I chose this movie because: Jim Gaffigan. God I love him. He’s a stand-up comic whose act for many years concentrated on his 5-kid, 7-person family living in a cramped 2-bedroom apartment in New York City. He’s a family man and a good Catholic whose only sin is gluttony. I shouldn’t like him or relate to him, but he’s a genuinely funny guy, and I can never get enough (he’s got some comedy specials on Netflix and a couple of books at your local library and commercials for mini vans and KFC). So when I heard he was in a movie screening at SXSW, I was on board, no questions asked.
In You Can Choose Your Family, he plays Frank, a father and husband who is often absent, travelling on business. Once high school sweethearts, his wife (Anna Gunn) feels like she hardly knows him anymore, and his son Philip (Logan Miller) feels like his father 
has never known him. Philip and his father are always clashing, and Philip can’t wait to get far, far away from his family when he goes to NYU next year. But for now he’s trapped in his father’s house, living by the rules that Frank isn’t even there to enforce. So when Frank flies to Japan on business, Philip thinks it’s the perfect opportunity to go blow off some spring break steam. But what he finds there is not what he bargained for: it’s his dad…and his dad’s second family. Oh, fudge.
So of course Philip blackmails him for all he’s worth. But now that there’s a crack in the secret…well, cracks always get bigger, don’t they? Director Miranda Bailey bills this as a comedy, and the Jim Gaffigan casting would seem to back that up, but this is a pretty unfunny situation that I suppose we’d better laugh at, because the other option is unthinkable. Bailey admits that she’s got some daddy issues to work through, and really, who doesn’t, but laughing at them kept me squirming, and huffing, and burying my head in my hands. If you really stop and think about how you’d feel – as either the child or the spouse – having your relationship and in fact your entire life be usurped by replacements – well, that’s a horrible feeling. And horrible feelings can only exist for so long on film before we’re obligated to break them up with some laughs. Is this a comedy? I wouldn’t go that far. But it was an interesting, sometimes funny, film that will make you appreciate the family you do have, whatever that is.
Note: this film has since been renamed Being Frank.
his year of probation, with just 3 days left. Can he survive the next three days without any thing going wrong? The chances of that are increasingly unlikely when, while driving home before curfew one night, a young black man nearly slams into his truck at a deserted intersection. Relieved to have avoided a serious accident, Collin is unprepared for what happens next: a white cop, giving chase, pulls out his gun and shoots the man 4 times in the back, killing him.
film, Simon (Nick Robinson) has that stolen from him. Another kid, Martin (Logan Miller), learns his secret and exploits it, uses it to blackmail him for his own ends. Which, okay, further illustrates that everyone in high school is desperate and scared and going through something. But saving yourself should never be at somebody else’s expense. Unfortunately, that’s a lesson both Martin AND Simon will have to learn, because to protect his secret, Simon makes some bad choices that will hurt the very friends who will love and support him if and when he does choose to be out.
that would really speak to the urgency and the desperation and the severity of the issue. She did scrupulous research, and the details that come through – like the fact that New York state will pay for the funeral of anyone murdered during your escape (fucking think about that for a moment) – are depressingly, frighteningly authentic. Real-life abuse survivors make up the support groups which Sadie attends. They share stories that will haunt you.
Humza Deas grew up in the projects and has come into his own as an urban photographer. He discovered his passion with a broken iphone and now has a serious Insta following thanks to his beautiful images often captured with some risk and daredevil antics. But when he accidentally exposed the subculture, he got death threats.
assert themselves sexually. All the usual bullshit about female virginity is thrown into the gutter with other outdated notions like the earth is flat, and bloodletting as a cure-all. These ladies are real, raw, and raunchy when it comes to sex, which, sure, is refreshing, and that’s nice and all, but the truth is we wouldn’t give a damn about myth-busting if it wasn’t entertaining, and this movie captures that elusive comedy magic and makes its audience howl with laughter.
happening, it’s clear this family was quicker than most to adapt. They appear to be among the only survivors. But even if you can manage to never speak, to never laugh – can you also manage to never knock over a glass of water? To never sneeze? And what about the poor mother, visibly nearing the end of a pregnancy. Can she labour in silence, and what about the newborn – won’t his first act be to cry? In fact, this movie keeps you so on edge I despaired as the mother doled out fish and veggies for dinner. Were the vegetables suitably soft? A particularly crisp cucumber could spell certain death.
The criminals are surprised how south this has gone, and how quickly. How are the cops already here? The tellers reluctantly tell them: the bank is haunted. The ghosts are the victims of another bank heist, an extraordinarily bloody and cruel one, and they’re not about to let another one go down if they can help it. Of course, you can warn the people in a horror movie all you want; they never listen. They never listen!
ASSHOLES WATCHING MOVIES 