Michael Frank

With her fourth feature, writer/director Kris Rey teamed with lead actor Gillian Jacobs (“Love”) to create I Used To Go Here, a comedy focused on a newly published author returning to her alma mater to speak on her debut novel. The woman, Kate, interacts with her mentor in Jermaine Clement, the current residents of her college home, and the places and people that she used to know. Tackling the weird power of nostalgia, the commercial elements of making art, and falling back into old habits, R...

At the turn of the century, Irish actor Colin Farrell was discovered in his early 20s — not by Steven Spielberg in Minority Report, but by Joel Schumacher in Tigerland. Schumacher’s film came out in 2000, with Farrell in the lead at the age of 24, putting him near 22/23 when they filmed the gritty war drama. It’s a referendum on war, early male rage, and the dichotomies that continue to persist within the armed forces. It’s also one of Schumacher’s best, a highlight in a comparatively spotty ...

Interviews
For her feature directorial debut, "Obvious Child" co-writer Karen Maine tells a story about a high school student (Natalia Dyer of "Stranger Things") as she attends a Catholic retreat put on by her school, one that includes a mixture of trauma, faith, and abstinence. "Yes, God, Yes" is based on Maine's previous 2017 short film of the same name; it premiered at South by Southwest in March 2019.
Maine's film hits most of the same beats you’ve seen in other Catholic high school comed...

What can audiences expect about the upcoming Possessor? Why should you stop everything and watch Netflix’s Dark? What new releases are worth checking out?

Joining the podcast is Michael Frank, Film Journalist/Writer, to provide his insights from Sundance and more.

00:40 – Intro

04:49 – Possessor

11:12 – Dark

26:35 – Relic

27:35 – Palm Springs

29:15 – The Old Guard

34:37 – Film Criticism/First Cow

46:12 – The Assistant

51:14 – Greyhound

1:05:00 – Conclusion/Looking ahead

Next week we celebrate...

In 1973, Bruce Lee died at the young age of 32, six days before the release of his most successful and his first true Hollywood film, Enter the Dragon. Watching his films in 2020 provides a bittersweet enjoyment, knowing how much of a megastar Lee already was, and imagining the immeasurable impact he would have gone on to make over the next decades of his life if it was not cut short. Lee remains one of the most bankable stars of all time, as seen by Enter the Dragon making an estimated $350 ...

Stand-up comedian and writer/director Ramy Youssef still is only 29 years old, though he has two seasons of a Hulu comedy and one Golden Globe under his belt. His show Ramy explores a version of himself, one with the same big questions he’s been asking himself for years. I sat down to chat with Ramy about these questions, these lack of answers, and the difficulty of being in your mid-20s.
How’s it been since the second season dropped? Are you just doing tons of interviews and how’s it been?
W...

This review of Mucho Mucho Amor: The Legend of Walter Mercado contains some minor spoilers.
If you heard the name Walter Mercado during your childhood, you heard his voice, too. In Latin households specifically, he was everywhere. In grandmother’s homes, Mercado was everything. His phrase of “Mucho, mucho amor” became nearly as iconic as his capes, a way to identify his superhero ability to light up the TV screen enough to fill the room the TV sat in.
For those that don’t know Mercado though,...

TV/Streaming
“What we know is a drop. What we don’t know is an ocean.”
Taken from its final season, this is a fitting way to describe “Dark,” the first German Netflix original, a show that blasts you with multiple timelines, interconnected family trees, and more questions than you can hope to answer. The conclusion to this three-season series rages against the pain, death, and destruction that a few of its characters have preached, opting for love, connection, and the pricelessness of taking ...

Director Shannon Murphy isn’t new to the scene. She’s been acting and directing in theater productions for about a decade and has been involved in TV for the last few years. With "Babyteeth," she’s firmly on the map, though, immediately running to direct episodes of "Killing Eve" after her debut. Premiering at last year’s Venice Film Festival, "Babyteeth" follows teenager Milla (Eliza Scanlen) and her relationships to those around her, from her 23-year-old drug dealing “boyfriend” in Moses (T...

In early February, A24 and Apple’s joint production of the documentary “Boys State” opened at the Sundance Film Festival. The response was overwhelming. Hailed as one of the best documentaries, and features for that matter, at the festival, “Boys State” found directors Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine — who previously collaborated on “The Overnighters,” a film we called one of the Best Documentaries of the last decade — winning the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary at the year’s first big film fe...

After four seasons, The Good Place ended its run of acclaim and mass popularity on January 30, 2020, nearly five months ago. Critics largely lauded the finale of the show and it was a fitting conclusion to a series that promoted ethics and a higher road of living while on the air. Creator Michael Schur’s show featured actor D’Arcy Carden playing Janet, an artificial being that develops a few human emotions over the course of the seasons. Carden played several different versions of Janet, incl...

Crystal Moselle has been working with the same actors over the past few years. She found them on the subway, just in her day-to-day life as a New Yorker. The relationships to these young, female skateboarders have led to a Sundance selection and critical acclaim with Skate Kitchen, with the first season of Betty on HBO, and now with the recent announcement of the show’s renewal for a second season. I chatted with Crystal to hear about her relationship with these actors, with the city of New Y...

Following their relative critical success with “Damsel,” the screenwriting-directing duo of brothers David and Nathan Zellner have set their sights on a new project with a cast full of familiar names. The Zellners will be directing and producing “Alpha Gang” after David Zellner wrote the script for the upcoming sci-fi comedy, slated to begin filming in 2021.
READ MORE: ‘Nancy’ Proves Andrea Riseborough Is One Of The Greatest Actors Working Today [Review]
“Alpha Gang” follows a group of aliens...