"Sing Sing" Is a Moving Showcase For One of 2024's Best Ensembles

by Nick Taylor

Sing Sing, the sophomore feature by Greg Kwedar, is beginning its theatrical run in the US almost a year after it debuted at TIFF 2023. This weekend it begins a limited release rollout, culminating in a wide release on August 2nd. Based on a 2005 Esquire article by John H. Richardson entitled "The Sing Sing Follies", the film follows a group of men incarcerated in Sing Sing Correctional Facility who are members of the Rehabilitation Through the Arts program, also known as the RTA. The development of their latest production comes with the usual stresses of putting a show together along with new disruptions to their membership, their hierarchies, and their routines. If the summaries and trailers and evangelizing reviews haven’t already convinced you this is the real deal, let me add my two cents. Sing Sing is a moving, heartfelt, sometimes despairing film, one you should see with a packed theater if you get the chance . . . .

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Yes No Maybe So: "Gladiator II"

by Nick Taylor

You the readership may have forgotten we here at The Film Experience are aware of current releases, or really anything besides Nicole Kidman. And who can blame you! It’s perfectly understandable, and the only way to shock the system out of this belief is to proposition you with lots and lots and lots of men in a swords and sandals epic. That’s right, the subject of today’s Yes No Maybe So is Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II, set for release in November 2024. Trailer and first reactions below the cut . . . .

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Review: "The Vourdalak" is a Gothic throwback with its own soul

by Nick Taylor

We love 19th century gothic horror, don’t we folks? One of the most durable subgenres of all time. Influential to our current understanding of what horror is and how to depict it in ways so finely woven into the genre we couldn’t possibly begin to disentangle it from contemporary media.

Director Adrien Beau, making his feature film debut with The Vourdalak following a handful of spooky shorts, has created a vampire film equally indebted to the rhythms and moods of the gothic novella and the style of a Hammer horror flick. There’s no self-aware pastiche, no riffing on the genre, just an immersive attempt to bring some very particular sensibilities back from the dead. After premiering at the 80th Venice Film Festival last year, The Vourdalak is getting a theatrical release this summer. It works beautifully, mordant and sensually detailed, and it’s exactly the kind of gem folks should remember from this part of the year when we’re overwhelmed by December releases...

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Second Opinion: "Evil Does Not Exist" is the Scariest Wiseman Film You'll Ever See

by Nick Taylor

First, let me say that I enjoyed reading Ben Miller’s less enthusiastic but deeply engaged review of Evil Does Not Exist. I would never have thought to compare this with Aronofsky’s mother!, though as he points out, both films are quite skilled at accumulating tension despite or even because of their unpredictability. He’s also right about the resonance of the ending, which takes the film’s main themes about survival, self-defense, and man’s different awareness of their place in nature and heightens that allegory dramatically. Pondering the finale has made it feel less inscrutable, but that hasn’t dulled its impact in the slightest. 

Rather than editorializing on Ben’s review by saying “umactuallyilikedthatpart” for a few hundred words, I’m going to go deep on one key sequence, talk about why I liked it, and how it exemplifies what I love about Evil Does Not Exist...

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Review: Yance Ford's "Power" Succinctly Details A Violent History of U.S. Policing

by Nick Taylor

There will always be room for art chronicling the systemic and individual injustices wrought on America by its own police force. Hell, you could probably apply that sentiment to police in any country, to an armed institution given virtually unchecked power on any scale. Power, the latest documentary from filmmaker Yance Ford, follows the history and development of US policing with a dry, succinct eye...

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