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Posted Film Festivals

SXSW: 2025 Narrative Shorts Competition

24 Hours After Reading Tuesdays with Morrie
Director: Scott Tinkham
Grappling with one’s mortality can feel like being punched in the face. A bit disjointed but I appreciated how it embodied an existential panic attack.

Baba I’m Fine
Director: Karina Dandashi
Sweet story about a dad cheering up his teenage daughter after her breakup. Fun emo musical framing.

Ben’s Sister
Director: Emma Weinswig

Set in 2015 before a massive cultural shift took hold in America, this drama focuses on bored teens manipulating each other for the sake of a “scav hunt”. Not for everyone but intriguing time capsule nonetheless.

Brief Somebodies
Director: Andy Reid

Imaginative short examines the awkwardness of acting out intimate scenes. I enjoyed how this film examined how the two actors compartmentalize their characters and their real attraction to each other.

Entre Tormentas
Director: Fran Zayas

Quiet but powerful drama about a man on a mission to bring back the body of his brother who recently committed suicide. Drives home the message that we need to care for one another even someone dies.

Grandma’s Four Color Cards
Director: Sally Tran

Beautifully evokes the privilege of living a long life but also the daily struggle to keep going. Lovely performance by the 101 year old actress. Note to self: “a talking frog will bring good luck to your life.”

How Was Your Weekend?
Director: Cam Banfield

Corporate culture turns sinister when a worker dares to go off script when asked the question “how was your weekend?” Great concept and execution. Anyone with experience in the corporate world will relate to the pressure of maintaining office pleasantries especially when you don’t feel like it.

I’m The Most Racist Person I Know
Director: Leela Varghese

A sweet lesbian romance between two POC women. This honest exploration of internalized racism framed within a beautiful love story is quite restorative.

Max Distance
Director: Marissa Goldman

A quirky comedy about isolation in the Zoom age and the awkwardness of dating. A bit aimless but nonetheless enjoyable.

Nervous Energy
Director: Eve Liu

“Let’s make beautiful films.” Sometimes as a woman you need to get rid of negative energy to focus on your creative life. Cathartic. Intense.

One Day This Kid
Director: Alexander Farah

A young Arab Muslim’s life as a gay man comes in direct conflict with his conservative upbringing. Stunning film about breaking and mending familial ties. Powerful performance by the lead actor who plays the adult Hamed.

Out for Delivery
Director: Chelsea Christer

A dying woman arranges the delivery of her death with dignity medication and the pickup of her remains but mishaps get in the way. This dark comedy handles a delicate subject through an absurdist lens and demonstrates how automation removes the humanity from our collective experiences.

The Sentry
Director: Jake Wachtel

A murdered guard in Cambodia haunts the spy who killed him. I always appreciate when a short film can take one small trope and expand upon it. This film morphs from action thriller to buddy comedy to tenderhearted drama in the most satisfying way.

The Singers
Director: Sam Davis

A regular night at the dive bar turns into an impromptu singing competition. Evokes the idea that we never really know what talents lie within others. It has a beautiful slow build and will make you tear up by the end.

Strangers in the Same Shirt
Director: Anthon Chase Johnson

Common enemies (their dad, high school teacher Mrs. Abbott, tiresome wedding guests) unite estranged half-siblings at their dad’s third wedding. Seemingly simple story but with unexpected layers and a rather satisfying buildup.

Synthesize Me
Director: Bear Damen

A daughter dealing with the aftermath of her mother’s death reconnects with her memory by playing with her synthesizers much to her father’s dismay. Aptly depicts the danger of taking unregulated emotions out on the vulnerable.

Unholy
Director: Daisy Friedman

A young woman struggles at a family Passover Seder now that she can only eat through a feeding tube. The situation is particularly tenuous because food is such an integral part of the Jewish culture and makes the protagonist feel “unholy”. Superb little film. Audiences will find the painful awkwardness of family gatherings is so relatable.

WassupKaylee
Director: Pepi Ginsberg

The emotionally distant Kaylee @WassupKaylee joins a content house and forms a tenuous connection with another creator. The film depicts the content creators’ startling disconnect with reality and gives us a glimpse into a space where constant performance is expected and vulnerability is not.

Yú Cì (Fish Bones)
Director: Kevin Xian Ming Yu

A non-binary Asian-American reconnects with their closeted father after a fishing incident. This quiet slice-of-life movie says a lot with a little.

Posted Film Festivals

Redux Redux

Irene Kelly (Michaela McManus) is seeking revenge on Neville (Jeremy Holm), the man who killed her daughter. But it isn’t enough to kill him once. She needs to travel through the multiverse killing him again and again in every timeline possible. Her methods of tracking down and killing Neville vary through each scenario and she’s able to escape and restart her mission by way of a coffin-like time machine. Irene has lost track of how many timelines she’s lived through or what exactly happened before she started traveling the multiverse. And while she’s grown weary and bitter, she continues on. However, things change when she meets Neville’s latest victim Mia (Stella Marcus), a headstrong 15-year-old who quickly becomes Irene’s sidekick. The timelines get increasingly complex now that there is a second person and Irene must now come to terms with her purpose while helping Mia escape her dreaded fate.

Image courtesy of the McManus Brothers.
Michaela McManus in Redux Redux. Image courtesy of the McManus Brothers.

Written and directed by Kevin and Matthew McManus, Redux Redux is a riveting revenge thriller held up by two strong female protagonists.

I love how the multiverse and time travel elements are never gimmicky. The conceit flows smoothly through the film and the viewer will enjoy the ride without having to have the technology or methodology explained to them. Irene Kelly is a wonderfully badass yet flawed character and the story really revs up when she’s joined by her younger counterpart Mia. Michaela McManus and Stella Marcus are stellar in their roles. Actor/filmmaker Jim Cummings has a small role as Jonathan, Irene’s grief counseling hookup.

Fans of time loop films like Groundhog Day (1993) and Palm Springs (2020) and multiverse films like Sliding Doors (1998) [which is referenced in Redux Redux] Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) will find a lot to enjoy in this indie genre film.

Image courtesy of the McManus Brothers.

The filmmaking duo the McManus brothers also wrote and directed another sci-fi horror movie The Block Island Sound (2020) [check out my review here] which also co-starred their sister Michaela McManus.

Redux Redux is produced by Mothership Motion Pictures and had its world premiere at the 2025 SXSW Film and TV Festival.

Redux Redux is distributed by Saban Films and is releasing nationwide in theaters February 20th, 2026.

Posted Film Reviews

Late Night with the Devil

Heeeeeeeere’s the Devil!

TV show host Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian) needs to find a way to revive his flailing late night show. He’s in steep competition with rival Jack Carson and after the chart-topping episode where Jack brings on his dying wife Madeleine (Georgina Haig) his life has been in a downward spiral. Jack Delroy and his team come up with what will be a sensational special to help revive the show. Special guests include medium Christou (Fayssal Bazzi), hypnotist and paranormal naysayer Carmichael Haig (Ian Bliss)  and Jack’s new girlfriend June Ross-Mitchell (Laura Gordon) whose ward Lilly (Ingrid Torelli) is possessed by a demon referred to as the Wiggler. What Jack and his sidekick Gus McConnell (Rhys Auteri) carry the show with great enthusiasm until the events of the evening take a sinister turn.

Written and directed by Cameron and Colin Cairnes, Late Night with the Devil is a thoroughly enjoyable horror that embraces the aesthetics and the dynamics of 1970s television. The movie has elements of found footage horror and switches from color to black-and-white depending on whether the show is on air or on commercial break. The intro and title card presentation are era specific as are all of the other visual details in the movie’s overall design. Fans of the era—especially those who love The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson—will appreciate the costuming, the movie’ filtered sheen and the ’70s kitsch. David Dastamalchian does a fantastic job carrying both the movie and the TV show as the disturbed Jack Delroy. His character as well as Ian Bliss’ disruptive Carmichael skillfully tap into the unsettling nature  of live television.There is a storyline about a Faustian-like bargain that isn’t quite fleshed out which was my only real disappointment with the film.

Possible movie pairings: Network (1976),  Joker (2019), Prime Time (2021), Satan Wants You (2023).

Late Night with the Devil  is distributed by IFC Films.

Posted Film Reviews

A Kid (Le fils de Jean)

Matthieu (Pierre Deladonchamps) just received the call that his father died. The father he never met. The father he didn’t even really knew existed. The father he couldn’t meet in life but now must get to know in death. His mother always told him that Matthieu was the result of a one-night stand. But the affair was much more complicated than that.

Matthieu travels from France to Quebec for the funeral and there he meets his uncle Pierre (Gabriel Arcand). Pierre is the only other person who knew of Matthieu’s existence. And now it’s his job to introduce him to a family that wasn’t expecting him. Matthieu meets his brothers Ben (Pierre-Yves Cardinal) and Sam (Patrick Hivon)—two headstrong men who are at each other’s throats and totally disinterested in their new brother. He then meets Bettina (Catherine De Lean) is the estranged sister-in-law who develops a fondness for Matthieu. And then there is Angie (Marie-Therese Fortin). The wife who was completely unaware her husband had an affair in the first place but who sees Matthieu as the solution to alleviating some familial tensions.

What complicates matters is that there is no body. Matthieu’s father went on a fishing trip with Pierre and disappeared. The men all travel to the lake on a recovery mission. Ben and Sam want to find the body in order to secure their inheritance. Pierre just wants to put his brother to rest. And Matthieu is caught in the middle of it all.

Directed by Philippe Lioret and based on the novel by Jean-Paul Dubois, Le fils de Jean is a poignant family drama about self-discovery and navigating complicated family dynamics. While the circumstances are particularly unusual, anyone who has either felt like an outsider in their own family or has experienced any type of familial revelation will empathize with Matthieu’s plight. I’m not fully versed in the lingering tensions between the French and the Quebecois but viewers will get a little sense of that here. I was particularly taken with Gabriel Arcand’s performance as the family’s emotional anchor. Deladonchamps’s performance is perhaps a little too subdued but he seems to gain more traction with the movie’s heartfelt ending.

Posted Film Reviews

Kinds of Kindness

Few are bold enough, or capable enough, to excel in making the kind of film that is genuinely weird but still manages to have widespread appeal. Yorgos Lanthimos is one of those filmmakers. He continues his reign as the master of the twisted fable with his new movie Kinds of Kindness. 

This trio of Ovidian-like fables puts various characters in scenarios in which their social interactions are viewed through an absurdist lens. Jesse Plemons, Emma Stone, Margaret Qualley, Hong Chau, Willem Dafoe, Mamoudou Athie, Joe Alwyn and Yorgos Stefanakos (who plays the title RMF, a perpetually tragic figure) all play different characters in each story.

In the first story, a man, whose everyday life is controlled by his boss, tries to break free but is unable to come to terms with the fact that his new found freedom also means losing social acceptance. The second story is an interesting take on an old classic movie trope—wife lost at sea returns and causes chaos for her husband (i.e. My Favorite Wife and Move Over, Darling). The third story follows a cult member who is looking for an oracle-type who has a natural ability to revive the dead. Each of the three stories examines social themes like authority, power, familial sacrifice, purity/sexuality, etc. Overall, the film is a study of the absurdity of social interactions especially when they’re stripped of social norms or logic.

Kinds of Kindness was co-written by Lanthimos and his frequent collaborator Efthimis Filippou who also worked on Dogtooth, The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer. This film feels very much in the Greco-Roman tradition of storytelling. I couldn’t help but think of Ovid’s The Metamorphoses.

Lanthimos’ Poor Things felt very much like a follow up to Dogtooth—both explore the danger of carnal knowledge matched with a  mind deprived of worldly knowledge. Kinds of Kindness feels like a follow-up to The Killing of a Sacred Deer— an unrelenting fable about revenge. Both have the same brutality and absurdity that truly shines and makes the audience feel rewarded for their discomfort. Kinds of Kindness has much more humor however and while some won’t want to return to The Killing of a Sacred Deer, they will want to rewatch Kinds of Kindness.

In addition to the classic movie trope of the wife lost at sea, I found connections to Ingmar Bergman’s films (pregnancy loss and abortion) and Ruben Östlund’s Triangle of Sadness (absurdity and social commentary in three parts).

Kinds of Kindness had a lot to offer. Close up shots in which parts of the body obscured make for some stunning imagery. Disruptive sound is used to great effect including the off-key playing of a piano, often times just the banging of one single key, or the use of a cell phone ringing followed by static as used in the second story. In the last of the three stories, an editing technique is used that cuts away to another shot before the audience feels ready to move on to a new visual. Plemons, Stone, Qualley, Chau, Dafoe, Athie make for a solid cast and I hope they’ll all continue to collaborate with Lanthimos. I just hope that Hunter Schafer will be considered for a bigger part in a future film.

The 2 hour and 45 minute time frame might be a drag for some. While watching it in a theater is ideal, the movie’s episodic style can make for three enjoyable movies at around an hour each.

Kinds of Kindness is delightfully twisted. A must-see for lovers of the absurd.

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