FILM REVIEWS:
CARMELO (Brazil 2025) ***
Directed by Diego Freitas
In case one is wondering Carmelo is the name of a stray dog - the canine hero of the new Netflix movie CARMELO.
Netflix has been criticized for putting out quantity vs. quality. But before one is ready to judge, it should be noted that Netflix has the streaming service cornered in terms of market share, and its stock price has been going up, up, up. Their new film, CARMELO, in case one is wondering, is a dog movie. But a dog movie has a little difference, being set in São Paulo. And who can complain about a movie featuring a super adorable mutt? According to the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), 45.5% of U.S. households own at least one dog. And in Canada, around 35% of people own dogs (i.e., 35% of households or individuals, depending on the study). The film will undoubtedly attract dog owners, and as listed in the statistics, that is a good share of the target audience that will show interest in viewing the film.
The film starts with a car with a dog abandoned in a cardboard box on a highway. Thus endearing stray dog embarks on an extraordinary journey, forging unlikely friendships and overcoming obstacles.
Amendoim (the dog in CARMELO) is a “vira-lata caramelo” — a Brazilian mixed-breed (caramel-colored mutt), not a recognized purebred. It looks like a small version of the Rhodesian Ridgeback without the ridge on the back. News pieces and Brazilian outlets say the production found/adopted a stray puppy (Amendoim) during casting.
For Brazilian flair, the film features a Brazilian street food dish called. Advice: Look up the recipe and make it. It is simple to make, though time-consuming, and is an excellent friend pastry.
Dog films always make audiences bawl their eyes out. In CARMELO, director Freitas ups the ante with a story that includes Pedro discovering he has a brain tumor and hiding the terminal illness from everyone, including his mother. How can he sense it, though, and always like his head to acknowledge it? An element of ramose is also added into the narrative with a dog rescuer falling for Pedro. The worst thing for Pedro is that the best things in his life are occurring right at the time of his advancing cancer. He has not only found a dog friend for life, but also got the job of his dreams, being the chef in a respected restaurant, and found a devoted girlfriend, all at the same time. All these events make the film even more emotional for a doggie movie. But if one wants to fault the movie, just watch CARMELO, the dog, and all can be forgiven, as that dog is so cute.
CARMELO demonstrates that an extraordinary film can be made from a simple story told with artistic simplicity, with a dash of spirit and emotions, and in this case, canine emotions. Netflix has come up with quantity and quality with CARMELO.
CARLMELO is a Netflix original Brazilian film and opens for screening this week on Netflix.
Trailer:
NOVELLE VAGUE (FRANCE 2025) ****
Directed by Richard Linklater
Having spent several years writing for Cahiers du cinéma, Godard (Guillaume Marbeck), not yet 30, declares, “The best way to criticize a film is to make one.” So off he goes, convincing George de Beauregard (Bruno Dreyfürst) to fund a low-budget independent feature and whipping up a treatment — there was never a proper script — with fellow New Waver François Truffaut (Adrien Rouyard) based on a news item about a gangster and his girlfriend. A meticulously and handsomely delivered black and white homage to the French New Wave aka NOUVELLE VAGUE, sees the homage paid through the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s A BOUT DE SOUFFLE, also known in English as BREATHLESS. Cinephiles will definitely delight in all the film references as well as the depiction of New Wave greats like directors Claude Chabrol, Francois Truffaut, Agnes Varda and husband Jacques Demy. The film also depicts the idiosyncrasies of Godard, who shot BREATHELESS sans script and sand continuity, much to the chagrin of his financial backers, makeup artist and collaborators. Seberg wanted to quit many times, but Belmondo finds all this absolutely amusing.
Trailer:
ROOFMAN (USA 2025) ***½
Directed by Derek Cianfrance
ROOFMAN is the true story of a thief/robber named Jeffrey, aka ROOFMAN, who enters many McDonald’s through the roof, and hence the nickname. A US military veteran unable to make ends meet, Jeffrey (Channing Tatum) gets caught robbing McDonald’s restaurants to provide for his kids. He’s tried, sentenced, incarcerated — and promptly breaks out. While on the run, he finds his way into a Toys “R” Us, where he crafts a makeshift hideout behind a wall. Months pass, the manhunt is all but forgotten, and Jeffrey finds himself falling for Leigh (Kirsten Dunst), one of the store’s employees. A connection is forged, though Leigh knows nothing of Jeffrey’s criminal status nor his current residence inside her workplace. Director Cianfartnce, who also co-wrote the script, ups the ante on charm with the film’s subject’s personality of always being a good guy, meeting the story. The film plays as a romance, a comedy with a few very funny parts and a bit of a thriller. Everyone loves to root for an underdog, especially with one as nice as Roofman, Jeff. ROOFMAN is better and more entertaining than the film looks.
SOLVENT (Austria 2025) ***
Directed by Johannes Grenzfurthner
An American expat joins a team of experts searching an abandoned Austrian farmhouse for historical Nazi documents that may be hidden within it. However, when they discover a secret buried deep in the home's bowels, the team is forced to confront an ancient, insatiable evil intent on consuming them and everything they hold dear.
Some of the pipe shots were taken in the plumbing system of Castle Leopoldskron in Salzburg, the filming location of “THE SOUND OF MUSIC. But that is not the only thing common. Both films examined Austria’s part in Nazism (Captain Von Trapp refuses to have or his family to have anything to do with the regime). SOLVENT engages with Austria’s struggle with its Nazi legacy, the idea of buried sins, and how past atrocities can seep into the present. There is also a weird inclusion of the Palestinian war in one segment.
The film intersperses various filming techniques, such as archival footage, B-roll, sound design, and disorienting editing to amplify psychological unease.
The film is not without humour, and the humour is unique in a weird way. When Christina is left in the basement with the pipe, she suddenly emerges all fucked up and kills off a fellow crew member, totally unexpectedly, but in a sort of hilarious way. Each of the characters that appear is also an oddity or misfit. The biggest goof is nicknamed Fish Folk, one of the crew whose grandfather owns the farmhouse. The question is whether the grandfather was a Nazi, which is assumed by the team. But a neighbour, who suddenly shows up during the search, claims that everyone is called a Nazi for any silly reason.
Written and directed by boundary-pushing filmmaker and actor Johannes Grenzfurthner (MASKING THRESHOLD), SOLVENT is a journey in horror as weird and odd as it is entertaining, told documentary style and narrated in the first person, unceasingly not only the incumbent horror but the black humour with it. A curiosity piece that works. The director aims to have the audience experience, firsthand hand the origin of evil. The film also gets quite nasty at times, showing what can be done, all vulgar things, with the pipe in the farmhouse. Included for one’s ‘pleasure’ are masturbation scenes which show no shyness in showing a naked penis on screen. At best, there are a few laugh-out-loud scenes.
The reason the film is called SOLVENT is explained at the start of the film, which contains lots of quotes, though one may argue the validity of the quotations.
The film’s camera techniques look like a combination of cinema verité, found footage, and grainy celluloid that does not always work. Not only is the narrative difficult to decipher at times, but it is also difficult to see too, what is going on.
The film has won several awards at various international film festivals, including Best Horror at the South African horrorfest and Nightmares film festivals.
SOLVENT is an Austrian film shot in both German and English. It premieres on VOD & DIGITAL on October 10, 2025.
Trailer:
THE WOMAN IN CABIN 10 (UK/USA 2025) ***
Directed by Simon Stone
Everyone loves a murder mystery, and THE WOMAN IN CABIN 10 is a murder mystery/psychological thriller that takes place on a luxury cruise ship. It is based i the 2016 novel by Ruth Ware,
`The film follows Lo Blacklock (Kirra Knightley), a travel journalist, who is covering the maiden voyage of a luxurious yacht. During the cruise, Lo believes she witnesses a woman (the one supposedly in Cabin 10) being thrown overboard in the night. However, when she reports it, she’s told that no one is missing — all passengers and crew are accounted for. Despite others dismissing her claims, Lo persists in trying to uncover the truth, which puts her own safety at risk.
There are Hitchcock overtones in the film. When reporting the missing woman in Cabin 10, as in Hitchcock’s NORTH BY NORTHWEST, she is told, as Cary Grant’s Richard Thornhill was, that it was all in the imagination and no one was in the house/cabin that was reported. Though it is reported in many of the reviews of the film that one could have identified the culprit in the whodunit, Hicthcocks always said that it made sense to know who the killer is in a mystery, so that every move the killer would make would have created suspense. But the murderer on a ship was best tackled in Herbert Ross’ famous 1973 whodunit THE LAST OF SHEILA, when the guests are invited on a yacht, and the host knew that his wife’s killer in a hit-and-run was one of them.
THE WOMAN IN CABIN 10 has enough mystery, though not so much suspense, to satisfy the average whodunit genre fan.
The film opens for streaming on Netflix on Friday, October 10th.
Trailer:
