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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 18 May 2026

BLAISE (Belgium 2026) ***1/2
Directed by  Jean-Paul Guigue and Dimitri Planchon 

BLAISE is an animated feature film on awkwardness.  Blaise is the son of the Sauvage family, who has a problem connecting with people on a social level.  But he is befriended by an equally locally challenged girl.  But Blaise’s parents are just as awkward.  The mother, Carole, is trying her best to keep her job, working for an equally strange boss, by getting along, though with difficulty, with her staff. Her boss's father, Jacques, is termed a dumbass, which he is trying to disprove.  The film has a Kafkaesque feel because of the absurdity and the going in rounds, though the culprit is not the government but the individual, as typically found in a Todd Solondz drama of discomfort.  BLAISE looks like the animated feature Todd Solondz could have made.  The Sauvage family just wants to be loved.  Then, they also have to deal with each other, making matters worse.  The animation is cute, especially the detailed wardrobe of each character and their mannerisms.

 

DU FIOUL DANS LES ARTERES (Fuel and flesh) (France 2026) ***
Directed by Pierre Le Gall

 (Semaine de la Critique)

 

A lonely French trucker's routine life on the road takes an unexpected turn when he encounters a Polish driver. As feelings develop, he struggles to balance his demanding job with a chance at love, determined to make their connection work.  The film is a hard sell, as it deals with hardcore gay content that many critics and audiences will avoid, but despite the grim setting, it attains authenticity and credibility in the way the director depicts the lives of lonely truckers as they do their jobs.  The other plus is that the film benefits from the performance of Alexis Manenti, first seen in LES MISERABLES, where he played a racist cop nicknamed ‘piggy’.  FLUEL AND FLESH is a hardcore film, but in reality, a hard-felt romance at heart.  Unfortunately, the film falls into cliched territory of romantic films at the end.

 

FOREVER YOUR MATERNAL ANIMAL (Siempre Soy Tu Animal Materno)(Mexico/Belgium/France 2025) ***
Directed by Valentina Maurel

(Un Certain Régard)

 

After years in Europe, Elsa, 28, returns to Costa Rica and reunites with her younger sister Amalia, 20, who is drifting into a path as esoteric as it is existential.  While their father, Nahuel, seeks reassurance through a series of romantic conquests and their mother, Isabel, immerses herself in republishing the erotic poems of her youth, Elsa hesitates: should she try to save a sister?  Director Maurel’s raw, emotionally and psychologically intimate family drama is female-led, showcasing the diversity of women within the dysfunctional family.  The mother is a strong, influential political poet, the male father a weaker character, while the young Amalai suffers from what appears to be a mental depression.  The film is a compulsive watch as there is always something dramatic going on and one can only wish for the best for what appears to be Maurel’s doomed family.

 

PROMISED SPACES (À PROPOS DE PROMISED SPACES)(France/Germany/Serbia/Cambodia 2026) ***
Directed by Ivan Marković

 

It is too hot to sleep and too hot to stay awake, cries a character in the dead of night.  And when it pours, the hot and wet make it even more uncomfortable.  Sleepless from the heat, Sokun leaves his crowded construction dormitory and joins a community of fellow workers living in one of many unfinished high-rises. One such tower offers a long-awaited luxury home for its first tenant, Seda (who turns out to be quite the fussy non-nonsense bitch), who soon feels trapped in the vast gated complex.  It is a changing landscape of a seldom-seen urban Cambodia, as a fishing village is slowly surrounded by the construction of high-rise luxury buildings.    Marković’s (a German Serbian filmmaker) film can be described as a well-shot, candid, socially conscious look focused on class division, urban isolation, and the emotional cost of modernization.

 

THE STATION (Yemen/Jordan/ Franc/Germany/Netherlands/Norway/Qatar 2026) ***½

Directed by Sara Ishaq

 

Layal runs a women-only petrol station in Yemen: a rare haven in a war-torn country.   The reason no men are around is that they are all taken up to fight in the war.  Even up to the early age of 13. There, the rules are simple: no men, no weapons, no politics. When Layal’s younger brother faces enlistment, she reunites with her estranged sister to save the one life they still can. This is a female-oriented film with women in the spotlight.  The film demonstrates how women survive in the face of danger and desperation.  Women can be nastier and more resilient than their male counterparts.  Even with the political setting, there is considerable suspense built into the story.  This is a very well-made, credible nd realistic film that keeps one glued to the incidents from start to finish.

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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 17 May 2026

FILM REVIEWS

 

DEPARTURES (UK 2025) ***
Directed by Neil ElyLloyd Eyre-Morgan

 

When gay films first showed up on the radar, there were so many themes not yet covered.  Themes like coming out, doing tricks, AIDs, bath houses, social unacceptance, and first gay love were explored for the first time. The new theme has run out with new ideas on the gay scene coming up scarce, so filmmakers have to come up with new nuances and ideas.  DEPARTURES show frequent gay meetings of a gay Brit couple in Amsterdam with largely beefy gay men instead of clubby slim good-looking twinks.

DEPARTURES is a British LGBTQ+ drama film centring on emotionally damaged men trying to navigate love, sex, self-worth, and identity in contemporary gay culture.  The characters are intentionally messy, vulnerable, and psychologically layered rather than idealised romantic figures.

The two main characters are Benji (Lloyd Eyre-Morgan) and Jake (DzvinTag).

Benji is the emotional core of the film. He is a gay man in his thirties from Manchester who desperately wants intimacy and emotional connection but repeatedly sabotages himself through insecurity, dependency, and self-destructive behaviour.  He is witty, self-aware, emotionally needy, and often painfully funny in the way he narrates his own suffering. The film presents much of the story through his memories and inner monologue, making him both sympathetic and unreliable. He is shown to be emotionally raw and vulnerable.

Physically, Benji is not portrayed as the stereotypical “perfect” gay leading man. His anxieties about body image and desirability become major themes in the film. He often uses humour, partying, sex, and drugs to mask loneliness and rejection.  The story explores his fear of abandonment, low self-esteem, addiction tendencies, and his longing for genuine love.  Benji’s emotional spiral after his breakup drives much of the narrative.  The film begins with his breakup

Jake is the charismatic but emotionally unavailable man with whom Benji becomes obsessed. He is physically attractive, masculine, sexually confident, and difficult to fully understand.  The relationship begins after they meet at an airport and start taking secret monthly trips to Amsterdam together. Jake initially appears exciting and liberating to Benji, but gradually becomes emotionally distant and manipulative.  Jake embodies several themes the film critiques:

toxic masculinity, fear of vulnerability, compartmentalised sexuality, and emotionally transactional relationships.  He is shown to be living a “double life,” suggesting internalised shame and unresolved identity conflicts.  He is neither villain nor hero. The film presents him as another damaged person who cannot give Benji the emotional safety he needs.

Other characters include Rya, Robbie, Kieran and Venessa, with the most interesting one being his Aunt Janet (Lorraine Stanley), who brings her client to Benji’s home, not to mention her stealing and selling Benji’s dog Banjo and selling it for 40 quid.  She loves Benji deeply but has difficulty expressing emotional understanding in modern language. She also carries trauma from domestic abuse and guilt connected to Benji’s childhood.  Janet represents generational tension: older attitudes toward homosexuality, working-class survival mentality, and imperfect but genuine maternal love.  Stanley steals every scene she appears in,

The film, which has received, at the time of writing, 95% approval on Rotten Tomatoes, succeeds in its emotional honesty, subtle and dark humour and raw depiction of toxic gay relationships.  The strong performances by Lloyd Eyre-Morgan and David Tag help as well.

DEPARTURES from Filmwelike opens in theatres May 22nd and is worth a look.

Trailer: 

I LOVE BOOSTERS (USA 2026) ***

Directed by Boots Riley

 

A booster is a person or thing that increases, supports, or improves the power, effectiveness, or morale of something else.  That is the normal meaning of the word booster.  But in the film, booster takes a different ‘slang’ meaning.  A booster is used in its slang criminal sense: a shoplifter, especially someone who steals clothing or retail goods for resale.

The term is important because it gives the movie a political and social angle. In the teaser and early descriptions, the boosters are portrayed almost like anti-capitalist Robin Hood figures — people who see stealing luxury fashion as a response to economic inequality and exploitation in the fashion industry. One article notes that the characters view boosting “almost as a community service.”

The film follows a group of “boosters” called The Velvet Gang, operating in a surreal version of the Bay Area, who steal fashion items and designs from major retailers and fashion elites. They then go up against a ruthless fashion mogul played by Demi Moore (doing a poor person’s imitation of the Meryl Streep role in THE PRADA WEARS PRADA) after she appropriates their designs.

One must give writer/director Riley credit for trying his hardest in his movie; he said that this is the best film at the introduction of the film at the promo screening.  His film contains some stunning, though vulgar, visual effects, and his energy clearly shows throughout the movie.

The film I LOVE BOOSTERS is an acquired taste.  It celebrates Boots Riley’s style, similar to SORRY TO BOTHER YOU, where satire, class politics, and absurd comedy are mixed together, like in this film.  Those who like their political satire subtle and quiet will hate this, but I LOVE BOOSTERS leans towards the wild and the absurd.  The film is like his Q&A that was held after the promo screening.  Riley is all over the place when asked a question, pretty much like his film, in which anything can happen on screen.

I LOVE BOOSTERS opens in theatres on Friday, May 22nd.

Trailer:

LADIES FIRST (USA 2026) ***

Directed by Thea Sharrock

 

LADIES FIRST is an American comedy satire set in London that puts a spin on the male chauvinistic corporate world.

The story centres on Damien Sachs (Sacha Baron Cohen), a wealthy, arrogant London advertising executive who embodies casual sexism. Damien is successful, charming, and manipulative — the kind of man who treats women as decorative accessories while expecting to become CEO of his agency. He constantly flirts, ignores female colleagues’ ideas, and assumes authority naturally belongs to men.  Rosamund Pike plays Alex Fox, one of the agency’s smartest executives. In Damien’s normal world, she is respected but continually sidelined by the company’s male leadership. Damien dismisses her concerns and sees her as competition rather than an equal partner.  Early in the film, Damien suffers a head injury after an accident on a London street. When he wakes up, he discovers he is living in an alternate universe where gender roles are reversed, and women dominate nearly every level of society.

The male-female switcheroo world is full of male-to-female jokes with products like Burger Queen to books like Donna Quixote, and where females take over men’s jobs from construction to cab-driving.  In this new world that Damien goes into, women occupy the highest political and corporate positions.  Men are objectified, sexualized, and socially expected to be submissive.  Advertising routinely uses male bodies as decoration.

Director Thea Sharrock (her latest hit was Olivia Colman’s comedy WICKED LITTLE LETTERS) aptly milks the comedic material with solid timing and pace, providing many laugh-out-loud moments, aided by solid performances by no less than Sasha Baron Cohen, Rosamund Pike, and most of all veteran Fiona Shaw playing Felicity, the receptionist promoted to CEO in the new women’s world.

Despite the film’s country of origin being listed as the United States, this is a British film at heart.  Both leading figures, Pike and Cohen, are British; in fact, both were born in the same Hammersmith neighbourhood, London. The setting is London, and the dialogue is four British terms and terminology, many of which are not used in North America; the most common one is the word fit substituting for the word " sexy.  Use:  She or he looks really fit (sexy).

The film has a solid comedic premise, though a bit outdated for 2026, which is put to relatively good use in the script, despite its one joke idea premise written by Natalie Krinsky, Cinco Paul and Katie Silberman.  It should be noted that the script is based on the Netflix French film, JE NE SUIS PAS UN HOMME FACILE (I Am Not an Easy Man), written by Eléonore Pourriat.

As expected from Sasha Baron Cohen, there is little subtlety in this satire, and a few jokes fall flat, such as his character screaming during a hair removal procedure.

LADIES FIRST opens for streaming on Netflix May 22nd, 2026.

 

Trailer: 

THE LAST ANNIVERSARY (Canada 2025) *

Directed by The Butler Bros.

 

THE LAST ANNIVERSARY is a low-budget Canadian dysfunctional family of friends horror film with a premise set on the last day before the world ends.

It is the end of the world.  No explanation is given for this unfortunate apocalypse, nor how the characters know of it.

A couple drives to an abandoned hotel (again, why the hotel is abandoned or how the characters know of it are never explained) to celebrate what is their wedding anniversary, which also serves as a reunion of their friends.  The couple arrange the star and prepares the rooms while setting up food before the guests arrive.  The couple tend to love each other tremendously, with the notion of the end of the world coming into play largely forgotten.

The assorted guests arrive, most of whom are terribly annoying.  The one scene with the singer and a friend in a hotel room discussing various events of the past is total boredom.  “I have done nothing in my life!” claims one, in a conversation riddled with cliches.  The many and different encounters share the common traits of melodrama and forced emotion for the sake of what the directors hope to entertain their audience with.

Aubrey (Jesse McQueen) is essentially the emotional centre of the film. She was once part of the wedding party and becomes increasingly unstable as buried resentments and supernatural events emerge. Much of the story follows her attempts to understand what really happened years earlier to the missing maid of honour. She is portrayed as emotionally wounded, paranoid, and trapped between guilt and survival instincts. Her beau is Tom (Kenneth Northfield).  Tom is connected to the hotel’s past and to the collapsing relationships within the group. He represents regret and emotional exhaustion, particularly surrounding failed friendships and old romantic tensions.

The horror begins at the 30-minute mark of the film when a character is forced to feed liquor from a bottle.  The figure force-feeding disappears so that one wonders if the horror is more psychological.  

One also wonders if the characters are intentionally unpleasant, damaged, or emotionally toxic, though it is clear that the fact would annoy more than entertain. The movie leans heavily into unresolved wedding-night trauma and failed relationships with guilt over the missing maid of honour in the setting of interpersonal cruelty and apocalyptic hopelessness.

This group of people unravels psychologically as the film progresses while trapped in a decaying hotel at the literal end of the world.

The slow burn of the horror drama set in a not-too-credible last day before the end of the world setting, with unlivable and annoying characters that no one would want to spend time with, is a messy, boring piece of theatre that one cannot wait to end.

THE LAST ANNIVERSARY embarks on a theatrical tour this spring, bringing the film directly to audiences across the country with filmmakers and cast in attendance at select screenings for special Q&As.  The Toronto dates with the venue are: 

Toronto, ON — May 21–28, 2026 | Imagine Cinemas – Carlton (filmmakers and cast in attendance at select screenings)

 

THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU (USA 2026) ***
Directed by Jon Favreau

As the audience is informed at the start of this new STAR WARS episode, the Empire has fallen, and the scattered imperial warlords are still trying to do harm to the Republic.  Following the fall, the New Republic enlists Din Djarin, also known as the Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal) and his apprentice Grogu to rescue Rotta the Hutt in exchange for information from the Hutt clan on a New Republic target.  In terms of the series, the plot of The Mandalorian and Grogu picks up after the events of the Disney+ series The Mandalorian.

The movie opens with Din and Grogu living quietly on Nevarro, trying to settle into a calmer life after the liberation of Mandalore. Grogu is becoming more independent and confident with the Force, though he still behaves like a mischievous child. Din, meanwhile, struggles with the idea of being both a Mandalorian warrior and a father figure.  Their peace is interrupted when New Republic officer Colonel Ward (Sigourney Weaver) recruits them for a dangerous mission. Intelligence suggests that a powerful Imperial remnant leader is trying to unite criminal syndicates and former Imperial forces in the Outer Rim. The key to locating him lies with the Hutt cartel.

The film lacks emotional traction, though the film contains no lack of special effect action set pieces.  These are impressive enough and include a large middle section, which becomes a large-scale adventure across several planets, in which Din infiltrates underground fighting arenas while Grogu secretly uses the Force to sabotage gladiator battles.  The pair encounter bounty hunters, smugglers, and old Imperial officers. There are large action sequences involving speeder chases, cantina shootouts, and starfighter combat. The Chemistry between the two is acceptable, as it is hard to feel for non-human characters. Din gets to remove his mask once to reveal Pascal’s face, a rarity. 

The STAR WARS franchise has been milked to death as a cash cow, even the Mandalorian series. At a length of 2 hours and 15 minutes, the film, despite the impressive design of the Star Wars characters like Grogu, just feels like a lacklustre extension of money wasted on another Mandalorian TV episode.

Famed director Martin Scorsese has a credit billing in the film.  He voices an Ardennian alien shopkeeper (sometimes described as a fry cook or information broker) whom Din Djarin visits while investigating the kidnapping of Rotta the Hutt. The character is a four-armed alien similar to Rio Durant from Solo: A Star Wars Story.  One line he utters is: “For that price, I’ll tell you whatever you want.”

Disney hopes, obviously, that this film will secure a big Star Wars return event, but just like Disney Marvel Superheroes movies, many audiences have felt that enough is enough, and there is too much of both already flooding the market.

THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU cost $165 million to make, which is actually quite a modest sum, considering other blockbuster movies that have opened this year.  Despite the mixed reviews from critics so far, this film should be able to cover its production costs given the film’s large fan base and its modest budget.  THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU opens widely in theatres this Friday, May 22nd.

Trailer: 

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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 28 April 2026

THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA 2 (USA 2026) ***½

Directed by David Frankel

 

Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) returns to Runway as Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) navigates a new media landscape and Runway's position within it. They reconnect with another former assistant, Emily (Emily Blunt), who is now the head of a luxury brand that possesses funding which could ensure Runway's survival.

 The film takes a while to get its footing.

The film contains a few oddities.  One of these occurs twice during the film.  One occurs during a dinner event where the audience sees and hears the characters talking while figures walk in front of the camera, blurring the image.  Perhaps there is a purpose for this, but the reasoning escapes me.  Another unrelated oddity is the display of Hathaway’s Andy’s character being a kind of klutz at the start of the film.  She is almost hit by a cyclist and almost trips a few times while entering the limo.  Thankfully, this clumsiness is done away with, as it makes no sense at all, as the Andy character is supposed to be smart and practical.

The film champions journalism, a dying trade.  At the beginning of the film, all the employees of a magazine are laid off, while near the end, the budget for the Runway magazine is greatly reduced.  But one cannot go against the future of journalism, which does not look good at all as publication after publication loses its advertisers, readership, and eventually has to close down.  The film does end on a high note with Runway magazine still riding high, though the audience knows theses wishful thinking. 

THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA 2 can be described as a parody with good intentions towards the fashion industry.  Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestly stands in for Anna Wintour while the Bezos-based characters form the villainous couple in the story.  Every story needs a villain for oomph, this film included.  Many did not have high hopes for the sequel, thinking that the sequel will be a copied re-tread.  No one can forget the original film’s outstanding beginning 10-minute one-take sequence, where Meryl Streep’s Miranda comes into the office one morning, and every staff member snaps to attention as she walks by.

The film benefits from some excellent performances, with Academy Award-winning Meryl Streep as Miranda being the standout.  Stanley Tucci delivers a disciplined, understated performance as the unrecognized force behind the magazine’s success.  His every facial moment, like the lift of an eyebrow or a grimace are carefully calculated.  Lady Gaga lends her hand in a spirited performance, which included a new song entitled ‘Runway’.  "Runway" is the original song performed by Lady Gaga and Doechii. 

But what is a movie about fashion without fashion?  This is where the film excels.  The costume and wardrobe design, with all the wear worn by the cast, is nothing short of stunning.  Meryl Streep’s wardrobe is to die for, and even Anne Hathaway’s T-shirt is chic with Björk’s album cover.

THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA 2 is the big movie of this week and opens on Friday, April 24th.

Trailer: 

JE M’APPELLE AGNETA (Sweden 2026) ***
Directed by Johanna Runevad

 

Agneta (Eva Melander) is a colourful and funny person, but it is not immediately obvious. She just turned 49, her children have left home, her job at the traffic office has stalled, and Agneta feels invisible.  Her husband, on the other hand, has found meaning in life by taking ice-cold baths and speeding around on expensive bikes.

JE M’APPELLE AGNÈTA.  Or my name is Agnieta.  Who is Agnieta?  In the film, Agnieta is a 49-year-old married woman who works in a travel department in Sweden. Agneta has always dreamed of going to France.  She loves France.  But she has never travelled anywhere.  When she loses her job, she applies and gets a job as an au pair (though she is a bit old to be an au pair), looking after a boy, who turns out to be an old man in Saint Carelle in Provence. Agneta’s husband, Magnus (Björn Kjellman), scoffs at her for coming crying home.  They sleep in separate bedrooms and generally do their own thing, so this is an opportunity for Agnieta to discover life again.

Things don’t look so good when she first arrives and leaves her purse on the bus.  But she slowly adapts in what might be considered a charming little film about a senior coming-of-age story.  It helps that Provence is just beautiful, known for its extensive purple lavender fields, the purple used for the colour of the opening credits.  The old man, Agneta, turns out to be quite frail and flamboyantly gay.  He, Einer (Claes Månsson), has a son whom he has not seen since he and his wife separated after he came out.

This is a well-meaning crowd-pleaser, but it is filled with clichés and predictability.  One can be sure that there is going to be a reconciliation between Einer and his son, and possibly with his old age, he will most likely to die a glorious death at the end of the film. Thankfully, Einer does not die.In films of this sort, the two learn from each other.  So what else is new?

JE M’APPELLE AGNETA celebrates France and Sweden at best.  But the film’s more a laboured and predictable affair, though the two actors try their best at what are their limited written roles.

Purple is the colour of the day, the colour used often in the film Purple. Purple is the colour of the dress that Agneta and Einer steal from the market and the one she wears in the film’s conclusion while running in the purple lavender fields of Provence. 

The film was shot in both Sète, a coastal town on the Mediterranean, andSalasc, a small inland village, which is in the Hérault department (Occitanie region) in France.

The setting doubles for the Provence countryside, where the story takes place

As this is a Swedish film, it is no surprise that the ABBA song “The Winner Takes It All” is used in the climax of the filM, the song leading into the film’s closing credits.

JE M’APPELLE AGNETA is a Netflix original movie that opens for streaming on April 29th, 2026.

Trailer: 

MY DEAREST SENORITA (Spain 2026) ***

Directed by Fernando G. Molina

 

In 1999, Pamplona, only child Adela, raised in a Conservative background, overprotected by their mother, and unaware of their intersexuality, starts a journey of self-discovery that takes them to Madrid.

MY DEAREST SENORITA is based on the beloved classic Spanish 1972 film of the same name. In the 1972 film, the story follows Adela Castro, a devout, middle-aged woman living a quiet, sheltered life in a small Spanish town. After experiencing persistent health issues, she visits a doctor and receives a shocking diagnosis: she is biologically male.  This revelation forces Adela to reassess her identity, her past completely, and her place in society. She adopts the name Juan and moves to the city to start over as a man.

This new 2026 Netflix original film treads similar issues.  The film follows Adela, a young woman raised in a strict, traditional family in Pamplona, Spain.  The film begins at her birth, when her mother promises that no one will ever know, and that she and her husband will do everything to protect her.  Sheltered and controlled—especially by her overbearing mother—Adela has lived a life defined by religion and social expectations.  Everything changes when she discovers a life-altering truth: She is intersex.  Unprepared for this revelation, Adela leaves home and travels to Madrid, beginning a deeply personal journey to understand: her identity and body

her gender and sexuality, and how to build a life on her own terms.

The question is, why a remake of the 1972 groundbreaking film?  Two good reasons.  One is the updated story to a more modern time, and the other is that the actress now playing the intersex character Adela is herself intersex.  Elisabeth Martínez is an intersex actor—playing an intersex character, which is still rare in mainstream film.

I have not seen the original 1972 film, but the film shows how a different person longs for true love.  She feels that she has missed out on life, especially when she sees her effeminate man finding his gay lover.  The film also functions as a modern coming-of-age story that is still bound by old, prejudiced traditions.

MY DEAREST SENORITA opens for streaming on Netflix on Friday, May 1st.  The film world premiered at the 29th Málaga Film Festival on 8 March 2026, ahead of a scheduled limited theatrical release in Spain by Tripictures on 17 April 2026 and a Netflix streaming release on 1 May 2026.

Trailer:

SON-IN-LAW (Mexico 2026) ***

Directed by Gerardo Naranjo

 

 

The story follows José Sánchez, an overly ambitious but not particularly competent man.

After a series of business failures, he accidentally bluffs his way into becoming “El Serpiente,” a feared political operator.  Despite his lack of real skill, his confidence and fast talk help him rise in a corrupt political world.  Now trapped in a dangerous position, he must pull off one last high-stakes deal to survive, even though it’s far beyond what he can fake.  One can feel from this reality person and in a way root for this man, as ridiculous as this person might be.

SON-IN-LAW  should not be dismissed as a silly, infantile move, though the jokes could be described as such.  If one is to examine the film more closely, it represents a satirical look at “the Mexican dream”, as compared to the comparative American dream,  of success at any cost.  Being Mexican, the film explores corruption, betrayal, and opportunism in a comical manner and mixes dark humour with crime and political drama.  Have a few laughs, dismiss the film’s flaws, and look at the film’s positives.  Even though the film is not as funny as it thinks it is.

Have a few laughs, dismiss the film’s flaws, and look at the film’s positives.  Even though the film is not as funny as it thinks it is.

SON-IN-LAW is a Netflix original movie from Mexico open for streaming on freaky May 1st,

Trailer:

SWAPPED (USA 2026) ***
Directed by Nathan Greno

Swapped is a 2026 American animated comedy film directed by Nathan Greno. Produced by Skydance Animation in association with Netflix, the film features the voices of Michael B. Jordan, Juno Temple, Tracy Morgan, Cedric the Entertainer, and Justina Machado. It was released on Netflix and select theatres on May 1, 2026.

The swapped bodies premise has been done so many times before and could be described as a genre of its own.  But this body swap film is different in that it is an animated feature.  And this one involves two enemies swapping bodies.  A small woodland mammal and a majestic bird, two natural sworn enemies of The Valley, accidentally magically swap bodies after crashing into a magical plant and set off on an adventure of a lifetime while bonding together and helping the woodland animals.

The voice cast is impressive enough.

Michael B. Jordan as Ollie, a brown sea otter-like creature known as a Pookoo who switches and forms bodies with Ivy

Juno Temple as Ivy, a light green Kākāpō-like bird known as a Javan who switches and forms bodies with Ollie

Tracy Morgan as Boogle, a purple grouper-like fish with algae for fins, later revealed to be the evil firewolf, and

Cedric the Entertainer as Caloo, Ollie's father, among others.

(full review to be posted weekend)

Trailer: 

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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 27 April 2026

LE BUS: LES BLEUS EN GREVE (The Bus: A French Football Mutiny) (France 2026) ***½

Directed by Jérôme Fritel and Christophe Astruc

 

This French documentary revisits the French football team’s controversial 2010 World Cup and the bus strike that sparked global headlines and national outrage.  It all began with football coach Raymond Domenech getting into a spat with one of the footballers, who ended up calling the coach vulgarities before being banned from play.  This enraged the other players, leading to a training strike/mutiny with the players walking off their training session right in front of the hungry press waiting to exploit the news.

“We are football!”  Without football, we are nothing.  This is true for the French. This reviewer was in Paris the day France won the World Cup in 2018, and what a celebration!

This is not the first time a coach comes into violent disagreement with his players, and also not the first film to focus on the topic  The recent SAIPAN is a 2025 sports film directed by Glenn Leyburn and Lisa Barros D'Sa and written by Paul Fraser that dramatises the Saipan incident, an altercation between the Republic of Ireland national football team player Roy Keane (played by Éanna Hardwicke) and their manager, Mick McCarthy (Steve Coogan), ahead of the 2002 FIFA World Cup.  SIPAN is yet to be released but was screened at last year’s TIFF.

Domenech was dismissed after the team lost out of the World Cup in 2010.  He is an interesting personality, and the directors highlight the fact in the doc.  Domenech is of Catalan descent, shown to be fascinated by astrology, and believes that people's personalities are shaped by star signs. He has denied rumours that he picked squads based on astrology, or that he dropped Robert Pires for being a Scorpio (which the doc emphasised), instead saying that the 30-year-old Arsenal winger was declining and a bad influence on the squad.  The doc also highlights the team captain, Patrice Evra.  The incident resulted in Evra, for his role as captain, being suspended from national team duty for five matches. He returned to the squad and enjoyed a solid career after.

The Bus: A French Football Mutiny is a fast-moving, 75-minute, real-life, exciting documentary that gets right to the chase with candid interviews with all those involved, including the coach and the football captain, all giving their points of view.  It is clearly a case of ego, and the villain here is the coach who gets his comeuppance at the end.  Recommended even for non-football fans.  The doc comes right in time for the FIFA World Cup this summer. The film is currently streaming on Netflix beginning on Wednesday, May 13th.

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THE CRASH (USA 2026) ***
Directed by Gareth Johnson

 

THE CRASH incident made such headline news that the driver of the car has a page on Wikipedia.  Mackenzie Shirilla was raised by her parents, Natalie and Steve Shirilla, in Strongsville, Ohio. At the time of the crash, Shirilla was a 17-year-old recent graduate of Strongsville High School. During her studies, Shirilla had met her boyfriend, Dominic Russo, who had graduated from the school by the time of the incident. Russo dated Shirilla for 4 years. According to Russo's brother, Shirilla and Russo had frequent conflicts and had broken up and reunited multiple times. The pair started living together in 2021. Russo's mother, Christine, said that about six months before the crash, the relationship between Russo and Shirilla experienced tension again.

The Netflix doc has parts that actually happened.  The audience knows that the voiceover “Recording” can be heard.

When the film begins. The word ‘recording’ is heard.  From the cop cruiser, a car crash, the worst car crash that I have ever seen, cries an officer as the camera pans to show the destruction of a car.  The voiceover is quick to point out that there is a question of whether this is an accident or a murder.  The crash is intercut with the opening ceremony of Mackenzie’s school and the introduction of what can be seen as the best, best friend group in the school.  But nothing is what it seems, as the film unfolds.

Both Russo and Flanagan were pronounced dead at the scene, while Shirilla was seriously injured and taken to the hospital. Shirilla, who was 17 years old at the time of the crime, was later arrested and charged with the murder of Russo and Flanagan. In a 2023 bench trial, the judge concluded she intentionally crashed the car in an act of premeditated murder.

The film suffers from being the typical Netflix doc where the incident is sensationalised, though one might argue that this is done for artistic entertainment.  But on the positive side, the film is intriguing, allowing the audience to be glued to the material as director Johnson stresses the important points of the story, which is the toxic relationship between Shirilla and Dom.  The things young ones are capable of are seen with all their comfortable intrigue.

THE CRASH opens for streaming on Friday, May 15th.

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JACK RYAN: GHOST WAR (USA 2026) ***

Directed by Andrew Bernstein 

 

On Prime Video.  Jack Ryan: Ghost War (also known as Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan: Ghost War) is an upcoming American political action thriller film directed by Andrew Bernstein and written by Aaron Rabin and John Krasinski, based on a story by Krasinski and Noah Oppenheim. It is the sixth film and third reboot in the Jack Ryan series and a continuation of the Amazon Prime Video television series Jack Ryan (2018–2023).

The film is weak on plot with the main story just involving Jack Ryan fighting a former CI boss.  John Krasinski agian plays   Jack Ryan, a former U.S. Marine officer and Afghanistan veteran working as a field operative for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Wendell Pierce is James Greer, the deputy director of the CIA and Michael Kelly plus Mike November, a former CIA station chief in Venezuela, now a private security contractor.

The female cast include Betty Gabriel as Elizabeth Wright, the director of the CIA.

with Sienna Miller as Emma Marlow.

The film contains a few action sequences tat should satisfy both Jack Ryan and action fans.  The action set pieces including urban surveillance chases, embassy attacks, close-quarters gunfights though these look the most used in action films thus lacking lustre, drone warfare,

and large-scale explosions.  One sequence appears to involve Ryan and November trapped in a safe house while mercenaries attack using military-grade equipment. and the best of the lot features Ryan pursuing a terrorist financier through crowded Middle Eastern markets.

The action leans heavily into tactical action and hand-to-hand combat.

One of the film’s flaws is its technicality , especially involving the CIA that many might not care that much about.  The film’s publicity insists that Jack Ryan gets more personal in the return to action.

Ryan eventually uncovers that the real mastermind is not an outside terrorist leader but a Western intelligence figure using chaos to expand covert power and military influence.  The discovery is revealed way before the film’s conclusion.  The climax appears to involve Ryan exposing the conspiracy publicly rather than simply killing the villain — more in line with the political thriller roots of the Tom Clancy stories.  The ending is leaves the franchise open to more films, and one would not be surprised that another Jack Ryan film is already in the making.

JACK RYAN: GHOST WAR is released worldwide on Amazon Prime Video on May 20, 2026.

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KARTAVYA (India 2026) ***
Directed by Pulkit

 

The title Kartavya is a Hindi/Sanskrit word meaning “duty,” “obligation,” or “moral responsibility.”  The film is so-called as in the context of the film, the title refers to the central conflict faced by the protagonist, police officer Pawan Malik (Saif Ali Khan), in his duty as a law officer to investigate the truth, his duty to protect his family, and his broader moral duty to society in a corrupt system.

The film features a reluctant hero with flaws, like smoking and getting angry, though he is as efficient as Clint Eastwood in any of his cop movies.  The film begins with Malik’s birthday, and it is not a happy one.  Besides receding the gift of white shoes twice, he is out on suspension after the journalist he is supposed to protect gets killed and a fellow officer is injured on his watch, returning home. Malik finds his brother has eloped, causing his family to be threatened by the girl’s family.

The film follows Pawan Malik, a rural Haryana police officer who comes under intense pressure after a journalist is murdered while supposedly under police protection. As he investigates the killing, he uncovers a web of political corruption, caste violence, local government, and institutional cover-ups.

The film succeeds as less of a conventional action movie (do not expect a Bollywood-style film here)  and more of a morally tense psychological crime drama. It focuses on a flawed hero grappling with systemic corruption, social hierarchies in small-town India, and the emotional burden borne by honest officers trapped within broken institutions.

KARTAVYA opens for streaming on Netflix on Friday, May 15th.

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SILENT FRIEND (Germany/France/Hungary 2025) ***
Directed by ILDIKÓ ENYEDI

 

Set in a botanical garden in a medieval university town in Germany, Silent Friend unfolds around a majestic ginkgo tree that has stood for more than a century. The Ginkgo tree survives for centuries and thus serves as a silent witness (and SILENT FRIEND) to time, while it observes the lives of three people across different eras, each changed by their encounter with the natural world.

2020: A neuroscientist from Hong Kong (Tony Leung), studying the minds of babies, begins an unexpected experiment involving the old tree.

1972: A young student is deeply affected by the simple act of observing — and connecting with — a geranium.

1908: The university’s first female student uses photography to discover striking patterns in the natural world, hidden in even the most ordinary plants.

 The film follows their attempts to connect with nature, with one another, and with themselves. Across time, Silent Friend becomes a moving reflection on transformation, belonging, and what it means to be human.  Director Enyedi uses theatre to switch from one story to the next.  Each of the three people also encounters the tree, which makes an important impact on their lives.  Though the tactic might seem pretentious,  SLIEN FRIEND after all, is a slow-burning, contemplative art film.

Two of the film’s heavyweights are Tony Leung (INTHE MOOD FOR LOVE) and Lea Seydoux (BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOUR), who both appear in the latest 2020 story, during the time of the Pandemic, which ironically is the weakest of the three stories.  The most interesting of the three is the 1908 story, as it deals with the urgent matter of female abuse.  The young student at the university is the first female student and undergoes humiliating questions from the board of male chauvinist professors.  They ask her whether she would participate in orgies just to gauge her response.  She, nevertheless, is accepted as the first female in the university and gradually grows a fondness for photography, then examines plants through the process of how they grow.

The film gradually becomes a meditation on time, memory, solitude (each character is secluded for one reason or another, such as the Pandemic), ecological awareness, and the idea that humans may not understand the living world around them as well as they think.

One flaw is the director’s decision to ie gets involved with a intercut the three stories instead of showing them one after the other.  The result is fragmented storytelling.  Once one gets interested in a character, the film intercuts to the next story so that the momentum and focus are often lost in the process. 

The film runs a lengthy 147 minutes.  The film is a slow burn, which makes it a touch watch if one is interested.  But many arthouse fans have found the film interesting, and this film, to its credit, has won accolades when shown.

` SILENT FRIEND won the FIPRESCI Prize and the Marcello Mastroianni Award at the Venice Film Festival.  It opens in Toronto on Friday, 15th, 2026.

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THE WIZARD OF THE KREMLIN (France 2025) ***½

Directed by Olivier Assayas

 

  THE WIZARD OF THE KREMLIN (French: Le Mage du Kremlin) is a 2025 English-language French political satire film directed by Olivier Assayas, who co-wrote the screenplay with Emmanuel Carrère. It is based on the 2022 novel by Giuliano da Empoli.[2] It follows the fictional government official Vadim Baranov (Paul Dano) during the final years of the Soviet Union and the turbulent start of the Russian Federation, while a young Vladimir Putin (Jude Law) rises to power. It also stars Alicia Vikander, Will Keen, Tom Sturridge, and Jeffrey Wright.

Olivier Assayas is a French filmmaker who has delved into the serious and the comical.  The comical involves films like the vampire romp IRMA REP, and his serious films would include this alter film, which is part black comedy.

The Wizard of the Kremlin is a political drama/thriller based on the novel by Giuliano da Empoli. It offers a fictionalised, insider-style look at the rise of modern Russian power.

The story follows Vadim Baranov (Paul Dano), a shadowy political strategist who becomes a key spin doctor for a rising Russian leader clearly modelled on Vladimir Putin (Jude Law).  Baranov is not a public figure—he operates behind the scenes, shaping narratives, manipulating media, and engineering political outcomes. The “wizard” in the title refers to his almost magical ability to control perception and power without ever stepping into the spotlight.

The film follows real political figures.  For those in the know of political affairs, the film will be much more insightful and entertaining. For example, the film’s character Vadim Baranov is inspired by Vladislav Surkov, a Russian politician and businessman who served as First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Administration of Russia from 1999 to 2011, during which he played a central role in shaping domestic political strategy. During this period, he was widely credited with formulating and promoting the concept of sovereign democracy.  Surkov has been described as an influential political strategist and is sometimes referred to as a "grey cardinal" of Russian politics. He has also been linked to literary works published under the pseudonym Nathan Dubovitsky.

 The film was made with tons of effort and research, and the result shows.  There are no action segments or suspense elements.  Commercial audiences should beware, as this is not the typical American commercial film.  But the pleasure that can be derived from the film evolves from the dialogue, the book’s apt adaptation, and the parallels between fiction and the true Russian political performances are more than excellent. 

Though this is a political film, the universal story of greed and ambition should interest the general audience.

The film benefits from excellent performances, the best of these being delivered by Jude Law playing Vladimir Putin, looking more like Putin than himself.  This is an Oscar-worthy performance, which he hopefully should at least get an Oscar nomination. Paul Dano is also excellent in the pivotal lead role.

THE WIZARD OF THE KREMLIN, which was screened at last year's TIFF,  has a Canadian theatrical release beginning May 15th, 2026.

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Details

Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 17 April 2026

FILM REVIEWS:

 

 

APEX (USA/UK/Ireland 2026) ***
Directed by Baltasar Kormákur

 (to be posted)

Apex is a 2026 survival action thriller film directed by Baltasar Kormákur, written by Jeremy Robbins, and starring Charlize Theron, Taron Egerton, and Eric Bana. It tells the story of a rock climber in the wild who finds herself being hunted by a hunter as she works to survive.

If for nothing else, the film would be watched for its most suspenseful and exciting first 15 minutes, with the mountain climbers facing the Troll Wall in Norway.  (The wall is now banned from climbing.

From all the menace that the Charlize Theron character faces, the film feels very much like the 1971 Sam Peckinpah film THE STRAW DOGS.

Baltasar Kormákur is an Icelandic director famous for his 2000 film 101 101 Reykjavík and the 2006 JAR CITY, an apt filmmaker again showing his prowess in his ninth film.

APEX is a Netflix original action thriller, and a decent one, open for teaming on April 24th.

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BLUE ROAD: THE EDNA O’BRIEN STORY (Ireland/UK 2024) ****

Directed by Sinead O’Shea

 

In 1960, a young Irish woman named Edna O’Brien wrote a sexually frank debut novel, The  Country Girls. She became a literary sensation, writing for The New Yorker, delivering provocative interviews, and authoring screenplays. 

Her success enraged her writer husband and made her a pariah in her native Ireland, where herbooks were banned. She would make her home in London, where she conducted numerous love affairs, hosted star-studded parties, and made and lost a fortune. 

In July 2024, Edna passed away, and this film provides a final testimony from her, aged 93, as she reflects upon her extraordinary life for filmmaker Sinéad O’Shea’s camera. 

Granting the director access to her personal journals — read aloud in the film by the Oscar-winning Irish actress Jessie Buckley (HAMNET) — and offering additional perspectives from Gabriel Byrne, Walter Mosley, and an array of renowned writers, Edna does not shy away from any subject. 

Blue Road is as candid, dark, and enchanting as O’Brien’s wonderful novels.

One of the best biopics to be seen, BLUE ROAD: THE EDNA O’BRIEN STORY, tells the story from childhood to death of Irish writer Edna O’Brien with candid interviews right up to her death at the age of 94 in 2024.  Filmmaker Sinéad O’Shea taps into a wealth of material, including unpublished diaries, decades of television appearances, and new interviews with O’Brien, in her 90s and as incisive as ever. There are interviews with her sons, Carlo and Sasha, about their unconventional upbringing with a divorced mother whose house guests included Marlon Brando, Judy Garland, and Paul McCartney.  The Irish actor Gabriel Byrne explains how O’Brien broke taboos, while writer Walter Mosely describes how she changed his life as his teacher.  Her reflections on her life and what she has learned are most moving.  She says in her final interview that she wishes to be buried when she dies.  A remarkable, candid and riveting portrait of the life of the Irish writer given the highest honour of ‘wise one’ in Irish Literature.

BLUE ROAD: THE EDNA O’BRIEN STORY premiered at TIFF in September 2024 and finally opens in theatres on April 20th.

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I SWEAR (UK 2025) ***
Directed by Kirk Jones

 

I Swear is a 2025 British biographical drama film directed, written, and produced by Kirk Jones. It is based on the true life story of John Davidson, a Scottish man with severe Tourette's syndrome who was the subject of the 1989 television documentary John's Not Mad

The film focuses on Tourette's syndrome, an ailment that the protagonist of the film, John Davidson sufferers from.

Tourette's Syndrome (TS) is a neurological disorder that causes involuntary movements and sounds called tics. It usually begins in childhood (around ages 5–10).  This part i true in the film as John’s disease manifests itself at an early age.

Types of tics:

Tics fall into two main categories:

1. Motor tics (movement)

Eye blinking

Facial grimacing

Shoulder shrugging

Head jerking

2. Vocal tics (sounds)

Throat clearing

Grunting or sniffing

Repeating words or phrases

All the above categories are observed in John, and also swearing (hence the title I SWEAR)

Even though it is only a small percentage of people who may have involuntary swearing (coprolalia), but this is rare—despite being the most widely known stereotype, as in director Kirk Jone’ film.

The film is divided into two parts: when John is a kid in school, and later as a teen

In 1983, 12-year-old John Davidson lived with his working-class family in Galashiels in the Scottish Borders. Aspiring to become a football player, he begins high school at Galashiels Academy. John begins to inexplicably experience episodes of tics and uncontrollable swearing just before a scout is meant to assess his goalie skills.

In 1996, John, now 25, is still living with Heather and has been diagnosed with the incurable Tourette syndrome. He is medicated with haloperidol, but his tics and swearing outbursts remain an embarrassment. John's school friend Murray returns from Australia after his mother Dottie, is diagnosed with liver cancer. John turns down Murray's invitation to join the family for dinner, but Dottie, a mental health nurse, insists he come in and senses John's discomfort.

How the film fares otherwise:

Tics can come and go and often change over time; they may worsen with stress, fatigue, or excitement and many people can briefly suppress tics, but it’s uncomfortable and temporary.  The film demonstrates these.

Symptoms often improve in adulthood for Tourette Syndrome patients, which is not the case for John.

In the film, John and his mentor strive to learn more about Tourette's Syndrome, just as the audience learns more about it.  But the film does not really paint a true picture of it, but it highlights the intensity and severity of it.

Still I SWEAR is a brave film, promoting awareness with strong performances from the actors playing both John (young and older) and the mentor.  Robert Aramayo plays John Davidson and Scott Ellis Watson as a young John, while Maxine Peake plays John’s mentor Dottie Achenbach.  Aramayo won the BAFTA for Bet Actor for hi performance in the film.  Filmmaker Peter Mullan has a pivotal role as John’s boss in the film.

As in Kirk Jones other film WAKING NED DEVINE, I WEAR strives to be a feel-good film, rather than a dramatic tragedy.

I SWEAR premiered last year at the Toronto Interaction Film Festival and opens in theatres on April 24th.

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KONTINENTAL ’25 (Romania/Brazil/Switzerland/UK/Luxembourg 2025)  ****

Directed by Radu Jude

 

You would consider yourself a decent or even better, a more do-gooder person, helping any person less fortunate than yourself.  Then, the inevitable happens.  Your world is turned upside down.  The good deed that you did catapulted you in the opposite direction.  This is what the new film KONTINENTAL ’25 examines.  And really interestingly! 

KONTINENTAL ’25 is the new film directed by Radu Jude.  Radu Jude is a Romanian film director and screenwriter. He is most known for his Golden Bear-winning film Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn.

Fortunately,  this film is a more manageable, disciplined work.  His last films were close to 3 hours long - DO NOT EXPECT MUCH FROM THE END OF THE WORLD (2023) and DRACULA (2025).  But most of Radu Jude’s humour is still found in this film, as can be observed at the beginning of the film, as the old guy goes around the city asking for or asking to borrow 5 to 10 lei because no one wants to hire him.   It is then comical to see him sitting in the park eating and then drinking vodka in the open, while coughing.  True, there are many people like him, but still, this is a funny and keen observation.

The premise is set in Cluj-Napoca. Bailiff Orsolya evicts a homeless man living in the basement of a building, leading to his suicide.  Consumed by guilt, Orsolya begins a desperate search for understanding.

The film, like Jude’s other films, is not without his sense of humour.  In one scene, Orsolya’s son, consoling her, tells her that she should have left the man alone.  He would have killed himself later anyway, and she would not have seen it.  Jude throws in another joke at a man also consoling Orsolya by telling her a joke about a young Korean man crushed by a food processing robot because it thought that the man was a can of food.  “I am telling you this story to cheer you up,” the man says.  More honour?  The homeless man committed suicide, she tells people, by hanging himself on a radiator.  How is this possible?  That is the joke.  Orsolya explains how this was done many times in the film when people ask her the same question. 

There is also a very funny segment in which shit is being discussed. The homeless man is described as leaving watery shit around, the shit the size of China.  And then a reference is made to the recent Japanese film PERFECT DAYS about the man cleaning Tokyo toilets. 

Jude’s film also feels Kafkaesque, as Orsolya goes around and around with her daily routine filled with guilt repetitively, in an absurd way.  And with more repetition, as in a Kafka story, Jude’s film gets funnier as the identical dialogue is heard.  And as in any Kafka tale, it is the government that is to blame.

The film is set in Cluj.  Cluj-Napoca or simply Cluj is a city in northwestern Romania. It is the second-most populous city in the country and the seat of Cluj County, a contradictory-looking city, looking Hungarian though it is Romanian.

The film opens at the TIFF Lightbox on Thursday, 23rd April.

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MICHAEL (USA 2026) ***
Directed by Antoine Fuqua

 

MICHAEL is a 2026 American musical biographical drama film directed by Antoine Fuqua and written by John Logan.  It follows the life of American singer Michael Jackson, covering the period from his involvement in the Jackson 5 in the 60s to his early solo career. 

MICHAEL is unmistakably one-sided in not showing Michael’s flaws.  In the film, Michael Jackson is a top-talented superstar who can do no wrong.  His real-life drug addiction is omitted.  The only drug use mentioned is the use that was necessary to overcome the pain from the injuries of his burn while performing on stage.  In the second half of 1993, Jackson faced significant controversy following allegations that he had sexually abused 13‑year‑old Jordan Chandler, whom he met that year.  This incident was totally ignored in the film.  This incident is not to be included according to the legal rights of Michele’s estate. The film only goes halfway, and nothing is mentioned again about his death.

The villain of the piece is Jordan, Michael’s father, who used to beat him to discipline as well as control his life.  But the film just cannot get into the issue, with the feeling that the filmmaker does not want to deal with it.

The film is definitely a feel-good piece, especially when there are three Jackson spirited performances of “Beat It”, Thriller”, and “Billie Jean” all back-to-back in the middle of the film.  But this cannot hide what is eventually a basically hollow piece that dodges the real story behind Michael Jackson.  The film can basically be described as performances interspersed with family drama between Michael and his father, Jordan.

Michael, the film ends with the word. “The story continues…”   There were over 4 hours of footage shot during the making of Michael, which means that the second film is almost already made.  It would be great to see the other side, the drug abuse, Michael’s death, and the examination of his paedophile allegations, though this means a more serious, less feel-good film.  Nevertheless, one can never debate that Michael Jackson is one of the top performers, if not the top performer, of his time.

The director of the film is Antoine Fuqua, known for TRAINING DAY and THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN remake. His films, this one included, all benefit from Fuqua’s signature ability to elicit good performances (TRAINING DAY won Denzel Washington an Oscar) and exciting set-pieces.  His films were never strong narrative-wise.

Jaafar Jackson plays Michael Jackson with verve and conviction. His dance performances help make the movie.  Juliano Krue Valdi also surprisingly impresses as young Michael. The best performance belongs to Colman Domingo as Joe Jackson, Michael's father

while Nia Long as Katherine Jackson as Michael's mother is not,

Miles Teller has a smaller role as John Branca, an entertainment lawyer and manager.

MICHAEL had a $20 million reshoot in order to meet legal obligations, but apparently, the bill is reported to have been covered by Michael’s estate.   Still, the film is reported to have a budget cit of between $150-$200 million.  Box-office predictions are expected to be good.  Lionsgate is desperately in need of a hit.  Hopefully, this is it!

Trailer: 

LAINEY WILSON: KEEPIN’COUNTRY COOL (USA 2026) ***
Directed by Amy Scott

 

The documentary opens with Lainey Wilson at the height of her success.  She claims that it is not an overnight success, as she has been in it for 14 years.  One might call it a 14-year overnight success, he quips.

Lass a biopic of Lainey Wilson, the doc follows country music superstar Lainey Wilson as she redefines what it means to be a modern country star, exploring her personal journey and struggles while captivating fans on stage across the country.

LAINEY WILSON: KEEPIN’COUNTRY COOL is so called a that is the name of her tour that the doc focuses on.  Unlike the also recent and opening PRETTY UGLY: THE STORY OF THE LUNACHICKS, Lainey Wilson is the complete opposite of the Lunachick.  Lainey is pretty, decent, though he drinks a lot and is an angel compared to the bad-ass Lunachicks.

Lainey Denay Wilson is an American country singer-songwriter and actress. She performed at an early age, before going to Nashville to pursue a career as a pop music performer. In 2014, she released her first album on Cupit, followed by a second on Lone Chief in 2016. Wilson secured a publishing deal and later released an extended play (EP) in 2019, which included the song "Things a Man Oughta Know". In 2020, it was issued as a single through the BBR Music Group and eventually reached number one on the American country songs chart.

Wilson has received nine Country Music Association Awards, including winning the top honor, Entertainer of the Year, in 2023 and 2025. She has also received a Grammy Award and sixteen Academy of Country Music Awards.

At best, the doc shows how much hard work goes into becoming well-known as well as a country star.  Lainey sacrificed and moved to Nashville, living in a trailer with a mentor, Jerry, who, with Lainey, wrote many of her songs.  Jerry passed away, sadly, from cancer.  Lainey’s had a tough part of her life, but she stuck it out, owing it to both Jerry and to herself to keep moving on.

LAINEY WILSON: KEEPIN’ COUNTRY COOL, a Netflix original documentary, opens for streaming on Netflix on April 22nd, 2026.

Trailer: 

PRETTY UGLY: THE STORY OF THE LUNACHICKS (USA 2025) ***
Directed by Ilya Chaiken

 

The title of the doc was what the doc is all about.

The Lunachicks are an American punk rock band from New York City.  The band formed in 1987, went on hiatus in 2001, and reunited in 2019. The band cited influences including the Ramones, Kiss, and the MC5.  The doc is partly about this reunion.

Punk music icons, Lunachicks, reunite after 20 years in an unfiltered, hilarious, and electric documentary. Packed with rare archival footage, the film traces their rise from gritty NYC teens to feminist trailblazers of the 90s grunge era.

The band GWAR gets it right.  When on LSD, one member of GWAR says  Lunachicks look great as a bunch of gorgeous chicks, but when they get onstage, they look like a bunch of old ladies.

The lunachicks weren’t good girls.  They did drugs.  Becky had a 10-bag-a-day habit.  And also heroin.  And she was not afraid to say it on camera.  And Syd became a heroin addict.  She kept it  secret till she could no longer,  “If you mess with them, they will fuck you up.”  This is their mentality.  Once, one threw her tampon at the audience.

The Lunachicks were pro-choice and still fighting for the choice today.

Also shown in the doc are Joan Jett, with whom they performed, and Jon Stewart, who interviewed one of them.

The doc features the band members who are/were:

Current members

Theo Kogan – vocals (1987–2000, 2002, 2004, 2019–present)

Gina Volpe – guitars (1987–2000, 2002, 2004, 2019–p

resent)

Sydney "Squid" Silver – bass (1987–2000, 2002, 2004, 2019–present)

Chip English – drums (1994–2000, 2002, 2004, 2019–present)

Former members

Sindi Benezra – guitars (1987–1997)

Becky Wreck – drums (1989–1994)

Kate Schellenbach – drums (1994)

Gus Morgan (formerly Helen Destroy) – drums (1999–2000)

Others featured include Kate Schellenbach, Donita Sparks, Dexter Holland, Noodles, Gina Schock, Debbie Harry, Chris Stein, Jeanne Fury, Howie Pyro, Jennifer Finch, Mike Bishop, and Guy Furrow

Featured too were the points.

Lunachicks were signed to New York-based label Go Kart Records, on which they released 1995's Jerk of All Trades.  The follow-up, 1997's Pretty Ugly, produced by Ryan Greene and Fat Mike of NOFX, features their most well-known song "Don't Want You", which was promoted with a video. Guitarist Sindi then left the band, after which it remained a four-piece. They released their first live album, Drop Dead Live, in 1998, and then their final album to date, Luxury Problem. 

The Lunachicks were unique.  The band did not make much money, but nobody could be them. They carved a name or themselves as a female group that takes no hits.  The doc, at its best, achieves the notion.  The Lunachicks were not super intelligent or super intriguing, but they managed to create a bond for their followers, often gay, feminine boys or butch girls.

PRETTY UGLY: THE STORY OF THE LUNACHICKS gets a nationwide Canadian digital release on Friday, April 24.

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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 11 April 2026

AT THE PLACE OF GHOSTS (Canada 2025) ***

Directed by Bretten Hannam

 

Siblings Mise’l and Antle, close confidants as children, have drifted apart as adults. When a malevolent spirit begins tormenting them, the siblings are forced to reunite and journey into Sk+te’kmujue’katik (the Place of Ghosts). This primordial forest exists outside of time, to confront their violent upbringing.

The film is a slow burn for a ghost story and not the typical Hollywood horror, with hardly any jump scares or cliched horror techniques like searching through winding corridors or old houses.  The forest is the scary fixture of the story.  This forest is portrayed as ancient, spiritually alive and outside normal time.  As the two brothers travel deeper inside, reality becomes unstable.  The forest contains ancestral spirits, echoes of memory, visions of the past, possible futures and manifestations of emotional pain, with time in the forest circular rather than linear.  This is where the film stands out as a unique horror film.

The story centres on two Mi’kmaq brothers Mise’l and Antle.  As children, they were inseparable. They grew up in rural Nova Scotia under a harsh and abusive father whose violence and homophobia shaped both of their lives.  Mise’l, the elder, was more emotionally sensitive and struggled with his queer identity in an environment that viewed vulnerability as weakness, while Antle coped differently, suppressing emotion, trying to survive while distancing himself from his brother.  Over time, the trauma between them created silence and resentment.

In their adult lives, years later, the brothers barely speak.  In the story, the brothers reunite reluctantly and travel into the forest to Sk+te'kmujue'katik — “The Place of Ghosts”, something they claim, but not made very clear to the audience, as they have to do.

The brothers finally meet the entity in the forest at the film's conclusion, where spirituality and emotions take hold.

The film opens on May 8th.

THE BUTCHER’S BLADE (China 2026) ****
Directed by Liu Wenpu

 

THE BUTCHER’S BLADE is a gritty Chinese wuxia thriller about a low-ranking constable who becomes trapped inside a violent political conspiracy during a period of social collapse and corruption.

The protagonist, Xue Buyi, is a modest constable trying to survive in a decaying imperial system. Unlike many action films,  Xue is neither a legendary martial-arts master nor a noble hero at the beginning of the film.  After a transport of relief silver disappears, Xue is falsely implicated in the theft and becomes the target of corrupt officials and hired assassins.

The deeper he digs, the more he realises the system itself is rotten.

He proves himself slowly and eventually in an empire where officials profit while common people suffer, justice is manipulated, and loyalty is transactional. Xue gradually understands that the law he served is deeply compromised.

THE BUTCHER’S BLADE is so-called for the fighting style that typically of the main hero, Xue, who resembles a butcher cutting meat rather than an aristocratic martial artist performing refined forms.  Unlike elegant scholar-swordsmen in traditional wuxia films, Xue fights using heavy chopping motions, shoulder-powered strikes, and short-range killing blows with efficient and practical violence.  His fighting style resembles a butcher cutting meat rather than an aristocratic martial artist performing refined forms.   There is no butcher blade seen in the film

The fighting scenes resemble the Shaw Brothers' 60s and 70s swordplay films that they produced from their Shaw Studios almost weekly, released to their own chain of cinemas throughout South-East Asia, where this film reviewer grew up, till film piracy destroyed cinema in South East Asia.

It is the action sequences that make this film stand above the traditional run-of-the-mill martial arts films, aided by a solid plot involving a down-and-out constable whom audiences can root for as he tries to redeem himself in a corrupt world. 

Two fight sequences stand out.  One is the fireworks flash and fight sequence between Xue and the masked fireworks assassin.  Xue now changes his role from hunter to survivor in a fight where he is more in survival mode.  The two fighters' fighting techniques differ, with acrobatic wall movement, spinning-blade attacks, and extremely fast directional changes noticeable.  The fight and flash fights have the fighters during flashes of light between bursts of smoke, thus creating a rhythm where the audience briefly sees movement, then everything vanishes into darkness again.  The film impressively uses fireworks almost like strobe lighting.

The second, and arguably the best, is the hanging cloth fight.  This reminds one of the often-used fight amidst multiple mirrors in Western films.  This involves Xue fighting an opponent who works in a cloth-dyeing factory.  In it, Xue fights the assassin inside a textile-drying courtyard filled with hanging sheets and cloth banners.  The fighting style leans heavily into traditional wuxia movement, wire-assisted acrobatics, and concealment-based swordplay.  The fighters use disappearing movements through cloth curtains, hidden blade attacks, and spinning sabre strikes.  Brilliantly, the cloth becomes part of the choreography with wrapping weapons, blinding opponents, masking direction changes, and clearly outstanding fight choreography.

There is also a message in the film in which the ending emphasises the personal cost of revenge, corruption’s persistence, and the loss of innocence.  The Action-Packed Wuxia Crime Drama Hits Digital May 12.

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THE LAST ONE FOR THE ROAD (Italy/Germany 2025) ***
Directed by Francesco Sossai

 

The film begins with two isolated incidents, each not too exciting.  As they say, if a film does not grab one's attention in the first few minutes, then the audience will be put off and leave. Well, the film does not get much more exciting; it just meanders on, as it is about two old drunks who keep having one more (drink) for the road.  Like the men, the film rambles on and on.  It is an Italian road trip film.  The two old men pick up a youth on their travels.  One good thing about the film is that it avoids clichés.  The two old men don't learn from the young one, and neither does the young one from the older men.  But their behaviour affects each party, so the audience has to be patient and see how the film unfolds.

The bottom has fallen out for Carlobianchi and Doriano, two small-time Italian crooks. They haven’t been able to mount an honest scam since the 2008 financial crisis and now face the impending mediocrity of middle age. The return of an exiled partner-in-crime from Argentina affords a second chance for long-buried riches, but can Carlobianchi and Doriano put down their beers long enough to keep their eyes on the prize?  Along their slow-motion, alcoholic grand tour of the Venetian countryside, they cross paths with Giulio, a shy architecture student who reluctantly warms to the sodden pair and indulges their rants about the folly of globalisation and the slow decline of local colour. Each roadside tavern offers the promise of one last drink – unless the next one ups the ante. “Never mixed the new wine with the old!”  The wine in the glass must be finished before the glass is filled.  Francesco Sossai’s dazzling sophomore feature is many things at once: a road movie, a casual caper, a tribute to a vanishing industrial Italy, a scruffy intergenerational odyssey, and a free-flowing bender through time and space.

In the story, the two men travel together.  The older men pull Giulio, as they share dubious advice, stories, and a carefree “live for today” attitude.  What starts as aimless wandering becomes a kind of coming-of-age journey for Giulio.  The film requires patience.  It is like hanging around a drunk friend, tolerating his or her nonsense.  The setting is rural Italy, where the audience is given, at best, a subtle look at economic and social changes.

This film has garnered rave reviews, which is a surprise considering that the film meanders all over the place with apparently not much direction or narrative.  A few unconnected segments, like a gay kissing segment, make little sense either.

THE LAST ONE FOR THE ROAD premiered at Cannes in 2025 in the United Certain Regard section.  The film screened in TIFF’s Centrepiece program, as well as at VIFF and NYFF, where it steadily built momentum on the festival circuit. It has since become one of the most nominated films at this year’s David di Donatello Awards, with 17 nominations.

The film opens in Toronto on May 8th.

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LIVING THE LAND (China 2025) ****
Directed by Hugo Meng

 

LIVING THE LAND immediately brings to mind the pastoral literature classic Pearl S. Buck’s THE GOOD EARTH, which was also adapted to Sidney Franklin’s 1937 film about poverty and a Chinese farmer, Wang Lung, living the land.  This reviewer studied the novel in secondary school, and watching LIVING THE LAND is indeed nostalgic as it captures all the drama, poetry and hardship of farmers and traditions.

The film is set in the village of Bawangtai in 1991, where time appears to have stood still. Despite the rapid industrialisation happening in cities across China, everyday rural life for farming families in Henan province remains steadfastly tied to the demands of the land. 10-year-old Xu Chuang, the third-born child of one such family, is unceremoniously left with his wheat farmer uncle when his parents and older siblings set out to find work in the Southern city of Shenzhen. Cared for though unable to shake the feeling he doesn’t belong with the extended Li family, Chuang finds comfort in a young aunt, who feels similarly uneasy as she is pressured to marry, and his surly but kind nonagenarian great-grandmother. However, what is different from THE GOOD EARTH is that, as the trend of becoming migrant workers grew, the younger generation slowly departed for city life, subtly transforming the rural landscape.

The Silver Bear winner for Best Director at the 2025 Berlin Film Festival, Chinese filmmaker Huo Meng’s elliptical and elegant sophomore feature proves “a cinema of patience is also a cinema of assurance” (Indiewire). Equal parts coming-of-age tale and epic portrait of provincial life, Living the Land exists at an apex for Chinese culture in the 1990s, “a time when major reforms were transforming China from a nation of rural labourers into the industrial powerhouse it is today.” 

The film also explains the culture and work ethics of the Chinese folk.  Unlike their western counterparts, particularly Trump’s America, who are lazy and want everything given to them, the Chinese are willing to suffer and work hard to achieve the bare minimum for essential living while often under pressure by an unrelenting Government who would punish their citizens with re-education and sometimes death.  The modern Chinese cities are a start entreats to their countryside.

At best, the film examines and demonstrates the resilience of the human spirit of any person willing to go all out to achieve their goal in life.

LiIVING THE LAND had its world premiere on 14 February 2025, as part of the 75th Berlin International Film Festival, in Competition. On 10 October 2025, it will be showcased in the Showcase section of the 2025 Vancouver International Film Festival.  Later, it competed in the 'Official Section' of the 70th Valladolid International Film Festival for Golden Spike. It will be presented in the 'Rising Stars - 2025' section of the 56th International Film Festival of India in November 2025.  The film was overlooked by the Toronto International Film Festival and also currently has no theatrical or Digital opening.

The film opens on Wednesday at the TIFF Lightbox.

MARAMA (New Zealand 2025) ***½

Directed  by Taratoa Stappard

 

Written and directed by Taratoa Stappard, MARAMA is an impressive gothic horror that has, at the time of this written review, a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes

Upon receiving a letter from a mysterious stranger claiming to have information about her parents, orphan Mary Stevens (Mārama) arrives in Yorkshire, England, to find out more about her whakapapa.

The film opens with Mary arriving in Yorkshire.  The slope is steep, as the driver of the coach who drops her warns Mary.  The year is 1865.  So far, the film looks very impressive with the wardrobe, setting, and atmosphere created.

On her arrival at Hawkser Manor, Mart is eagerly met by Nathanial Cole, who offers her a position as governess for his granddaughter Ann, but the house does not feel right. What must Mārama do to discover her tūpuna (family heritage), and how far will she go to protect them?

MARAMA should not be dismissed as a mere horror movie.  The film works on several levels.  One is the timely issue of forced colonisation, an issue that has rocked the world recently, especially in Canada, with the discovery of mass graves.  In MARAMA, the main story concerns the Indigenous Maori people in New Zealand as the main character, Marama, who is Maori and who travels all the way by ship (the story is set in 1895), taking many, many days in order to reach Yorkshire, England.  Reaching there, Marama finds and meets an English coloniser who has abused the Maori people, as the story slowly reveals.  The film involves a few Maori warrior dances,, reminiscent of what can be seen in the Maori classic ONCE WERE WARRIORS.  Maori warriors love to stick out their tongue way out from their mouths while making loud noises.  The film is also handsomely shot, looking priorly gothic while also showing the beauty of the Yorkshire countryside, including craggy cliffs and stretching pastures.

The horror element comes from the spirit's connection with Marama and her ancestors.  As she reconnects with her extended family and local traditions, she learns that her mother was deeply involved in protecting sacred land tied to ancestral spirits. There are hints of a past conflict involving developers and community divisions, suggesting her mother’s death may not have been accidental.  Haunted by visions and memories that are not her own, she begins to unravel a horrifying truth. As the sinister nature of Cole’s intentions comes into focus, Mārama transforms into a blood-tinged reckoning that never shies from the grotesque. What begins as a search for identity becomes a fight for freedom, dignity, and spiritual survival.

Ariāna Osborne delivers a knockout performance as Mary Stevens, displaying both the ferocity and sensitivity of her character.  Toby Stephens also impresses as Sir Nathaniel, the man who seems welcoming at first but later reveals a much darker side.

MARAMA had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last year and opens at the TIFF Lightbox on Friday, May 8th.

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MY DEAR ASSASSIN (Thailand 2026) **½
Directed by Taweewat Wantha

 

The 2026 Thai Netflix film My Dearest Assassin is an action-romance thriller about a young woman named Lhan whose extremely rare blood type makes her the target of ruthless killers.

The Thai actors are all quite good-looking, with one quite a handsome Elon Musk look-alike.  The editing of the Vietnamese film is distinctly different and is sharp while possessing continuity, something not seen in other films.

The film opens with an intriguing premise.  An older man in Dubai needs a transfusion from a rare blood type.  Sometimes, films educate, and this film teaches about the rare blood type called Aurum blood.

Aurum” is Latin for gold.  So “aurum blood” literally translates to “golden blood”, referring to the extremely rare Rh null blood type as it lacks all Rh antigens (unlike normal blood types).  But what is remarkable is that fewer than 50 people worldwide are known to have it.

It is very  valuable for transfusions because it can be compatible with many Rh systems

But it is also risky, since donors are extremely scarce.  What is most interesting to note is that many known donors keep frozen emergency supplies of their own blood while international donor registries coordinate transfusions for emergencies. 

The film continues in Vietnam, with a girl witnessing her parents being killed and being abducted.  It is assumed, and rightly so, that she possesses the rare blood type.  She is rescued and raised by “House 89,” a secretive family of assassins. Although she grows up among trained killers, she herself is never taught to fight — until a violent attack destroys much of the only family she has ever known.

Forced to stop running, Lhan undergoes intense combat training and joins forces with Pran, the heir to House 89 and the assassin she loves. Together they battle an old enemy who still wants her blood, while dealing with betrayal, loyalty, revenge, and a complicated love triangle involving another assassin.

The fight sequences are ok for an action film, though not spectacularly impressive.  The film’s unique premise of the durum blood slowly loses its spark, and the film descends into the typical action film so common these days.  Strictly for martial arts fans.

MY DEAR ASSASSIN opens for streaming on Netflix on May 6th.

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OUR LAND (NuestraTierra) (Argentina/USA/Mexico/France/Netherlands/Denmark 2026) ****
Directed by Lucretia Martel

 

Armed men kill Indigenous leader Javier Chocobar during an attempted eviction in Argentina, 2009. After years of protests, a court case opened in 2018. Community voices and trial footage are shown amid colonial land struggles.

Argentine auteur Lucrecia Martel makes her first foray into feature documentary filmmaking with this haunting investigation into the killing of an Indigenous community leader.

Lucrecia Martel is an acclaimed Argentine filmmaker known for atmospheric, psychologically rich films that often explore class, gender, family tension, and social decay.  Her films include the internaOUR LAND opens at the TIFF Lightbox and is one of the best docs this year,tionally acclaimed THE HEADLESS WOMAN and LA CIENAGA.

Her detailed and carefully crafted filmmaking is immediately apparent in the first few minutes of the documentary.  The camera hovers over mountains and the Indigenous land that the story is about.  This is an ancient Indigenous land that is about to be stolen by the mining companies.  The film then moves to a courtroom where three men, immaculately dressed, testify as defendants after the murder of an Indigenous community leader.  The three all sound very decent, but one can tell that these are evil people who are lying through their teeth and will do anything to get acquitted.

The story sold, but surely unfolds.  In 2009, three men entered a Chuschagasta community in Northern Argentina. They were armed and, claiming ownership of the land, intended to evict the Chuschagasta. During the confrontation, without provocation, these men killed community leader Javier Chocobar. This crime was plainly captured on video, yet it took nine years of protests before the culprits were brought to trial, where they claimed no wrongdoing.

Our Land alternates between monitoring the tense legal proceedings, allowing Chuschagasta community members to share their stories through interviews and archival materials, and offering breathtaking explorations of this beautiful land that is being reduced to property, and whose ownership is being contested. All the while, meaning and historical context accumulate through the observation of seemingly small things, such as the presence of animals, the details of courtroom interactions, or a man uncovering parallels between the struggle of the Chuschagasta against the modern world of capitalism and colonialism.

With an approach at once deeply empathic and fundamentally unsentimental, Martel allows this story to unfold unencumbered by editorialising, until its gut-wrenching unfairness simply speaks for itself.

OUR LAND, as evident in her many other works, demonstrates dense sound design with natural sounds of the Indigenous people, layered storytelling often showing the different points of view of the accused murderers and the victims, with intimate camera work often blending close-ups of faces showing emotional tension with distant shots.  The multiple themes of repression, privilege, colonialism, and social unease are impressively displayed in this remarkable documentary.

Among the multiple awards earned, the film won the prestigious Best Film Award at the BFI London Film Festival.

OUR LAND opens at the TIFF Lightbox this week and marks one of the best docs to be screened this year. Highly recommended viewing! 

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REMARKABLY BRIGHT CREATURES (USA 2026) ***½
Directed by Olivia Newman

 

Oddly, REMARKABLY BRIGHT CREATURES is the second animal featured film solving a mystery opening this week, the other one being THE SHEEP DETECTIVES.

Netflix's adaptation of Shelby Van Pelt's best-selling novel about an octopus, Remarkably Bright Creatures (written in 2022), finally reaches Netflix streaming this Friday, May 8th.  The book was a success, reportedly selling over two million copies and going through 30 re-printings since its 2022 debut.  Olivia Newman directs and co-writes the screenplay with John Whittington, with two-time Academy Award-winning actress Sally Field cast in the lead role as Tova.

The story focuses on three characters, two human and one octopus, the three forming the remarkably beautiful creatures of the film title.  There is Tova, an elderly widow struggling with grief after losing her husband—and years earlier, her son.  Cameron, a drifting young man searching for his father and a sense of purpose, and Marcellus, a highly intelligent (and somewhat grumpy) octopus living in an aquarium.  The three all help each other move forward in their lives, resulting in a charming and whimsical yet grounded film.

Director Newman takes her time to introduce the town’s characters, which also includes a storekeeper played by Irish actor Colm Meaney, who provides most of the humour of the film.  His winning Irish accent casts a quaint spell over audiences.  Tova is a sad woman, though she never shows it.  Tova is also very helpful to her new helper after she suffers a fall.  The new help is Cameron (Lewis Pullman), a drifter who comes to town and has to work to get his camper fixed after a blown radiator.  Cameron is looking to find a man who owes him some money.

Actor Alfred Molina voices Marcellius.

The film setting is Sowell Bay.  Sowell Bay is a fictional town in Washington state that is depicted as a small, charming Puget Sound coastal town, with many readers identifying its description as similar to Anacortes or areas near Skagit Bay.  The film was shot primarily at Deep Cove in Canada.  This location is a beautiful and scenic area around Panorama Park, Cates Park, and along Gallant Avenue, representing the quaint seaside town.  The aquarium in the film was created by transforming a local yacht club

As their lives intertwine, a quiet mystery (though it takes a while for the film to kick in) unfolds—connected to Tova’s long-missing son and Cameron’s identity. With Marcellus (who knows more than anyone suspects) subtly guiding events, the characters slowly uncover hidden truths.

The film is charming, with Sally Field doing her best to get the audience to really, really like her.  Tova has lost her son, but no details are given in the early part of the film.  She is at the point of decision and has finally decided to sell her house and move into a nursing home, where many of her friends are.  The film is also a bit of a tear-jerker.

REMARKABLY BRIGHT CREATURES opens for streaming Friday, May 8th.

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THE SHEEP DETECTIVES (UK 2026) ****
Directed by Kyle Balda

 

THE SHEEP DETECTIVES is an upcoming mystery comedy film directed by Kyle Balda and written by Craig Mazin, based on the 2005 German novel Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann. The film features an ensemble cast including Hugh Jackman, Nicholas Braun, Nicholas Galitzine, Molly Gordon, Hong Chau, and Emma Thompson, with the voices of Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bryan Cranston, Chris O'Dowd, Regina Hall, Patrick Stewart, Bella Ramsey, and Brett Goldstein.

The basic premise involves a flock of sheep setting off to solve the mystery of who murdered their beloved shepherd.

In the Irish village of Glenkill, George Glenn (Hugh Jackman) is a shepherd who is a loner, estranged from his wife, and is fond only of his sheep. Every day, after he lets them out to graze, he reads to them from romance adventure novels and textbooks on sheep diseases. At the start of the book, the sheep find George dead, pinned to the ground by a spade.  The film becomes a murder mystery - and quite a good one at that!  The rattled sheep decide that they must find their killer. This turns into a difficult task, as sheep can't talk to people, and though they understand the human conversations they listen in on, like the one between George's widow Kate and Bible-basher Beth Jameson, they do not always understand the details. Not even the smartest of them, Miss Maple type, renamed Iris  Othello and Mopple the Whale, can understand the humans' behaviour, and are particularly confused by the neighbourhood priest, though they conclude that his name is evidently God.  They are afraid to confront suspects like butcher Abraham Rackham, and are suspicious but fearful of their new shepherd, Gabriel O'Rourke, who is raising a flock of sheep for slaughter.  And even after a series of providential discoveries and brainwaves reveal the answer to the mystery, they still have to figure out how to let the humans know.

The film feels like a fairy tale fable that a mother would read to a child.  The film does have an endearing, wonderful and charming atmosphere, and with animals in the spotlight, makes the film even more delightful.

Sheep have always been depicted as stupid animals.  The film begs to differ.  Instead of human detectives, the sheep themselves try to solve the mystery - as stupid as sheep! In this case. Each sheep has its own personality:  Some are brave and curious, while others are fearful or easily distracted. A few try to think logically (with mixed success).  They interpret human actions in often humorous or misguided ways, leading to both comedy and genuine mystery-solving.

The film also balances light humour with a real murder plot, with a perspective shift of humans being seen through the eyes of animals, making everyday behaviour seem strange or suspicious

The film benefits from performances of heavyweights, Academy Award Winner Emma Thompson and Hugh Jackman, which should attract more adults to this family-oriented film.

THE SHEEP DETECTIVES opens in Toronto Friday.

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A YARD OF JACKALS (Patio de Chacales) (Chile 2024) ***1/2

Directed by Diego Figueroa

 

A YARD OF JACKALS is a claustrophobic Kafkaesque political thriller in every sense of the word, reminiscent of the recent TWO PROSECUTORS.

It is the winter of 1978, under Chile’s military regime in Santiago. Raúl Peralta, a lonely architectural model maker, lives a quiet life with only his ailing mother and a pet canary for company. His routine is upended by the arrival of new neighbours whose sinister activities seem to hide dark secrets. Desperately clinging to the last remnants of his sanity, Raúl’s life increasingly intertwines with Guillermo, a mysterious man in dark glasses. As reality unravels, the echoes of Raúl’s past collide with the horrors of his present in a psychological thriller that leaves behind a deep, indelible scar.

The film has an authentic feel throughout, for the director Diego Figueroa did a lot of research on such cases during his studies years earlier.

The genesis of the film began back in 2014 when \the director was working on my thesis project for the Film and Television program at the University of Chile. During an in-depth investigation into the dictatorship’s repressive forces and their relationship with civil society, he came across a series of studies on private homes that had been used as clandestine centres for detention, torture, and, in some cases, extermination. This led me to conduct further research into some of these well-known locations and connect with investigative authors like Javier Rebolledo, whose research into the civilian aspect of the dictatorship and its connections resulted in his book trilogyLos Cuervos.

It turns out the neighbours are secret police agents linked to the dictatorship, and the sounds coming through the walls are interrogations and torture of political prisoners.

As Raúl listens through a stethoscope-type instrument, he becomes aware of this as he hears loud music covering screams of confession under torture.  He is drawn into a nightmarish moral situation. His attempts to report or intervene are ignored—or dangerous.  He tries to contact through a radio station.  He becomes psychologically unravelled, haunted by what he hears but powerless to stop it.  To add to the anxiety, Ray is disabled and suffers from some foreign object inns le.  But he has a girlfriend who cares, but he cannot reciprocate.

The life and paranoia are effectively created and felt throughout the entire movie, a lowborn in which one can feel the heat of the burn.

One can feel and root for Raul, but things do not look too good for him.  His girlfriend escapes to Paris.  The film offers Raul a route of escape when his a=bedridden mother passes away, the excuse he always gives for not going out.  

One can feel and root for Raul, but things do not look too good for him.  His girlfriend escapes to Paris.  The film offers Raul a route of escape when his bedridden mother passes away, the excuse he always gives for not going out.  The only solace is his girlfriend who takes a liking to him.

The film has an ending (not to be revealed in this review) that is quite ambiguous and disturbing.  The audience might not like the ambiguity, but the disturbing factor is expected.

A YARD OF JACKALS premieres exclusively on IndiePix Unlimited on May 8th, 2026.

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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 09 April 2026

FILM REVIEWS:

180 (South Africa 2026) ***
Directed by Alex Jazbe

When an unexpected road rage incident puts his son in critical condition, an enraged father spirals down a dark path of emotional turmoil and vengeance.

In a way, 180 is the ultimate revenge movie.  What would be a more devastating tragedy that could happen to anyone?  When one loses a son.  In 180, a father exacts vengeance when his son is hot and killed in an accident that should not have happened - a question of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. 180 is a South African action movie that ramps up the ante in a film that feels similar to Lian Neeson's action TAKEN series of films.  Director Alex Jazbec knows his stuff (also following the footsteps of the vigilante Charles Bronson film DEATH WISH) and executes his action film without any inhibition.  The result is a satisfactory action flick, though it breaks no new ground,  in the fresh setting of South Africa, where violence is the more of the norm.

The film successfully blends emotional drama with revenge storytelling.  The basic premise follows Zak, a man who has left behind a violent criminal past to live a peaceful, law-abiding life.  But everything changes after a road rage incident spirals out of control and leaves his young son critically injured.  Overcome with grief, guilt, and rage, Zak loses faith in the legal system. His quest becomes a dark revenge journey, where the line between justice and vengeance gets blurred.

180 premieres on Netflix Friday, April 17th, 2026.

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AMRUM (Germany 2025) ***** Top 10

Directed by Fatih Akin

 

Amrum is a 2025 German historical drama film directed by Fatih Akin and co-written by Akin with Hark Bohm, based on Bohm's childhood on the German island of Amrum during the last months of World War II.   It stars Jasper Billerbeck, Kian Köppke, Laura Tonke, Diane Kruger, Detlev Buck, and Matthias Schweighöfer.

The film had its world premiere at the Cannes Premiere section of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, on 15 May,[4] where it was met with positive reviews from critics.[5][6] It was theatrically released in Germany on 9 October by Warner Bros. Pictures.

Bohm died two months after the film's theatrical release in Germany

The film AMRUM is set in the little-known island of Amrum.  Amrum is a German island located in the North Sea, part of the North Frisian Islands in the district of Nordfriesland within the state of Schleswig-Holstein.  Situated near the Danish border, it is known for its wide sandy beaches, dunes, and position within the Wadden Sea UNESCO World Heritage site.  Amrum is indeed a gorgeous, bright island that any tourist should look forward to visiting.  The bright setting contrasts with the bleak childhood experiences of a German Hitler Youth called Manning as he navigates the death of Adolf Hitler at the end of the war.  The island also serves as a metaphor for the story.

1945, in the final weeks of World War II, in a small village on the island of Amrum off Germany's North Sea coast. Twelve-year-old Nanning Bohm, the eldest child in his family, works in the potato fields or gathers driftwood for firewood to help his mother feed the family. She is a staunch Nazi and is in the later stages of pregnancy. He, his aunt Ena, and his two younger siblings had to flee to the island from bombed-out Hamburg.

Nanning's father is an SS-Obersturmbannführer (lieutenant colonel) and is away at war; his wife is left to fend for herself on Amrum, while the villagers secretly listen to proscribed jazz on the radio.

As the war draws to a close, Nanning faces new challenges. Since the birth of his sister and the death of Adolf Hitler, his mother has fallen into a deep depression and refuses to eat.

This is where Nanning’s role in the story starts to take place.  He manoeuvres his life, keeping his head above the evil waters around him.

AMRUM is a remarkable, moving little film that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit, especially how the boy, Nanning, survives all the evils of his Nazi family’s evils, managing to do good above all the evil surrounding him.  He also manages to save the life of an enemy, a man who drowns while trying to steal butter from the boy.  If this quite little disquieting film does not move you, nothing probably will.  This is Fatih Atkin’s best film to date.

The film had its world premiere at the Cannes Premiere section of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, on 15 May, where it was met with positive reviews from critics.  It was theatrically released in Germany on 9 October by Warner Bros. Pictures.  Bohm, who wrote the film based on his own experiences, died two months after the film's theatrical release in Germany

AMRUM opens at the TIFF Lightbox on Friday, April 17th.  A must-see!

Trailer: 

ASSASSIN (China 2025) ***
Directed by Zhou Jiuquin

 

ASSASSIN (2025) (also known as Assassination: 1932) is a Chinese historical action-drama set during the early years of the Second Sino-Japanese conflict.

It is Shanghai in the 1930s. Occupied by the Japanese and on the brink of war.

  When elite fighter Mubai is recruited for a top-secret assassination, he is thrown into brutal battle against the Japanese military machine. Hunted through city streets, train lines, and enemy strongholds, Mubai fights his way through ambushes, explosions, and brutal close-quarters combat to reach a single target who could change history.  With time running out and bodies piling up, survival depends on speed, skill, and nerve.

The full story (including spoilers.  Skip next paragraph, in italics, as deemed fit.)

Zhang Mubai, the leader of a group of traitors, washes away the Japanese army at a celebration banquet and befriends Jin Yuanbao, a gangster. To assassinate Kurokawa, a think-tank for the invasion of China, they boarded a ship in disguise but fell into the trap of a body double, and were tortured by the secret agent Sato. When they escape by blowing up the arsenal, they witness Sato's disfigurement and run away. After the tragic death of a gangster, Mr Hu Baxi, his funeral triggers the public to blockade the wedding of Kurokawa's son. Zhang Mubai takes advantage of the chaos and kills Sato, while Kurokawa is intercepted and killed by a wall of people's flesh and blood as he flees.  As his comrades perish, Zhang Mubai throws his ashes into the Huangpu River and turns to the underground resistance - the courage of a mole cricket becomes the spark that tears apart the dark night.

Despite the film’s historical setting, the setting and story are an excuse for the following in the lineage of nonstop combat films like John Wick, The Raid, and Ong Bak, very popular and successful box-office hits.  Assassin does not disappoint as a relentless action thriller, as it features elite fight choreography that will leave fans of the genre breathless amidst a few ultra-violent eye-gouging scenes.  But the film differs from the other Chinese action films for the following reasons.  It includes action, espionage, and war drama with a strong emphasis on patriotism and collective resistance.

Besides the high-octane action scenes, one must commend the impressive effort to accomplish the period atmosphere of 1930s Shanghai.  From the costumes that include both Chinese and Japanese military to the props, decor, and furniture to the vehicles used at the time, everything looks immaculate.

The introduction of a comedic romantic subplot also works really well.  It also shows how love can comically transform one into a true hero.  Take it for what it is worth.  The film, unfortunately, contains a few really nasty elements that could have been done away with, such as the multiple rapping scenes of a captured female resistance fighter.  The Japanese are shown to be truly evil beings, though with a bit of comic villainy.

ASSASSIN premieres, arriving on VOD & Digital on April 17th, 2026.

Trailer: 

 

THE CHRISTOPHERS (USA 2025) ***½

Directed by Steven Soderbergh

 

Director Soderbergh teams up again with writer Ed Solomon to create a stylish chamber piece rich with dialogue and colourful characters set in the art world of forgery and deception.

The film centres on Julian Sklar (Ian McKellen), a once-celebrated painter now reclusive and dwindling in relevance, and his estranged children who see his unfinished series of paintings ("The Christophers") as a potential posthumous windfall. They hire Lori Butler (Michaela Coel), a struggling art restorer posing as his assistant, to finish or forge these works so they can profit from them after his death.  Lori and Julian begin a relationship that is both hateful and tolerant, which grows for the queerest of reasons.   McKellen is excellent in delivering his lines, exhibiting black humour, pathos, and respect for both his character and for himself as an actor. Again, another small but wonderful entertainment from Soderbergh.

LEE CRONIN’S THE MUMMY (UA 2026) **
Directed by Lee Cronin

 

The film begins in Aswan, Egypt, where a man, a woman, and their daughter, Layla, arrive home to find their pet bird dead.  The parents go to the cellar, which is revealed to be built on a buried black pyramid.  Inside, a black basalt sarcophagus contains mummified human remains that begin moving, and the father is killed by a supernatural force.  Apparently, it is revealed that the father and mother are aware of the human remains.  And the mother, all to be revealed as a mysterious Layla, has something to do with the rest of the story.  So far, the film works well.

The story moves to Cairo, where investigative TV reporter Charlie Cannon lives with his pregnant wife, Larissa, and their children Katie and Sebastián. Katie is friends with Layla. One morning, Katie is visited by the woman from Aswan, known as the Magician. She identifies herself as Layla's mother and uses candy to lure Katie away before kidnapping her.  Charlie gives chase but loses them in a sandstorm. He and Larissa report the kidnapping to the authorities, working with an English-speaking junior detective, Dalia Zaki, while the lead detective suspects the parents.  Eight years later, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Charlie, Larissa, Sebastián, and their third child, Maud, now live in the home of Larissa's Catholic mother, Carmen. In Aswan, a teenager witnesses a cargo plane carrying the sarcophagus crash. Inside, archaeologists find Katie wrapped in parchment inscribed with an ancient language. Katie, who is in a catatonic state and habitually self-harms, is moved back home with Charlie and Larissa.  The family refuses to seek further medical help despite Katie's erratic behaviour, in which she frequently escapes her room and mutilates herself. 

This is where the film starts to fall apart.  The incidents following get more un likely to happen.  The criss-cross of paths, the possession of Sebastian and Carmen at the end of the film, make littl4 sense.  The horror action set pieces are, however, scary enough for a horror film.  But for a lengthy over 2-hour feature, even this gets boring with nothing really freeing her that is added to the horror genre.

The film has so far received mixed reviews.  Horror fans should not complain as the film delivers, but for the more discerning viewer, more is expected from this budgeted horror.  The film opens in theatres on April the 10th.

Trailer: 

LITTLE LORRAINE (Canada 2025) ***½

Directed by Andy Hines

 

LITTLE LORRAINE is based on a song by Alex Baldwin.  The song, which pretty much tells the whole story depicted in the film, can be heard during the closing credits of the film, so that spoilers will be revealed.  Baldwin was awarded the titles of Male Artist of the Year and Musician of the Year during the Nova Scotia Music Week in 2014.   

A 1986 mining explosion that left 10 men dead in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, launches this thrilling drama, inspired by a true story, that merges coastal fishing with an international cocaine smuggling ring.

With the closing of the mine, Jimmy (Stephen Amell) is suddenly out of work, just as his untrustworthy great uncle Henry (prolific Nova Scotian actor Stephen McHattie) saunters in with a business proposal: join him on his lobster fishing boat.  Believing it’ll be a way to safely support his family, Jimmy also convinces his friends Tommy (Joshua Close) and Jake (Steve Lund) to join him, and very quickly, the three are rolling in the cash.

The film begins with the news of underwater mining in the waters around Cape Breton, where the audience is told that 148,000 people lived at the time. Most were miners, but the mines closed, and employment was at its lowest.  The film’s very Nova Scotian, and yes, Canadian.

The film title is derived from the name of a village in Nova Scotia, located on the east coast of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada.  It is known to have had several different names in the past, such as Little Loran, Lorembec, Cap-de-Lorembec, Petit Laurenbec, and, between 1750 51, Petit Lorembec was in use.  The small village is known for its rough seas and heavy fog.

But in this film, Little Lorraine, a North Atlantic seaside town with a population of 60, becomes embroiled in an international cocaine smuggling operation under the noses of multiple governments, distributed in coffins through a network of funeral homes.

The film includes a few nice touches, mostly when the Hispanic Interpol investigator (Colombian musician J. Balvin) arrives at the town.  Some humour is injected at the little hotel where he stays.  The conflict between the locals and the foreigners is also heightened.  The audience could take either side.  Should the drug smugglers be caught?  Or the drug investigator be sent home.   Stephen McHattie, a veteran actor of dozens of movies, plays the uncle who started it all.

“Good men don’t end up in situations like this!”  says a fisherman caught up in a violent situation.  Fate takes a turn, and bad or good things can happen.

A few suspenseful segments are present, too.  The one where the police stop the fishing boat with the cocaine hidden on board.  “We are coming on board,” says the officer.

The emotional toll also takes effect, particularly on Tommy, one of the crew members.  He ends up confessing to the priest during confession.  The moral issue of whether to support one’s family also comes into the equation.  Also included in the story are the effects of drug use, such as cocaine use by the locals.  LITTLE LORRAINE  is a solid film with a good story reflecting the atmosphere and period of Cape Breton with credible performances all around.

LITTLE LORRAINE premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and opens in theatres on April 17th.

 

 Trailer: 

LORNE (USA 2026) **

Directed by Morgan Neville

 

LORNE is a documentary on Lorne Michaels, the brains behind Saturday Night Live, the Saturday Night Live broadcast show known to fans as SNL.

The doc opens not too enthusiastically, preparing the audience to expect the worst.  The audience is told that Lorne Michaels had finally agreed to be interviewed for a doc to be made. And then what does the man do?  He dodges everyone, making it difficult to pin him down for a conversation.  The audience is also warned that this could be the most boring documentary made, and in a way, the statement is true as the doc meanders among different topics while trying to get a footing.  And the first question Michaels is asked?  “What is funny?”  The audience does not get the answer, not that there is a satisfactory answer to that too general a question,

SNL has always been a hit and miss, with some Saturday evening programs a complete dud.  This can be compared to the much funnier but lesser known Canadian SCTV (Second City Television), which is consistently good and much funnier, though SCTV followed the footsteps of SNL.

At best, the audience sees the working of how SNL works, after the director of the doc is given unprecedented access to the man who built and sustained the institution for five decades.  Shown for example, are simple procedures like updating a board and on the cardboard board are pinned the skits that work in the order that are to be performed.  Many are discarded among those few selected.  Lorne Michaels is one of the judges.

The performers of SNL, past and present, are seen in the doc, from the likes of the late John Belushi and Steve Farley to old favourites like Chevy Chase.  A few hosts are also seen, though some very briefly, for just a glance, like Elon Musk.

The story about the pumpkin farms is the most interesting story to note.  After travelling along pumpkin fields where hundreds of pumpkins are sold, there is a pumpkin stall selling pumpkins.  The man asks the guy at the stall: “There are pumpkins all over the place, and I can pick any one for free.  Why would I come to you to pay for a pumpkin?  The reply: “Because it is I who can pick the good pumpkins.”  This is analogous to Lorne Michael able to pick the best skits, the best comedy performers, and to keep the program going all this time.

A few of the skits are shown, including a weird one about a paedophile featuring a scout leader and a scout, the leader played by Alec Baldwin.

LORNE is a documentary, less a biography of Lorn Michales than a celebration of SNL.   SNL has survived hard and difficult times and has quite the following, despite being unfunny, with often quite a high miss and hit ratios, though not for want of trying.

LORNe opens in theatres on April 17th. Recommended only for true SNL loyalists.

Trailer:

 

MILE END KICKS (Canada 2025) ***
Directed by Chandler Levack

 

The film is called MILE END KICKS as the film is set in Mile End in Montreal (Mile End is a neighbourhood and municipal electoral district in the city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is located in the city's Plateau-Mont-Royal borough.), and Kick refers to the shoe store where the lead singer of the band that Grace is in love with works.

The story centres on Grace Pine (Barbie Ferreira), a 24-year-old aspiring music journalist from Toronto. Feeling stuck—both creatively and personally—she moves to Montreal’s Mile End neighbourhood, hoping to reinvent herself.  Her main goal is ambitious: to write a book about Alanis Morissette’s iconic album Jagged Little Pill. But from the start, she struggles:  She is broke and underemployed, even though she is given an advance for writing her book.  She gets distracted, she doesn’t speak French, and she feels like an outsider in a tight-knit indie scene.

Grace is not particularly what one might call a sex bomb or a ravishing beauty.  One of the items on her Montreal checklist is to have sex, and she has a lot of turn-downs, a few of these used for humorous content.

Grace becomes romantically involved with both Archi and Chevy, creating a messy love triangle. Each relationship represents something different:  Archi = emotional connection, artistic idealism, while Chevy = stability, realism.  Rather than a neat romance, the film portrays awkward intimacy, jealousy and confusion, blurred lines between work and relationships.  Though one might feel sympathy for Grace, the underdog, she is still neither an ideal nor a perfect person.   

At best, the film encompasses youthful aimlessness and ambition (or they do not really know what they want), which is characteristic of every young person while navigating the intersection of art and romantic identity in a male-dominated scene.  The Montreal music scene, too, is accurately enough represented.

One can hardly describe MILE END KICKS as a feel-good, entertaining movie because of its content.  Yet, one must give credit to the director for trying his best (even though his protagonist is female)  to keep her film realistic and effective,

MILE END KICKS is essentially a younger person’s film about a young person’s coming-of-age.  It takes one individual, with many faults but with some positives as well. Most of the other characters are all youngsters, with Jay Baruchel (GOON) and Devon Bostick (from DIARY OF A WIMPY KID, both films) being the most famous of the cast.

MILE END KICKS opens in theatres April 17th.

Trailer: 

PANDA PLAN 2: THE MAGIC TRIBE (China 2025) ***

Directed by Derek Hui

 

A Jackie Chan film is almost always meant to be taken in good fun, including this one, PANDA PLAN 2: THE MAGIC TRIBE.  Jackie Chan rose to fame playing drunken king-fu Masters, fighting while being drunk. comically.  He is seldom meant to be taken seriously, not like the other Kung-fu actors.  But Jackie Chan does not mind.  At heart, he is a good-hearted soul who means no one any harm, an actor who is known to perform all his own stunts.

PANDA PLAN 2: THE MAGIC TRIBE is cartoonish, silly, goofy, but always well-meaning and entertaining.  There is no swearing, and the film contains good messages for all in general. The action set pieces are decent, with Chan’s Martial-Art kills.

When lovable Panda Hu Hu and international superstar Jackie Chan stumble upon a hidden primitive tribe, Hu Hu is hailed as a “divine beast” believed to be the key to saving the tribe from disaster.  As quirky warriors and magical leaders close in, Jackie must protect Hu Hu while uncovering the secrets of this mysterious land.  Jackie also wants to return to the modern civilisation he is comfortable with.

The jokes can be silly, but funny too.  One involves a fighter given a magic pill by the high priest so that when he fights a duel, he can get superpowers, enough to defeat a bull.  The only problem is that he has to swallow the pill as a whole, not taking any water to dilute the potency.  But the pill is larger than an apple.  Chan always provides a laugh or two with his silly antics.  And the panda, Hu Hu, featured in the film, though CGI-generated, is also cute enough to harm the audience.

PANDA PLAN 2: THE MAGIC TRIBE opens in Toronto and the GTA on April 17th.

Trailer: 

ROOMMATES (USA 2026) ***
Directed by Chandler Levack

 

ROOMMATE is a 2026 American black comedy film directed by Chandler Levack and written by Jimmy Fowlie and Ceara O'Sullivan.  The film stars Sadie Sandler (the eldest daughter of Adam Sandler) and Chloe East. It tells the story of two college freshmen – one naive, the other cool and confident – who become roommates as they face different obstacles of living in the same dormitory.

A hopeful, naive college freshman, Devon (Sandler), asks the cool and confident Celeste (East)to be her roommate, seeing a blossoming friendship spiral thereafter into a war of passive aggression.

If the film’s premise sounds uninviting, one should wait a minute and look deeper.  This is a Happy Gilmore production, and anything that has to do with Adam Sandler is not all that bad, unless one cannot stand him.  The film stars his daughter, and the family in the film, the father uses cuss words like cunt and fuck, as the other characters do.  The humour is also crude but Sandler-type funny.  And the director is Canadian.

And the last time they made a black comedy about high school protagonists, they came up with a hit, Olivia Wilde’s BOOKSMART.

ROOMMATES is released on Netflix on April 17, 2026.

Trailer: 

WASTEMAN (UK 2025) ****

Directed by Cal McMau

 

The prison drama benefits from two outstanding performances.  David Jonsson plays Taylor in the lead role, while Tom Blyth, last seen in the late Terence Davie 2021 drama BENEDICTION, plays the supporting role of Dee, Taylor’s new cellmate who changes everything around.

Wateman is the British slang UK for someone seen as useless or a loser, but ironically used in the film for someone toxic and destructive.

The film follows Taylor, who is relentlessly bullied and humiliated by a more dominant, aggressive peer, Dee—the kind of guy often dismissed as a “wasteman”.

Taylor, a prison cook who has been incarcerated for 13 years, is informed he is eligible for early release on the basis that he maintains good behaviour. Taylor regularly does haircuts for fellow prisoners Gaz and Paul, from whom he buys drugs to fuel his addiction. He manages to make contact with his now 14-year-old, estranged son, Adam.

While struggling to fill out the form for his release, Taylor is assigned a new cellmate, Dee, who starts selling drugs not long after his arrival, taking business away from Gaz and Paul. Taylor and Dee start to form a friendship, with Taylor opening up about how he accidentally killed a teenager by selling him drugs to provide for Adam, which landed him in prison with a manslaughter charge. Dee lets Taylor use his phone to contact Adam, also sending Adam a pair of expensive trainers via his friend on the outside as a present from Taylor. Frustrated with how Dee has taken away their control over the prison's drug trade, Gaz and Paul violently attack and beat him unconscious while Taylor stands back helplessly. Afterwards, the pair force Taylor to punch Dee, filming it to share around the prison. Dee is taken to the hospital to recover.

As the story unfolds, Taylor tries to navigate daily life under intimidation while Dee exerts control through mockery, threats, and social dominance under the pretend off freidnhip.  The more Dee does for Taylor, the more control he has over Taylor.  Tension builds toward a moment where the victim must decide whether to submit, escape, or retaliate.  This forms the climax of the film.

Principal photography took place in London and Somerset in the summer of 2024. Filming locations included Shepton Mallet Prison.  The gritty cinematography was provided by Lorenzo Levrini.

For a prison film, the script plays with a few clichés that follow the tory, and the plot thickens. But though what happens might be a bit predictable, the sheer brutal violence and tension built up for the many scenes are enough to make the audience forget the film’s flaws as they are shocked out of their seats.

WATEMAN clearly ranks as one of the most violent films of 2026, horror films included.

WASTEMAN premiered in the Centrepiece programme at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival.  The film was released in the United Kingdom on 20 February 2026 and opens at the TIFF Lightbox on April 17th. 

Trailer: 

 

THE WOLVES ALWAYS COME AT NIGHT (Australia/Mongolia/Germany 2024) ***
Directed by Gabrielle Brady

 

THE WOLVES ALWAYS COME AT NIGHT -- Australia’s official submission for the 2026 Academy Awards for both Best International Feature Film and Best Documentary Feature -- offers a sweeping, yet deeply personal, docu-fiction set on the Mongolian steppes, chronicling one family’s displacement after climate catastrophe.

  A hauntingly intimate portrait of a family forced to confront the unraveling of their world, the film follows Davaa and Zaya, a young herding couple raising four daughters in a life shaped by tradition, livestock, and the rhythms of the land. Their quiet resilience is shattered when a catastrophic climate-driven storm devastates their herd — and with it, their livelihood. Suddenly unmoored from generations of nomadic identity, the family must join the growing wave of rural migrants relocating to the fringes of Ulaanbaatar in search of survival. Blurring the boundaries between documentary and narrative cinema, Brady crafts a deeply personal docufiction drama co-scripted with Davaa and Zaya themselves, who courageously reenact their own journey of displacement. The result is both epic and intimate: a sweeping visual meditation on climate change’s human toll and a tender study of love, pride, and parental responsibility under crushing uncertainty.

 The film has a documentary feel as the camera closely follows this Mongolian family of 6 (parents and four children) who have to relocate near the city after the story's tragedies, in which the herd is lost.  Born to generations of herders in Mongolia’s immense Bayankhongor region, young couple Daava (Davaasuren Dagvasuren) and Zaya (Otgonzaya Dashzeveg) are raising their four children as they were brought up: with an intimate connection to the land and the animals they share their lives with.  

Pressing topics like climate change and urban migration are also drawn to the story.  Director Brady’s film captures the family's plight, especially when they start talking about how they miss the animals.

THE WOLVES ALWAYS COME AT NIGHT was shown at TIFF last year and premieres on FILM MOVEMENT PLUS April 17th, 2026.

Details

Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 03 April 2026

FILM REVIEWS:

18TH ROSE (Philippines 2026) **
Directed by Dolly Dudu

 

 

The 2026 Netflix film 18th Rose is a coming-of-age romantic drama set in the early 2000s Philippines, centred on a teenage girl preparing for a life-changing tradition—her 18th birthday debut.

The story follows Rose, a lively, free-spirited teenage girl approaching her 18th birthday.

In Filipino culture, turning 18 is marked by a grand celebration (a “debut”), symbolizing entry into adulthood.  Rose dreams of having the perfect, fairy-tale debut, complete with romance, status, and validation. However, she feels pressure to make the night unforgettable.  She worries she doesn’t yet have the “perfect” love story to match the occasion.

Rose makes a deal with a stranger, Jordan, a quiet, somewhat lonely newcomer.

Jordan is an outsider—socially awkward, mysterious, and emotionally guarded.  Rose proposes a mutual arrangement.  He will act as her date/romantic partner for the debut.

In return, she offers him companionship, inclusion, or help with his own struggles.

In summary,  18TH ROSE is about a fake relationship that becomes real—

and a girl who learns that growing up means letting go of the perfect story she imagined. 

For information, the 18 Roses is a traditional part of a Filipina debut that symbolises the debutante’s transition from childhood to womanhood. It involves 18 important men in her life, each offering her a rose and sharing a dance with her. This gesture represents love, guidance, and respect from the male figures who have played meaningful roles in her life.  Jo..rdan is clearly the 18th ROSE

The “fake relationship turns into real love” trope is one of the most beloved in romantic films. It works because it lets characters fall in love accidentally, often while pretending not to.   This also, unfortunately, means that audiences have seen this premise once too often with many classics that can be watched again or for the first time, and then sit down to watch an overlong 2-hour Filipino teen romance.  A few of the best and most notable films that use this idea include THE PROPOSAL (2009), SHE’S ALL THAT, and 10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU (both from 1999), just to name a few.

  18TH rose is an overlong teen romance that uses the once-again, all-too-familiar fake relationship-turned-into-real-love premise.  There is hardly anything funny, original, or memorable, except the Filipino setting.

18TH ROSE streams on Netflix beginning April 9th.

Trailer: 

BIG MISTAKES (USA 2026) ***½

Directed by Dean Holland (1st 2 episodes) and various others, including  Etan Frankel and Timothy Greenberg

 

BIG MISTAKES is an upcoming American crime comedy television series for Netflix, created by Dan Levy and Rachel Sennott. Levy (best known from the hit Canadian series SCHITT’S CREEK) also acts as showrunner and leads the cast. The series will premiere on April 9, 2026.

BIG MISTAKES is about, obviously, big mistakes - mistakes that are almost impossible to correct.  This means that the characters have to do their utmost best to deal with the consequences, which makes for a good opportunity for comedy.

The film opens in a hospital ward.  The grandmother is almost about to die, which she does in the scene, but not before declaring that her dying wish is to have a diamond necklace, real or not.  The daughter is constantly screaming in the hospital ward at her three adult children, two of whom, Nicky (Levy) and Morgan (Taylor Ortega) decide to go to a local store to get a present.  Taylor sees a necklace in a showcase at the store, which she assumes is not real.  But the store salesman, at the counter, Yusuf (Boran Kusum), is hiding real diamonds, as there is nowhere to hide something that can be displayed in plain sight.  Taylor nicked it, and the necklace is put around the grandmother’s neck just before she is buried 6 feet under.  This is when Yusuf shows up, threatening  Nicky and Morgan with a gun.

The episodes move at a manic pace, with the characters constantly screaming and arguing with each other as the events turn for the worse.  As the siblings try to make do with the situation, there is plenty of suspense and opportunity of comedy.  Nick also plays a gay priest, a factor that allows more insane comedy into the series.

The casting of BIG MISTAKES works well from the dynamic Chemistry (always fighting in this case) between siblings played by Dan Levy and Taylor Ortega, nothing short of outstanding.  And why not get a real Turk like Boran Kuzum to play Yusuf, a Turk heavy.  A Canadian is nicely cast in the role, too, Jack Innanen, who plays a lovable loser who tries so hard to make his romantic dreams come true.  Elizabeth Perkins is also excellent, appearing on and off in the episodes beginning with Episode 3.

The introduction of the family members to the audience is done in a remarkable first act in which the family is all gathered, arguing in a hospital ward.  No nonsense, right into the story, with the action moving fast and furious.  The BIG MISTAKES arrive with more consequences, all ripe for suspense comedy, a genre that this series excels in.  And an amazing soundtrack!

There are 8 episodes in all, all opening on Thursday, April 9th, Thursday, each 30 minutes in length.  There was a special press screening of the first 2 episodes of the series, and judging from the first two, the whole 8 episodes should all be thoroughly entertaining.  All 8 episodes are available for streaming on Netflix, which picked up BIG MISTAKES in May last year.

Trailer: 

 

EXIT 8 (Japan 2025) ***
Directed by Genki Kawamura

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Mazes and maze puzzles have always fascinated people.  Trying to get out of a seemingly endless puzzle is the goal.  In the new Japanese movie EXIT 8,  Arashi superstar Kazunari “Nino” Ninomiya plays the Lost Man, a backpacked commuter trapped in an endless, sterile subway corridor. To escape at Exit 8 — where his ex awaits his thoughts about her pregnancy — he must obey one rule: if anything looks off, turn back. Miss a single anomaly, and he’s snapped to the start, condemned to loop again. The premise becomes a taut metaphor for guilt, responsibility, and the paralysis of indecision.  There is nothing really much more in the story, but Nino makes turn after turn in one corridor after corridor for the full length of the movie.  Definitely a movie that is NOT to be seen twice, credit should be given at least to the filmmaker to capture the attention of audiences for a full 90 plus minutes without incident and with much repetition.  No one walked out during the screening - a rare achievement.  The eerie and creepy film comes with a music soundtrack of Ravel's Bolero.

Trailer: 

THRASH (USA 2026) ***

Directed by Tommy Wirkola

 

One thing to note right away is that the film is titled THRASH, not trash, the two words obviously having two different meanings.  Thrash means a violent or noisy movement, typically involving hitting something repeatedly, as the storm called Hurricane Henry does, and the word trash means rubbish, which the story could be relabelled as.  Be that as it may, writer/director Tommy Wirkola knows what the film should succeed as, and the film works in a trashy kind of way, being entertainingly corny at the same time. THRASH, the film is a hurricane disaster movie + shark survival horror, where ordinary people must survive both nature’s fury and deadly predators at the same time.  If you think the title is bad, the former titles BENEATH THE STORM and SHIVER are worse!

The film follows multiple characters (an ensemble cast) trying to survive as the town is submerged.  These characters include:

Phoebe Dynevor as Lisa Fields: A pregnant woman trapped in a car in the middle of a hurricane, trying to get away from the raging waves and the sharks they bring

Whitney Peak as Dakota Edwards: Dale's agoraphobic niece, who at first, skeptical, dismisses the idea of a Category 5 hurricane approaching her town, but soon realizes the gravity of the situation;

Djimon Hounsou as Dale Edwards: A marine researcher trying to help people trapped in the town as they had been cut off from any rescue attempts.

Alyla Browne as Dee Olsen: Sister of a trio of foster siblings trying to survive while trapped in their own home as sharks invade and terrorize them.

Stacy Clausen as Ron Olsen: Older brother of a trio of foster siblings trying to survive while trapped in their own home as sharks invade and terrorize them;

Dante Ubaldi as Will Olsen: Younger brother of a trio of foster siblings trying to survive while trapped in their own home as sharks invade and terrorize the town.

The setting is the fictional coastal town of Annieville, supposedly in  South Carolina (the film was shot on a lot in Australia). 

Director Workload takes his trashy disaster horror flick seriously enough. It begins with a note that storms have increased tremendously since 1980, never mentioning climate change as the reason, assuming audiences are bright enough to make the deduction.  The film then gets right to business, with scenes of the townsfolk rushing to leave Annieville, though a few refuse to acknowledge the forthcoming danger.  The various characters are introduced into the story as done in many disaster films.  The Hurricane is Category 5, nearing Category 6, though the film never explains how the categories are listed. 

The film gets a bit ridiculous and over the top with segments like Lisa trying to bear a child amidst the flood waters and a family trying to keep the house door shut to stop the sharks.  All this is done in good fun and R-rated style.

Director Wirkola is a Norwegian filmmaker who is no stranger to this kind of thriller, which combines horror, action, and satire, including DEAD SNOW (2009) and DEAD SNOW 2.

THRASH opens for streaming on April 10th on Netflix.

Trailer: 

UNTOLD: CHESS MATES (USA 2026) ***½

Directed by Thomas Tancred

 

First thing to note is that one need not be interested or know anything bout chess to enjoy this chess drama documentary,

The new Netflix original doc wastes no time and gets straight to the point.  The audience knows exactly what to expect within the first 3 opening minutes. The documentary starts by introducing the two main characters, and immediately the scene is set: this is an all-time great versus a young grandmaster who initially rose to fame through the world of online chess.

First up in the opening montage is Carlsen, beating people blindfolded.  The Norwegian five-time world champion said: “I’ve been the definite best player in the world now for 12 to 13 years.”  The doc then immediately moves to American Niemann, described as someone with an “insane level of self-confidence,” who pulls no punches. “All I did was play a chess game, and I beat him,” he says. “He’s entered a level of paranoia that’s not sane.”

The two chessmates referred to in the film’s title are Norwegian Magnus Carlsen and American Hans Niemann.  As they say, a doc is as interesting as its subjects, and the two subjects are as interesting as any human being can get.  They are geniuses, temperamental, and full of ego.  When fitted against each other, as the doc shows, all hell breaks loose.

  The first chessmate, Sven Magnus Øen Carlsen, is a Norwegian chess grandmaster. Carlsen is a five-time World Chess Champion, reigning six-time World Rapid Chess Champion, reigning nine-time World Blitz Chess Champion, and the reigning FIDE Freestyle Chess World Champion. Carlsen has held the No. 1 position in the FIDE rankings since 1 July 2011, the longest consecutive period, and trails only Garry Kasparov in time spent as the highest-rated player in the world. Carlsen's peak rating of 2882 is the highest in history. He also holds the record for the longest unbeaten streak at the elite level in classical chess at 125 games.

The second chess mate, Hans Moke Niemann, is an American chess grandmaster and Twitch streamer.   He first entered the top 100 junior players list on March 1, 2019, and became a FIDE grandmaster on January 22, 2021.   In July 2021, he won the World Open chess tournament in Philadelphia. He achieved a peak global ranking of No. 15 in October 2025.

After rather extensive coverage oft he two subjects, the doc focuses on the scandal.  How to start, where it leads, and how it ends.  Knowing the two subjects injects more interest in the scandal, making the doc even more intriguing.

“I feel it must be so humiliating for him to lose to such an idiot as me,” says Hans after winning against Carlsen.

In September 2022, Niemann became embroiled in a controversy after defeating reigning World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen in the third round of the 2022 Sinquefield Cup.  This is what this doc is primarily about.

The doc aims to entertain, and this it does, moving at a pace fast enough to put any chess player to shame.  As a sports drama, it incorporates courtroom drama, and the result is an artistically dramatized entertainment to be totally enjoyed.

UNTOLD: CHESS MATES opens for streaming on Netflix beginning Tuesday, April 7th.

Trailer: 

Details

Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 29 March 2026

The big ones opening for Easter are the new Mario Brothers Galaxy movie and THE DRAMA.  Best film opening is THE BLUE TRAIL, and best one not opening is LIVING THE LAND.

 

FILM REVIEWS:

AGATHA’S ALMANAC (Canada 2025) ***

Directed  by Amelie Atkins

 

AGATHA’S ALMANAC is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Amalie Atkins and released in 2025. The film is a portrait of her aunt Agatha Bock, a 90-year-old woman who still lives a fiercely independent life revolving around her passion for gardening.  The film unfolds over the course of a year, using the changing seasons as its structure—much like a traditional almanac, and hence the film’s title.

AGATHA’S ALMANAC will inevitably be compared to Chantal Akerman’s 1975 masterpiece, Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, which was ranked the greatest film of all time in Sight & Sound magazine's 2022 "Greatest Films of All Time" critics poll, making her the first woman to top the poll.  Both films show the subject working in real time, doing daily chores in their daily routines.  Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles depicts long moments of the life of Jeanne Dielman in real time, which Akerman said "was the only way to shoot the film – to avoid cutting the action in a hundred places, to look carefully and to be respectful. The framing was meant to respect her space, her, and her gestures within it.” This also holds true for Agatha in AGATHA’S ALMANAC.  The main difference is that the reviewed film is all true, while in the latter, the subject sees male clients during the day, and the film ends with her committing suicide.

The doc also tells of Agatha’s personal life, which she narrates in her own voice.  She tells of her men numbered 1 to 3.  Her number 3 is the one who told her that two people living together can do so cheaper than one.  He took her for breakfast because it is cheaper than lunch.  I am not going to marry someone like that, she says.  She suffers from old age ailments, like bleeding, but she is happy that she has lived up to the age of 85.  Story number 3 ended up getting married, according to Agatha, but not to her, Agatha jokes.   As Agatha goes on her daily chores like harvesting her fruits and vegetables, jarring them, she talks about how they are done.  For example, she seals fresh strawberries in air-sealed jars, and they are as fresh and crispy 10 days later as the first day.  Agatha has remained single all her life, and in her own words, with no regret, as she has always found something to do and does not get lonely.

As pristine as Agatha’s lifestyle, the film is also a very pleasant and easy watch in which one can sit back and easer its the doc.  Agatha lives a lifestyle of the past, she belongs to one of the old religious groups, the Mennonites, and she is self-sufficient and also self-sufficiently happy. 

AGATHA’S ALMANAC also comes away with much critical acclaim.  They won the juried award for Best Canadian Feature Documentary.  The film was also long-listed for the 2025 Jean-Marc Vallée DGC Discovery Award and was named to the Toronto International Film Festival's annual year-end Canada's Top Ten list for 2025.

The film opens on Apr 3rd at the TIFF Lightbox.

Trailer: 

THE BLUE TRAIL (Brazil/Mexico/Chile/Netherlands 2025) ****

Directed by Gabriel Mascaro

 

It is a dystopian future in Brazil, and seniors are given a hard time.  They are forced to stop work and leave work for the younger population. At the same time, the government is forcing them to socialize in ways they deem acceptable to them.  Tereza, 77, has lived her whole life in a small industrialized town in the Amazon until one day she receives an official government order to relocate to a senior housing colony.  The colony is an isolated area where the elderly are brought to « enjoy » their final years, freeing the younger generation to focus fully on productivity and growth. Tereza refuses to accept this imposed fate. Instead, she embarks on a transformative journey through the rivers and tributaries of the Amazon to fulfill one last wish (her bucket list wish) before her freedom is taken away—a decision that will change her destiny forever.  This is a very funny and timely film and one of the best films about seniors in a long time, and I am not talking COCOON here.  The stunning cinematography of the rivers in the Amazon is simply breathtaking.  

THE DRAMA (USA 2026) ***
Dieted by Kristoffer Borgli

 

The new romantic comedy drama is so-called for the main reason that there is constant drama occurring in almost every scene.  As such, it is a compelling film, though one might wish a break might be given for the audience to take a breather.

The story follows Emma (Zendaya) and Charlie (Robert Pattinson), an engaged couple preparing for their wedding.  But there is drama, i.e., trouble in paradise. Their relationship is suddenly shaken days before the ceremony when disturbing truths about one partner come to light.  During a gathering with friends, they play a game where everyone must reveal “the worst thing they’ve ever done.”

Each of the 4 reveal the worst thing they had done, but Emma confesses the worst thing that she actually, ironical did not do.  While the others reveal cyber-buying to locking a kid in the closet, Emma reveals she once planned a school shooting but never carried it out—a revelation that horrifies everyone and destabilizes her fiancé. This confession occurs at the 20-minute mark of the film and sets the story in motion.

Emma’s shocking confession completely derails the relationship and the wedding plans, although the others also contribute to the chaos.

Norwegian director Kristoffer Borgli is no stranger to personalized drama-based films, having written and directed SICK OF MYSELF in 2022 as well as working with Nicolas Case in the 2023 film DREAM SCENARIO.

One can see that director Borgli tries very hard to make his film different and distinct with the set-pieces to stand out among other romantic comedy dramas, sometimes trying too hard.  The film first opens with a close-up of Emma’s stud earring before revealing that she is deaf in that ear.  The sex scenes are filmed differently.  The film unfolds generally in chronological order with a few jumps.  For example, Charlie is shown badly beaten up before showing the fight scene. There is no need to change the chronological order of things except to try to make the film look smarter than it actually is.

On a more serious note, the film raises the big question of whether true love can conquer acceptance.  The film takes the message one step further (spoilers not revealed in this review) of what happens after,

For all the boundary pushing and creativity, director Kristoffer Borgli opts out for a tacked-on, cop-out, clichéd happy ending, which goes against the flow of this otherwise original and fresh romantic comedy drama.  Spoiler alert: (Though one can argue that the ending is an open one that the two attempt to start again, and not that they have agreed to part or stay together, the latter is implied from the fact that Emma sits down with Charlie at the end.)

Overall, one must give credit to director Borgli for his bravery in tackling a sensitive subject and its consequences.  Though it does not always work, it is still better to watch a film that fails, though one can hardly consider this film a failure, than one that never attempted anything and comes up with nothing.

THE DRAMA opens in theatres on April 3rd.

Trailer:

LIVING THE LAND (China 2025) ****
Directed by Hugo Meng

 

LIVING THE LAND immediately brings to mind the pastoral literature classic Pearl S. Buck’s THE GOOD EARTH, which was also adapted to Sidney Franklin’s 1937 film about poverty and a Chinese farmer, Wang Lung, living the land.  This reviewer studied the novel in secondary school, and watching LIVING THE LAND is indeed nostalgic as it captures all the drama, poetry, and hardship of farmers and traditions.

The film is set in the village of Bawangtai in 1991, where time appears to have stood still. Despite the rapid industrialization happening in cities across China, everyday rural life for farming families in Henan province remains steadfastly tied to the demands of the land. 10-year-old Xu Chuang, the third-born child of one such family, is unceremoniously left with his wheat farmer uncle when his parents and older siblings set out to find work in the Southern city of Shenzhen. Cared for though unable to shake the feeling he doesn’t belong with the extended Li family, Chuang finds comfort in a young aunt, who feels similarly uneasy as she is pressured to marry, and his surly but kind nonagenarian great-grandmother. However, what is different from THE GOOD EARTH is that, as the trend of becoming migrant workers grew, the younger generation slowly departed for city life, subtly transforming the rural landscape.

The Silver Bear winner for Best Director at the 2025 Berlin Film Festival, Chinese filmmaker Huo Meng’s elliptical and elegant sophomore feature proves “a cinema of patience is also a cinema of assurance” (Indiewire). Equal parts coming-of-age tale and epic portrait of provincial life, Living the Land exists at an apex for Chinese culture in the 1990s, “a time when major reforms were transforming China from a nation of rural labourers into the industrial powerhouse it is today.” 

The film also explains the culture and work ethics of the Chinese folk.  Unlike their western counterparts, particularly Trump’s America, who are lazy and want everything given to them, the Chinese are willing to suffer and work hard to achieve the bare minimum for essential living, while often under pressure by an unrelenting government that would punish their citizens with re-education and sometimes death.  The modern Chinese cities are a stark contrast to their countryside.

At best, the film examines and demonstrates the resilience of the human spirit of any person willing to go all out to achieve their goal in life.

LiIVING THE LAND had its world premiere on 14 February 2025, as part of the 75th Berlin International Film Festival, in Competition. On 10 October 2025, it will be showcased in the Showcase section of the 2025 Vancouver International Film Festival.  Later, it competed in the 'Official Section' of the 70th Valladolid International Film Festival for Golden Spike. It will be presented in the 'Rising Stars - 2025' section of the 56th International Film Festival of India in November 2025.  The film was overlooked by the Toronto International Film Festival and also currently has no theatrical or Digital opening.

PALESTINE 36 (Palestine/United Kingdom/France/Denmark/Qatar/Saudi Arabia/Jordan 2025) ***

Directed by Annemarie Jacir

 

One of the largely neglected international films last year and now finally opening is PALESTINE 36.  Why 36?  Because that is the year you were born, comes the voiceover.  That is the year the Palestinians said enough is enough and stood united to fight the oppressors who came to steal their land.

PALESTINE 36 is a historical drama set during the 1936–1939 Arab Revolt in Mandatory Palestine, a major uprising against British colonial rule and increasing Jewish immigration.

The film follows a group of Palestinian villagers and resistance fighters as they become caught up in the early days of the revolt in 1936.  A quiet rural village is disrupted by British military crackdowns.  Ordinary people—farmers, families, and local leaders—are drawn into armed resistance.  The story traces how personal lives, loyalties, and survival instincts change under occupation and conflict

PALESTINE ’36 is Annemarie’s decade-in-the-making fourth feature that tells the story of the Arab revolts against British colonial rule in the period 1936-39, just as Jewish refugees were fleeing Europe and arriving in the region.  The revolt and fighting with the Brits takes place most ferociously at the ¾ mark of the film.   Before that it is all talk, especially from Jeremy Irons playing the British Commissioner. It is a consequential period of Palestinian history that’s not as well-known as the Nakba and later chapters, but it shaped everything that was to follow and helps contextualize what’s happening in the region today. As director Annemarie said in Vogue, “One cannot understand the Nakba, the Intifada, or today without understanding how the stage was set in those years.”

PALESTINE 36 is a powerful film, though one might complain that it only takes the side of the Palestinians.  The refugee Jews are also given a hard time, being displaced just before World War II, and they are just a mass of people with no sympathy given to them in the film.  Why the Brits are more sympathetic to the Jews distributing land to them that belongs to the Palestinians is never explained.  Jewish communities—who were also targets during the revolt—are largely absent, minimized, or portrayed as passive.  The result, according to detractors, is a partial narrative rather than a fully balanced historical account.  The film, instead, becomes a “morality play” emphasizing colonial cruelty and Palestinian unity.

PALESTINE 36 highlights Palestinian suffering and British brutality, while downplaying Jewish experiences, internal divisions, and key historical figures, especially the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini.  This is the standing flaw of the otherwise well-shot epic that might be the reason the film failed to make the final 5 Best International Academy Award nomination list.

But the mixing of the fictional characters into the historical storytelling keeps the film compelling at an emotional level, of course, with certain dramatization used to enhance the entertainment factor, as they say.

Watermelon Pictures will be releasing renowned Palestinian writer and director Annemarie Jacir’s PALESTINE 36 – Palestine’s Academy Award-shortlisted selection for Best International Feature.  The film opens in Toronto on April 3 at TIFF Lightbox.

Trailer: 

THE TRUTH AND TRAGEDY OF MORIAH WILSON (USA 2026) ***

Directed by Marina Zenovich

 

This is a true crime documentary that thrives on emotions and attempts to relive the incidents through realistic re-enactments for artistic dramatization.

The audience is to be tapped for the full emotional weight of the tragedy from the very first frame.  Moriah (Anna Moriah Wilson), the cyclist’s middle name, is first shown as a bright and energetic cyclist with everything going right for her.  She is bubbly, athletic, and smart.  She grows into a cyclist, winning the Time Life race, coming in Number 1.  Then, tragedy strikes.

Caitlin Cash calls Austin 9-1-1 to report a fried, i.e., Moriah, lying with blood on the bedroom floor.  The police arrive while she is doing CPR under instruction from the first responder.  This is obviously a re-enactment (how can the camera be there during the call?), which is done so realistically that many would not even think twice about it being real at that moment.

Beyond the subject of true crime, the film also explores the life of the person, Moriah.

Raised in a family of athletes, Wilson developed a passion for cycling as a young girl, as shown in archive footage.  Her parents and brother are interviewed in the doc. She was a nationally ranked junior skier, but had become a gravel cyclist. Before her full-time career as a professional cyclist, she had worked as a demand planner for Specialized. This girl has an engineering degree.

The film revisits the shocking 2022 murder of rising cyclist Moriah Wilson, combining:

police bodycam footage, interviews with friends and family, a deeper look at the investigation and trial.

It focuses not just on the crime, but on who Wilson was and the emotional aftermath for those close to her.  The film works as a real-life drama with the murder and investigation slowly moving in, as the tension mounts, creating a good-paced true crime drama.  The film would be more entertaining if one did not know the events of the crime.
The film ultimately revisits the shocking 2022 murder of rising cyclist Moriah Wilson, combining police bodycam footage, interviews with friends and family, and a deeper look at the investigation and trial

THE TRUTH AND TRAGEDY OF MORIAH WILSON, a Netflix original true crime drama, opens for streaming on Netflix Good Friday.

Trailer: