Life Is A Film Fest

Dawn Porter’s LUTHER: NEVER TOO MUCH is beautiful and sad. It has a treasure trove of great looking (and sounding) archival material. It starts with Vandross’ upbringing in NYC and covers his time as a backup singer and producer for the likes of David Bowie, Dionne Warwick, and Aretha Franklin and his tremendous solo career. […]

Mira Shaib’s ARZÉ is a contemporary Lebanese riff on Bicycle Thieves. It takes a poor mother and son’s stolen scooter as a starting point to comment on the prejudices and animosities of people from different religions, sects, and nationalities towards one another. The struggles of the disadvantaged are always stressful to watch, especially if they […]

If you are interested in electronic music, you’ll find a lot to like in DESIRE: THE CARL CRAIG STORY about the Detroit techno legend. It has insight from many colleagues and other important people in Craig’s life. The documentary is more interested in him as a person and his life in Detroit than the music […]

DON’T YOU LET ME GO from directors Leticia Jorge and Ana Guevara is a wonderful little film in which Adela, who just lost her best friend Elena, boards a bus to travel in time and spends one last weekend with her, their mutual friend Luci, and Luci’s infant son Paco by the beach. Building up […]

Dana Flor’s 1-800-ON-HER-OWN is a very intimate documentary that showcases the successes as well as the struggles and insecurities of the DIY artist Ani DiFranco. It chronicles the queer singer-songwriter’s career from the 90s to today and captures her on stage, on the road, and at home. There is plenty of good music. We witness […]

Give me a good neo-noir any day and I’ll eat it up. In Jeffrey Reiner’s LAKE GEORGE, ex-convict Shea Whigham has to kill his boss’ girlfriend Carrie Coon if he wants to stay alive. Together they make for a very entertaining duo and Coon especially shines as this firecracker of a character. There is also […]

Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s THE DEVIL’S BATH is slow burn psychological horror that gets increasingly more disturbing. Even though it has the appearance of folk horror at first, it is less interested in the supernatural and more on the effects of religious extremism on the psyche. Not for audiences looking for quick thrills, but […]

Absolutely loved the humor in Michael Angarano’s road movie SACRAMENTO starring himself, Michael Cera, Kristen Stewart, and Maya Erskine, where two estranged old friends reconnect on a car ride from LA to Sacramento. Stewart and Erskine were delightful in the limited screen time they got, but the film is about Cera and Angarano’s characters and […]

Watched two of the funniest films of the year back to back at Tribeca. The first one was Nicholas Colia’s feature debut GRIFFIN IN SUMMER, an adorable coming-of-age comedy with 14-year-old wannabe playwright Griffin, played with utmost confidence by newcomer Everett Blunck. There are also wonderful turns from Owen Teague, Kathryn Newton, and Abby Ryder […]

Premiering in the Midnight section of Tribeca, Roxy Shih’s BEACON is an intense psychological thriller horror fans should seek out. It is a two-person chamber piece with the great Demián Bichir and Julia Goldani Telles. A young sailor is rescued by the lighthouse keeper on a deserted island and she is not sure what his […]