A Fantastic Fear of EverythingBy Kandyss Hicks Crispian Mills’ A Fantastic Fear of Everything, while it falls short of being fantastic itself, offers a character study in what it is like to be an individual coming to...
Love & DemonsBy Bernard Boo Love and Demons opens with San Francisco-based writer-director J.P. Allen, playing a demon named “Mister D.”, addressing the camera directly, delivering a chilling monologue, assessing the lives of mortals...
The Face of LoveBy Bernard Boo The Face of Love has a premise that would prove a challenging sell for any filmmaker. Annette Bening plays a widow named Nikki who, five years after the death...
Nymphomaniac Volume 1By Nik Grozdanovic You know a Lars Von Trier movie is good when it feels like you’ve just spent two educationally arousing hours in the university for the cinematically gifted. As soon...
Elaine Stritch: Shoot MeBy Bernard Boo Elaine Stritch has one of the most enduring careers of any performer on earth. She’s an irreplaceable Broadway veteran, drawing thousands of eyes and ears with her skyscraper legs...
In FearBy C.J. Prince The inevitable problem that comes with a great set-up is that, at some point, questions have to be answered. Jeremy Lovering's In Fear is, as the title suggests, focused...
Particle FeverBy Colleen Munro Particle physics isn’t a subject that seems particularly cinematic. It’s not especially glamorous, and it’s probably safe to say that most people have no idea what it involves and...
The LunchboxBy Bernard Boo It’s hard not to like a love story whose lovers are brought together by a home-cooked meal. Make it an Indian home-cooked meal, with aromatic curries and slow-cooked vegetables,...
24 ExposuresBy Dustin Jansick Unlike his mainstream-ish crossover Drinking Buddies, Joe Swanberg returns to his less refined style in 24 Exposures, a film that is reminiscent of his earlier work by featuring girls...
VisitorsBy Bernard Boo In 1982, Godfrey Reggio altered the cinematic landscape with Koyaanisqatsi, an immaculate, haunting film composed of documentary footage of life on earth that pondered the fraught relationship between man, modernity,...
The Grand Budapest HotelBy C.J. Prince Partway through The Grand Budapest Hotel, there’s an argument between Dmitri (Adrien Brody, looking brilliantly evil) and his deceased mother’s lawyer (Jeff Goldblum). The lawyer refuses to hand the...
The RocketBy Bernard Boo In an early sequence in The Rocket, a Laos-set underdog fable by Australian filmmaker Kim Mordaunt, we see our 10-year-old hero Ahlo (Sitthiphon Disamoe, whose chin is perpetually tilted upward...
Grand PianoBy Jonathan Andrews Every once in a while, we all see one of those special films – something that pushes the boundaries, defies expectations, breaks down the walls and makes us reconsider...
If You Build ItBy Bernard Boo 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...