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Sundance Film Review: Love Is Strange
Love Is Strange is a much-needed breath of fresh air blowing away the cobwebs of a tired romantic dramedy genre. In this truly unique story, partners of 39 years, Ben (John Lithgow) and George (Alfred Molina) lose a coveted Manhattan apartment after their official marriage results in George’s termination from his job as a music teacher at a Catholic school, forcing them to temporarily move in with separate family members. … read more
Sundance Film Review: What We Do In The Shadows
Have you ever wondered what a vampire’s life is really like? Where they like to sleep? How they get along with their roommates? What kinds of clubs they go to on weekends? From sunset to sunrise, the camera crew (RIP Camera One) of What We Do In The Shadows tails blood-sucking friends and roomies Viago, Vladislav, Deacon, Peter and their eclectic group of living and undead pals through their daily, complicated lives in Wellington, New Zealand. … read more
Slamdance Film Review: Goldberg & Eisenberg
A single, typical “liberal” computer programmer in Tel-Aviv, named Goldberg (Yitzhak Laor) invests a lot of time meeting women to date online and walking his dog as an extension of his romantic pursuits. Unfortunately for him, he encounters Eisenberg (Yahav Gal), who attempts to make (read: tries to force) Goldberg to be his friend, who demands money and blow jobs from Goldberg—getting under his skin and fomenting dastardly outcomes. … read more
Slamdance Film Review: My Blind Heart
Plain and simple, My Blind Heart is a gorgeous film set in Vienna (spoken in German). Kurt (Christos Haas) lives with a rare condition, Marfan Syndrome, from which he is nearly blind. After he kills his mother, he misbehaves to the point of his caretaker’s frustration while living in a home with others with handicaps, playing the part of both a victim of his disease and troubled kid abreacting to his undesirable situation. … read more
Slamdance Film Review: Huntington’s Dance
Chris Furbee began video recording his journey back to West Virginia as he caught wind of his mom’s worsening battle with Huntington’s Disease 18 years ago. With the backdrop of his home state’s tradition of independence, the Southern laurels of self reliance dissipate as Furbee watched his grandfather battle Huntington’s as a young child, and now his mother, Rosemary Shockey. … read more
Sundance Film Review: Concerning Violence
Lauryn Hill’s powerful narration forms text over images of African shantytowns, white colonists’ immaculate bocce greens, African workers abandoned on a roadside for striking, white missionaries admitting to forcing their ideals on the natives. In a plea for a new mode of living after decolonization, Olsson/Fanon/Hill begs, “Let us try not to imitate Europe.” After viewing this compelling Malcolm X-meets-Adbusters film, that’s the last thing I want to do. … read more
Sundance Film Review: Camp X-Ray
Kristen Stewart plays Amy Cole, a small-town girl who joins the Army to do something important with her life and is assigned to Guantanamo Bay. Despite orders not to treat the prisoners, er, detainees as humans, Cole forms a kind of friendship with Ali (Payman Maadi), one of the imprisoned Jihadists. Camp X-Ray is worth seeing, if not for its criticism of US military practices, then for the only film performance by Stewart that I think doesn’t suck—although she still bites her bottom lip about a hundred times. … read more
Sundance Film Review: R100
Gradually, the campy thriller turns from weird to bizarre as the protagonist finds himself over his head in the world of S&M. When a dominatrix called Queen of Saliva spits gallons of smoothie-flavored phlegm on our bound and gagged protagonist while dancing to disco music, you’ll think the film has reached its peak of insanity. You’d be wrong, though—just wait till the Queen of Gobbling shows up. … read more
Slamdance Film Review: Meet My Rapist
A comedic satire that criticizes rape myths and attacks the stereotypes of how victims should “get the fuck over [their] shit”? COUNT ME IN.
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Slamdance Film Review: Rover (or Beyond Human: the Venusian Future...
David (Liam Torres) leads a group of five (later four) followers of a cult that is hilariously secretive about their beliefs. They live in an old church with odd symbols drawn on chalkboards and the pews removed, and the film opens as he explains a “vision” to his glum followers: that the mysterious Randall wishes for them to make a movie about him. … read more