Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It, 2021. Directed by Mariem Pérez Riera. Featuring Rita Moreno, Norman Lear, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Justina Machado, Whoopi Goldberg, Gloria Estefan, and Morgan Freeman. SYNOPSIS: The film follows Rita Moreno, focusing on her early life and career. There are few living Hollywood legends quite like Rita […]
2021 Sundance Film Festival Review – Playing with Sharks
Playing with Sharks, 2021. Written and Directed by Sally Aitken. Featuring Valerie Taylor. SYNOPSIS: Valerie Taylor is a shark fanatic and an Australian icon – a marine maverick who forged her way as a fearless diver, cinematographer and conservationist. She filmed the real sharks for Jaws and famously wore a chainmail suit, using herself as shark […]
Censor Never Reaches Its Full Horror Potential | Sundance 2021 Video Review
Censor, 2021. Directed by Prano Bailey-Bond. Starring Niamh Algar, Nicholas Burns, Vincent Franklin, Sophia La Porta, Adrian Schiller, Michael Smiley, Clare Holman, Andrew Havill, Felicity Montagu, Danny Lee Wynter, Clare Perkins, Guillaume Delaunay, Richard Glover, Beau Gadsdon, Amelie Child-Villiers. You may call me a bit sick for this, but I expected more “nasty” out of […]
2021 Sundance Film Festival Review – The Most Beautiful Boy in the World
The Most Beautiful Boy in the World, 2021. Directed by Kristina Lindström and Kristian Petri. Featuring Björn Andrésen. SYNOPSIS: In 1971, at the world premiere of Death in Venice, Italian director Lucino Visconti proclaims his Tadzio as “the world’s most beautiful boy.” A shadow that today, 50 years later, weighs on Björn Andresen’s life. If Alex […]
2021 Sundance Film Festival Review – Homeroom
Homeroom, 2021. Directed by Peter Nicks. SYNOPSIS: Oakland as a tantalising case study. In a city that struggles with rising crime and health care woes, its public school systems aren’t exactly equipped to prepare youth for the travails of young adulthood. Director Peter Nicks’ (Waiting Room, The Force) observational documentary Homeroom affords a group of youngsters the […]
2021 Sundance Film Festival Review – Censor
Censor, 2021. Co-written and directed by Prano Bailey-Bond. Starring Niamh Algar, Nicholas Burns, Vincent Franklin, Sophia La Porta, Adrian Schiller, and Michael Smiley. SYNOPSIS: After viewing a strangely familiar video nasty, Enid, a film censor, sets out to solve the past mystery of her sister’s disappearance, embarking on a quest that dissolves the line between fiction […]
2021 Sundance Film Festival Review – Human Factors
Human Factors, 2021. Written and directed by Ronny Trocker. Starring Sabine Timoteo, Mark Waschke, Jule Hermann, Wanja Valentin Kube, Hannes Perkmann, and Daniel Séjourné. SYNOPSIS: A mysterious home invasion triggers a shake in the core of a cosmopolitan middle-class family and unveils the fragility of truth and the power of individual perspective. Middle-class malaise is […]
2021 Sundance Film Festival Review – CODA
CODA, 2021. Directed by Sian Heder. Starring Emilia Jones, Marlee Matlin, Troy Kotsur, Daniel Durant, Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, and Eugenio Derbez. SYNOPSIS: A hearing child in a deaf family finds herself torn between pursuing her love of music and her family’s reliance on her to be their connection to the outside world. Sitting down for my […]
2021 Sundance Film Festival Review – In the Same Breath
In the Same Breath, 2021. Directed by Nanfu Wang. SYNOPSIS: How did the Chinese government turn pandemic cover ups in Wuhan into a triumph for the Communist party? If documentaries about ongoing subjects have a tendency to age poorly, that’s unlikely to hold true for Nanfu Wang’s (One Child Nation) monumental deep-dive into the beginnings of […]
2021 Sundance Film Festival Review – One for the Road
One for the Road, 2021. Co-written and directed by Baz Poonpiriya. Starring Tor Thanapob, Ice Natara, Violette Wautier, Aokbab Chutimon, Ploi Horwang, and Noon Siraphun. SYNOPSIS: Boss, a high-end club owner living in New York, receives a call from his friend in Thailand, Aood, revealing he is in the last stages of terminal cancer. Director Baz […]
