NewFest: Irish comedy "Dating Amber"

Coverage from NewFest the 32nd Annual LGBTQ Film Festival

By Abe Friedtanzer

I imagine that I’ll be thinking about Normal People for a while every time I watch an Irish romance (or maybe just any Irish production!). If I can’t see Connell and Marianne on screen again, the next-best thing is probably Dating Amber, a wonderfully entertaining comedy showing at NewFest. One of its stars is Fionn O’Shea, who portrayed the despicable and manipulative Jamie in Normal People. He's one of the romantic leads this time...

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AFI Fest: (Second Opinion) "Nine Days"

AFI FEST (Virtual) Presented by Audi runs October 15th-22nd.

by Abe Friedtanzer 

The meaning of life is something many have sought to define over the course of history. One of the central problems with making an argument for what life means is that it’s only possible to observe it while living. It would theoretically be easier to appreciate what life offers in some sort of separate space or place. That’s part of the premise of Nine Days, which made its world premiere back in January at Sundance and is now screening at AFI Fest.

Will (Winston Duke) is a man who was once alive. Now, he sits in a house surrounded by nothing in a desert watching old-fashioned TV screens and rewinding VHS tapes. He is watching people’s lives, apparently recorded from their perspectives...

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NewFest: "Cowboys"

Coverage from NewFest the 32nd Annual LGBTQ Film Festival

 

by Abe Friedtanzer

Films about young transgender children tend to focus on the responses of parents to the reality of what their children express to them. Teenagers can talk back and run away from home, but if they’re younger, it’s unlikely that they will be able to fully separate themselves from a situation, good or bad. A Kid Like Jake was one recent effort starring Claire Danes and Jim Parsons about parents who were mostly on the same page about accepting their four-year-old. Cowboys, which is screening as part of NewFest, finds its adults at odds when it comes to supporting their child, Joe…

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NYFF: The sad, strange, incomplete "French Exit"

by Nathaniel R

Frances Price, the soon to be impoverished widow at the center of French Exit alarms everyone around her and puts them on edge. She will just not cooperate. Neither will Michelle Pfeiffer, the actress playing her, for that matter. Rather than dance around it, let's just state the conundrum up front. When you're watching your favourite actor star in a potential comeback role based on a book you've grown deeply fond of and have already visualized as a movie in your head, the conflicts between expectations and reality and dreams can be impossible to mediate. And disconcerting, too. You've got to watch the movie for the movie but also work through your own external actress-related issues while doing so.

I obsess over Michelle Pfeiffer, okay?! There's no avoiding it and little point not foregrounding it in this review. Complete strangers know this about me...

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Middleburg Festival 2020 - Virtual This Weekend!

by Nathaniel R

Just a heads up that the Middleburg International Film Festival, that we cover each year right here, has gone mostly virtual this year. The festival is later this week (Thurs, Oct 15th - Sunday, Oct 18th). Despite the unfortunate circumstances of movies in this bizarre year, they've somehow gathered their usual crop of buzzy Oscar contenders and possible breakout indies. You can see the full list here -- any films in particular you'd like us to cover?  You may recall that last year we did a "Coffee and Contenders" Oscar panel with Clayton Davis and Jazz Tangcay (who both work for Variety now). We're repeating that again this year since it was a success last time. This year it will be on Zoom due to, well, you know... but we're still excited.

The panel is this coming Friday at 9:00 AM EST. It will be available for free if any of you reading would like to tune in (ignore the "not available in your country" notice. They are in the process of fixing that)