Movie review by Greg Carlson “Booksmart,” Olivia Wilde’s great feature directorial debut, is — like several of the very best teen/teensploitation/coming-of-age comedies — about many things. But the one that resonates most is contained in the ancient maxim regarding the deceit in appearances. Both the filmmaking, which repurposes a healthy checklist of genre chestnuts in […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Impossibly beautiful lead performers underline the YA fantasy aspects of Ry Russo-Young’s translation of “The Sun Is Also a Star,” based on Nicola Yoon’s bestseller. Russo-Young’s sharp handling of the 2017 adaptation of “Before I Fall” indicates her bona fides in the contemporary teen genre, but the filmmaker struggles to […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Fargo-based filmmaker Matthew Myers recently remarked that director Stefon Bristol was, among other things, paying his bills by driving for Uber until production began on “See You Yesterday,” Bristol’s exciting debut feature. Myers produced the movie with Jason Sokoloff and Spike Lee, a professor to Bristol in the graduate film […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Jennifer Gage’s sudsy “After” offers run-of-the-mill college romance targeted to the PG-13 demographic. The result, a far cry from the lustier stories upon which it is based, misses the mark despite an appealing performance from Josephine Langford as the virginal heroine Tessa Young. Gage, who wrote the screenplay with Susan […]