Drama

Jane Austen Wrecked My Life

  • Title: Jane Austen Wrecked My Life
  • IMDb: link

Jane Austen Wrecked My Life isn’t what you might expect. It’s more of a throwback art house character-driven story than trashy Hollywood romcom. And, despite the title, Jane Austen‘s writing is celebrated throughout. The film introduces us to Agathe Robinson (Camille Rutherford), a lonely middle-aged bookseller obsessed with Austen who works in a local shop with her best friend (Pablo Pauly). Without her knowledge, Félix submits her writing in a contest winning a two-week writers retreat at the Jane Austen Residency. However, the road to the retreat is fraught with anxiety, kissing Félix on a whim, a broken-down car, and insulting Austen’s descendant Oliver (Charlie Anson) who Agathe immediately dislikes. 

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The Last Rodeo

  • Title: The Last Rodeo
  • IMDb: link

The Last Rodeo is a film that could only take place in America where a broken healthcare system would force a grandfather into risking his own life to pay for life-saving medical procedure for his grandson (Graham Harvey) which the insurance will not fully cover. While the film focuses on the hero’s journey and bringing former rodeo star  Joe Wainright (Neal McDonough) closer together with his daughter (Sarah Jones) and former best friend (Mykelti Williamson), the idea that any of this is necessary is as tragic as the boy’s brain tumor.

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Sinners Sins So Well

  • Title: Sinners
  • IMDb: link

Featuring Michael B. Jordan in dual roles as dangerous twins who return home to the Mississippi Delta with ill-gotten gains to set up their own juke joint, writer/director Ryan Coogler‘s Sinners is one part period drama which examine the lives of the tightknit community and one part supernatural thriller as something evil is drawn in by the music of the twins’ cousin Sammie (Miles Caton) all taking place during a single day and night.

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Tracker – The Mercy Seat

  • Title: Tracker – The Mercy Seat
  • IMDb: link

Colter (Justin Hartley) runs into some trouble helping a friend (Diego Klattenhoff) search for a pair of missing snowboarders (Madison Lawlor and Lexi Simonsen) on top of a mountain. Although he finds the girls, Colter loses them by handing them off to a group he mistakes for helpful locals who are actual a fucked-up group of mountain folk (Sean Depner, Jedidiah Goodacre, and Ariana Guerra as a victim made part of the family) who turn them over to the head of their family (Sean Bridgers) and plan on torturing the girls for their pleasure. 

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Heat

  • Title: Heat
  • IMDb: link

In honor of the passing of Val Kilmer, this Flashback Friday takes us back to 1995’s tour-de-force crime drama Heat. Unquestionably Michael Mann‘s best film, Heat splits its focus between a crew of armed robbers led by Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro) and the cops out to stop them led by LAPD Lieutenant Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino). No film has played both sides so well, although if I have a complaint it’s that a more ambiguous ending that faded to black on the gunshot in the weeds on the edge of Los Angeles International Airport allowing the audience to determine the winner of the pair’s struggle would seem to be more fitting.

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