The newest movie from Brett Haley (I’ll See You In My Dreams, The Hero) offers audiences an opportunity to explore the complications of modern life, especially through the lens of family dynamics, and ways that art — music in particular — can provide balms of consolation without needing to fix or solve situations.
Film reviews
Posted inArts & Entertainment
‘Won’t You Be My Neighbor?’ brings heart and light to FilmScene
I left this movie feeling like it was one of the most important, most beautiful and most inspiring pieces of art I had ever witnessed.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
‘American Animals’ combines documentary and drama to explore a real-life art heist
“American Animals”, starting a run today at FilmScene, stars Evan Peters of “American Horror Story,” Barry Keoghan of “The Killing of a Sacred Deer,” Ann Dowd of “Hereditary”…And surprisingly enough, it’s not a horror movie. “Animals” is a crime drama, following a group of four college-age men looking to spice up their life by planning and executing an art heist at the library of Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky.
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‘Tag’ — a ridiculous pretext for a serious project
You have seen a version of this movie before, but American cinema in the summertime is nothing if not generous. If you need to step out from the pool for a few hours to watch Tag in air-conditioned comfort, then by all means do it.
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‘First Reformed’ is a stark reflection on climate change, hypocrisy and ‘God’s plan’
“Can God forgive us for what we’ve done to this world?” That is the question which Michael, the radical environmental activist, poses to a disturbed pastor at the beginning of First Reformed. It is the question that haunts this small, brutally beautiful film, the latest from writer-director Paul Schrader, the cinema legend who penned the scripts for Taxi Driver and Raging Bull
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‘One October,’ from Iowan-turned-New Yorker Kacy Ross, comes to FilmScene
It’s 25 minutes in before anyone in the film One October uses the word gentrification. But every shot, every beat of the film is infused with the specter of that term. Rachel Shuman’s 2017 documentary, showing tonight at FilmScene, is a narrow snapshot of a changing city, on its surface.
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‘Tully,’ written by UI grad Diablo Cody, is bound to be a classic film on motherhood
With “Tully,” a film still squarely in Diablo Cody’s wheelhouse, the University of Iowa alumna and 39-year-old mother of two drops (most of) the whimsy and tackles a special sense of fatigue and dissatisfaction. Think “Bad Moms” but with a lot more depression, breast pumping and literary references.
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Laughter in the dark: ‘The Death of Stalin’ turns grim history into comedy
Stalin was one of the bloodiest tyrants of the 20th century, an era that had no shortage of bloody tyrants, so it’s only natural to wonder whether his final days, filled with murderous paranoia, and the bureaucratic struggle to seize power following his death are really fitting material for a comedy. The Death of Stalin follows the path cut by Mel Brooks, whose classic comedy The Producers, which revolves around a musical about Hitler, hit movie theaters just 22 years after the end of World War II.
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‘A Quiet Place,’ written and produced by Iowans, was made for thriller fans
A Quiet Place, floating on a cloud of high praise and a big opening weekend, has perhaps been overinflated. Nevertheless, the suspense-thriller, penned by Iowan filmmakers, is deliciously unsettling.
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Rest easy, Iowa City: ‘The Miracle Season’ is good, or at least good enough
If you’re like me, you’ve been nervous about the story of Caroline Found and the 2011 West High volleyball team being “Soul Surfer”-fied. But rest assured, the film holds up. Here are the highs, lows and uncanny bits about watching a very Iowa City story on the big screen.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Vino Vérité presents a grittier sort of foodie documentary
Fans of chef-focused, “food porn” documentaries like Chef’s Table or Anthony Bourdain’s The Mind of a Chef will enjoy 42 Grams, a somewhat gritty documentary following a Chicago chef’s journey from underground food to a critically acclaimed restaurant.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
‘Call Me By Your Name’ will have you lusting after summer — and an Oscar win for Timothée Chalamet
FilmScene’s newest (and inevitably Oscar-nominated) featured film is full of Italian sunlight, adolescent longing and stellar chemistry. You’ll never look at peaches the same.
