A REAL PAIN (Searchlight/Disney – TBD): David (Jesse Eisenberg, who also wrote and directed) and Benji (Kieran Culkin) are cousins born just months apart and raised in close companionship. Over the years, though, they’ve drifted apart. Partly it’s because David remained in New York City, where he has a mundane but successful job selling […]
LOVE ME (no distrib): A truly existential romance. Many years after the end of the human race, seemingly due to a combination of nuclear war and a new ice age, the two remaining artifacts with any ability to communicate are a smart ocean buoy and a satellite assigned to make contact with any life […]
LITTLE DEATH (no distrib): Jack Begert’s first feature (co-written with Dani Goffstein) is a diptych about Los Angeles, put together in sharply contrasting ways. The first half is about sitcom writer Martin (David Schwimmer) as he hustles to get his first film as writer/director greenlit, while coping with his splintering marriage to Jessica (Jena […]
DIDI (no distrib): Sean Wang’s endearing memory piece won the US Dramatic Competition Audience Award. It’s set in 2008 Northern California during the summer before Chris (Izaac Wang) begins high school and his sister Vivian (Shirley Chen) leaves for college in San Diego. The kids have essentially been raised by Chungsing (Joan Chen) as […]
EXHIBITING FORGIVENESS (no distrib): The noted painter Titus Kaphar has made an impressive shift into scripted feature films. Although Exhibiting Forgiveness isn’t strictly speaking autobiographical, Kaphar’s protagonist Tarrell (Andre Holland) is a successful painter whose canvases resemble the filmmaker’s. Tarrell travels with his wife (Andra Day, playing a recording star) and young son to […]