Month: January 2017

78/52 is an hour and a half film class.  This is an in-depth look at the infamous ‘Shower Scene’ from the Alfred Hitchcock masterpiece Psycho (1960).  The film interviews dozens of people and looks at cinema before Psycho came out, Alfred Hitchcock’s filmmaking style, and a thorough breakdown of the iconic scene and what it, and the movie, meant for cinema. Psycho is one of my favorite movies ever.  It is one of the most expertly crafted and…

The Discovery may be the discovery of the 2017 Sundance Film Festival.  With an intelligent script, excellent acting, and unique story, this is a science fiction love story you don’t want to miss. In a not-so distant future, Thomas Harbor (Robert Redford) has discovered that an afterlife does exist, which causes millions of suicides across the world.  His son, Will (Jason Segel), goes to visit his father and convince him to shut down his research, all…

A Ghost Story is the definition of eerie.  This is an unsettling, creepy, challenging movie about life after death. On the surface, A Ghost Story is about a ghost who haunts a house and all of it its occupants.  However, this is a complex, mediative piece about life after death.  The ghost in the movie casually watches over every occupant of the house, from a widow, to a family, to a business.  Director David Lowery lets…

The Yellow Birds is one of the most frustrating movies I have seen at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.  Not because it is challenging or because it is confusing.  It is because it is a great film until the final half hour in which it plays out like a boxer who is consistent in hitting their punches and then goes for knock out and whiffs, badly, allowing the opposing boxer hit back and knock out the boxer….

Patti Cake$ is Hustle ‘n’ Flow (2005) with a sprinkle of 8 Mile (2002) and a lot of New Jersey.  This is a dirty, base-shaking, crowd-pleasing, hip-hop heavy dramedy about keeping a dream when on the grind. Patricia Dombrowski (Danielle Macdonald), a.k.a Killa P, a.k.a. Patti Cake$ is an aspiring rapper fighting through a world of strip malls and strip clubs on a quest to make it big in the rap game. This is a movie about the grind.  Patricia…

Wind River is as cold as its setting.  Taking place in the frigid mountains of Vermont, where it is negative degrees in spring time, this is a place where everything hurts and blood stains the angel white snow. Writer/director Taylor Sheridan, the writer behind such films as Sicario (2015) and Hell or High Water (2016), completes his, what has now been called, The New American Frontier Trilogy, with the same intensity and style as the the two films I just named….

Dayveon tells the story of Dayveon (Devin Blackmon), a 13-year-old boy who, after the death of his brother, joins a gang in Little Rock, Arkansas and learns about the brotherhood and violence of gang life. One of the best things about coming to Sundance is seeing movies that expose me to different parts of life.  Whether it takes me to another country, or shows me inner workings of other cities across the U.S., Sundance always broadens…

Landline is director Gillian Robespierre follow-up to her 2014 sleeper hit, Obvious Child, a film that I absolutely loved and one that put star Jenny Slate on the must-watch list.  You can tell both Robespierre and Slate have both grown as artists in the last couple years, as Landline is a bigger, cleaner, breezy, wonderfully acted family comedy. Landline looks at the flaws and insecurities of one family in the mid-90’s.  Dana (Jenny Slate) is recently engaged…

City of Ghosts is one of the most horrifying and shocking documentaries you will ever see.  Director Matthew Heineman gives us an in-depth look at a group of journalists in Raqqa who use guerilla news reporting to show how ISIS is torturing and ruining Raqqa. The extraordinary lengths these reporters go through is unbelievable.  The reporters, who run a protest/news group called Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, has a role and every person is in…

The Incredible Jessica James should really be titled The Incredible Jessica Williams, because that woman is a star.  Williams, who stars as our titular character, is most known for her work on The Daily Show (2012) and supporting roles in films like Delivery Man (2013) and People, Places, Thing (2015).  But here, in her first starring film role, she is a revelation, in a romantic comedy that is endearing and hilarious. Jessica James (Williams) is an aspiring playwright in…