REVIEW: Une Libération [2015]

“The Americans are coming” ***Possible Spoilers*** The sheer number of different stories that have been told out of the atrocities committed during World War II never ceases to amaze me. It shouldn’t—such a large-scale assault on humanity is nothing if not complex. When you think about breadth of the countries, cultures, and languages involved, the tally of uniquely personal tales brought home in its aftermath is infinite. While Hollywood focuses its attention on epics of artillery or repurposed accounts told through the eyes of comic book superheroes, though, such a…

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REVIEW: Lucid [2015]

“In my dreams you’re trying to kill me” As a proof of concept for what is currently in development as an episodic series, Kevin K. Shah‘s short film Lucid provides a psychological wallop of quick cuts and disorientation. It’s ending reveals itself as a beginning for something larger—an unexplained answer to the questions we’ve been asking from the start. What is going on inside Karen’s (Marion Kerr) mind? Where is the rage coming from that she projects onto her husband Sam (Ross Marquand) when his real life self is anything…

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REVIEW: I Fucking Hate You [2008]

“I didn’t hide it very well, did I?” It isn’t easy to let someone go. The pain, guilt, anger, regret, and lingering love mixes together into a pool of emotion you cannot simply move on from without introspection and time. For some a final meeting can go a long way towards tying loose ends and saying a real goodbye far from the open wound of that initial parting of ways containing little but hatred in your heart. It’s hard to remember good times once they’re over because the heartbreak overshadows…

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BNFF11 REVIEW: Heart of Now [2011]

“The bottom line—I don’t feel good about what happened” Very near the beginning of Heart of Now, a young girl, Monica (Mary Elise Hayden), makes the quasi-pithy, half-serious/half-joking statement that all women need a man who will give them ‘loads of intensity and massive support’. Couldn’t this observation expand further to blanket all of humanity, though? Don’t we all need that mix of feeling and security to go about our daily lives with meaning? Well, if we are to use Zak Forsman’s lead Amber (Marion Kerr) as an exemplification for…

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