“I found my voice now – a voice with murder as its means.” Something about the Irish experience has melded their idea of comedy with the darker side of life. (Note such films as Waking Ned Devine or last year’s Banshees of Inisherin.) That blend of humor and depressing may seem odd, but the two…
?Let?s go get . . . rich from that dying old bitch.? Avarice is the driving force in Dean Craig?s dark comedy, The Estate. Greed is a common enough motive in comedies. We can all easily identify with it at some level. That may be why it?s included in the Seven Deadly Sins. In this…
[NOTE: I wrote this review in 2008 after seeing the film at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, expecting to publish it when it was released in the US. However, the film never got a release. I?ve often wondered what happened to it in all those years. Now it is available on AMC+ and IFC…
Sundance offers the chance for many first-time filmmakers to share their films. First Date is the premier feature film from directors Manuel Crosby and Darren Knapp. It is a film that doesn?t fit nicely into any single genre, rather it mixes several together. The results sometimes work, but not always. Mike, a somewhat shy high…
We may not expect an Oscar nominated writer/directorto bring us a short film. But then we don?t often know what to expect from Yorgos Lanthimos (three nominations between The Lobster and The Favourite). Nimic is twelve minutes worth of the kind of surreal weirdness that makes Lanthimos?s films attractive to some (including me) and off-putting…
?I?m on my side. Always.? It isn?t news that politics can be a cutthroat sport. But in the hands of Yorgos Lanthimos, all that palace intrigue can become the basis of humor. The Favourite is a Machiavellian comedy set 400 years ago that reflects the way power often happens in secret, but with important consequences….
In Damsel the Zellner Brothers play with some typical movie genres. As a result viewers are asked to wrap their minds around things that seem to not quite fit together, but in reality make for a quirky, yet enjoyable experience.
the opening shot of Bye Bye Germany, we watch a three-legged dog happily trotting through a street that turns out to be in a post-war displaced persons camp in Frankfort. While that dog has next to nothing to do with the plot of this light-hearted (yet not quite comic) tale, it makes for an interesting way to understand the characters we meet.
For full audio of our interview with Jim, stream below: While he?s perhaps best known for his role as perennial nice guy Jerry Gurgich from Parks and Recreation, actor Jim O?Heir finally gets to usurp those expectations in the dark comedy, Middle Man. Written and directed by Ned Crowley, Middle Man tells the story of…
Recently, Steve Norton and I were lucky enough to attend an advance screening of The Big Sick in Toronto, which had two surprise guests ? Kumail Nanjiani and his wife, Emily V. Gordon! This film had already been released in select cities in the States at the time of the advance screening, and will have…
