July 30, 2023 Survival stories are particularly captivating because of the fight between man and nature, the wild, or personal circumstances. That some are
Daniel Patrick Carbone s stellar debut Hide Your Smiling Faces has drawn deserved comparisons to David Gordon Green s George Washington and Terrence Malick s The Tree of Life in its capturing of the formative moments in which boys transition to men. While comparisons to masterful filmmakers often betray a critical inability to look deeper, the influences feel relevant here. Like Green s debut, this lyrical drama announces the arrival of a talented young director with a keen grasp of youth; a man who presents a truthful vision of how death impacts soon-to-be men differently depending on their ages.
Advertisement Hide Your Smiling Faces opens with a long shot of a snake eating an animal. It is a tone-setter in that what follows has the feel of natural progression; that of a teen into a man.
The St. Patrick’s Day season brings with it two movies featuring Irish actors – one an established veteran and the other a versatile up and comer. First, there’s the always-busy Ciaran Hinds in McCanick. The crime flick features David Morse as the title character, a detective driven to the brink of insanity during his pursuit of an ex-con just released from prison. Belfast-born Hinds plays the harried chief of police trying to keep his detectives on the right side of the law. There is a tinge of real-life sadness in McCanick. The mysterious ex-con is played by Cory Monteith, the young star of the television show Glee who died from a drug overdose last year. Look for McCanick in theaters at the end of March. Hinds, who has appeared in a slew of movies ranging from Munich to several Harry Potter flicks, also recently lent his vocal talents to the March animated release Mr. Peabody and Sherman.