‘Mass’ bravely dives into deep, emotional places in one confined space

“Mass” – Here’s my best advice to approach “Mass”, writer/director Fran Kranz’s first film.  Don’t watch the trailer. This gripping, conversational drama is almost entirely set in one location.  The four main characters confront a painful, deeply personal topic, one that has haunted them for years, but don’t ask a friend, sibling, your local movie critic, or the Internet the key matter that Jay (Jason Isaacs), Gail (Martha Plimpton), Linda (Ann Dowd), and Richard (Reed Birney) debate.  During an Oct. 10 interview with Collider, Kranz says, “Look, it has been…

AHFW’s Top 5 Sundance 2021 Films

Even though the Sundance Film Festival is a big deal and only a 90-minute flight away from Phoenix, I sadly never attended.  After growing up in Upstate NY, shoveling our 60-yard driveway hundreds of times and trudging through blizzards, ice storms, and 3-foot snowdrifts as a paperboy for five years, I tend to shy away from snowy, cold weather whenever possible.  (Living in and embracing one of the hottest cities in the country is reasonably reliable proof, don’t you think?) This year, however, I enrolled in Sundance 2021, and through…