Details: Written by: Gilbert Seah; Parent Category: Articles; Category: Movie Reviews; Published: 24 May 2024

FILM REVIEWS:

INSIDE OUT 2 (USA 2024) ***½

Directed by Kelsey Mann

INSIDE OUT 2 has hard shoes toil. The original 2015 film premiered at Cannes and went on to win the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. It was directed by Pete Docter who served as producer for the sequel. The film follows the same path as the origin; and can be described as a coming-of-age movie of Riley who now reaches puberty with making the hockey team the most important point in her life. Nothing else matters - not even her friends.

In the mind of a young girl named Riley are a series of personified basic emotions that influence her actions: Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust, and Anger. Riley's experiences become memories that are stored as coloured orbs and are sent into long-term memory each night. The aspects of the five most important "core memories" within her personality take the form of five floating islands. Joy acts as the leader; she has a new threat as Riley matures. She has to deal with a new emotion Anxiety (Maya Hawke daughter of Ethan Hawke), one that causes Rile to behave irrationally as a teenager, as can be observed in one scene where for no reason she bursts out in anger at her parents.

Set one year after the last film, Riley (Kensington Tallman) has just turned 13 and is about to attend high school. Her emotions, Joy (once again voiced by Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Fear (Tony Hale replacing Bill Hader), Anger (Lewis Black) and Disgust, (Liza Lipira) have since created a new section of Riley's mind called her Sense of Self, which houses memories and feelings that take up Riley's core personality. Riley goes to hockey camp so that she can apply for a hockey team at her designated high school, the Fire Hawks. Wanting to make a good impression, the emotions use a mechanism Joy has created to launch any negative memories into the back of Riley's mind. On the night before she leaves, the emotion console sounds off a "Puberty" alarm. After the emotions get rid of the alarm, a group of mind workers barge into headquarters and cause a mess in the place while upgrading the console and warn the emotions that "the others" are coming.

All these lead to a secondary set of emotions led by Anxiety. There is no evil villain in all this, except for perhaps Anxiety who really has the best intentions for Riley though going about it in the wrong way. It does not take a prodigy kid to guess that Joy and Anxiety will at the end put their differences aside and become friends, as feel-good stories like this usually turn out.

Story aside, Disney’s Pixar animation is once again nothing short of astonishing, as can be obscured throughout the film, especially in the segment where the emotions led by Joy ride, like surfing the entire mount of coloured orbs. The hockey scenes are also well executed mirroring the excitement of real matches. There are also some neat fresh ideas in the plot, that should not be revealed in the review.

INSIDE OUT 2 opens in theatres on June 14th.

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KIDNAPPED: THE ABDUCTION OF EDGARDO MORTARA (Rapito)(Italy/France 2023) ****
Directed by Marco Bellocchio

KIDNAPPED is based on the Mortara case that became a cause célèbre in the 1850s and 1860s, capturing the attention of Europe and North America.

The Mortaras are a Jewish family living in Bologna, which belongs to the Papal States where Pius XI (Paolo Pierobon) is Pope King. In 1858, Papal soldiers burst into the Mortaras’ home and took away their six-year-old son Edgardo (Enea Sala, later played by Leonardo Maltese), claiming that he had been secretly baptized as a baby. The Papal law is unquestionable. The boy must receive a Catholic education. While his parents (Ronchi and Fausto RussoAlesi) fight to get him back, the Pope says “non possumus” (“we cannot”).

Spanning 20 years, the story takes many twists – a trial, a confession, political changes and Edgardo’s last (and heartbreaking) conversation with his mother.

The immorality of the kidnapping is effectively and emotionally demonstrated in a number of ways. One is the child’s point of view and the other his parents. When the child is kidnapped and in the process of travelling to Rome by boat, he wakes up one morning to witness a funeral procession with the cross held ahead of the procession. The image of death is a frightening one, especially for a child seeing it for the first time. He is then brought to Rome where he is, alone, faced with practices as strange and foreign as it is unbearable. Fortunately, he is befriended by a fellow kidnapped boy named Rio, who shows him the ropes. His father, with the relatives, drafted a letter to the Council of Constance. The mother cries that words will not help, to which the father replies that so far, it is the only weapon they have. In these times of colonization of native Indigenous children taken away and re-schooled, the tragedy is made even more current.

The villain of the piece is the Pope. The Pope ignores all the pleas to free the boy, including those made by dignitaries like Napoleon III. “I only answer to God,” the pompous Pope claims.

The film offers some shocking insights. The kidnapped boy, similar to what is known as Stockholm Syndrome, grows to love his new lodgings - the routines including the mass, the warmth, the food and the other comforts. The film also demonstrates the love the boy’s parents have for him, despite the fact that he is one of half a dozen children they have.

Director Bellocchio paints a bleak picture of the period. Yet his camera still reveals a magnificent picture, often in pale and dark colours, of the Italian landscape, both of the countryside and the interior of the Catholic architecture.

KIDNAPPED is a film about survival, the survival of culture and religious beliefs, and the survival of individual rights in the face of systematic and prejudiced injustice.

The film is directed by Marco Bellocchio, a mainstay of Italian cinema for almost 60 years, who co-wrote the script with Susanna Nicchiarelli, in collaboration with Edoardo Albinat and Daniela Ceselli, loosely inspired by Daniele Scalise’s book Il caso Mortara,

After premiering in Competition at Cannes 2023, the film went on to dominate the 2023 awards from the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists, winning Best Film, Director, Screenplay and Actress (Barbara Ronchi). It opens June 14 in Toronto and Vancouver and opens throughout the summer in other cities.

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THE MYSTERIES OF THE TERRACOTTA WARRIORS (UK 2024) ***½

Directed by James Tovell

From Netflix comes this impressive and well-made documentary fifty years after the Terracotta Warriors' discovery (the beginning shows a clip set in 1974) that unearths (pardon the pun) new secrets from China's first emperor's mausoleum and its 8,000 pottery soldier guards from China's first emperor's mausoleum and its 8,000 pottery soldier guards.

The Terracotta Warriors warriors represent the army that Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China will require in his afterlife. The Emperor lived 300 years before Christ before Jesus’ birth, which is a very long time ago, and something almost impossible to fathom. Times can be hard, but no one could imagine the hardships some of those under this cruel Emperor’s rule must endure. This documentary through its clippings, interviews of archeologists and historians, and the videos of restoration and excavation delve deeper into the aftermath of Qin Shi Huang’s demise. It provides apt information that tells us about the happenings. This documentary is comprised of clippings, interviews of archeologists, excavators and restorationists (mainly Chinese) and historians, re-enactments, as well videos of restoration and excavation that delve deeper into the aftermath of Qin Shi Huang’s demise.

This Emperor QChi Hunags is more well known in the East (Asia) as Shih Huang Ti, In Singapore where this reviewer comes from and is educated, all history books in primary Schools featured studies on this Emperor. He is taught to be the First Emperor of China, the one to conquer and unite the 6 Kingdoms as mentioned in the doc, but also known to be the one to burn all the books in China, a fact that is not mentioned ninth film. As a schoolboy, this made him kind of a hero, as this would mean no more staying if there were no more books. Of course, the burning of books means the destruction of knowledge. The doc shows the Emperor to be cruel, relentless, haughty, womanizing and an overall bad person, which means that this is a most intriguing subject for a doc, more intriguing than his Terracotta Warriors.

The directors are aware of this fact and devote a fair amount of screen time to the Emperor’s tactics as well as the politics of his rule, especially after his death when his youngest son usurped the throne. All the information is obtained from scholastic historical records, which are verified by the archaeologists excavating the ancient tomb.

The film contains a fair amount of re-enactments, showing the workers toiling away to build the tomb as well as the conspiracy of the youngest son and the two ministers to usurp the Kingdom. Here, the film looks like a period Chinese film - the type of sword-fighting sagas that Shaw Brothers used to make.

THE MYSTERIES OF THE TERRACOTTA WARRIORS opens for streaming on Netflix on Wednesday, June 12th on Netflix and is worth a watch, especially for North Americans who might know little about Chinese History. For those in the know, the fascination continues.

QUEEN RISING (USA 2019) **
Directed by Princeton James

The film is about the QUEEN RISING while keeping it together. Keeping it together is what this film is all about. Madison (Maddy)(April Hale) is struggling and has to make mortgage payments with difficulty. She juggles teaching work with writing a book. She has to contend with her past and the College Town Slayings she had to up with. She has to keep it all together.

However, the title is derived from a memory Maddy has at the dinner table with her little sister, father and mother, after a recent incident with her sister Shauna at school when she was called the ’n’ word. The father talks about protecting the homestead and tells Maddy that she will grow up to be a queen and that she is a QUEEN RISING. This is an important scene not only because the title of the film comes from it but because this scene is shown in flashback as Maddy as a grown up tells Shauna that this is one of her best memories.

Queen Rising follows a young woman, Maddy, who's on the brink of losing everything. Struggling to make ends meet as a school teacher, Madison is approached with a life-changing opportunity: to turn her dark past into a thriller novel. Skeptically, Madison accepts, and dives into her history of a once terrorized community during the "College Town Slayings".

As her trauma unfolds, Madison discovers unsettling connections and soon realizes her past may not be as dormant as she once believed. With the spectre of danger looming over her, she must confront the demons to secure her future, navigating a treacherous journey of redemption and self-discovery where the line between fiction and reality blurs.

The film covers many important current issues, the most important one being racism. Maddy’s ancestors were civil rights activists. Issues of racism are also brought up at various points in the film. Other topics covered include sibling relationships, therapeutic conditioning and the psychology of the killer instinct and of course, keeping it all together.

Through flashbacks, the audience sees Madison as she dates in college. Darius follows Corey before she meets Ben. Excepting his outburst of temper, Madison loves Ben but always has to calm him down. Ben turns out to be a problem even slapping Madison at one point during his outburst. This causes Madison (yes, this is quite laughable) to take up kick-boxing as self-defence,

The various topics and the film’s shifts of mood do not always work well. The romance, mystery, drama and dance elements create a bit of a mess and the director’s confidence in the material causes her to overlook the film’s shortcomings, especially the twist at the end that reveals the killer of the College Town Slayings, resulting in a hard to believe story resulting in its tackiness.

QUEEN RISING though made in 2018, is premiering on video on demand on Tuesday, June 18, 2024 as well as Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, DirecTV, Vudu, XBox, Google Play and other leading platforms on June 19.

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QUEENDOM (USA/France 2023) ***
Directed by Agniia Galdanova

In defiance of Russia's anti-LGTBQ laws, a queer, 21-year-old artist risks his life performing in surreal costumes throughout Moscow. Jenna Marvin's radical public performances blend artistry and activism in this SXSW documentary.

This amusing light-hearted documentary that covers tough issues follows the celebrity Jenna Marvin also known as Gena Marvin.

Marvin is a Russian performance artist known for his surreal and creature drag, as can witnessed throughout the documentary. His art focuses on themes of identity, self-acceptance, different forms of beauty, and the surreal.

Gena Marvin was born in Magadan, Russia. Though not indicated in the doc, he grew up practicing drag makeup in secret in her parents' house. He said he was bullied (understandably so, and still occasionally inched out as an adult) and tormented growing up in her small village. This, alongside the tale of Slender Man, would become a major inspiration for her artwork. He attended two colleges and said she experienced homophobia at both. He was expelled from the second college a year before graduating.

Marvin's art primarily consists of creature drag, and he often wears latex, gloves with exaggerated fingers, platform heels, and white face paint. In the doc, much of his performance art is shown with the reactions of others to her appearance, mostly negative and bordering on aggressive un-acceptance.

Director Galdanova stays her film away from a biopic of Gena. As far as the audience knows, he is now living with her grandfather and grandmother. The grandfather is understandably, upset at Gena’s behaviour in public, wishing him to etch out a life that can support himself. Always on his case, Gena is always very adamant in his ways. Yet, the grandfather still pays for Gena’s way, showing the power of familial relationships.

Although she performed in public in Russia, she has spoken of the danger she faces in doing so and has said she feels safer posting her artwork on social media platforms including Instagram and TikTok. One of her performances involved wrapping her body in tape, expressing her belief that Russia had "no freedom and where the freedom of my body was not permitted".

One scene illustrating unacceptable and aggression has the queen and his friend accompanied out of a supermarket store for him wearing a coat over lingerie. “Your lingerie is showing, there’s kids and elderly in the store,” claims security, For those in the know - like filmmakers, or those in the industry, or seasoned documentary goers, this scene could be a re-enactment clearly as one cannot have a real crew following the two around everywhere they go unless a camera crew is following the performance artist JENNA MARVIN at the point in time.

Gena has a difficult life because of the choice he has made in his life, At the end of the film, after protesting Russia; 's invasion of Ukraine, he flees the country to Paris where he feels he can flaunt his wares on the streets without fear of violence.

The film premiered at South by Southwest and won the Next: Wave award at Copenhagen's CPH: DOX and The Audience Award at the Camden International Film Festival. The film premiered in cinemas in the United Kingdom on 1 December 2023. QUEENDOM opens in theatres and nationally on-demand June 14.

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RED FEVER (Canada 2024) ***
Directed by Catherine Bainbridge and Neil Diamond

The new documentary RED FEVER begins and depicts a positive and spirited view of the Red Indian indigenous people of North America. Images of brave warriors standing proud or riding tall on horses and dressed immaculately in colourful attire bursts on the screen. This is followed by the soundtrack of the Bee Gees Staying Alive from SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER as the audience sees Neil Diamond strutting down the street in New York City very much like John Travolta did going to his job in a paint store in SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER, Diamond dressed in a bright red indigenous outfit. The scene is intercut with scenes of old movies with stars like Jon Voight, Jeff Bridges, Jennifer Lopez and even Elvis Presley all dressed in outfits from recognizable Western classics.

Diamond talks of the romanticized view the world has of the Indians. When they first meet him, they are disappointed that he does not meet the standards that they have of the Indian. The film demonstrates in a light and entertaining fashion, the history, and beauty of the Indian culture, and how it has affected the world in terms of fashion, beliefs and way of life. All cowboy attire, the audience is told comes from them.

RED RIVER is co-directed by Indigenous filmmaker Neil Diamond (Reel Injun) and Catherine Bainbridge (Reel Injun, RUMBLE: The Indians Who Rocked the World, which won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize for Masterful Storytelling).

RED FEVER follows Cree filmmaker Neil Diamond's (not the singer/songwriter)journey to the four corners of North America and to Europe to uncover why the world is so fascinated with Native Americans and why the same images persist year after year until today. The first chapter is titled ‘Fashion’ (Spirit). Through iconic and entertaining pop culture images, and a rocking Native American soundtrack, Red Fever looks at the roots of how and why Native American cultures have been revered, romanticized, and appropriated -and in the process uncovers the truth about the profound impact of Indigenous peoples on western culture.

From fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi drawing inspiration from Nanook of the North to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School’s impact on the NFL, Diamond assembles a compelling collage packed with pop-culture references. Examples of appropriation are revisited by Indigenous scholars, artists and community members, who are revitalizing their cultures and dispelling the myths and lack of understanding that have persisted for more than a century. Clothing, sports, systems of government and agricultural practices all have clear lines to Indigenous ways of knowing and being. As a new generation of Indigenous Peoples draws strength from their ancestors and reclaims their rights, there’s hope for a future where credit is given where it’s due.

The film has an extended segment on American football, that is derived from rugby. Bill Thorpe is one of the best, most fit and respected players and coaches as well and the doc shows how he changed the game. These segments add excitement to the doc.

RED FEVER opens at the TIFF Lightbox with limited screenings JUNE 14-JULY 21.

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REVERSE THE CURSE (USA 2024) ***
Directed by David Duchovny

REVERSE THE CURSE is the new David Duchovny film starring and directed by him based on his novel entitled “Bucky F****** Dent”. Dent plays baseball for the Boston Red Sox. In the climax of the Fate movie, the mighty Bucky Dent hits his way into baseball history with the unlikeliest of home runs, this tender, insightful, and hilarious novel demonstrates how life truly belongs to the losers, and that the long shots are the ones worth betting on.

The main story is the father-and-son relationship of Marty (Duchovny) and Ted (Logan Marshall-Green). One would think the sexy Duchovny from the X-FILES would play Ted, but the now 60-year-old plays the father instead.

Ted is a failed writer-turned-Yankees Stadium peanut slinger. His meeting with the publisher makes the film’s funniest moments. When Ted hears the news that his estranged father, Marty, is dying of lung cancer, he immediately moves back into his childhood home, where a whirlwind of revelations ensues. The browbeating absentee father of Ted’s youth tries to make up for lost time, but his health dips drastically whenever his beloved Red Sox loses. And so, with help from Mariana (Stephanie Beatriz_―the Nuyorican grief counsellor with whom Ted promptly falls in love―and a crew of neighbourhood old-timers (all of who regularly congregate at the local barbershop), Ted orchestrates the illusion of a Boston winning streak, enabling Marty and the Red Sox to reverse the Curse of the Bambino and cruise their way to World Series victory.

The inspiration for the story comes from director Duchovny’s own experience as a father. When Duchovny’s daughter was 9 months old, she got her first cold, much as is recounted in this movie with Ted taking the place of the ill baby. That is the autobiographical part of Duchovny’s story. A few days later, she was in intensive care, and her mother and he were terrified, in the midst of a nightmare. The daughter is fine now —a vibrant and talented young actress. But the psychological repercussions seemed endless, the fear that remained after she’d gotten better, and moreover, the repercussions in the way of loving her after her illness—-overprotective, hyper-alert to any sniffle, not trusting that she was ever going to be okay. That is the source of the father’s fear in this movie and the source of the son’s questioning of his father’s love as he understandably misinterprets his father’s discomfort with him as disapproval or lack of love in the story.

REVERSE THE CURVE is a story about losers, as director Duchovny confesses in the press notes. Losers cannot change the ending to their stories, or even the facts of what happened. Duchovny’s film changes the way the story is told so that the art of storytelling can empower the perspective of the change.

REVERSE THE CURSE opens in Theatre and On Demand on June 14, 2024.

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TUESDAY (UK 2023) ****
Directed by Daina Oniunas-Pusić

A mother and her teenage daughter (must confront Death when it arrives in the form of an astonishing talking bird. From debut filmmaker Daina O. Pusić, TUESDAY is a heart-rending nightmarish fairy tale about the echoes of loss and finding resilience in the unexpected.

The film is called TUESDAY as Tuesday is the middle name of the terminally ill protagonist. Lily Tuesday Markovich (Lola Petticrew), has been ill for years, wheelchair-bound at times (she is shown mechanically lifted from her bed to the wheelchair in a beginning scene) and is tended to by a young, observant nurse (Leah Harvey) while her mother, Zora Julia Louis-Dreyfus), engages in an elaborate game of avoidance, understands precisely what is going on when the bird enters her bedroom. The mother and daughter also never mention or talk about reality. Their life is a pretense that often explodes in loud and crude arguments. But soon she’s given the macaw bird (Death) a reason, for the first time in countless years, to speak using actual words rather than his usual guttural grunts. She helpfully offers a bubble bath to solve the problem of the sticky goo covering his talons (contracted on a previous mission). In an enchanting sequence, Death shrinks to just an inch or two high and swoops into the sink to rinse off, eons’ worth of soot and grime released into the water as he swims.

Death has come in many forms in films. The most common is the grim reaper wearing a dark cloak bearing a sickle as in serious films like Ingmar Bergman’s THE SEVENTH SEAL or even in hilarious comedies like MONTY PYHON’S MEANING OF LIFE. At the beginning of TUESDAY, a film about impending death, death arrives in the form off a macaw as the audience sees a bird’s eye view of the planet Earth. The last time death came from a bird’s eye view is that of a raven in the horror film OPERA by Dario Argento, the raven hovering over the opera performance before swooping down to pluck its victim’s eye. TUESDAY’s death macaw is as weird as it can be, so the audience should be prepared for a wild ride. But a wild ride that pays off in this surreal, insightful and very innovative look at death.

What is odd is that the time of death is bargained by Tuesday’s mother Zora. In the process, Zora suffers some size-shifting moments. At one critical discussion with death, Zora asks whether there is a God or if there is an afterlife. If there is an afterlife, then she can be together with her daughter and look after her. If not whatever. Death informs Zora, in deadpan humour that there is no God.

Best performances are delivered by both principals Petticrew and Louis-Dreyfus,

Daina Oniunas-Pusić is a Croatian multi-award-winning writer and director based in London. She learned her craft while studying film and television directing at the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb before relocating to the U.K. to study at the London Film School. She won the under 30 Best Filmmaker in Croatia which led to her first short THE BEAST.

The film is bookended by the macaws flying or looking down on the planet Earth before coming abruptly to an end. TUESDAY is a magnificent nightmarish exercise in originality, though the not-so-adventurous audience should take caution.

TUESDAY opens in theatres on June the 14th.

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ULTRAMAN RIDSING (Japan 2024) **
Directed by Shannon Tindle

ULTRAMAN is an ultra-popular Japanese superhero that began as a TV series from Japan exported all over the world. It was cheesy with a human wearing an Ultraman costume (typical for a Japanese film) fighting giant monsters saving Japan and the world. Kids loved it and many of these kids who are now adults would still probably love Ultraman. Fans will be delighted with the new ULTRAMAN RISING, a Japanese American co-production that is being simultaneously released on Netflix and in theatres,

There have been also multiple Ultraman series that have been made over the years.

It should be noted that there are two versions - the English and the Japanese versions Christoper Sean voices Ultraman in the English version while Yuki Yamada does the same in the Japanese side. The actor Sean is Japanese on his mother’s side and Latino on his father’s.

ULTRAMAN RISING is the new upcoming animated superhero film based on Tsuburaya Productions' Ultraman franchise. A Japanese-American co-production between Netflix Animation and Tsuburaya Productions, with animation by Industrial Light & Magic, it is the 44th film in the franchise. Directed by Shannon Tindle (in his feature directorial debut), who co-wrote it with Marc Haimes, the film stars Christopher Sean as Ken Sato/Ultraman, alongside the voices of Gedde Watanabe, Tamlyn Tomita, Keone Young, and Julia Harriman.

The protagonist is Ken Sato, a famous but egotistical baseball player living a secret life as the giant superhero Ultraman. He is forced to balance his career and hero duties while reluctantly adopting a baby kaiju after defeating her mother.

The film assumes the audience has some basic knowledge of Ultraman. The kanji monsters are all creatures that appear without much explanation. The origin of Ultraman is also omitted. The KDF Organization also appears out of nowhere. Compared to the TV series with humans in monsters and Ultraman suits, the film is complete animation. The colours are chosen and the design is opted for a manga-type look.

This is a superhero movie that combines the family element. The result is the film getting too sappy at times. The part of Ken Sata looking after the kanji cutesy monster and how he learns both to become a father and an adult is a bit too much. The film adds the component of a father-and-son relationship, with Ken having trouble speaking to his father. His mother came to all of Ken’s baseball games as a kid while his father was always absent.

The film cannot decide whether it should be an action superhero movie, relationship drama or a family (family is everything is the message put across with decisions made to protect the ones we love) animation movie. It is occasionally all over the place, even with swear words, though never spoken but implied with the ‘f’ sound occurring at various points in the film.

ULTRAMAN RISING opens at the TIFF Lightbox on June 14th. The film also opens for streaming on the same date on Netflix. ULTRAMAN is a Netflix is an original Netflix movie.

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ESPARANDO A DALI (WAITING FOR DALI) (Spain 2023) ***

Directed by David Bujol

Before one can dismiss this little unheard-of culinary comedy as a small-budget foreign forgettable, WAITING FOR DALI in its first 10 minutes proves that it is a film to be reckoned with.

It opens with a scene of the Franco riots framed by two walls where the action is seen from the alley before the rioters run into the alley towards the camera. It is a well-shot, fresh, exciting and well-thought-out filmed process. This is followed by one in a restaurant kitchen where the authoritative chef goes around bullying all the kitchen staff who can only respond with the words: “Yes, Chef!” This follows with two of the staff taking away from the restaurant to work in another one far away to escape the police for their rioting. The beach restaurant is owned by a ‘crazy for Dali’ owner, Jules who is first seen inviting Savaldor Dali to his restaurant for dinner. His assistant says: “If you want to invite Dali to your restaurant, you have to pay 100,000 dollars to which he replies that he does not have that much money. The assistant then advises him that he should have been a fisherman instead and tears up his invitation card. Jule is obsessed with Dali and his dream is to have him dine at his restaurant which he christened El Surreal.

Fleeing political turmoil in Barcelona, the culinary duo of brothers Fernando and Alberto seek refuge in the enchanting seaside town of Cadaqués. Here, they land jobs at El Surreal, a whimsical restaurant run by Jules, a man with a consuming obsession for local resident Salvador Dalí. Jules crafts quirky and extravagant gastronomic experiences, each a theatrical spectacle, hoping to lure the renowned artist to dine there. Fernando's unparalleled culinary flair soon sees him rise to the helm of El Surreal's kitchen, when he begins to fall for Lola, Jules' fiercely independent daughter.

Despite El Surreal’s burgeoning fame and Cadaqués' alluring facade, shadows of political discontent loom large and tensions escalate between the tyrannical Lieutenant Garrido and the town's free-spirited hippies, joined by Alberto. Will these mounting pressures result in Dalí's eagerly awaited arrival at El Surreal? WAITING FOR DALÍ is a fanciful tale of love, art, and revolution — all set against the backdrop of culinary genius and surrealism.

Director Bujol possesses a sense of style and an almost perfect comedic timing. There are hilarious, laugh-out-loud moments scattered throughout the film, and his weird placement of the camera all adds to the fun of the comedy. The feel-good tone feels forced at times and the story is predictable with Dali finally dining at El Surreal.

ESPARANDO A DALI (WAITING FOR DALI) shot in both Spanish and French based on the real-life restaurant El Bulli is a deliciously hilarious comedy full of heart and emotion with a little political background that has rarely a dull moment from start to finish. It is also well-shot and shows the stunning beach sights of the enchanting seaside town of Cadaqués.

ESPARANDO A DALI (WAITING FOR DALI) is available nationwide digitally (in the U.S. and Canada) on Tuesday, June 18 and also available to rent or purchase on all major digital platforms.

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Details: Written by: Gilbert Seah; Parent Category: Articles; Category: Movie Reviews; Published: 20 May 2024

Toronto
2SLGBTQ+ Film Festival

In-Person and Online

May 24 - June 1, 2024

Capsule Reviews of Select Films:

CHUCK CHUCK BABY (UK 2023) **
Directed by Janis Pugh

Director Janis Pugh’s feel-good romantic comedy that is filled with popular songs, sung in part by Helen played by Louis Barely and set in a chicken factory sounds more promising than it really turns out, Helen has a complicated domestic situation: she lives in the same crummy terrace as her oafish husband Gary, from whom she is separated but seemingly not actually divorced, and shares the place with his new, much younger, girlfriend Amy (Emily Fairn) and their newly arrived baby. Also on the premises is Gary’s terminally ill mother Gwen (Sorcha Cusack), for whom Helen acts as a carer but is the quasi-maternal figure that Helen appears to long for. The film is Welsh and set in a small Welsh town, so living comfortably with an in-law, is common there though odd in North America. The individual segments are lively but fail to come together as a whole. The feel-good ending feels like a complete cop-out too.

Trailer:

EXTREMELY UNIQUE DYNAMIC (USA 2023) ***
Directed by Harrison Yu, Ivan Leung and Katherine Dudas

In this (likely) first-ever and (possibly) award-winning feature, Ryan and Daniel, two childhood best friends and aspiring actors, spend one final weekend together before Ryan moves from LA to Canada with his fiancé. Wanting to create one lasting memory, they decide to make a movie... about two guys making a movie… about two guys making a movie. Along the way, bottled-up secrets arise as they unpack their decades-long friendship and prepare for the next chapters of their respective lives.

The concept is neat and kind of stoned confusing who the directors play with quite a bit throughout their film. The concept gets a bit tiring after a while and watching the childish antics of these two young adults can get quite challenging. But the two actors Harrison and Ivan are quite endearing and they keep pushing the lines until something works. Thankfully, the film shifts into gear in the second half when thongs get quite tense. One does sympathize with the gay Daniel who keeps the secret of his sexuality from his best friend Ryan.

The story covers a topic seldom mentioned in films. How does one tell one’s best friend that one is gay? The subject is dealt in detail and sincerity upping the film several notches from being just a dumb stoner movie.

EXTREMELY UNIQUE DYNAMIC is maverick no-budget filmmaking and one has to give credit for the filmmakers for their tireless energy.

The Meta-Asian-Stoner-Bromantic-Coming-of-Age Dramedy, EXTREMELY UNIQUE DYNAMIC celebrates its International Premiere at the 2024 Inside Out 2SLGBTQ+ Film Festival May 25th 7 PM at TIFF Lightbox. Trailer:

SPARK (USA 2024) ***
Directed by Nicholas Giuricich

SPARK is a wildly creative noir-inspired LGBTQ+ drama about a hopeless romantic stuck in a time loop with a handsome and mysterious stranger. Aaron (Theo Germanine), a hopeless romantic, finds himself reliving the same day after an awkward but intense encounter with the mysterious Trevor (Danell Leyva). His excitement at the opportunity for a do-over soon turns sour as Aaron suspects Trevor may be the cause of his time loop. Every time they fuck, Aaron returns to the start of the morning of the events. Aaron tries to push the boundaries by prolonging the days and eventually figuring out what is happening Director Guiricich’s film takes a while to get its footing, and once it does, it becomes a creative sexy LGBT+ original mystery, Can Aaron break out of this cycle, or is he destined to live out his life stuck in the same patterns? SPARK, the film is so called because love begins with a spark that can kindle into a fire. SPARK is anchored by three standout performances: acclaimed non-binary actors. The film premiers the first day of the fest, Friday, May 24, 2024, at 9:30 pm.

Details: Written by: Gilbert Seah; Parent Category: Articles; Category: Movie Reviews; Published: 14 May 2024

BABES (USA 2024) *
Directed by Pamela Adlon

BABES follows inseparable childhood best friends Eden (Ilana Glazer) and Dawn (Michelle Buteau), having grown up together in NYC, now firmly in different phases of adulthood. When carefree and single Eden decides to have a baby on her own after a one-night stand, their friendship faces its greatest challenge. BABES delves into the complexities of female friendship with a blend of laughter, tears, and labour pains.

The film gets terribly irritating at the very beginning when the very pregnant Dawn goes for a restaurant Thanksgiving dinner with Eden. Her water trickles and she screams at the top of her voice annoying not only all the other restaurant clients but the audience as well. Dawn is loud, obnoxious, rude and crass. Eden sort of allows the behaviour.

The segment in which Dawn crawls on all fours at the hospital when she is in labour says it all in terms of overdoing a situation,

It does not take a genius to guess how the story turns out. It turbans out just like a romantic harlequin book would. The best friend would argue and have a major fallout before becoming best friends forever again.

There should be a contest to see who is the more annoying character. Eden or Dawn?

From co-writers Ilana Glazer and Josh Rabinowitz and directed by Pamela Adlon, BABES is described in the press notes as a hilarious and heartfelt comedy about the bonds of friendship and the messy, unpredictable challenges of adulthood and becoming a parent. What the filmmakers want their film to be and how it turns out is a totally different thing. With respect to the film, the filmmakers seem totally out of touch with what is happening. The best way to describe the film is being drunk and totally out of intro. The drunk and totally drunk person is having a hell of a good time, but the other, looking after the drunk friend is having a horrid time.

BABES is a terribly annoying female slant comedy in which the filmmakers think what they are proving on screen is funnier than what it is. Shouting and screaming half the time, I wanted to walk out of the cinema at the one-hour mark. And I should have!

BABES opens in theatres on May 24th.

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EXTREMELY UNIQUE DYNAMIC (USA 2023) ***
Directed by Harrison Yu, Ivan Leung and Katherine Dudas

EXTREMELY UNIQUE DYNAMIC is maverick no-budget filmmaking and one has to give credit for the filmmakers for their tireless energy.

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FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA (USA/Australia 2024) ***½

Directed by George Miller

No more Mad Max, but a new character Furiosa arises from the last MAD MAX: FURY ROAD film in the new MADS MAX franchise FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA. Having the same visionary director George Miller who helmed all the previous Mad Max movies, the latest edition is similar to FURY ROAD in the sense that it is a continuous action-packed film one action sequence after another with no intention of stopping. Anya Taylor-Joy replaces Charleze Theron as Furiosa. Miller is a visionary and his MAD MAX film franchise shows him directing all 5 films, MAD MAX, ROAD WARRIOR, BEYOND THUDERDROME, FURY ROAD and FURIOSA. Miller won an Oscar for directing the animated feature HAPPY FEET,

The story does not really matter much as the importance is only secondary to the action sequences. So despite a loose narrative with loose ends as well, director Miller’s film still succeeds, thanks to his visionary look of a dystopian desert landscape similar to that of the Australian desert where much of the film was shot (in New South Wales).

Miller co-wrote the with Nico Lathouris. It is the fifth installment in the Mad Max franchise, serving as both a spin-off and prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). The film stars Anya Taylor-Joy and Alyla Browne as younger versions of the title character Imperator Furiosa, originally portrayed by Charlize Theron. Chris Hemsworth and Tom Burke also star.

The film begins with a young Furiosa abducted from her homeland, known as the Green Place of Many Mothers, by members of the Horde of the Biker Warlord Dementus (Hemsworth). They hope to use Furiosa to find the place of abundance she hails from, but Furiosa keeps it secret and escapes with the help of her mother Mary Jo Bassa. Dementus captures Mary and executes her and takes Furiosa as his own. She is encouraged by Dementus’ History Man to make herself invaluable, but she plans to escape back to green. History Man tells her to study and learn so that she can be useful to Dementus. Dementus and his horde run into a war boy while looking for the land of abundance and believe the Citadel he speaks of is the land. They go to the Citadel, where Dementus tries to rally the people there against their leader to his side. The leader turns out to be Immortan Joe, the war boy turns out to be a red herring and they destroy Dementus’ horde, seizing his bikes and weapons as he and a few of his men manage to escape with the young Furiosa.

There is not much left in terms of the story except the battle going on between Dementus’ horde and Joe’s men. There is no good or evil but the audience tends to take the side that Furiosa is on - which is not Dements’ side. One point in this saga is that Furiosa would be expected to return to the land of abundance which never happens.

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THE GARFIELD MOVIE (USA 2024) **
Directed by Mark Dindal

GARFIELD, the world’s most lovable cat, or at least the most popular being the most syndicated cat comic strip in the United States gets to star in his own animated feature opening this week. Director Mark Dindal (originally from Disney who had worked on THE LITTLE MERMAID, ALADDIN and WB’s CATS DON’T DANCE) plays it safe with the Jim Davis comic strip, keeping the spirit of things - which means like the strip, it gets pretty boring with the monotony of Garfield’s high jinx. GARFIELD held the Guinness World Record for being the world's most widely syndicated comic strip

The film chronicles the life of the title character Garfield the cat (Chris Pratt), his human owner Jon Arbuckle (Nicholas Hoult) and how they met in a generally unfunny restaurant sequence (except maybe funny for children), and Odie the dog ( Harvey Guillén). True to form, Garfield controls everything with Odie just playing along. Garfield eats lasagne, hates Mondays (the only thing missing issues is the Carpenters’ song ‘Rainy Days and Mondays’) controls his owner and gets into mischief ever so often. He also watches Catflix on TV.

In the film, the rut is attempted to be broken when Garfield ventures out to discover his father, voiced by Samuel L. Jackson. Garfield is thus set to have a wild outdoor adventure Garfield’s long-lost father – a scruffy street cat Vic who turns out to be more than expected – Garfield and his canine friend Odie are forced from their perfectly pampered life into joining Vic in a high-stakes heist. Garfield goes through some life lessons on the way and learns more about his father.

Every story needs a villain and the villain in this film comes in the form of Hannah Waddingham as Jinx, a villainous Persian cat. The villain does not appear too villainous and does not have any scheme such as destroying the universe or the world or even the world of cats.

The story gets sappy along the way, probably the sappiest film on record that Samuel L. Jackson has been in. He does not get to use the ‘mf’ word that comes with him being in the movie. The film’s animation is colourful and lively enough and with the film keeping true to the comic strip ends up being a mild and barely entertaining exercise. Children will find Garfield’s antics more cute and amusing.

The product placement is obvious to the point of embarrassment. The filmmakers make no attempt to subtly put the advertisements in place.

This is the second GARFIELD movie, the first one opening 20 years ago in 2004 to awful reviews (less than 20% acceptance on Rotten Tomatoes). This one has got better reviews so far (over 70% on Rotten Tomatoes), though the film has not turned out as hilarious or adventurous as promised in the trailer.

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GARFIELD opens in theatres on May 24th. The film opened in 18 countries on May 3, and grossed $22 million in its first weekend. Its largest markets were Mexico ($8.8 million), Spain ($3.2 million), Brazil ($2.2 million), Italy ($1.6 million), and Peru ($1.3 million).

HIT MAN (USA 2023) ***½

Directed by Richard Linklater

Richard Linklater whose film DAZED AND CONFUSED broke him to fame continues his fresh look at the criminal commonly as the hit man, one frequently hired to do some nasty service like doing away with someone’s enemy. A bit of morality comes into play too as to whether the hirer or the hit man is the criminal, with the hit man brought to court in a number of scenes.

The film begins with the words that what one is about to see is a somewhat true story, Truth be told, the end credits inform that the story is based on a magazine article, which implies of course, that changes have been made for the purpose of dramatization and entertainment. Drama and entertainment, HIT MAN provides. Though the title implies an action movie, Linklater’s film is clearly not but a wry look at the hitman genre with humour and romance tied in. The romance is believable enough, as Linklater has proved his mettle in the romance genre with films like BEFORE SUNSET, BEFORE SUNRISE and BEFOE MIDNIGHT. HIT MAN is best described as a somewhat true crime comedy thriller about role-play, romance, and the precarious pursuit of self-knowledge.

HIT MAN serves as the perfect vehicle for Everybody Wants Some!’s Glen Powell. This is Powell’s best and most believable role, discounting his terrible teen adult romance ANYONE BUT YOU and playing second fiddle to Tom Cruise in TOP GUN MAVERICK.

Gary Johnson (Glen Powell) is a philosophy professor by day, lecturing his students on theories of morality. Gary gets to propel his views on the students. “Life is short! Push yourself out there!” Needless to say, his hitman job gets Gary to put his theories to the test. In his downtime, he works with the police in surveillance vans as a tech-savvy staff investigator during undercover sting operations. When the temperamental officer who normally plays the role of hitman is placed on leave for misconduct, milquetoast Gary is asked to step in because he vaguely resembles the ousted officer. To everyone’s surprise, Gary proves himself more than adequate in the restaurant segment where he performs his first sting. After that, Gary thrives impersonating the fabricated killer for other clients, putting them in the slammer for murder intent..

One day, Gary, in character as Ron, the charismatic lone-wolf hitman, meets would-be client Madison (Adria Arjona), who is desperate to get out of her abusive marriage. Sparks fly. Soon, he reaches out to Madison outside of their arrangement to start a decidedly non-professional but steamy fling. But as Gary attempts to keep his various personas separate, his lies accumulate and someone actually ends up dead. He finds himself in the middle of a real crime with all evidence leading back to him.

The script written by both Powell and Linklater contains enough twists and turns with a good Chemistry-romance between the leads. Powell and Linklater make a good team as did Linklater and Ethan Hawke.

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HIT MAN had its international premiere at the 80th Venice International Film Festival on September 5, 2023, followed afterward by its North American premiere on September 11 at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). It is scheduled to be released in select theatres in the United States on May 24, 2024, before streaming on Netflix on June 7, 2024.

ILLUSIONS FOR SALE? THE RISE AND FALL OF GENERATION ZOE

(El vendedor de ilusiones: El caso Generación Zoe)

(Argentina 2024) ***

Directed by Matías Gueilburt

Generation Zoe is the company founded by Leonardo Cositorto. Generation Zoe, is a spiritual coaching network hiding the most unusual scam in Argentina's history. Ordinary folk who have a hard time with their lives suddenly get greedy and take a risk to invest all their savings to achieve what they believe is an accessible dream. And then they lose everything,

This is the crime documentary of the genesis, growth, and fall of the most bizarre and ambitious financial platform in Latin America, which turns out to be, to a large extent, a faithful reflection of its eccentric creator: Leonardo Cositorto.

The doc spends the first three quarters on the introduction and growth of the company. Then, a reporter finds something fishy and writes to the Security Commission to find out that there is no trading thee with Generation Zoe.

One of the interesting subjects tackled in the doc is ontological communication. Ontology is the philosophical study of being. It investigates what types of entities exist, how they are grouped into categories, and how they are related to one another on the most fundamental level (and whether there even is a fundamental level). Ontologists often try to determine what the categories or highest kinds are and how they form a system of categories that encompasses the classification of all entities. And the reason Leonardo Cositorto is so effective in convincing so many victims is ontological communication. Ontology is important in communication studies because it provides a context for understanding how humans communicate. Ontology is the basis for all human existence, which includes the way of communicating. To understand and approach communication studies requires an understanding of the ontological principles.

Cositorto was attracted to Vila Maria in the province of Cordoba in Argentinian, a rich city. and the head town of the General San Martín Department. It is located in the centre of rich agricultural land. The area leads the country in the production of milk. The city has a population of 72,162 per the 2001 census (Greater Villa María: 119,000), which makes it the third largest city in the province. This is where it all started.

Then came March 20th, 2020 when the Pandemic began.

Interesting too is to watch how everything spiralled. The company Zoe owned dealerships, health food stores, and name brands as well as started having its own cryptocurrency. The bigger the rise, the harder would be the fall.

The doc being a little tech savvy and easy to understand is an easy watch for those not well versed with investing, As every person dreams of riches, the doc is of interest to almost everyone, And there are important lessons to be learned in this fast-moving documentary.

ILLUSIONS FOR SALE? THE RISE AND FALL OF GENERATION ZOE are professionally made, made even more credible as it features interviews with the President of the Company as well as the Vice President Max Batista, together with a couple of poor victims who had their hopes dashed as well as money lost.

The doc opens for streaming on Netflix this week.

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MY ONI GIRL (Japan 2024) ***½

Directed by Tomotaka Shibayama

Though unfamiliar to North America, the word one is a valid word in the English language. In Japanese folklore, a type of demonic creature is often of giant size, great strength, and fearful appearance. They are generally considered to be foreign in origin, perhaps introduced into Japan from China along with Buddhism. Cruel and malicious, they can, nevertheless, be converted to Buddhism. In the new Japanese animated feature MY GIRL ONI, the one is in the form of a teenage girl.

Yatsuse Hiiragi, a first-year high school student, is the type of person who cannot refuse requests because he wants to get along well with the people around him and not be disliked by them. However, nothing he does goes well and he has no one he can call a best friend. One summer day when it snows out of season, he meets Tsumugi, a demon girl who has come to the human world looking for her mother. Tsumugi, who has a personality opposite to Hiiragi and does not care about what others think of her, takes Hiiragi on her journey.

One change of scenes is done initially at the start of the film when Yatuse is on a mountain of snow and the background changes from the snow to the subway train he is in, on the way to school. The same scene change occurs when the background of the school gym changes to an outdoor eating place. This technique gives the impression that what is occurring on screen is with real characters in typical movies and not animation. The animation of the character looks as if they are taken right out of a Studio Ghibli animated feature, such as HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE or the recent THE BOY AND THE HERON the films directed by Master Japan animator Hayao Miyazaki. It is a good feeling as there are not enough features coming out of Ghibli Studios, the films are usually of outstanding quality entertainment.

The film is available in two formats - the dubbed version and the original Japanese version with English subtitles. The one on Netflix I viewed is in the original Japanese with English subtitles.

The best things about MY ONI GIRL are its Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki look, its fascinating Japanese folklore and a coming-of page story that feels unrushed and genuine.

The film is part of a three-film exclusivity deal between Colorido and Netflix that started with Hiroyasu Ishida's DRIFTING HOME that released in September 2022.

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MY GIRL OMI will be released simultaneously in Japanese theatres and on Netflix globally on May 24, 2024.

THE SALE GIRL (Mongolia 2022) ***
Directed by Janchivdorj Sengedorj

From Mongolia comes this rare coming-of-age tale set in contemporary times and in the city and filmed in both Mongolian and Russian. THE SALES GIRL is an edgy sexy comedy drama that gives audiences a glimpse into modern Mongolia.

When college coed Saruul takes a temporary job as a clerk in a sex shop, her poker-faced indifference makes her the perfect foil for the shop’s clientele, who range from slightly sheepish and cautiously curious to downright perverse. But it’s the shop’s flamboyant, eccentric female owner, Katya who initiates Saruul’s journey into adulthood – taking her under her wing, teaching her the art of living, and gently guiding her on the path to self-discovery.

Saruul looks young enough to be underaged, but she is old enough to be selling toys in the sex shop. Even Katya makes the remark at one point in the film: “You want me to get arrested when the cops find you, underage working in my shop?” to which Saruul unequivocally gives her her I.D. as proof of her age.

There is a neat scene of Saruul, while taking public transport noticing the runaway dog running in a pack of other strays, apparently enjoying itself in its new freedom. Her character is somewhat similar to the dog’s having found her new freedom. Saruul had initially remarked that the dog looked bored and did not behave like a dog.

Though all of Arum’s coming-of-age lessons come from the shop owner, she is also aware of her own present life. At one point, she rightly chastises the owner that there are poorer people who are unable to enjoy freedom due to poverty and commitment. They are stuck in their chores like cooking and routine, unable to get out of the rut. Saruul, is stuck with strict parents, her strict demanding father and her mother who is only concerned with family. The parents’ greatest shock occurs in one scene where Sorrel is caught nude with her mate, yes, removing his cum that has got stuck on the ceiling.

Saruul also faces the odd awkward situation during her deliveries of the shop’s merchandise when customers make sexual advances towards her.

Besides being set in the city, the film contains seldom-seen scenes of the Mongolian countryside like the steppes and rocky landscapes. A candid look at a more rural Mongolia has Saruul and the owner stopping to buy mushrooms from a country girl in the rural areas.

THE SALES GIRL is a humorous coming-of-age story set in a different setting of the sex toys trade and in Mongolia, a place unfamiliar to North Americans, two facts make this film worth a look. The film has made a successful run in film festivals around the world winning many awards in the process. Among them (only the ones that the film has won awards are included):

Udine Far East Film Festival (2023) | Winner, Audience Award, Nominee for Best Screenplay

Vesoul Asian Film Festival (2023) | Winner, Best Film

Bangkok World Film Festival (2023) | Nominee, Best Film

Osaka Asian Film Festival (2022) | Winner, Best Actress (Bayarjargal Bayartsetseg)

New York Asian Film Festival (2022) | Winner, Best Feature Film

Adelaide Film Festival (2022)

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THE SALES GIRL premieres via VOD and Digital on May 24th. 2024.

SILENT LAND (Chica Ziemia) (Poland/Italy/Czech 2021) ***1/2

Directed by Aga Woszczyńska

SILENT LAND traces the downward spiral of a bourgeois Polish couple’s relationship from the very start to the end of the film. Though on paper, the story looks simple and plain, director Woszczyńska who also co-wrote the script, delivers a deliciously wicked comedy (or drama) of manners that has the feel of a classic Chabrol movie, even to the extent of the possibility of a murder. The film is also reminiscent immediately of Dominik Moll’s Cannes Opening film LEMMING (10 years or so back) which traces a couple’s suffering relationship.

Aki Kaurismaki the Finnish director of minor masterpieces like FALLING LEAVES, DRIFTING CLOUDS A NEW HOPE is known for his deadpan comedy. SILENT LAND explores deadpan drama in which the characters are mostly silent while the drama is still intense and intrinsic as if waiting to explode.

This is a tale of bliss interrupted. In her feature debut, director Aga Woszczyńska (her short FRAGMENTS debut at Cannes in the Directors Fortnight in 2014) chooses taut, thoughtful sequences to peel back the veneer of success from this beautiful bourgeois couple.

The setting is an Italian holiday vacation rental which the couple )seeking Polish) is staying at. The couple, assumed wealthy are both white, blonde and arrogant in wanting the best for their vacation. The husband is upset that the fan is not working and later is even more upset when he discovers the pool empty and not working, Their Italian host swiftly sends over a local worker to fix the situation. The young, muscular migrant Arab worker immediately faces a language barrier with the couple. When he suffers a terrible accident poolside, it is as if fate had been conspiring against all three of them from the beginning. The worker falls in and drowns. The local police are called in. All the Italian host can say is that at least the pool has been fixed.

The film has a similar feel to the Oscar-winning ZONE OF INTEREST in which a German family worries about their posh residence beside the Nazi concentration camp next door. In SILENT LAND, the rich couple is unaware of their poor surroundings on the island they are vacationing. They want the pool filled regardless of the water shortage the island is facing. They are oblivious to the fact and even if they knew, it would likely not have made a difference, Director Woszczyńska sublimely builds up an atmosphere of dread and menace culminating in a surreal scene at the end that is kept as a surprise.

SILENT LAND played at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2021 when I first saw the film. The film took it time to get a release but is worth a look, standing the test of time. SILENT LAND opens on SVOD, Film Movement PLUS on May 21st, 2024 the best film opening this week. The film is shot in different languages with Polish, English and French spoken.

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Details: Written by: Gilbert Seah; Parent Category: Articles; Category: Movie Reviews; Published: 14 May 2024

FILM REVIEWS:

BAD BOYS: RIDE OR DIE (USA 2024) **
Directed by Adil & Bilall

The ghost of Captain Conrad Howard (Joe Pantoliano) plays two parts in the film RIDEOR DIE. Firstly, he is the reason for the film’s title RIDE OR DIE. Ride or die is a colloquial expression indicating extreme loyalty to someone or something. The late Captain Conrad is accused of drug trafficking but the bad boys Mike and Marcus believe him to be innocent and go about proving his innocence at all costs, thus riding or dying. Secondly, the ghost tells Marcus in a vision, while he is suffering a heart attack, that his time has not come yet, which results in Marcus attempting death-defying stunts believing that he cannot die.

After the wedding of Detective Mike Lowrey (Will Smith) and Christine, his physical therapist, Mike and Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence), his partner and fellow detective, investigate corruption within the Miami Police Department: their late Captain Conrad Howard is posthumously accused of being involved with drug cartels. Mike and Marcus ask Armando Aretas, Mike's son, in jail for having murdered Howard,[a] and he tells them that he is positive Howard was not corrupt and that he can identify the man who ordered their superior's murder as he remembers his face. Howard has left clues behind and they want Armando to run through them to possibly find the mysterious man. While they transfer Armando to Miami on a helicopter, Mike and Marcus are set up in the process and, although they survive an attack and the subsequent helicopter crash, they are considered fugitives by the police, the manhunt being led by U.S. Marshal Judy Howard (Captain Howard's daughter). Not only that, they are eventually being hunted by every criminal gang in Miami. And the story goes on to the final reel when the Bad Boys solve the case.

Duo their credit, directors Adil and Billall (Belgian film and TV directors) do their utmost best to keep their film moving at a brief pace. They also directed the last BAD BOYS film BAD BOYS FOR LIFE in 2020 and this film is a directed sequel to it.

BAD BOYS: RIDE OR DIE is the BAD BOYS franchise's 4th installment. One would think that enough is enough and truth be told, the franchise has run out of ideas. The camaraderie of the two cops is pushed to the limit again but their friendship prevails.

There are hardly any surprises in this installment. The cameo surprises of Vanessa Hudgens, Alexander Ludwig and D.J. Khaled (who appears for a mere minute) do not help much. One would wonder if this film will make money and whether Will Smith’s disastrous act of slapping Chris Rock will affect the box-office potential of the film. The film even so far as to have Will Smith’s Mike Lowry slapped three times by Martin Lawrence in one scene, which did not get much response from the audience of the screening I attended.

BAD BOYS: RIDE OR DIE opens only in theatres on June 7th.

BASMA (Saudi Arabia 2024) ***
Directed by Fatima Al-Banawi

The film title BASMA is the name of the film’s protagonist, a young woman arriving back from the United States to her home in Saudi Arabia after graduating. It is also after the Pandemic and she has not seen her family for a full two years. Her sister’s children have grown. Basma cut her hair short before her arrival. But there are family secrets in store for her. Her family has kept news from Basma, much to her consternation The film is a family drama.

Basma returns home right at the celebration of Eid. Eid is the time the family celebrate giving each other presents. For those unfamiliar with Eid, Eid al-Adha, or the Feast of Sacrifice is the second of the two main holidays celebrated in Islam. In Islamic tradition, it honours the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son as an act of obedience to God's command. Both Ishmael and Isaac are referred to with the honorific title "Sacrifice of God”. In the house, the first thing Basma notices is that there are no signs of dad. Basma’s father and mother have divorced (not common in the Islamic religion) and the father has moved out of the house, The family did not inform Basma as they were afraid that the information might distract her from her PhD degree. Basma is as expected furious. She loves her father and can’t understand the reason the family ditched him. But her father is suffering from an illness. In desperation, Basma moves in with her father who suffers from paranoid delusions. He has the windows of of his run-down apartment in which he stays alone all covered up in newspaper.

There are two plusses going for this Saudi Arabian family drama. Firstly, unless one is Arabic or Muslim, there are a lot of practices and mores that North Americans are unfamiliar with, and these that are revealed (like Eid) on screen are both intriguing interesting as well as educational. Secondly, Saudi Arabia and all its modernity can be witnessed, from the ultra-modern airport to the high-rise buildings as well as the beautiful sea surrounding the city. The film is set in the city of Jeddah on the Red Sea’s eastern shore.

There are very few films from Saudi Arabia, partly due to the fact there are no theatre no cinema complexes in the country. The cinema of Saudi Arabia is a fairly small industry that only produces a few feature films and documentaries every year. Theatres were closed after religious activism in the 1980s. Saudis wishing to watch films have done so via satellite, DVD, or video.

Despite the mentioned plusses, BASMA offers nothing fresh that has not been seen in one form or another in an American film. Basma has to deal with her dysfunctional family during a celebration (It is usually Christmas or Thanksgiving in a Hollywood film.) Basma has a romantic fling with her childhood best friend.

Al-Banawi wrote, directed and stars as BASMA, which opens for streaming on Netflix this week.

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COTTONTAIL (UK/Japan 2022) **

Directed by Patrick Dickinson

The premise of the film COTTONTAIL involves a widower and his son travelling from Japan to England's Lake District to scatter his wife's ashes there, as she grew up loving the stories of Beatrix Potter. Potter was based there.

The widower Ken (Lily Franky) comes across his dead wife’s letter involving a request for the scattering of her ashes. His estranged son, Toshin (Rio Nishikido) insists on coming along and ends up with his wife and himself travelling with his father to England. Ken is not too pleased.

It is never made clear the reason the film is called COTTONTAIL The word cottontail can take several meanings and one of them is rude. But it also refers to a kind of rabbit as well as the name of the youngest sister of Peter Rabbit in the Beatrice Potter Peter Rabbit books. The Lake District reference is that it is the place where Beatrice Potter wrote her Peter Rabbit books. (Personal note: On my first trip to the UK. I took a train trip to the Lake District including Lake Windermere and it is a very English and pristine place.) The Lake Windermere is a huge area and the widower has to find the exact place the wife had wanted her ashes to be scattered. All he has is a photograph of the place.

The film is a slow burn with not much happening making the film one requiring a bit of patience. Though veteran star Ciaran Hinds has star billing, he only appears after the hour mark and only for a brief part of the film. Hinds plays John who Ken comes across after getting lost in traveling to Lake Windermere. John is living with his daughter Mary (played by his real-life daughter Aoife Hinds). John and Mary are very kind to Ken, in fact too kind for credibility, which includes John volunteering to give Ken a long drive to Lake Windermere.

There are too many coincidences such as Ken’s son suddenly meeting and appearing at the same spot of the Lake Windermere area. Ken also finally manages later to find the exact spot in the photo. The reconciliation between son Toshi and Ken is also a bit too convenient and looks like a cop-out happy ending.

Actor Lily Franky is too sedate in his performance to be both a father and husband in anguish. It is also hard to believe that he would travel all on his own in an unfamiliar country like England to scatter the ashes. Rio Nisgikido as the son Toshi also appears too patient and eager to reconcile with his father, after Ken has abandoned him and his wife to go on his own.

The big argument between Ken and Toshi occurs in the heavy rain, obviously, to emphasize the gravity of the situation, though the setup is a bit obvious, Director Dickinson eventually guides his story to a predictable end.

COTTONTAIL is released by Level 33 Entertainment from Academy Award(R) and BAFTA Nominated Producer GABRIELLE TANA and opens exclusively in theatres on June 7th and On Demand on July 9th.

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EDGE OF EVERYTHING (USA 2023) ***
Directed by Sophia Sabella and Pablo Friedman

EDGE OF EVERYTHING boasts a raw coming-of-age story of a 15-year-old teen, Abby who is rebellious as hell and who does not care who she hurts as long as she gets what she wants. Her words turn upside down when she straddles the line between childhood and adulthood when she is forced to move in with her father and his younger girlfriend after her mother's death.

Abby (Sierra McCormick) is a young girl who is on the cusp on turning 15. Her life is thrown out of balance with the untimely passing of her mother, as shown at the start of the film. Abby is shown putting down her mother’s friends at the funeral, unsympathetic, which prompts the audience to feel the same way about her as the protagonist, She stays with her estranged father, David (Jason Butler Harner) and his girlfriend, Leslie (Sabina Friedman-Seitz) much to her dismay. Her father and girlfriend try their utmost best to gain her acceptance, but Abby blames her dad for not being there for her,

As the film progresses, Abby is seen hanging out with friends who are decent, and not as rebellious as her. The story takes a turn when Abby meets a drunk Caroline (Ryan Simpkins) at a bar who she takes after. Caroline does not give a f*** at anything, which is the reason Abby is attracted to her. Her world slowly downwards spiral as she lives at the edge of everything, Abby’s dad confronts her after his girlfriend, Leslie finds weed in Abby’s bag which causes Abby to hate the girlfriend even more. When Abby tries coke to be cool, the audience loses all sympathy for her,

EDGE OF EVERYTHING is a difficult film to watch because directors Sophia Sabella and Pablo Friedman does not compromise Abby’s personality. This is the director’s debut writing and directing feature and they have a bit to learn about making their film likable while tackling a tough film on a tough subject. To the actress’ credits, McCormick and Simpkins both deliver credible and impressive performances. When Abby finally tells Caroline off that all she does is care for herself and nobody else, which is true, Caroline runs away saying that Abby is her new best friend, which is also true.

The coming-of-age experiences include drug taking, flirting, and sex with boys and learning to choose true friends. The females are shown in a better light than the males in the film. All the boys that Abby, Caroline and her friends encounter are mostly idiots and care for nothing except drugs and making out. Abby's father ends up saying the wrong things most of the time leading to his girlfriend, shown as a sort of ‘Mother Teresa’ walking out on him at one point.

My best coming-of-age films are Ken Loach’s KES set in Northern England and Francois Truffaut’s LES QUARTE CENTS COUPS (400 BLOWS) about a young lad in a French seaside town. EDGE OF EVERYTHING also lacks to show how the film’s setting affects Abby in her behaviour.

The film opens via VOD & Leading digital platforms on June 7th, 2024.

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HOW TO ROB A BANK (USA 2024) ***

Directed by Seth Porges and Stephen Robert Morse

HOW TO ROB A BANK is a fancy title for a doc, one that opens for streaming this week on Netflix. Truth be told, it does give audiences a few tips on how two rob a bank (checking time of day of delivery of cash to the bank, timing of police patrol cars, security setups), while also detailing the life of one of the most prolific bank robbers in the United States. The bank robber nicknamed Hollywood is Scott Scurlock who operated in Seattle in the 1990s. He was the most prolific bank robber in the Pacific Northwest.

Hollywood is the nickname (the FBI loves to give nicknames to bank robbers) for this bank robber, who hits banks as if following a film script. Hollywood, according to the film’s voiceover at the film’s beginning is one of the most wanted persons by the FBI. They had no idea who he was or which bank he would hit best. According to the FBI, Hollywood was a smart robber who knew the security system and how long he had been in a bank before leaving.

The setting is 1990s Seattle. A flood of money came to Seattle from the technology boom - with a bank around every corner.

There is a clip from the Kevin Costner film, ROBIN HOOD; PRINCE OF THIEVES (1991) as Hollywood was described as robbing the rich to give to the poor.

The doc switches, without notice to focus on another man called Scott, a muscular man who builds a tree house. The reason is that Scott is the man called Hollywood. Scott Scurlock (March 5, 1955 – November 28, 1996) born William Scott Scurlock in Fairfax County, Virginia was the son of a minister. He was nicknamed the Hollywood Bandit (or simply Hollywood). He got this nickname from his involvement in bank robberies in the Seattle area during the 1990s during which he used acting makeup and disguises. Using Hollywood quality make-up he successfully robbed 17 banks. His last attempt ended in a police shootout with Scurlock escaping the scene. His two accomplices were captured and one gave Scurlock up. He eventually shot himself in the head as FBI agents waited outside a trailer (shades of bank robbers BONNIE AND CLYDE) he was held up in and called out to him to surrender.

Again out of the blue, the film focuses on Mark Biggins. Biggins was a close friend of Scott who Scott helped out when Mark was in trouble with his marriage and in money. “Move u[ here,” Scott invited Mark to live in the treehouse. The treehouse was elaborate and had a free-range stove and a toilet. The film then focuses on the stories of Mark Biggins and Steve Meyers, two men behind 19 confirmed bank robberies across Seattle that netted them over $2.3 million.

The occludes interviews from key personnel. These include friends and family members as well as members of the FBI who worked on the bank robbery case.

HOW TO ROB A BANK is an often fascinating doc on a particularly fascinating individual who robs banks as a challenge rather than for the money. It opens for streaming this week on Netflix.

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LONGING (USA 2024) ***
Directed by Savi Gabizon

LONGING is a remake of the Israeli film of the same name. The original was also directed by Savi Gabizon, the writer and director of this new version. The director wanted to make a movie about his experience with his divorce The new version has powerhouse star Richard Gere (AMERICAN GIGOLO, AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN) in the title role of the divorced Daniel.

Daniel, a wealthy New York bachelor (Richard Gere), is forced to evaluate his life choices when he discovers that a Canadian ex-girlfriend, Rachel (Suzanne Clément) had given birth to their son, Allen (Tomaso Sanelli) after they split up 20 years ago.

When Daniel meets Rachel in a New York restaurant, Rachel reveals that his son Allen (Tomaso Sanelli) turned 19 two months ago. “Sort of takes after you,” she says. Since Rachel knew that Daniel didn’t want kids, she never told him she was pregnant. But when Rachel drops another bombshell that the son has died from a car accident, Daniel decides to visit Canada (specifically Hamilton, where Allen grew up). As Daniel meets his son’s best friend (Wayne Burns), his favourite teacher (Kruger) and his girlfriend (Jessica Clement), he’s in for even more surprises.

Director Gabizon’s film is one of awkwardness - in which there are many moments of awkwardness. The first segment in which Daniel meets Rachel in the restaurant after a 20-year absence is indeed an awkward moment for the two. The sparseness of dialogue and the awkwardness of their small talk emphasizes the situation, not to mention the difficulty of presenting news Rachel has for him. Not only does she reveal that Daniel had a son but that the son had been killed in a car accident. Then Daniel is surprised by an unexpected visit by one of his son’s best friends, Mikey (Wayne Burns) who asks him to help him pay his son’s share of a drug deal owed to a drug lord. Daniel declines claiming that he does not want to finance a drug deal to which the young Mikey chides him for not caring as a father, who has the money but refuses to help. “He would not be too proud of you.” are Mikey’s words to Daniel after meeting him in the hotel lobby.

The film is shot mainly in Hamilton (partially in Kitchener and Cambridge) by cinematographer Paul Sarossy which includes the familiar bridge with the church behind it, one of the town’s landmarks.

Things get weirder when Daniel meets his son’s girlfriend who reveals more unexpected information regarding his son, Allen. Then Daniel meets Alice (Diane Kruger), Allen’s French Literature teacher, who apparently his son has fallen in love with.

Gere plays his dramatic role with a quiet and calculated intensity that suits the mood and atmosphere of the film. A film of self-discovery and a sort of alternative coming-of-age story of an older adult, the film has enough plot twists to keep the film both intriguing and entertaining,

LONGING opens June 7 in Toronto, Vancouver! The film also opens on June 14 in Montreal and throughout the summer in other cities.

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NELMA KODAMA: THE QUEEN OF DIRTY MONEY

(Original title: Doleira: A História de Nelma Kodama)

(Brazil 2024) ***
Directed by João Wainer

Nelma Kodama: The Queen of Dirty Money is a Netflix original documentary from Brazil about one of Brazil’s most notorious female criminals. As the tone of the film title implies, the filming subject is treated in a humorous way while never diminishing the severity of the crime she committed.

Out of prison, notorious black-market currency trader Nelma Kodama (she plays herself and talks candidly about herself and her crime and is the star of the Documentarian herself) exposes her part in a major Brazilian corruption scandal. She is under house arrest as the camera at the beginning of the film moves down her leg to reveal her ankle tracer. This is a humorous humorous to her and she goes about showing off the tracer as if it is worn in fashion.

This woman, as she admits it herself, has style and lots of it and she is not afraid to flaunt it.

Nelma Kodama is a Brazilian businesswoman who went to prison for corruption, organized crime and currency evasion during Operation Car Wash after she was caught trying to board a plane with 200 thousand euros in her underwear in Guarulhos airport (Sao Paulo). She talks to the camera about her methods of moving money and the mechanics of it all. How it all works appears quite simple to her, as she explains everything joyfully, but truth be told, it is not easy to understand how everything works and how she comes to make so much money. Her tactics also involved hiring children carrying bags of money. Funny enough, she would also get robbed.

Is she breaking the law? She says she is not breaking any law, but that is the way things can be done by bypassing the law, which makes it illegal.

Whether Nelma is inspiring - the answer is definitely ‘maybe’- to some for her verve and success as a woman. She comes across like a Tammy Faye or a Mrs. Imelda Marcos. Like Imelda Marcos, she admits to loving shoes. But one must give credit to Nelma for succeeding as a female in what is a male-oriented crime syndicate. Most of her ‘business’ colleagues are men.

As for romance, she has two lovers simultaneously. She also describes on screen the definition of the term ‘lover’. Her two beaus also end up in jail. These two including other accomplishers get to share their stories on screen as well.

NELMA KODAMA: THE QUEEN OF DIRTY MONEY, in Portuguese with English subtitles, opens for streaming on Netflix this week.

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THE PRICE OF NONNA’S INHERITANCE (Ricchi a tutti i costi)(Italy 2024) ***

Directed by Giovanni Bognetti

THE PRICE OF NONNA’S INHERITANCE (Ricchi a tutti i costi) is a cheesy Italian comedy that is so silly and preposterous that it ends totally hilarious and entertaining.

The film opens with Anna meeting her old flame, Nunzio who still tries to make his moves on the married Anna. Anna has already a husband and two thirty-something kids and her mother. The mother has 6 million worth of inheritance that the entire family wants to grab hold of as part of their inheritance. So imagine their distress when the grandmother announces that she has the intention of being married again after finding the love of her life.

To the family’s horror and particularly to Anna’s, the grandmother’s grand announcement of her new husband turns out to be Nunzio. Anna is convinced that her family’s Nunzio is marrying the much older mother for her money. So, the family comes together to commit a murder. Can the family come together to commit a murder? That is the question that the movie attempts to answer.

It is a silly premise, but director Giovanni Bognetti, who also wrote the script proves himself (this is his third feature) excellent at comedy, There is a high hit-and-miss laugh ratio and the comedy centres on the typical Italian family nuances, which makes it even funnier if one is familiar with Italian culture.

Take this family dinner scene where they discuss committing the murder.

The mother says: “You have to believe we can do it as a family. You have to believe in yourself.”

The daughter, Giuliana replies: “You always treat us like idiot children.

Apparently, Giuliana, her brother and Nunzio were at a cliff earlier in the day.

Giuliana says: “Emilio was there but did nothing. Just like leaving the dinner table when the table needs to be cleared.”

And the mother complains about Giuliana: “She took up swimming but could not compete. She took piano lessons but could not perform. Now she was there but could not push him off the cliff.

Giuliana’s reply: “Murder. It is not the same thing.”I am going to the restroom.“

Then comes the clincher as the mother laments: “It is sad to think that we cannot come together just to commit a murder.”

The comedy heightens with the arrival of Nunzio’s best man, who happens to be blind. The family now is afraid there might be a witness to the crime. But at least he is blind, the best type of witness says a family member.

There are a few excellent very imaginative comedic setups, thanks to a really funny script and to the director’s excellent comic timing, One is the brother and sister/s search for a poisonous plant in order to do off with Nunzio. The other is the family dinner segment that is already described.

The film is an easy-going, guilty pleasure that is perfect for a family to laugh it out at themselves at what a family could be. NONNA’S INHERITANCE opens for streaming on Netflix this week.

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ROBOT DREAMS (Spain/France 2023) ****
Directed by Pablo Berger

Robot Dreams is a 2023 animated tragicomedy film written and directed by Pablo Berger. A Spanish-French co-production, it is based on the 2007 comic of the same name by Sara Varon. It is about the friendship between a dog and a robot in New York in 1984. The film does not contain any dialogue, which means that it is accessible to any country of any language. The characters just utter grunts, screams or make animal noises, since after all, they are animals. As the setting is in the United States, signs are in English.

In 1980s Manhattan, Dog lives alone. Dog does everything on his own and is a lonely dog. The question: Are you Lonely? pops up. And the answer is obvious. While watching TV, he notices an advertisement for a robot friend and immediately calls to order it. Dog receives Robot in the mail sometime later and assembles him. The two become instant friends as Dog takes Robot out to explore Manhattan. Over the course of the summer, the two become inseparable friends. Like lifelong companions.

Near the end of summer, Dog takes Robot to the beach. After a long day of playing in the water, the pair fall asleep. Upon waking up well after all the other visitors have left, Dog realizes that the water has caused Robot to rust. Unable to move Robot, a disheartened Dog is forced to head home for the night. Dog returns to the beach the following day to discover that the beach has been closed until June the following year, with a large barbed wire fence constructed which prevents him from reaching Robot. After being denied access to the beach by the city, Dog tries to break past the fence illegally. However, he is caught by police and is arrested. Afterward, a disheartened Dog relents to wait until he can go and rescue Robot, placing a note on his refrigerator as a constant reminder.

For an animated feature, there are quite a few obvious product placements such as Goodyear Tire and Tab drinks, making it look like a joke (there is also a company label Berger Enterprises’ - Berger is the director’s last name), soon wonders if it a joke or whether it is truly product placement. Director Pablo loves to animate as if the camera is placed in different areas, such as inside a microwave or from the fish's point of view from under the lake water when dog is fishing.

The question is how the two will survive e after separation by fate. Dog and his robot companion have become so close that they are companions for life with unconditional love. When they are separated, depression sets in. They cope in different ways.

Robot gets a makeover with spare parts and learns to bond with his new owner, helping him in painting as well as with other jobs. For dog he engages in new activities like sledding. The sled segment in which he runs down a black diamond hill is simply hilarious, But during a kite flying incident, he bonds and has a girlfriend in the form of a cool duck, But duck leaves for Europe. Dog then copes by getting another robot a tin bot which is a floor model.

Trailer:

ROBOT DREAMS is an amazing feel-good and fresh innovative animated feature full of rich nuanced emotions including many spirited segments like the snow sled segment in which dog rides his out-of-control self with his tiny floppy waging behind.

ROBOT DREAMS was nominated for the Best Animated Feature Oscar and is also the winner of the Toronto Film Critics Association prize for Best Animated Feature.

UNDER PARIS (SOUS LA SEINE) ***

Will the triathlon athletes survive as they dive into the Seine in the film’s final scene? The answer is a big surprise proving UNDER PARIS (Sous La Seine) the best shark horror movie after Spielberg’s JAWS.

Click link below for full review:

https://toronto-franco.com/article/21-cinema-movies/409-film-review-sous-la-seine-under-paris

THE WATCHERS (The Watched) (USA 2024) ***
Directed by Ishana Night Shyamalan

THE WATCHERS (titled The Watched in the United Kingdom and Ireland) is a 2024 American supernatural horror film written and directed by Ishana Night Shyamalan, produced by M. Night Shyamalan, and based on the novel of the same name by A. M. Shine.

The film stars Dakota Fanning as Mina, the main character while Georgina Campbell, Olwen Fouéré, and Oliver Finnegan play ‘the watched’.

The film is shot in Galway and in the forest of West Ireland. Everyone in the film speaks with an Irish accent except for the main character who is American and a standout as a foreigner.

Mina (Fanning) drives her car on delivery of a bird on rolling green hills and bumps over rural lanes lined with fluffy sheep and tall, waving grass. Her car’s engine sputters to a halt and she cannot call a tow truck because your phone has died. She leaves the car and ventures into the woods, following an unseen figure and ending up in what will be known to her as the coop, a safe place to hide when daylight is gone from beasts known as THE WATCHERS.

Director Shyamalan creates a solid suspenseful and frightening atmosphere from the start when Mina is lost right up to the beginning of the last 15 minutes of the film when the film becomes quite silly. The atmosphere is created in several ways through screams that are loud and vicious and hungry, and blurred images while keeping the audience's curiosity hand.

In the coop, she is given instruction by who appears to be the leader due to her being their the lowest. Madeline has rules that must never be broken. The rules include never going out at night, never leaving your back to the mire and never going down the burrows where the watchers are supposed to go during the day.

There are quite a few good scary set pieces including the one where Mina enters the burrow and the one where she is shut out of the coup as night falls. Director Shyamalan also makes good use of the woods and the gloom of the grey skies.

THE WATCHERS is not a M. Night Shyamalan-directed film though his name is splashed on the poster. He acts as the film’s producer for his daughter’s filmmaking debut, Ishana has a lot riding on this movie, this being her feature debut while riding on her father’s reputation. Shyamalan directed and wrote several episodes of the horror TV series Servant, for which her father was the showrunner. Shyamalan also directed the second unit on her father's films Old (2021) and Knock at the Cabin (2023). Truth be told, she deserves credit for keeping a consistent suspenseful atmosphere throughout the film - clearly no easy task, especially for a first-time feature director. The film only falters during the last 15 minutes where too much happens, though one can blame the critical flaw due to the source of the material, the novel.

THE WATCHERS opens only in theatres on June 7th.

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Details: Written by: Gilbert Seah; Parent Category: Articles; Category: Movie Reviews; Published: 04 May 2024

Three horror films debut this week. The best of the lot is MONSTER from Indonesia on Netflix

FILM REVIEWS:

I SAW THE TV GLOW (USA 2024) **
Directed by Jane Schoenbrun

I SAW THE TV GLOW is a 2024 American psychological horror-drama film written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun. It stars Justice Smith and Brigette Lundy-Paine, with Ian Foreman, Helena Howard, Fred Durst and Danielle Deadwyler in supporting roles. Teenager Owen is just trying to make it through life in the suburbs when his classmate (two troubled friends) introduces him to a mysterious late-night TV show — a vision of a supernatural world beneath their own. In the pale glow of the television, Owen’s view of reality begins to crack.

Emma Stone and Dave McCary serve as producers under their Fruit Tree banner.

I SAW THE TV GLOW tackles fear like being trapped in a body or dimension in which one tries the hardest to escape but is totally unable to, while still able to experience all the emotions and pain. Or entering another dimension through the television or the internet.

The story often burrs the line between reality and the imaginary which makes everything all the more scary. The protagonist is somewhat stuck in the young adult series ‘The Pink Opaque’, The trouble with the scenarios is that no explanation is given for the opening up of the other universe, nor is there any attempt to do so. One finds it hard to feel sympathetic for Owen though the script offered many reasons like his sick mother and sick father or the audience to do so.

The frequent use of saturated colours reminds one of the films of Belgium director Bertrand Mandico who made THE WILD BOYS and the recent SHE IS CONANN. His films are often adult fantasies that contain an atmosphere and feel similar to I SAW THE TV GLOW. However, the overuse of colours in this film, as in the Mandico films, gives a plastic artificial look that instead of aiding credibility to the story makes it more fantasy-horror. One admires director Jane Schoenbrun for this for her specific style though it does not fully work.

Despite the film’s many rave reviews, this reviewer found the plot detached and the story all over the place where anything can happen. Though one might expect some intrigue, the exercise gets quite boring after a while, especially when one can hardly care for any character given that anything can happen at any time or in any universe.

Schoenbrun appears to enjoy tackling films of a similar premise, The directorial debut in 2018 was the documentary A Self-Induced Hallucination. The film centres on the narrative of the fictional horror character and internet phenomenon Slender Man, as told through a found footage compilation of existing YouTube videos. Similarly in I SAW THE TV GLOW, a poster called Mr. Melancholy haunts the characters. Though it was formerly available to view on Vimeo, the film has since been removed. Schoenbrun has stated that profit from A Self-Induced Hallucination was not a goal.

Based on a micro-budget, the film has impressive production values. One wishes that director Schoenbrun would have developed a more solid and credible story than this fantasy anything can happen with no explanation plot.

The film opens in theatres across Canada on May 17th.

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MONSTER (Indonesia 2024) ***
Directed by Rako Prijanto

In the 2020 low-budget horror film THE BOY BEHIND THE DOOR, written and directed by David Charbonier and Justin Powell, Bobby and his best friend Kevin are kidnapped and taken to a strange house in the middle of nowhere. Bobby manages to escape. But as he starts to make a break for it, he hears Kevin's screams for help and realizes he can't leave his friend behind.

The new Indonesian horror film opening on Netflix this week is a remake of THE BOY BEHIND THE DOOR which is not a horror classic though not bad, thus allowing MONSTER to be an improvement. The point is obviously taken to heart as director Prijanto employs various camera angles including log tracking and overhead shots to show the kidnapping.

It was supposed to be a normal day for Alana and Rabin. A day when they came home from school, rode their bikes, and then spent time by the river, reading their favourite comics, which they had just rented from the library. However, that day became the most terrifying day of Alana and Rabin's lives, when a strange man kidnapped them both. It all begins when the car stops allowing Alana and Rabin to cross the street on their bikes. They enter ‘Artopus’ to play video games, The man drugged and gagged them in the trunk of his car and took them, far away, to another area, at the top of a mountain. Rabin is dropped off first and kept in a room in a villa. Alana, who was left in the trunk, managed to escape. Alana immediately ran away, but Alana remembered the whereabouts of her best friend who was still in the Villa. Alana decided to go back and use all means to escape the threat of the ‘Monster'. With no other choice, they have to fight by any means necessary.

MONSTER as a horror film contains several differences. The first thing is that the two protagonists are children. There is boo reason offered for the purpose of the kidnapping. Another difference is the film's sparseness. There is not much plot and a lot of screen time involves Alana moving about the house. There is little to no dialogue. Harley anyone speaks as there is no reason for them to speak as there is no one around. The kidnapped boy and girl scream and shout out each other’s names - as far as the dialogue goes. Director Prijanto does not skimp with the horror. Alana’s escape from the boot of the car, all gagged, blindfolded and tied up has her removed her tape bindings by having the tape ripped apart by a huge rust nail, with blood emerging from the scrapped skin as well. Worse, she later witnesses the monster cutting up the corpse with a chainsaw.

Alana and Rabin are two children who have to do anything it takes to escape and survive the monster and his girlfriend. The film plays like a horror version of HOME ALONE with kids vs. adults and A QUIET PLACE where the children have to be very quiet. To director Prijanto’s credit, the film contains quite a few scares that are guaranteed to make audiences jump from their seats.

The soundtrack containing jarring and whirling sounds accompanied by haunting music aids in the creation of an eerie and frightening atmosphere.

MONSTER opens for streaming this week on Netflix.

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POWER (USA 2024) ***

Directed by Yance Ford

Everyone desires per. Power implies possession of the ability to wield force, authority, or influence. the power to mold public opinion. This involves the capacity or ability to direct or influence the behaviour of others, the ability to control people and events, and the possession of control. The new documentary looks at power from the policing standpoint.

The doc POWER Explores the scope and scale of the American police over hundreds of years. Tracing the money, political power, and bipartisan support that has created modern policing.

Director Lance Ford is a transgender black filmmaker. In 2018, Ford with Joslyn Barnes was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for producing and directing STRONG ISLAND. As such, he was the first openly transgender man to be nominated for an Academy Award, and the first openly transgender director to be nominated for an Academy Award.

The doc asks the question who is more powerful? The people or the police? The police are out of control. They possess power - Director Ian Olds Ford and co-writer put into their doc a structure of the police with lots of archive footage, even from as early as the 1800s and 1900s all black and white. The doc at best serves as a history lesson and an examination of the police as a force or power that has gotten out of control.

POWER had its world premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival on January 18, 2024, and was released in a limited release in the U.S. on May 10, 2024, before streaming on Netflix on May 17, 2024.

Trailer: unavailable

THE STRANGERS: CHAPTER 1 (USA 2024) ***
Direct by Renny Harlin

The new slasher horror film THE STRANGERS CHAPTER ONE is based on the horror series of the same name created by Bernard Bertino. Bryan Michael Bertino is best known as the writer/director of THE STRANGERS (2008), as well as writing its sequel, THE STRANGERS: PREY AT NIGHT (2018), with Ben Ketai.

A bit of history about the film should be noted to see where this film fits in. The Strangers film series consists of American psychological horror films. Based on an original story by Bryan Bertino, the plot centres around three masked psycho-sociopathic home invaders that prey on innocent owners. The films are marketed as "based on a true story”, informing the audience that violent killings are common and occurring frequent in the United States.

The series continues with the release of a standalone prequel trilogy of films starting with THE STRANGERS: CHAPTER 1, set to be released on May 17, 2024, directed by Finnish director Renny Harlin, best known for his hits CLIFFHANGER with Sylvester Stallone, DIE HARD 2 and horror film NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4. Two more sequels, Chapter 2 and Chapter 3, are expected to follow, with Harlin directing.

THE STRANGERS: CHAPTER 1 provides nothing really fresh in the horror genre, and can better described as a homage to the 60s and 70s slasher horror films. The film contains typical cheap shocks and jump scares such as door slamming and things that go thump in the dark. Director Harlin ups the ante on the gore and violence. The film begins with a victim running in the woods away from his predator, at night of course. The titles then describe that there are 14.2 million killings in the United States. Comically, yes, the film has a welcome dose of humour, that 7 would have already occurred since the film began. It goes on to say that this story is one of the most violent ones in history. The victim is then hacked to death with the axe.

Maya (Madelaine Petsch) drives across the country with her longtime boyfriend, Ryan (Froy Gutierrez), as the pair begin a new life together in the Pacific Northwest. Along the way, their car breaks down in Venus, Oregon and they are forced to spend the night in an isolated Airbnb home. Through the night, they are terrorized by three murderous masked strangers. This is pretty much the story of the 90-minute film, pretty much a non-story as stories do not really lay a part in slasher-type horror flicks.

One cannot say that the film falls into cliched territory as it pokes fun at the typical horror scenario. One of the film’s best scenes shows Ryan trying to start up a truck to escape from the killers. Lots of scares here in this well-executed segment.

Director Harlin is a Finnish director who has some worthy films to date including the major flop CUT THROAT ISLAND that resulted in the film company going bankrupt. He was formerly married to Geena Davis. To his credit, his films are seldom boring and he knows how to push the correct buttons for an action flick, this film included.

THE STRANGERS: CHAPTER 1 is a very violent slasher horror film on house invasion with little plot or story, paying tribute to the horror films of the past and succeeding in this respect.

THE STRANGERS: CHAPTER 1 opens in theatres across Canada on May 17th.

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TISH (UK 2023) ****

Directed by Paul Sng

Newcastle upon Tyne is currently quite a modern city close to some nice beaches, myself having visited the North England town a few years ago as I met with a resident who was in Athens when I was there. (I recognized his Geordie accent when we were at the hotel counter, a point that made us good friends.) The subject of this eye-opening documentary, Tish Murtha lived and worked in the city.

Patricia Anne "Tish" Murtha (14 March 1956 – 13 March 2013) was a British social documentary photographer best known for documenting marginalized communities, social realism and working-class life in Newcastle upon Tyne and the North East of England. In 1976, aged 20, she left home to study at the School of Documentary Photography at The University of Wales, Newport, set up by Magnum Photos member David Hurn. After graduating in 1978, she returned to Newcastle and set out to document “marginalized communities from the inside”. Unlike other photographers who came to document social poverty in the region at the time, Murtha did not just document it, she actually lived it as the third of ten children of Irish descent, brought up in a council house in Elswick in Newcastle. She captured the lives of her friends, family and the community around her while she was on a job scheme for the unemployed.

Paul Sng’s powerful film celebrates the work of Murtha and her commitment to fighting for communities like the one she grew up in. This was the Thatcher era de-industrialization of local communities. Her striking black and white photos convey a tenderness and intimacy that set her apart from her peers and her work would become a powerful record of a world decimated by a new and ruthless form of capitalism.

The film brings back memories of the excellent film about two boys living similar lives to the youth of this community. Clio Barnard’s THE SELFISH GIANT, a contemporary fable about 13-year-old Arbor and his best friend Swifty, both excluded from school and outsiders in their own neighbourhood, making deals with a local scrap dealer, where they embark on a dangerous job collecting copper from wires and cables left behind by the electrical companies.

The film follows Tish’s daughter Ella as she revisits key moments from her mother’s life and work. She is accompanied by people who remained close to Tish throughout her life, and who are committed to ensuring her remarkable legacy is recognized.

The doc’s most riveting segment involves the interview with Tish’s brother He talks about her while the actress voicing Tish, talks about the lost generation of youth under Thatcher’s rule as Tish’s photographs are shown depicting the deplorable conditions of the Newcastle area. Her words that were heard in Parliament were being and effective, as her photographs speak and reveal the horrors of the times. Youth would graduate from school but there were no jobs and no hope for them. Another moving segment involves the formation of juvenile bands run by sadistic ex-WWII army personnel who would mistreat the kids, while the project would get funds from the government with help from the taxpayer,

“The photography world and those who operate it make you sick at times.” These are the words of Tish when dealing with authorities oblivious to the poor.

TISH is an excellent blended doc that ties together the photographer's work with the conditions of her childhood horrors, which earned the BFE nomination for the Best Edited British Documentary or Non-Fiction Programme.

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YOU CAN’T RUN FOREVER (USA 2022) ***
Directed by Michelle Schumacher

One has to hand it to director Michelle Schumacher to absolutely grab the audience’s attention at the start of her film about a sociopath killer. The killer (J.K. Simmons) rides to fill his bike at a gas station where he witnesses a small barking dog. The owner asks his dog to shut up, mistreating it, while an onlooker asks the owner to shut his dog up. The killer pulls out a pistol and does away with the dog owner. Is the killer doing a good deed or is he purely psycho? Whatever the reason, the audience is fixed.

If one wonders the reason J.K. Simmons plays this silly role as a killer, it is because Simmons is the husband of the director so he is obviously lending her his support.

J.K. Simons gets top billing for his role as the sociopath killer in the film. Simmons won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in WHIPLASH and is good in almost every role he is in. As the villain killer in this film, it seems a waste of his talent. But he does a good job at being a total psycho who is established at the start of the film after he shoots the owner of a dog that keeps barking and the man who complains about the noise. “Why are you doing this?” asked the onlooker just before he too was shot. “Does it matter?” comes the answer. Simmons plays a professor at some school teaching the laws of survival, which will be put into practice in the film. His real name is Wade and he goes on a killing spree for no rhyme or reason. The problem of the film is the credibility of the story. But this is, after all, a slasher horror movie so: “Does it matter?”

The main thread of the story involves a teenage girl, Miranda (Isabelle Anaya) suffering from anxiety due to a tragic event from her past (the death of her father), finds herself hunted through the woods by a sociopath on a murderous rampage after he shoots her stepfather.

The film’s main flaw is the silly plot involving the psycho killer who dispenses his victims without reason or remorse. Simmons does his bet forces role but it still lacks credibility.

A few loopholes in the plot involve the killer. If he does away with victims with such ease, how come there has been no report of any killings before the gas station shooting? The story gets a bit confusing too as cell phones keep changing hands and tracking of the cells is done by both the cops and others.

There are, to the scriptwriter credit (script is co-written by the director and Carolyn Carpenter and both being female, gives the film a strong female slant. The males are either done away with (the stepfather), the psycho killer, or inept police officers who by the book in their investigations. Another female, Miranda’s half-sister, Jenny (Fernanda Urrejola) takes control to help Miranda in the woods after realizing the officers are not capable of doing enough.

The spine-tingling thriller, YOU CAN’T RUN FOREVER despite its flaws should keep audiences at the edge of their seats. The film will be released in Theatres, On Digital and On Demand NEXT WEEK on Friday, May 17 (Lionsgate) in the US and Canada. (Lionsgate has two horror slasher films out this week - THE STRANGERS CHAPTER ONE and this one.)

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Details: Written by: Gilbert Seah; Parent Category: Articles; Category: Movie Reviews; Published: 03 May 2024

FILM REVIEWS:

EVIL DOES NOT EXIST (Japan 2023) ***½

Directed by Hamaguchi Ryusuke

Single father Takumi and his daughter Hana live in Mizubiki Village, close to Tokyo. Like generations before them, they live a modest life according to the cycles and order of nature. One day, the village inhabitants become aware of a plan to build a ‘glamping’ site near Takumi’s house; offering city residents a comfortable ‘escape’ to nature. Blaming is glamorous camping, When two company representatives from Tokyo arrive in the village to hold a meeting, it becomes clear that the project will have a negative impact on the local water supply, causing unrest. The agency’s mismatched intentions endanger both the ecological balance of the nature plateau and their way of life, with an aftermath that affects Takumi’s life deeply.

The origin of the film EVIL DOES NOT EXIST is a strange and rather remarkable one. Composer Ishibashi Eiko had asked film director Hamaguchi Ryusuke, both of whom had worked together in the 2021 film DRIVE MY CAR to create a film that would accompany her live performances of a new music piece called ‘Gift’. The result is the film EVIL DOES NOT EXIST which places the musical score forefront to many of the film’s important segments. Observable from the very first scene when the score shifts from one mood to another, so does he film’s atmosphere. The first segment is an idyllic setting where the camera shows the sky through the tops of the trees in the woods (similar to what Akira Kurosawa did for his films like YOJIMBO) before setting in for a more settling tone where the audience sees a single father Takumi (Omika Hitoshi) chopping wood, working as an odd-job man for a village that needs fresh stream water in order to survive. The first segment is a slow burn before humans are introduced into the story, but the scene also of Takumi collecting fresh water has an important impact in the story.

The story involves a deeper building of a camping facility which poses a threat to the villagers. The developer has be two employees down to have a Q&A with the villagers for settling public outrage. But the two get more than they bargained for as the villagers bring out strong points like the threat of the location of the glam camp’s epic tank and the threat of wildfires, not to mention the destruction of the deer trail. The meeting is tense and recalls one of the key scenes in Fred Zinnemann’s classic town hall meeting in HIGH NOON where the townsfolk gather to decide whether to stay or abandon the town when their sheriff meets the men he has sent to jail arrive to take revenge.

As the title EVIL DOES NOT EXIST, there is no inherent evil in any of the deeds of the story's characters though the results might be questionable. The story contains a mystery element with lots of solitude enabling Eiko’s music to make a greater impact.

The film’s ending is abrupt and left mysteriously open ended leaving one wondering what caused the action that was taken.

EVIL DOES NOT EXIST opens at the TIFF Lightbox on Friday, May 10th.

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THE FINAL: ATTACK ON WEMBLEY (UK 2024) ***½

Directed by Rob Miller and Kwabena Oppong

In 2021, a dramatic England penalty defeat to Italy and chaos as thousands of un-ticketed fans attempted to storm Wembley Stadium. The doc tells the story of the events that occurred. The doc stars Darren Lewis and Emma Saunders (both are broadcasters of the day) Liam Boylan who is the director of Wembley Stadium.

England won the World Cup way back when in the year 1966. The year is now 2021, right after the Pandemic. People were depressed from staying locked down and needed to go out and have an outlet. The World Cup finals held in Wembley Stadium, London would provide the outlet. The rest is history. The 1966 FIFA World Cup was the eighth FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial football tournament for men's senior national teams. It was played in England from 11 to 30 July 1966. England defeated West Germany 4–2 in the final to win their first-ever World Cup title.

And so says an England fan. “You don’t need running shoes to run. But it helps.” “You don’t need beer to have a good time. But it helps.” In England and much of Europe, unlike North America, one can carry a beer and drink in public as in a bus or in the tube. The big match was on at 8 pm but all the fans were drinking and making merry already. The doc spends a bit of screen time, and likely deservingly so, on the absolute bonkers spirit of the fans. Another movie that captured the spirit of football fans was Ladj Ly’s LES MISERABLES”, the film set on the day of the World Cup played in Paris when France won the World Cup.

On July 11, 2021, Wembley Stadium was on the brink of a historic win for Gareth Southgate's England team. The squad had inspired the country on their journey to England's first major final since 1966, and the European Championship was within their reach. But as England supporters arrived at Wembley from all corners of the country, celebration quickly turned to chaos. Mayhem took over with scenes of drunkenness and drug-taking, and ticketless fans saw an opportunity to storm the stadium. With compelling security footage and first-hand testimony from both fans and those in the industry (like the event manager at the stadium and the reporters) and visceral user-generated content, this is the dramatic story of a day that began with euphoria and ended in a nation left reeling from shame. The term hooligan has been rightly reserved for football fans gone amok.

The doc also gets close and personal with innocent people caught in the mobs. One is an Italian father taking his daughter for the first time to a game. As the match was between Italy and England, the two were bombarded with insults with bottles thrown at them. Another man brought his 70-year-old father-in-law who though fit enough to walk, is shocked by the rowdy crowd.

The doc includes highlights of the game including the penalty overtime. Most important, the doc takes a look at racism after England lost with fans blaming the blacks for the loss.

THE FINAL: ATTACK ON WEMBLEY opens for streaming on Netflix this week. Wish you were here at Wembley Stadium. Likely not!

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FOR SALE (USA 2023) ***
Directed by Christoper Schrack

Horror comedies are not particularly popular as a film genre Disney’s recently HAUNTED MASION flopped terribly at the box office as did other horror comedies like HAUNTED HONEYMOON and THE SPIRIT IS WILLING, The latest entry opening this week on digital platforms is FOR SALE about a hunt house being on the real estate market. One thing good is that this is a low-budget indie production so that it does not have high aims at recouping huge production costs.

Mason McGinness (Andrew Roth) has always been good at two things: selling himself and finding ways to cheat people into buying when they shouldn’t. One day, his brazen swindling catches up with him and he finds himself fired from his job and kicked to the curb by his ex-girlfriend, Alison. Mason finds a small realty company that needs someone to sell a piece of property that is considered “unsellable.”

“What do you fear most? asks his interviewer to Mason. “Failure. Fear of failure.” comes the answer. The realty company manager smiles under his breath with a few cautionary words.

“Sometimes I cannot believe my own luck!” exclaims Mason at one point, Is this bad or good luck that is being mentioned? The catch of selling the property? It is the infamous Scarlett Clay house -- a haunted house where anyone who inhabits it ends up dead. Now, with the help of a quirky psychic named Claire, Mason must find his humanity to get his life back... or die trying.

The ghosts start appearing only after the first half of the film has passed. The first half of the film deals with Mason’s sorry life. The film proves to be both scary and funny with a few jump scares provided as well. For a very small indie film, FOR SALE achieves its humble goals.

Mason is the sweet-talking swindler salesman that everyone hates - even in films as they can be so annoying. Fortunately, actor Andrew Roth who plays Mason achieves the difficult task of making his character sympathetic so that though one might disagree with his tactics, one feels sorry for him, and hopes he makes it in the end. But so far things are not looking too good for him. He has to sleep in his car, So when he comes across the house to sell, Mason is none too pleased as he can sleep in the bedroom of the house, that is if he can be brave enough to live in a haunted house.

FOR SALE is a handmade film in the truest sense – a crew of three, a cast of ten, and produced by director Christopher Schrack and lead actor Roth. Despite its humble budget, the film went on to receive multiple awards on the festival circuit, including BEST FILM (Magic of Horror 2023), BEST COMEDY FEATURE (International Comedy Film Festival 2024), BEST ACTOR and BEST DROP DEAD FUNNY (Haunted House FearFest 2023), as well as receiving numerous other nominations.

Gravitas Ventures will release the film on digital platforms on May 7, 2024

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H2: THE OCCUPATION LAB (Israel/Canada 2022) ***½

Directed by Idit Avrahami & Noam Sheizaf

Hebron is the only Palestinian city with a Jewish settlement. There is conflict in the past and the conflict grows.

The Palestinians in H2: Hebron live like prisoners under Israeli lockdown. Across the neighbourhoods of the H2 area of Hebron – the 20 percent of the Palestinian city where some 700 Israelis live in illegal settlements and the Israeli military has full control – the streets are mostly empty of H2’s approximately 35,000 Palestinian residents. Patrolling the streets and manning the rooftops, instead, are Israeli soldiers and armed settlers in military uniform on the lookout for any movement from Palestinian homes. Besieged, Palestinian families describe conditions in which they are attacked, deprived of vital supplies and services, and have had their livelihoods cut off.

This is occupied Hebron. History has shown that there can never be peaceful living in an occupied territory. France, occupied by the Nazis, Singapore occupied by the Japanese during WWII and Vietnam occupied by the Americans, the most unsuccessful of all occupied in history and mentioned in the doc all enforce the point,

This doc is more timely after the Hamas attack on the West Bank. Peace has never been easy between the Palestinians and Israel and continues to be the case. The doc serves as both an account of the history of Hebron and a lesson in current affairs.

Along a one-kilometer road in the heart of the Palestinian city of Hebron lies H2 — a neighbourhood with a Jewish settlement closely guarded and highly surveilled by the Israeli military. At the end of this stretch of road lies the Cave of the Patriarchs, a holy place for both Jewish and Muslim faiths. This is where both the Hebron Massacre of 1929 took place— effectively birthing the Jewish settlement movement — and where the policy of ethnic separation was first implemented by the Israeli military. Rich with a history of Jews and Muslims and the only city in the State of Palestine with a Jewish settlement, H2: THE OCCUPATION LAB has acted as both a microcosm for the entire conflict and as a laboratory for the methods of control implemented by the Israeli occupation of the West Bank for over 50 years.

The film is shot in Arabic Hebrew and English with English subtitles and comprises many residents of both sides talking about their experiences living in a difficult and dangerous place. One complaints of the modern and numerous checkpoints within a small radius of the city and this is not for borders but for travel from home to a grocery store or to schooler to work. One wonders the reason the people will just not move out of Hebron,

H2: THE OCCUPATION LAB, nominated for Best Israeli Film at the 2022 DocAviv Film Festival, is a clear-eyed case study using archival footage and interviews to tell the city's history and how it has fuelled the entire Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

H2: THE OCCUPATION LAB is an immensely watchable and informative documentary, taken right out of current headlines that proves once again the impossibilities of different cultures living in harmony together.

The doc premieres via VOD and Digital Platforms on May 10, 2024.

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KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (USA 2024) ***
Directed by Wes Ball

The original PLANET OF THE APES ended up with to many sequels that made the entire series quite silly. The second one had the apes attacked by some ugly creatures that ended up with the entire Earth being destroyed in BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES and the third has astronaut apes escaping the end of the Earth in ESCAPE FROM THE PLANET OF THE APES. The franchise got too absurd and uninteresting after that. The reboot fared much better and KINGDOM comes as a nice surprise. KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES runs a hefty 2 hours and 25 minutes, but director Wes Ball keeps the audience intrigued from start to finish. The production sets are nothing short of magnificent, the jungle, the sea and beaches and interiors. Story aside, director Ball manages to achieve the feat of having a solid film despite a flimsy storyline.

300 years after the events of War for the Planet of the Apes, ape civilizations have emerged from the oasis to which Caesar led his fellow apes, while humans have regressed into a feral, primitive state. When the ape king Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand), armed with weapons forged from lost human technologies, perverts Caesar's teachings to enslave other clans, the chimpanzee hunter Noa (Owen Teague) embarks on a harrowing journey alongside a human woman named Mae (Freya Allen) to determine the future for apes and humans alike. Noa is a young chimpanzee hunter living nearly 300 years after Caesar's time and likely his descendant, while Mae is a feral young woman who joins Noa on his journey while having an agenda of her own

Canadian actor Kevin Durand makes a solid impact in his performance as the villain of the piece, Caesar. Too bad that one is unable to see the face of Durand under all the ape makeup. Durand is one of the best Canadian actors working today, his performance also stealing the show in the recent ABIGAIL.

There are many loose ends in the script. One is the existence of the human character played by William H. Macy. Where did he come from and why is he the sole survivor and what makes him so pro-ape that he would turn away his heritage just to live without notice in the Kingdom, His character finally gets its comeuppance.

One of the best surprise ending in motion picture ending is the climax of Franklin J. Schaffner’s PLANET OF THE APES, where Charlton Heston rides off on the beach only to see a buried Statue of Liberty revealing that the Planet of the Apes is in fact Earth. KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES attempts a shock ending as well, the ending of which of course, will not be revealed in this review as it would be an unforgivable spoiler. The shock and surprise is there nevertheless, but the ending does not really make much sense when related to the whole story. There are too many loose ends that come with the surpass twist.

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LAZARETH (USA 2024) ***
Directed by Alec Tibaldi

The Covid-10 Pandemic rocked the world from March 2020. As of 21 April 2024, the pandemic has caused 7,044,637 confirmed deaths, making it the fifth-deadliest pandemic or epidemic in history. LAZARETH poses the question of what would happen if a similar more dangerous disease outbreak occurred that cannot be contained.

LAZARETH is the name of the man raised from the dead by Jesus in the Bible. In the film, LAZARETH is the place that serves as the rebirth of a family made up of an aunt and her two nieces after the almost complete death of a contaminated world.

As the film’s premise of a crippling Pandemic disease similar to the recent Covid-19 pandemic, the story comes too close to home for comfort. Writer and director Alec Tibaldi is aware of this fact and uses it to milk the most from his script.

The film opens like a fairy tale where a young girl is told a story. It turns out that the tale is the story of what will happen in the rest of the film, with the fairy tale turning into a sort of dystopian nightmare.

Following the death of their parents, Lee (Ashley Judd) adopts her nieces, Imogen (Katie Douglas) and Maeve (Sarah Pidgeon), and raises them in a remote cabin as a deadly pandemic rages on around them. For over 10 years, the girls are raised to never leave the woods, avoid any and all interaction with outsiders, and ultimately rely on Lee as their only connection to the outside world. Lee has convinced the girls this is the key to survival in what is now an infectious and violent world. But when Imogen and Maeve discover an injured man in the nearby woods, Lee’s absolute control begins to disintegrate as their faith in her, and everything they’ve ever known begins to unravel.

`The film has a female slant with three females as the main characters living in Nazareth. The first intruder is a male who is under instruction by the females. When the group of intruders finds Lazareth, there is an abused female, by the male of the group.

Director Tibaldi ups the ante in the film’s last half. Intruders have compromised Lazareth and they will return. Lee tells the two girls: “We have been preparing for this.” Lee hides her truck so that the intruders will believe that they have left. “No one will do anything until Imogen’s signal,” instructs Lee. The audience is primed with anticipation as the film shifts gear into suspense mode.

LAZARETH is intriguing for the fact that its story could happen to the world if the Pandemic went out of hand into a full-blown scale, which most people will remember as a time that shook the world.

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LAZARETH opens in Select Theatres and On Demand on May the 10th.

LET IT BE (UK 1970) ****
Directed by Michale Lindsay-Hogg

The definitive Beatles movie and a must for all Beatle fans!

Let It Be is the twelfth and final studio album by the English rock band the Beatles. It was released on 8 May 1970, almost a month after the group's public break-up, in tandem with the documentary of the same name.

Let It Be is a 1970 British documentary film starring the Beatles and directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg. The film documents the group's rehearsing and recording songs in January 1969 for what was to become their twelfth and final studio album Let It Be. The film includes an unannounced rooftop concert by the group, the last public performance of the four together.

The film was originally planned as a television documentary that would accompany a concert broadcast. When plans for the concert broadcast were dropped, the project became a feature film production. Although the film does not dwell on the dissension within the group at the time, it provides some glimpses into the dynamics that would lead to their breakup. After the film's release, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr won an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score. Footage filmed for Let It Be was later used in Peter Jackson's 2021 documentary The Beatles: Get Back.

A restored version of the film will be made available on stream on Disney+ for the first time on 8 May 2024. This review is of the restored version. The version begins with a 5-minute footage of two world-class directors Lindsay-Hogg and Peter Jackson who made the Beatles documentary called GET BACK with used footage from Lindsay-Hogg’s LET IT BE. They put perspective into the do, the original 1970 LET IT BE, which we are told was supposed to be a Beatles concert movie.

The film observes the Beatles (John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr) from a "fly on the wall" perspective, without narration, scene titles, or interviews with the main subjects. The first portion of the film shows the band rehearsing on a sound stage at Twickenham Film Studios. The songs are works in progress, with discussions among the band members about ways to improve them. McCartney dominates the proceedings while his bandmates show comparatively little interest. Also appearing are Mal Evans, providing the hammer blows on "Maxwell's Silver Hammer", and Yoko Ono at Lennon's side at all times.

The album’s most famous songs LET IT BE, GET BACK, THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD and DON'T LET ME DOWN are all performed and heard on the film’s soundtrack.

There was trouble in Paradise during the making of the movie especially with what to include in the final cut, John Lennon described Let It Be as a film "set up by Paul for Paul" that was typical of the projects that, in alienating himself and Harrison, had brought about the Beatles' break-up.

Still, the film is a nostalgic look down memory lane especially with George Harrison and John Lennon no longer with us, the re-issue of LET IT BE is totally magic, myself having seen the film when it was first released and now once gain with opening commentary by directors Peter Jackson and Michael Lindsay-Hogg.

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LIVING WITH LEOPARDS (UK 2024) ***½

Directed by Brad Bestelink and Alex Parkinson

At the film’s start, the voiceover touts the leopard as the most supreme predator, followed by the reasons for its ability to dive, hunt, and climb. The voice is then revealed to belong to a man who has lived with leopards for years (the leopard man?) who claims that each has a unique personality. The introduction to LIVING WITH LEOPARDS promises to be an intriguing and revealing documentary about the leopard.

Tigers, lions and other predators have been fond of fodder for nature documentaries. One of the best and my personal favourite is Disney’s THE JUNGLE CAT (1960) directed by James Algar, a film I grew up with and have seen 7 times, every time it opens at a cinema close to me when my parents would keep bring me to watch the film about jaguars, the supreme ruler of the Amazon.

LIVING WITH LEOPARDS is a nature documentary that follows two leopard cubs as they make the journey from infancy into adulthood. One is male and the other female is given the names ‘the shy one’ and ‘power’ (Dakunga) for the male pone. From the first three months in the den, till they begin to venture out, the adventure is tremendously exciting.

The camera follows the mother catching an elk for her cubs to the time she teaches her cubs to hunt. According to the doc, fewer than half the leopard cubs make it to maturity.

The doc is not without suspense and action. The main threat to the leopard cub is another male leopard. One would kill the cubs with the hope of mating with the mother. A tense scene show the father of the cubs fighting off a male intruder. Unfortunately, they fight in an enclosed unseen area that cannot be seen.

In many nature documentaries, there are predator and prey killings, bloody and violent that will not be suitable for kids. But this doc shows that this is life and what nature is. The mother leopard has to make her kill or she and her cubs will starve.

LIVING WITH LEOPARDS is an exciting and educational doc that also shows the care and difficulty of filming a true nature documentary. It pays off with this remarkable doc that opens for streaming on Netflix on May 10th.

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WE GROWN NOW (USA 2023) ****
Directed by Minhal Baig

The title of the film WE GROWN NOW implies a coming-of-age-themed film. Truly WE GROWN NOW is. My two personal best coming-of-age films are Ken Loach’s KES (1969) about a boy’s unflinching spirit set in Northern England and Francois Truffaut’s 1959 LES QUARTRE CENTS COUPS (100 BLOWS) about a boy turning to crime in a small French seaside town. The setting more often than not, is as important a factor in the coming-of-age process. The setting of Cabrini-Green in WE GROWN NOW is as interesting as the film’s subject and director Baig gives importance to both subject and setting in his moving story.

WE GROWN NOW is set in the fall of 1992. Cabrini-Green has seen better days. Cabrini-Green was a public housing development in Chicago, Illinois, once a model of successful public housing, but poor planning, physical deterioration, and managerial neglect, coupled with gang violence, drugs, and chronic unemployment turned it into a national symbol of urban blight and failed housing policy. The audience is informed at the start of the film that Cabrini-Green was the Frances Cabrini Homes, at its most successful, completed by the CHA in 1942 to house an influx of war-industry workers as well as veterans returning to Chicago during World War II.

Set in Chicago’s Cabrini-Green housing project, Minhal Baig’s WE GROWN NOW is a coming-of-age story about two elementary school boys whose friendship takes a turn after a tragic incident. For residents like Malik (Blake Cameron James) and Eric (Gian Knight Ramirez), the community is still a community of family and friends. Malik lives with his hardworking mom (Jurnee Smollett), his sister, and his grandmother (S. Epatha Merkerson) who came years ago from Mississippi. Friends since birth, Malik and school chum Eric are inseparable, “flying” onto old mattresses, goofing off, or telling corny jokes. In the community, nothing is more important than ‘jumping’ (onto a mattress). The jumping is obviously a metaphor for life. Corny jokes include: “What do you call three trees?” “A trio.” But things change after a fatal shooting (based on the real-life death of seven-year-old Dantrell Davis, a tragedy that shook the community and made the projects a symbol of urban blight).

Conversations can lead everywhere. From a conversation starting point of staying at a friend’s and a leaky faucet, a family conversation leads to the building of an ark like boat if there is a flood.

The catalyst that pushes the story is the shooting and killing of an innocent little boy Dan, a tragedy that affects the entire community. One related scene involves Malik’s mother freaking out on him when he skips school with Eric with her having no idea where Malik is. The scene is both moving and revealing, showing how much a mother cares for a son.

Besides the family unit, outward events like the escalating crime of neighbouring Chicago affect everyone’s lives.

The film’s best segment is the one where Eric talks to his dad after the fight with Malik. Eric pours out his feelings, scared to make up with his long-life friend as he thinks Malick might be mad at him. His conversation reveals his genuine thoughts and emotions that though childlike, hold many adult truths. The father’s final advice is: “You know what to do now. You are no longer a baby. You are all grown now.”

The film won the Shawn Mendes Foundation Changemaker Award at TIFF 2023, and two awards (Chicago Award, Best U.S. Feature Audience Award) at Chicago 2023. WE GROWN NOW opens May 10 in Toronto (TIFF Lightbox) and Vancouver! The film also opens May 17 in Ottawa, June 8 in Saskatoon and throughout the spring/summer in other cities.

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Details: Written by: Gilbert Seah; Parent Category: Articles; Category: Movie Reviews; Published: 19 April 2024

FILM REVIEWS:

DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE (Fiesta en la madriguera)(Mexico 2024) ***
Directed by Manolo Caro

Down the Rabbit Hole is a metaphor for adventure into the unknown, from its use in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. It is also both the English title of and metaphor of the New Mexican Netflix original comedy that opens this week. Though described by Netflix as a comedy, it is too dark, disturbing and weird to be actually considered a comedy. The film DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE is based on the Spanish short novel called Fiesta en la Madriguera (which in direct English translation means Party in the Burrow) by Juan Pablo Villalobos. The short novel has been praised for being masterful, comical and cruelly happy. The same can be said of the film.

The film opens with the introduction of Tochtli, a bald boy who likes hats, dictionaries, samurais, guillotines, and the French. The hat fetish is observed at the start, where on the boy’s birthday, he has to choose one of the many hats he has hung on the walls of his room. And now, all he wants is a new animal for his private zoo: a Namibian pygmy hippo. But he gets a woodpecker, one of the endangered species from Brazil. His father, Yolcaut, is willing to satisfy his every whim, even if that whim is an endangered exotic animal. Because Yolcaut will always manage. ‘Because Yolcaut can’ is the saying that both the father and son constantly repeat. Tochtli lives in a palace. A burrow covered in gold in which he lives with thirteen or maybe fourteen people: thugs, prostitutes, dealers, servants and some corrupt politician. And then there is Mazatzin, his private teacher who teaches the boy Literature that he claims is terribly important as it allows one to learn about oneself, for whom the world is a place full of injustices where the imperialists are to blame for everything. The reason is that Yolcaut is a high-end drug trafficker who kills those who go against him. He tries to keep this from his son but Tochtli is one smart cookie. He is an avid learner, picking up difficult new words from his teacher. He soon discovers the truth about his father,

The film is the chronicle of a delirious journey to fulfill a whim. Severed heads, rivers of blood, human remains, mountains of corpses! The burrow (rabbit hole) can be considered to be the metaphor for Mexico that the audience already knows: Mexico is sometimes a magnificent country and sometimes it is a disastrous country. Things are like that. Life, after all, is a game and a party.

The film is fresh in that it is told from the boy’s point of view about adult things like drug trafficking and killings. The title though innocent as it seems describes not a child’s but an adult movie with an adult theme.

Despite being in Spanish, the film comes with a few fresh looks at life. In the zoo, for example, the boy is taught to keep picking up the animals’ shit in order to remember to keep humble.

DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE (Fiesta en la madriguera) opens for streaming on Netflix this week.

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THE FALL GUY (USA 2024) ***
Directed by David Leitch

THE FALL GUY is the title of both the new 2024 Ryan Gosling action romantic comedy as well as the hit ABC TV series that ran from 1981 to 1986. Both the series and film share the common protagonist - stuntman Colt Seavers.

In the TV series, Lee Majors plays Colt Seavers, a Hollywood stuntman who moonlights as a bounty hunter. He uses his physical skills and knowledge of stunt effects (especially stunts involving cars or his large GMC pickup truck) to capture fugitives and criminals. He is accompanied occasionally by fellow stuntwoman Jody Banks (Heather Thomas). Both Lee Majors and Heather Thomas have cameos in THE FALL GUY film, so watch for them.

In THE FALL GUY film, Hollywood stunt performer Colt Seavers, who primarily works as the stunt double for famous action star Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), is severely injured during a stunt gone wrong. Blaming himself, Colt abandons his career and his girlfriend, camera operator Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt). Eighteen months later Colt, now a valet for a small Mexican restaurant, is contacted by Tom's film producer Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham). She says Moreno is directing her first film, a science fiction epic called Metalstorm, and wants him to join the production in Sydney, Australia. However, when Colt arrives on set, he learns that Jody never asked for him and is still angry about their breakup. This is an excuse for the romance to rekindle and for a happy-ever-after ending. Gail reveals that Tom has disappeared after getting involved with drugs, and she wants Colt to find him before his absence causes the film's cancellation. This is the excuse for the action in the romantic action flick. The story element in the film is quite hokey but action fans will likely overlook this shortcoming and focus instead on the action set pieces complete with elaborate stunt work and the romance between hotties Gosling and Blunt. In this respect the film delivers.

If there can be too much of a good thing, THE FALL GUY has too many stunts that go on relentlessly. One scene has Colt do a fire/rock stunt three times. The romantic comedy element in the film is given a new stunt work setting which is a welcome change. the recent CHALLENGERS was a romantic drama with a tennis setting. Romantic-themed films need fresh settings to entice audiences these days.

At its best, THE FALL GUY is a tribute to stunt people, the most overlooked contributors to action films. THE FALL GUY is directed by former stuntman David Leitch. Needless to say, the stunt work performed in the film is spectacular. Leitch was a stunt double for Brad Pitt five times and two times for Jean-Claude Van Damme. Leitch and his crew won two awards for The Bourne Ultimatum at the Screen Actors Guild Awards. n American filmmaker, stunt performer, stunt coordinator, and actor. Leitch made his directorial debut in the 2014 action film John Wick with Chad Stahelski, though only Stahelski was credited. Leitch also directed the 2017 thriller film Atomic Blonde, starring Charlize Theron, and 2018's Deadpool 2.

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JEANNE DU BARRY (France/Belgium/United Kingdom/Russia/Saudi Arabia 2023) ***½

Directed by Maïwenn

Co-written, directed by and starring Maïwenn with co-star Johnny Depp as Le Roi (King Louis XV the new French film JEANNE DU BARRY about the illegitimate affair between the King and a commoner is filmed entirely in French. In case one is wondering, Depp is fluent in French an spoke for hours during his interview with Maïwenn.

Based on true historical events in France, regarding Royalty and the royal court, JEANNE DU BARRY tells the story of the woman and her life with King Louis XV.

Jeanne Vaubernier (Maïwenn), a common girl eager to rise socially, uses her distinct charms to get out of her condition. Her lover, the Count du Barry (Melville Poupaud), who is getting rich thanks to Jeanne's lucrative gallantry, wishes to introduce her to the King (Johnny Depp). He organizes the meeting through the intermediary of the influential Duke of Richelieu (Pierre Richard). It is good to see Pierre Richard again, Richard who used to make so many comedies with director Francis Veber). This meeting exceeds his expectations: between Louis XV and Jeanne, it's love (or is out lust?) at first sight... With the courtesan, the King rediscovers his taste for life - so much so that he can no longer do without her and decides to make her his official favourite.

The one huge plus about the film that makes it entirely compelling are the film’s production values. The extravagance of King Louis XV and his court is matched by the extravagance in the film’s production values. Mention is made of the forty dishes the King partakes of, for a meal, all tased by the King’s Taster. The people at his court including his ugly daughters are all robed in magnificent garb with hairdos of multiple styles and colour, The film has been nominated for Cesars in the departments of production and costume design.

.The unfamiliar practices of French royalty are also of immense interest, In 1768, when the king wished to make Jeanne maîtresse-en-titre, etiquette required her to be the wife of a high courtier, so she was hastily married on 1 September 1768 to Comte Guillaume du Barry. The wedding ceremony was accompanied by a false birth certificate, created by Jean-Baptiste du Barry, the comte's older brother. The execution by guillotine during the French Revolution on accusations of treason is omitted in the film, which concentrates mainly on her romance with the King, Also intriguing is the behind-the-scenes of Versailles of the time the elegantly masked power struggles, finely weaving links between the 18th century and our time

Depp performs well, exceeding expectations and speaking fluent French as the King, apparently fully recovered from the brutal court case he was acquitted of. But this is Maïwenn’s film from start to finish, she plays the extravagant beauty that seduced the King. The credibility issue is in question here. Though Maïwenn is a pretty actress, undoubtedly, she is not an absolute ravishing beauty, so to believe that the King would single her out among a hundred other women in court and to invite her to his bed needs quite a lot of believing.

JEANNE DU BARRY opens only in theatres, where it should be seen on the large screen, beginning May 2, 2024.

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LOST SOULZ (USA 2023) ***

Directed by Katherine Propper

Though a work of fiction LOST SOULZ is a cinema verite piece centred on American rapper known as Sol. In order to appreciate this feature, it is best to learn a bit about Sol, like listening to one of his cool tracks on youtube before venturing out into viewing the film.

Sol is 35 years old and the feature is one about young people, youth and their love of freedom. Dol rose to fame as a hip-hop artist when in 2012, he released his second studio album Yours Truly, which received critical acclaim and rose to number one on the iTunes U.S. Hip-Hop Albums Chart while also charting on Billboard's Heatseekers Chart. Sol has collaborated with other artists such as Macklemore, Blue Scholars, Grynch, and The Physics.

When aspiring rapper Sol (Sauve Sidle) is discovered by a group of Gen-Z musicians after performing at a house party, he joins their tour through the heart of Texas and embarks on a once-in-a-lifetime road trip. Sol and his new collaborators bond over their shared pains and longings for the lives they left behind. Bold and brash, yet surprisingly sensitive and vulnerable, these young artists pour their souls into the music they create together.. The director studied filming in Texas which explains why her film is set on the culture of the youth of Texas.

The novelty of Sol’s newfound family fades as the demons Sol left behind come back to haunt him, including his guilt over abandoning his ailing friend. His sense of self is put to the ultimate test as he seeks refuge from the rootlessness and loss that has defined his existence. The film benefits most from the easy-to-watch ensemble’s winning chemistry to shine, especially when they perform songs, many original and often impromptu at various points in the film.

Though keeping in with the spirit of the free-spirited, one must criticize caution regarding glamourizing Sol’s character in the film. His character is not one that always sets a good example for youth to follow. For one, he abandons his best friend he is living with at a party when the friend overdoses and has to be taken to hospital. He leaves the family he is living in to travel with a group of new friends, all of questionable character for freedom and fame.

.Written and directed by Katherine Propper, born and breeding L.A., she claims that she draws upon experiences including working on director Terrence Malick's (BADLANDS) editing team. Her short films can currently be streamed on The New Yorker, Short of the Week, and Omeleto. In LOST SOULZ, her feature debut she has both fictional and non-fictional worlds in her filmmaking, This can be observed by the blending of the camerawork with videos taken from a cell phone though the latter tends to be a bit much. After all, one pays to see a movie, not a podcast and the tactic wears thin after a while.

The ultimate question is whether one might be converted to Sol’s music after listening to his songs. There is definitely a strong possibility.

LOST SOULZ premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival 2023 and opens in the U.S. and in Toronto at the TIFF Lightbox on May 3rd.

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NEW LIFE (USA 2023) ***
Directed by John Rosman

Director John Rosman's feature directorial debut, NEW LIFE is a two-character-driven story that upends traditional horror conventions through its intimate exploration of mortality. The film follows the story of a mysterious woman on the run (Hayley Erin) and the resourceful fixer assigned to bring her in (Sonya Walger). As their two stories inexorably link, the stakes of their pursuit rise to apocalyptic proportions.

The predator and prey both suffer similar demises that one can feel sympathy for. For this reason, the audience is kept guessing as to who will triumph in the end with director Rosman keeping the suspense ongoing.

The reluctant predator is sympathetic as she herself is suffering from an illness - ALS. (ALS) is a disease that weakens the muscles used to move, swallow and breathe. It can, in some cases, also cause changes in behaviour and thinking. The effects of ALS grow more severe over time and eventually become fatal. Elsa knows her timing is approaching and she is presently walking with the aid of a cane, and even so, is prone to falling down when the disease attacks. The symptoms and progression of ALS may vary greatly from person to person, which can make the disease difficult to diagnose, manage and treat. The recent horror film THERE IS A MONSTER tackles the topic of ALS, as a monster that attacks the protagonist - the monster of the title that is only revealed as ALS in the final frame. The prey, Hayley, however, is suffering from a new and unfamiliar but deadly contagious disease.

ALS is a disease that has no cure and life expectancy is around 5 years. The film is based on a real-life case that director Rosman dedicates the film to, recalling a story he worked on about a young woman diagnosed with ALS (Summer Whisman).

What is most disturbing about the film is the treatment of good-natured kind people. When Jessica steals canned food from the garage of an elderly couple, the couple (Blaine Palmer and Betty Moyer) take her in with kindness. But they succumb to the disease and eventually die a horrible death. The same goes for an isolated bartender, Molly (Ayanna Berkshire) who out of her kindness offers Hayley a job and lodging only to also succumb to the disease. Hayley is totally unaware of the fact and is running away believing that she has committed a murder.

A small but efficient thriller that forces the audience to think, NEW LIFE, blends several genres such as horror, cat-and-mouse thriller, dystopian futuristic and action. It has been getting rave reviews. NEW LIFE kicked off its festival run with its world premiere at the 2023 Fantasia International Film Festival and quickly became a festival favour rite, earning critical acclaim and continuing with buzzed-about screenings and stops at FrightFest London, Overlook Film Festival, Panic Fest, Florida Film Festival, Santa Fe Independent Film Festival, and the Heartland International Film Festival, where it took the 2023 Audience Choice Award.

NEW LIFE opens in Select Theatres & On Demand May 3 From Brainstorm Media.

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SECRETS OF THE NEANDERTHALS (UK 2024) ***

Directed by Ashley Gething

With exclusive access to the famous Shanidar Cave in Iraqi Kurdistan, SECRETS OF THE NEANDERTHALS follows a group of archaeologists from the University of Cambridge and Liverpool John Moores University, led by Professor Graeme Barker, as they team up with their Kurdish colleagues to excavate this iconic site for the first time since 1960. Over a number of seasons, they make a startling discovery - a new body, ‘Shanidar Z.’ This is the first articulated Neanderthal skeleton to be found in the region for almost a quarter of a century. The film follows lead palaeoanthropologist Dr. Emma Pomeroy as she painstakingly excavates these precious remains and sets about reassembling them with the team in Cambridge.

The doc includes the esteemed contribution of American archaeologist Ralph Solecki. Ralph Stefan Solecki (October 15, 1917 – March 20, 2019), as can be seen in the doc’s archive footage. Solecki was born in Brooklyn, New York in October the son of Polish immigrants – Mary (nee Tarnowska), a homemaker, and Casimir, an insurance salesman. The doc traces his best-known excavations were at the Neanderthal site at Shanidar Cave, in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. His publications include early works on aerial photography and photo interpretation as well as two volumes on Shanidar

What are the Neanderthals like? The focus of the doc is often on the Shanidar Cave excavation in Iraqi Kurdistan which is understandably captivating. Archaeologists unearth new evidence that sheds light on Neanderthal behaviour and rituals. The documentary also explores intriguing sites in France and Croatia, adding depth to the Neanderthal story. They are assumed to be ugly people of lower intelligence and slow in thinking. At one point, the doc convinces the audience that they resorted to cannibalism, but not out of starvation. It is believed that they ate the flesh of another that they might have respected so that a legacy could be continued. Of course, these are just theories. These thoughts make the doc intriguing in how archaeologists and historians come to their conclusions on their findings. But there are two sides to the coin, Archaeologist Ralph Solecki found pollen in the skulls dug up which led him to believe that they are also cultured gathering flowers in caves where flowers could grow during the ice age.

This flower burial theory has also come under fire. The process is shown which reveals how many theories can easily be formed and mistaken.

What looks a bit tacky, though one can understand the use of the use of actors to re-enact the Neanderthals to enliven the proceedings. Gabriel Andreu plays an older male Neanderthal while Ibbi El Hani plays a younger female Neanderthal.

Archaeology and excavation is very tedious and painstaking and the doc emphasizes the fact. At times, the doc feels that way as well, despite the fact that it is all too important to learn about human history, and how they developed.

The subject of the secrets of Neanderthals is not one that audiences can get super-excited about, not for a doc or for any film for that matter. But the filmmakers do their best, stressing the untiring dedication of the archaeologists and restorers as well as emphasizing the importance of knowing one’s past.

The film is largely narrated by Sir Patrick Stewart of STAR TREK, whose low authoritative voice brings credibility to the proceedings. SECRETS OF THE NEANDERTHALS opens for streaming on Netflix this week.

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UNFROSTED (USA 2024) ***
Directed by Jerry Seinfeld

I first heard of Jerry Seinfeld’s new movie UNFROSTED when I attended the funnyman’s stand performance in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island last summer, when he touted his new film. UNFROSTED is a 2024 American comedy film directed by Jerry Seinfeld (in his feature directorial debut) from a screenplay he co-wrote with his writing team of Spike Feresten, Barry Marder, and Andy Robin. The film is loosely based on the true story of the creation of Pop-Tarts toaster pastries, written by William Post, one of the Kellogg employees,

Of course, news has leaked involving the making of the movie. One incident had a crew member freak out, screaming at the top of is voice causing everyone to freeze. Seinfeld diffused the incident by saying: “This is a pop tart movie. This is not important. Nothing is important!” followed by laughs from everyone,

The film appears to be designed to be silly - from the song “Wooly Bully” to the cereal ‘Grandma’s Holes’ that did not make it commercially. A few of Seinfeld’s jokes are blue, so families going to the film should be aware.

Being set in the ’60s the comedy qualifies as a period piece and director Seinfeld keeps the period atmosphere real enough.

Being a standup comic, Seinfeld has included an impressive list of comic and standup cameos including Cedric the Entertainer as Sty Smiley, Toy Hale as Eddie Min, Joe Hamm as yes, Man #2, Bill Burr as President John F. Kennedy and Dan Levy as Andy Warhol. Of the cast, Amy Schemer is excellent as the Head of Post as is Hugh Grant as the complaining Thurl Ravenscroft, an English actor cast as Tony the Tiger. Thurl Ravenscroft was a real-life character.

UNFROSTED has got panning reviews on the day it made its debut on Netflix. To be fair to Seinfeld, the film is funny, thanks to its comedic timing, only that the subject matter might annoy critics. One wonders, though the reason the pop-tart was made so popular. Was it that tasty? Myself, I liked old fashioned corn flakes which Post stole to make Bran flakes. But muesli, the healthy choice (without the sugar) should be everyone’s healthy choice. But as Seinfeld had said during the film production: “This is not important! The is a pop tart movie. Nothing is important.”

Hilarious enough despite its silly subject, FROSTED is an easy watch on Netflix.

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Details: Written by: Gilbert Seah; Parent Category: Articles; Category: Movie Reviews; Published: 07 April 2024

FILM REVIEWS:

CIVIL WAR (USA 2024) ***½

Directed by Alex Garland

CIVIL WAR is set in a dystopian near future when an ongoing war is being fought between the government of the United States and the Western Forces (WF), led by Texas and California. Does the division sound familiar? The story concentrates on a team of journalists who travel across the United States during the rapidly escalating Second American Civil War that has engulfed the entire nation. The U.S. Government has become a dystopian dictatorship and partisan extremist militias regularly commit war crimes.

Among the journalists are a renowned war photojournalist named Lee (Kirsten Dunst), her colleague Joel (Wagner Moura) and Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), an aspiring young photographer who accompanies Lee and Joel on their journey. Also reluctantly travelling with them is Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), a journalist and Lee and Joel's mentor.

The film’s best segment belongs to actor Jesse Plemmons (POWER OF THE DOG, KILLERS OF A FLOWER MOON) who plays a redneck in one 4-minute scene that is well worth the price of the admission ticket Donned in red-framed red-coloured shades depicting his characters as a redneck, his character is an unnamed soldier who captures two reporters and then asked to free them by the other reporters. His question: “Where are you from?” would result in an answer promising death or freedom. Plemmons completely embodies the role of a redneck - crazy, the type that would storm Capitol Hill in the name of America for whatever ridiculous cause he believes in.

Director Garland does not skimp on the violence or length of the violent scenes. The result is a tough and disturbing watch that reflects the troubles faced by the current somewhat divided America, as seen by the eyes of a British (Garland is British) outsider, and what could happen. The poster describes the film as an adrenaline-fuelled thrill ride through a near-future fractured America balanced on the razor’s edge.

The other segment demanding mention is the climatic storming of the White House where the then President of the United States is about to be assassinated by the Western Forces (WF). What would the President (played by Nick Offerman) look like? More like Trump or Biden? The answer is left to be very last end with the image of the President being shot while him making a last quote for the reporters.

CIVIL WAR never seems to amaze as director Alex Garland (King of dystopian society stories) has always a surprise or two up his sleeve as in his previous films. Garland wrote the novel THE BEACH which was made into the Tilda Swinton/Leonardo DiCaprio film and screenplays like 28 DAYS LATER, 28 WEEKS LATER and SUNSHINE, also directed the 2014 film EX MACHINA). Forget the film’s flaws like the somewhat incredible premise or the unexplained reasons behind certain segments.

CIVIL WAR cost $50 million to make, making it A24’s most expensive film to date. had its world premiere at South by Southwest on March 14, 2024, to a positive response. It is scheduled to be released in the United States by A24 and by Entertainment Film in the UK on April 12, 2024

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THE GREATEST HITS (USA 2023) *

Directed by Ned Benson

Find the right song, change your past. Find the right person, change your future, These are the two captions on the film’s poster that totally describes the entire film, not that it is not predictable enough.

Harriet (Lucy Boynton) finds art imitating life when she discovers certain songs can transport her back in time – literally. While she relives the past through romantic memories of her former boyfriend (David Corenswet), her time travelling collides with a burgeoning new love interest in the present (Justin H. Min). As she takes her journey through the hypnotic connection between music and memory, she wonders – even if she could change the past, should she?

The dialogue is often downright silly. One is assumed to be moved by dialogue like: “I wish I do not like you,” says Harriet to which David replies: “I wish I do not like you too.”

The silliness of the film’s romance is matched only by the silliness and non-credibility of its premise. It does not take a genius to foresee the outcome of what can be classified as a totally formulaic Harlequin-type romance. Harriet will eventually come to items with the present and fall in love with David. Though predictable, there is a little neat plot ploy in the script near the end of the film.

One can hardly blame Lucy Boynton for this awful film, as she does her best given the horrid material. The same can be said for actors David Corenswet who gets mainly to show his abs and Justin H. Min who plays Harriet’s lovers. The film stops short of any sex scenes, and the chemistry between the couples is barely credible at best.

More interesting than the fantasy plot is the examination of Harriet’s two male boyfriends, Harriet must love facial, hair as both share fascial hair - David with a mustache and the dead boyfriend, Max with a mini-beard. Max is more stubborn and would not generally agree or listen to what Harriet says while David is more accommodating,

Totally boring, predictable and a boring excuse for a romantic fantasy, THE GREATEST HITS is a Fox Searchlight picture that heads head straight for streaming where one can be grateful that this dud has stayed out of the theatres.

THE GREATEST HITS will be streaming exclusively on Disney+ in Canada on April 12th, 2024

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HOUSEKEEPING FOR BEGINNERS (Poland, Serbia, Australia, Croatia, Kosovo, North Macedonia and United States 2023) ***

Directed by Goran Stolevski

Dita (Anamaria Marinca) is forced to raise her girlfriend's two daughters even though she has never aspired to be a mother. HOUSEKEEPING FOR BEGINNERS is a touching tale about an odd family's battle to be together emerges when their separate wills collide.

It would be hard to imagine a more hectic and disruptive household than Dita’s. There are so many ‘members’ of the household as there are problems.

The film disproves the saying that a family is one that one cannot choose. Dita chooses hers - both straight and queer, mostly queer, Despite lofty aspirations, director Stolevski has taken too much on his plate with one issue with one family member tossed in and out of another. At times, it is difficult to follow all the members of the extended family. Dita is also over-patient and over-kind, something that is quite hard to accept given the circumstances. Despite its flaws, the saving grace is the performance of Anamaria Marinca as Dita.

The film tackles a few world issues like human trafficking, poverty, and LGBT+ issues as well as social issues like familial relations.

The film premiered on 6 September 2023, at the 80th Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Queer Lion. It was selected as the Macedonian entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards.

The film is shot in Albanian, Macedonian and Romani with English subtitles.

HOUSEKEEPING FOR BEGINNERS opens in theatres on April 5th.

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IN BED (Keilu ein mahar) (Israel 2022) ***½

Directed by Nitzan Gilady

IN BED is set over a hallucinatory 24 hours, the line between violence and intimacy getting dangerously tried following a shooting during a Tel Aviv parade in writer/director Nitzan’s (WEDDING DOLL, his first feature in 2015) giddy, erotic thriller drama.

Tel Aviv, the then present day. Two friends, Guy (Israel Ogalbo) and Joy (Moran Rosenblatt) are taking part in the city's LGBTQ+ Pride Parade celebrations. Prepared for a night of hookups, drugs and dancing, their fun is suddenly cut short when a violent shooting sends everyone in the crowd running for safety. The shooting is real real-life incident that occurred in Tel Aviv. Fleeing the scene into the safety of Guy's home, they take in a fellow pride parader, Dan (Dean Miroshnikov), a fellow parade attendee, and bring him back to Guy's apartment to wait out the mayhem. A manhunt for the shooter begins outside. Back in Guy's apartment, however, the three are determined to still have a good time. Still in shock and with plenty of drugs at their disposal, a dark, sex-fuelled odyssey begins. As the drugs continue to distort his perception, a paranoid and strung-out Guy discovers the line between intimacy and violence is getting dangerously blurred.

Speaking from experience as a gay partier in his younger days, IN BED brings a lot of wonderful personal memories and experiences. For one, the world-renowned DJ Offer Nissim is credited as providing the original music for his film. Offer Nissim is one of the best DJs in the world, who has performed in Toronto at FLY in one of the best nights ever at FLY. (I was there when he DJ’ed.) FLY was packed solid and every partier there just had a small space to dance but everyone, me included had the best time ever. It was the BEST FLY night ever in Toronto. Offer Nissim, being an Israeli Jew brings his experience and energy to the film The film begins with popular gay anthems heard on the soundtrack as Joy and Jay head for the streets to celebrate Israel's Gay Pride.

Director Gilady does everything hit for this gay drama and thriller, capturing the super-charged energy of a Pride parade from the points-of-view of young honey partiers with colourful atmosphere, costumes and of course uplifting music from DJ Offer Nissim.

The happy delirium is interrupted by the gloom brought by the gunner in what the news denounces as a disgrace to Israel. The paranoia can be seen in the emotions of Dan, who is shaking with her, made worse by his intake of drugs during the parade. The film is based on a real-life shooting that occurred in 2009 in Tel Aviv, What makes it so scary is the public being told that the suspect could have come from the LGBTQ+ community.

There is a scene in which Joy gives Guy a hard-on in the bathtub they are sharing. Joy almost induces Guy to have sex with her but Guy says: “This is wrong.” This best-friend relationship between the female and gay male makes total sense and hits a truthful spot in many best-friend relationships. The scene is a subplot to the story but a real and emotional one.

IN BED, a sexually charged gay dramatic thriller with exhilarating party mixes by world-famous DJ Offer Nissim is a must-see for every gay partier! IN BED opens on VOD/Digital Platforms on 4/12.

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IN FLAMES (Canada/Pakistan 2023) ***

Directed by Zarrar Kahn

IN FLAMES is set in present-day Karachi, the capital of Pakistan centering on a medical student, Mariam (Ramesh Nawal) as she struggles to keep her family together while being stalked by forces she can’t entirely understand. She is grieving the fresh loss of her grandfather and doing her best to support her grieving mother (Bakhtawar Mazhar) and brother (Jibraan Khan) while preparing for her upcoming exams. It does not help that she is suffering from fainting spells that require her expensive medical costs. The mother claims Mariam had asthma as a child but never as severe as she is suffering now

IN FLAMES is a female film in which the females have to struggle and fight to survive in a cruel male chauvinistic world. The male threat comes in a number of ways from her uncle, an incident involving a man throwing a brick at her car to the man masturbating in front of Mariam’s window.

The estranged uncle (Adnan Shah Tipu) re-enters their lives and declares himself their new patriarch, making noises about handling their finances out of the kindness of his heart. Mariam’s mother is grateful for the help. Mariam, on the other hand, sees disaster looming, warning the mother not to sign any documents. She fears, and with reason that he intends to secure the family’s property.

Meanwhile, Asad (Omar Javaid), a charming fellow student freshly back from Canada, offers the possibility of romance and security, but even that is fraught with its own specific dangers. And after a motorcycle accident, Mariam finds herself even more alone and vulnerable. Something seems to be stalking her through the streets, something that never quite comes into focus but whose presence she can feel at every turn.

The film occasionally feels like a horror movie because many scenes are shot in the dark with many of them involving Mariam’s nightmares, when she wakes up screaming or unable to breathe. The use of a religious faith healer also creates the feel of the supernatural. But the greatest horror occurs in Mariam’s real life. Her exams are approaching but instead of spending time studying, she suffers trauma, personally for her breathing attacks and missing Assad and filial with the relationship wither mother topped with financial difficulties. No one would wish to be in her place.

Director Khan’s film is a slow burn with a slow but effective build-up of tension and trauma for Marian. It does not help that she is living in squalor with broken and dirty walls and neighbouring dirty streets. Assad’s accident is only heard but not seen, an accident that occurs in the dead of night and so nothing is seen by the audience.

Nawal and Mazhar both deliver strong and powerful performances as the traumatized and desperate daughter and mother.

The film had a prestigious premiere at the Director’s Fortnight at Cannes followed by screenings at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film opens on April 12th, 2024.

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LOST ANGEL: THE GENIUS OF JUDEE SILL (USA 2022) ***½

Directed by Andy Brown and Brian Lindstrom

Within the first 10 minutes of Judee Sill’s biopic doc, the audience already learns that she is a heroin addict, served time, did armed robbery (actually saying: This is a fuck up, mother sticker!) and a singer/songwriter of exceptional talent who sadly died of a drug overdose. What follows is a detailed life story of Judee Sill as she rises to fame and how she got to where she did.

Judith Lynne Sill (October 7, 1944 – November 23, 1979) was an American singer-songwriter. She was influenced by Bach and wrote lyrics drawing on Christian themes of rapture and redemption.

Sill was the first artist signed to David Geffen's label Asylum. She released her eponymous debut album in 1971, followed by Heart Food in 1973. In 1974, Sill recorded demos for a third album, which was never completed. Sill was fired from her record label for calling Geffen a fat fag in public, something she regretted and tried to apologize for, that Geffen never forgave.

The doc is made up mainly of archive photos and the use of archive interviews. There are only a few montages of Sill, mainly in her performances. Added in, are some animation sequences to add flow to the material.

One of the very insightful segments that highlight the film, undoubtedly is the breaking down of the composition of her song ‘The lamb ran away with the crown’ as Judee sings it. Again this is yet another one of her wonderful songs.

She had a long-term relationship with the poet David Omer Bearden, who contributed lyrics to Heart Food and toured and performed with her. The doc dedicates a fair amount of time to this troubled relationship. Sill dedicated Heart Food to him. As Asylum's first published artist, Sill also had a close friendship with David Geffen and wrote "David Geffen, I love you" in the sleeve for her first album. Their relationship soured after comments she made in frustration about not receiving enough promotion for her second UK tour.

After a series of car accidents and failed surgery for a back injury, Sill struggled with drug addiction and dropped out of the music scene.

Judee Sill is a name that many including many singer/songwriters have not heard of, not for want of talent but for her many misfortunes that prevented her genius from being famous. This biopic does justice to the genius and work of Sill and includes quite a few renderings of her songs that should help promote her fame in the music business, if never too late.

There is life after death. Sill struggled with addiction for much of her life and died of a drug overdose in 1979. She did not find commercial success, and no obituary was published; however, several artists have since cited her as an influence. Her demos were released with other rarities on the 2005 collection Dreams Come True.

LOST ANGEL: The Genius Of Judee Sill opens in Theatres, on Digital and on Demand (Apple, Amazon, Vudu, major platforms) in the US and Canada on April 12.

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THE PEOPLE’S JOKER (USA 2023) ***
Directed by Vera Drew

THE PEOPLE’S JOKER parodies characters from the Batman comics, and the main character is a transgender woman based on the Joker, played by co-writer and director Vera Drew. in a dystopian world monitored by electronics and cameras by Batman after his retirement, a young child grows up in Smallville, Kansas idolizing the performers on a sketch comedy program, UCB Live. The unnamed protagonist's mother (Lynn Downey) is disturbed when her child asks, "Was I born in the wrong body?" and immediately books a session with Dr. Crane (Christian Calloway) of Arkham Asylum, who prescribes Smylex: a drug that forces its users to put on a happy face, even if they feel depression, anxiety, or gender dysphoria. This explains the origin of the film’s Joker. The villain of the piece is a closeted gay Bruce Wayne who had abused Mr J (Kane Distler) as a child.

The film’s main story is set fifteen years later. Joker has grown up and moves to Gotham City to join the cast of UCB Live, where a computer designates him a male Joker, who will be allowed to have an individual identity in the cast, unlike the women, who are all assigned to be nameless Harlequins that serve as back-up dancers. The process to become on-air talent includes paying $15,000 and enduring improv comedy classes from UCB cast member Ra's al Ghul. The hero strikes up a friendship with Oswald Cobblepot, another struggling comedian who cannot afford the entrance fee and the duo decide that they will instead make their own comedy troupe. To avoid rules that outlaw unapproved humour, they will call their act "anti-comedy".

Joker falls in love with Mr. J, a fellow member of the Red Hoods Gang. How does Penguin know that? “Do you want me to introduce the two of you?” “How do you know?: asks Joker. Because you’re laughing at a joke is so bad I wouldn’t tell and cartoon hearts are popping out of your eyeballs.” As in this sequence and in many others in the film, the film is all over the place, grabbing at straws at humour and inventiveness. “Acting like a slut while looking like a bitch” are the words of one catchy song that bursts out of nowhere. All this could be either a plus or a negative for audiences, depending entirely on how one wants to look at it.

Drew takes the film one step further with Joker falling in love - and with a trans. They talk about love while riding a boat through an amusement park’s Tunnel Of Love. (HR Hugginhink’s Funny Tunnel Of Love, it is called).

The controversial film had an equally controversial release. According to Drew, "a media conglomerate" sent her "an angry letter (misreported as a 'cease and desist') pressuring them to not screen" shortly before the premiere. Some media outlets assumed this to be Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company to DC Comics, but neither Drew nor Warner Bros. have confirmed this. On September 14, 2022, a day after the film had premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, subsequent screenings of the film were cancelled. The TIFF website stated, "The filmmaker has withdrawn this film due to rights issues.

THE PEOPLE’S JOKER opens in Toronto with these upcoming Toronto dates:

Apr 12-13 / Toronto, ON @ Fox Theatre

Apr 27 & 30 / Toronto, ON @ Revue Cinema

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PURE O (USA 2023) ***
Directed by Dillon Tucker

PURE O stands for the words Pure Obsessional, a crippling form of OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder).

OCD is an offensive word that is used to describe someone who worries a lot about small details and has a strong dislike of anything that is not perfect or to describe the behaviour of someone like this. It is best to know the definition of the term before venturing into the film. Wikipedia offers this timely description: Compulsions are repeated actions or routines that occur in response to obsessions to achieve relief from anxiety. Common compulsions include excessive hand washing, cleaning, counting, ordering, repeating, avoiding triggers, hoarding, neutralizing, seeking assurance, praying, and checking things. People with OCD may only perform mental compulsions such as needing to know or remember things. While this is sometimes referred to as primarily obsessional obsessive–compulsive disorder (Pure O), it is also considered a misnomer due to associated mental compulsions and reassurance-seeking behaviours that are consistent with OCD.

In PURE O, a rehab counsellor (Daniel Dorr, FURY, 20th CENTURY WOMEN) questions his sanity when he is diagnosed with a crippling form of OCD known as Pure Obsessional. With the help of his friends, a therapy group, and his addiction recovery clients, he discovers the life-affirming power of community to fight through the darkest moment of his life.

“You will get better, In this community, we help each other.” These are soothing words to a person just diagnosed with who finds it extremely difficult to understand the state of anxiety he is in.

Compulsions are repeated actions or routines that occur in response to obsessions to achieve relief from anxiety. Common compulsions include excessive hand washing, cleaning, counting, ordering, repeating, avoiding triggers, hoarding, neutralizing, seeking assurance, praying, and checking things. A few of these are demonstrated in the film. People with OCD may only perform mental compulsions such as needing to know or remember things. While this is sometimes referred to as primarily obsessional obsessive–compulsive disorder (Pure O), it is also considered a misnomer due to associated mental compulsions and reassurance-seeking behaviours that are consistent with OCD. The rehab counsellor in the film constantly suffers from the thought of hacking his fiancé Emily and then committing suicide. Besides him, the sufferings of the other members of his support group are also brought into focus.

PURE O, as expected is not an easy watch due to its subject. In terms of educating the audience director Tucker, who himself suffers from OCD does a tremendous job. Actor Daniel Dorr delivers a credible and nuanced performance. But the film suffers from an ending in which director Tucker tries too hard resulting in a condescending tone that undermines an otherwise sincere effort.

PURE O was nominated for the Grand Jury award at 2023 SXSW and received critical acclaim. Script Magazine called it "vulnerable, honest, and remarkably, it feels real, “ and Signal Horizon said the film is “ one of the most poignant and optimistic films I have ever seen.” PURE O opens Friday, April 12 - Digital release on major platforms. Territories: US, Canada, UK.

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STOLEN (Sweden 2024) ***
Directed by Elle Marja Eira

STOLEN tells the all-important indigenous story of the Sami people of Sweden, reindeer herder. As in many films on indigenous people, it is always land or something close to land that is the focus of the story, like Martin Scorsese’s FLOWERS OF THE KILLER MOON. Less epic in scope with a much smaller budget arrives the Swedish entry STOLEN directed by Elle Marja Eira and written by Peter Birro and based on Ann-Helen Laestadius’ book.

The film works better in the first half where the audience sees herds of reindeer and is introduced to a family of herders treated by unknown forces. It helps that the story unfolds from a young indigenous girl’s point-of-view made even more pressing when her pet reindeer calf is killed right in front of her eyes. STOLEN also Dackels current issues like climate change the ecosystem and the infringement of rights of indigenous people including prejudice, colonization and the suppression of the Sani language in English colonized schools.

The film centres on a Sami family that is made of Elsa, Mattias, Nils Johan, Marika, and Ahkku. Much like the rest of their tribe, the family’s livelihood depends on reindeer. But someone is slaughtering and beheading them, and the police and society are doing nothing about it. Since it’s customary for every member of the Sami to mark a reindeer, by making a small slice off its ear, little Elsa chooses a white calf and is told by her mum that the animal is not her's butt borrowed from Mother. Things seem to be going fine until one fateful day, Elsa witnesses a man called Robert brutally murder her calf that she had named Nastegallu and he walks away unscathed after committing such a crime. Young Elsa sees the culprit but is unable to say anything due to trauma.

STOLEN opens for streaming on Netflix on Friday 12th of April.

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WHAT JENNIFER DID (UK 2024) ***1/2

Directed by Jenny Popplewell

The face of Evil

When Jennifer Pan calls 911 to report that her parents have been shot, she becomes the primary focus of a captivating criminal case.

WHAT JENNIFER DID is a film title that will arouse one’s interest. What did Jennifer do? The Netflix original doc opens with two intercept segments. One has a teenage Jennifer at the police station recounting what happened that night at her family house in which her parents were shot - her mother dead and father wounded in the head and hospitalized. The other segment is the 9-11 call and police arrival at the home. The voiceover informs that this is a case that the police have never seen before and never suspected where it would lead. If the voiceover claims that the crime is close to home - it is. The crime took place in a residential home in Avenue Roadi in Markham, Ontario, which is very close to her this film reviewer used to live, From the beginning the doc works like a murder thriller mystery - very much like the recent fictional film THE ANATOMY OF A MURDER that won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for its director, Justine Triet and co-writer in which the wife of the prorated fall of her husband, dead from the balcony fall b echoes prime suspect of a murder. “I did not kill him,” Sandra Huller who plays the wife insists. Did Jennifer shoot her parents? What did Jennifer do? is the question asked to the audience of this documentary.

The doc is made up of re-enactments, reviews and archive footage. Except for actress Samantha Chang who plays young Jennifer, the cast from Alan Cooke who plays the homicide investigator, Bill Courtice as the lead investigator, Deborah Gladding and the victim liaison officer to Jennifer’s friends are all played by themselves seen in interviews or through archive footage,

The film is shot in English and in a bit of Vietnamese as the family arrived from Vietnam.

By inevitable comparison with THE ANATOMY OF A MURDER, the way WHAT JENNIFER DID unfolds with lots of cliches from the false clues to the crime investigation. Ironical the fictitious ANATOMY has a predictable outcome but is generally free from cliches.

The film includes details about the Vietnamese Pan family which enhances the interest of the film. The doc is directed and also written by Jenny Popplewell (AMERICAN MURDER: THE FAMILY NEXT DOOR (2002). The family owns two cars a Mercedes and a BMW. The mother does line dancing and is an auto manager while the father is a machinist. Jennifer is seen as racist as she describes her ‘attackers’ as black and one with a Jamaican accent,

The doc originated from the U.K. with a Canadian setting.

WHAT JENNIFER DID, a Netflix original documentary that opens for streaming this week is intriguing for its content - a crime drama depicting evil in its vilest form, its good execution as a documentary and its immigrant family subjects.

Details: Written by: Gilbert Seah; Parent Category: Articles; Category: Movie Reviews; Published: 03 April 2024

FILM REVIEWS:

ALAM (The Flag)(France/Tunisia/Palestine/Saudi Arabia/Qatar, 2022) ***

Directed by Firas Khoury

Director Khoury looks at the Israeli/Palestinian conflict from the eyes of youth, five Israeli-Palestinian high-school classmates — struggling under the burden of forced forgetting — weigh the risks involved in remembering a different history. They live in an Israeli-occupied country. Marked each year by celebrations, Israel’s Independence Day coincides with the commemoration of Al-Nakba (the Catastrophe) — the day Palestinians memorialize their dispossession and displacement. For Tamer (Mahmoud Bakri, a member of the acting dynasty begun by veteran Palestinian performer Mohammad Bakri) and his high-school friends — Safwat (Mohammed Abd El Rahman), Shekel (Mohammad Karaki), and Rida (Ahmed Zaghmouri) — the social and psychological dissonance of being Palestinian in Israel is a daily struggle that is only heightened in the lead-up to Nakba Day. The film concentrates on Tamer, who has a romantic fling but stays away from the over-used coming-of-age story. Not much of a story - only about a flag that initiates violence, the film is a sincere and honest look at the forever never-ending conflict.

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BOY KILLS WORLD (South Africa/Germany/USA 2023) ****

Directed by Moritz Mohr

When his family is killed, a deaf man named Boy escapes to the jungle, where he is trained by a mysterious mentor to enact vengeance on the murderers. Bill Skarsgård stars as "Boy" who vows revenge after his family is murdered by Hilda Van Der Koy (Fame Janssen), the deranged matriarch of a corrupt post-apocalyptic dynasty that left the boy orphaned, deaf and voiceless. Driven by his inner voice, one which he co-opted from his favourite childhood video game, Boy trains with a mysterious shaman (Yayan Ruhian of THE RAID) to become an instrument of death and is set loose on the eve of the annual culling of dissidents. Bedlam ensues as Boy commits bloody martial arts mayhem, inciting wrath of carnage and blood-letting. As he tries to get his bearings in this delirious realm, Boy soon falls in with a desperate resistance group, all the while bickering with the apparent ghost of his rebellious little sister, the one who has disappeared and the one he has sworn allegiance to.

There might be little nuance to this mayhem, but heaps of heart, particularly in Boy’s naive sincerity.

Of the cast, one will recognize South African actor Sharlto Copley (DISTRICT 9), a veteran of weird South African films who plays a wacko spokesman for Van Der Koy. In addition, the story includes to other compelling characters, Jessica Rothe as a hardened enforcer who communicates via her sick LED motorcycle helmet, and a hilariously mumbly Isaiah Mustafa, whose frequent exposition transforms into surrealist asides on account of Boy’s bad lip-reading

If the action martial arts flick BOY KILLS WORLD shares the same mayhem as the best of Sam Raimi’s horror and action films, it is the fact that Raimi serves as one of the producers of this film. The actioner stars Bill Skarsgard, all handsome with a chiseled and muscled physique, brother of Alexander and son of Stellan Skarsgard. Bill marks another feature debut of Bill after the two Stephen King IT horror films.

The action sequences though appearing chaotic are well shot and exciting enough - if not too violent. The climactic fight has two good guys fighting the very powerful shaman villain, something similar to combining forces to fight an extra strong villain, as in King Hu’s memorable DRAGON INN. There is also a twist in the plot that seems a bit too fantastic to believe, so much so that one wonders whose side Boy is on. Boy is totally drenched in blood and cuts in the climactic fight scene.

BOY KILLS WORLD looks like another cheap run-of-the-mill martial arts flick but it surprises and succeeds as fresh, hilarious and exciting entertaining. The plot could be dismissed as crazy rubbish but this crazy rubbish is excellent crazy rubbish. Highly recommended as a crazy mayhem action film! The film premiered in the Midnight Madness Section of the Toronto International Film Festival last year and turned out to be a surprise gem.

BOY KILLS WORLD opens only in theatres on April 26th.

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CHALLENGERS (Italy 2024) ***** Top 10

Directed by Luca Guadagnino

Luca Guadagnino is an Italian film director and producer known for his 'desire' trilogy films I AM LOVE, A BIGGER SPLASH and CALL ME BY YOUR NAME, the latter film that shot Timothee Chamalet to fame. His films are characterized by their acute observations, emotional complexity, eroticism, and sumptuous visuals and if anything else, always something to look forward to.

The three characteristics of Guadignino’s films emotional complexity, eroticism, and sumptuous visuals are not only present in CHALLENGERS but pushed to their limits.

Written by frequent collaborator Justin Kuritzkes (including their next film QUEER), the plot follows a professional tennis champion, Art Donaldson (Mike Faist) who plots a comeback with the help of his wife, Tashi Duncan (Zendaya), a former tennis prodigy who retired after an injury, as he goes up against another player, Patrick Zweig (Josh O'Connor), who also happens to be his former best friend and wife's former lover. Nothing more should be revealed in the story except that her strategy for her husband's redemption will take an unexpected turn.

The chemistry among the three stars is stellar, their performances bouncing off each other like the balls of a winning tennis match. In preparation for her role, Zendaya spent three months training with pro-tennis player-turned-coach Brad Gilbert. Gilbert also served as a consultant on the film. As can be observed in many of her tennis games in the film, Zendaya serves a wicked backhand, using both hands and completing it with a full backswing over her shoulder. As for O’Connor, his serves seen from the starting point from the back of his shoulder are impressive. As for Faust, he makes two jumps over the tennis net, once when goofing around and another when running to Tasho’s rescue after her knee injury.

Thai cinematographer, Sayombhu Mukdeeprom (who has worked on the films of Apichatpong Weerasethakul such as in UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES) shoots the tennis matches with verve and style. There are many excellent framed shots, the best of which shows the two tennis combatants Art and Patrick to the left and right with Tashi, watching their match in the centre of the same frame though they are distances apart. The climatic overhead shots of the two players over the net make the perfect ending.

The film’s music score deserves mention. The film's original score was composed by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. A remixed version was released in collaboration with Boys Noize. The sound mixing alternating between intensity and also alternating with silence is very effective in shifting the mood of a scene.

If one wonders what the movie is about or who is the main character, then director Guadagnino and writer Kuritzkes have achieved their goals. Art and Patrick play tennis or are they playing a love match for the prize of Tashi?

Romantic comedies are this reviewer’s least-liked genre but the romantic thriller is another ball game, CHALLENGERS, best described as a romantic thriller hits the mark, making CHALLENGERS Luca Guadignino’s best film so far.

CHALLENGERS opens only in theatre on April 26th.

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CITY HUNTER (Japan 2024) **
Directed by Yûichi Satô

CITY HUNTER is based on the manga series "City Hunter" by Tsukasa Hojo (published 1985 - 1991 in the magazine Weekly Shonen Jump). It was serialized in Shueisha's shōnen manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1985 to 1991, with its chapters collected in 35 tankōbon volumes. The manga was adapted into an anime television series by Sunrise Studios in 1987. The anime series was popular in numerous Asian and European countries. City Hunter spawned a media franchise consisting of numerous adaptations and spin-offs from several countries. The latest is this latest live-action film adaptation from Japan opening this week on Netflix.

The series follows the exploits of Ryo Saeba, a "sweeper" who is always found chasing beautiful girls and a private detective who works to rid Tokyo of crime, along with his associate or partner, Hideyuki Makimura. Their "City Hunter" business is an underground jack-of-all-trades operation, contacted by writing the letters "XYZ" on a blackboard at Shinjuku Station.

One day, Hideyuki is murdered, and Ryo must take care of Hideyuki's sister, Kaori, a tomboy who becomes his new partner in the process. However, Kaori is very susceptible and jealous, often hitting Ryo with a giant hammer when he does something perverted. The story also follows the behind-the-scenes romance between Ryo and Kaori and the way they cooperate throughout each mission.

The film follows a similar premise. Set in present-day Shinjuku ward, Ryo Saeba (Ryohei Suzuki) works as a "sweeper." He likes beautiful women and when he sees one, he doesn't hesitate to talk to them. Nevertheless, when he receives a request from a client to carry out a mission, he does excellent work with his elite gunman skills, physical ability, and cold attitude. After Ryo Saeba's partner Makimura is killed, he begins to work with Makimura's sister Kaori (Misato Morita). They form a new team to uncover the truth behind his death.

At its best, the cinematography and filming of Shinjuku are impressive, sometimes raining, looking like the set of BLADE RUNNER. The crowd scenes and the mayhem ensuing are all executed with style and excitement.

But the film has a too cartoonish effect, which likely suits the manga and animated previous versions. The lead character is played by Ryohei Suzuki with maniac childishness, downplaying the seriousness of the kidnapping and the huge crime at hand. The humour is less funny when executed coming across as silly and infantile.

The fact that Rio loves sexy girls does not help the film’s image as well. The film comes across as male chauvinistic and sexist with girls portrayed below their potential. Ryo cannot control himself as the saviour of Shinjuku, flirting with all the girls and any pretty girl who happens to fall in his path. Ryo has few redeeming qualities except that he kicks the butt of the bad guys.

The film’s story is simple enough to follow for a manga film, but nothing out of the ordinary. The action set pieces are satisfactorily done.

CITY HUNTER looks like manga and with its production values could have been a better film under more capable hands that favours a more forward execution.

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THE DOOMSDAY CULT Of ANTARES DE LA LUZ (Chile 2024) ***

Directed by Santiago Correa

The first and yet most disturbing cult sacrifice in Chile!

The crime committed in this documentary is the sacrifice of a 2-day-old baby by a religious cult. When the doc begins, it talks about the hierarchy of crimes committed. The worst of which will be punished in prison when the prisoners themselves will kill those imprisoned for the worst of crimes. The prisoner convicted of sacrificing a baby would never survive. In this disturbing and revealing doc, the psychology and reason behind the crime is examined, from the point of view of a crime journalist, who claims that she is interested in what goes behind the commitment of the crime. Ultimately, the motive behind the crime was not the usual motive for example of stealing a car or of a crime of passion. The motive behind this crime was saving the world.

The title of the doc comes from the leader of the cult who’s himself the name Antares. Ramón Gustavo Castillo Gaete was a Chilean musician and leader of a doomsday-oriented religious sect stationed in Colliguay, a rural area in the Valparaíso Region, where he claimed to be the second coming of Jesus and was known as "Antares de la Luz" (from Spanish, "Antares of the Light”). In 2012, one of the cult members, 25-year-old Natalia Guerra, became pregnant with his child, who he believed to be the Antichrist. Castillo's infant son was ultimately immolated in a bonfire on 23 November of that year as a human sacrifice, to prevent the supposedly incoming end of the world on 21 December 2012. After Chilean authorities were informed of the murder in April 2013, a nationwide manhunt headed by the Investigations Police of Chile began, which soon spread to neighbouring Bolivia and Peru, the latter of which where he hung himself to evade capture.

This doc works primarily for the enormity of the crime and the curiosity behind the motive behind the crime. The look at human nature and behaviour behind what happened is the most intriguing as to what is the reasoning behind the man who calls himself Antares is made to act the way he did.

The doc also plays like a part courtroom drama. As Antares’ followers were at the scene of the crime where the 2-day-old infant was killed and tossed into the fire, they faced a trial for manslaughter. Would they be found guilty? The defendants’ lawyers argue that they could not act on their own will, being manipulated to think that Antares was God. On the other hand, the prosecutors believe that this crime should not go without any punishment.

The story from start to finish is told from the mouth of one of its main followers, Pablo. Pablo describes in chilling detail how he was fed the plant drug, hallucinating and seeing visions thus making him think Antares is God. It is intriguing to see how Pablo could be so easily convinced of the falsity and indeed many wold have followed the same. Not shown is the death of hanging by Antares, thus escaping the punishment due to him.

THE FEELING THAT THE TIME FOR SOMETHING HAS PASSED (USA 2023) ***
Directed by Joanna Arnow

THE FEELING THAT THE TIME FOR SOMETHING HAS PASSED follows Ann (Arnow), a 30-something Brooklynite who passes time in her long-term BDSM relationship, low-level corporate job and quarrelsome Jewish family, with Ann’s parents, played by Arnow’s real ones. For nine years, Ann has been involved as a submissive partner with an older man (Scott Cohen) who can’t even remember what college she attended (Wesleyan, Arnow’s alma mater). Ann decides to move on to other men (including one who wants her to wear a pig costume) and finally meets someone with whom she might find love. Director Arnow is unafraid to go all out for her film including revealing her own full frontal; nudity. Director Arnow is fond of using the style of Director Roy Andersson, especially in his use of deadpan humour and stationary camera. This is clearly an Arnow’s styled film, with the auteur serving as the star, writer, director and editor of the film. Though not autobiographical, the press notes claim that the film is based on the filmmaker’s experiences.

Trailer:

HACK YOUR HEALTH: THE SECRETS OF YOUR GUT (USA 2023) ***
Directed by Anjali Nayar

The doc HACK YOUR HEALTH: THE SECRETS OF YOUR GUT often feels like a Biology lesson. It begins by telling us the importance of the gut, then explains microbes, particularly the Mirobione. What is more interesting is of course, how all this affects human beings. The doc treats the subject lightly, often including cutesy animation in order to make a point.

The microbiome is the community of microorganisms (such as fungi, bacteria and viruses) that exists in a particular environment. In humans, the term is often used to describe the microorganisms that live in or on a particular part of the body, such as the skin or gastrointestinal tract. These groups of microorganisms are dynamic and change in response to a host of environmental factors, such as exercise, diet, medication and other exposures. The doc praises the 9% good bacteria in our bodies. So for humans, bacteria that live in your gut help in the digestion of food, and bacteria that live on your skin help to break down the lipids to produce a natural moisturizing factor for your skin. These microbes that live on your skin or in your gut are also wonderful in providing colonization resistance. They're basically taking up all the space so that the pathogens that might want to try to invade humans don't have the opportunity, and that's really our greatest protection against microbes that want to colonize us but don't help in our health.

The microbiome affects each individual human being differently. To prove the point, the doc interestingly picks several different people who are interviewed to talk about their bodies:

one Japanese cannot feel hunger. He can eat but never feel the satisfaction of having eaten and is envious of the fact that people can feel that they are full. His full-time job is competitive eating. The doc includes a clip with him doubling down on hot dogs.
one black woman complains about her weight. She says she has tried everything to lose weight but whenever she loses weight, she gains more than she had lost.
a white girl complains about the pain she feels in her gut. She has that pain forever and it hurts her ever so much
one is a pastry chef who can eat nothing but vegetables, which makes her job increasingly difficult. She does have a craving to eat a hamburger and rare beef.

The 4 subjects’ microbiomes are studied as their brains are observed during an MRI conducted with each person with food pics shown to them, As expected, each individual’s brain reacts differently,

Most of what can be seen in the doc is available out there in books and of course on the internet. But the film gives us the pleasure of having assembled all the information together, making learning about gut education, entertaining and of course useful.

HACK YOUR HEALTH: THE SECRETS OF YOUR GUT is a Netflix original doc opening for streaming this week.

HUMANE (Canada 2024) ***
Directed by Caitlin Cronenberg

HUMANE is director Caitlin Cronenberg’s feature debut, written by Michael Sparaga. If the director’s last name sounds familiar, that is because Caitlin is the daughter of horror master David Cronenberg and the sister of Brandon Cronenberg. Her film will be much anticipated for this reason and might be judged a little too harshly.

The film is a dystopian satire taking place over a single day, mere months after a global ecological collapse has forced world leaders to take extreme measures to reduce the earth’s population. Lack of essentials such as drinking water is no longer a problem in poor countries but for everyone due to reasons like overpopulation, careless use and global warming. “All international borders will be closed and all countries will have one year to meet their population reduction goals.” This is the voice heard (Colm Freore’s) as an announcement by the Government at the start of the film. In the wake of this environmental collapse that is forcing humanity to shed 20% of its population, a family dinner erupts into chaos when a father's plan to enlist in the government's new euthanasia program goes horribly awry.

Director Caitlin takes the film down to a more personal level. In a wealthy enclave, a recently retired newsman, Charles York (Peter Gallagher) has invited his grown children (a host of Canadian actors led by Jay Baruchel of GOON) to dinner to announce his intentions to enlist in the nation’s new euthanasia program. Right after dinner before the children leave, the euthanasia people led by Bob (Enrico Colantoni) appear at the door to carry out their duties.

As it turns out, although Charles and his wife, Dawn Kim (Uni Park from KIM’S INCONVENIENCE) have agreed, Dawn has chickened out and disappeared. Dawn insists that a replacement be made by one of the other members of the family.

The film takes a direct stab at ex-President Trump. Trump has blamed the pandemic on the Chinese without much proof. Blame is Trump’s strategy in the Pandemic rather than finding a solution, resulting in many hate crimes among Asians in the U.S. In the film, The blame of the ecological collapse is again blamed on Asians resulting in the hate crime of Ann’s Asian restaurant burnt down to the ground.

“We are hardly family, ” says Rachel (Emily Hampshire), one father and daughters, “I only see you one or two times a year during family birthdays. I know more about the girl who does my nails.” When told that they have to decay on a replacement, an all-out war begins in which each member distrusts every other and tries to kill off a sibling to survive and have a larger inheritance. Director Caitlin ups the ante with a bit of violence that includes stabbing and swiping to the head with a walking cane.

Director Caitlin shows total control of her material as her film succeeds in maintaining a constant atmosphere of seriousness and desperation, even though the premise is futuristic and hypothetical.

Trailer:

UNSUNG HERO (USA 2024) *

Directed by Richard Ramsey and Joel Smallbone

Warning! UNSUNG HERO is a faith-based film that many would avoid! And with reason.

UNSUNG HERO begins with the caption on the screen - This is a true story. Most films would state that it is based on a true story. The fact that this statement reads “this is a true story’ upholds the fact that the message of the film would be straight in one’s face, and for the worse of it. The company behind the film is called For King + Country which implies a faith message is forthcoming.

When David Smallbone's successful music company collapses, he moves his family from Australia to the United States in search of a brighter future. With nothing more than their six children, their suitcases, and their love of music, David (for KING + COUNTRY's Joel Smallbone) and his pregnant wife Helen (Daisy Betts) set out to rebuild their lives from the ground up. Based on a remarkable true story, the mother's faith stands against all odds; and inspires her husband and children to hold onto theirs.

True story or not, the fact does not make for a good film or even a compelling one. Just because UNSUNG HERO is termed a true story does it make the film a credible one. It depends on how the film unfolds with regard to performances, story buildup, atmosphere, music and others. UNSUNG HERO turns out incredibly boring right at the one-hour mark and it does not take a genius to figure out how things will eventually turn out for the Smallbone family.

The Smallbones is a family with 6 children. The script does not make any attempt to distinguish any one child from another, except for the eldest daughter who turns out to be the star singer.

The film has a more female slant, the family is held together more by the mother rather than the father whose pride gets in the way. The family is also saved from poverty by the daughter.

There are quite a few faith-type messages in the story. One key message is the strength of the family and how the family needs to stay together despite all odds. The other is the strength of the church as the Smallbones are helped with donations from the church. The vanity of Pride is yet one of the other messages. David has immense pride that almost causes the downfall of the family.

The film contains a few songs, that are supposed to be chart-busters.

UNSUNG HERO is the typical faith-based feel-good movie that critics detest for the main fact that it is manipulative, cliched, artificial and unoriginal. This is not to mention that the music is scored so that it tells the audience how to feel and react at different parts of the film.

UNSUNG HERO plays like it is staged by a Sunday Day School teacher for her Sunday School class. And it feels like an adult forced to sit through a Sunday School lesson. UNSUNG HERO opens on April 26th.

Trailer:

Details: Written by: Gilbert Seah; Parent Category: Articles; Category: Movie Reviews; Published: 30 March 2024

FILM REVIEWS:

ABIGAIL (USA 2024) ***½

Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett

It is best to enter the screening of the new Universal Pictures horror comedy ABIGAIL with no prior knowledge of the film or story whatsoever. Of course, this is clearly impossible as the film’s poster gives it away, not to mention the hype that has been going around the film already. Yes, ABIGAIL (Alisha Weir) has superpowers, that of a vampire and she does away with her kidnappers with ghastly violence one by one.

But even if one knows this fact, the directors can still make use of the fact to their advantage. Take Alfred Hitchcock’s THE BIRDS or Steven Spielberg’s JAWS. The first sight of the attacking birds or shark does not appear till the second half of the film, prompting the audience's anticipation. In the same fashion director Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett tease their audience with Abigail’s first revelation of other powers during the film’s second half.

Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett are to be credited for their ability to blend horror and fun. The script contains lots of laugh-out-loud humour as well as genuine scares that will keep the audience at the edge of their seats quite so often. The laughs are often goofy and driven by the often hilarious cast ensemble. Take, for example, one of the kidnappers, Dean (Angus Cloud) suddenly appearing in Sammy’s (Kathryn Newton) room saying: “I saw the way you looked at me. Maybe we could…” to which Sammy replies: “Get the fuck out of my room!” or the heavy, Peter the Quebecois (Canadian Kevin Durand) running to bash down a heavy door unsuccessfully, only to remark: “It is locked.” Durand is the funniest of the lot and steals every scene he appears in. From the film’s excellently crafted beginning where the 12-year-old ballerina, Abigail is first seen rehearsing in a huge empty theatre to the music of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake before she is kidnapped, the film is never short of excitement and laughs. The script by Stephen Shields and Guy Busick which is smart and funny combined with the excellent timing of the directors proved a deadly combination.

The assorted gang of misfits are all unknown to each other and given fake names just as the crooks in Quentin Tarantino’s RESERVOIR DOGS were given colours in order to each other. The other misfits are Frank (Dan Stevens) and Joey (Melissa Barrera) and Rickey (William Catlett).

Cineastes will be thrilled with the nods to many famous films including DRACULA’S DAUGHTER, OCEAN’S ELEVEN (The Rat Pack), RESERVOIR DOGS, TEN LITTLE INDIANS (…AND THEN THER WERE NONE) and every Dracula movie among others.

The story involves the misfits putting their stupid prejudices and mistrust aside and working together to outsmart Abigail, who is the main predator.

Though the climax drags on a little at the end, there is a neat twist with a surprise appearance. The film is dedicated in loving memory to actor Angus Cloud who plays Dean in the movie.

ABIGAIL opens everywhere in theatres on Friday, April 19th.

Trailer:

AHEAD OF THE CURVE (USA 2020) ***
Directed by Jen Rainin and Beth Medow

Curve (magazine) is global lesbian media. The magazine covers news, politics, social issues, and includes celebrity interviews and stories on entertainment, pop culture, style, travel, and a website that hosts an internet forum focusing on lesbian issues, active since 2000.

The film focuses on the beginnings of the magazine as seen from the eyes of its founder, known amicably in the doc as Franco, who is in almost every frame of the film. Frances "Franco" Stevens in San Francisco in 1990, first published Curve as Deneuve but was renamed in 1996 after a trademark dispute with French actress Catherine Deneuve. The film says the magazine was so called because Franco had a cat called Deneuve and the magazine name translated means ‘new’. But the film does include an image of the lesbian vampire film cover THE HUNGER which starred Catherine Deneuve.

Diane Anderson-Minshall was editor-in-chief when the magazine was acquired in October 2010 by Australian media company. Avalon Media.Merryn Johns became Curve's editor-in-chief. With the change in ownership, Curve became headquartered in Sydney, this fact not mentioned in the film.

The doc works best when it deals with the magazine itself - its contents, the difficulty of it being made, how it grew in popularity and what type of articles made its sell. This provides insight to those working in magazines particularly gay themed ones, like Dragon Magazine and Banana Magazine, two Toronto gay Asian magazines (like Curve) that catered to a niche gay target audience. This reviewer started his film reviewing career writing for free for Dragun Magazine that lasted less than three years. Curve covers articles of importance, often getting gay women in politics to submit articles or well known personalities who have come out to agree to be on the cover. When Budweiser and Subaru advertised with Cure, the magazine became more mainstream and popular. The doc also documents many lesbians from small town America who probably were the only gays in the village. They claim that the magazine was their only connection to the gay world.

The film also follows its founder, Franco, talking about the magazine. Franco goes about in a motorized wheelchair as a result of an accident of boxes falling on her feet.

Nothing is also mentioned of other gay magazines, particularly the male ones that would either complement or be in competition with Curve. Curve magazine got a bit of free publicity when it tried to out gay actress Michelle Rodriguez. Many then, got to hear of the magazine for the first time. Nothing in the film was mentioned about the controversy, which made a big impact on Curve. It is quite clear that the editor and publisher of Deneuve/Curve are not well versed with legal and business practices.

Like the magazine Curve, the film would have limited appeal being catered to the niche target audience of lesbians. But the directors make a conscious effort in making her doc more widely appealing in its content. The result is an interesting and insightful documentary that affects more of the LGBT community. A fair bit of screen time is devoted on the importance of LGBT rights. Ex-President Trump again, rears his ugly head in passing back the law that lets employers fire LGBT employees.

AHEAD OF THE CURVE opens on NETFLIX ON APRIL 22 marking the start of LESBIAN VISIBILITY WEEK 2024

Trailer:

BLOOD FOR DUST (USA 2023) ***
Directed by Rod Blackhurst

BLOOD FOR DUST is a 2023 American action crime thriller film written by David Ebeltoft and directed by Rod Blackhurst.

In noir fiction form, Cliff (Scoot McNairy), a traveling salesman drowning under the weight of providing for his family and the myth of the American dream, finds himself on a dangerous path after a chance encounter with Ricky (Brit actor Kit Harrington playing an American role), a colleague from a dark past. By accident, Cliff meets Ricky at a strip club and this is where the trouble starts. Trafficking guns and drugs are now on the agenda, which Cliff keeps from his woman.

Noir fiction stories are characterized by their use of dark and gritty realism, exploration of moral ambiguity, and often the use of unconventional narrative structures. The atmosphere created in the film is definitely on the side of the nitty, gritty realm especially when Cliff travels from small town to small town frequented by visits to seedy bars and equally seedy strip clubs. Cliff’s characters are flawed (drinking and having an affair) and compromised, as are the characters generally found in noir crime novels by authors like James Ellroy (L.A.CONFIDENTIAL), who could pretty much be the writer of this piece. Credit is to be given to scenarist David Ebeltoft. Cliff is an honest salesman who has avoided the temptation of going into the shady business but he has a hard time providing for his family. The first half of the film is devoted to bringing out Cliff’s haricots and surroundings giving the film a solid atmosphere and placing. The film is set and shot in (Billings) Montana. The film thus possesses realism and psychological depth though it might require a bit of patience due to its slow burn.

The owner of the New England Patriots American football team, Robert Kraft, is one of the richest men in America and a political crony of Donald J. Trump. In 2019 he was arrested for visiting a day spa in Florida where he paid sex trafficked women for illegal sexual services. The sex-trafficked women working at the day spa were arrested, charged and convicted of prostitution. A privileged white man gets away with breaking the law while accepting no responsibility for his actions or choices and is then allowed to proceed in all of his ways with impunity. While the real victims were punished. Because that’s America and America is broken.

BLOOD FOR DUST is director Blackchurst’s creative reflection of this truth and a film for our current moment about the desperation so many of us face as we struggle to provide for the ones we love and change our stars in the face of systems, institutions and power all designed to disenfranchise and beat us down

Director Blackhurst builds the suspense and suspense to a climactic shoot-out at the end. BLOOD FOR DUST has garnered favourable reviews in general and should satisfy both action fans and crime nori fans, but more of the latter.

BLOOD FOR DUST opens in elect Theatres & Digital on April 19.

Trailer:

DO NOT EXPECT TOO MUCH FROM THE END OF THE WORLD (Romania/Luxembourg/ France 2023) ****

Directed by Radu Jude

The director of BAD LUCK BANGING OR LOONY PORN returns with a much ruder piece with a milder title DO NOT EXPECT TOO MUCH FROM THE END OF THE WORLD.

DO NOT EXPECT TOO MUCH FROM THE END OF THE WORLD paints a very bleak picture of the world, particularly Romania but doused with a hilarious adulterated sense of humour. The capital Bucharest is where most of the action takes place, shown as an overcrowded city where traffic is found and with run-down buildings and rubble often seen around the city. The residents talk about trash not collected for months with rats running around yet they say that the world is shit but the people are good.

The film has been presented as a tale of Cinema and Economics in Two Parts: "Overworked and underpaid, Angela drives around the city of Bucharest to film the casting for a 'safety at work video' commissioned by a multinational company.” This part "A" of the film also contains edited elements of a 1981 film about a lady taxi driver in Bucharest (Angela played by Lucian Bratu) and Angela's own Tiktok videos. Part "B" consists of the shooting of the safety promotion campaign video in front of the entrance to the chosen employee's factory.

Are these people in director Ray Jude’s movie good people? Maybe they are but they do not show the fact as they are extremely rude. The main protagonist is Angela (Ilinca Manolache), a bombastic production assistant working 16-hour days while, on her own time, honing a quippy online brand featuring her alter ego, a self-pronounced friend of misogynistic media personality Andrew Tate, currently facing human trafficking and other charges in Romania. Angela is first shown totally nude waking up in the morning, with the camera now shying away from her tattooed body. “Blonde skank,” is what one driver calls her. Angela has her own curse words at motorists: "Why’re you so nervous? You should get treatment.” Or “You are hurrying to your own funeral!” If not cursing she is telling horrible jokes. “What did the blind man say at the fish market?” “Hey, girls!“ But Angela is shown, despite her outwardly rude personality to have a kind side. She gives money to a needy beggar while drinking her coffee and chiding the cafe’s owner for chasing the beggar away.

The film’s title comes from an aphorism from the Polish poet Stanisław Jerzy Lec. The film touches on labour, exploitation, death, and the new gig economy. Part comedy, part road movie, part montage, it is a film that is innovative, fresh, hilarious and a solid satire if not being too rude and naughty.

The film though running a bit long at 163 minutes, is so, much bad guilty entertainment that one wishes it not to end.

DO NOT EXPECT TOO MUCH FROM THE END OF THE WORLD premiered at the 2023 Locarno Film Festival on 4 August 2023, where it received the Special Jury Prize. It opens in Canada on April 19th. In Toronto, slightly later - May 4 at TIFF and Carlton Cinemas.

Trailer:

FOOD, INC. 2 (USA 2024) ***½

Directed by Robert Kenner and Melissa Robledo

The filmmakers never intended to make a sequel for 2008’s doc Food, Inc. – the Oscar-nominated, Emmy-winning documentary that showed viewers how the food system could be changed with ethical shopping.

So what has changed since 2008 that warrants the making of a sequel? The number one reason is the Pandemic that occurred that changed the world, especially in terms of food supply and distribution and second are the changes in food production in the small handful of multinational corporations.

The first film targeted two large companies, Monsanto and Perdue. Monsanto was revealed for its unethical practices in the introduction of genes into plants in what is now known as (GMO) genetically modified crops. The doc also revealed that Perdue Farms harvested chickens in the cruelest of ways.

FOOD, INC. 2 contains lots of information that continues to anger the public, especially with the growth of the fast food industry since the 1950s. From the mistreated immigrant workers (the audience is informed of workers tied to their transporting vehicles) to the minimum wage workers in fast food restaurants ( a black woman is interviewed as saying she can hardly support her family, resorting at one point to sleeping in her car).

The food companies are nothing more than businesses wishing to satisfy their shareholders. Bigger sales, mean eating more and bigger earnings. Food is sold everywhere including clothing stores where racks of candy are placed near the checkout counters. The doc also addresses ultra-processed foods.

Most of what is seen in the docs is nothing really new. FOOD, INC. 2 like the first FOOD , INC. seems to be throwing at the audience any material it can get its hands on. But this might be understandable as there have been so many violations by the multinationals. But there are the details in the practices that are new and disturbing.

One of the most interesting details involves the company PepsiCo initiating a research study as to the correlation between energy and sweeteners. When the researchers showed results that PepsiCo was not happy about, the company claimed that the results were incorrect and removed funding instead of using the results to improve their products. This behaviour though totally intolerable is expected as why would a company spend money to harm its image instead of improving its sales?

The doc ends, as many docs do, on an optimistic note, in both plant and animal food farming. One is the justification of soil fertility with animals consuming plants while putting them back into the soils and the other deals with the farming of an alternative seafood source such as kelp farming,

If there was a message from the two FOOD, INC. docs, the message from the 2008 film, the same message holds for the sequel, which would be to push the government for better controls and power by the FDA and USDA, and to eat more organic food.

FOOD, INC. 2 opens April 19 in Toronto (Hot Docs Cinema)! The film also opens throughout the spring in other cities.

Trailer:

INFESTED (VERMINES) (Frane 2023) *** 1/2

Directed by Sébastien Vanicek

` Spiders have always freaked humans out as creepy crawlers. One can imagine the horror of a spider killed and dozens of little baby spiders crawling out of the mother’s body. It is no surprise that spider horror movies are almost a genre in itself with films like ARACHNOPHOBIA, EIGHT-LEGGED FREAKS, TARANTULA, EARTH VS. THE SPIDER, most of them not very good. From France, premiering at Cannes last year arrives INFESTED (previous title: VERMIN), arguably the best of the lot, and is as creepy as hell.

The film has a solid good build-up of suspense and thrills to the final climax. It begins with the introduction of the deadly spider nested in the sands of a sweltering desert. A group of Arabs hut for these creates and one shoots for jot having discovered a nest only to be killed by one jumping and stinging him on his face. A few of these spiders (not tarantulas as they look different) are captured in small boxes and sold as exotic pets. One comes into the hands of Kaleb (Theo Christine), a teen Arab living in a Paris suburb. The visually striking buildings where the action is set are the Picasso arenas in Noisy-le-Grand, near Paris, designed by architect Manuel Núñez Yanowsky in the 80s.

Kaleb is about to turn 30 and has never been lonelier. He’s fighting with his sister over an inheritance and has cut ties with his best friend. Fascinated by exotic animals, he finds a venomous spider in a shop and brings it back to his apartment. It only takes a moment for the spider to escape and reproduce, infesting the whole building into a dreadful web trap. The only option for Kaleb and his friends is to find a way out and survive.

The script that is co-written by director Vanicek and Florent Bernard devotes a lot of time to the characters of Kaleb and his sister and friends (friends that argue, fight, and call each other names half the time). The dialogue is crisp and ripe with swear words and slang, the way the living marginally speak, creating an atmosphere of credibility as well as sympathy for those living at the edge of poverty. The word putting can be heard dozens of times. Putting is French for whore but it is more used s a curse word for ‘fuck’ and ‘shit’. The janitor, an old Asian lady is bullied by the resident youth, but is rescued in one scene by Kaleb only to be scolded by her instead of her thanking him. Such is life! Will the band of so-called friends and family of Kaleb band together to find the new menace of their apartment building? The spiders reproduce rapidly within the hour with offspring much larger than their parents. The result is infestation.

The spiders are partly created by CGI with some of them actual real creatures. Director Vanicek keeps his film smart, fun and scary, a sure-fire formula for a successful spider horror movie.

INFESTED is the first feature film for director Sébastien Vanicek, who had directed a few shorts before. The film was nominated for two Cesars, for Best First Feature and Best Visual Effects. Vanicek has pitched the movie to producer Harry Tordjman, who loved it and introduced him to Netflix. They loved it as well and thought the movie deserved a theatre release before ending up on Netflix, which is a big deal in France as the minimum legal delay in 2023 between a theatre release. INFESTED is available for streaming on Shudder Friday, April 26th with a special screening on the 24th at the TIFF Lightbox.

Trailer:

IRENA’S VOW (Canada/Poland 2023) ****
Directed by Louise Archambaul

IRENA’S VOW follows her solemn silent and personal vow Irena makes when she witnesses a German officer killing an innocent Jewish baby by crushing it with his military boot. It is a terrifying scene that makes the entire audience gasp in shock and sets the raison d’ete for Irena’s actions for the film.. In occupied Poland, a former nurse (Sophie Nélisse) risks her own life to shelter a dozen Jewish men and women from the Nazi war machine. The setting is Warsaw, 1939: when the Nazis invade Poland, and nurse Irena Gut (Sophie Nélisse) is displaced and forced to work in support of the German war effort, eventually assigned to run the home of a Nazi commandant (Dougray Scott) where she hides the Jews. Director Archambaul keeps the tension mounting throughout from start to end, with the fear that the Jews will be discovered at any moment. But one knows Arena survived since the film is based on her story. The film shows the triumph of the spirit over impossible odds, all made the more astonishing that the story is all true. One of the best Canadian films of 2023.

Trailer:

Page 7 of 14

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