Stars: Nathan Tymoshuk, Benny Barrett, Ali Daniels, Chari Eckmann, Chelsey Grant, Liam Hage, Stephen Hage, Michael Paul Levin, Arden Michalec | Written by Anthony Cousins, John Karsko | Directed by Anthony Cousins
If you follow my writing in any way, you probably know that The Blair Witch Project is one of my favourite ever movies. Not just horror movies. It was the first horror movie I watched at the cinema and it was probably the first film I really got into in a big way. I bought the books, the t-shirt, read the newspaper articles and followed what I could on the website (I’m not sure I even had the internet at home at the time). So any film that is clearly influenced by the found-footage classic is going to get some love from me.
And Frogman is clearly influenced by The Blair Witch Project. There’s plenty of other stuff...
If you follow my writing in any way, you probably know that The Blair Witch Project is one of my favourite ever movies. Not just horror movies. It was the first horror movie I watched at the cinema and it was probably the first film I really got into in a big way. I bought the books, the t-shirt, read the newspaper articles and followed what I could on the website (I’m not sure I even had the internet at home at the time). So any film that is clearly influenced by the found-footage classic is going to get some love from me.
And Frogman is clearly influenced by The Blair Witch Project. There’s plenty of other stuff...
- 6/12/2024
- by Alain Elliott
- Nerdly
Some movies — many movies — are less than the sum of their parts. Downtown Owl, the story of a newbie teacher’s flailing and drinking and heartfelt, awkward encounters in a fictional North Dakota town, has the distinction of being precisely the sum of its parts. That’s not a knock; those ingredients are never less than engaging, driven by a playful and dynamic cinematic sensibility and a strong cast, Lily Rabe holding the center with vibrant luminosity and comic chops to spare. Rabe also steers the movie’s helm, alongside her life partner and fellow actor Hamish Linklater, and the tyro directors manage to thread a tricky needle with their first feature, navigating the chasm and the overlap between agitated and quiet, between cartoon brightness and angst.
The source material, the 2008 novel of the same name by essayist Chuck Klosterman, is not so much a riveting narrative as a vivid...
The source material, the 2008 novel of the same name by essayist Chuck Klosterman, is not so much a riveting narrative as a vivid...
- 6/9/2023
- by Sheri Linden
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
For all involved, prolific author and cultural critic Chuck Klosterman’s 2008 book “Downtown Owl” sets the stage for a number of firsts. For starters, it’s Klosterman’s earliest fiction novel and is the source at the heart of Lily Rabe (“The Tender Bar”) and Hamish Linklater’s (“Midnight Mass”) joint directorial debut which just premiered at the Tribeca Festival.
If only the freshness associated with all these firsts was felt in the film by Rabe and Linklater, who are both creative collaborators and real-life partners. Instead, something feels stale, strange and out-of-focus right at the start of “Downtown Owl,” a cold and aimless 91-minute feature that makes its compact runtime feel anything but, while broadly navigating its small town rural tale with little insight and even less purpose.
The set-up of the script is promising enough, introducing us to the fictional town of Owl, North Dakota (Klosterman’s home...
If only the freshness associated with all these firsts was felt in the film by Rabe and Linklater, who are both creative collaborators and real-life partners. Instead, something feels stale, strange and out-of-focus right at the start of “Downtown Owl,” a cold and aimless 91-minute feature that makes its compact runtime feel anything but, while broadly navigating its small town rural tale with little insight and even less purpose.
The set-up of the script is promising enough, introducing us to the fictional town of Owl, North Dakota (Klosterman’s home...
- 6/9/2023
- by Tomris Laffly
- The Wrap
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