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:
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 in 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 balancing this 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.
Trailer:
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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