As sports fans, we always consider the degree to which we support or dedicate ourselves to the team. “Big Fan” is a character study of a man who has formed his identity and life around the New York Giants. The film preys on our expectation that every fan has a clear line when it’s time […]

Lance Clayton’s (Wiiliams) son Kyle (Sabara) is a perverted and disrespectful jackass. He’s obsessed with pornography, despises music and movies entirely, is flunking his classes and most of all, he hates his dad. Lance is a failed writer trying to keep his job as a high school poetry teacher and his co-worker girlfriend. But all […]

Noah Baumbach (“The Squid and the Whale”) films are always difficult. The concept of going to the movies for the sake of escapism is lost on him. If anyone tried harder to make real life into a movie, they’d have to compete with Baumbach. If anyone tried to make a film where dialogue is king, […]

To set the record straight — maybe pun intended — “Humpday” is not a true gay and lesbian film, nor is it a “bromantic comedy” with homophobic slapstick. Lynn Shelton’s film is simple: what if two best heterosexual guy friends somehow got it in their heads that filming themselves having sex with each other would […]

Family comedy is a genre that garners a lot of rolling eyes these days. Families have been categorized and stereotyped. The kids are crazy. The parents fight. They make up. Even pregnancy movies are that way. Are they ready to have the baby? Will they keep? Will it keep them together or tear them apart. […]

“The Brothers Bloom” sounds like a traditional con movie: two talented con men brothers are known for their epic, almost literary cons, when one brother wanting out leads to a concession that the next one, cheating a lonely heiress out of a million or so, will be their last. There’s a bit of the classic […]

Comic book writer Harvey Pekar would probably be the first to tell you that he only agreed to a movie about himself for the money. He denounces all things glamorous or idealistic and a moving biopic about his life would contradict him entirely. That’s why Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini’s choice to do an […]

I discovered “Cashback” this summer and was mesmerized by its blend of genres throwing in a little sci-fi/fantasy to go in with the romantic comedy. If you like indie romance, read the rest of my review below. Based on his Oscar-nominated short film of the same name, Sean Ellis’ “Cashback” is an elegant and funny […]

“(500) Days of Summer” informs us right away that it’s a boy meets girl story, not a love story. Interesting, considering our preconditioning for the romantic comedies of happily ever after, or in this case, the indie romantic comedy with “a way of working out” that has been done so many times already that “indie” […]