Posts Tagged ‘satire’
 

 

Toronto Film Festival 2024 Reviews: “The Substance” & “Nutcrackers”

THE SUBSTANCE (MUBI – Sept. 20):  It’s quite a feat to take the body horror crown at a film festival that also features a contribution from David Cronenberg, but Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance uses its revo...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

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

  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 o...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

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
 

 
 

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
 

 

 

Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “Empire of Light” & “Triangle of Sadness”

  EMPIRE OF LIGHT (Searchlight/Disney – December 9):  Sam Mendes takes the first solo screenwriting credit of his long career on Empire of Light, a personal film inspired by his youth and his mother.  The story is ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “Causeway” & “The Menu”

  CAUSEWAY (Apple – November 4):  After a decade as one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, there was reason to wonder whether the Jennifer Lawrence who first came to prominence with the Sundance movie Winter’...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “Bergman Island,” “True Things” & “France”

  BERGMAN ISLAND (IFC – Oct. 15):  Mia Hansen-Love’s Bergman Island asks to be poked and scrutinized in several ways.  It takes place on the island of Faro, where Ingmar Bergman filmed some of his most celebr...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “Jojo Rabbit” & “Seberg”

  JOJO RABBIT (Fox Searchlight – October 4):  The discourse about Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit has quickly become a debate between those who think its Nazi-era black comedy is authentically daring, and those wh...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Season Premiere Review: “Succession”

  SUCCESSION:  Sunday 9PM on HBO Sometimes HBO’s loyalty to its series creators results in the last season of Game of Thrones, but it can also lead to the first season of SUCCESSION (and, to be fair, the earlier sea...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Sundance Film Festival Reviews: “Official Secrets” & “Greener Grass”

  OFFICIAL SECRETS (IFC):  Film festivals have a way of creating unintended double features when thematically similar films are seen in close proximity, and it’s hard to watch Gavin Hood’s Official Secrets wit...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Season Finale Review: “Good Girls”

  It was clear from the pilot of NBC’s GOOD GIRLS that the series had a trio of strong assets and some major challenges.  The strengths were its three stars, Christina Hendricks, Retta and Mae Whitman, each of them ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Series Premiere Review: “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend”

  CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND:  Monday 8PM on CW – In the Queue With a Netflix-driven need to keep its line-up as stable as possible (returning shows are automatically included in the network’s lucrative streaming dea...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED Series Finale Review: “Suburgatory”

  Tonight’s series finale of SUBURGATORY provided as clear a picture as any of how much the series had lost its way in the course of its three season run.  Originally, Emily Kapnek’s show had a very clear voic...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Series Premiere Review: “Silicon Valley”

  SILICON VALLEY:  Sunday 10PM on HBO – DVR Alert There’s no algorithm (yet) to predict compatibility between TV series, so we don’t know yet how SILICON VALLEY will fare in the ratings, or for that matt...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

THE SKED Season Finale Review: “Getting On”

  HBO’s GETTING ON was generally close to unwatchable, and that’s meant as sort of a compliment.  Even in the world of pay-TV, where ratings aren’t always at the forefront of a network’s expectatio...
by Mitch Salem