allegory | Showbuzz Daily

SHOWBUZZDAILY Season Finale Review: “Black Lightning”

Although it’s part of the CW/Greg Berlanti DC Comics assembly line, BLACK LIGHTNING, created by Salim Akil, has been strikingly different from its comrades. So far, it hasn’t noticeably been part of the sha...

by Mitch Salem

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THE SHOWBUZZDAILY REVIEW: “Cloud Atlas”

It isn’t often that one needs to invoke Intolerance to describe a current film, but CLOUD ATLAS demands it. Like D.W. Griffith’s epic, it intercuts between stories taking place across hundreds of years o...

by Mitch Salem

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Sundance 2023 Reviews: “Eileen,” “Shortcomings” & “Landscape With Invisible Hand”

EILEEN: A dark tale of liberation, based on the novel by Ottessa Moshlegh (and adapted by Moshlegh with Luke Goebel). Eileen (Thomasin McKenzie) is an anonymous employee at a boys’ prison in a confining, wintry...

by Mitch Salem

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THE SKED Pilot Review: “Star-Crossed”

STAR-CROSSED: Monday 8PM on CW – Change the Channel If aliens are in high school, we must be on CW. The network’s midseason entry STAR-CROSSED plays as a clip reel of CW’s greatest hits, from the su...

by Mitch Salem

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SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Review: “The Lobster”

The allegory is piled on so thickly in Yorgos Lanthimos’ THE LOBSTER that after a while, it’s not clear just what the underlying subject is supposed to be. Lanthimos is a cult-favorite filmmaker (the cult m...

by Mitch Salem

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Toronto Film Festival 2024 Reviews: “Megalopolis” & “Millers In Marriage”

MEGALOPOLIS (American Zoetrope/Lionsgate – Sept. 27): Francis Ford Coppola’s long-awaited, much-discussed return to epic filmmaking, self-financed to the tune of $125M+ (he’s paying for the marketing...

by Mitch Salem

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SHOWBUZZDAILY FILM REVIEW: “The Purge”

THE PURGE: Watch It At Home – Dopey, Violent Allegory Nevertheless Packs a Punch THE PURGE is heavy-handed, borderline reprehensible nonsense–but that’s not to say it doesn’t work. James DeMon...

by Mitch Salem

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SHOWBUZZDAILY Virtual Sundance Reviews: “Human Factors,” “Cryptozoo” & “How It Ends”

HUMAN FACTORS: Is Ronny Trocker’s Human Factors intended as a political allegory? The married couple at its center are the German Jan (Mark Waschke) and the French Nina (Sabine Timoteo), and there’s a plo...

by Mitch Salem

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Sundance 2023 Reviews: “Past Lives,” “Fairyland” & “Infinity Pool”

PAST LIVES (A24): The playwright Celine Song makes an impressive feature writing/directing debut with the lovely, eloquent Past Lives. The film is sort of the opposite of Sliding Doors and all of the multiversal ente...

by Mitch Salem

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SHOWBUZZDAILY Sundance Film Festival Reviews: “Late Night” & “Paradise Hills”

LATE NIGHT (Amazon): It’s legitimate to note that the thoroughly mainstream and commercial Late Night belonged at Sundance just about as much as The Devil Wears Prada would have, since to a large extent it transp...

by Mitch Salem

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Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “American Fiction,” “The Critic” & “Mother, Couch”

AMERICAN FICTION (Orion/MGM/Amazon – Nov. 17): The Toronto People’s Choice Award has been something of a golden ticket to a Best Picture nomination over the years, and this year the prize went to Cord Jeff...

by Mitch Salem

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SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “On Chesil Beach” & “Loveless”

ON CHESIL BEACH (no distrib): Ian McEwan’s longish novella/shortish novel has been adapted by McEwan himself into a fluid and extremely English film, the first feature directed by stage director Dominic Cooke. ...

by Mitch Salem

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SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “mother!” & “Unicorn Store”

mother! (Paramount – Sept 15): It may come as a shock to people who have been following the marketing for Darren Aronofsky’s mother! to find out that it isn’t a horror movie at all. It uses thriller...

by Mitch Salem

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SHOWBUZZDAILY Season Finale Review: “Black Lightning”

THE SHOWBUZZDAILY REVIEW: “Cloud Atlas”

Sundance 2023 Reviews: “Eileen,” “Shortcomings” & “Landscape With Invisible Hand”

THE SKED Pilot Review: “Star-Crossed”

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Review: “The Lobster”

Toronto Film Festival 2024 Reviews: “Megalopolis” & “Millers In Marriage”

SHOWBUZZDAILY FILM REVIEW: “The Purge”

SHOWBUZZDAILY Virtual Sundance Reviews: “Human Factors,” “Cryptozoo” & “How It Ends”

Sundance 2023 Reviews: “Past Lives,” “Fairyland” & “Infinity Pool”

SHOWBUZZDAILY Sundance Film Festival Reviews: “Late Night” & “Paradise Hills”

Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “American Fiction,” “The Critic” & “Mother, Couch”

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “On Chesil Beach” & “Loveless”

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “mother!” & “Unicorn Store”

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