Life Is A Film Fest

Taking its name from the Sonic Youth song that plays over its end credits, Urška Djukić’s LITTLE TROUBLE GIRLS is a lyrical portrayal of sexual awakening and frustration in Slovenian countryside.  Beautifully shot mostly in close-ups of its talented young actresses’ faces, it follows teenager Lucija (Jara Sofija Ostan) as she becomes close friends with […]

Everything’s Going To Be Great, Jon S. Baird’s follow-up to Tetris, is a funny 80s-set drama about a theater family. It reunites Allison Janney with I, Tonya screenwriter Steven Rogers, who helped her win an Oscar for that film.  As expected Bryan Cranston and Janney are great, but young actor Benjamin Evan Ainsworth is the […]

Tina Romero picks up the baton from her father and delivers QUEENS OF THE DEAD, a vibrant and campy queer zombie horror set in Brooklyn.  She assembles a fantastic ensemble cast led by Katy O’Brian and lets them have some gory fun for an hour and forty minutes. The synth score and house-heavy soundtrack is […]

Writer/director/actor/violist Isabel Hagen effortlessly comes up with so many awkwardly funny moments in her debut ON A STRING, I started wondering how it is possible I hadn’t heard of her before.  Since her character is a violist named Isabel, I assume that the film is based at least partially on her own experiences. Isabel in […]

The Trainer, a collaboration between director Tony Kaye (American History X) and co-writer/lead Vito Schnabel, is a highly stylized collage of comedy and chaos set in Los Angeles.  Schnabel and Julia Fox are well-matched and there are memorable turns from Steven Van Zandt, Beverly D’Angelo, Lenny Kravitz, Taylour Paige, John McEnroe, and cameos from a […]

Three quarters into David Mackenzie’s RELAY with Riz Ahmed and Lily James, it was on its way to becoming one of my favorite thrillers of the year. Then the script stumbled and fell apart.  I loved the real NYC locations, the anti-corporate theme, the chemistry between Ahmed and James, and the overall neo-noir feel of […]

Written by its lead Samantha Smart and directed and edited by Libby Ewing, CHARLIEBIRD is a highly affecting indie drama set in Texas depicting the friendship between Al, a music therapist at a children’s hospital, and Charlie (Gabriela Ochoa Perez), a 17-year-old patient.  Al tries to deal with past trauma by helping her patients, but […]

Chris Merola’s bawdy coming-of-age comedy LEMONADE BLESSING is awkward and uncomfortable to watch in the best possible way. It is also a hoot.  Catholic high schooler John (Jake Ryan) is crazy about his classmate Lilith (Skye Alyssa Friedman), who challenges him to commit acts he would consider sacrilege in the name of love. Conflicts arise […]

Not everything is going that well for Ace, the protagonist of $ECK’s NYC film SO FAR ALL GOOD. We follow the hustler, who just got out of jail, as he tries to contact his MIA girlfriend Maya and make some much needed money, and confronts many characters along the way.  It is shot using a […]

Rick Gomez’s feature directorial debut SHE DANCES, which he co-write with Steve Zahn, just had its World Premiere at the Tribeca Festival. It stars Steve and Audrey Zahn, Mackenzie Ziegler, Sonequa Martin-Green, and Ethan Hawke.  The father-daughter road movie about family, loss, and friendship is truly hilarious and equally tear inducing. The film belongs to […]