Author: Sean Parker
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Animated films are a sweet spot for me. As I’m often writing about dark aspects of reality, relating horror films to the socio-political elements of our society, it’s good to hit the reset button every once in a while, if only momentarily shaking off the macabre for my own mental health. Of course, not every…
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Two junior police officers, their electrically charged boss, a goat, a cricket player, his elderly neighbor, and his communist butler, convene at a murder scene. While it may sound like it’s the start of an off-color joke, those are just the idiosyncratic suspects in Indian director Pratul Gaikwad’s screwball, surrealist comedy Dead Dead Full Dead…
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If you’re a horror fan, you’ve probably heard something about Cuckoo by now. Maybe you’ve seen the trailer, read a review, or seen the bloody bandage spelling out the title wrapped around Hunter Schafer’s head on the poster. You know, something. Cuckoo is one of the big horror releases of the summer, continuing the tradition…
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About halfway through director Kourtney Roy’s Kryptic, a subtle pull of memory began to nag at me from my subconscious cinema. You know, that place in a cinephile’s brain where movies we love are stored, where scenes are resurrected and played back as if appearing on a screen before us. Something about the film strongly…
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Sitting on the sofa in the early morning Sunday hours some years ago, I scoured the depths of Netflix for something fun, a title that would satiate my appetite for the bizarre and unconventional. This is where I typically take on a foreign animated film, a dramatic indie sci-fi title, or an offbeat introspective horror…
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On the poster for Chainsaws Were Singing, a blood-covered smiling face appears sideways next to a chainsaw made up of musical notes above the phrase “Texas Chainsaw meets Monty Python…and Les Misérables.” It’s quite the statement, speaking to a wide array of eclectic tastes. The combination of these very different genres is the reason Fantasia…
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It’s always fun to be surprised by the return of characters you’d never thought you’d see again. While Hollywood hits are almost intrinsically positioned for sequels, indie films rarely have opportunities to follow up on what their protagonists have been up to. When I first saw the trailer for Vulcanizadora, I had no idea what Buzzard was…
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What the hell is mukbanging? Admit it, you’re curious enough to ask the question but have no idea what images Google might send you in response, so you’ve been waiting for this exact review, you sly dog. You’ve probably witnessed a mukbang and had no idea. And if you’ve ever eaten on camera and posted…
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This past Saturday, I had the spectacular opportunity to speak with Somnium’s Racheal Cain and Chloë Levine ahead of the film’s world premiere at the Chattanooga Film Festival. Somnium is an ambitious film about a starry-eyed young starlet, Gemma (Levine), pursuing her dreams of making it in Hollywood while juggling a job at a shady medical…
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When I arrived at the Brattle Theatre for my first Boston Underground Film Festival screening this year, I didn’t even look at what I was seeing. I was so punchdrunk by the atmosphere, excited to be watching indie films again in the cozy, amazing theater, that when I saw it was Off Ramp, a movie…