HORSE GIRL (Netflix – February 7): Every one of the four films Jeff Baena has directed had its premiere at Sundance, with Horse Girl following Life After Beth, Joshy and The Little Hours. It’s an impressi...
CAT PERSON: It seems to be necessary to establish one’s bona fides (or lack thereof) before commenting on Susanna Fogel’s Cat Person, so I’ll note that I’ve never read Kristen Roupenian’s ...
EIGHT FOR SILVER: Sean Ellis’s 19th century werewolf movie takes itself very seriously. Ellis has extensively revised the usual mythology of the genre: the full moon doesn’t figure into things, the were...
MY OLD SCHOOL (no distrib): Although the story is apparently well-known in the UK, here the twisty tale that Jono McLeod unfurls in his documentary would constitute a spoiler, so we’ll leave things vague here. ...
> Watch It At Home: Morgan Spurlock’s latest doc is more stunt than revelation. If Michael Moore were a movie franchise, Morgan Spurlock would be the direct-to-video entry in the series. Or maybe the one that ...
JUST MERCY (Warners – December 25): As the release date suggests, this is a straight-down-the-middle Oscar play, and it may have some success in that arena (although Warners will also be campaigning for The Goldf...
STUDIO 54 (no distrib): Matt Tynauer’s documentary covers all the bases of the disco that defined nightlife for a surprisingly brief time in the late 1970s, from the club’s construction on the site of an ol...
PASSING: The actress Rebecca Hall has taken a big swing in her writing/directing debut. Her film Passing, based on the 1929 novel by Nella Larsen, embraces ambitious, difficult themes with sensitivity and expertise.�...
> Welcome to SHOWBUZZDAILY’s coverage of the Toronto International Film Festival, where the reviews will be as plentiful as we can cram into a week. TIFF started things off on a less-than-festive note with Werner Herzog...
PALM TREES AND POWER LINES (no distrib): Jamie Dack’s first feature film (from a script written with Audrey Findlay) means to unsettle, and it does. 17-year old Lea (Lily McInerny) is stuck in a dead-end Southe...
> Plot spoilers are even more problematic when it comes to limited releases, because by definition they’re only being seen by a few people in certain selected locations, and–if they’re good–will ideally ...
GOD’S COUNTRY (no distrib): A deliberative character study that’s also a thriller of sorts, anchored by one of the best performances of Thandiwe Newton’s career. When two hunters (Joris Jarsky and Y...
PROJECT NIM: Worth A Ticket – If You Can Stand It At first I wondered why on earth Fox Searchlight hadn’t grabbed James Marsh’s documentary PROJECT NIM at Sundance, to serve as an unofficial pr...
MISS AMERICANA (Netflix – January 31): There are certainly areas of Taylor Swift’s life that are carefully elided in MISS AMERICANA (her actor boyfriend’s face and name are absent, for example, and th...