REVIEW: Montana Story [2022]

There’s nothing left now. For anybody. Estranged family members returning home after a long absence to see the death of a parent through is hardly a unique premise, but it doesn’t have to be if the psychological and emotional toll expended from the reunion remains honest and authentic. Scott McGehee and David Siegel achieve exactly that with Montana Story, a script born from the necessity of another production’s COVID-driven postponement leading them to scale back and create under the industry’s newfound restrictions that didn’t allow for sprawling casts or excessive…

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REVIEW: Support the Girls [2018]

Sad dudes is my business. To mention an establishment like Hooters is to receive a broad spectrum of opinions. There are those who judge anyone that’s ever stepped foot in one for the way it demeans and objectifies women, those who see it as an effective means towards giving young women a living wage via tips, and of course the select few who love the food. Whether you believe one critique truer than the others is your prerogative, but I’d hope everyone could agree that the safety and security of…

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REVIEW: Columbus [2017]

“You grow up around something and it feels like nothing” I’m not sure there’s a better art form than architecture to really let first-time writer/director Kogonada feel at home behind the camera. The man who made his name with video “supercuts” showing aesthetic through-lines of auteurs like Terrence Malick, Wes Anderson, Stanley Kubrick, and Yasujirô Ozu has ostensibly made a feature length one with the structures of Columbus, Indiana serving as his subject. He focuses on the straight lines prevalent throughout the city, each composition meticulously blocked for a captivatingly…

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REVIEW: Split [2017]

“In the sun we find our purpose” It doesn’t get better than The Village where M. Night Shyamalan is concerned. That film was a perfect confluence of his screenwriting and directing capabilities, a tale of love and protection through drastic measures as metaphor for the struggles of parenthood steeped in heavy emotion and guilt without regret. A marketing campaign billing it “horror” ruined any chance for success with audiences unwilling to look past the auteur’s penchant for twists. Its target demographic is perhaps still unaware of how much they’d enjoy…

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REVIEW: The Edge of Seventeen [2016]

“You should look out for run-on sentences” If you ever wondered what a John Hughes movie would look like without the cutesy cliché and overblown 1980s caricatured comedic appeal, Kelly Fremon Craig‘s The Edge of Seventeen is it. So don’t treat the talk about it being a “twenty-first century Hughes” film as hyperbole or a slight because the shoe fits its depiction of angst-fueled, hilarious embarrassment. What it lacks is the need to feed into stereotype, sentiment, and melodrama that weigh reality down into fairy tale. This is the life…

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