REVIEW: The 355 [2022]

Just a little longer. Nobody is talking about the Colombian wunderkind who single-handedly coded a drive that can backdoor any encrypted electronic device in the world from a single terminal. I know there’s zero need to talk about him since being the only person who can create and/or replicate something as valuable as his little hard drive isn’t long for a world where scarcity on such black-market weapons increases price, but still. Dude was just a twenty-something son of a drug warlord (with infinite time and resources) who was raised…

Read More

REVIEW: The Novice [2021]

Why are you here? There’s a difference between being the best and being the hardest worker. If you’re the best, you don’t always need to work. It’s natural. Alex Dall (Isabelle Fuhrman) describes the phenomenon perfectly about midway through Lauren Hadaway‘s feature debut The Novice while shooting pool with potential love interest Dani (Dilone). She explains how she’s driven to beat the best rather than be the best. How she’s accepted the idea that she’ll always have to struggle and that she’ll never achieve the pinnacle of whatever career, hobby,…

Read More

REVIEW: Nightmare Alley [2021]

No man can outrun God. We meet Stan Carlisle (Bradley Cooper) dragging a wrapped body to a hole he’s made by wrenching up the floorboards of an old farmhouse. He lights a cigarette and throws the match in too, leaving as the building becomes engulfed in flames. Was it murder? Making good on a promise? We don’t yet know. Whatever it was that put him in this situation was at least dramatic enough for him to keep his head down while traveling by train to the end of the line.…

Read More

REVIEW: Nightmare Alley [1947]

It takes one to catch one. We always envision ourselves becoming successful. We dream of the big payday. We work towards elevating our status even if it might mean intentionally leaving those who helped us through the process behind. Such aspirations are always attainable because we need to believe our lives can be improved. And then we look at those who are suffering with an upturned nose, quizzically wondering how they could have ever let themselves fall so far as if they had a choice in the matter. Maybe some…

Read More

REVIEW: قهرمان‎ [Ghahreman] [A Hero] [2021]

The unexpected visitor. Rahim (Amir Jadidi) is embarking on his latest two-day leave from prison in the hopes that it will prove long enough to earn his freedom. He’s serving time for his inability to pay a debt of 150,000 toman and his creditor (Mohsen Tanabandeh‘s Bahram) has been the opposite of helpful as far as facilitating a road back. The reasons are complicated by the fact Bahram isn’t some banker or loan shark. He’s ex-family who did his sister-in-law a favor by compromising his own savings to protect her…

Read More

REVIEW: Below the Fold [2021]

Nothing can be done. A sleepy Missouri newspaper is struggling to find stories besides puff pieces about local relations vying for the latest tractor pull championship. Having the ten-year anniversary of an unsolved disappearance case coming up shortly after the victim’s mother passed with a wish to keep her daughter’s memory alive is thus a blessing for the printed page since it means David Fremont (Davis DeRock) can knock on some doors and conduct some substantive interviews for once … even if he knows he probably won’t learn anything new.…

Read More

REVIEW: Zeros and Ones [2021]

Shoot it so they believe it. The opening credits had already begun before Ethan Hawke appeared to introduce himself and the film we’re about to see. He talks about always being a fan of Abel Ferrara and being excited that they were finally working together before describing Zeros and Ones as the writer/director’s interpretation of the world we’re currently living in due to COVID, terrorism, and the blurred line between good and evil. It’s an interesting maneuver that could either be a result of wanting to get audiences pumped by…

Read More

REVIEW: The Killing of Kenneth Chamberlain [2021]

This is when they come. I’m not sure there’s a more textbook example of police overreach and excessive force than the one depicted in David Midell‘s The Killing of Kenneth Chamberlain. The number of checkpoints that had to be missed, ignored, or willfully flaunted for the tragedy that ensures to occur is too high to count. In a perfect world (one the “defund the police” movement strives to create), officers wouldn’t have been dispatched to Kenneth Chamberlain Sr.’s (Frankie Faison) in the first place. He was a seventy-year-old Black Marine…

Read More

REVIEW: Lair [2021]

What did we do? Ben Dollarhyde (Oded Fehr) just murdered his wife and son. There’s no refuting it. He admits that his body committed the crime. His mind, however, did not. And while he knows saying that sounds crazy, he cannot stop himself from believing it and subsequently telling a colleague (Corey Johnson‘s Steven Caramore) who might agree. Except Caramore has never been a believer in the supernatural despite the fact he, Dollarhyde, and Ola (Kashif O’Connor) have worked in the paranormal sphere for years. Rather than make a career…

Read More

REVIEW: The Beta Test [2021]

It must be absolutely exhausting pretending to be you. There’s a lot going on beneath the surface of Jim Cummings and PJ McCabe‘s The Beta Test. Well, that’s not entirely true. It’s all there right on the surface in an “inside baseball” kind of way, but audiences who aren’t versed in Hollywood or the film industry beyond headline tabloid fodder may find themselves wondering what’s going on since the insight and comedy arrives at very high speeds with zero interest in pumping the brakes. For anyone who’s seen Cummings’ debut…

Read More

REVIEW: Malignant [2021]

It’s time we cut out the cancer. I don’t know about you, but the prologue to James Wan‘s Malignant is so tonally over-the-top that I expected the title screen to fade away and reveal it was a soap opera on the television inside Madison Mitchell’s (Annabelle Wallis) home. Reality, however, provides something different: an earnest decision to stay true to that soapy filter of comically extreme emotions with blatantly obvious reveals punctuated by overwrought music cues. Give Wan and screenwriter Akela Cooper credit for sticking to those guns because the…

Read More