FILM REVIEWS:
THE ALTO KNIGHTS (USA 2025) ****
Directed by Barry Levinson
THE ALTO KNIGHTS is a film by old people with old people as the protagonists. Robert De Niro has dual roles in the film as two quarrelling gangsters and the film is directed by veteran Barry Levinson (DINER) and written by Nicholas Pileggi, author of GOODFELLAS, both of whom are in their senior years. But the film is masterly done and a pleasure to watch from the starting frame. De Niro is 81, Levinson is 82 and Pileggi is 92.
Why is the film called THE ALTO KNIGHTS? It is not made clear but the name THE ALTO KNIGHTS is the name of the bar that the two gangsters and others meet. In music ‘alto’ means the higher male pitched voice, often higher than the tenor. The gangster could be singing a higher tune that needs to be heard.
A power struggle between Vito Genovese and Frank Costello (both played by De Niro), the top bosses of the Mafia, spills into open conflict when Vito orders a hit on Frank. It all begins when Vito returns to the U.S. for Europe after handing everything in the business to Frank, his childhood and lifelong friend. The business, crooked as most of it is, booms. Now returning, Vito wants to take over where he had left off. But Vito gets frustrated as to how things turn out, as orchestrated by Fransk. Barely surviving, Frank maneuvers to protect himself and his family from Vito while also planning to retire from the Mafia. Frank just wants to get out. The other mob leaders do not want Vito to take over as they know he is a wild card. They prefer to leave things as they are with Frank in charge.
The opening frame informs that the year is 1957. The first 15 minutes of the film illustrate the meticulous care and effort that goes into creating the period atmosphere of the story. The vintage cars that are driven on the street, the shop windows and displays, the people’s wardrobe, props, and even the English spoken reflect the period of the piece. Then the excitement begins. Frank is shot in the elevator but survives.
The dialogue of the script from the writer of GOODFELLAS is spot on, and hilarious and makes the movie, aided by Robert De Niro who in his 70s can still deliver dialogue, and motor-mouth like his younger counterparts like Jesse Eisenberg and Jim Carrey, while keeping appropriate accents. The dialogue in which Frank talks about roses and horses is simply priceless. Roses are better than horses and they don’t smell that much. Also, I have won prizes for cultivating the best rose at a competition, maybe my wife fixed the winner, but who really cares? The spill on a paranoia conspiracy theory that feeds on itself is also too good a dialogue to be forgotten. The film thrives on its dialogue more than the action scenes, so more sophisticated audiences can enjoy it better.
De Niro hits the nail for best performance in the dual roles of the two gangsters. He sports different accents and with the different hair, the audience can distinguish one gangster character from the other. Debra Messing is all pretty good as Bobbie, the long-suffering wife who loves her husband regardless of what the circumstances are.
THE ALTO KNIGHTS a must-see opens Friday, March 21st.
Trailer:
APPALACHIAN DOG (USA 2024) ***
Directed by Colin Henning
APPALACHIAN DOG, is a sultry, slow-burn Southern Gothic period drama set in post-war Appalachia, 1946. The story follows a tailor and his seamstress wife as they struggle to navigate a tense reunion after five years apart. Shot on location in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina, the film leverages the stark winter landscape to evoke both cinematic beauty and a haunting desolation.
APPALACHIAN DOG is set in the Appalachian Mountain range in the United States. It is a bleak and deserted area. The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, are the mountain range in eastern to northeastern North America. The term "Appalachian" refers to several different regions associated with the mountain range, and its surrounding terrain.
It is this setting that sets the tone for a tense reunion between a husband, Teddy (Colin Henning) – turned unfruitfully idealistic after the war– and his wife, Marion (Georgia Morgan) –armed with courage and knowledge found in the years without him. Teddy is a tailer and his wife is a seamstress. But an injury during the war finds him with a shaky hand, one that is unable to sew less, thread a needle and thus unable to make the living g he did. He returns home with glasses, enabling him to read and see while being blind as a bat prior to the war, Things have changed. And very drastically. Their former relationship lies lost somewhere in the five years that have passed, but they share one common, unspoken, interest: to build a future. Pardon the pun - but the couple are trying to stitch their lives back together,
The film begins with Marion, her hired help Peggy working as help in the sewing and her best friend gathered for dinner as a welcome party for Teddy. But when Teddy appears, he acts all kind of weird, and things reach an emotional pitch, not to mention that the couple do not kiss or show tenderness when reunited.
In the heart of winter, their life and profession as tailors become complicated by newfound desires, talents, and a broken pair of glasses. Unable to sew, Teddy must pick up other work. Meanwhile, Marion moves back to the familiar feeling of working without her husband –and more than familiar, it may be preferable, too.
Director Colin Henning who also wrote and stars as Teddy in the film offered a really slow burn of a movie. But slow burn does not necessarily translate to ‘boring’, for the film surely isn’t. But the slow burn allows the film to unfold without any rush and allows the audience to get into the skin of the story’s characters. One can also see what goes on the inside and also read between the lines of dialogue.
The film’s sparse and isolated backdrop adds to the plight of the couple.
APPALACHIAN DOG is a film that is character-driven about characters and how they undergo and adapt to change. As shown, some thing can be changed and some cannot. The same goes for the personalities of Teddy and Marion. Thigh written by Heening, the film offers a female point of view instead.
The film opens on demand on 3/21
Trailer:
INVADER (USA 2024) ***
Directed by Mickey Keating
The film opens with jittery images as the film is shot hand-held camera style. There is some dodgy person that is squatting in a house. This person is destructive and damages the floors and walls of the house while sleeping thereafter. The words inform the audience that in the United States , there is a break in i.e. an invasion every 30 seconds. The film has the look of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT and it is obvious that it is that look and authenticity INVADER is aiming for.
Ana (Vero Maynez) is a long way from home, but eager to visit her cousin Camila in the Chicago suburbs. After Ana’s bus gets delayed, she arrives very late and begins to fear the worst when she can’t get a hold of Camila. Accompanied by Carlo (Colin Huerta), one of Camila’s co-workers, Ana decides to venture on foot to search for her cousin, encountering ominous signs, hostile locals, and the punishingly empty expanse of suburban America. When they arrive at Camila’s house, the night spirals into chaos when Ana and Carlo realize the bizarre and jaw-dropping truth. A lean, mean jolt of unsettling home invasion horror from director Mickey Keating and producer Joe Swanberg, INVADER will keep your skin crawling long after the credits roll.
The trouble with hand-held camera used in films like THE BLAIR WITCH PROJET is that the jittery images often gives one a headache besides being terribly annoying, Myself, I am not a fan. What is the problem of not using a tripod once in a while?
The best home invasion film is FUNNY GAMES made by Michael Hanake who specializes in creating human individual angst amidst social issues. HE made FUNNY GAMES in 1997 and a shot-to-shot American remake, the same title FUNNY GAMES in 2007. Hanake’s films are the best of the sub-genre and are disturbing, scary and unforgettable. INVADER is ok, given its limited budget and the fact that director Keaton is no match for world-renowned Austrian director Michael Hanake.
INVADER opens in select theatres in the United States February 21st and premieres in Canada on VOD March 25th.
Trailer:
LITTLE SIBERIA (Finland 2025) ***
Directed by Dome Karukoski
Little Siberia is a Netflix original film based on the hit Finnish noir novel of the same name by Antti Tuomainen. The film also marks the first Netflix original film from Finland and it is an impressive film.
The film works as a dark thriller, a genre that usually is loved by cineastes The protagonist is a priest called Joel, who is far from the holy leader one would expect. Things come to a boil when a meteorite hots the town.
The arrival of a meteorite in a small Finnish town causes chaos and crime in this poignant, chilling and hilarious new thriller from the King of Helsinki Noir A man with dark thoughts on his mind is racing along the remote snowy roads of Hurmevaara in Finland, when there is flash in the sky and something crashes into the car. That something turns out to be a highly valuable meteorite. With euro signs lighting up the eyes of the locals, the unexpected treasure is temporarily placed in a neighbourhood museum, under the watchful eye of a priest named Joel. But Joel has a lot more on his mind than simply protecting the riches that have apparently rained down from heaven. His wife has just revealed that she is pregnant.
The town of Hurmevaara is fictional but the fictional town does look stunning on screen.
Unfortunately, Joel has strong reason to think the baby isn’t his - the reason being that he cannot have a child, unbeknown to his wife. As Joel tries to fend off repeated and bungled attempts to steal the meteorite, he must also come to terms with his own situation, and discover who the father of the baby really is.
The film is directed and co-written by Dome Karukoski who made a name for himself with his previous success THE GRUMP in 2014.
For Netflix viewers, the culture of Finland, the mores, customs and practices are all on display, all tied into a realistic story about what life is all about.
LITTLE SIBERIA opens for streaming on Netflix Friday, March 21st.
Trailer:
REVELATIONS (South Korea 2025) ***
Directed by Yeon Sang-ho
Director Yeon Sang-ho, who made his name with the immensely popular Korean film TRAIN TO BUSAN returns with a new entry, REVELATIONS, the title taken from revelations realized by human individuals though it could also come from the Bible’s Book of Revelations.
A pastor, Min-chan (Ryu Jun-yeol) believes that punishing criminals is a divine revelation, and a detective, Yeon-hee (Shih Hyun-been), is in charge of a missing persons case who is haunted by visions of her deceased sibling. Shin Min-jae plays ex-convict Yang-rae.
The story shifts between the individuals pursuing their own beliefs as director Yeon tackles a more complicated film. Not only that but the film shifts between the genres of obsession to the point of paranoia and thriller suspense. Director Yeon builds a good balance, though the end result might disappoint some audiences due to the meticulous build-up of the story.
There are too many coincidences in the climax that director Yeom uses to tie the ends together though the happy ending is satisfactory enough to bring all the three subjects together - the villain, the pastor and the detective.
REVELATIONS is still a compulsive entertaining watch and is currently streaming on Netflix,
Trailer:
THE TWISTER: CAUGHT IN THE STORM (UK 2025) ***
Directed by Alexandra Lacey
It is graduation day in Joplin, Missouri. As the Class of 2011 collect their diplomas, their hometown is hit by a rare EF-5 tornado. Believing it could be the end of the world, a group of teenagers find themselves in the eye of the storm.
At times, it is more exciting than the fiction TWISTER Hollywood film, CAUGHT IN THE STORM, which is about the Joplin, Missouri tornado. In the hours of Sunday, May 22, 2011, a large, deadly and devastating EF5 tornado, known most commonly as the Joplin tornado, or Joplin EF5, struck the city of Joplin, Missouri, United States, causing catastrophic damage to it and the surrounding regions. The tornado devastated a large portion of the city of Joplin, damaging nearly 8,000 buildings, and of those, destroying over 4,000. The damage—which included major facilities like one of Joplin's two hospitals as well as much of its basic infrastructure—amounted to a total of $2.8 billion (equivalent to about $4 billion today), making the Joplin tornado the costliest single tornado in U.S. history. Overall, the tornado killed 158 people (including eight indirect deaths) and injured some 1,150 others, making it the deadliest tornado of the year of 2011. It ranks as the deadliest tornado in Missouri in addition to being one of the deadliest in the United States, having the highest death.
The doc also talks about Tornado Alley. Tornado Alley, also known as Tornado Valley, is a loosely defined location of the central United States and, in the 21st century, Canada where tornadoes are most frequent.
The doc personalizes the event by including the voices of several survivors, mainly teens of various upbringings. One of them is Chad Crilley who flew to Joplin with his mother the day before to observe twisters. Crilley is already a celebrity. \Chief Meteorologist Chad Crilley has had weather running in his blood since he was nine years old. When he was in middle school, before becoming a teen, Chad emailed several broadcast meteorologists across Tornado Alley asking if he could shadow them during severe weather season. One meteorologist in Joplin, Missouri, was quick to respond and extend an invitation. After receiving the invite, Chad’s mother made arrangements and flew with him to Joplin on May 22, 2011, just two hours before the monster EF5 tornado destroyed much of the town. Chad sprang into action, grabbing his phone and recording reports as the storms tore through Joplin and sending the video back to stations in his hometown of San Diego, California.
Other teens featured in the doc include Cecil, a gay teen who thought he was left behind in what he thought was the Christian rapture (the second coming) because he was gay. Others included teen couple Kaylee and Keegan. Being in the Bible Belt, God comes into playing he much of the dialogue.
Other issues include the existence of a black fungus that was deadly and almost killed Will, a teen featured in the doc- called Miracle Boy.
The doc suffers from trying to humanize the tragedy too much resulting in sappiness reigning for the day.
CAUGHT IN STORM is currently streaming on Netflix.
