Review Roundup
Welcome to this month’s FREE Friday newsletter! At the end of every month, I drop a list of what I’ve been working on. There’s a ton to get through today, so without further ado:
Two Women is a zany sex comedy about middle age malaise
Two Women, directed by Chloé Robichaud with a screenplay by Catherine Léger, is a modern update of the 1970 Canadian sex comedy “Two Women in Gold,” and takes its exploration of middle-aged, suburban malaise to charmingly comedic heights. The film stars Karine Gonthier-Hyndman and Laurence Leboeuf as Florence and Violette, two nextdoor neighbors who find they have more in common than they initially thought – namely, that they are stuck in sexless marriages. As both women begin a series of affairs, Two Women humorously explores the breaking points of relationships, and how we either choose to come back from the brink or not.
Backrooms is disquieting, but runs into third act issues
As an idea, the Backrooms originated as creepypasta – a term for online horror stories that proliferate across the internet and become legend. The idea was that somewhere in an alternate dimension existed an endless array of carpeted, vomitous yellow hallways that, if you weren’t careful, you might find yourself lost in. In 2022, YouTuber Kane Parsons came into the mix, starting a web series that eventually became the inspiration for the new film Backrooms, directed by Parsons and written by Will Soodik. The film certainly capitalizes on the disquieting nature of the original post and the series that followed. But, it also begs the question on whether or not one unsettling idea merits an entire movie.
Obsession offers a clever, horror twist on the crazy girlfriend trope
Obsession takes its name when, after Bear (Michael Johnston) is unable to tell his friend Nikki (Inde Navarrette) that he has a crush on her, he makes a half-hearted wish on a kitschy toy that he got from a novelty shop, wishing that Nikki would love him more than anyone else in the world. After that wish comes true – perhaps a little too true – we’re off to the races, Curry Barker proving himself a gifted horror filmmaker with a surprisingly smart, subversive take on a well-worn genre. Obsession cleverly uproots the idea of who we should be rooting for in a horror movie on its head, and delivers a star-making horror performance from Navarrette in the process.
Blue Film is an act of harrowing provocation
I don’t expect Blue Film to go over easily with audiences. It’s certainly a punishing watch, difficult to stomach in more ways than one. With it, though, Elliott Tuttle has achieved true provocation, forcing the audience to sit in the discomfort of watching a pedophile use every trick in the book to justify his returned presence into his old student’s life – forcing us to watch the boundaries between these two people dissolve until only unspeakable anger remains. While the dialogue can be a little stilted, the performances are riveting – one too vulnerable and one too deluded to stomach.
Setting a horror movie from the perspective of two van life newbies – naive interlopers into an intricate, tight-knit nomadic culture – is a concept ripe for exploration. And the most interesting parts of Passenger show our protagonists dealing head on with the fact that they’ve entered into a space they know nothing about. Unfortunately, beyond some well-deployed scares, Passenger gets too lost in its lore, ultimately setting off on a path to nowhere.
Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour is a masterclass in connection
The concert film for Billie Eilish’s most recent tour (filmed in 3D with an assist from James Cameron) gives us a behind the scenes look at the tour, but is not very revealing about Eilish herself as an artist. But, the concert offers a firsthand look at the connection between Eilish and her fans, showing us an artist with the gravitas to command a crowd with no help from anyone but herself.
The Sheep Detectives is a surprisingly poignant children’s movie
The biggest flaw of The Sheep Detectives is that most of its human characters aren’t nearly as fun to watch as their ovine counterparts. But, the movie isn’t called The Human Detectives, now is it? And these sheep know how to deliver! The Sheep Detectives walks a fine line between sweet and cloying, touching on tough themes about grief and death in a kid-friendly manner – and with plenty of humor along the way.
Blue Heron is a beautiful treatise on memory and grief
If her short film Still Processing is a treatise on the intersection between memory and grief, then Sophy Romvari’s Blue Heron pushes that concept forward and morphs it into a memory play of sorts, one that ruminates on the fragility and fickleness of memory, and then tries to confront that head on. The film begins as something fairly familiar, ostensibly dealing in coming of age conventions we’ve seen before. But, its originality becomes apparent gradually and then all at once. In its latter half, Romvari recontextualizes what you’ve already seen and rips your heart out in the process.
Swapped delivers a heartfelt story without the sensory overload
In its best moments, Swapped gives the audience space to live in the unique and beautiful world of the film. Swapped sits in a bit of a rare place, when it comes to children’s movies – it’s not nostalgia bait for millennial parents, or catering to adults with jokes that go over their children’s heads. It’s simple, but it’s not mindless, executing a good story and delivering a poignant message.
Horror film Hokum blends human and supernatural terror
Hokum is Damian McCarthy’s follow-up to 2024’s aptly titled Oddity, continuing his streak of movies that fundamentally understand that human terror is always scarier than the supernatural. And yet, he never underestimates the power of a good, old-fashioned, cackling witch who lives in a dank, dark cellar. The emotional beats of Hokum – the ways in which it tries to reckon with guilt over old wounds – are well-positioned within the story, but not quite as fleshed out as they need to be to pack that emotional gut punch. But where McCarthy excels is creating truly horrifying moments out of man and myth alike.
The Devil Wears Prada 2 – the nostalgia machine comes for us all
There is no question that this sequel lacks the bite of the original film. That being said, with the original creative team (director David Frankel and writer Aline Brosh McKenna) back in action, they’ve made a worthy attempt to comment on the complete dystopian woes of the media-sphere in a way that feels genuine. It shouldn’t be too much to ask for a sequel with a point of view past dollar signs, but it is rare enough that when it happens, it should be celebrated. There are missteps here and there, but it’s not hard to overlook those missteps when the returning cast seems to be having such a great time.
Saccharine director Natalie Erika James on the horrors of diet culture
After years of the culture beginning to shift away from the idea that being skinny is the only way to be beautiful, lately I am inundated with social media posts that give me the sinking feeling that being exorbitantly thin is starting to come back into vogue. Saccharine, a new horror film from writer/director Natalie Erika James, captures the horror of that feeling, and I got to speak with James about how she achieved that.
Getting back to visceral feeling with Boots Riley in I Love Boosters
Boots Riley has always had a surreal, outsized approach to expression (just look at the size of his hats). That approach continues with I Love Boosters, an absurdist, Looney Tunes-style film about a team of shoplifters who take aim at a fashion tycoon. I loved speaking with Riley about his approach to world building and how his music background has influenced his film career.
Georgia filmmakers celebrate their history with Atlanta Film Festival 50th anniversary
For this piece, which corresponded with the 50th anniversary of the Atlanta Film Festival, I spoke with three people with different ties to Georgia’s film industry and strong connections to the festival, whose journeys have taken them all in different directions. Some were born and raised in small towns they longed to put onscreen, and some were making films in Atlanta long before it became a Hollywood production hub. Some moved to L.A., and some stayed behind. But, whenever they ended up, they all returned for the festival’s 50th anniversary to pay homage to the state where it all started.
Making sense of the world through movies with Aisha Evelyna
Seahorse was one of the more fascinating films I saw at the Atlanta Film Festival, and I got the opportunity to speak to filmmaker and star Aisha Evelyna about the making of the film after the in-person screening. We had a lovely chat, talking about everything from her thoughts on criticism and how she digests notes on her writing, to some of the more emotionally challenging aspects of the shoot.
Roy Cohen remembers Aseel Aslih with documentary Far From Maine
26 years after Israeli police shot and killed his friend and Palestinian activist Aseel Aslih, Israeli filmmaker Roy Cohen has made a film reckoning with his friend’s death and the country he calls home. Far From Maine is structured as a letter to Aslih as Cohen confronts his own feelings about Israel. I spoke with Cohen about making the film ahead of its screening at the Atlanta Film Festival.
Phew, that’s a doozy of a list! Thank you for reading, and I’ll see you next week.
Holy crap can you write!
Now, I'm going to keep asking you until you do it: I (and others) want to know all about your movie reviewing. Who is/are your customers? Where do you see these movies.... I'm guessing online? Who picks up the tab for all these movies? Is this your primary source of income? Or are you writing articles for a newspaper(s)? I am nosy and I want to know more!