Recovery — Mallory Everton and Stephen Meek’s astonishing road trip comedy about the early days of the pandemic — cinematizes the phrase “someday you’ll look back at this and laugh.”
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REVIEW: ‘Castlevania’s’ (2021) Final Season Is a Fitting End to the Best Video Game Adaptation
Castlevania nearly hits a home run with a satisfying conclusion that only has a couple of bumps along the way.
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REVIEW: Chino Moya’s ‘Undergods’ (2021) is a Humorously Bleak Sci-fi Warning of a Future Already Here
Undergods firmly wants you to feel every inch of its bizarre horror landscape of a future that might not only be around the corner but is already here.
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Top of the Docs #50 – The Gleaners and I (2000)
The Gleaners and I is a film not just revolutionary for its ground-breaking use of handheld digital cameras, but also for the way in which Varda set about making the film.
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‘Tigers are Not Afraid’ (2017): Ghosts, Wishes, and Tigers Tell the Story of Five Children Amidst a Drug War
A young boy named Shine (Juan Ramon Lopez) stands in an alleyway, spray-painting a tiger on the walls. The black paint drips fresh as a narrator tells the story of a prince. This month’s highlighted film on Shudder for Women in Horror is Tigers Are Not Afraid (Vuelven) (2017), written and directed by Issa Lopez. It’s a story about five Mexican children whose lives have been devastated by the ongoing drug war. When Estrella’s (Paola Lara) teacher gives her three magic pieces of chalk that grant her three wishes, the children’s lives drastically change into a game of cat and mouse.
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Top of the Docs #49 – El sol del membrillo (1992)
Despite not holding the soothing influence of Bob Ross throughout its runtime, El sol del membrillo is perhaps the defining documentary about painting.
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‘Melancholia’ (2011) and How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Planet
How Lars Von Trier portrays mental illness as a superpower in Melancholia.
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REVIEW: ‘Here Are the Young Men’ (2021) Is A Vibrant Exploration of Youth Violence and Addiction
Here Are the Young Men depicts the downfall of three teenage boys who find themselves immersed in a world full of drugs and alcoholism.
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Five Years Later: Sophia Takal’s ‘Always Shine’ (2016) and the Horror of Being Trapped in Performance
While film history contains many portrayals of backstabbing women on the verge of a breakdown, Always Shine offers the idea that the terrifying thing isn’t women themselves but rather the limiting roles society provides for them (along with the disastrous results they lead to).
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REVIEW: ‘Apples’ (2020) a Wonderfully Absurdist Take on Human Existence
While it was ultimately not nominated for the 93rd Academy Awards, Apples is a film that’ll linger in your memory, even long after you’ve forgotten its name.
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