REVIEW: May [2003]

I need more parts. Kids don’t like weird. They like being weird and marking those weirder than them as pariahs out of jealousy and/or entitlement. The question where it concerns May Dove Canady (Angela Bettis) is whether she was ever actually weird at all. As writer/director Lucky McKee explains via a brief prologue, the kids stayed away from her because of how she handled her lazy eye. Rather than lean into it and make it a non-issue, her mother did everything in her power to force young May to keep…

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REVIEW: To Leslie [2022]

You’re trying to do what I didn’t do. Despite what she tells herself as she scrounges up enough money for that first beer at the bar before quickly pivoting to flirting for free drinks the rest of the night, Leslie (Andrea Riseborough) hit rock bottom a long time ago. Leaving home merely postponed that self-realization by allowing her to avoid the carnage left in her wake much longer than she should have. If she finds another motel to sleep in without paying rent and another man to facilitate her addiction,…

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REVIEW: Sirens [2022]

But I don’t want to live in fear. While Rita Baghdadi‘s documentary Sirens centers upon the first all-female thrash metal band from the Middle East, it’s not really about the band. We follow them to a gig at Glastonbury, watch rehearsal sessions, and peek in on photoshoots, but the focus goes deeper than music. It reaches past the usual rock clichés to recognize that the struggle these women face is more immediate than striving to perform for sold out crowds or become signed by a label. This is about surviving…

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BIFF22 REVIEW: Relative [2023]

Right beside you. Life is about handling contradictions. And they all demand that we choose between compromising, conceding, or refusing to back down whether it’s opposite a family member, friend, lover, or even yourself. We weigh pros and cons. We anticipate a future that we can never know for certain. Do we choose the job or the potential for love? Do we sacrifice our career for our spouse? Do we leave our hometown, or do we decide to make a new one? Each choice becomes another snowflake falling atop a…

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REVIEW: Cerdita [Piggy] [2022]

The town is full of spite. There’s a reason why Carlota Pereda films Sara (Laura Galán) urinating through her clothes as an old friend (Irene Ferreiro‘s Claudia) who’s drifted away towards the clique that bullies her puts a bloody hand on the back window of a serial killer’s van while screaming for help. We need to understand her fear. Just because Sara is a teenager who’s been brutally victimized by an entire town of peers doesn’t mean she’s measuring the situation and deciding to let Claudia, Maca (Claudia Salas), and…

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REVIEW: Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon [2022]

Forget what you know. Everyone asks Mona Lisa Lee (Jeon Jong-seo) if she has any friends. It’s the first question that comes to mind when confronting a stranger who looks lost and out of sorts with their surroundings because you want to help them find a safe place and the care of people they can trust. Unfortunately, Mona Lisa can do nothing but shake her head “No” because she’s been locked in a juvenile care facility for a decade: catatonic and in a straitjacket due to “violent tendencies” upon arrival…

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REVIEW: Vesper [2022]

You don’t know the cost of dreams. It’s the New Dark Ages and the world has devolved to mimic a YA novel’s class system with the poor left to fend for themselves in desolate wastelands while the rich remain protected in Citadels sprinkled throughout their expanse. Animals are dead. Plants are dead. Most humans are dead. To survive means scraping by with what few seeds you purchase from the cities, each lasting only one season. The cost is the blood of children and why those with power in the swamps…

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REVIEW: The Justice of Bunny King [2021]

Nothing can touch us. There’s a crucial point of clarity in the director’s notes for The Justice of Bunny King wherein director Gaysorn Thavat admits one of her goals for the film was to never let its main character become a victim. Bunny (Essie Davis) is obviously struggling with an unnuanced system of legality that’s left her on the streets without custody of her kids, but she harbors zero regrets where it comes to the actions that brought her to this point. Yes, she served time for manslaughter, but killing…

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REVIEW: The Enforcer [2022]

You fight for me. I fight for you. Miami kingpin Estelle (Kate Bosworth) is looking for insurance. Not because she doesn’t trust her usual muscle Cuda (Antonio Banderas) anymore, but because she’s not sure how much time he has left in the tank let alone how well he’s going to adapt to a world running on online currency. Stuck in jail for a decade, his return is therefore just in time to train his replacement: a street fighter named Stray (Mojean Aria) who makes a living always battling above his…

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REVIEW: To the Moon [2022]

You want to breathe from your gut. The word Dennis (writer/director Scott Friend) uses to describe his estranged brother Roger (Will Brill) is malevolent. That’s quite the adjective without context, but one that quickly seems to fit as more details begin to surface. There’s a medical book in their parents’ old home—which now belongs to them both equally—that Dennis’ wife Mia (Madeleine Morgenweck) finds defaced with a child’s drawings that make it seem Roger wasn’t happy to be getting a brother. Talk about where the elder sibling has been gleans…

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TIFF22 REVIEW: Concrete Valley [2023]

What does a doctor look like? Welcome to Antoine Bourges‘ love letter to the Thorncliffe Park apartment complex, better known as “Arrival City” considering it’s the usual landing spot for new immigrants coming into Toronto. Titled Concrete Valley and starring a mix of professional and amateur actors blurring the line between fiction and non-fiction, Bourges and co-writer Teyama Alkamli spent a lot of time with residents to help flesh out their motives and narrative in the form of Rashid (Hussam Douhna) and Farah (Amani Ibrahim), a Syrian couple who have…

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