Movie Reviews

  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…

  Poor Things is the most movie of 2023. The latest from director Yorgos Lanthimos features big-name actors doing A LOT of acting while reciting bizarre, quirky dialog, lavish and extravagant sets and costumes, and a nearly two-and-a-half-hour-long runtime. It’s a whole lot of a movie, but a tiresome one when all is said and done. Poor Things plays like a gonzo Frankenstein. Brilliant scientist Dr. Goodwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe) finds the body of an aristocratic…

  The Iron Claw is a movie about the Von Erichs, a Texas family who became wrestling royalty throughout their time in professional wrestling in the 1980s. If this is the first you’ve ever heard of the Von Erichs, The Iron Claw will serve as an American sports tragedy. If you know who the Von Erichs are and know about their story, you’ll be rewarded with a gripping and tragic look at a cursed family…