Psycho Therapy: The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write about a Serial Killer

Editors and literary agents always tell writers to write about what they know, but they also want them to write about commercial subjects. Maybe you can sort of understand why Keane O’Hara started hanging with a “former” serial killer, for the sake of a book. Arguably, he was just following their contradictory advice. However, the passive schmuck inevitably allows his new friend to completely disrupt his life in Director-screenwriter Tolga Karacelik’s Psycho Therapy: The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write about a Serial Killer, which releases today on VOD in the UK.

O’Hara’s first book was about Mongolia. He second will be about pre-historic Slovenia, if he ever finishes it. His wife Suzie has finally had enough of supporting his mopey, unproductive butt, so she finally decides on a divorce. Then Kollmick walks into O’Hara’s life.

Approaching the “writer,” Kollmick claims to be a fan and offers him a chance to write about his life as a serial killer—retired, of course. As homework, Kollmick assigns a load of forensic pathology books, which freak out Suzie. However, she sort of likes Kollmick, because she thinks he is the marriage counselor trying to keep them together. That was not the greatest lie O’Hara ever told, but Kollmick is willing to play along. In fact, some of his serial killer double-talk translates surprisingly well into shrink speak. Actually, not really, but Suzie weirdly seems to buy it.

Triumph of the Heart, in The Epoch Times

TRIUMPH OF THE HEART personalizes the enormity of the Holocaust, through its sensitive depiction of Father Maximilan Kolbe's martyrdom. It shows how the canonized priest faced his fate with dignity, inspiring fellow prisoners to maintain their faith. EPOCH TIMES review up here.

The Hidden Face: The Korean Remake

Andres Baiz’s Spanish film, The Hidden Face, is starting to generate as many international remakes as Oirol Paulo’s The Invisible Guest. At least many of the subsequent Hidden Faces have tried to put their own spin on the dark psychological themes. That is particularly true of the new Korean remake. The love triangle relationship-dynamics get especially torturous in Kim Dae-woo’s The Hidden Face, which releases this Tuesday on digital.

Seong-jin might direct the orchestra, but his fiancée, cellist Soo-yeon, calls the shots, along with her mother, the executive director, Hye-yeon. Everyday brings new emasculations, until Soo-yeon impulsively flies off to Europe. At least that is what she told him in the video she left behind.

Weirdly, there has been no sign of her since then—no calls, no credit card usage. Despite her imperiousness, Hye-yeon starts to worry. Nevertheless, she agrees Seong-jin should find a temp replacement for her. Conveniently, Soo-yeon also left behind a recommendation for Mi-joo. Years ago, they both studied cello together in the very same house Soo-yeon just bought, to live with Seong-jin. At the time, Mi-joo and her were quite close.

It turns out she and Seong-jin are also quite compatible. They both share a fondness for the melancholy of Schubert (much like Martin Landau in Crimes and Misdemeanors). Pretty soon, Seong-jin commences something like an affair with Mi-joo, even though he still presumes Soo-yeon abandoned him. Instead, Mi-joo locked her in the secret bunker behind the walls, where she can see everything through the one-way mirrors, but she cannot be heard through the thick glass and steel.

The game-playing in this Hidden Face is even more morally bent than it sounds. Frankly, it is a sign of progress that the film has not provoked boycott-fury from the various professionally outraged alphabet groups for the way it depicts certain sexual identities. Happily, we can all just relax and enjoy its perverse, twisted soul. This is indeed a twisty and twisted film, but it will definitely surprise viewers, perhaps even those who have seen the previous Hidden Faces.

Twin Towers: Legacy, in The Epoch Times

Following up an Oscar-winning 2003 short documentary, TWIN TOWERS: LEGACY is an extraordinary feature profile of an American family of first responders, who truly uphold a tradition of service. Even after the calendar date anniversary of 9/11 has passed, their experiences and insights remain timely. EPOCH TIMES review up here.

Tin Soldier: Jamie Foxx Starts a Cult

Please, someone tell Hollywood there is more to the veteran experience than PTSD. Yes, it is sad reality and those who struggle with it deserve our support and understanding. Yet, there is also duty, honor, service, heroism, and comradery—which are all solid dramatic themes. Unfortunately, this film uses PTSD to define veterans and exploits it as a Macguffin to justify the formation of a sinister cult. It wasn’t a group of nobodies either. There are some big names in Brad Furman’s Tin Soldier, now playing in theaters.

As the film opens, Nash Cavanaugh is in worse shape than John Rambo at the start of the serious, psychologically realistic First Blood (Rambo #1). Cavanaugh had joined what he thought was a new agey PTSD peer-run treatment ominously called “The Program,” but it was really a personality cult led by the messianic Leon K. Prudhomme, who rebranded himself as “The Bokushi.”

Ironically, The Program started to work, but it was really because he fell in love with Evoli Carmichael. (By the way, I am absolutely not using a faulty AI program to generate these names.) Sadly, he accidentally caused her death while fleeing The Program to start a new life together. Since then, he just continued spiraling downward, until approached by commando Luke Dunn.

The FBI has laid siege to the Bokushi’s compound and is poised for a Waco-style assault. Before that happens, Dunn wants Cavanaugh to lead his team through the compound to take out Prudhomme and hopefully save lives, maybe even including Carmichael’s. Since her body was never recovered, maybe The Program faked her death. At this point, Cavanaugh slaps his forehead and says, “oh man, I wish I’d thought of that sooner.”

Of course, he agrees, even though Emmanuel Ashborn, the shady powerbroker financing the operation is obviously extremely sketchy. Further complicating matters, Dunn also recruits special operator Kivon Jackson, who is pointlessly hostile towards Cavanaugh.

Usually, when an unheralded film suddenly appears in theaters with a starry cast, in the case Robert De Niro, Jamie Foxx, and John Leguizamo, it is a strong indication of quality control issues, which is true here too. Bizarrely, even Rita Ora appears briefly as Dunn’s inside contact, Mama Suki, but by the time you start wondering if she’s really Ora, she’s already gone.

Frankly, the best work in the film comes from Scott Eastwood, who clearly wants to do right by his character and the issues he faces. Arguably, Foxx might have been entertaining in an over-the-top scenery-chewing kind of way, if Tin Soldier had been a more coherent film. Of course, De Niro just disinterestedly phones in scenes as Ashbrook. Frankly, he was probably thinking more about when the car service was scheduled to whisk him away to his next VOD shoot.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba-Infinity Castle, in Cinema Daily US

DEMON SLAYER:KIMETSU NO YAIBA-INFINITY CASTLE willl be like a rollercoaster for fans who have already invested in the characters. Newcomers might need time to develop their sea-legs, but the fantastical martial artts action should still impress. CINEMA DAILY US review up here.

Motherland, from MPI

It is the ultimate paternalistic regime. Technically, in this case, the revolutionary ideology of Amma Kane produced distinctly maternalistic characteristics. She reconceived society and human nature, making the state solely responsible for child-rearing—and it jealously guards its new role with an iron fist (on the cradle). Supposedly, everyone is now free and equal, having been spared the burden parenthood, but a good deal of humanity is lost in the process. Much to her surprise, a “score-keeper” finds her maternalistic instincts reawakening, when she re-discovers the daughter she was never allowed to know in Evan Matthews’ Motherland, an MPI-supported film, which releases today in theaters and on-demand.

Nobody even pretends Cora and her colleagues at Women’s Center #8 are educators. Instead, they are talliers of the center’s system of social credit and indoctrinators of the ideology espoused by [Big Handmaid] Kane. Cora always unquestioningly accepted the official orthodoxy and rigidly enforced the rules, until she recognizes the birthmark on young Zinnia’s forehead.

At that point, all the resentment and bitterness she was forced to hide when her baby was whisked away from her, immediately after birth, come welling back up. Initially, Cora merely watches over Zinnia in secret. However, she becomes alarmed when her unknowing daughter volunteers for a pilot program to reverse the declining birthrate. Yes, much to the regime’s surprise, people have had alarmingly fewer babies, even though they would have no costs or obligations with respect to their offspring.

Zinnia agrees to the new government scheme, because she knows it will lead to a better work assignment. However, Cora wants to spare her from the pain she knows will inevitably follow the cruel separation of mother and newborn. Unfortunately, Cora does not yet fully understand how ruthlessly the regime enforces its brave new world order.

Clearly, Motherland was conceived as a rebuttal to The Handmaid’s Tale. Indeed, the propaganda paintings of Kane all bear a distinct resemblance to the wardrobe of Atwood series. However, Nicole Swinford’s screenplay does so quite cleverly—and often surprisingly subtly. While it presents an alternate present day, the technology appears stuck in the late 1970s or early 1980s (at best). While the regime-friendly media constantly trumpets exceeded quotas and increased ration allotments, it also regularly announces new austerity measures—implemented for virtue’s sake, of course. The Soviet-Socialist echoes are unmistakable.

Indeed, Matthews and Swinford skillfully hint at sinister enforcement apparatus lurking just below the surface (and beyond Cora’s sight). Frankly, the Kane-sian world never looks like an overly-stylized Orwellian police state. Instead, the feels like it is confined to a crummy old government building, which is ever so apt.

Character-actress Holland Taylor (from Bossom Buddies and Romancing the Stone) also perfectly suits this boldly dystopian world, delivering a career-crowning performance as Toni, the Machiavellian director of the women’s center. She has the terrifying zeal of a true believer, yet there is a hint of something—dare we say “motherly”—about the interest she takes in Cora.

Klondike: Donbas 2014

The so-called “Russian Separatists” who terrorized Donbass Ukrainians really weren’t separatists. They wanted to become a Russian vassal territory. In 2014, Russian-backed “separatists” used Russian-supplied arms to shootdown Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 from territory completely controlled by Russia. Yet, Putin’s regime never faced any serious consequences. What kind of behavior did that incentivize? We’re seeing it now. Donbas was seeing then, even including a local Russian sympathizer, who suffers like Job from his allies and the wrath of his Ukrainian-loyalist wife in director-screenwriter-editor Maryna Er Gorbach’s Klondike, which has a special screening tonight at Anthology Film Archives.

Russia and its “separatists” tried to deny responsibility for MH17, but they had already claimed responsibility, thinking it was a Ukrainian troop transport. Tolik ought to be able to empathize with the grieving families, because the itchy-trigger-fingered Russian mercenaries also blew off the front wall of his house. His wife Irka is less understanding. Not only is she Ukrainian, but she is also 7-months-pregnant—and now literally living in rubble. Tolik wants to take her somewhere safer, but his neighbor, Sanya, a local fixer for the Russian mercs, “borrowed” his car.

Tolik’s marriage might be strained, but his relationship with his Ukrainian-loyalist brother-in-law Yaryk practically constitutes a cold war. Both are pigheaded and passive-aggressive in ways that   do Irka no favors. Yet, it is hard for outsiders to see why her husband shifted his loyalties to the rogue separatists. They regularly hold him at gun-point, stole his car, bombed his house, and then demand he kill his cow to feed them. To paraphrase The Producers, where did the separatists “go right?”

Indeed, that absurdity is at the heart of Klondike. The title itself might baffle initially, but it is a veiled reference to the scavenging of luggage—a gold rush—that commences after Flight MH17 crashes near Tolik’s farmhouse. There is much of Samuel Beckett and a lot of The Honeymooners in the three main characters, but it will be lost on many people, because the wartime circumstances are so grim.

Er Gorbach’s approach is also art-house all the way, which will further serve to keep some viewers at arm’s length. Yet, there is often a chilling point to her quiet, long-takes, which often reveal ominous movement on the far horizon. Make no mistake, her shots are composed, in close artistic collaboration with cinematographer Svytoslav Bulakovskiy. The fearful truth is that whatever you see in the distant background will inevitably arrive in the foreground—almost surely portending bad things.

Happyend, the Japanese Near-Future Dystopia

It is supposed to be dystopian, but this near-future Japan is largely already the present day in Mainland China. Essentially, the system of social credit and the intrusive surveillance to enforce it comes to Kou’s high school. Unfortunately, he and his friends always lack every just about every form of credit, as the children of immigrants (mostly Korean). The world is truly falling apart, but the principal still won’t cut them any slack in director-screenwriter Neo Sora’s Happyend, which opens Friday in theaters.

The scariest thing about Happyend is that you might not realize its dystopian if you weren’t told upfront. Frankly, people in Tokyo have a right to be a bit on edge, because the big cataclysmic earthquake could come any day now. The scumbag PM tries to deflect and distract by cracking down on Zainichi Korean population. That makes life even harder for Kou and his friends and family.

Kou might be the only one with the chance to attend college. Of course, he needs a scholarship, so he finds himself dependent on Principal Nagai for a recommendation, which the ostensive educator will not let Kou forget. Awkwardly, Nagai is on the warpath against Kou’s ambitionless best friend Yuta, whom he suspects was behind the impressive prank that balanced his sportscar on its rear bumper—which indeed he did, with Kou’s reluctant help.

It is interesting to compare Happyend with the recently re-released Linda Linda Linda, because both films capture teenage friendship on the cusp of graduation. However, Sora makes every mistake the 2005 cult classic nimbly avoids. While the punk rock coming-of-age story shrewdly avoids politics, Sora doubles, triples, and quadruples down. Awkwardly, he settles on immigrant discrimination as his dominant theme, which is a shame, because most of his points are familiar and predictable. In contrast, some of his pointed critiques of the Big Brother surveillance apparatus are quite clever. The cameras and AI might see all, but they are blind to context.

Black Canary: Best of the Best

Warner Brothers could have cast Scott Adkins as Batman. Instead, they chose Ben Affleck. They would probably never cast a real-deal martial arts star like Amy Johnston as Black Canary either, but this DC story-arc shows why they should. Much to the dismay of the Justice League, Black Canary, a.k.a. Dinah Lance agrees to an MMA fight to abject surrender with Lady Shiva, the most skilled super-villain martial artist in the DC multiverse. No holds are barred, but superpowers are off limits, which is unfortunate, because Black Canary’s shriek is a powerful equalizer. The bout gets bloody in Tom King’s Teen 15+ rated Black Canary: Best of the Best, illustrated by Ryan Sook, releasing today in a 6-issue hardcover bind-up.

Nobody understands why Lance agrees to the fight, except supervillain Vandal Savage. He promises to provide the rare cure needed by her mother, the original Black Canary. All she neds  to do is take a dive in the sixth round—assuming she can last that long. That will be a big ask. Even Batman unhelpfully admits he never managed to beat Lady Shiva when he reluctantly agrees to a sparring session.

Nevertheless, Lance’s mother relentlessly oversees most of her training until her condition craters into a coma. Lance can also count on the support of her boyfriend, Oliver Queen, at least during the periods when he isn’t dead. Happily, that will be for most of Best of the Best. Admittedly, they have a complicated relationship, but they are making it work.

Tempest, on Hulu

Seo Mun-ju sort of wants to be like Margaret Chase Smith or Mary Bono, but instead of succeeding her late husband Jang Jun-ik in office, she intends to replace him as a presidential candidate. It will be rather tricky, because he represented the hawkish party, while she was appointed UN Ambassador by the incumbent president, the standard bearer of the dovish party. Fortunately, she has the backing of Jang’s powerbroker mother, but the services of her mysterious bodyguard will be even more important in the political K-drama Tempest, written by Jeong Seo-kyeong, which premieres Wednesday on Hulu.

Apparently, Seo and Jang were not like Mary Matalin and James Carver. They could not dismiss their political differences so easily. Frankly, they never really got along so well, but Seo had resigned herself to loyally standing by him during the upcoming campaign. That is why she resigned from her post at the UN—or maybe she just didn’t complain when Pres. Chae Kyung-sin fired her.

Regardless, she is genuinely horrified when Jang is assassinated in a spectacularly public fashion. Coincidentally, it happened just as Jang adopted a more conciliatory tone towards reunification. Even more disconcerting, he seemed to be expecting it. Consequently, he secretly transferred his family’s entire fortune to her. Seo wants to know why Jang was killed and her candidacy obviously shakes up the establishment and foreign powers—judging from all the work it generates for Baek San-ho.

Baek, formerly of the U.S. Special Forces, now works for Valkyrie, which sounds a lot like Caddis in Butterfly. He also has ties to the North Korean underground railroad through the Catholic priest, who was also happened to be Jang’s spiritual advisor. Baek apprehended the assassin, but could not prevent his cover-up-facilitating suicide. Eventually, Seo agrees to hire him as her chief of security, but Baek has another client who wants him to protect the widow-candidate—at least for now.

Based on the first three episodes provided for review, Jeong and company clearly sympathize with the doves rather than the hawks. Yet, perhaps ironically, the series takes North Korea’s imminent collapse as a given. That seems debatable, since Kim Jong-un has become the leading supplier of arms and enslaved soldiers to Putin.

Regardless, in the world of Tempest, the question is whether the DPRK provokes the U.S. into nuking it out of existence or somehow the South manages to peacefully integrate the North. Unfortunately, Baek learns her husband’s source in the White House, Assistant Secretary of State Anderson Miller, has reason to believe the Trump-like President Houser will soon agree to the former (even though a Hawkish posture towards North Korea is embarrassingly un-Trump-ish).

Frankly, the politics are rather confused in these early episodes, perhaps because Jeong is trying to keep the intrigue murky. However, Seo’s relationships with both Jang and Baek are quite engagingly complex. In fact, Gianna Jun Ji-hyun is perfectly cast as the emotionally reserved and somewhat standoffish Seo. Likewise, Gang Dong-won is steely, but in a sensitive brooding kind of way, as Baek.

CIFF ’25: My Dear Theo

Russia has deliberately targeted Ukrainian artists and filmmakers, like Oleg Sentsov, but maybe that strategy backfired in the case of filmmaker Alisa Kovalenko. After the Russians arrested, interrogated, and detained Kovalenko while she was filming the illegal Donbas invasion in 2014, she resolved to enlist and defend her country if Putin were to invade the rest of Ukraine, which he did. At that point, considered herself a soldier rather than a filmmaker, but she inadvertently made a film anyway, thanks to her video diaries and video letters to her son. Ultimately, she incorporated that footage into her latest documentary. Their separation is difficult for her as a mother, but she fights for his future, as she explains in her documentary, My Dear Theo, which screens this Friday at the 2025 Camden International Film Festival.

In a way, this film started back in 2014, just like the war, but everyone outside of Ukraine simply hoped it would go away if they ignored it. Of course, that only made things worse. Through family connections, her husband took Theo and his mother to safety in France, leaving Kovalenko to fight—but that is exactly what she wanted.

Initially, Kovalenko and her comrades are on the march outside Kharkiv—until they suddenly stop. Clearly, her unit is accustomed to the constant shelling. There certainly seems to be good chemistry between them all, which makes the final rollcall of the fallen soldiers seen in the film such a slap in the face.

Kovalenko incorporates some battle scenes, but it really isn’t an embedded combat documentary like 2,000 Meters to Andriivka. This is a very personal statement from Kovalenko that often eloquently explains why she took up to defend her country. Sometimes, the extremely personal POV limits its effectiveness as a film to rally global public opinion. Nevertheless, it starkly establishes the stakes for Kovalenko and her fellow soldiers.

Linda Linda Linda, in Cinema Daily US

Punk rock turns out to be charmingly bittersweet and earnestly endearing when played by the  Japanese school band in the cult favorite LINDA LINDA LINDA, which has been restored in 4K and re-released by GKIDS. CINEMA DAILY US review up here.

Venice ’25: Newport & the Great Folk Dream

It was home to stately mansions, like Seaview Terrace (used for exterior shots on Dark Shadows). However, in 1954 the Rhode Island city started attracting hip young visitors when it first hosted the Newport Jazz Festival. George Wein’s Festival Productions diversified with the Newport Folk Festival, which was even less elitist than the jazz festival—or so you would think. The folkies were decidedly lefty in their politics, but some had very strict notions as to what constituted proper folk music—and you’d better believe it was acoustic. This musical bias would be sorely tested in the early 1960s. As it happened, documentarian Murray Lerner shot a wealth of footage of the 1963-1966 Newport Folk Festivals, out of which only a fraction was seen in his film simply titled Festival. Highlights from that unseen treasure trove finally see the light of day in Robert Gordon’s Newport & the Great Folk Dream, which premiered at this year’s Venice Film Festival.

If you know anything about Bob Dylan, you know the film is building up to the fireworks of the 1965 fest, when Dylan “went electric.” Lerner also produced a later documentary about that pivotal moment. In the early years, most of the angst focused on politics, particularly the Civil Rights Movement. In fact, the Newport Folk Festival offered a rare opportunity for social and cultural interaction between white hill country musicians and black blues and gospel artists.

Wisely, one of the primary [disembodied] interview voices is the of Joe Boyd (author of White Bicycles), who was Wein’s blues producer. He fondly remembers walking through the so-called “Blues House,” where the likes of Skip James and Son House performing informally in each room. Yet, he also hints at the Festival’s deep ideological divide when he recalls board members Alan Lomax and Theodore Bikel would be periodically act scandalized by the professional-grade sound-checks he provided for the performers, because it clashed with their paternalistic, noble-savage-idealizing conception of folk music.

Indeed, it is fascinating to see the kind of authenticity debate in folk that somewhat parallels criticism of Wynton Marsalis’s jazz gate-keeping in the 1990s, except the folk purists were probably more vehement. Regardless, the stacked line-up of blues legends truly blows the mind: James, House, Mississippi John Hurt, Jesse Fuller, John Lee Hooker, Fred & Annie McDowell, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and (controversially at the time) the Paul Butterfield Blues Band (because they were “electric”).

Torn, in The Epoch Times

TORN documents the battle on city street over the KIDNAPPED possters of 10/7 hostages taken by Hamas. It is  revealing examination of a society between those who  postered to remember and those who felt complled to tear them down, out of ideologically-fueled rage. EPOCH TIMES review up here.

The Conjuring: Last Rites

It wasn't as famous as the “Amityville Horror,” maybe because the “Smurl Haunting” doesn’t quite have the same ring. However, it still generated a 1991 TV-movie and a book by Ed and Lorraine Warren. They definitely considered it one of their major cases, so it makes a fitting conclusion to the Conjuring film series—but fear not, the “Conjuring Universe” should continue without them. Ominously, this time around, the demon in question seems to have a personal connection to the Warren family in Michael Chaves’s The Conjuring: Last Rites, which opens today in theaters.

In 1986, three generations of the Smurl family lived in their blue-collar suburban home, along with their new housemate, a demon. As a confirmation gift, Grandpa Smurl bought his granddaughter the most evil-looking mirror you could ever imagine. Obviously, that was a profound mistake. While the local diocese is ill-equipped to help the Smurls, the Warrens’ family friend, Father Gordon, understands the peril of their situation, but the demon gets to him before he can rouse the Church bureaucracy.

However, the Warrens’ grown daughter Judy traces the good Father’s final steps back to the Smurls. Ed and Lorraine had retired from paranormal field work, because of his heart condition. However, when they see the “black mirror,” they understand this case is personal. They previously encountered it in the prologue, which was the only case they walked away from out of fear.

The real-life Warrens were divisive figures, even among paranormal believers. Frankly, viewers should really just consider them original characters to the Conjuring Universe, because Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga portray them with such appealing earnestness. These films also position them as spouses and parents first and exorcists second, which is why the audience emotionally invests in them so easily.

Chaves previously helmed The Nun II and The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It in the Conjuring Universe, so he has a clear affinity for the characters and the franchise’s more subtle approach to horror. Like its predecessors, Last Rites transforms everyday objects into sinister tools of the demonic. It is a slow build, but the mounting sense of dread is incredibly potent.

Despite their unfortunate name, the Smurls are a convincingly realistic family, who do not look like actors trying to dress down. The Conjuring films are always about families helping families, but that is especially true of Last Rites. As usual, the Warrens devote considerable time to consoling the distressed Smurls. It is not just their natural compassion. It is also part of a conscious strategy to disrupt what the Warrens identify as the second of the three stages of demonic activity: “infestation, oppression, and possession.”

The Paper, on Peacock

If you think Frederick Wiseman’s documentaries are long, start watching all the footage shot by the filmmakers supposedly documenting Dunder Mifflin through all 201 episodes of The Office. They are back in the field shooting a new project, but it probably will not last as long. Arguably, creators Greg Daniels and Michal Koman were victims of their own success, because the popularity of The Office spawned a parade of mockumentary imitators. Their latest feels like more of the same, but there are enough connecting elements to call Daniels & Koman’s The Paper a spin-off when it launches today on Peacock.

Alas, Dunder Mifflin went out of business, but a giant paper conglomerate acquired the remnants, including accountant Oscar Martinez, whom they moved to their Toledo office (seriously, what a downer of a spinoff premise). There he shares open bullpen space with the company’s least important asset: the Toledo Truth-Teller. It was once a respected regional newspaper that was even the subject of a 1960s D.A. Pennebaker-esque documentary. Sadly, it has declined into a printed throwaway largely consisting of wire service reports and an online clickbait operation, which is exactly how acting managing editor Esmeralda Grand likes it.

However, Ned Sampson intends to shake things up, which he should be able to do, since he is ostensibly her new boss. He was a crackerjack paper salesman, so he parlayed his success into the journalism career he always wanted. Unfortunately, he only has one employee with legitimate journalism experience, Mare Pritti, an Army veteran and former Stars and Stripes reporter.

The self-importance of journalists ought to be a big fat target for Daniels, Koman, and their co-writers (the Truth-Teller name alone should inspire groans of mockery), but they largely ignore it, in favor of conventional office place humor. That might make sense, since it was their specialty, but the gleefully mischievous edge that made The Office consistently the funniest show of its time is conspicuously missing from the first four episodes. (All ten installments of season one premiered today, but other critics stopped at four, so it seems fair to match their endurance.)

Indeed, series lead Domhnall Gleason delivers plenty of Office-worthy cringe as Sampson, but there isn’t the same level of caustic wit to counter-balance it. Instead, Sabrina Impacciatore serves up constant over-the-top shtick as his main nemesis, Grand, who would defy viewers’ patience and credibility in an Absolutely Fabulous rip-off.

It is nice that Chelsea Frei portrays Pritti as a sympathetic veteran, who thus far seems to be the most functional staff member at the Truth-Teller. However, her persona has yet to develop beyond a skeptical potential love interest. Frankly, the rest of the staff is even blander, except Martinez, still played by Oscar Nunez, who came prefabricated and ready-for-use from the mother series.

Riefenstahl, the Documentary

If ever there was a filmmaker who earned “cancelation,” it would be Leni Riefenstahl. Yet, somehow, she avoided full disgrace and ostracism by post-war German society. It didn’t not happen by accident. Not surprisingly, the propaganda filmmaker and photographer keenly understood the power of media and exploited it accordingly. Andres Veiel examines the evidence Riefenstahl left behind in her archive, assembling a very different portrait of her subject in Riefenstahl, which opens this Friday in New York.

Riefenstahl started her film career making mountaineering films with Arnold Fancke that are still considered classics. Sure, she worked with an emerging political figure named Adolph Hitler, but she really did not understand his ideology until it was too late. At least that is how Riefenstahl tried to tell her story. However, it is clear from the letters and interview out-takes Veiel incorporates, Riefenstahl was very conscious she was spinning her “narrative.”

Veiel shows Riefenstahl trying out various lines of defense. For instance, in an early draft of memoirs, Riefenstahl claimed Goebbels sexually assaulted her, but she cut it from the final manuscript. We also hear her claim the term “Nazi” was not in common use when she first met Hitler, but the interviewer gently corrects her on that score.

It is fascinating to watch Riefenstahl rehabilitate her image. It is troubling to see how successful she was (distracting the world from the content of The Triumph of the Will). Frankly, contemporary viewers will be especially fascinated judging her strategies against current norms and standards. However, they will likely be frustrated by the film’s loose structure. Instead of crafting a point-by-point indictment, Veiel drifts along the course of Riefenstahl’s life, dropping embarrassing soundbites at regular intervals. However, she certainly leaves viewers free to draw their own conclusions.

The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox, in The Epoch Times

The courtroom confrontations crackle with tension and it is nice to see the compassionate portrayal of the prison chaplain in THE TWISTED TALE OF AMANDA KNOX. However, many scenes bog down in soap opera level melodrama, mostly making it a series for true crime junkies. EPOCH TIMES review up here.

Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire

Two years after his death, Elie Wiesel’s boyhood Romanian home was defaced with anti-Semitic graffiti. Even in 2018, nobody was really shocked. Today, it would just be more of the same. Wiesel spent most of his adult life remembering the horrors of the Holocaust, in hopes they would never be allowed to repeat. Imagine how painful 10/7 would have been for him had he lived to see it. Apparently for the sake of tidiness, director Oran Rudavsky ignores such recent tragedies entirely. His resulting film feels like it might have been produced in the days closely following Wiesel’s death. However, Wiesel still has much to tell us by example, when Rudavsky documents his life and work in Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire, which opens in theaters this Friday.

Wiesel was a survivor (but his parents and younger sister were not). That will always define his identity, especially because Wiesel started writing and speaking to bear witness, before acts of public remembrance were encouraged. Although not an immediate bestseller, Night became an acknowledged classic that paved the way for more such works.

Rudavsky also chronicles Wiesel’s personal rebirth, marrying his wife Marion, with whom he had the child he once resolved to never bring into the world, their son Elisha. This might be the most inspiring aspect of Wiesel’s story, which Rudavsky does full justice. Instead of an unknowable voice of conscience, Wiesel emerges an acutely human and humanistic husband and father.

However, Rudavsky (who also helmed the entertainingly neurotic rom-com The Treatment) quickly dispenses with Wiesel’s life-long support for Israel with one soundbite expressing empathy for those who identify as Palestinian and one talking-head claiming Wiesel refused to criticize the democratic nation publicly.

The film ignores the controversy that ensued when the London Times refused to publish Wiesel’s ad criticizing Hamas’s use of children as human shields during the 2014 Gaza War. Instead, Rudavsky devotes considerable time to more pressing controversies, like Pres. Reagan’s 1985 visit to the German Bitburg military cemetery. (Seriously, it garners over eleven minutes out of a total 86-minute running time.)

Watcher, on AFN

Julia's predicament is similar to Jimmy Stewart’s in Rear Window, but instead of a broken leg, she is hobbled by a language barrier. She also has a useless husband, who makes a poor substitute for either Gracy Kelly or Thelma Ritter. Regardless, she starts to suspect the serial killer stalking Bucharest is watching her from across the street, but nobody takes her seriously in director-screenwriter Chloe Okuno’s Watcher, which airs Tuesday on Armed Forces Network.

Francis’s family used to speak Romanian when he was young, so he feels at home in Bucharest. Julia doesn’t, at least not yet, but she was about to give up on her acting career, so she agreed to relocate. Nevertheless, she feels immediately feels socially and culturally isolated. She also has the sensation of being watched. It looks that way too, judging from the illuminated silhouette, behind the curtains of the apartment opposite them.

As an unnerving bonus, the serial killer known as the spider has killed several women in the neighborhood. Julia wonders if all this creepiness might be connected when a mystery man starts following her. She never gets a good look, but he seems drably non-descript in an ominous serial killer kind of way. Of course, the cops do not take her concerns seriously and Francis tries to explain everything away as a product of stress and suggestion.

Despite Shudder and IFC Midnight handling the domestic distribution for Watcher, it really is more of De Palma-esque thriller (the term “Hitchcockian” really ought to be reserved for a select few), rather than a horror movie. However, it works rather well on those terms.

Nocturnal Bucharest is definitely creepy. In fact, some of the most unsettling sequences tie into the anxiety you might remember from being out too late in a foreign city, where you really do not know the language. Okuno also captures the unnerving feeling of being watched. (And seriously, why would their furnished apartment come without curtains?)

Okuno has discussed Francis’s disbelief in feminist terms, but Julia’s frustration is more universal than that. Too often, people ignore warnings and suspicious behavior, because acting on it would be awkward. It seems easier to explain it away, but that often leads to bigger trouble long-term.

The Antique: To Be Georgian in Russia

It wrapped filming on-location in St. Petersburg the day before Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. Consequently, it is likely to be the last foreign film shot in Russia for the foreseeable future (unless a Chinese production requests permits). Frankly, they did not receive a very warm-welcome, much like the Georgian characters it follows. In 2006, Georgians like Medea already faced discrimination and harassment, even before the mass-deportation. However, Medea finds an unconventional safe-ish space in Russudan Glurjidze’s The Antique, which is now streaming on Film Movement Plus.

Medea’s name is a coincidence. She never murders her children. Medea’s only sin involves antique smuggling into Russia. Even before the 2006 expulsions (which the EU Court of Human Rights ruled violated the Europpean Convention on Human Rights), Medea intuitively sought out under-the-radar living conditions. It turns out she could purchase a spacious but dilapidated flat at a surprisingly affordable price, but the other terms were unusual.

Like a Putin-era sitcom, Vadim Vadimich sells his title to Medea, but she must agree to cohabitate with him as her flat-mate. They could not be more opposite. She is a young Georgian, while he is aa crusty old Russian nationalist implied to have served in shadowy state security positions during his younger, more lucid years. However, it sort of works for a while, but bad things are brewing.

Salome Demuria lights up the screen as Medea, despite her quiet reserve. She is smart and even witty. Consequently, some of her best scenes come bantering with the disembodied voice of Manana, the owner of her dodgy antique “import/export” firm, who oversees the warehouse via surveillance cameras and speakers.

Likewise, Sergey Dreyden is quite poignant depicting Vadimich’s slow decline. Even subtitled, Leila Alibegashvili’s voice for the unseen boss drips with attitude. Plus, Vladimir Vdovichenkov stirs up their fragile flat dynamics in unpredictable ways, as Vadimich’s semi-estranged son.

Stranger Eyes: Lee Kang-sheng is Watching

When it comes to trade-offs between security and personal liberty, Singapore reliably opts for security. Indeed, surveillance cameras are common sight in the city-state. Yet, there is no footage of Little Bo’s abduction—or is there? At first, her parents hope the mysterious DVDs left under their door might yield a clue to her whereabouts. However, they increasingly feature footage of her father, Junyang at his most embarrassing moments. Somewhat logically, Junyang starts stalking his stalker, hoping he leads to some answers in director-screenwriter Yeo Siew Hua’s Stranger Eyes, which opens today in New York.

Junyang blames his mother Shuping, because during the brief time she called, he lost sight of his daughter. Whatever it was, she could have told him later, since she lives with Junyang and his wife Peiying. Of course, Peiying took it hard, obsessively reviewing all their recent video of Litle Bo and anymore they could get crowd-sourced. Initially, the DVDs the mystery stalker left were welcome, but they soon took a dark, intrusive turn.

Thanks to surveillance cameras, Det. Zheng identifies their neighbor Lao Wu as the stalker, but he cannot tie him to Bo’s abducton. Nevertheless, Junyang assumes Wu must be involved or holding back relevant video, so he returns the favor, developing an unhealthy fixation on the obsessive Wu.

That all makes Stranger Eyes sound more thrillerish than it is. Instead, Yeo prefers contemplate voyeurism and obsession in the age of omniscient surveillance and hyper-online over-sharing. Frankly, the audience hardly has any better sense of Junyang’s personality than if we were watching him through security cameras. Instead, Lee Kang-sheng (Tsai Ming-liang’ longtime collaborator) more successfully hints at the complexities of Wu, who emerges as a figure of sadness rather than menace.

The Terminal List, in The Epoch Times

Prime's prequel series THE TERMINAL LIST: DARK WOLF keeps the pacing brisk and the combat brutally grounded. Yet, throughout the entire season, the cast and crew show great sensitivity towards American military servicemen and the challenges they face. EPOCH TIMES review up here.

Somnium: California Brainwashing

Dr. Katherine Shaffer’s treatment could be called “brainwashing for success.” If that sounds like the worst self-help program ever, it is because it is. Yet, since her clinic is in Hollywood, she has plenty of clients. Dakota certainly cannot afford her program, but she needs a job, so she starts working as the clinic’s night-minder in director-screenwriter Racheal Cain’s Somnium, which opens this Friday in LA.

Dakota left her small Georgia town with considerably more dreams than money. Rather recklessly, she faces potential eviction almost as soon as she moves in. Unfortunately, nobody is hiring, because of Newsom and Bass. Then she almost stumbles into the Somnium clinic, where Dr. Shaffer hires her, with practically no questions asked.

She will work the night shift, watching over patients in the sleeping pods. As part of Dr. Shaffer’s therapy, they receive subliminal positive reinforcement that will help them achieve their goals when they wake—except when it goes wrong. According to Noah, Shaffer’s deputy, sometimes the treatment drastically alters patients’ personalities. He should know, since he is conducting some kind of secret off-the-books research during late night hours.

Since she works nights, Dakota should have her days free for auditions. However, she has had little luck on that front either, even though Brooks, a mysterious producer, offered vague but tantalizing promises to help career. Frankly, it is weird that Dakota wants to be an actress, because she obviously has never seen any movies. Otherwise, she would have recognized Brooks as the sinister serpent that he clearly is.

As a film, Somnium exhibits loads of atmosphere, but most of the tension comes from whether or not Dakota will be rendered homeless and destitute. At times, the film seems to promise the laidback California-cool rendition of A Clockwork Orange, but Cain frustratingly keeps all the mind-warping skullduggery beyond arm’s length. Clearly, she prefers to imply rather than show, but at some point, genre business must be taken care of.

The Toxic Avenger, Starring Peter Dinklage

He was born in a notoriously violent and grotesque Troma movie. Less than seven years later, he was starring in a children’s cartoon. It didn’t last long, because what’s haye point of watching Toxie if he can’t stuff a bullying bad guy’s hands into a deep fryer? In the original films, his name varied from Melvin Ferd to Melvin Junko, so giving him a fresh name change to Winston Gooze is really no big deal. Regardless, he will experience plenty of body horror while in engaging in gruesome acts of payback throughout director-screenwriter Macon Blair’s rebooted The Toxic Avenger, which opens tomorrow in theaters.

Poor Gooze is still a put-upon janitor (wielding a trusty mop), who is done wrong by life in general and his boss, mobbed-up nutritional supplement tycoon Bob Garbinger in particular. First, Garbinger’s company rejects his insurance claim for life-saving treatment. Then his thugs beat Gooze and leave him for dead in a vat of toxic goo. Frankly, that last part was an honest misunderstanding. They were supposed to kill J.J. Doherty, a whistle-blower collecting evidence of Garbinger’s dangerously foul environmental practices. Gooze just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Although Gooze looks like a giant oozing disfigured freak, he now has superhuman strength and healings powers, which are obviously handy traits for a vigilante. Yet, Gooze fears his new twisted form will further traumatize his stepson Wade, who is still reeling from his mother’s death (prior to the start of the picture).

Troma still co-produced Blair’s reboot and studio chief Lloyd Kaufman even makes a Stan Lee-style cameo, but civilians who are not fanatically devoted to the indie studio will be happy to have more cooks in the kitchen. As a result, the new film is not quite as cartoonishly vicious as Troma’s vintage 1980’s releases, including the original 1984 film. Admittedly, “watered-down” is not a term many critics will apply to Macon’s reboot, but it does not quite have the same ferocity, which is a good thing.

In fact, there are flashes of pleasantly dry wit, delivered with appropriate cynical world-weariness by Peter Dinklage. He has a great voice for voice-overs. Frankly, based on his intro, he would probably make a terrific Batman for the DC Animated Universe. He also helps humanize Gooze, even when Luisa Guerrero takes over as the body of the Toxic Avenger.

The Quay Brothers’ Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass

Frankly, the level of care in this clinic is appallingly low, probably because most of the staff sleeps all through the day. Yet, in their defense, it should be conceded their patients never fully die. They exist in a kind of limbo, resulting from the localized time distortion. If that sounds confusing, just wait until you start watching Stephen & Timothy Quay’s Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass, "presented" by executive producer Christopher Nolan, which opens this Friday at Film Forum.

The Quay Brothers based this hybrid stop-motion-animated film on Bruno Shulz’s episodic novel, which also inspired Wojciech Jerzy Has’s surreal but more manageably titled The Hourglass Sanatorium. True to their reputation, Quays managed to make their take even trippier. Sadly, Sanatorium is one Shulz’s few surviving works, because the National Socialists destroyed most of his manuscripts, along with Shulz. Has alludes to the author’s tragic fate, whereas the Quays avoid any Jewish subtext.

The Quay Brothers also remain largely untethered from the constraints of narrative structure. In many ways, their new feature flows like Guy Maddin’s The Forbidden Room, which Sanatorium also resembles stylistically, especially the live-action framing sequences that share a dreamy look and atmosphere, very much akin to Maddin’s films. The Quays employ an antique crypto-projector to reveal visions of the main narrative thread, as well as several confusing off-shoots.

The main puppetry spine of the film follows Jozef as he travels to the Sanatorium Karpaty, to take charge of his late father’s body and effects. However, when he reaches the Sanatorium, creepy Dr. Gotard explains to Jozef that even though his father is dead in the outside world, he still technically lives (but mostly sleeps) in Karpaty, because patients are essentially caught in what we might consider a time-lag. That lag also induces sleepiness throughout the Sanatorium.

The Quay Brothers create some absolutely arresting darkly fantastical imagery. However, trying to impose logic onto their latest film will cause diamond-splitting headaches. They have made it intentionally hard to follow, which grows increasingly frustrating.

Nevertheless, their vision is evocative and immersive. At times, watching Sanatorium feels like getting dropped headfirst into a newly discovered Kafka novel, which rather makes sense, since Shulz helped translate Kafka into Polish. The twilight vibe is transfixing, but also anesthetizing.

Hellhunters, from Marvel

In this alternte 1944, Col. Nick Fury has yet to lose his eye. Sgt.Sal Romero will lose something even greater: his very soul. At least he contracts with a better class of demon. Before Johnny Blaze, Zarathos resurrects Romero as Ghost Rider ’44 in Phillip Kennedy Johnson’s Hellhunters, illustrated by Adam Gorham, which is now on-sale at your local comic shop.

On the brink of death by exposure, a platoon of retreating National Socialists are offered a Faustian bargain by the demons known as the Unhallowed. When their senior Juncker officer hesitates, Captain Felix Bruckner accepts, by putting a bullet in his commander’s head. Transformed into demons, Bruckner’s undead men start turning the tide of the war. Unfortunately, they start with Romero’s squad of paratroopers.

Bruckner is particularly sadistic when killing Romero. That makes the Sergeant amenable to Zarathos offer of vengeance. Technically, he is also a demon, but Zarathos and the Unhallowed are sworn enemies. Romero will be his tool for vengeance, rather than the object his torments, but it was still a pretty lousy deal.

Regardless, what is done is done, so Romero teams up with an elite Allied unit already hunting the Unhallowed. The Howling Commandos currently number only three, but Agent Carter and the mystical Sebastian Szardos (a.k.a. Soldier Supreme), commanded by Col. Nick Fury, have no fear of the supernatural. They are soon joined by a relentless Canadian soldier named Logan and Bucky, Captain America’s teenaged sidekick, who takes macabre pleasure in killing National Socialists and taking trophies. Unfortunately, Eisenhower cannot spare Cap from the Normandy landing.

It is fantastic to see Marvel return to their WWII era characters and timelines. Johnson makes smart use of the Howling Commandos, Logan, and Bucky. Yet, Ghost Rider ’44 emerges as the star of Hellhunters, who deserves his own series. He shares a kinship with Blaze, but also forges his own identity. (Plus, just the idea of a WWII Ghost Rider summons memories of Steve McQueen in The Great Escape).

Red Sonja: Rebooting the Hyborian Age

Casting 6’ 1” Brigitte Nielsen as the “She-Devil” made a lot of sense, but the notorious 1985 fantasy bomb committed many grievous cinematic sins. Without question, the worst was the absence of her iconic chainmail bikini. To its credit, this film does not make that error. The wardrobe is legit, but there is also a little bit of the warrior spirit in M.J. Bassett’s Red Sonja, which releases this Friday on VOD.

Essentially, Roy Thomas “created” Red Sonja to be Conan the Barbarian’s female colleague in hacking and slashing. Technically, he took the name from another Robert E. Howard story, but that Red Sonja was a non-Hyborian warrior, of Ukrainian descent, seeking vengeance against the Ottoman Empire. (Obviously, Putin never read “The Shadow of the Vulture,” either.)

Like Thomas’s Sonja, Bassett’s Sonja became a wanderer after her family was brutally murdered, but she is more of nature-loving seeker, on a quest to reunite with last remaining Hyrkanian people, instead of the cynical hedonistic anti-heroine fans know and love.

Thanks to her upbringing, this Sonja immediately defends the forest creatures from Emperor Draygan’s pillagers, which gets her condemned to the arena as a gladiator. So far, very Conan-esque, right? Wisely, the arena armorer only gives her wooden swords and for protection, only supplies the intentionally impractical chainmail. Of course, Sonja refuses to play ball. Instead of earning her freedom by slaying her fellow Damnati, she foments revolution against the empire instead.

There is a lot of conspicuous CGI in this Red Sonja, but that is part of its eccentric charm. Frankly, it is forgivable, because it helps depict the kind of grandly over-the-top fantasy world that fans appreciate. It also distinguishes Bassett’s film from the maligned 1985 movie. There is no shortage of slicing and dicing, as fans would hope. Plus, there is some impressive animal handling, like that of Sonja’s loyal mount, who is pretty smart for a horse.

Bassett previously helmed the better-than-you-might-expect Howard-adaptation Solomon Kane, so he clearly shows an affinity for the pulp writer. The action and fantastical elements work quite well. However, Tasha Huo’s screenplay lacks the sexy attitude that made Red Sonja a geek-favorite in the first place. While Gail Simone’s recent comics and novel embrace Sonja as a Hyborian Age feminist, her recently asserted bisexuality further enhances the franchise’s sexual overtones, but that is all entirely absent from the film.

Still, they have the chainmail bikini (whereas the cover of Simone’s recent novel inexplicably depicts a piece of snake jewelry). Matilda Lutz’s portrayal of Sonja would ordinarily be more than sufficiently compelling for a popcorn fantasy, but she lacks the fierceness fans would expect from the She-Devil. Oddly, she is too vulnerable and too human.