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“Everything I learned I learned from the movies.” 
― Audrey Hepburn

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  • Paul Carlson
Escape Into Film
Film review: 'Bliss' wonders "what if the red pill was crack?"
Feb 4

Feb 4 Film review: 'Bliss' wonders "what if the red pill was crack?"

Paul Carlson
film reviews

This obtuse sci-fi drama ponders reality … while smoking crystals … in a homeless camp.

Sundance Film Festival movie review: 'Flee'
Feb 3

Feb 3 Sundance Film Festival movie review: 'Flee'

Paul Carlson
film festivals, film reviews

Striking animation and vivid archival footage are composed to allow let an Afghan man finally open up about his harrowing childhood as a refugee.

Sundance Film Festival movie review: 'The World to Come'
Feb 2

Feb 2 Sundance Film Festival movie review: 'The World to Come'

Paul Carlson
film festivals, film reviews

Two women find unexpected intimacy amid the hardship of 19th century farm life.

Why I walked out of 'Prisoners of the Ghostland'
Feb 2

Feb 2 Why I walked out of 'Prisoners of the Ghostland'

Paul Carlson

I went more than 20 years without tapping out on a movie. That streak ended with Ridiculous Cage in a post-apocalyptic, samurai western.

Sundance Film Festival movie review: 'Judas and the Black Messiah'
Feb 1

Feb 1 Sundance Film Festival movie review: 'Judas and the Black Messiah'

Paul Carlson
film festivals, film reviews

A pair of standout performances highlight this searing look at the combustible tension between the FBI and the Black Panthers.

Sundance Film Festival movie review: 'Mother Schmuckers'
Feb 1

Feb 1 Sundance Film Festival movie review: 'Mother Schmuckers'

Paul Carlson
film festivals, film reviews

If Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne went on a madcap misadventure through the slums of Brussels, it would look a lot like this appalling Belgian comedy.

Sundance Film Festival movie review: 'Mass'
Jan 31

Jan 31 Sundance Film Festival movie review: 'Mass'

Paul Carlson
film festivals, film reviews

The first question everyone asks when something terrible happens is 'why?' This brilliantly written and brilliantly performed drama lives in the agonizing search for answers.

Sundance Film Festival movie review:  'The Blazing World'
Jan 31

Jan 31 Sundance Film Festival movie review: 'The Blazing World'

Paul Carlson
film festivals, film reviews

This highly stylized and surreal horror fantasy is an impressionistic, hypnotic nightmare brought to cinematic life.

Sundance Film Festival movie review: 'Jockey'
Jan 31

Jan 31 Sundance Film Festival movie review: 'Jockey'

Paul Carlson
film festivals, film reviews

Clifton Collins Jr. is heartbreaking and brilliant as a veteran horse rider facing his mortality and an uncertain future in this horse racing drama.

Sundance Film Festival movie review: 'Land'
Jan 31

Jan 31 Sundance Film Festival movie review: 'Land'

Paul Carlson
film reviews, film festivals

Robin Wright's debut feature drama is one part survivalist journey and one part grief-stricken dramatic mystery box.

Sundance Film Festival movie review: 'Together Together'
Jan 31

Jan 31 Sundance Film Festival movie review: 'Together Together'

Paul Carlson
film festivals, film reviews

This relationship comedy has all the trappings of a traditional rom-com - except that it joyfully and confidently is most certainly not a romance.

Sundance Film Festival movie review: 'At the Ready'
Jan 31

Jan 31 Sundance Film Festival movie review: 'At the Ready'

Paul Carlson
film festivals, film reviews

The eye-opening documentary offers an intriguing look at a regimented school-to-law enforcement pipeline.

Sundance Film Festival movie review: 'Passing'
Jan 30

Jan 30 Sundance Film Festival movie review: 'Passing'

Paul Carlson
film festivals, film reviews

After a gripping opening act, this period drama becomes a film that so quiet that it's hard to hear all the things its precise and beautiful subtext is trying to scream.

Sundance Film Festival movie review: 'Wild Indian'
Jan 30

Jan 30 Sundance Film Festival movie review: 'Wild Indian'

Paul Carlson
film festivals, film reviews

The legacy of violence echoes through the lives of two men who covered up a terrible crime as children.

Sundance Film Festival movie review: 'The Pink Cloud'
Jan 30

Jan 30 Sundance Film Festival movie review: 'The Pink Cloud'

Paul Carlson
film reviews, film festivals

A deadly worldwide crisis forces everyone to take shelter in their homes, requiring them to quarantine and isolate. And no, this is not a film about Covid-19.

Sundance Film Festival movie review: 'A Glitch in the Matrix'
Jan 30

Jan 30 Sundance Film Festival movie review: 'A Glitch in the Matrix'

Paul Carlson
film festivals, film reviews

This so-called “documentary” is what happens when someone watches 'The Matrix' a few dozen times too many.

Sundance Film Festival movie review: 'On the Count of Three'
Jan 29

Jan 29 Sundance Film Festival movie review: 'On the Count of Three'

Paul Carlson
film festivals, film reviews

Two friends without a hope left in the world make a pact to end their lives when the day is done.

Sundance Film Festival movie review: 'How It Ends'
Jan 29

Jan 29 Sundance Film Festival movie review: 'How It Ends'

Paul Carlson
film festivals, film reviews

This relentlessly eccentric end-of-the-world dramedy explores a city where everyone is totes cool with the end of days.

Sundance Film Festival movie review: 'John and the Hole'
Jan 29

Jan 29 Sundance Film Festival movie review: 'John and the Hole'

Paul Carlson
film festivals, film reviews

Consider a 'Home Alone' scenario ... except without burglars ... and with way less energy ... and the kid isn't abandoned on accident so much as he imprisons his family.

Sundance Film Festival movie review: 'Censor'
Jan 28

Jan 28 Sundance Film Festival movie review: 'Censor'

Paul Carlson
film festivals, film reviews

This anachronistic horror flick cribs from the gratuitously ultraviolent torture porn subgenre to distort a traumatized woman's tenuous grasp on reality.

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““No subject is terrible if the story is true, if the prose is clean and honest, and if it affirms courage and grace under pressure.””
— "Midnight in Paris"

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