Posts Tagged ‘showbuzzdaily film reviews’
 

 

ShowbuzzDaily Sundance Film Festival Reviews: “Come Sunday” & “The Miseducation of Cameron Post”

  COME SUNDAY (Netflix):  American films that feature religious figures tend to come in two varieties:  the cloying “faith-based” dramas that play quite literally to the choir, and the “edgy” film...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “The Boy and the Heron,” “Dumb Money” & “North Star”

  THE BOY AND THE HERON (GKids – Dec. 8):  Hiyao Miyazaki, a legend of animation (Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke), had announced his retirement as a feature film director a decade ago, upon the...
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: “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
 

 

 

Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “Rustin,” “Memory” & “Fingernails”

  RUSTIN (Netflix – Nov. 17):  The director and producer George C. Wolfe is a towering figure in American theater, but his films to date have been wobbly at worst (A Night in Rodanthe, You’re Not You) and stur...
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 Virtual Sundance Reviews: “Land,” “Together Together” & “Marvelous and the Black Hole”

  MARVELOUS AND THE BLACK HOLE:  Goodhearted YA comfort food.  Kate Tsang’s feature debut is about 13-year old Sammy (Miya Cech), who has become surly and rebellious toward her father Angus (Leonardo Nam) and siste...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Sundance Film Reviews: “Worth,” “Dream Horse” & “Uncle Frank”

  WORTH (no distrib):  A dry but fascinating angle on the story of 9/11, Worth centers on the real-life Ken Feinberg (Michael Keaton), an attorney with a very specific expertise:  he and his firm calculated and negotiate...
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: “Marriage Story” & “Bad Education”

  MARRIAGE STORY (Netflix – November 6 in theatres/December 6 streaming):  A film doesn’t have to be revolutionary to be great.  There may be no subjects more intensively depicted in movies and on television ...
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 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 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 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 Virtual Sundance Reviews: “The World To Come” & “Jockey”

  THE WORLD TO COME (Bleecker Street – March 2):  Although the story is set in 1856, this is 2021, so it’s not hard to see where Mona Fastvold’s The World To Come is heading.  Ron Hansen and Jim Shepard...
by Mitch Salem