Film Festival

ShowbuzzDaily Sundance 2022 Reviews: “Emily the Criminal” & “blood”

Posted January 26, 2022 by Mitch Salem

  EMILY THE CRIMINAL (no distrib):  John Patton Ford’s feature debut is a lean, gritty, accomplished thriller with a smashing star performance from Aubrey Plaza.  Plaza (who also produced) plays the titular Emily, an aspiring artist whose career got derailed due to a violent incident in college, giving her a record that’s preventing her from […]

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Film Festival

Sundance 2024 Film Reviews: “Presence” & “I Saw the TV Glow”

Posted January 26, 2024 by Mitch Salem

  PRESENCE (Neon – TBD):  Steven Soderbergh has always appreciated, and often demanded, a challenge, and in Presence he and screenwriter David Koepp have taken an original approach to the haunted house genre.  The point of view character here is the ghost itself, who we’re told has an inchoate consciousness that can’t distinguish between past […]

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Film Festival

ShowbuzzDaily’s Sundance 2022 Reviews: “Honk For Jesus. Save Your Soul,” “Cha Cha Real Smooth” & “Alice”

Posted January 22, 2022 by Mitch Salem

  HONK FOR JESUS.  SAVE YOUR SOUL (no distrib):  Scandal-ridden mega-churches aren’t exactly fresh territory for screens big (The Tears of Tammy Faye) or small (The Righteous Gemstones), with tones that range from wildly comic to solemn.  Adamma Edo’s feature debut doesn’t have much to add to the subject, but it does have Sterling K. […]

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Film Festival

Sundance Film Festival Reviews 2025: “Kiss of the Spider Woman” & “Two Women”

Posted January 31, 2025 by Mitch Salem

    KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN (no distrib):  The exercise in narrative that began with Manuel Puig’s 1976 Argentinian novel has found an enduring place in popular culture, first through a 1983 theatrical version adapted by Puig himself, then Hector Babenco’s 1985 film (which was nominated for Best Picture and Best Director and won […]

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Film Festival

Sundance 2023 Reviews: “Theater Camp,” “Radical” & “Mutt”

Posted January 27, 2023 by Mitch Salem

  THEATER CAMP (Searchlight/Disney):  The odds are that a lot of people who’ll want to see a movie called Theater Camp are comfortable with the kind of ramshackle, hit-or-miss qualities associated with actual summer camp productions, and will likewise find plenty to enjoy in a movie that’s been made with more love and energy than […]

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Film Festival

ShowbuzzDaily Sundance Film Festival Review: “Colette”

Posted January 21, 2018 by Mitch Salem

  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 […]

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Film Festival

SHOWBUZZDAILY Sundance Film Festival Reviews: “Wildlife” & “The Tale”

Posted January 25, 2018 by Mitch Salem

  WILDLIFE (no distrib):  If you’ve ever felt sorry for youngsters who are cordoned off from their parents’ difficult relationships, and then blindsided by the consequences, Paul Dano’s directing debut advises that pity should really be reserved for those children who know all too much about what’s going on.  Dano’s austere and disturbing drama isn’t […]

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Film Festival

Sundance 2024 Film Reviews: “The American Society of Magical Negroes” & “Sasquatch Sunset”

Posted January 21, 2024 by Mitch Salem

  THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MAGICAL NEGROES (Focus/Universal – March 15):  The title of Kobi Libii’s first feature refers to the unfortunately well-established movie trope where a noble Black character exists only as a catalyst to make the white protagonist a better person.  (Think of everything from Driving Miss Daisy to The Green Mile, The Legend of Bagger Vance to Green […]

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