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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 09 July 2025

FILM REVIEWS:

BRICK (Germany 2025) ***

Directed by Philip Koch

 

In the spirit of puzzling escape films like THE PLATFORM and CUBE comes BRICK, a claustrophobic mystery sci-fi thriller with a few other genres like romance and drama thrown in for good measure.  All three films share the common traits of having to supply a satisfactory, or rather, credible explanation to the phenomenon, which might appear believable to some and hokey to others.  Escape is more the key than the explanation.

BRICK stars real-life couple Matthias Schweighöfer as Tim and Ruby O. Fee as Olivia, a couple with a troubled relationship arising from Olivia’s miscarriage. 

Olivia has quit her job and wants to travel and free themselves from work and to start anew.  Tim, however, is still in the process of developing a computer game, trying to meet a deadline and wants to do this escape later.  The next morning, Olivia has packed her bags ready to leave him, but both discover that this is not possible as their entire residence has been walled up by ‘brick’.

One can complain that this film goes nowhere, but this complaint would obviously result from the premise.  But the film brings in other elements and develops the story at a pace that is satisfactory enough to keep tedium from setting in.  The film begins with a look at the couple’s relationship, then the wall occurs, followed by their attempts to find out more about the wall.  The discovery of their neighbours, also trapped, follows, which leads to the interaction, undesired ones with the neighbours.  The reason for BRICK is eventually revealed.  The script also ups the ante with no internet, no water and the neighbours beginning to do bad things.

  The neighbours are discovered when Tim and Ruby break down the walls dividing the apartments (not the ones in front of their windows and door).   These neighbours include:

Ana and Marvin, a drug-using couple

An older man (Mr. Oswalt) and his granddaughter

Yuri, a paranoid conspiracy theorist and former roommate of a programmer named Anton

Anton, who is unseen, discovers that the wall is made of malfunctioning nanotech designed for defence, but he dies trying to unlock it

Nanotechnology is the manipulation of matter with at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometers (nm).  Nanotechnology may be able to create new materials and devices with diverse applications, such as in nanomedicine, nanoelectronics, agricultural sectors, biomaterials, energy production, and consumer products. However, nanotechnology raises issues, including concerns about the toxicity and environmental impact of nanomaterials, and their potential effects on global economics, as well as various doomsday scenarios. These concerns have led to a debate among advocacy groups and governments on whether special regulation of nanotechnology is warranted.  The nanotech used in the film is an intriguing concept.

The reviews of BRICK have been mixed, but given the premise, the film succeeds in generating sufficient mystery with some thrills, while also injecting emotion, often absent in such films, by the introduction of the protagonist couple with relationship problems.  The film is also well paced with sufficient surprises around every corner.

BRICK premieres on Netflix  July 10, 2025.

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MADEA'S DESTINATION WEDDING (USA 2025) ***
Directed by Tyler Perry

MADEA’S DESTINATION WEDDING is the new film in the Madea cinematic universe with Tyler Perry directing, writing, producing, and reprising his role as Mabel "Madea" Simmons as well as playing Joe and Brian Simmons.  Unlike his recent THE SIX TRIPLE EIGHT (214) and STRAW (2025), MADEA’S DESTINATION WEDDING returns Perry to his nonsense Madea, where he appears to be enjoying himself and having great fun making movies.

Madea and family attend Tiffany's rushed destination wedding in the Bahamas. Tensions arise as Tiffany doubts her fiancé, Zavier, and her mother acts strangely, raising suspicions about the marriage's legitimacy.

This is Perry’s comedy nonsense, which usually gets bad reviews from critics, though the film is quite funny - Tyler Perry has a superb sense of humour.  Ignore the distractions from the main storyline, as there are many, as Madea’s family members spend half the time insulting each other and then laughing their heads off.

MADEA’S DESTINATION WEDDING opens for streaming Friday, July 11th, on Netflix.

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PUSH (USA 2024) **
Directed by David Charbonier and Justin Powell

 

Touted as a home invasion horror, PUSH is more of a stalker slasher horror than a home invasion horror.  The entire movie has a killer going after a pregnant realtor.  The trouble with this film is that it lacks a narrative, and it moves at a slow pace.  The first three jump scares (the accident/ the crows in the window and a phone ringing) take a whole 30 minutes to occur - talk about slow burn.  Nothing really happens and all we see is this pregnant lady dressed in white, (to symbolize oriuty?) walking about show home,  A few good horror setups, the best of these involve an the woman’s shoes in an about to fall elevator fail to incite any anticipation or purpose,  Is this a vanity project for the led actress Alicia Sanz who also executively produced this sloth-paced horror film?  Best to watch this a twice the speed, even though the film might still be slow.  The directing duo’s previous two films were much better.

Natalie Flores (Alicia Sanz), a pregnant realtor who is recovering from the devastating loss of her boyfriend. In the early scenes of the film, it is revealed that Natalie came to Northern Michigan from Spain with an American boyfriend, Matt (David Alexander Finn), who was then killed in a car accident. Isolated and cut off from her support network, Natalie is determined to prove to everyone, including herself, that she can make this bad situation work. Natalie’s latest listing is the gorgeous and large Marquez residence, a palatial home (that’s maybe haunted) that she intends to sell despite its ghostly, macabre reputation.

All the elements that make a good narrative and picture are missing.  There is no character development, no plot twists, no story in fact, no audience anticipation or any humour of any kind.  The film is made up of isolated scary set-pieces, many of which are not connected or the story.  The raison d’être for the killer is also absent.

PUSH premiered at the Sitges Film Festival last October and opens on Shudder, the horror streaming service, coming Friday, 11th July.

Trailer: 

ZIAM (Thailand 2025)***
Directed by Kulp Kaljareuk

 

ZIAM is advertised as a zombie movie.

In a fight for survival against a horrifying army of zombies, a former Muay Thai fighter must use skill, speed, and grit to save his girlfriend.

The zombie genre is a well-worn genre that audiences are generally tired of, after zombie films have worn their welcome.  To the credit of the ZIAM filmmakers, they have encompassed other genres into the film.   Most obvious is the inclusion of the action thriller as the protagonist is a Muah Thai fighter.  In fact, the film begins with an action fight set-piece in which the protagonist (unnamed and played by Johnny Anfone) encounters a gang of thugs and fights his way through them.  The zombies only appear in a hospital 20 minutes into the film.  The protagonist is also in love with a doctor in the hospital.  Rin (Nuttanicha Dungwattanawanich) and the fighter arę in love, and she wants him to quit his dangerous job.  One last time, he repeatedly tells her.  In the process of the zombie apocalypse, the fighter rescues a boy in search of his mother in the hospital while he searches for Rin.  A villain is added to the story.  The authorities want to blow up the hospital to prevent infection, a case of million 500 to save 5 million, the population of the city.  (Bangkok actually has a population of 10.8 million, in 2023).

The special effects are good, the action fight scenes passable, and the make-up and gore are all right for a zombie film.

Despite the filmmakers' efforts, there is hardly anything fresh in this film that has not been seen in other action or zombie films.  Every subplot also has a clichéd ending.  Though the film moves fast, many will still feel the tedium of a film trapped in a well-worn genre.

ZIAM opens for streaming on Netflix this week.

Trailer: 

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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 02 July 2025

FILM REVIEWS:

40 ACRES (Canada 2024) ***
Directed by R.T. Thorne

 

Just as the recent hit SINNER plays with Black History and horror, 40 ACRES plays with Black History and the thriller genre.

Young filmgoers would likely not have heard of the term 40 ACRES nor realize the significance of the term.  “40 acres” symbolizes both a moment of hope and a legacy of injustice regarding African Americans' fight for equality, land, and economic independence after slavery.

Origin: After the U.S. Civil War, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman issued Special Field Order No. 15 in January 1865.

What it promised: It allocated 40 acres of land (often confiscated from Confederate landowners) to newly freed Black families in the South.  After President Abraham Lincoln's assassination, President Andrew Johnson reversed this order. The land was returned to white former owners, and Black families were evicted.  This became a lasting symbol of broken promises of racial justice and reparations in the U.S.

The film begins with several sentences explaining the film’s setting.  It is the dystopian future and farmland is scarce, and people will kill for it.  The first segment shows intruders on one such farmland owned by a mismatched family.  From the action sequences, each family member appears to be well trained in the art of killing, whether with the use of weapons or not (in order to save bullets).

Descended from African American farmers who settled in rural Canada after the American Civil War, Hailey (Danielle Deadwyler) lives on her generational farm with her Indigenous partner Galen (Michael Greyeyes) and their blended family of four children.  Thanks to the farm, the family is surviving – and thriving – and Hailey will do anything to safeguard the land against those hell bent on taking it.  Watch your six, shoot first,” she says.  But her son (Kataem O’Connor) jeopardizes their safety when he secretly hides a beautiful young woman (Milcania Diaz-Rojas) on their property. 

The film spends a fair bit of time establishing the family dynamics.  It is a strict regimen with the mother always demanding a “Yes, Ma’am” and the stepfather demanding a “Yes, Sir” response.  Of course, words hardly mean anything when rebellion is clear in the minds of the children.

With regards to production values, the film, being shot in rural Ontario, passes as credible dystopian surroundings.  There are lots of forests and trees to suggest an enclosed and hidden farmland.  But the film strains for the audience to feel sympathetic, less root for this dysfunctional family due largely to the stubbornness of each family member.

The film is Canadian and from Ontario all the way - a good film to watch, especially in the time of Trump’s tariffs.  Support Canadian entertainment.  The film marks the feature debut of Toronto director R.T. Thorne, known for his award-winning work on TV series (The Porter, Utopia Falls).  Thorne co-wrote the script with Glenn Taylor, based on a story by Thorne and Lora Campbell.  A Canadian production produced by Jennifer Holness, the film was shot in Northern Ontario’s Sudbury area – on a stunning farm in a remote location, far from roads, which creates an atmosphere of seclusion. 

40 ACRES opens July 4 across Canada!

Trailer: 

JURASSIC WORLD - REBIRTH (USA 2025) ***
Directed by Gareth Edwards

 

“Objects are closer than they appear”.  The same Jurassic Park joke is used in this latest entry to the franchise, a joke that generated zero laughter in the audience at the promo screening I attended.  This instalment is a tried and tired entry with little to add to the franchise in terms of freshness, unless one wants to count Scarlett Johansson’s involvement.

Johansson’s character is given nothing much to do except to have the character flex her muscles in terms of both brain and brawn.  Again, a strong female slant is inserted into an action-adventure to draw in the females to the target audience.

There is nothing surprising in the storyline with the no-name actors clearly chomped up by the prehistoric creatures early in the film.  The villain of the piece, again a British guy, gets, of course, his comeuppance in the worst way, being bitten and eaten alive by the fiercest of the fiercest predators.

The script attempts to include messages to the audience, such as climate change and the evils of pharmaceutical companies.

The film ends up a blend of action adventure and a bit of horror with a dose of humour added, since not all the events should be taken too seriously.  The action set pieces are ok, some genuine thrills are present, which should be expected, but the entire film, running over two hours, is a tiresome process, indicating clearly that the filmmakers have run out of ideas.

JURASSIC WORLD - REBIRTH runs a huge tab of $180 million in production costs, which Universal hopes to recover with some profit, with an opening on the July 4th U.S. Independence Day long weekend.

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THE OLD GUARD 2 (USA 2025) **
Directed by Victoria Mahoney

 

THE OLD GUARD, made in 2020, had a troubled production with rewrites and a fired and rehired writer, but the film eventually enthralled audiences.  THE OLD GUARD is led by Andy (Charlize Theron), who, with her group of immortals, saves the world.  Ridiculous as it sounds, it is based on a comic book.

In OLD GUARD 2, Andy struggles to live out her life after losing her immortality, until she and her team—Nile, Joe, Nicky, and Copley—are drawn out of hiding when two powerful new adversaries emerge who threaten the world.  Quỳnh (Vân Veronica Ngô), once a trusted comrade. After enduring centuries trapped underwater, drowning and reviving in isolation, she resurfaces with a burning vendetta against Andy for her perceived abandonment.  Discord (Uma Thurman), revealed to be the world’s first immortal. Backed by Discord, Quỳnh channels her rage in a bid for revenge. Meanwhile, the group enlists Tuah (Henry Golding), a sage-like immortal with deep knowledge of their origins, to help confront these existential threats.

During the escalating conflict, a major turning point occurs when Booker (Matthias Schoenaerts), in an act of sacrifice, transfers his immortality to Andy, regaining her regenerative ability at the cost of his own.

The action set pieces are well shot, but the film is a complete mess in terms of narrative and logic.  No one even cares about these immortals or mortals, especially when they switch from one to another.  Enough already!

The film has a cliffhanger ending, prompting a sequel.

THE OLD GUARD 2 opens for streaming this week on Netflix.

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SHARK WHISPERER (USA 2025) ***
Directed by Juan Oliphant

 

A whisperer is a person skilled in taming or training a specified kind of animal, typically using body language and gentle vocal encouragement rather than physical contact.  So, a shark whisperer is one related to sharks.

The SHARK WHISPERER in the doc is Ocean Ramsey, an ethologist, conservationist, author, filmmaker, and model.   She operates One Ocean Diving, LLC, a company based in Hawaii that facilitates dives with marine life.  The doc follows her as she gains international media attention for free diving with sharks, including great white sharks, to raise awareness about shark conservation and promote her business. Ramsey is based in Hawaii, and has dived with 47 species of sharks around the world as of 2019.  While she has been praised for raising awareness of the species, she has been criticized for her actions in the footage. 

The film is directed by Juan Oliphant and written by Ocean Ramsey.  In real life, they are husband and wife.

As one watches SHARK WHISPERER, it would be grand to pay respects to a Toronto-born shark activist who spent his life saving the species while drowning in the process.  This is 

Rob Stewart (December 28, 1979 – January 31, 2017), a Canadian photographer, filmmaker and shark conservationist. He was best known for making and directing the documentary films Sharkwater and Revolution. He drowned at the age of 37 while scuba diving in Florida, filming Sharkwater Extinction.  Stewart has also dived with sharks around the world, as can be seen in his documentaries.

SHARK WHISPERER begins with a diver swimming beside sharks.  Then a shark advances.  The scene is similar to SHARKWATER, where Rob Stewart also swims among sharks.  Both celebrities prove that humans should have no fear of sharks.  “There is something so magnetic about sharks.  And that is what I am here for.  It gives my life meaning and purpose.” These are the words of Ocean Ramsey.

One of the main species of shark featured is the tiger shark, a solitary, mostly nocturnal hunter. It is notable for having the widest food spectrum of all sharks, with a range of prey that includes crustaceans, fish, seals, birds, squid, turtles, sea snakes, dolphins, and others, even smaller sharks. It also has a reputation as a "garbage eater", consuming a variety of inedible, man-made objects that linger in its stomach. Tiger sharks have only one recorded natural predator, the orca.  It is considered a near-threatened species because of finning and fishing by humans. This doc shows that the tiger shark is second only to the great white in recorded fatal attacks on humans, but these events are still exceedingly rare.

The doc also extends the story with a little bit of romance, one between Ocean and Juan.  But with the good intentions of the husband and wife team, other shark experts interviewed warn of he dangers of the message proposed.  ‘There is nothing to be afraid of sharks,” is the obvious message.  But not everyone can be in synch with sharks like Ocean.  And there is an accident waiting to happen. The doc does not shy away from one of these, on a surfer, Colin Cook.

SHARK WHISPERER is an insightful, educational and occasionally uplifting film on sharks, covering both sides of Ocean Ramsey’s story.  The doc should be seen with Rob Stewart’s SHARKWATER for the message these two films out forward.

SHARK WHISPERER opens for streaming on Netflix this week on Friday, June 30th.

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SORRY, BABY (USA 2025) ***
Directed by Eva Victor

 

SORRY, BABY is an indie picture written, directed and starring Eva Victor.  The story follows  college professor, Agnes (Eva Victor), trying to recover from a sexual assault with the aid of her best friend,

The film unfolds in non-linear “chapters” spanning several years, beginning with “The Year With the Baby”, as her friend Lydie (Naomi Ackie) returns to announce her pregnancy, before shifting to “The Year With the Bad Thing”.

It sensitively portrays trauma and the gradual, messy process of healing, focusing not on the assault itself but on life after it.

The film has an indie film feel like a Greta Gerwig film, think LADYBIRD (2017), also because indie actor Lukas Hedges is also in tit.  In this film, Hedges plays Ange’s occasional romantic interest.

SORRY BABY is billed as a dark comedy.  Dark it is and a comedy it is, though the jokes are not really funny enough.  When a comedic script fails to generate laughs, one can usually blame the director for his or her lack of a sense of humour, as comedy means timing, and a director needs to know how comedy timing works.  Still, this indie film feels like one and has a certain freshness to it, making it likeable and entertaining, satisfactory.

The film is produced by Barry Jenkins and distributed by A24, a company known for its knack for picking good indie films.  It premiered at Sundance and is now rolling out in theatres this week.

Trailer: 

Details

Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 21 June 2025

FILM REVIEWS:

F1 (USA 2025) ***½

Directed by Joseph Kosinski

 

F1 (marketed as F1 the Movie) is a 2025 American sports drama film directed by Joseph Kosinski with a screenplay written by Ehren Kruger, from a story the two developed. It is based on the Formula One World Championship, created in collaboration with the FIA, its governing body. 

It is best to know a bit about what Formula One means in racing in order to appreciate the pains the filmmakers have researched and gone into the making of their film F1.  Formula One (F1) is the highest class of worldwide racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The FIA Formula One World Championship has been one of the world's premier forms of motorsport since its inaugural running in 1950 and is often considered to be the pinnacle of motorsport. The word formula in the name refers to the set of rules all participant cars must follow. A Formula One season consists of a series of races, known as Grands Prix. Grands Prix take place in multiple countries and continents on either purpose-built circuits or closed roads.  A points scoring system is used at Grand Prix to determine two annual World Championships: one for the drivers, and one for the constructors, now synonymous with teams. Each driver must hold a valid Super Licence, the highest class of racing licence the FIA issues, and the races must be held on Grade One tracks, the highest grade rating the FIA issues for tracks.  Oscar Winner Brad Pitt plays one such high-profile driver, a maverick with attitude, but one super good, including possessing experience and baggage in the field.  F1 effectively blends human drama and racing excitement in a film that impresses.

Sonny Hayes (Pitt), a Formula One driver who raced in the 1990s, had a severe crash that forced him to retire from Formula One and start racing in other disciplines while working as a taxi driver.  A Formula One team owner and friend, Ruben (Javier Bardem), contacts Hayes and asks him to come out of retirement to mentor rookie prodigy Joshua "Noah" Pearce (Damson Idris) for the Apex Grand Prix team.

Director Joseph Kosinski is no stranger to the action film genre, with box-office hits like TWISTERS, TRON LEGACY and TOP GUN: MAVERICK in his resume.  Kosiski knows how to up the ante in audience excitement.  The sound mixing is evidence of the fact.  Some layers can be heard on the soundtrack.  Amidst the action, there is thundering music, race announcements and dialogue all mixed together instead of just a one-layered soundtrack.  The music is by Hans Zimmer.

F1 premiered on June 16, 2025, at the Radio City Music Hall in New York City, and is scheduled to be released in the United States on June 27, during the weekend of the Austrian Grand Prix.  F1 is a solid action piece for adults, not geared to teens or kids.  The film, actually an excellent film, has so far received positive reviews from critics.

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FAMILIAR TOUCH (USA 2024) ***
Directed by Sarah Friedland

 

FAMILIAR TOUCH is a very sad real-life drama that everyone can relate to.  It is about Ruth (Kathleen Chalfant), an octogenarian woman, as she transitions to life in assisted living, contending with her relationship to herself and her caregivers while dealing with cognitive decline.  Almost everyone has a parent or at least knows of one who is ageing and suffering from some form of dementia like Alzheimer’s.   This coming-of-age drama centres on Ruth.

The film begins as the audience sees Ruth preparing a delicate breakfast, obviously for herself and someone special.  She snips off fresh herbs from her potted plant to add that little extra to that breakfast.  What seems to be her date, as she perceives, turns out to be her son instead, as Ruth cannot fully remember the person.  Her son has arranged for his mother to settle in a retirement home, which she had agreed upon, and obviously has forgotten.

Feeling adrift among fellow residents, Ruth gradually connects emotionally with care workers Vanessa (Carolyn Michelle Smith) and Brian (Andy McQueen). Through gentle interactions—hand‑grounding, cooking, and supportive listening—she regains a sense of embodiment and selfhood, even as memory fades

At this point in the film, the audience also pities the son, as his hands are tied and he needs his mother to be cared for, even though he cannot do the task.  And Ruth is not helping either, either from not remembering, not due to her fault, but also due to her stubbornness, which is due to her fault.  The film moves at a slow pace, but the emotions are real and actress Chalfont is marvellous as Ruth.

Though the film still falls into cliched territory,  the story can still feel familiar.  In the segment in which a caregiver in the facility first attends to Ruth, one can tell the two are going to bond, especially when the caregiver is struggling with her life as well.  As Ruth used to work as a chef before her dementia, one can tell she is going to show her stuff in the nursing home’s kitchen.  Thus, one can predict how the general story or each segment will unfold. It takes no genius to figure this out, a point that might create some impatience for some audience in what can be described as a slow-burning drama.

FAMILIAR TOUCH treads too much into familiar territory, having been seen many times before in films focusing on dementia or old age.   However, the director’s slow pace, allowing the audience to observe Ruth’s every moment, turns out to be surprisingly effective.  The film is aided by Kathleen Chalfant’s moving performance as Ruth,

FAMILIAR TOUCH had its world premiere at the 81st Venice International Film Festival on September 3, 2024, where it won the Lion of the Future, and the Orizzonti section Best Director and Best Actress prizes.  It is scheduled to be released on June 20, 2025, by Music Box Films in the United States.  It begins its run in Toronto on the 27th of June at the Bell Lightbox.

Trailer: 

I’M YOUR VENUS (USA 2024) ***
Directed by Kimberly Reed

 

I'm Your Venus is a 2024 feature documentary directed by Kimberly Reed that revisits the life, legacy, and unresolved death of Venus Xtravaganza, the young trans icon immortalized in the landmark 1990 film Paris Is Burning.

I’M YOUR VENUS is set in the New York ballroom scene. For those unfamiliar, in the mid-20th century, as a response to racism in integrated drag spaces, the balls evolved into house ballroom, where Black and Latino attendees could "walk" in a variety of categories for trophies and cash prizes.  Most participants in ballroom belong to groups known as "houses", where chosen families of friends form relationships and communities separate from their families of origin, from which they may be estranged.  The culture was made famous worldwide by the documentary IS PARIS BURNING?

Paris Is Burning is a 1990 American documentary film directed by Jennie Livingston.  Filmed in the mid-to-late 1980s, it chronicles the ball culture of New York City and the African-American, Latino, gay, and transgender communities involved in it.  The film is an invaluable documentary of the end of the "Golden Age" of New York City drag balls, and a thoughtful exploration of race, class, gender, and sexuality in America.  In 2016, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

The film covers Venus Xtravaganza’s story: Born Venus Pellagatti (May 5, 1965), she emerged as a rising star in New York’s ballroom scene—particularly the House of Xtravaganza—before being tragically murdered at age 23 in December 1988 in a still-unsolved case

Venus has two families - her biological family and her ballroom ‘house’ families. Venus’s three biological brothers—John, Joe, and Louie Pellagatti—grapple with memories, unearth NYPD files, and pursue a posthumous name change for her.  Chosen family from the ballroom: Members of the House of Xtravaganza, including current House Mother Gisele Alicea, collaborate with the brothers, forming a bridge between “biological” and “chosen” families to honour Venus’s memory and advocate for her legacy.

Like the film IS PARIOS BURNING?, I'M YOUR VENUS provides much education and insight into ball, drag and trans culture.

Despite the filmmakers’ good intentions and hard efforts, there is not much that can be obtained about the murder after summary years have passed.  One cannot get blood from stone, as they say.  Director Reed elicits as much drama as she can from the meeting of the lare Venus’ two families when they meet.  This segment's current House Mother, Gisele Alicea, collaborates with the brothers, forming a bridge between “biological” and “chosen” families to honour Venus’s memory and advocate for her legacy.   The film works best with the film’s blending of archive footage with current interviews on trans rights.

I’M YOUR VENUS premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2024, followed by screenings at BFI London, Hamptons, and various other festivals.  The film opens on Netflix on June 23, 2025 (premiering in Toronto on Netflix), just in time for Pride Celebrations,

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M3GAN 2.0 (USA 2025) **
Directed by Gerard Johnstone

 

M3GAN 2.0 (pronounced "Megan 2.0") is a 2025 American science fiction action film written and directed by Gerard Johnstone from a story by Johnstone and Akela Cooper.  This is a sequel to M3GAN (2022), the plot follows M3GAN (model 3 generative android) being rebuilt to combat a humanoid military robot built using M3GAN's technology that is attempting an AI takeover.  Unlike the first film, the sequel plays more like an action film.  The sequel, unlike the original, which is a horror flick, swaps the original’s horror-comedy for a globe-straddling action-thriller, complete with spycraft vibes, “James Bond 007”-style sets, chase sequences, and AI warfare.

Two years after the events of M3GAN, Gemma (Allison Williams) has become an author and an advocate for the regulation of artificial intelligence while trapping a still-active M3GAN in a small, harmless robotic doll.  However, M3GAN's technology has been stolen and used by a defence contractor to create a military robot called AMELIA (autonomous military engagement logistics and infiltration android), who becomes self-aware, turns on her creators, and attempts an AI takeover.  Facing imminent destruction, Gemma's niece Cady (Violet McGraw) convinces her to rebuild M3GAN with advanced upgrades so she can fight AMELIA.

It is difficult to get excited to see two robots (M3GAN vs. AMELIA, i.e.doll vs. doll) battling each other in the climax and then have one blow up to save the world, thus resulting in an anti-climax.

M3GAN 2.0 attempts to delve deeper into ethical questions about artificial intelligence, the potential dangers of unchecked tech, and whether machines can ever truly be controlled—or empathic, though not always credibly, as it is obvious as it can be seen that the script is trying too hard.

Given the outrageous and generally difficult to follow plot (I bet the target audience for the film never expected to have to sift through all the plot details, which are many), one must give credit to the filmmakers and actors for giving 100% to the project as can be observed while viewing the film.  The actors try hard as if their lives depend on it, and the script goes all out in trying to explain every detail, leaving no stone unturned.  The action set sequences involving fights are also well done and well thought through.  Pity that everything turns out silly at the very end.

M3GAN 2.0 opens in theatres this weekend.

Trailer: 

 

SWEET RELIEF (USA 2023) ***1/2

Directed by Nick Verdi

 

"Sweet relief" describes a feeling of deep comfort and ease, often after a period of hardship, worry, or pain. It signifies a positive emotional change, a release from a burden or unpleasant situation. The phrase is often used to express happiness or contentment when something difficult or undesirable ends.  The film is titled such because it embodies this feeling, which is felt throughout the film, though not always in a good way, according to director Nick Verdi.

SWEET RELIEF has been described as a mumblegore film.  Mumblecore is a film style known for: low-budget production; naturalistic, often improvised dialogue; and focus on personal relationships and everyday life with young, usually middle-class characters

Gore refers to:

Graphic violence, blood, and bodily horror

So mumblegore refers to indie horror films that focus on character-driven, naturalistic storytelling, which features sudden or intense bursts of violence or horror, often with an intimate, eerie, or unsettling tone.

All the above describe the slow-burning psychological horror film  SWEET RELIEF.

The setting is a small New England town.  Parents and teachers in the town are in a panic over kids playing Sweet Relief, an online murder challenge in which the player must nominate someone they'd like to see die.  Three teenagers play the game as a joke, unaware of the dire consequences awaiting them.  The film begins with the three teens conversing about whom they want to see die.  This is followed by a segment of a teen giving information to a cop, the teen wanting to be an investigative reporter when he grows up.

SWEET RELIEF is intriguing for the reason of its original storylines and how these are intertwined.

Firstly, there is the Viral Murder Game: Three teen girls innocently participate in an online “Sweet Relief” challenge—naming people they'd like to see die. But the game’s sinister rule haunts them: fail to follow through, and “Sweet Angel,” a masked killer, targets them.  Secondly, there is the Adult Horror Threads: Parallel to the teens' storyline, with Jess and Nathan, young adults grappling with familial tension and boredom.   Jess encounters the

Nick Verdi, a Massachusetts-based indie film director and writer, has proven himself a force to be reckoned with, with SWEET RELIEF after directing Cockazoid (2021–22).  Here

His work explores common threads of the darker aspects of suburban life and teenage fears.

SWEET RELIEF has had a successful festival run and has screened at Chattanooga Film Festival, Philadelphia Unnamed Film Festival (PUFF), Another Hole in the Head, and Salem Horror Fest, among others and will have a one-week theatrical run at Laemmle Encino Town Center.  SWEET RELIEF will be available on premium VOD exclusively on Eventive, before a wider VOD release on June 27th.  The film (which has a Todd Solondz feel) is indeed worth a look for its stylish horror, blending of different storylines culminating in violent horror and quaint small town setting of annoying losers trying to prove themselves better than they think they can.

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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 13 June 2025

FILM REVIEWS:

28 YEARS LATER (UK 2025) ****
Directed by Danny Boyle

 

Scots Danny Boyle has proven a tremendous force in films with critically acclaimed and box office hits like SHALLOW GRAVE, TRAINSPOTTING, THE BEACH,  28 DAYS LATER and SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE.  His latest zombie dystopian gore flick, 28 YEARS LATER the third in the series and the second sequel to 28 DAYS LATER (with a sequel already in the making, shot back to back with this film), is already garnering rave reviews.

28 YEARS LATER is an extremely intense, well-shot horror zombie film that combines emotional drama in the coming-of-age experience of a 12-year-old boy as he tries to save his ill mother despite the zombie apocalypse.

The film begins with a very scary incident, the introduction of the film, which sets the tone that this is a different zombie movie - one is is genuinely scary with human elements at the core of the plot.  During the initial outbreak of the Rage virus, a young boy named Jimmy is attacked in the Scottish Highlands by his infected family. Running to a nearby church, Jimmy pleads with his father to help him escape. His father gives Jimmy a crucifix necklace before being overwhelmed by the infected, allowing Jimmy to escape.

The film gets its audience quickly, with words splashed on the screen up-to-date with the current setting.  Twenty-eight years later, Great Britain has been placed under quarantine and cut off from the rest of the world. One community of survivors lives on Lindisfarne Island, a safe zone separated from the mainland by a single heavily defended tidal causeway. Among them are Jamie, a scavenger, his wife Isla, and their 12-year-old son Spike (Alfie Williams). Isla (Jodie Comer) is afflicted with memory loss, confusion, frequent headaches, and nosebleeds—the cause of which is unknown.  As part of Spike's coming-of-age initiation, he and his father journey to the mainland to hunt the infected. They soon encounter an Alpha, an infected individual that has evolved to be larger and smarter than the others, and take refuge in an abandoned cottage. While staying the night, they observe a distant bonfire.

Cillian Murphy is clearly missing in this film, but newcomer and young kid Alfie Williams is quite the scene-stealer.    Williams gets the audience to feel for his demise and his love for his mother and despise for his womanizing father is totally believable in the story.

Shades of Boyle’s previous hits can be noticed in this film, like the colonies formed as in THE BEACH, the hectic communities as in SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE and the crazed drug-like mayhem of TRAINSPOTTING,

There are a few laugh-out-loud parts in the otherwise grim and scary film.  The best of these is when Eric, a swede survivor, shows Spike a picture of his girlfriend, who can be seen who have undergone plastic surgery, which is not mentioned.  Spike remarks that she must have been allergic to shellfish, judging from the plastic surgery lips.

The only complaint is the upended final segment, which makes total sense, though Boyle and his crew can be forgiven for this part after a terrifying otherwise film experience.

28 years later opens in theatres June 20th with a sequel, though not directed by Boyle already made back-to-back with this one.

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ASH (USA 2025) **
Directed by  Flying Lotus (Steven Ellison)

 

ASH is a 2025 horror sci-fi space modern thriller.   ASH is directed by Flying Lotus (aka Steven Ellison), written by Jonni Remmler, starring Eiza González (as Riya) and Aaron Paul (as Brion) .

Riya regains consciousness aboard a space station on the eponymous planet Ash (from which the film is titled) surrounded by the bodies of her dead crewmates—but she cannot remember what had happened.

A man named Brion arrives, who Riya almost stabs (false scares), claiming to be her rescuer.  But as she battles amnesia and terrifying flashbacks,  Riya must decide whether he can be trusted—and whether she played a hand in the massacre.

The film plays like a psychological puzzle: part mystery, part body‑horror survival, heavily inspired by video games like Dead Space, Resident Evil, and films like Alien and The Thing.

But ASH is nothing that audiences have not heard or seen before - all of what transpires comes from the many such films in the genre.

Take, for example, the film’s dialogue: System failure!  Reboot!  Stand by!  Abnormal activity detected. Oxygen level compromised.  These are words heard on the soundtrack of ASH.  These are standard words heard only too often, clichéd in countless space movies, even in TV series like STAR TREK and LOST IN SPACE.

The film also contains flashing lights that can be annoying that hardly reveal what is in the films’ frame, and odd sounds that no-one can decipher where or what they are - all of which could be described as stylish or confusing.  There are also too many similar nightmare sequences combined with jump scares.

Nothing much happens in this slow burn of a horror mystery space thriller which suffers mainly from a weak narrative and stylized visuals that  make matters all the more confusing.  At the time of writing, ASH has 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but it is best to take this rating with a grain of salt.

The best thing about the film is an imagining of what space exploration on another planet is like.  Perhaps in the future, when spacecraft take humans to other planets, the same atmosphere could be experienced.  The film also shows that with beauty comes the accompanying dangers.

The film’s second half turns into a bit of psychological thriller.  Is Riya losing her memory or can she trust herself?  She has already lost some of her memory and she gets flashbacks of what had happened to hr crew.  She is also faced with he dilemma of whether to abort the mission or to continue it for the sake of mankind.

The film is to be credited with some stunning visual effects, both the exterior of he spaceship as well as the interiors shot largely in red.  The soundtrack features a pounding and occasional plunking piano score.  Special effects remind one of ALIEN and THE THING.

It is good to note that the director claims that his film is made for gamers.

ASH opens for streaming on Shudder, the horror streaming service June 16th.

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LES BARBARES (MEET THE BARBARIANS) (France 2024) ****

Directed by Julie Delpy

 

Actress Julie Delpy (star of films by Godard, Kieslowski and Linklater) directs her own film, proving herself totally apt and a force to be reckoned with.  She centres her sights on comedy with a message with a film that matters that she delivers in style with lots of hilarity, drama and a bit of satire.  The story is set in Paimpont, a small town in France, preparing to welcome a Ukrainian refugee family and is surprised when a Syrian family shows up instead.  Every town has its patriots, loyalists and racists, all of whom show their influence on the Syrian family, but that is not perfect as well.  Delpy shows the good and bad of both sides with a touching romance between the young Syrian teen in the family and a local French boy to bridge the gap of racism.  It might be too obvious, but the ploy works.  And the town actually exists.  Paimpont sits nestled in Brittany, content with its centuries-old heritage, its crêpes (the Brittany people cook everything with lots of butter, which is also incorporated in the script), and its flattering self-image—a marvellous surprise from Delpy.

  In LES BARBARES, director Delpy balances the comedy and drama of the film very well.  The comedy and drama both derive from the cultural differences of France and Syria.  Both are also accomplished in segments, well put together, as in the best one, where the two Syrian children go to the French school for their very first time.  They meet the white kids, one of whom says: ‘Do not look them in he eye,' as all of them face downwards and the Syrian girl and her younger brother arrive.   The drama is largely derived from the family searching and waiting for news of their missing brother, Farid.

I have seen the film twice, initially when it premiered at TIFF and again currently when it got a commercial release.  The film was entirely enjoyable at TIFF, especially when watching a comedy for a change during a week when I watch 5 films a day.  I did not find the film that funny the second time, though the film still managed to elicit quite a few laugh-out-loud laughs from me.

A few good jokes here, especially with the village receiving information that they are getting a Syrian instead of a Ukrainian family.  “I already learn to make borscht,” says one.   Ukrainians are high on the refugee list, and they ran out of Ukrainians.

And what does the Syrian family and the French village talk about?  “Isn’t it not too cold here?”  the Syrians are asked, who then say to each other: “All they do is ask about the weather.”

But the film’s best is the segment in which Mdm. Joelle’s class of students each talks about what racism is to them.  ‘Leading to suicide from non-confidence, fear of the unknown, hatred of people who are different, etc.’ are a few of the responses.

MEET THE BARBARES is a funny and entertaining French comedy, the best of what commercial French films have to offer, while delivering a powerful message about refugees and living together in harmony in a light and effective way.

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ELIO (USA 20225) **
Directed by Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi and Adrian Molina

 

 

For centuries, people have called out to the universe looking for answers—in Disney and Pixar's all-new feature film ELIO, the universe calls back! Elio is a young boy whose parents recently passed away in a car accident. Orphaned, Elio is being put under the care of his Aunt Olga, a military woman with little experience raising kids. Elio is not that helpful as he is depressed, obviously missing his parents deeply.

Naive Elio believes in a multiverse, that there is another life, and that perhaps his parents are there. He wishes to be abducted to meet other forms of life.

ELIO is the cosmic misadventure that introduces Elio, a space fanatic with an active imagination and a huge alien obsession.  So, when he's beamed up to the Communiverse, an interplanetary organisation with representatives from galaxies far and wide, Elio's all in for the epic undertaking. Mistakenly identified as Earth's leader, Elio must form new bonds with eccentric alien lifeforms, navigate a crisis of intergalactic proportions, and somehow discover who and where he is truly meant to be.

As in all Pixar and Disney Studios animated features, the animation is top-notch notch with many of the films winning Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature.  For ELIO, the animation is done with psychedelic colours to represent alien worlds, just as Elio would imagine a trio out of this world.

ELIO follows Disney’s formulaic procedure of making films.  There is the lonely boy who finds satisfaction and saves the world, in this case, an alien world, in the process.  He makes new friends.  The creatures-ninths case, the work like aliens are all super cutely animated, the aliens replacing animals..  The adults do everything for the kids, as Aunt Olga does everything for Elio.  Elio gets to save the day.   A successful formula works and why change a formula that works well?  For one variety.  ELIO is terribly boring in its storytelling, and this critic is having a really difficult time staying awake.  Unlike the TOY STORY Pixar franchise, which is very inventive with humour catered towards the adults, ELIO is more for younger kids.   There is hardly anything humorous to laugh at.  Needless to say, children should enjoy the film more than adults.

But one thing that can be criticized is Elio’s behaviour.  Though one can understand the trauma poor Elio is going through, Elio behaves largely as a spoiled kid who does everything nd anything he wants.  He refuses to eat and hides underneath the table.  He gives his poor Aunt Olga a hard time.  He escapes from home and hopes to be abducted by aliens.  This is one spoilt kid if there was ever one.  A kid who does not appreciate what Aunt Olga had sacrificed for him.  He also mistreats his friends, who end up bullying him.  A well-deserved bullying.  But the film calls for the three of them to finally become friends to save the alien world.  Cliched territory once again, as seen in many films such as MA VIE EN COURGETTE.

ELIO opens in shares on June 20th.

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EYE FOR AN EYE (USA 2024) ***
Directed by Colin Tilley

 

The film EYE FOR AN EYE is about punishment and revenge.  The term originates from the Old Testament.  Exodus 21:24 – "eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot." The principle behind "eye for an eye" is lex talionis, or the law of retaliation. The idea is that the punishment should fit the crime in a directly reciprocal manner — if someone caused the loss of an eye, the perpetrator would also lose an eye.

The film begins with a cheerleader doing an excellent choreographed routine (Director of he film, Tilley, is a music video director) before she falls to her death, breaking bones in the process.  It turns out to be a nightmare, but what happens after is much worse.  The film then moves forward to the Present Day.

The story follows Anna (Whitney Peak), grieving the sudden death of her parents.  Anna relocates from New York to a small Florida town to live with her grandmother (S. Epatha Merkerson), whom she’s never met.  Isolated and in unfamiliar surroundings, she falls in with a couple of local teens (Finn Bennett and Laken Giles), but when she becomes a bystander to an unforgivable act of violence, she finds herself ensnared by Mr. Sandman – the twisted soul of a tormented child, Vincent who haunts bullies’ dreams before feasting on their eyeballs when they finally wake.

The script by Elisa Victoria and Michael Tully contains some scary dialogue.  Patty tells the bullied boy who had his arm was broken by Sean, a bully.  ‘What I tell you stays between the two of us.   There is something you can do.  But you would’ve got to go through with it.”  

The boy is about to hear about Mr. Sandman.  The character inspired by the classic folklore figure who puts people to sleep, Mr. Sandman, is a twisted horror reimagining in a horror film.

Mr. Sandman operates thus:

He targets bullies or those who’ve committed violent acts.

He also punishes bystanders who fail to speak up, like the main character Anna.

Victims wake up blind, their eyeballs removed, sometimes left alive but traumatized.

Horror films have monsters or predators and victims.  Usually, the victims are innocent bystanders or good heroes or heroines, but seldom bad people like bullies.  In EYE FOR AN EYE, the victims are bullies, so what befalls them, no matter how violent, is somewhat deserved, and the audience would have no qualms about not feeling sorry for them, despite some quite gory violence.  But the script also calls for the predator, Mr. Sandman to target Anna, a bystander who is a bystander who says nothing when witnessing a bad bullying deed.

EYE FOR AN EYE is a fast-moving horror feature with interesting enough characters for the audience to like or hate.  Gore and violence add to the ‘entertainment’ in what might be deemed a satisfactory excursion for horror fans.

The script is adapted from Victoria’s graphic novel called “Mr. Sandman.  The director, Colin Tilley, is an acclaimed video director.  Colin Tilley is an American filmmaker, music video director, and television commercial director. Tilley is the CEO and owner of Boy in the Castle Productions. He has directed more than 300 music videos.)

EYE FOR AN EYE opens June 20th in select theatres and on Demand.

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GRENFELL UNCOVERED (UK 2025) ***

Directed by Olaide Sadiq

 

GRENFELL UNCOVERED is a new documentary that reveals decisions by officials and companies before the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire that made it preventable. Survivors, families, and firefighters share their accounts of the tragedy that took 72 lives.

There are two key elements that make this doc stand out.  One is that it is a disaster and disaster films are always a hit with film audiences, all the more if the disaster is a real-life one, like the Titanic or the Titan.  The other element is a cover-up story, which makes the doc feel like a true crime drama, which in a way it is.  As an additional fact that the action takes place in London and what audiences will have is a sure winner.

First of all, a bit about the Grenfell building: Grenfell Tower was part of the Lancaster West Estate, a council housing complex in North Kensington. The 24-storey tower block was designed in 1967 by Clifford Wearden and Associates, and the Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council approved its construction in 1970.  The building contained 120 one-bedroom and two-bedroom flats.  The upper 20 (of 24) storeys were residential floors, with each having a communal lobby and six dwellings, with ten bedrooms among them.  The lower four storeys were originally used for non-residential purposes.[note 2] Later, two lower floors were converted to residential use, bringing the total to 129 apartments, housing up to 600 people.

The next thing to note is the tower fire.  It was the deadliest structural fire in the United Kingdom since the 1988 Piper Alpha oil-platform disaster and the worst UK residential fire since the Blitz of World War II.  The fire was started by an electrical fault in a refrigerator on the fourth floor.[note 1] As Grenfell was an existing building originally built in concrete to varying tolerances, gaps around window openings following window installation were irregular and these were filled with combustible foam insulation to maintain air-tightness by contractors.  The Grenfell Tower Inquiry began on 14 September 2017 to investigate the causes of the fire and other related issues. Findings from the first report of the inquiry were released in October 2019 and addressed the events of the night. It affirmed that the building's exterior did not comply with regulations and was the central reason why the fire spread, and that the fire service was too late in advising residents to evacuate.

As late as 26 February this year (2025), seven organisations are under investigation for professional misconduct.

GRENFELL UNCOVERED is an insightful and absorbing doc that opens both in the U.K. and on Netflix this week on Fridayn20th of June 2025.

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HIS FATHER’S SON (Canada 2025) ***
Directed by Meelad Moaphi

 

HIS FATHER’S SON is yet another Iranian film set in a Canadian city since the touted  UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE set in Winnipeg won accolades, including the Toronto Film Critics Association's much-coveted Best Canadian Feature Award.   HIS FATHER’S SON follows an Iranian family living together, two brothers with their parents in Toronto, while the sons figure out their career paths to success.   The film has already won two awards at the 2024 Toronto Reel Asian Film Festival (Audience Choice/Feature and Directors Guild of Canada’s Best Director/Feature).  In case one is wondering if Iran is in Asia, it is.  Iran is in West Asia.

It does not take a Thanksgiving or wedding, or Christmas (as shown in too many awful Hollywood films of the genre) gathering to bring out family dysfunction.  This film proves that family dysfunction is always present and can be tackled at any time.  The catalyst of the quarrel is the dismantling of immigrant families over the surfacing of truths that were never resolved constructively.   According to the director: “Mine was one of them.”

The film is set in Toronto, and shot mostly in downtown Toronto, including La Banane, 

which stands in for the restaurant where the protagonist, Amir, works.  Chef Amir (a charismatic Alireza Shojaei) works at a French-cuisine restaurant that presents a few challenges, like the customer who wants coq au vin without wine.   For argument's sake, De-alcoholized wine is a type of regular wine that has had most or all of its alcohol removed.  One may receive many of the same health benefits of regular red wine when one chooses dealcoholized varieties, of which there are more than 300+ varieties.   Amir aims to up his profile through social media, although he can’t seem to meet either his own expectations or those of his parents (Gus Tayari, Mitra Lohrasb), especially his father, who wonders: Why doesn’t Amir cook Persian dishes?  Meanwhile, Amir’s younger, Canadian-born brother Mahyar (Parham Rownaghi) seems to cruise through life effortlessly. 

The film is more serious than comedic drama, though the dialogue can be considered to be light rather than heavy.  The film is, as a result, an easy watch without too many feel-bad feelings.

The film is noticeably quite scarce in terms of objects or people in the frames.  The use of extras is at a minimum.  For example, at the father’s clothes store where he works, there are no other visible customers in the store when the son visits to buy a shirt.  Or in a drive to Niagara, there are no other cars on the road.

This otherwise quiet, moving, and insightful film effectively communicates the message: It takes sensitivity, love, and tolerance for a family to stay together. And if there is an argument, one must give in, though both may be at fault.

The film is in English with some Farsi with English subtitles.
HIS FATHER’S SON opens June 20 in Toronto and June 27 in Vancouver, with Q&As following these shows:

Scotiabank – 259 Richmond St. West

Friday – June 20 – 8:05 pm

Saturday – June 21 – 5:50 pm

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SEMI-SOUTER (South Africa 2025) **
Directed by Joshua Rous

 

SEMI-SOUTER is the much-anticipated sequel to the beloved 2012 Afrikaans film Semi-Soet.

Written by Sandra Vaughn, Anel Alexander and Zandré Coetzer and directed by Joshua Rous, SEMI-SOUTER is a South African comedy showman Afrikana about a power couple. Power couple Jaci and JP find themselves in a bumpy predicament when a new work pitch for a baby brand forces them to play the perfect pretend parents.

Jaci (Anel Alexander) and JP (Nico Panagio) are back – this time as a high-flying married couple who previously vowed to remain child-free.  In the original. The couple pretended to be married but ended up falling in love and getting married.  In this sequel, they pretend to be baby parents in order to secure a huge account.

 

Director Rous and the actors try to be funny, but they are more all over the place with unfunny attempts than anything else.  The film, obviously aiming at situational humor, family chaos, and warm moments, does not deliver the familiar charm it intended. The only redeeming quality of the film is the fumbling shot in South Africa, where the tourist spots are touted and the audience gets to see how the wealthy white people live.

The two films are not that original in concept either.  The first had the couple pretending to be a couple, then ending up falling in love and getting married.  This one, the married power couple, who insist on having kids, pretend to be parents only to end up, yes, having a baby at the end.

 

SEMI-SOUTER opens for streaming on Netflix this week, beginning June 20th.

Trailer: 

 

Details

Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 31 May 2025

FILM REVIEWS:

BEST WISHES TO ALL (Japan 2023) **
Directed by Yûta Shimotsu

 

BEST WISHES TO ALL is a Japanese psychological horror film directed by Yûta Shimotsu, adapted from his award-winning short film.  The story follows a young nursing student (played by Kotone Furukawa) who returns to her rural hometown to visit her grandparents.  This leads to the discovery of what’s brought them happiness, a revelation that will lead her to question her choices, sanity and reality itself.

At the start of the film, the girl is asked, not once but a few times, “You are happy, right?” Therefore, one can expect that the film is about the pursuit of happiness. The film asks whether happiness is worth it despite all costs.

What begins as a warm and ‘happy’ reunion soon descends into unsettling territory as she notices increasingly bizarre behaviour from her grandparents and the local townspeople.  The grandparents make pig-like grunting noises during dinner, later saying how much pigs have lived for the pleasure and cuisine of human beings.   Then they say that she is the apple of their eyes, then pointing to their eyes in a very odd and disturbing way.  Strange noises emanate from a locked room, and when she asks about the noise, she is told that the room is empty before being told later that there is someone else in the room.Not everything is what it seems and director Shimotsu uses the elements of mystery and audience anticipation to the best of his abilities.   For example, a random old woman crossing the street tells the girl, “You young people have sacrificed so much for old people.”   Then she is also told: “No matter what happens, I want you to believe in me.”

The girl’s observation of the odd behaviour is believed by a local boy, who seems to be her romantic interest, though director Shimotsu keeps the romance at bay.

But once the mystery is revealed, which is roughly at the film’s halfway mark, the film seems to go nowhere, leading to an ending in the air.  But the biggest flaw is the credibility of the whole exercise.  Why is the nursing student the only one not in with the happiness ploy?   What about the rest of the population?  There are too many unanswered questions in the hokey plot.

As far as scares are concerned, director Shimotsu resorts to jump scares, which is getting too common and annoying in horror films, especially when these are false alarms.  On the plus side, the film moves on at a pace faster than those horror films that combine a slow-burn with the build-up of a scary atmosphere.  The cinematography and score also contribute significantly to the film’s atmosphere.  Director Shimitsu does succeed in some scary set-pieces, especially in family dinner segments.

The atmosphere of contrast between traditional and modern ways, rural and city life and the lengths to which someone would go in order to gain happiness are other issues examined in the film.

BEST WISHES TO ALL is open for streaming on Shudder Friday, June 13th.

Trailer: 

BLEEDING (USA 2025) ***
Directed by Andrew Bell

 

As the film title implies, the derivative vampire horror film is as bloody as one can expect.  The subject matter also happens to be blood, which is defined in the film as an opioid harvested for the making of a drug called Dust and not as the red liquid that circulates in the arteries and veins of humans and other vertebrate animals, carrying oxygen to and carbon dioxide from the tissues of the body.  The words on the screen inform that when users overdose on dust, it is best to avoid them as the victims are terribly contagious.

The film begins with several scenes.  The first has a man going down into the basement to oversee a lady with her throat that can be seen slit.  As she croaks, the title of the film BLEEDING appears on the screen.   The scene is followed by a teen running away from what appears to be a shack he had broken into, and he returns to his bedroom through the window.   He seeks and puts his mother to bed, before meeting with an older man who asks him to witness the shooting of an overdosed user.  There is a difference between audience anticipation of what is going to happen next, creating suspense and not letting the audience on what is going on.  The latter is true in the case of BLEEDING in the first 20 minutes or so, making the film quite a frustrating watch for the audience to figure out how the characters are related and how the incidents are tied together.

But on the positive side, director Bell has devised a good variation of the vampire genre by making what is basically another vampire flick to be one in which more authenticity involving blood and more human gritty matters,   The film is also set in marginal North America where the characters are far away from the American dream.  They appear to need to escape the American nightmare instead.  The premise is elevated by the overall gritty and moody atmosphere created by director Bell.

After 30 minutes of the film’s running time, the story can be determined.   The older man and the younger one are uncle and nephew.  The narrative follows two teenage cousins, Sean and Eric, who become entangled in this dangerous world.  After Sean's father destroys a stash of Dust intended for sale, the boys find themselves indebted to a ruthless drug dealer. In a desperate attempt to escape their predicament, they break into what they believe is an abandoned house, only to discover Sara, a young woman held captive and used as a source of vampire blood.

Director Bell is dedicated to the making of the film, which can be witnesses as one watches his film, flaws and pluses.  “This is a story and issue that’s important to me and our team. These experiences shaped who we are. We set out to make something raw, powerful, and honest. We wanted to tell you a story about vampires, but show that the real monsters were there all along, preying on the young, feeding off the people that trusted them most.”  These are the words of Andrew Bell, writer/director.

BLEEDING is available on Screambox + VOD beginning Tuesday, June 10th. (Review was embargoed till June 9th)

Trailer:

CHEERS TO LIFE (Viva a Vida) (Brazil 2025) **

Directed by Cris D’Amato

 

CHEERS TO LIFE (Viva a Vida), directed by Cris D’Amato and written by Natalia Klein, follows Jessica, a disenchanted salesgirl at an antique shop in Rio de Janeiro.  Her life takes an unexpected turn when she finds a mysterious medallion—identical to one she inherited from her late mother—among her shop’s acquisitions.

The character-driven film gets a bit complicated to follow, with 2 sisters, one missing mother and more assorted relatives.   The film also contains quite a few flashbacks, with flashbacks filmed in black and white to distinguish from the ones set in the present.

Investigating the pendant leads Jessica to Gabriel, a distant relative; together, they discover that their grandmothers were sisters.  Against the backdrop of Israel—from the Negev Desert to Jerusalem—they encounter adventure, romance, legal trouble (including a humorous incident involving stolen jewelry), and a touch of spiritual reflection. As they piece together their family history, Jessica meets her estranged relatives, and the trip becomes a journey of self‑discovery. Along the way, she and Gabriel develop a deeper bond that evolves into romance once her true lineage is confirmed

There are a bit too many coincidences in the story.  For one, the pendant that Jessica finds in the antique shop's shipment is one related to hers.  Then finding out more information that leads to the road trip.

As in all romantic comedies and harlequin novels, there are always obstacles to the romance.  For Jessica and Gabriel, the big obstacle is that they are cousins.  When they almost kiss one night while drunk, they also make a pact never to be together as a couple.

For a comedy, the script tries hard.  This includes casting a flamboyant gay tourist guide for the couple.  A few things are unexplained, such as why Jessica and Gabriel are arrested while going into the water in the coastal city of Tel Aviv.  Is swimming not allowed?  Nothing is explained.

The film plays mostly as a romantic comedy, though not like the usual one, as the romance only begins slowly as a trickle at the film’s start, growing from there.  The first time both get used and get comfortable with each other is only at the 30-minute mark of the film.

Though the film is set in Rio de Janeiro and in Portuguese, the audience does not get to see much of the seaside city of Rio.  The film shows more of Israel, including what is well known as the weeping wall.

At a time when there are too many romantic comedies (in fact, Netflix has another one opening for streaming this week, a sci-fi one called OUE TIMES), CHEERS TO LIFE fails to elicit much wonder or insight or intrigue though it does attempt to explore the themes of identity, forgiveness, and the bonds of family, wrapped in lighthearted humour and scenic travelogue.

CHEERS TO LIFE (Viva a Vida) opens for streaming on Netflix from Wednesday this week.

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ENDLESS COOKIE (Canada 2025) ***
Directed by Seth Scriver and Peter Scriver 

Through a series of vignettes -- some tragic, some funny, all a little bizarre -- this animated feature documentary explores the complex bond between two half brothers, one Indigenous, one white, spanning bustling 1980s Toronto to the present day isolated First Nations community of Shamattawa. 

One thing for sure is that the animated feature ENDLESS COOKIE does not feel like a documentary, though it is classified as one.  For one, it is animated and goofy, so it has a Looney Tunes characteristic uncommon for a doc.  Also, the story about two brothers meeting up in an indigenous country to make a movie sounds like made-up fiction.   Truth be told, these two half-brothers did get together to try to make an animated movie after winning a movie grant.  So all of it is true, and making the film with animation also does not disqualify the film from being a documentary.   The result is a weird, very amusing. original indigenous animated documentary that is a one-of-a-kind.   The humour is funny with a lot of indigenous slants, and the animation is also kooky, making up for Hollywood-style expensive special effects computer animation.

The two half-brothers are Seth from Toronto and Pete from Manitoba.  Seth, now 47, says that Pete, 62, is “one of the best storytellers I know.”So he decided to audio-record Pete’s stories and then animate them.  This is the birth of the documentary ENDLESS COOKIE, which took an endless time to make, according to Pete’s daughter Cookie, one of Pete’s nine children, owing to too many disruptions, as humorously depicted in the film.

Though the film is amusing for its spontaneity and humour, this trait can also be distracting and annoying. The film lacks a strong narrative, which could be strengthened with fewer distractions. The directors are not working the delicate balance.

ENDLESS COOKIE is a fresh, innovative, and indigenous animated documentary with loony and arguably accurate depictions of what it is to live in the Manitoba reservations.   Anything can happen with the director’s often amusing distractions that sometimes distract from the main idea at hand, the idea of which is never made clear for the most part.

ENDLESS COOKIE is the Audience Award winner for Best Canadian Documentary at Hot Docs 2025!   opens June 13 in Toronto (TIFF Lightbox), Vancouver (VIFF Centre),

Winnipeg (Dave Barber Cinematheque) and Montreal!

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HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON (USA 2025) ***½

Directed by Dean DuBlois

 

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON is a media franchise from DreamWorks Animation and loosely based on the book series of the same name by British author Cressida Cowell.  It consists of three animated feature films: How to Train Your Dragon (2010), How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014), and How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019) and several short films.  The film reviewed is a live-action remake of the first film, with the same director, Canadian Dean DeBlois, making all the films.

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON follows the adventures of a young Viking named Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III (Macon Thames), son of Stoick the Vast (Gerard Butler), leader of the Viking island of Berk.  Although initially dismissed as a clumsy and underweight misfit, he soon becomes renowned as a courageous dragon expert, alongside Toothless, a rare Night Fury breed member as his flying mount and closest companion.  Together with his friends, he manages the village's allied dragon population in defence of his home as leader of a flying corps of dragon riders.  Upon becoming leaders of their kind, Hiccup and Toothless are forced to make choices that will truly ensure peace between people and dragons. 

Macon Thames makes a natural, perfect Hiccup.  He is the white, clean, boy-next-door look kind of young hero one can hardly dislike.  Thames, who has already starred in a few films, embodies all the innocence, clumsiness and reluctant hero that everyone would fall in love with.  Jay Baruchel picked him among the last 3 shortlisted and it is not difficult to see the reason Thames was picked.

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON suffers from the cliched fairy tale in which a hero finds romance, trains his dragon, overcomes all odds, and saves his village from dragons.   But it is the details of the film that add that extra title to the tale.  The gang of misfits, with Hiccups, undergo the dragon slaying training that provides the realistic problems of growing up and Hiccups’ inventions are examples.

Director DuBlois resorts to shot-to-shot filming of key scenes like the first bonding (Hiccup’s touching of Toothless) so as to maintain the spirit of the original animated film.  But as Hiccup takes Toothless (or is it the other way round) on the first flight, the film soars despite the over-fast visuals.

Director DuBlois claims in the Q&A at the end of the promo screening that if there's one word he wanted the audience to come away with after watching the film is ‘wonder’.  To this effect, DuBlois succeeds.  Stunning CGI dragons, especially Toothless’s emotional expressions; faithfulness to the original’s tone and structure, together with the film’s strong visuals and score, make HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON a wonderful film, allowing audiences to take the emotion of wonder away with them.

Judging from the quality and audience response from the promo screening I attended (which Jay Baruchel, who voiced Hiccup in the animated films, attended quietly and quickly disappeared after the screening), a sequel should be and in fact is already in the works,  scheduled for June 2027.

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THE LIFE OF CHUCK (USA 2025) ****

Directed by Mike Flanagan

 

Stephen King, the famed horror novelist, has created a feel-good fantasy in his novella THE LIFE OF CHUCK, one of the 4 stories in his book IF IT BLEEDS.   The only horror in the life of Chuck is the end of the world, but before that happens, Chuck’s life is celebrated; the man is suffering from a brain tumour.  King’s whimsical stories have created hit movies like STAND BY ME, APT PUPIL, THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION and THE GREEN MILE.  These 4 films are based on the four stories in the King novel, FOUR SEASONS.  As for the novel “If It Bleed’s one of the stories MR. HARRIGAN’S PHONE has already been made into a Netflix film. 

The story is split into three acts, given in reverse chronological order.  Following the book, Act 3 comes first. They are given in chronological order here:

In Act 3: "Thanks, Chuck", Marty drives home and sees a billboard showing an accountant sitting at a desk, underneath it says "39 Great Years! Thanks, Chuck" as the world appears to be slowly crumbling. That evening as Marty visits his ex-wife Felicia he notices Chuck's image appearing everywhere. In a hospital, Chuck is dying surrounded by his family. Marty and Felicia see the stars disappearing, then blackness.

In Act 2, "Buskers", Chuck sees a drummer busking and starts dancing. A young girl joins him, dancing with Chuck as a crowd surrounds them. After dancing, Chuck suffers a bad headache and walks away dejected.

n Act 1, "I Contain Multitudes", Chuck is orphaned and is brought up by his paternal grandparents, where his love of dancing develops. His grandparents always keep their house's cupola locked, but eventually Chuck unlocks the room and sees himself as an adult dying of a brain tumour.

THE LIFE OF CHUCK is meticulously crafted by writer/director/editor Mike Flanagan, keeping much of the spirit of Stephen King’s story, which is feel-good with lots of spirited and inspired dancing, aided by the wonderful performances of both Jacob Tremblay and Tim Hiddleston as the young and older Chuck.

THE LIFE OF CHUCK, winning the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival is already destined to be a hit.  The film opens in theatres worldwide June the 13th.

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OUR TIMES (Nuestros Tiempos)(Mexico 2025) ***

Directed by Chava Cartas

Space travel is an intriguing concept and has led to many a successful sci-fi movie like Nicholas Meyer’s 1979 TIME AFTER TIME and of course, the Robert Zemeckis 1985 back to the future.   But few films have examined the theory behind  time travel.

The new Mexican sci-fi adventure does.  And with that comes the film’s ‘wonder’ - a magical feeling that is often absent in films these days.  The wonder comes early in the beginning of the film where the professor talks about a wormhole before travelling through time through the wormhole into the future of  2025, our present time.   They travel 69 years into the future.

So the professor explains the wormhole via a diagram.   A wormhole is a hypothetical structure that connects disparate points in spacetime. It can be visualized as a tunnel with two ends at separate points in spacetime (i.e., different locations, different points in time, or both). Wormholes are based on a special solution of the Einstein field equations.  For a simplified notion of a wormhole, space can be visualized as a two-dimensional surface. In this case, a wormhole would appear as a hole in that surface, lead into a 3D tube (the inside surface of a cylinder), then re-emerge at another location ( as the two in the film travel) on the 2D surface with a hole similar to the entrance.

In 1966, physicists Nora (Lecero) and Héctor time-travel to 2025. As Nora thrives, Héctor struggles, leaving her torn between love and a world that empowers women.   Besides being a sci-fi movie, the film also plays as a romantic comedy with a message of female empowerment.  Nora is called sweetie by he boss, and females are not given a second look at the University in New Mexico.    The couple comically adjust to modern life—state-of-the-art smartphones, public transit (mass transit was not built in the year 1966), flavoured condoms.  They also meet an older version of their young friends in 1966.

OUR TIMES is a small budget movie but it survives credibility with simple special effects like the use of light and lasers and spinning contraptions.   The use of  modern machine and computers is avoided by the fact  that the story is set in 1966.

The script by Juan Carlos Garzón and Angélica Gudiño adds drama to the story. Nora, in the year of 2025 feels empowered, recognized and appreciated, unlike back in 1966.  While the husband wishes to return to 1966, she wishes to stay and so adds drama into what was, till then, an almost perfect relationship.   Should they both stay, both leave, or should they go their separate ways?  This is a relevant question as the audience will ask themselves what they would do.

OUR TIMES ends up a sweet and charming, funny and insightful sci-fi rom-com about societal norms, while not being too demanding of its audience.

OUR TIMES (Nuestros Tiempos) is a Netflix original film and opens for streaming on June 11th on Netflix, in Spanish with English subtitles.

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THAT THEY MAY FACE THE RISING SUN (Ireland 2023) ***½

Directed by Pat Collins

 

 

The slow burn of a light viewing drama of everyday rural Irish life is adapted from John McGahern’s acclaimed 2002 novel.  The film is set in rural County Leitrim during the early 1980s.  The film follows Joe and Kate Ruttledge, a couple who have returned from London to settle near Joe’s childhood home. Joe is a writer, and Kate is an artist; together, they seek a quieter life immersed in the rhythms of the countryside and its close-knit community.

County Leitrim is a county in Ireland. located just south of(central) of Northern Ireland,   It is in the province of Connacht and is part of the Northern and Western Region. It is named after the village of Leitrim. Leitrim County Council is the local authority for the county, which had a population of 35,199 according to the 2022 census.

There will be no one left but ducks and warrens, says a character, Patrick of the people in the countryside.

This is a film of the Northern Irish countryside.  And a slow one at that.  The film opens with a long shot of a landscape with piano playing amidst the opening credits.  A charter says later on:  “The rain comes and then the morning and the sun shines.  The children grow old and die.  And there is not a whisper fit.”   The title also implies a slow-moving film, but forgoes Irish and those who love anything Irish, the film is not without its rewards.  There is plenty of rural countryside to look at and admire, and the slow pace of the Irish on display indicates that making money in a fast-paced world is not always the best thing to do.

“So you're happy then?"  Joe is asked at one point in the movie,   His answer: ”We have our health, peaceful life, work that suits us.  What more can you ask for?”

The film, contains few dramatic plot twists, but offers a contemplative portrait of everyday Northern Irish life.  The events unfolds over the course of a year, capturing the passing seasons and the subtle dynamics among neighbours, including characters like Patrick, a sharp-tongued bachelor farmer, and "The Shah," Joe’s uncle, thinking of retiring, who runs the local garage.   The narrative emphasizes daily rituals, communal gatherings, and moments of quiet reflection, portraying the complexities and humanity of rural Irish life.

The couple, Joe and Kate, make a lovely couple living in nature’s paradise.  Trouble arrives when Kate is asked to manage an art gallery in London, something she has always wanted to do.  Her husband Joe wishes she would not go, but leaves it up to her to make up her mind to do what is best for her, or perhaps the best for both of them.   Her decision is left after the film.  The film also ends with a solemn funeral of a much-loved member of the community.

Reminiscent of the beauty of the recent Irish film, a few years back, THE QUIET GIRL,THAT THEY MAY FACE THE RISING SUN is a quietly moving drama about living it out in nature in rural Ireland.   Trials also exist though the film largely contemplates the lasting happiness that passes unnoticed.  A beautiful film!

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THINGS LIKE THIS (USA 2025) **
Directed by Max Talisman

 

THINGS LIKE THIS is a romantic comedy, but one with a difference.  Not counting the fact that it is a gay romantic comedy, the main difference is that one of the men is quite fat, to put it mildly.  If one looks at his plump face, one could even say that he is on the borderline of obesity.  However, the fact that this person, Zack Anthony, is played by Max Talisman, who also wrote and directed the film, is a big credit to him and the film.  It is a very bold film.  Everyone knows the obstacles a fat person has to overcome to find a long-lasting and worthwhile relationship.  Zack is self-conscious.  And all the self-consciousness and insecurity are handled tactfully by actor/writer and director Talisman.

When the film opens, Zack’s rejected by his sexual encounter, a hunky muscled jock type.  “You are not my type,”  the jock tells Zack, who realizes as the audience does, that fattys are seldom anybody’s type.  Writer Talisman adds other problems Zack faces, like money, a book deal, and security.  But Zack often goes about eating ice cream with one hand, without any thought of losing weight.  The weight issue is largely ignored, wi=hcoh is both good and bad things.  The bad thing is that it gives false confidence to fat people, but the good thing is that perhaps there is hope out there, though maybe not as much as one would expect.

Set against the vibrant backdrop of New York City, the film follows the unexpected connection between two men who share the same first name.  Zack Anthony (played by Talisman) is a plus-sized aspiring fantasy novelist struggling with self-doubt and a series of disappointing relationships.  Zack Mandel (Joey Pollari) works as an assistant at a talent agency and feels trapped in a stagnant relationship.  Their paths cross at a showcase, leading to a connection that begins with a small act of kindness and evolves after a disastrous yet comedic first date.  As they spend more time together, they uncover a surprising shared past that feels like fate.  Despite personal challenges, misunderstandings, and life's twists, their bond deepens as they navigate what could be the start of something special.

“Is this some dollar store romance?” asks Zach’s best friend, Ava, to him after the typical break-up that is typically found in every Harlequin novel.

The film is aided by a cameo by veteran actor Eric Roberts playing Zach’s estranged father.   The additional subplot of the father/son estranged relationship does not help the film either.

Despite the filmmaker’s bold move to make his movie, he seems destined to make, to dispel the negativity of a fat man getting into a relationship, the film falls into all the traps of a Harlequin romantic comedy type that fails to impress.

In celebration of Pride Month, Shout! Studios in collaboration with MPX Films will release the new rom-com THINGS LIKE THIS, available streaming on digital and VOD in the U.S. and Canada starting June 10.

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TITAN (USA 2025) ***

Directed by Mark Monroe

 

Going underwater to great depths or travelling thousands of miles into space spins awesome adventures.   But with these journeys come imminent dangers.   The new Netflix documentary focuses on the dangers of the TITAN.

Everyone loves a good adventure.  And many good disaster films.  Combine the two in a real-life documentary that occurred not too long ago in 2023, and one would have a winner that everyone will want to watch,  It is of no wonder that Netflix, as TITAN is a Netflix original documentary is a number one top streaming service in the wold.

The story of the 5 crew members aboard the TITAN that perished is one that the whole world knows, but there is much more to the story as the doc presents in this insightful and intriguing documentary.

On4 of those interviewed in the doc is an engineer at OceanGate, a whistleblower.   He knew that there were many things wrong and he brought them to the attention of thee company but to no avail.   Apparently even the CEO of OceanGate ignored the warnings.

OceanGate Inc. is an American privately-owned company based in Everett, Washington, that provided crewed submersibles for tourism, industry, research, and exploration. The company was founded in 2009 by Stockton Rush and Guillermo Söhnlein.

The company acquired a submersible vessel, Antipodes, and later built two of its own: Cyclops 1 and Titan. In 2021, OceanGate began taking paying tourists in Titan to visit the wreck of the Titanic. In 2022, the price to be a passenger on an OceanGate expedition to the Titanic shipwreck was $250,000 per person.

On June 18, 2023, Titan imploded during a voyage to the Titanic wreck site, killing all five occupants on board, including Rush.[2] An international search and rescue operation was launched, and on June 22, the wreckage was found on the seabed about 500 meters (1,600 ft) from the Titanic wreck site.

The doc has clips and describes the 5 crew members.  Aboard the submersible were Stockton Rush, the American chief executive officer of OceanGate; Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a French deep-sea explorer and Titanic expert; Hamish Harding, a British businessman; Shahzada Dawood, a Pakistani-British businessman; and Dawood's son, Suleman.  Imagine paying a quarter million dollars to die an awful death.

The film dives into the story within 5 minutes of the film's opening.  Quite a fair amount of time is also devoted to the design and test operations.  During the final voyage, communication between Titan and its mother ship, MV Polar Prince, was lost 1 hour and 33 minutes into the dive. Authorities were alerted when it failed to resurface at the scheduled time later that day. After the submersible had been missing for four days, a remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV) discovered a debris field containing parts of the Titanic, about 500 metres (1,600 ft) from the bow of the Titanic. The search area was informed by the United States Navy's (USN) sonar detection of an acoustic signature consistent with an implosion around the time communications with the submersible ceased, suggesting the pressure hull had imploded while Titan was descending, resulting in the instantaneous deaths of all five occupants.

Every film needs a solid villain.  In the case of TITAN, it is the owner Stockton Rush, paralleling the egoistic acts of Elon Musk.  Rush wanted the submersible vessel to dive despite all the test facts pointing towards failure.

TITAN opens for streaming on Netflix from Wednesday this week.

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Details

Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 30 May 2025

FILM REVIEWS:

 

DANGEROUS ANIMALS (Australia 2025) ***½

Directed by Sean Byrne

 

A twisted low-life serial killer kidnaps teens and feeds them to sharks.  The film’s clever caption goes: “It is safer in the water.”

The film stars Hassie Harrison as Zephyr, a free-spirited surfer seeking solace on Australia's Gold Coast. Her journey takes a dark turn when she is abducted by Tucker, portrayed by Jai Courtney, a shark-obsessed serial killer who believes sharks are deities demanding human sacrifices. Tucker confines Zephyr on his boat, where she must summon all her strength and wit to escape before becoming his next offering to the sea

Indeed, it might be as shark attacks are supposedly really rare.  The fact is touted by shark activist and filmmaker Rob Stewart until he went missing while swimming his sharks.  But there is no evidence he was eaten by sharks.   It is statistically rare to be attacked by sharks.  One is far more likely to be injured by lightning, a dog, or even a vending machine than by a shark.

As for Unprovoked attacks, according to data from the International Shark Attack File (ISAF), there are about 50–80 unprovoked shark attacks worldwide each year, with only a few resulting in fatalities.  Before one can dismiss the horror flick to be unauthentic, the serial killer admits the fact that sharks seldom attack humans but he feeds them in such a way that sharks mistake humans for prey.  According to statistics, sharks do occasionally attack humans, but such incidents are rare. Most shark attacks are believed to be cases of mistaken identity — for example, a shark might confuse a swimmer or surfer for its natural prey, like a seal.

Who is the more dangerous animal?  Tucker, the human being or the shark?   DANGEROUS ANIMALS is a clever take on the JAWS horror genre by swapping the predator from shark to human being.  Director Byrne’s film is fast-moving and exciting, blending the beauty of the ocean with the horror at hand, aided by two excellent performances of the lead protagonist and the main villain.

Director Byrne keeps the violence controlled, the most gruesome scene involving a girl hanged into the water while sharks devour her body beneath the water.  This is quite a nasty scene, which is, of course, difficult to watch, made worse by the villain Tucker recording the killing.

This is the second outstanding Australian horror film from down under to open this month, after BRING HER BACK.  DANGEROUS ANIMALS premiered at Cannes 2025 at the Director’s Fortnight Section and opens in theatres in Canada on June 6th.  It is a real treat for horror fans.

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I DON’T UNDERSTAND YOU (USA 2024) **

Directed by David Joseph Craig

 

 

“We can’t even get to dinner, how can we raise s child?”  Dom is asked by Cole.  This is the story of two dads in the process of adopting a baby boy as they face uncertainties.

The title I DON’T UNDERSTAND YOU refers not to language but the understanding of how one feels and reacts- i.e., how one can understand oneself and thus live with one another.

The 2024 dark comedy film, directed and written by David Joseph Craig and Brian Crano. follows Dom (Nick Kroll) and Cole (Andrew Rannells), a married gay couple from Los Angeles, who travel to Italy to celebrate their 10th anniversary and prepare for the adoption of their first child.  The mother is played by Amanda Seyfried.  Their vacation takes a chaotic turn when they become stranded in rural Italy due to a car mishap and a language barrier.

The comedy in the film belongs to what can be termed an uncomfortable comedy.  This comedy genre refers to a premise in which mishaps, one after another, fall on the subject or subjects.  One best example is the 1970 Arthur Hiller comedy written by Neil Simon, in which married couple Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis travel to New York City only to have lost their luggage, be mugged, kidnapped, among other mishaps.  One wants the best for the couple and it is often difficult to laugh at the troubles faced by the protagonists.

I DON’T UNDERSTAND belongs to the genre of uncomfortable comedy in which one mishap after mishap falls on protagonists Dom and Cole.  Invited to a special dinner at a remote farm restaurant arranged by an old friend of Dom's father, the couple gets lost en route and ends up stuck in the mud during a rainstorm.  A gruff local farmer with a shotgun initially alarms them but ultimately helps them reach the restaurant, where they are warmly welcomed by the owner, Zia Luciana.  However, a tragic accident at the dinner sets off a series of darkly comedic events, as Dom and Cole attempt to navigate the ensuing chaos without derailing their adoption plan.  The script adds two more elements to the picture.  One is that the couple is gay and the other is the baby adoption.   

The film blends elements of horror (there is some killing going on) and comedy.  Overall, the comedy is not terribly funny or as black as desired, though the comedy can be described to be amusing at best.  Kroll and Rannells do well as the gay couple, with the film taking a generally positive attitude towards LGBT+ issues, despite the story’s setting in rural Italy.  But the film has a mean-spirited tone as can be witnessed not only in the characters killed but an innocent Italian arrested for the murders he never committed.  This can be compared to films made by Francois Truffaut, the director described as a kind director, in which the innocent characters in his films never get punished unfairly.

I DON’T UNDERSTAND opens at the Bell Lightbox in Toronto on June 6th, just in time for Pride month.

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K.O. (France 2025) ***
Directed byAntoine Blossier,

  

France and Netflix have collaborated on several films, the latest trend being in action flicks like the recent BANGER with Vincent Cassel.

In the latest collaboration K.O., the film follows Bastien (Ciryl Gane), a former MMA fighter who has lived in seclusion since accidentally killing his opponent, Enzo, during a match three years prior. His solitude is interrupted when Enzo's widow seeks his help to find her missing teenage son, Léo.  Bastien's quest leads him into the dangerous underworld of Marseille, where he confronts a violent crime gang. Alongside Kenza (Alice Belaïdi), a determined young police officer, Bastien battles external threats and his inner demons in a journey of redemption and sacrifice.

The fight sequences of K.O. stand out right from the opening bout in which Bastien accidentally kills his opponent, Enzo.  Bastien is as guilty as hell, so guilty that he becomes a recluse after Enzo’s son accuses him of killing his dad.  The fight sequences work better than the drama, which is over-dramatized to the point that it looks condescending to the audience.

Overall, the cliché-laden K.O. combines elements of martial arts action and drama, the most outstanding being the intense fight sequences.   The subplot with Bastien working with a reluctant Kenza makes a distraction, though a clichéd one.

K.O. opens on Netflix for streaming this week, in French with subtitles.

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THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME(USA 2025) ***½

Directed by Wes Anderson

 

Wes Anderson’s latest feature THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME is as exasperating as it is inventive and entertaining, due largely to Anderson’s unique method of storytelling, often with his characters narrating the story to the camera amidst vivid sets, wardrobe, and music, this one again by Academy Award Winner French Alexandre Desplat.

THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME Plays like Anderson’s last two films, ASTEROID CITY and THE FRENCH DISPATCH, so if these two films were too much for you, best avoid this latest effort.  Anderson toned down the excesses several notches with his recent spate of Roald Dahl short films, one of which, THE WONDERFUL STORY OF HENRY SUGAR, won him the Oscar last year for Best Short.

The film is a stylized black comedy that only Anderson can best deliver in his own stylized way.   Set in the fictional 1950s nation of Greater Independent Phoenicia, the film follows Zsa-zsa Korda (Benicio del Toro), a flamboyant European tycoon embroiled in financial misconduct and an ambitious infrastructure project, the latest called THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME, the details of which are left to the audience to imagine.  Korda is part of an ambitious multi-part attempt to industrialise Phoenicia via a series of gargantuan infrastructure projects and he hopes to pocket 5% of revenue for the next 150 years.  Korda has secured the investment to pay for it, but unfortunately, the international bureaucrats manipulate the price of a vital construction component, making everything much more expensive.  In essence, the story follows Korda, accompanied by Liesl and Michael Cera’s hapless Norwegian tutor Bjorn, as he tries to extract more money from his investors as he enacts his grandest plan yet to protect his family fortune.

Facing international scrutiny and assassination attempts, Korda appoints his estranged daughter, Sister Liesl (Mia Threapleton), a 21-year-old nun, as his sole heir.  Together with her tutor, Bjorn Lund (Michael Cera), they navigate a world of industrial espionage, political intrigue, and personal redemption.  These are the three main characters of the story though many others appear, many of whom are played by an impressive cast of cameos that include Benedict Cumberbatch, Willem DeFoe, Scarlett Johansson, F. Murray Abraham, Rupert Friend, Tom Hanks, Richard Ayoade, Riz Ahmed, Jeffrey Wright, Bill Murray among many others.

The film as like his previous two films, boasts meticulously crafted sets and a whimsical visual style that should delight his fans.  Needless to say, there is always something at the corner of every scene that will surprise.  But Anderson does not care about scientific accuracy.  The scene in which a plane in flight has its window smashed open does not result in Korda sucked out of the plane.  Another is the quicksand segment in which Korda sinks into the quicksand with only his head above the quicksand.  For quicksand, this does not happen as the body never sinks below waste level due to the density of the body and the fact that he pulls himself out is not possible.  It takes tremendous strength to achieve this feat,

Filming took place at Babelsberg Studios in Germany (the film being an American and German co-production) with production designer Adam Stockhausen and set decorator Anna Pinnock creating elaborate indoor sets, including a surreal depiction of heaven featuring Willem Dafoe as a moral interrogator.  The great amount of effort director Anderson has put into the film can be observed if one stays to the end to read all the closing credits, in which he thanks all those who have donated their craft to the film.

The film premiered at Cannes and opens widely on June 6th.

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THE RITUAL (USA 2025) *
Directed by David Midell

 

In the classic Bob Hope and Lucille Ball comedy Don Weis’ 1963 CRITIC’S CHOICE, Hope plays a famous theatre critic.  Ball, who plays his wife, says that when he returns from a play he totally hates, he is happy as a lark with so much to write about.  For the new Al Pacino/ Dan Stevens exorcist horror movie, film critics will have a field day writing about what is not only the worst exorcism film in decades but the worst film for that matter.

The Ritual is a 2025 American horror film directed by David Midell and written by Midell and Enrico Natale. Based on a true story, it follows priests Theophilus Riesinger (Al Pacino) and Joseph Steiger (Dan Stevens) as they attempt to put aside their differences to save an allegedly possessed young woman, Emma Schmidt (Abigail Cowen), through a series of dangerous exorcisms.  The film is set to be released by XYZ Films on June 6, 2025.

The are just too many things wrong with the film, that it is hard to list all of them.  First and foremost, there is hardly any plot in the film.   The whole story involves exorcising this demon from the poor female victim.   And success is far from hand.   Besides the zero plot, comes zero suspense, zero mystery and zero twists or turns in the plot.   This makes matters worse, director  Midell is too fond of using hand held camera instead of a steadycam, with the result of an imminent headache for many of the audience.   Pacino is so out of shape and scruffy, he is hardly recognizable in the role.  Stevens also loses most of his charm in the role of a priest who is brought into an exorcism.  Pacino has the Max Von Sydow role while Stevens (Ben Foster was originally hired) plays the Jason Miller’s young priest and Cowen the possessed Linda Blair role.   Stevens and Pacino are largely wasted in their terrible roles, performances best forgotten.  Cowen’s sweaty performance is the typical clichéd one expected in an exorcism movie, where the actress changes tone in voice and spews out vulgarities.  The film is just one large exorcism segment, one exorcism scene after another, increasing in intensity, but not intelligence or coherence.   The audience is led to believe that all this is based on true events, with words written on the screen and the start and end of the film, in manuscript writing, which is also almost impossible to decipher, before it disappears from the screen.

Overall, the film has been panned by both critics and audiences alike, and the reason is obvious.  THE RITUAL is just an awful film.  It opens in theatres on June 6th.  The film is supposed to be ‘inspired’ by the 1935 book ‘Begone Satan!’  The film was aimed to be an authentic portrayal of Emma Schmidt, an American woman whose demonic possession culminated in harrowing exorcisms. Her case remains the most thoroughly documented exorcism in American history.

THE RITUAL opens in theatres June 6th.

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STRAW (USA 2025) ***

Directed by Tyler Perry

 

Tyler Perry is one of the most prolific black filmmakers today.  This year alone, he has directed 3 films alone this one and TYLER PERRY’S DUPLICITY, and MADEA’S DESTINATION WEDDING.

Tyler Perry is an American actor, filmmaker, and playwright. He is the creator and performer of Mabel "Madea" Simmons, a tough elderly woman, and also portrays her brother Joe Simmons and her nephew Brian Simmons.  Perry's films vary in style from orthodox filmmaking techniques to filmed productions of live stage plays, many of which have been subsequently adapted into feature films.  Lately, Perry has taken to making films that matter.  The best example is his 2024 THE SIX TRIPLE EIGHT, in which he champions the neglected black women who made a dent in World War II.

Tyler Perry's latest Netflix film, STRAW, is a social thriller that delves into the harrowing journey of a single mother pushed to her limits.  Here, Perry tackles America’s systematic failures to look after vulnerable single mothers like Janiyah, who has to struggle beyond all odds.

Good intentions aside, Tyler Perry’s STRAW tries too hard to get the message across.  At the film’s start, the audience is shown all the worst that can happen to the single mother.   She needs to get her sick daughter the $40 lunch money, pay her rent or get evicted, get abused at work by both customer and supervisor and almost had her bank account closed with only $47 left in the bank.  It is all too much to believe and take, though credit is given to Henson for trying so hard.   

But things take a twist when Janiyah gets mad as hell and cannot take it anymore.  But the film gets better as it gets more outrageous.

STRAW stars Taraji P. Henson as Janiyah, a hardworking woman striving to care for her ill daughter amidst mounting challenges.   As her day spirals from bad to catastrophic, Janiyah finds herself entangled in a desperate situation, becoming the prime suspect in a crime she never intended to commit.   Suspense is blended into social commentary with characters who are as interesting as the film’s subject matter.  The cast includes Sherri Shepherd as Nicole, a bank teller caught in the unfolding crisis; Teyana Taylor as Detective Raymond, who empathizes with Janiyah's plight; Glynn Turman as Richard, Janiyah’s unsympathetic boss; Rockmond Dunbar as Chief Wilson, a law enforcement official quick to judge; and Sinbad, making a remarkable return to acting as Benny, a compassionate neighbour who witnesses Janiyah's struggles. 

Best not to give away any more of the plot, but to watch the film itself, which opens for streaming Friday, June 6th, on Netflix.

Trailer: 

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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 26 May 2025

FILM REVIEWS:

 

BEAUTIFUL EVENING, BEAUTIFUL DAY (Lijepa večer, lijep dan)(Croatia/Canada/Poland/Cyprus/Bosnia/Herzegovinia 2024) ***
Directed by Ivona Juka

 

Despite the bright and cheery title of the film, BEAUTIFUL EVENING, BEAUTIFUL DAY is a very solemn, serious and tough film to watch, depicting a time in the history of then, Yugoslavia when homosexuality was outlawed and gays were punished, imprisoned and beaten almost to death.

The film begins in 1944 where 4 friends fight as rebels against the Nazis, thus deemed heroes.  But their sexual orientation cannot be forgiven and they are then exposed and punished.

The film is shot in Croatian and in black and white.

The film follows four close friends—Lovro, Nenad, Stevan, and Ivan—who, as young students, joined the Partisan resistance during World War II to fight against the Ustashas and Nazis. Sixteen years later, in 1957, they had become renowned filmmakers in Communist Yugoslavia. However, their sexual orientation raises suspicion among the authorities. A Communist Party loyalist named Emir is assigned to sabotage their careers and lives. As the friends strive to maintain their artistic integrity and personal freedom, Emir's own beliefs are challenged.

Of all the film;’s characters the most intriguing one is that of Emir.  At one point, he invites the 4 friends to his cottage by the sea while the 4 frolic around.  He sympathizes with them, yet turns them in.   This is a troubled soul who is always wrestling with his conscience.  His love life is also empty and he longs for companionship.   The film shows him finally doing the right thing.

One thing about the film is that the actors portraying the characters with a 16-year difference do not age at all, in looks, which makes it all look a bit weird.

The film is more positive in the first half before turning really harsh in the second half, with a few very hard-to-watch segments like the beating of the gay characters.  The segment really makes the audience wonder why there is so much hate and disgust for fellow human beings.

Director Juka grew up with a family member who was never allowed to "come out" and lived in the shadows of his true self.  Juka was inspired to shed light on a dark time in history. Through the director’s extensive research, which included PhD theses on homosexual persecution in communist Yugoslavia, he discovered the remarkable resilience and unwavering strength of those who fought for their right to be different and authentic, which he depicts in the film. Despite the persecution and imprisonment, they never gave up.  This film pays tribute to their courage, but it is also about our power of love to conquer hate and a call for acceptance and understanding in our polarized world.  Homosexuality was just barely acceptable in the new (Yugoslavian) regions in the 1990s.

The film also delves into the other themes of love, loyalty, artistic expression, and political oppression.

It was selected as Croatia’s official submission for the 97th Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film, though it was not shortlisted.   The film opens in theatres across Canada (at the Imagine Cinemas in Toronto) on May 30th.

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BRING HER BACK (Australia 2025) ****

Directed by Danny and Michael Philippou

 

Bring Her Back is an upcoming Australian horror film directed by Danny and Michael Philippou, and written by Danny Philippou and Bill Hinzman. The Philippou brothers wowed the film world with their debut horror film  TALK TO ME a year ago.  Their latest horror feature is impressively better and scarier, covering the subjects of bringing the dead back to life and the trauma of children losing their parents and moving into a foster home.

Following the death of their father, step-siblings Andy (Billy Barratt) and Piper (Sora Wong), who is visually impaired, are placed in foster care with Laura (Sally Hawkins), a woman mourning the loss of her own daughter. Laura also cares for a peculiar, mute boy named Ollie (Jonah Wren Phillips). As the children adjust to their new home, they uncover a terrifying ritual linked to Laura's attempts to cope with her grief.

For a horror film, the performances are top-notch, especially those of the children.  Billy Barratt is excellent as the tormented elder brother, Andy and Jonah Wren Phillips is really scary as the troubled Oliver, made even more frightening by the excellent horror make-up.   But the main acting prize belongs to British actress Sally Hawkins.   Hawkins is one of the best actresses working today, having earned an Oscar nomination playing Cate Blanchett’s sister in Woody Allen’s BLUE JASMINE.   She broke into fame in Mike Leigh’s HAPPY-GO-LUCKY.  Hawkins is an inspired casting, she always plays roles of troubled characters.  In BRING HER BACK, she gets to show the scariest of all the characters that she has played, one that changes from victim to predator to just a confused human being.  Hawkins is excellent to watch, and BRING HER BACK has Hawkins in one of her best roles.

The film explores the depths of sorrow and the lengths one might go to alleviate it. There is great emotional distress, well played and delivered in the film making BRING HER BACK a realistic and disturbing feel-bad film, but in a good way.

The Philippous have created one horror segment in this film that is so scary that it is guaranteed (almost) to have anyone turn away.  This is the scene in which Andy hands the disturbed Oliver a piece of melon at the edge of a sharp knife.   Another scene has Andy in his room on the bench lifting a heavy barbell.  Whenever someone lifts a barbell on a bench in a horror film, one can guess what is going to happen.

The film also has an excellent beginning in which the words “This is not s Cult” appear on the screen.   Blurred but disturbing images are shown on the screen, illustrating the fact that one need not see everything, but much is left to the imagination to experience true horror.

BRING HER BACK has so far garnered rave reviews.  On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 91% of 45 critics' reviews are positive.   It is truly the best horror film opening this year and is on my list for the top 10 films of 2025.

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THE HEART KNOWS (Corazón delator)(Argentina 2025) **
Directed by Marcos Carnevale

 

After a heart transplant, Manuel feels a personality shift and explores his donor's life, leading him to meet the widowed Vale and her community.

Though the film explores themes of love, loss, identity, and redemption, offering a poignant narrative about how lives can intertwine in unexpected ways, the film feels condescending to its audience, with too much sentimentality all mired in cliched territory, the script cannot seem to escape from.  Those who enjoy the romances of Harlequin novels should not be disappointed.

Though the film caters towards a female target audience, the film's central character is a male.  Juan Manuel (Benjamín Vicuña), a wealthy and emotionally distant businessman who undergoes a life-saving heart transplant.  Following the surgery, he begins to experience profound emotional changes that lead him to investigate the life of his heart donor, Pedro, a humble and kind-hearted man.  Many suspense thrillers have the same narrative, but this film opts for romance.

As Juan Manuel delves into Pedro's past, he meets Valeria (Julieta Díaz), Pedro's widow, and becomes deeply involved in her close-knit community.  Concealing his true identity and the fact that he carries Pedro's heart, Juan Manuel finds himself falling in love with Valeria.   It is a little too convenient that the script calls for Juan to just break up with his girlfriend before meeting Valeria.  He also takes it upon himself to support and uplift the community (the community is about to face eviction) that Pedro cherished, all while grappling with the complexities of his secret.

THE HEART KNOWS (Corazón delator) is a Netflix original movie and opens for streaming Friday.

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WE WERE DANGEROUS (New Zealand 2024) ***
Directed by Josephine Stewart-Te Whiu

 

The abuse of young women in WE WERE DANGEROUS reminds one of a similar Irish 2002 film, Peter Mullan’s THE MAGDALENE SISTERS.  In that film, three young Irish women (just as the three girls in WE WERE DANGEROUS) struggle to maintain their spirits while they endure dehumanizing abuse as inmates of a Magdalene Sisters Asylum.  In both films, the three girls attempt an escape.  While the escape is more difficult in WE WERE DANGEROUS, as the girls are housed on an island, an escape means escaping by sea, the MAGDALENE SISTERS, ironically, escape just through a door that was unlocked - so easy an escape that no one ever tried.  The abuse of the Magdalene sisters was much worse.   Both films are excellent pieces for the examination of abuse in institutionalized systems.  And both films celebrate the resilience of the abused young women, working together to survive a corrupt system

It should be noted that though the film feels as if it is based on true events, it is not.  The film is a fictional narrative; however, it draws significant inspiration from real historical events and systemic issues in 1950s New Zealand.  Director Josephine Stewart-Te Whiu and writer Maddie Dai crafted the story by researching New Zealand's eugenics movement, the Mazengarb Report, and the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care.  They also consulted with survivors of state care institutions, including Stewart-Te Whiu's own father, to ensure authenticity in depicting the experiences of marginalized youth during that era.  While the characters and specific events are fictional, the film successfully reflects the broader historical context of institutional abuse and the suppression of indigenous culture in mid-20th-century New Zealand.

The story centres on three of the 12 girls, imprisoned on the island for reform.  Daisy (Manaia Hall) and Nellie (Erana James), who are both Māori and from working-class backgrounds, are arrested for petty theft. Daisy, we are told, had been in the care of seven different foster families by the age of 12 and tried to escape from all of them. Louisa (Nathalie Hall) is from a wealthy white family. She is sent away as a “sex delinquent” in an attempt to “cure” her of homosexuality.  The “school” is really a prison, located on a small and otherwise uninhabited island.  The girls’ education consists of mind-numbing Bible study and absurd “etiquette” classes (all of which are played more for entertainment than for reality) where they are taught how to make polite conversation and how to sit properly and be ladies.  The girls are frequently slapped by the Matron (Rima Te Wiata), who runs the school, an unhinged and violent religious fanatic.  The matron is too easy a target, and the film would have benefited Mohave to make her feel a bit of sympathy.

The film is entertaining to the point of fault.  Though the abuse of the girls is displayed, the physical and mental torture is not as brutal or as violent as in Peter Mullan’s film (THE MAGDALENE SISTERS)..  The result is that WE WERE DANGEROUS finally comes across as a feel-good film of escape, compared to one where mental anguish and physical abuse have long-lasting effects.

WE WERE DANGEROUS opens in Toronto May 30, and plays at imagineNATIVE June 5 while debuting digitally across Canada June 3.

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A WIDOW’S GAME (La viuda negra)(Spain 2025) ***

Directed by Carlos Seles

 

 

True crime documentaries are among the most intriguing genres to watch. Netflix seems to have cornered the market with recent hits like COLD CASE: THE TYLENOL MURDERS, a docu-series that also opens this week, AMERICAN MURDER: THE FAMILY NEXT DOOR, and two other series, THE STAIRCASE and MAKING A MURDERER.

Premiering on May 30, 2025, A WIDOW’S GAME, a Spanish-language film, dramatizes the 2017 murder of Antonio Navarro (“Crime of Patraix”) in Valencia, orchestrated by his wife, María Jesús Moreno (known as Maje), and her lover. The film combines fidelity to the actual events with a focus on psychological intrigue, utilizing real police recordings and judicial documents.  It can be best described as a fiction film inspired by true events.

The story is set in Novelda.  Maybe and Mariawere from there before moving to the city of Valencia.   Novelda is a town located in the province of Alicante, Spain. As of 2009, it has a total population of 27,135 inhabitants.  Novelda has important quarries and mines of marble, limestone, silica, clay and gypsum. It is a major centre of the marble industry.

In August 2017, Antonio Navarro Cerdán was found stabbed to death in a parking garage in Valencia. His wife, María Jesús Moreno Canto—known as “Maje" (Ivana Baquero) —initially appeared as a grieving widow.  However, investigations revealed she had orchestrated the murder with her lover and coworker, Salvador Rodrigo (Tristan Ulloa). Salvador confessed to the stabbing, claiming he was manipulated by Maje, who alleged her husband was mistreating her.   The investigation is doggedly carried out by a no-nonsense investigator, Inspector Eva (Carmen Machi).

The film unfolds in Chapters, each offering the audience a different point of view, beginning with the investigator Eva, followed by Maje, and then Salvo.   The dates that have elapsed after the murder are also shown on the screen as the audience watches how the investigation progresses.

“You might know your way around the office.  But you do not know your way around the streets,”   says an angry Eva to her boss after being taken off the case of her good friend and colleague being murdered.  She says her homicide department has a 98% successful closing, much better than Madrid's, as her boss was passing the case on to the Organized Crime Unit, which is the reason Eva is so upset. 

One flaw of the film is that the audience knows at the very start that the widow is guilty.  The Spanish title, which translates to Black Widow, says it even more clearly.   The fact is also made known to the audience quite early in the film, around the 20-minute mark, after Eva hears the recordings from Maje’s trapped telephone line.   

Carmen Machi steals the show as the murder investigator.   She is in her middle age, plump, efficient, and takes no nonsense, playing like an expert sloth to the likes of class detectives like the fictional Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple.

 A WIDOW'S GAME opens for streaming on Netflix this week.

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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 17 May 2025

HORROR films are taking the limelight this year with films like THE SURRENDER streaming on Netflix this week and the film BRING HER BACK set to open next week.

 

FILM REVIEWS:

AIR FORCE ELITE: THUNDERBIRDS (USA 2025) ***
Directed by Matt Wilcox

 

AIR FORCE ELIT: THUNDERBIRDS provides an inside look at the U.S. Air Force's Thunderbirds flight squadron.

 

As the documentary title implies, AIR FORCE ELITE: THUNDERBIRDS, the doc cannot help but keep touting the elite group.  No doubt it is an elite group.   The voiceover at the beginning tells us that the Thunderbirds are the best of the best and they are to prove that being good is not enough, but to be excellent and to inspire.  Of course, the job is also a highly dangerous one, with accidents and deaths not being common.

 

The USAF Air Demonstration Squadron is the air demonstration squadron of the United States Air Force (USAF).  The Thunderbirds, as they are popularly known, are assigned to the 57th Wing and are based at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada. Created 72 years ago in 1953, the USAF Thunderbirds are the third-oldest formal flying aerobatic team (under the same name) in the world, after the French Air Force Patrouille de France formed in 1931 and the United States Navy Blue Angels formed in 1946.  The Thunderbirds Squadron tours the United States and much of the world, performing aerobatic formation and solo flying in specially marked aircraft. The squadron's name is taken from the legendary creature that appears in the mythologies of several indigenous North American cultures.

 

It is good to note that it is mentioned in the film, the different formations of the Thunderbirds.  Two Thunderbirds perform a calypso pass. Much of the Thunderbirds' display alternates between maneuvers performed by the diamond and those performed by the solos. They have a total of eight different formations: The Diamond, Delta, Stinger, Arrowhead, Line-Abreast, Trail, Echelon and the Five Card.

 

In the doc, the audience gets to meet the team of Thunderbirds for the year 2023.  The audience is informed that the team is always changed every year, with 50% of the members rotated out.  The 2023 team has members named Thunder, Threat (a female among the other males), Astro, among others.

 

The doc touts only the trait of being better than others.  It ignores the fact that one should also care for others, like one team member for another member, to work in a team.  And typical in Trump’s America, the need to prove oneself ‘great’  and ignoring everything else is the typical point that Americans are so unpopular, not only now but also at other times.  Glaringly absent is the omission of other air display pilots around the world.  Most countries have their equivalent of Thunderbirds.  (This reviewer hails from Singapore, where the SAF also has an elite air display team.  The reviewer's brother is a Singapore Air Force Fighter Pilot, so the reviewer is aware of the sacrifices this industry faces.  Singapore is not at war with any other country, but the dearth toll of the air force pilots is high, most of the fatal accidents occurring during the exhibition air shows.

 

AIR FORCE ELITE: THUNDERBIRDS is a Netflix original documentary that opens fro streaming this week on Netflix.  Despite its flaws, the doc provides solid insight into the risk and training of the individuals, gaining one’s respect, undoubtedly for bravery, coverage, and dedication.

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BAD SHABBOS (USA 2024) ***
Directed by Daniel Robbins

 

The new Jewish comedy/drama BAD SHABBOS follows a Jewish family experiencing a bad shabbos.  The film plays like one of the too familiar Hollywood dysfunctional family gatherings, such as Thanksgiving or Christmas, so do not expect anything new except maybe humour on the Jewish tradition.

Shabbos, also known as Shabbat or the Sabbath, is the Jewish day of rest, observed from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday. It's a time for rest, reflection, and communal observance, remembering the biblical creation story and the Exodus from Egypt. Shabbos involves abstaining from work and certain activities, focusing on family, prayer, and spiritual renewal. Driving is also supposed to be frowned upon, and the characters hide the fact that they have driven to the dinner.

Directed by Daniel Robbins and written by long-time collaborators Robbins (Pledge, Citizen Weiner, Uncaged) and Zack Weiner (Pledge, Citizen Weiner), is a comedy drama about an engaged interfaith couple who are about to have their parents meet for the first time over a Shabbat dinner when an accidental death gets in the way.

It all begins when David (Jon Bass) and his fiancée Meg (Meghan Leathers) gather for his family's traditional Shabbat dinner on New York's Upper West Side, things spiral faster than you can say “hamotzi” when an accidental death (or...murder?) derails the evening entirely.  With Meg’s devoutly Catholic parents due any moment to meet David’s very Jewish family, soon Shabbat becomes a comedy of biblical proportions.  The chamber piece becomes a ‘hide the corpse’ comedy.

Hiding the corpse resulting in a death to be hidden for whatever reason is a familiar premie, as can be seen in the recent film, THE TROUBLE WITH JESSICA in which Jessica invites herself to a friend’s dinner party and then hangs herself, with the result of the two couples trying to hide Jessica’s body.

In BAD SHABBOS, the motive for hiding the body is not as credible as in THE TROUBLE WITH JESSICA, nor are the comedy or performances (JESSICA had stars like Rufus Sewell) as good, but BAD SHABBOS boasts a good Jewish slant to he proceedings.

BAD SHABBOS is what one would call an uncomfortable comedy - one in which the audience is supposed to laugh at the mishaps and trials of the characters.  Another example of the uncomfortable comedy is THE OUT-OF-TOWNERS, in which mishap after mishap happens to the poor couple (Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis in the original) that visit New York City.  One feels sympathetic to the unfortunate couple but yet the audience is supposed to laugh at the mishaps.

The film has an overall good, happy ending in which every family member ends up in a good place.  The happy ending appears to be too much of a cop-out and too good to be true

BAD SHABBOS has played in multiple Jewish Film Festivals around the United States and has won the Audience Choice Award at the Boston Jewish Film Festival.  The film opens in Theatres in Canada on May 23rd.

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FEAR STREET: PROM QUEEN (USA 2025) ***
Directed by Matt Palmer

 

FEAR STREET: PROM QUEEN is a new 2025 slasher horror film and the fourth installment in Netflix’s Fear Street series, inspired by R.L. Stine’s 1992 novel The Prom Queen.

(Fear Street is a series of American horror films based on R. L. Stine's book series of the same name. Involving slasher and supernatural elements, the films' overall story revolves around teenagers who work to break the curse that has been over their town for hundreds of years.  The first 3 films were released in 2021.)

FEAR STREET: PROM QUEEN is set in the cursed town of Shadyside during the 1988 prom season.  As the popular "It Girls" at Shadyside High vie for the prom queen crown, a mysterious killer begins eliminating the candidates one by one.  The story centres on Lori Granger (played by India Fowler), a determined outsider who enters the race and finds herself entangled in the deadly mystery.

The films pays homage to a whole spate of horror films like PHATASM 2 (there is a segment of it in the film as characters enter a cinema to watch PHANTASM 2), of course CARRIE which also deals with a build girl at Prom, the SCREAM films, all the slasher movies of curse and the Friday the 13th franchise as well.   Besides paying homage, one can say that director Palmer steals a lot from these successful films.   There is no complaint here, as Palmer is quite blatant about it, not hiding the fact and using the stolen or homage scenes to the best of their entertaining capabilities.   The result is very fast and entertaining, rather violent (there are dismembered limbs, electrocutions and a tossed head in the punch bowl.   The film contains no original songs, but uses popular spirit lift songs, including hits like "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" is a song by British synth-pop duo Eurythmics, and ‘Gloria’, all the songs released prior to the year 1988, the year the story is set.

The 1988 setting means there are cell phones invented yet, which means that the girls at the prom cannot contact each other to know the whereabouts of the killer.

The film also pays homage most of all to MEAN GIRLS and the story pushes the point to the limit.   Even the parents of the meanest girl are just as mean to poor Lori, who has to endure all their belittling.   The film also works well as a whodunit, with the audience curious as to the identity of the killer.  The identity is revealed near the climax and just as one would think one has got the identity correctly, for example, perhaps the geek, Devil, Devlin, is killed, or perhaps the mean girl’s date, he is killed as well.   The film moves on with a plot twist even after the killer’s identity is revealed.   The film is good old, violent and dirty fun, especially for teens, as most of the adults in the film are depicted as grown idiots.

FEAR STREET: PROM QUEEN is available for streaming on Netflix starting May 23, 2025.

Trailer: 

LILO AND STITCH (USA 2025) **½

Directed by Dean Fleischer Camp

 

The main live-action character is Lilo, a young adolescent Hawaiian girl played with zest by Maia Kealoha.  She is an orphaned six-year-old Native Hawaiian girl "who loves hula, surfing, and wildlife, with a special affinity for all things ‘gross'."  She is portrayed, expectedly, as very imaginative yet rebellious, which gets her into trouble often and ostracizes her from her classmates, who consider her a "weirdie".   When the film opens, her parents have already passed and she is being taken by social services unless she and her sister are successful in the conditions set up by the councillor.  Which, of course, they do at the end.

So, as the story goes, Lilo adopts a dog-like alien named Stitch to mend her fractured family, unaware that Stitch is genetically engineered to be a force of destruction, and is being pursued by aliens and social workers, while Lilo teaches Stitch the idea of family.

Films with surfing as a backdrop often contain gorgeous bodies to look at.  In the case of this film, though it is one for family and little children, the fact is true.  The winner turned out to be the male with the two actors, Billy Magnussen playing Agent Pleakley, a Plorgonarian agent of the United Galactic Federation and their "expert" on Earth and Kaipo Dudoit playing local surfer, David Kawena.  Girls in the audience for the film targeted more for a female audience can go wide-eyed.

The combined animation and live-action film is more catered to the kids who should have no problem enjoying the film.   For the older folk, the film tends to be quite a bore, with childish jokes, an unimaginative and silly plot and a lack of adult humour.

LILO AND STITCH opens in theatres May 23rd, for America’s Memorial Day Weekend, counter-programming for the Tom Cruise blockbuster MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE movie.

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MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - THE FINAL RECKONING (USA 2025) ***
Directed by Christopher McQuarrie

 

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - THE FINAL RECKONING is a 2025 American epic action spy film directed by Christopher McQuarrie from a screenplay he co-wrote with Erik Jendresen.  The sequel to Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023), it is the eighth installment in the Mission: Impossible film series.  Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Henry Czerny, and Angela Bassett reprise their roles from the previous films.

There is much more plot in this film than in the previous MI film titled THE RECKONING Part 1.  Set Action piece-wise, this latest installment comes pale in comparison to the last.   The underwater and airplane flying sequences cannot be compared to the more exciting train and hang-gliding sequences of the former.  One reason is that it is hard to convey suspense and thrills in an underwater segment.  Most of the difficulties, like the need not to hold one’s breath but to exhale while that deep is conveyed by dialogue before the dive rather than during it.  But still, this film, running at close to three hours (211 minutes), is an absorbing action piece that Marley keeps the audience glued to the screen for the most part.  At a budget of a reported 300 - 400 million dollars, really high, the film should undoubtedly make its money back.   After all, the film boasts Tom Cruise and a well-known, successful action franchise. So far, the film has premiered everywhere, including at Cannes.

IMF (Impossible Mission Force, not International Monetary Fund)  agents Ethan Hunt and Grace pursue Gabriel, an agent working for the Entity artificial intelligence.  Yes, the film is updated to include AI.  Instead, Gabriel captures them and coerces Hunt into retrieving the core module, revealed to be the "Rabbit's Foot”, from the sunken Russian submarine Sevastopol for him, which would give him control over the Entity's source code.  Hunt and Grace escape with the aid of IMF agent Benji Dunn and new recruits Paris and Theo Degas. They discover a device that Gabriel used to communicate with the Entity, which shows Hunt a vision of a coming nuclear apocalypse. Hunt realizes the Entity needs access to a secure digital bunker in South Africa to ensure its survival.  Hunt sends his team to retrieve the Sevastopol's coordinates, while he rejoins Luther Stickell to disarm a nuclear device Gabriel planted in London. Stickell reveals that he developed a malware for the Entity called the Poison Pill, but Gabriel has stolen it. Sacrificing himself, Stickell stays behind to stop the bomb. Hunt then surrenders to U.S. President Erika Sloane, who urges cooperation due to the Entity's escalating control over global nuclear systems. With only four days before it launches global strikes, Hunt convinces Sloane to let him act independently to locate the Sevastopol, against CIA Director Eugene Kittridge's objections.  Hunt's team travels to St. Matthew Island in the Bering Sea, home to a Cold War–era sonar array that detected the Sevastopol's sinking.

St. Matthew Island is an uninhabited, remote island in the Bering Sea in Alaska, 183 miles west-northwest of Nunivak Island. The entire island's natural scenery and wildlife are protected as it is part of the Bering Sea unit of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge and as the Bering Sea Wilderness

The script emphasizes how each task is almost impossible to complete, but nevertheless, Hunt succeeds in all his endeavours.  It is remarkable to see Cruise as Hunt gets his entire wetsuit ripped off his body, except his specially designed underwear that stays on his body during the underwater segment, where he grabs a torpedo to take him halfway up to the surface.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - THE FINAL RECKONING opens in theatres in North America on May 23rd, and should hold first in the box office in its first few weeks.  Nothing can keep the Mission: Impossible fans from getting excited, not to mention the excellent Lalo Schifrin MI score.

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THE SURRENDER (USA/Canada 2025) ***½

Directed by Julia Max

 

When the family patriarch, Robert (Vaughn Armstrong), dies, a grieving mother, Barbara (Kate Burton) and daughter, Megan (Colby Minifie), risk their lives to perform a brutal resurrection ritual and bring him back from the dead.

Taking care of a sickly elderly parent is one of the most formidable tasks given to a son, daughter, or spouse.  THE SURRENDER captures, in its first 30 minutes, the torture a daughter and wife of the ailing family patriarch have to go through in his dying days.  Giving medication, taking care of his bowel movements and just watching him move in and out of consciousness while arguing constantly with each other, it is just too much for mother and daughter to bear.  (I, and like many others, the situation is familiar.  I had to look after my father with kidney disease and my mother with Alzheimer’s, so I appreciate the candidness of the story.)   I am sure many in the audience will be able to identify with a similar situation.

THE SURRENDER is, at best, besides being a horror film succeeds more of a dark black comedy drama about family loss and grief.  Being a caregiver of a loved one is an emotionally wrenching process and often when the person passes, it is a relief and life can go on as before.  But not for Meghan and her mother, Barbara.  They attempt to bring their dead loved one back to life.  The big scene is when Barbara and Megan sleep beside Robert with Robert in the middle, only to wake up in the morning to find Robert dead with his mouth open.

It's an exploration of letting go of a loved one, but more important, letting go of the complex emotions surrounding our memories of them. When a family member dies, there's a moment when it feels unreal, as if there isn't a clear distinction between life and death.

Director Max also adds in some humour to the situation - humour that hits the nail on the head.  The mother at one point tells the daughter to move her negative energy away, while the daughter pokes fun at the mother’s yoga instructor, whom the mother takes advice from.  Funny too is when Megan first makes fun of what she calls her mother’s voodoo.

The mother and daughter's troubled dynamics play well, and the two actresses, Minifie and Burton, are both excellent, and they are a total hoot to watch.  One can definitely observe how well the humour plays without it becoming silly.  The segment when the mother confesses to Megan that she intends to bring Robert back to life is a case in point.  The situtaion is well constructed and executed, funny but not silly,   Megan to Barbara:  “This (bringing Robert back to life) is fucking crazy!”

The film’s humour turns into gory violence in the second half, with director Max upping the ante in her scary tale with segments too gruesome to watch.

THE SURRENDER is director Max’s first film, and it is an impressive debut at that.  Julia Max will definitely be a talent to look out for and a talent to be reckoned with.

THE SURRENDER is a Shudder original horror film that opens this week for streaming on the horror streaming service.  This is one of Shudder’s better films.

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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 03 May 2025

FILM REVIEWS:

FRIENDSHIP (USA 2024) ***
Directed by Andrew DeYoung

 

Premiering at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival’s Midnight Madness Section, FRIENDSHIP is that rare non-horror, non-violent, non-action-packed piece that makes it into that special section.  FRIENDSHIP is, though, a very odd bromance comedy that works occasionally, most of the time, which is a waste.   Pacing is the main issue, with the film containing slow pauses of movement with bouts of tedium that, if absent, would have lifted the film several notches.

FRIENDSHIP is about film, obviously about friendship, or its failure as one such friendship falls apart, leading to an individual’s life totally falling apart.

It all starts with the meeting of the two males forming a friendship.  When an errant delivery pulls suburban dad Craig Waterman (Tim Robinson) into the orbit of his mysterious and charismatic new neighbour Austin Carmichael (Paul Rudd), a sweet bromance seems to blossom over an innocent evening of urban exploration, punk rock, and a mutual appreciation for paleolithic antiquities. But what should have been the start of a beautiful friendship is soon waylaid as Craig’s obsessive personality begins to alienate his new pal, subsequently inducing a spiral that threatens to upend Craig’s entire life.

The film has problems with pacing from the very start.  The first seven have Austin’s wife speaking in a group therapy session involving her recovery from her cancer.  She talks about orgasms, which is echoed by the male person beside her.  It gets confusing as the male is later revealed to be her husband.  It is also a problem that the cancer recovery does not really affect many of the incidents that follow.  Another problems is the ending as writer/director DeYoung seems indecisive as to whether his protagonist Craig ends up a likeable or unlikeable person,   He shows Craig finally at peace with his wife after a disastrous incident and the 3wo looks as if they are reconciled waiting to have sex, only to be followed by another incident which results in Craig being taken away in a police cruiser.

Paul Rudd has star credits in the film, though he has only a supporting role, not to mention that he is mostly unrecognizable with his moustache.   The star of the film is Tim Robinson.  Despite the script’s occasional and directional flaws, he is the one who steers and holds the film as a whole.  He plays the man-child Craig with control and emotion, balancing humour and dramatic tragedy.

FRIENDSHIP has received largely rave reviews from both audiences and write alike, but truth be told, there are flaws in the film’s delivery and pacing.   The film contains too many parse slow and sections that break the flow of the story’s momentum.   

FRIENDSHIP, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last year, makes its debut in theatres on May 15th.   It could have been a straight-to-TV movie except for its bold and strange theme. The one thing that stands out in the film is the lead, Tim Robbins, as Craig, the man-child so desperate for a friend that he puts his family second to that.

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HURRY UP TOMORROW(USA 2025) *

Directed by Trey Edward

 

It is usual that a song be written for a film, but occasionally it turns the other way around.  A case in example is the song and film YOU LIGHT UP MY LIFE. The film was made after the Debby Boone song became famous.  Of no surprise, the film directed by Joseph Brooks was not a critical hit.  The film did win an Oscar for Best Song.  In the case of HURRY UP TOMORROW, the self-indulgent artistic film based on the album is a complete piece of smelly, awful brown stuff.

HURRY UP TOMORROW is the sixth studio album by Canadian singer-songwriter The Weeknd. It was released through XO and Republic Records on January 31, 2025. It also serves as the soundtrack to the film of the same name.   Hurry Up Tomorrow is primarily an R&B, synth-pop, and trap album, while exploring a wide variety of genres such as Brazilian funk and hip-hop.   The album is the final installment of a trilogy following the Weeknd's previous two studio albums, After Hours and Dawn FM (2022). The Weeknd has hinted Hurry Up Tomorrow may be his final album under his stage name and revealed that it was partly inspired by losing his voice while on tour in 2022.

Abel Tesfaye is the artist behind the name Weekend.

In the promo/press screening of the film, the film opens with a 10-minute piano recital and song performed by Abel.  The entire audience is wondering what is going on. At the end, it is revealed that the sequence was an  ad for the album.  This brought unsolicited laughter from the audience.

The film begins the continues with a woman (Jay Ortega) torching a farmhouse, burning it to the ground.  This is followed by a segment with what actually happened on a Saturday night in 2022, when Abel Tesfaye got up onstage. The physical and mental stress associated with the constant demands of superstardom put a strain on his singing voice, and that night, he was dealing with the effects. 

The 10-minute ad that followed Abel’s stage performance is almost too hard, totaling 20 minutes of watching him, except for the Ortega break.  This is definitely bad pacing and execution of the movie.

Depressed and resentful after his girlfriend leaves him, Abel (also known as "The Weeknd") indulges on heavy drugs and parties with his friend and manager, Lee, while embarking on a world tour. He loses his voice during his Halloween performance as a result of his stress and substance use. While trying to avoid Lee and his angered fans, Abel stumbles upon Anima, a mysterious and troubled young fan who is on the run after burning a house down.

Feeling a connection, Abel and Anima run away to Pacific Park on the Santa Monica Pier, enjoying a night of anonymity. The two spend the night at a hotel, where Abel plays a sample of his upcoming song to Anima. She relates to the track, as she shares similar struggles with loneliness, abandonment and regret. In the morning, Abel is eager to return to his world tour, but decides he cannot bring Anima along after he hears her on the phone, tearfully arguing with her mother. Feeling betrayed and used, Anima argues with him before knocking him unconscious.

But the film that follows is a complete mess. HURRY UP TOMORROW feels and is a vanity project that is badly conceived and executed, and arguably the worst film opening this year.

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THE LIVER KING (USA 2025) **
Directed by Joe Pearlman

 

Who is the celebrated liver king, aka Brian Johnson, and why did Netflix make a new documentary on him to be released this week?

In 2023, Brian Johnson claimed that his net worth was $310 million. However, MoneyMade took a look and judged the Liver King's liquid net worth to be closer to $12 million.  The site reports that Johnson has invested in four supplement brands and that each brand is performing at over $1 million in annual revenue.

Brian Johnson, known by his online alias Liver King, is an American fitness social media influencer and businessman.  He is known for promoting what he calls an "ancestral lifestyle", which includes eating large amounts of raw, unprocessed organs and meat, focusing on a daily intake of liver.  His dietary advice has been criticized by nutritionists for promoting potentially dangerous misinformation,  Myself, this critic hailing from Singapor,e where consuming liver, kidney intestines, ears, lover and other innards are common (but to uncooked meats like beef tartar), some dishes might be ok for some and not for others.

But is the liver king genuine?  Apparently not, no one is perfect, liver king.  Johnson's lifestyle is based around nine "ancestral tenets”.   He had denied having used steroids to achieve his physique until 2022, after which a leak of private e-mails revealed that he had spent over $11,000 a month on anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs. He then apologized for his conduct in a YouTube video.   The man is buff,

The doc avoids answers to questions like whether or not eating raw meat all day is really the key to health and happiness.  The site's description of the documentary reads, "The Liver King is less concerned with what it takes to build a physique than with what it takes to build a brand.  What happens when a person becomes a persona? How does a family live inside a myth? And what's the cost of becoming your own hero?”

“I can’t believe all the people who believe in this guy.”  “This is all bullshit.”  These are just a few of the sayings of the naysayers who do not believe the Liver King.  The Liver King is also not a great enough person for a doc to be made entirely on him.  In fact this is arguably the doc about the most unrespected person on Earth.   There is nothing good to say about this conceited man, except maybe that he cares for his two sons, who were sickly when young.  It is surprising, then, that this doc, thankfully a short one, is watchable.

Every doc has some unforgettable, though necessary, impressive set pieces.   Scenes in the documentary include Johnson's wife, Barbara, talking about how their son did not know what pain medication was when he broke his leg.  In another scene, the whole family kills a bull together and eats it raw.

Ultimately, THE LIVER KING is about someone disgusting (like Trump?), typical America - their nonsense and what stupid Americans believe in.  It is an ok observation of The Liver King, but not really worth watching as a documentary.  It opens for streaming on Netflix this week.

THE OLD WOMAN WITH THE KNIFE (South Korea 2025) **
Directed by Min Kyu-Dong

 

The reason South Korean action thriller made such a splash at the recent 2025 Berlinale, THE OLD WOMAN WITH THE KNIFE, is likely because it is based on the much-loved South Korean novel of the same name by Gu Byeong-Mu.

The old woman who goes by many names like Nails, Grandma, and Hornclaw is largely an aged assassin at the age of 65 in the film.  She has seen her heyday when she was a top-notch killer who disposed of her victims under an agency that gets paid and pays her to kill insects or vermin of society, like drug dealers and other assorted villains.  Hornclaw feels the aching weight of all her experiences and losses. In a body that isn’t as strong as it used to be, she works to carry out her remaining kill contracts and hopes that her name won’t end up on a target list one day.    Fate strikes its ugly hand when a job goes wrong, sending her straight into the lives of a young doctor and his family, awakening desires long dormant inside her.  And at her age, it doesn’t feel worth it to ignore them anymore, even if it means making herself vulnerable to certain ghosts from her past.

Hornclaw’s life is like that of other film assassins like JOHN WICK, who are loners.  Her only friend is an old dog she has rescued.  The segments with the dog that bring tenderness demand mention.  Hornclaw occasionally forgets to feed her, forgets to leave her water, but never for very long.   And much to Deadweight’s credit, she never seems to hold a grudge against her owner. Before Hornclaw leaves for a job, she cuddles and talks to her, almost ritualistically. “So when the time comes, get out of here and go where you need to go. Before you’re considered worthless, even though you’re still alive.” Hornclaw says this to Deadweight, as though the dog can understand her verbal instructions to leave their home, should she fail to return from a job alive.  There’s a feeling, however, that Hornclaw sees herself in Deadweight. It’s like a prayer, something the reader can imagine she’s told herself, every time she feels dismissed as old, frail, and insignificant. And even though she tries to prepare the dog for the very real possibility that she won’t return, she still says “I’ll be back” each time she leaves. She is reassuring herself as much as she is the dog, and that’s a tender and vulnerable thing for a contract killer to do. The audience learns that it was with similar tenderness that she was first, as a young girl, indoctrinated into the world of for-hire killing.  

Director Min directs the action set-pieces with finesse, on par with Hollywood blockbuster action films.  But here the film fails in the storytelling.  Laboured by too many flashbacks, many too confusing moving to and from the present to the past, the story appears too confusing, despite its relative simplicity.  The animosity between the young killer, named Bullfight, and Hornclaw does not work that well either.

THE OLD WOMAN WITH THE KNIFE — a Berlinale & Brussels Selection opens in theatres in the U.S> and Canada May 16th.

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