REVIEW: Benedetta [2021]

We’re all entitled to a sin. Even as a child, Benedetta Carlini (Elena Plonka) believed herself protected by Jesus. As director Paul Verhoeven and co-writer David Birke portray it, her arrival to the convent in Pescia was one dripping in entitlement. She belonged there. It was her destiny. And we believe it because her conviction is immovable thanks to a steady stream of miracles occurring whenever anyone doubts her bond with God. Where did that confidence come from? Was this desire to be Jesus’ bride her own? Was it something…

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REVIEW: The Sparks Brothers [2021]

They’re the best British band to ever come out of America. I played a game in my head while watching Edgar Wright‘s equally informative and entertaining deep dive into the joined career of Ron and Russell Mael, The Sparks Brothers. It was called: what decade did I first experience the band my brain has no recollection of ever knowing? Let’s face it. No one who has followed music, movies, pop culture, etc. for the past three-to-four decades can legitimately say they never heard of a group as prolific and groundbreaking…

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REVIEW: Spencer [2021]

Where am I? The magic has long since disappeared where it comes to Prince Charles (Jack Farthing) and Princess Diana (Kristen Stewart) at the time director Pablo Larraín and screenwriter Steven Knight have set their “fable inspired by a true tragedy” entitled Spencer. It’s Christmas weekend and everyone already knows an end of some sort is near. Will there be a divorce? Will there be a scandal? Will there simply be scowling faces resigned to the fact that there will never be an escape from this joyless union that cannot…

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REVIEW: The Eyes of Tammy Faye [2021]

God loves you. He really, really does. Director Michael Showalter‘s The Eyes of Tammy Faye is not about Tammy Faye Bakker. I wish it was. She’s quite the figure with a heart of gold only challenged in size by a wealth of naivete and trust. A televangelist alongside her husband Jim on a television network they built into the fourth most-watched channel in America, she seems to have truly wanted to shower every single soul put on this earth with her love. And success was her way to do it.…

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REVIEW: Being the Ricardos [2021]

It was a scary goddamn week. The tabloids were running an article about Desi Arnaz (Javier Bardem) having an extramarital affair. The radio was insinuating Lucille Ball (Nicole Kidman) was a communist. And the two of them had planned to go into the studio the next morning to let everyone know they were having another baby. Whether all that happened on the same night or not—Aaron Sorkin has never been shy with bending the truth or timelines for additional drama—you cannot deny it’s a lethal combination for a rousing behind-the-scenes…

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REVIEW: King Richard [2021]

We need to make two more kids. You couldn’t watch tennis in the mid-90s without hearing an opinion about Richard Williams lurking behind his camera in the stands while his daughters Venus and Serena took the American program and the sport itself by storm. Every commentator had something to say to simultaneously champion his efforts putting them on the road to superstardom and vilify his off-court persona via his parenting technique, self-promotion, and hijinks. At times he became the bigger story and thus a big distraction to what the Williams…

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REVIEW: tick, tick … Boom! [2021]

What workshop? Despite any prescience on behalf of its subject matter, I’m sure even the playwright himself, Jonathan Larson, would have looked back on his big-budget, science fiction Broadway hopeful “Superbia” with enough hindsight to acknowledge there was no way it would ever see the light of day. As the relatable cartoon shared by artists all over the internet of an iceberg attests: the amount of work produced to get to the one piece that finds an audience (in any medium) is too high a multiplier to even begin hypothesizing.…

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DOCNYC21 REVIEW: Adrienne [2021]

I wasn’t supposed to find her dead. I hadn’t seen any of Adrienne Shelly‘s work at the time of her death, but you couldn’t follow the film world in 2006 without hearing about what happened. The news sites latched onto the assumption of suicide early on only to discover what happened was murder—the culprit found, arrested, and confessed shortly afterwards. And amidst that tragic whirlwind during the final two months of that year, Shelly’s latest film as writer/director/star, Waitress, was in submission at Sundance. It would eventually bow at the…

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REVIEW: Becoming Cousteau [2021]

We must go and see for ourselves. A title like Becoming Cousteau would have you imagining a journey from youth to death with historical anecdotes and archival footage describing an upbringing that led to a legendary life. For Jacques-Yves Cousteau, however, director Liz Garbus and screenwriters Mark Monroe and Pax Wassermann didn’t have to go that far back. The man we know didn’t originate until after a devastating car accident led him to two French divers who believed the water could help him rehabilitate. And even then—with the trio making…

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REVIEW: Introducing, Selma Blair [2021]

Disabled people like to have fun too. You can’t help but be inspired by Selma Blair‘s transparency when it comes to her diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis. So many people’s first impulse would be to hide—especially after having lived so long in a spotlight as fickle and judgmental as Hollywood’s affinity for equating physical prowess with worth. Yet there she was mere months after finally getting the answer to what was happening with her body, documenting her deterioration on Instagram and giving a voice to the hundreds of thousands of people…

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BIFF21 REVIEW: Bad Attitude: The Art of Spain Rodriguez [2021]

I have faith in the revolution. It’s easy to pick out two of the talking heads in Susan Stern‘s documentary about her husband Spain Rodriguez entitled Bad Attitude: The Art of Spain Rodriguez. Robert Crumb, the artist behind Fritz the Cat, has his own documentary (from Terry Zwigoff) in the Criterion Collection and Art Spiegelman, the artist behind Maus, has the only Pulitzer ever awarded to a graphic novel. To someone like me who has never really delved into the world of underground comix, it takes those touchstones of mainstream…

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