Articles

Details

Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 07 December 2025

The clear winner is ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER, in three categories.

See nominations below with the Winners in Bold:

TFCA Awards 

 

Annually in December, the Toronto Film Critics Association votes for the best of the best in film, meticulously arguing to select their choices.

 

Here is the complete list of nominees and the winners in bold:

 

Best Picture      

      

Hamnet

One Battle After Another

Sinners

Best Director

Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another

Ryan Coogler, Sinners

Oliver Laxe, Sirāt

Original Screenplay

Marty Supreme – Josh Safdie, Ronald Bronstein

Sentimental Value – Joachim Trier, Eskil Vogt

Sinners – Ryan Coogler

Adapted Screenplay

Hamnet – Chloé Zhao, Maggie O’Farrell

No Other Choice - Park Chan-wook, Lee Kyoung-mi, Don McKellar, Jayhe Lee

One Battle After Another – Paul Thomas Anderson

Outstanding Lead Performance

Jessie Buckley, Hamnet

Rose Byrne, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You

Leonardo DiCaprio, One Battle After Another

Ethan Hawke, Blue Moon

Michael B. Jordan, Sinners

Wagner Moura, The Secret Agent

Outstanding Supporting Performance

Benicio del Toro, One Battle After Another

Jacob Elordi, Frankenstein

Nina Hoss, Hedda

Amy Madigan, Weapons

Sean Penn, One Battle After Another

Stellan Skarsgård, Sentimental Value

Breakthrough Performance

Miles Caton, Sinners

Chase Infinti, One Battle After Another

Abou Sangaré, Souleymane’s Story

Outstanding Lead Performance in a Canadian Film

Deragh Campbell, Measures for a Funeral

Vincent Cassel, The Shrouds

Joan Chen, Montreal, My Beautiful

Outstanding Supporting Performance in a Canadian Film

Charlotte Aubin, Montreal, My Beautiful

Troy Kotsur, In Cold Light

Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Sweet Angel Baby

Allan King Documentary Award

Come See Me in the Good Light

Orwell: 2+2=5

The Tale of Silyan

Animated Feature

Endless Cookie

KPop Demon Hunters

Space Cadet

International Feature

It Was Just an Accident

The Secret Agent

Sirāt

First Feature

Blue Heron

Eephus

Sorry Baby

 

Details

Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 01 December 2025

COVER-UP (USA 2025) ***
Directed by Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus

 

This is a doc about a brave and risk-taking reporter nicknamed Sy who exposes the deeds of the wicked.  “It’s complicated to know who to trust. I barely trust you guys,” says Seymour Hersh. He’s speaking to the directors, Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus, about his career as an investigative reporter.   The film goes back and forth with Hersh’s interview.  He is shown with all candidness, displaying eagerness, energy, anger, and anger as the director pushes his boundaries.  Time after time, Hersh has exposed brutal realities that governments and corporations wanted to cover up.  He shares behind-the-scenes details of how he reported the My Lai massacre, Watergate, the operation of CIA spying on Americans, and the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, to name a few of his major headlines.   Every step of the way, he faced fierce pushback from powerful interests.  President Nixon is heard on tape saying, “This fellow Hersh is a son of a bitch.”  As they say, Hersch might be a son of a bitch, but he is our son of a bitch.   One often hears about the cover-ups, but this doc combines news of cover-ups with the man behind them.

I WISH YOU HAD TOLD ME (Sana Sinai Mo) (Philippines 2025) **
Directed by Shaira Advincula

 

When a young missionary uncovers his late father's long-held secret, he travels from the Philippines to Spain in search of his dad's forbidden love.

The film begins with hen young missionary attending his father’s funeral service, where praise is bestowed upon him before a lady makes her appearance, accusing the dead man of having nuked more cocks than anyone else.  Despite this fast beginning, the rest of the film is a surprising slow burn as his son discovers secrets about his after and comes to terms with the secret.

The missionary ends up in Portugal but makes a trip to Spain to meet his late father’s pen pal.  This is where the story heads.  But not really surprises, really.

I WISH YOU HAD TOLD ME is a well-intentioned Filipino LGBTQ+ drama about family secrets and intimate emotions that, like many Filipino tearjerkers, end up too melodramatic for their own good.  There is no real ash material here - discovering one’s father is gay is a premise that has been seen in a few other American films before.  The film is well performed, in one can be described as a decent though mediocre drama.

The film deals with emotion, grief, and acceptance, and can hardly be described as a feel-good movie.

I WISH YOU HAD TOLD ME premieres on Netflix this week.  A Ok watch!

Trailer:  

LOVE + WINE (South Africa 20225) ***
Directed by Amanda Lane

 

California is known for its Californian wines and its Hollywood romantic comedies.  But how about South Africa?  The country has a solid fair share of romantic comedies, mostly commissioned by Netflix, and it also has a bustling wine industry.  Netflix’s rom-com LOVE + WINE (the title says it all) demonstrates both.  The film is a rom-com set in the scenic vineyards and wine-estate region of the Cape Winelands, South Africa, including real locations like the estate Quoin Rock Wine Estate and coastal areas around Cape Town.

There are actually two romances going on in the film’s premise of role switching.  They involve he rich heir of the billionaire wine estate owner Ovee and the other, his childhood friend, Nathi, who is his driver.  The film’s premise involves a bet on getting girls leads them to swap identities, but then things get too complicated.  If the idea sounds familiar, it has just been done in the Seth Rogen film, GOOD FORTUNE, which was just so-so.  LOVE + WINE is also just so-so.  The not-too ingenious plot is at least helped by some South African flair, though the film leads to the typical Hollywood ending.

The film plays on the familiar romantic-comedy tropes of mistaken identity, social class differences, and the “rich person pretending to be common” plot — but even though it is charming in a feel-good way, the film is too forced and cliched.

LOVE + WINE premieres for streaming this week on Netflix.  There are two other rom-com originals this week on Netflix, both with a Christmas setting  - JINGLE BELL HEIST and MY SECRET SANTA, with the former being the best of the three.

 

Trailer: 

MY SECRET SANTA (USA 2025) **

Directed by Mike Rohl

 

Some films are subtle, and others are right out in the face.  In the case of MY SECRET SANTA, the title says it all; the film belongs to the second category.  First, it is right in one’s face that this is a female film.  It is a single mother and her teen daughter who are the focus of the story.  No mention of the husband.  It is a Christmas film, as evident by the Christmassy song heard at the opening credits and the Christmas decorations shown all around.  The mother is fired during Christmas as the store is downsizing its Christmas cookies.

The centres on Taylor, a struggling single mom whose daughter gets accepted into an exclusive snowboarding program at a ski resort.  To afford the tuition, Taylor — desperate for a job — secretly disguises herself as an elderly man named “Hugh” and takes a seasonal job as Santa Claus at a resort.  While working as “Santa,” she meets Matthew, the resort owner’s son. As she and Matthew start to develop feelings, the deception — her secret identity — threatens to unravel everything.

The movie is a holiday-themed romantic comedy — mixing festive charm, humour (including the disguise/gender-swap comedy), family stakes, and romance.

As this is a rom-com movie, the first thing is how the couple (Taylor and Matthew) will meet.  The random meeting at a record store is quite a lame one, even though she reveals that it was one of the band members (Screaming Kittens) in a record that he really liked.

Then the couple has to dislike each other. He is filthy rich, and she is as poor as a church mouse.  Taylor gets a job as Santa in his hotel store, the Sun Peaks Ski resort.  So he does not recognise her as Santa, and she is also speaking in a very low voice.  This is also the school that the daughter, Zoey, wishes to attend.

A few side jokes.  The landlady (remember that this is a female slanted film) has a thing for Taylor’s Santa, who she believes is her father.  Ryan Eggold, who plays Matthew, looks like a poor man’s version of Jake Gyllenhaal.  Alexandra Breckenridge does her best despite the rather lame script.  Both actors have a history of winning acting awards, primarily in short films.

As far as Christmas rom coms go, Netflix had another one that opened last week, an American one set and filmed in London (Shh…  Don’t let Trump know) that is fresher, funnier, and more endearing.  MY SECRET SANTA is too predictable, gearing towards its obvious happy ending, despite the festive setting.   Taylor is also dating averse.    The humour is too slight to be funny, and there is hardly any laugh-out-loud dialogue either.  The romance is gentle but not especially deep.  The disguise premise occasionally feels stretched.

The only good thing about the film (besides it being short at 90 minutes) is that it gave a good chance to the two budding actors, Eggold and Breckenridge, to show their wares.  But there is little opportunity to shine in the film.

MY SECRET SANTA is a Netflix original film that opens for streaming this week.

Trailer: 

THE NEW YORKER AT 100 (USA 2025) ***
Directed by Marshall Curry

 

THE NEW YORKER AT 100 is a 2025 American documentary film that explores the history of The New Yorker magazine, which celebrated its 100th year of publication in 2025.  premiered at the 52nd Telluride Film Festival in August 2025.

The film’s introduction to the magazine explains it as an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry.  It was founded on February 21, 1925, (as shown in the doc with the magazine cover) by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for The New York Times. 

The film celebrates the 100-year history of The New Yorker magazine, exploring its evolution from its founding in 1925 to the present.  It offers unprecedented access to the magazine’s inner workings: its editors, writers, fact-checkers, cartoonists, and other contributors as they work toward producing the special 100th-anniversary issue. 

At best, viewers get a glimpse of the intense process of fact-checking, editing, cartoon selection — the labor and thoughtfulness that go into producing each issue.  Through archival materials and interviews with longtime contributors, the film traces the magazine’s history — while also capturing the concerns and dedication of current staff navigating journalism in the modern era.

Director Curry intercuts the film’s history with its current workings, showing the amount of diligence and detailed scrutiny that goes into a successful magazine. 

The cover needs to speak for the moment as well as to be a piece of art, says the art director of The New Yorker, as the cover of the 100th anniversary of The New Yorker is contemplated.  The cover would set the personality of the issue.

The immediate question trailing this doc is whether the doc is a marketing instrument for the magazine or it is a reflexive and critical piece of the magazine.  The doc does not stop at any praise for the magazine from the ideas put forward by its talented team of writers (first wooden satellite?  for example) to the scrutiny of factual accuracy (the name of three cats? for example).  But at least director Curry keeps the film entertaining despite its marketing bias.  The New Yorker has survived as a publication where too many others have failed due to the cu

rrrent times of the internet and free news.  The mag has a niche, as declared at the start of the film, its humour and wealthy clientele. 

THE NEW YORKER AT 100 premiered at the 52nd Telluride Film Festival in August 2025 and opens for streaming on Netflix this week on Friday, December 5th.

 

Trailer:  

THE SECRET AGENT (O AGENT SCRETO) (Brazil/France/Germany 2025) ***** Top 10

Directed by  Kleber Mendonça Filho

 

Brazil, 1977. Marcelo, a technology expert in his early 40s, is on the run. He arrives in Recife ( seaside town in Brazil) during carnival week, hoping to reunite with his son, but soon realises that the city is far from being the non-violent refuge he seeks.  Marcelo is told by the police chief that perhaps 100 people will die during the carnival, a joke that carries on throughout the movie.  Marcelo’s past is catching up with him, but he hopes to bring his life to a close with the satisfaction of spending the rest of his life with his son.  His son is presently staying with Marcelo’s parents, who care very much about the boy.

Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho, who also wrote the script for the film, is a familiar name to many cinephiles and film critics, making his name in his 2012 multiple award-winning NEIGHBOURING SOUNDS, also set in his birthplace of Recife in North East Brazil and also his recent 2023 documentary PORTRAITS OF GHOSTS.  THE SECRET AGENT is a film the director reportedly wanted to make for years, and it is not only an excellent film but one of the best to hit screens at both TIFF and in theatres.

The film pays homage to several films of the 70s when the film is set (actually 1977).  Most noticeable is the 1975 Steven Spielberg’s JAWS.  Recife is also a seaside town.  Other films that can be noticed in Filho’s film include actor Jean-Paul Belmondo, most likely in Philippe De Broca’s 1964 film THAT MAN IN RIO.

The film suffers from a rather overlong epilogue with a conversation taking place between two individuals in a hospital, a bit of a let-down after a spy-like chase through the streets.

Trailer: 

THE WAILING (El Llanto) (Argentina/Spain/France 2024) ***
Directed by Pedro Martín-Calero

 

THE WAILING is a slow-burning movie, but by no means boring. of a psychological horror thriller, with a premise somewhat similar to the horror cult IT FOLLOWS.  A group of young people inadvertently resurrects a seemingly invisible evil.  The story spans different times, places, and victims.

The film begins with Andrea.  Andrea, a university student in present-day Madrid, lives a seemingly normal life until one day when her boyfriend is killed in a shocking act of violence. She soon begins to notice a mysterious entity that follows her no matter where she turns. Twenty years prior, Marie, a woman in Buenos Aires, suffered the same fate.  Camila, a documentarian, learns of the threat these women faced, but no one will believe her.  Across time and space, these three unconnected women are bound together by an inescapable terror in Martin-Calero’s feature film debut, for which he was nominated for a Best New Director Goya Award in 2025.

The film begins with as stated:

Andrea, 2022, Madrid

Andrea is presumed to be followed by some entity that no one, including herself, knows anything about.  For those who watched the 2015 horror flick IT FOLLOWS, an identical premise is found, though in IT FOLLOWS, the purpose of the entity following is there, to seek a vessel.  In THE WAILING, a figure, the entity is only seen in videos or in photos taken by the camera of a cell phone. The entry follows Andrea in Madrid but somehow gets to Sydney (how?  No one knows.  Perhaps some superpower the entity possesses?) to kill Andrea’s boyfriend while they are speaking on the cell phone.  An additional subplot was added, that which Andrea discovers she had been adopted and that her mother, recently released from prison for murder, has died in an apartment.

 

The film shifts to:

Camilla, La Plata 1988

 

Camilla is a film student who films Marie, unknown to her, a woman with many problems.  Marie is a free spirit who suspects that she is being controlled by an unknown force.  The two finally meet with disastrous results.

 

The film has played and won accolades across many international film festivals.  These include:

Goya Awards (2025) | Nominee, Best New Director

San Sebastian International Film Festival (2024) |Winner, Silver Seashell, Best Director, Nominee, Golden Seashell, Best Film

Argentinean Film Critics Association Awards (2024) | Nominated, Best Film in Co-production with Argentina

Sitges Film Festival (2024) | Official Selection

BFI London Film Festival (2024) | Official Selection

Tokyo International Film Festival (2024) | Official Selection

The story shifts to Marie, as seen at the start of the film.

THE WAILING is a better film than the one (IT FLLOWS) it followed, as THE WAILING skips the traditional happy ending normally inserted for good measure, but it still has a twisty shock ending.

A totally female horror film all the way and a solid one at that.  Well-written, well-directed, and aptly performed by the three main leads, THE WAILING, shot mainly in Spanish and French, is definitely worth seeing, especially for horror fans.

 

THE WAILING, the Spanish horror premieres on VOD and Digital on December 5th, 2025.

Trailer: 

  

Details

Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 28 November 2025

DUST BUNNY(USA 2025) ***½

Directed by Bryan Fuller

 

Like many children, Aurora (Sophie Sloan) fearfully believes a monster lurks beneath her bed. And she has good reason to: her foster parents have been eaten by one. Fortunately, she arrives at a practical solution. She will hire the enigmatic hit man who lives next door (Mads Mikkelsen) to slay the beast. But procuring her neighbour’s services will not be easy, for he believes her family was mistakenly dispatched by an assassin’s bullets that were meant for him.

So what is a dust bunny, and why is the film entitled such?  Dust bunnies (or dustbunnies) are small clumps of dust that form under furniture and in corners that are not cleaned regularly. They are made of hair, lint, flakes of dead skin, spider webs, dust, and sometimes light rubbish and debris and are held together by static electricity and felt-like entanglement.  The DUST BUNNY in the film is the monster under Aurora’s bed, assumed, used as an analogy for the accretion of cosmic matter in planetoids.

The film boasts two stars who love to take on weird character roles.  One is the Dane actor Mads Mikkelsen (THE LAST VIKING, LAST CALL, THE PROMISED LAND) and Sigourney Weaver (ALIENS, WORKING GIRL).  But it is the writer/director  Bryan Fuller who is the architect of this somewhat fresh take of adult and child horror that meshes together reality and horror imagination.

Bryan Fuller is an American writer, TV producer, and film director, best known for creating the television series Pushing Daisies (2007–2009) and Hannibal (2013–2015). Fuller is also known for his work as a showrunner for the first season of the show American Gods (2017–2021), a writer on the Star Trek television series Voyager (1997–2001) and Deep Space Nine (1997).  He also wrote the recent PREDATOR: BADLANDS, though credited for "additional literary material (not on-screen).

What is admirable about the film is the blend of fantasy and reality.  Aurora believes that the hit man kills monsters, thus hiring him with her limited child funds to kill the monster under her bed.  She follows the hitman, her neighbour, one night to Chinatown, where he kills some evil people that he calls monsters.  She sees him fighting the lion as in a lion dance and believes he can kill monsters.  During their meeting, he believes that she is imagining the monster under her bed, but it turns out that the monster is real, and the monster erupts to eat people who have their feet on the floor.

The film’s last 30 minutes turn up to be a large action set-piece, complete with special effects and a large encounter between monster and victim(s).  All this could be taken as a giant metaphor as well as tongue-in-cheek, and Sigourney Weaver is excellent at playing tongue-in-cheek.

DUST BUNNY, though uneven at times, has a fairy tale, nightmarish feel with emotional undercurrents, and its balancing act between horror and wonder is impressive.

DUST BUNNY had its world premiere at the.2025 Toronto International Film Festival in its Midnight Madness program on September 9, 2025 and its U.S. premiere at American Cinematheque’s Beyond Fest on September 30, 2025.  The film opens widely in theatres on December 12th.

Trailer: 

 

THE FAKENAPPING (Saudi Arabia 2025) **
Directed by Amine Lakhnech

 

The story follows Sattam, a down-on-his-luck entrepreneur and struggling dad who’s drowning in debt and bad luck. Desperate to solve his financial problems, he comes up with an absurd idea: he decides to “kidnap” his own father to demand money from him and pay off what he owes.

The beginning of the film has Sattam being chased and then threatened by the man, a loan shark he had borrowed money from, Mr Amo Atek.

Sattam has a father who owns a company; Sattam intends to kidnap his dad and then force him to pay the ransom.  This is where the FAKENAPPING comes to play.  What should’ve been a simple scam quickly spirals out of control as Sattam’s equally hopeless friends get involved and a ruthless loan shark starts closing in. Their bad timing, lies, and terrible decisions lead to a series of comical though hardlyfunny chaotic moments.  Although it centres on a false kidnapping, the film treats the plot as a lighthearted, farcical comedy, blending slapstick, misunderstanding, and social commentary about pride, financial pressure, and family dynamics.  Though well-intentioned with good motives, the film is less an entertaining watch than just going through the motions with the incidents in the story.

It does not help one bit if the protagonist, Sattam, has no redeeming qualities that the audience can identify with.  For one, Sattam has that annoying childish grin, making him look like an Arabic Mr Bean.  At least this part works, as the film is being billed as a comedy.  He has borrowed money but pretends he has lots of it to his mother and daughter.  And he borrows Peter to pay Paul, involving often little scams.   Sattam has no shame in lying, and even his own father has refused to help him out, as Sattam is too proud to work as a labourer.

THE FAKENAPPING, filmed inArabic, opens on Netflix this week for streaming.

Trailer: 

INFLUENCERS (USA/Canada 2025) ***⅓

Directed by Kurtis David Harder

 

At best, one can say that both INFLUENCER and INFLUENCERS films both offer nods to the films of Patricia Highgate and Alfred Hitchcock.  The films feature good-looking characters with villains that are cunning, rather clever, but downright evil.  The films are set in exotic locations, in this case, Bali, Indonesia, for INFLUENCERS.   There are nice pop-up twists in the plot, with a few arising from the original INFLUENCER.  INFLUENCERS is also set in the current time,s where social media, influencer followings and living it up are key goals for many people, even to those who cannot attain them.  Thus arises the character of CW, which stands for Catherine Weaver, a nasty bitch who lures influencers to their death, steals their identities and lives it up, following one victim after another.  Until fate catches up with her.  Which happens twice,e both in the first and in the second film.

It would be good to know what happened in the first movie before watching the sequel.   For this reason, Shudder is releasing both on its streaming service.

This is what happens in the first movie.  Madison is an influencer who has been using her vacation in Thailand as a way to promote herself and several advertisers online. The reality is that Madison spends most of her time in her hotel eating food and is upset that her boyfriend Ryan did not come with her.  Madison is befriended by CW, who takes her on a tour of hotspots.  It is slowly revealed that CW lures different influencers to a remote Thai island and leaves them there to die, thus stealing their identity.  When Ryan suddenly shows up, Madison has to deal with the outcome of her deeds.

In INFLUENCERS, in Southern France, CW and her French girlfriend Diane are celebrating their first anniversary as a couple when they are bumped from their hotel room and forced stay in a smaller one because of a popular British influencer, Charlotte, who befriends Diane and won't leave the couple alone, which irritates CW, who wants to put an end to that  CW murders Charlotte and Charlotte’s girlfriend before Madison, who survives the first film discovers what CW is up to and hunts her down.  This occurs at the one-hour mark of the film.  Interest and curiosity are enough to glue audiences to the screen as another influencer, this time a male played by Canadian Jonathan Whitesel,l discovers CW and threatens her.

Writer/director Kurtis David Harder is one of the hardest-working directors today.  Born in Calgary, Alberta, Harder has directed at least five feature films.  Harder made his feature-length debut with Cody Fitz.   His second feature film, Incontrol, was released in 2017.   Harder wrote the first draft of the screenplay for Incontrol in 2013.  Another feature film, Spiral, was released in 2019.  In 2022, he directed the feature film Influencer (2022), which was acquired and released by Shudder.  Influencer had its world premiere on October 16, 2022, at the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival.[13] Brandon Yu of The New York Times wrote, "Harder has made good and entertaining use of a premise that could have become a simple gimmick, and Naud and Saper prove strong leads as their characters try to read each other between the lines.  A sequel titled INFLUENCERS premiered at the 29th Fantasia International Film Festival in July 2025. Cassandra Naud reprised her role from the first film.  It was also the closing film at FrightFest, where it made its UK premiere in August 2025.  The film will be released on Shudder on December 12, 2025, after screening as the closing night film at Blood in the Snow in Toronto.

INFLUENCERS is a satisfying, sophisticated young adult sexy horror thriller set in a social media setting with shades of Patrica Highgate and Hitchcock.

LOST IN THE SPOTLIGHT (original title: Lupa Daratan)) (Indonesia 2025) ***
Directed by Ernest Prakasa

 

The light comedy drama follows the exploits of an actor, Vino Agustian (played by Vino G. Bastian), a somewhat middle-aged, good-looking actor who is quite full of himself, making himself look a fool some of the time.  When the film opens, he has just won the 2024 Best Actor award.  His acceptance speech involves him giving credit to the other nominees and then saying that the next year, he assures that one of them will win, then adding  the comical line, “if I am not around.”  The camera edits catch the somewhat disgustedlooks from the other nominees -  annoyed and then forcing out a smile.  The film is quite silly, but the parody is right, and all turns out quite entertaining.  One can tell that something is turning bad for actor Vino.  And it does.

Vino Agustian is a narcissistic and beloved actor whose life and career suddenly take a shocking turn just as he’s about to land the biggest role of his life.  At the peak of his success, he inexplicably loses his acting ability—forgetting lines, failing to tap into emotion, and generally being unable to perform.

As Vino’s confidence collapses and public pressure mounts, the film tracks his emotional journey of self-reflection and rediscovery.  Through a mix of humour and heartfelt moments, actor Vito is forced to confront his ego, identity, and what truly matters beyond fame and talent.  Through light-hearted comedy instead of drama, the film offers a decent and heartfelt look at how a performer copes when the very thing that defined him disappears.

LOST IN THE SPOTLIGHT (Lupa Daratan) will stream on Netflix beginning December 11, 2025.

Trailer: 

PETER HUJAR’S DAY (USA 2025) ***
Directed by Ira Sachs

 

The film is set in December 1974 in New York City and is about the photographer Peter Hujar and his friend Linda, with Sachs telling IndieWire it is "a film about what it is to be an artist among artists in a city where no one was making any money".

There are a few celebrities one should be familiar with when watching this film.  This puts their reputation in place for a greater appreciation of their effect on the film’s subject.

One is Susan Sontag.  Susan Lee Sontag (January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American writer and critic.  She mostly wrote essays, but also published novels; she published her first major work, the essay "Notes on 'Camp' ", in 1964.  Sontag was active in writing and speaking about, or travelling to, areas of conflict, including during the Vietnam War and the Siege of Sarajevo. She wrote extensively about literature, cinema, photography, media, illness, war, human rights, and left-wing politics.  Her essays and speeches drew backlash and controversy, and she has been called "one of the most influential critics of her generation.”

The other is the subject, Peter Hujar.  Peter Hujar (October 11, 1934 – November 26, 1987) was an American photographer best known for his black-and-white portraits.  Hujar's work received only marginal public recognition during his lifetime, but he has since been recognized as a major American photographer of the 1970s and 1980s.

Another is Linda Rosenkrantz.  Linda Rosenkrantz was born and raised up in the Bronx, New York, the daughter of Samuel, a garment industry executive, and Frances, an artist. She is a graduate of the High School of Music and Art in Manhattan and the University of Michigan.  In 1974, Linda Rosenkrantz embarked on another tape-centric project. She asked a number of her friends and acquaintances, including artist Chuck Close and photographer Peter Hujar, to write down everything they did on one particular day, then to meet with her to report and record in conversation the events of their day. Forty years later, in 2021, a transcript of the Hujar chapter was published in book form by Magic Hour Press as Peter Hujar's Day.  The book was adapted into a film, Peter Hujar's Day, directed by Ira Sachs and starring Ben Whishaw as Peter Hujar and Rebecca Hall as Rosenkrantz.[

Director Ira Sachs is a gay filmmaker, and so is his subject Peter Hujar.  Hujar does talk about sucking cock at one point in the film.  Sachs makes impressive, often gay themed indie films.  

The film is obviously not for everybody.  It is a two-handler with all talk - and talk that might not appeal to or interest everybody, even though the talk might intrigue those interested in photography or writers.  The film is all about, as intended, a day in the life of the photographer, which can be described as getting up, preparing for an interview and then going back to bed.  Peter talks about his musings, and Linda, who has not much to say in the film, basically reads and makes sight comments.  It is all about PETER HUJAR’S DAY.

Trailer: 

RESURRECTION (China/France 2025) **
Directed by Bi Gan

 

In a future where humanity has surrendered its ability to dream in exchange for immortality, an outcast (Jackson Yee) finds illusion, nightmarish visions, and beauty in an intoxicating world of his own making.

If the above premise sounds like an artsy-fartsy film. RESURRECTION, touted as a science fiction drama written and directed by Bi Gan, surely is, and a complete mess of a meandering narrative that it is.  The film runs an unbearable 160 minutes, and though the cinematography is stunning, reminiscent of the Wong Kar-wei classics, the film is a chore if not a torture to sit through.

So who is this filmmaker known as Bi Gan?  Apparently, he is a rising art and drama director.  Bi’s feature directorial debut, KAILI BLUES (2015), earned him Best New Director at the 52nd Golden Horse Awards, Best Emerging Director at the 68th Locarno Film Festival (Locarno being a venue for a lot of art films), and the Montgolfière d’Or at the 37th Three Continents Festival in Nantes. His follow-up feature, LONG DAYS JOURNEY INTO NIGHT (2018), was selected for the Un Certain Regard section at the 71st Festival de Cannes and earned him a Best Director nomination at the 55th Golden Horse Awards.  RESURRECTION is Bu Gan’s third movie, and despite its flaws,  it premiered in Competition at the 78th Festival de Cannes and was presented with a Special Award by the jury.

The movie is set in a future world where humanity has abandoned the ability to dream. The beginning of the film is basically a silent film, complete with titles, to indicate what is happening. The central characters are Shu Qi as “Miss Shu” and Jackson Yee as a mysterious “inhuman creature” (or “dream-entity”). Miss Shu discovers that this creature is one of the few beings still able to dream — something lost to almost all of humanity.  The film moves into romantic drama on an extra weird level, in which vampires suddenly appear on the floor.

The film, already at the 2-hour mark, stretches its way past the tolerance level with the two lovers on a boat moving off the dock and then goes on and on and on, as if never-ending.

The film’s narrative is not straightforward.  Resurrection is divided into six chapters, each corresponding to one of the five human senses — supposedly, though never made clear, sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch — plus the “mind.”

RESURRECTION can be more accurately described as an experience than a conventional story: a “dream made film,” where one feels rather than one can understand.  Act its best, it is a bold and ambitious film, successful or not, which is debatable.

The film is shot in Mandarin and a little Cantonese.

All flaws aside, Bi Gan is still a gifted filmmaker and a talent to be reckoned with.  It would be excellent if he delivers a more disciplined work with a strong narrative, perhaps controlled by the studio executives.

RESURRECTION premiered in the main competition at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2025 — and won the festival’s Special Jury Prize.    The film opens in Toronto on December 12th.

Trailer: 

SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT (USA/Canada 2025) ***
Directed by Mike P. Nelson

 

 

The SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT film franchise is a slasher horror film franchise in which the slasher is a killer in a Santa Claus costume.

The SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT franchise has gone through a whole slew of changes beginning with the first one made in1984.  There were altogether 7 films in all, with only the first two being released theatrically.  The others were straight to video.  Not included in these 7 films is the newest 2025 remake, which is the film being reviewed.

Silent Night, Deadly Night is a 2025 slasher film written and directed by Mike P. Nelson,   based on Silent Night, Deadly Night by Michael Hicke and Paul Caimi. It is the second remake of the 1984 film of the same name after Silent Night (2012), as well as the seventh overall installment of the Silent Night, Deadly Night series.

The only common element in all the films, including the 2025 version,n is the character Billy.  The 2025 version is supposed to be a remake of the original rather than a continuation of some sort, though it is quite different, as it includes a supernatural element, the spirit of Christmas, who is actually a very, very bad spirit.

The story of the first film is set in 1971, when 5-year-old Billy Chapman and his family visit a nursing home in Utah where his catatonic grandfather lives. When Billy's parents leave the room, his grandfather suddenly awakens and tells Billy to fear Santa Claus, as he punishes the naughty.  On the way back home, a criminal dressed in a Santa suit – who had just robbed a liquor store and killed the owner – attempts to carjack the family. As Billy's father tries to drive away, the criminal shoots him dead and attempts to sexually assault Billy's mother; when she hits him, he slits her throat with a switchblade. Billy flees and hides, leaving his baby brother Ricky in the car.

The 2025 version follows the same start except for a few differences.  The killer in the Santa suit kills both the father and mother immediately.  There is no brother Ricky.  And Santa is shot by someone not seen or mentioned.  Billy (played by Rohan Campbell) is the only common character.  Director/writer Nelson reveals bits of the plot as his film progresses, so that there is always something surprising to come.  The slasher film is necessarily violent, as is expected of such slasher films.  The supernatural element added in the remake serves to add another level of incredibility to the story, making slasher films more credible in the first place.  With the gore, blood and multiple killings, horror fans  can easily dismiss the implausibilities as long as their desire to see blood is satisfied.

SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT opens in theatres on Friday. December 12th.

Details

Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 23 November 2025

 

JINGLE BELL HEIST (USA 2025) ***1/2
Directed by Michael Fimognarit

 

One good thing about CHRISTMAS DAY HESIT is that the film is set in London, the world’s renowned Christmas city.  Note that to give a more modern look, there's a shot of the more newly built Overground train instead of the Underground train moving along the railway tracks in London.  Written by Amy Reed and Abby McDonald, the film has a female slant, concentrating on one of the robbers, Sophie.

The story follows Sophia (played by Olivia Holt) — a resourceful retail worker struggling to make ends meet — and Nick O'Connor (played by Connor Swindells) — a down-on-his-luck repairman-turned-ex-security-consultant. Both are financially desperate when the Christmas season hits. With nothing to lose, the two independently plan to rob a luxurious London department store on Christmas Eve, each seeing it as their chance to escape hardship.

At the height of the holiday season, two strangers team up to rob one of London's most famous department stores while accidentally falling in love.  The “department-store” in Jingle Bell Heist was — at least for filming purposes — represented by Loughborough Hotel in Brixton, London.  The film’s production team dressed the hotel’s façade and ground-floor spaces to look like the fictional “Sterlings London Department Store.So while the story depicts a large, posh department store, the “store” in reality was a converted historic building — not a functioning retail department store.

The jokes are pleasant, not overtly funny, but still can manage a chuckle or two.  Example in the huge departmental store, with a layout similar to Harrods,  Sophie, who works there, encounters an irate customer who remarks: This place gets worse every day, to which a store clerk replies: Or the people.  Sophie replies: Or is it that they were always terrible?  The store manager who stands on he balcony overlooking the shoppers remarks:  Shopping and spending!  That is what Christmas is all about.

The filming locations are in the U.K., the film’s country of origin is the United States, which is obvious from the captioning spelling of the short form ‘mom’ instead of ‘mum’.  At least the script uses the correct British terms like ‘last orders’ for ‘last call’, and ‘tube’ for ‘subway’.  (Hey, I have spent over 2 dozen visits to London, even spending a number of Christmases there)  Unfortunately, in the film every everyone at the Sterlings store wishes each other Merry Christmas.  In London, everyone greets with Happy Christmas, not like in the United States.

For a Netflix Christmas movie, JINGLE BELL HEIST hits all the right notes.  Do not dismiss this film as the typical Christmas nonsense that new films are usually released at this time of year.  Though not the almost perfect Christmas film, it comes entertainingly close, and it does succeed as a romantic comedy, a heist job, and with a few messages put in for good measure.  There are a few good twists in the plot that should satisfy even the more demanding moviegoer.  The movie blends lighthearted romance and holiday spirit with suspense and moral complexity — the desperation of the protagonists makes their plan feel sympathetic rather than purely criminal.

JINGLE BELL HEIST opens for streaming this week on Netflix and makes an excellent festive fare.

Trailer: 

MEADOWLARKS (Canada 2025) **
Directed by Tasha Hubbard

 

 

MEADOWLARKS is based on director Hubbard’s  2017 documentary Birth of a Family.  Director Hubbard’s Meadowlarks is an emotional, fictionalised true drama that follows four siblings, separated by the Sixties Scoop, as they come together over a week.  Sixties Scoop refers to the term given for the then-common practice of removing Indigenous children from their families, often without consent, and placing them with the child welfare system.  There are no fewer than 3 Canadian films dealing with his topic at TIFF this year.  Instead of dealing of issues like how the siblings got to each other and reunite, how they got taken away, director Hubbard concentrates more on awkward small talk, gifts, and forced bonding events, the one brother and three sisters do their best to get to know one another after decades apart, their interactions, and how they come to terms with one another.  Unfortunately, Hubbard stays on melodrama and emotional theatrics to tell her story, resulting in forced sentiment and overlong hugging and screaming sessions that go on with dysfunctional families that one has already seen too much of.  The audience is also forced to sit through one of the siblings, Justine’s full rendition of her ‘throat singing’.

 

SAVAGE HUNT (USA 2025) **
Directed by Roel Reiné

 

SAVAGE HUNT is a savage man versus beast thriller (touted as a survival thriller) from celebrated Dutch action filmmaker Roel Reiné, who also did the music of the film.

Driven by what the press notes call edge-of-your-seat suspense, tension, and primal stakes, SAVAGE HUNT follows a vengeful tracker who is brought in to hunt down a large grizzly bear that had begun attacking humans when a new local resort is being built. 

The film’s touted to include scenes with a real grizzly bear.  But the bear is not in all the scenes, with some computer-generated or animated, and the attacks often look quite tacky.  In Hitchcock’s thriller, THE BIRDS, and in Spielberg’s JAWS, the first scene of a bird and of the shark only appears halfway through the movies, thus generating much audience anticipation.  In SAVAGE HUNT, the bear is seen in the first scene and again in too many scenes that the bear looks too cartoonish in parts.  But worse of all is the film’s continuity, not helped by the editing, which is really bad.  Often, the audience sees the bear attacking a human on the ground and then sees it standing upright, roaring, and then rolling again on the ground.  The bear attack scenes are shot with different camera angles of attack, which look disjointed.

The story takes place in the Montana wilderness, where the construction of a new resort and logging operations disrupt the natural habitat.  There are some beautiful shots of the Montana landscape, including the rivers, mountains, and wilderness, making Montana look like a tourist spot to visit.  But as modernization comes to the wild, the film’s premise proposes that the wild animals have nowhere to survive and therefore move closer to the towns.  Such is the main grizzly bear in the film, which is described as the grizzly of grizzlies.  If you think that this kind of bear that would eat scraps out of trash cans, this one would eat these grizzlies.  T segments of the bear mauling her victims are not that frightening, and in fact, it looks kind of fake, though the aftermath of the mauling is shown in nasty detail to make the film’s point.

The film’s main character is Joe Regan, a hardened tracker and skillful hunter with a troubled past, who hunts down the bear.  He has lost his son and his marriage as a result.  Other characters include a resort construction chief with his estranged ex-wife and daughter, whom he is trying to communicate with.  All these characters are essentially time fillers in a film with a thin narrative.

The film suffers from poorly executed action set pieces, though touted that a real grizzly was brought into the filming.  The continuity is much worse, and coupled with a cliched story of relationship-troubled characters, SAVAGE HUNT fails to entertain in more ways than one.

SAVAGE HUNT arrives on digital download and on-demand December 2, 2025, from Shout! Studios, a Radial Entertainment Company. 

Trailer: 

THE STRINGER: The Man who Took the Photo (USA 2025) ***
Directed by Bao Nguyen

 

This Netflix doc concerns one of the most famous war photographs taken of all time.  The photo shows a Vietnamese girl running naked from a napalm bomb, her skin peeling from her body as she ran.  Phan Thị Kim Phúc OOnt, referred to informally as the girl in the picture and the napalm girl, is a South Vietnamese-born Canadian woman best known as the child depicted in the Pulitzer Prize–winning photograph, titled The Terror of War, taken at Trảng Bàng during the Vietnam War on June 8, 1972.  The photo won Nick Ut the Pulitzer Prize, and the photo bore the reputation of peace, stopping the war.

But did Ut take the photo?

A stringer is a freelance reporter or photographer who contributes stories, photos, or videos to a news organization and is paid per piece rather than being on staff.

The Associated Press (AP) editor at the time claimed that it was his boss, Horst, who made him list the name Nick Ut as credit.   The film is that story.

The central premise of the film investigates whether the famous Vietnam War photograph known as The Terror of War — more commonly called “Napalm Girl” — was actually taken by Nguyễn Thành Nghệ, a Vietnamese freelance photographer (stringer), rather than by Nick Ut, the person long credited with it. The film follows a two-year investigative effort led by conflict photographer Gary Knight and a team of journalists, starting from a confession by a former Saigon photo editor. That editor — after more than 50 years — claimed he was haunted by the knowledge that the photo might have been miscredited.

The issue of photo/film credit might seem trivial to some.  But the film demonstrates otherwise.  Beyond authorship, the documentary argues this revelation raises questions about how war photography — and those who risked their lives to capture it — have been credited, especially local and freelance journalists whose contributions may have been overlooked or erased.

The feel of the film is gripping and urgent, making the doc an absorbing piece of investigative journalism.  The film challenges decades of established journalistic history by claiming that journalism for the photo may have been wrongly assigned.

But the truth is still up for debate.  Not everyone is convinced: The Associated Press (AP) — which long credited Nick Ut — has strongly rebutted the documentary’s claims. Multiple sources from 1972, including colleagues and witnesses, continue to support Ut’s authorship. AP’s stance: without conclusive new evidence, they believe Ut remains the rightful credit.

The question then is, when a stringer sells a photo, does he sell his rights as well?  If the rights are not mentioned, it could be argued that the rights had been sold as well.

`The film also raises broader, systemic questions about how local and freelance journalists — often working under dangerous, exploitative conditions — have been marginalized, their contributions erased or miscredited.

The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2025 and has since been acquired by Netflix.  The film is currently streaming beginning this week on Netflix.

Trailer: 

Details

Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 14 November 2025

Lots of new Netflix originals open this week.  The excellent TRAIN DREAMS also opens on Netflix aftyer its limited two week theatrical run.

FILM REVIEWS;

THE CARMAN FAMILY DEATHS

Directed by Yon Motskin

 

A fishing trip ends in tragedy when Linda Carman vanishes at sea, leaving her son Nathan adrift for days. His rescue stirs up questions about his grandfather's murder and ignites a battle over inheritance that leads to shocking revelations.

THE CARMAN FAMILY MURDERS is a Netflix true crime drama.  True crime dramas - either love it to hate it!  Two different schools!  The doc is a Netflix original true crime drama, which Netflix is famous for.  Netflix makes biopic docs and true crime docs, with new ones appearing weekly.

Coincidentally, Netflix’s two new docs opening this week are about family.  One is the biopic SELENA Y LOS DINOS about a famous Mexican performing family, and the second is this one, where the first line of the doc is “Family is everything”.  Family was everything till things started to shake up after Nathan, an autistic son, was born.

Fresh from the headlines - ABC News.  Newly obtained investigative files provide fresh insight into one of New England's most notorious murder mysteries, which unfolded after Nathan Carman and his mother, Linda Carman, took a fateful fishing trip on Sept. 17, 2016.

Nathan said the boat took on water and suddenly sank. The 22-year-old survived and was rescued at sea, but Linda was nowhere to be found and presumed dead.  As officials investigated Nathan's story, they began to doubt his account of the events that unfolded at sea. They suspected he may have purposefully sunk the boat and killed his mother, whose body was never recovered. Nathan denied the allegations, insisting the sinking was an accident.  The doc takes the story from here and moves forward.

The documentary first examines the 2016 disappearance of Linda Carman and the rescue of her son, Nathan, at sea; it then follows the widening investigation that looked at Nathan’s relationship to the unsolved 2013 murder of his grandfather, millionaire real estate developer John Chakalos. Through interviews, footage from the family archive, and expert testimony, the film examines the competing narratives around Nathan’s actions and his possible accountability in the deaths of his mother and grandfather. Tracing the family rifts that followed, the film also confronts the high-stakes questions of motive and money that ultimately closed in around Nathan.

The film can be divided into these different parts:

- The Disappearance at Sea in (2016):

- the Suspicious Behaviour & Contradictions:

After his rescue, Nathan gives a story about how the boat malfunctioned and capsized.

- A Family Mystery — A Murder From Before:

The film also plays like a cat-and-mouse game between the investigators (police and prosecuting attorney) and the defendant.  Director plays the film more as a missing-persons story: his film becomes a full-blown murder mystery involving a rich (Greek) family and a potential motive tied to money and inheritance. It works.  For those not familiar with Nathan’s story, there is a shock ending.

 

THE CARMAN FAMILY DEATHS opens for streaming on Netflix this week.

Trailer: 

 

CHAMPAGNE PROBLEMS (USA 2025) **

Directed by Mark Steven Johnson

 

CHAMPAGNE PROBLEMS is a Netflix romantic comedy. A significant advantage is that it features a Christmas setting in Paris, often referred to as the city of love.  Unfortunately, the rom-com is filled not only with predictability but with one cliche after another.

As far as romantic comedies go, this one also, is female female-oriented with a tough female protagonist.  She is Sydney Price (Minka Kelly), a career-driven American executive dealing in acquisitions.  When her boss, known as Marvin, suddenly assigns her to go to Paris to win a takeover over other competitors, she immediately packs her bags for Paris.  She is to specifically go to the Champagne region, around Christmas, to try to acquire a prestigious Champagne house called Château Cassell.  But her younger sister makes her do a pinky promise to spend at least one night on her own - no business at all, in Paris.

Arriving in Paris, she goes to a bookstore, Les Etoiles, to buy a gift for her sister, only to meet, by chance, Henri Cassell (Tom Wozniczka), a charming local whom she feels a connection with.  As in all Hollywood French-set movies, all the French speak English with a French accent.  Tom Wozniczka is of French nationality.

The twist: Henri is actually the son of the founder of the champagne house she’s trying to buy.  The meeting takes place at the film’s 10-minute mark, followed by the usual small talk, which one has heard so many times in one form or another in repeatedly silly romantic comedies.  One just cannot wait thill they have a big argument, probably, as it does not take a genius to guess, because of the secret that she is to take over the Chateau Cassell.

The film starts off with the fuss over champagne, blah-blah-blah, all supposed to be good and Christmassy, with a brief history on the founding of the drink by a monk mixing yeast and sugar into the wine, turning the sugar into a bubbly.  Who really cares if this fact is true, or more truthfully, who really cares?  Is the monk really called Dom Perignon?   Apparently, this is true.  In 1668, Dom Pierre Pérignon, a Benedictine monk, was appointed procurator at the Abbey of Hautvillers. At a time when everything was guided by empirical methods, Dom Pierre Pérignon developed revolutionary techniques for viticulture and winemaking based on precise rules.

This rom-com clearly lacks any imagination, despite being a French festive setting, but also lacks any bubbly humour or any authentic drama.

The Chemistry between the two leads are ok at best; at least there is no cross-racial romance to be poetically correct, which is now so cliched in films, especially with countless films with at least one white and black couple in the story.

CHAMPAGNE PROBLEMS is the typical problematic holiday romance comedy with a tired, unglamorous, business-meets-love twist.   And the Americans still incorrectly pronounce the city ‘Ibiza ‘with a ‘z’ instead of a ‘th' as Europeans do.

CHAMPAGNE PROBLEMS opens for streaming on Netflix this week.

Trailer: 

 

ETERNITY (USA 2025) **½
Directed by David Freyne

 

ETERNITY is a 2025 American fantasy romantic comedy film directed by David Freyne, which he co-wrote the film with Pat Cunnane.

The ETERNITY premise has a lot of loopholes.  If Joan picks her eternity, are the people in her eternity all forced to spend their eternities as she wishes?  What happens to their eternities?  That is not really eternity; that is fair for everyone.  What about Larry’s children?  Are they forced into Larry and Joan’s eternity without their own?  Of course, a fantasy film like this one omits all the problems that might arise from such a premise.  All this stated, this is actually Joan’s choice of a dream eternity, while her loves Larry and Luke face a nightmare of eternity.

There have been many films about the afterlife, from classics like HEAVEN CAN WAIT, FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE, and the minor masterpiece AFTER LIFE by Hirokazu Koreeda, a film that has been acclaimed as one of the best pieces on the subject.  Tackling this subject obviously makes a feel-good film, and ETERNITY succeeds as a female feel-good fantasy.  Just imagine that one has the two greatest and most loyal lovers to choose which one to spend ETERNITY with.

After death, everybody gets one week to choose where to spend eternity. The film imagines an afterlife with a very specific rule: once you die, you arrive in a kind of liminal space and have one week to decide where — and with whom — you will spend eternity.  For Joan (Elizabeth Olson), Larry (Miles Teller), and Luke (Callum Turner), it's really a question of with whom to spend it. Joan must choose between her first love, who died in a war, and the man she has built her life with. 

Larry (Miles Teller) — the man she spent her life with (her later spouse). Luke (Callum Turner) — her first love, who died young in a war and has been waiting in the afterlife.

The afterlife setting is not just “heaven or hell”: souls can pick different destinations (various “eternities”), and the emotional stakes centre around Joan’s decision, which relationship (and thus which eternity) she will commit to.

The film leads to its inevitable conclusion with few surprises.  One can easily predict which man Joan will choose.  The option for the happy ending in which Joan ‘gets away with it’ is also predictable, even though it is impossible to achieve in this scenario.

At best, the film shifts from the whimsical premise to something more serious - the subject of what love really means what sacrifice is.  A love relationship is not all happiness, but also hardship and arguments.  Though this subject has been examined in many romantic dramas before, it is still dealt with seriousness and emotion.

The three main leads are all excellent, giving credibility in a script that could have offered them more.  Turner is indeed the dreamy lover that one would easily pick to send ETERNITY with, while TURNER is the more down-to-earth one.  The question is, if you were in Joan’s shoes, who would you pick?

Given what the film is supposed to be, it succeeds as a fantasy romcom for the undemanding viewer,

ETERNITY premiered at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival and opens in theatres this week, Friday, November 26th.

Trailer:

THE FOLLIES (Las Locus) (Mexico 2025) ***½

Directed by Rodrigo Garcia

 

The movie, Las Locuras in Spanish, follows Renata, who is under house arrest and on the brink of a manic episode. Her interactions with her family, lovers, and friends will take the audience on a tour of lives (forming the film’s anthology,) crumbling under maddening pressure on a stormy day in Mexico City.  The characters share the common ailment of ‘madness’,

 

The film is an anthology, broken up into 6 parts.

1. Crime and Punishment

The story of impulsive and loud Renata, on house arrest awaiting her trial.  During a visit from her therapist, who called the episode a crisis, Renata corrects her to say that it was a fleeting emotion.  But Renata is one case of madness, which she denies is bipolarity.  The audience sees her in her room, a big bed, an exercise bike, a mirror, a chest of drawers, all reflecting some kind of imprisonment,

 

2. La Bella Durmiente (Sleeping Beauty)

In the first story, Renata meets a stranger, Penny, by her window, to use her cellphone.  After Renata’s story, the next in the anthology follows Penny, a vet who euthanizes dogs for a living.  She spends much of the day comforting people who are saying goodbye to their dogs. But she has crises, too, and fears of her lover, who also works with her.

 

 

3. Sentimental Education

“I can’t take it anymore.’  This is what an older woman says after her cataract eye surgery as she is driven in a cab with her daughter, who she drives almost crazy.  But who is the crazy one?  Mother or daughter?.  The daughter visits Renata, her gay lover, thus connecting the 3 stories.

 

4. Journey Back to the Source

Irlanda is a psychiatrist, the one who has Renata as a patient, which is interesting: she’s in the field of mental health, but she faces her own vulnerabilities. She deals with family dynamics, especially in relation to Renata’s situation.  Her story is about how professional expertise doesn’t shield her from deeply personal, emotional, and familial challenges.  At a family reunion, skeletons come out of the closet, while she discovers herself by exposing others.

 

5 The Sound and the Fury

This segment involves Soledad, who is an actress. She grapples with the boundary between her acting roles and her real self . Her emotional journey touches on identity, performance, and what it means to “live” authentically vs. as a performance.  During a performance exercise, she freaks out when sexual movements are made on her by her partner.  Confronted, she says she was afraid of not being in control of herself, to be dominated by someone else, and then enjoying it.

 

6. The Tempest

A minor story involving the buyer of Renata’s family house,

 

The 6 stores are all intriguing, and they touch different aspects of ‘madness’ and the means of discovering oneself.  The pace intensifies as the film heads towards its conclusion, though the last vignette lacks bite and proper closure to the stories.

The film anthology plays like a psychological experiment, but one that is meticulously thought out and performed by a variety of actors who give their all in their performances.

 Trailer:

HAMNET (UK/USA 2025) ****
Directed by Chloé Zhao

 

Academy Award–winning director Chloé Zhao (NOMADLAND) helms this lush and tender drama about William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) and his family, as seen through the eyes of his thoughtful wife Agnes (Jessie Buckley).  Even though the audience already knows that the male is actually the Bard, the name William Shakespeare is not used till near the end of the film.

Based on the novel by Maggie O’Farrell, Hamnet’s main character isn’t The Bard — played here by an impressive Paul Mescal — or even the child who gives the film its name.  Hamnet belongs to Agnes (Jessie Buckley), Shakespeare’s thoughtful wife, who bathes the film in her warmth, drama and grief.

This is the story of Agnes and Will. She is a healer, he is a writer. It is also the story of their children: Susanna, their firstborn, and their twins, Judith and Hamnet. It's also the story of their small village, in 16th-century England. More to the point, it's a story of the lives, and especially the deaths, from plague, in their times. The story is told from the viewpoint of Agnes, and therein lies its power.

The narrative follows the courtship of Agnes with all the initial problems as they grow into a family with children.  Then follows the husband’s trauma.  Agnes allows her husband to travel to London to satisfy his hunger to write, which he succeeds at the expense of the family.  The death of their son HAMNET, with his absence, fills Agnes with such grief that it overtakes and almost destroys the whole family.   The grief is masterfully played, and the audience can really feel the trauma and torment of Agnes.  This leads the film to its climax, and it is also what makes this film so emotional, raw, and unforgettable.

The film is graced with two great performances.  One is from Irish actress Jessie Buckley, who scores in her title role of the troubled wife, her exasperation reaching a climax after she experiences the death of her son in her hands.  Buckley has been nominated for an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress in THE LOST DAUGHTER and has also recently been seen in the comedy WICKED LITTLE LETTERS.  The husband, Shakespeare, displayed by the recent rapid rise-to-fame of the actor, also Irish, also nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award in AFTERSUN, and also recently seen in ALL OF US STRANGERS.  An excellent pairing here by casting genius Nina Gold.  It is these two performances that lift HAMNET to one of the Top 10 Films of the year.

The sets and stage of this film are nothing short of remarkable and stunning.  The scene of how a play was staged in those days as in Stratford-on-Avon, where HAMLET was played, is beautifully re-created in all its splendour and authenticity.  The audience fills into the stand with hands that can reach out onto the stage.  It should be noted that in William Shakespeare’s day, the names Hamlet and Hamnet were interchangeable.

Early scenes of Agnes and William’s courtship are naturalistic, rendered through lush cinematography by 2023 TIFF Variety Artisan Award winner Łukasz Żal (COLD WAR, THE ZONE OF INTEREST).

HAMNET opens at the TIFF Lightbox, Toronto, November 26th.

The film also won the Toronto International Film Festival's most honoured People’s Choice Award.  Director Zhao’s NOMADLAND also won the same award back in 2020.

Trailer: 

 

SANGRE DEL TORO (Blood of Del Toro) (UK/France 2025) ***
Directed by Yves Montmayeur

 

A documentary is often as interesting as its subject, and the new doc SANGRE DEL TORO boasts one of the most intriguing filmmakers of Mexican horror.

Guillermo Del Toro seamlessly merges his Mexican roots with cultural elements from Hollywood, Paris, and Guadalajara in his creative work.

In the words of Guillermo del Toro, director of PAN’S LABYRINTH, his best film, A labyrinth, unlike a maze, leads one towards destiny. It is eating, drinking and dreaming while getting from here to there.  The introduction to the Netflix original documentary on Guillermo del Toro begins with an image of the creature, Pan from the film, an imaginative yet creepy creature, that holds its eyes in the palm of its hands.  As a filmmaker, he says, you make a movie not only from the answers but from your doubts.

Just like a biopic, the doc then goes into Del Toro’s childhood, introducing this segment by saying how fascinating it is to watch horror through the eyes of a child.  He goes on to say that childhood was the worst time of is life. filled with nightmares and fears. 

SANGRE DEL TORO is a fascinating doc that lets its subject speak freely of his childhood, inspirations, fears and dreams.  It also explores the origins of his genius, particularly in childhood memories from Mexico, featuring numerous clips from Del Toro’s horror movies, including PAN’S LABYRINTH, CRONOS, and THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE.  These clips are understandably a pleasure to watch, and the images are both inspirational and unsettling.

SANGRE DEL TORO is a Netflix original documentary that opens this week, November 21st, for streaming on Netflix.

Trailer: 

SELENA Y LOS DINOS (Selena and the Dinos) (Mexico 2025) ***
Directed by Isabel Castro

 

SELENA Y LOS DINOS (Selena and the Dinos) was an American Tejano band formed in 1981 by Tejano singer Selena and her father Abraham Quintanilla. The band remained together until the murder of Selena in 1995, which caused the dissolution of the band in the same year.  When Selena was signed with EMI Latin, EMI president José Behar told Selena that "the world wanted Selena, not Selena y Los Dinos." Smelena then began releasing her solo studio albums under her name and her own logo title, Selena, instead of Selena y Los Dinos.  Before Selena was signed with EMI, the band had sold more than 80,000 copies in the state of Texas.

SELENA Y LOS DINOS is a Netflix original documentary about Selena.  What stands out in this doc, or why watch it?  There are many reasons.  For one, she brought new music to America.  She fought the stigma of Latinos being a minority, not getting into the mainstream.  Her biography also details how her family formed the band “Los Dinos” and how she became its lead singer, telling the importance and influence of family life.  It was a family affair.  Her brother was the leader, her sister a drummer, and her father the manager. 

The doc tells the story of Selena’s origins.  Selena speaks to the camera about how she first performed at the age of 6 and a half in front of her family.  Family children were forced to perform in front of family gatherings.

The documentary is made using never-before-seen footage (home videos, personal photos, archive material) from the Quintanilla family. Through interviews with her closest family and band members — parents Abraham and Marcella, sister Suzette, brother A.B., husband Chris — the film shows the more private, intimate side of Selena: not just the superstar, but the sister, daughter, wife, and friend.  It tracks her meteoric rise in the Tejano music scene, starting from performances at family dinners (in their Tex-Mex restaurant) to achieving mainstream recognition.   Despite Selena’s tragic murder, the film does not focus on the incident but looks at the brighter side, emphasizing her legacy, cultural impact, and the joy and power of her life, making the doc more relevant and watchable for a Netflix audience.  Selena is also a bubbling personality, making her a pleasure to watch.

SELENA Y LOS DINOS  had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 26, 2025, where the film won the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Archival Storytelling.  In February 2025, Netflix was in the lead to acquire distribution rights to the film with a $6–7 million offer, amidst a bidding war.  In May 2025, Netflix officially acquired the film.  It also screened at South by Southwest in March 2025.  It opens for streaming this week on Netflix.

Trailer: 

WICKED: FOR GOOD (USA 2025) ***½

Directed by Jon M. Chu

 

It would be more entertaining if one recalls the first of the two WICKED films, the first being WICKED, released in 2024.  The basic premise of he two films can be explained as this: In the Land of Oz, Glinda the Good joins the citizens of Munchkinland as they celebrate the death of the Wicked Witch of the West.  When a child asks her why wickedness happens, Glinda deliberates the question by reflecting on the Witch's backstory — born from an affair between the wife of then-Governor Thropp, Melena, and a mysterious traveling salesman, the Witch was ostracized from birth due to her unnaturally green skin (a result of the green elixir the salesman intoxicated Melena with) and impulsive telekinetic powers ("No One Mourns the Wicked"). When asked if she and the Witch were friends, Glinda admits that they knew each other and explains their past.  This scene is seen in both films.

Years after the events of Wicked (2024), Elphaba Thropp, now known as the Wicked Witch of the West, continues her fight for Animal rights while living as a fugitive. Meanwhile, Glinda Upland, now recognized as Glinda the Good, is a public figure watched over by the Wizard and Madame Morrible. As they face the consequences of their actions, their relationship is put to the test by a series of events—including the surprise arrival of Dorothy Gale with her three friends from Kansas—that will change the Land of Oz forever.

For musical lovers, WICKED: FOR GOOD, just as WICKED will not disappoint.  The film has no shortage of lavish sets, lively songs, and choreographed numbers.  From the colours of the yellow brick road to the rows of coloured fields of flowers, the sets and art-direction are very impressive - yes, one might describe it as the stuff dreams are made of.  But WICKED 2, as the film is also called, has its dark moments.  The second half of the film is much darker than the first as Elphaba exacts revenge for the imprisoned animals.  Darker also becomes darker as the screen is filled with darker colours and shadows.  The A-rated sex scene with the Prince showing his top half of his body, and Elphaba looks more uncomfortable for a fairy tale.  Daring is what one might describe the scene as, but it could be omitted without much fanfare.

Ariana Grande plays Glinda Upland, Cynthia Erivo plays Elphaba Thropp, and Jonathan Bailey plays Fiyero Tigelaar, a Winkie prince who is now Captain of the Wizard's Guard. He is later transformed into the Scarecrow by Elphaba. One question in the film is whether Dorothy is seen travelling to see the wizard with her friends, which should include the scarecrow, but this has yet to be.

  All the actors in the first film are in the sequel, including heavyweights like Oscar Winner Michelle Yeoh as Madame Morribl and Jeff Goldblum as the Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Director Jon M. Chu has proved himself apt in musicals, as he did in the first WICKED and other minor musicals.  But he likely believes that there can never be too much of a good thing, as he splashes every scene with either colour of blackness.

WiCKED: FOR GOOD cost a whopping $150 million to make, but should make it back.  The film opens in theatres on November 21st.

Trailer: 

ZODIAC KILLER PROJECT (UK/USA 2025) ***
Directed by Charlie Shackleton

 

True crime dramas are intriguing fare as they provide mystery and thrills.  True crime documentaries are able to draw an audience into it….as the narrative of the ZODIAC KILLER says, at one point.  Netflix has cornered the market with countless true crime dramas, both solved and unsolved.  The latest true crime drama is one involving one of the highest profiled serial killed, dubbed the Zodiac Killer.  His identity was never discovered, and he was never caught.

The Zodiac Killer is the pseudonym of an unidentified serial killer who murdered five known victims in the San Francisco Bay Area between December 1968 and October 1969. The case has been described as "arguably the most famous unsolved murder case in American history," and has become both a fixture of popular culture and a focus for efforts by amateur detectives.

The Zodiac's known attacks took place in Benicia, Vallejo, unincorporated Napa County, and the City and County of San Francisco proper. He attacked three young couples and a lone male cab driver. Two of these victims survived. The Zodiac coined his name in a series of taunting messages that he mailed to regional newspapers, in which he threatened killing sprees and bombings if they were not printed. He also said that he was collecting his victims as slaves for the afterlife. He included four cryptograms or ciphers in his correspondence; two were decrypted in 1969 and 2020, and two are generally considered to be unsolved.  But investigators agree on four confirmed attacks by the Zodiac Killer in California. Five victims were killed during these attacks, and two survived

Against the backdrop of deserted spaces, a filmmaker (Shackleton) explores his abandoned Zodiac Killer documentary, delving into the true crime genre's inner workings at a saturation point.  For example, at he start of the doc, he films an open car park space narrating that in the doc, a car would move into the space and he describes the car.   He says that the cop driving the car is Lyndon, in what he says would likely be a reenactment in the documentary.   He goes on to describe another car that pulls in beside the car, and the audience then sees a man, presumably Shackleton, walking into the empty parking spaces.  This is the location where it is presumed cop Lyndon first meets who he thinks is the killer, judging from the memory of a sketch he has pinned at the back of his car's sun visor.  The one positive fact about Shackleton is that he, at least, is very familiar with the true crime drama genre, which makes this weird doc all the more compelling.  ZODIAC KILLER PROJECT is an interesting novelty piece, and the magic question is whether Shackleton can keep his audience attentive throughout the film’s 92-minute length.

ZODIAC KILLER PROJECT had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 27, 2025, where it won the NEXT Innovator Award.  It has a special advance seal preview in Toronto on Thursday, October 8th at the TIFF Lightbox, where director Charlie Shackleton will be present for a Q&A.  The film opens on November 21st.

Trailer: 

Details

Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 14 November 2025

Capsule Reviews of Select Feature Films:

The Best of Canadian Horror returns in November with the annual Blood in the Snow Film Festival.

 

For tickets, click on the link to get to the official website:

https://www.bloodinthesnow.ca/

(copy and paste the link if clicking does not work)

FOREIGNER (Canada 2025) ***

Directed by Ava Maria Safai

 

Everyone wants to fit in - especially foreigners relocating to a new country.  As the teen girl protagonist leaves Iran for Canada, British Columbia, from the looks of it, she looks desperately to fit in.  She tries her utmost to improve her English by imitating the dialogue from the TV, much to the chagrin of her grandmother and slightly over-possessive father, both of whom want her to take pride in her Iranian heritage.  Worse still, at school, she meets three white mean girls, and she is pressured even more to be accepted into the group.  The ultimate moment comes when she decides to dye her hair blonde in order to look Canadian.  Granny and Dad are shocked.  The act unleashes some demon of some sort.  The film blends two different genres as a Mean Girls-type movie and the horror genre, which unfortunately does not work that well.  It all looks as if there are two separate movies here.  But the film is still quite engrossing, as audiences should be able to relate to the pressure of fitting into any society or group, whatever the circumstances.

 

 

SON OF SARA (Son of Sara: Volume 1) (Canada 2025) ***

Directed by Hunter Bone

 

Pregnant mothers make a good premise for horror movies.  SON OF SARA begins with a distraught mother tied up, screaming,” Please don’t kill my baby.”  After her baby is killed, the mother’s throat is slit.  A ghastly introduction to the horror movie, in which the film continues, soon after, with Sara (a different woman), as she describes herself, violently pregnant.   She begins to be haunted by strange urges.  Sara lives with her girlfriend Carol (this is an LGBT+ film) in their apartment.  At some point, Sara encounters her ex-boyfriend, Troy, the one who got her pregnant, and agrees to join him for dinner.  What starts out as a dinner invitation spirals into a bloody, demented nightmare. A bloody enough film, with not much of a storyline, but with psychological and supernatural elements.  The cast, which includes Chloe Van Landschoot as Sara, Tymika Tafari as Carol, and Garrett Hnatiuk as Troy, delivers credible performances.  Is there a Volume 2 coming soon?

 

VIOLENCE (Canada 2025) **
Directed by Connor Marsden

The film setting is the 1980s, where cellphones are noticeably absent in the film, with a protagonist called Henry VIOLENCE who has to navigate two cartel wars in order to survive.  Not only does Henry need to navigate, but also he audience who has to figure out who is who and what is going on, in a messy setup.  Henry also wants to save a hooker girl he cares for.  The narrative is somewhat of a mess, and the acting is satisfactory at best, with hardly a star or character anyone would care for.  The only good thing about the film is the visuals of the alternative 80s setting in an unnamed country.  The film is shot in Sudbury in Ontario.  The film has played in other festivals and has no distribution dates yet.

Details

Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 07 November 2025

FILM REVIEWS:

BEING EDDIE (USA 2025) ***

Directed by Angus Wall

 

BEING EDDIE is the Eddie Murphy everyone loves to laugh with.  Murphy is indeed one funny man whom everyone can agree on.  Looking at him will just make you laugh, often without him having to utter any words.  BEING EDDIE is a frank look at the man and his personal life, with lots of cameos by celebrities who are also his friends.

Edward Regan Murphy, now in his 50s,  is an American actor, comedian, and singer.   He had his breakthrough as a stand-up comic before gaining stardom for his film roles; he is widely recognised as one of the greatest comedians of all time.  He has received several accolades, including a Golden Globe Award, a Grammy Award, and an Emmy Award, as well as nominations for an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award. He was honoured with the Mark Twain Prize for American Humour in 2015 and the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2023.

Murphy shot to fame on the sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, for which he was a regular cast member from 1980 to 1984 and broke out as a movie star in the 1980s films 48 Hrs., TRADING PLACES and BEVERLY HILLS COP.

The doc has Murphy talking to the screen a majority of the time, talking about his acts and his life.  This adds to the authenticity of the doc as well as the humour, as Murphy is a very funny guy.  An easy-going doc with clips from the comedian’s funny moments that should keep audiences entertained.

Trailer: 

Quite a bit of his life is also mentioned on screen.  His life with his brother, Charles, who was in the Service and later hired by Eddie as chief security.

Murphy is depicted as a good guy, staying away from drugs and smoking, etc.  He mentions how he turned down an after-party that Jim Belushi and Robin Williams invited him to.  He also turned down one by Yul Brynner and his pretty young wife.

BEING EDDIE opens for streaming this week on Netflix.

JAY KELLY (USA 2025) ****
Directed by Noah Baumbach

 

Noah Baumbach’s movies are solid filmmaking material, and his new film is something definitely to look forward to.  And JAY KELLY does not disappoint. Baumbach is known for making light comedies set in New York City, and his works are inspired by filmmakers such as Woody Allen and Whit Stillman.  His recent films have exceeded expectations.  (He has received award nominations for four Academy Awards, two BAFTA Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards._ Baumbach directs and co-writes the film with Emily Mortimer, who also plays a role ninth film.

Baumbach’s last best movie is A MARRIAGE STORY, about a crumbling marriage, more drama than comedy, which starred Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson.  JAY KELLY, his new film, takes the name of its lead character and protagonist, Jay Kelly, portrayed by George Clooney.  It is a story of how Jay comes to terms with his two daughters and the people close to him, like his manager and publicist.  His elder daughter, Jessica (Riley Keough), resents him for not being with her and she now works in a city far away and seldom sees her dad.  The younger, Daisy (Grace Edwards), is taking a European holiday with friends while the father wants to spend his week break after completing his last movie with her.  She takes off with friends to Europe, and her father hijacks her holiday by meeting her on the train.   An alternative title to the film could be A FAMILY STORY, as it is a story about Jay Kell and his relationship with his family.  The wife is noticeably absent in the film, and the wife is never mentioned at all in the story.

The story centres on the character, Jay Kelly (played by George Clooney), a world-famous actor whose polished celebrity persona masks deeper questions of identity, purpose, and relationships. As the words inform at the start of the film, words that are repeated later on in the movie.  Jay Kelly has more problems playing himself than playing other personalities on the screen.

After the death of a director (Jim Broadbent) who once took a chance on him, Jay finds himself disconnected from his girls (his daughters).  He grows increasingly estranged from the realness of his own life, despite being surrounded by red carpets and adoration.  He embarks on a journey through Europe along with his longtime manager, Ron (Adam Sandler), in which both men examine their decisions, sacrifices, and what legacy they'll leave behind.

There are also other interesting stories that go hand-in-hand with the main plot.  One is the marriage of the manager Ron with his wife, played by the director’s wife, Greta Gerwig.  These other stories are less distracting as they are all connected to Jay Kelly’s story.

There is an impressive ensemble cast, the best of whom includes Stacy Keach playing Jay’s father, Patrick Wilson as Ben Alcock and Laura Dern as Liz, Jay’s publicist.  George Clooney could be playing his real self on screen or a similar personality.  Clooney blends humour and drama very well.

Another hit from Baumbach, JAY KELLY demonstrates how one can be lost with not only family but with oneself.

JAY KELLY opens in theatres this week before streaming on Netflix.

Trailer: 

LEFT-HANDED GIRL (Taiwan/US/UK/France 2025) ****
Directed by Shih-Ching Tsou

 

A single mother and her two daughters return to Taipei after several years of living in the countryside to open a stand at a buzzing night market.  Each in their own way will have to adapt to this new environment to make ends meet and maintain the family unity. But when their traditional grandfather forbids his youngest left-handed granddaughter from using her "devil hand," generations of family secrets begin to unravel.

The film emphasizes the use of the right hand vs. the left hand.  Why are people mostly right-handed?  Are they born that way?  The film proposes, rightly so, I believe, that children are often corrected to use their right instead of the left to promote conformity and more easy in life easier.  Most gadgets are designed for right-handed use.  For example, the hot empty cartridges fired from a rifle come out on the side away from the face of a right-handed firer.  So, a left-handed soldier firing a rifle would often have his cheek burned by a hot cartridge. In the film, it is for this reason that the grandfather is appalled by the fact that his granddaughter, I-Jing, is suing her left instead of her right, scaring the girl into believing it is the devil’s hand.

LEFT-HANDED GIRL has a fair portion of the story told from the girl’s point of view.  As such, director Tsou often has her camera fixed at a girl’s eye level or even below.  The film also projects an innocence of Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, where the film is set.  The camera often follows I-Jing through the busy street among the night hawkers as the action takes place.  Taipei is seen as an exotic as well as a dangerous place, with its own share of shady businesses.  Sean Baker, who wrote the script with director Tsou, is an expert on stories of marginal people working in the sex industry.  His films include THE FLORIDA PROJECT and  ANORA.

The family's noodle stall is located in the Tonghua (Linjiang) night market in Da'an district, Taipei City.  Like Sean Baker's Tangerine (2015), the movie was entirely filmed on an iPhone, during the 2022 summer in Taipei, Taiwan.

One of the stars of the film is the muskrat pet that I-Jing keeps as a pet, which absolutely steals the show with its cuteness and agility.  The animal also plays a large part in the story.

The story also contains the disturbing fact that the elder daughter works in a partly sex industry that causes he to be impregnated by her boss.  There is also the possibility of child abuse in the story.  It is never revealed who the real father of I-Jing is, though there is a hint of child abuse due to this fact.

Director Shih moves her film at a solid pace, which results in what one might deem as near a dull moment, aided by colourful characters in a colourful setting of Taipei, aided by fine performances all around.

LEFT-HANDED GIRL from Netflix is the Official submission of Taiwan for the 'Best International Feature Film' category of the 98th Academy Awards in 2026. The film opens in select theatres on November 14th and on Netflix for streaming on November 28th.

Trailer: 

SALLYWOOD (USA 2025) ***½

Directed by Xaque Gruber

 

The film is about Sally Kirkland.  Kirkland garnered widespread critical acclaim for her eponymous performance as a former popular actress in the independent comedy-drama Anna (1987), which earned her the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress for her performance in the film.

She is not to be confused with MASH's hot lips, Sally Kellerman.  In this movie, the mix-up is joked about.

Sally Kirkland, who plays herself in the movie after being shunned at the Academy Awards red carpet by a reporter: “I don’t remember, (referring to perfume), it must have been far off then.”  Sally then says on camera, “I was famous then.  I am not sure, now.  I could get men from all over.”  This film is about Ally Kirkland and the fan who hero-worships her, ever since he saw her in her Golden Globe Award-winning and Oscar-nominated Best Actress performance in the film ANNA.  Well, it was way back when in 1987.  Kirkland has the starring role and her lead name in this movie.

Movies are often about chasing one’s dreams and dreams coming true.  The film SALLYWOOD ( a word coined from Sayy Kirkland and Hollywood) is all about that.

Based on the true story of a 20-something writer from rural Maine. Inspired by actress SALLY KIRKLAND’s performance in the sleeper hit, ANNA (Oscar nominee, Independent Spirit Award, and 1988 Golden Globe winner), Zack leaps to pursue his ambitions of a Hollywood Career.  “You will never meet her, Zach’s mother tells him, while his father tells him otherwise, to follow his dreams.  After driving cross-country, in a chance encounter, he meets his lifelong idol, the week he arrived. Sally hires him on the spot to be her assistant, where he quickly learns her career is a shambles. He dedicates himself to finding a way to land her back on the red carpet where she belongs.  

You gotta love it when a film captures a magic moment.  This occurs early in the film when Zach sees his idol, Sally Kirkland, in person for the first time in a parking lot.  He runs after her to the song “It Had to be You”, by Isham Jones and Gus Kahn, sung no less than by Frank Sinatra.

Besides Kirkland, the film stars many of the famous stars of the past, including Kay Lenz, Eric Roberts, Michael Lerner, Jennifer Tilly, and Keith Carradine.

The film is not without cheesy, though funny lines.  Example?  Quote: Alan Watts: “Defining yourself is like biting your own teeth.”

The film features songs by Rufus Wainwright, Toni Basil & Smokey Miles.

Sally Kirkland plays herself, a once-famous actress nominated for the Best Actress Oscar that year, together with stars Glenn Close and Faye Dunaway. But now, largely forgotten, perhaps SALLYWOOD would regain her fame.  If not, SALLYWOOD still proves to be a very endearing and solid film and would be a solid boost to Sally Kirkland’s career.

SALLYWOOD opens on digital platforms November 14th, 2026

Trailer: 

TATSUMI (Japan 2023) ***
Directed by Yoishio Shoji

 

A return to the 70s Japanese gangster mode, TATSUMI is a nitty-gritty, violent Yakuza film that reminds one of the 70s.  Tatsumi, an unassuming fisherman, makes his real livelihood by cleaning up dead bodies for local yakuza gangs.  A job is just a job, and the yakuza gangs treat him that way, too, as a low-class lowlife.  When criminal intrigue leads to the vicious murder of his ex-girlfriend by one of the gangsters, it thrusts her hot-headed teenage sister Aoi (a tour de force by ingénue Kokoro Morita) onto an unbridled path of vengeance.  Tatsumi cannot stand her initially, but eventually softens his feelings for her - the kind of love-hate relationship commonly found in buddy films.  With his own personal motives in tow, Tatsumi vows to mentor and protect Aoi to the bitter end of her blood-soaked crusade.

Aoi is a hot-headed young car mechanic, and one can tell that this skill will help them fight the gangsters later on in the film.  A good change is that the female is a fighter and not the typical damsel in distress.

The film is impressive in using the backdrop to reflect the seizable and bleak lives of the two protagonists.  The coastal town is isolated and drab, and there seems to be no way out of the rut.

Director Shoji keeps his film in focus, keeping the atmosphere constantly tense with some violent (arguably more violent than necessary) action scenes, though there are a few slow spots in the film.  It is basically a tough and uncompromising revenge gangster film.

TATSUMI has won accolades at international film festivals:

Bucheon Int’l Fantastic Film Festival (2024) | Nominated, Best Feature Film

Fantasia International Film Festival (2024)

Tokyo International Film Festival (2023) | Nominated, Best Film

TATSUMI opens on VOD & Digital Platforms on November 14th, 2026.

Trailer: 

TEE YAI: BORN TO BE BAD (Thailand 2025) ***
Directed by Nonzee Nimibutr

 

Apparently, the outlaw Tee Yai is a famous Thai outlaw.  The film offers a warm look at Tee Yai.

Two outlaws (Tee Yai and his best buddy from young) whose relationship is put to the test by a detective (named Jakarat, depicted as a no-nonsense Clint Eastwood-styled cop) while tracking down an infamous gang of robbers in 1980s Bangkok.

Tee Yai is known for his magical powers of disappearance, which are attributed to an amulet.  The police are baffled when he escaped from a train after one captured.  Tee Yai’s name appears in the newspapers every day and is a household name, and the audience told, more famous than the Prime Minister of Thailand. This is when the cop Jakarta is given 30 days to capture Tee Yai and help the police save face.

The film is a pleasing enough action vehicle, with lots of sights of Thailand from the countryside and mountains to the busy streets of the city (like Bangkok).  Director Nimibutr sits cop vs robber with the cop being cast as the villain and Tee as the hero.

This is a drama/crime action film, with heists, outlaw lifestyle, loyalty, and betrayal. At best, the creation of the Bangkok of the 70s/80s, the underworld, street scenes, and retro style. is impressive.  Director Nimibutr dispenses with the myths and concentrates more on the realistic aspects of the story, such as the emotional conflict between friendship, ambition, love, and moral lines.  The story also reflects a social context: poverty, corruption, the margins of society, and how someone becomes an outlaw in such an environment.

Running a long at almost 2 hours, TEE YAI: BORN TO BE BAD is okay as an escapism action flick with sufficient action set pieces and high jinks.  The film opens for streaming on Netflix this week.

Trailer: 

Details

Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 04 November 2025

Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival 2025

 

The Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival · 2025 lineup features 17 features and 45 shorts from filmmakers across Asia and the diaspora.

 

The festival runs from Nov 5–15 in Toronto, with select films online Nov 10–23.

 

Nov 5 opening film is SPACE CADETS.

Members can grab tickets early, starting now! Public sales open Saturday, Oct 11

 

CAPSULE REVIEWS of Select Films:

 

AKASHI (Canada 2025) ***

Directed by Mayumi Yoshida 

 

Mayumi Yoshida directs, also writing the screenplay and starring as the main character.   Kana is a young girl, the youngest daughter, living in Canada (BC), who travels back to Tokyo, Japan, for her grandmother’s funeral.  Her family teases her, Kana from Kana-da.  The film is a personal and charming tribute to the culture and identity of what it means to be Japanese and Canadian.  Kana’s reflection of life and re-connection to her past, as in the re-connection to her old boyfriend, Hiro, in Japan, all make sense in her visit. The film shows love in different forms, familial love, romantic love, love for one’s country, and so on.  The film is also shot both in black-and-white and in colour to differentiate the past from the present.  A worthy first feature for Yoshida, the film is in both Japanese and English.  (It is a personal film — and it does move with a slow pace that might be too slow for some, as well as too personal to interest others.  Yoshida has stated that the story grew out of a conversation with her grandmother about her grandfather’s “first love” and the nature of their marriage.)

 

BURY US IN A LONE DESERT (Vietnam 2025) **

Directed by Nguyễn Lê Hoàng Phúc

 

Written and directed by Nguyễn Lê Hoàng Phúc, the film begins with a young burglar breaking into the home of an elderly man.  The burglar discovers a plaster statue of the man’s deceased wife.  Instead of turning him in, the old man proposes a strange deal: to take the deceased wife’s remains (within the statue or as part of the ritual) on a journey into the desert so that he can be buried beside her. The burglar and the old man form an unlikely bond and embark on this final trip through a Vietnamese desert landscape.  The action is seen through a circular lens, as if through the iris of an eye, a tactic that feels forced than having any meaningful effect.  Though the film attempts to examine issues like grief, despair, companionship, the reality of the premise makes everything all too unbelievable.   Despite the film’s short running time of just over an hour, the film’s slow pace does not help either.

FINCH & MIDLAND (Canada 2025) ***½

Directed by Timothy Yeung

 

Finch and L+Midland refers to Finch Avenue and Midland Avenue, two roads that intersect in Scarborough in Ontario, Canada, a neighbourhood rich with Hong Kong immigrants.  It is the setting of an anthology of 4 immigrant stories intercut together about middle-aged immigrants trying to make good, if not attaining the Canadian dream.  The characters each face mid-life struggles: a former singer trying to reconnect with his daughter; a woman searching for love while caring for her elderly mother; a single mother working in a massage parlour while studying for a real estate licence; and a factory worker confronted with job loss and shifting identity.  Through simplicity, humour, and charm, the film effectively explores themes of belonging, identity, sacrifice, cultural displacement, and the cost of chasing the “better life” in a new country.  Each story is equally interesting, and Director Yeung connects his audience well with his characters.

SPACE CADETS (Canada 2025) 

Directed by Kid Koala

I have npt seen this opening night film, an animated feature with no dialogue, but word has it that the film is one of the best animated features this year.  The following excerpt is retrieved from TIFF 2025:  Based on acclaimed Canadian musician and deejay Kid Koala’s award-winning graphic novel of the same name, Space Cadet is a dialogue-free animated film that portrays the tender story of a young girl, Celeste, and the first-generation Guardianbot she loves.  Celeste is in an astronaut academy and, while her mom is in space, Robot takes care of her. They form a familial bond. When Celeste grows older and is able to go on her own adventure, she leaves Robot behind. As we see Celeste find samples of life on the planet she’s on, and the joy she gets in outer space, Robot is struggling with loneliness. He revisits all of his memories with Celeste, but his technical systems begin to shut down.

 

Details

Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 22 October 2025

CINEFRANCO 2025