Matt Passantino

Writer-director Sophy Romvari’s “Blue Heron” is a deeply personal feature debut. Romvari has been making shorts since 2011, which would indicate she has been ready to make the leap to features for a while. Most filmmakers would use a few well-received shorts as their launchpad to feature filmmaking, but “Blue Heron” feels like Romvari needed […]

Musical biopics have become an easy target of criticism these days, and it’s even easier to be entirely cynical about them. Sometimes, a movie about a musician dares to break the mold and escape the tried-and-true formula to create an unique experience (2024’s “A Better Man” wasn’t a good movie, but certainly tried to do […]

In the early moments of “Fantasy Life,” written and directed by Matthew Shear, Sam (played by Shear himself, in a feature debut) is told he is being let go from his job at a law office. While trying to process the news, he goes to a bookstore and a panic attack overtakes him, causing him […]

Author Andy Weir’s “Project Hail Mary,” his latest book, follows “Cast Away” (but in space) to the big screen, bookending 2015’s “The Martian.” The previous Weir adaptation, which was directed by Ridley Scott, garnered seven Oscar nominations including Best Picture and starred Matt Damon as an astronaut presumed dead but trapped on Mars. Now it’s […]

“The Voice of Hind Rajab” worked last year’s festival circuit with no distributor but plenty of A-list support (Brad Pitt, Rooney Mara and Joaquin Phoenix all ended up boarding the film as executive producers). When it debuted at the Venice Film Festival in September, writer-director Kaouther Ben Hania won the Grand Jury Prize (considered the […]

More people than not have likely had to face the loss of a job. Whether it be a termination or a mass company layoff, their name just happened to be selected in favor of the bottom line — an unfortunate occurrence in a corporate world. It’s not an easy change to navigate, especially when the […]

In the early moments of Bradley Cooper’s “Is This Thing On?” Tess (Laura Dern) is brushing her teeth and watching her husband Alex (Will Arnett) as he steps out of the shower. “We need to call it, right?” Tess asks in between brushes. Alex takes a brief beat before responding “I think so, too.” The […]

To most, pingpong is just a game to play in a friend’s garage or backyard on a warm summer day. To Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet), the fast-talking hustler at the center of Josh Safdie’s “Marty Supreme,” it’s a chance to prove he is great at something and can be better than anyone else he’s matched up […]

“A house is just a house,” as the saying goes, but in Joachim Trier’s latest film, “Sentimental Value,” it is so much more than that. The house in question is a place filled with memories and grief, a structure that holds people back from growing while also forcing them to grow beyond what once took […]

Director Mary Bronstein’s “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” opens on an extreme close-up of Rose Byrne’s face. The camera focuses particularly on her eyes, which show a world-weary angst, like she has reached her breaking point many times before. She’s in a hospital room with her daughter, who has been plagued with an […]