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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 30 September 2024

Two intriguing features are worth a view.  One is actress Anna Kendick's WOMAN OF THE HOUR, an engrossing and compelling watch based on the true story of a serial killer who appeared on the famous TV reality show The Dating Game.  The other is an unexpected look at ex-President Donald Trump in THE APPRENTICE in which Trump is shown as a young eager to prove himself an entrepreneur corrupted by gay lawyer Roy Cohn.  

 

FILM REVIEWS:

THE APPRENTICE (Canada/Denmark/Ireland 2024) ****
Directed by Ali Abbasi

 

THE APPRENTICE is the young Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan) under the somewhat crooked lawyer Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong) who took the innocent man under his wing and made him the one the world now knows as the bad, very bad ex-President Donald J. Trump.  The film is also about Cohn, his principles, practices and his private hidden life like his homosexuality, which resulted in his death from AIDs.

A young Donald Trump, eager to make his name as a hungry second son of a wealthy family in 1970s New York, comes under the spell of Roy Cohn, the cutthroat who would help create the Donald Trump we know today.  Cohn sees in Trump the perfect protégé – someone with raw ambition, a thirst for success, and a willingness to do whatever it takes to win.  The rest is history.

  Alongside Maria Bakalova (Trump’s first wife Ivana) and Martin Donovan (Trump’s father, Fred), the film also stars Charlie Carrick as Trump’s older brother Freddy, and Mark Rendall as future political advisor Roger Stone. 

  “There is no right or wrong. There is no truth.  It is only about winning.  It is a gift to not care what people, think of you”.  These are the words Cohn uttered to Trump, which Trump obviously took to heart and practices to this very day.  And the other advice and words:  “You are young and you got a lot to go.  You are handsome.  You must fuck a lot!”

Warhol is also shown in the picture saying:  “I am an artist.”  When asked what he makes, his reply is “Whatever I can sell.”  Then comes Donald’s question: “And are you successful?”  And the film cuts off from there,

“You must be prepared to exploit your enemies and instill fear.” is one other important line of dialogue in the film.

Days after The Apprentice premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung released a statement saying they intended to file a lawsuit to stop the film from being released.  "This garbage is pure fiction which sensationalizes lies that have been long debunked," Cheung said.  The threatened lawsuit never materialized but the threats saw the film struggle for months to find a US distributor, despite landing eager distributors in the UK and Australia.

Truth be told, the film humanizes Trump, showing him in a different light especially in his vulnerability blaming Cohn for all of Trump’s ‘badness’.  As they say, a film is only as interesting as its subject and Trump is one of the most intriguing subjects in the world today, becoming a single media circus.  THE APPRENTICE is not only intriguing but quite a good film.

Trump is actually put in a good light in the film.  He is shown as a romantic, one who loves his kid in the kid crying scene and one who is a hardworking, well sort-of-honest man but corrupted by Cohn, among others.  A few scenes show Trump in a bad light as the one in which he sexually abuses Ivana and the ones where he is shown popping ecstasy pills thinking they are diet pills.   The film sets Trump as a reluctant hero, so Trump should have no qualms about his portrayal in the film.  No wonder his lawyers have backed off from persecuting the film.

The ultimate praise to Trump is the casting of talented and good-looking actor Sebastian Stan as rhetorical nun g Donald Trump.  Stan, who recently appeared in A DIFFERENT MAN and has proven himself an actor to be reckoned with, with an impressive resume that includes films like AVENGERS, HOT TUB TIME MACHINE and CAPTAIN AMERICA.  In the scene where he puts down the NYC mayor, insulting him during an interview, he nails the Trump character.  Stan was also twin shooting THUNDERBOLTS and in this film, he lost and gained weight for the two different roles.

THE APPRENTICE OPENS IN theatres on October 11th.

Trailer: 

DADDY’S HEAD (Australia 2024) ***

Directed by Benjamin Barfoot

 

In the wake of his father’s untimely death, a young boy is left in the eerie solitude of a sprawling country estate with his newly widowed stepmother.  Struggling to navigate the overwhelming task of parenthood, his stepmother grows distant, leaving their fragile bond at risk of collapse.  Amidst the growing tension, the boy begins to hear unsettling sounds echoing through the corridors and is soon haunted by the presence of a grotesque creature bearing a disturbingly familiar resemblance to his late father.  As the boy’s warnings are dismissed as the imagination of a grieving child, the sinister entity tightens its grip on their crumbling lives.

The film DADDY’S HEAD's most frightening scene has a boy, the son of a man in the hospital all bandaged up from head to toe with tubes running all over him, including his nose.  No flesh of the man is observable.  The boy is told that the father’s lifeline is to be removed by him.   The film is scary for two reasons.  For one, it is a scary sight to look at and secondly, it is psychologically damaging for a boy to witness death and for him not the first but second, occurring just right after he has lost his mother.

As the story goes, the man with the accident has just re-married to a beautiful younger female, who is now the boy’s stepmother.  Though she is in no way interested in becoming a mother any time soon, she is still emotionally affected when told that the boy will be taken by Social Services and put in an orange if she does not become or others find him a guardian.  All the while, she notices the by emotionally affected and particularly quiet.  Then the horror begins.  Family is everything, (that is the film’s caption) and it is what one makes with one’s family that counts.

The film is well paced with a solid buildup in mystery and suspense.  Director Barfoot clearly knows what he is doing.  Barfoot is a self-taught filmmaker from Torbay, Devon. Beginning with animation films as a child, he quickly moved on to video where he taught himself an array of skills from cameras and editing to animation, visual effects and sound design. Moving to London with a short animated film he had made at home, he was nominated for a Broadcast Young Talent Award and began cutting his teeth in London with everything from film trailers, and motion graphic promos to documentaries for BBC. Whilst between these jobs, he continued to create his own work, experimenting with dark animated shorts to fully improvised comedies that he shot and edited.  Barfoot also edited and composed the soundtrack for DADDY’S HEAD.

However, one of the film’s flaws is the explanation of the monster that appears to the boy, who speaks to him in his father’s voice.   Where did the monster originate?  And what happened to it when the boy was growing up?   Unless the monster is the boy’s imagination implying that he did all the violent acts including killing the poor dog. DADDY’S HEAD which premiered at the Fantastic Fest Film Festival 2024, opens for streaming on Shudder, the horror network on Friday October 11th.

Trailer: 

IN HER PLACE (El Lugar de la Otra) (Chile 2024) ***
Directed by Maite Alberdi

 

Chile, 1955. When the popular writer María Carolina Geel murders her lover, the case captivates Mercedes, the shy secretary of the judge in charge of defending the accused. After visiting the writer's apartment, Mercedes begins to question her life, identity and the role of women in society as she finds in that home an oasis of freedom.

The film is touted to be based on true events.  The true event is Maria’s commitment of the murder but the Mercedes character is made up in what is otherwise a fictitious story.

As the film is set in the 50’s and deals with murder and a mysterious femme fatale, director Maite Alberdi’s film feels like a Hitchcock movie with the character of Gael looking like the Kim Novak character in VERTIGO.

The film has a strong female slant dealing with two strong women, Mercedes and Maria.  The film shows Mercedes' demise from being locked into a mundane routine lifestyle.  The film begins with her in bed next to her snoring husband.  She wakes up to make breakfast for her noisy two sons who leave no packs for her, after she had made breakfast for the family.  She lives in a small cramped apartment which the husband converts to a photography studio for his business.  So when asked to look after Maria's belongings, she fantasizes about being IN HER PLACE.  Director Albrerdi is fond of using close-ups to emphasize the points he wishes to make in the story, a tactic that works pretty well.

Though the film is slow-moving, it has an excellent build-up, priming the audience for something huge that is to come.  But often in films where there is a strong build and audience anticipation, they fail to live up to expectations.

`IN HER PLACE has been selected as Chile’s entry for Best International Feature for the next Academy Awards.

Netflix specializes in crime documentaries and this fiction film plays like one.  IN HER PLACE opens for Netflix streaming this week.

Trailer: 

THE MENENDEZ BROTHERS (USA 2024)***½

Directed by Alejandro Hartmann

THE MENENDEZ BROTHERS  is a 2024 American true crime documentary film directed by Alejandro Hartmann for the streaming company Netflix, in which brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez, who were convicted of the 1989 murders of their parents, are interviewed about the case.

The documentary film tells the story of Lyle and Erik Menendez, who were convicted in 1996 for the murders of their parents on August 20, 1989.  In the documentary, for the first time in about thirty years, the brothers themselves talk about what exactly happened and why they did it. The brothers do this through audio interviews from prison, where they are still incarcerated.

At the film’s beginning, the voiceover touts the film’s intriguing nature.  It talks about Beverly Hills, and how safe and prestigious the 80210 postal code is the most sought-after and desired place to reside in.  It goes on to say that crime is minimal and that murders would not even be imagined, less one in which a couple has been shot violently in their own home,  Then it goes on to say that the brothers have a story to tell, over after thirty years for the very first time, both to expel their demons and also that the world can learn a few things from the madness.  Needless to say, this true crime drama. a doc constructed by interviews and footage of the cops’ investigation is a most intriguing piece, again proving that Netflix is one of the best streaming places to watch true crime dramas, especially when one loves this genre when reality is often stranger than fiction.

The interviewees in the doc are as carefully picked as the jurors for the trial.  These included the family relatives including the brothers’ grandmother and mother’s sister, Kitty, a juror and reporter involved in the case as well as  the lead prosecutor Pamela Bozanich of their case,

The two brothers were initially not suspects though they could be arrested on the spot of the murder.  Gun shells were in the son’s car which was at the scene of the murder.  There was gunpowder on the hands of the brothers.  The brothers told the cops they smelt smoke and they would not have if they had not been close to the murder.  For any domestic shootings, the family members would immediately be suspect. but being Beverly Hills, the Beverly Hills cops treat the citizens very nicely.

What is seldom done in a court film, fictional or doc is the display of emotions from the lawyers.  Each of the three lawyers, the prosecutor who threw up before the trial and the ones defending Lyle and Erik \, all different personalities show their vulnerability.

The behavior of the two brothers was strange and unexpected.  Lyle changed from a goofy college kid to the business-like personality of his father.  Lyle delivered an emotionless eulogy at the funeral.  The two went on an extravagant shopping free soon after spending money like water.

Trailer: 

MY HERO ACADEMIA: YOU’RE NEXT (Japan 2024) **

Directed by Tensai Okamura

 

Written by: Yôsuke Kuroda, Kôhei Horikoshi and directed by Tensai Okamura, MY HERO ACADEMIA: YOU’RE NEXT is the fourth film of the TV manga series that won popularity among manga enthusiasts,

In a society where heroes and villains continuously battle in the name of peace and chaos, Izuku Midoriya, a U.A. High School student who aspires to be the best hero he can be, confronts the villain who imitates the hero he's long admired.  In the film, the best hero is called All Might, but an imitation villain pretends to be All Might before chaining his name to Balck Might showing his true colours.

A bit of background is necessary to understand the context of this movie.  Those unfamiliar will be thrust without much explanation into the story, which can be quite confusing if not annoying.

My Hero Academia (Japanese: Boku no Hīrō Akademia) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Kōhei Horikoshi. It was serialized in Shueisha's shōnen manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump from July 2014 to August 2024, with its chapters collected in 41 tankōbon volumes as of August 2024. Set in a world where superpowers (called "Quirks") have become commonplace, the story follows Izuku Midoriya, a boy who was born without a Quirk but still dreams of becoming a superhero himself. He is scouted by the world's greatest hero, All Might, who bestows his Quirk to Midoriya after recognizing his potential and helps to enroll him in a prestigious high school for superheroes in training.  The manga spawned a media franchise, having inspired numerous spin-off manga, such as My Hero Academia: Smash!!, My Hero Academia: Vigilantes, and My Hero Academia: Team-Up Missions. The series has expanded into light novels, stage plays, and various types of merchandise and media, including numerous video games. It has also been adapted into an anime television series by Bones. The first season aired in Japan from April to June 2016, followed by a second season from April to September 2017, then a third season from April to September 2018, a fourth season from October 2019 to April 2020, a fifth season from March to September 2021, a sixth season from October 2022 to March 2023, and a seventh season which premiered in May 2024. It has also received four animated films, titled My Hero Academia: Two Heroes, My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising, My Hero Academia: World Heroes' Mission, and MY HERO ACADEMIA: YOU’RE NEXT, this film.

MY HERO ACADEMIA: YOU’RE NEXT is set in a world where about 80% of the human population has gained superpowers called "Quirks" ). Quirks vary widely and can be inherited. Among the Quirk-enhanced individuals, a few of them earn the title of Heroes, who cooperate with authorities in rescue operations and apprehending criminals who abuse their Quirks, commonly known as Villains. In addition, Heroes who excel in their duties gain celebrity status and are recognized as "Pro Heroes". Heroes are ranked in popularity, with higher-ranking heroes receiving public appeal, although it is not uncommon for rookie heroes to gain popularity as well.

The manga feature is emotionless and boring to no-manga fans and to those who are not fans of the series despite some good animation. It is difficult to get excited to watch animated heroes fighting animated villains.

The film opens in theatres across Canada on Friday, October 11th.

Trailer: 

SING MY SONG (Canada 2024) ***
Directed by Barbara Kayee Lee

 

SING MY SONG follows Barbara “Kayee” Lee, an award-winning broadcast journalist and community advocate, on her decade-long journey to discover why there are no Asian pop stars from North America.  As a songwriter who doesn’t fit the pop star image, Lee is initially driven by the hope of having her songs sung by American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson, forcing Lee to confront her own internalized biases stemming from the lack of Asian pop stars growing up in the West. An insightful and, yet poignant search from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Hong Kong to Nashville, Tennessee that will make you think, cry, and laugh as you go along the journey with Lee to find her voice and fulfill her childhood dream.

The question is whether the film would be interesting to non-singer-songwriters.  But Asians aside, the film discusses problems faced by other minority races trying to succeed in any other industry besides music, like film or painting.  Still, the film delves in quite detail the music industry, especially on recording and singing.

Lee's pursuit of her musical dream intertwines with encounters with fellow Asian American and Asian Canadian singer-songwriters including the Far East Movement, Alfa Garcia, Kevin So and Umi Hsu. The documentary challenges the Model Minority Myth, unraveling its dual nature –celebrated for excellence in classical music yet sidelined as not "cool" enough for mainstream popularity. Through Lee's lens, viewers are compelled to reckon with the complicity within Asian communities and the systemic erasure of Asian musicians and pop stars in North America.

The doc also blends in the life of Lee, making it like a slight biopic.  Barbara emigrated to Canada when she was fourteen months old from Hong Kong and her mother bought her first guitar at a pawn shop close to Chinatown.  She worked the family farm in British Columbia.  The present?  Barbara has spent over twenty-five years as a community advocate for diverse representation and organizer of events to increase the profile and opportunities for Canadian and American Asian artists in mainstream music, film and media. She is the founder of the Vancouver Asian Film Festival (VAFF), the oldest Asian film festival in Canada, in its 28th year. Co-founder of the Mighty Asian Moviemaking Marathon (MAMM) in its 19th year and founder and producer of the Racial Equity Screen Office (RESO), creator of East by Northwest (EXNW) Global Creative Summit as well as founder of Elimin8Hate.org to combat anti-Asian racism.   She also started the Vancouver Asian Film Festival, championing Asian values.

The topic of being Asian in a Western country comes up for the reason of its relevance as a musical artist.  Lee talks about the difference between an Asian Canadian and a Canadian Asian.  The topic is discussed ingrate detail by another Asian American artist who had made it in Tennessee, Kevin So.

One can understand Lee’s lessons learned but the film’s conclusion with Lee’s speaking to the film’s audience tends to be preachy if not condescending.

SING MY SONG premieres on  AAM.tv (Asian AmerciaTV) on October 11, 2024

Trailer: 

STUDIO ONE FOREVER (USA 2023) ***
Directed by Marc Saltarelli

 

The documentary STUDIO ONE almost did not make it to the cinemas or VOD due to the pandemic and lack of funding.  The doc finally opens this week and for those who are gay and love the club scene, then the Disco scene, this movie will bring total delight.  For those gay,, who are older now and used to look young and pretty and used to do the club scene (myself definitely included), watching STUDIO ONE FOREVER reminds one of the times past when one was young and pretty and could pick up a new lover every night at the club, least of all make it on the dance floor or even have sex in the toilets.  And there were plenty of drugs.  For those in Toronto, there was the equivalent, sort of anyway, except that there were no celebrities, of STUDIO ONE, like the night club FLY, the place in which the gay series, the American one, QUEER AS FOLK was shot.

In STUDIO ONE FOREVER, director Marc Saltarelli and narrators Bruce Vilanch and David Del Valle dive into the history of the historic venue, offering a testament to an era and immortalizing the club's legacy for future generations. The documentary features candid, modern-day interviews with Chita Rivera, Sam Harris, Felipe Rose, Charlo Crossley, Melissa Rivers, Roslyn Kind, Lance Bass, and Thelma Houston along with former bartenders and patrons who recount their experiences at Studio One, and what the iconic club stood for.  Many of the bartenders and patrons interviewed, now much older, look especially gorgeous and hot with their archive photographs shown.

A beacon of dancing and freedom for gay men looking for identity in a world that saw them as outcasts, Studio One was a haven and the blossoming centre of nightlife in West Hollywood.  From merging the gay community and Hollywood elites like Bette Davis and Jimmy Stewart to being at the forefront of the LBGTQ+ rights movement and the fight against the AIDS crisis, the venue was more than just a disco, it was a movement.   

The film plays like a biopic of STUDIO ONE - from past to present.  The Studio One building was originally owned by William Fox and housed the Mitchel Camera Company. Mitchel manufactured Hollywood's early film cameras used by Charlie Chaplin, and for filming The Wizard of Oz. Later, it was used as the Norden bombsight facility during World War II. As the audience is informed, the floor has been reinforced during the War, which enabled it to be tested with thousands of Disco dancers pouring on the floor.  In 1968 the building was bought and transformed into The Factory nightclub, named after the furniture manufacturing business on the lower floor of the building.  The Factory became a popular 1960s-style discothèque that was frequented by Hollywood celebrities, but it only lasted a few years. And then, Studio One was founded on the same site in 1974 by part-owner Scott Forbes, a Boston optometrist.   In the 1990s it was bought by Sandy Sachs and renamed to Axis.  The space is currently called The Robertson.

The doc spends time talking about STUDIO ONE founder Scott Forbes who eventually succumbed to AIDs.  The doc also sadly looks at the impact of the disease.

STUDIO ONE FOREVER is available on VOD on October 8 via Gravitas.

Trailer: 

SUPER/MAN: THE CHRISTOPHER REEVE STORY (USA 2024) ***½

Directed by Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui

 

There have been many, many actors who have taken on the role of Superman, but only one that remains the symbol of the iconic hero - and that is Christopher Reeves who played the titular hero from the Planet of Krypton in not one but in four Superman movies, only the first two being really successful.  The third was shot in Calgary with Richard Pryor and the fourth and last is best forgotten.

The story of Christopher Reeve is an astonishing rise from an unknown actor to an iconic movie star, and his definitive portrayal of Clark Kent/Superman set the benchmark for the superhero cinematic universes that dominate cinema today.  Reeve portrayed the Man of Steel in four Superman films before being injured in a near-fatal horse-riding accident in 1995 that left him paralyzed from the neck down.  As the voiceover goes: Everything can be changed in an instant.

  After becoming a quadriplegic, Reeve became a charismatic leader and activist in the quest to find a cure for spinal cord injuries, as well as a passionate advocate for disability rights and care - all while continuing his career in cinema in front of and behind the camera and dedicating himself to his beloved family.

This film includes never-before-seen intimate home movies and an extraordinary trove of personal archive material, as well as the first extended interviews ever filmed with Reeve’s three children about their father, and interviews with the A-list Hollywood actors who were Reeve’s colleagues and friends. The film is a moving and vivid cinematic telling of Reeve’s remarkable story.

Many celebrities speak of Reeve.  Most notable is actress Glenn Close talking candidly about Reeve and also about his best friend Robin Williams, who was in the same acting class before becoming famous, who with his wife, Marsha provided Reeve with immense support.  Close claims on camera that she strongly believes that if Reeve was still alive, Williams should also be alive and not have taken his life.

The film goes on to show that Reeve later directed IN THE GLOAMING (1997), acted in the television remake of REAR WINDOW (1998), and made two appearances in the Superman-themed television series Smallville (2003). Reeve died in 2004 from heart failure at a hospital near his home in Westchester County, New York.

Needless to say, the doc is a tearjerker and the directors have no qualms in preventing it from being one.  The film spends a good whole 15 minutes on is death with the reaction of his immediate family.

From the opening clips of the SUPERMAN film to Christopher Reeve’s accident and his fight with recovery, the doc is extremely well thought of and put together with the conclusion of not who the hero is but what a hero is, showing that the hero is not a super mighty being but a human being as witnessed in the life and work of one Christopher Reeves.

SUPER/MAN: THE CHRISTOPHER REEVE STORY opens in theatres on October 11th.

Trailer: 

WOMAN OF THE HOUR (USA 2024) ****
Directed by Anna Kendrick

 

WOMAN OF THE HOUR is the stranger-than-fiction story of an aspiring actor (Anna Kendrick) in 1970s Los Angeles and a serial killer in the midst of a years-long murder spree, whose lives intersect when they’re cast on an episode of The Dating Game.

In the 1970s Rodney Alcala went on a murder spree, luring women by posing as a photographer looking for models. Though already a registered sex offender and recently released from prison, he infamously appeared on The Dating Game, a show that introduced a set of three new bachelors each week, hidden from view as a woman asked them amusing questions before choosing a winner to go on an all-expenses-paid trip with her.

It is Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut in which she stars as the main character as well.  She is quite capable at it, creating both an intelligent and absorbing film that empowers women.  The killings by the serial killer are interspersed with Sheryl’s routine making the film play like an anthology of the killings bound together with Sheryl’s life.  Daniel Zovatto is nothing short of excellent in the role of the creepy ladykiller, Rodney.

.Actress Anna Kendick's WOMAN OF THE HOUR is an engrossing and compelling watch based on the true story of a serial killer who appeared on the famous TV reality show The Dating Game.  The film premiered at TIFF last year and opens in Theatres now.

Trailer 

Details

Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 28 September 2024

FILM REVIEWS:

ALIEN ON STAGE (UK 2020) ***
Directed by Lucy Harvey and Danielle Kummer

 

A very amateur dramatics group led by Dorset Bus Drivers spent a year creating a serious stage adaptation of the sci-fi, horror film Alien.  ALIEN ON STAGE is a low-budget British documentary on the behind-the-scenes of the amateurish play.

In case, one is not familiar with Dorset.  Dorset is a county in southwest England. It is known for the Jurassic Coast, a long stretch on the English Channel where the cliffs contain many fossils, and rock formations show millions of years of geological history.  The Allendale Centre, Wimborne is the place in Dorset, population 6400 where the play is planned for Opening Night.  The aim is to maximize ticket sales to raise money for charity.

The doc involves :

the bus drivers and other bus staff (like the supervisors) taking on various roles in the production from acting to stage manager to props maker; the rehearsals; the making of he props that include the alien; and of course the performance.

There are clips of the actual Ridley Scott ALIEN so that the audience can get a feel of what is actually done by the bus driver crew.  “This is what Ridley Scott would have wanted to do…. but in a more basic format,” says the prop manager as he shows his green-painted alien eggs.

They were hoping that everyone would come and they would sell out because ALIEN was such a huge cult movie.  But that did not happen.  There were only 20 people.  The main complaint from the troupe?  No one gave any feedback.  The directors of the doc then interviews one of those who attended and what she thought.

Their village-hall show is a crushing flop; it seems their hard work was for nothing, but fate gives them a second chance to perform their homemade, homage in a London West End theatre, for one night only.  With wobbly sets, awkward acting, and special effects, requiring

'more luck than judgment'. Will they be alright on the night?

ALIEN ON STAGE plays like a home movie made with sincerity without any claim to be any best picture of the year.  The film is entertaining enough, on a small scale, very basic with more pleasure derived by observation of ordinary English folk like the bus drivers of Dorset than from the success of the staging of the play.  At its best, the doc shows the camaraderie of the Dorset players, always laughing and never uttering a bad word to one another as well as parts of the humorous performance at the West end.  The doc should attract more than the 20 people they got on the play’s opening night, again a surprise for the Dorset players.

After a successful World Premiere at SXSW,  Alien On Stage screened at over 60 film festivals worldwide, winning seven international awards, four of them In the U.S. and Canada.

including the Jury Award for Best Documentary Feature Calgary Underground Film Festival, Silver Audience Award, Best Documentary, Fantasia International Film Festival and Audience Award, and Best Documentary Leeds International Film Festival.

Indiecan Entertainment will release ALIEN ON STAGE in Canada and the U.S. on October 8th.

Trailer: 

THE PLATFORM 2 (Le Hoyo 2) (Spain 2024) ***
Directed by Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia

 

THE PLATFORM 2 (Spanish: El Hoyo 2) is a 2024 Spanish satirical science fiction film directed by Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia.

THE PLATFORM  begins with several people talking about food,  or rather what they like to eat from pizza to coquettes to cooking with cumin.  It turns out that convicts have over two hundred levels.  The lower the level, the lower the quality of food.  The food is laid out on a platform that goes through all the levels.  Every convict must not take food belonging to those of another higher level.

The film returns to the world of "The Platform," a large, tower-style "Vertical Self-Management Center" prison that houses various criminals. The dozens of floors house two occupants per floor and a free-floating platform delivers food to them on a daily schedule.

The film is set in a large, tower-style "Vertical Self-Management Center." Its residents, who are transferred in through for various crimes or wants must every month switch between its many floors, are fed via a platform which, initially filled with food at the top floor, gradually descends through the tower's levels, stopping for a fixed amount of time on each. The system inevitably leads to conflict, as the residents at the top levels get to eat as much as they can, with each level only getting the leftovers from the previous ones.

For those who remember the first movie, number 2 provides more of the same.  It's still amazing in terms of concept and delivery despite its incredible premise.

It is no surprise the sequel was made.  The original film was released on Netflix in March 2020. Subsequently, the film received a surge in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic and the company revealed the film had been watched by 56 million households over its first four weeks of release, among the most ever for one of their original films

THE PLATFORM 2 opens for streaming on Netflix on Friday, October 3rd this week.  From Spain and in Spanish.

Trailer: 

REZ COMEDY (Canada 2024) ***
Directed by (CSA winners) Quentin Lee, Keith Nahanee

 

The word Rex means a North American Indian reservation or reserve.  The title for the new Canadian film REZ COMEDY refers to comedy involving Indigenous (as the word Indian is not so much used these days) reservations or Indigenous matters for that matter.

REZ COMEDY is the first all-Indigenous and all-Canadian stand-up comedy feature film.

Eight diverse Indigenous comics from all over Canada come together for a set connected by the Squamish Nation and host comic Keith Nahanee, star of Comedy Invasion, Canadian Screen Awards 2024 winner for Best Comedy Special.

As far as the film goes, credit is also given for Indigenous and comedy content.  The film plays like an anthology with 8 segments of standup comedy routines. The funniest of the stands is Keith Nahanee, the first one featured and thankfully also, the host of the Comedy Special Show.  The film devotes some time at the film’s start to have him introduce the film while the other comics have only a one-minute introduction before the routine starts.

The comics as well as the description goes:

Host: KEITH NAHANEE - Squamish Nation (BC) - He is clearly one of the funniest of the lot, his delivery being the smoothest and his jokes relevant and insightful.  Unfortunately, placing him first and him, being the best sort of, lets the film go somewhat downhill.  He pokes fun at himself, the best joke being his 7-size girly foot that he reveals in the  midst of his routine as well as poking fun at the audience.  His swearing is minimal.

Others featured (in alphabetical order) include::

WAYNE ALEXIS - Sto’lo Nation from Cheam Band (BC)

CHUCK CEASE - Mistawasis Nahiyawak Cree Nation (SK)

DENISE B. MCLEOD -  Urban IndigiQueer Anishinaabe Kwe, home territory is Sagamok Anishnawbek F.N (ON)

JANELLE NILES - Black - Mi’kmaq woman from Sipekne'katik (NS)

DREA OMER - Saskatchewan-based

HELENA PAUL - Tk’emlups te Secwempemc and Skowkale (BC)

BRENDA PRINCE - Anishinabe (MB)

KEVIN SHAWANDA - Birch Island (ON)

(CSA stands for Canadian Screen Awards)

REZ COMEDY opens October 4, 2024 (Imagine Cinemas Carlton - Toronto, ON) with an invite-only screening hosted by two-time CSA winner Indigenous actor Tamara Podemski on October 3, 2024 

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TROUBLE (Sweden 2024) ***
Directed by Jon Holmberg

 

From Sweden comes a comedy, directed and co-written by Jon Holmberg,  a quite silly one of a lovable loser that just keeps getting more and more into trouble for two reasons - bad coincidences with fate never on his side, and his tom-foolishness.

Conny is divorced and works as a salesman at a major electronics chain and looks forward to every other week when he gets to spend time with his daughter Julia. Suddenly life is turned upside down. Conny is in the wrong place at the wrong time, becomes innocently convicted of murder, and ends up in prison. There he meets criminals Norinder and Musse who mistake Conny for being a pilot, the profession of his wife's new successful boyfriend Tomas. Conny becomes a part of the criminals' escape plan -  but he also needs to find his daughter a horse for her birthday.

The film is as silly as the main character, Conny but at least it is amusing funny getting quite a few laugh-out-loud humour in the process.  Entertaining enough as a forgettable guilty Netflix movie.

Trailer: 

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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 24 September 2024

FILM REVIEWS:  

 

ANOTHER HAPPY DAY (USA 2023) **
Directed by Nora Fiffer

 

The title of the film ANOTHER HAPPY DAY does not sound like a feel-good happy movie rather than a sarcastic phrase implying that another happy day may not be in the works.  The film opens with a heroine snuggling into her bed, first laughing and then breaking into tears.  The first impression of her is neuroticism and when a later scene that follows shows her a recent mother still breastfeeding her baby.  She is, assumed Hewish, though with a black husband (and also hence, a black baby).  Must films always have a mixed couple to be politically correct?  Things have gone really to the point of absurdity when films like a black ANNIE or a black Andrea Arnold’s WUTHERING HEIGHTS showing up in the cinemas.

Thirty-five-year-old Joanna (Lauren Lapkus) is a total nut. She’s also an artist and a new mom.  But she’s not making any art and she’s terrible at taking care of her newborn.  Worse, her husband (Jean Elie) fancies himself to be a mothering expert. Desperate for some company, Joanna tumbles into an unlikely friendship with her estranged aunt Miriam (Marilyn Dodds Frank), a reclusive theatre actress. Miriam seems the perfect companion for Joanna -- she’s artsy, honest, eccentric, and she hates babies. But all goes haywire when Joanna tries to mother her aunt instead of her baby. Another Happy Day is a tender and tense comedy exploring postpartum depression, intergenerational friendship, and what it means to be family.

The film contains a few uncomfortable moneys.  A few of them occur which turn out to be Joanna’s dreams.  Others like her sitting down with a baby bouncing up and down on a cushion are also disturbing for fear of the bay.  It is puzzling what these scenes intend to do as the film is supposedly a comedy.

As far as performances go, Lauren Lapkus’s character is neurotic and annoying and the actress annoys the audience well with her neurotic antics.  The same can be said of Marilyn Dodds as her Aunt Mariam.

It is hard to like any of the characters in the film - almost every single one of them loser-neurotic.  Joanna’s husband is definitely not a winner when he is delirious about getting a $ 1-an-hour raise at work.  He is also obsessive about being right about rearing a baby.  Joanna’s mother on the phone does not sound like a loving mother either, but one who only cares for herself.

ANOTHER HAPPY DAY is just another indie movie, credit goes for it being an indie low-budget product but not particularly memorable in any respect, but maybe for Joanna’s annoying neurosis.

ANOTHER HAPPY DAY arrives nationwide on Digital Tuesday, October 1st.

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THE BECOMERS (USA 2024) ***
Directed by Zach Clark

 

A body-snatching alien comes to Earth, reconnects with their partner, and tries to find their way into modern America.

Forced to flee their dying planet, two body-snatching alien lovers arrive separately on Earth. Determined to find each other, the aliens jump from body to body, but they quickly learn that it's not easy to inhabit their new, fleshy hosts and that life in modern-day America is more complicated than they could have ever imagined.

THE BECOMERS can be described as INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, which is an American indie, low-budget style.  The low-budget indie feel is felt through the film from its cheese special effects that likely cost nothing to a minimal invasion of the planet look.  All the actors are unknown and the script though neat in the sense that it can be a sci-fi mystery/thriller does suffer compared to a doctored Hollywood high-paid screenplay.

The script contains many loose ends that are left unexplained.  The first alien is seen moving from body to body  The first is when a stranger, obviously already possessed with the body snatcher, stumbles to a car that bears a screaming pregnant woman about to deliver a baby.  Through the beam in the eyes, the audience might assume that the alien has not snatched the mother’s body.  The mother is seen dumping the baby into the fire (what looks like a baby doll rather than a real baby) before the mother goes about snatching another body.  Why the bodies have to be swapped ever so often is never explained.

Being such a low-budget production, many scenes and dialogue look very cheesy.   The cult segment is one that is particularly important.  The chanting is cheesy and director Zach Clark who also wrote the script knows it and ups the angst on the tackiness.  This particular cult scene turns out to be the most hilarious segment of the film.  Otherwise, certain parts move along so slowly that one might have to keep concentrating on the film.

THE BECOMERS is entertaining enough as a deliberately cheesy, sci-fi body snatching if one does not have too high expectations.  This is no big bulge in Ridley Scott’s ALIEN.

THE BECOMERS arrives on VOD in North America on Tuesday, September 24.

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A DIFFERENT MAN (USA 2024) ***
Directed by Aaron Schimberg

 

Aspiring actor Edward (Sebastian Stan) undergoes a radical medical procedure to drastically transform his appearance. But his new dream face becomes a nightmare as he loses the role he was born to play, and becomes obsessed with reclaiming what was lost. 

The different man in A DIFFERENT MAN has a facial deformity that makes him look like a varied version of THE ELEPHANT MAN.  When the film first begins, the audience is shown the man’s daily routine as he does his daily chores which include a ride on the subway.  Some people stare at him, others avoid him, and some glaringly pretend not to notice.  Amidst all this, the man goes about his duties,, obviously living a lifetime with the ailment,

But there is hope.  At a clinic, he decides to undergo a life-challenging test in which there is a chance that his looks can become normal.  “There is no reward without risk,”  he is told by the medical technician more than once.  He decides to take the risk.  Initially, he sees his face falling apart while getting sick quite often.  But to his (and the audience’s) surprise, he slowly turns to look normal.

During this time, he meets a playwright at a bar who is writing a new play.  “Can I watch it?” he asks.  “No” is her reply.  “You are going to be in it.”  After writing it, the, one who is also directing the play casts him in it.  All this time, he is transitioning,  Oddly enough, they get to meet another man with the same facial ailment, apparently a Brit from his strong accent.  This Brit is extremely confident in himself, not letting his disability hinder him at all.  The Brit eventually steals the man’s part from him a the story in the play changes - all these changes angering him.

Sebastian Stan who is also tone seen as the young Donald Trump in THE APPRENTICE does a might fine job as a DIFFERENT MAN.  Stan is a quite handsome actor with his dark looks,

A DIFFERENT MAN is a well-made drama that covers the prejudice behind good looks and how looks can deceive people.  But it can hardly be described as pleasant entertainment with scenes of vomiting and peeling off of loose bloodied skin of a face, not to mention the frequent outburst of anger of the main character.

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DIVORCE (Poland 2024) ***
Directed by Michal Chacinski 

 

DIVORCE comes on Netflix as an original international movie.  As Netflix international original movies go, many are duds.  (I review at least two of these a week.)  But as far as the film title DIVORCE sounds, the film is actually quite good, succeeding as a sufficiently funny comedy, complete with a few pokes at institutions.

The main institutions made fun of are the institution of marriage and of course, following the institution of divorce.  And of the church court, that is all high and mighty over their religious powers over the individual.  “We work and live here for 50 years.” These are the words seen on a banner at the start of the film.

The film is about a couple, Malgosia and Jacek, who had separated a long time back, but they did not nullify their marriage in the church court.  Jacek’s fiancée wanted a white wedding, and for the church to approve his second marriage, he had to divorce Malgosia first. But getting the church to approve a nullification of marriage was not a piece of cake. They only allowed it in cases of exceptions, such as if the groom was impotent or if either of the parties were addicts. Since none of it was true in Malgosia and Jacek’s case, they had to appear before the court over and over again pleading the authority to grant them a divorce. Did it work out in the end? Does it really matter so long as the audience is having fun/

The best thing about DIVORCE is the humour that is derived from everyday circumstances.  It is clear the director has a keen sense of humour as it is the timing and staging of all the humour that is as important as the ‘funniness’ of the jokes.  Jacek is pro-church wanting to have a church annulled marriage whereas Malgosia is more upset that the procedure would unroll her current situation.  She is anti-church, becoming increasingly upset when the church calls her for an unplanned interview.

DIVORCE opens for streaming this week, from Wednesday on Netflix.  Watch it for pure entertainment - guaranteed for a good number of laughs.

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JAILBREAK: LOVE ON THE RUN (USA 2024) ***½

Directed by:  (See below)

 

True crime documentaries are always a hoot to watch, as these stories are often more intriguing than crime fiction films.  And Netflix is well known for true crime documentaries.  The new one JAILBREAK: LOVE ON THE RUN belongs to this category.

The title LOVE ON THE RUN is likely derived from the classic Francois Truffaut Antoine Doinel 1979 film L’AMOUR EN FUITE which translates to LOVE ON THE RUN.

The Netflix documentary Jailbreak: Love on the Run (2024), about the infamous prison escape involving Vicky White and Casey White, was produced by Aaron Ginsburg, William Green, and Alec MacRae. It does not have a single director credited but features a team of executive producers, all 15 of them, including Lana Wilson, Dan Abrams, and Angie Dorr.  It is surprising that though no one director is given credit the dc is extremely well put together.

When Vicky White, a highly respected corrections officer, aids the escape of a violent felon nearly twenty years her junior, it reveals an unexpected love story amidst the ensuing high-profile manhunt and media frenzy.

The start of the film introduces the day and occurrence of the jailbreak.  Vicky is accompanying the convict Casey to the courtroom for his hearing.  They never showed up.

The film then flashes back before when the interviewees talk about Vicky and a bit about Casey.  The audience learns a lot about the two characters.

On April 29, 2022, at 9:30 a.m., Vicky White, the assistant director at the Lauderdale County Jail in Florence, Alabama, escorted Casey White to a police vehicle, then left the detention centre. A surveillance video showed Casey in handcuffs and leg shackles.  Casey, who has an extensive criminal history, was already serving 75 years for a 2015 crime spree.  He was at the facility for pre-trial motions after having confessed two years earlier to the 2015 stabbing death of 59-year-old Connie Ridgeway.  Vicky told fellow officers she was taking Casey to the county courthouse in Florence for a psychological evaluation, and then going to see her personal physician since she was not feeling well that day. The task aroused suspicion since inmates being taken to the courthouse are supposed to be escorted by two deputies. Authorities believe she was not challenged because of her position.  The two never returned to the detention centre. The Lauderdale County Sheriff's Department was given a surveillance video, taken at a local gas station, of Vicky White's patrol car 8 minutes after the pair left the detention centre. The deputies checked the courthouse's itinerary and found that there were no hearings or evaluations that day. Authorities feared Vicky may have been forced or coerced into helping Casey escape. They immediately initiated a statewide manhunt hoping to find her unharmed and to recapture Casey.

What happens after is revealed after the doc reaches the halfway mark, which will not be revealed in this review.

The story is told mainly from interviews with Vicky’s fellow prison staff put chronologically together mixed with archive footage.  Quite a feat!

The doc plays like an entertaining intriguing thriller, the best of what true crime documentaries have to offer.  Whether the audience root for the two is left to the individual. 

 

LEE (UK 2023) ***
Directed by Ellen Kuras

Lee, the directorial feature from award-winning Cinematographer Ellen Kuras, portrays a pivotal decade in the life of American war correspondent and photographer, Lee Miller (Kate Winslet).  Miller’s singular talent and unbridled tenacity resulted in some of the 20th century's most indelible images of war, including an iconic photo of Miller herself, posing defiantly in Hitler's private bathtub.  

Miller had a profound understanding and empathy for women and the voiceless victims of war. Her images display both the fragility and ferocity of the human experience. Above all, the film shows how Miller lived her life at full-throttle in pursuit of truth, for which she paid a huge personal price, forcing her to confront a traumatic and deeply buried secret from her childhood.

At the battlefront, Lee (Kate Winslet, who looks quite like her from old photographs, especially when wearing the same hairstyle) is shown saying: “I have to be at the battlefront.” followed by, “Where is the powder room?”

Lee is less a biography of Lee Miller than a film about a woman journalist covering the war.  Elizabeth "Lee" Miller, Lady Penrose (April 23, 1907 – July 21, 1977), was an American photographer and photojournalist.  The film is a U.K. production though.  Miller was a fashion model in New York City in the 1920s before going to Paris and becoming a fashion and fine art photographer there.

The part of the bio does not so much concentrate on Lee Miller going from a career as a model but more of her enlisting as a photographer to chronicle the events of World War II for Vogue magazine.  It begins with her, at an older age being interviewed by journalist, Antony Penrose (Josh O’Connor).

During World War II, she was a war correspondent for Vogue, covering events such as the London Blitz, the liberation of Paris, and the concentration camps at Buchenwald and Dachau. Her reputation as an artist in her own right is due mostly to her son's discovery and promotion of her work as a fashion and war photographer.

The film has a strong female slant. Given that it is the love child of both the director and Winslet who are female, the protagonist as a female also stands for female strength.  This can be best observed in the one scene where she pulls out a knife at a soldier attempting to sexually abuse a lady in the street.

Though the film lacks the power of most films on war correspondents reporting in war zones, in fact, there are too many of these after Peter Weir’s THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY did so well critically and at the box office.  But this film LEE stands out from the really stunning cinematography and atmosphere of the period of Occupied France in WWII.

The film has a troubled production history.  The movie took eight years to make and, at one point, due to precarious funding, Kate Winslet (who also produced the movie) paid the entire cast and crew's salaries for two weeks. The film made its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on 9 September 2023. It was released theatrically in the United Kingdom by Sky Cinema on 13 September 2024. 

LEE is in theatres in Toronto from September 27

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MY OLD ASS (USA 2024) ***
Directed by Megan Park

 

My Old Ass is a 2024 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Megan Park. It stars Maisy Stella in her film debut, Percy Hynes White, Maddie Ziegler, Kerrice Brooks, and Aubrey Plaza.

Elliott Labrant (Maisy Stella) , who has been advised by her future self not to fall in love, is sure she can follow the advice she has been given. That is, until she meets the boy her older self (Aubrey Plaza) warned her about.

MY OLD ASS refers to a teen and her older 30-year-old self.  If one thinks the film is something similar to FREAKY FRIDAY or BIG, it certainly is not.  The film is more of a romantic comedy-drama than a light comedy.  The film aims high at succeeding in a fresh take on a coming-of-age story, and one that involves a bit of fantasy as well as romance.

Though the characters are teens and go about their high

For a film about a family about the cranberry farm business, it would be a big flaw in the film if no cranberry farms are on display.  Thankfully, the harvesting of cranberries is shown in detail in all its grandeur right near the end of the film.

Though Aubrey Plaza gets star billing, Plaza only has a few scenes in a supporting role as the older girl.

As a coming-of-age story, the question arises: "How do you know what you want?”  Elliot surely does not,  When she does magic mushrooms with her friends, she encounters her future self able to answer a few of her questions on life.  With the advice come certain warnings.  One is not to have sex with a new boy Elliot has me - Chad(Percy Hynes White).  But Chad is so endearing and apparently with no fault at all that Elliot can find, Elliot gradually falls in love with Chad, even though she has had flings only with females.  so is she bi?  That is yet another question Elliot is puzzled with.  And with Chad being the perfect, charming beau, Elliot is even more puzzled at the reason her older self has warned her of him.  Though the two have light fun times with Elliot also having fun times with her other friends, the film has a deadly serious message.  Director Park’s script is a mature one, and she knows how to steer her film in the right direction, resulting i turning out to be a romantic comedy, bordering on drama, with a difference.

MY OLD ASS is essentially a teen romantic comedy that follows all the cliched Harlequin romance novel trappings set in a fantasy coming-of-age scenario that basically works for the reason that everyone, director, production crew and actor all take the project so seriously.

The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2024. It was given a limited theatrical release in the United States by Amazon MGM Studios on September 13, 2024, and it opens in theatres in Canada on September 27th.

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NIGHT OF THE HARVEST (USA 2024) ***
Directed by Christopher M.cater and Jessica Morgan

 

NIGHT AT THE HARVEST is described in the press notes as a spine-chilling thriller where masks and costumes are not just for fun but part of a terrifying ritual.  The audience is prompted to prepare for a journey into the heart of fear, where every shadow hides an unknown threat and each twist reveals the mysteries behind the Harvest.

 NIGHT OF THE HARVEST is the third horror feature film created by the Carter Ink Films team of CHRISTOPHER M. CARTER (co-director, writer, and director of photography) and JESSICA MORGAN (co-director, producer, and lead actor).   Their experience shows as the film contains good scary production values.  Carter, who has won several awards for directing, says his passion for the Halloween season brought the film to life—exploring the roots of the ancient Samhain tradition and coupling that with a family dynamic is what inspired the story.

NIGHT OF THE HARVEST set on the day before and the day of 31st October, Halloween contains differences from the typical Halloween horror flicks for several good reasons.

• the film does not contain any Scream Queens like Jamie Lee Curtis.  There are many female characters in the film, and they are given equal screen time
• no one can be certain who the villains or victims are.  Anyone can be disposed of at any time in the movie.
• the film tries its best to call itself a harvest movie rather than a Halloween film
• a few neat scenes take place in the cornfields
• , and there is more than one slasher in the story

The film opens with a nerdy male entering a home with an elaborate decorative set up for Halloween.  The male hopes to score with the girl organizer who claims this is her favourite holiday.  As she pours the alcohol and retakes off to the other room, a masked figure suddenly appears and kills the guy while also attacking the girl.  The girl turns out to be one, Madison who is featured in the story that follows.

A year after surviving a brutal attack, Madison is still grappling with the trauma of that night. Seeking a sense of normalcy, she reluctantly agrees to join her sister, Audrey, and her friends at a Halloween bash, hoping for a night of fun and distraction. But the festive atmosphere quickly turns deadly when a masked killer begins to hunt them down one by one. Madison must confront her deepest fears and uncover the sinister secrets that bind her to this horror.

Big sister advises younger sister:   "It is easier to make a decision when you don’t have a choice.”   The little sister wants to know what thought of her if she went to a Halloween party after the tragedy of her escaping the killer during the past one.  If one might complain of the dialogue, one must admit that this kind of advice could have been given or a mother could use this saying often making the film more down-to-earth and believable.

NIGHT OF THE HARVEST plays well as forgettable Halloween entertainment with a heavy dose of violence.  The film opens on Digital Platforms on September 20th.

Trailer: 

 

SLEEP (South Korea 2023) ***
Directed by Jason Yu

 

 

SLEEP is a horror film from South Korea - with a difference.  One difference is that horror films from South Korea are not common though there are tons from Japan.

SLEEP follows newlyweds Hyun-su (Lee Sun-kyun, PARASITE) and Soo-jin (Jung Yu-mi), whose domestic bliss is disrupted when Hyun-su begins speaking in his sleep, ominously stating, “Someone’s inside.”   About to be challenged is their wall plaque motto that reads “Together We Can Overcome Anything”.   From that night on, whenever he falls asleep, Hyun-su transforms into someone else, with no recollection of what happened the night before. Overwhelmed with anxiety that he may hurt himself or their young family, Soo-jin can barely sleep because of this irrational fear. Despite treatment, Hyun-su’s sleepwalking only intensifies, and Soo-jin begins to feel that her unborn child may be in danger.

SLEEP is also different as it has a strong story in which the audience is teased on two accounts.  The first is whether there is any supernatural demon inhabiting the sleepwalker.  Secondly, one wonders during the first half of the movie, who is the crazy one.  The sleepwalking husband or the wife who becomes obsessed with the problem,  The problem is further enhanced by her mother who believes an evil spirit is at large.  There is a lot of scare anticipation in the film - a good sign, though the climax does not really match the build-up.  Many of the audience would expect more blood, gore and violence in their horror fare, and though there is some,  the film plays more on mystery and anticipation.

SLEEP is a new thriller from director Jason Yu, who worked with Korean legends Bong Joon-ho and Lee Chang-dong before making his debut film, SLEEP world premiered in Cannes’ Critics’ Week. 

SLEEP in theatres and on digital SEPTEMBER 27th.

Trailer

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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 17 September 2024

FILM REVIEWS:

 

THE ARRIVAL (USA 2024) **
Directed by Alyssa Rallo

 

Four strangers converge at a restaurant to investigate the son of the enigmatic DuPont family. Suddenly the arrival of a mysterious man disrupts their reality and reveals a shocking truth about the DuPont twins, intertwining the fates of nine unsuspecting restaurant guests. This gripping drama explores hidden identities and dark secrets, promising an intense journey of discovery and confrontation. With its intricate plot and deeply human characters, THE ARRIVAL offers a riveting and emotionally charged and uplifting experience, keeping viewers engaged until the very end.

THE ARRIVAL is a small indie movie with no known stars or actors.  The film deals with several adults engaging a conversation in a bar/lounge space.  There is nothing really exciting about any of the conversations, and thus the film fails to hold much interest, unfolding very much like a stage play.  The actors go through their lines and cover their characters credibly though without much fanfare or entertaining value to the audience.

The conversation contains lots of small talk that is not as funny as the writer thinks it is. ‘I will get a double Heineken non-alcoholic beer.’  Listening to the dialogue often feels like eavesdropping air someone else’s conversation at a bar.

THE ARRIVAL, directed by Alyssa Rallo Bennett, thus explaining the stronger female the male slant,  and written by Gary O. Bennett made its World Premiere at Martha’s Vineyard Women in Film Festival and it opens on digital platforms on September 17. 

Trailer: 

MOUNTAINS (USA 2023) ***
Directed by Monica Sorelle

 

The media’s representation of Haiti as a nation in ruins remains one of the most prevailing indignities leveled against the island by the Western world – part of a longstanding, unspoken cultural embargo on the world’s first Black Republic. Haitian Americans have seldom seen themselves reflected on screen. When they do appear, they are most often represented as gang members, domestic workers, or supernatural beings by African-American actors with questionable accents. Mountains is a salve for this paradigm, presenting an authentic portrayal of a Haitian family living respectably within their means, with divergent hopes and aspirations, at once unequivocally American and wholly Caribbean.

The worst of the worst has been heard in recent news about Haitians eating neighbourr’s pets, thanks to ex-PresidentDonald Trump.

Immigrant worker Xavier dreams of a more spacious home for his wife and son while earning a living demolishing houses, and dismantling his rapidly changing neighborhood of Little Haiti, Miami brick by brick. MOUNTAINS is a multigenerational drama that explores the relationships between immigrants and their children, the looming threat of gentrification, and the pursuit of the American dream.

‘Behind a mountain is a mountain’ is the Haitian quote seen on the screen at the beginning of the film.  Indeed whether the mountain refers to problems, daily routines, or the humdrum of life, there is always another mountain around the corner.   Monica Sorelle’s narrative feature debut is a slice-of-life portrait of an immigrant worker and family man gradually contending with his class aspirations and housing insecurities in a rapidly gentrifying neighbourhood.  Though the main character is a male, she infuses the power of women, through his wife, quiet, foreboding and strong in keeping the family together.  Based in the immigrant enclave of Little Haiti in Miami, Xavier (Atibon Nazaire) is a middle-aged, working-class Haitian demolition worker who hopes to one day buy his beloved seamstress wife, Esperance (Sheila Anozier), a new and spacious suburban home. Meanwhile, their doted-on college dropout son Junior (Chris Renois) struggles against his father's rigid expectations by day while quietly pursuing a career as a stand-up comic by night.   There are long shots of demolition and the routines are captured realistically though they do slow down the narrative.

MOUNTAINS arrives on digitally on Tuesday, September 24.

Trailer: 

SUCCUBUS (USA 2024) ***

Directed by R.J. Daniel Hanna

 

SUCCUBUS opens with Ron Pearlman begging Jimmy to publish his research, whether he paid or not.  A succubus is a female demon or supernatural entity in folklores who appears in dreams to seduce men, usually through sexual activity. According to some folklore, a succubus needs semen to survive;  repeated sexual activity with a succubus will result in a bond being formed between the succubus and the person; and a succubus will drain or harm the man with whom she is having intercourse.  In modern representations, a succubus is often depicted as a beautiful seductress or enchantress, rather than as demonic or frightening.

The subject is ideal for a horror film with lots of sex and violence - for adults.

The film’s story has  a few flaws.  For one the main character is a loser with the result that audiences would less likely root for him.   If he was at least funny or hilarious, then it would be forgiven.  Unfortunately this is not the case, though the  Chris character does get funnier as the film progresses.    There is a part where he is caught jerking off on the baby monittor in the room, he not realizing that the monitor was on.  It sounds more sick than funny.  The film makes an awkward transition from Ron Pearlman to the main character.  The film then spends about 15 minutes or so showing titillating photos of girls, scantily clad as the internet is searching in a  dating app.  The segment is boring an unless one has never searched the internet before for porn or a dating app.

At its best the script links science with Physics.  It talks about dark Matter - the connection between science and matter.

SUCCUBUS follows a young father going through a marital separation, joins a dating app, and matches with a beautiful but mysterious young woman…whose powers of seduction and manipulation entangle him in a mystery more horrifying than he could have ever imagined.

Coached by his over-sexed friend Eddie, Chris (Brendan Bradley), a new father, joins the StarCrossed dating app “just to see what’s out there,” and eventually comes to the conclusion he should probably rekindle things with his estranged wife. But when he matches with Adra, a seductive young woman with a mysterious past, his curiosity gets the better of him, and he finds himself getting sucked into her world even as his own life falls apart.  As Chris, Eddie, and Adra’s stalker, Dr. Zephyr circle her, Adra’s power grows, finally revealing her harrowing true nature.  The horror does not begin till almost halfway through the running time.

The film contains typical male chauvinist dialogue, especially if Chris and his best friend talk about women.  The female perspective is also strong, with much credit given to Chris’ wives with the argument pouts she brings across. 

SUCCUBUS Premieres September 24, 2024 for Watch-At-Home.  Also Available on Digital (Purchase/Rental) and DVD.

This occasionally tense thriller debuts on digital and VOD across major platforms in North America on September 24th.

Trailer: 

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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 07 September 2024

It was not too far back when women and the LGBTQ+ community complained of underrepresentation in films.  Today, the reverse is true.  The majority of films have a strong female slant or are made with a strong female perspective, many are now made by women.  Three films stand out as trans movies at TIFF.  Two of them are in my Best 10 list: Jacques Audiard's EMILIA PEREZ and CONCLAVE and the other which I have not seen, WILL AND CHUCK.

 

THE BEST OF TIFF 2024  

In Order..... 

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Who would ever imagine that a Primetime series would be the best thing to be seen at this year’s TIFF?  TIFF managed to get the full 7 episodes at the last minute to ‘wow’ audiences with the most exciting and suspenseful psychological thriller that makes compulsive watching from start to end, all 6 hours of it.  Robert (Sacha Baron Cohen), receives lewd photos of his wife (Cate Blanchett) from a man (Kevin Kline) whose son drowned from saving Robert’s son.  The man wants retribution as the drowned son apparently had an affair with Robert’s wife.  Excellent career-best performances all around from Kline, Blanchett and surprisingly Cohen, in dead serious mode.  A few reminders of Carol’s genius as in the drowning scene that is reminiscent of a seaside segment in ROMA. and the way he comfortably switches the drama among the characters so effortlessly.  I don’t normally review series, but the film was so compelling, that I stayed all 6 hours of the running time, skipping my next planned film.  A definitely MUST-SEE!

CONCLAVE

the search for a new Pontiff gives rise to deceit, mystery and inner fighting in the incredibly well-performed drama that comes with a plot full of twists and turns.

 

ANORA

Drama on the marginalized sex worker, Anora who has to fight for the marriage after her new husband’s parents fly in from Russia to annul the marriage.  Funny and smart, nary a dull moment,

 

THE SUBSTANCE

 

A horror feature that doubles as a satire on fitness and glamour with great special effects with surprises around every corner.  Lots of gore and violence and over-the-top performances

EMILIA PEREZ

Jacques Audiard's latest film is a drama, suspense and retribution fable complete with his trademark violence and the need to find a better life.  A drug kingpin trans with disastrous results while doing his/her best to keep things under his control with the help of his/her smart lawyer.

 

EDEN

Ron Howard’s best film to date is unlike anything he has done.  Eden the the paradise that the Galapagos Islands are supposed to be, is shown in all its harshness and ugliness mostly with new settlers fighting among themselves for the essentials culminating in violence and humanity gone astray.

 

BERGERS (Shepherds)

 

A young Quebecois decides to quit city life to become an apprentice shepherd in Provence, France with unexpected dramatic results,  The harsh life of shepherding is contrasted with the stunning beauty of the French Alps in this true story adapted by the protagonist’s novel.

 

 

LES BARBARES (Meet the Barbarians)

Julie Delpy proves her filmmaking chops with this really funny and insightful take on the refugee station French style.  The small town of Paimpont (this place actually exists in Britanny) react when the residents reacted to taking in a Syrian instead of a Ukrainian family.

 

SANTOSH

The awful goings-on of the corrupt Indian police forces are given a female slant in this compelling and gruelling investigation of the rape and killing of an undergoing lower-caste girl in a village

 

WILLIAM TELL

The titular hero who shot through the apple on his son’s head is given full battle epic treatment old school style in the telling of  a warrior fighting for the freedom of his people

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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 05 September 2024

BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE (USA 2024) *** ½

Directed by Tim Burton

 

Say the name BEETLEJUICE three times and Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton reprising his role as the titular character) will appear.  In this sequel, the character is summoned not once but a couple of times. The second film of the franchise has finally appeared after many fans of the original BEETLEJUICE have summoned a sequel.

Director Tim Burton is a master craftsman in the gothic macabre comedy, evident again in this movie.  He introduces all the characters at the film’s start and the funny macabre increases as the film progresses, while never disappointing.

The film’s prize is also the special effects, costumes and makeup.  The weird-looking monster like Beetlejuice's right-hand man is Bob with a shrunken headband his cohorts are hilarious to watch.  Another impressive segment is Monica Bellucci as Delores, a ghost who’s been hacked to pieces and is laying dormant in different boxes, putting her body parts together to form a complete whole using staples to connect her body parts together like her (sawed-off torso, legs and arms, face that’s been cut in half.  She is after her ex, who is Beetlejuice who must escape her as she is desperately hunting him down.  Beetlejuice is warned by a wannabe cop (Willem Defoe).  Meanwhile, in the human world, Lydia, a gothic celebrity is trying to win back her daughter (Jenna Ortega) while bearing with her mother (Catherine O’Hara) and her annoying manager/fiance (Justin Theroux).  The two worlds come together in a neat story that brings the family together while solving the Beetlejuice/Delores problem.

BEETLEJUICE BEETLE JUICE succeeds as a worthy sequel, hitting all the right notes, with a fresh new story involving all the old characters, complete with twists and keeping the spirit of the original intact complete with the use of the popular tune DAY-O seen at the beginning of the original.

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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 28 August 2024

FILM REVIEWS:

 

THE DEMON DISORDER (Australia 2024) 
Directed by Steven Boyle

 

EMBARGO LIFTED Aug 31st

THE DEMON DISORDER is open for streaming on September 6th on both Shudder and AMC+.

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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 25 August 2024

FILM REVIEWS:

 #UNTRUTH: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TRUMPISM (USA 2024) ***
Directed by Dan Partland

 

As the Presidential campaign heightens towards the United States Presidential Election in November, what more timely would be the release of #UNTRUTH, an antiTrump documentary that, audiences must be forewarned will anger both pro-Trump and anti-Trump supporters - the former because of how Trump gets away with all his dangerous made up lies and the latter for all the information in the doc against Trump.  Obviously, the doc is compelling viewing for the nature of its content, for better or for worse.

From the filmmakers of the critically-acclaimed blockbuster #UNFIT: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DONALD TRUMP, which grossed over $2.5 million, has been viewed by millions, and was nominated for the IDA Documentary Awards Video Source Award.  Director, producer, and writer Dan Partland and producer Art Horan are back with #UNTRUTH: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TRUMPISM examines the psychology of “Trumpism” and the authoritarian strain that it seeded in the American political landscape.

In #UNTRUTH, political conservatives, psychologists, and historians explore how partisanship, disinformation, and social media lead to the anger, conspiracy theories, and political violence, that is threatening democracy around the world.

#UNTRUTH features the most unlikeable and easiest target of mankind.  Ex-President  Donald J. Trump.  Easily the most unpopular person outside the United States, the doc #UNTRUE talks about all the untrue lies Trump propagates.  The important term Trumpism is used.

The doc spends the beginning explaining Trumpism, a political movement in the United States that comprises the political ideologies associated with Donald Trump and his political base.   The dc shows incorporate ideologies such as right-wing populism, national conservatism, and neo-nationalism, and have been described as authoritarian[a] and neo-fascist.  Trumpist rhetoric heavily features anti-immigrant, xenophobic, nativist,and racist attacks against minority groups. Identified aspects include conspiracist, isolationist, Christian nationalist,  evangelical Christian,[52] protectionist, anti-feminist, and anti-LGBT beliefs.  Trump supporters became the largest faction of the United States Republican Party, with the remainder often characterized as "the elite" or "the establishment" in contrast.  In response to the rise of Trump, there has arisen a Never Trump movement, which should be included but omitted in the doc.

The doc likens Trump to dictators of the past including Mussolini and Hitler and more recently Putin with footage of Putin and Trump together during their meeting during Trump’s Presidency.  Included too is his interview where he explains his statement about his one-day dictatorship.

The film begins with Trump supporters storming the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021.  It is still a disturbing scene that divides the country and proposes the end of democracy as the free world fears.

The magic question is why don’t people see through the lies?  The answer is examined in detail.  Besides the adage that one cannot argue with a moron, Trump supporters believe that he is more important than their family members or religious leaders.  Everything he says holds true and they do not question him.

The doc features an impressive list of experts on interviews that include writers, psychologists, Republicans and ex-Trump supporters who make important contributions to arguments against Trump.  One deals with the three types of information.  One is information that is true and the other 2 types of misinformation.  Trump champions the third misinformation that aims to manipulate the minds of people with lies all told in his favour.  The doc includes clips of Trump’s speeches as examples of the fact.

 #UNTRUTH: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TRUMPISM is alarming, thorough, frightening, informative and in many ways powerful, all making it compulsive viewing.

 #UNTRUTH: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TRUMPISM is available on demand on September the 3rd.

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CHARLIE TANGO (Canada 2024) ***
Directed by Simon Boisvert

CHARLIE TANGO is one of those Canadian films that tries it best to disguise its Canadian roots and pass it off as an American movie.  But one can tell the film is Canadian for the many in the cast with Quebec names and actors like David La Haye who plays the main role of Charlie clearly speaks with a Quebec accent.

The words Charlie Tango star for the letters C and T of the alphabet.  Used in the military and in air traffic control at the beginning of the movie, when the letters C and T are to be spelled out, the words used are Charlie followed by Tango.  All the letters of the alphabet are named to prevent confusion …. alpha, bravo, Charlie, delta, and so on.

Kim (Stacie Mistysyn), an air traffic controller under investigation after a tragic plane crash, is recruited by Charlie (Le Haye), her lover who specializes in lucrative real estate investments. Her police officer husband, Jeff (Bruce Dinsmore), soon begins to suspect that Charlie is at the head of a major embezzlement scheme. 

  The film looks terribly tacky in the way the plot unfolds, almost as tacky as the priceless tacky character, Tonya (Diana Lewis) who keeps barging into Charlie’s room, often asking for money, and carrying a talking plush artificial feline.  She is one of Charlie’s exes, though one might wonder what it is that attracted him to her.  Somewhat  unnecessary to the plot, she is still fun to watch as a female that one wonders what men see in her,

True to form, this Canadian entry CHARLIE TANGO was written, directed and produced by Simon Boisvert. The film stars popular Canadian actors David La Haye and Bruce Dinsmore, and Stacie Mistysyn (Degrassi High). The original music was done by Oliver Palotai, keyboardist for the band Kamelot.  The word Canadian is mentioned once in the dialogue near the end of the film.  The film was shot in Laval, which is around the city of Montreal.

To director Boisvert's credit, the incredible story is a good yarn touting the strength of an honest relationship while putting down companies, like ponzi companies that cheat honest folk out of their life savings.  From watching the film, it is apparent the difficulty to make the story believable and Boisvert does a decent job, given the many twists and turns involved in the story.  This is aided by impressive performances all around, particularly from lead actress Mistysyn who from the opening sequence as an air traffic controller creates suspense on the attempt to land safely two planes on a collision course.

To the film’s credit, CHARLIE TANGO was first runner-up, Best Foreign Film being Canadian and not American) at the 2024 Myrtle Beach International Film Festival. Gravitas Ventures will release the film on digital platforms on September 3, 2024. The film has a running time of 98 minutes and will not be rated by the MPAA as it goes straight to VOD.

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PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE (USA 1974) ****
Directed by Brian De Palma

 

Director Brian De Palma is a world-famous filmmaker most renowned for SCARFACE, CARRIE and THE UNTOUCHABLES.  But inches resume of movies, one odd one stands out -  a musical and a horror musical mat that - THE PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE in 1974 which was made after the horror flick SISTERS that many are unaware of.

A naïve young singer-songwriter, Winslow Leach (William Finley) is tricked by legendary but unscrupulous music producer Swan (Williams) into sacrificing his life's work. In revenge, the composer dons a menacing new persona and proceeds to terrorize Swan's new concert hall, insisting his music be performed by his most adored singer, Phoenix (Jessica Harper).  If the plot sounds familiar it is based on several classic works: the 16th-century Faust legend, Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray and Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera.

Paul Williams himself appears and plays the po[iano as the villain Swan while Jessica Harper steals the show as the pretty Phoenix.  There is both violence as in the scene where Leach gets his face mangled up and humour as in the really funny character called Beef (Gerrit Graham who gets his singling plugged with a toilet plunger while singing in the shower,

The film has everything going g for it -horror, humour, drama, romance, Cyrano de Bergerac style.  One th year, PHANTOM has achieved cult status and deservedly so.

There is a special screening that will take place on Friday, September 6th and the Royal Cinema at 7 pm. Toronto.  I have seen the film more than 3 times, and it is always a pleasure to watch the film again, not to mention enjoy Paul William's songs.

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(UN)LUCKY SISTERS (Argentina 2024) ***
Directed by Fabiana Tucornia

 

 

 

A female strong new Netflix film from Argentina which is in Spanish shows two unlikely sisters who could be lucky or unlucky, depending on what happens to them.

Jesi (20) and Ángela (25), two sisters who do not know each other, receive the news of their father's death, whom they barely know.  They do not know each other for two reasons.  One is that the father never contacted the sisters and the second is that they come from different mothers.  The similarity is that both are having a shitty time in their lives.  Jesi working at at a fast food joint, and overworked while Angela as a kindergarten teacher about to be fired, with screaming kids, also overworked.

He has left them an apartment as the only inheritance in the exclusive neighbourhood of Puerto Madero.  The sisters, who suffer from material and emotional shortages, visit the apartment, wary of each other, and find three million euros hidden in a false wall.  Together, they must decide what to do with that money and with their sisterly bond, which could change their lives forever.

Angel wants to do the right thing and turn the money in, afraid that mobsters or the police will go after them if they take the money.  Jesi thinks otherwise.

The comedy comes from the two who at the beginning are always disagreeing.  They do agree to take the money to spend - only to buy what is necessary.  They get carried away.

The comedy is not overtly hilarious nor are there many laugh-out-loud laughs.  But the humour is amusing and non-offensive and reflective daily lives of hard-working Argentinians.  There are a few inspired comedic setups, like the one where Jesi first enters her over-crowded flat, her mother conducting pre-natal classes for already pregnant women.  The Chemistry of the two leads, given the script’s limitations, is not bad.  The film works in an entertaining and curious way.  It makes one think too how one’s life can be changed if one inherits, like the sisters, three million euros.  The film allows the audience to dream.

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UNTAMED ROYALS (Principes Salvajes)(Mexico 2024) ***
Directed by Humberto Hinojosa Ozcariz

 

UNTAMED ROYALS f, in this case, follows a group of wealthy, privileged youths who use their high social status to get away with crimes, but their lavish lifestyle hides a dark truth where the most vulnerable people suffer the consequences of their actions.

When one hears of a son, in this case, Xavi (short for Xavier) planning to rob his own father or even his own relative, one can only think of the lowest of the kid.  Such is the gist of the plot in UNTAMED ROAYLS.  Royals because the kids are the privileged few of the very wealthy in Mexico who attend country club functions with horse riding and live in fancy mansions.  But when the kid plays to rob his own father, the crime is justified, sort of, anyway, by showing the father to be a ruthless and unkind person who not only has no respect for his kid, calling him an asshole, but also fires the chauffeur unfairly when his watch goes missing.

The youth are no angels either.  They are cunning, with little morals and the kid has just left the Teheran institution after a period of stay.  So, the audience is left to just who are the good guys and who are the bad guys.  The answer could swing either way.  The cops investigating the case have the proper suspects, though it is never explained how they came to the conclusion.

The film, to the script’s credit (which is co-written by director Humberto Hinojosa Ozcarizhas edged moments.  When the two males hug during the first robbery, the one has a hard-on.  He also jerks off watching his friend having sex with the neighbour.

The film moves slowly at a slow pace, and even so, requires attention in order to follow the plot and figure out the characters.

` But as teen drama go, and this is a well thought out crime drama. The film has the feel more of an adult feature rather than having a target audience of teens with substance abuse, lots of sex, smoking and violence.

UNTAMED ROAYLS is a Netflix original movie and is original and fresh to an extent,  The film is available for streaming on Netflix this week starting Wednesday.

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YOU GOTTA BELIEVE (USA 2024) **

Directed by Ty Roberts

 

YOU GOTTA BELIEVE It's a family-friendly film based on the inspiring true story of a Fort Worth, Texas Little League baseball team that takes its Cinderella run all the way to a record-breaking showdown in the Little League World Series in 2002. It was filmed at the historic Labatt Memorial Park in London, Ontario. Many London & Toronto locals were also cast. 

“You give it everything you got, and you will not disappoint me.”  Robert gives the advice to a kid practicing like hell to hit a baseball.  Robert is soon diagnosed with advanced melanoma, which is cancer of the brain.  Robert is a baseball player’s father.  The story of YOU GOTTA BELIEVE deals with a Little League baseball team of misfits who dedicate their season to a player's dying father.  In doing so, they accomplished the impossible by reaching the World Series finals in a game that became an ESPN instant classic.

The film centres on Little League Baseball.  Little League Baseball and Softball is a nonprofit organization based in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania, United States, that organizes local youth baseball and softball leagues throughout the United States and the rest of the world.

Actresses Molly Parker and Sarah Gadon are under-utilized as the wives of the coach and Robert respectively.  Molly Parker’s Texan accent is quite laughable,  Even the line: “I did not marry you for your physical.  I married you for your money,” is ineffectual in getting a loud-out laugh and merely a chuckle.  The script tries very hard at trying to be different or stand outing dialogue, but what eventually comes out is a mediocre, melodramatic story with cliched territory.  The scene when the two wives bond discussing cancer is a bit too melodramatic too.  Then there are Robert’s speeches:  Do not play the game for me,  Play it for each other.”  Luke Wilson ad Greg Kinnear also deliver career mediocre performances    The dialogue is ‘unfortunately’ family friendly with perhaps the worse words uttered being the son of a bitch.

YOU GOTTA BELIEVE that this film runs along the lines of forgettable family baseball films like THE SANDLOT.  Don’t expect the height of THE BAD NEWS BEARS which treated the audience as adults rather than kids in the baseball movie, the one starring Walter Matthau and Tatum O’Neal directed by Michael Ritchie.  The synopsis of THE BAD NEWS BEARS, which spun sequels read: ‘An alcoholic ex-baseball pitcher who becomes a coach for a youth baseball team known as the Bears’ is also a feel-good movie about underdogs making good.  

Feel-good sports dramas are currently a dime a dozen the sports varying from baseball to volleyball to basketball to boxing  The climatic game is always the most important and in this case, done with the effective editing to treat the excitement any climax deserves.  The feel-good movie at times feels quite unbelievable,  An example is the scene where Robert has to decide whether to get treatment and miss the baseball game,

YOU GOTTA BELIEVE is best suited for families obsessed with baseball.  Nothing special, but formulaic a feel-good sports movie.  ‘The Little League that Could’ should be the film’s tagline

YOU GOTTA BELIEVE opens in theatres Aug 30, 2024.

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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 17 August 2024

ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT (India/France/Lux/Neth 2024) ***½

Directed by Payal Kapadia

 

A female film all the way directed by also by a female,  The hit at this year’s Cannes is a hazily lit, dreamy and idyllic-looking feature bringing together three women, each of whom have their own problems.  Prabha (Kani Kusruti) and Anu (Divya Prabha) are roommates and nurses at a Mumbai hospital. Prabha is married, but her husband went abroad to work many years ago. Now drifting into middle age, she focuses on her job. Anu, by contrast, is young and full of dreams for her future, which she hopes will include the handsome Muslim boy she’s secretly seeing. Prabha initially regards the potentially scandalous affair as an annoyance, but she comes to sympathize with Anu’s passion, perhaps because she, too, feels the tug of frustrated ardour, thanks to the attentions of a poetry-writing doctor.  When Prabha’s friend Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam) is evicted from her home by heartless developers, she decides to return to the coastal village of her youth. Prabha and Anu tag along for a holiday. Far from the city’s perpetual clamour, the women’s feelings and sense of life’s possibilities are given free rein.  The film celebrates womanhood, showing how each needs to support another in the face of male-related problems.  In unity, females can face the world with strength and resilience—great shots of Dubai life and the beautiful Indian beach areas.

 

ANORA (USA 2024) ***** Top 10

Directed by Sean Baker

 

ANORA, the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes is the well-deserved prize winner that honours the sex worker.  Baker believes sex work should be "decriminalized and not in any way regulated because it's a sex worker's body and it's up to them to decide how they will use it in their livelihood.  Mikey Madison plays a sex worker named Anora, or Ani as she prefers to be called.  She may live in a shabby Brooklyn apartment above the rattle of the subway, but every night, Ani glams up and puts on a flirty smile for the men at a local club.  Between myriad lap dances, Ani finds herself talking to Vanya, a young Russian boy who joyfully throws around his parents’ money. His innocence charms Ani, and the two fall into a comfortable rhythm.  The two get married but soon discover the husband to be the rich, spoilt and immature partying son of wealthy Russian parents who fly immediately to NYC when they correct the affair when they hear the news.   Dramatic, hilarious and moving, ANPRA is Baker’s best film to date, aided by sincere powerful performances by Mikey Madison in the title role.

 

ANYWHERE ANYTIME (Italy 2024) ***
Directed by Milad Tangshir

 

Fired by his previous employer, Issa (Ibrahima Sambou), an illegal alien in Italy finds work as a food-delivery rider, thanks to a kind friend (Moussa Dicko Diango). The arduous job requires the employee to provide their own means of transport, and soon Issa’s newly gained stability collapses when, during a drop-off, the bicycle he has just spent all his money on is stolen.  The story is of course, reminiscent of the Italian 1946 neo-realist classic BICYCLE THIEVES, and needless to say, it cannot match up to those nights, director Tangshan’s film still has its charms.  Director Tangshir convinces his audience what really means to be down on one’s luck, especially also losing the only means like BICYCLE THIEVES, of one’s only means of making a living.  One feels for Issa right down to the film’s last reel, the ending of which will not be revealed in this review.

 

THE ASSESSMENT (UK/Germany/USA 2024) ***
Directed by Fleur Fortune

 

In the spirit of films like Michael Campus’ Z.P.G. (1972) which stands for Zero Population Growth and Michael Anderson’s 1976 LOGAN’S RUN arrives a film about population control set in a dystopian future.  Only THE ASSESSMENT takes things weirder with a big twist in the story at the end, though the ending requires a bit of examination to comprehend.  In order to control the population, every couple wanting a child needs to undergo an assessment.  Mia (Elizabeth Olsen) and Aaryan (Himesh Patel) are nervous about their application to become parents, but they have everything going for them. They live in a peaceful, secluded home where Aaryan has a studio for his genetic research and Mia maintains a greenhouse as part of her work as a botanical scientist. The two are assigned an assessor named Virginia (Alicia Vikander), who comes to evaluate them in their home over seven days.  The film however is a slow burn with a few ambiguous segments that might test one’s patience.  Great sets and locations give the film the futuristic look it needs.

BABYGIRL (USA 2024) **

Directed by Haline Rein

 

If a film is supposed to be politically correct, the film has a strong female slant, an LGBT+ subplot (Romy’s daughter is gay) and Romy’s colleague is coloured.  When Romy (Nicole Kidman) meets Samuel (Harris Dickinson), an impertinent intern at her company who can intuit more about her than she intends to share — and who’s happy to take control — it’s only a matter of time before they find themselves in a seedy hotel together. They wrestle, literally and figuratively, over a twisty power dynamic. Romy’s age and position give her an advantage, but as Samuel reminds her, he could ruin her life with one phone call.  If anything else, BABYGIRL is a female sex fantasy.  Romy gets what she wants her sexual fantasy despite all the risks she takes of family and career.  All the males end up in her power and an office sex predator is told by Roy to f off near the end.  A bit too much, this supposedly erotic thriller with Kidman embarrassingly moaning half the time.

BIRD (UK 2024) ***
Directed by Andrea Arnold

 

Director Arnold makes excellent gritty movies involving females who stand up for what they believe is right.  In her latest BIRD, surrealism is added to the real and gritty, which does not really work as it undermines the credibility and emotions of the story that has already been carefully built up.   Twelve-year-old Bailey (Nykiya Adams) lives with her father Bug (a devoted but emotionally chaotic Barry Keoghan) in a graffiti-strewn tenement. When Bug informs her that he’ll be marrying his new girlfriend soon, Bailey is furious and hurt, for what will become of her? Her mother lives with a violent, cruel man, and while Bug sports a ferocious love for his daughter, he can be oblivious to the needs of a fledgling teenage girl.  As she often does, Bailey retreats to the open fields on the outskirts of her hometown to seek comfort. It is here she is most herself, with an uncanny ability to communicate with animals and experience nature in a profound way. It is on one of these walks that Bailey has a mysterious, yet deeply meaningful, encounter that helps her when she must force a confrontation with her mother’s vicious partner.  Oscar nominee Keoghan and newcomer Adams both deliver outstanding performances that elevate the film.

BOONG (India 2024) ***½

Directed by Lakshmipriya Dev

  

Schoolboy Boong (Gugun Kipgen) is living with his mother as his absent father has disappeared while working in another state.  He wishes to give his mother, Mandakini (Bala Hijam), the best surprise gift ever: bringing back his father, Joykumar.  After leaving their home city of Manipur, India for the border city of Moreh, near Myanmar, in search of better job opportunities,  Joykumar has stopped communications with the family.  With rumours spreading about his father’s death, Boong refuses to accept that grim possibility and teams up with his best friend, Raju (Angom Sanamatum), an outsider from Rajasthan, to search for the truth.  The film is both a coming-of-age story of BOONG and a reflection of life in Manipur.  Manipur is an Indian state that is bordered by India and Burma resulting in racial tensions.  The issues of female and class also come into play as the story unfolds seen from the point of view of Boong.  BOONG is the schoolboy’s nickname in the film.  BOONG, from first-time director Dev is a light, breezy and entertaining film illustrating that current world issues can also be examined without being heavy and overdramatic.

BLUE ROAD: THE EDNA O’BRIEN STORY (Ireland/UK 2024) ****
Directed by Sinead O’Shea

One of the best biopics to be seen, BLUE ROAD: THE EDNA O’BRIEN STORY tells the story from child to death of Irish writer Edna O’Brien BLUE ROAD: THE EDNA O’BRIEN STORY with candid interviews right up to her death at the age of 94 in 2024.  Filmmaker Sinéad O’Shea taps into a wealth of material including unpublished diaries, decades of television appearances, and new interviews with O’Brien, in her 90s and as incisive as ever. There are interviews with her sons Carlo and Sasha about their unconventional upbringing with a divorced mother whose house guests included Marlon Brando, Judy Garland, and Paul McCartney.  The Irish actor Gabriel Byrne explains how O’Brien broke taboos while writer Walter Mosely describes how she changed his life as his teacher.  Her reflections on her life and what she has learned are most moving.  She says in her final interview that she wishes to be buried when she dies.  A remarkable candid and riveting portrait of the life of the Irish writer given the highest honour of ‘wise one’ in Irish Literature.

BRING THEM DOWN (UK/Ireland 2024) ***½

Directed by Christopher Andrews

 

Shot in rural Ireland, this intense and depressing film displays the hardships of sheep farming with the added stress of feuding neighbours.  Michael (Christopher Abbott) tends his family’s sheep business entirely on his own. His father (Colm Meaney) is disabled, and his mother died years ago in a car accident in which Michael was the driver.  Michael has lived with guilt ever since — as well as a secret he hopes will never come to light.  Michael’s ex, Caroline (Nora-Jane Noone), was also in that car accident and has the scars to prove it. She wound up marrying Gary (Paul Ready), another sheep farmer. Near the start of Bring Them Down, Caroline and Gary’s son, Jack (Barry Keoghan, also at the Festival with Bird), claims that two of Michael’s prize rams were found dead on his family’s property.   Michael’s suspicions are aroused, old wounds are opened, and the two families, with neither willing to stand down, find themselves on a perilous collision course.  The film repeats a few scenes resulting in a disordered chronological order, but the narrative is still easy to follow,  A solid climax brings the riveting film to an unexpected end.

 

CONCLAVE (UK/USA 2024) ***** Top 10

Directed by Edward Berger

 

Director Berger delivers another stunning and compelling drama CONCLAVE after his much-heralded Oscar Winner ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT.  The CONCLAVE is the process where a new Pontiff is elected by the cardinals after one dies.  It is an elaborate process as Berger illustrates.  Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) oversees the proceedings, assuming that the contest will come down to a battle between the reactionary, openly racist Cardinal Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto) and the liberal progressive Cardinal Bellini (Stanley Tucci). And matters soon turn complicated as rumours circulate, secrets emerge, and acts of sabotage are undertaken.  Adapted by Peter Straughan (GOLDFINCH) from the Robert Harris much-acclaimed novel, and lensed by cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine (the Vatican is displayed in all its splendour), the film is a masterwork of drama and relevance.  The ultimate choice of the new Pope comes as an unexpected twist at the end.  Performances are top-notch all the way around.    The musical score by Volker Bertlemann is necessarily intense, to the point of almost overdoing it. The Best of TIFF so far.

 

LES COURAGEUX (The Courageous)(Switzerland 2024) ***

Directed by Jasmin Gordon

 

 

Shot in French and set in the idyllic town in the stunning Valais region of Switzerland — known for its proximity to the Matterhorn, Alpine resorts, and upper Rhône river valley vineyards — 40-year-old Jule (Ophélia Kolb) is a single mother dreaming of a stable existence for her young family. Her children — 10-year-old Claire, eight-year-old Loïc, and six-year-old Sami — have learned to take care of one another, and, while the whereabouts of their gregarious mother are sometimes a mystery, the siblings know that she always returns to their home with a smile and a fantastic explanation.  Director Gordon’s feature is impressive, though not without faults.  At its best, Gordon is able to grab and maintain her audience’s attention to worry and care about what happens to the family - more of the children than of the mother.  Her film omits Juke’s past likelier arrest and details of the children’s father, who one assumes could be of more than one, from the looks of the children.  Jule does what she wants, breaking all the rules and expecting society to look after her.  Society does not work that way and it is hard to feel sympathetic for her.  But the sympathy is all for the children who are at a loss in terms of respect and doing the right things.

 

DAUGHTER’S DAUGHTER (Taiwan 2024) ***

Directed by Huang Xi

 

The film is pretty much a Sylvia Chang vehicle, she starred and produced it with Heavyweight Hou Hsiao-Hsien.  The film is of a dysfunctional family dealing with family relationships of mother and daughter and perhaps another daughter.  A good thing going for it is that the story is fresh and different and has not been dealt with before.  Aixia (Chang) has two daughters, but Emma (Karena Lam), who grew up in New York, and Fan Zuer (Eugenie Liu), who grew up in Taipei, never knew about each other until well into adulthood. When Zuer and her partner (yes, the gay theme here)decide to try and get pregnant via in vitro fertilization, they wind up travelling to the US for treatments. Tragically, the couple dies there in an accident, but their embryo remains alive and well — and Aixia is left as its legal guardian.  Arriving in New York overwhelmed with grief, she is faced with the choice of 4 options, to donate, terminate, or find a surrogate for the embryo. But after a life spent feeling like she’s fallen short as a mother, who is she to decide what to do with her deceased daughter’s unborn child?  An engaging, brave and gripping film by director Huang Xi.  The film is told in chronological order with the use of flashbacks.

DEAD TALENTS SOCIETY (Taiwan 2024) *
Directed by John Hsu

 

DEAR TALENTS SOCIETY pays tribute, very badly to the Asian horror films where female ghouls terrorize the living, and in this case via urban legends.  Nothing makes sense as the film toggles among the different characters all poorly acted by the stars who just act silly most of the time.  The story involving rules of ghosting like disintegrating after a period of time is all unbelievably made up.  A meek and newly dead teen (Gingle Wang) learns from an undead diva (Sandrine Pinna) how to haunt the living, in this bloody and hilarious supernatural comedy from writer-director John Hsu (Detention).  Souls are supposed to have a finite shelf life after death, and must regularly spook up the mortal realm as a curse or urban legend in order to secure a “haunter’s license,” a renewable reprieve from total oblivion.  While such macabre machinations are no sweat for those who lived boldly in life, for the meeker variety of newly dead, it promises a second death sentence.

DISCLAIMER (UK 2024) ***** Top10

Directed by Alfonso Cuaron

Who would ever imagine that a Primetime series would be the best thing to be seen at this year’s TIFF?  TIFF managed to get the full 7 episodes at the last minute to ‘wow’ audiences with the most exciting and suspenseful psychological thriller that makes compulsive watching from start to end, all 6 hours of it.  Robert (Sacha Baron Cohen), receives lewd photos of his wife (Cate Blanchett) from a man (Kevin Kline) whose son drowned from saving Robert’s son.  The man wants retribution as the drowned son apparently had an affair with Robert’s wife.  Excellent career-best performances all around from Kline, Blanchett and surprisingly Cohen, in dead serious mode.  A few reminders of Carol’s genius as in the drowning scene that is reminiscent of a seaside segment in ROMA. and the way he comfortably switches the drama among the characters so effortlessly.  I don’t normally review series, but the film was so compelling, that I stayed all 6 hours of the running time, skipping my next planned film.  A definitely MUST-SEE!

DON’T CRY, BUTTERFLY (Vietnam/Singapore/ Philippines/Indonesia 2024) *
Directed by Dương Diệu Linh 

Although Tam works at a wedding hall, she’s no romance expert. In truth, her personal life is far from rosy. After another hard working day, her daughter Ha delivers the shocking news that Tam’s husband is having an affair. To make matters worse, his misconduct was caught live on TV, and now the whole world knows of Tam’s misery. As if to mirror her state, a leak in the ceiling of her aged flat grows out of control. To turn things around, Tam consults the “Master” to find ways of bringing her husband back to her through mystical means.   The film is well shot with excellent production values and candid use of its surroundings depicting how Vietnamese people live and love.  But the film is all over the place, bouncing between the one between the mother and her affair with the daughter and her teenage crush.  The surrealism with the leaking ceiling does not aid much either, not to mention the open-ended ending of the film.

EDEN (USA 2024) ****
Directed by Ron Howard

Arguably Ron Howard’s best and most different to date, EDEN is a historical thriller based on true events set in the Galapagos Islands.  The romantic idyllic paradise where fresh fauna, birds, fish and animals inhabit are dashed with new settlers trying to etch out a living amidst the lack of fresh water, wild boars that raid the vegetable patches and wild dogs.  But the greater enemy of the ssttlers is other human beings that want to settle and invade with tourist hotels.  The story involves  Dr. Friedrich Ritter (Jude Law) and his partner Dora Strauch (Vanessa Kirby) flee their native Germany in 1929, repudiating the bourgeois values they believe are corroding mankind’s true nature. On the isle of Floreana, Friedrich can focus on writing his manifesto, while Dora resolves to cure her multiple sclerosis through meditation. Their hard-won solitude, however, is short-lived.  They are joined by Margaret (Sydney Sweeney) and Heinz Wittmer (Daniel Bruehl), who prove to be earnest, capable settlers.  But it is  Eloise Bosquet de Wagner Wehrhorn (Ana de Armas) a self-described Baroness, the latest settler that creates the new hell that will break loose.   Jude Law’s German-accented English is distracting though Bruehl gets away with it because he is German.  Still, EDEN is as marvellous a film as its setting.

DEAD MAIL (use 2024) ***
Directed by Joe DeBoer and Kyle McConaghy

When an ominous cry for help on a blood-stained scrap of mail is clocked by the staff of a country post office in the American Midwest, it spurs an investigation that circuitously reveals the sordid story of a struggling synthesizer engineer (Sterling Macer Jr.) and his possessive benefactor (John Fleck). Shrewdly set at the precipice of the digital age — that nebulous twilight between the late 1970s and the early 1980s — this analog-textured thriller borders its central psychodrama within an idiosyncratic community of amateur gumshoes who all keenly contribute to cracking the case.  The most immediately prominent sleuth is Jasper (Tomas Boykin), a diligent mailroom clerk with a knack for rectifying “dead letters,” to use the parlance of the postal service. Aided by his two plucky colleagues (Micki Jackson, Susan Priver) and a Scandinavian hacker (Nick Heyman) thus ensues a genre-bending caper.  The lack of blood, gore and voice is compensated by the weird way in which lost items and dead mail can be traced - all of which could be either true or made up.  The ambiguity of the situation is heightened at the end with notes of what has happened to each of the story’s characters - which re too odd to be believed.  The setting, and cinematography on scratchy deliberately scratched and blurred film mark this film above others in the genre.  No big-name stars in this low-budget horror, if one wants to call it that.

EDGE OF NIGHT (Germany 2024) ***
Directed by Türker Süer

The fictional tale is set on July 15, 2016, taking place mainly in the EDGE OF NIGHT, with beautiful night cinematography. when a faction within the Turkish Armed Forces attempted a coup against the democratically elected government, citing the erosion of secularism, and elimination of democracy.  Brothers Kenan (Berk Hakman) and Sinan (Ahmet Rıfat Şungar) Yeşilyaprak, both officers in the Turkish army, have been conflicted since birth.  Their father was a prominent — later persecuted — general and their mother a member of the oft-discriminated-against Kurdish minority.  Sinan, now a rising young lieutenant, has been summoned to hand over Kenan to a military court for a trial that will likely lead to a very long prison sentence for his actions against state interests. Navigating a long journey through a divided land and an ever-shifting landscape, the brothers are unaware that a storm is underway. democratic rule, and disregard for human rights,   This is a film of the relationship of the two brothers told in the setting of a political turmoil.  Director Türker Süer keeps a tight pace in his film with all the incidents revealed clearly, except for the open-ended climax.

 

ELSE (France/Belgium 20245) *
Directed by Thibault Emin

 

Playing like an experimental rather than horror film,, but with impressive special horror effects, this time in the form of melting humans into a molten mess, ELSE is, unfortunately, lacking a solid story base makes the entire exercise seem long and ineffective.  Introverted and uncomfortable in his own skin, Anx (Matthieu Sampeur) does not consider himself an obvious partner for Cass (Édith Proust), the feisty whirlwind of confidence he finds himself waking up alongside after a presumed one-night stand. And yet a romance begins to bloom.  However, the nascent relationship is threatened when a strange disease spreads throughout the world, gradually causing the infected to merge with whatever they touch. Finding themselves quarantined to Anx’s claustrophobic apartment, the couple is soon besieged by their very surroundings, which have begun coalescing with their neighbours into a spongy new life form that seeks to add the lovers to its mass.  At best, the film captures the Pandemic atmosphere of dread and the worst is that nothing happens after.

EMILIA PERES (France 2024) ***** Top 10

Directed by Jacques Audiard

 

There are many reasons to make EMILA PEREZ compulsive viewing.  For the younger audience, Selena Gomez has a solid supporting role, while Zoe Saldana delivers also a riveting performance.  But mostly, it is another film from French auteur Jacques Audiard (UN PROPHET, RUST AND BONE) and this is arguably the best trans movie there is currently out there or has been out there prior.  Though essentially a French film, the film is shot in Spanish and set in Mexico City where drug kingpins rule.   The film is about one successful, in fact very successful one, who trans and repents his ways.  Rita Moro Castro (Zoe Saldaña) is a Mexico City defense attorney whose brilliant strategies have kept many murderous but wildly affluent clients out of jail. Her reputation draws the attention of Manitas Del Monte (Karla Sofia Gascón), a notorious kingpin, who is secretly transitioning. He hires Rita to arrange an itinerary of under-the-table procedures with the world’s best surgeons, while making a plan for the wife (Selena Gomez) and kids he is leaving behind. The process is a success, Manitas’ murder is staged, and Emilia Pérez is born. This new identity affords Emilia the ability to create a whole new life for herself, but the past begins to creep back, threatening to undo everything she and Rita have worked so hard to achieve.  It is a brave and progressive film with the script co-written by Audiard covering key issues like retribution, LGBT+ issues and the drug cartel problem in Mexico.  The film bears several parallels with Audiard’s best film UN PROPHET.  There are the main characters leading a new and better life. prison scenes and innocence lost.  The story contains twists that arrive every 30 minutes or so, unexpected to any audience.  Yet, the film feels believable.  There is suspense, melodrama, and thrills with a bit of violence that was also present in UN PROPHET.  Though the ending can hardly be called a happy one, it is a satisfactory, credible and effective one.  The film is one of the best at TIFF 2024, which also premiered at Cannes this year.

THE END (Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, United Kingdom, Sweden 2024) **
Directed by Joshua Oppenheimer

It is the end of the world though the dystopia is not the focus of the film, which is neither explained nor elaborated in detail.  George MacKay plays the naive young man who was born in this bunker. In his 20 years of life, he has only heard stories of the outside world. He spends his days working on a dubious book with his father (Michael Shannon), a former energy tycoon, while his mother (Tilda Swinton) frets over the upkeep of the many priceless paintings and artworks adorning their walls. It’s the semblance of a normal (albeit affluent) life. But when a woman (Moses Ingram) from the outside arrives at their doorstep seeking refuge, the family’s delicate dynamic begins to crumble. There exists sufficient and gourmet food, again unexplained where these come from.  Director Oppenheimer’s (the acclaimed ART OF KILLING which I never liked) film is a long, tedious and occasionally unwatchable epic, which is as cold as its central character, Swinton.  The film is also all over the place, with a few odd musical and dance numbers that seem out of place.  A cold film on a cold topic in a film that lasts too long at 2 and ¾ hours.

ERNEST COLE: LOST AND FOUND (France 2024) ****
Directed by Raoul Peck

Director Raoul Peck’s (I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO) latest doc is a mind-blowing one that won the Best Doc Prize at Cannes this year.  As the title implies, the doc would not have been made if not for the revelation in 2017, when 60,000 unknown negatives of Ernest Cole’s work were discovered in a Swedish bank vault.  Through all his adversity, Cole never lost his power to take stunning pictures, trying to see those who spend their lives going unseen. “It’s a matter of survival,” he wrote, “to steal every moment.”  Director Peck tells Cole’s story, like a biopic mainly through voiceover using mostly the photographs he took in South Africa and the United States.  the plight of the black men and all the adversity is vividly portrayed and deeply and emotionally put across to audiences in what might be deemed a must-see well-crafted documentary.

 

THE FRIEND (USA 2024) ***½
Directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel

Scott McGehee and David Siegel (SUTURE, MONTANA) deliver another wise, insightful character drama, this time on man’s best friend in the form of a Great Dane.  Dog lovers (myself being a big breed owner) will love the film as it includes the behaviour of dogs with respect to their owners and differing situations.  Iris (Naomi Watts) has had a long, complex friendship with Walter (Bill  Murray, shown in flashbacks). Walter is an irresistible charmer, a brilliant author, a lover of many women, and a master at letting down loved ones. When he dies suddenly, Iris is left to deal with all he left behind — three ex-wives with unfinished business, his interrupted literary legacy, and his beloved beast Apollo (Bing).    The film shows how dogs calm down and form companionship with human beings like many doggie movies, and turns out to be quite a tearjerker.  And the dog steals the show.

FRONT ROW (Algeria/Saudi Arabia/France 2024) ***
Directed by Merzak Allouache

 

A comedy from Algeria that showcases the beach culture of the seaside holidayers has on its outset, two feuding families led by their matriarchs clamouring for the front row at the beach so that they can get a good view of the sea,  Up bright and early with their pet in tow,  Zohra Bouderbala (Fatiha Ouared) and her five children are heading to the beach. This is not a drill! In Algiers, the coveted front-row spot waits for no one, but it’s not this family’s first time having to beat the summer seaside crowds. The unmotivated and out-of-luck masses who arrive too late will be left to a viewless laze in the sun, the alleged horizon blocked by a fortress of parasols and flowing canopies.  With their site secured, and their watermelons buried, relaxation is a near promise. That is, until Hakim (Nabil Asli), the uptight though easily influenced beach attendant dares to place the late-arriving Kadouri family right in front of the Bouderbalas. This absolute declaration of war sends Zohra and her neighbourhood nemesis, Safia Kadouri (Bouchra Roy), into a passive-aggressive tailspin that eventually almost leads to the matriarchs being arrested in prison.  Meanwhile, right under their noses, the schemes of star-crossed teenagers will test the waters of emerging autonomy.  Light, funny and entertaining, director Merzak Allouache delivers. forgetful fluff in his 19th feature,

GULIZAR (Turkey/Kosovo 2024) ***
Directed by Belkıs Bayrak

 

A minimalist film with little dialogue that still gets its message across.  Yet another film bout female empowerment  Twenty-two-year-old Gülizar (Ecem Uzun) was raised in a loving if strict Turkish home full of taboos and expectations for women and men alike. Longing to experience what lies beyond the only world that she and the women around her have ever known, Gülizar believes her forthcoming marriage and the promise of a new beginning over the horizon will herald a brighter future. Betrothed to her beloved Emre (Bekir Behrem), she is eager to leave behind her family and her homeland for Kosovo. Gülizar’s fairy tale, however, tragically turns into a nightmare when she is sexually assaulted en route.  There are 3 parts in the movie.  The first is Guzzler’s bus trip that involved her rape which changes her happy hopes for the wedding, the second is how the couple copes with the incident and the third is the redemption as she finds her rapist who also attends the wedding.  Each part is equally absorbing and riveting!

HAPPYEND (Japan/US 2024) ***
Directed by Neo Sara

 

HAPPYEND covers the major issue in society and in schools of security cameras.  With a system of total surveillance in schools, the freedom of the students is compromised.  Just as carting individuals by the police during protests or important summit meetings in a country, the process leads to the removal of freedom and promotes racism at the expense of safety.  Headphones permanently curled around their necks, Yuta and Kou are high schoolers who love to DJ.  The film begins with the friends participating in a secret party that gets busted by police. The party is just one of the ways that Yuta and Kou try to escape the cameras proliferating throughout the city, especially at school, where a new system monitors and instantly scrutinizes student behaviour, reporting demerits in its live feed for all to see.  Adults insist the system ensures student safety, but the kids feel they’re being treated like prisoners. They wonder whether there’s any point in seeking change, asking age-old questions about the efficacy of protests. Some resort to spectacular pranks, such as standing the principal’s sportscar on its boot, while others stage a sit-in.  There is no solution as the film HAPPYEND considers, as it examines both sides of the coin with the students protesting and and the principal explaining the reasons behind the security system.  But director Sara could have kept a tighter film instead of leaving his narrative loose, with the key message only coming through when the principal makes his speech or when certain incidents are concluded.

 

HARD TRUTHS (UK/Spain 2024) ****

Directed by Mike Leigh

 

British writer/director Mike Leigh makes the best films about quirky characters.  One of his best is HAPPY-GO-LUCKY where an ever cheerful but flawed character played by Sally Hawkins finds her way/  HARD TRUTHS is more likeable Unhappy-Go-Unlucky with a flawed and constantly angry and arguing woman played by Marianne Jean-Baptiste delivering a hilarious tour-de-force performance that one can laugh art and still feel sorry for.  Hypersensitive to the slightest possible offense and ever ready to fly off the handle, Pansy (Jean-Baptiste) does not ingratiate. She criticizes her husband Curtley (David Webber) and their adult son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett) so relentlessly that neither bothers to argue with her. She picks fights with strangers and sales clerks and enumerates the world’s countless flaws to anyone who will listen, most especially her cheerful sister Chantal (Michele Austin), who might be the only person still capable of sympathizing with her. Director Leigh steers his film to a climax in which the family reaches a breaking point.

HERETIC (USA 2024) **
Directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods

 

Sister Paxton (Chloe East) and Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) cheerfully go about their mission to spread good news about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Working down a list of doors to knock on, they arrive at the quiet suburban house of Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant), who seems not only polite and hospitable but also genuinely fascinated by the history and teachings of Mormonism.  Mr. Reed is nothing that he might seem on the outside, and not turn out to have a hidden agenda, that is very sinister.  The sisters find themselves trapped and unable to escape in this chamber horror piece that stretches a bit too long with a plot stretched far too thin.  Despite Hugh Grant stealing the show, injecting humour amidst the horror, HERETIC just almost succeeds.

HOLD YOUR BREATH (USA 2024) ***½

Directed by Karrie Crouse and Will Joined

 

In Dust Bowl Oklahoma of the 1930s, a mother (Sarah Paulson) nears the breaking point as she tries to protect her daughters from deadly windstorms and the impact of her own harrowing past.  When the older girl tells the legend of the Grey Man to the younger one, the story slips under the skin of the whole family. The Grey Man is a spirit carried like dust in the wind, breathed in, and never to be shaken.  The film is a psychological horror set in a western complete with a solitary ranch and a stranger (is he good or evil?) who suddenly invades the ranch.  The directors create an excellent atmosphere of dread complete with stunning cinematography of the sandstorms that arise ever so often.  The only problem is the too-frequent use of jump scares that otherwise would have made the perfect psychological horror.

ICK (USA 2024) **
Directed by Joseph Kahn

 

In the small American town of Eastbrook, nearly two decades after a viscous vine-like growth — colloquially referred to as “the Ick” — began encroaching on every nook and cranny, a nonplussed populous have found their lives seemingly unaffected by the creeping anomaly. Hank Wallace (Brandon Routh), a former high-school football prospect turned hapless science teacher, and his perceptive student Grace (Malina Weissman), who both regard the Ick with a suspicious scrutiny that is soon violently validated. Bursts of bloody bedlam and blasé attitudes ensue, cannily satirizing how a society can grow accustomed to living in a perpetual state of emergency.  There are too many things that go one too fast.  Most of ghettos scenes do not last more than 10 seconds without a cut or edit, feeling like a horror version of a Baz Luhrmann film.  The special effects are good but if only the narrative is better.  The alien vines are dormant only to suddenly sprout out to terrorize the heroes only to have them climb a high tower (“Reach for Higher Ground”) with the creepers reaching out for them and escaping in the nick of time.  It is the silliest extortion of suspense!  This nod to old horror classics like THE BLOB ends up more like The Botch.

I, THE EXECUTIONER (South Korea 2024) ***
Directed by Ryoo Seung-wan

 

Returning detective Seo Do-cheol (Hwang Jung-min) now faces the challenges of fatherhood while grappling with the impact of his brutal job on his family. Joining him is rookie officer Park Sun-woo (Jung Hae-in), an ambitious young agent enamoured with the dark side of police work and the intoxicating power it has lent him. They team up to hunt a serial killer, a vigilante,  targeting criminals who have managed to escape justice.  The film covers the issues of vigilantism and the abuse of social media and its reflection on societal disillusionment with the legal system, but done in a light and often comical way.  The action scenes are well choreographed and the fight sequences are light, similar to the JOHN WICK films.  There is a segment where two fighters tumble down steps, reminiscent and totally recognizable from JOHN WICK 4

 

JULIE KEEPS QUIET (Belgium/Sweden 2024) ***

Directed by Leonardo van Dijl 

Julie (Tessa Van den Broeck), a highly promising 15-year-old player at a tennis academy, nervously faces changes in her training program after her longtime coach, Jeremy (never seen) is put on leave. The reason: allegations about his relationship with a former player, Aline (never seen) who has recently committed suicide.  Despite mounting pressure on Julie to share her own experience with her mentor, the taciturn teen directs her focus where she’s always been conditioned to: her game.  Yet, whether Julie acknowledges it or not, the unfolding crisis gradually compels her to emerge from the isolation that’s been imposed on her.  JULIE KEEPS QUIET.  There are only hints of what had happened and a surfacing video that is not shown to the audience.  The purpose is not the revelation of the incident but the trauma Julie faces as a result.  The tennis segments are very authentic and the trainees all play tennis really well as can be seen in many parts of the saga.

MEASURES FOR A FUNERAL (Canada 2024) **
Directed by Sofia Bohdanowicz

 

MEASURES FOR A FUNERAL  spotlights a young academic’s run towards one woman — acclaimed early 20th-century Canadian violinist Kathleen Parlow — as she simultaneously flees from another, her failed musician mother.  Parlow is the subject of Audrey’s Ph.D. thesis and her research takes her from Toronto to London to Oslo and far away from her dying mother, who is bitter that she never got to pursue her own violin dreams while her husband did, a legacy that haunts Audrey.  Discovering a once-lost composition dedicated to Parlow, Audrey shoves aside her own personal problems to restage the opus.  Culminating in a final concerto that is layered in meaning and importance, this film brings to light a forgotten icon, while simultaneously reflecting on loss, regrets, and closure.  Director Bohdanowicz shows little of how the concerto is staged by Audrey.  They are not quite well put together so it comes across as confusing and unevenly paced.  The final concerto forming the climax of the film would delight music lovers.

 MEAT (Greece 2024) ***½

Directed by Dimitris Nikos

 

MEAT, from Greece, is a Greek tragedy in true form.  The film opens with a big fight between two neighbours involving property before the sone son of hurls a scrod at the vehicle of the other as it leaves.  Things \get worse in a suspense thriller as a murder ensues, followed by a proposed cover-up as tensions rise between the Greek family and the town.  In a village in the Greek countryside, 55-year-old patriarch Takis (Akyllas Karazisis) and his long-suffering wife Eleni (Maria Kallimani) have been fighting with their loud-mouth neighbour, who is laying claim to part of the family’s land.  As Takis prepares to open his new butcher shop, decades of accumulated tensions between the two foes bubble to the surface. On one explosive night, the neighbour is killed by Takis’s only son Pavlos (Pavlos Iordanopoulos), a fumbling and hotheaded overgrown child. The only witness to this carnal crime is Christos (Kostas Nikouli), a handsome and hardworking young man from Albania, whom Takis has employed — and in many ways raised — since adolescence. The murderer and the eyewitness initially bury the evidence of the brutal act, but as rumours swirl and a killer must be named, the truth begins to take many forms. Soon, Takis must face the reality of choosing the fate of both young men.  The film is gripping from start to finish, the only complaint being the constant use of a hand-held camera resulting in jerky and jittery, terribly annoying frames, though the techniques heighten the tension.

 

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 disincorporated in the script), and its flattering self-image. A marvellous surprise from Delpy.

MISERICORDE (France 2024) ****
Directed by Alain Giuraudie

 

MISERICORDE has the feel of a Claude Chabrol murder film in which the cat-and-mouse tale is mainly the mouse outwitting the cat with the aid of his cohorts.  The film is a prized twisted macabre tale with bouts of unexpected humour from the director of the 2014 gay hit L’CONNU DU LAC (Stranger by the Lake), this one with the fabulous Catherine Frot as a widow. who takes in Jérémie as a lodger whose sensual presence is immediately and progressively destabilizing to all around him.  Martine (Catherine Frot) happens to be the mother of his childhood friend, the brutish Vincent (fJean-Baptiste Durand). The duo’s interactions are terse and laden with resentment, but clearly erotically charged.  When a fight goes awry, Misericordia swerves into noir territory with absurdist undertones, and an ensuing investigation spirals around a loner neighbour, ineffectual gendarmes, and a nosy country priest — seemingly the only inhabitants in this dewy, mountainous village perpetually bathed in twilight.  No sex scenes but there are two with full penises on display, that are both erotic and hilarious.  MISEROCORDE, extremely well plotted and executed is a total wicked delight!

MISTRESS DISPELLER (China/USA 2024) **
Directed by Elizabeth Lo

 

A Mistress dispeller as the documentary shows is one hired to dismantle the mistress-husband apparatus.  In the doc, a wife discovers through texting that her husband is seeing another woman,  She hires a mistress dispeller and attempts to break up the husband’s relationship, without hurt to any party.  Filmmaker Elizabeth Lo gains the trust of everyone in this love triangle and with the mistress dispeller, Teacher Wang. We watch a prolonged intervention take place over several months. Teacher Wang operates far outside the boundaries of conventional couples’ therapy. She fabricates scenarios to meet the husband and his mistress so she can understand their points of view. The doc shows the sensitivity of this strange process and the difficulties encountered,  The doc feels very much like fiction which makes one wonder how many segments the director might have cheated in using re-enactments to pass for the real thing.  The novelty of the dispeller grows thin soon and what happens then after, well no one cares in a rather boring last third of the doc.

THE MOUNTAIN (NewZealand 2024) ***
Directed by Rachel House

 

A film about resilience told from a younger point of view - three kids.  Their aim to climb to the summit of a mountain, each for different reasons.   The brave trio trek on the journey of a lifetime, where they learn the true meaning of friendship and the power of their cultural legacy. The film has the blessing of New Zealand filmmaker Taika Waititi who serves as executive producer, the film contains bits of his quirkiness and odd traits.  Determined to beat the cancer she is fighting, Sam (Elizabeth Atkinson) escapes from the juvenile hospital ward to go on a potentially dangerous journey to climb Taranaki Maunga, the mountain that, as a Māori, she is culturally and personally connected with.  Meanwhile, Bronco (Terence Daniel), a proudly confident Māori boy feeling neglected by his single father, meets Mallory (Reuben Francis), who struggles with loneliness following the recent death of his mother. The two boys soon cross paths with Sam and need a little convincing to join her on the secret mission to reach Taranaki. They form a quick bond as their worried parents search for the trio, concerned for their safety and health.  Director House balances drama and comedy though one complain that there could be more of each.  Mildly entertaining!

 

Mr. K (Netherlands/Belgium 2024) ***

Directed by Tallulah

 

The film does not tell what the K in the film title stands for but the K would likely stand for the name Kafka due to the Kafka-ish influence of the plot.  Mr. K (Crispin Glover) is a traveling working magician who checks into a hotel to stay the night for a gig the next morning.  The illusionist meets his match in the hotel where nothing is what it seems.  Mr. K cannot find the hotel exit.  He meets strange guests like two old women who have lived in the hotel for ages, a marching band and a full kitchen staff.  The hotel occupants believe him to be ‘the liberator’ to help them escape.  Mr. K finds that the hotel is shrinking with the walls getting closer together.  Director Tallulah’s film is as mesmerizing as the film’s set and decor, the hotel looking somewhat like the famous New York’s Chelsea Hotel.  Mr. K is soon caught in a loop - Kafka style.  The film’s ending is not as satisfying as its build-up in itself is worth the price of the admission ticket.

OH, CANADA (USA 2024) ***
Directed by Paul Schrader

 

Based on the late (died 2023) Russell Bank’s novel, OH, CANADA reunites Richard Gere with director Schrader after their long tight AMERICAN GIGOLO almost 45 years ago.  It is a fictional biopic of Leonard Fife also played as a young man by Jason Elordi.  Fife left the US for Canada as a young man during the Vietnam War draft. Fife became an acclaimed documentary filmmaker in Montreal. Now, riddled with illness and palliative medicine, he allows former film students, led by Malcolm (Michael Imperioli), to interview him. Uma Thurman, playing Fife’s watchful wife Emma, stands guard to protect her husband’s legacy. But as Fife’s memories pour out to the camera and come to life in flashbacks, the great man’s official story fractures.  This is Gere’s career-best performance, which was heralded at Cannes this year.

THE PARTY’S OVER (Fin de Fiesta) (Spain 2024) ***1/2

Directed by Elena Manrique

 

 

 

 

 

 

A totally female take on the refugee situation in Spain.  After a horrendous journey by boat in which illegal refugees scatter away from local Spanish crossing guards and the police’s 19-year-old Bilal from Senegal hides in a gardener’s van while most of the others are captured.  The van takes her to a wealthy Spanish Lady, Carmina whose family is very established in the town and whose wealth she has inherited.  The story revolves around these two and the abused maid Lupe (“I can tell that you are uneducated; I will teach you how to appreciate good wine) and the beauty of his film is that one cannot foretell where the story will lead to.  Breezy, and funny while sticking true to the refugee crisis, THE PARTY’S OVER also benefits from the performance of Sonia  Barba as Carina, especially in the segment where she dances during her birthday party high on drugs and drunk on alcohol.

PAYING FOR IT (Canada 2024) ***1/2
Directed by Sook-Yin Lee

If director Sook-Yin Lee’s new feature PAYING FOR IT looks incredibly real, the reason is that it is based on the graphic novel telling the story of the author’s relationship journey with Lee.  This is the story of Chester Brown and Sonny (Lee’s alter-ego).  The film is bookended with the line: “I think I am falling in love with someone else.”  These words have repercussions and Sonny is paying for it after confessing the words to Chester.  While Donny embarks on new relationships, Chester satisfies his desires with prostitutes, getting close to a few of them.  What stands out in Lee’s film as well is the display of underground artists in the film - particularly the new bands performing in the music videos.  Lee’s portrayal of the ups and downs of relationships is raw and effective, complete with necessary nudity and biting dialogue.  The words PAYING FOR IT pay off for Lee with this remarkable Canadian entry at TIFF.

THE PENGUIN LESSONS (UK/Spain 2024) ***½

Directed by Peter Cattaneo

 

From the director, Peter Cattaneo of THE FULL MONTY comes arguably the most charming movie at TIFF.  In the spirit of films like TO SIR WITH LOVE and GOODBYE, MR CHIPS comes this endearing story of an English teacher working in a politically dangerous Argentina.  The year is 1976. Tom (Coogan) lands in Buenos Aires to take up a teaching position at a prestigious English boarding school. When a coup d’état shuts down the school, he hops next door to Uruguay to party. A romantic foray leads to a walk along the beach, which leads to the sight of a penguin drenched in oil from a spill. Against his better judgment, Tom rescues the bird, which unlocks its undying loyalty. He's forced to sneak the flightless beast back to Argentina and thus begins a strange and beautiful friendship.  Slow-moving, and never rushed, the message of humanity and kindness amidst a cruel world comes clearly across.

PRESENCE (USA 2024) ***½

Directed by Steven Soderbergh

 

Directed by Soderbergh and written by David Koepp (the big-budget movies like INDIANA JONES, JURASSIC PARK and THE MUMMY but also GHOST TOWN), the low-budget indie film is a haunted house ghost story with a PRESENCE as established by the gliding camera around the empty house at the film’s start.   A dysfunctional family moves in.  Though they appear to argue a lot with each other, the family bond is stronger than it seems.  Nothing is clear after that - who the presence of the house is; whether Ryan the sexy kid is good or bad; whether the psychic is for real; whether the daughter can really feel the presence and so on.  This distinguishes this ghost story from the run-of-the-mill, making the film intriguing and fresh from start to end. 

QUEER (Italy/USA 2024) **
Directed by Luca Guadagnino

 

Director Guadagnino's (CHALLENGERS) latest entry is based on William Buurrough’s novel, which in itself is a boring odyssey of a drug addict’s quest for an elusive drug in the Amazon jungles.  Lee (Daniel Craig) mingles with the expatriate set in postwar Mexico City, wandering its streets, frequenting its gay bars, and ingesting whatever illicit substances are available. He is a consummate raconteur who has no trouble finding an audience, but he is also a desperately lonely, middle-aged addict with an alarming fondness for guns.  Early in the film, Lee sets his sights on a journey to the Amazon in search of the potentially telepathic ayahuasca — and he wants handsome young bi-curious Oklahoman Allerton (Drew Starkey) to accompany him. Their travels will yield a string of unexpected encounters and provide Lee with sobering lessons in what Burroughs dubbed “the algebra of need.”  The choreography is stunning, and the camera work is admirable but the whole piece still ends up boring with nothing happening in the film’s lengthy over teo hours running time.  Craig is showing his age and he portrays a decaying gay man who suffers from diarrhea, fever, and sweats had the time during his travels.

 

QUERIDO TROPIC (Beloved Tropic) (Panama City/Colombia 2024) ***

Directed by Ana Endara,

 

A strong female film with two female protagonists and a female director/writer, the film examines the estranged relationship between two women, an immigrant worker and the lady she is working for as a caregiver. v Ana María (played by Jenny Navarrete, The Other Son) is a Colombian immigrant facing status and financial challenges while harbouring a secret that is revealed only near the end of the film, serving also as a twist in the plot.  She is hired as a home caregiver for Mercedes, a high-class woman struggling with encroaching dementia that is slowly erasing her identity and past.  As their lives intertwine, Ana María and Mercedes embark on a journey of mutual discovery and support, delving into the fraught complexities of mother-daughter relationships. They navigate the challenges of caregiving and the profound need for connection, learning to care for one another amid their personal struggles.  If the film feels like a documentary, director Endara has her background in documentary-making, giving the film a more realistic feel to it, without any annoying cliches.

QUISLING - THE FINAL DAYS (Norway 2024) ***½

Directed by Erik Poppe

 

An important story that needs to be told - one that is unfamiliar to North Americans as the events deal with what Norwegians had gone through during WWII under the influence of a Hitler-backed head of state, who is receiving his trial.  Questions of justice and accountability permeate this bracing account of events following Norway’s liberation in 1945. With Quisling (Gard B. Eidsvold) awaiting trial, a pastor named Peder Olsen (Anders Danielsen Lie) begins a series of meetings that officials hope will extract a measure of contrition from the defiant politician.   Quisling maintains his bluster while concealing his fears about his fate, just like former  Trump believes he is the best President of the United States,  The film unfolds in a stern no-nonsense style historical drama.  The camera work is superb, with one scene shot showing the side caricature of Quisling giving him a resemblance to Adolf Hitler.

RIFF RAFF (USA 2024) ***

Directed by Dito Montiel

 

Lots of RIFF RAFF characters in this black comedy which can be best described as forgetful entertainment.  One-time criminal Vince (Ed Harris) turned his life around when he fell in love with Sandy (Gabrielle Union). Nearly 20 years later, the still-happy couple are looking forward to spending a quiet New Year’s Eve in their country home with their good-natured son, DJ (Miles J. Harvey). Then Vince’s other son, Rocco (Lewis Pullman), shows up unannounced with his pregnant girlfriend, Marina (Emanuela Postacchini), and Vince’s first wife, Ruth (Jennifer Coolidge), in tow. Hot on Rocco’s tail is Lefty (Bill Murray), an aging mafioso with a score to settle regarding his own son. When Lefty catches up with Vince’s teeming clan, it seems likely that blood ties will yield blood spilled.  What is most entertaining in the film are the performances of the actors particularly Harris being deadly serious, Coolidge and Murray hamming it up and SNL’s Pete Davidson who is always a hoot to watch.  What is a family without murder and mayhem?

THE ROOM NEXT DOOR (Spain 2024) ***½
Directed by Pedro Almodovar

 

Almodovar’s first English language film is a visually exquisite and intimate adaptation of What Are You Going Through by Sigrid Nunez. The film comes complete with the director’s trademark of bright Spanish colours, stylized set decor and a return of his signature humour, typical of his earlier films.  Cinematography, a huge factor in Almodovar’s films is by Eduard Grau.  Ingrid (Oscar winner Julianne Moore) is a bestselling author so famously afraid of death she has written a book about it.   When she learns that Martha (Oscar winner Tilda Swinton) — a former war correspondent — is ill, she visits her, reigniting a friendship from years past, when both were journalists.  Their pasts are re-visited as both come to death with the reality of life that includes death.

 

RUMOURS (Canada/Germany 2024) ***1/2
Directed by Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, and Galen Johnson,

 

Out of this world are the words that can be used to describe this engrossing weird and absurdist satire, Guy Maddin style which is aided by performances of an impressive cast that includes Cate Blanchett as the German chancellor, inspired casting of heart-throb Roy Depuis as the Canadian Prime Minister and Charles Dance as the American President. The G7 leaders are gathered in order to issue a united statement on a world crisis.  The G7 leaders are so lost in working on this provisional statement filled with platitudes and nonsense that they don’t realize they’ve been abandoned by their servers.  It’s only then, when the cameras and aides have left, that things really go off the rails and each of their shortcomings comes glaringly into focus, not to mention a giant brain (that thankfully does not speak) and some zombie-like creatures.  Shot in colour and black and white (Maddin’s favourite) and filmed in English, French, German and Swedish.

RUSSIANS AT WAR (Canada/France 2024) ***
Directed by Anastasia Trofimova

 

Russian Canadian filmmaker Anastasia Trofimova’s gripping first-person documentary takes the audience beyond the headlines to join Russian soldiers, actually mainly medics, as they place themselves in a battle for reasons that become only more obscure with each gruelling day, each confusing command, each gut-wrenching casualty.  On a more personal note, the film follows a Ukrainian named Ilya, who is about to leave his family and go to war — for Russia. Trofimova, though lacking permission, joins Ilya and his supply unit as they make their harrowing journey to the front line. Many soldiers fighting alongside Ilya are very young. Some believe they’re going to vanquish Ukrainian Naziism.  If one wants answers to the reason for the fighting, the film provides none.  Rather, the film emphasizes the futility of war.  In a war, no one wins.  And in the doc, all the soldiers want to go home.  Unfortunately, some don’t and others return home wounded.  It is still an emotional doc, with one audience screaming during the screening that the film is all propaganda.  Whether it is or not, it is up to the individual to decide as the director takes no sides.  A disturbing g and gripping look at the casualties of war.

SABA (Bangladesh 2024) ***
Directed by Maksud Hossain

 

With her father missing, Saba (Mehazabien Chowdhury) is the sole caregiver to her paraplegic mother, Shirin (Rokeya Prachy), who suffers from acute heart disease. Although Shirin's condition binds them together, her frustration with their situation often manifests as bitterness and anger towards her daughter, so they live in their own separate worlds. When Shirin has a heart attack, Saba races against time to sell their home, lowering the price and even risking her burgeoning romance with her senior co-worker Ankur (Mostafa Monwar) — who dreams of starting a new life abroad — to pay for her mom’s heart surgery.  The film benefits from the honest and candid performances of the entire cast.  A dash of Bangladesh that is seldom seen is portrayed with all its poverty, warts and all.  It is a depressing but credible story the only slight flaw being certain parts falling into cliched territory like the segment in which Anwar aids Saba in bringing her mother out to the park.  The most interesting character also seems to be Anwar. why is he going to France?  When he says he is not like other men, does he meet that he is gay, though that part is never felt further with?

SAD JOKES (Germany 2024) ***½
Directed by Fabian Stumm

 

Writer/director/actor Fabian Stump’s second feature establishes himself as a quirky, fresh and queer talent to be reckoned with.  Just as the title of his film implies, the character exhibits emotions the equivalent of sad jokes.   A series of auto-fictional vignettes, ranging from the touching to the absurd, tells the story of Joseph (Stumm) and Sonya (Haley Louise Jones), close friends co-parenting a young child, Pino (Justus Meyer, whom Stumm parents with actor Susie Meyer in real life). While Joseph is wrestling with the concept of a new film — as well as his own ego — on the heels of a fresh breakup with his boyfriend Marc (Jonas Dassler), Sonya is in a clinic, suffering from deep depression. Five jokes appear at the start of the film (What do you call sad coffee?  Answer: depresso).  Not too funny but enough of a chuckle, but there is a solid laugh-out-loud sad joke in the middle of the film involving how to reply to a dating letter.   The film appears to reflect the director’s true personality which makes the film very personal and credible.  It also reflects relief and the emotions both funny and sad that one goes through.  Thoroughly watchable as director Stumm also creates excellent dramatic and quirky set pieces that altogether give his film an edgy and wonderful flavour.

SANTOSH (UK 2024) ****
Directed by Sandhya Suri

Santosh Saini (Shahana Goswami) is the widow of a police constable killed in a protest.  In a segment where she is disgraced as a widow for not taking care of her husband where there is no love in the household, she has no choice but to take his place in a police station,  a government procedure that supports killed policemen’s widows.  This is where the drama and the film begins.  Against Santosh’s urging, her superior cruelly dismisses a low-caste father’s attempt to file a missing report on his teen daughter.  The discovery of the girl’s body ignites protests in her community. In response to the negative publicity, the department recruits female inspector Sharma (Sunita Rajwar) to lead the investigation. Santosh is immediately fascinated by Sharma’s ability to ingratiate herself into the masculine culture of the station while remaining a fierce advocate against gendered violence in public. Sharma, meanwhile, spots Santosh’s keen intelligence and ambition and offers to mentor her.  Nothing is what it seems in a fiction film that feels like a doc that follows the two sleuths around Indian villagers tackling Indian issues like the caste system, male chauvinism, police brutality and corruption and protests.  Director Suri does not shy away from extensive torture scenes and other violence.  Necessarily long at over two hours, SANTOSH is nevertheless a brave, insightful and riveting film.

 

 

THE SEED OF THE SACRED FIG (Iran/France/Germany 2024) ***½

Directed by Mohammad Rasoulof

 

THE SEED OF THE SACRED FIG is yet another film about women’s rights in Iran, a country that still forces women to wear face coverings.  A very strict husband and father, Iman (Misagh Zare) is an ambitious middle-class lawyer working for the Iranian government.  He has just been promoted to state investigator — the stepping stone to becoming a revolutionary court judge — and, alongside an increase in income and social cachet, his family has received clear instructions on what is required of them as Iman’s star rises in the eyes of the state.  His wife (Soheila Golestani) and adolescent daughters (the scene-stealing Setareh Maleki and Mahsa Rostami) must fall in line and never let anyone know of the father’s work lest the family get persecuted by activists.  When the father finds his gun missing, all hell breaks loose in the family tearing it apart.  The stakes get higher when social media learns of the father’s work and there is a post on the internet causing the family to leave the city.  The social and family drama works well in a gripping dramatic account but when it turns to a cat-and-mouse thriller at the end, the transition does not really work.  Still - the winner of the Special Jury Prize at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.

SEVEN DAYS

SHEPHERDS (BERGERS)(France/Canada 2024) ****

Directed by Sophie Deraspe

 

 

 

 

 

 

Following a medical wake-up call, Montréal copywriter Mathyas Lefebure (Félix-Antoine Duval) abandons his life in Canada to reinvent himself as a sheep herder in the French Alps. After a rough start, he’s joined by Élise (Solène Rigot), a civil servant tempted by his stories of pastoral life, and together they commit to a summer on the mountainside. Just the two of them. And one border collie. And 800 sheep.  Though what might sound like a boring premise for a movie, SHEPHERDS is arguably the most charming and beautiful while at times harsh and gripping, film to be seen at TIFF this year.  Mathyas learns the harshness of a shepherd’s life, especially working for free for a very violent and angry boss, who would use his truck to run over the sheep that would not mount the ewes.  After quitting in disgust, Mathyas finally uses his learned skills to tend sheep in the mountain for a much more kindly couple.  The most moving scene involves Mathyas throwing a stone at Hola, the border collie for wanting to follow him to leave the farm. With a female director, the film also has a strong and positive female slant.

 

SHOOK (Canada 2024) 
Directed by Amar Wala

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filmed in and celebrating the neighbourhood of Scarborough in the east of Toronto, SHOOK shows more of Scarborough than the over-rated and awful SCARBOROUGH a few years back.  Struggling to sell his first novel and slightly adrift after his parents’ divorce, writer Ashish (Saamer Usmani) is thrown for several loops when he falls for Claire (Amy Forsyth) and learns his estranged father Vijay (Bernard White) has just been diagnosed with Parkinson’s.  Wala tries very hard to inject humour, spirit and freshness intones film, noticeably at the film’s start, which can be quite distracting.  The film thankfully eventually settles.  The family drama and antics of Ash fare better than the cliche-ridden romantic part of the story.  Still, SHOOK is an impressive fiction debut feature from Amar Wala.

A SISTERS’ TALE (Iran/Switzerland/France 2024) ***

Directed by Leila Amini

 

 

There are many restrictions for women in Iran.  It is up to the pioneers to break them.  These are the words spoken by Nareen at one point in the doc.  Director Leila Amini creates a stunning portrait of her sister Nasreen in her new doc A SISTERS’ TALE.  (the plural is used because the tale is told from two sisters and the singular article 'a' used as it is one story.  Nasreen pursues her difficult dream of becoming a singer in Iran, a country where women are banned from performing in public. Nasreen has starlike charisma and gives Leila access to all her highs and lows. She is always striving to fulfill her artistic ambitions while navigating the needs of her two children, her marital tensions, and patriarchal pushback at every turn. Nasreen frequently clashes with her husband over her music and his nighttime absences.  A simple-looking doc that took 7 years in the making that shows the resilience of the human spirit amidst gender prejudice.  Personally, I do not find the songs that spectacular but rather the courage and determination of the singer that shines.

 

 

THE SUBSTANCE (USA/UK/France 2024) ****
Directed by Coralie Fargeat

 

 

 

 

 

French director Coralie Fargeat wowed TIFF’s Midnight Madness crowd in 2017 with her breakthrough slasher revenge movie REVENGE, a movie that many will remember for her extremes in violence, blood and gore.  She returns with much more of the same violence, blood and gore in higher-budget horror satire with stars Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley and Dennis Quaid adding to the mayhem.  Desperate to stay pretty as a fitness celebrity Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) purchases a black market substance that turns her into a younger and prettier double, calling herself Sue (portrayed by Qualley).  They are one body but have to switch every 7 days, old to new and back - NO EXCEPTIONS.  However, the younger Sue extends her 7 days with disastrous results that climax into a complete blood fest on New Year’s Eve.  The wild build-up to the climatic NYE show is excellently paced in this stylish fable of the strife for eternal beauty.  Super gory makeup and special effects have to be mentioned as well.

SUPERBOYS OF MALEGAON (India 2024) 

Directed by Reema Kagti

 

Embargo lifted after Sept. 13th at 9:30PM ET showing

 

THE SWEDISH TORPEDO (Sweden 2024) ***
Directed by Freda Kempp

 

Running very much like the marathon swimming athlete NYAD with featured Annette Bening as NYAD and Jodie Foster as her friend and trainer, THE SWEDISH TORPEDO, appropriately titled is about the Swede equivalent and follows the true hero swimming the English Channel to fulfill her dreams.  Born in Helsingborg, Sweden in 1908, Sally Bauer began swimming competitively in her teens, soon developing a passion for long-distance swims. Yet by the time of the events in The Swedish Torpedo in the late 1930s, pursuit of her athletic dreams is taxing her both financially — since backers for her costly swims are always scarce — and personally. As a single mother meanwhile, Bauer faces burdens and stigmas that threaten her ability to achieve her goal: to swim the English Channel, a feat that will keep her in icy and treacherous waters for upwards of 15 hours.  The film also reveals the problems of financing her dream as well as the opposition not only fuelled by her family and son but from the inset of the start of World War 2.  It is a fictional retelling of the true story, made in a straightforward no-nonsense fashion, and effective in getting the tale told.

TAKIN’ CARE OF BUSINESS (USA 2024) ***
Directed by Tyler Measom

 

This is the story of Canadian rock legend Randy Bachman from Winnipeg who tells the stories of how he rose to the top of the charts with The Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive, married a Mormon, and launched an obsessive quest when his beloved Gretsch guitar disappeared.  The story is bookends with his tale of his guitar, whohche sleeps with, that is besides his heart when he pays it and sings into band within,  It is an orange 1857 Gretsch which was stolen from him and united at the end. the film also contains songs performed by The Guess Who, bringing audiences the nostalgia if the past.  This includes previously unseen footage from the ’70s and ’80s, and counterpoints from the people who know the man best, including his son Tal Bachman, who had his own pop hit in the late ’90s with “She’s So High”. What emerges is a portrait of a man who balances the wild excesses of chart-topping fame with wry, Prairie humour.

TATA (Romania/Germany/Netherlands 2024) ***

Directed by Lina Vdovîi and Radu Ciorniciuc

 

TATA means father in Romanian.  TATA is a documentary of a dysfunctional family filmed by Lina, the second daughter and her partner, Radu with whom she is having a baby.   Lina visits her father, now working in Italy as an immigrant worker and is abused by his boss.  Lina travels there to come to terms with TATA who beats her and her mother just too many times.  It is as if Karma has returned to bite him in his ass as he has to deal with his boss’ cruel abuse.  Filmed across Italy, Moldova, and Romania, TATA is a raw portrait of a family locked in a relentless struggle against toxic masculinity and the tale of a daughter’s poignant quest to break the cycle for herself, the next generation, and even for the one who hurt her.

Lina and her father have been estranged for many years. Like countless others, he left their impoverished homeland of Moldova in the 1990s for work abroad. Decades later, she is a journalist and settled with a good partner and a fine life in Romania.   The film delves deep into the causes and repercussions of family abuse and the harm that it causes.

THEY WILL BE DUST (Spain/Italy/Switzerland 2024) **
Directed by Carlos Marqués-Marcet

 

When Claudia (Ángela Molina) decides she doesn’t want to wait for her illness passively (she has cancer) to take away all of her agency, her longtime partner Flavio (Alfredo Castro) sets in motion their plan to end their lives together in Switzerland.   Soon, THEY WILL BE DUST as the film is titled.  The film follows the elderly couple right up to that moment, which despite its uncommon subject, is quite a bore from start to finish as the audience follows the couple complain and complain and of course also dealing with telling their children of their decision.  The addition of dance into the film makes the film look pretentious, despite the impressive second dance number done in the Busby Berkeley style and a silly dance number done in the mortuary. 

 

U ARE THE UNIVERSE (Ukraine 2024) ***

Directed by Pablo Ostrokov

 In the near future, Ukrainian space trucker Andriy Melnyk transports nuclear waste aboard his cargo ship to Jupiter's abandoned moon, Callisto. During a routine flight, the Earth suddenly explodes, but Andriy manages to survive. He becomes the last person in the universe until he receives a call from Catherine, a French woman on a distant space station. Despite the obstacles, Andriy decides to find her.  It is not the narrative of the film that is entertaining but rather the mechanics of being in space.  Andriy is given goods, a gym and mostly a computer (like HAL in 2001) that not only guards and protects the mother ship but tells Andriy’s jokes.  “What do you get when you pee in a vacuum?”  “Pee in a vacuum.”  Needless to say, Andriy is sick of the jokes and of course, being alone.  The film takes an hour before the French girl is introduced and here the film gets bogged down by the plot.  This film was shot in the Ukraine amidst the Russian invasion and looks super great with all the space stuff - credit given to the filmmakers.

VERMIGLIO (Italy/France/Belgium 2024) ****
Directed by Maura Delpero

 

Tragedy strikes the villagers of VERMIGLIO during the war.  And more so to the secluded village up in the mountains with the arrival of a stranger.  A young Sicilian soldier named Pietro has carried his injured comrade Attilio all the way back to his mountain home, much of the journey with his passenger on his back. Hailed as a hero, Pietro is furnished with the best the village can provide. As a rare newcomer (and a Sicilian, so an exotic stranger), Pietro is gossiped about a lot but keeps to himself. He catches the eye of Lucia (Martina Scrinzi), the eldest daughter of the stern village schoolteacher (Tommaso Ragno), and soon the two are gently flirting and falling in love. This seemingly simple pairing of two young hearts sets off a sweeping series of events that shakes the village and a small town in Sicily, uncapping age-old misogyny, intolerance, and narrowness with tragic results.  Besides the romantic story, which has a twist after the couple is married with a child, it is the surroundings that make the highlight of the film, stunningly photographed looking something like an Italian Switzerland.  Male dominance is frowned upon in the film, from the bad choices made by the patriarch schoolteacher to the often drunken son Dino and ultimately the demise of Pietro.

WENT UP THE HILL (NZ/Australia 2024) **
Directed by Samuel Van Grinsven

 

A ghost story involving family drama and skeletons out of the closet during the funeral.  Jack (Dacre Montgomery) travels to a remote region of New Zealand to attend the wake of his estranged mother Elizabeth, a troubled architect who abandoned him as a child. Jack claims he was invited to the funeral by his mother’s widow, Jill (Vicky Krieps,), who has no recollection of contacting him.  Out of a sense of obligation to her late wife, Jill invites Jack to stay at their house until the funeral, intrigued, as he is, for them to learn more about each other. As Jack grapples with his complex emotions about his mother and the boyfriend he has left behind, his encounters with Jill begin as terse and sometimes tense affairs. Their lives are soon upended further when Elizabeth’s spectral presence makes itself known, inhabiting each of their bodies in turn but leaving no memories of what was said — or done — during the possessions.  Elizabeth’s spirit causes chaos, confusion, and fractures for Jack and Jill.   The film is an extremely slow burn coupled with appropriate music and sounds.  The film is ambiguously playful with what is happening in the story and one imagines deliberately intentioned to be that way, which can become frustrating.  A lot of loose ends like Jack’s gay relationship which is left up in the air.  The musical score by Hanan Townshend however, is excellent suited to the mood and atmosphere of the film,

WHEN THE LIGHT BREAKS (Iceland/Netherlands/Croatia/France 2024) **

Directed by Rúnar Rúnarsson

WHEN THE LIGHT BREAKS is about what happens with the grieving process when Diddi dies in a car accident.  Two students in their early twenties — Una (Elín Hall) and Diddi (Baldur Einarsson) — enjoy a spring sunset in Reykjavik and talk of their future together, a future that’s even brighter now that Diddi is about to break up with his girlfriend back home.  With the next day comes a tragedy. Reeling from grief,  Una navigates a series of charged interactions with others dealing with their own welter of emotions, all while struggling with whether his girl back home should be told the truth.  The film is a slow burn, made even more depressing because of the subject of death.  Though well shot and acted, WHEN THE LIGHT BREAKS find it difficult to entertain.

WILLIAM TELL (UK/Italy 2024) ****
Directed by Nick Hamm

 

In the spirit of BRAVEHEART and the battle films celebrating fighting for land and freedom, WILLIAM TELL begins with the titular hero aiming a crossbow to shoot an arrow through the apple placed on his son’s head.  The film flashbacks to the events leading to this, and then the story goes on.  It is 1307, and a cruel Austrian Hapsburg king (Sir Ben Kingsley) occupies the bordering Swiss cantons. His tax collectors oppress and violate the citizens, driving one farmer to thoughts of murderous revenge.  Fleeing across a vast landscape, this farmer finds only one man who will come to his aid: William Tell (Claes Bang). Tell has returned home weary after fighting with the Knights Templar in the Holy Land. Now seeking only a quiet life with the wife he met there (Golshifteh Farahani), he’s nevertheless bound by his principles. When pushed beyond his limits by the villainy of the Hapsburg court, Tell picks up his weapons and rides into battle.   Great battle scenes, a great arousing musical score and brave performances all around all make WILLIAM TELL solid good old-fashioned battle entertainment.

THE WOLVES ALWAYS COME AT NIGHT (Australia/Mongolia/Germany 2024) ***
Directed by Gabrielle Brady

 

This Mongolian fable contains scenes of stunning beauty - the sandstorm that changes the lives of a herding family; the barren Mongolian landscape; the delivery of a kid (young born goat) and a scene of Mongolian gers (yurts).  Among the effects that give the film a fable feel, are stories of old like the story that advises never to drink tea from a stranger in a yurt.  The film has a documentary feel as the camera closely follows this Mongolian family of 6 (parents and four children) who have to relocate near the city after the story's tragedies in which the herd is lost.  Born to generations of herders in Mongolia’s immense Bayankhongor region, young couple Daava (Davaasuren Dagvasuren) and Zaya (Otgonzaya Dashzeveg) are raising their four children as they were brought up: with an intimate connection to the land and the animals they share their lives with.  Pressing topics like climate change and urban migration are also drawn to the story.  Director Brady’s film captures the family's plight, especially when they start talking about how they miss the animals.