THE NEST (no distrib):  Sean Durkin’s first feature since 2011’s Martha Marcy May Marlene presents its emotions with such high-intensity beams that it often feels as though the film is going to slip into the thriller or even horror genre, but it’s actually just a family drama.  Set in the Thatcher-era 1980s, its plot […]

> At 7AM today (East Coast time), the Toronto International Film Festival opened its boxoffice for single ticket sales, package orders having been filled a couple of days ago.  As usual, the result was chaos:  if you were lucky enough to get onto the screen where selections could be made, hitting “Send” froze that page; […]

  THE GUILTY (Netflix – Oct. 1):  One way to cope with the challenges and costs of movie production during Covid is to limit the number of actors who have to be in front of the camera.  That’s tough for a thriller, but two Festival movies this year chose the old Sorry, Wrong Number mode […]

  ANNA KARENINA – Watch It At Home – Beautiful But Overconceptualized Version of the Tolstoy Classic Joe Wright was introduced to the world with his film of Pride and Prejudice, and it seems like he’s been trying to escape the pigeonhole of staid Literary Classics director ever since. His Atonement, while based on another celebrated novel, […]

  James Ponsoldt’s SMASHED (not to be confused with NBC’s Smash), which premiered in the Dramatic Competition at Sundance, is a new spin on a fairly old story.  The concept goes back (at least) to 1962’s Days of Wine and Roses:  a couple (Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Aaron Paul), very much in love with both […]

> Although Sundance still has several days to go, and surprises could spring up at any time (yesterday The Surrogate, a drama with John Hawkes as a man in an iron lung who decides to lose his virginity to a sex therapist played by Helen Hunt, came out of nowhere to win a huge $6M […]

  WINNER (no distrib):  Yes, this sounds familiar.  Last year, HBO aired Tina Satter’s Reality, which told the story of the young jailed NSA leaker Reality Winner, and now filmmaker Susanna Fogel has taken the other half of that memorable name for her version of the tale.  (The Reality title was more evocative.)  Their approaches […]

  EIGHT FOR SILVER:  Sean Ellis’s 19th century werewolf movie takes itself very seriously.  Ellis has extensively revised the usual mythology of the genre:  the full moon doesn’t figure into things, the werewolf curse dates back to biblical times and relates to a set of silver teeth, there’s a political dimension to the story, and […]