“Swallow,” currently in limited release from IFC Films, marks a confident narrative feature debut by filmmaker Carlo Mirabella-Davis. Thirty-nine and a lover of the medium since he begged his parents to let him rent a horror movie for his sixth birthday, he is particularly drawn to “dangerous and strange” films. (His parents chose “The Blob;” it gave him nightmares.) That love for the subversive shines through in “Swallow,” a deliberate and dark thriller that follows Hunter (Haley Bennett) from pristine homemaker to woman on the verge as she develops pica and starts compulsively swallowing household objects.

Continue reading ‘Swallow’ Director Carlo Mirabella-Davis Talks Body Horror And Telling A Story Of Female Trauma As A Male Director [Interview] at The Playlist.

“The Gasoline Thieves,” (‘Huachicolero’), the debut film from Mexican director Edgar Nito Arrache, explores modern social realities in a very traditional narrative, an extremely pure distillation of a crime story that hearkens back to 1930s Warner Bros. gangster films or a more action-packed work of Italian neorealism. The unadorned narrative might not hold many surprises for seasoned filmgoers, but conveys its themes with heartbreaking clarity, aided by a keen visual sense and a relentless pace.

Continue reading ‘The Gasoline Thieves’: A Thriller With A Social Conscious [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

“Among all the people you know, how many really know what’s going on inside you?” Eun-hee’s compassionate cram school tutor, Young-ji asks her tenderly in writer/director Bora Kim’s poignant coming of age drama “House of Hummingbird.” Set in Seoul, Korea, 1994, “House of Hummingbird,” is a striking debut; a painfully honest exploration of queer adolescence that feels a little like a feminist neo-realist film.

Continue reading ‘House Of Hummingbird’: Confident Debut Film That Delicately Questions The Fine Line Between Being Heartfelt & Being Harmful [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

Imagine if you took David Lowery‘s “A Ghost Story” and included a creepy-crawly terror that scratched at the door, or if Terrence Malick‘s “Badlands” took place in a desert close to where the worms in “Tremors” reside. It takes a true believer in the power of genre filmmaking to mount something so lovely and dreamlike against such a ludicrous, fanged backdrop, but that’s exactly what filmmakers Jeremy Gardner and Christian Stella pull in “Something Else,” a joyous, strange creation that you could potentially describe as a “rom-monster” film.

Continue reading ‘Something Else’: A Romantic Monster Movie With Terrific Balance Of Genre & Emotion [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

Nick Nicolaou doesn’t have a perfect answer for why he does what he does. That is both the blessing and the curse of Abel Ferrara’s documentary ode to the tradition of New York cinephilia, “The Projectionist.” It can be a problem when a viewer has spent the length of a feature with a subject and at the end, still does not truly understand what drives him. Nicolaou tells Ferrara that he simply loves two things: “Making money and keeping neighborhood theaters alive.” Could it be that simple?

Continue reading ‘The Projectionist’: Art, Pluck, & Immigrant Hustle Converge In Abel Ferrara’s Heartfelt Tribute To A Theater Owner [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

“Burning Cane” is a film of contradictions. It’s made by a shockingly young director (now 19, Philip Youmans was 17 when this was shot), but with an aesthetic and themes that look to the past, exploring the old school conception of faith and family that saturate this rural Louisiana community. It’s a film more lyrical than narrative, with little action in many scenes, yet one that builds to a climactic act of violence all the more shocking for occurring in such a slow, somber story.

Continue reading ‘Burning Cane’: A Mysterious, Oblique Exploration Of Faith & Family In Rural Louisiana [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

In this modern glut of round-the-clock lousy news, it’s easy to ensconce oneself in a false layer of unflappability. If you’ve heard/read/watched one report of murder/rape/brutality, you’ve heard/read/watched them all. We lose track of what marginalized people have been targeted in what country; what seemingly innocuous product or person is actually, in fact, very dangerous; which public venue gave way to carnage this week. “After Parkland,” a documentary by Emily Taguchi and Jake Lefferman, which premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival, aims to cut through the numbness.

Continue reading ‘After Parkland’ Is A Tender, Personal Portrayal Of School Shooting Survival [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

Ah, college. A time for unrequited lust, illegal alcohol consumption, and awkwardly running into your latest Tinder match on the way to your 8 a.m. final. In “CRSHD,” the directorial debut from Emily Cohn, these experiences take on a larger-than-life, distinctly art school magnitude — probably due to Cohn only just graduating from Oberlin in 2017.

Follow along with all our coverage from the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival here.

Continue reading Ambitious Microbudget Comedy ‘CRSHD’ Is Equal Parts Inventive And Eccentric [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

From Jordan Peele to Spike Lee, modern black cinema is branching out into all manner of genres and audiences. “See You Yesterday,” a Tribeca Film Festival first feature from Stefon Bristol (and produced by Lee), is a heavy-handed but slick foray into the world of science fiction.

READ MORE: The 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2019

This playful drama set in East Flatbush (one of Brooklyn’s few remaining ungentrified neighborhoods) follows black teenage geniuses CJ (Eden Duncan-Smith) and Sebastian (Dante Crichlow) as they cope with their kooky families and grow up against the violent backdrop of police brutality.

Continue reading Police Brutality Drama ‘See You Yesterday’ Is Choppy & Charming Science Fiction [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

The sound and looming shadows of L.A.P.D. helicopters oppressively hover over a South L.A. neighborhood, as three teens come of age in the relentlessly bleak drama “Gully.” The feature is billed as set in a dystopian Los Angeles, but there’s little indication of a true grim dystopy here. Instead, the setting seems more like an amplified version of a real-world crime-ridden neighborhood that you’d see on a Fox news broadcast, where troubled young men live lives of violence and mayhem with little thought for consequence.

Continue reading ‘Gully’ Features Gritty South L.A. Style, But Little Substance [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

Like its source material, Susan Choi‘s novel of the same name, the plot of “American Woman” is inspired by a period in the life of kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst. Patty becomes “Pauline” in the feature-length adaptation, and the terrorist organization that abducted her, the SLA (Symbionese Liberation Army), becomes the “PAL,” but the story will otherwise still inspire feelings of déjà vu for those even remotely familiar with Hearst’s life story.

Continue reading ‘American Woman’ Can’t Match Hong Chau’s Strong Performance [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

Do you still own any VHS tapes? In 2019, the video recording cassettes hold more in common with horror anthologies, overused internet aesthetics, and cheap iPhone filters than the actual analog format that shaped a generation. Nevertheless, if she were still alive today, Marion Stokes may have contributed a handful of thought-provoking diatribes on the purity of analog instruments versus the intangibility of digital constructs—it certainly would not be out of her character.

Continue reading ‘Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project’ Examines The Fine Line Between Brilliance And Insanity [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

“This is the most documented family in the world,” Henry Nevison, director Sasha Joseph Neulinger’s father proudly says, while filming the loved ones that surround him in the documentary “Rewind.” According to Jacqui Neulinger, Sasha’s mother, her husband was prone to disappear behind the lens at rowdy household get-togethers. After all, a celebration was the perfect time to pull out his video camera.

Continue reading ‘Rewind’: Sasha Joseph Neulinger’s Wrenching Survival Story Is An Astounding Documentary On Sexual Abuse Trauma [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

It’s easy to believe that trapped housewives belong to a bygone era, with revelatory literary works like Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892) and Betty Friedan’s “The Feminine Mystique” (1963) taking on the kind of mythological esteem reserved for horrors long past. A century or two later, it seems we’ve evolved beyond such hidebound sexism. But “Swallow,” the revelatory first feature from Carlo Mirabella-Davis is here to tell us, in no uncertain terms, that the past isn’t quite as past as we might like to think.

Continue reading ‘Swallow’: Haley Bennett Astonishes In Housewife Body Horror Drama [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

A documentary with Cinema Verite sensibilities and no qualms whatsoever about the honest presentation of its subjects, “17 Blocks” is both heartbreaking and inspiring. Director Davy Rothbart wisely removes himself from the effort to allow the cruel and dangerous sprawl of suburban Washington, D.C. to unfold before his audience’s eyes, providing a window into a world many are familiar with yet don’t “know.” And while it’s a difficult sit sometimes, “17 Blocks” is essential viewing for anyone interested in how the confluence of race and class have codified into a sort of informal caste for an entire subsection of America’s citizenry.

Continue reading ‘17 Blocks’ Is An Essential Viewing Doc About Race & Class In America [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

The region of New England, Maine might just be the inverted Florida of the North. While Florida is the obvious hot, sweaty mess we want to ditch into the sea, Maine’s quirks are much more subtle, ambiguous and even deceptive. Secrets, history, baggage, people that keep their cards close to the chest, all of these inscrutable dynamics cleverly come into play with murder, grief, and crime in the inventive and original “Blow The Man Down.”

READ MORE: Tribeca Film Festival: 15 Must-See Movies

Aiming for the off-kilter black comedy of “Fargo,” writer/director team Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy craft a film that’s as initially as cold as the area their characters inhabit.

Continue reading ‘Blow The Man Down’: Morgan Saylor & Sophie Lowe Set The Stage For Two Clever Filmmakers You Must Now Keep An Eye On [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

Sound is half of the film experience, but the subconscious, lesser understood half, as director Midge Costin both shows and helps to rectify in “Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound.” As both a longtime former sound editor and a professor at USC, Costin is a perfect source for this authoritative, concise, and entertaining look at the history and practice of cinematic sound, which features an impressive array of directors and the biggest names in sound design.

Continue reading ‘Making Waves’: An Insider Look at Sound in Movies [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

Luxembourgian director Anne Fontaine is an icon of Francophone cinema, with a 25-year filmmaking career glutted with César Award nominations and festival debuts. Though her work spans decades and genres, it has always been female-centered, and “White As Snow,” her 16th feature to date, is no exception.

READ MORE: The 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2019

This modernized retelling casts Claire (Lou de Laâge) as its proverbial princess, a listless orphan working for the coldly maternal Maud (Isabelle Huppert).

Continue reading ‘White As Snow’ With Isabelle Huppert & Lou De Laâge Is A Female Empowerment Fairy Tale [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

We’re in a rom-com revival, as movies like “Love, Simon” and “Crazy Rich Asians” have zhuzhed up the genre, revealing its diverse and lucrative potential. Netflix has eagerly jumped on board with titles like “To All the Boys I Loved Before,” “Ibiza,” “Nappily Ever After,” and “Someone Great.” Now, a festival entrant: “Plus One,” the Ben Stiller-backed first feature from co-directors Jeff Chand and Andrew Rhymer, recently premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Continue reading ‘Plus One’: A Wedding Season Pact Comedy Is Competent, But Unremarkable [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

Inspiring and triumphant, the music drama “Wild Rose” serves as a foot-stomping rebuke to the exasperating phonies who claim to love all music, “except rap and country.” From its opening moments, this stirring musical drama about an aspiring singer rocks, kicking off with a southern-fried cover of Scottish band Primal Scream’s “Country Girl” and running through songs originally sung by Wynonna Judd, Emmylou Harris, Chris Stapleton, and Patty Griffin.

Continue reading ‘Wild Rose’: Jessie Buckley Soars In A Rousing, ‘Billy Elliott’-Like Tale Of A Star Being Born [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

Death will come for all of us at some point, but communicating the ideas of impermanence to children is a whole other scary, frightening bag. “Where do we go when we die?” That’s the concern of actor/director/writer Mark Webber’s personal and moving, “The Place of No Words,” an imaginative, funny, and sad examination of conceptualizing death to a child, that can really only come from a tortured parent’s perspective.

Continue reading ‘The Place Of No Words’: Mark Webber Crafts A Heartfelt Fantasy About Death, Life & Children [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

Director Mary Harron is best known for bringing one of fiction’s most notorious killers to the screen with Patrick Bateman in “American Psycho,” and now she’s focusing on one of the real world’s most infamous villains. But while Charlie Manson is the figure ostensibly at the heart of “Charlie Says,” Harron and screenwriter Guinevere Turner center their story more on a trio of women who devoted themselves to the charismatic cult leader, sharing their experience with Manson as well as in prison for the crimes they committed at his command.

Continue reading ‘Charlie Says’: Mary Harron’s Look At Charles Manson’s Family Of Women Lacks A Sharp Edge [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

“The Place of No Words” hasn’t screened for anyone outside of the folks that attended the Tribeca Film Festival, but that shouldn’t stop you from putting this movie near the top of your must-see list. I have no real insider information about the quality of the film, but if filmmaker Mark Webber has created a film that lives up to its first trailer, then we’re all in for a beautiful, emotional journey.

Continue reading ‘The Place Of No Words’ Trailer: Mark Webber’s Tribeca Standout Is A Deeply Personal Story Of Loss at The Playlist.

Gentle but sharply observed, “Good Posture” is an uncommon cinematic look at an intergenerational female relationship. The directorial debut of “Doll and Em” co-creator Dolly Wells (you may remember her as the gullible book store clerk in “Can You Ever Forgive Me?“), “Good Posture” doesn’t concern itself with romance, quickly sidelining the men in each woman’s life in its opening minutes.

Continue reading The Charming ‘Good Posture’ Features Terrific Performances From Grace Van Patten & Emily Mortimer [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

As the 24-hour news cycle pummels us with constant stories of social and political unrest, the line between modern society and fictional dystopia can seem blurry. Art continues to imitate life, and filmmaker Takashi Doscher is throwing his hat into the sociopolitical sci-fi ring with “Only,” a Tribeca Film Festival premiere about sexist violence.

Freida Pinto and Leslie Odom Jr. play Eva and Will, a couple in a world overrun by a deadly, incurable illness.

Continue reading In Dystopian Drama ‘Only,’ It’s The Men Who Grapple With Female Suffering For Some Reason [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.