they use as a backbone to romantic, YA plotlines. There has been a…

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