A self-taught critic and genuine movie geek
In tourist areas, there’s often a deep divide between the locals and those who come from out of town to enjoy the sights — a social, financial, and cultural gap that can sometimes seem impossible to bridge in any real way. As shown in Murder on the Cape, the Cape Cod area is no exception to this rule, with the locals sometimes struggling to keep a roof over their heads while rich New Yorkers relax in their vacation homes.
Lighthouses seem to encourage hauntings, and it’s no surprise. They’re isolated, often reachable only by water, and have a certain air of mystery about them even when they happen to lack any ghosts. The lighthouse in The Forlorned, though, perched on a small rocky island off the coast of Nova Scotia, is “haunted to the rafters,” in the words of local pub owner Murphy (Cory Dangerfield).
Being an EMT is a rough job anywhere, but it probably doesn’t get much rougher than being a night shift EMT in Los Angeles. It’s probably not much fun in Detroit, either. Since Lauren (Vicky Jeudy) is also a brand-new EMT, it’s no surprise that she’s in a panic just before she starts her very first shift. To make matters worse, her partner Eddie (Jason Antoon) feels obligated to harass the rookie at every opportunity, including making her listen to a conspiracy theorist (Kevin Pollak) with a late-night radio show — think Art Bell.
Continue reading “Armstrong”
You know how sometimes you wake up abruptly for some reason and can’t quite figure out where you are at first? It never lasts for more than a moment or two, thankfully, but it’s always a strange and unsettling sensation. In The Recursion Theorem, that feeling takes on a life of its own. A man (Dan Franko) finds himself awakening in a room he’s never seen before, an old-fashioned room where the comfy touches like a bowl of fresh fruit and vintage books to read can’t quite counteract the effects of the apocalyptic paintings on the walls.
Reviewing a two-minute movie is bound to be tricky, but let’s see what I can manage. A young woman (Aileigh Karson) has gone to a plastic surgeon for a consultation. This isn’t because she’s not attractive — she’s a pretty, girl next door blonde with a nice smile — but because she desperately wants to look like her favorite actress, glamorous brunette Ms. Carmichael (Maura Stephens). It’s a radical change, but the surgeon (Jennifer Trudrung) takes on the challenge and sets to work.
At this very moment, a town somewhere is overrun with witches and is in desperate need of help. Or possibly they don’t need help at all, since in Witch Hunt the witches that have overrun the nameless town aren’t all that bad compared to the local sheriff, for example. They don’t really seem to have overrun the place, either, given that there’s maybe a dozen of them.
There often isn’t a lot of breathing room between the haves and the have-nots, especially in small southern towns. In Cold Moon, for instance, everyone knows everyone in the fictional town of Babylon, Florida, where only a few miles separate a family struggling to survive from a family that has all the money in the world.
Early on, one of the characters in Parallel asks, “Don’t you believe in fate?” It’s an offhand remark — he’s trying to impress a girl — but it also sums up the entire movie. Sometimes, everything hinges on a specific event happening at a specific time, and if you’re even a few seconds too early or too late, your entire life can end up in some very strange places.