A CEO enters into a submissive affair with her much younger intern in Babygirl. Romy Mathis (Nicole Kidman) is the CEO of a tech company, who is not fully satisfied sexually by her longtime husband Jacob (Antonio Banderas). Romy’s company hires a new young intern, Samuel (Harris Dickinson), who chooses Romy to be his mentor. …
Netherlands
A 12-year-old Malaysian girl undergoes immense changes after hitting puberty in Tiger Stripes. Zaffan (Zafreen Zairizal) is a student at a Muslim all-girls school in Malaysia, who often ends up breaking the rules when hanging out with her friends Farah (Deena Ezral) and Mariam (Piqa). When Zaffan has her period one night, the resulting changes …
A mild-mannered driver finds himself taken hostage by an unhinged passenger in Sympathy for the Devil. David (Joel Kinnaman) is racing to the hospital to be with his wife who is in labour. However, when he arrives, he is greeted by a gun-toting man (Nicholas Cage) dressed all in red, who gets into David’s car. …
China’s status as an authoritative surveillance state is exposed in Total Trust. Using the latest technologies, such as facial recognition technology and even COVID health checks, the communist government of China can enact authoritative control over its citizens. Several Chinese citizens document their horrifying experiences with the Chinese surveillance states. The central story comes from …
A bear goes on a rampage in a National Park after ingesting cocaine in Cocaine Bear. Multiple duffle bags containing cocaine are dumped out of a plane into the Chattahoochee National Forest right before the drug runner dies while trying to skydive. St. Louis drug lord Sydney White (Ray Liotta) sends his song Eddie (Alden …
An enjoyable father-daughter drama, which may require more than one viewing to understand.
An isolated community in the Netherlands is haunted by an ancient curse in Moloch. Betriek (Sallie Harmsen) live at an isolated house in the Dutch countryside surrounded by a peat bog. It is in the bog where an ancient corpse of a woman is discovered, which attracts a team of archeologists lead by Jonas (Alexandre …
A young Swedish woman travels to Los Angeles in the hopes of making it in the adult entertainment industry in Pleasure. Linnéa (Sofia Kappel) is a 20-year-old Swedish woman, who comes to Los Angeles and begins working in the pornographic industry under the name “Bella Cherry.” Bella quickly befriends her roommate Joy (Revika Reustle) and …
A middle-aged disabled woman seeks out her first meaningful sexual experience in Sexual Healing. Evaliene is a 53-year-old woman, who has only had a functional relationship with her body. Seeking to change that, Evaliene decides to explore her sexuality by wearing lingerie and buying sex toys. However, the biggest move comes when she decides to …
A 17th-century nun enters into a forbidden relationship with another member of her convent in Benedetta. Benedetta Carlini (Virginie Efira) is an extremely devout young woman, who as a child was admitted into a convent run by Sister Felicita (Charlotte Rampling). Benedetta has repeated versions of Jesus and she comes to be viewed as saintly …
A refugee tells his story about how he fled Afghanistan and ended up in Denmark in Flee. Danish filmmaker Jonas Poher Rasmussen interviews his friend Amin Nawabi about his life growing up in Afghanistan and how he had to flee with his family to escape the growing war and turmoil. Ending up in Russia, Amil …
Zack Snyder’s Justice League is being reviewed as an independent entity from the theatrical cut. For my original thoughts, you can check out my original review from November 2017. A little background, for the uninformed: In May 2017, while his Justice League film was beginning post-production, Zack Snyder decided to step down as director, following the …
A group of friends perform an experiment about how consuming alcohol can be beneficial to their lives in Another Round. Martin (Mads Mikkelsen), Tommy (Thomas Bo Larsen), Peter (Lars Ranthe), and Nikolaj (Magnus Millang) are four teacher friends from Copenhagen. While out to dinner to celebrate Nikolaj’s 40th birthday, the group begins discussing the theories …
A female journalist decides to take bloody vengeance against online trolls in The Columnist. Femke Boot (Katja Herbers) is the writer of a newspaper column, who is the victim of relentless and vile criticism via social media. Despite being advised by fellow writer and boyfriend Steven Dood (Bram van der Kelen) to “never read the …
Citizen journalists revalutionize the concept of online opensource investigation in Bellingcat – Truth in a Post-Truth World. Bellingcat is a collective of “citizen investigative journalists,” founded by Elliot Higgins in the UK. Featuring volunteer members from all across the world, Bellingcat uses social media to help with various investigations, ranging from the MH17 disaster to …
The people and science behind the “CRISPR Revolution” are explored in Human Nature. Since the 1970s, scientists have been experimenting with gene therapy. However, since this is a random process, the results of such experiments could not be controlled. However, with the discovery of CRISPR, it has become increasingly possible to manipulate human DNA to …
An explorer helps a Sasquatch try to find his brethren in Missing Link. Sir Lionel Frost (Hugh Jackman) is an explorer, who specializes in investigating mythical creatures, which results in him being scorned by a society of great men headed by Lord Piggot-Dunceby (Stephen Fry). Desperate to become accepted by the society, Lionel follows a …
Outsourced content moderators decide what content is appropriate for the major social networks in The Cleaners. Companies such as Google and Facebook outsource content moderation to foreign companies, who go through thousands of pictures and videos to weed out all sexual, violent, or terrorist content. One such company is located in Manila, where the anonymous …
The advances in artificial intelligence are explored in More Human Than Human. Machines are developing at a rapid pace and they are expected to replace traditional jobs by the year 2030. With science fiction movies having developed a fear of artificial intelligence, the question is asked what would happen if and when we finally reach …
Oil painted visuals tells the story of the life and death of Vincent van Gogh in Loving Vincent. One year after the suicide of Vincent van Gogh (Robert Gulaczyk), Armand Roulin (Douglas Booth) is asked by his postmaster father Joseph (Chris O’Dowd) to deliver an undelivered letter from Vincent to his brother Theo. After finding out that …
Thousands of soldiers seek rescue during World War II in Dunkirk. During the Second World War, 400,000 British and French soldiers are surrounded by the enemy on a beach in the town of Dunkirk, located in the north of France. The attempted evacuation of the soldiers are told from three perspectives. On land, told over …
The life and career of artist Richard Hambleton is told in Shadowman. Born in Vancouver, Richard Hambleton became known for his New York City street art in the 1980s, which were often done in the form of shadowy silhouettes. Hambleton eventually moved into studio painting and quickly became a sensation along with his friends Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. …
The court case between Hulk Hogan and Gawker kicks off a discussion about the state of free and open journalism in Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press. Terry Bollea, better known as professional wrestler Hulk Hogan, files a lawsuit against the celebrity blog Gawker, over the site posting a portion of a sex tape involving …
An entrepreneurial salesman turns a family owned burger stand into the world’s largest fast food chain in The Founder. Ray Kroc (Michael Keaton) is a traveling milkshake machine salesman, who becomes curious when an unusually large order to made by a burger stand in San Bernardino, California. Travelling to the stand, Ray meats brother Dick and Mac …
A goth girl turned nun returns home to visit her disfigured older brother in Little Sister. Colleen Lunsford (Addison Timlin) is a young woman about to give her first vows to become a nun. Colleen receives an e-mail from her mother Joani (Ally Sheedy) stating that her older brother Jacob (Keith Poulson) has returned home after being …
An acclaimed chef and his team rushes to open a new restaurant in Japan in Ants on a Shrimp. Celebrity chef René Redzepi has won countless awards for his Copenhagen restaurant Noma. In 2015, Redzepi temporary closes Noma and relocates his team to Tokyo to open a new five-week pop up restaurant. With less than a month …
A cub scout troupe is terrorized while on a camping trip in Cub. Sam (Maurice Luijten) is a troubled 12 year old, who is bullied by the other kids in his cub scout troupe. While on a camping trip in the Belgian forest, Sam is shocked to discover that the local legend of a feral …
This review was originally published as part of my coverage of Hot Docs 2015 A group of scientists simulate an encounter with extraterrestrials in The Visit: An Alien Encounter. The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs has prepared a scenario of what would be done in the event of an alien life form landing …
A new student at a boarding school for the deaf gets caught up with the local gang in The Tribe. Sergei (Grigoriy Fesenko) is a shy deaf teenager, who has just enrolled at a new boarding school. Sergei quickly finds that he has to prove himself worthy of the school’s gang, which results in him …
A group of scientists simulate an encounter with extraterrestrials in The Visit: An Alien Encounter. The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs has prepared a scenario of what would be done in the event of an alien life form landing on Earth. The audience is given the point of view of “the visitor,” as …
The growing group of bloggers, who visit and critique fine dining restaurants are profiled in Foodies. There is now a large number of people who travel and dine at Michelin-starred restaurants and blog about their experiences. These bloggers are changing the culinary world, since restaurants are able to get instant feedback. A number of these …
Indie Spotlight is a series focusing on reviews of independent films A vaguely sinister man invades the life of a suburban family in the dark Dutch fable Borgman. When he is first introduced, Camiel Borgman (Jan Bijvoet) is a bearded hermit, who is forced away from his underground den. Camiel finds his way to the …
Inspired by the book A Problem from Hell by Samantha Power, Watchers of the Sky looks into the history of genocide. The term was coined by Raphael Lemkin, who was seeking to change the laws that allowed sovereign nations to commit “legalized murder.” The film looks at examples of genocide through the ages, including Rwanda …
Writer/actress Brit Marling (Another Earth, Sound of My Voice) reteams with Sound of My Voice writer/director Zal Batmanglij for the thriller The East. The film stars Marling as Sarah, who is an operative for an elite private intelligence firm. Sarah is sent undercover to infiltrate an eco-terrorist organization named The East, who use an “eye …
How the mind works remains one of mankind’s biggest mysteries. In fact, the mind is considered to be the most complicated organ in the universe. Even though scientists try, we have still have not fully cracked the inner-workings of the mind, especially when it comes to mental disorders. Free the Mind focuses on Professor Richard …
Continuing right where Napster let off, The Pirate Bay is the world’s largest file-sharing website, generating the bulk of the world’s BitTorrent traffic. While Napster was primarily targeted by the music industry, The Pirate Bay was targeted by Hollywood studios, due to the fact that the BitTorrent protocol allows for the download of large-sized files …
Even though it was not the original intention of the documentary, The Queen Of Versailles is a very interesting case study about a spoiled rich family and their attempts to cope with the financial crisis. The main focus of the film is Jackie Siegel, the trophy wife of timeshare king David Siegel. Jackie has seven children (and one …
I should make clear that there was no reason to remake the Frank Oz-directed 2007 original other than the fact that it was British and had a limited release. That said, the Chris Rock-starring remake ended up being not all that bad and I was pleasantly surprised by the film. For the most part the …