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.
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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.
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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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