Alan Ng

Life is a card game. There are the lucky ones who are dealt a great hand in life, and there are those who are dealt a losing hand from the start. Director James Khanlarian tells the tale of one unlucky hand in his feature film, The Ghost Trap. Jamie (Zak Steiner) is a young third-generation

Bryn Woznicki and Lauren Neal's feature film, Under the Influencer, hits on a very broad spectrum of underrepresented actors and artists to create this unique psychological thriller. Lex (Lauren Neal) is a queer, biracial data scientist and digital artist who suffers from a debilitating anxiety disorder. To pay the bills, she works as a customer

NOW IN THEATERS! A Trump movie coming out during a highly contentious election year? What could go wrong? Oddly enough, Ali Abbasi's Trump biopic, The Apprentice, is not the film I thought it would be, especially at a time when we're all forced to "take sides." The Apprentice documents the rise of Donald Trump (Sebastian

There's a charm to low-budget indie horrors that Hollywood cannot capture. This is undoubtedly true as Joshua Nelson takes on a delicate subject in his horror short, I Know It's Ben Crane. Decades ago, a serial killer went on a sexual assault and murder spree in a small community. Ben Crane is his name, and

A young man must come to grips with his past in Bryan Young's dramatic short, The Lost Boys. Michael (Kingston Young) is having suicidal ideations. Worse, he's having nightmares of actually un-aliving himself. Turning to his only coping mechanism, Michael drops a bottle of Jack Daniels, puts on a suit, and visits a gravesite. He

Political documentaries are always a mixed bag. We all have our own biases, viewpoints, and perspectives, and especially today, reviewing a political documentary can be seen as an act of cowardice or bravery, depending on which side you stand on. That said, let's dig into what could be described as a one-sided documentary, Dinesh D'Souza's

In her feature film Empire Waist, writer and director Claire Ayoub tackles the topic of fat shaming among teens. When her science class is asked to "pair up" for a project, no one wants to team up with Lenore. As if by magic, the enigmatic Kayla (Semina Yevu) arrives. Most would describe Kayla as fat,

Megan Park's feature film, My Old Ass, is one of those films that starts off truly annoying but slowly evolves. By the end, it evolved so much it is now one of my favorite movies of the year. Elliott (Maisy Stella) is your typical annoying Gen Z teen finally breaking free from her hellhole life

Matt Walsh and the Daily Wire are not exactly known for exploring controversial topics in America. In What is a Woman? Walsh attempts to find the answer to the question, "What is a..." In his new film, Am I Racist? Walsh wonders if he is, in fact, a... In Am I Racist? Matt Walsh earnestly

NOW IN THEATERS! Let's be honest. AI is going to be a horror subgenre for a very long time. The question is whether Chris Weitz's horror feature Afraid will stand out from what will soon be a crowded field of killer AI movies. John Cho plays Curtis, who I think is a marketing firm VP.

I'll be honest. It's hard not to go through yet another mid-life crisis while watching filmmaker Kevin Schreck's documentary, Antarctic Voyage, and not consider leaving life behind and living and studying life at the southernmost point in the world. Dr. Samantha Monier is a field biologist heading to Antarctica, one of Earth's most remote and

Charles Jarrott's fantasy spy-thriller, Condorman, came at a time when the Walt Disney Company was still reeling creatively after the deaths of Walt and Roy. The Michael Crawford-starring film was the company's attempt to appeal to the James Bond/comic book audience and rebuild its brand. Woodrow "Woody" Wilkins (Michael Crawford) is a fun, easy-going comic

TARZANA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2024 REVIEW! From the mind of Vincent J. Roth comes the fourth installment of the Surge of Power series about the world's first gay superhero in Surge of Power: Where There's Smoke. Picking up after the events of Surge of Dawn, the evil supervillains from The Council are about to enact

NOW IN THEATERS! Let's be honest. Brandon Lee's The Crow was not perfect by any means. As tragic as the events surrounding the production and its subsequent cult following were, The Crow was a borderline movie...in my humble opinion. But it had charm. With Bill Skarsgård now headlining, will a more modern version elevate the

1:08, written and directed by Rick Walker, follows Lilly (Kelcie Weber), a once passionate artist now consumed by addiction and depression. As she speaks through her inner monologue, she is tempted to flip through the pages of her journal, but the early pages unleash painful memories. She hasn't touched her journal in two weeks, and

In Maia Scalia's short film, His Mother, no love is fiercer than a mother's protection of her child. Julie (Bethany Anne Lind) is in her car frantically, trying to get to her son Harrison's (Ben Irving) location. Learning of a situation at Harrison's school, Julie is on hold with the police department. Not just the

Thirty years in the making, Victor Bevine's Nine Ball is a story of perseverance. Though the final product looks like it was made in the 90s, the story manages to stay relevant in 2024. Nine ball is a straightforward game. You sink the balls in the pocket in order from one to nine, and if

NOW IN THEATERS! In post-strike Hollywood, comic-book fans have been desperately waiting for a good superhero film...hell, a great superhero film...for a very long time. Does Deadpool & Wolverine deliver? Let's find out. Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) is dead, as told in Hugh Jackman's last X-Men film, Logan. Meanwhile Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) has failed to

Let me start by saying that I know nothing about the ancient stories of Icelandic Vikings. Now I do. Filmmaker and composer Jeffrey Leiser weaves together the stories of the Vikings from Penguin books in the operatic feature Freydís and Gudrid. Bear with me because I know I’m going to get names wrong. Freydís and

As much as I loved Kevin Costner’s Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1, I get the hesitation. It’s pretty dense and that is not a word I would normally use for a Western. It’s 1859, in the San Pedro Valley, the first word of the title refers to a plot of land in the