If every film is a document of its own making, then Lodge Kerrigan’s Keane, shot in real locations in and around New York City in 2004, is also a depiction of the period in which it was made. Viewing the film on the occasion of a new digital restoration by Grasshopper Film that begins a theatrical run at Film at Lincoln Center today, I was struck by the numerous billboards and posters placed atop taxi cabs that the film’s lead character, William Keane (Damian Lewis), obliviously walks by. Short of pointing at the screen, Leonardo DiCaprio-style, as I noticed a […]

For its 26th edition, the Fantasia International Film Festival returned to a fully in-person, three-week event in downtown Montréal. The festival has always been my own personal summer retreat, affording me a few days in Canada to embrace the undying creativity of the independent horror scene and the festival’s homegrown traditions. For reasons I’ve never fully understood but have always been happy to accept the entire audience erupts in applause at a generic TV spot for Nongshim ramen and, as the lights go down before a film, loudly meows like a cat. If you attend a screening in Concordia University’s Sir […]

Director Andrew Semans’s 2012 debut feature, Nancy, Please, follows Paul (Will Rogers), an unraveling Ph.D. candidate obsessed with reclaiming his dog-eared, notes-filled copy of Charles Dickens’ Little Dorrit from a spiteful ex-roommate (Eleonore Hendricks). Despite his increasingly desperate attempts, Paul just can’t get Nancy to relinquish the book from their formerly shared apartment. As the ex-roomie continues to live rent-free in Paul’s head, his deteriorating mental state prevents him from completing his thesis. Less interested in why Nancy won’t relinquish the book than why Paul so easily accepts his newfound submissiveness, Nancy, Please is a dark comedy about not being […]

Titled after the hit party song no child of the early 2000s could escape, Cooper Raiff’s second feature, Cha Cha Real Smooth, originated as a love letter to parents of disabled children. Inspired by the perserverance of his own family (Raiff’s younger sister does not possess the ability to walk nor speak), Raiff’s screenplay eventually grew to become the story of Andrew (Raiff), a 22-year-old Tulane University graduate who moves back in with his brother (Evan Assante), mom (Leslie Mann), and her lover (Brad Garrett) in Livingston, New Jersey. Working a dead-end job and with his girlfriend in Barcelona on […]

The NBA Finals have just concluded, but the most popular film on Netflix remains Jeremiah Zagar’s basketball drama, Hustle. Adam Sandler (continuing his Happy Madison Productions partnership with the streamer) is Stanley Sugerman, a jetlagged international scout for the Philadelphia 76ers. In Spain, Sugerman discovers an exciting new talent, Bo Cruz (Juancho Hernangomez), dominating local competition on an outdoor court. Convincing this raw talent that he’s a star in the making, Sugerman brings Cruz to Philadelphia to prepare for the NBA Draft Combine. Unfortunately, greedy team owners, spiteful American prospects (including Minnesota Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards, giving a “I’m going […]

Set in the fall of 2020, Daniel Antebi’s feature debut, God’s Time, is a New York comedy about two best friends in recovery—Dev (Ben Groh) and Luca (Dion Costelloe)—who grow concerned when, at a meeting, the woman they’re infatuated with reveals her plan to murder her ex-boyfriend. Surely she wouldn’t go through with it, right? Even though her ex did kick her out of their apartment and kidnapped her little dog? Thanks in large part to the chemistry shared by its three leads—Liz Caribel Sierra as Regina, the woman of Dev and Luca’s dreams, more than holds her own as […]

Opening with a cast rendition of the 20th Century Fox (now known as Searchlight Pictures) theme that accompanies its logo, Andrew Ahn’s Fire Island finds inspiration in group dynamics. Comedians Joel Kim Booster (Model Minority), Margaret Cho (All-American Girl), and Bowen Yang (Saturday Night Live) lead an ensemble of queer friends on a weekend escape to the titular gay enclave. Although their financial prospects are dim, the tightknit group has lucked out these past few summers, crashing at the pad of their older lesbian friend, Erin (Cho). Something of a den mother, Erin greets her houseguests with “Bitch, I knew […]

Anthony Banua-Simon’s nonfiction feature debut, Cane Fire, is a personal family history, historical explainer of sugar production, ode to union organizing and expose of a Hawaiian island’s mistreatment of its native people. Each of these elements are connected. Focusing on the island of Kaua’i, one of the most photographed areas of land in countless Hollywood productions, Cane Fire derives its title from a (now lost) 1934 film directed by Lois Weber, in which Banua-Simon’s great-grandfather was an extra. Banua-Simon uses this personal trivia as a way to dive into the egregious ways the island (and its people) have been depicted […]

Released in the fall of 1980, while Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation of The Shining continued to horrify audiences in theaters, Stephen King’s eighth novel, Firestarter, tells the story of Charlie McGee, a young girl struggling to control her pyrokinetic powers. Her parents knew this would be an issue: years earlier, Andy and Vicky McGee participated in a trial run of a new chemical compound, Lot Six, that embedded telekinetic and mind-controlling powers that shady government officials now wish to end. A run in with Rainbird, who had also been experimented on and now acts as a hired assassin wiping out […]

“An elite Baltimore police task force spent years plundering the city and its residents for hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, drugs, and jewelry” is how a 2018 Vox article began its explainer of the disgraced Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF) of the Baltimore Police Department. Nine officers took part in the multi-year scandal, with two detectives, Daniel Hersl and Marcus Taylor, being convicted for their crimes, while another four pled guilty alongside two sergeants and one officer. All remain currently imprisoned. The severity and expansiveness of the GTTF’s crimes documented in Baltimore Sun journalist Justin Fenton’s 2021 book, […]