REVIEW: The Birth of a Nation [2016]

“I pray you sing to the Lord a new song” It’s impossible to watch Nate Parker‘s The Birth of a Nation today without making note of the controversy surrounding him. Emotions have run high and the first-time director has met a backlash of calls for boycott stemming from a 1999 rape case of which he was acquitted. The victim later committed suicide and his public response upon discovering this news didn’t necessarily show remorse like many believed it should. It’s tough to say now whether he was innocent of wrongdoing—look…

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FANTASIA16 REVIEW: Let Me Make You a Martyr [2016]

“You can’t fight fate” There’s a lot more to Corey Asraf and John Swab‘s debut feature Let Me Make You a Martyr than meets the eye. It looks like your run-of-the-mill revenge thriller with its prodigal son (Niko Nicotera‘s Drew Glass) returning home after an extended stay away to right the wrongs of the past. His adoptive father Larry (Mark Boone Junior) is a drug supplier, sex trade entrepreneur, and who knows what other heinous crimes that set up whatever unknown incident happened to fracture their relationship—something neither can come…

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REVIEW: Frozen River [2008]

“Popcorn and Tang?” I love indie debuts that blow me away. The press on Frozen River was across the board praise, especially for underrated character actor Melissa Leo, but I never got the chance to check it out before compiling my top ten of 2008. Now, I don’t think Courtney Hunt’s feature would crack that list, but it gets really close. The story contains so much more than just a tale of two women playing the role of coyotes to bring illegals into the United States via Mohawk territory from…

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REVIEW: 30 Days of Night [2007]

“Where’s my phone?” Here is the next chapter in the graphic novels cum film movement that has been taking over the industry. The ingredients seem pretty foolproof: a revisionist vampire tale screenwritten by the novel’s authors, a setting without the sun for thirty days, a hard-r rating, a good cast, and visionary music video director David Slade fresh off his debut feature Hard Candy. 30 Days of Night is a brutal look into a world where the monsters reign supreme with little in their way to slow them down. With…

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