Category: REVIEWS

A teenage girl named Nola (Sabrina Carpenter) grew up living out of a van with her charismatic father, Clint (Steven Ogg); two nomads against the world. When tragedy strikes, Nola must confront the reality of life on the road alone. She’ll need to take the wheel for the first time learning to own her grief, her past, and her new destination.

Ani Simon-Kennedy’s The Short History of the Long Road starts off simple enough as we see Nola and her father Clint going on road trips with one another. They stop by a local movie theatre, get pizza, and just live their lives the way they want to. If you were to tell me that within the span of an hour and thirty minutes, this film would take me on an emotional rollercoaster, I am not too sure I would have believed you. But alas, The Short History of the Long Road is the greatest film I’ve seen in a long, long time. It’s so full of life and wonder and deals with themes such as family and love in ways that were equal parts touching and heartbreaking.

Not only does Ani Simon-Kennedy direct the film excellently, but she also pens one of the quietest and thoughtful scripts in years. The development that is given to lead protagonist Nola is truly outstanding. Throughout the course of the film, we really do get to know who she is, and after watching it all, I genuinely felt like I knew her in some way.

This is a movie that, for some, will be considered boring because there really isn’t any big scene that propels the plot forward as you would expect. We often watch scene after scene of Nola working on fixing up her van, or her interacting with people she meets during her journey, and seeing the little steps were deeply appreciated. Some filmmakers would have told the story of this film in a much different way. Seeing what the movie was eventually building to caused me to get teary-eyed and swept away completely.

But without a doubt, my favorite aspect of the already excellent film was definitely Sabrina Carpenter’s lead performance as Nola. I have been a massive fan of Carpenter’s music ever since the release of her album Singular: Act I. Her music has meant something to me for a long time now. Apart from her singing career, Carpenter has previously starred in Disney shows such as Girl Meets World and other, more serious ventures like 2018’s The Hate U Give.

This is not only Carpenter’s best work as an actress yet, but one of the greatest performances of the year thus far. She feels one-hundred percent invested in this character and brings absolutely everything to the table. It would honestly be a massive shame if she doesn’t get tons of recognition come awards season. She needs to get an Oscar nomination.

Thanks to her wonderous work here, as well as the outstanding screenplay and direction from Ani Simon-Kennedy, The Short History of the Long Road is a captivating coming-of-age tale unlike anything you’ll ever see. It will keep you invested from the beginning all the way to the end of the road. Pun intended.

Biopics continue to garner significant attention from Oscar voters, but most adhere to a simplistic formula to highlight a singular marquee performance. Labeled as “Oscar Bait”, several (vaguely) true tales like Judy and The Darkest Hour failed to muster much passion from audiences despite bolstering commendable, award-winning performances at their core. While the latest biopic Shirley is unlikely to draw voter’s interest, it’s hypnotic and surrealist bend successfully subvert the tried and true genre. 

Shirley follows Rose (Odessa Young), a young professional stuck as the submissive wife to her aspiring husband Fred (Logan Lerman). When the couple moves to the house of Fred’s professor boss Stanley (Michael Stuhlbarg), Rose finds herself as the caretaker for his reclusive wife Shirley Jackson (Elisabeth Moss), an acclaimed author who discovers newfound inspiration from Rose’s company. 

Madeline’s Madeline Director Josephine Decker broke out with her uniquely audacious experimental edge, with her well-tuned perspective enhancing Shirley’s slight narrative. Decker’s camerawork intimately captures perspective, with freehand movements encapsulating emotion with impact. It’s great to see a filmmaker freely explore her central subject without adhering to a specific formula, using her unique techniques to tap into Shirley’s distorted mindset. 

The subversive edge Decker implements is visually vivid while also working effectively to capture Shirley’s writing process. Working in tandem with Sarah Gubbins’ thoughtfully-constructed screenplay, the duo offers interesting insights into Shirley’s relationship with Rose, whose lingering discontentment produces an ideal artistic muse for the acclaimed writer. Gubbins’ script is able to explore the complex relationship artists have with their inspirations, shrewdly leaving audiences guessing the legitimacy of Shirley’s attachments. 

Continuing her impressive streak of winning performances (Her Smell and Invisible Man), Elisabeth Moss encapsulates Shirley’s unique quirks to a tee while still portraying a sense of humanity under the surface.  Few actors utilize a sense of physicality like Moss, with showy, yet grounded, displays of emotion being endlessly captivating to witness. Dedicated character actor Michael Stuhlbarg paints Stanley with a biting acidic edge, evoking a charming disposition that conceals a creepy possessive edge. The chess matches that Moss and Stuhlbarg share on-screen are intoxicating, with Stanley trying (and failing) desperately to control Shirley’s cunning intellect. 

It’s bizarre to think that Shirley’s weakest link lies in its central protagonist. Odessa Young provides a sturdy performance as Rose, but the character (along with Lerman’s Fred) feels too-much like a symbolic archetype rather than a lived-in person. The moments where Young shares the screen with Moss are magnetic, but I was left wanting more time for their relationship to render (particularly in the third act, which features a jarring time jump before its inevitable conclusion). 

By defying standard biopic conventions, Shirley offers an inspired portrait well-turned with its protagonist’s inventive mindset.   

Manchild: The Schea Cotton Story – Review.

With some impressive filmmaking and a noble aim to tell the story of a worthy hero, this documentary’s message unfortunately becomes unclear due to lack of variety in sources, and perhaps a neglect of in-depth research.

As someone with a vague understanding of the NBA, I had never heard of Schea Cotton, leading one to believe the subject matter of this documentary to be very niche. Of course, an inspirational story can be applicable to any field, or a compelling drama can equally have wide spread appeal. Unfortunately, this film doesn’t quite reach the mark in either of these areas, so unless you are part of the niche group this film is aimed at, I believe you will find it fairly forgettable, and left with little more information than a quick Wikipedia search will give you. 

However, the beginning is very strong. The exposition was clear, the montage quickly switching between action shots and the talking heads was thrilling and fast paced. The original score by Anthony “L’S” Cruz is very cool, and sets up the mood, time and place well. This overlaid the fantastic cinematography of the opening credits, with our story’s hero in black and white and slow motion, and a backdrop of ocean, palm tress and city that sets us clearly in LA. Yet, after 20 minutes in, the film plateaus. It succeeds fully in it’s aim to show us how magnificently talented this young player was, but after that the film’s point is lost.   

The long interviewee list of popular American basketball players was impressive, but not entirely necessary. Even to true fans, I can imagine that the excitement of seeing a beloved star wears off after the first minute, and then we are left with too many people offering the same opinion, many with not enough close insight. I would rather have half the celebrities and instead have some controversial opinions, perhaps telling some ugly truths. I am still wondering why he didn’t make it to the NBA!

With so much praise and flattering archival footage, I am dumbfounded as to where his story went wrong. Perhaps that was the point, but from a filmmaking perspective, the story arch doesn’t make sense, there is no climax, no pivotal fight for our hero, no clear enemy. Did he get screwed over by the system? Did he choke under pressure? Did he peak too young? Rather than have the interviewees allude to these scenarios, show me some unflattering footage, or someone who had the power to draft him but didn’t, or someone who didn’t enjoy working with him. 

Additionally, I would have loved to have seen some footage of the drafting process that wasn’t action shots. Perhaps this was not available but I do feel that the creators of this documentary did not put enough effort into researching a variety of primary and secondary sources. 

The end of the film does come to a good resolve and hints at a nice message. I guess we can gain inspiration here from someone who was able to pick themselves up from a very public and unexpected disappointment, and still go on to live a full and meaningful life. But as someone who doesn’t really understand the gravitas of missing out on the NBA, the take-home was lost on me, thus bringing me back to my point on it being so niche.  

Nonetheless, this documentary shows filmmaking potential and I admire it’s aim to shine a spotlight on a forgotten champion, and would be interested to see more work from Eric ‘Ptah’ Herbert.

The King Of Staten Island: Review – Scott (Pete Davidson) has been a case of arrested development ever since his firefighter father died when he was seven. He’s now reached his mid-20s having achieved little, chasing a dream of becoming a tattoo artist that seems far out of reach. As his ambitious younger sister (Maude Apatow) heads off to college, Scott is still living with his exhausted ER nurse mother (Marisa Tomei) and spends his days smoking weed, hanging with the guys–Oscar (Ricky Velez), Igor (Moises Arias) and Richie (Lou Wilson)–and secretly hooking up with his childhood friend Kelsey (Bel Powley). But when his mother starts dating a loudmouth firefighter named Ray (Bill Burr), it sets off a chain of events that will force Scott to grapple with his grief and take his first tentative steps toward moving forward in life.

Judd Apatow’s filmography has been quite rocky these past few years. He has made some genuinely funny and investing films throughout the years such as The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up, but in recent years he has put out duds like Trainwreck and This Is 40. All in all, though, he is a talented filmmaker and can do a lot of good when it is obvious that he cares about the script and the story, and this is one of those movies. The King of Staten Island is exactly that movie for him. It’s his best movie in over a decade without question.

Filled with an infectious sense of energy and heart, it’s a comedy-drama film that is full of life and laughs. It’s genuinely hard to not smile widely at many of the scenes here. The screenplay is by far one of the funniest of the entire year thus far, with a lot of the jokes making me laugh out laugh, which is something that I don’t always do. The screenwriters, Apatow, star Pete Davidson, and Dave Sirus write hilarious situations for our lead characters to get into that were equal parts funny and stressful.

But aside from all of that, the best aspect to the entire picture was definitely Pete Davidson as the titular character himself, Scott. Just a couple of months ago, Davidson starred in an excellent coming-of-age film Big Time Adolescence where he delivered a terrific performance that was both serious and comedic. I was impressed greatly by his work there, but his work as Scott was even better. Here he feels totally in control of the screen and it almost feels as if this character was built for him. After watching the film, I truly cannot imagine another actor stepping into this role thanks to Davidson’s extreme energy and charisma. He also works extremely well with his co-stars, namely Marisa Tomei and Bill Burr. All of the cast come together to deliver some of the best performances of the year so far.

But as with any movie really, The King of Staten Island is not without its faults. For one, the running time is a little bit too long. It’s not every day that you see a comedy-drama film such as this with a total length of one-hundred and thirty-six minutes, and here, you will definitely feel the length. For the first hour and a half or so, the pacing felt relatively smooth and fluent, but from that point onward, it felt as if it had outstayed its welcome.

In addition to that, I found that the comedic aspect of the film had taken a backseat towards the third act. It was nowhere near as funny as the two acts proceeding it, but it’s not a massive issue or anything. The third act favors more dramatic elements and while the tonal shift was uneven, I did ultimately appreciate the dramatic shift. This is easily Judd Apatow’s best movie since Knocked Up. He feels totally confident this time around which is something that we haven’t seen from him in a while.

The King of Staten Island showcases a wonderful performance from Pete Davidson that is further boosted by the greatly comedic and mostly well-paced screenplay.

Social media’s superficial embrace of confectionery realities often dominates millennial’s attention, as well as garnering the interest of some well-tuned filmmakers. Indie efforts like Ingrid Goes West, Assassination Nation, and Disconnect have aptly encapsulated the shallow thrills of these platforms, developing thoughtfully-constructed critiques that are equally timely and impactful. The latest venture to utilize the fame-obsessed culture of social media is Infamous, a twist on the Bonnie and Clyde formula that proves to be just as vapid as the generation it condemns.

Infamous follows Arielle (Bella Thorne), a wistful teen who spends her days glued to her phone hoping to become a famous fixture. When she meets ex-convict Dean (Jake Manley), the two find themselves on the run after an accidental crime, robbing their way across America while posting their exploits on social media.

Star Bella Thorne has displayed glimmers of acting ability, but Infamous is the first feature where she grabs the reins. Playing Arielle as a vivacious teen discontented with her simplistic life, Thorne imbues the role with a rebellious spirit and sharp edge that grabs the screen, energetically chewing the scenery while keeping audiences on their toes. Her abrasive persona is well-matched by director Joshua Caldwell’s stylistic bend, with the inclusion of frenzied camerawork and wistful pop tracks capturing Arielle and Dean’s sporadic rise to fame.

Infamous has style and energy to spare, but it lacks the wherewithal to execute its conceptually promising nucleus. Unlike 2019’s emotionally moving Queen and Slim, Caldwell’s screenplay does little to reinvent its narrative origins, following the “lovers on the run” plotline with no interesting deviations. It doesn’t help that the dialogue feels excruciatingly obvious, with the characters awkwardly spelling out their every whim and desire.

This over-simplification also impacts our controversial central figures. While I give Thorne credit for making Arielle entertaining to follow, the character is derived from any complexion or emotionality, with her psychotic pursuit of fame and attention making her read as a cartoonishly bitter edge lord. Jake Manley holds his own as Dean, but his role as Arielle’s wet blanket voice of reason gives the actor very little to work with. I am fine with central characters being wholly unlikable, but Caldwell misses the opportunity to densely analyze the conditions that form their personas.

It’s clear to see where Infamous attempts to indict social media culture, but Caldwell seems over his head in creating a thematically enriched message. Any attempt to poke fun at media’s penchant for titillating actions fails to connect, with his established world being too far-fetched from the world we live in. To act as if brutally violent crimes against innocent people would become a celebrated phenome rather than a condemned reality feels diluted, with Caldwell’s script viewing the platform from the most jaded light rather than having a nuanced take.

Infamous has the bones to be the next searing portrait of our social media-obsessed culture, but its stylistic presentation fails to hide the film’s meager substantive value.