Hammer to Nail

Rising filmmaker Alessandra Lacorazza made waves at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival with her debut feature, In the Summers. The poignant coming-of-age drama, which follows two sisters’ complex relationship with their father over four summer visits, captivated audiences and critics...

(We here at Hammer to Nail are all about true independent cinema. But we also have to tip our hat to the great films of yesteryear that continue to inspire filmmakers and cinephiles alike. This week Brad Cook dives into...

In her documentary Black Box Diaries, journalist Shiori Itô takes on her most courageous, risky assignment yet – investigating her own sexual assault. The film, which premiered at Sundance, recounts the director’s harrowing experience of rape by a prominent journalist...

File this one under books that kill [see The Babadook, the tome in Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose, or certain limited editions of Stephen King’s Firestarter apparently bound in asbestos (went down a rabbit hole this morning)].  Danny...

What did Louis Armstrong, Nina Simone, John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, and other jazz musicians have to do with the CIA? Director Johan Gimonprez gives a mindblowing, yet jazzy account of the hidden connection between these famous figures and the agency’s...

It’s not every day you’d witness world leaders encounter a giant brain and muddy zombies in a deep, dark forest. But that’s just the surface of what directors Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, and Galen Johnson have conceived in their political...

Argentinian director Luis Ortega (El Angel) just premiered his latest film, Kill the Jockey, at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival—aka TIFF—where I reviewed it. The movie follows the titular horse rider, Remo (Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, BPM), as he navigates the treacherous terrain of...

Argentinian director Luis Ortega (El Angel) just premiered his latest film, Kill the Jockey, at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival—aka TIFF—where I reviewed it. The movie follows the titular horse rider, Remo (Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, BPM), as he navigates the treacherous terrain of...

French filmmaker Coralie Fargeat burst onto the international cinema scene with her audacious debut feature, Revenge (2017), a visceral and stylish take on the rape-revenge thriller that subverted genre expectations. Known for her bold visual style and unflinching approach to...

Australian director Jennifer Kent directed her first feature, The Babadook, in 2014. That supernatural horror film proved extremely effective at externalizing both grief and a mother’s worst fears about parenting. Starring Essie Davis (Babyteeth) as that mom, Amelia, a widow...