Written & Directed By: Andrew Haigh
Based on The Novel “STRANGERS” by: Taichi Yamada
Cinematography: Jamie Ramsey
Editor: Jonathan Alberts
Cast: Andrew Scott, Paul Mescal, Claire Foy, Jamie Bell
A screenwriter drawn back to his childhood home enters into a fledgling relationship with his downstairs neighbor while discovering a mysterious new way to heal from losing his parents 30 years ago.
Written & Directed By: Georgia Oakley
Cinematography: Victor Seguin
Editor: Izabella Curry
Cast: Rosy McEwen, Kerrie Hayes, Lucy Halliday, Lydia Page, Amy Booth-Steel, Stacy Abalogun, Lainey Shaw, Farrah Cave
England, 1988 - Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government is about to pass a law stigmatizing gays and lesbians, forcing Jean, a gym teacher, to live a double life. As pressure mounts from all sides, the arrival of a new girl at school catalyses a crisis that will challenge Jean to her core.
Directed By: Trevor Anderson
Written By: Trevor Anderson and Fish Griwkowsky
Cinematography: Wes Miron
Editor: Justin LaChance
Cast: Vaughn Murrae, Dominic Lippa, Lacey Oake, Shannon Blanchet, Matthew Rankin, Rohan Khane, Jhztyn Contado, Milana Bochiwski, Kaitlyn Haugen, Kristin Johnston
1987: While the other students wonder if new kid Robin is a boy or a girl, Robin forges a complicated bond with the school bully, making increasingly dangerous choices to fit in.
Directed By: Enrique Gomez Vadillo
Written By: Enrique Gomez Vadillo and Carlos Valdemar
Cinematography: Santiago Navarrette
Editor: Carlos Puente
Cast: Sonia Infante, Andres Bonfiglio, Rodolfo De Anda, Antonio Eric, Humberto Lobato, Angela Alatriste, Martha Gema, Ileana Higueras
The son of a wealthy businesswoman returns home from boarding school. His mother, always busy with business and with her ambitious lover, realizes that her son suffers from being a homosexual. Having killed a teacher who abused him, the trauma makes him keep killing.
Directed By: Andrea Pallaoro
Written By: Andrea Pallaoro and Orlando Tirado
Cinematography: Katelin Arizmendi
Editor: Paola Freddi
Cast: Trace Lysette, Patricia Clarkson, Joshua Close, Adriana Barraza, Emily Browning, Bobby Easley
The intimate portrait of a woman who returns home to care for her dying mother. A delicate and nuanced story of a fractured family, the story explores universal themes of abandonment, aging, acceptance, and redemption.
This is a slow, strong, subtle-moving film.
As we watch the pain, the main character goes through taking care of a mother who doesn’t remember who she is especially after she changes her sex.
There is a lot said in the silence of this film that we are left to read into, guess, and infer. No, they clearly speak loud and clear even when subtle.
There are a lot of close-ups that reflect a familiar distance between the characters that keeps them apart or at a certain length as we can quite see them fully and framed, in quite a few scenes.
Most of the characters are seen at odd angles and revealed slowly and only important to the character of Monica and the story
Trace Lysette as the title character is the only one always in focus and fully framed. She is beautiful and penetrating in a powerful performance, full of anger, sadness, and ultimately confidence.
I will admit, I have followed Trace Lysette career for a while, and online, and admit, I am a fan so getting to see her starring in a film and knock it out of the park. Also getting to be luminous brave strong, a little romantic at first victim, standing her ground and becoming a winner.
We see the pain of her having to watch her mother deteriorate and also lavish, loving feelings on her brother about family and how it’s important hello even though her mother gave her up to a certain extent. While she is there and not recognized and is being treated like a stranger, which seems to be a special kind of torture, especially when caring for a loved one.
Helping support is a kind of adversary that she keeps trying to please or find a connection with or hopes to start reconnecting with. Revealing herself to a family and a new identity, but with the same old history between them.
Like the title, the film stays tightly focused on her never really allowing that much room for other characters or quite a bigger picture.
It seems that throughout this film. When it rains it pours before Monica as bad things just keep seeming to happen one after the other.
Rejected by an ex Who constantly keeps trying to reach out to she’s desperate to find connections when her family seems not able to. She even has a one-night stand with a rather random male just to feel some pleasure and have someone care and desire her. The character is not sexless.
Patricia Clarkson plays the slowly dying mother, and she is good here as she’s always been a good actress but never gets enough credit or work.
The second half is more like all the characters getting to know each other and the family more.
For some reason, the film reminds me of a Bon Iver album, peaceful with some sharp notes with a certain calm that occasionally gets disrupted by reality and time. Though for the most part stays in Its own place. Does the film never feel like it’s a conventional movie or like anyone is truly acting.
The film dives into the depths of the agony of losing a parent, especially the second time as the first time you were banished and abandoned.
The film ends up being a character about facing the past and informing the present. As you fall in love with the family as well as her the character who is quite the bombshell, but whose emotions or emotional landscape might seem closed at first, but is always open. I can’t say this is enough Ms. Lysette is definitely a star.
this film is quite personal in its material and effective
Grade: B
Written & Directed By: Vuk Lungulov-Klotz
Cinematography: Matthew Pothier
Editor: Adam Dicterow
Cast: Lio Mehiel, Cole Doman, Mimi Ryder, Alejandro Goic, Jasai Chase Owens, Jari Jones, Ben Groh, Sarah Herrman
Over the course of a single hectic day in New York City, three people from Feña's past are thrust back into his life: his foreign father, his straight ex-boyfriend, and his 13-year-old half-sister. Having lost touch since transitioning from female to male, Feña must navigate the new dynamics of these old relationships while tackling the day-to-day challenges that come with living a life in between.
Directed By: Arthur Hiller
Written By: Barry Sandler
Story By: A. Scott Berg
Cinematography: David M. Walsh
Editor: William Reynolds
Cast: Harry Hamlin, Michael Ontkean, Kate Jackson, Terry Kiser, Wendy Hiller, Arthur Hill, Nancy Olson, John Dukakis, Dennis Howard, Asher Brauner
Follows a young, idealistic married couple, Zach and Claire. They seem to be the perfect couple: college sweethearts with similar tastes and opinions, they are each very intelligent, sensitive, and caring individuals who can be both fun-loving and serious, in turn. Zach and Claire like one another as people as well as lovers. Each one is rising in his/her career and they talk about having kids someday; Claire, especially, wants them to have a boy and name him Rupert. When Zach meets a guy named Bart, Zach has a very personal human crisis: Is he happy?
Directed By: Tig Notaro and Stephanie Allynne
Written By: Lauren Pomerantz
Cinematography: Cristina Dunlap
Editor: Kayla Emter and Glen Scantlebury
Cast: Dakota Johnson, Sonoya Mizuno, Kiersey Clemons, Jermaine Fowler, Molly Gordon, Sean Hayes, Whitmer Thomas, Tig Notaro, Odessa A’Zion
Lucy and Jane have been best friends their entire lives. Only when Lucy embarks on a personal journey, will she face a test of her friendship, and her sense of self, on a path she may not be entirely ready to take.
Directed By: Julie Davis
Written By: Dan Bucatinsky
Cinematography: Goran Pavicevic
Editor: Glenn Garland and Mark Morrisey
Cast: Dan Bucatinsky, Richard Ruccolo, Adam Goldberg, Sasha Alexander, Lisa Kudrow, Andrea Martin, Joanna Kerns, Christina Ricci, Michael Harris, Doris Roberts
While the flame of Jackie and Brett's attraction intensifies, Eli and Tom, the unlikely pair they attempt to bring together, appear destined to spiral out of love rather than make any sort of progress toward becoming a genuine couple.
Written & Directed By: Amanda Kramer
Cinematography: Patrick Meade Jones
Editor: Benjamin Shearn
Cast: Sophie Von Haselberg, Cricket Arrison, Reshma Gajjar
Sissy St. Claire graces the small screen for her first ever television special, an evening full of music and laughter, glamour, and entertainment. But Sissy's live event quickly begins to curdle into a psychedelic nightmare.
Directed By: Amanda Kramer
Written By: Amanda Kramer and Noel David Taylor
Cinematography: Patrick Meade Jones
Editor: Benjamin Shearn
Cast: Andrea Risenborough, Harry Melling, Demi Moore, Karl Glausman, Ryan Simpkins, Jaz Sinclair, Dana Ashbrook, Mary Lyn Rajskub, Alisa Torres, Cole Escola
Newlyweds Suze and Arthur become the dangerous obsession of a greaser gang that awakens a sleeping quandary into the couple's sexual and gender identities.
Directed By: Nick Gillespie
Written By: Nick Gillespie, Matthew White and Brook Driver
Cinematography: Billy J. Jackson
Editor: Tom Longmore
Cast: Tom Meeten, Katherine Parkinson, Kris Marshall, Kevin Bishop, Johnny Vegas, Mandeep Dhillon, Steve Oram, Alice Lowe, Pippa Haywood
A weedy charity shop worker is set on winning the big national talent show. But when the actions of 5 selfish people cause him to miss his audition, he sets out to seek deathly revenge. It's 1 lunch break and 5 spectacular murders.
Directed By: Raoul Walsh
Written By: Julius J. Epstein & Philip G. Epstein
Based on the play by: James Hagan
Cinematography: James Wong Howe
Editor: William Holmes
Cast: James Cagney, Olivia De Havilland, Rita Hayworth, Alan Hale, Jack Larson, George Tobias, Una O’Connor, George Reeves, Lucile Fairbanks, Edward McNamara, Helen Lynd
Biff Grimes is crazy about Virginia Brush, but his "pal" Hugo Barnstead marries her himself and makes Biff the fall guy for his shady dealings. Though Hugo seems to have everything Biff wants, Biff learns that having what one wants and wanting what one has can be two very different things.
