by Audrey Callerstrom, Staff Writer
It is with a heavy heart to see all of the original’s charm, particularly Eddie Murphy’s energy, stripped away in favor of an overloaded, formulaic, and dull sequel.
by Audrey Callerstrom, Staff Writer
This reboot really swerves in the second half.
by Audrey Callerstrom, Staff Writer
Released in 1993, Ruby in Paradise was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at that year’s Sundance Film Festival.
by Audrey Callerstrom, Staff Writer
Silk Road is like if The Social Network was stripped of everything that made it one of the best films of this century so far.
by Audrey Callerstrom, Staff Writer
The narrative of L.A.-based influencers, who are starved for followers and exposure, is not only vapid but completely lost here.
by Audrey Callerstrom, Staff Writer
The deceptively titled Demonlover, the 2002 film from French writer/director Olivier Assayas (Clouds of Sils Maria) is getting a 2K restoration and re-release from Janus Films.
This week’s question: What is a film you love that premiered at any year's Sundance Film Festival?
by Audrey Callerstrom, Staff Writer
For Black History Month, MovieJawn is celebrating some of our favorite up and coming Black directors and actors, starting with LaKeith Stanfield.
by Audrey Callerstrom, Staff Writer
The majority of 4x4 plays out like 127 Hours. Instead of a trapped naïve adventurist, we have a trapped criminal.
by Audrey Callerstrom, Staff Writer
Silence & Darkness is a fascinating original film, carefully constructed and pieced together.
by Audrey Callerstrom
#Like is a successor to films like Hard Candy and The Business of Strangers, where a young woman takes a man hostage for crimes he may or may not have committed.
by Audrey Callerstrom
Can anyone be driven to acts of extreme violence and oppression? Will we all crack under pressure?
Read MoreWritten by Vincent Paronnaud, Léa Pernollet, and David H. Pickering
Directed by Vincent Paronnaud
Starring Lucie Debay, Christian Bronchart, and Ciaran O'Brien
Running Time 1 hour and 27 minutes
Not rated - violence, sexual situations, language
by Audrey Callerstrom, Staff Writer
The majority of Hunted, a revenge thriller from director Vincent Paronnaud (who collaborated with writer/illustrator Marjane Satrapi on Persepolis and Chicken with Plums) takes place within the forests of Belgium. It’s apt that it opens with a woman telling her son a fable over a fire about how wolves of the forest teamed up with a witch to take revenge on her oppressors. The animals, the trees, and the nearby river have a storybook feel to them. A wild boar causes a car crash. A praying mantis perches on an arm; black and yellow salamanders crawl over a rock.
Written by Malcolm Campbell and Clare Dunn
Directed by Phyllida Lloyd
Starring Clare Dunn, Ian Lloyd Anderson, Molly McCann, Ruby Rose O’Hara and Harriet Walter
Running time: 1 hour and 37 minutes
MPAA Rating: R for language and one moment of violence
by Audrey Callerstrom
About a year after the release of Wild Rose, the Scottish drama about a single mother (Jessie Buckley) with a Big Dream (being a country singer in America) comes a similar story, this time from Ireland. We first meet Sandra (Clare Dunn, who co-wrote the film with Malcolm Campbell) having a joyous time with her two young daughters, played by Molly McCann and Ruby Rose O’Hara. They sing and dance in the kitchen to Sia’s “Chandelier.” The tone changes as soon as the girl’s father, Gary (Ian Lloyd Anderson) returns home to give Sandra a brutal beating. He steps on her arm, injuring her wrist, which she needs to work in her day jobs as a maid and a bar keep. Her oldest daughter runs to the store to tell the clerk to call the police, which allows Sandra to narrowly escape, but also leaves her with nowhere to live. She brings her girls to an airport hotel, one where the maître d demands they use a separate entrance.
Read Moreby Benjamin Leonard, Best Boy
A couple weeks before the end of the year (and what a year it’s been), I asked everybody to list their top five movies that they’d seen so far. This is always a tough chore because people are trying to cram in the films they’d heard about but missed throughout the year and then there’s the Christmas Day releases that only a few people have seen by that point. This means that people will always look back at their list in a year or two and find things that they wish they would've included, but just hadn’t seen yet. I feel like this year has exacerbated that situation because everyone has had to settle into finding films through different avenues.
Here, I’ve compiled everyone’s rankings and responses to give the MovieJawn Top Ten for 2020.
Read MoreWritten by Stanley Kubrick and Frederic Raphael (screenplay) and Arthur Schnitzler (inspired)
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Starring Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman and Todd Field
Running time: 2 hours and 39 minutes
MPAA rating: R for language, nudity, some drug related material strong sexual content
by Matthew Crump, Alex Rudolph, Ashley Jane Davis, Audrey Callerstrom and Matthew McCafferty
The Tommy C. Appreciation Club, or TCAC, solemnly swears to watch and appreciate all theatrical performances by Tom Cruise then recap them, round-table style. In this edition, the Moviejawn crew embarks on a bonkers holiday adventure with our pal Tommy in Eyes Wide Shut.
Read MoreWritten by Michael Kennedy and Christopher Landon
Directed by Christopher Landon
Starring Vince Vaughn, Kathryn Newton, Misha Osherovich, Celeste O’Connor and Uriah Shelton
Running time: 1 hour and 42 minutes
MPAA rating: R for strong bloody horror violence, sexual content, and language throughout
by Audrey Callerstrom
It had been a while since I gave blood, so I forgot how it works. I was like “OK I guess I’ll go do this and be on my merry way, go home, make dinner, exercise, etc.” Did you know that they let you hold it? The bag of blood. It’s so warm! I went home, made dinner and found myself unable to do anything else. Your body needs to replenish the blood it has lost, so you must be a couch blob, drinking water, eating those crap mini Oreos (THE WORST OREO), waiting until you can get up without feeling faint. Once I realized that, I was like, fuck it, I’m going to spend $20 and sit here and watch Freaky. Give blood, get blood.
Read MoreWritten by Sam Bain
Directed by Jamie Babbit
Starring Drew Barrymore, T.J. Miller, Michael Zegen and Holland Taylor
Running time: 1 hour and 41 minutes
MPAA rating: R for language throughout including sexual references and for drug use
by Audrey Callerstrom
I have a friend that really doesn’t like Drew Barrymore. He thinks she’s absolutely annoying and a horrible actress. I disagree. I think she is a fine actor, for what a movie calls for. She’s rarely stepped outside the boundaries of comedy, and even the worst actor can coast if the script is at least fine. She’s also likable, and likability is important in Hollywood. Additionally, I feel like we (the colloquial we) “grew up” with her. We caught the end of her tabloid era, when she was wearing daisies in her hair, flashing David Letterman and estranged from her mom. Then she became a little softer, coasting along in audience-pleasing comedies. Once she had children, she became an amiable, “I’m one of you” dorky mom, who now has a talk show where she opens up about her divorce and gushes about how she likes comfortable clothes. One feels that if you were alone in a room with her, she wouldn’t be scrolling her phone. She would be cross-legged in a chair, pillow in her lap, asking you questions.
Read MoreWritten and directed by Daniel Schechter
Starring Justin Long, Kate Berlant, Lynn Cohen, Fran Drescher, Becky Ann Baker and Richard Schiff
Running time: 1 hour and 33 minutes
Unrated: contains language and sexual situations
by Audrey Callerstrom
How wonderful is Justin Long? I don’t know if we even deserve him.
He donates all of the proceeds from his Cameo to charity. He lives with his brother. On his Instagram stories, he’s often seen providing voices for animals (turtles, deer, a chamaeleon). When he had long quarantine hair and a mustache, he created a character called “Emo Teen” that cracks me up. There’s whatever he’s doing here. He knows his level of fame and embraces it. He doesn’t saturate his social media with sponsored posts. He just hangs out with his brother, does a podcast and observes the miracles of turtle birth. A friend of mine once described him as “Keanu Reeves’s goofball cousin,” and I think that’s pretty apt.
Read MoreWritten and directed by Lawrence Michael Levine
Starring Aubrey Plaza, Christopher Abbott, and Sarah Gadon
Running time: 1 hour and 44 minutes
MPAA rating: R for language, nudity, sexual situations
by Audrey Callerstrom
Black Bear, the meta-indie from Lawrence Michael Levine (Always Shine, Wild Canaries) opens with Allison (Aubrey Plaza), sitting on a dock in a red swimsuit, looking over a foggy lake. It’s a beautiful sight, but Plaza looks irritated, if not a little vacant. She stands, putting her body weight into her hands first, and then slips her towel around her waist in one graceful move. Then she walks up to the cabin.
Read More