Doc Corner: 'Obit'

By Glenn Dunks

An observation made towards the start of Vanessa Gould’s Obit: despite the reputation as the reporting of death, most obituaries are only 10% about the death of an individual. The other 90% is about life. How a person lived it, what they did, where they went and how they go there.

That's an appropriate anecdote to lead with given how turned off people may be about a film set within the supposedly dreary old world of an obituary department in a physical news outlet like the New York Times.

It’s a nice thought from a film whose prime subjects are not dead and are in fact living...

Click to read more ...

Tribeca 2017: November

Jason Adams reporting from the Tribeca Film Festival 

You can practically feel the mud caking beneath your fingertips while watching the Estonian fog folk nightmare that is November, which for once to this city boy felt like a good thing – that grounding sense of atmosphere helps situate us, keeping which way is up, in a topsy-turvy unknown world. If you’ve ever wandered in a country where you don’t speak the language then you’ll know the vibe director Rainer Sarnet dredges up here...

Click to read more ...

Review: "Unforgettable"

by Jorge Molina

There was a time in the late 80s and early 90s when sex thrillers got Oscar nominations. Now they have somehow devolved to a common staple in the Lifetime programming, and a ill-fated big screen attempts starring beloved pop stars.

Yet while the status of this bigger-than-life, catfight-fueled genre has certainly dwindled over the years, its ingredients have remained the same:low budgets, delicious monologues, utensils as weapons, stalkers, steamy sex, plenty of camp, and less-than-original stories about deception, secrets, and temptation. More than anything, these movies are a fertile ground for female performers to be over-the-top, pull out their (sometimes literal) claws, and just have fun.

Click to read more ...

Tribeca 2017: Super Dark Times

by Jason Adams

There was this boy named Donnie that was a year below me in High School that I was in love with in that way teenagers are always in love with impossible things. He was a wrestler in the mold of the an Apollo statue, and he was correspondingly popular – even though he was a year younger than me he hung out with the popular kids in my class, and all of them together had it in common that they had no time for the likes of me. I used to go to wrestling meets just to watch him – I’d skulk in the bleachers, trying not to be noticed, as he sauntered, full singlet, in spotlights. I heard a few years after graduation that Donnie was killed in a car accident – it’s likely he and I never spoke, but when I think of High School, I still think of him.

Stylish and moody and deeply sad, Super Dark Times brought back rushes of memories like this – of high school tinged through black times; youth and beauty all muffled and dark...

Click to read more ...

Tribeca 2017: Hounds of Love

by Jason Adams

Even people who profess to like horror movies don’t always like it when horror movies make them really uncomfortable. It’s why you see F grade Cinema-scores for truly disturbing flicks like Wolf Creek  - we want to be scared in a fun way, but we don’t want to waltz with actual despair. There’s a scene in Wes Craven’s  Last House on the Left that made me feel so awful it still haunts me to this day.

Hounds of Love, the first film from Aussie director Ben Young, waltzes with such awfulness, and might just announce a real talent a la Craven too...

Click to read more ...