Crooked Marquee's New York Film Festival 2020 Diary
As an outside-the-box New York Film Festival draws to a close, some thoughts on its highlights, including ‘Nomadland,’ ‘On the Rocks,’ ‘French Exit,’ ‘MLK/FBI,’ ‘I Carry You With Me,’ ‘Hopper/Welles,’ and more.
Monica Castillo's TIFF 2020 Diary
A very unusual dispatch from a very unusual Toronto International Film Festival.
Crooked Marquee’s True/False Film Fest 2020 Diary
The True/False documentary film festival is like Disneyland for non-fiction filmmaking. For one weekend every year, the small college town of Columbia, Missouri becomes a magical place where anything is possible. Renowned filmmakers rub elbows with college students, bartenders and farmers. High...
Crooked Marquee's Sundance 2020 Wrap-Up
After approximately 77 days of hyperventilating Twitter reaction reviews and 76 days of people complaining about hyperventilating Twitter reaction reviews, the 2020 Sundance Film Festival has drawn to a close. You, the Crooked Marquee reader, are of course well-versed in the festival’s...
Eric D. Snider's 2020 Sundance Diary
MOVIES:Black BearBoys StateDream HorseEmaThe FatherThe GloriasHerselfHis HouseJumboKajillionaireMinariMiss AmericanaNever Rarely Sometimes AlwaysNine DaysPossessorRelicSpreeSummertimeTeslaTimeUncle FrankWendyZola Day 1: Thursday, Jan. 23 Gird your loins (if you have them; I do not presume to...
Sundance Review: Palm Springs
At this point, the “Help, I’m trapped in a time loop!” premise has become a Hollywood staple — don’t forget that we have not one, but two Happy Death Day movies out there to enjoy. The concept has become prevalent for good reason, as it presents an easy-to-understand structure combined...
Sundance Review: Kajillionaire
Kajillionaire is writer-director Miranda July’s first feature film in nine years, and while it’s set in the present day, you’d be forgiven for thinking the movie is a lost film from over 20 years ago. So much of the ‘90s indie film aesthetic can be seen here: Characters are dressed mostly...
Review: Cupid
Christmas-themed horror movies have become a thriving subgenre in recent years, providing micro-budget horror filmmakers with easy subject matter and plenty of options for pun-friendly titles. So why shouldn’t Valentine’s Day get the same holiday horror treatment? Writer-director Scott Jeffrey...
Sundance Review: The Night House
Horror filmmakers love to build stories filled with outrageous furnishings, but any lasting power their movies have is due to how hard they strike a core, internal fear. The Night House is a movie that, like the mazes referenced in the film’s plot, has a lot of dead ends and wild turns, but at...
Review: The Rest of Us
If nothing else, the low-key Canadian drama The Rest of Us makes a surprisingly strong case for Heather Graham as a dramatic actor. Graham is affecting and understated as children’s-book author Cami, whose life is thrown into mild chaos when her ex-husband dies suddenly. Cami lives a peaceful...
Sundance Review: Worth
Worth begins with a lighthearted, dynamic, Aaron Sorkin-esque scene that sees lawyer Ken Feinberg (Michael Keaton) introducing his class to the world of life insurance and class-action lawsuits. He assigns each student a role in a hypothetical scenario wherein a man’s life must be compensated...
Review: VHYes
I never had a TV set in my room when I was growing up, so I’d have to sneak past my parents’ bedroom door, creep down the thickly carpeted stairs, and quietly settle into the ugly plaid couch in the family room (in New Jersey) or the basement (in Nebraska) when I had trouble sleeping. There...
Review: Troop Zero
In 1977, NASA scientists put out the word that they'd be recording greetings from people from around the world and sending them (the recordings) into space to welcome any potential aliens who happened by. That announcement is the jumping-off point for Troop Zero, an utterly delightful family comedy...
REVIEW: Ford v Ferrari
There are no legal skirmishes in Ford v Ferrari. The battles between the automakers take place in boardrooms, racetracks, and other places where men have car-measuring contests. Directed by James Mangold, who brought similar confidence to Walk the Line and 3:10 to Yuma, this is a smooth,...