Prisoners of the Ghostland, 2021. Directed by Sion Sono. Starring Nicolas Cage, Sofia Boutella, Nick Cassavetes, Ed Skrein, Bill Moseley, Yuzuka Nakaya, and Tak Sakaguchi. Nicolas Cage is known for his bizarre films. The same can be said about Japanese filmmaker Sion Sono. When these two minds mix, it’s nothing but pure insanity – though […]
2021 Sundance Film Festival Review – Cusp
Cusp, 2021. Directed by Parker Hill and Isabel Bethencourt. SYNOPSIS: In a Texas military town, three teenage girls confront the dark corners of adolescence at the end of a fever dream summer. The first sight in Parker Hill and Isabel Bethencourt’s documentary Cusp couldn’t more literally visualise its central thematic, observing two young girls hanging out on […]
2021 Sundance Film Festival Review – Life in a Day 2020
Life in a Day 2020, 2021. Directed by Kevin Macdonald. SYNOPSIS: Ten years after 2011’s Life in a Day, award-winning director Kevin Macdonald returns to present the story of another day on Earth: July 25, 2020. Of all the movies about the COVID-19 pandemic released as of late – from exploitative speculative thrillers to a rom-com […]
2021 Sundance Film Festival Review – Misha and the Wolves
Misha and the Wolves, 2021. Directed by Sam Hobkinson. SYNOPSIS: A woman’s Holocaust memoir takes the world by storm, but a fallout with her publisher-turned-detective reveals her story as an audacious deception created to hide a darker truth. Sam Hobkinson’s fascinating documentary Misha and the Wolves turns the notion of the “stranger-than-fiction” story on its head, focusing […]
2021 Sundance Film Festival Review – Prisoners of the Ghostland
Prisoners of the Ghostland, 2021. Directed by Sion Sono. Starring Nicolas Cage, Sofia Boutella, Nick Cassavetes, Bill Moseley, Tak Sakaguchi, and Yuzuka Nakaya. SYNOPSIS: A notorious criminal must break an evil curse in order to rescue an abducted girl who has mysteriously disappeared. The long-awaited pairing of Nicolas Cage and filmmaker Sion Sono has naturally invited […]
In The Earth is Ben Wheatley’s epic return to horror! | Sundance 2021 Video Review
In The Earth, 2021. Directed by Ben Wheatley. Starring Joel Fry, Ellora Torchia, Hayley Squires, and Reece Shearsmith. Filmmaker Ben Wheatley recently debuted his remake of Rebecca on Netflix and it was met with mixed reactions. Thankfully Wheatley quickly returned to horror as this will surely be one of his most memorable films ever. In […]
2021 Sundance Film Festival Review – On the Count of Three
On the Count of Three, 2021. Directed by Jerrod Carmichael. Starring Jerrod Carmichael, Christopher Abbott, Tiffany Haddish, J.B. Smoove, Lavell Crawford, and Henry Winkler. SYNOPSIS: Two guns. Two best friends. And a pact to end their lives when the day is done. In one of this film’s most memorable scenes, Christopher Abbott’s suicidal Kevin asks his […]
2021 Sundance Film Festival Review – Censor
Censor, 2021. Co-written and directed by Prano Bailey-Bond. Starring Niamh Algar, Nicholas Burns, Vincent Franklin, Sophia La Porta, Adrian Schiller, and Michael Smiley. SYNOPSIS: After viewing a strangely familiar video nasty, Enid, a film censor, sets out to solve the past mystery of her sister’s disappearance, embarking on a quest that dissolves the line between fiction […]
2021 Sundance Film Festival Review – The Blazing World
The Blazing World, 2021. Co-written and directed by Carlson Young. Starring Udo Kier, Carlson Young, Dermot Mulroney, Vinessa Shaw, John Karna, and Soko. SYNOPSIS: Decades after the accidental drowning of her twin sister, a self-destructive young woman returns to her family home, finding herself drawn to an alternate dimension where her sister may still be […]
2021 Sundance Film Festival Review – Taming the Garden
Taming the Garden, 2021. Written and directed by Salomé Jashi. SYNOPSIS: Documentary follows trees that are transported, at great expense and inconvenience, from the coast of the Republic of Georgia to the private garden of that country’s former prime minister. Documentarian Salomé Jashi captures environmental disarray in a singularly startling – if extremely methodical – manner […]
