Poker is not a glamorous pursuit, and poker table lifers, like Gerry (Ben Mendelsohn), are not hotshot forces of nature. The realities of poker, grinding it out hand after hand for upwards of 10 hours at a time, inevitably hitting bad luck after doing everything the right way, are far different than the adrenaline-fueled, million […]
One of the most pessimistic, yet accurate, onscreen portrayals of modern life in quite some time, writer/director Yury Bykov’s The Fool is the best kind of morality tale, because it all but denies the very existence of morality. In the Russian town where the film transpires, it has become exceedingly rare to have a shred […]
Pawn Sacrifice is a love story unlike any other, as it is a love between a man, chess genius Bobby Fischer (Tobey Maguire), and silence.
Chess played at the grandmaster level requires stretching the human mind to its outermost limits, as matches have to be exhaustively prepared for, and there are more potential moves and […]
Written and Directed by John Magary
Produced by Myna Joseph and Michael Prall
Released by Cinelicious Pics
USA. 109 min. Not rated
With Josh Lucas, Stephen Plunkett, Lucy Owen, Mickey Sumner, Cory Nichols, Louisa Krause, and Austin Pendleton
The poster for The Mend declares it “A Stressed Out Comedy,” and if you’re talking about the experience of watching it, then […]
Edited and Directed by Joe Swanberg
Produced by Jake Johnson, Swanberg and Alicia Van Couvering
Written by Swanberg and Johnson
Released by the Orchard
USA. 83 min. Rated R
With Jake Johnson, Rosemarie DeWitt, Jane Adams, Steve Berg, Mike Birbiglia, Orlando Bloom, Tom Bower, Sam Elliott, Anna Kendrick, Brie Larson, Judith Light, Ron Livingston, Melanie Lynskey, Chris Messina, Kent Osborne, […]
Directed by Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi
Produced by Vasarhelyi, Chin and Shannon Ethridge
Released by Music Box Films
USA. 90 min. Rated R
One of the greatest adventures ever told on film, Meru centers on a trio of professional mountain climbers, or alpinists, to use the industry term, as they try and try again to summit […]
Directed by Jon Watts
Produced by Cody Ryder, Alicia Van Couvering, Sam Bisbee, Andrew Kortschak and Watts
Written by Watts and Christopher Ford
Released by Focus World
USA. 88 min Rated R
With Kevin Bacon, James Freedson-Jackson, Hays Wellford, Camryn Manheim and Shea Whigham
One of the ballsiest young figures in film today, writer-director Jon Watts broke onto the scene […]
Produced and Directed by Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon
Released by Magnolia Pictures
USA. 87 min. Rated R
The interminable presidential campaign cycle is here again, prompting us all to bemoan the degradation of our national political discourse and wonder just how and why it got so dumb. With this election shaping up to be one of […]
Directed by James Ponsoldt
produced by David Kanter, Matt DeRoss, James Dahl, Mark Manuel, and Ted O’Neal
Written by Donald Margulies, based on Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip With David Foster Wallace, a memoir by David Lipsky
Released by A24
USA. 106 min. Rated R
With Jesse Eisenberg, Jason Segel, Anna Chlumsky, Mickey Sumner […]
