'This Too Shall Pass' (2024) Movie Review

In 2019’s Harpoon, writer/director Rob Grant made a tense, violent, often hilarious horror movie that I called “a gory, savage black comedy potboiler” about three friends trapped on a boat and coming unraveled. For his next trick, he tackles something equally harrowing and metaphorically equivalent to being lost adrift at sea: adolescence. This Too Shall Pass is a funny, bittersweet, messy story of a time that’s, well, funny, bittersweet, and messy, even if the delivery system is at times a nostalgia overload.

SIFF 2023: 'Egghead & Twinkie' Capsule Review

Well, Egghead & Twinkie is freaking adorable. In Sarah Kambe Holland’s twee, lo-fi indie comedy, when trans-racial adoptee Twinkie comes out to her conservative parents it doesn’t go great. She sets out on a cross-country adventure with her nerdy bff Egghead to meet her online DJ crush.

'Raw' (2016) Movie Review

If you intend to see the French teenage cannibal movie Raw, maybe don’t make dinner plans for immediately afterwards. Writer/director Julia Ducournau’s stunning debut is unsettling to say the least, and most viewers will have to—I can’t believe I’m doing this already—let this one digest.

'The Kings Of Summer' Movie Review

You’ll be hard pressed to find a film this year—maybe ever—that captures both the burning desire and the abject terror at the prospect of growing up as “The Kings of Summer.” Certainly a generic title, it’s better than “Toy’s House,” the name on the tag the movie wore to the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. Don’t be swayed by the moniker, however, this is a fantastic, bittersweet coming of age movie that manages to be wildly funny, deathly serious, and, most of all, engaging, all at the same time.

MIFFF Review: 'Boy Wonder'

Do yourself a favor, go out and find a way to watch “Boy Wonder”. It’ll be totally worth it, promise. A near perfect combination of grim revenge movie and dark super hero origin story, it is good enough to make you completely forgive a questionable choice of title. To lump it in with the likes of “Kick-Ass”, “Defendor”, and “Super”, may be a natural inclination, but at the same time it does the film a great disservice because it is markedly different from all of those films. “Boy Wonder” doesn’t aspire to be the first chapter in an ongoing saga, it doesn’t directly reference comic book lore and culture, and the main character doesn’t try to become an iconic superhero or mimic heroic acts from the funny books. He wants revenge, plain, simple, brutal revenge, and this is the grim, gritty, ultraviolent story of how he goes about his quest.

'Another Earth' Movie Review

“Another Earth” starts off with an interesting enough, if completely ridiculous premise. Scientists have found a heretofore-unnoticed planet, an exact replica of Earth to be exact, hiding behind the moon, and the movie attempts to explore the impact this discovery has on the people of “Earth One”. What it actually does is meander around for a while, trying to be moody, but succeeding only at boring the ever loving crap out of you. At times it is painfully indie, full of long, static shots of characters walking from one side of the frame to the other. Once in a while that device is okay to use, but it comprises roughly half of “Another Earth”. You just want something interesting to happen, but it never does.

'Attack the Block' Movie Review

What would happen if aliens invaded a tough London neighborhood populated by rough and tumble street kids who are used to scrapping and fighting for everything they have? The answer, at least in Joe Cornish’s badass feature film debut “Attack the Block”, is that these trespassers would be in for one hell of brawl. In my mind “Attack the Block” is in the running for my favorite movie this year. It works as a straight-up genre film, and those of you looking for your monster fix will get all that you can handle. But it is also tightly executed in almost every capacity. The pacing is spot on, it is tense as hell, you can feel the energy on screen, and though it isn’t an overtly political story, there is an underlying social commentary that you find in the best science fiction.

'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2' Movie Review

It’s over. After seven books, eight movies, and more than a decade, the saga of teenage wizard Harry Potter has finally concluded. “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2” is the long-awaited finale to the much beloved franchise, and delivers on the promise of the previous seven movies. While a fitting end, “Deathly Hallows: Part 2” is not perfect. There are some issues, but there were issues with the final book as well, so a few bumps are to be expected. And in the end, the problems are relatively minor and easily ignored. Overall the film is appropriately gloomy, as dark and creepy as you want it to be, and action-packed for the vast majority of its two-hour-plus run time, and fans of the series should be more than satisfied. What I’m trying to say is that it is pretty damn great.

'The Tree of Life' Movie Review

When you consider the career of a filmmaker like Terrence Malick you have to mention the fact that in his career, now spanning more than forty years, the guy has only directed five films. Sure he’s written a bunch of others, and produced a few more, so it’s not like he’s resting on his laurels, but no matter how you look at it, the man takes his time. So it’s understandable that each of his movies is a bit of an event, and his latest, “The Tree of Life”, is no exception. The whole thing has been shrouded in mystery from the get go. We knew Brad Pitt and Sean Penn were in the movie, but additional details have been sparse at best.

'Black Bread' Movie Review

“Black Bread” starts of with a scene of such stunning violence—without giving too much away, it involves a sledgehammer and a horse, among a slew of other very nasty things—that it casts a shadow over the rest of the movie. Set in post-Spanish Civil War Catalonia, the film creates an atmosphere where the potential for death and hostility to erupt exists around every corner, in every situation. From the outset you learn that no place is safe; not the family hearth, government offices, and certainly not the multitude of caves, woods, and fields where the 11-year-old Andreu (Francesc Colomer) grows up.

'Hesher' Movie Review

What do you get when you take a nice quiet film about people trying to cope with sudden trauma and the tragedy of their daily lives, and throw in a psychotic butt-rocker with a penchant for blowing shit up? The result is Spencer Susser’s new indie flick “Hesher”. Okay, it’s not super new, it premiered at Sundance in 2010, but it’s finally found a release, and is totally worth the wait.

'Hanna' Movie Review

In “Hanna” a young girl, oddly enough named Hanna, lives a simple existence in a cabin in the woods with her doting father. That sounds nice and picturesque, right? Not exactly. The title character (Saoirse Ronan) is a pale, and I mean looks-like-a-ghost pale, 16 year old that lives a life similar to that of an arctic ninja. She hunts with a homemade bow and arrow, chases down wounded animals, and her father, Erik Heller (former stand up comedian Eric Bana), randomly sneaks up and attacks her just to test her reflexes and preparedness. She may be gutting a dead deer, or sound asleep in the middle of the night, it doesn’t matter. He’s likely to spring when least expected, to keep her on her toes, even when unconscious.