Reviews

SHOWBUZZDAILY Season Premiere Review: “Westworld”

Posted March 16, 2020 by Mitch Salem

  WESTWORLD:  Sunday 9PM on HBO   With most other forms of new entertainment content sidelined for at least the next several weeks, television is likely to be even more at the center of our culture than it already is, and Season 3 of HBO’s WESTWORLD, with its dense mythology and high philosophical ambitions, seems […]

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Film Festival

SHOWBUZZDAILY Sundance Film Reviews: “Save Yourselves!” & “The Fight”

Posted February 7, 2020 by Mitch Salem

  SAVE YOURSELVES! (no distrib):  A moderately amusing sketch that doesn’t quite have the heft for feature length.  Writer/directors Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson satirize Brooklyn hipsters and sci-fi in their story of a couple, Jack (John Reynolds) and Su (Sunita Mani), who’ve decided to ditch their devices and spend a week in a […]

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Film Festival

SHOWBUZZDAILY Sundance Film Festival Reviews: “Sergio” & “Lost Girls”

Posted February 6, 2020 by Mitch Salem

  SERGIO (Netflix – April 17):  Greg Barker’s film has an unusual pedigree.  Barker, up to this point a documentarian, directed a nonfiction version of the same story (and with the same title) in 2009, but decided that he wanted to explore the life of UN diplomat Sergio Vieira de Mello further in a way […]

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Film Festival

SHOWBUZZDAILY Sundance Film Festival Reviews: “Horse Girl,” “Happy Happy Joy Joy” & “Kajillionaire”

Posted February 5, 2020 by Mitch Salem

  HORSE GIRL (Netflix – February 7):  Every one of the four films Jeff Baena has directed had its premiere at Sundance, with Horse Girl following Life After Beth, Joshy and The Little Hours.  It’s an impressive accomplishment for a filmmaker who hasn’t made a particular commercial or critical breakout hit.  Horse Girl may have […]

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Film Festival

SHOWBUZZDAILY Sundance Reviews: “The Father,” “Nine Days” & “The Glorias”

Posted February 2, 2020 by Mitch Salem

  THE FATHER (Sony Classics – TBD):  It’s probably foolhardy to start making predictions about next year’s Oscars when this year’s haven’t even been handed out yet, but it’s hard to imagine a scenario where Anthony Hopkins’s performance in The Father won’t be a major part of the Best Actor conversation.  It’s a showcase role, […]

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Film Festival

SHOWBUZZDAILY Sundance Reviews: “The Nest,” “Wendy” & “Sylvie’s Love”

Posted February 2, 2020 by Mitch Salem

  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 […]

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Film Festival

SHOWBUZZDAILY Sundance Film Reviews: “Shirley,” “Surge” & “The Climb”

Posted February 2, 2020 by Mitch Salem

  SHIRLEY (no distrib):  Josephine Decker’s film isn’t really a biography of the horror writer Shirley Jackson (The Haunting of Hill House, The Lottery), played here by Elizabeth Moss.  The script by Sarah Gubbins is based on a novel by Susan Scarf Merrell loosely inspired by Jackson’s life, and that fictional story has been changed […]

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Film Festival

SHOWBUZZDAILY Sundance Film Reviews: “Promising Young Woman,” “Four Good Days” & “Zola”

Posted January 28, 2020 by Mitch Salem

  PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN (Focus/Universal – April 17):  Emerald Fennell’s feature-film writing/directing debut has antecedents as old as the 1973 TV-movie The Girl Most Likely To… (co-written by Joan Rivers) and as recent as Killing Eve (for which Fennell served as Season 2 showrunner), with the added frisson of a #MeToo-driven storyline.  Cassie (Carey Mulligan) […]

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