Slamdance 2022 Film Festival - Ah, the 1990s when we had dial-up internet, massive computer monitors, and burned CDs. Writer/director Michael Biggs' short CD-Trip is a ride down memory lane for this millennial, except, it's also a strange little short that takes some cues from David Lynch and David Cronenberg in all the best ways. The [...]

Slamdance 2022 Film Festival - That moment just before college graduation can be a confusing time.  Talk about scary. In Kit Zauhar's feature debut, Actual People, protagonist Riley, played by Zauhar, doesn't have a clear plan. In fact, she's a mess, careening from one crisis to another, some more self-inflicted than others. The result is [...]

Slamdance 2022 Film Festival - In We Are Living Things, Solomon (Jorge Antonio Guerrero) and Chuyao (Xingchen Lyu) have a strange and uncanny bond. Each has an alien abduction story that altered the direction of their lives. This is the thread that thrusts two unlikely strangers together, ultimately embarking upon a road trip to try to [...]

Slamdance 2022 Film Festival- The German film Be Right Back is tough to pin down. It follows a core group of people staying at an abandoned vacation resort in the woods. Their weird routines are upended when a stranger arrives. There are elements here of comedy, absurdity, and even folk horror. But this is very much [...]

Slamdance 2022 Film Festival - In Kafkas, Fran (Patsy Ferran) has an unhealthy obsession with the German-speaking 20th Century writer Franz Kafka. She's determined to marry a man with the last name Kafka. It's her dream, never mind finding a job. This short is a tale of loneliness that contains some surreal elements like Kafka's [...]

Sundance Film Festival 2022 Premiere - Babysitter is a tough sort of film to pin down. It has really effective elements of slapstick comedy, surrealism, and a stunning set design that makes it look like a fairytale. This isn't the type of movie with a straightforward narrative in which everything is totally wrapped up by [...]

Sundance Film Festival 2022 Premiere - Watching Aubrey Plaza's career over these last few years has been a real delight, as she takes on more and more challenging roles, like Black Bear (2020) and most recently, Emily the Criminal. In this indie thriller, Plaza plays a character with massive student loan debt who feels wronged by [...]