Review: Going viral with "Not Okay"

by Matt St Clair

While social media can be an outlet for networking and connection, it’s also a place of toxicity. Quinn Shephard’s new satire Not Okay heavily emphasizes the latter. In a digital age where anyone can achieve fame with viral tweets or TikTok videos, Not Okay taps into how some people, like anti-heroine Danni Sanders (Zoey Deutch), go on a demeaning search for internet clout.

Stuck with an unfulfilling photo editor job when she wants to be a writer, Danni Sanders aims to get ahead at the magazine she works for. Seeking fame and validation from everyone around her, including influencer Colin (Dylan O’Brien) who she crushes on, Danni decides to fake a trip to Paris. With just her photo skills and a change in location on her Instagram posts, Danni makes it appear she went away despite being held up in her apartment. But once a terrorist attack occurs in Paris, Danni then pretends to be one of the survivors. As you can guess, thinks get grimmer as they progress... 

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Tribeca 2018: The Dark

by Jason Adams

The creepy housekeeper in Shirley Jackson's classic The Haunting of Hill House gives an ominous warning to her newly arrived guests at that titular mansion - that nobody's coming to save them, not "in the night, in the dark." Turns out she was right! (Creepy housekeepers are always right in the movies.) It's a warning that's echoed across scary storytelling ever since, and there's an echo of it in the title for the Tribeca creeper The Dark, premiering tonight at the fest...

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Tribeca 2017: The Drama Queens of "Blame"

Nathaniel R catching up with Tribeca Film Festival

photo by Jacqueline Harriet for Constellation Magazine

These women pictured above, left to right, are Quinn Shephard and Nadia Alexander. You should probably learn their names. They're the leading ladies of Tribeca hit Blame. Nadia Alexander picked up the festival jury's Best Actress prize. Not that Quinn Shephard is a slouch in that department. Or any department. Get this -- Shephard wrote, directed, produced, stars in, and edited Blame. Whew. More impressively, she did all of those things well! Will the cinema's leading 20something DIYer Xavier Dolan feel threatened or be all 'plz, she didn't have the energy to do the costume design, too? Slacker!'

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