Screen Anarchy

Sundance 2024 Review: THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MAGICAL NEGROES, Surface-Deep Satire Flounders on Rom-Com Shores
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Filmmaker Spike Lee generally gets credit for inserting the “magical negro” phrase into pop culture more than two decades ago, but the idea itself dates back decades, if not longer. Coined to reflect the tradition in fiction or film of...
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Rotterdam 2024 Review: TENEMENT, A Haunted House With A Weak Foundation
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Tenement proves that a good ghost story can't get by on visuals alone. This Cambodian genre film by Inrasothythep Neth and Sokyou Chea deserves some praise because it is the rare horror effort out of that country. But when push...
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Rotterdam 2024 Review: HUNGRY GHOST DINER Offers A Feast For The Eyes And Soul
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Bonnie is the sole employee of a food truck, having fallen in love with cooking after a slightly magical-realist experience she had as a child. When she meets up with her estranged uncle, lines between life and death, dream and...
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Sundance 2024 Review: MY OLD ASS, Wise, Insightful, and Frequently Hilarious in Equal Part(s)
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The summer between the end of high school and for some, college, can be filled with an unequal combination of anxiety and anticipation. Anxiety of the unknown and anticipation of new and novel experiences, of new friends and new relationships,...
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Sundance 2024 Review: IN THE SUMMERS, Provocative, Heartbreaking Family Drama
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It’s not being provocative — at least not intentionally — to suggest families, biological and otherwise, can seriously f*ck you up. Parents can fail their children. Children can fail their parents. Whether realistic or the opposite, expectations in either direction...
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Rotterdam 2024: THE SOUL EATER Blends Police Procedural With Fantasy Horror
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When Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury stormed onto the scene with A L'Interieur it was with a promise that was central to the appeal of that film: "we are not gonna pull any punches". As important linchpins of the New...
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Sound And Vision: Jane Schoenbrun
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In the article series Sound and Vision we take a look at music videos from notable directors. This week we look at Lucy Dacus' Night Shift, directed by Jane Schoenbrun. It is no secret I identify as queer. This part...
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CLEARMIND Review: Taking an Axe to Therapy
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Nora (Rebecca Creskoff) is going through a rough patch. Still reeling from the loss of her young daughter and the breakup of her marriage, she’s trying out a new form of therapy to cope. Said therapy involves the annual tradition...
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INSHALLAH A BOY Review: A Situation To Crack Under
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Last year, the Cannes Film Festival crowds screened its first ever Jordanian film, and simultaneously, the debut of director Amjad Al Rasheed. Inshallah A Boy is about the hypocrisy of vultures in times of grief, the societal constraints of a...
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DRIVING MADELEINE (Une belle course) Review: A Life Less Ordinary
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Despite the somewhat misleading English title (the original name can be roughly translated as “a lovely ride”), Driving Madeleine by a French director Christian Carion, is not exactly what it seems and has some surprises stored. Carion, who is mostly...
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