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Sundance Hit ‘How It Ends’ Brings The Apocalypse Home (Review)

13Aug

By Matt ShiverdeckerNo Comments

Film, Reviews

Sundance Hit ‘How It Ends’ Brings The Apocalypse Home (Review)

When the end credits began to roll on its brisk 82-minute running time, I said to my partner how much I enjoyed "How It Ends" and that it reminded me of the glory days of American independent film in the 90s. He laughed and noted that the whole time he was thinking about Richard Linklater's 1990 classic, "Slacker." There is a shared cinematic universe between the two - both features offer a meandering "day in the life" scenario giving the viewer a series of characters who float in and out of the film and give us a handful of perfect moments. While "Slacker" showed us a random day in late 1980s Austin, Texas, this literal doomsday comedy has us on the streets of Los Angeles in the 24 hours before a giant meteor makes contact with Earth and kills us all. Zoe Lister-Jones and her hu...

Young Poets Shine in “Summertime” (Review)

9Jul

By Matt ShiverdeckerNo Comments

Art, Film, Reviews

Young Poets Shine in “Summertime” (Review)

In the spring of 2019, Carlos López Estrada ("Blindspotting") attended a poetry showcase hosted by a Los Angeles-based non-profit organization called Get Lit: Words Ignite. He was so inspired by the young poets who performed that he rounded up all of them and worked with some of his closest filmmaking friends to put to a project together that would incorporate their words into a functional feature film to serve as a love letter to the city. The end result effortlessly manages to merge spoken word poetry with occasionally bombastic musical numbers featuring a host of intersecting characters into a cohesive timeline over the course of one summer day. I can't say enough good things about these performances, all from high school poets who were not professional actors. You would nev...

Take a Wild “First Date” This Holiday Weekend (Review)

2Jul

By Matt ShiverdeckerNo Comments

Film, Reviews

Take a Wild “First Date” This Holiday Weekend (Review)

A debut film can often act as a calling card in the industry. Even if it doesn't find a huge audience, the right buzz can earn enough of a following to become a cult classic and lay the groundwork for bigger things. That, in a nutshell, is exactly what I anticipate will happen for Manuel Crosby and Darren Knapp, who wrote and directed "First Date," an incredibly fun and totally bonkers movie that premiered earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival. https://youtu.be/EDNarSyQEcc Tyson Brown plays Mike, a shy high-schooler who has had a crush on a girl at school named Kelsey (Shelby Duclos) for a long time and finally decides to work up the nerve to ask her out. The only problem? He doesn't have a car. All he needs to do is get a decent ride and pick her up for a date. If it...

Sundance Gem “Together Together” Hits VOD (Review)

11May

By Matt ShiverdeckerNo Comments

Film, Reviews

Sundance Gem “Together Together” Hits VOD (Review)

"Together Together" was acquired for release by Bleecker Street who bought it before its Sundance Film Festival world premiere earlier this year, where it was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in the Dramatic category. After a decent start at the box office a few weeks back that has already seen it sell over $1.2 million worth of tickets, Nikole Beckwith's second feature film is now available for home viewing. It stars Ed Helms ("The Office") as Matt, a single man in his 40s who has been unlucky in love and finds himself desperate to be a father. Patti Harrison, who is an absolute riot on Hulu's "Shrill," stars as Anna, a young woman who Matt hires to be his surrogate. We rarely get to see a movie about a platonic relationship between a man and a w...