Sundance Review: “Heightened Scrutiny” is an All-Too Timely Doc about the Fight for Transgender Rights

by Abe Friedtanzer

It’s a troubling time to be transgender in America, to say the least. Within just days of his return to the White House, Donald Trump has already taken massive steps to roll back protections against transgender people and to limit recognition of their existence in every way possible. The documentary Heightened Scrutiny carries an important message of perseverance and hope, following one lawyer arguing an important case about gender-affirming care in the delicate period between Trump’s election and inauguration while the Department of Justice is still on his side...

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Sundance Review: "Sunfish (and Other Stories on Green Lake)" is an Anthology Whose Parts Don’t Quite Make a Whole

by Abe Friedtanzer

Anthologies can be very appealing, probing a number of shorter tales within the span of a feature film. There are no set rules for how they have to connect or whether they really need to, but one particular place is a frequent commonality. Sometimes, however, the uniting force just isn’t all that compelling on its own, and the stories told around it don’t do much to help. There’s nothing inherently wrong with Sundance entry Sunfish (and Other Stories on Green Lake), but none of its four separate segments make much of an impression…

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Sundance Review: ‘Didn’t Die’ is a Subdued Take on the Zombie Genre

by Abe Friedtanzer

There’s no shortage of zombie films and TV shows out there, and, as a result, there are almost innumerable variations on the premise of the undead. The Sundance entry Didn’t Die is best summarized by its podcast host protagonist’s declaration: “Nobody told me the apocalypse was going to be so boring.” Still, this film finds a good deal of content to mine from that premise...

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NYFF '24: "Suburban Fury" tells the tall tale of a wannabee Presidential Assassin

by Cláudio Alves

On September 22nd, 1975, just seventeen days after Squeaky Fromme had attempted the same, Sara Jane Moore fired at President Gerald Ford. Neither of the 45-year-old woman's shots hit their target, though she came dangerously close. Had Moore noticed the sight on her revolver was 6 inches misplaced, she might have done it. Such violent actions came less than two years after this housewife from the San Francisco suburbs had been recruited by the FBI as an informant, going into militant groups and becoming radicalized in the process. Her thwarted presidential assassination led to much media hullabaloo, pithy dismissals of Moore as being "off her mind," and a life sentence, of which she served 32 years.

Nearly half a century after the shooting, director Robinson Devor puts her at the center of Suburban Fury, a new documentary where the would-be assassin is given ample opportunity to tell her own story…

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NYFF '24: "Afternoons of Solitude" is a Barbaric Beauty

by Cláudio Alves

When I was very young, I remember being besotted by bullfighting. Around where I grew up, the so-called art of the "tourada" was fundamental to the local culture, a noble practice to be celebrated. My parents were a tad horrified by my interest, and I was an ignorant child. For some reason, I had never realized what was happening in the arena, too blinded by the matador's glamorous figure, the dance-like spectacle, and the thunderous applause. But seeing it live and then watching TV recordings, I realized something. What I thought were theatrical tricks and mud were actual violence and blood splatter. Back then, I dreamed of being a vet, so the thought of all that animal pain made me feel nothing but revulsion for what I once found beautiful.

I was reminded of this while watching Albert Serra's Afternoons of Solitude, a documentary on Peruvian-born "torero" Andrés Roca Rey which earned the Catalan director the biggest prize at this year's San Sebastián Film Festival. For once, I saw some of the beauty again, along with the brutality and the horror. I felt tears in my eyes and nausea erupt from within. Quite the cinematic experience…

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