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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 31 July 2024

BORDERLESS FOG (Indonesia2024) ***1/2
Directed by Edwin

The new Netflix Indonesian crime thriller is called BORDERLESS FOG as the setting is along the border in Borneo of Malaysia and Indonesia.  Knowledge of the local Geography and politics would enhance the appreciation of this movie’s setting.

Firstly, the film is set in Borneo.  Borneo is the third largest island in the world.  Borneo, a giant, rugged island in Southeast Asia’s Malay Archipelago, is shared by the Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak, Indonesian Kalimantan and the tiny nation of Brunei. It is known for its beaches and ancient, biodiverse rainforest, home to wildlife including orangutans and clouded leopards.  It is sparsely populated but contains riches in natural beauty and minerals. 

The film’s setting is along the border of Malaysia and Indonesia.  There had been political conflict in the past involving the communist insurgency.  The Dyaks are the native people of the island as the Maoris are of New Zealand and the Aborigines are to Australia.  They are often looked down upon as are all indigenous peoples.  There are also fighting communist insurgents, the leaders of one of which died and his ghost was reported to be haunting the area of the story’s setting.

A detective is forced to confront the ghosts of her past while investigating a mysterious serial murder case along the Indonesia-Malaysia border.   When the story of Borderless Fog begins, a body falls down from a tree into a food stall. The body has been decapitated and it turns out the head and body are from two different victims. And before long, more murders happen that affect the local Dayak community.

Sanja Arunika is a detective with the rank of Second Police Inspector (Ipda) who comes from a big city, Jakarta, on the island of Sumatra, the capital of Indonesia. When Sanja was transferred from Jakarta to Kalimantan, she was given the task of investigating a serial murder case that occurred on the border between Indonesia and Malaysia.  When Santa first meets her counterparts in the place when she arrives, the chief remarks to her:  “Nice glasses.  Very suitable for the Borneo Fashion week, “ to which Santa replies: “I might lend them to you  to use.”  The interaction of a displaced but efficient cop in a different environment is not new fodder but quite good entertainment fodder, reminiscent of Clint Eastwood’s cop in Do Siegel’s COOGAN'S BLUFFin which Eastwood had to take matters into his own hands when not receiving any cooperation from his peers.

The chase and the use of firearms become inevitable when Sanja starts hunting for the alleged perpetrator. From his investigations, she slowly succeeded in uncovering various mysteries.

BORDERLESS FOG is a neat, efficient, and entertaining crime drama, the first I have seen from Indonesia that blends the cop caper with the rich local culture and politics.   Indonesian films come with varied quality but glad to say, this one comes with high production values.  BORDERLESS FOG opens for streaming this week on Netflix and deserves a look.

Trailer: 

KNEECAP (Ireland 2024) ***
Directed by Rich Peppiatt

A country that does not speak its own language is only half a nation.  These are the important words uttered as the Northern Irish fight for the use and practice of the Irish language.  Irish was banned by the British for years and only recognized as a language in the U.K. in 2022. Two films will make history in championing this course.  In Colm Bairéad’s 2022 THE QUIET GIRL, most of the film’s dialogue was shot in Waterford Irish, a form of Munster Irish.  That excellent film on my top 10 list of 2022 was Ireland's submission for Best International Feature Film at the 95th Academy Awards, and became the first Irish film in history to achieve the nomination.  It also received BAFTA Award nominations for Best Film Not in the English Language and Best Adapted Screenplay.  The other film is KNEECAP has already won the Sundance Audience Award.  The two films are highly different. THE QUIET GIRL is quiet and pensive while KNEECAP is loud and boisterous, about an Irish rap trio.  The trio reluctantly call themselves KNEECAP

The rap trio KNEECAP is made up of Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap, and DJ Próvaí who play themselves in the film, a sort of loose biopic.  They have built up a notoriety for themselves that hasn't been seen in Irish music for many years, perhaps ever.  Their use of foul language and drug dealing will infuriate many.  But they rap in Irish thus promoting the cause.  The film, often all over the place as can be witnessed in the film’s initial 15 minutes, and not for want of energy, demonstrates for better or for worse, the frighteningly articulate rap group.  Merging Irish with English, satire with socially conscious lyrics, and reality with absurdity, this voice comes screaming from the too-often deprived areas of the North of Ireland, speaking in a language that is too often ignored, and it makes for suitably electrifying stuff.   There seems to be no stopping their spectacular rise, with sold-out tours in the US and UK and even bigger plans to come

The film begins with the story of Irish militant Arlo.  Arlo (played by Michael Fassbender, HUNGER) is presumed dead though his body was never found.  He advises his son on the importance of the Irish language saying that a word spoken in the language is like a bullet fired for Irish freedom.  The son and his best friend sell drugs when they aren’t partying.  But their lives change after meeting music teacher JJ who turns their notebook scribblings into songs.  The film follows the formation of the group while celebrating their songs, often with rude lyrics.

Director Peppiatt appears desperate for his film to have a solid ending.  But the appearance of the peelers (what they call the cops) at the end of the film chasing them backstage while Arlo appears comes across as too incredible to be true.

KNEECAP opens on August 2 across Canada, including Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal!

Trailer: 

SAVING BIKINI BOTTOM: THE SANDY CHEEKS MOVIE (USA 2024) ***

Directed by Liza Johnson

Bikini Bottom has been stolen. Sandy Cheeks and SpongeBob watch in disbelief as everyone's favorite town is scooped out of the ocean by a sinister, mysterious company. Now, Sandy and SpongeBob must go on an epic quest to Sandy's home state of Texas and enlist her family to help save Patrick, Squidward, Mr. Krabs and the rest of the gang before time runs out.

SpongeBob SquarePants is an American animated television series created by marine science educator and animator Stephen Hillenburg that first aired on Nickelodeon as a sneak peek after the 1999 Kids' Choice Awards on May 1, 1999, and officially premiered on July 17, 1999. It chronicles the adventures of the title character and his aquatic friends in the underwater city of Bikini Bottom. The series received worldwide critical acclaim and gained popularity in its second season. As of 2019, the series is the fifth-longest-running American animated series

SpongeBob SquarePants?  SpongeBob SquarePants is an energetic and optimistic yellow sea sponge who lives in a submerged pineapple. SpongeBob has a childlike enthusiasm for life, which carries over to his job as a fry cook at a fast food restaurant called the Krusty Krab. One of his life's greatest goals is to obtain a boat-driving license from Mrs. Puff's Boating School, but he never succeeds. His favourite pastimes include "jellyfishing", which involves catching jellyfish with a net in a manner similar to butterfly catching, and blowing soap bubbles into elaborate shapes. He has a pet sea snail with a pink shell and a blue body named Gary, who meows like a cat.

Who would want to watch a SpongeBob SquarePants movie?  I asked around and many I spoke to said that it was a cartoon of their time.  Myself, I have watched a few and found them really silly.  But not silly stupid but silly funny.  There's not much to concentrate on, but just sit back and have a good laugh with the kids.  Their new Netflix original animated feature is open for streaming this week and serves much of the same - silly but funny entertainment that should have you laugh aloud a couple of times, never mind you have not learned anything about life or anything else.

What is Bikini Bottom?  Bikini Bottom is the main setting in the SpongeBob SquarePants series. It is an undersea city-state where SpongeBob and his friends live.  Bikini Bottom is located in the Pacific Ocean, beneath Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands.  The city is run by the mayor, and governed by the royal family, as they rule over the entire ocean.

It consists of several various different businesses, including restaurants, stores, and manufacturers.  Bikini Bottom is home to almost all of the entire central cast of SpongeBob SquarePants.

In this film, Sandy Cheeks is the main star.  She is an American squirrel from the surface who wears a diving suit and lives in an air-filled glass treedome to survive underwater. She is voiced by Carolyn Lawrence.  Sandy is a thrill seeker who loves extreme sports, and karate. Having come from the state of Texas, she has a Southern drawl and a love for rodeos. She works as a scientist and builds both her freedom and air suit and helmet herself. She is also a member of the Gal Pals along with Karen, Mrs. Puff, and Pearl.

SAVING BIKINI BOTTOM: THE SANDY CHEEKS MOVIE is exactly what is to be expected from a SpongeBob SquarePants movie - madcap and irrelevant silly fun.

THE SHAKEDOWN (South Africa 2024) ***

Directed by Ari Kruger

THE SHAKEDOWN refers to the shakedown devised by the story’s protagonist a fitness golden boy attempting to keep his reputation after being blackmailed by his physiotherapist.  He arranges for two of his brother’s hitmen to use scare tactics to effect a shakedown on her.  But things go wrong.  Not only is the girl killed instead of being scared, but the dead girl is the wrong person.

From South Africa comes this new amusing crime comedy.  Crime comedies are not that common not to mention humour coming from South Africa.  Not many, myself included can tell if someone is from South Africa from their accent.  If the accent is not quite British, Australian, or New Zealand, then it must be South African.  THE SHAKEDOWN, a crime comedy offers the rare chance to be entertained with South African Humour, and the film is funny, delivering mouth a high hit-and-miss ratio and many countless laugh-out laugh moments.

THE SHAKEDOWN is a Fargo-esque comedy-of-errors that follows Justin Diamond (Carl Beukes), a well-respected family man and medical aid broker who finds himself being blackmailed after his physiotherapist threatens to reveal the secret of their affair.

Desperate to maintain his golden boy reputation, Justin teams up with his 'black sheep' brother Dovi, to handle the escalating chaos. However, both their actions lead them down a path filled with dangerous criminals, mistaken identities, and comic mishaps into the clumsiness of the Cape Town underworld.

Being a touted comedy, director Kruger keeps the violence at a minimum, or rather controlled..  One violent scene occurred at the hospital where the patient was being tortured with a hammer to the legs and knees in  order to get information.  The violent scene adds comedy to it, as the patient is in a partial coma, impervious to pain.

Director Ari Kruger proves his talent for comedy.  THE SHAKEDOWN marks Kruger’s feature directorial debut. He had previously earned three Best Comedy Director nods at the South African Film & Television Awards for his work on the “Tali’s Diary” series, while also directing award-winning short films, TV commercials and comedy specials for Nik Rabinowitz and Marc Lottering.

The film reveals the serval variations of love.  Justin truly loves his family and two children as well as his fitness routines.  He does not endorse his crooked brother who has been in jail and does not invite the brother to his daughter’s grand bar mitzvah.  The brother shows up.  The brother, apparently single, loves family putting family above all else.  He is upset that he has not been invited to his brother's children's functions such as their birthday parties and now the bar mitzvah.  The wife loves Justin but also regular sex.  When the frequency of sex decreases, she resorts to the purchase of a celebrity sex doll to fluff her sexual, appetite on the advice of her friend.  Her fantasy is Antonio, short for Antonio Banderas.

PRIME VIDEO will release its first South African original film, the Cape Town-set crime caper comedy THE SHAKEDOWN which will be available globally (Prime Video) on the streamer Aug. 8.

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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 19 July 2024

FILM REVIEWS:

CROSSING (Sweden/Denmark/France/Turkey/Georgia 2024) ****

Directed by Levan Akin

CROSSING could refer to the crossing from Georgia into Istanbul, a journey undertaken by the story’s two protagonists, or the crossing from male to female gender of the trans subject who the protagonists are searching for.

The film is a rare production from the country of Georgia which many are likely unfamiliar with.  The film boasts to be largely shot in Georgia, according to the film’s credits though the majority of the story is set in Istanbul.  Georgia borders Turkey but to travel to Istanbul which is west of Turkey, a ferry is the fastest and most efficient way.  Lia and Achi travel by ferry to Istanbul.

Lia, a retired teacher, has made a promise to find out what happened to her long-lost niece, Tekla.  Tekla is Lia’s sister’s son who apparently has trans into a female.  When Lia learns from a neighbour, Achi, that Tekla might have left their Georgian homeland and be living in Turkey, Lia and Achi set off together to find her.   The problems whether Tekla wishes to be found.  Achi lies that Tekla had given him an address resulting in Lia allowing him to travel with her.  She is low on money and he has practically none.  Arriving in Istanbul, they discover a beautiful city full of connections and possibilities.  But searching for someone who never intended to be found is harder than they expected – until they meet Evrim, a lawyer fighting for trans rights. As Lia and Achi weave their way through the city’s backstreets, Tekla starts to feel closer than ever.

Director Akin’s film takes a while before getting its footing and allowing the audience to relate to both Lia and Achi.  Achi appears to be a habitual liar also fooling Lia that he can speak Turkish.  The film covers a few different subjects, one of which is the relationship between the young and curious Achi and the older and more mature Lia.   The film holds interest in the love/hate relationship between the two.  One key scene has Achi save some sweet desserts wrapped for Lia after he has spent a night on the town while another has Lia looking for ache after she kicks him out of the hotel room.  The film is also about life, finding the importance of one’s family - both Lia and Achi are identical loners in their respect - and the difficulty of the relationship shows.  Lia is also he mother figure that Achin never has.

Director Akin also keeps the audience guessing about the key plot point as to whether Tekla can be found.  The point is satisfactorily resolved, though how, will not be revealed in this review.

Superior performances by Mzia Arabuli, Lucas Kankavan and Deniz Dumanli as Lia, Acgi, and Evrim respectively.

The film shows the lifestyle of the marginalized community of trans prostitutes while also depicting the poorer lifestyle in Georgia, compared to Turkey.  There seems to be a tone of camaraderie among the Turks, the Georgians and the trans people.

CROSSING which opens in theatres July 26th is definitely an intriguing film that is well worth a look.

Trailer: 

DEADPOOL AND WOLVERINE (USA 2024) ****
Directed by Shawn Levy

The plot of the new DEADPOOL movie is quite complicated, but it is all to be taken in stride for vulgar fun and entertainment, throwing caution and credibility to the wind.

In 2018, Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) of Earth-10005 used Cable's time-traveling device to travel to Earth-616, the "Sacred Timeline", where he attempts to join the Avengers, his dream but his dream is dashed as he is rejected.  In 2024, Wilson retired from being the masked mercenary known as Deadpool and began to work as a used car salesman after breaking up with his girlfriend Vanessa Carlysle.  During his birthday party, the Time Variance Authority (TVA) captures Wilson and delivers him to Mr. Paradox (the excellent Matthew Macfadyen who delivers the film's most nuanced performance), who offers him to join Earth-616. However, Paradox also reveals that Wilson's timeline would deteriorate as a result of the death of James "Logan" Howlett (Hugh Jackman), who is revealed to be the timeline's "anchor being". Wilson steals Paradox's TemPad to travel the multiverse and find a variant of Logan to save his timeline.

As in every DEADPOOL movie, Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool is in motor-mouth mode spewing out a joke every second, irrelevant or not.  For example, when suddenly faced with dozens of the enemy he says” There are 206 bones in the body.  207 if I am watching Gossip  Girl.  They are also original ones involving real life like the buying of 20th Century Fox by Disney and the Marvel rights.  The best joke in the film is a visual one - the one where in a scene, there is the huge 20th-Century Fox structure half buried in the sand, as in the ending of the first Charlton Heston Franklin J, Schaffner PLANET ON THE APES climax, also signalling the end of 20th Century Fox, sold to Disney.

The best nod is paid to the recent MAD MAX film FURIOSA, with an extended segment shot in a desert landscape that could be taken right out of the George Miller FURIOSA movie with trucks and vehicles carrying ridiculous gadgets driving around in the sand,

The film is given a female slant with a nasty female villain in the form of Cassandra Nova(Emma Corrin), a mutant with telekinetic and telepathic powers, who is the twin sister of Charles Xavier with other-worldly origins.

Actors reprising their MCU roles in the film are Wunmi Mosaku as Hunter B-15, a TVA Hunter; Jon Favreau as Happy Hogan; and Chris Hemsworth as Thor.

Most of the tunes featured in the film are a variety of hits of the past.  The song “Only You” by the Platters for example is used at the film’s start when Deadpool goes to the cemetery to dig up the bones of Wolverine.  The Madonna song “Say a Little Prayer for You,” is used in the climactic fight scene at the end.  Whether these songs work is up to the individual’s decision.

Rob Simonsen composes the film's score, previously working with Levy on The Adam Project and the fourth season of Stranger Things.  The soundtrack album includes 17 songs featured in, or inspired by, the film along with Simonsen's theme for the film.

At a cost of $200 million with nary a dull moment, DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE should entertain Marvel fans with more vulgar humour than most, and easily earn its production dollars.

Trailer: 

DIDI (USA 2024) ***
Directed by Sean Yang

It is of interest to note that in the film Chris speaks English to his mother while she speaks mostly Mandarin back to him.  Chris obviously understands every word his mother says and is more comfortable speaking back in English which she understands.  The dialogue emphasizes the fact that the mother was educated in Mandarin in Taiwan, while the boy is in English with their comfort level reflected in the language each speaks.

Though the film is called DIDI which translates to Little Brother in English, the meaning is slightly different in English and in Mandarin.  In English, the term DIDI is not normally used by a mother (or father) but by an elder sibling.   But in the Asian culture, the term DIDI can be equally be used by any of the family.  In the movie, therefore, it is less strange that the film called DIDI is focused on the mother/younger son relationship and not on the elders sister/younger brother relationship.

DIDI is occasionally a powerful family relationship drama.  There are many dramatic set pieces like the one where DIDI runs away from the mother, and the one in which he returns her to the bedroom among others.  The film, however, with its loose narrative, fails to link all the segments in a strong coming-of-age story with a solid beginning and ending.  The film’s premise which is: “Set in 2008, a 13-year-old Taiwanese-American boy learns how to skate, flirt, and love his mother.” hints that the film will not gel the three items together.  A few things are left hanging such as the relationship of the brother and sister suddenly patched up without much reason given or the reason DIDI behaves poorly besides him reaching puberty age and the influence of questionable friends.

DIDI is more of a Joan Chen film.  Chen together with Chris Columbus who made teen movies in the 80s served as two of the film’s executive producers.

Director Wang is best known for last year’s Academy Award Best Documentary Short Nominee, Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó.  It did not win but demonstrated an impressive debut, also with a loose narrative structure  Chen plays the long-suffering mother who has to put up with both other children’s nonsense, not to mention her own mother who is constantly on her nerves

DIDI was shot in July 2023 in Fremont, California. The film consists mostly of first-time actors from the Bay Area. The film was previously selected for the 2023 Sundance Institute Screenwriting & Directors Lab and the 2022 SFFILM Rainin Grant.

DIDI has made its rounds worldwide in international film festivals.  Dìdi had its world premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival on January 19, 2024.   A few days later, Focus Features acquired distribution rights to the film.  It also screened at South by Southwest on March 12, 2024, and closed the 11th edition of Sundance London on June 9, 2024.  It also had its international premiere at the Beijing International Film Festival on April 19, 2024.DIDI now opens on July 26, 2024.

Trailer: 

HOUSE OF GA’A Nigeria 2024) ***
Directed by Bolanle Austen-Peters

Forget the ridiculous Hollywood Viola Davis WOMAN KING in 2022 in which blacks are touted in a silly display of power and rights.  HOUSE OF GA’A is the real thing, a non-documentary biopic from Nigeria with actors portraying real characters in History.

HOUSE OF GA’A is a period film about the life of the infamous Bashorun Ga’a.

The biopic is set in the 18th century when the real Bashorun Ga’a became so powerful he enthroned kings and dethroned them for sport.  This ruthless Prime Minister desperate for revenge ferociously rises to power, stopping at nothing to become more powerful than the kings he served.

The film begins at the heart of the ancient Oyo Empire.   A big battle is about to be fought, a battle Bashorun Ga’a and his son lead.  Bashorun is shown as commanding the troops and winning the battle, returning to his village to announce to the King of the Victory.  He takes away the spoils of war and slaves from the defeated village.  He also brings the head of the enemy Emir to his King.  What is more important is not the ballet itself, shown only in brief but what occurs afterwards at the village  Bashorun’s wife is pregnant while he takes a young beautiful slave to his chamber, much to the dirty looks of his pregnant wife.  But still, apart from that Nashorun is a great warrior loved by all.  He thus rises to power after a triumphant victory against the army of Nupe.  Celebrated as a hero, he is appointed Prime Minister by the Alaafin thereby solidifying his influence.

Despite being a Historical war film, there is much drama as in the drama faced by Bashorun.  When the young and beautiful slave who is called Zeibab is brought to his chambers, she tells him that she will be his slave and that her whole body belongs to him, but not her heart, to which he retorts: “What good is the heart anyway?”

HOUSE OF GA’A is what is called a Hollywood blockbuster.  It tires of copycatting the Hollywood big production but from the props, one can immediately see that the film has a modest budget - from the tacky-looking weapons and armour worn and the short battle scenes, all used at least without CGI and shot the old fashioned way, making it look more credible.

However, beneath his success lies ambition, betrayal and tragedy.  As Bashorun consolidates authority, he faces opposition from the Oyo Mesi council and contends with familial strife, all of hihi is caused by himself with no one else to blame.  His quest for power leads to disastrous consequences, including the deaths of rival kings and his own descent into treachery.  Amidst political intrigue and personal vendettas, themes of loyalty and justice emerge, shaping the fates of Bashorun and those around him.  As alliances shift and betrayals unfold, the House of Ga'a becomes a battleground culminating in a tragic showdown that forever changes the kingdom of Oyo.

The film streams on Netflix on 26th July of 2024.

Trailer: 

NON NEGOTIABLE (No Negociable) (MEXICO 20224) ***
Directed by Juan Taratuto

NON NEGOTIABLE (No Negociable) is the new Netflix original movie coming from Mexico touted as an action-packed thriller with comedy, action and suspense, set to premiere on Netflix on July 26th.   This much-anticipated film follows Alan Bender, a seasoned hostage negotiator, as he navigates a difficult situation that tests his professional skills and personal resolve amidst a dramatic hostage crisis.

An expert negotiator is often called in when there is a kidnapping ransom or a suicide but he or she often takes a secondary role.  In this flick the negotiator takes the central role for a change as the audience sees the vocation taken in a different light, often seeing what this person faces.  In the film, the stakes skyrocket when the President is kidnapped, and Bender is called upon to secure his release.  As Bender discovers his wife is also a captive of the same ruthless kidnappers, Bender is faced with a conflict of interests.  Who should he put first?  The President or his wife?

The film’s protagonist is Alan Bender.  What is this guy with an English name (though pronounced in Spanish) and a Spanish accent doing in a Mexican Spanish movie?  The real commercial reason is to have more American audiences tune in to this film.

Alan Bender is first seen in the introduction segment of a film that is barely 90 minutes negotiating with a gunman who’s a gun to a woman’s head.  He gives him the three options, shoot, don’t shoot outrun himself in.  Amidst the negotiation, he gets a call from his cell phone company warning him of his limited time left but he tells the gunman that it is the D.A.  promising the gunman leniency if he turns himself in.  Bender entered this situation while driving his wife and daughter.  The segment which has little to do with the rest of the story does set up the tone for comedy, suspense and a little action in what is to follow.

The film also demonstrates the art of negotiation.  Hostage Negotiation Tactics form an intricate process of psychology and strategy, that audiences can learn to appreciate as well. Typically, negotiators employ techniques such as building rapport with captors, maintaining calm communication, and subtly influencing outcomes.  These tactics are tied in with Bender’s behaviour driven by the conflicting interest o save both the President and his wife.

The script also includes a few twists in the plot, which will not be mentioned in this review.  There is no credit for the script in the closing credits though it is stated that the story is based on an original idea.

NON-NEGOTIABLE is thus an efficient little Mexican film, entertaining enough without having to resort to ridiculous special effects and expensive production costs or even star names.  The largely unknown cast delivers credible performances and the suspenseful action thriller works, especially if one can watch it on Netflix and save money from going to the cinema.

NON NEGOTIABLE (No Negociable), a Netflix original film streams on Netflix on June 26th, 2024.

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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 18 July 2024

Capsule Review of BOOKWORM, the opening night film:

 FANTASIA SCREENING DETAILS:
Opening Night Film
Thursday, July 18, 2024 at 6:30 PM 
Auditorium des diplômés de la SGWU (Théâtre Hall)
1455 rue Maisonneuve O (rue Bishop)
Montréal QC H3G 1M8
Click here for more information.

BOOKWORM (New Zealand 2023) ***½

Directed by Ant Timpson

During a time of crisis, a freak electrical accident involving a faulty toaster switch results in a mother being in a coma and then recovering.  A washed-up American magician Strawn Wise (Elijah Wood) and his precocious estranged daughter Mildred (Nell Fisher) take to the New Zealand wilderness, in search of a mythical black panther for a much-needed reward money..  The script contains quirky dialogue expected from a film entitled and about a BOOKWORM.   The film clearly demonstrates how fresh and entertaining it can be with smart yet simple dialogue without any resort to expensive CGI special effects, action sequences and pyrotechnics.  The young daughter has a lot of smart talk that is naturally believable because she is a well-read bookworm.  The film is beautifully shot in a contemporary setting g showing the beauty of New Zealand with its rocky mountains, rivers and natural beauty, but it is more engaging unlike in the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy where everything looks mythical.  The film contains almost all the elements of a movie including drama, adventure, action, suspense and comedy.  There is a bit of everything for everyone.

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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 17 July 2024

FILM REVIEWS:

THE BEAUTIFUL SUMMER  (LA BELLA ESTATE) (Italy 2023) ***
Directed by Laura Luchett 

Turin, 1938. Young Ginia has just left the countryside with her brother in search of a new life in the city. Though Turin lies in the shadow of a rising fascistic government and her brother yearns to return home, Ginia is more optimistic about the future. In a short time, she excels in her work as a seamstress at an atelier, gaining new clients with her designs and impressing her otherwise irascible employer. Restless and seeking adventure, Ginia soon finds it in a beautiful, enigmatic young woman named Amelia. Though similar in age, her new friend’s sensuality and confidence among the bohemian artists she socializes with embolden Ginia to begin modeling for the male painters in her circle.  A whirlwind affair ensues, and the young seamstress finds herself swept up in this new and unfamiliar world, all the while never escaping Amelia’s spell. The young women grow closer, and Ginia makes an emotional journey toward self-discovery over the course of one beautiful, sun-dappled summer.

Making a life in the countryside is hard work.  We do not belong to the big cities.  These are the words spoken by Ferucci to her sister Ginia as they discuss their possible futures.  She has bruised hands from overwork as a seamstress and the brother has almost given up his University studies believing that University is mainly for wealthy people.  The siblings illustrate the struggle of the poorer country folk compared to their more fortunate city counterparts.  The siblings argue but they care for each other.

From the stunning cinematography of the countryside that includes scenes of the lakes, rivers and woods, there is an obvious bias of the film towards life in the country as opposed to the city.  Yet Ginia is seduced by the city as she grows fond of a girl that she had just met, Amelia who works as a model for painters, often using nude for them.

The same-sex relationship between Ginia and Amelia is gradual.  Ginia first eyes Amelia emerging from the water of a lake after swimming, her nipples observably erect from her wet top, the appearance similar to Ursula Andress and Halle Berry as they emerged from the water in the James Bond films.  They meet again at a bar and their friendship goes from there, leading to a relationship that is unacceptable at the time.  Their first kiss occurs only after the one-hour mark of the film - quite a wait.  In the meantime and also after, Ginia flirts with a painter.  From her looks during the lovemaking, courtesy of the camerawork, one can see from her facial expressions that Ginia is quite uncomfortable while making love to a male.  In one scene she says” “There is too much light.”  Too bad as the male is quite good-looking.

Because of the period and the fact that the film is set in the Italian countryside, it is reminiscent of the disturbing recent Italian film FIREWORKS about two boys who find love who are eventually murdered by the villagers in disapproval - a disturbing true story.  This film is one of the best I have seen this year and is now available on demand.  THE BEAUTIFUL SUMMER is a fleeting, light coming-of-age story that celebrates the Italian countryside,  The music and light treatment of the period piece is also reminiscent of Fellini’s AMACORD.

The Locarno Audience Award Nominee premiers via VOD and Digital and streams on SVOD (Movement Plus) on August the 9th

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BORDERLANDS (USA 2024) ***
Directed by Eli Roth

BORDERLANDS is based on a video game.

Borderlands is an action role-playing first-person looter shooter video game franchise in a space Western science fantasy setting, created and produced by Gearbox Software and published by 2K for multiple platforms.  The series consists of seven games, each with multiple downloadable content packs.  The series has received critical acclaim and commercial success for its loot-driven multiplayer co-op gameplay and its sense of humour. It is one of the best-selling video game franchises of all time. so a film adaptation of the series is inevitable and arrives this week.

It is difficult to get excited with a film adaptation of a video game.  But BORDERLANDS has two things going for it.  Firstly, it is a highly successful, well-known and critically acclaimed video game and secondly, it is directed by Eli Roth, though the reshoots were done by Tim Miller (DEADPOOL) due to a conflicting schedule.

` Like the video game, the film’s setting takes place on the planet of Pandora, a horrid planet where law and order is absent and anarchy exists to its fullest.  The planet contains a vault that contains the secret tooth Universe, which in this case is all the tech information needed to rule the Universe, in short AI.  The planet has many vault hunters looking for the location of the vault and the key to opening it.

Lilith (Cate Blanchett), an infamous outlaw with a mysterious past, reluctantly returns to her home planet of Pandora to find the missing daughter of the universe's most powerful S.O.B., Atlas (Edgar Ramirez). Lilith forms an alliance with an unexpected team – Roland (Kevin Hart), a former elite mercenary, now desperate for redemption; Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), a feral teenage demolitionist; Krieg, Tina's musclebound, rhetorically challenged protector; Tannis, the scientist with a tenuous grip on sanity; and Claptrap (voiced by Jack Black), a persistent wiseass robot. These unlikely heroes must battle alien monsters and dangerous bandits to find and protect the missing girl, who may hold the key to unimaginable power. The fate of the universe could be in their hands but they'll be fighting for something more: each other.

Academy Award Winner Catt Blanchett lends her acting chops as the action hero in the film. She is, as usual good but do not expect any groundbreaking performances of the TAR or CAROL quality.  Cate Blanchett was cast as Lilith in May 2020.  Speaking of her decision to join the project, Blanchett said: "The gun-slinging stuff was so much fun. I got absorbed in that whole world. I think there also may have been a little Covid madness.  An impressive cast rounds off some solid comic performances.  Thank God the annoying Jack Black can only be heard and not seen.  Motor-mouthed Black is actually quite good here, as in KUNGFU PANDA.

It appears that filmgoers love humour in action-packed sci-fi futuristic action movies as in the recent record-breaking DEADPOOL AND WOLVERINE

BORDERLANDS which hosts $100 million to make is from Lionsgate Studios.  The film opens Friday, August the 2nd.

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CUCKOO (USA/Germany 2024) ***

Directed by Tilman Singer

Reluctantly, 17-year-old Gretchen (Hunter Schafer) leaves her American home to live with her father (Marton Csokas), who has just moved into a resort in the German Alps with his new family. Arriving at their future residence, they are greeted by Mr. König (Dan Stevens), her father's boss, who takes an inexplicable interest in Gretchen's mute half-sister Alma (Mila Lieu). Something doesn't seem right in this tranquil vacation paradise. Gretchen is plagued by strange noises and bloody visions until she discovers a shocking secret that also concerns her own family.

The film introduces audiences to a horrible event that results in what is known in science as an emaciated twin.  The young step-sister is the surviving twin while in the womb of her pregnant mother.  In the case of pregnancy continuation, the dead twin will progressively transform into “fetus papyraceous” due to the absorption of the soft tissues, and placental and amniotic fluids.  The dead fetus will be found compressed between the amniotic sac of the survival twin and the uterine wall.   A wide range of structural abnormalities have been reported in the surviving twin such as neural tube defects, optic nerve hypoplasia, hypoxic-ischemic lesions of the white matter (multicystic encephalomalacia), microcephaly (cerebral atrophy), hydranencephaly, porencephaly, hemorrhagic lesions of white matter, posthemorrhagic hydrocephalus, and bilateral renal cortical necrosis.  All this is pretty scary.

At the film’s 30-minute mark, director Kruger has his audience guessing as to what the hell is going on.  The female protagonist has just escaped from everyone at the resort where she is staying and working and taken off, on a whim with a French girl from Paris in a car.  She has stolen all the cash from the resort’s cash register.  They have a catastrophic road accident which then leaves her in the hospital.  Before this 30-minute mark, Gretchen sees a mysterious woman that is as yet unexplained.  She is accosted by a so-called detective to help solve a murder case.  Her father has had enough of her. Alma suffers from epileptic fits.  No one works at the reception of the resort after 10 pm the time weird things start to happen. If ever a film has sparked interest in the audience or created anticipation, this film is the one that excels.   The question then comes as to whether the re of the film can live to the early build-up and whether all the mysteries can be explained creditably.

Unfortunately, the film starts showing cracks during the second half.  Not every incident can be explained, like the toilet scene, and a few of these seem to be put there just for jump scares.  The repeated jolts in time -why so many characters suffer the same demise are not explained.

Performances-wise, Hunter Schafer as the 17-year-old serves the horror feature well.  British actor Dam Steves appears all weird here, sporting a German accent and trying his best to pass for German.

CUCKOO plays for horror and scare effects, coming from plot and camera techniques while paying less attention to story continuity or ending.  (A similar recent horror film is LONGLEGS.)

CUCKOO is in theatres on August 9th.

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DANCE FIRST (USA/UK/Belgium/Hungary2023) ***
Directed by James Marsh

The film documents the life of Irish writer’ Samuel Beckett, from his childhood, his friendship with James Joyce until the incarceration of the latter's mentally ill daughter Lucia Joyce, his relationship with his future wife Suzanne Dumesnil, his time as a fighter for the French Resistance during the Second World War, his postwar literary rise and subsequent Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969, his affair with translator Barbara Bray and his later life right until his death in 1989. Throughout the film, Beckett carries out an interior monologue

There are two ways to shoot a biopic.  One is to tell the story straightforwardly, whether in chronological order or non-chronological order with the often use of flashbacks - commonly used in most biopic films.  The other is a risky varied approach as in DANCE FIRST, the biopic of Irish Pulitzer Prize Winner Samuel Beckett using a style befitting to what the world has claimed as one of the best writers of the century and a literary genius.  The biopic unfolds with Beckett speaking to himself as his story unfolds.

Literary genius Samuel Beckett lived a life of many parts: Parisian bon vivant, WWII Resistance fighter, Nobel Prize-winning playwright, philandering husband, and recluse. But despite all the adulation that came his way, he was a man acutely aware of his own failings. The biopic is entitled DANCE FIRST, titled after Beckett’s famous ethos Dance first, think later.  The film is a sweeping account of the life of this 20th-century icon.

Samuel Barclay Beckett, who passed as recently as in December 1989, was an Irish novelist, dramatist, short story writer, theatre director, poet, and literary translator. His literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal, and tragicomic experiences of life, often coupled with black comedy and nonsense.  His work became increasingly minimalist as his career progressed, involving more aesthetic and linguistic experimentation, with techniques of stream-of-consciousness repetition and self-reference.   He is considered one of the last modernist writers, and one of the key figures in what Martin Esslin called the Theatre of the Absurd.  His most notable play is WAITING FOR GODOT written originally in French and translated also into English.  A resident of Paris for most of his adult life, Beckett wrote in both French and English.  During the Second World War, Beckett was a member of the French Resistance group Gloria SMH  and was awarded the Croix de Guerre in 1949.  He was awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature.

The film begins with the older Beckett (Gabriel Byrne) at the ceremony where he wins the Novel Prize and the money.  He climbs up through the theatre to a cave where he meets himself and together they try to decide what to do with the cash!   This chat provides the scenario for a retrospective of the man's life.   As Beckett often used in his writing, a technique called ‘stream of consciousness’, this method issued in the telling of his life story in the biopic.   (In literary criticism, stream of consciousness is a narrative mode or method that attempts "to depict the multitudinous thoughts and feelings which [sic] pass through the mind" of a narrator.)

This method used in the biopic by director Marsh (MAN ON WIRE, THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING) is admirable though it does not really work in terms of dramatic impact but serves to often blur the story which the audience has to decipher.  Byrne’s performance is lacklustre compared to Aikden Gillen who plays his younger counterpart.

At its best, the film captures the spirit of love and regret as well as the process of growing old but it fails to account for Beckett’s genius - what it is that literalists really like and where his genius originated from.

DANCDE FRIST does provide a comprehensive account of  his life and his philandering ways.

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INSIDE THE MIND OF A DOG (USA 2024) ***
Directed by Andy Knight Mitchell

Writer’s note: I am a dog owner and a proud one at that.  My puppy, a Rhodesian Ridgeback (Lucy) just turned one on August 2nd.  I am thus affected by this documentary INSIDE THE MIND OF A DOG, and I am hoping to benefit from some insights.

Netflix’s new doggie documentary INSIDE THE MIND OF A DOG aims to explore the ancient and complex human-dog relationship, reveal cutting-edge research and offer at-home tips for dog owners everywhere.  The doc begins by saying that most people might know the inside of the mind of a dog but modern studies have discovered more information that will benefit both the canine and the human species.   Following three main characters – a brilliant, super-trained border collie; a precocious pug; and a lovable rescued mutt – the doc’s team of elite canine experts from across the globe, dive deep into our best friend’s hidden mind, to answer everyone’s biggest canine questions.

The doc is filled with fun facts that one might already know or not know.  The average number of a litter is 6, the record being 24.  Dogs have nose prints just as human beings have unique fingerprints.  Dogs are as unique as their nose prints are, and researchers are trying to find out why.  Dogs understand human gestures better than apes as shown in the finger pointing cognitive experiment.  Puppies are born blind and deaf and their sight develops only after a period of three weeks.  The sight of newly born puppies finding their way to the milk of their mother and feeding on her is just such an endearing sight, powerful enough to warn the heart of the most evil villain.  The reason dogs are so adorable are their sad puppy eyes, the white part that can be seen that absolutely drives humans crazy. Friendliness rules.  Dogs use this element to bond with humans and survive.  The most popular dog breed was the golden retriever now overtaken by the  French bulldog.  My own dog breed was shown at the beginning of the doc as a standing tall canine Rhodesian Ridgeback, standing tall, bred originally from Africa.

The doc’s information comes from many sources including a canine research facility dedicated to understand the behaviour of dogs.  Canine Companion is another started up by Charles Schultz’s Peanuts and Snoopy.  The disc includes segments of the training of guide dogs.

The director of the film is Andy Knight Mitchell, a four-time Emmy Award winner, returning to direct the new documentary following the 2022 movie INSIDE THE MIND OF A CAT.  It did quite well on Netflix following its release in August 2022.  It was featured on Netflix's daily top 10s in over 49 countries and in the global top 10s for a single week, picking up 6.99 million hours of TV time.  Andy Knight Mitchell

has worked for most distributors, including National Geographic, Disney+, Nat Geo Wild, Discovery, and Animal Planet.  

INSIDE THE MIND OF A DOG, total entertaining for both dog lovers and non-dog lovers with insight and fun-filled facts, is available for streaming on Netflix this week. 

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IT ENDS WITH US (USA 2024) ***

Directed by Justin Baldoni

The new female-slanted romantic drama centering on female abuse IT ENDS WITH US  is based on the romance novel of the same name, by Colleen Hoover, published by Atria Books on August 2, 2016.  Based on the relationship between her mother and father, author Hoover described it as "the hardest book I've ever written.”

The IT in the title of both the book and the film refers to the abuse of the Bloom family - the abuse faced and suffered by both the mother and daughter at the hands of violent men.  The meaning is only made clear at the end of the movie bringing the film to a satisfactory explained closed ending.

IT ENDS WITH US could have been titled THE ABUSE ENDS WITH US, but then the entire story would have been too pious and expected.

IT ENDS WITH US, the first Colleen Hoover novel adapted for the big screen, tells the compelling story of Lily Bloom (Blake Lively), a woman who overcomes a traumatic childhood to embark on a new life in Boston and chase a lifelong dream of opening her own flower shop business.  A chance meeting with charming neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid (Justin Baldoni who also directed the movie) sparks an intense connection, but as the two fall deeply in love, Lily begins to see sides of Ryle that remind her of her parents' relationship.  (i.e. the violent abuse)  When Lily's first love, Atlas Corrigan (Brandon Sklenar), suddenly reenters her life, her relationship with Ryle is upended, and Lily realizes she must learn to rely on her own strength to make an impossible choice for her future.

The film’s treatment of abuse can be looked upon in two ways.  In the first, it is romanticized and accepted, as Lily accepts Ryle’s abuse of her as being acceptable only because the abuse was different from her mother’s.  Ryle always has an excuse which Lily always readily accepts.  Finally, however, she separates from him at the end with the words “It (the abuse) ends with us) referring to the baby born of the abuse which is Ryle’s rape).  The story also offers Ryle an excuse for his violent behaviour which is attributed to the traumatic accidental killing of his younger brother when Ryle was a child.

Despite being directed by a male, the film has a strong female slant from the source material with a female author and a strong female protagonist supported by a lively performance by Blake Lively, pardon the pun.  The male characters are treated as secondary and mere pawns in the story, subject to where the plot of the film leads.

The flashbacks shown of Lily’s parents’s abuse are vague and it is difficult to determine what exactly is going on, despite the scene being repeated a number of times.  If this is director Baldoni’s purpose to reflect the vagueness of Lily’s own memory, then why show it a number of times? One can hardly tell too if the father was having sex with the mother or another woman or even with his daughter in the room, which makes the story confusing at that point.

Running at 130 minutes and despite being a female-slanted film and its questionable treatment of the sensitive topic, IT ENDS WITH US engages both genders with what abuse and violence can do to a relationship.

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LOLO AND THE KID (Philippines 2024) **
Directed by Benedict Mique

“Say it’s only a PAPER MOON, sailing over a cardboard sky.  But it’s only make-believe if you believe in me."  So go the words of the theme song of the 1973 Peter Bogdanovic hit starring real-life father and daughter Ryan O’Neal and Tatum O’Neal about a father and daughter con team that won the hearts of moviegoers everywhere and made PAPER MOON a classic hit.  There are many things that can be learned from that movie, but apparently, the new Netflix Filipino film LOLO AND THE KID about a kid and grandpa con team, fails to have taken up any pointers.

The opening scene of LOLO AND THE KID introduces the protagonists of the movie, LOLO which means grandpa in Filipino and his supposedly grandson.  They sit on a curb eating rice mixed with soya sauce as observed by a sympathetic couple.  Gemma and Alan admit that they want to adopt the kid, making it clear that they have tried everything to have kids before, but nothing worked for them. This request throws Grandpa Lolo off, but he agrees, leaving Kid behind, who seems distraught. This is a tearjerker scene which is perhaps the film’s best moment as it is revealed later than it is one that has fooled the audience.  It is revealed that this was all part of their con, and the duo leaves the house with plenty to sell and earn some money.

Unfortunately, the film falls apart right at this point.  The two continue to dupe others and as the audience is already familiar with the scheme, it gets boring quickly.  In PAPER MOON, the scams are different and there are other twists in the plot that make the film more intriguing with hardly a dull moment, aided by Tantum O’Neal’s fantastic performance earning her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, also making her the youngest winner in Oscar history.

In LOLO AND THE KID, however, director Mique plays at the heartstrings of the viewers instead, as many Filipino movies do, falling into cliched melodrama. But in contrast, the characters are also quick to play with the emotions of other people to earn a living.

As expected and as cliches go, things change, and Lolo realizes that Kid can’t live like this forever, so he makes a difficult decision on behalf of both of them. It is insightful to examine how PAPER MOON avoids this pitfall by ending the story before this consideration occurs.

Joel Torres who plays Lolo, the grandpa does his best in his role but is unable to save the film.

LOLO AND THE KID plays like a melodramatic pauper’s version of the Peter Bogdanovic’s classic PAPER MOON in which two family con artists set up to make a living act at the expense of sympathetic victims.   It lacks originality, humour and drama making a dry and ultimately boring 90 minutes.  The awful dragged-on climax aimed at tearing the heartstrings is too much to bear.

LOLO AND THE KID is a Philippines Netflix original film that opens for streaming this week.  Best to rent PAPER MOON again and watch that instead.

Trailer: 

SUGARCANE (USA/Canada 2024) ***
Directed by Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie

The film begins with an advisory warning.  The film is about Indian and residential schools and contains discussions on sexual violence.

SUGARCANE is the name of an Indigenous Reservation in British Columbia, Canada.  The doc serves as a tribute to the resilience of Native people and their way of life.  SUGARCANE is the debut feature documentary from Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie, which is a cinematic portrait of a community during a moment of international reckoning.  

It all began in 2021 when evidence of unmarked graves was discovered on the grounds of an Indian residential school run by the Catholic Church in Canada.  The doc spent time investigating and excavating a few graves.  Since then and after years of silence, the forced separation, assimilation and abuse many children experienced at these segregated boarding schools was brought to light, sparking a national outcry against a system designed to destroy Indigenous communities.   Services and gatherings with interviews of those attending attest to the importance of these meetings.

Canadians have been bombarded with the news of uncovered graves, and indeed many, many more have been discovered since then, and not only in the province of British Columba.  The doc takes a personal look at this shameful segment of History of Canada by focusing on Julian and his family and how they had been affected by the news.

As most Canadians have already been bombarded with so much news of the unmarked graves in residential schools, there is nothing new that Canadians have not already heard of.  But by looking from Julian’s family’s perspective, all the bad stuff has been made more credible and unaccepting.  It makes a difference when one hears a testimony firsthand compared to the reading of what has happened in the news.

A woman tells of her Indigenous experiences.  We were given all these strict rules to obey and the ones that broke them were the people in charge.  She woman also testified of herself being sexually abused and when she informed the authorities, they did not believe her.

A segment of the doc is devoted to the procedure of the investigation.

Set amidst a groundbreaking investigation, SUGARCANE illuminates the heartbreak and beauty of a community breaking cycles of intergenerational trauma and finding the strength to survive.

After making its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year — where it won the U.S. Documentary Competition Directing Award — the film went on to receive the Center for Documentary Studies Filmmaker Award from the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival and the 2024 Filmmaker Award from the Margaret Mead Film Festival. To date, SUGARCANE has won over a dozen awards, including Best Documentary Feature Awards from Mountainfilm, the San Francisco International Film Festival, the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival and Sarasota Film Festival, along with Special Jury Prizes at the Seattle International Film Festival and the International Film Festival of Boston.

SUGARCANE opens in the U.S. and Canadian Theatres August 9. 

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Details

Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 07 July 2024

FILM REVIEWS:

THE CHAMPION (EL CAMPEON)(Spain 2024) ***1/2
Directed by Carlos Theron

In the light of the current football craze as the world watches the world’s best team play for the Eurocup, comes this Spanish comedy about a champion footballer, who is Spain’s top scorer.  From the age of 6, his father has groomed Diego to be a footballer, arming him for all the right clubs, etc.  He is called, a champion, just as the title of the film implies.  But Diego, the champion can also be described as a hooligan.  He was given a red card after head-butting not the football but his team captain, and suspended for two games and maybe a third. 

So, this hot-headed football star has had it all until a fight gets him benched and assigned a new tutor: a reclusive academic who'll teach him to face his fears.  Though advertised as a sports drama, it is a light one with many humourous light touches.  The teacher discovers that Diego suffers from dyslexia.  

  At its best, THE CHAMPION captures both the spirit of the sport of football as well as the problems associated with dyslexia.  It is a sensitive and moving story encapsulated in an occasionally brilliant script

The film is about two highly different personalities.  Though it sounds like a movie with a story to avoid, a story of how two mismatched characters interact and learn from each other - the film ends up quite endearing.  The character study makes good observations, revealing similarities as well as differences between the two, otherwise, hotheads, one keeping it all inside and the other always letting it out on someone else.  And the whole thing works, thankfully for the two actors who play the two leads.  At its best, the film is moving demonstrating the resilience of the human spirit.

THE CHAMPION, filmed in Spanish, opens for streaming on Friday the 12th on Netflix.

FLY ME TO THE MOON (USA 2024) ***½

Directed by Greg Berlanti

It has been almost 50 years since Peter Hyams’ famous action thriller CAPRICORN One graced the screens about a totally faked Mars Mission landing.  The caption went like this: “Would you be shocked if the greatest moment in history never happened?”  Elliot Gould discovered the truth in the film and had to fight for his dear life.  Something sort of similar occurs in FLY ME TO THE MOON.  The actual moon landing! The United States figures might not be as glamorous as the actual one occurring and decides to have a fake one filmed and teslas to the world instead.

FLY ME TO THE MOON is set during the 1960s Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union. a relationship develops between the NASA director, Cole Davis (Channing Tatum) in charge of the Apollo 11 launch, and the marketing specialist, Kelly Jones (Scarlett Johansson)  brought in to fix NASA's public image and stage a "backup" fake Moon landing.  She brings in her own director, described as the best director no one has heard of, Lance Vespertine (Jim Rash) to do the honours of filming the fake moon landing.  Lance is a perfectionist and needles to say, impossible to work with.  At one point, Kelly says that she should have got Kubrick instead.

But FLY ME TO THE MOON is a romantic comedy, the type of the 60’s the typical Rock Hudson and Doris Day pairing but with the roles reversed in this one.  Tatum plays the prissy follow-the-rules shy romantic while Johnson plays the brash independent female who is a con artist at heart.   The film works as a romantic comedy as the romance plays second fiddle to the NASA story, where the audience is drawn to the intrigue of NASA and its problems.

The film contains a great assortment of ‘moon songs including of course “Fly Me to the Moon” the 1954 song by Bart Howard, and the classic 1961 “Moon River” performed by Aretha Franklin.

FLY ME TO THE MOON is Greg Berlanti’s feature-directing debut.  Though his name is not that well known, Berlanti once made Time's list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2020.  In the 2017–2018 television season, Berlanti tied Jerry Bruckheimer's 2005–2006 record in having 10 different live-action scripted television series airing on various networks and digital platforms and took sole possession of the record, with 14 airing in the 2018–19 television season, having signed the most expensive producer deal at that time (June 2018) with Warner Bros.  But it is Johansson’s movie.  Besides serving as one of the film’s producers, she delivers a stellar performance as Kelly the female sweet-talking con artist.  Her performance is so good that director Berlanti omitted the dialogue and scene where she convinces two cops to pardon a shop breaking in to give her an escorted ride back to Nasa.  Omitted dialogue is very effective but not so widely used if the audience knows the gist of what is to be said as in Hitchcocks TORN CURTAIN and Spielberg’s SAVING PRIVATE RYAN where the tactic was used,

Though running a bit long over 2 hours, the chemistry of the two leads Tatum and Johansson works well making FLY ME TOTHE MOON  a successful and entertaining romantic comedy with the backdrop of the Nasa moon landing. 

LONGLEGS (USA 2023) ***½

Directed by Osgood Perkins

The new horror film LONGLEGS begins old-school Italian Gallo style with the screen all red, and one can tell that something terrible is going to happen.  FBI agents including Lee Parker are briefed that a serial killer is in the neighbourhood and they are to go door-to-door asking questions while being fully aware of how dangerous the killer is.  Lee and her partner are in the squad car and the partner leaves her in the car to do the door questions.  Lee then tells him that the killer is in the next house.  And to call it in.  When asked how she skins and she replied that she has a hunch.  Her partner goes to the door of the house and knocks on the door.  The partner is then blasted with a shotgun.  The scene pays homage to Gallo Maestro Dario Argento who has made incredible horror slasher films including SUSPIRA, OPERA, THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMMAGE, and his latest DARK EYES.  In his movies there is always some danger behind a door or curtain, and before any reason can be given the thing behind the barrier has lashed out and killed its victim.  The same can be said in this scene i which no reason needs to be given that Lee has the hunch the killer is in that house, and the killer does away with the victim in the same horrific way tight one would expect from Argento.

The film unfolds in three chapters, the first one untitled.  Not that it matters!

The story is set in the 1990s. New FBI agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) was assigned to an unsolved case involving a Satanic serial killer known as Longlegs (Nicolas Cage).   As the investigation becomes more complicated with occult evidence uncovered, Harker realizes a personal link to the killer and must act quickly to prevent another family murder.

Watching LONGLEGS is like getting one’s senses jarred, not once but many times and with different means, be it sudden loud screeching sounds or sudden appearing frightening scenes.  It feels like the answer to a riddle is given and then it is a task to figure out the question.  Not everything makes sense and there are non-chronological moments.  One one confrontational scene between mother and daughter, the mother tells her that the daughter is allowed to grow up.  “What do you remember, mum?  the daughter asks.  “I forget but there are things in your room that will help you remember.”  is her mother’s reply.  At its best, the tactics used by writer/director Nichols work as a fresh and scary horror movie and at its worst, one is left trying to figure out what the last segment meant.

LONGLEGS is not Osgood Perkins's first feature. Perkins wrote and directed the horror films The Blackcoat's Daughter (2015) and I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House (2016), and directed the dark fantasy-horror adaptation Gretel & Hansel (2020).   He is also the second elder son of Anthony Perkins who starred as Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock’ Psycho.  He also played Norman

Nicholas Cage, the Academy Award Winner for LEAVING LAS VEGAS who loves playing weird roles has one of the weirdest I’m his career as the serial killer LONGLEGS.  When he first appears, he is totally unrecognizable, looking like a team with his long white hair and screechy voice.  Yes, and Cage’s character gets weirder as the story progresses.  Cage also serves as the producer of the film.

Trailer: 

SISI & I (Sisi & Ich)(Austria/Germany/Switzerland 2022) ****
Directed by Frauke Finsterwalder

Sissi (or Sisi) is the name often used for Empress Elisabeth.  Many films including the series THE EMPRESS from Netflix, a 1955 Austrian film SISSI and the recent CORSAGE have been made on the Empress, a famous figure in History.  Some history is useful in the appreciation of the new handsome period piece SISSIS and I.

Elisabeth, nicknamed Sisi, was Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary from her marriage to Emperor Franz Joseph I on 24 April 1854 until her assassination in 1898. Elisabeth was born into the Ducal royal branch of the Bavarian House of Wittelsbach but enjoyed an informal upbringing before marrying her first cousin, Emperor Franz Joseph I, at 16. The marriage thrust her into the much more formal Habsburg court life, for which she was unprepared and which she found suffocating.  The birth of a son, Crown Prince Rudolf, improved Elisabeth's standing at court, but her health suffered under the strain.  The death of Elisabeth's only son and his mistress Mary Vetsera in a murder-suicide at his hunting lodge at Mayerling in 1889 was a blow from which the Empress never recovered.  In 1890, she had the palace Achilleion built on the Greek island of Corfu the setting of the film. The palace featured an elaborate mythological motif and served as a refuge, which Elisabeth visited often. She was obsessively concerned with maintaining her youthful figure and beauty, developing a restrictive diet and wearing extremely tightlaced corsets (hence the title of the recent film CORSGE) to keep her waist looking very small. The story of the Empress is told and given from a different point-of-view as the title of the film implies, that of her Lady-In-Waiting, Irma played by Academy Award Nominee Sandra Huger (ANATOMY OF A FALL).  She calls the Empress a stupid cow in one scene and ‘your majesty’ in the next,

The film opens in the late 19th century. The single, middle-aged Hungarian countess Irma Sztáray, (Huller)  having rejected marriage and the convent, is forced by her overbearing mother to apply to be handmaiden to the increasingly reclusive Empress Elisabeth of Austria, aka Sisi (Susanne Wolff).  An extravagant and temperamental woman, Sisi has been separated from her husband for many years and is living in an aristocratic women-only commune in Corfu, Greece. After a humiliating interview by her predecessor, Irma arrives at the estate seasick and heatstruck and is immediately put through her paces by her new mistress. Though initially uncertain, Irma soon bows to the will of the Empress in all things, curbing her healthy appetite to match Sisi's obsessively restricted one and parting with her frou-frou ribbons and lace to adopt Sisi's preferred, Japanese-influenced style. Irma falls madly in love with the Empress, and as they travel from Corfu to Algiers, Bavaria to England, the two develop a co-dependent bond – though naturally, only as close as Sisi will allow. But when they return to Vienna, their lives change drastically. After her husband the Emperor rapes her, Sisi pressures Irma to murder her with a shiv, blaming an Italian anarchist.

SISI & I can be distinguished from the other films made of the Austrian Empress as this one is told from the pout of view of her Lady-In-Waiting, Irma and best of all played with constraint and elegance by Sandra Huller.  Director Frauke Finsterwalder creates an irrelevant tale full of detail, pleasures and decadence that feel so important to Sissi and Irma.  A wonderfully and stunning film and is entertaining from start to end.

SISI & I opens theatrically July 12th.

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TOUCH (Iceland/USA 2014) ***

Directed by Baltasar Kormakur

TOUCH is a senior love story of regrets and missed opportunities. It also encompasses two enormous events or rather catastrophic world disasters that affect the lives of everyone living on the planet - the bombing of Hiroshima (and Nagasaki) ending the Second World War and the COVID-19 pandemic.  These events affect the lives of the film’s protagonist and it is up to him to use the strength of the human will to overcome the difficulties.

Kristofer (played in the younger self by Pálmi Kormákur, the director’s son) is a young student in London who because of the tumultuous times of protests had to quit his studies,   He finds work, initially as a dishwasher at a Japanese restaurant (also in London) called Nippon, which is the old name for Japan.   He meets and gradually falls in love with the owner's daughter.  But separation ends their romance from the part of the father who takes his daughter back to Japan after finding that she is pregnant with child.

The time is the present 2020 and widower Kris When his doctor advises him that is time to tend to unfinished business, Kristofer takes the advice to heart.  He closes his Rekyavik restaurant, mutters a quiet “Forgive me” to a framed photograph of his late wife, and flies to London, just as COVID-19 pandemic restrictions are ramping up.  He stays at a hotel that is just about to be in lockdown mode.

The story contains a few too many coincidental incidents, and thoughts can be blamed on the source material, which is the novel of the same name.  One is the coincidence of the dementia and the other is that he is free to travel as his wife has already died.  Other coincidences include him meeting another widower, who shares the same demise and who also helps him in his journey.   It is a journey to search for a loved one.  As the film moves very slowly, one can feel the effects of a difficult search

The two timelines are intercut with the film moving forwards and backward, in fact rather clumsily in flashbacks.  At least with different actors playing the couple in different stages, one can tell when the setting is in the '60s and during the Pandemic.

The film is shot in both Japan and London, and the period atmosphere is effectively captured under the limitations of a tight budget.  For example, the older double-decker London bus is shown but with no other vehicles on the street.

The two lovers eventually meet at the end, in a satisfactory climax.  This can be compared to Jacques Demy’s LES PARAPLUIES DE CHERBOURG in which the lovers just miss each other in a tear-jerking finale.

This reviewer could be nasty and say that the film TOUCH, because of its theme, pace and characters is a film for old people, but I would rather say that TOUCH has the older audience as its target audience.  And to this effect, TOUCH succeeds,  but it is difficult to see the youth getting excited about a 50-year-old love romantic saga.  They have to wait their time.

Focus Features and Universal Pictures Canada will release TOUCH In-Theatres Nationwide on Friday, July 12th

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WILD WILD PUNJAB (India 2024) **
Directed by Simarpreet Singh

In the tradition of movies with goofy losers like the HAROLD AND KUMAR, HEY DUDE WHERE’S MY CAR and THE HANGOVER movies comes this film set in Punjab about 4  yes, goofy Punjabi goofballs who have nothing to do but hang around to complete one nonsensical task.  WILD WILD PUNJAB as the comedy is appropriately called is a nonsensical and goofy comedy that tests one’s patience more than testing one's funny bone.

The (irrelevant) premise of the movie goes like this:  Khanne has had a breakup. He's upset, but he has friends like Arore, Jainu and Honey Paaji who encourage him to face this breakup head-on and move on. They embark on a trip across Punjab to help Khanne find the closure he desires.

The four friends are an assortment of losers who are introduced in the film one by one.  The first is a college dropout staying in college because of his mixed martial arts ‘abilities’.

Arore (Sunny Singh) is introduced as a sex fiend, banging away girl after girl in a car that belongs to the second loser dude Jainu (Jassie Gill) who lives under his greedy father’s thumb.  The dad is busy counting the loot dowry given by the ‘papaji’ of sonny boy’s would-be-bride.  The father threatens Jaini that if he misbehaves, he will go back 26 years in time and use a condom - perhaps the film's one of the few funny jokes.  The third is the chubby and annoying Khanne (Varun Sharma), the one been dumped.  He cannot get over it and his friends, with him, are now travelling in the fourth’s SUV to her wedding to yell at her: ‘I’m Over You!” in front of all the wedding guests.  This person is drunk in the car all the way, creating more annoyance besides silly and unfunny shenanigans.  These include quite a few comedic set-pieces that are generally sillier than funny.  One is the toll gate fight in which the four engage in some kick-box choreography that also includes Khanne peeing on the toll barrier.  His pee apparently can set the toll gate on fire (Really?) and they make off without a scratch,  The fourth and thankfully the last is Honey Paaji (Manjot Singh), a rich dude of has a result of his father’s successful transport company, who owns his prized (cannot leave a scratch on it) SUV they are all driving up in.

The one positive thing about the film is its Punjabi setting which North Americans seldom see.  The costumes streets, and celebrations are all quite colourful (while stereotyping to an extent) though the shenanigans of the four are not that different from the youth of the Western countries.  The wedding is an excuse for some Bollywood song and dance numbers, the choreography with the 4 dancing in unison not being too bad.

 The wedding is an excuse for some Bollywood song and dance numbers, the choreography with the 4 dancing in unison not being too bad.

While a little entertaining, this goofy teen Punjabi comedy about drunken loser friends is nothing to write home about. Forgettable for sure, but not really good guilty entertainment.  One of the 4 friends says at one point in the movie: This is no HANGOVER movie!:  He is absolutely right!  WILD WILD PUNJAB: country of origin: India; and filmed in Hindi) is a Netflix original film that opens for streaming this week the recent Wednesday.

Trailer: 

VANISHED INTO THE NGIHT (Svaniti Nella Notte) (Italy 2024) **

Directed by (dirreto da) Renato de Maria

In the Pierre Morel actioncter TAKEN starring Liam Neeson that spun several sequels,  Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson), a former government operative, is trying to reconnect with his daughter, Kim. Then his worst fears become real when sex slavers abduct Kim and her friend shortly after they arrive in Paris for vacation.  The new Netflix thriller from Italy VANISHED INTO THE NIGHT follows the rescue of a couple’s taken children, Giovanni and Bianca by the father in what is a mediocre action mystery thriller that suffers from a sluggish pace despite some fine performances of its leads.  This film is based on the 2017 Argentinian/Spanish thriller SEPTIMO (THE 7TH FLOOR) directed Patxi Amezcua, a box-office success and thus this remake.  Director Amexcua is one of the three co-writers for this script.

The film opens with a family outing on a luxurious boat in the sea where the family of four, Pietro (Riccardo Scamarcio) and Elena (Annabelle Wallis) and the two children swimming in the sea.  The father and mother find the two kids missing only to discover that they have hidden in the boat.  The next scene has the couple in a lawyer’s office arguing over custody of the two kids.  From here, it is obvious that there are problems with the script.  It is immediately confusing not to say disconcerting to see the loving couple arguing and separating over the two kids in two scenes next to each other.  There is also the question of the purpose of the two children hiding to fool their parents, as this has nothing to do with the rest of the story, except for the fact that they do disappear one night under the watch of Pietro.  From the scene in the lawyer’s office, the audience learns that the couple do not make the perfect pair.  Elena was addicted to opiates after being given addictive painkillers while Pietro accumulated a huge gambling debt of $250,000 euros.

The children disappear when staying with the father.  At night they disappear without a trace and Pietro receives a ransom call.  Pietro assumes that is the creditor that is responsible and goes to see Nicola, an old crooked acquaintance that he now has severed ties with,  Having no choice, he agrees to be a drug mule using his boat. As it turns out there is more mystery than action in the kidnapping story.  The only action is a fight between Nicola and Pietro later in the film and the mystery occurs when the kids suddenly appear at their mother’s house and the kids are in no way aware, as Elena too, of any kidnapping.  Pietro figures out the mystery’s solution, which is the main twist in the story.  The trouble is that the twist occurs too early and the film ponders clumsily after that,

The script has a good story but is executed a bit clumsily resulting in a lacklustre mystery thriller without much action or suspense. At best the cinematography around the Bari area in Italy is quite stunning. Bari is a port city on the Adriatic Sea and the capital of southern Italy’s Puglia region. Performances by the two leads are ok.

The film is shot in Italian and English.  VANISHED IN TO THE NIGHT opens for streaming this week on Netflix.

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Details

Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 01 July 2024

The American Independence Day weekend proves to be a boom for new films opening.  Netflix has two winners opening - GOYO and the Japanese animated THE IMAGINARY.  And also streaming is the long-awaited Eddie Murphy BEVERLY HILLS COP: ALEX F.  For family, DESPICABLE ME 4 is the best of the franchise and for action films, KILL from India is action-packed aboard a crowded train.

FILM REVIEWS:

BEVERLY HILLS COP: ALEX F (USA 2024) ***
Directed by Mark Molloy

The 4th installment of the BEVERLY HILLS COP franchise which began in 1984 when Eddie Murphy was a mere 22 years of age begins with the same hit song ‘The Heat is On’  from that film playing at the film’s start.   Eddie Murphy’s Alex Foley has highjacked a snow plow and raced through the streets of Detroit demolishing cars in the city in a high-speed chase.   It is a high adrenaline-fuelled chase scene well executed with enough energy of hilarity and crashes that should keep the audience’s blood pumping.

So effective is this tactic of combining a super popular tune to a car chase that the same is repeated with the Pointer Sisters' song “Neutron Dance” with another chase this time with Foley on a parking cop’s scooter.  And then one-third time with a lesser-known song and another chase.

Eddie Murphy is now 60.  The latest in the franchise BEVERLY HILLS COP: ALEX F is produced by both Murphy as well as Jerry Bruckheimer.  Has Murphy still got what it takes?  Apparently he has as he is still able to keep audiences laughing with his outrageous shenanigans - as when he touts the name Foley against the name Saunders that his estranged daughter has taken to conning victims with his sweet talk and calling them names like ‘Smart Pants’.  Murphy has trouble getting his character’s sincerity believable on screen.  In his defense, audiences come to see this film to laugh not to watch serious drama.

Eddie Murphy as Axel Foley, a street-smart police lieutenant from Detroit, Michigan, who frequently travelled to Beverly Hills to investigate crimes that previously had mutual colleagues or friends of his wounded or killed.This time, Foley returns to Beverly Hills after his daughter Jane's (Taylour Paige) life is threatened. She and Axel team up with her ex-boyfriend, Detective Abbott Bobbitt (Joseph Gordon-Levitt)  and his old pals, John Taggart (John Ashton) and Billy Rosewood, (Judge Reinhold) to uncover a conspiracy.

Two good cameos deserve mention.  One is the return of Bronson Pinchot as Serge, a former art gallery salesman turned weapons dealer who worked for Victor Maitland. Pinchot returns to the role after 30 years from Beverly Hills Cop III.  The other is actor Luis Guzmán as Chalino Valdemoro.  Kevin Bacon plays the villain,  corrupt cop wearing Rolex and thousand dollar shoes.

Murphy has come a long way since his first BEVERLY HILLS COP film in 1984.  Murphy was nominated for the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor DREAMGIRLS but did not win, likely because he lost his clout with his comedy NORBITT released the same time as DREAMGIRLS in which he played Norbitt, Norbitt’s over-obese wife Rasputia as well as Mr. Wong.  Someone this silly should not deserve the Oscar. This thought was likely in the minds of the Academy voters.  Murphy was almost the MC for the Oscars - he would have been perfect and hilarious but had to bow out due to some controversy at the time.  Murphy is still the funny donkey in SHREK.

BEVERLY HILLS COP: ALEX F is a long-anticipated Beverly Hills Cop Netflix original.  It succeeds as forgettable entertainment as his fans should not be disappointed.

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DESPICABLE ME 4 (USA 2024) ****
Directed by Chris Renaud

One might think that with the 4th installment of the DESPICABLE ME franchise, the filmmakers would have run out of ideas with Gru (Steve Carrell) and his minions, but truth be told, DESPICABLE ME 4 is the best of the series yet.  Not only is DESPICABLE ME 4 full of fresh ideas but the voice characterizations and animation are top-notch aided by several fresh and hilarious comedic set pieces, the funniest happening at the film’s start as a parody of an Awards ceremony.  DESPICABLE 4 is so far the most entertaining animated feature this year and not only for kids loving those pesky cutesy minions.  The trailer is funny enough but more hilarity is on screen not shown in the trailer.

DESPICABLE ME is an American media franchise created by Sergio Pablos, Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio.  It centres on a former supervillain turned secret agent named Gru, his adoptive daughters, Margo, Edith, and Agnes, and his yellow-coloured Minions. The franchise is produced by Illumination Paris, and distributed by its parent company Universal Pictures.

At Lycée Pas Bon, Gru's alma mater, set in a remote castle in a mountainous region, a reception is taking place: the Award for the Best Pupil among the alumni of the year 1985 is awarded to Maxime Le Mal, who has equipped himself with embedded cockroach body parts. But Gru and Anti-Villain League (AVL) agents manage to arrest him at the end of the ceremony. Following his escape from prison, he and his girlfriend Valentina seek revenge on Gru and his family, including his baby son, Gru Jr.  The AVL puts the whole family into relocation for their protection, under new identities, with only three Minions. Gru's new name is Chet Cunningham, a salesman for solar panels, while Lucy is excited to become a hairdresser. The rest of the Minions are moved to the AVL headquarters, where five of them are augmented with superpowers. But the short career as superheroes of these Mega-Minions is a flop. In their new well-off residential town, Gru and his family meet their new neighbours, the Prescotts, and their teenage daughter Poppy. The latter recognizes Gru and blackmails him into a spectacular robbery: stealing Lycée Pas Bon's mascot, Lenny, a ferocious badger. Gru, Gru Jr and the three Minions ally with Poppy on this mission. They all go home with Lenny, but the badger's collar contains a tracker. Maxime is thus informed of the secret location of Gru and his family and kidnaps Gru Jr. in his flying cockroach vessel. Gru finally saves him with the help of Poppy.

Several hilarious comedic set pieces include a supermarket chase down the food aisles, Poppy’s engineered heist that also includes a chase by the old headmistress in a wheelchair, the Mega Minions, the tennis games and the beginning Awards ceremony.  Will Farrel and Steve Coogan steal the show in their voice characterizations the former as the villain and the other a James Bond type M.

For information, the franchise began with the 2010 film of the same name, which was followed by three sequels, Despicable Me 2 (2013), Despicable Me 3 (2017), and Despicable Me 4 (2024) and by two spin-off prequels, Minions (2015) and Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022). The franchise also includes many short films, a television special, several video games, and a theme park attraction. 

DESPICABLE ME 4 opens July 4th.

Trailer: 

GOYO (Argentina 2024) ***½

Directed by Marcos Carnevale

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes i.e. Goya was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.  His paintings, drawings, and engravings reflected contemporary historical upheavals and influenced important 19th- and 20th-century painters.  Goya is often referred to as the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns.  The new romantic comedy/drama GOYO features an autistic protagonist who loves to paint, which is a name probably a derivation of the famous painter’s name Goya.

A young autistic museum guide lives by a strict routine until he falls in love with his coworker and must confront a whirlwind of new, intense emotions.

One can tell from the start of a film how the movie will turn out.  The same can be said when watching the first few scenes of GOYO.  The audience sees Goyo, an autistic man (he has Asperger’s) taking his pill medication, capsules in blue and black, also the colour of his checked shirt.  Such coordinating details imply that a lot of details will be put into the filming.  And indeed this can be experienced as the film progresses.   The film’s setting is Buenos Aires, observable from the words on the side of the metro train at the station in one scene,

GOYO is a rare film made with not only care but with sensitivity considering the issues covered.  A romantic comedy where the girl faces prejudice when her friends warn her of her beau not being normal,  Yet it is most moving when someone tells her she cannot expect more when someone loves and admires her this much, does tons for her and loves her unconditionally.  And him being cute as hell too.  

Nicolás Furtado portrays the autistic Goyo with his hair slicked back and with his gait with his arms unmoving by his side.  Her facial mannerisms with his sudden stares all reliably reflect a person with autism.   Goyo is irritated with loud sounds, especially sudden ones.   The dialogue reflects his character’s accuracy with numbers.  He remembers dates while being good with numbers and historical data.  The film also celebrates women’s independence.  The security guard he falls for has just kicked her husband out and has to look after her two sons, the elder one exhibiting teenage rebelliousness,  She puts him in place.  Yet, the film shows her as a vulnerable person, having to smoke up to calm her nerves,  The care and thought that goes into the making and writing of this film are very impressive.  The best trailer used in the script - Goyo cannot and does not lie.

The film compels one to admire diversity while reflecting on one's values as well as others’ prejudices.  The film also contains extra with Down syndrome, celebrating diversity in film.

GOYO is a Netflix original film that opens for streaming this week.  Don’t let the romantic comedy genre put you off as this is a rare and endearing film moving and brave as well.

Trailer: 

THE IMAGINARY (Japan 2023) ***½
Directed by Yoshiyuki Momose and written by Yoshiaki Nishimura,

The much anticipated Netflix original animation THE IMAGINARY by Studio Ponoc based on hand drawing animation, the dominant form of animation before the switch to computer-generated animation, is based on the 2014 British children's novel written by A. F. Harrold and illustrated by Emily Gravett.  It is about a small girl, Amanda, and her imaginary friend, Rudger.  The book has been described as not quite as innovative as it might be, but nevertheless a winningly whimsical celebration of the imagination, beautifully enhanced by both black-and-white and full-color illustrations.   (Kirkus Reviews found it "Wonderfully entertaining”)

The Japanese title of the film THE IMAGINARY is Yaneura no Rajā, which means  'Rudger in the Attic’. Rodger is the name of Amanda’s imaginary friend.

In a world where imaginations can live and be eaten by others, Rudger, an Imaginary boy, can be seen by no one but his creator, a young girl named Amanda. Their shared existence is confined to the attic of Amanda's residence, where they delve into her vibrant imagination.  Always protect each other - Never cry! However, Imaginaries are subject to an inexorable fate: dissolution with human forgetfulness. Baffled by this eventuality, Rudger clings to a glimmer of hope, embarking on an inconspicuous odyssey after Mr. Bunting, who hunts Imaginaries, arrives at Amanda's doorstep. His journey leads him to the enclave referred to as "the town of Imaginaries", a sanctuary for forgotten Imaginaries. This encounter initiates a monumental voyage that steers the course of familial bonds and cherished connections, shaping their forthcoming trajectories.

There are deeper issues dealing with imaginary playmates.  The most pressing issue is whether an imaginary playmate would do more harm than good for the child in particular.  Why would a child have an imaginary playmate?  The best reason even is the child’s loneliness which leads to the classic joke: I was so alone as a child that even my imaginary playmate refused to play with me. (the origin of the joke: the play STEEL MAGNOLIAS).  The next question is the issue of what determines the nature of the imaginary friend.  Horror films often use psychological troubling issues of the mind to create a monster.  The reason for Rutger’s existence is not given till half the film has passed.

The source material is British.  There are two versions of the film, a Japanese-voiced and an English-voiced version.  But the British setting is kept, with English names for the story’s characters and words in English (like the signs on shops and on busses) in the Japanese version.  The villain has a British name, Mr. Bunting.

The film takes flight into a world of imaginaries in the part where Rudger discovers others of the same, and many taking different shapes and forms such as Snowflake the pig and other animals and mechanical distortions.

THE IMAGINARY is an imaginative and worthwhile watch from another Japanese Animation Studio that takes a fresh look at an English children’s novel - imagination that can turn into hope and then into reality.  It opens for streaming this week on Netflix.

Trailer: 

JUNE ZERO (USA/Israel 2023) ***½

Directed by Jake Paltrow

Shot in super 16mm in Israel and Ukraine, writer/director Jake Paltrow’s JUNE ZERO is an ambitious film that puts his mark with some insight based on true events in which Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, whose one signature would send thousands of Jews to their death in gas chambers, is being tried.  And he is convicted.  During the trial, he did not deny the Holocaust or his role in organizing it but said he was simply following orders in a totalitarian Führerprinzip system.  He was found guilty on all of the charges and was executed by hanging on 1 June 1962.  The trial was widely followed in the media and was later the subject of several books and of this Paltrow film, including Hannah Arendt's 'Eichmann in Jerusalem', in which Arendt coined the phrase 'the banality of evil' to describe Eichmann.

Why is the film called JUNE ZERO?  The film’s title references a tabloid that keeps popping up in the story (based on a real magazine from that era, kind of a cross-between Charlie Hebdo, Playboy and New York Post).  “June 0” is the date printed on the execution issue, so as not to commemorate the event.

The anthology-styled film contains three stories bookended by the first about a Palestinian boy’ coming-of-age while working for a Jewish oven maker.  All stories are based on the fact that the State of Israel is facing the question of how to keep Adolf Eichmann's grave from becoming a neo-Nazi pilgrimage site and how they got to keep him alive and out of public publicity before his execution.

The stories include Eichmann’s Jewish Moroccan prison guard, an Israeli investigator who also happens to be a Holocaust survivor and David, a precocious and clever 13-year-old Libyan immigrant.  The three are inexorably connected through the parts they played in this seminal moment of Jewish history.  The best story is the one of the boy David while one of the guards is glorified and the one of the survivors least pressing.  According to the press notes, director Jake Paltrow who co-wrote the script with Israeli writer Tom Shova drew inspiration from his father (late filmmaker Bruce Paltrow) who passed on a deep interest in World War II and Jewish history to him. 

Paltrow’s film contains moments of suspense (the barber cutting the prisoner’s hair), lightheartedness (David’s shenanigans) and sensitivity (the Israel investigator’s experiences).

Added authenticity is provided with the film shot in 16mm, giving it a period feel, as well as being voiced mostly in Hebrew.

JUNE ZERO underscores the notion that shared traumas have the power to forge the strongest bonds and give rise to unexpected moments of triumph and connection.  The film stands as a fable on the current Hamas and Israel war on how Palestinians and Jews could function together utilizing the best of their human abilities.   As the film delves into the complexities of the human experience during this pivotal trial, it serves as a poignant reminder that history's impact can be both diverse and unifying.

JUNE ZERO opens in theatres on July 5th at the Varsity.

Trailer: 

KILL (India 2023) ****
Directed by Nikhil Nagesh Bhat

The title KILL appears only after the one-hour mark of the film.  The action is so fast and furious no one would’ve noticed the title not appearing on the screen as yet,

When army commando Amrit (Lakshya) finds out his true love Tulika (Tanya Maniktala) is engaged against her will, he boards a New Delhi-bound train in a daring quest to derail the arranged marriage. But when a gang of knife-wielding thieves led by the ruthless Fani (Raghav Juyal) begin to terrorize innocent passengers on his train, Amrit takes them on himself in a death-defying kill-spree to save those around him — turning what should have been a typical commute into an adrenaline-fueled thrill ride.

The train saga pays a nod to the famous Bong Jung-Ho’s SNOWPIERCER in which different classes of people are kept in different carriages of the train.  In KILL, the train bandits are stuck within one lot of carriages while the wedding party is in others.

Several factors make KILL more interesting and entertaining than most martial arts action flicks besides the fact that all the action-taking place in close-quartered train carriages.  The story involves a father-and-son relationship of the bandits.  The father and son never agree on anything and when things spiral out of control with the bandits, the father and son still argue, as to what to do with one of the hostages on the train, the train transport owner.  Another is the romance built into the action plot.  The main action lead’s character was planning to elope with the daughter of the wealthy transport owner.  The fight sequences are all masterly executed with more than a touch of violence.  There are tons of beatings and punches but the characters never stay down and never seem to have any broken bones.  They keep coming up fighting.  In many films like this, the fights look ridiculous but in KILL< the excitement is maintained.  Also inserted into the mix are characters like a cousin of the head bandit, who is a strongman that cannot be defeated, just like the tough baddie Odd Job, the Korean with the steel bowler hat in James Bond’s GOLDFINGER.

KILL is inspired by real-life train robberies in India by a class of criminals known as “dacoits,” KILL laces its high-concept premise with familial melodrama that cuts across both sides of the battle lines.  Desperate to protect Tulika and her family, Amrit and Viresh parry all manner of knives into gangster heads, shoulders, knees, and toes and, as the body count rises, so too does the ire of the crooks, especially that of the clan’s psychotic black sheep Fani, portrayed with charismatic lunacy by Raghav Juyal.  The climax includes a violent fight to the death, as in most classic action Hollywood films, of the hero and villain.  A predictable fight yes, but a necessary one in the true classic tradition.

Indian director Nikhil Nagesh Bhat proves to be a force to be reckoned with.  He already has multiple film and television credits including Long Live Brij Mohan (2017), The Gone Game (2020) and Hurdang (2022).  KILL premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last year to become the runner-up winner for the Midnight Madness Section.

KILL, action aboard a packed train ranks with THE BEEKEEPER as the top 2 action films of 2024.

Trailer: 

MAXXXINE (USA 2024) ***
Directed by Ti West

MAXXXINE, is, as slasher horror fans of filmmaker Ti West and Hollywood slasher queen Main Goth already know, the third of the trilogy of ‘X’ films beginning with X and PEARL.  PEARL is the best of the lot - hard shoes to fill, but their latest MAXXXINE isn’t half bad either.

The X movies proved to be surprise hits for the A24 movie studio (their most recent being their largest production ever, CIVIL WAR), garnering acclaim from both critics and horror fans alike, doing immense success at the box office.  X and  PEARL were made around the same time during the pandemic (to their credit) and released in 2022.  PEARL was a prequel to X, and featuring Mia Goth’s character of a young girl (similar to SHOWGIRLS, but meaner and more daring) insatiable desire for fame and stardom at all costs.  MAXXXINE pays tribute to the Bette Davis (and Joan Crawford) classic WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? with young Maxine trying to please her father as a child star as Baby Jane Hudson did in the film.

In 1980s Hollywood, adult film star and aspiring actress Maxine Minx finally gets her big break.  But as a mysterious killer stalks the starlets of Hollywood, a trail of blood threatens to reveal her sinister past.  Of course, Maxine discovers the one responsible and takes things into her own hands.

The impressive cast includes Kevon Bacon.  Bacon plays a private investigator who is good at the job but not good at taking care of himself.  He gets beaten up by Maxine with his nose broken and a plaster (the Brit term for Band-Aid) across his nose, looking pretty much like Jack Nicholson in Roman Polanski’s masterpiece CHINATOWN.  Director Ti West pays tribute to  CHINATOWN.  One wishes Bacon’s character survives but unfortunately does not.  Bacon is an excellent actor and he is always a pleasure to watch on the screen, regardless of the character he plays.  Director West obviously knows this and uses it to his best advantage.

But the prize performance belongs to Elizabeth Debeicki who plays the talented and impossible-to-work-with director of Maxine’s movie,  The actors playing the two detectives trying to solve the case of the serial killer are also entertaining to watch.

Director West’s slasher horror black comedy is still an entertaining watch given the over-used plot of a novice actress trying to succeed in Hollywood.  But Mia Goth is quite the prized actress and a pretty good one at that, as can be observed in her audition film at the art of the film.  In that scene, she really nails it.  And her character does say to the rest at the auditions to go home as she had already nailed the part.

Already passed on June the 25th, but audiences can get back to where it all began when Ti West’s deadly slasher PEARL is returning to theatres with a special sneak peek of MAXXXINE for a one-night-only special event!  (Pearl – Fan Event Featuring MAXXXINE Sneak Peek – June 25, 2024).  For Toronto, the event took place at the The Fox Theatre, Toronto)

Ti West and Mia Goth make an excellent pair of filmmakers.  One wonders what comes next after the trilogy.

Trailer: 

POPULATION PURGE (USA 2024) **

Directed by Brian Johnson

There are ripoff films and films that do worse than ripoffs.  The new action dystopian film POPULATION PURGE belongs to the latter category.  The film rips the word ‘purge’ from the box-office successful THE PURGE franchise.  From the title POPULATION PURGE, one would immediately connect the film to one of the PURGE films but this film has nothing to do with the Purge film franchise except that both are dystopian action horror films,

It is easy to see the reason the film is so named.  Though the franchise has received a mixed critical reception, it has grossed over $450m overall, against a combined production budget of $53m.   THE PURGE films are written and in some cases also directed by James DeMonaco. The films present a seemingly normal, crime-free America in the near future. However, the country is a dystopia that observes an annual event known as "the Purge", in which all crime, including murder, is legal for a 12-hour period.

In a dystopian world where a radical government has unleashed a deadly poison to control the population, only those with blood type AB-positive remain unscathed. But instead of outright death, the rest of the population is left to suffer in a state of chronic illness, causing widespread chaos and panic. As the majority slowly succumbs to the effects of the poison, their only hope lies in receiving transfusions of AB-positive blood from the few immune survivors, like Charlie and his granddaughter Maya. Living in the decrepit remains of an abandoned amusement park, Charlie is a renegade supplier of blood to the underground market. But their sanctuary is threatened by the iron-fisted rule of District 22's ruthless warden, Onslow, who will stop at nothing to save his own dying son. As Charlie and Maya fight to defend their haven and their own sanity, the eccentric duo must navigate through a world of danger and betrayal.

Though the premise is relatively simple, the script and direction of the first 15 minutes are terribly confusing and one wonders who is who and what which group are survivors and which are not.  Once it is established who Charlie and his granddaughter are and who the members of District 22 with the warden are, the film starts to flow, but not necessarily for the better.

The actors either resort to over-acting with screaming and venting at the top of their lungs or just really poor laughable performances.  It might have come across as quite entertaining and funny but they are too loud and annoying.

Director Johnson makes no special effort to make any of his characters particularly likable.  If one dies, no one really cares.  The action sequences are executed with not much aplomb either, with many victims down away with by shotgun or crossbow.

POPULATION PURGE was written by Brian Johnson and Toby Osborne and directed by Johnson. To give the film some credit it did win awards at numerous festivals including Best Feature Film / Best Cinematography at the 2023 Los Angeles Cinematography Film Festival, Best 1st Time Director of a Feature Film at the Best Actor & Director Awards, and Best Feature Under $250,000 at the 2023 International New York Film Festival.

POPULATION PURGE  will be released on digital platforms on July 9, 2024.

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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 01 July 2024

FILM REVIEWS:

CRUMB CATCHER (USA 2023) ***½

Directed by Chris Skotchdopole

Making an entertaining uncomfortable film is no easy task.  The terms ‘entertaining’ and ‘uncomfortable’ seldom go well together, requiring expertise to have them work well together. One of the best examples of working well is the uncomfortable comedy Neil Simon’s THE OUT-OF-TOWNERS (there are two versions - the one best loved being the one with Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis) in which the audience is supposed to laugh at all the mishaps of a couple traveling in New York City.  The trouble is that the audience feels more sorry for the couple when something and happens, other than laughing at them.  CRUMB CATCHER is an uncomfortable horror black comedy.  Though one might not laugh at this couple’s bad encounters, at least the audience can root for them as audiences often do in horror movies.

The audience can tell things are not going right at the start of the film for the newlywed couple Leah (Ella Rae Peck) and Shane (Rigo Garay).  While doing their wedding photo shoot, trouble blooms in their discussion of Shane’s new novel about his troubled father relationship that he has put down on paper, which Leah has got an advance for publishing the book.  They argue.  Shane had been drinking and unknown to his new bride, had just got a blow job from another woman during the wedding day.

Then the nightmare honeymoon.

At a remote estate in upstate New York, newlyweds Leah (Ella Rae Peck) and Shane (Rigo Garay) celebrate their honeymoon, but a pall hangs over their union.  She works for the publisher who will be releasing his debut novel, a lightly autobiographical examination of family trauma, alcoholism, and the immigrant experience.  Barely suppressed tensions over family trauma would be enough kindling for a blowup, but Leah and Shane’s marriage is truly tested by the appearance of two weirdos with entrepreneurial zeal and a half-baked blackmail plot: John (John Speredakos) and Rose (Lorraine Farris).  John isone of the waiters at the wedding so is responsible for the non-showing of the wedding cake.  John is over-apologetic when the couple leaves the wedding and he and his sour wife show up at the estate.  They’re looking for investors for John’s latest invention, a culinary breakthrough called the Crumb Catcher — and they won’t take no for an answer.  The crime catcher is a gizmo that when placed at the dining table can automatically be used to sweep away crumbs from the meal.  It is an incredibly stupid and useless invention, that can only be designed by the dumbest and weirdest of people like John.  Even his wife Rose thinks the invention is stupid, and she is only out to make some money.

At the estate, the home invasion egis with John and Rose not wanting to leave without some investment for the CRUMB CATCHER, and the only reason Shane obliges them is that Rose is the woman who had given him the blowjob and he wants the secret kept from Leah.

The film progresses to horror as John starts threatening the newlyweds with weapons and blackmail.

What makes CRUMB CATCHER stand out from the typical horror slasher movie is the element of black comedy infused into the plot and the out-of-sync characters that grab one’s attention from start to finish.  CRUMB CATCHER is an accomplished first feature from Chris Skotchdopole.

CRUMB CATCHER opens in theatres July 19 and On Digital August 20

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THE DEAD DON’T HURT (Canada/Mexico/Denmark 2023) ****

Directed by Viggo Mortensen

Impressive and ambitious second feature after FALLING by actor Viggo Mortensen has an 1860s setting in an elegantly realized feminist western starring Mortensen himself and Vicky Krieps as immigrants attempting to forge a life in a corrupt Nevada town. There are a lot of French spoken in the film.  French-Canadian flower seller Vivienne Le Coudy (Krieps) and Danish carpenter Holger Olsen (Mortensen) meet in San Francisco. Vivienne is irreverent, fiercely independent, and refuses to wed, but agrees to travel with Holger to his home near the quiet town of Elk Flats, Nevada. There, they begin a life together — Vivienne grows roses and waits tables at a tavern and Holger builds barns until the couple is separated by Holger’s decision to fight for the Union in the burgeoning Civil War.  Left on her own, Vivienne must fend for herself in a place controlled by corrupt Mayor Rudolph Schiller (Danny Huston) and his business partner, powerful rancher Alfred Jeffries (Garret Dillahunt). Alfred's violent, wayward son Weston (Solly McLeod) aggressively pursues Vivienne, who is determined to resist his unwanted advances.  A bit disorienting at first as the story unveils in non-chronological order without titles, the tactic forces the audience to think a bit and puts all the pieces into place.  Necessarily violent, this is a violent revenge western.  Director Mortensen sets up all the injustices committed toward the couple before exacting the well-deserved revenge that would have the audience cheering.

THE DEAD DON'T DIE that premiered at last year's Toronto International Film Festival starring Vicky Krieps and Mortensen hits July 16 across Digital & VOD in US & CANADA.

MIDNIGHT TAXI (UK 2024) ***½

Directed by Bertie Speirs and Samantha Speirs

The beginning of the taxi drama MIDNIGHT TAXI feels like the recent Dakota Johnson/Sean Penn two handler where the film’s entire action is the conversation taking place between driver and pass ear on the drive from JFK Airport to a destination in Manhattan.  MIDNIGHT TAXI begins with a smart conversation between cabbie Eddie Carter (Ladi Emeruwa) and a journalist passenger in which it is revealed that Carter is proud of his job but still keeps a logbook.  The passenger says he should interview Carter to publish an article for his paper - The Slow Death of the Taxi Industry, to which Cater responds that he better get the article done before his paper folds over.

In the course of the night, Carter, immaculately but modestly attired as a cab driver takes on an assortment of passengers before his shift is over.  The audience gets to see a modern London, with sights like The London Eye, a passenger trip to the National Theatre and modern skyscrapers by the Thames rather than dirty streets and old landmarks like Big Ben and the London Bridge.  As the music accompanies the film, the film has the feel of a very smooth cane ride, until……   Carter wakes up from napping in his cab to discover a dead girl in a red dress with her head on the stone of the sidewalk.  The camera reveals a bare breast.

Driving a Black Cab night after night is a quiet and simple life for Eddie Carter, but when Eddie’s daytime sleep schedule is disturbed by construction work next door, he finds his nighttime shifts requiring more coffee and exhaustion setting in.  After pulling over for a break one night, he awakens to a terrifying situation: ahead of his cab is the body of a murdered woman. 

After this gruesome discovery and reporting it to the police, Eddie tries to move on by the sight and his tiredness haunts him, even though the police agree to let the cabbie go home.   The following night he awakens from a dream of the murder scene to find that he has started sleepwalking again, a condition he suffered from as a child.  Panic creeps in as he realizes that there is a chance he may have been involved in the woman’s murder. 

In an effort to clear his conscience, Eddie starts to quietly investigate the murer on his own. With the help of frequent customer, investigative journalist Adam Blomfield, the one Eddie had a conversation with at the start of the film, and high-end escort Karli as a window into the underground world of London’s sex industry, Eddie soon finds himself immersed in the murky depths of a city he’s been blindly driving through for years.  The shift in look and atmosphere from a clear and polished London slowly deteriorates as the film progresses neatly into another different world, though existing in the same city.

MIDNIGHT TAXI, written and directed by: Bertie Speirs and Samantha Speirs in an impressive debut is available on VOD and Digital Tuesday, July 23, 2024

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NEW STRAINS (USA 2024) **

Directed by Artemis Shaw and Prashanth Kamalakanthan

NEW STRAINS refers to the COVID-19 pandemic virus.  The film was shot just before the NYC lockdown.  Though a few years have since past, the horror, inconvenience and impact of the Pandemic have not left the world.

During the COVID-19 lockdown in New York City, Artemis Shaw and Prashanth Kamalakanthan (the writers, directors and main leads in the film), a married filmmaking couple arrive in  NYC.  Kallia and Ram have just begun their first vacation as a couple, and they are already bickering at the start of the film.  Though a strange new illness is on the brink of exploding into a pandemic, and despite Ram’s protestations, Kallia insists that they are going to have a fun week in New York City.  Within hours of their arrival, a nation-wide lockdown is announced, ruining their plans. Throughout their stay, they descend to absurd depths of jealousy and co-dependence.

Filmmakers Artemis Shaw and Prashanth Kamalakanthan who both teach in addition to their creative filmmaking, often collaborating in numerous capacities and roles— relied on improvised dialogue, a decades-old camcorder, no operator, and a full cast of non-professional talent.

There are two kinds of films these days.  One is the huge Hollywood million-dollar productions with special effects and huge crew that make money for the theatre chains.  Often these use formulaic filmmaking and are highly unoriginal with the majority of these being sequels or rip-offs.  Then there are the films at the other end of the spectrum.  The new film NEW STRAIN  is an extreme of the latter, a no-budget improvised film, shot with as the press notes say, an age-old camcorder, no operator and non-professional talent.  This will work if the non-professional talent does not equate with no talent.

` One thing that is unforgivable in a movie is a character that is intrinsically annoying - one that would just screw up one’s enjoyment of the film.  Unfortunately, this unforgivable flaw is present in the film.  As the film is improvised with improvised dialogue with little script, the two actors say what comes into their minds.  As for Prashanth Kamalakanthan and many teens and pre-teens, they have the problem of speaking over-using the word ‘like’.  If one listens to his dialogue, the word like is used by him close to 5 times every sentence and when he has much to say, the ‘like’ word becomes totally intolerable.  This occurs throughout the movie.  If he follows a written script, the word ‘like’ would be likely omitted in the lines.  Prashanth Kamalakanthan is a non-professional talent that equates with no talent.  To make matters worse, the wife also speaks this way as well 30 minutes into the film,

NEW STRAINS exits more as a curiosity piece than filmed entertainment.  One could admire filmmakers Artemis Shaw and Prashanth Kamalakanthan for their guerrilla no-budget filmmaking but even at 80 minutes, enough is enough.  ‘Like’ stop it already, ‘like’.  To listen to the two leads speaking using the word ‘like’ all the time is pure torture.

NEW STRAINS is available in North America on VOD (the MEMORY Video Platform) on July 19.

Trailer unavailable.

SCALA!!! or, The Incredibly Strange Rise and Fall of the World's Wildest Cinema and How It Influenced a Mixed-up Generation of Weirdos and Misfits

(UK 2023) ***½

Directed by Ali Catterall and Jane Giles

The long-titled film documentary SCALA!!! or, The Incredibly Strange Rise and Fall of the World's Wildest Cinema and How It Influenced a Mixed-up Generation of Weirdos and Misfits is a feature-length big-screen documentary written and directed by Ali Catterall and Jane Giles telling the riotous inside story of the infamous sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll repertory cinema which inspired a generation during Britain's turbulent Thatcher years.  Jane Giles is a former Scala programmer and author of the award-winning Scala Cinema 1978-1993 (FAB Press) upon which this doc is based and Ali Catterall, an award-winning writer.

The Richard Lester film the Beatles' A HARD DAY’S NIGHT was filmed when the theatre had just opened followed by one of the highlights the then art student David Lynch’s ERASERHEAD.  AMERICAN PSYCHO director Mary Harron talks about her experience watching ERASERHEAD and freaking out at the Scala.
The Scala was founded in 1979 by actor, producer, and director Stephen Woolley, for 15 years until its unceremonious closing, the Scala Cinema was THE legendary destination for adventurous London cinephiles with a taste for outlandish and eccentric fare. Inspiring a generation of movie-goers during Britain’s turbulent Thatcher years.  Between 1978-1993 over a million people passed through the doors of the Scala Cinema for its daily changing program of double-bills and All-Nighters, from high art to horror via sexploitation, Kung Fu, and LGBTQ+ This film features new interviews with diverse audience members who went on to become filmmakers, musicians, writers, actors, activists and artists. 

The interviews are combined with previously unseen archive material, iconic movie clips, animation and graphics, plus a thrilling new score by the celebrated musician Barry Adamson. With its universal themes of youthful discovery and the underdog versus the establishment, this is no nostalgia trip but rather a film of universal relevance with clear parallels between then and now. Above all, it's a hilarious and joyous celebration of cinema-going.

This is what John Waters’ who made the infamous arguably trashiest movie of all time PINK FLAMINGOES with the late Devine (there is a clip of the film seen on the Scala screen) has to say of the cinema: “The Scala had magic, it was like joining a club, a very secret club, like a biker gang or something. It’s like they were a country club for criminals and lunatics and people that were high. Which is a good way to see movies”

The doc covers a wide range of interesting topics that are related to the Scala  One is the audience who did the all-nighters.  The cinema would be full and people would start walking in from midnight while being totally drunk or stoned.  A suicide off the 4th floor of the cinema also occurred.  Clips of outrageous films like Pasolini’s THE 120 DAYS OF SODOM (or SALO) are also on display.  The area around the cinema, Kong’s Cross was also a very dangerous area.

           The doc opens across North America beginning July 18th.

Trailer: 

SKYWALKERS: A LOVE STORY (USA 2024) ***½

Directed by Jeff Zimbalist

A daring couple travels worldwide to climb the 118-story mega-tall skyscraper, Merdeka 118, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, attempting a bold acrobatic stunt on the spire to salvage both their career and relationship.

The daring couple are Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus, Russians.  When the film begins, the words on the screen warn the audience not to imitate what stunts are seen on screen and they are both illegal and dangerous.  The scene shows two rooftoppers, Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus climbing up the Merdeka building during the World Cup soccer match when it would be easier to sneak past security when they are distracted by the match.  The camera goes to show them encountering construction workers in the stairway, and hiding in the shadows saying that they cannot be caught again as they had been arrested before.  This part is obviously a re-enactment.  Being put in prison in the Muslim country of Malaysia might be the worst that anyone can imagine.

In 2022, Ivan Beerkus and Angela Nikolau scaled the rooftop of the Malaysian skyscraper Merdeka 118, the second-tallest building in the world. This event received extensive coverage from media worldwide, and videos on Instagram reached 8.6 million views.

The doc put a personal touch on the story.  It goes on with Chapter 1, entitled Angela where her early life is revealed to be a tough one, born to circus parents, the mother depressed and not working after her father left for another woman.  Angela Nikolau was born in Moscow on 24 June 1993, to a family passionate about circus art, later transferring to a Christian School of Arts. Nikolau did rhythmic gymnastics from the age of seven until she was 16. She has worked as an art teacher for children since she was 16.  The granny looked after her, showing the resilience of women, again another film that hails the strength of the feminine gender.  One cannot complain these days of male-dominated films.

Chapter 2 is called Ivan.  Ivan Beerkus was born on May 11, 1994, in Moscow, Russia. From an early age, his parents instilled in Ivan a love for sports: he practiced aikido, swimming, football, taekwondo, and classical boxing. At the age of 16, he developed an interest in rooftopping. At 17, he climbed a construction crane at the Mercury City Tower in the Moscow City complex.

SKYWALKERS: A LOVE STORY, the new doc has all the elements of a very entertaining fiction blockbuster action, thrills, suspense, romance, humour, and emotion.  And all true!  The doc is streaming on Netflix.

TWISTERS (USA 2024) ***

Directed by Lee Isaac Chung

TWISTERS like many adventure action movies, the best example being the James Bond movies, begins with a powerhouse action set piece that often cannot be beaten during the rest of the film.  TWISTERS follows the same format but with a difference.  The opening sequence is topped by the climatic action set piece.  The introduction piece, running around 15 minutes in length is also connected to the main story.  In it, the audience sees Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones), the female protagonist being the only survivor in her ground crew, a fact that affects her story during the rest of the film.

TWISTERS has all the elements required for a successful Hollywood blockbuster.  Firstly, it has a huge budget of $200 million, superb special effects, impressive modern technology, and is already a tested success, following the success of the highly profitable TWISTER back when, though this film can be considered as a standalone non-sequel.   There is a villain, the buyer of cheap land devastated by tornadoes, with a plot involving saving the world (by the destruction of tornadoes) and chasing a dream come true of an invention if it works.  In addition, there is a romance complete Harlequin style with a chase of the almost got-away lover at the airport.  The film contains a strong female slant, in the tradition of political correctness.  All the guys in the film are drop-dead gorgeous with Kate having trouble of picking the right one.  The three gorgeous actors are Glenn Powell, Anthony Ramos and the now unheard of David Corenswet who is going to become famous after being cast as Clark Kent’s in the next SUPERMAN movie. To this effect, it is hard to find fault with TWISTERS as it covers all areas, the only flaw that could be considered is its reliability on formula and its lack of fresh groundwork.

Director Lee Isaac Chung has definitely made a solid transition from small movie - last year’s Oscar-nominated MINARI to a Hollywood blockbuster.

The script emphasizes human’s fascination with twisters.  Kate’s character follows on into the wheat fields when she was a kid. The script contains a lot of scientific jargon on how to dissipate a tornado complete with the process - something involving an increase in condensation in doing it.  It is all too difficult to follow but enough is offered to the audience to take it all gullibly.  

The climax involving two big events, the tornado touch-down and a rodeo is ambitious but effective to a point.  Not much is seen as to what is happening to the horses and bulls during the twister hit.  More screen time is given to the rodeo spectators taking cover in a movie theatre.  The rush of Kate’s two beaus to Kate’s rescue after the twister is dissipated also stretches a bit of credibility.  The two beaus are a distance away in the movie theatre away from Kate suddenly appear.  However, audiences would not really care about these credibility points.

TWISTERS opens everywhere on July 19th.

Trailer: 

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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 16 June 2024

FILM REVIEWS:

BRATS (USA 2024) **
Directed by Andrew McCarthy

The new documentary BRATS that opens on Disney+ explores the Brat Pack, a group of young actors who frequently appeared together in coming-of-age 1980s films, and the impact on their lives and careers.  Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy, Timothy Hutton, Demi Moore, Rob Lowe, Lea Thompson and Jon Cryer appear in the film, as do Lauren Shuler Donner (producer), Howard Deutch (writer and director), and David Blum (journalist).  Blum is the journalist who can be considered the one who conned the term Brat Pack.  Blum popularized in a 1985 New York magazine cover story, which described a group of highly successful film stars in their early twenties.  He wrote the article after witnessing several young actors being mobbed by groupies at Los Angeles' Hard Rock Cafe.

When the piece ran, the actors all felt betrayed, especially Estevez. The article mentioned people in several films but focused on Estevez, Lowe, and Nelson, and portrayed those three negatively. The "Brat Pack" label, which the actors disliked, stuck for years afterward.\Before the article ran, they had been regarded as talented individuals; after the article, all of them were grouped together and regarded as unprofessional. Interviewed for Susannah Gora's 2010 book You Couldn't Ignore Me If You Tried: The Brat Pack, John Hughes, And Their Impact on a Generation, Blum admitted that he should not have written the article.  But in the interview with McCarthy in this doc, he was asked if he would have changed anything in his article and he replied ‘no’.

With the increased negative attention to them, the actors soon stopped socializing with one another. On the group's camaraderie, Ally Sheedy later said the article "just destroyed it. I had felt truly a part of something, and that guy just blew it to pieces."

The magic question is: Who makes up the Brat Pack?  An appearance in one or both of the ensemble casts of two specific films released in 1985—John Hughes's The Breakfast Club and Joel Schumacher's St. Elmo's Fire—is often considered the prerequisite for being a core Brat Pack member.[With this criterion, the most commonly cited members include:

Emilio Estevez

Anthony Michael Hall

Rob Lowe

Andrew McCarthy

Demi Moore

Judd Nelson

Molly Ringwald

Ally Sheedy

Obviously, there are a few other less recognizable members.  These include Oscar Winner Timothy Hutton (ORDINARY PEOPLE), Tom Cruise and Charlie Sheen, among many others. The doc has director McCarthy traveling around most of the time and meeting members of Brat Pack, most of whom he had not seen in 30 years.  They discuss the effects of being branded a member of the Brat Pack, mostly negative.   The trouble is whether we do care what these over-privileged actors feel.  They are wealthy enough to have people listen to their opinions, and the doc makes a point of the fact.  McCarthy tries to offer an insightful overview of a bygone Hollywood era as well as his deeply personal journey.   If  BRATS is a bittersweet reflection on childhood stardom, it needs more emotion and credibility.  In the end, the doc ends up having the pack and journalist Blum included, acknowledging the adverse effects of the article initially and then saying that it eventually did them well while justifying the actions they had overcome.  Again not many would care.

Trailer: 

DADDIO (USA 2024) ***
Directed by Christie Hall

DADDIO is a two-handler in which the action takes place in a cab ride from JFK Airport to the city.  It begins with two very different personalities with different moods at the time forced to spend the film’s running time together. She wants to be left alone while he wishes to chat.

After landing at JFK International Airport, a young woman (Dakota Johnson, who also produced the film) takes a cab back to her apartment in Manhattan at 44th, between 9th. and 10th.  During the ride, she and the cab driver, who reveals his name as Clark (Sean Penn), have unexpectedly honest conversations about numerous topics, including their past and present relationships, sex and power dynamics, loss, and vulnerability.

Despite the basic film premise of two strangers sharing views on different topics and their personal lives, the story requires credibility.  The audience must believe the conversation occurs in the film’s 100-minute running time.  The ride takes less time so the hurdle is overcome with the cab stuck in a traffic jam for some time.  To have the audience believe that the strangers can embark on honest dialogue, the dialogue is initially begun with small talk (Clark:  This is my last ride of the day; it has been a rough day), slowly leading to more personal issues.  The icebreaker comes from Clark who first talks about hating credit cards use for payment.  He then talks about other forms of money used in the past like salt and gold.  Clark also talks about his bucket list - meeting a cowboy, scuba diving and going to Japan.  As for the passenger, she slowly eases into the conversation even explaining to him the use of digital data, she confessing that she is a computer programmer.  It is about ‘1’s and ‘0’s and ‘I’ being an on and a ‘0’ being an off.

The big revelation of the passenger to Clark (not to be revealed in the review) is kept to the end of the film forming its climax.

The film is a very serious affair of serious talk with little humour.  The only humour, if it can be considered humour is the image of the girl’s boyfriend’s cock that he displays that she receives on her cell phone to show how horny he is.   The girl occasionally calls him DADDIO, which forms the title of the film.

In a more serious conversation, they discuss the ‘L’ word, and the reason one should never mention the word in a relationship.

DADDIO began as a spec script by Christie Hall.  A spec script, also known as a speculative screenplay, is a non-commissioned and unsolicited screenplay. It is usually written by a screenwriter who hopes to have the script optioned and eventually purchased by a producer, production company, or studio.  The film went on to make the "Black List" of the most-liked un-produced scripts in Hollywood.

The film’s interiors (i.e. the cab) are shot on a sound stage with some filming occurring in New York City and Jersey City, NJ in December 2022.   The modest production was shot in 16 days.

DADDIO opens June 28 across Canada, including Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal!

Trailer: 

DRAWING CLOSER (Japan 2024) **
Directed by Takahiro Miki

DRAWING CLOSER can be described as a light teen relationship tale about two teens who are terminally ill.   Akito has a tumor and was diagnosed with a year to live and is very unhappy at the news, but still goes about his daily activities.  The unhappiness is not shown.  His parents ponder if it was the right decision to let him know or if he might be happier in his last year of life,  Haruna has 6 months to live as she was born with a very rare condition that affects one in hundreds of thousands.  What this disease it is, is never mentioned.

DRAWING CLOSER immediately draws to mind the Darryl Duke (he directed the Christmas Canadian classic THE SILENT PARTNER) little heard of TV movie GRIFFIN AND PHOENIX (not the remake), though a TV movie that is far more superior to this one.  Geoffrey Griffin (Peter Falk) who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer in his chest, meets Sarah Phoenix (Jill Clayburgh) as they both attend a university lecture on the psychology of dying.  Sarah Phoenix has terminal leukemia, but Griffin doesn't know that, and she doesn't know that he is terminally ill. They start spending time together and fall in love, both struggling with their fate. This is the beginning of a beautiful and sad love story!  In real life, Clayburgh died of cancer and so did Peter Falk.

Akito, who is afraid to die meets Haruna who is looking forward to going to heaven.  The trouble with DRAWING CLOSER is that if falls into the category of goody-two-shoes.  Everyone is smiling and happy.  Hopes are high, even in the face of death.  Akito has a talent for art and Haruna paints pictures of heaven.  No one is angry.  If death is imminent one would expect much anger at the unfairness life has dished out.  Both Haruna and Akito should be mad (though Akitio displays a bit of despair) that they are only given a year and 6 months to live respectively.  In GRIFFIN and PHOENIX, there is a scene where Jill Clayburgh cries and screams at the top of her lungs at how life is so unfair, especially when she has found love finally and both are ill with terminal cancer.  This is one of cinema’s most riveting scenes.

For a movie about death, the film is treated as a fairy tale fantasy instead of a tragedy.  One might argue that one should always look positively at the bright side of things, but the darker side should not be overlooked, as in the case of this unrealistic treatment of the subject.  One would also expect the two to fall in love but they don’t.  Blame can be given to the source novel on which the film is based.

DRAWING CLOSER is a Netflix original Japanese film that opens for streaming this week.  Only mildly entertaining, this is a film that omits key issues while meandering aimlessly around the lives of its two subjects.

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THE ESCORT (ESCORT) (Bosnia 2023) ***
Directed by Lukas Nola

For the first time in his life, happily married filmmaker Miro (Zrvko Anočić) spends the night with a prostitute who was mysteriously sent to his hotel room after a business evening. After indulging in sex and drugs, he finds the girl dead in the bathroom and quickly covers up the unfortunate incident with the help of two hotel employees who suddenly start to play a major role in his life that will never be the same.

ESCORT plays like a Kafka-ish plot.  After the escort is found dead in his hotel room, the whole incident is taken matter-of-factly by the hotel staff.  Miro is told that the hotel staff has made his bed and asks if he wants to change his room.  This thing happens all the time Miro is told and thongs could be worse.  The staff then asks for 200 currency for ‘operating expenses’.

And as in all Kafka-sih incidents, Miro is asking himself; “Is this happening to me?”  Amidst all this, it is never made sure what happened so the audience is wondering if a crime was committed or not and if Miro is guilty of murder or not.

Director Nola proves himself apt at getting the audience's attention at inconsequential details.  The first 15 minutes of the film have a bar scene in which three men, Miro included getting pissed drunk and talking shit.  They talk about nonsense and flirt with the waitress.  The men men talk in a camaraderie reminiscent of the men in John Cassavetes’ HUSBANDS.  A few minutes are spent talking about the tattoo on the waitress’ arm, on water Miro still getting sex outside his marriage and other items that seem important to the drunk men and interesting enough for the audience, despite them not making any dent to the main plot.  And if all this is not enough to interest the audience, Director Nola includes lengthy erotic and intimate love-making scenes with full nudity.

Director Nola’s private joe includes inserting close-ups of animals at random at various parts of his film.  These include a fix, a rabbit a field mouse and even a crawling spider.

THE ESCORT has already won numerous awards.  Acclaimed on the festival circuit, THE ESCORT captured many awards including Best Feature Film at Lithuanian’s 2024 Voice of the Future Film Festival and 2023’s Portugal Indie Film Festival (Lisbon) and the Courtyard International Film Festival (Naples), as well as several awards, including Best Supporting Actor and Best Production Design at the Pula Film Festival, Croatia’s best-known fest. 

On a sadder note, THE ESCORT is also the final film from Director Lukas Nola, who passed away in 2022 after a long battle with cancer. From his feature film debut, Russian Meat, in 1995 to his final Lynchian thriller, Nola carved out a place for himself as one of Croatia’s best-known filmmakers, with gritty arthouse films such as 2013’s Hush and AFI Grand Jury nominee, Celestial Body, to his name.

THE ESCORT makes its North American debut on SVOD service INDEPIX Unlimited on June 28th, 2024.

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A FAMILY AFFAIR (USA 2024) **
Directed by Richard LaGravenese

An unexpected romance triggers comic consequences for a young woman, her mother, and her boss, grappling with the complications of love, sex, and identity.

A FAMILY AFFAIR is a romantic comedy of sorts that includes a family relationship that tests the romance between the older woman and the younger man.  The older woman is Brooke Harwood (Nicole Kidman, still looking gorgeous at her age) and the hot hunk movie star is Chris Cole (Zac Ephron).  The family involved is Brooke’s daughter, Zara (Zoey King) and Brooke’s mother Leila (the always watchable Kathy Bates).  The trouble is that Zara is the personal assistant of spoilt brat Chris Cole who gets her to do menial chores like getting him coffee and breakup presents for his dates, many of them when he breaks up with them.  Cole can never have a relationship.  He has no friends for the reason of his star status and haughty behaviour.  Ephron probably is like his character in real life, so he is basically playing a version of himself in character.

A FAMILY AFFAIR, written by Carrie Solomon and directed by Richard LaGravenese (the 2013 BEAUTIFUL CREATURES) strives to be a hilarious comedy, a family drama and a deeply felt love story but fails in all three.  The humour is slight and the jokes are not funny enough.  Credit should be given to that joke that is priceless - the one with the analogy of Zara's eyebrow piercing and sexual intercourse.  But that one joke can hardly be said to have saved the movie.  The love story is cliched and nothing that one has not seen in a romance film before, especially between an older woman and a younger man.  The family drama works better than the other two stories but the film is touted more as a comedy.

Joey King as the over-caring daughter who wishes to protect her mother from the otherwise womanizing Chris Cole is convincing.  She is able to elicit sympathy from the audience for his mistakes even though she is wrong.  The confrontation scene between her and her best friend is the most moving segment of the film.  Ephron with his good looks and misty eyes has difficulty projecting sincerity in the film.  When he says he really loves Brooke, which is the case according to the script, it hardly comes across as convincing.  He is more credible making his snide remarks with just words like “yeah”.  Ephron’s funniest role ever was in NEIGHBOURS where he played the out-of-control parking neighbour of Seth Rogen.  To Kidman’s credit, she does well as the mother looking for love once again after a long period of time without being kissed, after the death of her husband.  Bates plays the adorable grandmother who helps turn the family around.  Bates plays a well-known writer, shades of her Oscar Winning Best Actress leading role for MISERY.

A FAMILY AFFAIR is a Netflix original movie that opens for streaming on Friday, June 29th.

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GHOSTLIGHT (USA 2023) ***
Directed by Alex Thompson and Kelly O’Sullivan

The term GHOSTLIGHT with reference to the theatre is a light left lit overnight in a theatre.  GHOSTLIGHT tells the story of Dan playing Romeo in the Community Theatre whilst getting his life back together again.

When a film like GHOSTLIGHT begins with the spritely song “Oh, What a Wonderful Morning” from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s OKLAHOMA! (1955 film) one can tell that it is going to be the opposite.  It is going to be a trying and angry day for the subject Dan, a construction worker, in which life has given him a terrible dish of misfortune.  Firstly, he has to deal with the death of his son and currently the anger and rebellious nature of his daughter, who is about to be expelled from school.  Worst still his job is getting to him.  A car barely misses him at the construction roadside, just almost side-swiping him.  When doing his job, an irate person asks if he could turn the noise level down.  Finally, Dan loses it.  But somehow, by fate, he ends up playing a role in Community Theatre, that of the famous Romeo in ROMEO AND JULIET, this blue-collar worker not even knowing anything about the plight of the two Shakespearean lovers.

The premise of the film goes like this:  When melancholic construction worker Dan finds himself drifting from his wife and daughter, he discovers community and purpose in a local theatre’s production of Romeo and Juliet.  As the drama onstage starts to mirror his own life, he and his family are forced to confront a personal loss.  This sounds like something one would avoid at the cinema, being a downer and a drama that does sound quite cliched.

Surprisingly, GHOSTLIGHT turns out to be a hit thus far, a hit at the recent Sundance Film Festival and earning an almost perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of writing,

There is little humour in this otherwise serious venture, as many similar-themed films would have included lots of quirky humour.  The script by Kelly O’Sullivan avoids this easy way out and replaces humour with bouts of angry scenes and a few with uplifting moments.  The anger scenes include the one where Dan freaks out in public, his wife screaming at him when she thinks Dan is having an affair and the uplifting scene is the one where daughter Daisy surprises everyone, the audience included by singing “I Can’t Say No” also, from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s OKLAHOMA!

For a small production, GHOSTLIGHT contains big performances.  Keith Kupferer is as convincing as Dan and can also win the audience's sympathy.  Dolly de Leon plays the smart-mouthed Rita, last seen in the role of the toilet manager in the memorable hit TRIANGLE OF SADNESS.  But the prize performance belongs to Katherine May Kupferer who plays the volatile Daisy.

GHOSTLIGHT premiered at Sundance and has won numerous awards festival-wide.  It opened in the U.S. on June 14th and opens at the TIFF Lightbox on the 28th of June.

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GREEN BORDER (Zielona granica)(Poland/Czech/France/Belgium 2023) ***½

Directed by Agnieszka  Holland

The action of the film takes place at a GREEN BORDER.  A green border is a weakly protected section of the national border, and in this movie the border between Poland and Belarus. The term green border comes from the area covered with vegetation: green borders are usually forests, thickets and meadows, often with varied terrain.

In the treacherous and swampy forests that make up the so-called 'green border' between Belarus and Poland, refugees from the Middle East and Africa trying to reach the European Union are caught in a geopolitical crisis triggered by Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko. In an attempt to provoke Europe, refugees are lured to the border by propaganda promising easy passage to the EU. Pawns in this hidden war, the lives of Julia, a newly minted activist who has given up her comfortable life, Jan, a young border guard, and a Syrian refugee family intertwine.

Director Holland unleashes the emotional effects of the refugee crisis from the points of view of each of the different perspectives.  Julie, the activist is all out trying to help the refugees, while breaking the law and almost getting herself arrested.  The film shows her dedication and indeed there are many like her who are saints in their job, risking all.  There is also the troubled young border guard who is uneasy with the atrocities his fellow guards inflict on the refugees.  He takes the trouble home with the result of tension between himself and his wife.  But he is seen as a good person, able to separate his humanity against peer pressure.  He gets to do a good deed at the end of the film.  The family on the run is the most difficult to watch.  The refugee family consists of a father and mother, the grandfather, two young kids and a baby on the way.  The cat and mouse chases take a toll on the family relationships.  The grandfather is religious while the father is more skeptical of his religion.  The mother cares for her two kids but the pressure also gets to her.  At first patient with the younger daughter, the mother finally snaps at her when she wets her pants.  In the midst is a good Samaritan, a Polish schoolteacher who helps the family out in saintly ways.

The film competed for the Golden Lion at the 80th Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Special Jury Prize.  It received positive reviews from critics but was condemned by Polish government officials for its portal of the inhuman treatment of the refugees by the border guards, which includes one disturbing scene in which a guard places broken glass in a flask for a refugee to drink, and by some segments of the wider Polish nation.

GREEN BORDER runs a bit long because it tells in detail, the story of refugees from three different points of view.  It takes a little patience to wash the entire film as it is not an easy watch, it being a difficult subject but well worth it.

GREEN BORDER opens June 28th at the TIFF Lightbox in Toronto.

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KINDS OF KINDNESS (UK/Ireland/USA 2024) ****|

Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos

KINDS OF KINDNESS is written by director Yorgos Lanthimos and co-writer Efthimis Filippou.  They collaborated in the past in films just as weird, DOGTOOTH (2009,) THE LOBSTER (2007) and THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER (2019).  Their latest film KINDS OF KINDNESS is an anthology of three stories that can be classified as absurdist psychological horror black comedy.

The three stories are of approximately equal length with a total combined running time of 142 minutes and it is difficult to determine which one is best.  The long-running time is not felt for the fact there are three stories with a surprise (or shock) around every corner.  No one can tell what to expect and what would happen next,  Twice Oscar Winner Emma Stone plays the lead in the third story which is the reason it is used as the last one.  Jesse Plemons plays the lead in the first two stories, with Emma Stone also appearing in minor roles.  Plemons is an exceptionally good actor, able to command screen presence as demonstrated in films like the recent CIVIL WAR and POWER OF THE DOG.  He commands attention as well in the first two stories, making them just as good if not better than the climactic third.  Plemons who steals the entire film, won the Best Actor Award for his role in this film at Cannes,

KINDS OF KINDNESS, described as a "triptych fable," consists of three distinct but loosely connected stories. The first segment, "The Death of R.M.F," follows a man who seeks to take charge of his own destiny after breaking away from his powerful boss. The second, "R.M.F. is Flying," depicts a man plagued by suspicions that his spouse, who has recently returned after being reported missing, is an imposter. The final segment, "R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich," revolves around a cultist's task to find a specific person with the ability to resurrect the dead.

The film’s original title was AND before the title was changed to KINDS OF KINDNESS.  The three kinds of kindness are demonstrated in each of the three stories.  In the first, Plemons plays a devoted employee who does everything unquestionably for his boss (Willem Defoe) including running his waiting car to crash on another passing by.  But he is unsuccessful in killing the second driver.  He refuses his boss’ request to attempt the deed a second time out of kindness not to kill another person.  The other types of kinds can be ascertained in the next two stories.

The film contains bouts of graphic violence like the cutting off of a finger, to be cooked and served with cauliflower for dinner.  There is also a foursome sex scene involving Plemons and Stone - more shocking than erotic.

The film was shot in was little in 3 weeks for a modest budget of $15 million.  One would have expected the film to cost more with Emma Stone in it, but she likely took a salary cut to work with Lanthimos whose films earned her two Academy Awards.  Stone has a chance to ham it up with a breakdance in the last story.

` This reviewer loves his films absurdist and weird so KINDS OF KINDNESS is a deliciously wicked delight.

A QUIET PLACE DAY ONE (USA 2024) **
Directed by Michael Sarnoksi

A QUIET PLACE has morphed into a noisy franchise that includes 3 sequels, the 4th one in the making and a video game to boot.  Enough is enough as can be witnessed in this third installment A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE which is the only one in the franchise not directed by John Krasinski.

A QUIET PLACE is an American post-apocalyptic horror media franchise centring on a series of films set in a world inhabited by blind extraterrestrial creatures with an acute sense of hearing.  A QUIET PLACE (2018) is the first film in the series, which was followed by the sequel A QUIET PLACE Part II (2020), both directed by John Krasinski.  The spin-off prequel, A QUIET PLACE: Day One, is the one reviewed here and directed by Michael Sarnoski and will be released on June 28, 2024.  A third and final sequel, A QUIET PLACE Part III, directed by Krasinski, is in development and scheduled to be released in 2025. The franchise also includes A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead, a video game set within the same fictional universe.

This QUIET PLACE installment works as a standalone film.  The characters are new and different from the first two films.  Samira (Luputa Nyong’o), a terminally ill cancer patient, lives at a hospice in New York City with her service cat, Frodo.  One day, Reuben (a bearded Alex Woolf), a care worker, convinces a reluctant Sam to join a group outing to watch a play involving marionettes in Manhattan. During the trip, the group noticed meteor-like objects crashing into the city. Shortly afterward, hostile extraterrestrial creatures began to attack people. In the ensuing chaos, Sam is knocked unconscious.

Sam later wakes up inside the marionette theatre with Frodo and other survivors.  Everyone is quiet, and fellow survivor Henri signals her to avoid making any noise. Announcements from overhead military helicopters warn civilians to stay silent and hidden until rescues can be made, with the bridges leading out of the city being bombed to prevent the creatures from leaving the island. One of the survivors begins to panic, which causes Henri (Djimon Hounsou) to accidentally kill him in the process of calming him down.

As in the first two QUIET PLACE movies, the characters have to remain silent in order to evade the aliens.  The same occurs in this film too, and it gets quite monotonous after a while.  The aliens are given the setback that they cannot swim (an excuse) and thus enable the humans to escape by boat.  Sam’s cat is silent by nature which allows it to survive and also lead the humans to safety in certain scenes.  Director Darnoski moves his film at a snail’s pace with lots of attention to detail.  Manhattan is shown in destruction and disarray accounting mainly for the film’s enormous $65 million production costs.  Though the atmosphere of chaos and destruction is stunning, it is quite boring to have to sit through  99 minutes (the film’s running time) watching Sam and her cat Frodo.  Another character is introduced in the last thread of the film, a law student, Eric from Britain (Joesph Quinn) though this annoying person does not alleviate the tedium.

The film has unexplained details.  How did so many survivors get on the barge before Sam and Eric noticed it?  Why do the aliens suddenly appear or disappear suddenly?  Why did they come to Earth and why is there no other information on these creatures?

A QUIET PLACE DAY ONE IS definitely well made but the premise of sound-tracking aliens preying on human victims has worn out its interest in the third of the QUIET PLACE franchise resulting in a boring piece with portions that make no sense.

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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 15 June 2024

FILM REVIEWS:

THE ACCIDENTAL TWINS (Hermanos por Accidente) (Colombia 2024) ***
Directed by Alessandro Angulo

It would be so cool to have an identical twin, says one of the accidental twins, the name of Jorge Bernal,  at the start of the documentary THE ACCIDENTAL TWINS.   Be careful what you wish for.  His following statement goes to to say that he could hardly believe that his entire life lived had been a lie.

The new Netflix original documentary from Colombia tells of two sets of identical twins switched at birth in Bagota, Colombia as it explores their complex history and new identities.

The doc, as expected, is divided into three parts,  The first is the discovery of the identical twin, the second is how the twins got switched at birth - by mistake or deliberate and the third is the reactions of the twins, how they cope with the new found truth and how they deal with the new truth.

The discovery occurs when Jorge’s co-worker, Yaneth, a girl goes to her boyfriend’s butcher shop to buy meat for a BBQ.  She notices a butcher who looks like Jorge and yells to him, with no response.  Jorge tells her when she tells him about the incident that he never worked at the butcher shop.  After some more fishing, She shows a photo of William (the guy at the butcher shop) to Jorge who is surprised.  The plot thickens.  Jorge has an identical twin that does not look like him.  It is then discovered when Jorge looks at a photograph of William and his twin, he finds that William’s twin looks like his twin.  This discovery portion takes around a third of the film’s length and is mildly interesting, though the discovery is important in the story.

The doc requires some following as there are two sets of twins that looks similar.  Names can be confused.  The main subject is Jorge and his non-lookalike twin is Carlos.  He discovers his real twin, William working at the butchers and William’s twin Wilber who does not look like William but like Carlos.  Once these identities are cleared, the film is easier to follow,   Director Angelo spaces the time of introduction of each of the 4 characters, so that the audience can take time to absorb the material without confusion.  The tactic works.

But the re-enactments are obvious.  These include the ride in the cab with Jorge and Carlos to meet their identical twins at the Plaza de Lourdes.  The doc is made up mainly of these re-enactments and interviews.  The re-enactments aid in making the film easier to follow though those involved in filmmaking or those who watch docs a lot of docs know that re-enactments are often made to fool the audience that what is taking place is taking place in real-time and not a re-enactment.

THE ACCIDENTAL TWINS does not glorify its subject but tells the story the way it is.  The story is nevertheless interesting enough to warrant a documentary in the making that does not take much research but more detective work.  The pieceing of the re-enactments together gives the doc a mystery element and works to bring up the entertainment level a notch or two.  Director Angelo ends his film on a feel-good, not about the power of the human spirit to forgive and to look at the good fate dishes out.

THE ACCIDENTAL TWINS opens for streaming on Netflix, on Thursday this week.

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THE BIKERIDERS (USA 2023) ****
Directed by Jeff  Nichols

Set in the 1960s, THE BIKERIDERS follows the rise of the Vandals MC, a Chicago outlaw motorcycle club.  Seen through the lives of its members and their families, the club evolves over the course of a decade from a surrogate family for local outcasts into a violent organized crime syndicate, threatening the original founder's unique vision and way of life.

The origin of the club featured in the film in the 1960s originated from a number of clubs the first one founded as early as in the 1930s.  The club featured in a work of photojournalism called The Bikeriders published in 1967 by Danny Lyon (played by, Mike Faist, recently seen in CHALLENGERS and in Steven Spielberg’s WEST SIDE STORY) a collection of photographs and interviews documenting the lifestyle of members of the club in the 1960s.  As depicted in the film, Lyon spent four years riding with the Outlaws' Chicago chapter beginning in 1963 and became a full-fledged member of the club in "an attempt to record and glorify the life of the American bike rider”.  It is also interesting to note that The Bikeriders preceded Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs by Hunter S. Thompson, who warned Lyon that he should "get to hell out of that club unless it's absolutely necessary for photo action.

The film is told from interviews given by Kathy (Jodie Cormer) to Danny Lyon.  Kathy is the wife of Ben (Austin Butler) one of the prominent dedicated and crazed riders of the Vandals, a sort of successor, handpicked by to the founder, Johnny (Tom Hardy).  As she tells the story, the film is intercut with the story of the Vandals, beginning with how Kathy met Benny at a bar and how they hooked up and married, though the wedding was never shown on screen, though is mentioned.  Another omission in the film is Johnny’s wife or woman, who only has two brief appearances in the film.  Given this interview, the otherwise male bike story is given a female perspective.  Kathy rates her feelings that she boldly tells the often emotionless Benny.  Kathy wants him to leave the bike club after a severe accident that causes Benny to almost lose his leg.

Credit to Nichols for creating a convincing and stunning period piece with great shots of motorbike riding.  Nichols elects superb performances from his entire cast, particularly Tom Hardy.  

Tom Hardy stands out as Johnny with his tough talk and leather gear.  His fight scenes aid in showing his masculinity and dedication towards the bike club.  He rarely shows kindness but serves to protect those around him, of course within reason.  Hardy speaks with a slurred accent, likely giving tribute to Marlon Brando who has a similar bike role in the 1953 film László Benedek's THE WILD ONES, the film given a nod in one scene.

THE BIKERIDERS opens in theatres on June 21st.  THE BIKERIDERS is a tough film about tough males, but given a female point of view, morphing it also into a love story.   It is worth a watch, the best film opening this week.

THE BOY IN THE WOODS (Canada 2023) ****

Directed by Rebecca Snow

The film is set in eastern Poland in 1943.  At this time, Eastern Poland was under Nazi Occupation for a period of 2 years.  In the local town of Buczach, the once-thriving Jewish Population has been decimated.  The last remaining residents are awaiting deportation.  This is where the film begins, based on a true story as the film titles announce.

The boy’s family is rounded up on the street about to be loaded into trucks, together with other families in the local neighbourhood.  At the chance that no guard is looking, the mother forces the boy to run and escape through a gate and he does.  He ends up with a rural family who discards the boy after he poses an extra threat to the family.  The father of the family is stern to the boy but has to give him up.  The father is played by Richard Armitage.  Jett Klyne who plays the boy delivers a powerhouse and convincing performance.

The film has the atmosphere of a Grimm fairytale, especially with the boy in the woods.  It feels like Hansel and Gretel as the boy is led to the woods by the man and never to return.  The boy does not meet a witch but has to live in a makeshift shelter of wood and branches, hiding away from ‘Jew Hunters’ who can earn a good buck if they catch the boy and turn him in.   The woods are the ones in Northern Ontario where the film is shot, a Canadian production.

Despite the seemingly simple premise, a lot happens.  The boy, Max meets another younger boy, Yank, who he promises to take care of.  With the need for companionship, the two become passionate friends while still living in the danger of being caught by the Jew Hunters.

The story is part coming-of-age story as Max grows up and learns about responsibility and survival and part survival story describing the strength of courage and the human will.

THE BOY IN THE WOODS is based on a true story.  Rebecca Snow took on the project of "The Boy in the Woods" inspired by Maxwell Smart's true story of survival. She met him while making the documentary Cheating Hitler.  The image of Max is shown at the end of the film during the closing credits, Max now being in his senior age.  The girl he had saved as a baby by the river just before the Germans surrendered is also shown in the closing credits.

Trailer: 

INHERITANCE (Polish title: Spadek)(Poland 2014) ***
Directed by Sylwester Jakimow

What won’t a person do for money?  This is the question an old gentleman asks at the beginning before firing a bullet from a gun, the bullet flying off in slow motion.

Family fighting for an inheritance is not a new premise in murder comedies.  The recent one on Netflix from Italy THE PRICE OF NONNA’S INHERITANCE that opened last month had a family trying to murder the rich grandmother’s new younger fiance to save their share of inheritance proved quite funny.  INHERITANCE from Poland has a a family gathering at a wealthy dying uncle’s estate fighting for a larger portion of the inheritance.  Uncle isn’t really dying but is murdered.

The film challenges itself.  Voiceover (the voice belongs to one of the family members) says that inheritance will turn a large family into lunatics.  And how about an abnormal family?  The statement primes the audience to expect more from the film.

Is the family abnormal?  There is a gay member who shows up with his lover and an older member with her much younger boyfriend who the family thinks is after her money.  The audience soon learns that the uncle, who is actually not dying is a practical joker and totally fucked up.  He initially fools the family during the reading of the will that would leave the entire inheritance to the local orphanage before suddenly appearing behind them and laughing at them from looking at their faces.  He invents a game to be played by the family the next day to keep them closer together as a family.

To make matters worse and as the plot thickens, a blizzard occurs that isolates the family from the outside world.

The trouble starts with the rich uncle.  No one knows the truth but rumours are that he was a spy, or that he was the first TV game show host or that he was an inventor.  Needless today, he was very rich and even if you inherit a million zlotys, you feel that you lost if someone else inherited two million.

Uncle is dying.  Ore is he?  He insists on having his family, extended ones included at his estate.  They all arrive and prove to be a whole assortment of characters, who obviously for entertainment's sake, do not get along with each other.  They also try to outdo each other, while trying to impress their rich uncle with the big inheritance, to gain his favour and a bigger portion of the inheritance.

Soon, as the film progresses, Uncle dies.  Is he dead?  There are shades of Agatha Christie akin to a film like Neil Simon’s MURDER BY DEATH.  It is barely funny with the murder plot clouding the humour.  The game that Uncle forces the family to play is at least quite inventive though nothing to write home about.

INHERITANCE, a Netflix original movie from Poland and in Polish opens Wednesday this week for streaming on Netflix together with another one from Poland, a magical fantasy, KLEKS ACADEMY.

THE OMICRON KILLER (USA 2023) *** ½

Direct by Jeff Knite

The film opens with the date November 7th, 2020 with the Omicron Killer and then flashes forward to the year 2021, November 7th with the imitation Omicron Killer after the original killer has died.

A copycat serial killer, killing his last victim on the anniversary of the death of the original killer, decides to retire from his life of murder.  But his retirement doesn’t last for long. Attacked by vicious thugs, left severely wounded and hospitalized, The Omicron Killer returns, hellbent on vengeance as he embarks on a new reign of terror!

“If looks could kill, you would be dead by now!” says one nurse to another as the Omicron Killer is examined in the hospital after he has killed the three thugs who attempted to rob him.”  He had done away with the three viciously.

From the beginning 15 minutes so far, the violence is extreme and escalates in intensity as the film progresses, with  low-brow humour put in.  The three thugs who got killed trying to rob the Omicron Killer sure got what was coming to them.

Omicron (B.1.1.529) is a variant of SARS-CoV-2 first reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) by the Network for Genomics Surveillance in South Africa on 24 November 2021.  It was first detected in Botswana and has spread to become the predominant variant in circulation around the world.  Following the original B.1.1.529 variant, several subvariants of Omicron have emerged including BA.1, BA.2, BA.3, BA.4, and BA.5.  Since October 2022, two subvariants of BA.5 called BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 have emerged.  The film is called The Omicron Killer because this killer is like the Omicron virus, a copycat or variant and a deadlier killer than the original COVID-19 virus.  The Omicron Killer is initially made fun of as a pathetic copycat of a serial killer, with the fact that serial killers are already really pathetic as they are.  With this in mind, director Knit plays his film like a black comedy, also with loser detectives, made even funnier by having their hard-ass foul-mouthed female boss, constantly abusing ten as well.

The film plays like a horror slasher black comedy.  The humour is as crude as the characters are.  The film is effectively set during the Pandemic with many characters wearing a mak.  For a small-budget movie, director Jeff Knite has created a cultish and very entertaining slasher horror black comedy.   A side plot involves a band of cultists led by a female who calls herself the Empress who with her followers, who she often refers to as idiots, try to resurrect the original serial killer on the night of the Blood Moon (A "blood moon" happens when Earth's moon is in a total lunar eclipse. While it has no special astronomical significance, the view in the sky is striking as the usually whitish moon becomes red or ruddy brown.)

The Omicron Killer is a big and fat motherf***ker who never says a word.  He would dispense with anyone who gives him a hard time, and that would be quite many people.  He can be seen as a man who is being abused by society and decides that he's fed up and is not going to take It anymore.

THE OMICRON KILLER opens on Digital Platforms on June 25th.

Trailer: 

OUTSTANDING: A COMEDY REVOLUTION (USA 2024) ***
Directed by Page Hurwitz

On a serious note,  the new Netflix documentary, OUTSTANDING: A COMEDY REVOLUTION chronicles the history of LGBTQ stand-up and considers the importance of LGBTQ stand-up as a driving force for the gay movement at the same time.   But it is quite funny as the doc is interspersed with comic routines as well as funny gay anecdotes that are guaranteed to make one laugh out loud many a time.

The doc begins humorously with Margaret Cho, a gay comic icon doing her routine saying: “When I was 14, I told my mother I wanted to be a comedian.  She replied (doing a Korean accent), “Maybe it is better that you just die!”

Robin Tyler says it all in a moving interview.  If you are in a closet, you’re in a vertical coffin.  All you do is suffocate to death.  She is Canadian from the prairies, what one might call a prairie dyke.  She came out young and was never in the closet.

The impressive cast of LGBTQ comedians includes  Lily Tomlin, Rosie O’Donnell, Eddie Izzard, Sandra Bernhard, Billy Eichner, Fortune Feimster, Tig Notaro. Margaret Cho and Solomon Georgio, who are among the many performers who recount their personal stories of developing their comedic styles and grappling with homophobia.

As much as the doc makes one laugh, there are also sad and moving moments.  The doc includes the history of fighting for gay rights.  The anti-gay activist Anita Bryant who fought to remove gay rights and to remove gays from jobs and work is displayed as saying that lesbians cannot reproduce and so they recruit our children.  Following is Harvey Milk, a gay elected official who says: “I am here to recruit you.”  These scenes including the riots of the Stonewall uprising remind LGBTQ people, how much they had to fight to have their voices heard.  Though homophobia is still rampant around the world, one must admit that there has been much improvement as well as much more to do.

The biggest hero (or heroine) in the doc is Sandra Bernhard.  She was a fighter, in theatre, and a musician in comedy.  She fought the fascists like ex-President Ronald Reagan and Jerry Falwell, an American pastor and televangelist.  The doc includes clips of her speeches and performances, all both heartbreaking and moving,

As much as gay culture progressed in the 70s and 80s, there was a huge pushback in the arrival of AIDs. This brings the doc to a more sombre tone.  Politics are also brought in with clips of speeches by ex-Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton

In the words of comedian Judy Gold: A great comedian will make you laugh and make you think and maybe change your mind.  Such is the importance of LGBTQ comedians.

OUTSTANDING: A COMEDY REVOLUTION covers material that most audiences are familiar with, but a reminder of history and what the LGBTQ community has gone through is important as it is part of History while accomplished in a humourous entertaining way.

OUTSTANDING: A COMEDY REVOLUTION opened for streaming this week Tuesday on Netflix.  Worth a watch, for sure.

Trailer: 

THELMA (USA 2023) ***
Directed by Josh Margolin

In the new senior action comedy THELMA, 93-year-old Thelma Post gets duped by a phone scammer pretending to be her grandson.  Against all odds, she sets out on a treacherous quest across the city to reclaim the $10,000 that was taken from her.

Everyone needs an action hero.  Even seniors!  June Squibb who is now at the ripe age of 94, plays a very credible action hero (with a nod to Tom Cruise and his MISSION IMPOSSIBLE action flicks) who takes on the evil villain scammer guy (Played by Malcolm McDowell best known for his performance in Stanley Kubrick’s A CLOCKWORK ORANGE) in what is a likable movie for seniors and those a bit younger as well.  It is difficult not to like a 93-year-old character making matters right and getting her money back.

THELMA tackles the difficulties seniors go through.  One of the most pressing challenges seniors have is getting familiar with technology including the Internet.  Thelma is the first senior section superhero.  But mostly, the story is credible as it shows the challenge a senior has in learning how to use a computer and search the internet. In THELMA, Thelma is aided by her grandson Danny who helps her search the internet which also includes banking.  The villain is also aided with computers by his nephew, Colin. 

The film has a few major plot flaws - one being that no one would be able to do a bank transfer of an amount as large as $10,000 in one transaction.  Anyone who’s tried to make an e-transfer with a large amount would know the fact. 

Most important of all, seniors in real life are easy targets of scammers.  Thelma was an easy target, too trusting and easy on giving up her cash,

Director Margolin works well with his senior actress/star as is evident in the film.  He also creates a few highlights as in the scene where unexpectedly, she fires a gun.  Another is Thelma stealing the mobile scooter of her friend Ben played by Richard Roundtree, best known in the role of Shaft in the original SHAFT film.  

Thelma is the first senior section superhero.  But mostly, the story is credible as it shows the challenge a senior has in learning how to use a computer and search the internet.  In the film, Thelma has the aide of her grandson, Danny who is amicable played by Fred Hechinger. 

Apart from the old actors, there are two young ones, Danny (Thelma’s grandson) and Colin The villain’s nephew). It would have been cool to have a scene with the two youngsters fighting it out in an action scene.

In real life, June Squibb is an action hero to many.  Her resume proves the fact.  She began her career by making her Broadway debut in the musical Gypsy (1959). Her first film role was in the 1990 romantic comedy ALICE by Woody Allen. She later had supporting roles in films The Age of Innocence (1993), In & Out (1997), Meet Joe Black (1998), About Schmidt (2002), and Far from Heaven (2002).  Her breakout role wasin 2013.  Squibb appeared in the comedy-drama film Nebraska and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

THELMA is June Squibb’s first leading role at the age of 94.  She will soon appear in the remake of the black comedy Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead and also is set to appear as a lead character in the drama film Eleanor the Great.

THELMA opens at the TIFF Lightbox June 21st.

Trailer: