Marshall Shaffer

New York

Freelance Writer at Freelance

☀️: Associate media director. 🌘: Freelance writer frequently seen on @slant_magazine, @decider, @theplaylistnews, and @crookedmarquee. We'll get along.

Articles

Eva Victor on Finding Joy in Control While Making 'Sorry, Baby'

1 week ago | slantmagazine.com | Marshall Shaffer

“Something pretty bad happened to me,” Eva Victor’s Agnes confesses late into Sorry, Baby. She makes this admission to John Carroll Lynch’s Pete, a stranger who helps her calm down from a roadside panic attack. Among other things, Agnes’s moment of openness elucidates Victor’s radical handling of trauma across the film.
Sarah Friedland and Kathleen Chalfant on 'Familiar Touch'

1 week ago | slantmagazine.com | Marshall Shaffer

Sarah Friedland often describes her feature directorial debut, Familiar Touch, as a “coming-of-old-age story.” That clever turn of phrase is where the cuteness ends with her treatment of Kathleen Chalfant’s Ruth as the character transitions into assisted living for dementia care. Senescence shares more with adolescence than a mere passage of years, as her carefully crafted work demonstrates with sincerity rather than detached irony.
‘Inside’ Review: Guy Pearce & Ed Cosmo Jarvis Elevate A Standard-Issue Aussie Prison Drama [Tribeca]

1 week ago | theplaylist.net | Marshall Shaffer

If only the cleverness of Charles Williams’ directorial debut “Inside” extended a little further beyond the number of ways he can twist the titular concept. The title card drops over an ultrasound of the narrator, soon-to-be adult prison inmate Mel (Vincent Miller), as he dwells inside his mother’s womb. Even before he’s a man inside the confines of a jail, he’s always defined and circumscribed by his surroundings.
‘Ballerina’ Review: Ana De Armas Leads A Fun But Frustrating From ‘The World Of John Wick’ Spin-Off

3 weeks ago | theplaylist.net | Marshall Shaffer

“From the World of John Wick: Ballerina” makes most sense when viewed as intellectual property first and a work of art second. Even the film’s title bears the scars of being optimized within an inch of its life to ensure brand association. The presence of Keanu Reeves’ hitman feels particularly shoehorned into the plot through reshoots overseen by the original series’ director, Chad Stahelski.
A Toothless Shark Tale from Down Under

3 weeks ago | slantmagazine.com | Marshall Shaffer

“I BEAT JAWS,” reads a headline that a serial killer named Tucker (Jai Courtney) has framed in his boat to commemorate his unexpected survival against a shark. This reference early in Dangerous Animals, directed by Sean Byrne and written by Nick Lepard, serves to reinforce just how large the legend of Jaws looms a half-century after its initial release.
A Sentimental Stephen King Adaptation

3 weeks ago | slantmagazine.com | Marshall Shaffer

As horror has solidified itself as one of the last remaining bankable bastions of cinema, Stephen King’s vast trove of writing has become a juggernaut of intellectual property. The author is to the genre what Marvel is to action. And few filmmakers understand the literary giant’s enduring appeal better than Mike Flanagan, who previously brought King’s Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep to the screen.
Wes Anderson and Michael Cera on 'The Phoenician Scheme'

4 weeks ago | slantmagazine.com | Marshall Shaffer

“Watching [Wes Anderson] discover and use Michael [Cera] was like watching God discovering water,” quipped Benedict Cumberbatch at the Cannes Film Festival press conference for The Phoenician Scheme last week. “It seems like a pretty obvious, natural element to have in his arsenal as a filmmaker.” And Cumberbatch is right, as it does feel long overdue for Cera to join one of Anderson’s ensembles.
Jonathan Millet's Ice-Old Revenge Tale

1 month ago | slantmagazine.com | Marshall Shaffer

For a film ripped from the headlines of global politics, the most intriguing glimpses of reality in Ghost Trail ironically come from inside a video game. In several scenes that unfold within a war-themed first-person shooter, members of a secret European cell plot to find the Syrian war criminals who brutalized them in their home country.
A Breezy Exploration of Family and Spirituality

1 month ago | slantmagazine.com | Marshall Shaffer

In Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme, an inclination toward pondering the divine goes hand-in-hand with the nearness of demise. The filmmaker arrives at this junction not because, as Christopher Hitchens might say, death causes religion. It’s through the sharpening of focus around what matters in life when its end feels imminent for Zsa-zsa Korda (Benicio del Toro), an international businessman who survives another assassination attempt by plane crash at the film’s outset.
‘Bring Her Back’ Review: The Philippous Get Too Literal in Their ‘Talk to Me’ Follow-Up

1 month ago | theplaylist.net | Marshall Shaffer

Throughout “Bring Her Back,” foster mother Laura (Sally Hawkins) provides something like an impromptu version of descriptive audio to her nearsighted teenage ward Piper (Sora Wong). For a film devoted to rendering vision impairment with dignity by casting a young actress with the condition, these moments are a powerful nod to the importance of accessibility. They’re also a neat metaphor for a film that never transcends its own neat metaphor.