Blumhouse Productions don’t team up with Amazon Prime for another rendition of their “Welcome To The Blumhouse” anthology this year (which may be a good thing). However, fret not, horror fans: something else from Blumhouse hits Prime Video this Halloween season. “Run Sweetheart Run” gets the premiere spooky treatment this year, and good thing, too: the movie still hasn’t gotten a release since its world premiere at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.

Continue reading ‘Run Sweetheart Run’ Trailer: Shana Feste’s Horror Thriller Finally Hits Amazon Prime Video On October 28 at The Playlist.

Riley Keough has been appearing in films for a decade, and her resume is already incredibly accomplished for someone barely over the age of 30. In fact, with “The Runaways,” “Magic Mike,” “Mad Max: Fury Road,” “American Honey,” “The Lodge,” “Under the Silver Lake” and “The House That Jack Built” it reads like a cinephile’s wet dream. Now, after a lengthy pandemic delay, you can add another title near the top of that impressive list, Janicza Bravo‘s “Zola.”

READ MORE: “Zola” is the ultimate internet-age tale of messy bitches being extra [Sundance Review]

Based on Ariza “Zola” King’s 148-tweet thread that rocked the internet in 2015, it follows Zola (Taylour Page), a Midwest waitress and pole dancer who semi-reluctantly joins a charismatic sex worker, Stefani (Keough), and her not-so trustworthy pimp X (Colman Domingo) on a cross country trip for a night of work at some Florida strip clubs with promises of massive tips.

Continue reading Riley Keough & Audiences Have Waited Long Enough For ‘Zola’ To Hit Theaters [Interview] at The Playlist.

To put it mildly, Sienna Miller is doing the work. Despite roles in major studio flicks such as “American Sniper” or “21 Bridges,” the British actress continues to make time for more challenging indie fare such as her lauded performance in the “American Woman” last year. Now, she’s back with another impressive turn in 2020 Sundance Film Festival selection “Wander Darkly,” which is finally available for public consumption this week.

Continue reading Sienna Miller Was Filled With Grief After Reading ‘Wander Darkly’ Script [Interview] at The Playlist.

The Sundance Film Festival can be a strange beast. Having caught Natalie Erika James’ directorial debut “Relic” before the festival began, I assumed it would prompt a ton of interest from mini-majors and streamers alike. The drama is an impressive example of prestige horror with fantastic performances from Emily Mortimer, Bella Heathcote, and Robyn Nevin. It’s scary, moving and directed with expert craftmanship And, no disrespect to IFC Films who made a deal for it, that didn’t happen.

Continue reading Emily Mortimer Gets Lost In The Horror Of ‘Relic’ [Interview] at The Playlist.

Focusing on anything besides what’s going on in America’s streets is difficult at the moment. In another reality the entertainment industry is debating what can only be described as questionable standards for resuming production in an era of COVID-19, fans are celebrating Lady Gaga’s “Chromatica” and getting excited about the potential resumption of the major sports leagues. More pressing issues are at stake and how long the people have to take to the streets for change to be seen remains to be seen.

Continue reading Elisabeth Moss On The “Role Of A Lifetime” In ‘Shirley’ [Interview] at The Playlist.

Miami is described as “the only city where you can tell a lie at breakfast and it’ll be true by nightfall” during a weird but compelling speech by an ambitious real estate developer in “Omniboat: A Fast Boat Fantasia.” The developer, Jim Cummings (played by Mel Rodriguez from “The Last Man of Earth”) explains his dream of building a new shore-front, phallic-shaped luxury condo tower with his name on it.

Continue reading ‘Omniboat: A Fast Boat Fantasia’ Is A Miami Anthology That Can’t Avoid Being Shipwrecked [Sundance Review] at The Playlist.

Perhaps it’s a little psychopathic to talk about yourself in a review of a film about a psychopath. But here goes anyway: In June of 2017, at a film festival in Cluj, Romania, I watched and reviewed a small, spunky documentary called “Amateurs in Space.” It was about a company called Copenhagen Suborbitals, set up by two civilian engineers as a privately-funded amateur attempt to build a rocket capable of space flight.

Continue reading Netflix’s Submarine-Murder Doc ‘Into The Deep’ Is Your Next True-Crime Fixation [Sundance Review] at The Playlist.

There is a movie star moment that sticks out in Eugene Ashe’s “Sylvie’s Love.” The title character, portrayed by Tessa Thompson, slowly glides across her unrealistically large Manhattan office and sits down in her new desk and chair.  Sylvia’s childhood dream has come true. She’s now working in television and has hit the big time. She looks on point. The music is on point. The set is on point for a Hollywood drama from the ‘60s. 

Continue reading ‘Sylvie’s Love’: Tessa Thompson In A Stylish ’50s Melodrama [Sundance Review] at The Playlist.

“Maybe it’s time to let go,” sighs Stanley (Richard Jenkins), with typical last-to-the-party obliviousness. After 38 years working his way up to $13 per hour flipping burgers and cleaning grease traps in the same dingy fast food restaurant in Albion Michigan, by any measure, the time to go passed a long, long while back. Andrew Cohn‘s “The Last Shift” begins as Stanley’s lifetime at Oscar’s Fast Food ends.

Continue reading ‘The Last Shift’ With Richard Jenkins: A Dramedy With Its Heart In Slightly The Wrong Place [Sundance Review] at The Playlist.

No one grows up looking forward to old age. As a child, if you were fortunate enough to grow up alongside adoring grandparents, there exists a naïve notion that elderly people were just born like that. For most young adults, after exiting the socially awkward dynamic of high school—and even college for some of us—planning for the retirement, or even musing over the reality that your 20s will not last forever, could not be further from their minds.

Continue reading ‘The Mole Agent’ Is A Perfect Movie That Will Make You Laugh and Break Your Heart [Sundance Review] at The Playlist.

In 2020, arguably, no concept is more ripe for scrutiny and interrogation than the quickly eroding and antiquated, notion, or illusion, of the American dream. These days, films focused on the plight of immigrants tend to go straight to horror—the soul-crushing dehumanizing story of being stripped of identity and being treated like garbage—and with good reason given the global climate and refugee crisis that’s rocked the planet (Fellow Sundance film “His House” goes right there, and fortunately succeeds).

Continue reading ‘Blast Beat’: Sibling Rivalries & An Interrogation Of The American Dream [Sundance Review] at The Playlist.

You can justifiably argue that it was a weaker than normal crop of films at this year’s 2020 Sundance Film Festival, but the two top jury prize winners were the exceptions. During a non-streamed for the first time in over a decade ceremony, Lee Isaac Chung’s critically acclaimed “Minari” took the Grand Jury Prize for Drama. It also took the Audience Award for the U.S. Dramatic Competition. “Boys State,” which was acquired by Apple and A24, was awarded the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary.

Continue reading ‘Minari’ & ‘Boys State’ Triumph With Sundance Film Festival’s Top Prizes at The Playlist.

“No sparks,” says a taciturn Nikola Tesla (Ethan Hawke), showing the prototype of his revolutionary induction motor to potential investors. “No sparks?” they harrumph through mutton-chop whiskers in wood-paneled rooms. Then when he flicks the brassy switch on his invention and – pardon the engineering jargon – the doodad spins amid tightly coiled copper gizmos, producing none of the mini-lightning bolts or fizzing static they expect, they say again this time with breathless awe: “No sparks!”

But that which was a source of wonder in the candlelit New York City parlors of late 19th century is a drawback in the cinema of the early 21st. 

Continue reading ‘Tesla’: Ethan Hawke Stars In This Inventive Biopic That Doesn’t Quite Generate Sparks [Sundance Review] at The Playlist.

In 1984, Viggo Mortensen debuted as a Lieutenant in a George Washington miniseries. Since then, he’s portrayed a once and future king in the Tolkein universe, a father navigating the apocalypse, a Russian hitman, and a prejudiced personal driver. However, until now, he’s never directed. And though an accomplished author, “Falling” marks Moretensen’s first screenplay to successfully enter into production as well. The film—for which he stars as John, the gay son of Willis (Lance Henriksen)—hopes to demonstrate the love between father and son rising above bad memories and horrific political differences.

Continue reading ‘Falling’: Viggo Mortensen’s Directorial Debut Is An Exhausting Mess [Sundance Review] at The Playlist.

When horror works best, it extrapolates very specific human worries and anxieties, and magnifies and mutates them into universal fears that anyone can understand and recoil in terror from. Spin some timely, George Romero-like socio-political issues into that kind of keenly-attuned filmmaking, and you potentially have something incredibly opportune and terrifying on your hands. Which is precisely what writer/director Remi Weekes manages to do with the devastating “His House,” a terrifying examination of what it means to be a dislocated from home—spiritually, physically, emotionally, and otherwise—and uprooted to a strange, unfamiliar place where everyone looks at you with distrust and unease.

Continue reading ‘His House’: Timely Movie About Refugees In England Will Scare You Out Of Your Mind [Sundance Review] at The Playlist.

There is more than a touch of ‘Buffy‘ Season 6 in the way Romola Garai‘s Midnight-dwelling directorial debut, “Amulet,” finally shakes down — and, I shouldn’t have to say, that’s a compliment. The much-maligned penultimate season of Joss Whedon‘s era-defining TV show has recently come in for gratifying reevaluation as its darker tone, the greater pessimism of its worldview and especially its investigation of a masculinity that in 2002 had scarcely even begun to be described as “toxic,” have proven prescient indeed.

Continue reading Romola Garai’s Horror Debut ‘Amulet’ (Mostly) Works Like A Charm [Sundance Review] at The Playlist.

Is it still shocking to wake up to news stories about mass shootings in the United States in the year 2020? Truthfully, there’s not a clear-cut answer to that question. If one answers yes, the response solidifies that gun-related violence is an unstoppable epidemic that forces those affected into a position of simulated helplessness, but if one answers no, this inverse reaction brings to light the desensitization ingrained in the country’s populace. You can’t win.

Continue reading ‘Us Kids’: Meet The Gen Z Activists Fighting For Gun Reform In America [Sundance Review] at The Playlist.

“I feel like the movies this year are better than they’ve ever been,” says “Madeline’s Madeline” writer-director Josephine Decker about this year’s Sundance fare, before settling into a conversation about her latest film, “Shirley,” which played as part of the festival’s 2020 US Dramatic Competition. “I like to think that having a fascist for a president is at least helping our art succeed….meaning, everyone is taking their art way more seriously.

Continue reading Josephine Decker Discusses ‘Shirley’ & Its Real-Life Literary Inspiration [Sundance Interview] at The Playlist.

On 19 August 2003, a car bomb exploded outside the United Nations Headquarters in Baghdad. As a result, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Sérgio Vieira de Mello and Gil Loescher were pinned under tons of rubble after the blast. Six years later, in 2009, Greg Barker released a documentary covering the events that transpired. And now, more than a decade after the doc, Barker returns with a feature-length adaption of the tragedy and the man at the story’s center.

Continue reading ‘Sergio’: Wagner Moura & Ana De Armas Elevate An Otherwise Messy, Sluggish Biopic [Sundance Review] at The Playlist.

“I’m not for everybody,” says Annie Clark, the artist also known as St. Vincent — though not to the limo driver who, at the beginning of Bill Benz‘s metafictional mockumentary “The Nowhere Inn,” is interrogating her accusatorily about who she is, knowing she’s famous but having never heard of her. Clark, pristinely clad in designer trench and please-leave-me-alone rock-star sunglasses, doesn’t say it to be dismissive, but rather to give the limo driver a way out of an awkward social situation.

Continue reading ‘The Nowhere Inn’: St. Vincent & Carrie Brownstein Flirt With Self-Awareness In This Mock Rock Doc [Sundance Review] at The Playlist.

Liz Garbus’ “Lost Girls” shares a subtitle with the Robert Kolker book it’s based on: “An Unsolved American Mystery.” The mystery in question is that of the Long Island serial killer, who murdered at least ten women— many of them sex workers —over some twenty years, near the South Shore of Long Island. Based on Garbus’ filmography, which includes the Oscar-nominated documentaries “What Happened, Miss Simone?” and “The Farm: Angola, U.S.A,” you might assume this is yet another Netflix-bound true crime doc.

Continue reading ‘Lost Girls’: Harrowing True Crime Drama With A Powerhouse Amy Ryan Still Doesn’t Fully Satisfy [Sundance Review] at The Playlist.

PARK CITY – We may have all forgotten just how talented Anthony Hopkins is. And considering he’s “Anthony Hopkins” that’s sort of insane.  The legendary actor may have earned the fifth Oscar nomination of his career earlier this month for his role as Pope Benedict in “The Two Popes” but he’s already topped himself for his best work this century (yes, century) with his next picture, Florian Zeller’s “The Father,” which premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival earlier this week.

Continue reading Anthony Hopkins Will Break Your Heart But ‘The Father’ Can’t Escape The Stage [Sundance Review] at The Playlist.

Conventional biopics are inherently tricky to pull off. Condensing an extraordinary life into 2 hours or less often leads to compromise, a shallow greatest hits reading, or something akin to a rote Wikipedia recap. Negotiating those hurdles while telling an entertaining story and trying to capture what made the subject’s life so special to begin with is even tougher. Thankfully, Julie Taymor (“Across The Universe“) takes a more unconventional, though not always successful, approach in her latest film—somewhat akin to Todd Haynes’ approach to Bob Dylan in “I’m Not There,” but not as bold— about feminist icon, journalist Gloria Steinem in “The Glorias.” Despite an absence from the screen for a decade, Taymor’s latest manages to be both a loving tribute to American trailblazer and the power of collective action to bring social change. 

Continue reading ‘The Glorias’: Julie Taymor Refracts The Life Of Gloria Steinem Through Different Vivid Prisms [Sundance Review] at The Playlist.

An eye-opening sneak-peak at the political leadership of the next generation, the documentary, “Boys State,” alternates between several different takeaways during its 105-minute run-time. Indeed, it’s hard to know if one should be optimistic about the future of U.S. politics based on what’s presented here, for at times the young men featured offer up a sense of hope, discouragement, and even a resigned acceptance of the sorry status quo. What is obvious, however, is that these teenagers are unquestionably a reflection of the current state of politics in the United States, tangled up as it is in a cloudy cesspool of half-truths, wedge issues, party talking points, dirty tricks, and an entrenched winner-loser binary.

Continue reading ‘Boys State’ Offers Both Hope & Despair For The Uncertain Future Of American Politics [Sundance Review] at The Playlist.

In Baltimore, among the city’s Black community, the sounds of dirt bikes echo down the streets, through the alleys, backyards, and by bedroom windows. Baltimore is more than riots and more than extralegal oppression: the underprivileged and people of color know this much. There are good, happy days just as much as tragedies. But neither negates the systematic abuse suffered nor the perilous environment. Angel Manuel Soto’s “Charm City Kings”—following a group of motorbike riders, a world-first seen in Lotfy Nathan’s documentary “12 O’Clock Boys”—attunes itself as a powerful coming of age story expressing freedom and danger, love and grief, and the pitfalls of childhood heroes.  

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MORE: Here Are Our Most Anticipated Films from the 2020 Sundance Film Festival

Among “Charm City Kings’” three main characters: Mouse (Jahil Di’Allo Winston, an absolute find); Lamont (Donielle T.

Continue reading ‘Charm City Kings’: An Outstanding, Unabashedly Black Coming Of Age Tale Made One Mile Of Road At A Time [Sundance Review] at The Playlist.