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SXSW Review – ‘Black Box Diaries’ is a Story of Perseverance

Speaking out about sexual assault is a difficult process, in part because people don’t always believe accusations. Having to stand up to someone in a position of power with considerably more resources makes it even harder. Yet there are those who know that they must act to prevent others from suffering similar fates, and that…

SXSW Review – ‘Fly’ is a Window into the Wondrous World of Flight

It’s hard to imagine the feeling of jumping off a cliff and just letting the wind carry you. Fly, from National Geographic Documentary Films, brings audiences as close as possible to no longer needing to imagine and just getting to experience it. In its opening moments, two people leap off a ledge and are indeed…

‘Arthur the King,’ Simon Cellan Jones’s New Film about Adventure Racing

©Carlos Rodriguez/Lionsagte If an Oscar category is ever created for an outstanding performance by a non-human animal, I nominate Arthur, the lovable canine who co-stars in this inspirational film about loyalty, endurance, and dogged persistence in the face of incredible odds. Lionsgate’s Arthur the King is directed by Simon Cellan Jones from a screenplay by…

SXSW Review: Grappling with ‘The Truth vs. Alex Jones’

There are few public personalities alive today who seem to relish being despised as much as Alex Jones. The longtime host of InfoWars, a news program that wholeheartedly embraces fringe conspiracy theories as irrefutable truth, believes that he is doing the public a great service by sharing all the things he believes to be wrong…

‘Tendaberry’: A Gritty Drama Celebrates Resilience and Survival

Directed by emerging filmmaker Haley Elizabeth Anderson and starring Kota Johan in her feature-film debut, Tendaberry is a gritty but touching drama about a young woman’s determination to survive and thrive amidst hostile surroundings. It is impossible not to like Dakota, the twentysomething woman at the heart of this captivating coming-of-age narrative about a life…

SXSW Review – The Scary Truth of ‘How to Build a Truth Engine’

It’s hard to know what’s true anymore. Universal access to information has not always been the gift it should have been, since it’s possible for an image or video that’s either entirely false or simply miscaptioned to reach millions of eyes and ears in a matter of seconds before any correction can be made. Perhaps…

SXSW Review – Grand Jury Prize Winner ‘Bob Trevino Likes It’

Not everyone is meant to be a parent. Children, on the other hand, don’t have any choice in the matter, and there can be very toxic relationships and dynamics that develop when a parent makes their child feel as if they owe them something for all they had to give up in order to raise…

Lois Patiño’s ‘Samsara’: a Mindful Meditation on Life and Death

Debuting this week as part of the New Look showcase at New York’s Museum of the Moving Image, Samsara is an impressive new film by Spanish director Lois Patiño. As I watched it, I could not help but think of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem “Crossing the Bar” with its depiction of death as a passage…

SXSW Review – Finding Love in ‘A Nice Indian Boy’

Who doesn’t want to find the perfect person to spend their life with and have a dream wedding? That desire can be complicated by factors like family and cultural traditions, which may not, for instance, be nearly as accepting of two men getting married as they are of a groom kissing his bride. A Nice…

SXSW Review – ‘Backspot’ Shows the Side Effects of Success

The world of competitive sports is filled with extremely motivated people and a great deal of pressure to succeed. Those two elements can combine to create a toxic, unhealthy environment in which the safety and mental well-being of athletes is not adequately considered and monitored. Playing sports while in high school can increase that tension…

‘The American Society of Magical Negroes’ Satirizes Racist Tropes

Kobi Libii’s feature directorial debut, The American Society of Magical Negroes, takes a light-hearted, satirical look at a cultural phenomenon that has recently been denigrated by filmmakers like Spike Lee, among others. The term itself refers to a cinematic or literary trope governing the strategic inclusion of Black characters in American cinematic or literary works….