Category Archives: Indie

Oh, Hi! review — Twisted, hilarious romantic comedy

July 24, 2025 flawintheiris

Directed by Sophie Brooks | Written by Brooks and Molly Gordon | 94 min | ▲▲▲1/2 Iris (Gordon, a Booksmart veteran) and Isaac (Logan Lerman) are off for a weekend in the New York countryside at a gorgeous farmhouse. They're in that honeymoon phase of their relationship — he's saying and doing all the right…Read More

The Surfer review — Nicolas Cage hangs loose

June 18, 2025 flawintheiris

Directed by Lorcan Finnegan | Written by Thomas Martin | 100 min | ▲▲1/2 | on VOD This is a tribute to the Ozploitation movies of the 1970s and '80s, like Ted Kotcheff's Wake In Fright, while also being that self-contained thing that's becoming a genre unto itself: A Nicolas Cage movie. He doesn't discriminate much…Read More

Bonjour Tristesse (1958, 2025) review — Youth and age, beauty and regret

June 4, 2025 flawintheiris

(2025) Written and Directed by Durga Chew-Bose, who adapts the Françoise Sagan novel | 110 min | ▲▲▲1/2 | At Carbon Arc Cinema (1958) Directed by Otto Preminger | Written by Arthur Laurents, adapting the novel by Françoise Sagan | 94 min | ▲▲▲ | VOD Preparing for this new adaptation of the famed novel…Read More

Do I Know You From Somewhere? review — Lovely, sad Maritime fantasy

June 4, 2025 flawintheiris

Directed by Arianna Martinez | Written by Martinez and Gordon Mihan | ▲▲▲ | At Park Lane Cinema in Halifax on June 7 A supernatural mystery/break-up drama from New Brunswick isn't something we get a chance to see every day. This first feature from filmmaker Martinez got into TIFF, and it's easy to see why.…Read More

The Halifax Independent Filmmakers Festival is on now!

May 28, 2025 flawintheiris

As regular readers of FITI will know, I'm a programmer and artistic director at Carbon Arc Cinema in Halifax. We're going dark this week to give the cinema spotlight to the Halifax Independent Filmmakers Festival, happening until Sunday at the Bus Stop Theatre on Gottingen Street. I've had the opportunity to see a couple of…Read More

The Uninvited review — Hollywood and Time

May 20, 2025 flawintheiris

Written and Directed by Nadia Conners | 97 min | ▲▲ | VOD This is a talky, Tinsel Town satire of the sort where a group of entitled people gather, indulge in substances and discuss issues of age and paths not taken. It’s cut from the cloth of California Split or The Anniversary Party. Rose (Elizabeth…Read More

On Swift Horses review — Queer melodrama loses by a nose

April 24, 2025 flawintheiris

Directed by Daniel Minahan | Written by Bryce Kass, adapting the book by Shannon Pufahl | 117 min | ▲▲1/2 This is a deeply romantic drama, one that prefers mystique to grit. Its performers are all fetching, and an elegance in the cinematography makes sure to show them at their most appealing. It also leans…Read More

The Ballad of Wallis Island review — Sweet, but slightly out of tune

April 20, 2025 flawintheiris

Directed by James Griffiths | Written by Tom Basden and Tim Key | 99 min | ▲▲1/2 Basden and Key are British comedy writers who've been developing this material for years, adapting their own short film going back to 2007. The years of chemistry is clear in their performances, which aids this modest, if predictable…Read More

The Wedding Banquet (2025) review — Remake finds new storytelling paths

April 17, 2025 flawintheiris

Directed by Andrew Ahn | Written by Ahn and James Schamus, based on the script by Schamus, Ang Lee, and Neil Peng | 102 min | ▲▲▲ 1/2 | Crave The original Wedding Banquet was Ang Lee's second feature, but the first to get a release in North America. Weirdly, it's pretty much unavailable online…Read More

The Friend review — Charming, melancholy New York dog movie

April 10, 2025 flawintheiris

Written and Directed by Scott McGhee and David Siegel, adapting a book by Sigrid Nunez | 119 min | ▲▲▲ 1/2 One of my favourite movies is Anthony Minghella's Truly Madly Deeply, from 1991. It's about Nina (Juliet Stevenson), a translator and a musician whose partner, Jamie (Alan Rickman), dies unexpectedly, leaving her angry and…Read More