It would have been enough for Rob Spera’s The Sweet Life to be a boring, unoriginal, self-consciously “dark” comedy for mopey drama club teenagers. But then it had to go and be offensively reductive about depression and mental health.
From nearly the beginning of Amber Tamblyn’s Paint It Black, I had my guard up. Shots of the Echo Park Blvd. street sign and the cult famous happy foot/sad foot spinning podiatrist sign made me worry that I was in for...
Early on, Chris Sparling’s home invasion horror movie Mercy is going to try to trick you into thinking that it’s about family or faith or the sticky subject of euthanasia. But those are just some of the first red herrings in a...
Lloyd Stanton and Paul Toogood’s Dying Laughing gets off to a dubious start, with its panoply of stand-up comedian interviewees gushing in awestruck, hushed tones about their art and its craft. It sets up an expectation of a bald hagiography of the...
An indie comedy about a young, female Olympian who’s the star of her home town? Don’t worry. Those of you still scarred by The Bronze can breathe easy. Alexi Pappas and Jeremy Teicher’s Tracktown may possess some of the quirks of that other movie...
When you think of a documentary, you don’t necessarily think of a movie as being driven by its lead. Owen Suskind, however, the subject of Roger Ross Williams’ Life, Animated, is so charming and funny a central figure that he keeps...
One of the reasons film genres and subgenres endure is their adaptiveness. Maria Govan’s Play the Devil, for instance, is in many ways a recognizable, off the shelf psychosexual thriller. Yet, by setting it where she does and tweaking the sexual...
Isaac Rentz’ Opening Night begins promisingly enough as we follow Nick (Topher Grace) out of his apartment and down Broadway into the back of a theater where a new show of which he is the stage manager is about to premiere. It’s...
Remy Auberjonois’ gripping and somber Blood Stripe announces a number of talents from whom we can hope to expect more great things in the future. The first is Auberjonois himself, a well-established character actor making his debut as both director...