In the early 1990s, at the height of the AIDS crisis, I was an active member of ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), a grassroots group who helped to improve the lives of people living with the virus in ways gentle and compassionate and in other ways loud and dotted with instances of civil... Continue Reading →
Watching Barb & Star Go To Vista Del Mar reminded me of a conversation I had in 2013 with double Oscar-winning serious acTOR, writer and British national treasure Dame Emma Thompson (name drop clang) about silliness after I told her how silly I thought the film I was about to interview her about (Joel Hopkins'... Continue Reading →
Part of Sundance 2021's Spotlight program, director Mona Fastvold's Queer Lion-winning The World to Come, adapted from a short story by Jim Shepard, immerses us in the bleak daily life of a contemplative mid-nineteenth century woman, Abigail (Katherine Waterston), living on the stark, unforgiving Northeastern frontier with her husband Dyer (Casey Affleck). The film opens... Continue Reading →
With such films as Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and One Night In Miami, 2020 has given us some expert adaptations of plays. Add The Father alongside these titles as a case study in making something so stage-bound feel so beautifully cinematic. It also rises to the top of the heap of another trend, the dementia... Continue Reading →
As writer-director Harry Macqueen's Supernova opens we're invited into the old, now seldom used camper van of pianist Sam (Colin Firth) and writer Tusker (Stanley Tucci), who've been together as a couple for decades, as they head to the Lake District. The rich history of their years together is immediately apparent in their rapport and... Continue Reading →
Ron Howard, for me, has always been a journeyman director. He has navigated through a wide variety of genres, always putting the camera in the right place, getting good performances out of his actors, and producing slick, commercial Hollywood product. He hasn’t accomplished, however, a recognizable voice. Face it, we all can spot a Tarantino,... Continue Reading →
The late great film critic Roger Ebert famously said, “The movies are like a machine that generates empathy.” No other film I’ve seen this year has evoked such empathetic feelings in me than Nomadland. I knew within the first ten minutes of watching Chloé Zhao’s followup to her fantastic feature, The Rider, that I would... Continue Reading →
Writer-director Francis Lee's follow up to his stunning 2017 debut feature God's Own Country, immerses us in the imagined day-to-day life of an often overlooked historical figure, English fossil collector and palaeontologist Mary Anning, in the absorbing, exquisitely crafted Ammonite. Mary (Kate Winslet) shares a humble but well-kept home with her ailing widowed mother Molly... Continue Reading →
The experience of watching Jen Rainin and Rivkah Beth Medow's feature documentary Ahead of the Curve, which just played Toronto's Inside Out film festival before heading on to New York's NewFest, is much like spending an hour and half getting lost in the pages of your favourite queer magazine; insightful, stimulating, empowering, with a deep-dive... Continue Reading →
One of the more esoteric films premiering this weekend at the digital Salem Horror Festival is director Ryan Glover’s debut The Strings. I’d call the film a slow-burn, except The Strings doesn’t burn at all. Instead, it’s a deeply unsettling film that sticks to your bones like a deadly winter chill, seeping under your skin... Continue Reading →
