Two intriguing features are worth a view. One is actress Anna Kendick's WOMAN OF THE HOUR, an engrossing and compelling watch based on the true story of a serial killer who appeared on the famous TV reality show The Dating Game. The other is an unexpected look at ex-President Donald Trump in THE APPRENTICE in which Trump is shown as a young eager to prove himself an entrepreneur corrupted by gay lawyer Roy Cohn.
FILM REVIEWS:
THE APPRENTICE (Canada/Denmark/Ireland 2024) ****
Directed by Ali Abbasi
THE APPRENTICE is the young Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan) under the somewhat crooked lawyer Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong) who took the innocent man under his wing and made him the one the world now knows as the bad, very bad ex-President Donald J. Trump. The film is also about Cohn, his principles, practices and his private hidden life like his homosexuality, which resulted in his death from AIDs.
A young Donald Trump, eager to make his name as a hungry second son of a wealthy family in 1970s New York, comes under the spell of Roy Cohn, the cutthroat who would help create the Donald Trump we know today. Cohn sees in Trump the perfect protégé – someone with raw ambition, a thirst for success, and a willingness to do whatever it takes to win. The rest is history.
Alongside Maria Bakalova (Trump’s first wife Ivana) and Martin Donovan (Trump’s father, Fred), the film also stars Charlie Carrick as Trump’s older brother Freddy, and Mark Rendall as future political advisor Roger Stone.
“There is no right or wrong. There is no truth. It is only about winning. It is a gift to not care what people, think of you”. These are the words Cohn uttered to Trump, which Trump obviously took to heart and practices to this very day. And the other advice and words: “You are young and you got a lot to go. You are handsome. You must fuck a lot!”
Warhol is also shown in the picture saying: “I am an artist.” When asked what he makes, his reply is “Whatever I can sell.” Then comes Donald’s question: “And are you successful?” And the film cuts off from there,
“You must be prepared to exploit your enemies and instill fear.” is one other important line of dialogue in the film.
Days after The Apprentice premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung released a statement saying they intended to file a lawsuit to stop the film from being released. "This garbage is pure fiction which sensationalizes lies that have been long debunked," Cheung said. The threatened lawsuit never materialized but the threats saw the film struggle for months to find a US distributor, despite landing eager distributors in the UK and Australia.
Truth be told, the film humanizes Trump, showing him in a different light especially in his vulnerability blaming Cohn for all of Trump’s ‘badness’. As they say, a film is only as interesting as its subject and Trump is one of the most intriguing subjects in the world today, becoming a single media circus. THE APPRENTICE is not only intriguing but quite a good film.
Trump is actually put in a good light in the film. He is shown as a romantic, one who loves his kid in the kid crying scene and one who is a hardworking, well sort-of-honest man but corrupted by Cohn, among others. A few scenes show Trump in a bad light as the one in which he sexually abuses Ivana and the ones where he is shown popping ecstasy pills thinking they are diet pills. The film sets Trump as a reluctant hero, so Trump should have no qualms about his portrayal in the film. No wonder his lawyers have backed off from persecuting the film.
The ultimate praise to Trump is the casting of talented and good-looking actor Sebastian Stan as rhetorical nun g Donald Trump. Stan, who recently appeared in A DIFFERENT MAN and has proven himself an actor to be reckoned with, with an impressive resume that includes films like AVENGERS, HOT TUB TIME MACHINE and CAPTAIN AMERICA. In the scene where he puts down the NYC mayor, insulting him during an interview, he nails the Trump character. Stan was also twin shooting THUNDERBOLTS and in this film, he lost and gained weight for the two different roles.
THE APPRENTICE OPENS IN theatres on October 11th.
Trailer:
DADDY’S HEAD (Australia 2024) ***
Directed by Benjamin Barfoot
In the wake of his father’s untimely death, a young boy is left in the eerie solitude of a sprawling country estate with his newly widowed stepmother. Struggling to navigate the overwhelming task of parenthood, his stepmother grows distant, leaving their fragile bond at risk of collapse. Amidst the growing tension, the boy begins to hear unsettling sounds echoing through the corridors and is soon haunted by the presence of a grotesque creature bearing a disturbingly familiar resemblance to his late father. As the boy’s warnings are dismissed as the imagination of a grieving child, the sinister entity tightens its grip on their crumbling lives.
The film DADDY’S HEAD's most frightening scene has a boy, the son of a man in the hospital all bandaged up from head to toe with tubes running all over him, including his nose. No flesh of the man is observable. The boy is told that the father’s lifeline is to be removed by him. The film is scary for two reasons. For one, it is a scary sight to look at and secondly, it is psychologically damaging for a boy to witness death and for him not the first but second, occurring just right after he has lost his mother.
As the story goes, the man with the accident has just re-married to a beautiful younger female, who is now the boy’s stepmother. Though she is in no way interested in becoming a mother any time soon, she is still emotionally affected when told that the boy will be taken by Social Services and put in an orange if she does not become or others find him a guardian. All the while, she notices the by emotionally affected and particularly quiet. Then the horror begins. Family is everything, (that is the film’s caption) and it is what one makes with one’s family that counts.
The film is well paced with a solid buildup in mystery and suspense. Director Barfoot clearly knows what he is doing. Barfoot is a self-taught filmmaker from Torbay, Devon. Beginning with animation films as a child, he quickly moved on to video where he taught himself an array of skills from cameras and editing to animation, visual effects and sound design. Moving to London with a short animated film he had made at home, he was nominated for a Broadcast Young Talent Award and began cutting his teeth in London with everything from film trailers, and motion graphic promos to documentaries for BBC. Whilst between these jobs, he continued to create his own work, experimenting with dark animated shorts to fully improvised comedies that he shot and edited. Barfoot also edited and composed the soundtrack for DADDY’S HEAD.
However, one of the film’s flaws is the explanation of the monster that appears to the boy, who speaks to him in his father’s voice. Where did the monster originate? And what happened to it when the boy was growing up? Unless the monster is the boy’s imagination implying that he did all the violent acts including killing the poor dog. DADDY’S HEAD which premiered at the Fantastic Fest Film Festival 2024, opens for streaming on Shudder, the horror network on Friday October 11th.
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IN HER PLACE (El Lugar de la Otra) (Chile 2024) ***
Directed by Maite Alberdi
Chile, 1955. When the popular writer María Carolina Geel murders her lover, the case captivates Mercedes, the shy secretary of the judge in charge of defending the accused. After visiting the writer's apartment, Mercedes begins to question her life, identity and the role of women in society as she finds in that home an oasis of freedom.
The film is touted to be based on true events. The true event is Maria’s commitment of the murder but the Mercedes character is made up in what is otherwise a fictitious story.
As the film is set in the 50’s and deals with murder and a mysterious femme fatale, director Maite Alberdi’s film feels like a Hitchcock movie with the character of Gael looking like the Kim Novak character in VERTIGO.
The film has a strong female slant dealing with two strong women, Mercedes and Maria. The film shows Mercedes' demise from being locked into a mundane routine lifestyle. The film begins with her in bed next to her snoring husband. She wakes up to make breakfast for her noisy two sons who leave no packs for her, after she had made breakfast for the family. She lives in a small cramped apartment which the husband converts to a photography studio for his business. So when asked to look after Maria's belongings, she fantasizes about being IN HER PLACE. Director Albrerdi is fond of using close-ups to emphasize the points he wishes to make in the story, a tactic that works pretty well.
Though the film is slow-moving, it has an excellent build-up, priming the audience for something huge that is to come. But often in films where there is a strong build and audience anticipation, they fail to live up to expectations.
`IN HER PLACE has been selected as Chile’s entry for Best International Feature for the next Academy Awards.
Netflix specializes in crime documentaries and this fiction film plays like one. IN HER PLACE opens for Netflix streaming this week.
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THE MENENDEZ BROTHERS (USA 2024)***½
Directed by Alejandro Hartmann
THE MENENDEZ BROTHERS is a 2024 American true crime documentary film directed by Alejandro Hartmann for the streaming company Netflix, in which brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez, who were convicted of the 1989 murders of their parents, are interviewed about the case.
The documentary film tells the story of Lyle and Erik Menendez, who were convicted in 1996 for the murders of their parents on August 20, 1989. In the documentary, for the first time in about thirty years, the brothers themselves talk about what exactly happened and why they did it. The brothers do this through audio interviews from prison, where they are still incarcerated.
At the film’s beginning, the voiceover touts the film’s intriguing nature. It talks about Beverly Hills, and how safe and prestigious the 80210 postal code is the most sought-after and desired place to reside in. It goes on to say that crime is minimal and that murders would not even be imagined, less one in which a couple has been shot violently in their own home, Then it goes on to say that the brothers have a story to tell, over after thirty years for the very first time, both to expel their demons and also that the world can learn a few things from the madness. Needless to say, this true crime drama. a doc constructed by interviews and footage of the cops’ investigation is a most intriguing piece, again proving that Netflix is one of the best streaming places to watch true crime dramas, especially when one loves this genre when reality is often stranger than fiction.
The interviewees in the doc are as carefully picked as the jurors for the trial. These included the family relatives including the brothers’ grandmother and mother’s sister, Kitty, a juror and reporter involved in the case as well as the lead prosecutor Pamela Bozanich of their case,
The two brothers were initially not suspects though they could be arrested on the spot of the murder. Gun shells were in the son’s car which was at the scene of the murder. There was gunpowder on the hands of the brothers. The brothers told the cops they smelt smoke and they would not have if they had not been close to the murder. For any domestic shootings, the family members would immediately be suspect. but being Beverly Hills, the Beverly Hills cops treat the citizens very nicely.
What is seldom done in a court film, fictional or doc is the display of emotions from the lawyers. Each of the three lawyers, the prosecutor who threw up before the trial and the ones defending Lyle and Erik \, all different personalities show their vulnerability.
The behavior of the two brothers was strange and unexpected. Lyle changed from a goofy college kid to the business-like personality of his father. Lyle delivered an emotionless eulogy at the funeral. The two went on an extravagant shopping free soon after spending money like water.
Trailer:
MY HERO ACADEMIA: YOU’RE NEXT (Japan 2024) **
Directed by Tensai Okamura
Written by: Yôsuke Kuroda, Kôhei Horikoshi and directed by Tensai Okamura, MY HERO ACADEMIA: YOU’RE NEXT is the fourth film of the TV manga series that won popularity among manga enthusiasts,
In a society where heroes and villains continuously battle in the name of peace and chaos, Izuku Midoriya, a U.A. High School student who aspires to be the best hero he can be, confronts the villain who imitates the hero he's long admired. In the film, the best hero is called All Might, but an imitation villain pretends to be All Might before chaining his name to Balck Might showing his true colours.
A bit of background is necessary to understand the context of this movie. Those unfamiliar will be thrust without much explanation into the story, which can be quite confusing if not annoying.
My Hero Academia (Japanese: Boku no Hīrō Akademia) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Kōhei Horikoshi. It was serialized in Shueisha's shōnen manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump from July 2014 to August 2024, with its chapters collected in 41 tankōbon volumes as of August 2024. Set in a world where superpowers (called "Quirks") have become commonplace, the story follows Izuku Midoriya, a boy who was born without a Quirk but still dreams of becoming a superhero himself. He is scouted by the world's greatest hero, All Might, who bestows his Quirk to Midoriya after recognizing his potential and helps to enroll him in a prestigious high school for superheroes in training. The manga spawned a media franchise, having inspired numerous spin-off manga, such as My Hero Academia: Smash!!, My Hero Academia: Vigilantes, and My Hero Academia: Team-Up Missions. The series has expanded into light novels, stage plays, and various types of merchandise and media, including numerous video games. It has also been adapted into an anime television series by Bones. The first season aired in Japan from April to June 2016, followed by a second season from April to September 2017, then a third season from April to September 2018, a fourth season from October 2019 to April 2020, a fifth season from March to September 2021, a sixth season from October 2022 to March 2023, and a seventh season which premiered in May 2024. It has also received four animated films, titled My Hero Academia: Two Heroes, My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising, My Hero Academia: World Heroes' Mission, and MY HERO ACADEMIA: YOU’RE NEXT, this film.
MY HERO ACADEMIA: YOU’RE NEXT is set in a world where about 80% of the human population has gained superpowers called "Quirks" ). Quirks vary widely and can be inherited. Among the Quirk-enhanced individuals, a few of them earn the title of Heroes, who cooperate with authorities in rescue operations and apprehending criminals who abuse their Quirks, commonly known as Villains. In addition, Heroes who excel in their duties gain celebrity status and are recognized as "Pro Heroes". Heroes are ranked in popularity, with higher-ranking heroes receiving public appeal, although it is not uncommon for rookie heroes to gain popularity as well.
The manga feature is emotionless and boring to no-manga fans and to those who are not fans of the series despite some good animation. It is difficult to get excited to watch animated heroes fighting animated villains.
The film opens in theatres across Canada on Friday, October 11th.
Trailer:
SING MY SONG (Canada 2024) ***
Directed by Barbara Kayee Lee
SING MY SONG follows Barbara “Kayee” Lee, an award-winning broadcast journalist and community advocate, on her decade-long journey to discover why there are no Asian pop stars from North America. As a songwriter who doesn’t fit the pop star image, Lee is initially driven by the hope of having her songs sung by American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson, forcing Lee to confront her own internalized biases stemming from the lack of Asian pop stars growing up in the West. An insightful and, yet poignant search from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Hong Kong to Nashville, Tennessee that will make you think, cry, and laugh as you go along the journey with Lee to find her voice and fulfill her childhood dream.
The question is whether the film would be interesting to non-singer-songwriters. But Asians aside, the film discusses problems faced by other minority races trying to succeed in any other industry besides music, like film or painting. Still, the film delves in quite detail the music industry, especially on recording and singing.
Lee's pursuit of her musical dream intertwines with encounters with fellow Asian American and Asian Canadian singer-songwriters including the Far East Movement, Alfa Garcia, Kevin So and Umi Hsu. The documentary challenges the Model Minority Myth, unraveling its dual nature –celebrated for excellence in classical music yet sidelined as not "cool" enough for mainstream popularity. Through Lee's lens, viewers are compelled to reckon with the complicity within Asian communities and the systemic erasure of Asian musicians and pop stars in North America.
The doc also blends in the life of Lee, making it like a slight biopic. Barbara emigrated to Canada when she was fourteen months old from Hong Kong and her mother bought her first guitar at a pawn shop close to Chinatown. She worked the family farm in British Columbia. The present? Barbara has spent over twenty-five years as a community advocate for diverse representation and organizer of events to increase the profile and opportunities for Canadian and American Asian artists in mainstream music, film and media. She is the founder of the Vancouver Asian Film Festival (VAFF), the oldest Asian film festival in Canada, in its 28th year. Co-founder of the Mighty Asian Moviemaking Marathon (MAMM) in its 19th year and founder and producer of the Racial Equity Screen Office (RESO), creator of East by Northwest (EXNW) Global Creative Summit as well as founder of Elimin8Hate.org to combat anti-Asian racism. She also started the Vancouver Asian Film Festival, championing Asian values.
The topic of being Asian in a Western country comes up for the reason of its relevance as a musical artist. Lee talks about the difference between an Asian Canadian and a Canadian Asian. The topic is discussed ingrate detail by another Asian American artist who had made it in Tennessee, Kevin So.
One can understand Lee’s lessons learned but the film’s conclusion with Lee’s speaking to the film’s audience tends to be preachy if not condescending.
SING MY SONG premieres on AAM.tv (Asian AmerciaTV) on October 11, 2024
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STUDIO ONE FOREVER (USA 2023) ***
Directed by Marc Saltarelli
The documentary STUDIO ONE almost did not make it to the cinemas or VOD due to the pandemic and lack of funding. The doc finally opens this week and for those who are gay and love the club scene, then the Disco scene, this movie will bring total delight. For those gay,, who are older now and used to look young and pretty and used to do the club scene (myself definitely included), watching STUDIO ONE FOREVER reminds one of the times past when one was young and pretty and could pick up a new lover every night at the club, least of all make it on the dance floor or even have sex in the toilets. And there were plenty of drugs. For those in Toronto, there was the equivalent, sort of anyway, except that there were no celebrities, of STUDIO ONE, like the night club FLY, the place in which the gay series, the American one, QUEER AS FOLK was shot.
In STUDIO ONE FOREVER, director Marc Saltarelli and narrators Bruce Vilanch and David Del Valle dive into the history of the historic venue, offering a testament to an era and immortalizing the club's legacy for future generations. The documentary features candid, modern-day interviews with Chita Rivera, Sam Harris, Felipe Rose, Charlo Crossley, Melissa Rivers, Roslyn Kind, Lance Bass, and Thelma Houston along with former bartenders and patrons who recount their experiences at Studio One, and what the iconic club stood for. Many of the bartenders and patrons interviewed, now much older, look especially gorgeous and hot with their archive photographs shown.
A beacon of dancing and freedom for gay men looking for identity in a world that saw them as outcasts, Studio One was a haven and the blossoming centre of nightlife in West Hollywood. From merging the gay community and Hollywood elites like Bette Davis and Jimmy Stewart to being at the forefront of the LBGTQ+ rights movement and the fight against the AIDS crisis, the venue was more than just a disco, it was a movement.
The film plays like a biopic of STUDIO ONE - from past to present. The Studio One building was originally owned by William Fox and housed the Mitchel Camera Company. Mitchel manufactured Hollywood's early film cameras used by Charlie Chaplin, and for filming The Wizard of Oz. Later, it was used as the Norden bombsight facility during World War II. As the audience is informed, the floor has been reinforced during the War, which enabled it to be tested with thousands of Disco dancers pouring on the floor. In 1968 the building was bought and transformed into The Factory nightclub, named after the furniture manufacturing business on the lower floor of the building. The Factory became a popular 1960s-style discothèque that was frequented by Hollywood celebrities, but it only lasted a few years. And then, Studio One was founded on the same site in 1974 by part-owner Scott Forbes, a Boston optometrist. In the 1990s it was bought by Sandy Sachs and renamed to Axis. The space is currently called The Robertson.
The doc spends time talking about STUDIO ONE founder Scott Forbes who eventually succumbed to AIDs. The doc also sadly looks at the impact of the disease.
STUDIO ONE FOREVER is available on VOD on October 8 via Gravitas.
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SUPER/MAN: THE CHRISTOPHER REEVE STORY (USA 2024) ***½
Directed by Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui
There have been many, many actors who have taken on the role of Superman, but only one that remains the symbol of the iconic hero - and that is Christopher Reeves who played the titular hero from the Planet of Krypton in not one but in four Superman movies, only the first two being really successful. The third was shot in Calgary with Richard Pryor and the fourth and last is best forgotten.
The story of Christopher Reeve is an astonishing rise from an unknown actor to an iconic movie star, and his definitive portrayal of Clark Kent/Superman set the benchmark for the superhero cinematic universes that dominate cinema today. Reeve portrayed the Man of Steel in four Superman films before being injured in a near-fatal horse-riding accident in 1995 that left him paralyzed from the neck down. As the voiceover goes: Everything can be changed in an instant.
After becoming a quadriplegic, Reeve became a charismatic leader and activist in the quest to find a cure for spinal cord injuries, as well as a passionate advocate for disability rights and care - all while continuing his career in cinema in front of and behind the camera and dedicating himself to his beloved family.
This film includes never-before-seen intimate home movies and an extraordinary trove of personal archive material, as well as the first extended interviews ever filmed with Reeve’s three children about their father, and interviews with the A-list Hollywood actors who were Reeve’s colleagues and friends. The film is a moving and vivid cinematic telling of Reeve’s remarkable story.
Many celebrities speak of Reeve. Most notable is actress Glenn Close talking candidly about Reeve and also about his best friend Robin Williams, who was in the same acting class before becoming famous, who with his wife, Marsha provided Reeve with immense support. Close claims on camera that she strongly believes that if Reeve was still alive, Williams should also be alive and not have taken his life.
The film goes on to show that Reeve later directed IN THE GLOAMING (1997), acted in the television remake of REAR WINDOW (1998), and made two appearances in the Superman-themed television series Smallville (2003). Reeve died in 2004 from heart failure at a hospital near his home in Westchester County, New York.
Needless to say, the doc is a tearjerker and the directors have no qualms in preventing it from being one. The film spends a good whole 15 minutes on is death with the reaction of his immediate family.
From the opening clips of the SUPERMAN film to Christopher Reeve’s accident and his fight with recovery, the doc is extremely well thought of and put together with the conclusion of not who the hero is but what a hero is, showing that the hero is not a super mighty being but a human being as witnessed in the life and work of one Christopher Reeves.
SUPER/MAN: THE CHRISTOPHER REEVE STORY opens in theatres on October 11th.
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WOMAN OF THE HOUR (USA 2024) ****
Directed by Anna Kendrick
WOMAN OF THE HOUR is the stranger-than-fiction story of an aspiring actor (Anna Kendrick) in 1970s Los Angeles and a serial killer in the midst of a years-long murder spree, whose lives intersect when they’re cast on an episode of The Dating Game.
In the 1970s Rodney Alcala went on a murder spree, luring women by posing as a photographer looking for models. Though already a registered sex offender and recently released from prison, he infamously appeared on The Dating Game, a show that introduced a set of three new bachelors each week, hidden from view as a woman asked them amusing questions before choosing a winner to go on an all-expenses-paid trip with her.
It is Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut in which she stars as the main character as well. She is quite capable at it, creating both an intelligent and absorbing film that empowers women. The killings by the serial killer are interspersed with Sheryl’s routine making the film play like an anthology of the killings bound together with Sheryl’s life. Daniel Zovatto is nothing short of excellent in the role of the creepy ladykiller, Rodney.
.Actress Anna Kendick's WOMAN OF THE HOUR is an engrossing and compelling watch based on the true story of a serial killer who appeared on the famous TV reality show The Dating Game. The film premiered at TIFF last year and opens in Theatres now.
Trailer
