Tag: New York Film Festival

NYFF20 REVIEW: Undine [2020]

Jared Mobarak

If you leave, you have to die. Johannes (Jacob Matschenz) laughs when Undine Wibeau (Paula Beer) tells him he can’t leave her lest she be forced to kill him. He laughs because he’s read the myth of sea nymphs sharing her name and the fate those who love them suffer if they ever betray it. That’s not how the real world works, though. Couples fall in and out of love all the time. Men don’t walk to forest lakes and scream her name to satisfy the holes in their heart…

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NYFF19 REVIEW: Born to Be [2020]

Jared Mobarak

We’re going to make her whole. How does a self-taught upright bass player who dropped out of Julliard to pursue his parents’ dream of medical school become a bona fide superhero? Easy. He raised his hand. Dr. Jess Ting may have graduated at the top of his class and found success as a New York City plastic surgeon, but none of that compares to the courage and humanity shown when agreeing to lead the newly-formed Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery at Mount Sinai Hospital. The position was created in…

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NYFF19 REVIEW: Así habló el cambista [The Moneychanger] [2019]

Jared Mobarak

Enjoy every penny earned and spent. Mr. Schweinsteiger (Luis Machín) ran a good game in Uruguay by helping unsavory folks launder money through him for a percentage. He was smart too, refusing to work with politicians knowing they’d eventually screw something up and drag his name down with them. Unfortunately, however, the man he willingly took under his wing as a logical successor and future son-in-law proved greedier than he was intelligent. Humberto Brause (Daniel Hendler) did what Schweinsteiger wouldn’t because the dollar signs were too attractive to be ignored…

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