Category: 2017

2017 / david bax / LA Film Fest / la film fest 2017 / movies / reviews / Theatrical Review

June 22, 2017

LA Film Fest 2017: Patti Cake$, by David Bax

It may not be immediately clear to you, when watching Geremy Jasper’s Patti Cake$, that the movie is set in Northern New Jersey (it may take you as long as until the first Bruce Springsteen song shows up on the...

2017 / david bax / LA Film Fest / la film fest 2017 / movies / reviews / Theatrical Review

June 22, 2017

LA Film Fest 2017: Never Here, by David Bax

Camille Thoman’s Never Here, with its tale of a curious innocent embroiled in a criminal mystery, clearly draws inspiration from Alfred Hitchcock. In one scene, a character is even watching The Lady Vanishes on television, just to make the connection...

LA Film Fest 2017: The Big Sick, by David Bax

2017 / david bax / LA Film Fest / la film fest 2017 / movies / reviews / Theatrical Review

June 21, 2017

LA Film Fest 2017: The Big Sick, by David Bax

Specificity is key to what makes Michael Showalter’s The Big Sick such an unqualified success and easily the best romantic comedy since Gillian Robespierre’s Obvious Child. This isn’t (or at least isn’t primarily) an issue-driven movie in which a Muslim...

2017 / david bax / LA Film Fest / la film fest 2017 / movies / reviews / Theatrical Review

June 21, 2017

LA Film Fest 2017: Izzy Gets the Fuck Across Town, by David Bax

Introducing itself with a song by Corin Tucker’s pre-Sleater-Kinney band, Heavens to Betsy, Christian Papierniak’s Izzy Gets the Fuck Across Town kicks off with energetic, punk rock promise. Soon, though, what Papierniak seems to be positioning as a quintessential Los...

2017 / david bax / LA Film Fest / la film fest 2017 / movies / reviews / Theatrical Review

June 21, 2017

LA Film Fest 2017: The Female Brain, by David Bax

During a resurgence of feminism and an increased social awareness of the plights of the marginalized, a movie called The Female Brain, directed by a woman, ought to be a milestone, a rallying point. Yet, despite eventually arriving at a...

2017 / david bax / LA Film Fest / la film fest 2017 / movies / reviews / Theatrical Review

June 20, 2017

LA Film Fest 2017: And Then I Go, by David Bax

In one of the very first scenes of Vincent Grashaw’s And Then I Go, fourteen-year-old protagonist Edwin (Arman Darbo) struggles to open an uncooperative locker in a middle school hallway during the brief, cacophonous rush between periods. The intimate and tangible...

LA Film Fest 2017: The Little Hours, by David Bax

2017 / david bax / LA Film Fest / la film fest 2017 / movies / reviews / Theatrical Review

June 20, 2017

LA Film Fest 2017: The Little Hours, by David Bax

It will be hard to avoid reviews of Jeff Baena’s The Little Hours that accuse it of being a “feature length sketch.” It’s not an entirely unfair charge, given the basic comedic presence of a film that takes place in the 14th...

2017 / david bax / LA Film Fest / la film fest 2017 / movies / reviews / Theatrical Review

June 17, 2017

LA Film Fest 2017: Beauty Mark, by David Bax

In an early scene in Harris Doran’s Beauty Mark, protagonist Angie (Auden Thornton) is being chastised by her boss at a Louisville convenience store for being on the phone with a debt collector while ringing up customers. “It was an emergency!”...

2017 / david bax / LA Film Fest / la film fest 2017 / movies / reviews / Theatrical Review

June 15, 2017

LA Film Fest 2017: Maudie, by David Bax

Aisling Walsh’s Maudie, with its perfect storm of biopic, period piece and conspicuous accents (Nova Scotian, in this case), has all the trappings of an “actor’s showcase.” Usually, such movies are histrionic and programmatic. But Walsh and especially her two...