Film
Are we less because we don't have perfect lips? Or a more stable job? Bad cause we aren't as smart as someone else is? No, as Basic illustrates, how somebody chooses to live their life isn't a funhouse mirror for yours.
Film
I have officially embarked on the Saga that has had everyone in my cinematic circles raving and rallying -- it's just as good as everyone said it was; a redesign of vérité for the "fictional", and featuring cameos you wouldn't believe.
Theatre
A holy trinity in London’s West End: camp, community, and a cheeky half-pint
Film
Mean Girls meets The Craft is a common logline, and though it's applicable, Forbidden Fruits is giving more Jawbreaker with how violently it skewers its subject matter, Alloway and Lily Houghton asking how much cruelty we'll file as "solidarity” if it's couched in enough glittery talking points.
Film
Leviticus is easily my favorite watch of the festival, creepy, cold, masterful in giving stigma a physical form and keeping you on your toes doing it. Anything could be a danger, at any time, when the line between wanton wet dream and certain death is thin as hell and hellishly dashed all over.
Film
Hewing to the indie spirit of Little Miss Sunshine, Seekers Of Infinite Love looks at all of our dysfunctions with relentless understanding, complicated by cracks and all the mistakes we make, but... still good, and better for being glued back together.
Film
Lucie gets down and dirty with the years most smellable cinematic experience.
Film
Do I think Pretty Lethal is especially spectacular? Not really, but I also recognize that it doesn't need to do anything more than what it sets out to do. It's a grisly, solid genre film that lets ballerina girls go apeshit. Sometimes that's enough. The added Uma Thurman doesn't hurt either.
Offline Algorithm
An anti-scroll collection of newsworthy things we watched & read this week.
Film
The film's chimeric construction is as much an asset as it is a weakness; you're never really sure what these characters are gonna do next because, well, neither are the actors. Erupcja doesn't encourage spontaneity; it lives in it, which makes it propulsive but voids it of detail.
SOPHISTICULTURE
Sophisticulture is a podcast for people who care a lot about stories and storytellers, and can be found on all major Podcast platforms.
Film
There's intentionality to the film using how it looks to propel its story that calls to mind the built-in worlds of Jacques Tati or Demy, but so driven by Riley’s Bay Area idiosyncrasies: here, a sci-fi sprawler that courts the intersection of exploitation in the fashion industry.