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Tony says: “A stunning jewel. . . . The best . . . cinematic experience . . . since ROCKY IV.”    

Jason says: “A LITTLE POND’s goal is to educate its audience about the Nogunri massacre of 1950, and it succeeds:  It presents a reconstruction of that shameful incident in the best detail that the filmmakers could extrapolate.  It is almost

Jason says: “Ole Bornedal was never really away from filmmaking, but time spent trying to work Hollywood and then working Danish theater kept his film output very sparse in the ten years leading up to 2007.  Since then, though, he’s

Jason says: “It’s not that you can’t make a scary, surprising vampire movie any more – my last two trips to this festival delivered LET THE RIGHT ONE IN and THIRST, so it can be done.  It’s just hard; the

Jason says: “So, here’s my question:  If you lived in this tiny Japanese village, what sort of evidence would you need to declare that Rinco’s cooking has magical wish-granting powers?  After all, in the sort of small town where everybody knows

Jason says: “Mamoru Hosoda perhaps didn’t make a huge name for himself with THE GIRL WHO LEAPT THROUGH TIME, but he made a very good animated film that told a fantastical science fiction story that was also very emotionally grounded. 

Jason says: “I’ve got an issue with THE LAST EXORCISM, but it’s about as minor as one can be:  It may be borne almost entirely out of my personal beliefs and one that only becomes an issue in the final

Jason says: “A frustrating aspect of seeing foreign films at festivals is that they tend to be very directer-oriented, so if it’s a performance that catches one’s eye, the most likely situation for seeing that actor again is if he/she

Jason says: “Take heart, people of the world; the west and the east aren’t necessarily so different after all.  Sure, we may not see eye-to-eye on a lot of things, but if both cultures churn out romantic comedies where the

Jason says: “Norway’s FATSO goes for the comedy of discomfort far more than an American version of the same story would, and as a result, maybe it makes sense in that case that it ends with only the wispiest sense

Jason says: “Marijuana’s got little to no appeal to me in real life, and I don’t find most stoner characters very funny, either.  So HIGH SCHOOL has a little work to do with me from the start.  It does okay

Thom says: “It’s a bit of a stretch to include this in an LGBT film festival, although one of the characters (maybe two?) is certainly homosexual. But, then again, director Lifshitz did make the rather confusing COME UNDONE, as well

Jason says: “Last year, I saw Wai Ka-fai as a guest at another film festival, and as one might expect, most of the questions in the extended Q&A were about his collaborations with Johnnie To.  WRITTEN BY didn’t play until

Jason says: “Somehow, I got the idea into my head that CASTAWAY ON THE MOON was going to be a serious film, all allegory for isolation within the city and breaking its hero down to find out who he is

Jason says: “Crime movies are filled with hitmen, to the extent that, if these numbers existed in the real world, it would be a shock if any potential murder victim lived more than a couple of days and nobody could make

Jason says: “Zombie movies have the potential to be a dime a dozen, and not just because they can be made on a shoestring budget, as this South Korean anthology film is.  What makes it stand out from the crowd? 

Jason says: “It may have improved in the two weeks since I headed north for this film festival, but the summer movie line-up for 2010 could be described as uninspiring.  It’s enough to make me wonder why Universal hasn’t found

Jason says: “FISH STORY may not have set the Japanese box office on fire, but the folks who saw it loved it, so it’s no wonder that director Yoshihiro Nakamura chose another Kotaro Isaka novel (with a musical title) as

Jason says: “FISH STORY, if nothing else, lives up to its name.  Not in that fish appear anywhere in it, but in the other definition.  It’s an unlikely story, which grows larger and stranger in the telling, but one that

Jason says: “With a name like SELL OUT!, you can probably guess what sort of satire Yeo Joon Han is going for in his movie, and a lot of it is absolutely going for easy targets.  What makes it work

Rob says: “Disney completists wary of purchasing costly bootlegs of Disney’s controversial 1946 classic, SONG OF THE SOUTH’, will find hope in the House of Mouse’s latest gem-packed ‘Disney Treasures’ collection. In the bonus features of the second of this

Michael says: “Wiebke von Carolsfield takes her trademark introspective, exploration into the human psyche in a new direction with a quasi-suspense, lost in the wilderness tale starring Pascale Bussieres and Francois Arnaud. Anchored by an ethical conundrum that is left

Michael says: “This was the one!  Sublime film, looking at alienation and feeling exiled from your own life. Emmanuel Schwarz does an amazing job as a theater actor losing his focus and getting the opportunity to do a 3 –

Michael says: “Alan Rudolph was just starting to get a handle on his unique style of filmmaking, and while the ensemble cast in this film was top strong (including first speaking roles for Jeff Goldlbum and Alfre Woodard!), the script

Michael says: “Nice story, with good performances falls a little short with a screenplay that is a little stiff. June and her mother Lela, take a trip to the Azores in Portugal a year after their father/husband has died. It

Michael says: “This one is a bit of a mind-bender. Trúc is a young Vietnamese woman going to college in a tiny town in the remote German mountains. Feeling alienated and alone, she takes a guided tour of a nearby

Michael says: “Lucy, a young woman content to spend her life bartending in her recently deceased dad’s bar, meets Ilse, an eccentric woman dealing with a mid-life career crisis as an artist. When Ilse asks Lucy to pose for her,

Michael says: “Pitch-perfect film about a couple in Lithuania who enter a divorce just as the the Russia Ukraine War begins. The pair, and their young daughter, must navigate the social unrest even as their personal lives start to unravel.

Michael says: “A serviceable documentary about the filming of Robert Altman’s SHORT CUTS.  Kaplan was a successful producer who worked with both Altman and Rudolph, as well as Kubrick. This doc features some fun and interesting interview with the cast,

Michael says: “Gorgeous documentary on so many level. Filmmaker Vincent Munier, spends time with his grandfather in a cabin in the Vosges forests in Eastern France creating extraordinary audio and video recordings of the wildlife that live there and their nighttime

Michael says: “While we look around at today’s world and still see so much inequity and bigotry in the world, it is amazing to look back at films from 40 years ago which are fine films and quite entertaining, but

Michael says: “Low-key, well told story of the struggle with addiction as a young man and his foster brother try to find a path in life. Strong performance by Will Poulter. 4 cats“

Michael says: “First half is a playful, passionate, and utterly convincing tale of two people falling in love, then a shift when the realities of two people who want very different things out of life make the last half painful

Michael says: “An intrepid hen escapes her corporate egg-producing fate and encounters perils heretofore unknown to her, from a hungry fox, some horny roosters, and a dark immigrant-smuggling operation. The story grew from a tale of survival, to something much

Michael says: “A little dated watching this film 40 years after its release, but still a great vibe, and nice slice of futuristic neo-noir starring Kris Kristofferson, Genvieve Bujold, Keith Carradine and Lori Singer. Dripping with mood and attitude, the

Michael says: “A music ethnologist searches for an old friend to repay a debt and discovers a connection to the teenaged daughter of his former lover. The main feature is the gypsy music Ange studies, but the story is a

Michael says: “After only being able to view the first three quarters of this film at Virtual Sundance, I got to watch the entire film at the Maine International Film Festival, and this time I just loved it. Truly beautiful

Chris says: “Hirokazu Kore-eda’s gentle sci-fi/AI fable is perhaps the highest concept he’s forged since AFTER LIFE but he doesn’t do enough with it, utilizing it as a catalyst for a family drama without fully realizing its potential.  If the

Vicki says: “GIVE ME THE BALL! is an inspiring documentary about the life of tennis great, Billie Jean King. While I knew about her famous ‘Battle of the Sexes’ match, I didn’t fully appreciate just how much she contributed to the

Vicki says: “POWER BALLAD is a crowd-pleasing movie about friendship, ambition, and the world of songwriting. Paul Rudd plays Rick Power, a wedding singer whose dreams of musical success remain unfulfilled while Nick Jonas plays Danny, former boy-band star trying

Michael says: “Giselle Bonella’s feature film debut, THE MUSICAL, is a bold, audacious swing into the blackest satire. When middle school drama teacher, Doug, finds out that his fellow teacher, Abigail, with whom had had been dating the previous year,

Michael says: “English novelist turned filmmaker Helen Walsh, turns her eye on a middle-aged mussel raker living and working in a small conservative fishing village, married to his high-school sweetheart, raising a son who wants more than the ice that was

Brett says: “If one goes into AMERICAN THEATER without prior knowledge, the first few minutes could likely have that person questioning if this is an actual theatrical production or a WAITING FOR GUFFMAN redux. Despite this, it does not take

Brett says: “JUMP SCARE is a horror genre film that attempts punches above its weight, but the result is not always favorable. At a little over 90 minutes, it’s a film that can be aimless at times, as if primarily

Michael says: “Jane Schoenbrun’s follow-up to I SAW THE TV GLOW moves from sad to joyful in the fascinating take on slasher films being a perverse orgasmic release for many fans of the genre. it’s also an unabashedly queer film

Michael says: “Jay Duplass follows up THE BALTIMORONS with a film vaguely related in theme (dealing with grief and suicide) but completely different in tone. This is family trauma at its most intense — and that is my jam. A

Michael says: “AIRPLANE on a train with drag queens. That’s the tagline for the new film from HAIRSPRAY director Adam Shankman. And if you can’t tell by the overuse of exclamation marks, STOP! THAT! TRAIN! is way over the top

Michael says: “Enzo, a sixteen-year-old boy from a wealthy family in France, becomes dissatisfied with his life of privilege and manifests his teen rebellion by shifting his attention from his education to working on a construction site. There he befriends

Jess says: “You can’t go home again… or can you? “I am in awe of how great this was, considering the directors last film was one of the two bad Dashcam’s of 2021. I really appreciated it was a movie

Chris says: “Given our current tendency to document just about everything (especially ourselves) with our smartphones, will younger and future generations retain a seemingly infinite treasure trove of recorded media to reference, look back on and cultivate into living histories?