Author: Jan Hamilton

We first find Bunny (Mo Stark) running down a shabby New York street, barely making it to his apartment. We won’t find out for a while what he was running from. He and his wife argue; it’s mild, but police are called for a noise complaint and hassle them a bit. These cops tend to… Continue reading SXSW 2025 Movie Review: Bunny – A lot of laughs, a dash of danger

While awaiting the return of her husband from his work retreat in Tasmania, Ava (Daisy Ridley) hears the terrible news of a military experiment gone wrong that has killed half a million people. He was at the center of the disaster and is most likely dead. It was an EMP that shut down people’s brains.… Continue reading SXSW 2025 Movie Review:  We Bury the Dead

British Airways flight 149 was headed for Kuala Lumpur when it stopped in Kuwait at 01:13 (GMT) on August 2, 1990. It had left London late and, on landing, dropped off a few passengers who found the terminal empty, all other arrivals and departures having been canceled. At the Kuwaiti British Embassy, the MI6 officer… Continue reading SXSW 2025 Movie Review: Flight 149: Hostage of War-Documentary  Why Were We Not Warned?

Cass (they/them) is a young non-binary person trying to get by with a service job in a restaurant, as a nanny for a well-off family, and occasionally drug dealing at parties. Every month is a struggle, partly due to living in the expensive city of San Francisco. One evening, they run into a new girl… Continue reading SXSW 2025 Movie Review: Outerlands Adrift in San Francisco

Did you ever wish they would remake the movie Misery with a teen “biggest fan” and a rock star victim? That was the feeling I had after seeing the very entertaining movie Sweetness. Young teen Rylee Hill has been a devoted fan of moody rock star Payton has been a member of the group Floor… Continue reading SXSW 2025 Movie Review: Sweetness -Things aren’t what they seem to be

When law enforcement knocks on the door of the middle-class Ohio family Mark and Gail Ritchey in 2019, it seems to come out of nowhere, but Gail has been fearing this day since 1993. The dead body of a newborn, found locally all those years ago, hasbeen linked to Gail through DNA testing of a… Continue reading SXSW 2025 Movie Review: BABY DOE – A Cold Case Documentary

The scene: present day. Three college students are beingdriven home by an old high school friend, Travis, played by Michell Cole, an ex-soldier with a soft southern accent. Day, the sole woman, played by Akira Jackson, is a whip-smart African American. Phinehas Yoon plays James the somewhat nihilistic Asian, and Noah Toth plays Fish (Fisher)… Continue reading SXSW 2025 Movie Review:   It Ends – An Engrossing Horror/Thriller

In this Danish/Swedish/Japanese co-production, we are told that 40% of adults in modern-day Japan say they are lonely. Increasingly, a large percentage of people live alone. We meet two such people in our film: one, a 45-year-old man we’ll call M, and a 43-year-old woman we’ll call F. M works for a business and feels… Continue reading SXSW 2025 Movie Review: Dear Tomorrow – A Sympathetic Documentary

Director Benjamin Flaherty is himself a recovering alcoholic. He got help after many years from a sponsor and from working in the program. When the Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010, it covered addiction treatment. Since that time, many bogus treatment centers have sprung up. They are simply patient mills whose object is to… Continue reading SXSW 2025 Movie Review: SHUFFLE – How Good Intensions Can Go Bad

Kristi was raised by her older brother in Baton Rouge, La., and was definitely a tomboy. In adolescence, she decides she is a lesbian, and in college, she needs gynecological surgery. When she asks to see her medical records, Kristi learns she was born with “indeterminate sexual organs”, actually born a boy (XY) chromosomes, with… Continue reading SXSW 2025 Movie Review: THE SECRET OF ME – Secrets Are Eventually Exposed