Month: March 2023

Set in New York City, ‘Scream VI’ fails to make ‘a brand-new start of it’

Jeff Mitchell

“Scream VI” (2023) – “I’m gonna make a brand-new start of it in old New York.” – “New York, New York” (1977) It’s 2023, and the “Scream” series left the Left Coast and Woodsboro, Calif.   The Scream Team is now cutting its teeth in The Big Apple.  Fourteen months after the fifth installment’s release, “Scream” (2022), directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett and writers James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick are back with another Ghostface creation.  The filmmakers crisscrossed the country with the stars from the last film:  Sam (Melissa…

The Oscar-nominated ‘The Quiet Girl’ speaks volumes

Jeff Mitchell

“The Quiet Girl” (2022) – “If you were mine, I’d never leave you in a house with strangers.” – Eibhlin (Carrie Crowley) As director/writer Colm Bairead’s movie opens, it’s springtime in 1981, and Cait (Catherine Clinch), a bashful nine-year-old, lives in a bustling home but one without radiant, productive energy.  Cait lives with a few sisters and her parents (Michael Patric and Kate Nic Chonaonaigh).  Her mom (Chonaonaigh) is expecting a baby boy in a few months, towards the end of the summer.  However, downtrodden moods linger within these dreary…

‘Emily’: Mackey rises to spectacular heights in O’Connor’s passion project

Jeff Mitchell

“Emily” (2022) – “I’ve loved Emily Bronte probably all my life.  I guess like on a super-geeky kind of level.” – Frances O’Connor, Sept. 9, 2022, at the Toronto International Film Festival O’Connor has starred in television and film since 1993, but she took a dramatic professional turn toward a passion project.  This English native put pen to paper and stepped behind the camera to fashion an engaging biopic of a notable countrywoman, Emily Bronte (1818 – 1848).  Bronte authored the celebrated book “Wuthering Heights”, her only novel. Note: this…