REVIEW: Amazing Grace [2019]

We want you to let the folks know you’re here. Released in 1972, Aretha Franklin‘s live album with Reverend James Cleveland and the Southern California Community Choir entitled Amazing Grace took the country by storm selling over two million copies in America alone on its way to double platinum certification. Knowing it was going to be special, Warner Bros. hired a film crew and director Sydney Pollack to record everything for an accompanying documentary much like they did with Woodstock and Michael Wadleigh two years prior. Fresh off his first…

Read More

REVIEW: Climax [2018]

Anything. What would you do for the chance to work with the illustrious choreographer Selva (Sofia Boutella) and her DJ Daddy (Kiddy Smile)? According to the group of young dancers they interviewed: “Anything.” Some are coy when asking for context to the question with a smile and others are quick to pretty much say they’d kill a person if asked. So off they all go to a remote school during winter to rehearse a routine with which they plan to set New York and London stages ablaze. And with an…

Read More

REVIEW: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs [2018]

Well don’t let my white duds and pleasant demeanor fool ya. You know the whole enterprise will be a bit cheeky just by directors’ Joel and Ethan Coen‘s statement of intent. While explaining that their love for anthology movies stems from the format’s ability to unite multiple directors with a common theme, they admit their hopes of doing the same with a sextet of Western tales written and adapted over the years. Instead of lamenting the fact they couldn’t make it happen before deciding to direct everything themselves, the duo…

Read More

REVIEW: Vox Lux [2018]

Simply put: it was a hit. America lost its innocence on 9/11. It wasn’t an overnight thing, though. The gradual degradation of humanity on an ever-shrinking global landscape stewarded us there as school shootings and terrorist attacks grew with their weak links towards violent videogames rather than an otherwise Puritan sense of sex being worse than murder. Our repressed selves fought against growing malaise until that day provided a scapegoat to blame. We turned our internal rage onto an undeserving people suddenly reduced to their worst and smallest faction so…

Read More

REVIEW: Zimna wojna [Cold War] [2018]

Time doesn’t matter when you are in love. It’s critical to know that writer/director Pawel Pawlikowski loosely based his main characters in Zimna wojna [Cold War] on their namesakes: his parents. To know he acknowledges the fact that they were destructive together and lovesick apart makes the way in which the fictional Wiktor (Tomasz Kot) and Zula (Joanna Kulig) interact easier to accept since they aren’t necessarily “good” people. They’re selfish, headstrong, and opportunistic. They constantly take via a consciously knowing means of manipulation and grow frustrated when things don’t…

Read More

REVIEW: リズと青い鳥 [Rizu to aoi tori] [Liz and the Blue Bird] [2018]

I hope that day never comes. The filmmakers behind リズと青い鳥 [Rizu to aoi tori] [Liz and the Blue Bird] did a smart thing: they took an existing property (Ayano Takeda‘s novel series Sound! Euphonium which has subsequently become a manga, anime series, and film) and expanded upon two of its secondary characters by allowing them to take the lead. I’m not familiar with the original iterations of the property, but a bit of research shows that its plot surrounds a high school concert band in Kyoto, Japan just returned to…

Read More

REVIEW: Bohemian Rhapsody [2018]

Good thoughts. Good words. Good deeds. There’s the story of Freddie Mercury and the story of his band Queen. One deals with complicated topics spanning fractured identity, the excess of fame, and AIDS while the other is apparently straightforward with little conflict besides creative squabbles that get ironed out before the argument is even finished. Is it weird then that Hollywood would deliver the latter? The sad truth is unfortunately no. Going the safe route to make sure all parties involved are happy about their depiction is exactly what Hollywood…

Read More

REVIEW: A Star Is Born [2018]

I love the way she sees them. It began with Hollywood as William A. Wellman and Robert Carson won an Oscar for their story about a young actress dreaming of super stardom in 1937. From there it went the way of the movie musical thanks to Judy Garland taking the lead before earning six nominations in 1954. Next came Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson to shift things to the music world with its aging rock star and hopeful songstress adding a 1976 Best Song to the awards cabinet. Now—almost a…

Read More

REVIEW: Blaze [2018]

Never stand in the way of true love. You have to respect the way Ethan Hawke approached his latest film Blaze and its central character Blaze Foley. He’d never heard the artist’s name or music until being stopped in his tracks upon listening to John Prine cover “Clay Pigeons.” That sparked an interest for research and eventually a door to Foley’s tumultuous life was opened. As luck would have it, Hawke’s friend Louis Black knew both Blaze and Townes Van Zandt (an important figure in this tragic country blues singer’s…

Read More

TIFF REVIEW: Teen Spirit [2019]

Love’s not real. If you haven’t had enough underdog tales about kids from the wrong side of the tracks trying to make it big, Max Minghella‘s directorial debut Teen Spirit hits all the usual check marks to provide a stylish if familiar entry to the theme. There’s the likeable teen lead in Violet’s (Elle Fanning) Polish-British, Isle of Wight resident working her land and a waitress job all while attending school. The tough parent trying to instill a pragmatic realism meant to temper expectations that end up working to destroy…

Read More

REVIEW: Hearts Beat Loud [2018]

Whoopie pies and Spotify. It’s often at extreme times of upheaval that we find ourselves taking stock of our life, ambitions, and loves. While working hard to be successful enough to support our families, we have a tendency of leaving our dreams by the wayside and/or compartmentalizing our identities to serve the unavoidable pressures of the present rather than hopes for the future. And on the flipside we can also youthfully avoid our basic human desire for compassion and interaction in order to maintain focus on career paths we’ve yet…

Read More