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Children of the Corn Review — Children of the Corn (2020) Film Review, a movie written and directed by Kurt Wimmer and starring Elena Kampouris, Kate Moyer, Callan Mulvey, Bruce Spence, Alyla Browne, Miranda Cash, Luke Dean, Mike Duncan, Rafferty Grierson and Kyra Harlan. Director Kurt Wimmer’s new re-imagining of Children of the Corn starts [...]

Continue reading: Film Review: Children Of The Corn (2020): Kate Moyer is Good at Playing Wickedly Evil in a Tepid Remake...

By Giacomo Selloni

The 6th Socially Relevant Film Festival kicked off at the Cinema Village theater on 12th Street in New York City last Monday night in fine fashion. Literally. "The Merger" is a wonderfully sweet and ultimately moralistic comedy from Down Under that centers around the sport of Australian Rules Football, or "Footy."

It's set in the fictional, rural village of Bodgy Creek Australia - a town in trouble. A population decrease, caused by the "greenie-led" closure of the timber mill, has left the footy team short handed. so much so that their only choices are to either merge with another team or fold.

"What's a merger?" asks young Neil Barlow (played by the charismatic 11 year-old (Rafferty Grierson), grandson to the club manager "Bull" Barlow. "That's where one shit team joins with another shit team to make a slightly less shit team," a player responds. The Bodgy Creek Roosters...

Rafferty Grierson and Damian Callinan in ‘The Merger.’

Glowing reviews and copious publicity for Mark Grentell’s The Merger and Jeremy Sims’ feature documentary Wayne counted for very little as both titles had mediocre openings last weekend.

That surprised and disappointed exhibitors as the business was heavily reliant on the buoyant second weekend of Crazy Rich Asians and a feisty debut by The Nun, a spin-off of The Conjuring franchise.

McQueen, the biopic of the brilliant but tortured British fashion designer Alexander McQueen, had a middling opening. Underlining the challenges facing the ailing art-house market, You Were Never Really Here, Juliet, Naked and The Miseducation of Cameron Post bombed. Clearly each relied on festival screenings as the main revenue source.

Umbrella Entertainment launched The Merger, the warm-hearted comedy-drama about a struggling, small town football team that recruits refugees to survive, on 80 screens, generating $93,000. The total including festival screenings for the...