Atom Egoyan’s The Adjuster (1991) is the kind of film that gets introduced at film festivals with phrases like “bold psychological exploration” or “a meditation on identity and trauma,” when in reality it plays like someone filmed a philosophy major’s anxiety dream using a discarded David Lynch starter kit and the last roll of Canadian … Read More ““The Adjuster” (1991) – Atom Egoyan’s Freudian Carnival of Wut” »
If you’ve ever wondered what it would feel like to be emotionally waterboarded by a fax machine while trapped inside a RadioShack circa 1989, Atom Egoyan’s Speaking Parts has you covered. This is a film that stares deep into the hollow soul of modern relationships and comes back with nothing but static. It’s an existential … Read More “Speaking Parts (1989): Atom Egoyan’s Moody Karaoke of Miscommunication” »
Atom Egoyan’s Family Viewing (1987) is a film that takes the word “uncomfortable” and stretches it over 80 minutes of dreary Canadian awkwardness, broken communication, and truly horrifying camcorder choices. It’s like if American Beauty were directed by a Soviet documentarian on Ambien, using only expired film stock and half-charged batteries. Critics might call it … Read More ““Family Viewing” (1987) – Press Play to Suffer” »
Before Atom Egoyan became Canada’s official exporter of art-house melancholy and incestuous subtext, he made Next of Kin—a film so painfully awkward, so aggressively polite in its mediocrity, it feels like it should come with an apology and a Tim Hortons gift card. This was his debut feature, the cinematic equivalent of a teenager’s slam … Read More “Next of Kin (1984): Atom Egoyan’s Dysfunctional Family Reunion with the Audience” »
James Ponsoldt’s Summering (2022) is one of those films that wants to be deep and whimsical, but ends up face-planting into a pile of sincerity and forgotten potential. It’s a coming-of-age story so devoid of urgency, charm, or purpose that it feels less like a movie and more like a long group text thread where … Read More ““Summering” (2022) – Stand By Meh” »
Let’s imagine for a moment that Black Mirror was adapted by a committee of marketing interns, filtered through a TED Talk, given a coat of Silicon Valley paint, and then drowned in a vat of lukewarm moral ambiguity. That unholy stew of glossy technophobia and empty philosophical musing? That’s The Circle, a movie so proudly … Read More “The Circle (2017): Surveillance, Smugness, and the Cinematic Black Hole Where Plot Goes to Die” »
“The End of the Tour” is the cinematic equivalent of being trapped at a Greyhound station at 3 a.m. with two men debating the soul of America over a bag of pretzels and a shared nicotine patch. Directed by James Ponsoldt and based on Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself by David Lipsky, … Read More ““The End of the Tour” (2015) – A 1000-Word Suicide Note Masquerading as a Movie” »
James Ponsoldt’s The Spectacular Now (2013) is a film that dares to ask: “What if The Breakfast Club had zero personality and was quietly addicted to peach schnapps?” It’s an indie coming-of-age drama that wears its heart on its thrift-store sleeve and thinks having your teenage protagonist blackout before third period is somehow deep. Critics … Read More ““The Spectacular Now” (2013) – The Spectacular Meh” »
Some movies try to treat addiction with reverence. Others with gritty realism. Smashed—James Ponsoldt’s 2012 entry into the “quirky downward spiral” genre—treats alcoholism like a bad roommate. It’s annoying, messy, sometimes dangerous, but ultimately just a plot device to help Mary Elizabeth Winstead get her indie cred badge. Clocking in at a merciful 81 minutes, … Read More “Smashed (2012) Alcoholism As Indie Quirk, Hold the Consequences” »
James Ponsoldt’s Off the Black (2006) is the kind of film that makes you wish the title was a warning about your screen turning off halfway through. It’s a low-key indie drama that desperately wants to be poignant, intimate, and quietly powerful—like a hug from your emotionally distant uncle after three scotches. Instead, it stumbles … Read More ““Off the Black” (2006) – A Movie So Subtle It Forgot to Exist” »