Movie Reviews

  Chris Nash’s In a Violent Nature has a great concept behind it: a slasher movie from the point of view of the killer. I love this idea on paper and thought In a Violent Nature was going to be another subversion of the slasher genre and a shot to the arm of one of my favorite subgenres of horror. The idea of the film works well for most of the film, but the surprisingly…

  Freaky Tales is like Quentin Tarantino made a movie about the Bay Area. This is a non-linear, interconnecting story about several lives in a revisionist version of the Bay Area 1987 that is full of life, attitude, and interesting filmmaking. Following Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, a movie that shook the cinematic landscape back in the mid-90s, there was a wave of filmmakers trying to create the next Pulp Fiction. It felt like every year…

  I don’t know if I have ever had an emotional experience in a movie like I did when I saw Angela Patton and Natalie Rae’s documentary Daughters. This movie broke me and brought everyone in the theater to tears, some becoming blubbering messes. Daughters looks at the daughters of incarcerated fathers as they prepare for a special Daddy Daughter Dance held at the prison their fathers are in as part of a new and…

  Director and co-writer Rose Glass firmly establishes herself as one of the most exciting up-and-coming directors with her latest film Love Lies Bleeding, a pulpy, bloody queer romance about our past and familial sins that features the best performance of Kristen Stewart’s career. Stewart plays Lou, a reclusive manager of a grimy gym in 1980s New Mexico. One day at the gym, she meets Jackie (Katy O’Brian), who is rolling through town to get…

  I wouldn’t consider directors David and Nathan Zellner’s latest film Sasquatch Sunset a great film. Heck, it might even ride the line between good and mediocre. But it is a movie I am glad exists because of the skilled filmmaking and the sheer originality. Sasquatch Sunset looks at a year in the life of a family of Sasquatch. They wander the unknown forests in search of food and shelter while trying to survive the…

  I’m writing a review for Jane Schoenbrun I Saw the TV Glow but I also feel like I shouldn’t. I saw the movie at the beginning of the Sundance Film Festival, and though the festival is officially over as of writing this review, it is one of the movies I saw during the festival that I cannot stop thinking about. But also, it is a movie I think requires multiple viewings to get a…

  My viewing of Gaucho Gaucho, the latest documentary from filmmakers Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw, was an interesting one. At the Sundance Film Festival, there are films that you can see in person in a theater, but you also have the option to stream some of the films starting on a certain date during the festival. With scheduling conflicts with other movies, I was unable to see Gaucho Gaucho in a theater during the…

  Skywalkers: A Love Story is Man on Wire for a new generation. It’s a heart-racing documentary about a death-defining stunt, how the stunt people do it, and what brought them to that point. It’s a love story, crime film, and underdog sports story all rolled into one outstanding documentary. Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus are a thrill-seeking couple who travel around the world to perform death-defying stunts by illegally climbing the tallest buildings in…

  Ghostlight was one of the first movies I saw at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and what a start to the festival it was. This is a charming, funny, deeply emotional story about a family coming together after a tragedy. Ghostlight takes place in Chicago and it is very much a Chicago movie. But it isn’t a Chicago movie like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off that features Chicago landmarks like Navy Pier or the Sears…

  Regardless of the medium, the subject matter of The Color Purple is tough. Whether a book, a dramatized film, a musical on Broadway, or a film adaptation of that musical, it will always be a tough read or watch. The Color Purple looks at an African American teenager named Celine growing up in rural Georgia in the early 1900s and her tale of abuse, being continuously called ugly, teenage pregnancy, and growing up hoping…