“[The Cabin in the Woods] ranks among one of the most wryly self-aware works of American pop culture entertainment in years. …by successfully analyzing tired formulas, it gives them new life.” – Eric Kohn, indieWire To a new World of Gods and Monsters This whip smart horror comedy from scribes Drew Goddard (also making […]
Reviews
Thirst Street – VIFF 2017 Review
New York-based indie filmmaker Nathan Silver (Soft in the Head, Stinking Heaven) steps out of his comfort zone for the City of Lights in his wonderfully warped new film, Thirst Street. Initially, during the film’s pre-title preface the viewer is deftly launched into what feels like a keyed up Sirkian melodrama –– imagine, if you […]
The Other Side of Hope – VIFF 2017 Review
Ostensibly the middle film in Aki Kaurismäki’s still in the works Le Havre harbor trilogy (following 2011’s Le Havre), The Other Side of Hope is another eccentric humanist tale from the forever happy-sad Finnish auteur. Once again achieving the blissful balance between melancholy and mirth, Kaurismäki offers up flapdoodle optimism in this shaggy-dog detour involving […]
Lady Bird – VIFF 2017 Review
Delving into equal parts poignancy and playfulness with surety and poise, Greta Gerwig makes an impressive and unhesitating directorial debut with the charismatic coming-of-age comedy Lady Bird. A rare and relatable portrait of youth, and from a female perspective (Gerwig also wrote the screenplay), this is a film effected with affection, authenticity, and deliberate indulgence. […]
The Endless – VIFF 2017 Review
After firmly establishing themselves as impressive innovators in the low-budget but high-concept realm of mumblecore sci-fi/horror films with meta-movements and Lovecraftian leanings (2013’s Resolution and 2014’s Spring are must-see movies for genre junkies), the writer-director duo of Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson present their most ambitious and riskiest gambit yet with The Endless. Earnestly but […]
The Florida Project – VIFF 2017 Review
New Jersey-born filmmaker Sean Baker follows up his candy-colored transgender screwball comedy Tangerine (2015)––also his highly lauded cinematic breakthrough––with another vivid tour-de-force film, which brings with it an illustrious new joie de vivre to the essentia of youth, The Florida Project. Set in a superannuated, very tacky and pastel colored corner of Orlando interstate, which […]