Bernard Boo's Movie Reviews
All movie reviews written by Bernard Boo
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If You Build It
In 2010 Emily Pilloton and Matthew Miller, two architect-activists living in the Bay Area (who upon meeting developed a fast attraction to one another) migrated cross-country to the dilapidated rural town of Windsor in Bertie, the poorest county in...
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7 Boxes
7 Boxes is a cat-and-mouse chase movie set in a seedy marketplace in the Paraguayan capital of Asunción, whose breakneck pace is its saving grace, for better or for worse. On one hand, the rapid clip at which the film...
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Hank: 5 Years From the Brink
A layman’s guide to the ins and outs of the 2007-08 financial crisis, Hank: 5 Years From the Brink does a good job of clearing things up for the uninformed, but doesn’t offer much else. Academy Award-nominated director Joe Berlinger sits...
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Omar
A few shades darker than your average thriller, writer-director Hany Abu-Assad’s Omar, a nominee for the 2014 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, explores the psychological trauma endured by the eponymous Palestinian twentysomething (Adam Bakri) and his childhood friends Amjad...
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Let’s Ruin it With Babies (SF Indiefest)
Star Wars had the Millennium Falcon, Batman had the Batmobile, and The NeverEnding Story had Falcor. Cheeky road trip dramedy Let’s Ruin it With Babies has the RVIP Lounge, a hulking, tricked-out RV equipped to host wild, mobile karaoke parties that everyone’s invited to...
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Tim’s Vermeer
Tim Jenison’s an inventor with deep pockets (he made a killing in the video software business) and boundless ingenuity. On his spare time, he likes building things like hovercrafts and planes made out of Home Depot materials, just to...
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See You Next Tuesday (SF Indiefest)
In See You Next Tuesday‘s long opening shot, we see a close-up of Mona (Eleanor Pienta) at her shitty job as a grocery store clerk, mouth hanging open due to weariness, utter boredom, or both. She stares straight into the...
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Gimme Shelter
Vanessa Hudgens gets her hands dirty in Ronald Krauss’ pro-life message movie Gimme Shelter. She gains 15 pounds, tries on an accent, and cuts her hair short. The young actress’ commitment to the role of 16-year-old Apple Bailey–a homeless, damaged, pregnant...
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The Last Match
Set in the streets of Havana (though it was filmed in Puerto Rico), Antonio Hens’ The Last Match is a seamlessly plotted story of two young men who develop a lust for one another, despite both being involved in long-term, heterosexual...
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Different Drum
In Kevin Chenault’s Different Drum (named after the Stone Poneys song), we follow two young ex-lovers as they take a road trip from South Dakota to Indiana, exploring and sampling the local flavor of 9 Midwest cities, all while learning...