Kristen Stewart Isn’t Bad Taking on Gitmo in Camp X-Ray

Let’s get this out of the way: Kristen Stewart is fine in Camp X-Ray, the tough-minded/soft-hearted drama that packs America’s sweetheart off to Guantánamo Bay. The fact that such casting seems unlikely might be part of why she succeeds. Tasked with patrolling a cellblock of detainees for 12 hours at…

Sundance Institute Brings Film Development Workshops to Miami

Miami’s film community is on fire. From big festivals to international screenings, local filmmakers are making waves, and indie heavyweight Sundance is taking notice. The Sundance Institute announced this week that they will use $1 million in new funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to bring…

MIFFecito: Some Films Grab, Others Stumble

It’s only a few days until a taste of the annual Miami International Film Festival (MIFF) invades the newly renovated Tower Theater in Little Havana. The name of the minifest — MIFFecito — is a play on the cafecitos so prevalent in the neighborhood. MIFF executive director Jaie Laplante says…

The Cunning, Cutting Blue Room Leaves You Guessing

Mathieu Amalric’s brisk, agreeably nasty thriller The Blue Room turns on a couple of murders — or does it? — but rather than bodies, time and space and human connection get most memorably diced. Working from Georges Simenon’s 1964 novel of the wrong man accused — or is he the…

Murray Plays for Laughs Until St. Vincent Gets Maudlin

The big news: In its first half, before it bottoms out with the rankest feel-goodery, Theodore Melfi’s too-familiar ain’t-he-irascible comedy-drama St. Vincent features scene after scene of Bill Murray actually trying to make you laugh. How long has it been? He plays Vincent, a drunk-driving Brooklynite whose look suggests science…

Jason Reitman’s Men, Women & Children Despairs at Our Wi-Fi World

The tragedy of Jason Reitman’s Men, Women & Children is that it was released the year it was made. A snapshot of today’s cultural disconnection, in which Facebook, texting, World of Warcraft, and streaming smut lure people away from dinner with their families, the film’s so current that its observations…

WWII Drama Fury Grinds Your Face in the Hell of War

A gloom hangs over writer/director David Ayer’s brutal war drama Fury that only the audience can see. It’s April 1945, and we know that in weeks the Nazis will surrender. The war is already over — Hitler just hasn’t admitted it. American sergeant Don “Wardaddy” Collier (Brad Pitt) suspects as…

MIFFecito: Lake Los Angeles Builds With a Slow, Purposeful Power

With Lake Los Angeles director/writer Mike Ott presents a heart-rending but placid portrait of the often solitary pain of the undocumented immigrant. Ott effectively uses a quiet, low-key cinematic delivery that creeps up on the viewer for a simple, devastating finale that raises small gestures to noble acts of kindness…

Borscht Film Festival Announces 2014 Dates

Borscht is officially back. The film fest dedicated to South Florida talent announced Wednesday that the “allegedly ninth” edition of the event will take place December 16 through December 21 this year. Since its first run in 2003, the Borscht Film Festival has evolved from a project of New World…