Io Capitano

Io Capitano

Two cousins from Dakar try to make the difficult journey to Italy in Io Capitano. Seydou (Seydou Sarr) and Moussa (Moustapha Fall) are two impoverished teenage cousins in Dakar, Senegal. Hoping to escape to a presumably better life, the two set out on the dangerous journey across Africa to Lybia, hoping to secure passage across…

Bones and All

Bones and All

Disclaimer: My thoughts on Bones and All are based on the content of this work of fiction and do not support nor condone the act of cannibalism A teenage girl battling cannibalistic urges goes on a cross-country trip to locate her birth mother in Bones and All. Maren Yearly (Taylor Russell) is a teenager whose…

Stillwater

Stillwater

An Oklahoma oil worker travels to France to help his imprisoned daughter in Stillwater. Bill Baker (Matt Damon) is a roughneck oil driller from the town of Stillwater, Oklahoma, who travels to Marseille, France to visit his daughter Allison (Abigail Breslin), who has been in prison for the last five years for the murder of her…

The Amusement Park

The Amusement Park

A “lost” film by George A. Romero is restored and finally released 46 years after its completion with The Amusement Park. An optimistic elderly man (Lincoln Maazel) spends a day at an amusement park. However, this fairground turns out to be a living metaphor for the way society ignores and mistreats the older population. The man…

Image from the movie "Never Rarely Sometimes Always"

Never Rarely Sometimes Always

A teenage girl from rural Pennsylvania travels with her cousin to New York City to deal with an unwanted pregnancy in Never Rarely Sometimes Always. Autumn (Sidney Flanigan) is a 17-year-old girl living in a small town in rural Pennsylvania. Autumn begins to suspect that she may be pregnant, a fact that she confirms when she…

Operation Avalanche

Operation Avalanche

This review was originally published as part of my coverage of Hot Docs 2016 CIA agents conspire to fake the moon landing in Operation Avalanche. Matt Johnson and Owen Williams are two 1960s-era CIA agents, who are assigned to infiltrate NASA under the guise of a documentary crew, with the objective to find a Russian mole within…

Operation Avalanche

Operation Avalanche

CIA agents conspire to fake the moon landing in Operation Avalanche. Matt Johnson and Owen Williams are two 1960s-era CIA agents, who are assigned to infiltrate NASA under the guise of a documentary crew, with the objective to find a Russian mole within the agency. When Matt listens into a phone call by director James Webb,…

Frank

Frank

An experimental music group is lead by an eccentric man in a papier-mâché head in the indie comedy-drama Frank.  Jon (Domhnall Gleeson) is a wannabe musician, who stumbles upon a band called “Soronprfbs,” who are trying to stop their keyboardist from drowning himself in the ocean.  Needing an extra man for their performance that night,…

Mama

Mama

If there is one thing I can say about the ghost story Mama, it’s that the film’s heart was in the right place.  I could see why, executive producer, Guillermo del Toro would want to put his support behind the film, since it was the kind of story that would attract him.  However, that couldn’t…

Broken City

Broken City

In Broken City, Mark Wahlberg plays Billy Taggart, an ex-New York cop, who is now working as a private investigator.  He is called in by mayor Nicholas Hostetler (Russell Crowe) to investigate his wife Cathleen (Catherine Zeta-Jones), who Hostetler suspects is having an affair.  However, it turns out that this investigation might be part of…