TIFF19 REVIEW: Tammy’s Always Dying [2019]

I just want to play the game. You have to give credit to any story that allows its despicable characters to be despicable without also demanding forgiveness from their victim. This is especially true in tales concerning a parent and child considering society seems to crave this ideal that the former is due some benefit of the doubt they’ve never earned. Screenwriter Joanne Sarazen refuses to go that route. She won’t pander to audiences by making Tammy MacDonald (Felicity Huffman) anything but the narcissistic, alcoholic screw-up devoid of self-control she…

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BNFF14 PREVIEW: The 8th Annual Buffalo Niagara Film Festival

It’s eight years later and The Buffalo Niagara International Film Festival is still going strong April 24th through May 3rd. I personally missed organizer and filmmaker Bill Cowell‘s inaugural season, but have been attending off and on as both a ticket holder and member of the press since. My first experience was in 2008 at the Riviera Theatre in Tonawanda. I drove over mostly because that night’s feature had a cast consisting of Bruce Dern and Kristen Stewart (pre-Twilight). While director Mary Stewart Masterson‘s The Cake Eaters proved worthy of…

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REVIEW: Tiger Eyes [2013]

“I wonder what it’s like to be dead?” Venerable young adult fiction novelist Judy Blume published her first book in 1969 and despite iconic titles like Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret and Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, only a failed television series based on her character Fudge found its way to the visual medium. A constant source of controversy as she continuously pushed the envelope on “age-appropriateness” for her readers, it isn’t a surprise Tiger Eyes has prevailed to become her first cinematic adaptation. Admittedly self-censored on…

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