AwardsWatch - Film Festivals

‘Mama’s Boy’ review: Dustin Lance Black doc just barely balances line between being uplifting and a stilted vanity project | NewFest

Daniel Bayer October 17, 2022

In 2009, at the age of 34, Dustin Lance Black won an Oscar for his screenplay for the Harvey Milk biopic Milk. In his acceptance... Read More

‘Lady Chatterly’s Lover’ review: Little to love beyond Emma Corrin and Jack O’Connell’s performances in Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre’s listless adaptation | LFF

Paddy Mulholland October 17, 2022

A spirit of thoughtless anachronism looms over Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Netflix’s crude and cynical attempt at seeing if some of the steam... Read More

‘Inland’ review: Mark Rylance enchants in this realistic yet enigmatic folklore-influenced directorial debut from Fridtjof Ryder | LFF

Ben Rolph October 16, 2022

English writer-director Fridtjof Ryder’s directorial debut is a taut, well-made micro budget feature. After a successful crowdfunding campaign and production moving ahead, Ryder’s film caught... Read More

‘No Bears’ review: Jafar Panahi turns the camera on himself in powerful, subtly playful examination of limits personal, political and artistic | LFF

Paddy Mulholland October 16, 2022

The remarkable prolificacy of Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, and the even-more-remarkable spirit of subversiveness that has only burgeoned in his work since his arrest and... Read More

‘Nanny’ review: Predictability hobbles what could have been a fascinating take on the horror of trauma | LFF

Paddy Mulholland October 13, 2022

It is both the blessing and the burden of just about every modern horror movie that it must be about trauma. It’s not just an... Read More

‘The Stranger’ review: Joel Edgerton and Sean Harris face off in this taut, unnerving Australian detective drama [B+] | LFF

Ben Rolph October 12, 2022

Thomas Wright’s Australian detective drama stars Joel Edgerton and Sean Harris, and it’s a gripping film that is unconventionally delicate. This delicacy in the storytelling... Read More

‘Blue Jean’ review: Georgia Oakley’s searing feature debut is a remarkably poignant British drama of the viciously homophobic Thatcher era [A] | LFF

Emily Maskell October 10, 2022

It’s 1988 in Tyneside, North East England, and Margaret Thatcher has been Prime Minister for a year when the conservative government enacts Section 28, a... Read More

‘Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical’ review: A joyous, magical, fun-filled adventure [B+] | LFF

Ben Rolph October 7, 2022

The opening frame of Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical is startling, absurd, as animation-like rays beam off of newly born children as their parents sing... Read More

‘On the Fringe’ review: Juan Diego Botto’s directorial debut with Penélope Cruz is an ambitious but fractured effort [C] | Zurich

Ben Rolph September 28, 2022

Juan Diego Botto’s directorial debut pulls no swings when it comes to social realism, it is a restless drama that follows a set of people... Read More