Posts Tagged ‘film reviews’
 

 

ShowbuzzDaily Sundance Film Festival Reviews: “Monster” & “Beirut”

  MONSTER (no distrib):  There’s less than meets the eye in Anthony Mandler’s Monster.  Based by Colen C. Wiley, Radha Black and Janece Shaffer on Walter Dean Myers’ novel, it seems like it’s goin...
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 Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “Joker” & “Harriet”

  JOKER (Warners – October 4):  One’s perception of Todd Phillips’ JOKER may depend in part on the context in which one sees it.  In the 11 years since Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, the MCU...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

ShowbuzzDaily’s Sundance Film Festival Reviews: “Ophelia” & “Burden”

  OPHELIA (no distrib):  Claire McCarthy’s film, written by Semi Chellas from Lisa Klein’s novel, dampens the fun of its own concept.  The idea is to re-tell Hamlet through the eyes of Shakespeare’s ill...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

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
 

 
 

THE 11 BEST 10 FILMS OF 2014 and Other Movie Thoughts

  There was a distinct feeling in 2014 that movies–the business and art of mainstream American film–reached a kind of tipping point.  The industry seemed to collectively hit that moment in its flight when so m...
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
 

 
 

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 Virtual Sundance Reviews: “Mayday” and “Prisoners Of the Ghostland”

  MAYDAY:  The fantasy whatzit is a Sundance staple, and Mayday fits into that category.  (Paradise Hills was a recent example from a past festival.)  Ana (Grace Van Patten), short for Anastasia, is an ignored and abuse...
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: “On the Count of Three” & “Ma Belle, My Beauty”

  ON THE COUNT OF THREE:  There was a well-deserved Sundance screenwriting prize for Ari Katcher and Ryan Welch’s script for Jerrod Carmichael’s big-screen directing debut, which threads an almost impossible n...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “Ford vs. Ferrari” & “The Laundromat”

  FORD VS. FERRARI (20th Century Fox/Disney – November 15):  If the Academy decides to award James Mangold’s Ford vs. Ferrari, which is certainly a possibility, it will be able to have some metaphorical cake a...
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 Virtual Sundance Reviews: “R#J” & “A Glitch In the Matrix”

  R#J:  Every generation gets its Romeo & Juliet.  In Carey Williams’ R#J, the words of Shakespeare are only occasionally heard.  Instead, these extremely up-to-date Capulets and Montagues communicate almost ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Review: “Lucy In the Sky”

  LUCY IN THE SKY (Fox Searchlight/Disney – October 4):  Lucy In the Sky may be Noah Hawley’s first feature film, but he’s already establishing himself as quite the overdirector.  Hawley’s X-Men o...
by Mitch Salem