Focus on Film & Television Reviews and writings about these subjects. As well as Pop Culture at times. With a bit of an edge and some color
Directed By: Stephen Frears
Written by: Neville Smith
Cinematography By: Chris Menges
Editor: Charles Rees
Music By: Andrew Lloyd Webber
Cast: Albert Finney, Billie Whitelaw, Frank Finlay, Janice Rule, Carolyn Seymour
Nightclub comedian Eddie Ginley fulfills his Dashiell Hammett love by putting an ad in the paper as a private eye.
Written & Directed By: Taika Waititi & Jemaine Clement
Cinematography By: Richard Bluck & D.J. Stipsen
Editor: Tom Eagles, Yana Gorskaya & Jonathan Woodford-Robinson
Cast: Taika Waititi, Jonatham Brugh, Jemaine Clement, Rhys Darby, Cori Gonzalez-Maucer, Stuart Rutherford, Ben Fransham, Jackie Van Beek
Follow the lives of Viago, Deacon, and Vladislav – three flatmates who are just trying to get by and overcome life’s obstacles-like being immortal vampires who must feast on human blood. Hundreds of years old, the vampires are finding that beyond sunlight catastrophes, hitting the main artery, and not being able to get a sense of their wardrobe without a reflection-modern society has them struggling with the mundane like paying rent, keeping up with the chore wheel, trying to get into nightclubs, and overcoming flatmate conflicts.
Written, Edited & Directed By: Kelly Reichardt
Based on Stories By: Malie Meloy
Cinematography By: Christopher Blauvelt
Cast: Laura Dern, Michelle Williams, James LeGros, Lily Gladstone, Kristen Stewart, Jared Harris, John Getz, Rene Auberjonois, Ashlie Atkinson
Certain Women drops us into a handful of intersecting lives across Montana. A lawyer tries to defuse a hostage situation and calm her disgruntled client, who feels slighted by a workers’ compensation settlement. A married couple breaks ground on a new home but exposes marital fissures when they try to persuade an elderly man to sell his stockpile of sandstone. A ranch hand forms an attachment to a young lawyer, who inadvertently finds herself teaching a twice-weekly adult education class, four hours from her home.
Directed By: Matt Spicer
Written By: David Branson Smith & Matt Spicer
Cinematography By: Bryce Fortner
Editor: Jack Price
Cast: Aubrey Plaza, Elizabeth Olsen, O’Shea Jackson Jr. Wyatt Russell, Billy Magnussen, Pom Klementieff, Joseph Breen, Angelica Amor
Ingrid Thorburn is an unhinged social media stalker with a history of confusing “likes” for meaningful relationships. Taylor Sloane is an Instagram-famous “influencer” whose perfectly curated, boho-chic lifestyle becomes Ingrid’s latest obsession. When Ingrid moves to LA and manages to insinuate herself into the social media star’s life, their relationship quickly goes from #BFF to #WTF.
Written &; Directed By: Lulu Wang
Cinematography: Anna Franquesa Solano
Editor: Michael Taylor & Matt Friedman
Cast: Awkwafina, Tzi Ma, Diana Lin, Aoi Mizuhara, Shuzhen Zhou
A headstrong Chinese-American woman returns to China when her beloved grandmother is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Billi struggles with her family’s decision to keep grandma in the dark about her own illness as they all stage an impromptu wedding to see grandma one last time.
Directed By: Aneesh Chaganty
Written By: Aneesh Chaganty & Sev Ohanian
Cinematography: Juan Sebastian Barron
Director Of Virtual Photography & Editor: Nicholas D. Johnson & Will Merrick
Cast: John Cho, Debra Messing, Michelle La, Joseph Lee, Dominic Hoffman, Briana McLean
After David Kim’s 16-year-old daughter goes missing, a local investigation is opened and a detective is assigned to the case. But 37 hours later and without a single lead, David decides to search the one place no one has looked yet, where all secrets are kept today: his daughter’s laptop. In a hyper-modern thriller told via the technology devices we use every day to communicate, David must trace his daughter’s digital footprints before she disappears forever.
Written & Directed By: Christopher Honore
Cinematography: Jean-Louis Vialard
Editor: Chantal Hymans
Cast: Roman Duris, Joanna Priess, Louis Garrel, Guy Merchand, Alice Butand, Marie-France Pisier
Anna has just left Paul who, annihilated by the separation, moves back with his father in Paris. His younger brother Jonathan, a casual student, still lives in his father’s apartment and spends most of his time womanizing and fooling around. But what this apparent lightness conceals is a deep wound. Jonathan, in fact, has never been able to overcome the death of his beloved sister. Meanwhile Paul sinks into depression.
Written & Directed By: Jordan Galland
Cinematography By: Adrian Correia
Editor: Jordan Galland & Daniel Hahn
Music By: Sean Lennon
Cast: Louisa Krause, Lou Taylor Pucci, Whitney Able, John Ventimiglia, Deborah Rush, Zachary Booth, Jemima Kirke, Carol Kane, Alysia Reiner, William Sadler, Dan Fogler, Annabelle Dexter-Jones
Ava Dobkins is recovering from demonic possession. With no memory of the past month, she is forced to attend a Spirit Possession Anonymous support group. As Ava struggles to reconnect with her friends, get her job back, and figure out where the huge bloodstain in her apartment came from, she’s plagued by nightmarish visions – the demon is trying to come back.
Directed By: John Badham
Written By: Peter Barsocchini & John Bishop
Story By: Tony Griffin, Guy Manos & Peter Barsocchini
Cinematography By: Roy H. Wagner
Editor: Frank Morriss
Cast: Wesley Snipes, Yancy Butler, Gary Busey, Michael Jeter, Grace Zabriskie, Corin Nemec, Malcolm Jamal Warner, Kyle Secor, Mickey Jones, Clark Johnson, Melanie Mayron
A team of skydiving crooks led by DEA-agent-turned-bad specialize in landing on police roofs and breaking in so their evil computer nerd can steal undercover agents’ files and sell them to drug lords. Federal Marshal Snipes lost a brother to this crew and learns skydiving with the help of tough-but-lovable instructor Butler so he can track them down. DIE HARD meets PASSENGER 57 meets CLIFFHANGER.
Written & Directed By: Lynn Ramsay
Based on the Novel By: Jonathan Ames
Cinematography By: Tom Townend
Editor: Joe Bini
Music By: Johnny Greenwood
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Alessandro Nivola, Judith Roberts, John Doman, Alex Mannette
Balancing between feverish dreamlike hallucinations of a tormented past and a grim disoriented reality, the grizzled Joe–a traumatised Gulf War veteran and now an unflinching hired gun who lives with his frail elderly mother–has just finished successfully yet another job. With an infernal reputation of being a brutal man of results, the specialised in recovering missing teens enforcer will embark on a blood-drenched rescue mission, when Nina, the innocent 13-year-old daughter of an ambitious New York senator, never returns home. But amidst half-baked leads and a desperate desire to shake off his shoulders the heavy burden of a personal hell, Joe’s frenzied plummet into the depths of Tartarus is inevitable, and every step Joe takes to flee the pain, brings him closer to the horrors of insanity. In the end, what is real, and what is a dream? Can there be a new chapter in Joe’s life when he keeps running around in circles?
Cut To The Chase 