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…
Review: Force of Nature
Take Die Hard and add a $55 million art heist gone wrong, then set it in the middle of a Category 5 hurricane in Puerto Rico, and you've got Force…
Arty Chick’s AFIDOCS 2020 Wrap-up
We’ve been going to AFIDOCS since 2014. It’s usually a great long weekend of documentaries and mixing with film lovers and filmmakers. This year because of COVID-19, it was a…
Review: The Letter
In this fascinating documentary from Kenya, Karisa a young man living in the big city of Mombasa travels back to his home village when he hears through Facebook that his…
Quickie Review: The Fight
The ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) has been around for a hundred years. Its mandate is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in…
Review: Babyteeth
In this wonderfully dark dramedy from down under, Milla (Eliza Scanlen - Little Women) is a cancer stricken 16-year-old who falls for free spirited drug dealer Moses (Toby Wallace) much…
Review: My Darling Vivian
My Darling Vivian is a love letter to Johnny Cash's first wife Vivian Liberto with whom he had four daughters and initially a great romance. Narrated mainly by those four…
Review: Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn
You might think last year's Where's my Roy Cohn told us all we need to know about the man who spawned the current occupant of the White House. But Ivy…
Quickie Review: Tommaso
I know I'm the Arty Chick, but this one is too arty for me. I'll admit from the get-go that I've never been a big fan of Abel Ferrara. He's…
Review: The Half of It
If you're looking for a light as air romantic comedy, Netflix has you covered with its latest Cyrano de Bergerac retread. In this version, set in a Pacific Northwest high…
Review: Lucky Grandma
This dark comedy set mainly in New York's Chinatown begins with curmudgeonly chain-smoker Grandma (Tsai Chin - Joy Luck Club, Casino Royale) visiting LeiLei the Fortune Teller (Wai Ching Ho…
Quickie Review: Arkansas
Arkansas is one of those indie flicks that somehow finagled a pretty impressive cast - Liam Hemsworth, Vince Vaughn, John Malkovich, Vivica A. Fox - even though it's directed by…