Tag Archives: movie review

All Movie Reviews, Documentary, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Destination NBA: A G League Odyssey (2023) Movie Review

In June 2023, Scoot Henderson was drafted third overall in the NBA draft. At the age of 19, he had made his way from the G League to the Portland Trailblazers. He was the most visible and well-known figure in the G League the year prior. But hundreds of other players populate the League, fighting to get their chance at the big time.

Destination NBA: A G League Odyssey cherry picks a few heads from around the G League, following them through a season and interviewing them about their journey. Scoot is one of them, but he is Continue reading Destination NBA: A G League Odyssey (2023) Movie Review →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Drama, Leave it, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words), Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Fantasia Festival 2023 Movie Reviews — River, Femme, #Manhole

River, #Manhole and Femme are screening as part of the Fantasia International Film Festival, which runs from July 20 to August 9.

River

Junta Yamaguchi’s Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes was a delightfully quirky experiment with time travel tropes. The film was rough and tumble from a visual standpoint, but its charm withstood its Continue reading Fantasia Festival 2023 Movie Reviews — River, Femme, #Manhole →

All Movie Reviews, Comedy, Drama, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Fantasia Festival 2023 Movie Reviews — Sometimes I Think About Dying, Hippo

Sometimes I Think About Dying and Hippo are screening as part of the Fantasia International Film Festival, which runs from July 20 to August 9.

Sometimes I Think About Dying

Fran (Daisy Ridley) leaves her office job each day, microwaves herself a dinner, and sits alone on her couch. Occasionally, during these quiet moments, she does what the film’s title suggests, roving through fantasies of death in her mind. Then she returns to Continue reading Fantasia Festival 2023 Movie Reviews — Sometimes I Think About Dying, Hippo →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Documentary, Drama, Leave it, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Fantasia Festival 2023 Movie Reviews — Satan Wants You, Devils

Satan Wants You and Devils are screening as part of the Fantasia International Film Festival, which runs from July 20 to August 9.

Devils

Kim Jae-hoon’s Devils is a crime thriller with a premise similar to that of a body swap movie. Police detective Jae-hwan (Oh Dae-hwan) disappears for a month after pursuing a sadistic serial killer (Jang Dong-yoon), only for both the cop and the killer to resurface unexpectedly. Jae-hwan wakes in a hospital to find himself Continue reading Fantasia Festival 2023 Movie Reviews — Satan Wants You, Devils →

All Movie Reviews, Comedy, Drama, Leave it, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words), Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Fantasia Festival 2023 Movie Reviews — Hundreds of Beavers, Aporia, Emptiness

Aporia, Hundreds of Beavers, and Emptiness are screening as part of the Fantasia International Film Festival, which runs from July 20 to August 9.

Aporia

A year after Sophie’s (Judy Greer) husband dies, her daughter remains despondent. She is truant from school, failing classes, and she wants nothing to do with her friends or mother. When her late husband’s best friend (Payman Maadi) shows her a time machine he’s been building, Sophie decides to Continue reading Fantasia Festival 2023 Movie Reviews — Hundreds of Beavers, Aporia, Emptiness →

All Movie Reviews, Documentary, Drama, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words), Romance, Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Fantasia Festival 2023 Movie Reviews — With Love and a Major Organ, A Disturbance in the Force

With Love and a Major Organ and A Disturbance in the Force are screening as part of the Fantasia International Film Festival, which runs from July 20 to August 9.

With Love and A Major Organ

Annabelle (Anna Maguire) is an aspiring painter working at a customer service call center who avoids Continue reading Fantasia Festival 2023 Movie Reviews — With Love and a Major Organ, A Disturbance in the Force →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Fantasia Festival 2023 Movie Review: Shin Kamen Rider

Shin Kamen Rider is playing as part of the Fantasia International Film Festival, which runs from July 20 to August 9.

During the rapid-fire in media res opening of Hideaki Anno’s Shin Kamen Rider, memories were conjured of the Power Rangers shows of my youth. People dressed in bulky-headed costumes chase each other down and then prepare to battle in clunky hand-to-hand combat. It was not a second after the film reminded me of that quaint franchise that the masked hero of the title started popping the heads of attacking grunts like ticks and cracking into their ribcages like one cracks an ice tray. Pulpy blood splattering on the nearby trees.

Then, we witness motorcyclist turned cyborg grasshopper Takeshi (Sosuke Ikematsu) as he experiences a severe panic attack brought on by the murders he just committed.

Takeshi has been engineered into something of a superhuman by an organization named S.H.O.C.K.E.R. While wearing a metallic helmet shaped like the head of a grasshopper and running a machine on his body that looks like a computer cooling fan, he can harness the power of Continue reading Fantasia Festival 2023 Movie Review: Shin Kamen Rider →

All Movie Reviews, Drama, Horror, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Fantasia Festival 2023 Movie Reviews — Blackout, Stay Online and Vincent Must Die

Blackout, Stay Online, and Vincent Must Die are screening as part of the Fantasia International Film Festival, which runs from July 20 to August 9.

Stay Online

Eva Strelinkova’s Stay Online is a Screenlife film that follows Katya (Yelyzaveta Zaitseva), a woman who is Continue reading Fantasia Festival 2023 Movie Reviews — Blackout, Stay Online and Vincent Must Die →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Sympathy for the Devil (2023) Movie Review

Yuval Adler’s Sympathy for the Devil owes a great debt to Collateral. Michael Mann’s masterpiece bottles tension inside the cramped confines of a Los Angeles taxi cab. Devil substitutes Las Vegas for L.A. and the car of a man desperately trying to reach his wife giving birth in the hospital for a taxi driver. It also substitutes Jamie Foxx and Tom Cruise with Joel Kinnaman and Nicolas Cage.

Kinnaman takes on a similar—though less expressive and emotionally palpable—disposition to Foxx. Cage, on the other hand, replaces the icy composure of Cruise with his usual Continue reading Sympathy for the Devil (2023) Movie Review →

Lists

Fantasia International Film Festival 2023 Lineup Preview

As an amateur critic (who conjures a perception of credibility by the skin of his teeth like a snake oil salesman trucking across the unpaved west), I like to break down the calendar year by what it offers in terms of film. Summer comes with blockbuster season (more emphasis on the “busts” this year), but it also comes with genre fest season. In truth, there is very little reason to codify July through (roughly) October as the time for genre film festivals. Genre festivals run all over the world all throughout the year. But some of the most prominent fests fall in that stretch between Cannes and the lead-in to awards season. FrightFest, Fantastic Fest, Beyond Fest.

And the festival that kicks off this arbitrarily defined season is the Fantasia International Film Festival. Taking place in Montreal from July 20 to August 9, this year’s 27th edition of the fest features new, cutting edge genre films from across the globe, as well as a quality selection of older films. Here are, in no particular order, seven films from the program worth keeping an eye on.

Suitable Flesh

Joe Lynch’s Suitable Flesh, a Lovecraft adaptation starring Heather Graham and Barbara Crampton, appears satisfyingly Continue reading Fantasia International Film Festival 2023 Lineup Preview →