News & Movie Review

How It Ends (2021) Zoe Lister-Jones and Daryl Wein (her creative and life partner) write and direct their sixth film together, again under their cutely named Mister Lister Films production company. Not even a pandemic could keep them from making an indie with “How It Ends,” a sunny, flighty existentialist seriocomedy about the day before the apocalypse. It’s not quite as bleak as 2012’s “Seeking a Friend for the End of the World,” which paired Keira Knightley and Steve Carrell mixed with a whole ensemble, but more of a romantic comedy about self-love with the same Armageddon backdrop. Zoe Lister-Jones (2017's "Band Aid" ) stars as a coder named Liza, ready to embark on a solo journey through Los Angeles neighborhoods with her metaphysical younger self, played by Cailee Spaeny (an impressive rising talent who was one of the leads in Lister-Jones’ 2020 reboot-sequel “The Craft: Legacy” ). It’s the last 24 hours of Earth in existence before a meteor blast, and her plan with...

The Sparks Brothers (2021) Duran Duran. Depeche Mode. Pet Shop Boys. New Order. You know all of them, but have you ever heard of Sparks, "your favorite band's favorite band"? No? Join the club, but you will actually want to join the Sparks fan club after seeing the documentary “The Sparks Brothers,” an affectionate, informative, and sneakily poignant celebration of the overlooked electronic pop music duo from filmmaker Edgar Wright (2017’s “Baby Driver” ). Without snubbing the uninitiated (like a music snob does when a band they’ve adored for decades suddenly goes mainstream), Wright invites everyone to finally meet these J.D. Salinger-level enigmas, curiosities, and singular genuine artists who have earned their cult following in “the ecosystem of music.” Welcoming new fans with a loving introduction, “The Sparks Brothers” is like a delightfully persuasive breakthrough for this secret-handshake band. Made up of brothers Ron and Russell Mael, Sparks was not widely known b...