Hustlers is a movie that goes for broke right from the jump, it’s feminine gaze directed oftentimes within as it celebrates these friendships, cherishing the familial bonds the women end up creating even as society turns a blind eye towards their collective travails.
“One of the things that attracted me about the script was that women just run the world in this movie. That all the men kind of take a backseat and it’s this awesome female-run coven/cult which I just felt like I hadn’t really seen before.”
– Chelsea Stardust
One of the best horror-comedies of the year, it’s likely most have sadly not heard of director Chelsea Stardust’s Satanic Panic, a gorily flighty hoot that tickled my funny bone and sent shivers buzzing up and down my spine with fiercely demonic enthusiasm.
“There’s a moment in this world where you have to sort of say that you understand what role you’re expected to play and shout out lout that you’re not going to be doing that anymore. Things are going change, and that includes that sad truth that some people are going to have to fall off your radar and some new people are going come on it.”
– Paul Downs Colaizzo
The Peanut Butter Falcon is a distinctly American fable of resilience and perseverance that’s nothing less than wonderful, this marvelous riverboat journey one I am not soon to forget.
The redemptive clarity of Brittany Runs a Marathon is pure and refreshing, its understanding of people in personal crisis learning to take responsibility for their actions even more so.
For everything Ode to Joy gets right there’s so much that can’t help but ring false, facile and slightly distasteful about this endeavor, the bad taste it left in my mouth after it had concluded one that took a little while to dissipate.
Ready or Not is a masterfully entertaining game of subterfuge, innuendo, romance and survival where the ultimate winners are the viewers who bought themselves a ticket to see it get played.
Blinded by the Light is a musical celebration of life, family, friendship and love, the song it sings as memorably pure and as hauntingly electrifying as any of the ones Springsteen himself has written and performed throughout his illustrious career.