“My biggest fear,” says 17 term U.S. Representative and civil rights warrior John Lewis “is one day we may wake up and our democracy is gone.” Dawn Porter’s biodoc stands as a sad reminder that 65 years since its inception and America is still fighting a Civil Rights movement. (The …
“All great art has some element of humor to it.” These words-to-live-by come from art collector and publisher Peter Brandt when asked to boil down Kenny Scharf’s appeal. Scharf was a child of television cartoon culture, equal parts Bob Clampett’s Wackyland and what he liked to call “Hanna-Barbarism” mainlined through …
The real Scott Davidson, Pete’s father, was a New York firefighter and first-responder who died in 2001 when the World Trade Center collapsed around him. Anyone familiar with his son’s Comedy Central appearances knows how many dark laughs Pete has milked out of being left fatherless at age seven. Those …
After a string of romantic misfires, Shira (Moran Rosenblatt, she of the deep, pebbly throat) is so certain that Maria (Luise Wolfram) is the end all to unhappiness that, after a whirlwind 3 month courtship, she asks for her hand in marriage. As if tackling a story of queer love, …
Four years up the road, and a new branch of law enforcement run out of out D.C. is about to take the training wheels off its latest enterprise: the American Peace Initiative, a signal that acts as a “synaptic blocker,” prohibiting people from intentionally performing unlawful acts. A trio of …
It starts on a note of what appears to be reverent satire — vomiting pea soup, a cry of “the power of God compels me” — and quickly delivers what is quite simply one of the most inept horror films since we lost Ed Wood. What drew me to this …
Disclaimer: any film featuring both Brian Cox and Udo Kier automatically earns a recommendation. Three years have passed, and just when Sam (Zach Avery) believes he’d come to terms with the shooting of his late girlfriend (Samara Weaving), her doppelgänger — give or take a blonde dye job — appears, …
Three years after James Blackledge’s death, his mother Margaret (Diane Lane) witnesses both her young grandson and former daughter-in-law Lorna (Kayli Carter) winding up on the receiving end of a public smackdown from James’ replacement, Donnie Weboy (Will Brittain). A wellness call from Margaret is provocation enough to send Donnie …
Why retire at 70, particularly when you’re Pulitzer Prize-winning Alice Hughes (Meryl Streep) and you have a manuscript that’s due soon — though nowhere near completion — and a new literary agent (Gemma Chan) with fingers crossed that it will be a followup to your most famous work? Perhaps a …
It’s Celebrity Apprentice meets Abbott and Costello when an orange-haired billionairess (Salma Hayek) bankrolls a pair of makeup artists (Rose Byrne and Tiffany Haddish), only to landmine their thruway to success with seemingly insurmountable tasks in the hope of gaining control of their company. It’s hard to believe that a …
We're holding out hope that Miguel Arteta will bring something new to what the trailer promises to be another formulaic chick flick.
One had hoped that the talented Alexandra Daddario would be remembered as something more than the comely actress whose topless scene in True Detective crowned her Queen of GIFs. The talented Alexandra Daddario has tried her hand at roles in genre pictures — the replacement squeeze in Joe Dante’s singular …
“Documentaries are TV shows that no one watches,” Leilani (Issa Rae) fires back at her husband Jibran (Kumail Nanjiani), a documentarian who fancies himself a “social activist.” No sooner does the couple decide to cancel their four-year relationship than they’re witnesses to murder. That leaves the filmmakers with two mysteries …
After ten short documentaries predicated on indigenous languages and Native American heritage, Portland-based filmmaker Sky Hopinka’s feature debut left me flummoxed. It’s hard to recall the last time a film made such a disconnect. Hopinka’s camera follows friends Sweetwater Sahme and Jordan Mercier as they rove through the backwoods of …