Larry Oliver Film Reviews

Pictured : Tessa ( Kit Zauhar ) inspects her temporary lodgings in a scene from the 2023 American independent drama, 'This Closeness', written, directed and starring Kit Zauhar . Still courtesy of Factory 25. Normally, I would advocate for every film to be screened in a cinema, to be enjoyed as a collective experience, discussed and dissected accordingly. However, This Closeness , written, directed and starring Kit Zauhar (her second feature), is almost designed to be watched on a laptop (as I saw it) with the sound broadcast through headphones. It is a film in which the action is confined to a two-bedroom apartment, which has one bathroom with a shower and a kitchen-diner. You get to know most of the spaces pretty well, so by the end you could draw a floorplan and probably put it on the market. Some films make you experience something real; this one turns you into a realtor. The scene that really comes alive at home occurs when the socially awkward, reluctant host Adam ( I...

  Pictured : Sisters reunited. Anne ( Awkwafina ) and Jenny Yum ( Sandra Oh ) in a scene from the 2023 comedy, ' Quiz Lady ', written by Jen D'Angelo and directed by Jessica Yu . Still courtesy of 20th Century Studios / Hulu. It can cost millions of dollars to promote a film. Sometimes studios prefer not to take the risk. 20 th Century Studios’ comedy Quiz Lady starring Awkwafina and Sandra Oh, written by Jen D’Angelo and directed by Jessica Yu skipped cinemas and debuted on Hulu last November. It is a film that twice asks, ‘do you know you difficult it is to be Asian in America?’ and doesn’t dwell on the answer. Ostensibly, it is a sports movie in which Awkwafina plays Anne, office worker by day, quiz show addict by early evening. A terry-cotton warrior, so to speak, Anne can fire out an answer on ‘Can’t Stop the Quiz’ as fast as the best competitor. She admires the host Terry McTeer (Will Ferrell) who has asked the questions on the weeknight show for 32 years throug...