Anniversary Turns Celebration to Fracture

Anniversary Turns Celebration to Fracture

Anniversary ★ ★ ½ Anniversary examines what happens when an outsider enters a tight-knit family and topples its balance completely. It rarely ceases to be compelling and is often disturbing. The film explores how our political beliefs, when taken to extremes, can rip...
Bugonia Blends Madness and Conspiracy

Bugonia Blends Madness and Conspiracy

Bugonia ★ ★ ★ ★ Bugonia is an ancient Greek word that means “ox-birth.” It’s based on a ritual where cows were sacrificed so that bees would spontaneously generate from the carcass. The title gives us a clue to the film’s backdrop—how one man’s deep-seated belief in...
Shelby Oaks and the Case of the Unwashed Face

Shelby Oaks and the Case of the Unwashed Face

Shelby Oaks ★ Shelby Oaks is a film written and directed by YouTube star Chris Stuckmann. Production began in May 2022 after a successful Kickstarter campaign secured the necessary funding. It’s a mix of found footage, dramatic mockumentary and straight narrative...
Good Fortune Delivers Laughs, Wings, and a Little Grace

Good Fortune Delivers Laughs, Wings, and a Little Grace

Good Fortune ★ ★ ★ Good Fortune is written and directed by comedian Aziz Ansari, who also stars as down-on-his-luck Arj. Ansari explores a concept similar to Trading Places where a Wall Street commodities broker named Louis (Dan Aykroyd) trades places with a street...
Black Phone 2 Rings Twice, Still Terrifies

Black Phone 2 Rings Twice, Still Terrifies

Black Phone 2 ★ ★ ★ Black Phone 2 is a throwback to 1980s horror, calling up a new kind of terror that fuses the nightmares of A Nightmare on Elm Street with the brutality of Friday the 13th. While both are arguably slasher films, here we’re treated to a far more...