Written by Anna Harrison It makes me feel somewhat guilty to give “Portraits From a Fire” a less-than-stellar score—not because the movie deserves it, but because it’s so earnest that it breaks my heart a little to criticize it… Continue reading.
Tag: Festivals
SXSW 2022: The Lost City
Written by Anna Harrison Stop me if you’ve heard this before: a romance novelist somehow gets caught up in a nefarious plot in a tropical location, an attractive man gets dispatched to rescue her, and the two fall in love … Continue reading.
SXSW 2022: Linoleum
Written by Anna Harrison “Linoleum” has a perfectly mundane setup: Cameron (Jim Gaffigan) is going through a midlife crisis, the kind that we’ve seen played out on screen countless times before. Only when a car falls out of the sky … Continue reading.
SXSW 2022: Deadstream
Written by Anna Harrison Shawn Ruddy (Joseph Winter) of “Deadstream” is clearly made in the mold of YouTubers and streamers like Paul: he does stupid things for views, and when those stupid things get other people hurt, he has to … Continue reading.
VIFF 2021 Review: The Beta Test
Written by Anna Harrison 75/100 “Everybody still wants to be Harvey.” This sentiment isn’t explicitly expressed in The Beta Test until the end of the film, but nevertheless makes itself felt from the get-go as we follow Hollywood agent Jordan … Continue reading.
Tribeca 2021 Review: Werewolves Within
Written by Anna Harrison 65/100 Video game adaptations are practically always hit-or-miss, and they tend to lean (very) heavily into the “miss” category (see: Super Mario Bros., Mortal Kombat, Warcraft, etc.); while Werewolves Within doesn’t entirely buck this trend, it … Continue reading.
Tribeca 2021 Film Festival Review: Enjoy
Written by Anna Harrison 75/100 Saul Abraham’s short film Enjoy finds its protagonist Michael (Himesh Patel) unable to enjoy just about anything. A struggling musician also struggling with the deepest throes of depression, Michael drifts aimlessly around his world, being … Continue reading.
Tribeca 2021 Film Festival Interview: Director Saul Abraham Talks Short “Enjoy”
Interview by Anna Harrison When did you first get the idea for this film? How long did the process from development to distribution take? It is based on writer Callum Cameron’s personal experiences as a home tutor. He sent it … Continue reading.
Atlanta Film Festival 2021 Review: Nine Days
Written by Anna Harrison 85/100 Nine Days has a premise that could have very easily tipped towards the saccharine, spouting platitudes about the meaning of life with obnoxious heavy-handedness. Luckily, director Edson Oda and his creative team decided instead to … Continue reading.
Tribeca 2021 Film Festival Review: Last Film Show
Written by Anna Harrison 70/100 Pan Nalin’s Last Film Show opens with a thank you to people the director has likely never met: the Lumière brothers, Eadweard Muybridge, David Lean, Stanley Kubrick, and Andrei Tarkovsky. Some of these names are … Continue reading.