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FIlm review: Night Sweats

David Cronenberg is not the worst model for a filmmaker looking to make a mark on a limited budget: Cronenberg’s own early features used their limitations to amplify a sense of nameless dread in the midst of seemingly ordinary situations. Debuting director Andrew Lyman-Clarke and his co-writer Seth Panman hit a lot of the right marks with their venereal horror thriller Night Sweats (beginning with that excellent title), though they run out of steam before an ending that doesn’t provide the intended frisson.

The State of the 27th

On Friday January 17, former congressman Chris Collins was sentenced to 26 months in federal prison for his lying to the FBI and conspiracy to commit securities fraud. It is a fittingly ignominious end to a particularly nasty and petulant politician. 

Film review: THE IRISHMAN

It’s fair to say that many, maybe even most filmgoers who are looking forward to The Irishman, Martin Scorsese’s epic return to the gangster genre, have one question in mind: will it be another GoodFellas?

And can you blame them? Scorsese’s 1990 film may have been dismissed by critics at the time as a retread of Mean Streets, the movie that put him on the map in 1973, but it has stood the test of time to become one of the most enduringly popular films in cinema history.

More science than fiction: Anya

In devising Anya, a contemporary drama about a couple who encounter an unsuspected genetic wall when they try to have a child, filmmakers Jacob Akira Okada and Carylanna Taylor were concerned that the scientific aspects of the story be presented as accurately as possible. They appear to have succeeded, though the result is a movie that may appeal more to scientists than viewers looking for an involving story and engaging characters.

AC/DC? The Current War

Buffalonian William Kemmler was an illiterate drunkard who made a living selling vegetables from a cart in the 1880s. His name is remembered not for what he did in his life, but for how he left it: having murdered his girlfriend in a drunken rage, he was the first man put to death in the electric chair. That device was the invention of another Buffalonian, Alfred Southwick, a professor at the UB School of Dentistry.

Tacogate II: Censure Mychajliw

Republicans love to complain about what they term “political correctness,” often going so far as to assert that being empathetic or mindful of others’ feelings is destroying western civilization as we know it. 

Except, of course, when there’s some virtue signaling (another favorite right-wing trope) of their own to do. 

The Real Dolemite

The big film release of the weekend — on Netflix, as so often happens these days — is Dolemite Is My Name, the first film that star-producer Eddie Murphy actually seems to have cared about in many a year. (The director is Craig Brewer, of  Black Snake Moan and Hustle and Flow fame.) Prepare for it by meeting the real Dolemite as interviewed by The Public contributor Ed Grant.

Buffalo onscreen at the 13th Buffalo International Film Festival

 

For all the noise you hear about the occasional A Quiet Place 2 or Marshall being filmed in Buffalo, there’s a lot more professional film production going on here than you’re likely aware of. The proof of that will be in screen next weekend as the 13th edition of the Buffalo International Film Festival presents no fewer than seven feature films that were made here, in whole or part.

Chris Collins' Coda

This is the second — and hopefully the last — epitaph I need to write on the political career of Christopher Collins. The first is here. His governmental record is, on balance, replete with abject failure. He was a disastrous County Executive who spent wildly to implement dubious corporate hocus-pocus, with little effect. He raised taxes and cut critical services on which citizens relied.

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