I remember surfing the cable channels one night in the early 2010s when I came across a quaint little movie about an aspiring writer and his attempts to overcome family adversity and escape from the mundane life he felt destined to live. The film was Carl Bessai’s coming-of-age Cole. I remember liking this movie so much that I tried diligently year after year to find a way to add it to my DVD collection. Not only did the task feel impossible, I couldn’t even find a way to rewatch it. It wasn’t available on Netflix or Amazon Prime. Most of the other common streaming services had yet to be established. As my goal is to own the DVD of my top ten favorite movies of each year, I was determined to find this missing piece to complete my 2009 collection. When I randomly found it on Amazon Prime in 2023, I wasted no time renting it. It turns out I would have been better served not seeing the film a second time. Not only has it not aged well, Cole is not nearly as good as I remembered it.
Category Archives: Small Town
The Starling Girl (2023)
Eliza Scanlen (Old, HBO’s Sharp Objects) may be a name that doesn’t roll off the tip of our tongues yet, but very well could in a few years if she continues to piece together performances as she has in Little Women, The Devil All The Time, and Babyteeth, she could find herself in the same conversation as her Little Women co-stars Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh, and Emma Watson. Some may think she’s already there but still needs the supporting body of work. In either case, her performance as Jem Starling, a 17-year-old discovering her identity while growing up in a Kentucky fundamentalist Christian community, is nothing short of mesmerizing in Laurel Parmet’s, albeit flawed, directorial debut, The Starling Girl.
God’s Country (2022)
Movies set on barren, unforgiving terrains with gorgeous, sweeping landscapes serve as beautiful backdrops. When the same film can provide a gripping, dramatic story of survival, mystery, or tragedy set against such brutal terrain, it can often result in an unforgivable movie experience. Movies that come to the top of my mind include The Revenant, The Grey, Wind River, Legends of the Fall, and Fargo. Julian Higgins’s feature-length debut, God’s Country, isn’t on the same level as these movies, but I’ll argue that it could be in the same sentence. While a bit of a miss with audiences (50% on Rotten Tomatoes), it did strike an accord with critics (90%).
The Black Phone (2022)
With its first scene set at a little league baseball game in a small town on the outskirts of 1978 Colorado (knowing that some frightful elements will emerge throughout the film), The Black Phone may feel eerily similar to one of your favorite Stephen King novels. And if it does, it should, as the movie is based upon a novel by King’s son, Joe Hill. In addition, director Scott Derrickson (Doctor Strange, The Exorcism of Emily Rose) reunites Ethan Hawke for the first time since 2012’s well-received horror Sinister.
Bad Education (2019)
Bad Teacher. An Education. Bad Education. Bad Santa. Like with a human being, one might say there is nothing more personable to a person than their name. However, it can become lost in the weeds when a movie doesn’t have a title that can quickly be associated with it. Furthermore, if the film isn’t memorable and has no recognizable title, it’s likely to get even further caught in the weeds. Such could have been, and likely was to many, Cory Finley’s (Thoroughbreds) Bad Education.