Sometimes, a company logo in the opening credits says it all. Redbox Entertainment – yes, they of the DVD kiosks that still exist – helped produce “Maggie Moore(s).” It’s easy to see why they would want a part of the film: stick the distinctive mugs of stars Jon Hamm and Tina Fey on a tile, and it’s bound to pick up some curious viewers who assume the presence of the “Mad Men” and “30 Rock” stars lend the project some prestige.

Continue reading ‘Maggie Moore(s)’ Review: Jon Hamm & Tina Fey Can’t Save This Tonal Mess Of A Crime Comedy [Tribeca] at The Playlist.

Set in the Fall of 2005, Sarah Elizabeth Mintz’s piercing feature debut, “Good Girl Jane,” tracks the grooming of the title character (Rain Spencer), Jane, an outcast teenager enduring an endless summer that nearly undoes her. 

Jane and her older sister Izzie (Eloisa Huggins) have recently transferred to a new school. The popular girls look down on Jane, and the kids from her old school still bully her with spiteful messages online.

Continue reading ‘Good Girl Jane’ Review: Sarah Elizabeth Mintz’s Piercing Debut Tracks The Grooming Of A Young Teenage Girl [Tribeca] at The Playlist.

When attempting a biopic about a rock ‘n roll icon, there’s an inherent conflict of style and substance. Biopics are traditionally dramatic, yet glossy affairs that bring an air of prestige to every story, whether it’s the tale of a stuttering king, a cagey criminal, or the man who made McDonald’s an international chain. When it comes to encapsulating the decadence of the music industry, such pompous pretensions can hit all wrong. Shoving mold-breakers into the stodgy outlines of a biopic can result in losing the rebellious edge that made them such dazzling stars.

Continue reading ‘Creation Stories’ Offers A Stylish Take On The Familiar Rock Biopic Formula [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

Much can be said about Megan Mylan’s latest documentary “Simple As Water.” Yet, as its title insinuates, the film succeeds in its calculated minimalism. Cataloging the plight of four Syrian families in the aftermath of war, Mylan’s heartfelt exploration of human strife infuses informative insight with harrowing revelations. Still, it maintains an acutely cinematic approach to its narrative, a feat that separates the film from most modern documentaries.

Continue reading ‘Simple As Water’: The Strength Of Family Endures In The Aftermath Of War [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

Acclaimed photojournalist Gordon Parks was something of a renaissance man. A photographer, writer, composer, film director, and activist—he imbued the American Black experience with a sense of gravitas, esteem, and pathos through his Black gaze. Referencing Parks’ same-titled autobiography, director John Maggio’s “A Choice Of Weapons: Inspired By Gordon Parks” showcases the famed photographer’s work for a new generation but does little to elaborate on the man incisively. 

Continue reading ‘A Choice Of Weapons: Inspired By Gordon Parks’: Is Slightly Out Of Focus [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

It is tempting and totally incorrect to put Jamie Adams’ “Love Spreads” on a shelf next to Alex Ross Perry’s “Her Smell”: Both films center on petty, personal rifts expanding between members of all-women rock bands, and the former at first appears, like the latter, concerned with toxic lead singers cursed with too much ego after tasting success. But “Love Spreads” is about early success, the success that sets a band up for album number two, and all the pressure that comes from outputting a hit record and being expected to make another; characters act monstrously toward one another, yes, but the film is not a character study.

Continue reading ‘Love Spreads’: Eiza González & Alia Shawkat Consider What’s Worth Sacrificing To Make A Great Album [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

Easing back into moviemaking after the months-long covid shutdown seems like a mighty stressful proposition, and from the looks of the cast and crew credits for “No Sudden Move,” Steven Soderbergh decided to alleviate that stress by surrounding himself with people he knew. It’s a picture chock full of reunions: with his frequent star Don Cheadle, with Cheadle’s “Traffic” co-star Benicio del Toro, with Amy Seimetz (of the “Girlfriend Experience” TV adaptation), with Bill Duke of “High Flying Bird”; even Brendan Fraser was previously directed by Soderbergh, on a wonderful episode of the long-forgotten Showtime anthology series “Fallen Angels.” The script is by Ed Solomon, who penned the director’s HBO series “Mosaic”; the music is by his regular collaborator David Holmes; the producer is Casey Silver, who, as head of Universal Pictures, offered Soderbergh the picture that saved his career, “Out of Sight.” (And, of course, he’s again working with director of photography Peter Andrews and editor Mary Ann Bernard, wink wink.)

READ MORE: Summer 2021 Preview: Over 50 Movies To
Watch

Moreover, he’s revisiting his favorite genre, the crime picture.

Continue reading ‘No Sudden Move’: A Thrilling Yet Thoughtful Throwback From Steven Soderbergh [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

What would it be like to see your childhood friends rise to fame, scratch at fortune, then die tragically young, only to become googled curiosities and cautionary tales? This was the journey of Hamilton Chango Harris, who appeared alongside his real-life skater pals in Larry Clark’s 1995 hit, “Kids.” Now, Harris aims to rewrite the narrative of the late Justin Pierce and Harold Hunter with “The Kids,” a documentary that reveals disturbing behind-the-scenes secrets and their aftermath.

Continue reading ‘The Kids’ Aims To Rewrite The Tragic Narrative Of The Skate Teens In Larry Clark’s Notorious Film [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

Given the amount of nervousness, fear, and uncertainty many women face with the unpredictability of pregnancy—not to mention the strange-to-reckon-with fact that a small, separate being in a liquid sack is slowly incubating inside you—it’s a wonder there aren’t dozens of horror pregnancy films conceived every year. Ilana Glazer’s riff on this genre, “False Positive,” from A24 and Hulu, is born from the emotional turmoil that often accompanies pregnancy.

Continue reading ‘False Positive’: Ilana Glazer Tackles The Birth Industrial Complex In Satirical Gaslighting Pregnancy Horror [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

Like any other global event, there will come a time when COVID becomes a contextual landmark for art. It has a great deal of potential as a narrative shortcut for cinema in particular. Yet, it remains to be seen if audiences are ready to reminisce about a pandemic not yet fully behind them. “As of Yet” tests these waters with admirable boldness, using quarantine cabin fever, zoom happy hours, and socially distanced dating to tell an old story in a new way.

Continue reading ‘As Of Yet’ Asks Audiences How Soon Is Too Soon To Look Back On COVID? [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

Based, in part, on Father James Martin’s bestselling book “Building a Bridge: How the Catholic Church and LGBT Community Can Enter into a Relationship of Respect, Compassion, and Sensitivity,” Evan Mascagni and Shannon Post’s compassionate documentary “Building a Bridge” use Martin as an entry point into a larger discourse surrounding the relationship between the Catholic Church and the LGBTQ+ community. Mainly tracking Martin’s packed schedule, as he moves from interview to lecture to book signing, accruing equal parts admiration and scorn from various sects of the Church, Mascagni and Post’s film borders on the hagiographic.

Continue reading ‘Building A Bridge’: A Compassionate & Frustrating Exploration Of The Catholic Church & The LGBTQ+ Community [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

Reclaiming Beach Boys co-founder Brian Wilson’s voice and personal narrative, “Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road,” is an insightful but breezy introduction to the musical mastermind. Touching on everything from his early career to Beach Boys success and his drug use and mental illness, Brent Wilson and Jason Fine’s film may not reveal much about Wilson that isn’t covered in a Wikipedia article but still allows the musician to reclaim his own narrative.

Continue reading ‘Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road’: A Breezy But Surface Introduction To The Beach Boys Legend [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

Using Leonard Bernstein’s own voice, collected from his myriad interviews throughout his life, as well as personal letters, many of which were published in the 2013 book “The Leonard Bernstein Letters,” Douglas Tirola’s “Bernstein’s Wall” works as both a broad overview of the famous conductor’s life, as well as a deep dive into his political activism. Framed around Bernstein’s famous 1989 “Ode to Freedom” concert that coincided with the Fall of Berlin Wall – and saw Bernstein change Schiller’s “Ode to Joy” to reflect the word “Freedom” – Tirola’s documentary allows Bernstein to create a political bildungsroman, as he talks through his entangled interests of artistic creation and social change.

Continue reading ‘Bernstein’s Wall’: An Engrossing Dive Into The Famous Composer’s Political Activism [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

Reflective and stoic, sometimes to a fault, Levan Koguashvili’s film “Brighton 4th” explores the hyper-masculine world of Georgian wrestlers and gamblers in Brooklyn. Featuring a ruminative performance by former Olympic wrestler Lavan Tediashvili, as Kakhi, who travels from Tbilisi to  Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach to see his son Soso (Giorgi Tabidze), and try to dig him out a gambling debt, Koguashvili’s film is strongest when focusing on the eclectic immigrants that populate Brighton Beach, as well as Soso’s boarding house.

Continue reading ‘Brighton 4th’: Ruminative Character Study Explores The Georgian Community In Brighton Beach [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

Out of the darkness, some voices rise above the others. At the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival, director Josef Wladyka is that voice. The creator first made waves in 2014 when his debut “Manos Sucias” (Dirty Hands)—a harrowing narcos story concerning Colombian drug trafficking—netted Wladyka Tribeca’s jury award for Best Director. Since then, he’s helmed episodes of acclaimed television programs, such as “Narcos” and “Terror.” Wladyka returns to Tribeca with “Catch the Fair One,” a bristling, horrific thriller executive produced by Darren Aronofsky, concerning a Native American woman boxer who voluntarily enters a human trafficking ring to find her kidnapped younger sister.   

READ MORE: 2021 Tribeca Film Festival Preview: 15 Must-See Films To Watch & More

For two years, Kaylee aka… KO (Kali Reis, a real-life boxing world champion in the super lightweight and middleweight divisions) has been searching for her sister Weeta (Mainaku Borrero).

Continue reading ‘Catch The Fair One’: Josef Wladyka Delivers A Cathartic, Bloody Knock-Out & Instantly Becomes One To Watch [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

With its signature liveliness, unapologetic attitude, and visual splendor, New York City has so long been a set of romantic comedies that this location has become a cliché. So, how does Jonah Feingold, the writer/director of “Dating & New York,” aim to make his mark on this sparkling skyline? By creating a postmodern rom-com that blatantly snatches from iconic influences to deliver an irreverent commentary on the genre and modern romance.

Continue reading ‘Dating & New York’ Plays Like ‘When Harry Met Sally’ For Twenty-Something Millennials [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

Opening with the sound of crashing waves over a black screen before a grave voice begins narrating, “I guess when you consider it, life is chains,” the voice (of writer/director/actor Tyler Riggs) reflects.

Continue reading ‘God’s Waiting Room’ Pivots From Star-Crossed Romance Into A Shallow Exploration Of Pent-Up Machismo [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

You might know him best from Cameron Crowe’s seminal teenage road trip movie “Almost Famous.” Dressed replete in John Lennon glasses, long ink-black shaggy hair, and loud-open collar shirt, he is the editor from Rolling Stone Magazine who sends the intrepid Will on the road with the fictional band Stillwater. That man is Ben Fong-Torres. But the real personality, as with anything in Hollywood, runs starkly against the onscreen character.

Continue reading “Like A Rolling Stone: The Life & Times Of Ben Fong-Torres”: Is A Must-See For Music Lovers [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

Unlike recent Bundy projects (a’la 2019’s “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile”), the movie couches his forbidden allure in Hagmaier’s perspective.

Continue reading ‘No Man Of God’: Elijah Wood & Luke Kirby Explore Ted Bundy’s Corruptive Influence [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

Coming off their acclaimed documentary “Minding the Gap,” Joshua Altman and Bing Liu co-direct the searing, bracingly honest “All These Sons.”

Continue reading ‘All These Sons’: A Fitting Follow-up to Bing Liu’s ‘Minding the Gap’ [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

A man dressed as a Viking goes into a convenience store to trade furs for groceries; a trio of smugglers is on the verge of an escape across the border when a moose totals their car; a cop calls for a tracker dog, only to be told that it, “isn’t working today.” When asked what the hound could be doing, the other cop responds honestly, “No idea. It is a dog…dog stuff, I guess?” “Wild Men” has the accoutrement of an absurdist comedy, yet it uses these moments as ramps instead of the tricks themselves, launching into an exploration of mid-life ennui, fatherhood, and what it means to be a good husband in between the chuckles.

Continue reading ‘Wild Men’ Hides a Thoughtful Exploration of 21st Century Masculinity Inside Absurdist Chuckle-Fest [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

Indie anxiety auteur Jim Cummings’ work is always trembling nervously with the hum or uneasy apprehension. His brilliant debut, “Thunder Road” throbbed with the cringe-y tension of a grieving divorcee policeman on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and his follow-up, “The Wolf of Snow Hollow” layered murder mystery genre elements and the idea of the “toxic male beast within” on top of his signature jittery agitation.

Continue reading ‘The Beta Test’: Jim Cummings Tackles Douchebag Hollywood Agents In An Anxiety Horror About Being Canceled [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

Vanessa Kirby is fascinating to watch and follow in writer/director Adam Leon’s “Italian Studies,” a purposefully hazy but compelling survey of New York City and its young minds. The Academy Award nominee of “Pieces of a Woman” uses her celebrity presence among regular New Yorkers for something of a low-key “Under the Skin” as she wades through this crowded society with a blank slate perspective forcing us to see it all with the same new lens.

Continue reading ‘Italian Studies’: Vanessa Kirby Is Fascinating To Watch In Adam Leon’s Dreamy & Compelling Mood Piece [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

Narrative-averse portmanteau films are a tough nut to crack, yet not impossible. Richard Linklater made a name for himself in 1990 by hovering over a collection of Austin 20-somethings doing nothing in particular with “Slacker,” and it is this template that director Elisabeth Vogler seems to be following with her newest feature, “Roaring 20’s.” Yet where “Slacker” and others like it (“Coffee and Cigarettes” or even Linklater’s other stab at the genre, “Waking Life”) stitch their characters and segments together with common themes and recurring motifs, “Roaring 20’s” fails to connect its many dots, binding itself instead with a cinematography gimmick and little else.

Continue reading ‘Roaring 20’s’ Manages Little More Than a Purr, Failing to Stitch Together Anthology Set-Pieces Into Something More [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.

Gaysorn Thavat makes an electrifying feature directorial debut in “The Justice of Bunny King,” crafting a vivid portrait of a woman trapped by a tragic combination of circumstances, injustices, and bad instincts. The cameraperson-turned-filmmaker gets a big assist from star Essie Davis, playing a very different kind of stressed-out mother than in her breakthrough film, “The Babadook.” Together, the director and the star tell the tricky tale of a woman trying, with everything she has, to pull herself up out of poverty – and the impossibilities of that proposition.

Continue reading Essie Davis Is Potent & Powerful In The Wrenching ‘The Justice Of Bunny King’ [Tribeca Review] at The Playlist.