A Hundred Streets premiered at the 2016 Los Angeles Film Festival. The British film is an ensemble piece starring Idris Elba and Gemma Arterton as a couple dealing with infidelity, Franz Drameh as a gang member who forms a relationship with an older man (Ken Stott), and Kierston Wareing and Charlie Creed-Miles as a married […]
The directorial debut of Amber Tamblyn premiered at this year’s Los Angeles Film Festival. Based on the novel by Janet Fitch, Paint It Black stars Alia Shawkat and Janet McTeer in bravura performances within a harrowing drama. Josie (Shawkat) finds out her boyfriend Michael (Rhys Wakefield) has died. Michael’s mother, Meredith (McTeer) threatens her, and […]
Play the Devil was one film at the Los Angeles Film Festival that really made me feel like I was discovering a new world and new talent. Set in Trinidad, it was a region I’d never explored. Also new to me were both the cast, and the sort of characters one would find in Trinidad. […]
Beyond the Gates won the Los Angeles Film Festival’s Nightfall Award for director Jackson Stewart, so I’m glad I talked to Stewart and his cast when they were in L.A. Chase Williamson and Graham Skipper play brothers sorting through their father’s belongings. They find a VHS board game and decide to play it. Barbara Crampton […]
Adam Sandler made a movie called Anger Management that wasn’t really about anger management. He played a soft spoken character who was sent to anger management through a crazy misunderstanding. This is real anger management, someone who needs it and is hilarious about it. Dr. Serena Wolfe (Anna Lise Phillips) is a brilliant researcher with […]
A Hundred Streets is set and filmed in London but it had its world premiere at the Los Angeles Film Festival. The ensemble drama tells three story. Max (Idris Elba) and Emily (Gemma Arteron) play a couple dealing with infidelity. Kingsley (Franz Drameh) is a young gang member who befriends an older man, Terence (Ken […]
Lights Out has a strong premise for a horror movie and executes scares like a horror master. If you saw the short on YouTube, director David F. Sandberg and screenwriter Eric Heisserer have honed that concept and elaborated on other ways in which the terror can manifest. Diana (Alicia Vela-Bailey) is a creature who only […]
Play the Devil is the kind of movie you get to see at a film festival where you really feel like you’ve been brought into a world you wouldn’t otherwise see, and discover new talent that Hollywood may be overlooking. Hopefully playing at the festival will allow more people to see it. Gregory (Petrice Jones) […]
You may know me as Franchise Fred because I love sequels, but I am also Format Fred because I am obsessed with outdated viewing formats. My real Jones is for things far more obscure than VHS, like RCA Selectavision, but Beyond the Gates found an obscure corner of VHS that really captivated me: The VCR […]
Officer Downe lost me immediately at the Orgasm Counter, which is in the second scene of the movie. That is such a male fantasy about sexual prowess, that the counter goes into double digits, I knew this was going to be rough. This is what a Troma movie might be like with misogyny and entitlement […]