{"id":54048,"date":"2026-07-25T23:42:38","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T03:42:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=54048"},"modified":"2026-07-25T23:52:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T03:52:19","slug":"sour-minnows-2026-fantasia-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/25\/sour-minnows-2026-fantasia-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Sour Minnows (2026) [Fantasia 2026]\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Two friends come across people acting strangely while walking home in LA. Soon, one of the, Ricky, starts noticing things are not as they should be.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Written and directed by\u00a0Harrison Atkins, Sour Minnows\u00a0goes for\u00a0weird, but in a way that is quietly weird at first and\u00a0then\u00a0grows and grows. One could say the characters are weird from the start, which they are, but they also are in a situation that grows in\u00a0weirdness,\u00a0which\u00a0is what the whole film is\u00a0really about\u00a0here. The\u00a0oddity that\u00a0is\u00a0the human\u00a0experience.\u00a0The writing here will work for some and absolutely not for others.\u00a0For this viewer,\u00a0it’s\u00a0somewhere in the middle, something that may be more on the rare side for viewer experiences here.\u00a0The characters are people that may not connect for all, something that hurts the story at times and hurts the film in turn. Of course, some of the development for these characters is done in a “wouldn’t want to know them” way, in a way that makes them exactly\u00a0<\/span>that\u00a0<\/span><\/i>guy. In that way, the writing, and direction to go with it, works great, these are not people this viewer could see herself having a single conversation with that was not just on the surface and to be polite, which shows that film writing and direction do accomplish something here.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Helping with the characters and the\u00a0story\u00a0here is the cast.\u00a0This cast is\u00a0not particularly large here with the main characters doing the bulk of the work on screen. This leads to three performances that stand out after watching the film, those of\u00a0David Brown as lead Ricky, Suzanna Son as Aura,\u00a0his potential love interest,\u00a0and\u00a0Chase Williamson as\u00a0Tepper, Ricky’s friend\/roommate. The rest of the cast has yet to be listed online, but that\u00a0doesn’t\u00a0mean they do not matter. Everyone here does\u00a0good work\u00a0with their\u00a0parts,\u00a0with Brown and Son being the standouts of the bunch. The way each performance\u00a0feels a bit off, like that person you once met and didn’t want to deal with, like that family member who is obsessed with their creative endeavor, like those who focus too much on one thing and never really expand. This leads\u00a0to\u00a0a discomfort\u00a0in watching them evolve on\u00a0screen\u00a0which\u00a0a\u00a0perfect for this film.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, the cinematography… This film is presented in what the old school full screen that VHS (and even Betamax) film used to sport, that format made to fit the screen of television back in the day, the format that used to cut off the image on each side and only really giving us a partial view on the planning, filming, editing, and all that done by the filmmakers. It used to be a pita, now, in the days where it is no longer needed,\u00a0it’s\u00a0a stylistic choice and one\u00a0that is rarely successful at that. While other films have made this work to their advantage by setting their stories within a time period where this would make sense, the use of cellphones at the start of the film tells us that this set in recent times, in post need for\u00a0full frame times, which put this stylistic choice in the more artsy for\u00a0artsy’s\u00a0sake than anything else. Being that most folks will watch this on screens\u00a0optimized\u00a0for wide screen (or letterboxed) formats, this just\u00a0doesn’t\u00a0work all that\u00a0well;\u00a0it sort of\u00a0detracts from\u00a0the story at times. The quality of the images presented the way things are films (beyond the aspect ratio) is also looking like it was meant to be reminiscent of the “olden days”,\u00a0but it only\u00a0adds up\u00a0to something that\u00a0doesn’t\u00a0fully\u00a0make\u00a0sense or works here.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Overall, Sour Minnows\u00a0isn’t\u00a0a bad watch, but\u00a0it’s\u00a0a film that needs to be watched in the right frame of mind, in the right mood, and with the right people for its story.\u00a0It’s\u00a0not meant for general\u00a0audiences\u00a0and it makes no qualms about it.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Fantasia 2026 runs from July 16th to August 2nd, 2026<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two friends come across people acting strangely while walking home in LA. Soon, one of the, Ricky, starts noticing things are not as they should be.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2497],"tags":[302,4062,703,1087],"class_list":["post-54048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fantasia-fest","tag-drama","tag-fantasia-2026","tag-mystery","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54048"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54048\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54049,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54048\/revisions\/54049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}