REVIEW: Okul Tirasi [Brother’s Keeper] [2022]

If you sleep, so will the black trees. In a display of authoritarian punishment, the principal (Mahir Ipek) of the Turkish boarding school where Ferit Karahan‘s Okul Tirasi [Brother’s Keeper] is set seeks to remind the eleven-year-olds under his care that they should feel lucky to be there. They get a stellar education (while having the Kurdish beat out of those who come from the Kurdistan region). They get three square meals a day (consisting of a pitiful ladleful of three creamy liquids and half a bread loaf to dip).…

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REVIEW: Old Man [2022]

There’s all kinds of death and beauty out here. Some wounds don’t heal. Not with time. Not with a mythical lake of water with the power to mend all ailments. And while we can try to forget, the mind will always keep a little bit of the truth in reach to ensure the cause of the pain is never far away. It therefore makes sense that we would ultimately meet and leave Stephen Lang‘s character at the center of Old Man asleep on his bed with thumb in mouth like…

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REVIEW: The Banshees of Inisherin [2022]

To are graves. Just like every other day at two o’clock for the past how many years, Pádraic Súilleabháin (Colin Farrell) strolls across Inisherin, a small island off Ireland’s western shore, to collect his best friend Colm Doherty (Brendan Gleeson) for a pint at Jonjo Devine’s (Pat Shortt) bar. Unlike those days (up to and including yesterday), however, his knock at the window goes unanswered. Colm is neither in distress nor absent. He’s merely sitting inside his house smoking. Pádraic is at a loss. Why won’t he acknowledge his presence?…

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REVIEW: Empire of Light [2022]

I’m not some problem to be solved. The lithium has left Hilary (Olivia Colman) numb. That’s what she tells her doctor before he replies that the feeling will go away once she gets used to the medication. It isn’t necessarily affecting her job performance as duty manager of the Empire Cinema, though. If anything, “numb” might help considering what occurred to spark the prescription in the first place. But I’m getting ahead of myself since that information isn’t revealed until later. For now, writer/director Sam Mendes simply needs Hilary to…

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REVIEW: May [2003]

I need more parts. Kids don’t like weird. They like being weird and marking those weirder than them as pariahs out of jealousy and/or entitlement. The question where it concerns May Dove Canady (Angela Bettis) is whether she was ever actually weird at all. As writer/director Lucky McKee explains via a brief prologue, the kids stayed away from her because of how she handled her lazy eye. Rather than lean into it and make it a non-issue, her mother did everything in her power to force young May to keep…

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REVIEW: To Leslie [2022]

You’re trying to do what I didn’t do. Despite what she tells herself as she scrounges up enough money for that first beer at the bar before quickly pivoting to flirting for free drinks the rest of the night, Leslie (Andrea Riseborough) hit rock bottom a long time ago. Leaving home merely postponed that self-realization by allowing her to avoid the carnage left in her wake much longer than she should have. If she finds another motel to sleep in without paying rent and another man to facilitate her addiction,…

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BIFF22 REVIEW: Relative [2023]

Right beside you. Life is about handling contradictions. And they all demand that we choose between compromising, conceding, or refusing to back down whether it’s opposite a family member, friend, lover, or even yourself. We weigh pros and cons. We anticipate a future that we can never know for certain. Do we choose the job or the potential for love? Do we sacrifice our career for our spouse? Do we leave our hometown, or do we decide to make a new one? Each choice becomes another snowflake falling atop a…

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REVIEW: Cerdita [Piggy] [2022]

The town is full of spite. There’s a reason why Carlota Pereda films Sara (Laura Galán) urinating through her clothes as an old friend (Irene Ferreiro‘s Claudia) who’s drifted away towards the clique that bullies her puts a bloody hand on the back window of a serial killer’s van while screaming for help. We need to understand her fear. Just because Sara is a teenager who’s been brutally victimized by an entire town of peers doesn’t mean she’s measuring the situation and deciding to let Claudia, Maca (Claudia Salas), and…

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REVIEW: Vesper [2022]

You don’t know the cost of dreams. It’s the New Dark Ages and the world has devolved to mimic a YA novel’s class system with the poor left to fend for themselves in desolate wastelands while the rich remain protected in Citadels sprinkled throughout their expanse. Animals are dead. Plants are dead. Most humans are dead. To survive means scraping by with what few seeds you purchase from the cities, each lasting only one season. The cost is the blood of children and why those with power in the swamps…

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REVIEW: The Justice of Bunny King [2021]

Nothing can touch us. There’s a crucial point of clarity in the director’s notes for The Justice of Bunny King wherein director Gaysorn Thavat admits one of her goals for the film was to never let its main character become a victim. Bunny (Essie Davis) is obviously struggling with an unnuanced system of legality that’s left her on the streets without custody of her kids, but she harbors zero regrets where it comes to the actions that brought her to this point. Yes, she served time for manslaughter, but killing…

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REVIEW: The Enforcer [2022]

You fight for me. I fight for you. Miami kingpin Estelle (Kate Bosworth) is looking for insurance. Not because she doesn’t trust her usual muscle Cuda (Antonio Banderas) anymore, but because she’s not sure how much time he has left in the tank let alone how well he’s going to adapt to a world running on online currency. Stuck in jail for a decade, his return is therefore just in time to train his replacement: a street fighter named Stray (Mojean Aria) who makes a living always battling above his…

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