Television

Study Hell

Master-movie-review-regina-hall
Courtesy of Sundance Institute

MOVIE REVIEW
Master (2022)

The opening scene in “Master” crosscuts between an older Black woman and a younger Black woman both moving into a residence hall. The reason for the juxtaposition is not readily apparent. Is the older one experiencing déjà vu as she moves in? Are there parallels to be gleaned from this montage?

It’s not revealed until a bit later that the younger woman isn’t in a flashback and that their moves are in fact contemporaneous. Professor Gail Bishop (Regina Hall) is the first Black woman to assume the position of master at the Belleville House on the Ancaster College campus, where Jasmine Moore (Zoe Renee) is the lone Black incoming freshman. What ensues is akin to a supercut compilation of Microaggression’s Greatest Hits.

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Growing Apart

Am-i-ok-movie-review-dakota-johnson-sonoya-mizuno
Emily Knecht/Sundance Institute

MOVIE REVIEW
Am I OK? (2022)

It’s a Hollywood adage that putting a question mark in a movie title is bad luck. For a movie that centers on anxiety, the question mark in “Am I OK?” is a surprising choice. But that’s the only old adage codirectors Tig Notaro and Stephanie Allynne, directing Lauren Pomerantz’s script, have ignored. This is a glossy movie, in the tradition of Claudia Weill’s “Girlfriends” and Noah Baumbach’s “Frances Ha,” about how underemployed female best friends maintain their closeness as adulthood pulls them in separate directions. It looks modern, but it’s nothing new. Not even its exploration of coming out as portrayed by the most sexually bold actress of her generation contains anything like a surprise.

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Women Helping Women

The-janes-movie-review
Sundance Institute

MOVIE REVIEW
The Janes (2022)

“The Janes” opens with archive street footage of fabulously dressed women in the 1960s. The immediate point that makes is that while fashions change, people more or less stay the same. But codirectors Emma Pildes and Tia Lessin use the fashions of the late ’60s and early ’70s to make a quiet point in their story of the Jane Collective, an underground network in Chicago, at a time when abortion was illegal, that safely arranged at least 11,000 abortions in five years.

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The Graduate

Cha-cha-real-smooth-movie-review-dakota-johnson-cooper-raiff
Sundance Institute

MOVIE REVIEW
Cha Cha Real Smooth (2022)

In her first book, Mindy Kaling has a section where she discusses romantic comedy tropes, one of which is the Typical Mother Character. To paraphrase Ms. Kaling, basic math makes it clear that the Typical Mother Character became a parent at an uncomfortably young age, which means that her backstory can’t really be discussed, because it is automatically more interesting than anything happening in the romantic comedy. Writer-director Cooper Raiff, who also stars in “Cha Cha Real Smooth,” evidently took this statement as a challenge. His incredibly charming movie is about how an open-hearted young man and a jaded older (but not much older) woman suddenly find themselves with an unexpected potential romantic situation, and the all-encompassing question of what they are going to do about it.

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Proof of the Pudding

TELEVISION REVIEW | 'WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT COSBY'

We-need-to-talk-about-cosby-television-review-bill-cosby
Sundance Institute

Bill Cosby was a bona fide ’80s cultural icon. In his documentary series “We Need to Talk About Cosby,” W. Kamau Bell acknowledges Mr. Cosby’s influence on his initially choosing a career in comedy – the same inspiration that spurred a generation of Black comedians. Of course, the urgency to discuss Mr. Cosby now stems from the fact that he’s better known over the past decade for being a serial rapist.

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Bullet Time

2nd-chance-movie-review-richard-davis
Sundance Institute

MOVIE REVIEW
2nd Chance (2022)

Pacifists and advocates of non-lethal force will feel a headache coming on while watching "2nd Chance," a documentary by Ramin Bahrani telling the rise and fall of the Second Chance company of Michigan and its founder Richard Davis. In the aftermath of a 1970s attempted mugging of Mr. Davis that turned into a back-alley gun battle when he resisted ("I shot two men many times. Unfortunately I was fighting three.") the victim wondered whether a better, lighter bulletproof vest than the flak jackets on the market at the time might be possible. The answer was yes, and a design of woven nylon proved to have real commercial potential. With Second Chance in business as a supplier of vests, Mr. Davis developed a party piece to prove his product's effectiveness, wearing one and then shooting himself in the chest from a range of half an inch.

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Electric Dreams

We-met-in-virtual-reality-movie-review
Joe Hunting/Sundance Institute

MOVIE REVIEW
We Met in Virtual Reality (2022)

Scratch a modern innovation and something older, if not ancient, emerges. Virtual Reality was a term before anyone had even made a working transistor and some similar concepts occupied the Ancient Greeks, while no culture on the planet has failed to ponder the wet malfunctioning bag of gunk we have to cart around all the time, and wondered what the life of the mind might get up to if it wasn't held back by the life of the body. V.R. technology brings fresh perspectives on all this, and several positive viewpoints are available inside the online virtual community VRChat shown in Joe Hunting's documentary "We Met in Virtual Reality," perspectives offered up by enthusiastic Anime-inspired avatars of people who are undoubtedly being just as enthusiastic back at home.

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Body Snatcher

Encounter-movie-review-riz-ahmed-lucian-river-chauhan-aditya-geddada
Amazon Studios

MOVIE REVIEW
Encounter (2021)

Not sure what it is with these recent British bait-and-switchers, but “Encounter” unfolds very much like “Here Before”: It begins in one genre and then swerves into something else entirely. “Encounter” commences as science fiction, with Riz Ahmed as a former marine Malik Kahn, who, after years of absence, hurriedly snatches his two kids, Jay (Lucian-River Chauhan) and Bobby (Aditya Geddada), from his estranged ex, Piya (Janina Gavankar). They embark on a secret mission to take cover at a military base amid an alien invasion. Through elaborate special effects, the film depicts people altering their behaviors after insect bites, and their eyes give them away. If you are a sci-fi fan, just know looks here are deceiving. If that doesn’t deter you, beware of spoilers ahead.

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Made in U.S.A.

Snakehead-movie-review-shuya-chang-jade-wu
Samuel Goldwyn Films

MOVIE REVIEW
Snakehead (2021)

Among the recent films on immigrants – “Limbo,” “I Carry You With Me,” “El cuartito,” “Chal Mera Putt,” “Flee” etc. – “Snakehead” is the only one that actually hammers home the point that lives are at stake. Perhaps that’s because it is also a gangster flick. In the others, border crossing is merely a process: If you get caught, you get deported; it’s no biggie – the movies don’t even remind you of the dangers awaiting the immigrants back home. “Snakehead,” on the other hand, shows that the peril doesn’t end on arrival. The smugglers, to whom the undocumented are indebted, are far more dreadful than the Border Patrol.

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On the Ropes

The-survivor-movie-review-ben-foster
TIFF

MOVIE REVIEW
The Survivor (2021)

Sometimes you have to wonder if there is any story from the Holocaust left untold. And yet the news this week reminds us there are still living Nazis on the run from the justice system; and the photos from the American border of men on horses whipping other men make it bloodily obvious how so many of the choices which led to the Holocaust remain unchanged.

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