Screen Anarchy

Emily is making a documentary about reconnecting with her estranged mother, Sam. Emily was removed from their home and put in foster care because of her mother’s addiction. Years later, Sam wants to reconnect. She’s cleaned up and kicked her addiction. She wants to be a part of Emily’s life once again. With her cinematographer Danny by her side, Emily heads to her hometown of Las Cruces, New Mexico.    Everything seems on the level. Sam invites them into her home, has dinner with them and tries to prove that she has turned her life around. The next day she disappears and is nowhere to be found. Emily and Danny search for her and soon learn that Las Cruces has become a place where the…

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com…]

Lily Collias, James LeGros, and Danny McCarthy star in director India Donaldson’s piercing drama.

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com…]

Directed by Soi Cheang, the Hong Kong action extravaganza is packed with martial arts legends and rising stars from Sammo Hung and Louis Koo to Philip Ng and Raymond Lam.

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com…]

R.J. Daniel Hanna’s tense thriller stars Brendan Bradley, Rachel Cook, Rosanna Arquette, and Ron Perlman.

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com…]

Hunter Schafer, Jessica Henwick, and Dan Stevens star in Tilman Singer’s thriller.

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com…]

Screendaily shared the news that Ant Timpson’s Bookworm, the story of an absent father who reunites with their daughter to get proof of a mythical beast, has won the Audience Award for this year’s edition of Fantasia.    Bookworm was the opening film of this year’s festival and stuck a chord with the Fantasia audience early, a crowd that still had two and half weeks to find another champion. They did not. The three-hour French epic, The Count of Monte-Cristo took the silver and American cringe punk comedy Rats! took the bronze prize.    Self Driver was voted the top Canadian feature, A Samurai in Time was voted Best Asian Feature, and Kidnapping Inc. the Haitian/Canadian caper comedy won Best Quebecois Feature. That last one…

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com…]

It’s the 1920s in Northern China and prized student Qi Quan returns to their martial arts academy. He is there to participate in a formal duel, for leadership of the academy. He will fight Shen An, son of the academy’s ailing master. Qi wins the match and with their master’s last breath he assumes leadership of the martial arts school. Shen is displeased with the outcome and will do whatever it takes to win back leadership at the school.   Internal and social politics complicate the matter, as do a father’s wishes for his son to leave the martial arts world. Add to that growing love interests for both combatants and the rumor that there is a special skill that Qi Quan had not been…

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com…]

Here in the States, we are very much enjoying your raucous Northern Irish film Kneecap, which our own Olga Artemyeva described as “bold, entertaining and boisterous – both as a cinematic piece and as a statement. It is also genuinely hilarious.” Frankly, we don’t have anything homegrown to offer in return, so may I recommend something completely different? Now playing in UK and Ireland, Hayao Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro is a perfect picture to watch in a cinema, where you can become enraptured by the gorgeous animation and delightful story: “Two girls move to the country to be near their ailing mother” and “have adventures with the wondrous forest spirits who live nearby,” according to an official synopsis. So, just like Kneecap, only with less…

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com…]

Celebrating its tenth anniversary, Popcorn Frights Film Festival kicks off Thursday night with the world premiere of Beezel and the Florida premiere of Strange Darling. The festival will be a hybrid experience, presenting both in-theater and virtual film offerings, running August 8-18. Beezel is described in the official release as “an unforgiving and utterly frightening morality tale about a cursed home and the sinister secret dwelling beneath its floors –an eternal witch with an insatiable thirst for the souls of the living,” while Strange Darling “is told in a non-linear way that keeps the viewers on their toes,” according to our own Olga Artemyeva in her Fantastic Fest review last year. The film “is decidedly devoid of anything that is unfun or boring, including possible…

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com…]

In the article series Sound and Vision we take a look at music videos from notable directors. This week: Bright Eyes’ Bells and Whistles, directed by Josh Boone. Josh Boone’s works have never clicked for me. The Fault in Our Stars feels like a weird ode to romantic dramas with an illness theme like Dying Young, Turkish Delight, The Notebook and the perennial godfather of the genre, Love Story, that adds a youthful glow to the notion of dying young. It feels like a bad taste film that is offensive to people with cancer ánd victims of World War II. The scene in which the American teens make the suffering of Anne Frank somehow all about them speaks to how utterly misguided the film is….

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com…]