Streaming Review: "Changing the Game"

by Nathaniel R

Mack loves to wrestle but he's forced to do it on the girls team

It can take movies a long time to make it from regional cinephile parties (aka film festivals) to mass consumption via streaming services / movie theaters. Even longer if there's extenuating circumstances like, oh, a pandemic. Case in point, the trans youth sports documentary Changing the Game which just started streaming on Hulu. I first saw the film in the summer of 2019 at the Austin Gay and Lesbian Film Festival where I served on the jury (that's me waving at the end). We awarded it Best Documentary Feature. 

The conversations around trans youth, as well as trans men and women in sports, have only gotten louder in the intervening two years so in some ways it's right on time. Herewith from my original take...

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"Loki" Episodes 1 & 2

By Ben Miller

The runaway success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe inevitably spread to television earlier this year.  Following the smashing debut of WandaVision and the meh that was The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Marvel turns their attention to everyone’s favorite God of Mischief, Loki.

Starring Tom Hiddleston as the titular God, the show picks up right where we last saw Loki alive: absconding with the space stone following the alternate timeline Battle of New York from Avengers: Endgame.

Let’s dive in on the first two episodes.  Warning: SPOILERS AHEAD

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74th Cannes. Official Poster and Index.

by Nathaniel R

Spike Lee is the cover subject of the new Cannes poster. Is this the first time a Jury President has also been the poster's star? It's a pity we aren't going to Cannes this year -- we've never been able to afford it *weeps* -- because we've been on the ball for coverage thus far. So here's an index to track. We've been updating the posts as new stills and information have emerged. 

• OFFICIAL COMPETITION LINEUP 

Jury: Writer/Director Spike Lee (US) and ???

• UN CERTAIN REGARD 

Jury: Writer Director Andrea Arnold (UK), Writer/Director Mounia Meddour (Algeria), Actress Elsa Zylberstein (France), Writer/Director Daniel Burman (Argentina), Director/Actor Michael Covino (US)

• CRITICS WEEK 

Jury: Writer/Director Cristian Mungiu (Romania) and ???

• DIRECTOR'S FORTNIGHT

Review: "In the Heights" sets the bar high for modern movie musicals

by Nathaniel R

A young man stares out of his bodega window, his favourite block coming alive in the reflection. This shot of Usnavi, our leading man and guide into the film version of Lin-Manuel Miranda's In the Heights is already beloved and with good reason. It gives you character (this man is something of a dreamer, caught between two places), world-building (the vibrant Latinx community of Washington Heights) and joyful genre specificity (the musical). It's not even the first clever moment in the movie at that, but something In the Heights builds up in its ever-escalating opening number after already providing you with gorgeous aerial shots romanticizing NYC as 'a city made of music', sounds from hoses, traffic, manhole covers, and alarm clocks as musical accompaniment, and introducing us to most of the main characters.

Above all else this visual beat as well as the larger song sequence that contains it, instills immediate confidence that the creative team, especially director Jon M. Chu (of Crazy Rich Asians fame) understand the oft-forgotten cinematic language of the film musical...

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Emmy FYC: The writing of "I May Destroy You"

by Cláudio Alves

If loving I May Destroy You was a party, I'd have arrived late, long after most people had left and only a few stragglers remained, sleepily fumbling their way through a dancefloor labyrinth of abandoned bottles and stale sweat. While most of the world was consuming Michaela Coel's staggering tour-de-force June and July last year, I focused my attention on movies and the Emmy-eligible TV for that particular season. Consequently, I only watched I May Destroy You when it came time to vote for the Independent Spirit Awards. I went into it with great expectations that I feared too massive to be met. In the end, I needn't have doubted the show's masterpiece-like quality, its searing power, or visceral confrontation. Even then, I don't think I was fully prepared for how awe-inspiring Coel's writing turned out to be…

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