In Grandma, Lily Tomlin plays misanthropic widow Elle who embarks on a whirlwind tour of the past in a single day when her granddaughter Sage (Julia Garner) arrives on her doorstep pregnant, broke, and in need of an abortion.
LGBTQ
The Diary of a Teenage Girl is about more than sex
When you’re young, there’s a fine line between horseplay and sex. Horseplay is familiar and safe; sex is new and scary. And play fighting is the easiest way to get physically close enough to another person to even put sex on the table. It’s how Minnie’s (Bel Powley) sexual exploits begin in Marielle Heller’s wonderfully […]
Director Sean Baker talks finding the look for Tangerine
Sean Baker talks about Tangerine and how he created such stunning visuals when shooting on an iPhone. Read our review of Baker’s follow-up film, The Florida Project. It’s Christmas Eve in Santa Monica, but the transgender women at the center of writer-director Sean Baker’s Tangerine aren’t celebrating the holiday. Nobody outright says it in the film, […]
SFFS Artist-in-Residence Sally El Hosaini on writing and directing My Brother the Devil
Sally El Hosaini’s directorial debut, My Brother the Devil, is a touching and sensitive story of two Arab brothers in Hackney, London. During her sojourn in San Francisco as the San Francisco Film Society’s Artist-in-Residence, I sat down with El Hosaini to discuss her writing process, working with non-actors, her shoot, and her approach to the film’s aesthetic. […]
Sundance Review: Take Me to the River is creepy, unsettling, and a tad thin
Perhaps the most polarizing film at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, writer-director Matt Sobel’s Take Me To The River has left some critics grossed out and others fascinated with this evocative, probing mood piece that winds up a bit thin.
Sundance 2015 Review: Larry Kramer in Love and Anger captures both the man and the LGBT movement
By laying bare the horrors of dealing with AIDS in the 1980s and 1990s, Carlomusto infuses us with the same anger and impatience that Kramer felt.