Day: September 9, 2020

TIFF20 REVIEW: Holler [2021]

Jared Mobarak

There’s more than cans and bottles. You can only hide so many eviction notices underneath the porch flowerpot before a bank official finds and tapes them all onto the front door. This is where we meet Ruth (Jessica Barden) and Blaze Avery (Gus Halper). What choice do they have, though? With their mother (Pamela Adlon‘s Rhonda) in jail because of a refusal to go to rehab for a pain pill addiction and family friend Linda (Becky Ann Baker) already over-extending herself to help, these two siblings are waking up at…

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TIFF20 REVIEW: Mila [Apples] [2021]

Jared Mobarak

I don’t remember if I like them. Amnesia is a tragic ailment. To wake up and find yourself unable to remember your name or any other aspect of your life is nothing short of a nightmarish scenario. We fear diseases like dementia and Alzheimer’s precisely because losing our memory is akin to losing our very identity and by extension our sense of purpose. So it’s only natural to see the conceit behind director Christos Nikou‘s and co-writer Stavros Raptis‘ film Mila [Apples] as one steeped in horror. It’s unknown why…

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INTERVIEW: Reinaldo Marcus Green, director of Good Joe Bell

Jared Mobarak

Between his feature film debut Monsters and Men in 2018 and the currently shooting Richard Williams (Venus and Serena’s father) biopic starring Will Smith, Reinaldo Marcus Green had the distinction of directing Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana‘s first produced screenplay since their Brokeback Mountain Oscar victory in 2006. That’s quite the run for the New York native, NYU Tisch graduate—one that has quickly proven to be very well deserved. Good Joe Bell is that sophomore title and it just debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival. It tells the tragic…

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