Ready Player One (2018) Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One has been recommended to me for years. Everyone raved about the fast pace, great action, and heavy nostalgia factor that made it a bestseller. Problem with most bestsellers is, I… Continue Reading
It’s rare I actually catch all foreign language Oscar nominees for a given year. I just finished 2014 two weeks back, but somehow I caught 4 out of 5 of 2017’s nominees in theaters with On Body and Soul being… Continue Reading
Isle of Dogs (2018) Isle of Dogs initially gave me concern. Could Wes Anderson duplicate Fantastic Mr Fox? And could he bring even more out of a claymation story? He did guys. Maybe because Roald Dahl nostalgia won’t be… Continue Reading
The Death of Stalin (2018) The Oscar nominated In the Loop, a modern political satire with acclaimed performances from Doctor Who’s Peter Capaldi and The Soprano’s James Gandolfini, slipped in the 2009 adapted screenplay lineup filled with a slate of… Continue Reading
Thoroughbreds (2018) Corey Finley, writer and director of the high class balancing act in Thoroughbreds, presents a tremendous debut for a playwright inexperienced in the world of film. In his film, Amanda (Olivia Cooke), an emotionless teenager in limbo due… Continue Reading
A Wrinkle in Time (2018) The low scores from iMDb are a bit absurd, but then again, user reviews are rarely representative of the actual film and are reactions mostly from people who hate what a film is. In Ava… Continue Reading
November (2018) Part Monty Python, part Lars von Trier, Estonian Oscar submission November is a movie that will just make you say, “What?” Based on Andrus Kivirähk’s novel Rehepapp ehk November (Old Barny aka November), this story follows a 19th… Continue Reading
Tangerines (2014) Before Sean Baker’s Tangerine became one of my new Christmas classics, an Estonian film became the first foreign language nominee in the country’s history with the Chechen war-looming drama Tangerines. In Zaza Urushadze’s story of conflicting cultures–Estonians, Georgians… Continue Reading
Nobody Knows (2004) If The Florida Project didn’t bum you out quite enough, Hirokazu Koreeda’s Nobody Knows might do the trick. After Akira (Yûya Yagira) and his mother Keiko (an actress named You) greet the landlord’s at their new complex.… Continue Reading
Sami Blood (2017) The Sami people of northern Sweden’s Lappland region raise reindeer to this day, but much like most indigenous peoples, the history of racial discrimination and cultural misunderstanding are lain bare in Sami Blood. When Christina (Maj-Doris Rimpi)… Continue Reading