Posts Tagged ‘film reviews’
 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto 2014 Mini-Reviews

  As has been generally reported, this year’s Toronto Film Festival wasn’t a dominant one, lacking the kind of overwhelming favorites that The King’s Speech and Argo have been in recent years.  Some potentially majo...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Virtual Sundance Reviews: “CODA” & “Censor”

  A year ago, the idea of a “virtual film festival” would have seemed extremely far-fetched, but it’s become a regular practice in pandemic times.  The latest festival to take this path is Sundance, whic...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Virtual Sundance Reviews: “In the Earth” & “Knocking”

  IN THE EARTH (Neon):  After his foray into more commercial cinema with the Netflix remake of Rebecca that didn’t go very well, Ben Wheatley has returned to the stranger and more experimental style of his earlier f...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

ShowbuzzDaily Sundance Film Festival Reviews: “American Animals” & “The Kindergarten Teacher”

  AMERICAN ANIMALS (no distrib):  It’s not easy to come up with a new spin on the venerable heist movie genre, but writer/director Bart Layton has managed just that with American Animals.  Layton had been until now...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Sundance Film Festival Reviews: “A Kid Like Jake” & “You Were Never Really Here”

  A KID LIKE JAKE (no distrib):  Silas Howard’s dramedy is a small-scale triumph, successfully navigating its way from a wry account of upper-middle-class Brooklynites Alex and Greg (Claire Danes and Jim Parsons) tr...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

ShowbuzzDaily Sundance Film Festival Reviews: “Studio 54″” & “What They Had”

  STUDIO 54 (no distrib):  Matt Tynauer’s documentary covers all the bases of the disco that defined nightlife for a surprisingly brief time in the late 1970s, from the club’s construction on the site of an ol...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “Waves” & “Uncut Gems”

  WAVES (A24 – November 1):  Trey Edward Shults’ third film (after the micro-budgeted indie Krisha and the horror movie They Come By Night) manages the remarkable feat of feeling both experimental and grounded...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “Knives Out” & “A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood”

  KNIVES OUT (Lionsgate – November 27):  Rian Johnson’s delectable reinvention of the old-fashioned puzzle whodunnit wears its convoluted plotting on its sleeve, weaving and circling about so that when you thi...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

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

  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 impressi...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “The Forgiven,” “Dashcam” & “Montana Story”

  THE FORGIVEN (Focus/Universal – TBD):  In 1963, Pauline Kael famously wrote a piece entitled “The Sick-Soul-Of-Europe Parties,” and almost 60 years later, if you add the US to the guest list, John Mich...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “Dolemite Is My Name,” “My Zoe” & “Briarpatch”

  DOLEMITE IS MY NAME (Netflix – October 4 in theatres/October 25 streaming): Putting aside his strong dramatic turn in Dreamgirls, it’s been an incredible 20 years, dating back to 1999’s Bowfinger, since...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “Judy” & “Motherless Brooklyn”

  JUDY (Roadside – September 27):  Oscar bait in its fullest form, a showbiz celebrity biography built around the work of a performer making a comeback, requiring said performer to alter appearance and render servic...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

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

  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 t...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Virtual Sundance Reviews: “Eight For Silver” & “The Sparks Brothers”

  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 were...
by Mitch Salem