Review: Coup 53
Looking for a political thriller to suck you in for a couple of hours? Then watch this documentary. Iranian director Taghi Amirani spent ten years filming his obsessive hunt for…
Review: Sputnik
Russia, 1983. The Cold War is still raging. Two men are orbiting earth in a spacecraft, preparing for their reentry when there is an incident. And when they crash land…
Review: Jazz on a Summer’s Day
The Newport Jazz Festival is America's oldest jazz festival, having begun in 1954. All the luminaries of the genre have played there, and many of the best recordings of their…
Review: I Used to Go Here
In this likable little indie comedy, thirty-something Kate (Gillian Jacobs from TV's Community) has just published her debut novel and is excitedly planning for her first book tour. Then her…
Review: Red Penguins
Red Penguins is a sports documentary that is less about the actual sport - ice hockey - than the place and time and personalities. It's the story of how the…
Review: Summerland
Set mostly during World War II, Summerland takes place on the beautiful and remote southern coast of England. Misanthropic writer Alice (Gemma Arterton, Vita & Virginia, Tamara Drewe) lives in…
Review: The Cuban
The Cuban started life as a short film script. But when they couldn't get the money to shoot it they expanded it to a feature and crowdfunded to get started.…
Review: Helmut Newton: The Bad and the Beautiful
If you spent any time reading or viewing Vogue from the 60s to the 90s, you are familiar with photographer Helmut Newton's work. Naked women often in power poses, most…
Quickie Review: The Rental
The setup is all there for your usual thriller, with a few of the standard horror tropes thrown in. A couple of couples rent a house for the weekend in…
Mini-Review: Dirt Music
Good actors in gorgeous settings without a cohesive story does not add up to a great movie. In this rom-dram from down under, Georgie (Kelly Macdonald - No Country for…
Quickie review: The Tobacconist
In this coming-of-age story, set mostly in Vienna just as the Nazis are rising, 17-year-old Franz (Simon Morzé) arrives from the countryside to work at a tobacco shop owned by…
Quickie Review: Guest of Honour
Somewhere in this movie from director Atom Egoyan (The Sweet Hereafter) is a decent story, but you really have to work to find it. It's a father-daughter melodrama about Jim…
Review: Denise Ho: Becoming the Song
This film could not be more timely. Just days ago the Chinese government passed a repressive national security law that essentially kills the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong. I was…
Review: The Truth (La Vérité)
Director Hirokazu Koreeda's follow-up to his award winning Shoplifters could not be more different. No longer set in his home country Japan, The Truth is a mother-daughter drama set in…