Love is one of the most powerful forces in the universe. It’s been the subject of some of the best films ever made for good reason, as it’s something that can grab hold of not just your desires, but your very soul as you search for meaning in a life where it can otherwise be lacking.  In American filmmaker Graham Parkes’ feature debut, Wishful Thinking, this is made literal as it paints a portrait of a couple, Lewis Pullman’s Charlie and Maya Hawke’s Julie, whose life in the beautifully-shot Portland, Oregon is about to be upended by the discovery that […]

Source

A lo-fi sci-fi road trip film that reaffirms the magic of discordant personalities finding harmony, director Brian Tetsuro Ivie’s Anima is at once earthy and spiritual. It focuses on Beck (Sydney Chandler), who, on the first day of a new job, is assigned to accompany Paul (Takehiro Hira) to a facility for an end-of-life procedure. Paul has decided to upload his consciousness into a cloud system, which means that anyone who wishes can visit a digitized version of himself. What is thought to be a straightforward journey becomes an existential winding road, as Paul frequently diverts Beck from their course […]

Source

Whether Doctor Frankenstein likes it or not, the zombie story has always belonged to women. Ever since teenaged political radical Mary Shelley (daughter of feminist pioneer Mary Wollstonecraft) poured her maternal anguish into the party game ghost story that eventually became Frankenstein, this cultural lodestar has come heavy with feminine, not to mention feminist, valences. Perhaps it’s no wonder, then, that when Elsa Lanchester rose from the dead in 1935, screaming her way off the slab and quickly back into the grave again in James Whale’s Bride of Frankenstein, she herself birthed countless generations of rictus rebel daughters in under […]

Source

These are overwhelming times, and disappointment is everywhere. Wouldn’t it be nice to just get away from it all with a nifty procedure and an automated assistant to take care of things? Tempting as the fantasy sounds, Alex Prager’s sci-fi drama DreamQuil offers a counterpoint: how much humanity will we stand to lose in the pursuit of happiness? The more we give up our responsibilities and human messiness to A.I., the more we risk losing the very connections that mean the most to us.  In Alex Prager’s feature debut, Carol (Elizabeth Banks) is stuck indoors with her doting husband (John […]

Source

It only took 10 movies, but Paul Thomas Anderson is now, finally, an Oscar winner—a three-time winner in one night no less, with One Battle After Another picking up a total of six Academy Awards including best picture, director, supporting actor, adapted screenplay, editing, and casting.  Anderson accepted the top prize with producer Sara Murphy. In his speech, Anderson invoked the five best picture nominees from 50 years ago: Barry Lyndon, Dog Day Afternoon, Jaws, Nashville, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. “There is no best among them,” said Anderson. “There is just what that mood might be that […]

Source