Fantasia 2020: 'The Oak Room' Movie Review

A guy walks into a bar. Only instead of beginning a joke, he comes with a story, a debt, deep secrets about to bubble to the surface, and even deeper wounds. Such is the set up for director Cody Calahan’s The Oak Room, the latest offering from Canadian filmmaking crew, Black Fawn Films (I’ll Take Your Dead, Bed of the Dead). Their latest is a chilly, noir-inspired tale that watches like Southern Gothic in the Great White North and just held its world premiere at the Fantasia International Film Festival.

Slamdance 2019: 'Lost Holiday' (2019) Movie Review

All kinds of wacky shenanigans and general mayhem happen over the holidays as old friends, now scattered to winds, return to their former homes, see faces they haven’t seen in years, revisit old haunts and wounds, and take stock of their lives. In the case of Michael Kerry Matthews and Thomas Matthews’ microbudget mumblecore noir, LostHoliday, this set up includes becoming amateur detectives and trying to solve a kidnapping.

'Terminal' Trailer: Margot Robbie, Simon Pegg, Mystery, And Revenge

I had never heard of writer/director Vaughn Stein’s directorial debut, the neo-noir Terminal, before a teaser dropped the other day. But it stars Margot Robbie and Simon Pegg, and has a, over-the-top, color-saturated, hyper-stylization that definitely doesn’t look like much else. Check out the full new trailer below.

'Automata' Trailer: Check Out This Alternate Reality Sci-Fi Noir

Alternate reality sci-fi noir. That phrase alone is enough to catch my attention and pique my interest. It also happens to be the set up for Van Alan’s new series Automata. Check out the new trailer below. I'm so down with this.

'The Nice Guys' (2016) Movie Review

If you’re a fan of Shane Black’s movies, especially Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Lethal Weapon, and The Last Boy Scout, his latest, The Nice Guys, is exactly the movie you hoped for. It never deviates from the formula, but it’s certainly Black doing what he does, as well as he’s ever done it. This is the kind mismatched buddy action comedy that, every time one does roll around, we collectively say, “Hollywood doesn’t make this kind of movie anymore.”

Blu-Ray/DVD Review: 'A Single Shot'

David M. Rosenthal’s film A Single Shot, now on Blu-ray from Well Go USA, may very well usher in a new subgenre that’s best be described as backwoods mumble noir. Full of all kinds of aw-shucks shoe-gazing, sudden violence, and a gradually unspooling mystery, the title definitely seems to fit. When John Moon (Sam Rockwell), recently separated from his wife and child, accidentally kills a  young woman while poaching deer, it kicks off a downward spiral of bloodshed and retribution that bears comparison to movies like No Country for Old Men, A Simple Plan, and Winter’s Bone.