REVIEW: Italian Studies [2022]

You’re ‘warm world.’ It makes sense when writer/director Adam Leon explains the origins of Italian Studies came about by circumstance rather than intent. His friend Vanessa Kirby said she’d be in New York City for a while and that they should do something together. She wanted to be challenged. She wanted to roam the streets. Leon wanted to oblige despite not feeling certain he was ready to create anything new. It was his financiers saying “Go for it” that made it seem the stars were aligned. He called a bunch…

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TIFF16 REVIEW: Tramps [2017]

“Kids menu or appetizers?” The romantic comedy formula is one that can’t help but become redundant in premise. How many different scenarios are there for two people to converge? Even so, Adam Leon may have found a new one with his meet-cute during a dead-drop gone wrong called Tramps. It should have been a painless exchange: Ellie (Grace Van Patten) picks up Danny (Callum Turner), they retrieve a briefcase with unknown contents, and deliver said case to a woman with a green purse at the train station. She may have…

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