I had the pleasure of sitting down with the talented Tiffany Chu, the lead of Ms. Purple. For those of you unfamiliar with the film, I included a link to my review below. I highly recommend looking out for this film when it gets its wide release.
In the film, Tiffany plays a once talented pianist that left her career behind to help keep her father alive through working as essentially a call girl in Koreatown. When her live in nurse quits, she is forced to call her wayward broth...
The U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Vision and Craft winner, Honey Boy was the true winner of Sundance. No movie will come out of the festival with more hype than Honey Boy. This heart wrenching, semi-biographical account of fatherly abuse touched the hearts of many. It screened to multiple standing ovations and was nearly impossible to watch with packed tents full of eager cinephiles lined up in hopes of seeing Shia LaBeouf’s latest masterpiece. Personally, I tried a total of four ...
I had the honor this week to connect with the incredibly talented, Short Film Grand Jury Prize Winner, Soudade Kaadan. Her story may be one of the most important in the whole festival. As a Syrian filmmaker, she has experienced more hardships than any American filmmaker can imagine. She does not have nearly the same resources as many of her competitors yet she still manages to make high caliber film that is enjoyable even without its profound political context.
Her film, Aziz...
First time director Jason Orley, alongside budding star Pete Davidson, unleash an emotionally draining yet cheerfully humorous coming of age story with Big Time Adolescence. The film leaves you both regretting the terrible decisions of your youth while longing for those days at the same time. It ultimately asks the question if bad decisions as an adolescent are a healthy, normal part of life, or pitfalls we ought to avoid.
Big Time Adolescence is the type of movie that just may blow up as a ...
In a festival full of artistically layered and creatively structured films, Abe Forsythe’s Little Monsters stands out by telling a classic three-act narrative with predictable beats that lead to an ending we’ve all seen before. Usually, that would not be a compliment in my book, however, this film executes it’s ‘save the cat’ style story to perfection. It gives the audience everything they want in a film. It is chock-full of humor that has the crowd boisterous thr...
As a Chinese-American filmmaker myself, there is a special place in my heart for Chinese-American film. The consistently negative depictions of Asians in American film-culture instilled a sense of shame in me that translated to hiding the fact that I was Asian from many people up until early adulthood. Being mixed, that was generally not too difficult and it was an easier way to navigate life. The only way to truly fix this problem is by people like Lulu Wang succeeding. She absolutely does so...
Not many movies can move at a sedated pace without putting the majority of the audience to sleep. Joe Talbot’s Last Black Man on Earth is the rare exception. The film flows like the still waters of the San Francisco Bay, by telling a melancholic story of gentrification and the pain that losing a childhood home brings. It is a beautiful depiction of poverty and class struggle that teaches those who have not personally experienced gentrification, what it feels like to be backed into a corn...
I had the pleasure of speaking with Kamasi Washington before the premiere screening of his short film entry, As Told to G/D Thyself. The film is essentially a narrative music video hybrid that takes place over select songs from his newest album Heaven and Earth. If you aren't already familiar with Kamasi Washington's catalog, you should start to learn today. He is one of the premier musicians of this generation, an absolute master of the Jazz form, and highly regarded amongst the best ...
Unique, relatable, tragic yet hopeful. Truly, this was a simple film that was well crafted, blending powerful storytelling with gorgeous cinematography, as it paints LA's Koreatown in such a way that has not really been done before. The story is about a beautiful, once promising, young Korean girl struggling in Los Angeles, supporting her terminally ill father by means of a salacious profession. The call to action occurs as her father's caretaker quits, forcing her to reach out to h...
“Critique is so limiting and emotionally draining.” - Morf Vandewalt
Uninspired, a total lack of originality, derivative, void of spiritual awareness. These are only a few of the harsh critiques that Gyllenhaal fires off as he moves briskly from scene to scene, emoting in such a way that we have not seen from the Nightcrawler actor.
Dan Gilroy and Jake Gyllenhaal reunite for a brutally comedic satire on the world of fine art. They cover art’s destructive nat...
What a jaw-dropping way to begin the festival. The tension in the room could be felt from the jump and persisted to an abysmal halt. Every little choice was made to be unexpected. First time director, Rashid Johnson, absolutely "fucked shit up (as artists are supposed to)" as he said in his closing remarks during the Q&A session. This film took a classic novel and perverted some of it's most crucial scenes in such a way that left the audience pondering the arbitrar...
Well, they can’t all be good. Koko-Di-Koko-Da is a film that was so intriguing on paper that it was one of the first films I actively secured a ticket for. It’s a Swedish horror flick that tracks the brutal process of grief and the damage it does to a relationship. At best, the films absurdities serve as a metaphor for this sentiment. At worst, the absurdities merely serve as aesthetic pageantry to keep the viewer awake.
Essentially, it is a cheaply made horror film wit...
This film is everything you should expect by now from a film starring Julianne Moore and Michelle Williams. Every scene with them both in it has an energy not many could match. The emotional restraint in Williams' performance forces the audience to quiver while Moore's erratic and abusive behavior steers a ship that is stuck in a storm.
Abby Quinn delivers a show-stopping performance as a daughter caught between her parents lies. She may be the most slept-on aspect of the ...
The Report, directed by Scott Z. Burns, has everything that Hollywood loves; A-list male leads in Adam Driver and Jon Hamm, it's based on a true story, it's political, it’s relevant and it’s made by a proven director. Similar films like Argo and Spotlight have enjoyed massive success in both the box office and critically, and I don't see The Report being any different.
The film follows Daniel Jones, played by Adam Driver, as he spends half a decade building ...
I have arrived! My name is Cameron Lui, I will be filmfestivals.com's Sundance Correspondent this year. Follow me on twitter @sundanceblogger for live updates on the festival's happenings. I'm the only one here so it's going to be a busy week and I'm sure to miss a few big ones. If there are any particular projects any readers are dying to hear about you can email me at cameronlui94@gmail.com for requests or dm me via twitter.
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