REVIEW: Phil [2019]

I never promised you a rose garden. We meet Phil McGuire (Greg Kinnear) exiting his parked car while still in traffic to climb up a bridge railing. It’s a one hundred-plus foot drop into the water and he imagines taking the plunge before a group of teens with cellphones outstretched jolt him from the morbid sensation with excitable demands that he jump so they can enjoy the carnage. That’s a bold tonal mood on behalf of screenwriter Stephen Mazur and director Kinnear (his debut) because there’s actual dejection on their…

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REVIEW: Mama [2013]

“She gets jealous” There are many types of laughter, the kind coming out during a horror film always a point of interest. Many cope with fear by forcing themselves to laugh, the sound hopefully easing the unrest gradually settling in. This is what good horror strives to achieve, that ability to precisely straddle the line so the audience’s brains don’t know quite what to do. Any genre film able to elicit a nervous laugh is more effective in my mind than one earning screams. Screams are easy; all you need…

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