MovieBabble Theater

Night shift cleaners in Salt Lake City share their experiences and attitudes toward their essential work.   Nick Kush: While You Were Sleeping is a gentle reminder of the necessary, but mostly unappreciated work that so…

Barry Jenkins’ note on The Gaze: “In my years of doing interviews and roundtables and Q&A’s for the various films we’ve made, there is one question that recurs. No matter the length of the piece…

As the workday grinds to a halt, a gathering of street racers makes way for the backroads of Bakersfield to find catharsis.   Nick Kush: So little is said throughout How to Breathe in Kern County,…

Frank told a joke at work. Nobody laughed. Now at 3 am he’s unable to sleep as he obsesses over his social faux-pas, leading him to contemplate the nature of memory itself.   Nick Kush:…

After an astronaut returns from her lunar mission to find that the public lost all interest in the moon, the stories of the astronaut, a film director, and a bear intersect.   Nick Kush: Whether it’s…

Identical figures perform the hopeless task of preserving blocks of ice.   Nick Kush: I love little oddballs such as Freeze Frame, wherein it appears the creator set out to try something just to see what…

A teenage girl takes a step toward adulthood in contemporary Cairo.   Nick Kush: Farida Zahran shows plenty of restraint in telling this coming-of-age story; in the wrong hands, Youth could turn into a needlessly brutal…

As a new show is introduced at an erotic dance theater in Lahore, a sacrificial goat goes missing, a dreamy trans girl desperately tries to become a star, and a naive young boy falls in…

An elderly gay couple living off the grid in the Rocky Mountains finds a deeper love together when dementia threatens their independence. Nick Kush: I adore Bob & Dale’s sparing use of dialogue. The titular couple…

Mark Reiter stands in front of his love’s house as he practices what he will say to her mother.   Nick Kush: The grain of the film and the general rough-around-the-edges aesthetic to Is Your Daughter…

All Luke and his mom have are two garbage bags full of clothes, and two tickets out of town on the midnight Greyhound. Like he’s assembling a puzzle, Luke has to figure out the why…

Ode to Desolation shares the story of Jim Henterly, a naturalist, illustrator, and fire lookout as he contemplates the dwindling days of Fire Lookouts in North America. With the influence of technology and AI threatening…

Everyone knows the Spider-Man story: man gets bitten by spider, gets spider powers, becomes hero. But radioactive metamorphosis is a two-way street. So what about the spider who bit Peter Parker? Whatever became of him?…

Every day that passes in New York City, Jeff finds a way to get through it. Maybe he’s driven to find love. Maybe he’s driven to find a connection. Or maybe he’s just driven to…

A black boy learns contradicting lessons of manhood and masculinity on the day of his cousin’s funeral. Winner of 2020 Sundance Jury Award for U.S. Narrative Fiction.   Nick Kush: It’s the understatement of the year…

If You Ever Hurt My Daughter, I Swear to God I’ll Let Her Navigate Her Own Emotional Growth is a short film adapted from the hilarious and heartwarming humor essay written by Toronto-based comedian Sophie…

The Prisoner’s Song follows two days in the life of an American prisoner, one during his time incarcerated and one as a free man, providing an observational view of the issues within the American prison…

A high-powered female executive has an erotic rendezvous with a high-rise window-washer on opposite sides of her office window. Funny and poignant, Squeegee is an apt portrait of intimacy in the time of social distancing.…

Fire, given by a mysterious figure, creates a hole in the world through which something terrible enters and leaves the world burned and overrun by strange insect figures.   Nick Kush: David Lynch may never make…

An ASMR vlogger with a devoted fan base returns from an extended absence with a livestream that spirals out of control.   Nick Kush: I appreciate any film that strives to push cinema forward. What…

Jenny breaks free from a toxic friendship and learns to harness her magical, useless superpower.   Nick Kush: Crude Oil is such a delightfully silly and experimental short film that labeling it as “quirky” doesn’t do…

92nd Academy Award Nominee for Best Live Action Short, The Neighbors’ Window tells the story of Alli (Maria Dizzia), a mother of young children who has grown frustrated with her daily routine and husband (Greg…

Rod Goldman and Al Silverman are street performers who work the tourist scene of Times Square. Goldman gets no respect and Silverman is the first one to make sure of that.   Credits Directed By:…

The surviving crew of a damaged deep-space harvester have minutes to reach the emergency evacuation shuttle. A motion sensor is their only navigation tool leading them to safety while a creature in the shadows terrorizes…

When a young man drops out of college to care for his shut-in mother he too finds himself increasingly insulated from the outside world, something which conflicts with his growing forays into amateur astronomy. Credits…