Gotham Awards Revue: "Urchin"

by Nick Taylor

As with Familiar Touch, I am very solidly impressed by the filmmaking debut on display in Urchin, but first I need to know how the leading turn at the center of this wasn’t nominated. Frank Dillane is magnetic as Mike, the unhoused addict trying to reintegrate into London society after his latest stint in prison. He gives a very extroverted, mannered performance of a strung-out young man rooted in an empathetic understanding of Mike’s decision-making and needs. He never showboats at the cost of the other cast members, instead showing himself to be a receptive, active scene partner. Dillane finds a man who isn’t particularly malicious even when he uses others. At no point does this character stand in for any social issue or personality type, even as the film posits his story as a parable of how an individual’s recovery and downfall are informed by the support they receive. Nothing affects Mike’s ability to take care of himself more than the government housing he receives and later loses...

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Gotham Awards Revue: "My Father's Shadow"

by Nick Taylor

The Gotham Awards ceremony is tomorrow night, and to celebrate I'll be devoting the next 24 hours and change to the nominees of the Breakthrough Director category. I've already gone long on Familiar Touch, the only nominee represented here and in the Best Feature lineup. Double dipping has historically led to winning the Breakthrough Director category, so we might give Sarah Friedland some pre-emptive congrats if we felt inclined to run stats. I'll reveal my own favorite after I've posted my final review, but suffice it to say that all five films would be worthy winners. So to start, let's dive into Akinola Davies Jr. and My Father's Shadow...

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Gotham Awards Revue: "The Perfect Neighbor"

by Nick Taylor

Geeta Gandhbir’s The Perfect Neighbor has to be one of the most widely accessible films nominated at this year’s Gotham Awards, premiering only a few weeks ago on Netflix. With a title so banal as to signal immediate dread, the true-crime subject matter made it priority viewing to some even before it received this citation. My own queasiness with the genre kept me from watching it until now, and it's an intriguing object to consider in how it relates to other activist documents. Assembled almost exclusively of footage collected from police bodycams, security cameras, drone footage, news archives, and court tapings, the film chronicles the boiling tensions in an Ocala, Florida neighborhood over two years that culminated in the killing of Ajike Owens by Susan Lorincz on June 2, 2023. It’s an upsetting document of an all-too-familiar American tragedy, streamlined into a more broadly resonant object but possibly verging on exploitative and under-contextualized in the process . . . . 

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2025 Gotham Award Nominees

by Nick Taylor

With yesterday's announcement from the Gotham Awards, our very first nominees of the 2025 awards season have arrived. Setting aside my inherent disdain for the big-budget American films now allowed to compete alongside genuine independent cinema across the world, this looks like a pretty neat set of films! Let's dive into the nominees, and as always, share somoe verbose opinions despite not seeing all these features . . . .

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NYFF63: Lucio Castro brings sexy back again and again with "Drunken Noodles"

by Nick Taylor

He’s done it again, folks. Lucio Castro, the writer/director/editor behind 2019’s metaphysical tryst End of the Century, is continuing his hot streak with his latest release, entitled Drunken Noodles. The film debuted at this year’s Cannes ACID sidebar and has been casually cruising its way through the festival circuit before an unspecified US release date next year. If it comes to your town, haul ass and see it. If you can’t yet, may this review sate your appetite until it comes your way . . . .

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