High-Def Digest: The Bonus ViewFilm Festival Archives - High-Def Digest: The Bonus View

DTLA Film Festival Journal: Josie & Jack

Deirdre Crimmins — Wed, 30 Oct 2019 15:00:31 +0000

Sibling relationships are complicated. Josie & Jack shows an unusually stressed pair of siblings, and how they cope with the tension between life inside and outside that relationship. Based on the Kelly Braffet novel of the same name and directed by actress Sarah Lancaster, the film focuses on a brother and sister. Josie and Jack...

The post DTLA Film Festival Journal: Josie & Jack appeared first on High-Def Digest: The Bonus View.

TIFF Journal: Bad Education (2019)

Jason Gorber — Mon, 28 Oct 2019 15:00:36 +0000

Director Cory Finley takes the good will from his 2017 debut Thoroughbreds and ups the ante even further. Bad Education is a bleak, comical, and surprisingly effective film about a high school finance scandal. Writer/co-producer Mike Makowsky’s screenplay is remarkable both for its deft construction and for how close the writer is to the events...

The post TIFF Journal: Bad Education (2019) appeared first on High-Def Digest: The Bonus View.

TIFF Journal: Marriage Story

Jason Gorber — Fri, 25 Oct 2019 14:00:19 +0000

In 1979, Robert Benton directed Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep in a film about the disintegration of a marriage and the ramifications it had on their young kid. Kramer vs. Kramer was groundbreaking stuff, became an enormous financial success, and took home Oscars for Best Picture, Direction, Actor, Supporting Actress, and Screenplay. If Netflix has...

The post TIFF Journal: Marriage Story appeared first on High-Def Digest: The Bonus View.

TIFF Journal: Knives Out

Jason Gorber — Fri, 25 Oct 2019 12:00:21 +0000

The most obnoxious thing I can say about Rian Johnson’s Knives Out is that I prefer its mix of genre tropes and social commentary to Jordan Peele’s Get Out. Frankly, the mix of Clue with an acerbic and biting look at race, class, and privilege in America is more entertaining to me than taking The...

The post TIFF Journal: Knives Out appeared first on High-Def Digest: The Bonus View.

TIFF Journal: A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Jason Gorber — Thu, 24 Oct 2019 12:00:16 +0000

Fred Rogers is an extraordinary subject for a movie, as proven by Morgan Neville’s phenomenal 2018 documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor?. Marielle Heller’s A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood takes a different tack, placing Rogers almost at the sidelines of his own story. Generations of children grew up to the sights of a lanky...

The post TIFF Journal: A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood appeared first on High-Def Digest: The Bonus View.

TIFF Journal (Belated): Uncut Gems

Jason Gorber — Mon, 21 Oct 2019 15:00:19 +0000

If the only thing that Uncut Gems contributed to cinematic history was a blisteringly excellent scene during a Passover seder, then, in the parlance of “Dayenu” that’s sung during the meal by Jews around the world, “It would have sufficed”. Yet the Safdie brothers’ most recent film is an ode to obsession and anxiety that...

The post TIFF Journal (Belated): Uncut Gems appeared first on High-Def Digest: The Bonus View.

NYFF Journal: The Irishman

Jason Gorber — Sat, 28 Sep 2019 00:00:22 +0000

With a running time of just under 3 ½ hours, I’m less time away from The Irishman writing this review than it took to watch the film, yet even in these moments following the first screening, it feels like if I’ve witnessed something truly special. In a year where numerous movies feel like the culmination...

The post NYFF Journal: The Irishman appeared first on High-Def Digest: The Bonus View.

Fantastic Fest Journal: The Wave

Deirdre Crimmins — Wed, 25 Sep 2019 17:00:02 +0000

The Wave highlights the realities of both stranger-danger and drug use, but what you really should be wary of is insurance companies. Justin Long stars as Frank. Frank has an annoying wife (Sarah Minnich) and is barely keeping his head above water financially, but that’s all going to change after making his big presentation to...

The post Fantastic Fest Journal: The Wave appeared first on High-Def Digest: The Bonus View.

Fantastic Fest Journal: Pelican Blood

Deirdre Crimmins — Wed, 25 Sep 2019 15:00:02 +0000

Motherhood has been a source of inspiration for countless horror films and tales of terror. Pelican Blood might not strictly sit within the horror genre, but it will crawl under your skin all the same. Director Katrin Gebbe’s first film, 2013’s Nothing Bad Can Happen, still haunts me to this day. It’s based on a...

The post Fantastic Fest Journal: Pelican Blood appeared first on High-Def Digest: The Bonus View.

Fantastic Fest Journal: Jallikattu

Deirdre Crimmins — Tue, 24 Sep 2019 15:00:23 +0000

Jallikattu is a mesmerizing feat of the power of cinema, packaged in a simple story about a buffalo. At its core, the brilliance of Jallikattu is the coexistence of its diametrically opposing natures. It has a simple story, but it’s excruciatingly complex in execution. It’s rural, but still crowded with people. Most of all, it’s...

The post Fantastic Fest Journal: Jallikattu appeared first on High-Def Digest: The Bonus View.

TIFF Journal: Ford v. Ferrari

Jason Gorber — Tue, 17 Sep 2019 17:00:20 +0000

When the film ended at the festival premiere of Ford v. Ferrari, director James Mangold and stars Matt Damon and Christian Bale took the stage and proudly declared that they didn’t know (or care) anything about racing. I thought, immediately, “No kidding.” Their point, of course, was that the film is meant to be for...

The post TIFF Journal: Ford v. Ferrari appeared first on High-Def Digest: The Bonus View.

TIFF Journal: Hustlers

Jason Gorber — Mon, 16 Sep 2019 17:00:55 +0000

Lorene Scafaria’s Hustlers is based on a 2015 New York Magazine article about a group of exotic dancers who essentially roofied a bunch of finance men and stole their money via credit card fraud. On first blush, it sounds like an odd narrative for an entire feature film, and frankly it runs out of steam...

The post TIFF Journal: Hustlers appeared first on High-Def Digest: The Bonus View.