SUNDANCE22 REVIEW: Alice [2022]

Don’t you see it? I wonder what the marketing push for Krystin Ver Linden‘s Alice would have looked like if Antebellum hadn’t already arrived on the scene first. Both films deal with the juxtaposition of slavery and our modern world in a similar way and yet the latter intentionally shielded its truth as a twist while the former exposes it as the point. Rather than deflect and/or deceive, this film’s campaign and synopsis have very clearly revealed that it does not take place during the 1800s. They do so by…

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TIFF20 REVIEW: I Care A Lot [2021]

There’s no such thing as “good people.” It’s the kind of grift that would make ‘Slippin’” Jimmy McGill proud. Marla Grayson (Rosamund Pike) calls up her friend Dr. Amos (Alicia Witt) to get a line on any prospective dementia patients with good insurance and ample nest eggs that have come through her office. She gets her partner (professionally and romantically) Fran (Eiza González) to run a background check with help from police contacts and calls an emergency trial with Judge Lomax (Isiah Whitlock Jr.) if their assumptions can be corroborated.…

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REVIEW: Cold Turkey [2013]

“It’s like a Jewish girl’s version of subtle” The lesson to be learned from Will Slocombe’s Cold Turkey is that you should never confide family secrets with the uncontrollable loose cannon of the bunch. Because no matter how many stupid things you’ve done, or how many times Dad saved your bacon by bailing out your incapacity to take responsibility for your actions, it’s the crazy psycho messenger who should get the blame. And while I initially meant that statement as sarcasm, I know now that at least the third part…

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REVIEW: 88 Minutes [2008]

“Tick-tock doc” Since I am unable to go to the theatre this weekend I thought I’d give a preemptive review of the Al Pacino thriller 88 Minutes, set to drop in a city near you on April 18. Yes that is right, the film you may have been hearing about since February of last year, the one that has been released on DVD everywhere in the world, will finally be unveiled for us to check out stateside, in the country that produced it. You know that must mean this thing…

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