Messy, arty and wry, this mockumentary by Bill Benz weaves the true-life friendship of Carrie Brownstein and Annie Clark, stage-name St. Vincent, with a rumination on fame, identity and artifice.
Continue readingThe Nowhere Inn (2020)
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Smooth Talk (1985)
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Beginning as a familiar story of a rebellious teenager pushing against the confines of her family, Joyce Chopra takes us down a dark path that perfectly captures the strength and vulnerability of a young woman.
Continue readingFreshman Year (A.K.A. Shithouse) (2020)
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This odd and meandering meditation on adolescent vulnerabilities slowly warms your heart as you watch college freshman Alex (writer, director and star Cooper Raiff) get a grip on life.
Continue readingLanguage Lessons (2021)
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Natalie Morales transcends the all-too-familiar (thanks COVID-19) movie-made-on-screens gimmick to bring us an intensely moving story of human connection.
Continue readingMayor (2020)
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This is a beautifully-made documentary that carries us close beside the mayor of the Palestinian city of Ramallah, Musa Hadid, as he goes about his day, dealing with everything from fountains to Israeli aggression.
Continue readingSweet Thing (2020)
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A low-budget family affair with a crew made up of director Alexandre Rockwell’s film students, Sweet Thing feels like a home movie as seen through the eyes of children.
Continue readingFirst Cow (2019)
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We begin in true Kelly Reichardt style with a long slow shot that lets us take in the slow movement of a river and the sounds of a forest. We are in present day and watch as a woman (Alia Shawkat) unearths a bone, then uncovers two skeletons lying side by side.
Continue readingSome Kind of Heaven (2020)
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What at first seems a bright and cheesy opportunity to poke fun at the ignorance and excess of wealthy, white America becomes an insightful and somewhat bleak exploration of ageing.
Continue readingCoded Bias (2020)
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At first, this look at the inherent bias of algorithms in our daily lives made me uneasy and tempted to ditch all my technology. I stuck with it, though it nearly had me nodding off with its ambling pace, and was rewarded with some third act gems,
Continue readingWelcome to Chechnya (2020)
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I couldn’t look away from this gripping documentary about the awful abuse and murder of LGBT+ people in Chechnya. What at first seems a story about gay people, becomes something much more universal where we can see the awful ripple effects of persecution, the terrible cost and how easy it is to become a refugee.
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