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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 25 March 2025

Two entertaining and compelling documentaries to watch include CON MUM from Netflix and AUM about a Japanese killer cult.  Two excellent films, MISERICORDIA from France and GRAND TOUR, are Must-Sees!

FILM REVIEWS:

AUM: THE CULT AT THE END OF THE WORLD (USA 2023) ***
Directed by Ben Braun and Chiaki Yanagimoto

The doc begins with the deadly nerve gas attack at several key Tokyo subway systems.  Footage shows police entering the stations while casualties are carried by medics to ambulances. The incident occurred in 1995.

In 1995, the world was horrified when the release of a deadly nerve gas in Tokyo’s crowded subway system killed thirteen people and injured thousands more. But what came next was even more unbelievable: The attack was the work of a doomsday cult. In AUM: THE CULT AT THE END OF THE WORLD, directors Ben Braun and Chiaki Yanagimoto shine a bright light on a dark story that is little known today, even in Japan, tracing the shocking evolution of a spiritual group into a terrorist organization stockpiling weapons of mass destruction from the collapsed Soviet Union. With a wealth of historical footage as well as in-depth interviews with the courageous few who were willing to take on the cult when Japan’s police and mass media were looking the other way, AUM: THE CULT AT THE END OF THE WORLD is a potent reminder of just how dangerous unchecked fanaticism can be. 

The timeline of the events (Warning: Spoilers) that are documented in the doc include:

1983.   A man named Chizuo Matsumoto, who changed his name to Shoko Asahara, founded a spiritual group in Japan for the stated purposes of meditation and yoga and began gathering followers.

1985.   Asahara is covered in Japanese occult magazines "Mu" and "The Twilight Zone" and gains a following among youth at the time.

1987.   The group renames itself Aum Shinrikyo and continues to grow. Shoko Asahara travels to Tibet and arranges to have a picture of himself taken with the Dalai Lama. He publishes books and produces anime claiming that he has supernatural powers.

1989.   Aum purchases land in a remote village near Mount Fuji called Kamikuishiki Village. They begin construction on a large-scale facility meant to house Asahara and live-in followers. The total number of followers has grown to 3,000 by this time.

1989.   A lawyer named Tsutsumi Sakamoto, who has been investigating Aum Shinrikyo on behalf of parents concerned about children who have joined the cult, goes missing along with his wife and their one-year-old son.

1990. Members of Aum Shinrikyo, including Shoko Asahara himself, form a political party and run for twenty-five seats in Japan’s House of Representatives. They pour millions into the campaign but lose in a spectacular way, not winning a single seat. After this loss, some members begin to leave Aum Shinrikyo.

1991. In the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Shoko Asahara and some of his followers start a long process of recruiting followers in Russia. In Japan, He appears on Japanese television shows promoting the group. They are increasingly focused on Armageddon and interested in weaponry; in Russia, they begin to purchase weapons, including rifles, a heavy-duty transport helicopter. In Germany and the United States, they acquire industrial chemicals with the intent to create a nerve agent.

1993. Aum Shinrikyo members secretly begin construction on a chemical lab within their facility in Kamikuishiki with the intent to produce Sarin, a deadly nerve agent.

1994. Aum Shinrikyo members release Sarin in Matsumoto City. Seven people are killed and hundreds more are injured in the immediate aftermath of the attack. Matsumoto resident Yoshiyuki Kono is falsely accused of being responsible for the attack.

1994. Individuals (lawyers, journalists and parents) who are sounding alarm bells about Aum Shinrikyo find themselves under attack by the cult. AUM: THE CULT AT THE END OF THE WORLD

January, 1995.   An article in a major Japanese newspaper, the Yomiuri Shimbun reports on Sarinbeing detected in Kamikuishiki groundwater, which happens to be right near Aum's facility. Most people only know Kamikuishiki as an obscure city near Mount Fuji.

March 20, 1995.   Aum Shinrikyo members release Sarin on five subway cars traveling through busy Kasumigaseki Station in Tokyo. Thirteen people die; thousands are injured.

March 22, 1995. The police raid Aum Shinrikyo facilities and find Sarin and weapons.

May 16, 1995.   Shoko Asahara is discovered hiding in a secret chamber at the Kamikuishiki compound.

September, 1995.   The bodies of Tsutsumi Sakamoto, his wife and their son are found using a map provided by a member of Aum Shinrikyo, a map that had initially been sent to police five years earlier.

October, 1995.   Aum Shinrikyo is dissolved.

February, 2004.   Japan’s high court sentences Shoko Asahara to death.

July 2018.   Shoko Asahara is executed along with twelve of his followers. Former Aum spokesman Fumihiro Joyu is not among them; Joyu was released from prison in 1999 and is now leading a new group called Hikari no Wa (The Circle of Light).

The doc follows the timeline closely, thus providing an informative if not educational, account of the deadly cult.  The doc also demonstrates how foolish the masses are in following fanatical, power-hungry, evil people, once again reflected by the Trump supporters at present, who are following and accepting everything the hateful man does.

AUM: THE CULT AT THE END OF THE WORLD is available everywhere You Rent movies on March 28th.

Trailer: 

CON MUM (UK 2025) ***½

Directed by Nick Green

CON MUM is a Netflix original British crime drama.  But the perpetrator in this case is not what would be expected of a criminal.  The con artist is an 85-year-old lady in a wheelchair.  CON MUM is perhaps one of the most intriguing and emotional scams one can come across.  The doc begins by telling the audience that the mum (mother) is a con mum and shows how the alleged son is pulled into her grand scam.

CON MUM has inconsistent (it can hardly be called goofs) subtitles.  ‘Favourite’ is the British spelling, and ‘favorite’  is the American spelling.  The American spelling is used in the subtitles while the short form of mother used is ‘mum’, the British short form while ‘mom’ is the American equivalent.  One can probably surmise that a Brit and American did different parts of the titling.

A few lessons on life can be learnt from the doc.  One is that people do not change.  Dionne (one of the names Con mum uses) has been a con artist from day one, in her youth right up to her old age.  She even admits that she cannot change.   Another lesson that can be observed is the need of humans for love and acceptance.  This is the reason Graham was so easily conned into believing that Dionne was his mother, despite not taking DNA tests or having sufficient proof.  Graham also accepts and cherishes the so-called mother’s maternal love without question or doubt, even to the destruction of his marriage.

The film benefits from footage taken of Graham and Dionne as well as others who have fallen prey to the con.  The victims also speak candidly to the camera.  The doc plays like a detective mystery, even though the culprit is known.  CON MUM is definitely an engaging watch that keeps the audience glued to the story.  While one feels sorry for Graham, one also knows that he is deserving of what he suffered for being so gullible and foolish.  One can consider that the amount of money he has paid is for the unrequited maternal love.

The doc also proves once again how easy one can be scammed, and again, investment and greed come into play.  The other victims of Dionne accepted her proposed investment in the hope of making more money.  The key triggering point is when a scammer asks for money.  Whenever money is to be taken out of one’s account, warning bells should sound right away.  As in the case of Dionne’s victims, they have ignored the warning bells.  One fortunate prey is Graham’s good friend Juan, who fortunately had a limited amount of money to lose.

The well-made documentary also takes the audience globe-trotting from London to Switzerland with posh hotels on display, like the one in London with multiple views of Tower Bridge and the Thames,

The best thing about CON MUM is the huge twist in the ending.  There are actually two of them, the second one a minor but still intriguing one.  These will not be mentioned in the review as the two twists serve to up the ant of the documentary.

CON MUM is available for streaming this week on Netflix.

Trailer: 

DEATH OF A UNCORN (USA 2025) **
Directed by Alex Scharfman

From the American independent company A24, which has been incredibly successful with hits like MOONLIGHT, EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONE and  HEREDITARY, comes a horror comedy DEATH OF A UNICORN.  However, as much as a copa y can have a string of hits, they can come up with a dud as well.  DEATH OF A UNICORN, written nd directed by Alex Scharfma,n is an incredibly stupid dud.

For one thing, horror comedy is not a genre that is easy to work with.  Peter Jackson’s BRAINDEAD (RECUT AND RETITLED DAED ALIVE) is one of the best films in the genre.  DEATH OF A UNICORN is not funny at all; the only comedic antics are the characters in the story who generate zero laugh-out laughs.

Elliot Kintner (Paul Rudd) and his teenage daughter, Ridley (Jenny Ortega,) accidentally hit a unicorn while en route to a crisis management summit with Elliot's boss, Odell Leopold (Richard E. Grant), and his family.  The Leopolds seize the unicorn, and their scientists discover that the creature is endowed with supernaturally curative properties, which the Leopolds seek to exploit. However, as they delve deeper into their research, the unicorn's parents arrive and begin to slaughter one by one those involved in the exploitation of their dead foal.

The premise looks like an all right script for a horror comedy- though a totally predictable one. Predictable it surely is, with hardly any surprises or twists in the plot.  The addition of the daughter and the father's troubled relationship aims at some human aspect to the story.

Another flaw of the film is the unlikable and sad character Elliot Kinter.  His goal in the story is to make a buck with the Leopolds to support his family, totally disregarding the advice and warnings of his daughter.  Elliot is totally spineless and changes his mind while lying to further his goal.  With such a likeable character, it is difficult for the audience to like the film at the same time.  The change in the heart of Elliot only comes too late at the end of the film.

DEATH OF A UNICORN looks like something that can be written by a primary school pupil at that.   The special effects are nothing to write about either.  The audience is led to believe that unicorns exist in the present world, with no explanation why they were not discovered in the first place.  The premise that these mythical creatures cannot die is also too incredible to believe.  Then, there is the question of why they turn on humans like the dinosaurs do in the Jurassic Park movies.  However, the film has garnered a positive rating at the time of this writing of a mere 63% at Rotten Tomatoes.  Audiences do not seem to realize how awful this film is.

For the Leopold Estate and surroundings, the film is partly shot in British Columbia.

DEATH OF A UNCORN premiered at the 2025 South by Southwest on March 8, 2025, and is scheduled to be released in the United States and Canada on March 28, 2025.

Trailer: 

GRAND TOUR (Portugal/Italy/France/Germany/Japan/China 2024) ****

Directed by Miguel Gomes

The story of Edward and Molly is the story of unrequited love, even though the two had met only a handful of times after being engaged for a period of over 7 years.  The idea pokes fun at the institution of marriage, which is always frowned upon and disbelieved in the stories of W. Somerset Maugham.  (The narrative is based on the short story "Mabel" by W. Somerset Maugham, though no mention of it can be found in the credits.)  It is not surprising that the film is based on his work ‘Mabel’, which follows the travels of both Edward and Molly.   Edward is a coward, escaping marriage by running away from place to place while Molly doggedly follows him on, missing him at each corner.

The setting is 1917, colonial Burma. Edward (Gonçalo Waddington), a civil servant for the British Empire, jilts his lovestruck fiancée Molly (Crista Alfaiate) the day she arrives to be married.  He escapes into an unexpected odyssey across Asia, from Singapore to Thailand to Japan and even Vietnam.  She quickly follows suit, amused by his moves.

The film features two subjects, Edward and Molly, given equal screen time.  Both are annoying creatures - Edward the coward and Molly the obsessive finale who giggles as if she is spitting saliva.  The story first unfolds from Edward’s side and then continues with the original timeline from Molly’s story.

The film works as a romance, travelogue and comedy-drama, with the comedy coming across as odd but workably funny.  The director’s style might take some audiences to get used to, and its slow pace can get a bit testy.  This is not a Hollywood-styled romantic comedy, that is for sure, and one must look at Gomes’s style as a welcome thing.

Period scenes were shot in a studio. Present-day scenes were shot live on location without a script.  There is one scene in which Edward takes the train from Bukit Timah station to Thailand through Malaysia.  There is no Bukit Timah railway station in Singapore and there never was.  The only railway station is the one close to the causeway going directly to Johore, Malaysia.  Other than that, the period scenes of the ancient boats and sampans all serve to effectively create an authentic piece of filmmaking.

Also stunning and deserving of mention is the artistic and local Burmese puppetry (show puppetry) that has never been seen on the other side of the world.  The musical selection ranges from Johann Strauss II's "On the Beautiful Blue Danube" (1866) to Charles Trenet's "La Mer" (1946), in a 1959 version by Bobby Darin, to Gabriel Ruiz Galindo's classic "Amor" (1944), are performed by a band of old Chinese jazzmen in the film.  There is also a marvellous segment of a marching band playing in the rain as Edward arrives at a port.

Rendered in stunning black-and-white period visuals interspersed with modern-day documentary footage, Grand Tour–Portugal’s Best International Feature entry to the 97th Academy Awards®.  The film also won its director, Miguel Gomes (TABU and ARABIAN NIGHTS), the Best Director Prize at Cannes in 2024.

GRAND TOUR opens in theatres in Canada starting March 28th, in Toronto at the TIFF Lightbox on April 4th,  and will be available for streaming on MUBI starting April 18th, 2025.

Trailer:  

THE LIFE LIST (USA 2025) **
Directed by Adam Brooks

THE LIFE LIST is written and directed by Adam Brooks and adapted from the novel of the same name by Lori Nelson Spielman.

After the death of her mother, Alex (Sofia Carson) follows a teenage wish list her mother leaves for her to complete. In the process, she revisits her childhood aspirations, endeavouring to achieve her old goals, only to discover that pursuing these lifelong dreams takes her on an unforeseen and surprising journey.

From the beginning, the premise is nothing more than a disguise for a romantic comedy, and at over 2 hours long, it is a too lengthy one at that.  Mildly funny (if you find something like Hawaiian dancing in the bedroom with one’s long erect in front of kids funny), irrelevant and tedious, the film is fortunately a Netflix original, which means that one can take a break from the film.  Alex is disappointed, if not terribly upset for not inheriting her mother’s somatic business.

The film’s message of disposing of fortune and to look instead of what life has to offer, is a bit too obvious for anyone’s taste.

The various actors appear to go through the motions of acting, with no standout performances.

THE LIFE LIST opens on Netflix for streaming Friday, the 28th of March, 2025.

Trailer: 

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

Returning to Saint-Martial for his late boss's funeral, Jérémie's stay with widow Martine becomes entangled in a disappearance, a threatening neighbor, and an abbot's shady intentions.

MISERICORDE has the feel of a Claude Chabrol murder film in which the cat-and-mouse tale is mainly the mouse outwitting the cat with the aid of his cohorts.  The film is a prized twisted macabre tale with bouts of unexpected humour from the director of the 2014 gay hit L’CONNU DU LAC (Stranger by the Lake), this one with the fabulous Catherine Frot as a widow. who takes in Jérémie (Félix Kysyl) as a lodger whose sensual presence is immediately and progressively destabilizing to everyone around him.  Martine (Catherine Frot) happens to be the mother of his childhood friend, the brutish Vincent (Jean-Baptiste Durand).

Catherine Frot is always a pleasure to watch, she being one of my personal favourite French actresses.   Newcomer Félix Kysyl is also marvellous as the quietly sexy troublemaker, who has fate both work against and for him, depending on how one looks at it.  The twists of fate and unexpected bouts of humour are what make director Giuraudie's film so entertaining. MISERICORDIA means Mercy in English.

The film demonstrates that actual fake rain need not be used in a scene that involves it.  One scene has the sound of heavy rain, followed by a scene with Jeremie drenched from head to foot.  But there is no rain seen in the background.  Yet, the scene is credible enough for the audience to believe that it rained.

Subtlety in the script also provides additional pleasure in the film.  "We are all entitled to a private life,"says the preist at one point in the film, his homosexuality hidden and never practiced till then.

The duo’s interactions are terse and laden with resentment but clearly erotically charged.  When a fight goes awry, Misericordia swerves into noir territory with absurdist undertones, and an ensuing investigation spirals around a loner neighbour, ineffectual gendarmes, and a nosy country priest — seemingly the only inhabitants in this dewy, mountainous village perpetually bathed in twilight.  No sex scenes but there are two with full penises on display, that are both erotic and hilarious.  MISEROCORDE, extremely well plotted and executed, is a total wicked delight!

Trailer: 

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

Directed by Peter Cattaneo

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

A WORKING MAN (USA 2025) ***
Directed by David Ayer

Action super hero Jason Statham delivers, almost without fail, a solid action picture every year.  He is tough to beat and cannot even beat himself.  Last year, 2024 saw Statham deliver his career-best movie THE BEEKEEPER directed by David Ayer, who also directs Statham’s new film opening this week, A WORKING MAN.  THE BEEKEEPER follows a retired government assassin who sets out for revenge after his kind-hearted landlady falls victim to a phishing scam.

The working man in the film is Levon Cade (Statham), an ex-Royal Marines commando who leads a peaceful life as a construction worker in Chicago.  Levon tries to be as ignite as he can, but fate forces him to come out of hiding.  However, Levon is forced to use his old set of skills to find his boss's (Michael Pena) teenaged daughter, Jenny (Arianna Rivas), who had been kidnapped by human traffickers, and soon uncovers a conspiracy of corruption and government agents' involvement in human trafficking.

The film is based on a novel by Chuck Dixon and written by Sylvester Stallone and director Ayer.  The film contains the melodrama of ROCKY, especially embarrassingly noticeable at the end of the film, a Stallone trademark.  The relationship between Levon and his real daughter, Merry Cade (Isla Gee) could have also been toned down a little.  On the positive side, the film contains an array of solid baddies that propel the audience to wanting more violence inflicted on them.    Among the villains are Jason Flemyng as Wolo and a host of others, but the scene stealer is Max Osinski as the drug-fueled manic Dimi.  The villains actually lift the film up several notches; in fact, they are more interesting than the action set pieces themselves.

The film has an odd history.  Sylvester Stallone originally developed an adaptation of the Chuck Dixon novel Levon's Trade as a television series with Balboa Productions.  The project changed into a film that was up for sale at the 2023 American Film Market. 

The bottom line is that I liked this new Statham actioner more than I should have.  Though not as good as his previous career-best BEEKEEPER, WORKING MAN proves Statham retains the title of the current cinema's last action hero. A WORKING MAN opens in theatres on March 28th, 2025

Trailer:  

Details

Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 24 March 2025

ADOLESCENCE (UK 2025) *****

Directed by Philip Barantini

I seldom review streaming or TV series but ADOLESCENCE makes the exception.

It is a 4 episode series, one hour in length each, and it must be said the less known about the events the better.  The preside is as follows, as it does disclose a bit of the plot.

In an English town, the police break down the door of a family home and arrest Jamie Miller, a 13-year-old boy, on suspicion of the murder of a classmate, Katie Leonard. Jamie is held at a police station for questioning and then remanded in custody at a Secure Training Centre. Investigations at Jamie's school, and questioning by a forensic psychologist, reveal that Jamie has been deeply disturbed by school bullying via social media centred on the incel subculture.

ADOLESCENCE was primarily filmed in and around Pontefract, West Yorkshire. Notable locations include Minsthorpe Community College in South Elmsall, used for school scenes, and Production Park in South Kirkby, which served as the set for police station interiors. Additionally, some scenes were filmed in Sheffield.

As the dialogue is typically British working class, a few slang words are used that might not be familiar to non-Brits.  The words, for example slag (slut) and nonse ( a sex offender that involves a child), the second painted on the van of the Millers are examples.

The series also serves two important messages.  The second episode shows how terrible and useless the education system appears to be, with the kids all swearing and mostly uncontrollable.  One bright and tamed kid is the detective's son.  The father loves and brings up his son well, illustrating that the kids' upbringing is foremost a job that is to be untaken by the parent(s).  That is the most important in child rearing.  Another is the example shown by this coloured family.  Blacks set a good example in the story,

The series is notable for its unique filming technique, with each episode shot in a single continuous take, immersing viewers deeply into the narrative.  The one-take works for several reasons.  For one, the continuity of each scene is extremely smooth as the camera follows one character and then the next as the initial one passes the other.  Secondly, the method shows the importance of timing technique, something that is largely missed by the average moviegoer.

Stephen Graham who plays the father, Eddie Miller, also co-wrote the impressive script and executively produced the series.

What makes the series most remarkable is its down-to-earth authenticity.  The impossibility of educating adolescents, the reality of working-class life, and the difficulty of navigating adolescent life are effectively captured on film.  The story offers a different perspective of the crime from the detective, from the psychologist, from the suspect, and from others.  Also, keeping the intricacies of the plot revealed only at the appropriate moment works wonders.

Many have concluded that ADOLESCENCE is the best series ever made.  Well, for one, it is pretty solid.  ADOLESCENCE is arguably the best series to be seen thus far.

Trailer: 

Details

Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 18 March 2025

FILM REVIEWS:

825 FOREST ROAD (USA 2024) ***

Directed by Stephen Cognetti

The new Shudder original horror flick 825 FOREST HILL begins with a shaky and confusing start.  It takes a while for the film to get its footing, which occurs once it is made clear to the audience the three main subjects of the story.

The story is told in 3 chapters, called Chuck, Elizabeth and then Maria, who are the names of the three principal characters in the story.   The story unfolds with each of the character’s point of view of what occurs, with more missing information give to the audience as the film progresses.

The film centres on Chuck Wilson starting a new life after a family tragedy when he moves to the town of Ashland Falls with his wife Maria and little sister Elizabeth. But he quickly discovers that the town has a dark secret.  The ghost of Helen Foster has terrorized residents for decades, since her own suicide back in the ‘40s. Finding Helen’s old home is key to ending the hauntings, but the address they have doesn’t match any of the town’s existing streets. When Chuck realizes his family might be in danger of Helen’s wrath, he takes it upon himself to locate 825 Forest Road before it’s too late.

The theory, which is quite the implausible one, requires that everyone believe that burning down the house on 825 Forest Road would destroy the curse and Helen Foster herself.  Trouble is that all the street names have been changed and Chuck tries to locate whee the old  825 Forest Road is now located.   

825 FOREST ROAD contains both strengths and weaknesses.  The strengths include the director’s build-up of events and the scary set-pieces.  Director Cognetti has proven in his previous feature, also with a haunted house theme, the HELL HOUSE LLC franchise, that he can do wonders with the house hallways, and open doors, dolls and creates or shadows that lurk in the shadows of the background.

825 FOREST ROAD, besides being a horror movie also works as a family drama since there are plenty of family conflicts in the story.  The enmity between the wife and the husband’s sister is one.  The husband has never informed the wife he had a sister but now they all move into the same residence.  When things move around the house, like Maria’s mannequin, she immediately blames Lizzy.  As predictable cliches go, the two females eventually bond to overcome the menace that is present in the house.  The film has a strong female slant with Chuck seen often as an indecisive though supportive person.  It is the females that make the decisions in the story.   Even the menace is due to a mother and her daughter.  The problem of bullying and not addressing the issue as well as mental health leading to suicide are two other current topics addressed in the film.

One complaint is the confusing ending, which matches the confusing opening.

825 FOREST ROAD has been touted as a scary horror film and Shudder managed to pick it up for streaming on April 8th.

Trailer: 

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

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

Trailer: 

GRAND TOUR (Portugal/Italy/France/Germany/Japan/China 2024) ****

Directed by Miguel Gomes

The story of Edward and Molly is the story of unrequited love, even though the two had met only a handful number of times after being engaged for a period of over 7 years.  The idea pokes fun at the institution of marriage, which is always frowned upon and disbelieved in the stories of W.Somerset Maugham.  (The narrative is based on the short story "Mabel" by W.Somerset Maugham, though no mention of it can be found in the credits.)  It is not surprising that the film is based on his work ‘Mabel’ which follows the travels of both Edward and Molly.   Edward is a coward, escaping marriage by running away from place to place while Molly doggedly follows him on, missing him at each corner.

The setting is 1917, colonial Burma. Edward, (Gonçalo Waddington) a civil servant for the British Empire, jilts his lovestruck fiancée Molly (Crista Alfaiate) the day she arrives to be married.  As he escapes into an unexpected odyssey across Asia, from Singapore to Thailand to Japan and even Vietnam) she quickly follows suit amused by his moves.

The film features two subjects, Edward and then Molly, given equal screen time.  Bot are annoying creatures - Edward the coward and Molly the obsessive finale who giggles as if she is spitting saliva.  The story first unfolds from Edward’s side and then continues with the original timeline from Molly’s story.

The film works as a romance, travelogue and comedy-drama, with the comedy coming across as odd but workably funny.  The director’s style might take some audiences to get used to, and its slow pace can get a bit testy.  This is not a Hollywood-styled romantic comedy, that is for sure, and one must look at Gomes’s style as a welcome thing.

Period scenes were shot in a studio. Present-day scenes were shot live on location, without a script.  There is one scene in which Edward takes the train from Bukit Timah station to Thailand through Malaysia.  There is no Bukit Timah railway station in Singapore and there never was.  The only railway station is the one close to the causeway going directly to Johore, Malaysia.  Other than that, the period scenes of the ancient boats and sampans all serve to effectively create an authentic piece of filmmaking.

Also stunning and deserving of mention is the artistic and local Burmese puppetry (show puppetry) that has never been seen on the other side of the world.  The musical selection ranges from Johann Strauss II's "On the Beautiful Blue Danube" (1866) to Charles Trenet's "La Mer" (1946), in a 1959 version by Bobby Darin, to Gabriel Ruiz Galindo's classic "Amor" (1944), are performed by a band of old Chinese jazzmen in the film.  There is also a marvellous segment of a marching band playing in the rain as Edward arrives at a port.

Rendered in stunning black-and-white period visuals interspersed with modern-day documentary footage, Grand Tour–Portugal’s Best International Feature entry to the 97th Academy Awards®.  The film also won its director Miguel Gomes (TABU and ARABIAN NIGHTS) the Best Director Prize at Cannes in 2024.

GRAND TOUR opens in theatres in Canada starting March 28th, in Toronto at the TIFF Lightbox on April 4th,  and will be available for streaming on MUBI starting April 18th, 2025.

Trailer: 

THE MARTIAL ARTIST (USA 2024) **
Directed by Shaz Khan

THE MARTIAL ARTIST is a sprites drama, with MMA as its setting,  The drama deals with the protagonist, having to deal with himself as the biggest obstacle while his family also struggles.

When MMA rising star Ibby “The Prince” Bakran shines in a local fight, the world’s largest promotion company offers him a deal he can’t refuse. Now aligned with the sport’s top developing athletes, Ibby has a clear path to becoming great. Consumed with the limelight and all it has to offer, Ibby burns the candle at both ends and soon his fighting takes its own hit. As his star begins to fade, he points the finger at everyone but himself, becoming withdrawn and pulling away from his family who never wanted him to fight. Desperate to reconnect, his mother reveals the reason for her fear and the long-held truth about his father’s death. With nowhere else to turn, he travels to his homeland to find answers from his estranged grandfather. In the majestic mountains of Pakistan, Ibby works to find what he’s lost; but first, he must face his biggest opponent yet: himself. 

THE MARTIAL ARTIST has similarities with Sylvester Stallone’s Academy Award Winning Best Picture ROCKY.  Both films star, and are written and directed by one person.   Shaz Khan co-wrote with Michael Ross Albert, directs and stars in THE MARTIAL ARTIST.  That is clearly a hard journey and a passionate effort, undoubtedly.  THE MARTIAL ARTIST is a messy and overdone effort, but not for want of trying.  Still, THE MARTIAL ARTIST, at least it can be said, flaws and all, is not a boring watch for the actors who do their utmost best to make the film work.

When Ibby gives some money to a homeless man as he leaves a store, the homeless man returns the money.  “I am only trying to help,” Abby says.  To which the homeless says: “You are  not ready.”  Indeed Abby is not ready as the rest of the film shows,

Though the film is listed as an American countryman origin, the film has more of a Pakistani feel to it.  The main actor is Pakistani and the first big action fight is supposed to take place in the desert mountains, supposedly in Pakistan,  The film is largely in English with no Pakistani spoken.

The film falls into intense melodrama, especially in the family scenes.  Shaz Khan acts as if he is the best actor on the planet.  The flight scenes are violent enough and are exciting enough to distract the film from its flaws.  The actress playing Ibby’s mother is the best of all and she tries her damnest best to make the film work.  Whether the party of Ibby travelling to Pakistan to meet his grandfather works is up to the audience to decide but it makes the film lean more towards drama than action.

THE MARTIAL ARTIST opens in theatres on January 31st.  A Pakistani MMA ROCKY?  That is what the filmmakers hope but hope and expectations are all way below the film’s results.

Trailer: 

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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 18 March 2025

FILM REVIEWS:

THE ALTO KNIGHTS (USA 2025) ****

Directed by Barry Levinson

THE ALTO KNIGHTS is a film by old people with old people as the protagonists.  Robert De Niro has dual roles in the film as two quarrelling gangsters and the film is directed by veteran Barry Levinson (DINER) and written by Nicholas Pileggi, author of GOODFELLAS, both of whom are in their senior years.   But the film is masterly done and a pleasure to watch from the starting frame.   De Niro is 81, Levinson is 82 and Pileggi is 92.

Why is the film called THE ALTO KNIGHTS?  It is not made clear but the name THE ALTO KNIGHTS is the name of the bar that the two gangsters and others meet.  In music ‘alto’ means the higher male pitched voice, often higher than the tenor.  The gangster could be singing a higher tune that needs to be heard.

A power struggle between Vito Genovese and Frank Costello (both played by De Niro), the top bosses of the Mafia, spills into open conflict when Vito orders a hit on Frank.  It all begins when Vito returns to the U.S. for Europe after handing everything in the business to Frank, his childhood and lifelong friend.  The business, crooked as most of it is, booms.  Now, returning, Vito wants to take over where he had left off.  But  Vito gets frustrated as to how things turn out, as orchestrated by Fransk.  Barely surviving, Frank maneuvers to protect himself and his family from Vito while also planning to retire from the Mafia.   Frank just wants to get out.  The other mob leaders do not want Vito to take over as they know he is a wild card.  They prefer to leave things as they are, with Frank in charge.   

The opening frame informs us that the year is 1957.   The first 15 minutes of the film illustrate the meticulous care and effort that goes into creating the period atmosphere of the story.  The vintage cars that are driven on the street, the shop windows and displays, the people’s wardrobe, props, and even the English spoken reflect the period of the piece.  Then the excitement begins.   Frank is shot in the elevator but survives.

The dialogue of the script from the writer of GOODFELLAS is spot on, and hilarious and makes the movie, aided by Robert De Niro who in his 70s can still deliver dialogue and motor-mouth like his younger counterparts like Jesse Eisenberg and Jim Carrey, while keeping appropriate accents.  The dialogue in which Frank talks about roses and horses is simply priceless.  Roses are better than horses and they don’t smell that much.  Also, I have won prizes for cultivating the best rose at a competition. Maybe my wife fixed the winner, but who cares?   The spill on a paranoia conspiracy theory that feeds on itself is also too good a dialogue to be forgotten.  The film thrives on its dialogue more than the action scenes, so more sophisticated audiences can enjoy it better.

De Niro hits the nail for best performance in the dual roles of the two gangsters.  He sports different accents and with the different hair, the audience can distinguish one gangster character from the other.  Debra Messing is all pretty good as Bobbie, the long-suffering wife who loves her husband regardless of what the circumstances are.

THE ALTO KNIGHTS a must-see opens Friday, March 21st.

Trailer: 

APPALACHIAN DOG (USA 2024) ***
Directed by Colin Henning

APPALACHIAN DOG, is a sultry, slow-burn Southern Gothic period drama set in post-war Appalachia, 1946. The story follows a tailor and his seamstress wife as they struggle to navigate a tense reunion after five years apart. Shot on location in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina, the film leverages the stark winter landscape to evoke both cinematic beauty and a haunting desolation.

The Appalachian Mountain range in the United States is a bleak and deserted area.  The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, are the mountain range in eastern to northeastern North America. The term "Appalachian" refers to several different regions associated with the mountain range and its surrounding terrain.

It is this setting that sets the tone for a tense reunion between a husband, Teddy (Colin Henning) – turned unfruitfully idealistic after the war– and his wife, Marion (Georgia Morgan) –armed with courage and knowledge found in the years without him.   Teddy is a tailor and his wife is a seamstress.  But an injury during the war finds him with a shaky hand, one that is unable to sew less, thread a needle and thus unable to make the living he did.  He returns home with glasses, enabling him to read and see while being as blind as a bat before the war. Things have changed.  And very drastically.  Their former relationship lies lost somewhere in the five years that have passed, but they share one common, unspoken interest: to build a future.  Pardon the pun - but the couple is trying to stitch their lives back together,

The film begins with Marion, her hired help Peggy working as help in the sewing and her best friend gathered for dinner as a welcome party for Teddy.  But when Teddy appears, he acts all kind of weird, and things reach an emotional pitch, not to mention that the couple do not kiss or show tenderness when reunited.

In the heart of winter, their life and profession as tailors become complicated by newfound desires, talents, and a broken pair of glasses. Unable to sew, Teddy must pick up other work. Meanwhile, Marion moves back to the familiar feeling of working without her husband –and more than familiar, it may be preferable, too.

Director Colin Henning, who also wrote and stars as Teddy in the film, offers a really slow burn of a movie.  But slow burn does not necessarily translate to ‘boring’, for the film surely isn’t.  But the slow burn allows the film to unfold without any rush and allows the audience to get into the skin of the story’s characters.  One can also see what goes on the inside and read between the lines of dialogue.

The film’s sparse and isolated backdrop adds to the plight of the couple.

APPALACHIAN DOG is a film that is character-driven about how humans undergo and adapt to change.  As shown, some things can be changed, and some cannot.  The same goes for the personalities of Teddy and Marion.  Though written by Henning, the film offers a female point of view instead.

The film opens on demand on 3/21

Trailer: 

INVADER (USA 2024) ***
Directed by Mickey Keating

The film opens with jittery images as the film is shot hand-held camera style.  There is some dodgy person that is squatting in a house.  This person is destructive and damages the floors and walls of the house while sleeping thereafter.  The words inform the audience that in the United States , there is a break in i.e. an invasion every 30 seconds.  The film has the look of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT and it is obvious that it is that look and authenticity INVADER is aiming for.

Ana (Vero Maynez) is a long way from home, but eager to visit her cousin Camila in the Chicago suburbs. After Ana’s bus gets delayed, she arrives very late and begins to fear the worst when she can’t get a hold of Camila. Accompanied by Carlo (Colin Huerta), one of Camila’s co-workers, Ana decides to venture on foot to search for her cousin, encountering ominous signs, hostile locals, and the punishingly empty expanse of suburban America. When they arrive at Camila’s house, the night spirals into chaos when Ana and Carlo realize the bizarre and jaw-dropping truth. A lean, mean jolt of unsettling home invasion horror from director Mickey Keating and producer Joe Swanberg, INVADER will keep your skin crawling long after the credits roll.

The trouble with hand-held camera used in films like THE BLAIR WITCH PROJET is that the jittery images often gives one a headache besides being terribly annoying,  Myself, I am not a fan.  What is the problem of not using a tripod once in a while?

The best home invasion film is FUNNY GAMES made by Michael Hanake who specializes in creating human individual angst amidst social issues.  HE made FUNNY GAMES in 1997 and a shot-to-shot American remake, the same title FUNNY GAMES in 2007.  Hanake’s films are the best of the sub-genre and are disturbing, scary and unforgettable.  INVADER is ok, given its limited budget and the fact that director Keaton is no match for world-renowned Austrian director Michael Hanake.

INVADER opens in select theatres in the United States February 21st and premieres in Canada on VOD March 25th.

Trailer: 

LITTLE SIBERIA (Finland 2025) ***
Directed by Dome Karukoski

Little Siberia is a Netflix original film based on the hit Finnish noir novel of the same name by Antti Tuomainen.  The film also marks the first Netflix original film from Finland and it is an impressive film.

The film works as a dark thriller, a genre that usually is loved by cineastes  The protagonist is a priest called Joel, who is far from the holy leader one would expect.  Things come to a boil when a meteorite hots the town.

The arrival of a meteorite in a small Finnish town causes chaos and crime in this poignant, chilling and hilarious new thriller from the King of Helsinki Noir A man with dark thoughts on his mind is racing along the remote snowy roads of Hurmevaara in Finland, when there is flash in the sky and something crashes into the car. That something turns out to be a highly valuable meteorite. With euro signs lighting up the eyes of the locals, the unexpected treasure is temporarily placed in a neighbourhood museum, under the watchful eye of a priest named Joel.  But Joel has a lot more on his mind than simply protecting the riches that have apparently rained down from heaven.  His wife has just revealed that she is pregnant. 

The town of Hurmevaara is fictional but the fictional town does look stunning on screen.

Unfortunately, Joel has strong reason to think the baby isn’t his - the reason being that he cannot have a child, unbeknown to his wife.  As Joel tries to fend off repeated and bungled attempts to steal the meteorite, he must also come to terms with his own situation, and discover who the father of the baby really is.

The film is directed and co-written by Dome Karukoski who made a name for himself with his previous success THE GRUMP in 2014.

For Netflix viewers, the culture of Finland, the mores, customs and practices are all on display, all tied into a realistic story about what life is all about.

LITTLE SIBERIA opens for streaming on Netflix Friday, March 21st.

Trailer: 

REVELATIONS (South Korea 2025) ***
Directed by Yeon Sang-ho

Director Yeon Sang-ho, who made his name with the immensely popular Korean film TRAIN TO BUSAN returns with a new entry, REVELATIONS, the title taken from revelations realized by human individuals though it could also come from the Bible’s Book of Revelations.

A pastor, Min-chan (Ryu Jun-yeol) believes that punishing criminals is a divine revelation, and a detective, Yeon-hee (Shih Hyun-been), is in charge of a missing persons case who is haunted by visions of her deceased sibling.  Shin Min-jae plays ex-convict Yang-rae.

The story shifts between the individuals pursuing their own beliefs as director Yeon tackles a more complicated film.  Not only that but the film shifts between the genres of obsession to the point of paranoia and thriller suspense.  Director Yeon builds a good balance, though the end result might disappoint some audiences due to the meticulous build-up of the story.

There are too many coincidences in the climax that director Yeom uses to tie the ends together though the happy ending is satisfactory enough to bring all the three subjects together - the villain, the pastor and the detective.

REVELATIONS is still a compulsive entertaining watch and is currently streaming on Netflix,

Trailer:  

THE TWISTER: CAUGHT IN THE STORM (UK 2025) ***
Directed by Alexandra Lacey

It is graduation day in Joplin, Missouri. As the Class of 2011 collect their diplomas, their hometown is hit by a rare EF-5 tornado. Believing it could be the end of the world, a group of teenagers find themselves in the eye of the storm.

At times, it is more exciting than the fiction TWISTER Hollywood film, CAUGHT IN THE STORM, which is about the Joplin, Missouri tornado.  In the hours of Sunday, May 22, 2011, a large, deadly and devastating EF5 tornado, known most commonly as the Joplin tornado, or Joplin EF5, struck the city of Joplin, Missouri, United States, causing catastrophic damage to it and the surrounding regions.  The tornado devastated a large portion of the city of Joplin, damaging nearly 8,000 buildings, and of those, destroying over 4,000. The damage—which included major facilities like one of Joplin's two hospitals as well as much of its basic infrastructure—amounted to a total of $2.8 billion (equivalent to about $4 billion today), making the Joplin tornado the costliest single tornado in U.S. history.  Overall, the tornado killed 158 people (including eight indirect deaths) and injured some 1,150 others, making it the deadliest tornado of the year of 2011. It ranks as the deadliest tornado in Missouri in addition to being one of the deadliest in the United States, having the highest death.

The doc also talks about Tornado Alley.  Tornado Alley, also known as Tornado Valley, is a loosely defined location of the central United States and, in the 21st century, Canada where tornadoes are most frequent.

The doc personalizes the event by including the voices of several survivors, mainly teens of various upbringings.  One of them is Chad Crilley who flew to Joplin with his mother the day before to observe twisters.  Crilley is already a celebrity.  \Chief Meteorologist Chad Crilley has had weather running in his blood since he was nine years old. When he was in middle school, before becoming a teen, Chad emailed several broadcast meteorologists across Tornado Alley asking if he could shadow them during severe weather season. One meteorologist in Joplin, Missouri, was quick to respond and extend an invitation.  After receiving the invite, Chad’s mother made arrangements and flew with him to Joplin on May 22, 2011, just two hours before the monster EF5 tornado destroyed much of the town. Chad sprang into action, grabbing his phone and recording reports as the storms tore through Joplin and sending the video back to stations in his hometown of San Diego, California. 

Other teens featured in the doc include Cecil,  a gay teen who thought he was left behind in what he thought was the Christian rapture (the second coming) because he was gay.  Others included teen couple Kaylee and Keegan.  Being in the Bible Belt, God comes into playing he much of the dialogue.

Other issues include the existence of a black fungus that was deadly and almost killed Will, a teen featured in the doc- called Miracle Boy.

The doc suffers from trying to humanize the tragedy too much resulting in sappiness reigning for the day.

CAUGHT IN STORM is currently streaming on Netflix.

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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 17 March 2025

CANADIAN FILM FEST - 2025

Canadian Film Fest (CFF), the indie-spirited festival dedicated to celebrating Canadian filmmakers, today announced its lineup for the 2025 edition of the festival. Now in its 19th year, CFF continues to champion and support our country’s creatives and homegrown talent, bringing Canadian stories to Canadian audiences. This year, the festival will be showcasing 16 features and 50 shorts. Tickets go on sale March 10 and can be purchased at canfilmfest.ca. CFF returns to Cineplex’s Scotiabank Theatre in Toronto and runs from March 24-29, 2025.

 This year, CFF welcomes films from across Canada, with feature films from British Columbia, Quebec, Ontario, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. The festival kicks off with Naomi Jaye’s award-winning film Darkest Miriam, an adaptation of Martha Baillie’s novel The Incident Reporter, starring Britt Lower (Severance, Man Seeking Woman) and Tom Mercier (Synonyms, The Animal Kingdom). The film tells the story about a librarian who lives in a fog of grief while working at the Allen Gardens branch of the Toronto Public Libraries. 

 Below are capsule reviews of select films, and screeners provided courtesy of the CFF.

Capsule Reviews of Select Films:

DARKEST MIRIAM (Canada 2024) ***
Directed by Naomi Jaye

Selected as the Opening Night film for the Canadian Film Fest, the quirky DARKEST MIRIAM is set in and around Allen Gardens in downtown Toronto.

Librarian Miriam Gordon (Britt Lower) lives in a fog of grief while working amidst marginalized members of the public who populate the Allen Gardens branch of the Toronto Public Libraries. When a burgeoning love affair with Janko, a younger foreign cab driver (Mercier), coincides with her receiving a series of oddly threatening letters addressed to her, Miriam’s sheltered existence is cracked open.  The story revolves around the many characters who weave in and out of Miriam’s life, her life is as odd as Allen Gardens existing in bustling downtown Toronto.  Director  Jaye uses Allen Gardens well, except the titular dog park is missing.  Though the film occasionally seems aimless, all over the place, the quirkiness of the piece still warrants an audience’s attention.

GOLD BARS: WHO THE F*CK IS UNCLE LUDWIG? (Canada 2024) ***

Directed by Billie Mintz

Montreal lawyer Glenn Joseph Feldman risks his reputation and faces a multi-million dollar defamation lawsuit after accusing his former business partner of living off Nazi Gold stolen from the Holocaust.  But when his concerned daughter Alex reluctantly joins the investigation to help her father, she confronts unreliable evidence and her father’s moral contradictions, uncovering a truth far more personal and complicated than she imagined.  The key question is whether the whole theft of the Nazi gold is true.   It turns out that the doc shows that the investigation is more intriguing than the truth.  The conspiracy theory cooked up by Feldman, the relationship between father and daughter, and the tracing of Ludwig are all interesting enough, though the amount of information provided to the audience can be quite overwhelming and a bit confusing at times.  Still, there is quote bait of humour as implied by the film title, in this doc with many re-enactments.

TO THE MOON (Canada 2024) ***

Directed by Kevin Hartford

Quirkiness is the word of the day for this quirky film from Nova Scotia, which begins with a father and daughter moon dance that is supposed to prevent the moon from moving away from the earth’s orbit.  Closeted single dad Sam (Jacob Sampson) finds his world upended when he meets a handsome stranger.  Meanwhile, his daughter Ella (Phoebe Rex) struggles with the challenges of teenagerhood and their writer’s block-suffering neighbour Claire (Amy Groening) tries to mine this offbeat father/daughter duo for source material. An ensemble comedy about love, choreographed dance, kitchen safety, stranger danger, planetary physics, and the idea that it’s never too late in life to figure out who you really are.   The story has three protagonists and director Hartford gives each around equal screen time.  Though the film tends to be all over the place, there is much humour and as stated, quirkiness that holds one’s interest.

VAMPIRE ZOMBIES … FROM SPACE (Canada 2024) ***½

Directed by Michael Stasko

In the first killing scene in which a farming family’s wife is blasted to death by some beam from a flying saucer after meeting a Dracula-like creature with fangs, the cheesy-looking film looks like a cross among three genres - sci-fi, zombie and vampire.  The setting is in the 50’s and 60’s like what old monster movies look like, with farm trucks driven around with characters wearing   ‘GREAS E’ like clothes.  But this is the purpose of director Stasko who has created a remarkable tribute to old monster movies - making it fun, and entertaining with a few scares added along the way.  From the depths of space, Dracula has devised his most dastardly plan yet; turning the residents of a small American town (though this is totally a Canadian film) into his personal army of vampire zombies!  A motley crew consisting of a grizzled detective, a skeptical rookie cop, ( a tribute to IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT), a chain-smoking greaser, and a determined young woman band together to save the world.  There are a few drags along the way, but the film is still a worthy effort.

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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 10 March 2025

FILM REVIEWS:

BLACK  BAG (USA 2025) ****
Directed by Steven Soderbergh

Espionage was a favourite premise in films from the 60s to beyond, fuelled by the ever-popular James Bond 007 action films.  More serious films like THE SPY WHO CAM IN FROM THE COLD, THE IPCRESS FILE as well as a lot of cheapies like the Matt Helm films also entertained moviegoers.  The genre is largely missing these days but up comes an espionage thriller that feels like a chamber piece though the action takes place in and around London with two key scenes taking place at a dinner table.

The film is called black bag as an actual black bag contains tools of the espionage.  A Black bag operation aka a covert burglary, is an espionage technique, referring to the black bag of equipment that a burglar would carry.

The film’s impressive cast includes:

Cate Blanchett as Kathryn St. Jean

Michael Fassbender as George Woodhouse

Marisa Abela as Clarissa Dubose

Tom Burke as Freddie Smalls

Naomie Harris as Dr. Zoe Vaughan

Regé-Jean Page as Col. James Stokes

Pierce Brosnan as Arthur Steiglitz

Gustaf Skarsgård as Meacham

Kae Alexander as Anna Ko

When his wife (Blanchett), intelligence agent Kathryn, is suspected of committing treason, her husband, intelligence agent George Woodhouse (Fassbender) is assigned to investigate her. He faces the ultimate test - faithfulness to his marriage or loyalty to his country.  George is tasked too, of finding the traitor, ins which he does by means of clever parlour games during a dinner in which suspects are forced to attend - and play.  At times, the espionage thriller plays like a murder whodunnit.

Soderbergh alternates between small and big-budget movies. His small-budget PRESENCE, a haunted house ghost story, quote good, opened two months ago. BLACK BAG is a small film but boasts an impressive cast, shot entirely in London. It is brilliantly written and executed, with touches of humour amidst thrills and almost perfectly performed by its apt cast.

Trailer: 

CAN I GET A WITNESS? (Canada 2024) ***
Directed by Ann Marie Fleming

At the beginning of the film, a title indicates that the film is a ‘fable’.   ‘Fable’ is a literary genre defined as a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized, and that illustrates or lead to a particular moral lesson (a "moral"), which may at the end be added explicitly as a concise maxim or saying.  There are no animals, talking or otherwise featured in the film, so what is expected from the film after the complete viewing is a moral to the story.

How much time is enough?  Sandra Oh stars and asks alongside up-and-comers Keira Jang and Joel Oulette in Ann Marie Fleming’s CAN I GET A WITNESS?, a fable set in the near future, when humans are supposed to have solved all the world’s problems, from climate change to poverty to inequality.  But there is just one catch.  Humans have to end life at 50 and teen artists have to document it.  It does not take a genius to figure out the moral of the story.  The story shares similarity to the story of LOGAN’S RUN, in which humans are terminated at the age of 30 believing that they are reincarnated into a better life.  Where Michael Anderson’s LOGAN’S RUN looks futuristic CAN I GET A WITNESS? surprisingly looks like a vintage film.  

The film is set on Kiah's (Jang) first day on the job.  She is supposed to have the government's job of witnessing the culmination of life for individuals approaching or reaching the age of termination.  Without cameras or electronic devices that use chemicals that are currently forbidden, Kiah has to draw the EOL (end-of-life) protocols, her illustrations coming to life through animation that’s sprinkled throughout the film.  The animation appears often, not always from her drawing and whether these serve their purpose or a distraction is arguable.  Her mentor (Oulette) is a young man whose personal history (heart problems as a child losing his mother in the birth process) makes him wise beyond his years. Meanwhile, Kiah’s mother (Oh), is getting her own things in order. 

Canadian Sandra Oh has proven herself in both drama and comedy.  Oh puts on a serious side as the mother of Kiah.  Oh is always great to watch, she has been bypassed for her talent ever so many times.  One wishes for the script to have included more humour for Oh’s character,  For example in Alexander Payne’s 2004 SIDEWAYS, she was snubbed for an Academy Award nomination while Virginia Madsen won one, despite her performance being equal if not better than Madsen’s.

As the subject of the story is the environment and eco-friendliness above all, including human life, the filming also supports the issue.  The film is hot among the lush foliage and waterways of BC’s eco-conscious Powell River.  While shooting,  it is reported that production used real dishes and reusable water bottles, which helped keep over 180,000 items out of the landfill. 

CAN I GET A WITNESS? is intriguing enough though it suffers from a monotonous pacing that assumes the audience will keep getting more and more mesmerized as the story unfolds.

CAN I GET A WITNESS? has made it to this year’s TIFF “Canada’s Top Ten” as well as winning 5 Vancouver Film Critics Circle Awards  CAN I GET A WITNESS? opens March 14 in Toronto (TIFF Lightbox), Vancouver and Montreal!  The film opens throughout the spring in other Canadian cities.

Trailer: 

THE ELECTRIC STATE (USA 2025) **
Directed by Joe and Anthony Russo

THE ELECTRIC STATE is touted as Netflix’s and on record (over $300 million in change), of one of the most expensive films made.

The film is based on The Electric State, a 2018 dystopian science fiction illustrated novel by Swedish artist Simon Stålenhag. Set in an alternate technologically ravaged 1990s, it follows a teenage girl and her robot on a journey to the West Coast of the United States in search of her long-lost brother.  (In 2017, the Russo brothers acquired film rights to the book. They directed and produced this Netflix film of the same title, starring Millie Bobby Brown.)

The widely acclaimed book is told through a series of paragraphs, linked to large artworks. The principal plot line follows Michelle (Brown), a teenage orphan travelling to the West Coast with a robot companion, Skip, to find her long-lost brother. Flashbacks gradually reveal Michelle's past and the reason for her separation, while a secondary plot line follows a federal agent tracking down her brother.

The film pretty much follows the book.  But credibility appears to be in jeopardy in the film with Michelle running around with the bot (now called Kid Cosmo instead of Skip) running around trying to locate her real brother in a journey that is both tedious, hard to believe and impossible to achieve.   In the meantime, there is the end of the world as one knows it with Stanley Tucci playing the main villain Skate, accompanied by his nasty partner and Bot hunter Colonel Marshall (Giancarlo Esposito).  They meet with Keats (Chris Pratt) and Herman (Anthony Mackie).   It is an all-sorry affair with special effects and unexciting action pieces.  The film is not helped by what might be deemed at many points corny or bad dialogue with jokes no one wishes to report.  Chris Pratt is largely wasted in a role, in which he overacts calling him to have feelings for his robot companion.  Most of the humour, that comes from his character falls flat as well.

Instead of animated characters, there are robot characters with many stars credited for the voices.  These include:

Woody Harrelson as Mr. Peanut

Anthony Mackie as Herman

Brian Cox as Popfly

Jenny Slate as Penny Pal

Alan Tudyk as Cosmo

Hank Azaria as Perplexo

Colman Domingo as Wolfe

Oscar and Golden Globe Winner Ke Huy Quan plays Dr. Amherst, the bespectacled doctor the team is searching for.  Nothing is impressive here either.

THE ELECTRIC STATE lacks spark and credibility and a story that will connect the audience to the characters or its events.   The result is a huge mess of special effects and high production costs in a film no one rally cares for.

THE ELECTRIC STATE had its world premiere on February 24, 2025, at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre, in Los Angeles, California, and is scheduled to be released by Netflix on March 14. The film received negative reviews from critics.

Trailer: 

NOVOCAINE (USA 2025) **
Directed by Dan Berk and Robert Olsen

Nathan Caine (Jack Quaid) is a mild-mannered introvert with congenital insensitivity to pain (CIP) working as an assistant manager at a trust credit union in San Diego. His co-worker Sherry Marave (Amber Midthunder) pursues a relationship with him, but Nathan is hesitant due to his condition and inexperience with women. At a bar with Sherry, Nathan meets his middle school bully, who calls him "Novocaine." They get revenge on the bully by tricking him into drinking a shot of hot sauce and then they spend the night together.

The next morning, on Christmas Eve, a gang of robbers dressed up in Santa suits led by Simon Greenly (Ray Nicholson)  rob the bank and take Sherry as a hostage.

The rest has Nathan rescue the girl while experiencing excruciating injuries though not feeling any pain.

The film is based on a medical condition that affects the story’s hero.  The medical condition in which a person feels no pain is called Congenital Insensitivity to Pain (CIP). It is a rare genetic disorder that affects the nervous system, preventing pain signals from being transmitted to the brain. People with CIP do not experience pain from injuries, burns, or other harmful stimuli, which can lead to serious complications since they may not realize when they are injured.

The film has the feel of originality but it is not that original having stolen some ideas from classic thrillers.  Other films with characters with Congenital Insensitivity to Pain include:

1. The Girl Who Knew Too Much (2019) (*aka Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase): Character: Helen Cornin  Plot: While not the main focus, a supporting character in this Nancy Drew mystery has CIP, which plays a role in the unfolding mystery.
2. Piercing (2018) Character: Mia Wasikowska’s character (Jackie)  Plot: A psychological horror-thriller where the protagonist encounters a woman who doesn’t seem to experience and, leads to eerie and violent encounters.

While noting that Jack Quaid is the son of Dennis Quaid (HALF OF HEAVEN, BREAKING AWAY) and Meg Ryan (WHEN HARRY MET SALLY), the film also features Ray Nicholson who is the son of Jack Nicholson who has a small role as Simon.

The similar premise of the hero falling for the girl who works for the villa is not new.  In Alfred Hitchcock’s classic NORTH BY NORTHWEST, Cary Grant falls in love with Eva Marie Saint who is the villain James Mason’s girlfriend.

To capitalize on a hero who feels no pain, the film includes, as expected, scenes of extreme ultra-violence that include one in which Nathan extracts a bullet from his arm using tongs, breaks a finger in order to get off handcuffs, and is bashed hard against wall and barriers while in a fight.  This is the type of over-the-top action sequence that will excite comic fan movie types that pay no heed to subtlety and film craft.

Stealing originality from past successful thrillers, NOVOCAINE appears original but takes cheap shots at entertaining audiences with the result of only impressing 15-year-olds.

NOVOCAINE opens in theatres on Friday, March 14th.

Trailer:

OPUS (USA 2025) ***
Directed by Mark Anthony Green

The meaning of OPUS as in the Cambridge English Dictionary is a piece of music written by a particular musician and given a number relating to the order in which it was published.  The new thriller film OPUS is less about the music of a musician than his comeback after a long absence while having a hidden agenda for what the intended interview he wishes to give to the world.  But the film features original music written by Nile Rodgers and The-Dream.

A writer, Ariel Ecton (Ayo Edebiri) travels to the compound of a pop icon, Alfred Moretti (John Malkovich) who disappeared years ago. surrounded by his cult of sycophants, as well as a group of fellow journalists, she soon discovers his twisted plans for the gathering.

OPUS benefits from the zany, crazed performance from John Malkovich as the musician with a secret mission.  There are similar tones in the thriller BLINK TWICE in which unsuspecting guests are invited to a villa, just as reporters are invited to the musician’s villa, in which things are not what they seem.  “Are you having a good time?” is BLINKnTWICE’s tagline which could also be applied to OPUS as to whether the reporters are having a good time   As in both films, guests mysteriously disappear.

The film is writer/director Mark Anthony Green’s film debut and it is a worthy one, despite a few rough edges.  One thing the film has is that it is a compulsive watch.

The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 27, 2025, and it will be theatrically released by A24 on March 14, 2025.

 Trailer: 

THE WORLD WILL TREMBLE (UK/USA /Bulgaria/Israel 2025) ***½

Directed by Lior Geller

In September 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland, annexing its western regions.  The film follows this historical event and is based on a true story, the audience is informed at the beginning of what seems like a serious film. Jews are moved to ghettos before transporting to the east.  The story commenced in Chelmno, Poland in 1942.

The World Will Tremble is the first film to uncover the true story of the first escape from a Nazi death camp—an event that led to the first eyewitness account of the Holocaust. Despite its profound historical significance, this story has remained largely untold.

Between 1941 and 1945, over 300,000 Jews were sent to Chełmno, the first German extermination camp, where they were murdered in gas vans. Only four people survived. Among them were Michael Podchlebnik and Solomon Wiener, who were forced to work as gravediggers, burying victims who had been suffocated by carbon monoxide from the gas vans’ engines.

The magic question that has been asked many times about the Holocaust is why the Jews, the often number their captors never rebelled.  They just suffered and eventually perished.  This film supplies one answer.

“We must stop being afraid if we want to live.” says one prisoner about to rebel.

On the afternoon of January 19, 1942, in the very first Nazi death camp secretly built in Poland, a group of Polish Jewish prisoners attempted the unthinkable.  Held captive as gravediggers, forced to bury the bodies of men, women and children murdered in gas vans, they decide to launch a daring escape. Even after having lost their families, burying them with their own hands, they are determined to flee, not for themselves, but to alert the world of what is happening.  Using a stolen shard of glass, prisoners Solomon Wiener and Michael Podchlebnik tear through a transport truck and bolt into the forest. Fleeing gunfire and pursuing Nazi guards, Solomon and Michael brave a raging river, German soldiers and the Polish police before they become the first men to ever escape from a Nazi death camp, creating the world’s first eyewitness account of the Holocaust. Taking place in real-time and based on a never-before-told harrowing true story, “The World Will Tremble” is a nail-biting triumph of the human spirit, demonstrating that even under the most indescribable of human conditions, man’s determination and will—not only to survive but to tell others—can overcome the most insurmountable of odds.

` As the subject implies. the film is a dead serious and often depressing affair - as observed from the mistreatment of the Jews, the abuse of power, the suffering to the suspenseful escape. Not a comfortable watch, this story that needs tone told is revealed in an equally authentic and depressing tone.

The Germans are all, particularly the higher-ranking ones all portrayed as despicable.  The one that tends out is the smiling commander who lies through his teeth that all will be good if not better for the Jews, while knowing that they will soon be based to death,

An important film concerning the need of humans to fight back, THE WORLD WILL TREMBLE will be released in select theatres on Friday, March 14  

Trailer: 

Details

Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 02 March 2025

Many ambitious movies opening this week - all not ending up that impressive.  Read on.......

FILM REVIEWS:

DELICIOUS (Germany 2025) **
Written and Directed by Nele Mueller-Stöfen

DELICIOUS (Germany 2025) **
Directed by Nele Mueller-Stöfen

A German family's idyllic summer at their French villa in Provence (film shot in Avignon, according to the credits) unravels after they accidentally hit a young woman working at a tourist hotel, on a country road and take her in.  They take her in for fear of her going to the cops creating a hassle.  The wife thinks he can fix this.  Or can she?  Initially appearing helpful, each family member soon reveals their own hidden motives, seeking something different from the woman.  This mistake leads to unforeseen consequences that ultimately transform the entire family's lives.

This is not the first film in which a stranger totally destroys a family.  One that comes to mind is one from Chile where a maid has a secret with each family member and uses it for greed.   Another is Harold Pinter’s SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE, in which a young and gorgeous Michael York enters and aristocratic German family and has sex with each family member from the mother played by Angela Lansbury to the daughter and homosexual son.

The film plays like a mystery banking on the uneasiness of the audience,  The tactic works in which audience anticipation (like a Hitchcock movie) is always at its height.  Quite different form the Chilean maid and SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE, this film unfortunately falters at the end when the twist in the plot turns it from reality family check to a modern gothic horror piece.

At best the film plays the poor and the rich against each other, taking the side of the rich though the poor also gets their say, but in a  weird manner.

DELICIOUS opens for streaming on Netflix on Friday, March 7th.

Trailer: 

(full review to be posted weekend)

MICKEY 17 (USA/South Korea 2025) ***
Directed by Boon Joon-Ho

The new Bong Joon-Ho movie after his much-celebrated Academy Award multiple winner PARASITE is available to watch in IMAX. It is touted as a futuristic $118 million blockbuster and is called MICKEY 17. But because of its premise, it could also be called MICKEY 18 or MICKEY BARNES.

Wanting to get off Earth, the financially destitute Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) signs up to be an "expendable", a disposable clone worker, on the human colony Nilfheim. As an expendable, Mickey undertakes several dangerous assignments he is not expected to survive, with a new body being regenerated each time he dies. During one such assignment, one of his clones, "Mickey 17", is incorrectly assumed dead and prematurely replaced. Mickey 17 finds his way back to the colony and meets his replacement, known as Mickey 18. Under the colony's rules, only one iteration of an expendable may exist at one time, and if Mickey 17 is discovered, both he and Mickey 18 will be destroyed. Both the previous and current versions of Mickey Barnes have to grapple with the nature of being expendables and fight back against the oppressive leaders governing the colony.

Pattinson steals the show exhibiting a wide range of acting variations especially displaying different traits for MICKY 17 and MICKEY 18 as both human prints exist side to side and also fight each other.  Pattinson displays manic behaviour as well as rational ones proving himself to be quite the versatile actor.  Mark Ruffalo also deserves mention.  He plays Kenneth Marshall, an egomaniacal politician with sinister designs for Nilfheim.  He clearly pokes fun at President Trump showing his character and Trump’s as a ridiculous madman capable of much danger if left unchecked.

Three under-written roles include Naomi Ackie as Nasha Barridge, a security agent and Mickey's love interest and the girlfriend of one of his previous clones, Steven Yeun as Timo, a pilot and Mickey's childhood friend and the amazing Toni Collette as Ylfa, Marshall's devious and controlling wife.

Being a South Korean co-production, a lot of the extras are played by Koreans, more than one expects to see in a Hollywood movie.

But Bong’s film is a poorly written narrative mess with humans, creepies and megalomaniacs interacting on Earth and on another planet.  Given a huge over $100 million budget, Bong goes as crazy as his character Mickey Barnes in the adventure of one or several lifetimes.  Despite the film’s flaws and running time of over two hours, the first two thirds are an incurable compelling watch, flaws aside.  The film begins to bog down a little in its last third, Bong is unable to maintain his over-the-top craziness.  It is a classic case of fatigue and too much of a good thing.

The film’s special effects and cinematography are nothing short of stunning, a  given must these days for Hollywood sci-fi blockbusters.  In the beginning few months of every year when cinema is in the doldrums, MICKEY 17 should lift box-office returns for 2025.  MICKEY 17 opens in theatres on March 7th.  Being a sci-fi futuristic epic, the film warrants being seen in the IMAX format.

Trailer: 

NIGHT OF THE ZOOPOCAYPSE (Canada/France/Belgium 2024) **
Directed by Ricardo Curtis and Rodrigo Perez-Castro

The January and February months of every year is the lull for the new movies opening in theatres.  The same can be said for animated features and the new one, an international co-production is infantile and unfortunately falls into this category.  NIGHT OF THE ZOOPOCAYPSE (originally titled Night of the Zombies) is a 2024 animated comedy horror film directed by storyboard artists Ricardo Curtis and Rodrigo Perez-Castro, written by James Kee and producer Steven Hoban, and inspired by a concept by Clive Barker. The film follows a group of animal survivors in a zoo where a meteor virus turns various zoo creatures into slobbering mutant zombies.

A meteor containing a mysterious space virus crashes into Colepepper Zoo turning the animals into vicious gummi-like zombie mutants. A young wolf named Gracie (it takes the film 15 minutes before disclosing that the cartoon protagonist is wolf0 teams up with a gruff mountain lion named Dan to find a cure, while leading a rag-tag group of survivors to stop the leader of the zombies, Bunny Zero, from taking over the world.

Though it can be argued that this feature is aimed at kids, many animated features have included (is it that difficult?) to include adults to be entertained.  NIGHT OF THE ZOOPOCAYPSE is definitely a bore for the adults.  Myself I did not utter a laugh-out-loud even once.  The antics of the characters are infantile, silly, and pointless and the inter-communication lacks any imagination either.  The entire hour and a half already feels too long.  Apart from the satisfactory animation, there is nothing much this film has to offer.

NIGHT OF THE ZOOPOCAYPSE premiered October 6, 2024, at the 57th Sitges Film Festival,  Rest of the world: January 29, 2025 (France) and March 7, 2025 (United States and Canada)

Trailer: 

THE RULE OF JENNY PEN (New Zealand 2024) ****
Directed by James Ashcroft

Opening Friday in theatres , and coming soon on the prime horror network for anything frightening comes a surprisingly must-see horror shocker from way down under New Zealand that could be destined to be a cult classic.  Two ageing stars Oscar Winner Geoffrey Rush from SHINE and John Lithgow (last seen in  CONCLAVE) play two ageing males in a nursing home at loggerheads (to put it mildly, since there is a fight to the death at the end).

Arrogant Judge Stefan Mortensen (Rush) suffers a near-fatal stroke, leaving him partially paralyzed and confined to a retirement home. Resistant to the staff and distant from his friendly roommate, Mortensen soon clashes with seemingly gentle resident Dave Crealy (Lithgow) who secretly terrorizes the home with a sadistic game called "The Rule of Jenny Pen” while wielding his dementia doll as an instrument of cruelty. What begins as childish torment quickly escalates into far more sinister and disturbing incidents. When Mortensen's pleas to the staff go unanswered, he takes it upon himself to put an end to Crealy's reign of terror.

Rush plays a toxic resident who has suffered a stroke while pronouncing a sentence in a case involving child abuse and murder.  He is only too angry to find himself with a roommate, demanding angrily from the staff that he has applied for a private single.  Obviously this man did not read the fine print.  He is unlikable despite doing a good job as a judge.  It is good to see two great stars face off, as in the Bette Davis/Joan Crawford cult classic WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?  Lithgow, an American has a problem with his New Zealand accent and it would best to have given an excuse in the script for the character to be American.  Still, he is good to watch.  These are two characters. toxic as poison, who deserve each other.

The reason the film is called THE RULE OF JEENY PEN is not revealed and is a mystery even up to the film’s halfway mark.  The script teases.   Just like the start of the movie when the camera is on the faces of the judge. the accused killer and a crying mother.  At this point, the audience wonders what the rest of the film will be about.  It turns out to be the judge, who had just condemned the killer and the mother who had done nothing but let the tragic event happen. Now the judge himself is faced with the identical situation in which he is stuck with a stroke in a wheelchair able to do early anything while an abuser does havoc in the nursing home.

The less known about the film the better, as there are surprises around every corner.  The director is always several steps ahead of the story.   The best praise can be seen below - a quote from the horror master himself.

"One of the best movies I've seen this year."

• Stephen King

IFC FILMS’ THE RULE OF JENNY PEN opens Friday and should be on every horror fan’s watch list.

SEVEN VEILS (Canada 2023) **
Directed by Atom Egoyan

After years away, theatre director Jeanine (Academy Award® nominee Amanda Seyfried) re-enters the opera world to stage her former mentor’s most famous work. Haunted by dark and disturbing memories from her past, Jeanine allows her repressed trauma to colour the present as her personal and professional lives begin to unravel.

The story of Salome is an old story and a lot needs to be known about Salome and the title SEVEN VEILS before venturing to watch this complex, messy but nevertheless intriguing Atom Egoyan movie.

Simply from the Bible’s Gospel according to St. Mark: But an opportunity came when King Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his nobles and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee. For when Herodias's daughter came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests. And the king said to the girl, "Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it to you." And he vowed to her, "Whatever you ask me, I will give you, up to half of my kingdom." And she went out and said to her mother, "For what should I ask?" And she said, "The head of John the Baptist." And she came in immediately with haste to the king and asked, saying, "I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter."  The king was exceedingly sorry, but because of his oaths and his guests, he did not want to break his word to her. And immediately the king sent an executioner with orders to bring John's head. He went and beheaded him in the prison and brought his head on a platter and gave it to the girl, and the girl gave it to her mother.

In the film SEVEN VEILS (that is the name given to the dance given by Salome to King Herod), the story is told via opera.  The film stars Amanda Seyfried as Jeanine, a theatre director who is dealing with repressed trauma as she prepares to mount a production of the opera Salome.  She was working with Charles when he passed on, passing the baton to her to continue the production.  “I will make small but meaningful changes,” she says.  It also becomes known that Jeanine has had an affair with Charles.  Jeanine also suffers trauma from abuse as a child.  To add fuel to the fire, the German opera singer sexually abuses the prop artist. 

Director Egoyan fumbles through all the events with mass editing, flashbacks and messy storytelling.  With too many stakes at hand, not every one of the issues is solved satisfactorily.  One should give Egoyan credit for doing opera, tying in problems with staging it, and tying in current problems with the Salome story.

Atom Egoyan has lots to do with SALOME.  In the film SEVEN VEILS, Vinessa Antoine, as well as Ambur Braid as Salome and Michael Kupfer-Radecky as John the Baptist. Braid and Kupfer-Radecky both starred in the Canadian Opera Company’s most recent production of Salome, which Egoyan also directed after first directing the opera for the Company in 1996.

SEVEN VEILS premiered in Canada at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2023.  is in select theatres (at the TIFF Lightbox) across Canada on March 7

Trailer: 

THE SILENT PLANET (Canada 2024) ***
Directed by Jeffrey St. James

THE SILENT PLANET  is a Canadian science fiction film, directed by Jeffrey St. Jules that premiered at the Fantasy Film Festival in 2024, where it was first runner-up for the Audience Award for Best Canadian Feature.  

Theodore (Elias Koteas, CRASH, CHICAGO P.D.) is alone.  Far from the Earth’s surface, he's a miner in the Capillian Star System on penal colony planet #384, sending extraterrestrial minerals to Earth via an interplanetary delivery system. It’s an experimental colonization project, and he is the only prisoner there. Ailing and half-sane, his life is routine, with journaling, watching TV show reruns, and taking comfort in memories of his life on Earth.

When a young woman named Niyya (Briana Middleton, SHARPER, THE TENDER BAR) is sent to planet #384 on terrorist charges, her tragic past follows her. Adopted by an alien race called “Oieans,” her resistance to prejudice towards the aliens and the history of their massacre lands her on this planet with Theodore. As they learn more about each other, Niyya suspects an ugly truth lies deep in Theodore’s deteriorating mind.  The  Oieans have their own language.  In fact the fill begins with one of their quotes, surprisingly the viewer's first impression is to think that Oiean is the name of a writer,

THE SILENT PLANET is set on an isolated planet, supposedly a penal colony for convicts who have committed treason, murder or terrorism.  The film is basically a two-handler, one of Theodore the sole living inhabitant convict on the planet,  When he is dying, someone is sent to replace him, Niyya—the interaction of the two forms the film’s premise.

The film covers issues of politics like genocide and also living in isolation.   Is Theodore crazy?  If one lives in isolation, does it matter?  And also comes to debate on truth.  Is his past a lie, made up, or is it the truth?  And does it really matter?  When one loses one's memory, everything is gone, which is a scary thought that haunts Theodore.  Or is he really Nathan, another person of the past?

For a small-budget film, director St. Jules covers the issues admirably.  The film is also simple in delivery, thus making it difficult to find fault with.  The film also possesses a sci-fi look, one reminiscent of the 70’s sci-fi films.  The lodging where the two are put up is minimal which allows a quaint and futuristic design (great production design by Andrew Berry).

The director Jeffrey St. Jules is no stranger to sci-fi films.  Neither is he a novice.  Jeffrey St. Jules is well known as a Canadian film director and screenwriter, who won the Claude Jutra Award in 2015 for his debut feature film BAND BANG BABY.   The film also won the award for Best Canadian First Feature Film at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival.  His reputation allowed him to get veteran Canadian actor Elias Koteas to star in THE SILENT PLANET.

THE SILENT PLANET opens in Toronto at the Carlton Cinemas on March 7th.

Trailer: 

Details

Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 21 February 2025

FILM REVIEWS:

BODY ODYSSEY (Italy/Switzerland 2023) ***
Directed by Grazia Tricarico

BODY ODYSSEY directed and co-written by Grazia Tricarico is described as an obsessive female bodybuilder’s quest for a perfect body and perfection. Of course, nothing will go the way she intends in this stylized horrific psychological drama.  The film is shot in English though it is a co-production between Italy and Switzerland.

Mona (Jacqueline Fuchs) is a female bodybuilder obsessed with an ideal of perfection and beauty. The body is her inseparable container, her most faithful ally, her partner responding to laments. Together they find themselves on the threshold of their destiny.  Fuchs is nothing short of phenomenal in her role, capturing the weirdness and completely insane obsession that she has.  Her daily schedule is carefully followed by her obsessive coach, Kurt (Julian Sands in one of his final performances), who rigorously monitors her every action like a demiurge: her sleep, her nutrition, her training, her doping, her psychology and even her sexual life. This unyielding regimen, however, becomes disrupted when a brief romantic encounter with a young man impacts both her discipline and her will.

The film’s beginning sets the tone for what is to come.  The female bodybuilder’s body flesh is pinched at different parts, and no matter how bulked she looks, there is always some loose skin somewhere.  But she is told that she is up to standard.  As she tours the gym, she is asked for tips by a fellow bodybuilder who says he wants a game changer.  “You need a change in your mindset,” comes her reply.  As she tours the gym, she sees a fat man using the treadmill, slowly but surely.  She moves to his machine and speeds up the dial from 3.0 to 8.0 as he watches one and increases his pace on the machine.  Quite an impressive start to this stylized drama.

Director Tricarico ups the ante during the last third of the film with it getting grimmer and scarier.  He uses a variety of techniques including sound, colour (bluish and greens as if shot on another planet), and fade-outs to black but mostly images of the perfect yet grotesque and o over-muscled competition body.  Mona also hears sounds just like a psychotic person hears the voice of demons.  Watching the film is like living through a nightmare and though the film is well made, the ultimate question on the tongue of audiences will be: Are we actually enjoying this?

Mona’s home invasion scene is also discomforting and marks the film’s most disturbing segment.

The film has a definite David Cronenberg feel, as in his horror hits like THE FLY.  Grazia Tricarico, who captured Best Director at Sitges in 2024.

BODY ODYSSEY is dedicated to Julian Sands as this is his last film.  The words “To Julian….” appear at the beginning of the film. Sands is a good-looking British blond actor known for films like the horror flick WARLOCK in which he had the title role.

BODY ODYSSEY makes its North American premiere on Indiepix Unlimted on February 28th, 2025.

Trailer: 

LAST BREATH (USA/UK 2025) ***

Directed by Alex Parkinson

LAST BREATH is the live-action 2025 survival thriller film directed by Alex Parkinson and written by Mitchell LaFortune, Parkinson, and David Brooks. It stars Woody Harrelson, Simu Liu, Finn Cole, and Cliff Curtis. It is a feature film remake of the 2019 documentary that Parkinson co-directed with Richard da Costa.

The 2019 Netflix documentary used genuine footage and audio recorded at the time of the accident on the divers' radios and body cameras, supplemented with interviews of several of the individuals involved, as well as some reconstructed footage, to tell the story of the accident. Chris Lemons, along with his colleagues Duncan Allcock and David Yuasa, was carrying out repairs 100 metres (330 ft) below the surface of the North Sea, supported by the support vessel Bibby Topaz.  The vessel's dynamic positioning system, supplied by Kongsberg Maritime, failed. This caused the vessel to drift in rough seas, dragging the divers away from the area they were working and eventually snapping the umbilical tether that provided Lemons with heliox to breathe, as well as hot water to heat his suit, power for his light, and a communications link to the surface.  He was left with only five minutes of breathable gas contained in the cylinders he wore on his back.

The new film follows very much the story of the doc with stars Woody Harrelson playing Duncan and Simms Lio and Finn Cole the two divers.  More is added in the 2025 version in terms of emotion and human characters.  The result is not always good, with the film teetering towards unnecessary sentimentality and artificiality.   The ultimate question is whether the world needs a remake when the doc is still available to watch.  The 2025 version also shows the intricacies of the vessels and equipment used to mend the pipeline.  Again the question arises whether it is worth putting human lives and the environment at stake for the purpose of complying profit in oil.  There is a slight debate about risking human lives to save the environment, a solid debate topic but which is unfortunately not taken any further.

The big miracle of the whole incident is Chris Lemmons’ survival against all biological and medical reasoning.  For reasons that are unclear to Lemons and his colleagues, but attributed in part to the cold water and having been breathing a gas mix with a high partial pressure of oxygen, Lemons survived for around 30 minutes while he was located by a remote underwater vehicle and then by Yuasa, who was able to pull him back onboard the diving bell.

LAST BREATH opens in theatres on February 28th.

Trailer: 

SUPERBOYS OF MALEGAON (India 2024) **

Directed by Reema Kagti

Directed by Reema Kagti, SUPERBOYS OF MALEGAON chronicles the life of Nasir Shaikh, whose no-budget, community-sourced movies turned his hometown into an unlikely dream factory.  This is not the first film made about Nasir (Supermen of Malegaon or Malegaon Ka Superman) was made in 2008 as a Hindi documentary) as this true story is perfect feel-good filmmaking fare.  It is 1997, and movie-mad Nasir (Adarsh Gourav)  is certain he’s destined for cinematic greatness, but great cinema never came out of his humdrum small hometown of Malegaon.  Borrowing gear from a wedding videographer and assembling a cast and crew of locals and friends, Nasir sets out to remake Ramesh Sippy’s beloved 1975 film Sholay.  At best, the film reveals both the life of the people in the small town of Malegaon, where poverty rules and people are looking for escapism in the movies and the problems and conflicts involved in making a movie, at its worst, director Kagti resorts to humour and silly antics of the characters pursuing lighter entertainment and compromising more important issues.  

Details

Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 16 February 2025

FILM REVIEWS:

THE MONKEY (USA 2025)s**
Directed by Osgood Perkins

THE MONKEY comes with the accolade that it is based on a Stephen King short story, one that was nominated for a British Fantasy Award for Best Short Story in 1980.  It is a 1980 horror short story by Stephen King featuring a cursed cymbal-banging monkey toy.  There are two differences between the short story and the film already,  One is that the characters in the film refuse to refer to the monkey as a toy, and in the film the monkey plays the drums instead of cymbals,  The cymbals are surely scarier but the film’s director begs to differ.  The other reason is that the monkey with the symbols is a Disney-patented toy. THE MONKEY also comes right after writer/director Perkins horror hit LONGLEGS.

After stumbling upon their father's vintage toy monkey in the attic, twin brothers Hal and Bill (both played by Theo James) witness a string of horrifying deaths unfolding around them. In an attempt to leave the haunting behind, the brothers discard the monkey and pursue separate paths over time. However, when the inexplicable deaths resurface, the brothers are compelled to reconcile and embark on a mission to eliminate the cursed toy permanently.

There are also major changes in the film.  In the King’s story, the monkey in a flight bag is weighted with rocks and thrown to the deepest part of Crystal Lake. As the bag sinks, the faint sound of the monkey's cymbals clapping can be heard.  During the disposal, the boat starts breaking up, but the Hal character manages to swim ashore safely to his son, Petey. The story ends with a newspaper clipping showing that hundreds of fish in the lake have died as a result. 

This is a more subtle and scarier ending which the film dismisses.  

THE MONKEY is nothing much more than a slew of very, very violent killings similar to the SAW horror franchise with the difference of the monkey doing the killing.  The killings are all at random so director Perkins has more liberty for various ways to dispose of the victims.  There is no subtlety here.

Perkins’ script has the main character Hal have an evil twin brother.  The enmity between the two forms a main part of the story,  The evil money in question is assumed by the evil twin to be able to cause damage as well as provide immortality.  The immortality is never clearly explained and serves to cloud the situation.  

THE MONKEY like the SAW franchise can be praised for the extreme violence and innovation of novel killings.  Apart from that, nothing really new or exciting has been brought to the horror genre.  Whether the changes from Stephen King’s short story improve the film’s story is questionable at best.  The characters in the film are also too wishy-washy to be sympathetic.  The  MONKEY toy should have never been taken out from Hal's father’s closet and the script for THE MONKEY should be locked in one

THE MONKEY opens in theatres on February 21st.  With its modest budget, the horror flick should bring in a tidy profit.

Trailer: 

OKIKU AND THE WORLD (Japan 2023) ***½

Written & Directed by: Junji Sakamoto

Two Japanese films have emerged in 2023 about toilets and shit.  One is the 2023 Oscar-nominated Best International Feature PERFECT DAYS from Wim Wenders about a public toilet cleaner employed in Tokyo who takes his job dead seriously.  Yes, cleaning shit is a serious but dirty job.  This film OKIKU AND THE WORLD is also about shit.  But this is a black and white film, though it does break into colour at one point, a period piece set in Edo, Japan.

Edo-era Japan is remembered for many things — brutal nation building, isolationist foreign policies, and the last samurai.   Leave it to veteran auteur Junji Sakamoto to remind audiences that it also marked the culmination of a truly sustainable ecosystem. OKIKU AND THE WORLD, tells the story of Yasuke (Sosuke Ikematsu), who makes a living out of selling human waste to farmers and persuades the young paper seller Chunji (Kanichiro Sato) to be his business partner.   Like PERFECT DAYS, the director takes great pains to show how the work is done - in this case scooping shit from the outhouses and mansions carrying the buckets of waste out, often travelling by boat, and then selling their wares as fertilizer to the farmers.  The film is shot in black and white so the waste looks even more real and gross.  The scenes are indeed enough to stop your appetite.

While sheltering from a storm, the pair meet Okiku (Haru Kuroki), a young schoolteacher and daughter of a disgraced samurai (Koichi Sato).   Okiky initially despises Yasuke but not Chunji who is at the time just selling newspapers, before being taken in as the shit apprentice.   She is haughty and proud and like many others cannot stand the stink and look down on the trade.  But things change after having Okie’s vocal cords severed during a brutal attack that also results in her father’s death and unlocks her new life, though she remains in her house for a long time, like a cocoon before coming out of her shell  Okiku falls in love with Chunji–yet how can their love blossom given his low social status and her inability to speak?

The film looks simple and plain, but there is more emotion and drama than meets\ the eye.  For one, it studies prejudice while showing a part of the period Japan Westerners are totally unfamiliar with.  This is where the film succeeds in fascinating the audience with a story as strange as its setting.

Performances by relatively unknown Japanese actors are sincere and credible.  The look of Edo with tis tenement row housing and countryside farming with the river as a backdrop all add to the authenticity of the story.

  Sakamoto’s latest period drama is a groundbreaking, realist work that revolves around the themes of youth, love, and sustainability, interspersed with a good dose of toilet humour.

OKIKU AND THE WORLD makes its North American premiere on Film Movement Plus, the new streaming service also available in Canada on February 21, 2025.

Trailer: 

PARTHENOPE (Italy/France 2024) ****

Directed by Paolo Sorrentino

The film begins in 1950.  With the help of midwives, a baby girl is born in the sea of Naples that lies below her family’s wealthy home.  She is named Parthenope, named for the mythological Greek siren who’s credited with founding ancient Naples by an elderly gent known as the Commander.  This is the life story of Parthenope, right down to her in her old age.

  From 1950, the film fast forwards.  Now 18 years old, Parthenope (Celeste Dalla Porta) is again emerging from the sea, this time in a bikini (like the James Bond girls).  Thus begins her journey through teenage summers and young adult years.  Just about everyone is smitten with
Parthenope – playboys, strangers, her childhood friend (Dario Aita), and even her
brother (Daniele Rienzo) and a bishop (Peppe Lanzetta), neither of whom should be.

The film is set in the sunlit city of Naples. The smiling Parthenope recalls her childhood, in which her brother was obsessed with her.  Her anthropology professor finds her a brilliant student.  She considers becoming an actress but is not inspired by her eccentric acting coach. She wonders about becoming an aesthete and meets the drunken writer John Cheever (Gary Oldman), whose work she admires. Or perhaps she could have a romantic fling with the ugly bishop who attends the miracle of the dried blood that turns liquid each year, the phenomenon she is studying in anthropology.

Sorrentino’s Naples at times feels like a Federico Fellini movie for its excesses and indulgence.  The films of both directors can be difficult to take but not without their rewards.  Sorrentino’s PARTHENOPE, at least abstains from the ghastly and weird.  For example in FELLINI’S SATYRICON, there is the chopping of a hand on stage for entertainment, or the farting of a performer wearing an animal costume with the tail lifting and falling as  he farts on stage.  Sorrentino, on the other hand, embellishes beauty,

And Sorrentino knows how to shoot beauty.  This is evident in the film’s early scenes where he films beautiful young girls and men in colourful garments in slow-motion as they jump up and down or frolic in the open.  He also films a very seductive sex scene between a nubile couple as watched by a live audience.

The supporting men in Parthenope’s life are more interesting than hers.  The actors also outshine the actress’s performance, which can be described as forgettable as best.  All Celeste Dalla Porta can do is look beautiful, which she does quite magnificently.  The older Parthenope is portrayed by Stefania Sandrelli famous for her Pietro Germi’s 60 films like DIVORCE, ITALIAN STYLE and SEDUCED AND ABANDONED.  She is one reason to see this film.

Parthenope is gifted with both beauty and talent.  Yet her personality is clouded by her encounters.  The drunken writer, her professor and her mentors all serve to upstage her.  She meets her match when she meets the diva of divas who insults the entire Naples in her degrading speech to the city’s people

There is a good play with words in the film’s dialogue.  Parthenope is great at rebuttal comebacks.  “When chastised, she says at least it is original.”  To which comes:  “But it must be true.”  Every character has a good line at one point or another from the bishop to the commander but none can match the lines of Parthenope.

PARTHENOPE is gorgeous, irrelevant and entertaining, there are adjectives that can be used to describe director Sorrentino’s film as well as his other films   Despite the weak narrative, there is a story but it is the visuals and excesses that make the film.  Be prepared to be astonished by the film that premiered at Cannes last year winning a reported 9-and-a-half-minute standing ovation.

Parthenope was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, where it had its world premiere on 21 May 2024,  and opened in theatres on February 21st.

Trailer: 

THE QUIET ONES (Norway 2024) ***
Directed by  Frederik Louis Hviid

THE QUIET ONES is based on the true story of Denmark’s biggest-ever robbery in which $10 million US was taken and the 14 involved were caught and imprisoned.  

THE QUIET ONES is a suspenseful action thriller depicting a team of ambitious and uncompromising criminals who all share the same goal: To achieve the impossible— despite great obstacles and personal costs.

Director Frederik Louis Hviid’s heist thriller is typical of the crime capers made in the 60’s and 70’s.  It highlights the steely professionalism of men operating outside the law.  The exciting and suspenseful film centres on a group of men from Denmark in 2008, when across Europe pulled off the biggest heist of all time on Danish soil. Kasper, a boxer with few chances left in life, is offered the opportunity to plan the robbery by its foreign initiators.  At the risk of losing his family and everything that matters to him, he takes on the challenge in a bid to break all records and secure his place in the history books.  As he plans the job alongside an enigmatic hard-core, Kasper displays the kind of exacting professionalism that might’ve taken him far in a more legitimate line of work.  The little violence in the film is replaced by suspensful scenes.  THE QUIET ONES open in theatres and on Demand on February 21st.  The film premiered at TIFF last year.

Trailer: 

LAS TRES SISTERS (USA/Mexico 2023) **
Directed by Mar Novo

Facing the realities of life’s ups and downs, three sisters reunite, after years of estrangement, to complete their beloved Grandmother’s pilgrimage through rural Mexico.  One of the sisters is seeking a miracle, a cure for her terminal illness as she has been diagnosed with cancer.  She keeps the illness from the sisters who think she is there to solve her marriage problems.  With an old map, no hiking experience, and their lives unraveling around them, the sisters encounter what is hoped to be hilarious and touching experiences on the Talpa de Allende trail - that is until Kin, a local with a dark past, brings them together in order to reach the Miracle that awaits at the end of the trail.

Ted Lasso’s Cristo Fernandez who has a supporting role, as Ken, who has sex with one of the sisters.  He also executively produced the film The sister who organizes the pilgrimage is Maria (Marta Mendez Cross (THE BOUNCE BACK) who believes in a miracle of healing.  The loudest of the sisters Sofia (Virginia Novello) who if not drunk half the time, is making a fool of herself while flirting around at the same time.  The third sister who cannot get along with Sofia is Lucia (Valeria Maldonado, COCO) the most anal-retentive of the sisters who has just walked out of the job because she cannot stand being unappreciated.  She also looks after their mother and mothers her too much.  The mother hires a nurse so that she can go with the sisters.

Though the film lists 4 writers in the credits, the story of three sisters and their journey that involves sorting out what might be considered incorrigible differences is hardly original.  The humour is slight and the drama appears forced at times.

Three sisters mean that there needs to be three happy endings that the audience is forced to tolerate and sit through.  The film gets too sappy at th end, complete with a sing-a-long Spanish song by the three sisters.

LAS TRES SISTERS opens in theatres on February 21st.

Trailer: