REVIEWS
Post-film thoughts.
Clayface: A Man Unmade
Matt’s face droops, melts, bleeds, bubbles, and molds itself into all kinds of shapes in ways that turn the audience’s stomach. Despite the film's low budget, Watkins and his team knew exactly where to focus their priorities, bringing to life the horror that is Clayface.
Primetime: To Catch A White Whale
Hansen’s hunger for his White Whale jumpstarts the loss of himself. He goes on a Dantean journey into Hell, but it is unclear whether he came out the other side. In his desperation, Hansen’s world begins to fracture at its seams during his mad dash to capture the final predator, calling into question who the real predator is.
Digger: Art Won’t Save You
Through rotating podiums and rotting walls, the stage of fools is brilliantly pulled apart piece by piece as Cruise delivers a strikingly smarmy diegetic indictment of our complacency. Iñárritu doesn’t just bend the landscape of Digger Rockwell’s reality, he reaches through the screen and throttles you in the very theater you’re sitting in, punishing you for cackling at the very jokes he’s serving you.
You Can See Everything: Looking Evil in the Eye
You Can See Everything is absolutely enthralling. It is the ultimate car crash that you can’t look away from. As soon as you think you know what’s going on, Holmes, Evans, or Fielder himself rips the rug right out from under you.
Lanterns: DC’s Brightest Day
Chandler and Pierre bring something stunningly authentic to their roles. In this adaptation, they are not written to perfectly match their comic counterparts, however, each actor embraces and embodies the character crafted for him. Lanterns gives us another iconic, impactful duo who grow exponentially and then are gone too soon from our screens.
Sunburn: The Warmth of Youth
The film is nostalgic, yet keeps moving forward. By forcing all of its characters outside with no access to an online world, it feels like it could be happening in any era. They wander the streets, play a day-long game of Manhunt, chase after the ice cream truck, bask in the sun, and have a water balloon fight all while coming to terms with the end of a chapter in their lives.
Littermates: A Makeshift Family
Inspired by their own family dynamics, Tinkham and Woloson successfully captured the silly and trivial aspects of growing up along with the deeply profound relationship only found between siblings. They bicker, they fight, they get into trouble together, and they work together despite constantly butting heads.
Vintage Violence: Doing It for the Views
Seemingly fascinated with the intersection of performance and reality, Vintage Violence is one of the few entries in recent years that feels truly entrenched in online culture. Kotlyarenko approaches the subject not with an intention of warning, but an understanding that the online world is part of our reality just as anything else. Every detail, down to the individual users in Carter’s livestream chat, feel deeply human and all too real.
Resident Evil: Achievement Unlocked
In Resident Evil, Cregger and his co-writer Shay Hatten ask how far you would go to avoid an inevitable change. Would you run and hide? Stand, fight, and survive? Perhaps you won’t know until you’re backed into a corner and forced to make the decision, wasting ammo, energy, and precious time.
Jollyface: White Guilt and Black Crimes
The reveal that the police deliberately dismissed the case is where Jollyface finds its sharpest edge—particularly the moment Blair watches the footage herself and realizes the cover-up wasn't negligence, it was a choice. The system didn't fail Nick. It worked exactly as intended.
River: Terror Downstream
The story of the film itself is nothing to write home about, but really, who is watching a slasher for a hero’s journey? We’re all here for the thrills, and River delivers.
Stuffed: Still Life
Melling and Comer prove themselves as all-rounders in both their acting and singing abilities, the film almost entirely a two-person show, while Rhys establishes his filmmaking talent. The journey he takes the viewer on is one of accepting both life and death. Stuffed is about love as preservation. It is looking at preserving not only the body, but the human spirit as well.
Coyote vs. Acme: Sisyphus is Happy
It is through this seemingly never-ending legal proceeding that Wile E. Coyote, Kevin, and Paige realize that maybe winning the case, catching the Road Runner, keeping the boulder at the top of the hill, isn't their real goal. Perhaps the goal itself is the chase, the hill, and the journey.
Furious: No Perfect Victims
Furious delivers on the public’s increasing and incredibly valid dislike of cops and federal agents alike. It asks, who does the law, created by a racist patriarchy, actually serve and protect? It demonstrates how someone unprotected can instead serve her own interests, because that’s the only way she will ever find justice.
The Odyssey: A Homeric Reckoning
Where Homer celebrates Odysseus as a hero returned, Nolan admonishes him as a harbinger of death. As heartbreaking as it is harrowing, the writer-director pulls on the thematic foundations of Tenet (2020) and Oppenheimer (2023) and once again asks the audience to reckon with one man’s destruction of the world.
The Invite: Wilde’s Triumphant Return
Helped along by excellent performances from each of the four actors, the film weaves an elaborate game of push and pull through both poignant moments and hilarious banter that keeps you on the edge of your seat.
The Violinist: On War and The Sound of Music
Marking the first time that a Singaporean production not only won the award but took part in the Festival, The Violinist won the hearts of the Annecy jury through its blending of intense orchestration and a tense love story across the backdrop of the Japanese occupation of Singapore.
Tangles: A Poetic Tale of Hope and Grief
Capturing the heart-wrenching weight of every interaction between Sarah and her mother, the film lets the emotion take over through subtle changes in everyday situations, without forcing it upon its audience.
Minions & Monsters: Keeping Hollywood Alive
Minions & Monsters is not the first to point to Old Hollywood, but it’s particularly resonant as viewers find joy and amusement in the idea of these lovable little creatures so intentionally recreating scenes that are otherwise considered serious moments of cinematic history.
The Bear Season 5: One Last Service
With the whole season (barring the last episode) taking place over the course of one day, the beloved restaurant and its found family of chefs find themselves faced with the worst conditions any operating business can have. The business is running on empty, how much worse can it get for the crew? Season 5 is one last adrenaline-filled ride in the restaurant, wrapping up each character beautifully with wholesome endings.