Of all the films in this year’s US Dramatic Competition at Sundance, Kat Candler’s HELLION was the one that most closely matched what’s become a festival template: Aggressively shaky handheld camerawork:  Check. Small-town dysfunctional family (alcoholic/grief-stricken division):  Check. Third act sparked by violence:  Check. Rebellious yet sensitive and misunderstood young protagonist:  Check. Commercially successful […]

  Awards season is Darwinian, often placing two titles in direct competition that have only general traits in common.  Last year we had the British biographies The Theory of Everything and The Imitation Game, which might have canceled each other out in the end.  This year brings two excellent stories about journalism, Truth and now […]

  COLETTE (no distrib):  These days, the early 20th Century French writer known as Colette is remembered mostly if at all for having written the story that became the musical Gigi, but her own life proves to be remarkably timely in Wash Westmoreland’s film.  Westmoreland developed the project for a dozen years (originally with his […]

  LUCE (Neon):  Julius Onah’s film was one of the most gripping and provocative of the festival, combining a tale about social and racial tensions with the suspense of a psychological thriller.  Based by director Julius Onah and JC Lee on the latter’s play (as adapted, the drama isn’t in any way stagebound), it centers […]

  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 […]

  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 […]

  In a generally depressed indie film market, Netflix shelled out a reported $20M at Sundance for Chloe Domont’s feature writing/directing debut FAIR PLAY.  The splurge made sense:  Fair Play has that combination of strong storytelling and hot-button ideas on its mind that should allow it to temporarily take over the internet when it launches […]

  THE SHROUDS (no distrib):  At age 81, David Cronenberg’s fascination with the malignant possibilities of the human body, and with the fiendish manipulation of same, still knows no bounds.  The Shrouds begins with the premise of a cemetery in which the bodies of the decomposing dead are wrapped in electronic swaddling that enables mourners to watch […]