After four consecutive years covering the Sundance Film Festival, January 2024 was a good time for a break. That said, the attention and interest in the numerous films submitted to the festival, as well as the emergence of new stars in front of and behind the screen, remained intact. Suncoast was one of the better received movies, and Nico Parker (The Last of Us) won the Breakthrough Performance award, so expectations were higher than usual, although once again, I started watching without knowing anything about the narrative.
Suncoast tells the story of Doris (Parker), a shy teenager with complicated family issues. Her brother has brain cancer, so any day could be his last, while her mother, Kristine (Laura Linney), directs all her attention to her son, leading to a gradual distance from Doris. Filmmaker Laura Chinn takes basic coming-of-age formulas and transforms them into a carefully written, mesmerizing study of numerous...
Suncoast tells the story of Doris (Parker), a shy teenager with complicated family issues. Her brother has brain cancer, so any day could be his last, while her mother, Kristine (Laura Linney), directs all her attention to her son, leading to a gradual distance from Doris. Filmmaker Laura Chinn takes basic coming-of-age formulas and transforms them into a carefully written, mesmerizing study of numerous...
- 2/10/2024
- by Manuel Sao Bento
- Talking Films
There’s a core of authentically devastating family experience and personal investment that saves Suncoast from its unskilled handling, giving this grief drama, coming-of-age combo a heart to counter its predictability. Cynics too often roll their eyes while generalizing about the tired formula of the “Sundance movie,” but this one ticks all the boxes and even features an impossibly saintly character played by Woody Harrelson, who could have been conceived expressly for Park City audiences hungry for the prescribed dosage of funny-sad feels. On that elementary level, actor Laura Chinn’s first effort as writer-director gets by.
What makes Suncoast more palatable than those unpromising elements would suggest is the knowledge that Chinn is working from the autobiographical kernel of losing her brother to cancer as a teenager in 2005, when what should have been his peaceful final few months of hospice care were disrupted by the media circus and sanctimonious...
What makes Suncoast more palatable than those unpromising elements would suggest is the knowledge that Chinn is working from the autobiographical kernel of losing her brother to cancer as a teenager in 2005, when what should have been his peaceful final few months of hospice care were disrupted by the media circus and sanctimonious...
- 1/23/2024
- by David Rooney
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
There’s an ambitious story at the heart of Laura Chinn’s feature debut “Suncoast.” Based on Chinn’s own childhood experiences, the film is about a teenager named Doris (Nico Parker) with a brain cancer-riddled brother dying in the same hospice care where cultural lightning rod Terri Schiavo is also ailing. Doris just wants to experience the normal ups and downs of high school, but she has to deal with her sibling’s condition and her overbearing mother (Laura Linney). On top of that, Doris is confronted by the very questions of what death means by the protestors outside the facility calling Schiavo’s husband a murderer for wanting to end her vegetative state.
It’s a lot to capture in under two hours, and while there are some lovely beats in Chinn’s film, it’s ultimately too unfocused in the way it approaches its many themes, with...
It’s a lot to capture in under two hours, and while there are some lovely beats in Chinn’s film, it’s ultimately too unfocused in the way it approaches its many themes, with...
- 1/22/2024
- by Esther Zuckerman
- Indiewire
Plot: Anna and Ryan have found true love. It’s been proven by a controversial new technology. There’s just one problem: Anna still isn’t sure. Then she takes a position at a love testing institute and meets Amir.
Review: Science fiction, as a genre, is often associated with space battles, aliens, and other action-oriented elements. Sometimes, as in the films Her and Gattaca, sci-fi can be dramatic and take a slight twist on the very near future. Fingernails follows that tradition by presenting a contemporary world almost the same as our own but with one main difference: a process where a couple can be tested to confirm that they are compatible and truly in love. It is with that conceit that filmmaker Christos Nikou looks at two people, Anna and Amir, who have tested positive with others but find themselves falling in love with each other. The idea...
Review: Science fiction, as a genre, is often associated with space battles, aliens, and other action-oriented elements. Sometimes, as in the films Her and Gattaca, sci-fi can be dramatic and take a slight twist on the very near future. Fingernails follows that tradition by presenting a contemporary world almost the same as our own but with one main difference: a process where a couple can be tested to confirm that they are compatible and truly in love. It is with that conceit that filmmaker Christos Nikou looks at two people, Anna and Amir, who have tested positive with others but find themselves falling in love with each other. The idea...
- 10/31/2023
- by Alex Maidy
- JoBlo.com
Este Haim is most famously known as a sister. In addition to shredding bass and serving face at Haim shows around the world, she played a version of herself opposite sisters Danielle and Alana (and their parents) in last year’s “Licorice Pizza.” But somewhere between selling out Madison Square Garden and attending the Oscars, the eldest member of the trio has quietly been carving out her own path as a composer.
In 2021, she and fellow musician Christopher Stracey made their compositional debut with “Maid,” the Netflix limited series starring Margaret Qualley. Early into the process, a second opportunity rolled around by coincidence or perhaps fate. During a late-night coffee break, the duo overheard some producer friends talking about “Cha Cha Real Smooth,” indie wunderkind Cooper Raiff’s new film about a college graduate who works as a “party starter” at bar and bat mitzvahs.
“A movie about a bar mitzvah?...
In 2021, she and fellow musician Christopher Stracey made their compositional debut with “Maid,” the Netflix limited series starring Margaret Qualley. Early into the process, a second opportunity rolled around by coincidence or perhaps fate. During a late-night coffee break, the duo overheard some producer friends talking about “Cha Cha Real Smooth,” indie wunderkind Cooper Raiff’s new film about a college graduate who works as a “party starter” at bar and bat mitzvahs.
“A movie about a bar mitzvah?...
- 7/7/2022
- by Harper Lambert
- The Wrap
Este Haim, arguably the most demonstrative member of the sister-trio Haim on stage, has really been demonstrating behind the scenes what she’s musically capable of, with her move into TV and film scoring. She’s being joined in that crossover by her newfound collaborator in composing for the screen, Christopher Stracey, who is one-half of the Australian dance-music duo Bag Raiders, and, as a (primarily) electronic musician and producer, has worked with or remixed artists including Ellie Goulding, Maroon 5, Orville Peck, Conan Grey and many others.
They came together through a mutual friend who “set up a playdate” to see how they’d get along in possibly co-scoring the award-winning Netflix limited series “Maid.” That pandemic-era partnership went swimmingly, and they went on to pair up a second time for director Cooper Raiff’s “Cha Cha Real Smooth,” a top Sundance Film Festival winner before going on to open...
They came together through a mutual friend who “set up a playdate” to see how they’d get along in possibly co-scoring the award-winning Netflix limited series “Maid.” That pandemic-era partnership went swimmingly, and they went on to pair up a second time for director Cooper Raiff’s “Cha Cha Real Smooth,” a top Sundance Film Festival winner before going on to open...
- 6/28/2022
- by Chris Willman
- Variety Film + TV
Andie MacDowell on track to receive first career Emmy nomination thanks to heartbreaking ‘Maid’ role
Andie MacDowell finally has her first chance at an Emmy nomination for Best Movie/Limited Supporting Actress for her performance as Paula Langley in Netflix’s “Maid.”
The 10-episode series tells of Alex, played by MacDowell’s real-life daughter Margaret Qualley, who leaves an abusive relationship and becomes a maid to make a better life for her and her daughter Maddy. MacDowell plays Alex’s bipolar mother Paula, an artist struggling to make ends meet. She has been strong in films like “Sex, Lies, and Videotape,” “Groundhog Day” and “Ready or Not,” but her supporting performance in “Maid” is one of her finest, allowing her to blend vulnerability, joy and intense emotional rage. As Lucy Mangan says at The Guardian, the role of Paula is “gradually fleshed out and always played and treated with sympathy.” Emmy voters, take notice.
SEEAndie MacDowell interview: ‘Maid’
When we’re first introduced to Paula in the series premiere episode,...
The 10-episode series tells of Alex, played by MacDowell’s real-life daughter Margaret Qualley, who leaves an abusive relationship and becomes a maid to make a better life for her and her daughter Maddy. MacDowell plays Alex’s bipolar mother Paula, an artist struggling to make ends meet. She has been strong in films like “Sex, Lies, and Videotape,” “Groundhog Day” and “Ready or Not,” but her supporting performance in “Maid” is one of her finest, allowing her to blend vulnerability, joy and intense emotional rage. As Lucy Mangan says at The Guardian, the role of Paula is “gradually fleshed out and always played and treated with sympathy.” Emmy voters, take notice.
SEEAndie MacDowell interview: ‘Maid’
When we’re first introduced to Paula in the series premiere episode,...
- 6/14/2022
- by Brian Rowe
- Gold Derby
The announcement of winners for the ASCAP Screen Music Awards, being held virtually again for 2022 and announced Monday morning, included revealing the top vote-getters for several Composers’ Choice Awards, including the scores for “Encanto” and “The White Lotus.”
Germaine Franco prevailed for film score of the year for “Encanto.” Cristobal Tapia de Veer won two of these peer-voted awards, for television score of the year and television theme as well, for “The White Lotus. The video game score of the year honor went to Wataru Hokoyama for “Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart.” Triumphing in the documentary score of the year category was Amanda Jones for “Dreamland: The Burning of Black Wall Street.”
Those five Composers’ Choice Awards come on top of ASCAP’s traditional Screen Music Awards, which collect date to honor the most-consumed music of the year in the fields of TV, film and video games, with dozens of winners cited.
Germaine Franco prevailed for film score of the year for “Encanto.” Cristobal Tapia de Veer won two of these peer-voted awards, for television score of the year and television theme as well, for “The White Lotus. The video game score of the year honor went to Wataru Hokoyama for “Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart.” Triumphing in the documentary score of the year category was Amanda Jones for “Dreamland: The Burning of Black Wall Street.”
Those five Composers’ Choice Awards come on top of ASCAP’s traditional Screen Music Awards, which collect date to honor the most-consumed music of the year in the fields of TV, film and video games, with dozens of winners cited.
- 5/2/2022
- by Chris Willman
- Variety Film + TV
Following the lead of the Sundance Film Festival itself, the ASCAP Music Cafe that usually takes place during the festival will be going virtual for a second consecutive year. ASCAP’s web offerings for the 2022 fest will feature performances by Brandy Clark, John Doe and the teaming of Evan Rachel Wood and Zane Carney, among others, along with panels including composers who scored films premiering as part of Sundance.
The 24th annual edition of the performing rights organization’s Music Cafe will go down in the online Sundance Film Festival Village over a period of four days. The performances will take place Jan. 21-22, followed by panel discussions Jan. 23-24 billed as part of “ASCAP Screen Time,” the org’s ongoing interview series about the art and business of film composing.
Evan Rachel Wood has already made Sundance news with the announcement Wednesday that a two-part documentary about the singer-actor,...
The 24th annual edition of the performing rights organization’s Music Cafe will go down in the online Sundance Film Festival Village over a period of four days. The performances will take place Jan. 21-22, followed by panel discussions Jan. 23-24 billed as part of “ASCAP Screen Time,” the org’s ongoing interview series about the art and business of film composing.
Evan Rachel Wood has already made Sundance news with the announcement Wednesday that a two-part documentary about the singer-actor,...
- 1/13/2022
- by Chris Willman
- Variety Film + TV
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