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Chatham Hickory Cinema Chosen to Host Arthouse Film Festival

(CHATHAM, NJ) -- Featuring some of the best soon-to-be-released movies from around the world, Arthouse Film Festival will unspool for ten weeks beginning March 16, 2026 at Chatham Hickory Cinema. The selected films comprise award winners from Sundance, Cannes, Toronto, Telluride, Venice and SXSW film festivals, along with prestige studio films, screened in Chatham before their New York theatrical release dates.

New Release Review - "Cold Storage"

by Eric Hillis, TheMovieWaffler.com
published 2026-02-24
Blockbuster screenwriter David Koepp adapts his own 2019 novel Cold Storage for the screen. Koepp's involvement can surely be the only reason the movie has attracted actors of the calibre of Liam Neeson, Lesley Manville and Vanessa Redgrave, as it's a rather uninspired throwback to '80s b-movies, one sorely lacking the raucousness and innovative practical effects work that made those flicks so popular.

New Release Review - "Crime 101"

by Eric Hillis, TheMovieWaffler.com
published 2026-02-23
With his documentary The Imposter and his narrative feature debut American Animals, writer/director Bart Layton displayed an impressive knack for spinning true crime tales into riveting viewing experiences. His new film, Crime 101, isn't inspired by any real life criminal shenanigans. It's adapted from a novella by Don Winslow, but Layton draws influence from a century of American crime cinema. There is much of Michael Mann here, with stoic male professionals staring out into the ocean from the balconies of their barely furnished beachfront homes, while Layton's ability to make flirtatious doublespeak as erotic as the most explicit sex scene suggests he's studied the classics of film noir. Characters flirt through laying out their material ambitions here in a manner that is far sexier than the unconvincing romping of Emerald Fennell's "Wuthering Heights" or the 50 Shades movies.

2026 United States Super 8 Film + Digital Video Festival Line-up

by Al Nigrin
published 2026-02-19
The 2026 United States Super 8 Film & Digital Video Festival, which is part of the Spring 2026 New Jersey Film Festival, takes place online and in-person on Saturday, February 21 and Sunday, February 22. Check out the Festival schedule and more info at this link: https://watch.eventive.org/newjerseyfilmfestivalspring2026 View the winning films and digital videos of the International United States Super 8 Film & Digital Video Festival, selected by a jury of filmmakers, Rutgers University student interns, and media professionals. The festival--now in its 38th year—will feature finalist works by independent filmmakers from the United States and around the world. Co-sponsored by Pro 8mm!

Annie, wake up screens at the 2026 United States Super 8 Film + Digital Video Festival on Sunday, February 22!

by Penelope de la Cruz
published 2026-02-18
Annie, wake up is an experimental film by Laura Ivins, an experimental filmmaker based in Southern Indiana. Ivins has been working on this film for over a decade, beginning to collect footage in 2012. The project developed slowly over time and does not follow a traditional narrative. Instead, the film grew out of years of careful reflection and revisiting the material, and that thoughtful process is a big part of how it feels. The work carries a strong sense of time passing and allows meaning to form gradually rather than being forced.

Mixtape for Stom Sogo screens at the 2026 United States Super 8 Film + Digital Video Festival on Sunday, February 22!

by Penelope de la Cruz
published 2026-02-17
Mixtape for Stom Sogo doesn’t feel like a documentary trying to explain its subject. It feels more like someone sitting with unresolved thoughts and letting them unfold. Directed by Adrian Goycoolea, the film is framed around a response to the last email he received from his friend Stom Sogo before he died. This is not a biography or a structured story. It’s a conversation with someone who isn’t there anymore, full of hesitation, memories, and questions that don’t get answered.

Winners of the Spring 2026 New Jersey Film Festival Competition Announced!

by Al Nigrin
published 2026-02-16
The Competition component of the Spring 2026 New Jersey Film Festival has just concluded! Overall, we had a good festival this year. We had a few screenings that were very well attended and a bunch with lower turnouts but that happens every festival for a variety of reasons. The in-person show attendance was about the same as our Festival last year, but the online viewership is what has kept us afloat financially since COVID broke in 2020. All the Official Selection works of the Spring 2026 New Jersey Film Festival were selected by a panel of judges including media professionals, journalists, students, and academics. These judges selected the 33 finalists which were publicly screened at our Festival. The finalists were selected from over 600 works submitted by filmmakers from around the world. In addition, the judges chose the Prize Winners in conjunction with the Festival Director. Here below are the winners of the Festival.

New Release Review - "Send Help"

by Eric Hillis, TheMovieWaffler.com
published 2026-02-15
With Send Help, screenwriters Damian Shannon and Mark Swift have taken the basic setup of Lina Wertmuller's Swept Away (and its awful Madonna-starring, Guy Ritchie directed remake) and given it a gender swap. Here it's a lowly female employee who finds herself stranded on a desert island with her male boss. Much of Send Help explores the same class and sexual tensions as Wertmuller's film, but with Sam Raimi in the director's chair we know things are going to get a little crazy at some point. And, boy, do they!

By popular demand Freeing Juanita returns to the 2026 New Jersey Film Festival on Friday, February 20!

by Yuri Kim
published 2026-02-15
Freeing Juanita, directed by Sebastián Lasaosa Rogers, is not the kind of documentary you watch and walk away from unchanged. It stays with you long after the credits roll. At its heart, this is a film about one woman, wrongfully imprisoned. But as you watch it unfold, you realize it’s also about so much more: a broken immigration system, the erasure of Indigenous voices, and the extraordinary strength of family and community.

New Release Review - "The Secret Agent"

by Eric Hillis, TheMovieWaffler.com
published 2026-02-14
With Summer of Sam, Spike Lee suggested that in 1977 there was nowhere crazier than New York. With The Secret Agent, Kleber Mendonça Filho asks Lee to hold his beer. If you thought '77 NYC was something, wait till you experience the Brazil of that year. In opening text, Mendonça Filho describes that era in his nation's troubled history as "a time of great mischief," and The Secret Agent is a gleefully mischievous movie. Like several recent high profile South American films, including last year's Brazilian drama I'm Still Here, it is concerned with the corruption that was rife under the military dictatorship. But just as Lee did for the bankruptcy era Big Apple, Mendonça Filho displays a fond nostalgia for the energy that can be created by dangerous times. There is much in The Secret Agent that is shocking, and it reminds us of the evil that is allowed to flourish in corrupt societies, but it's also heart-poundingly thrilling.

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Mahoning

Mahoning Drive-In Road Show 2026 “Original/Rip-Off” Drive-In Double Feature: The Exorcist & Beyond the Door
Saturday, February 28, 2026 @ 7:00pm
Union County Performing Arts Center (UCPAC) - Main Stage
1601 Irving Street, Rahway, NJ 07065

Dirty

Dirty Dancing in Concert
Wednesday, March 04, 2026 @ 7:00pm
Bergen Performing Arts Center (bergenPAC)
30 North Van Brunt Street, Englewood, NJ 07631

World's

World's Best Short Films presented by Asbury Shorts
Saturday, March 07, 2026 @ 8:00pm
Algonquin Arts Theatre
60 Abe Voorhees, Manasquan, NJ 08736

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