BritBox's new adaptation of Agatha Christie's MURDER IS EASY features a winning ensemble, but the changes made for "modern sensibilities" sometimes detract from the sly sophistication Dame Agatha baked intto all her classic mysteries. EPOCH TIMES exclusive review up here.
Obviously, Egon Schiele is not creating anymore paintings. In 2010, the contested
ownership of the Nazi-looted “Portrait of Wally” resulted in a $19 million
settlement to heirs of the rightful owners. It is therefore easy to understand
why a hotshot art specialist would be excited by the prospect of finding a
presumed lost Schiele painting. Finding it is one thing. Successfully
auctioning it will prove to be another thing entirely in director-screenwriter
Pascal Bonitzer’s Auction, which screens during this year’s Rendez-Vouswith French Cinema.
Andre
Masson is ruthlessly ambitious and sometimes kind of slimy, but in his way, he
is always honest (often brutally so, in fact). In contrast, his new intern
Aurore seems to be a compulsive liar, but she is smart, so Masson is not quite
prepared to cut her loose yet. When a lawyer in provincial Mulhouse contacts
him, requesting the authentication of an apparent Schiele in the possession of
her client, a young manual laborer, he assumes it must be a hoax. Nevertheless,
he and his ex, Bettina (who is now essentially his best friend), make a road
trip to appraise it out of courtesy. To their shock and delight, they find a genuine
Schiele considered lost since WWII.
It
turns out, the young factory worker and his widowed mother bought their modest
house from the estate of an old Vichy-era collaborator. Rather fatefully, all
the junky contents of the storage shed came with it, including the painting
that Masson believes should go for well over ten million Euros if his auction
house can secure the sale. To seal the deal, Masson must also negotiate with
the American heirs of the original gallerist owners, who have much stronger
legal standing than the mother and son in Mulhouse.
Auction
is
a remarkably assured and accomplished film that could very well turn out to be
one of the best of the year. It is built around a richly complex character
study of Masson, who quickly proves to be a much more compelling and weirdly
sympathetic figure than his initial appearance suggests. Yet, Bonitzer’s
screenplay is also very definitely about something. There is real suspense in
this tale of auction house intrigue, as well as a genuinely idealistic love for
great art. Frankly, Auction is one of those rare films that you walk out
of marveling at the sharpness of the writing.
Antonia Scott is literally too smart for her own good. She is not merely a
socially awkward detective, like Sherlock or Monk. When she starts thinking too
rapidly, her brain essentially overheats, causing weird hallucinations. It is
all the fault of a shadowy crime-fighting organization, whose initial training
turned out to be somewhat overzealous. Not surprisingly, she is always
reluctant to accept a new case from “Mentor,” the mastermind who recruited her,
but she can be begged and cajoled into investigating particularly urgent and
awful crimes. A recent string of high-profile abductions (and likely murders)
will qualify in creator Amaya Muruzabal’s Spanish series Red Queen (a.k.a.
Reina Roja), which premieres today on Prime Video.
As
the series opens, the unstable Scott is considering multiple suicide options.
She has had a rough go of it. In addition to her visions of angry monkeys, her
husband lies comatose in the hospital, with zero prognosis for recovery. It
will be the hulking, wheezing Det. Jon Guttierez’s job to convince her to
venture out into the field again. As a devout, gay Catholic Basque who snitched
on corrupt fellow cops back in Bilbao, Guttierez was never really accepted by
the Madrid force. However, his outsider status will give some credit with
Scott. That still doesn’t mean she will be friendly. She is the organization’s
designated “Red Queen” for Spain, after all.
One
business titan’s grown offspring was brutally murdered and another mogul’s privileged
daughter has been kidnapped. Madrid’s conventional cops are investigating like it
is a conventional case, but Mentor knows it requires Scott’s “out-of-the-box”
thinking. It will be Guttierez’s job to drive her, run interference, and
generally keep her alive, all of which get trickier when the sinister “Ezequiel”
realizes they are on his trail.
Fantasy often tells us mankind is the most dangerous animal. If you think that
changes when a mysterious phenomenon starts mutating the afflicted into
physically powerful human-animal hybrids, you could not be more wrong. Homo-sapiens
are still the most dangerous creatures, due to our aggression, fear, and
prejudice, a point that is repeatedly emphasized in Thomas Cailley’s The
Animal Kingdom, the opening night film of this year’s Rendez-Vous with French Cinema, in New York.
As
the film opens, Emile Marindaze is distressed by the sight of a bird-man
struggling with paramedics amid cars stuck in traffic. His alarm seems natural,
but viewers soon learn his reaction is more personal and visceral. It turns out
his mother has also been stricken with the strange animal mutating disease,
which carries a severe stigma among the uninfected.
His
father François has arranged for them to temporarily relocate to a resort
village, so they can be close to her in the newly constructed high-security
treatment center. Of course, they want to keep her condition on the down-low,
so they pretend they are simply in town for dad’s new job as a chef at a
waterfront bistro. It becomes harder when the initial shipment of
patient/inmates (including Madame Marindaze) escapes in a traffic accident.
Emile regularly drags Emile out to the forest to search for his mother, while
the surly teen is trying to hide his own early onset of animal mutation
symptoms.
So,
deep down, we’re all animals. The end. There is a legit point in there, which
someone like Rod Serling could have made brilliantly in just under thirty
minutes. In contrast, Cailley drags out this morality play—but to his credit,
he reportedly cut an epilogue after Animal Kingdom premiered at Cannes.
That
is the storytelling. On the other hand, the filmmaking that went into Animal
Kingdom is often pretty impressive. Cailley’s brand of contemporary fantasy
is eerily realistic looking. In some ways, Animal Kingdom almost functions
as Cronenbergian body-horror, but the mutations are vividly lifelike and
painful looking.
Everyone knows the bond between dogs and humans can transcend miles and even
lifetimes (as in A Dog’s Purpose). In contrast, cats can largely take us
or leave us. Still, a busker’s former cat remembers him well and even misses
the street musician enough to search for him on the streets of London in Jac
Hamman & Sarah Scrimgeour’s half-hour short Tabby McTat, the latest
Magic Lantern & BBC-produced animated adaptation of Julia Donaldson’s
children’s books, which screens during the 2024 New York International Children’sFilm Festival.
You
can sort of think of this film as Once for cats. Old Fred can busk up a
storm, but he relies on Tabby McTat to chase off the pigeons and pull in the
tipping audience. One fateful day, Fred is hospitalized, after he is separated
from McTat while chasing the thief who made off with hat full of tips. Freezing
on the streets, an elegant house feline convinces McTat to accept shelter with
her cat-lady owners. Soon, McTat becomes part of the family, especially when
their first litter of kittens arrives, but he remains haunted by memories of
Fred.
Tabby
McTat is
a bit of a departure from previous Donaldson films like Zog, Room on the Broom, and The Smed and the Smoos, because it is essentially set in
the world that we know. Yet, that is partly why it is also one of the most endearing
Magic Lantern adaptations to date.
It would be fitting if Edward’s girlfriend bought him a DNA/ancestry test
kit from the same company that the orphaned protagonist in The Invitation used.
They must offer a discount for supernatural weirdos. In this case, Edward is
not related to vampires, but he was definitely better off not knowing his
family roots in Gabriel Abrantes’ Amelia’s Children, which opens Friday
in New York.
For
years, Edward yearned to reconnect with his biological family, but there were
no leads in his adoption file. For his birthday, his girlfriend Riley gives him
a DNA testing kit and a few days later he is getting messages from his brother Manuel.
Make that his twin brother Manuel, as Edward and Riley are rather surprised to
learn when they visit the family castelo in northern Portugal.
Edward
also finally meets his mother Amelia, who is old and infirm, yet still strangely
vain and coquettish. She and Manuel clearly have a close relationship—perhaps to
a disturbing extent. However, he is so delighted to finally have a mother, he
ignores the glaring warning signs that alarm Riley. For instance, she wonders
why nobody ever speaks of Edward’s father?
Amelia’s
Children has
a lurid throwback Euro-horror vibe that is rather entertaining in a trashy and nostalgic
kind of way. This is definitely a hot-blooded film that winkingly implies shocking
transgressions, but keeps things mainly within traditional horror movie bounds.
The gothic trappings add a lot and the Portuguese sounds correctly translated.
Ken Jacobs rarely (but occasionally) features linear narratives in his
films. This is one of the exceptions. Technically, it is Fred Riedel’s
documentary, but it is all about Jacobs. The experimental filmmaker takes stock
of his life and career in Riedel’s Ken Jacobs: From Orchard Street to the
Museum of Modern Art, which screens this weekend at Anthology Film Archive.
Jacobs’
first film, Orchard Street, captured the comings and goings along the
Lower Eastside commercial strip. Last year, MoMA acquired his prolific film
collection. In between, he created 200-some films, including many
non-narrative, abstract short films.
Jacobs
has long been one of the best-known avant-garde filmmakers. Quite logically, he
drops the names of experimental colleagues like Jack Smith, Stan Brakhage, and
Jonas Mekas (who was particularly supportive at critical junctures of his life).
Throughout most of the film, his wife Flo is by his side, filling in gaps in
his memory. Their son Azazel is also seen helping his father render his latest
project.
In
many respects, Riedel takes a conventional approach, even though the generous
sample of images from Jacobs’ films are anything but. It is rather sweet to observe
the Jacobs’ comfortable chemistry together. However, Riedel’s doc is unlikely
to win any converts for its subject. Indeed, From Orchard is
conspicuously missing a sort of aesthetic statement from Jacobs, or any in-depth
explanation of what excites him in cinema. For those unfamiliar with
experimental filmmaking in general, it would have helped them relate better to
the film clips Riedel shows.
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was the J.K. Rowling of his era—and his Lord of
the Rings fantasy novels remain just as popular today. They are the gold
standard by which all other epic fantasies are measured. His fantastical world
was inspired by his scholarship of Old English and ancient Nordic languages and
legends, but Christianity was also subtly baked into its DNA. Yet, his entire
vision was colored by his military service during World War I. Writer Willy Duraffourg
and artist Giancarlo Caracuzzo chronicle the beloved writer’s formative years at
Oxford and in the trenches along the frontline in the graphic novel Tolkien:
Lighting Up the Darkness, which goes on-sale today.
Due
to his father’s early demise and his mother’s conversion to Roman Catholicism
(which neither side of his family much approved of), Tolkien's childhood was
quite difficult. Her own premature death left Tolkien and his brother Hilary in
the care of Father Francis Xavier Morgan, who secured his studies in Oxford,
where Tolkien really came into his own.
Duraffourg
devotes a fair amount of time to the “T.C.B.S.,” or “Tea Club and Barrovian Society,”
an informal debating club, poetry circle, and secret society that somewhat prefigured
“The Inklings,” which is not mentioned at all, even though it included C.S.
Lewis and Charles Williams. Aside from a brief epilogue, Lighting Up the
Darkness focuses exclusively on Tolkien-pre-fame years, culminating with
the initial publication of The Hobbit. Yet, the most significant
passages cover the horrors and tragedies of WWI.
There
are several cool splash pages that represent the fantastical visions of Tolkien’s
imagination and the ancient lore he studied. However, most of the panels have a
very nostalgic vibe that pleasantly evokes memories of vintage “illustrated-classic”
comics that not inappropriate for the subject matter.
There is a relatively new trope in revisionist Westerns, in which a grizzled gunslinger
blows into a town founded by freedmen that exudes contemporary values of
tolerance and diversity. Of course, he comes to respect their ways, even though
he must revert to his bad old habits to defend their dreams. You definitely
find this template in the Django series, the Refuge graphic novel,
and now again in this film. At least the hard-bitten “Chief” will do his best
to keep his shootouts out-of-town in Mario Van Peebles’ Outlaw Posse,
which opens in select theaters this Friday.
Shortly
after the Civil War, Chief and Angel hijacked a shipment of gold intended to
pay reparations to former slaves. They had the usual falling out, resulting in
Angel losing both his share of the gold and one hand. Shrewdly, Chief stashed
the loot on reservation land, where most white outlaws fear to tread. However,
Angel remains determined to re-appropriate the gold and sever one of Chief’s
mitts in retribution. For leverage, he abducts Malindy, the wife of Chief’s
estranged son, Decker.
To
save her, Decker must ingratiate himself into Chief’s gang, now consisting of the
fatherly Carson, the young Southpaw (both of whom are white), the knife-wielding
femme fatale Queeny, and the minstrel-performer, Spooky. Chief is due to
reclaim the gold at the time he and the actual tribal chief agreed upon, but to
get there, they must travel through the freedmen’s community led by his former
riding mate, Horatio, who isn’t as dead as Chief had heard (that is a common
phenomenon in Outlaw Posse).
Weirdly,
one of the most entertaining things about Outlaw Posse is the wealth of
colorful character actor cameos, like Neal McDonough and the truly great M. Emmet
Walsh, who appear in the prologue (which could stand alone as separate short)
and then only reappear briefly in a dream sequence. Regardless, they are both
perfectly cast. There is also Edward James Olmos popping up as a general store proprietor
and Joseph Culp (Corman’s Dr. Doom) as a crooked sheriff. Plus, Cedric the
Entertainer plays it relatively straight as newly enlightened Horatio.
Outlaw
Posse does
not appear to be linked to Van Peebles’ Posse from 1993, but he clearly
remembered his way around horses and six-shooters. Frankly, there is no “posse”
in Outlaw Posse, so the title seems deliberately misleading. Regardless,
as Chief, he is definitely cool, in a steely, world weary kind of way. He can still
carry a movie.
The fate of the Coyote vs. Acme looks increasingly uncertain but you
can probably get a similar viewing experience from this eccentric work of cinematic
slapstick from Wisconsin. However, Jean Kayak, the much-abused trapper, has
more luck against his tormentors than Wile E. Coyote ever did with the
Roadrunner. There is plenty of goofy, meat-headed humor, but the misadventures
take a surreal turn in director-editor-co-screenwriter Mike Cheslik’s Hundreds
of Beavers, which screens this Wednesday and Friday in New York, as part of
its special national roadshow.
Cheslik
and his co-writer, producer, and star Ryland Brickson Cole Tews, are the same
creative team responsible for the weird and wacky Lake Michigan Monster,
so if you saw that film, be forewarned, or totally psyched. This time around,
they take their eccentric vision even further, yet somehow, it works better.
Kayak
was once a hard cider brewer, but his business was ruined by hungry beavers.
Frankly, he was too hammered to notice at the time. Nevertheless, he now must
live off the land to survive, so that means trapping. At first, the rabbits and
beavers (all of whom are played by “grown-up adults” wearing furry animal
costumes) run circles around poor Kayak, until the “Master Fur Trapper” takes
him under his wing. Eventually, Kayak will ask to marry the Furrier daughter of
the trading post Merchant, but he demands delivery of “hundreds of beavers”
before he will consent. Naturally, that means war.
It
takes a while to get acclimated to the off-kilter style of Beavers. It
should also be noted that the gags get funnier as the film progresses. It is
not for everyone’s tastes, but viewers should at least give it a solid twenty
minutes before passing judgment, because Cheslik and Tews have a lot of clever
stuff coming down the pike. In fact, it is often ridiculous in smart and
inventive ways.
The kind of antisemitic “blood libel” slander you can currently find on tiktok and social
media comes straight out of the 13th Century, so why should we be
surprised by modern day accusations of witchcraft? Such rumors dogged Hanna’s
missing-and-presumed-dead mother when she lived in this rustic community in
northern Germany, so they predictably fall on her too when she returns for a
hot, uncomfortable summer in Esther Bialas’s Witchcraft (a.k.a. Hanna’s
Homecoming), which premieres tomorrow on Eurochannel.
Hanna’s
dad has a serious case of denial. He seems to think nothing will happen if
Hanna keeps her head down, spending all her time working for the family’s farm
and butcher shop. Yet, even the family employees start bullying her as soon as
she arrives, especially the brutish Gunnar. It only gets worse when several of
her tormentors (or their pets) experience painful misadventures. She only makes
one friend, the mysterious Eva, who is also an outsider visiting family.
However, she exerts a questionable influence over Hanna.
If
you cannot figure out Eva’s deal after five minutes, you probably have not seen
very many genre movies. Nevertheless, Bialas does a decent job maintaining the
is-it-supernatural-or-is-it-Scooby-Doo-villainy ambiguity. She creates a creepy
atmosphere, especially through the use of the Blair Witch-y sigils that
adorn the forest and out-buildings. Nevertheless, there is a simplicity to Lena
Krumkamp’s screenplay that betrays Witchcraft’s made-for-German-TV
origins.
For years, the setting of James White’s Sector General novels was
science fiction’s classic space hospital. It probably still should be. His
long-standing series was known for its pacifism and tolerant depictions of
alien species, yet compared to sex and identity politics that dominate recent “trendy”
sf writing, White’s books probably seem rather old-fashioned to many editors
(but not necessarily to readers). This space hospital clearly reflects current
trends. Nevertheless, viewers can easily see how White’s concept might have
been cannibalized in creator Cirocco Dunlap’s animated series The Second
Best Hospital in the Galaxy, which premieres today on Prime Video.
Friends
since med school, Dr. Klak and Dr. Sleech (try not to call her “Screech,” that’s
another show) are hot-shot surgeons at a space hospital that takes all
varieties of aliens, no matter how weird. Dr. Klak suffers from debilitating
anxiety that her own mother fuels to generate fodder for her pop psychology
books. Sleech is recklessly confident, both professionally and in her promiscuous
hook-ups, but they are platonically devoted to each other, when they are not arguing
like grumpy old men.
In
episode one, Klak and Sleech discover a parasitic brain worm that eats anxiety.
Unfortunately for Klak, if the worm grows too large, it can burst the host’s
skull. Nevertheless, it seems like such a promising avenue of research, they
keep it in containment, violating all kinds of laws and protocols. Their experiments
will continue throughout the first eight-episode season, while they also
navigate dysfunctional romantic relationships.
Klak
still carries a torch for the spider-like Dr. Azel, who is chief of surgeon at
the number one hospital in the galaxy, thanks its highly compromising corporate
sponsorship. Meanwhile, despite her aversion to commitment, Sleech can never
quite disentangle herself from Dr. Plowp, a bird-like empath, who is feeling especially
needy, because of his species’ late-adult puberty.
There
is a lot of sexual content and slapstick fluid splattering, but it is not as
exhaustingly and self-indulgently edgy as the aggressively abrasive Hazbin Hotel. Frankly, most of the sex scenes in Second Best are visual gags
built around bizarre alien anatomy. Like most successful sitcoms, just about
all of the characters are unlikable and annoying, but that is what Dunlap and
the writers derive humor from. We can laugh at all of Sleech’s humiliations,
because she has them coming and we groan at Klak’s Charlie Brown self-sabotaging,
because she just cannot help herself.
However,
relentlessly sarcastic Nurse Tup gets the most laughs, by far, thanks equally
to her mordantly observant dialogue and Natasha Lyonne’s sly voice-over
performance. Kieran Culkin also outdoes the Crane Brothers expressing Plowp’s
neuroses. However, the voices of Keke Palmer and Stephanie Hsu are not
particularly memorable as Klak and Sleech.
Today the Axis of Authoritarians clearly includes Xi and Putin, but in the
early 1970s, the Soviet Union and China had rather standoffish relations.
(Actually, defector Anatoliy Golitsyn claimed that was just an act, but he was “controversial.”)
Either way, the clueless Rafael’s outpost on the Soviet-Chinese border was a
real hardship post, especially when a trio of Chinese Kung Fu bandits attack.
He will be the sole survivor, because “God has other plans for him.” Those
plans are weird and chaotic in Rainer Sarnet’s Kung Fu-Russian Orthodox mash-up
The Invisible Fight, which opens tomorrow in New York.
Except
for the anachronistic crosses, the trio that attacks Rafael’s base look like they
could have walked out of a Shaw Brothers movie—and they fight like it too. The
opening over-the-top martial arts sequence sets the tone for the rest of the
film. They kill everyone, except Rafael, whom they deliberately spare, even
leaving a pair of nunchaku behind for him. As a result, he dives into Kung Fu
when he returns home, often to sounds of his favorite death metal.
Somehow,
Rafael is drawn to a sort of Shaolin-style Russian Orthodox monastery, where he
is taken in as a novice (despite his obvious idiocy) when his prayers elicit
tears of honey from the sacred Virgin Mary icon. The order’s spiritual leader,
Nafanail, sees something in the moron that is lost on the other Brothers,
especially his presumed protégé, Irinei, who has the day-to-day responsibility
of training Rafael. With this set-up, Sarnet unleashes one crazy encounter
after another, enlisting demon temptresses and arrogant KGB agents as potential
foes.
Frankly,
Invisible Fight can be a little exhausting. The nearly two-hour running
time is a bit much for a wild and larky movie like this. However, it truly
sports some of the most inventive and comedic fight choreography since Stephen
Chow’s early 2000’s peak.
As
the wacky mayhem in Invisible Fight escalates, its depiction of the
Orthodox Brothers becomes increasingly “unorthodox,” almost to a disrespectful
extent. (Of course, given the current Church’s collusion with Putin and the
past allegations of high-level KGB collaboration, reputedly including Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow, many Westerner viewers might not be inclined to object too strenuously.)
Yet, eventually, the film delivers a surprisingly heartfelt expression of
faith. If only the real-life Patriarch were as humble and true as these
gravity-defying monks.
Will Vinton did some of his most memorable claymation for the California Rasin
TV spots. Nevertheless, Ella Blake scorns commercial work with the disdain of a
Millennial who has never finished a project of her own, which indeed she is.
Instead, she works as the thankless hands of her ailing mother, a legendary
model-animator hoping to finish what will must likely be her final film. When
Blake finally discovers some inspiration of her own, it comes from a very dark
place in Robert Morgan’s Stopmotion, which opens tomorrow in theaters.
Blake’s
mother Suzanne is a considered one of the greats, whereas most of the animators
she went to school with just know her as Tom’s awkward girlfriend. He isn’t
even a filmmaker, but his sister is moving up the ladder of a commercial animation
studio. Suzanne is desperate to finish her tragic film about a cyclops facing
mortality, so she is not very considerate when it comes to her daughter’s
feelings.
When
the inevitable happens, Blake initially intends to finish her mother’s film. To
avoid the painful memories, Tom sets her up in an apartment in a building his
company manages (remember, Blake feels resentful over her lack of support). She
soon starts doing her own thing, but not very successfully, until a creepy
little girl invites herself in and offers unsolicited suggestions that Blake
feels compelled to follow. Soon, she creates a new character out of roadkill,
named the Ash Man. Rather disturbingly, whenever Blake animates a scene of the
Ash Man menacing his victim, she experiences it herself in trippy animated hallucinations.
Morgan
had an entirely animated segment in The ABC’s of Death 2 that was
technically impressive, “but punishingly grotesque.” The human element of his
hybrid canvas helps him tell a much fuller story. Stopmotion shares a
kinship with Berberian Sound Studio, but unlike the disappointing Censor,
it does not simply rip-off the premise, placing in a slightly different
context. Instead, Morgan’s use of stop-motion animation as both a theme and a
medium adds further layers of metaphorical significance as well as strange
physical textures.
The sequences on the Internatioonal Space Station look great, but there are still too many cracks in the internal logic of Apple TV+'s CONSTELLATION. Thanks to a good cast and few inventively staged scenes, it is still better than the I.S.S. movie. EPOCH TIMES exclusive review up here.
It is not often that political documentaries intersect with culinary docs. Unfortunately
for Ukraine, that is the case with this film. You can blame Putin because it is
entirely his fault. This Ukrainian restaurant is located in the East Village,
but its heart is definitely with Ukraine as it fights for its survival. Director-editor-producer
Michael Fiore shines a spotlight on the restaurant and the family that still
operates it, in Veselka: The Rainbow on the Corner at the Center of the
World, which opens this Friday in New York.
Originally,
Volodymyr Darmochwal founded Veselka (Ukrainian for “rainbow”) as a candy
store, when the Second Avenue area below 14th Street was considered “Little
Ukraine.” His son-in-law Tom Birchard was not Ukrainian, but he started working
at Veselka after college and somehow, he never left. Under his watch, it
evolved into a diner and then expanded into a landmark restaurant. His son
Jason (obviously half-Ukrainian) now runs Veselka and its related outreach
efforts, but his father is never that far from the house floor.
Fiore
provides a solid history of the restaurant, explaining how New York City’s
financial collapse almost ruined Veselka too. Nevertheless, it survived,
becoming a community institution that customers rallied around during freezing
cold era of outdoor pandemic dining. Yet, quite appropriately, Fiore devotes
the greatest screentime to Veselka’s role as a center of Ukrainian advocacy and
fundraising, following Putin’s brutal invasion.
In
fact, Veselka is surprisingly revealing in the way it documents the change
of attitude in the restaurant’s employees. At first, few of Veselka staff
beyond the Birchards are willing to sit for interviews, but as Putin’s atrocities
escalate, they feel compelled to tell their families’ stories on-camera. In
fact, there are a lot of poignant moments in Veselka, because the drama
is real and the potential for tragedy back home is a constant threat they must
live with. Fiore really brings that reality home, while avoiding any sense of
exploitation or manufactured melodrama.
It is tough being a trucker in America, because you must deal
with raising oil prices, spare parts inflation, and nuisance law suits. At
least they usually do not have to contend with a brutal human trafficking gang,
like Hung. His daughter was a victim of the creepy criminals, so he is out to
deliver some street justice in Luong Dinh Dung’s 578 Magnum, Vietnam’s
official internation Oscar submission, which releases this Friday on VOD.
Hung
was once a member of Vietnam’s Special Forces, so the boss, Mr. Khang, admits
in hindsight, his predatory son Thai should have avoided Hung’s young daughter,
An. Still, as far he is concerned, what’s done is done. Frankly, it was
probably a miracle one of his henchmen released the gravely ailing girl, out of
concern for her health. She recovers physically, but the trauma continues to
torment her.
Hung
will pass along the pain to Khang’s gang, foiling their next abduction. Soon,
Khang has small armies of thugs out looking for Hung. The angry father is not a
superman. He takes a number of severe beatings, but he is incredibly hard to
kill.
For
those who want to see some massive martial arts beatdowns, this film is for
you. If you have no patience for boring transitions or establishing shots, you
are sure to appreciate Dung’s approach, because he often just jumps into fight
scenes, without even a “how do you do?” It is probably just as well. 578 Magnum
cuts directly to the chase, delivering exactly what it promises. Oscar experts
might consider it a poor fit for Academy voters’ taste, but 578 Magnum secured
distribution from the well-regarded Film Movement, so maybe the added attention
paid dividends.
Marcus Miller is probably the top electric bassist currently performing in
jazz, funk, or soul. His closest competition would likely be Stanley Clarke, who
performed with Miller in a bass trio (rounded out with Victor Wooten). Regardless,
Miller has recorded (and often produced) some of the most popular jazz of his
era, including some of the best regarded late-period Miles Davis. The bassist takes
stock, while he keeps moving forward in Patrick Savey’s documentary Marcus,
which premieres Thursday on OVID.tv.
Late
in Marcus, Miller describes his music as “funk on the bottom and jazz on
top.” That is rather apt. Although he has played with “smooth” musicians like
David Sanborn and Kirk Whalum (who duly appear in Marcus), he has also
performed and recorded with legends like Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter (who
are also celebrated alumni of Miles Davis’s bands). They two discuss Miller and
Davis at length throughout Savey’s film. Yet, the first musician we see and
hear in Marcus happens to be Ahmad Jamal, which is saying something.
Frankly,
the music Davis recorded on Warner Brothers, after he left Columbia, is a bit
hit-or-miss, but most critics and fans have a lot of respect for Tutu,
which Miller composed and largely structured in the studio in much the same way
Two Macero did with Bitches Brew. Frankly, just hearing Miller discuss
this process will be enough to satisfy most jazz fans. Then, listening to him
revisit this music live, for the first time, with Christian Scott on trumpet,
is quite a bonus.
Arguably,
Miller has the chops and the depth to make fusion respectable for old school
jazz fans, while his funk sensibility remains accessible to mainstream pop
audiences. Nobody really says that outright in Marcus, but the gist of
it comes through loud and clear.
In Thailand, you might just find a monastery next to a sex club. That will
be handy for Curtie Church, a former “Agency” assassin who has gone freelance.
He basically lives like a monk and he has taken on one of Thailand’s nastiest
human trafficking gangs as his latest target. It starts out as a job, but it quickly
turns personal in Prachya Pinkaew’s Elephant White, which airs on Bounce
TV.
A
grieving father, whose daughter was abducted and ultimately killed by the Chang
Cao gang has hired Church to kill some of the gang and frame their rival Jong
Ang gang, in retribution. Church might not fully believe him, but the more he
learns about both gangs, the more intent he is on destroying them. He also finds
an unexpected source of intel when Mae follows him back to the monastery belltower,
where he has been hiding out.
It
turns out Mae was once one the women held in slavery by the Chang Cao. After somehow
escaping their brothels, she has led a devout, Zen-like life, which gives her
an affinity for Church’s hosts. Of course, she does not approve of his guns-blazing
approach to problem-solving. Fortunately, Church also knows “Jimmy the Brit,”
an old Agency colleagues who is now making a killing as an arms dealer. Jimmy
is a sleazy horndog, but when push comes to shove, the crimes of the Chang Caos
and Jong Angs do not sit well with him either (and Church will push and shove
him plenty).
Somehow,
Elephant White initially flew under the radar with fans, even though it
was helmed by Pinkaew, the action auteur who helmed the first Ong Bak and
The Protector films. It also features Kevin Bacon shamelessly chewing
the scenery and doing the weirdest Scott Adkins accent. Yet, it all works
perfectly, especially when he is paired up with the strong, silent, and physically
imposing Djimon Housou as Hunter.
We constantly hear stories about some fading rocker demanding a Republican
candidate stop using their music at rallies. We don’t they just play James
Brown? He would certainly get everybody up on their feet and it would be hard
for his heirs to object, considering how much heat he took for endorsing
Richard Nixon. In fact, he still comes in for kneejerk criticism in the four-part
James Brown: Say it Loud, which airs Monday and Tuesday on A&E.
Origins
do not come much humbler than that of James Brown. Initially, it looked like he
was stillborn, but there was still a little life left in him. He grew up amid
grinding poverty in the segregated South Carolina, where he was sentenced to prison
at the age of sixteen. After his release, he joined Bobby Byrd’s Famous Flames,
where talent for vocals, dancing, and overall showmanship shined.
More
than anyone else, James Brown developed funk out soul. He was arguably the most
famous entertainer in the world, who became a mogul much in the same way Jay-Z
is today. Indeed, Brown was explicitly a vocal advocate of “Black Capitalism,”
which drew him to Richard Nixon. One talking head after another talks about
Brown’s endorsement like it was an unforgivable sin (Nixon won with over 60% of
the vote in 1972, so Brown was hardly the only one supporting him).
Yet,
Brown’s message of economic self-reliance made the Godfather of Soul a natural
conservative. Seriously, why aren’t GOP candidates grooving to Fred Wesley and
the J.B.’s “I’m Payin’ Taxes, What Am I Buyin,’” which Brown produced on his
own record label?” (It’s also a great name for a band, isn’t it?)
Regardless,
director-co-writer Deborah Riley Draper and her interview subjects do a nice
job thoroughly chronicling Brown’s music as well as the messy drama of his life
(which nobody sugar-coats, including the domestic abuse and second prison stretch).
Notable on-camera commentators include jazz musicians Christian McBride and Tia
Fuller, as well as former J.B.’s Bootsy Collis and Hollie Farris. Plus, there
is also Sir Mick Jagger, who also executive produced (after previously
producing Get On Up and Mr. Dynamite).
Charles M. Schulz’s introduction of the black character Franklin in his beloved Peanuts
comic strip eleven days after the assassination of Martin Luther King is
widely considered an important statement on behalf of racial integration. Yet,
Franklin was even more culturally significant, because he was the son of a
Vietnam veteran (at least as I see it, as a fellow son of a Vietnam vet
myself). Franklin’s arrival is adapted (and somewhat updated) in the latest Peanuts
special, Snoopy Presents: Welcome Home, Franklin, which premieres
today on Apple TV+.
To
reflect current times, Franklin’s dad is still a vet, but the details of his
service are kept vague. Of course, like most military brats, he has had to move
constantly to each new duty station. This time, they have relocated to wherever
Charlie Brown lives. Always a little shy, Franklin has a particularly hard time
fitting in, because he is thrown by Lucy’s grouchiness and Linus’s weird “Great
Pumpkin” babble. And then there’s
Pigpen.
The
only one who talks to him is the round-headed kid, Charlie Brown. Both could
use a friend, so they enter the local soapbox derby together, but like in Race
for Your Life, Charlie Brown, the dangerous competition puts them under
stress, before bringing them back together.
Although
Franklin never had a surname in the comic strip, Schulz dubbed him Franklin
Armstrong in one of the specials, as a tribute to cartoonist Robb Armstrong,
who co-wrote this special. In most respects, it stays faithful to Franklin’s
debut in the strip. However, it follows a trend in some of the new Apple Peanuts
specials that moderates Charlie Brown’s born loser blockheadedness. Poor
Charlie Brown just isn’t supposed to kick the football—ever.
There is a tradition of “big dumb objects” in science fiction, best
represented by the classic one in 2001: A Space Odyssey. This time
around, they are technically little dumb objects, but they hold great mystery
nonetheless. Of course, in this kind of sf, the objects usually turn out to be
anything but dumb. In fact, the “bricks” a disgraced journalist investigates seem
to be decidedly dangerous in Matt Vesely’s Monolith, which releases
today in theater and VOD.
She
is credited simply as “The Interviewer,” but most viewers will refer to her as the
Podcaster. She was a journalist, but she was forced to resign in disgrace after
accusing a prominent businessman of crimes without adequate evidence. Of course,
the film thinks this makes her the victim, because slander should be fine, as
long as your heart is in the right place, or something like that. After getting
doxed, she retreated to her parents’ incredible modernistic luxury home, where she
half-heartedly looks for stories to cover for a George Noory-ish podcast, the
only media outlet that would still hire her. Then an anonymous email grabs her attention.
Based
on the tip, she calls a complete stranger to ask about a mysterious brick that
just turned up in the woman’s possession. Apparently, the former domestic’s employer
sold it against her will to Klaus, an eccentric German art dealer, who has a
collection of such objects. He discovered his own brick, which he believed was
the source of his strange and unnerving hallucinations. His experiences were
not unique. In fact, many people who encountered bricks suffered severe
ill-health shortly thereafter, leading many to assume a causal linkage.
Monolith
skillfully
employs the isolated podcasting set-up to create claustrophobic tension in much
the same way First Time Caller did, but Vesely’s film is more effective
due to the superior sound design. As the Interviewer digs into the mystery, it
evolves in many intriguing directions. It shares a possible plot twist with
Bruce McDonald’s amazing Pontypool, which was also similarly constructed
around an isolated radio studio, but admittedly, it has been a while since that
film released.
Arguably,
the way the story starts taking greater personal significance for the
Interviewer is quite dramatic. However, it eventually goes in direction very
much like Luke Sommer’s Cellphone, but the recent horror film better executes
its macabre climax.
It is not just fentanyl. China also exports plenty of meth and heroin
through CCP-connected triad-controlled companies, like the one run by real-life "alleged" drug lord Tse Chi
Lop. His drug-smuggling operation built up a $17 billion dollar empire, but his
operatives had a devil of a time launching a small boat into the water. Their
misadventures become black comedy gold in creator-director David White’s
six-part Far North, which premieres today on Sundance Now.
New
Zealanders consider the small coastal village of Ahipara to be quite northern,
but for the rest of us, it is pretty darn south [pacific]. We would still find
it quiet, even “sleepy,” which is why Tse’s outfit chose it for their drop. The
four-woman crew overseen (remotely, of course) by his ruthless lieutenant Cai
is supposed to sail just to the edge of NZ territorial waters and then bring a
massive meth shipment ashore, where their Flame’s gang will take possession of
the goods.
Unfortunately,
the motor conks out on Cai’s dingy and when they try to cannibalize a part from
their crummy trawler they end up with both vessels incapacitated. Jin, their
captain reluctantly requests a rescue from Cai, knowing it will further indebt
her to the gangster. Since Tse is getting antsy, Cai flies to New Zealand to
handle the problem himself, but his two top lieutenants are turned away by
immigration. He will have to mount the rescue himself, with only the help of
his timid translator, Sam, and five of Flame’s most clueless meatheads.
None
of them knows the first thing about boats, which they prove when they buy a
barely sea-worthy rust-bucket. They also need someone with a tractor to launch
it, so they are referred to Ed. At first, he and his wife Heather assume they
are just a bunch of dumb city folk. Frankly, they kind of like the young kids,
so they find it strange they are traveling with the bossy Mandarin-speaking
Cai, who keeps beaching their boat. As the quick job turns into multi-day
comedy of errors, the couple starts to suspect their customers are up to
something possibly smuggling related.
There
is a lot of absurdist black humor in Far North, but apparently the slapstick
futility on the beach is largely based on fact (even some of the dialogue is
reportedly taken verbatim form court transcripts). Flame’s lunkheads get a lot
of laughs, especially Maaka Pohatu as Stevie, Albert Mateni as Gravel, and
Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi as Tall Guy. You really have to shake your head
at their stupidity, but it is funny to witness.
However,
as a counterpoint, the situation of the smuggling trawler grows increasingly dire
as Jin’s crew runs short of food and water. Frankly, these scenes vividly illustrate
the viciousness of China’s organized illicit drug trade. It is not just the users
that suffer but also the people like Jin, who is essentially indentured to Tse’s
company.
Temura
Morrison and Robyn Malcolm are the glue that holds the madness together as the
down-to-earth Ed and Heather. They are likably sarcastic, believably rumpled,
and immediately easy to identify with. They also have a pleasant, lowkey
chemistry together, which is perhaps a fortuitous byproduct of the thesps’ past
work together.
The British military has its own Royal Military Police for each brand of
service, who in turn all have a Special Investigation Branch. Yet, for some
reason, they keep outsourcing their murder investigations to the Police Service
of Scotland. DCI Amy Silva’s first military-related assignment almost made
sense, because the murder onboard a nuclear sub was the sort of “locked room”
mystery that needed a specialized homicide detective. However, the terrorist
attack that she investigates this time around must surely fall within the
jurisdiction of the national investigative and intelligence services.
Nevertheless, Silva ships out to a fictional marginally-western-inclined Middle
East regime to sleuth out the deadly hijacking of military drones in season two
of creator Tom Edge’s Vigil, which premieres tomorrow on Peacock.
Wudyan
has made it clear to the Brits, if they do not sell advanced arms to the
regime, they will turn towards Russia and China. Air Vice Marshal Marcus
Grainger is happy to oblige. He organized a demo of the RAF’s latest R-PAS
drones, but in an ugly twist, one of the drones goes rogue, fatally shooting seven
enlisted soldiers.
Initially,
the drone operator based in Scotland is blamed, but Silva (doing work better
suited to MI5 or the NCA) determines the guilty operator was based in Wudyan,
based on the signal amplitude. Suspicion then falls on the former Squadron
Leader, until he too is murdered. Silva hates to leave behind her life and
police partner DI Kirsten Longacre, especially during her advanced stage of
pregnancy, but off to Wudyan she goes. It does seem rather questionable to keep
a DCI assigned to a DI she is romantically involved and having a baby with, but
this is Scotland.
Season one has plenty of credibility issues too, but the claustrophobic submarine greatly
helped to power through them. Season two however, is just a trainwreck when it
comes to believability. It is also openly hostile to the British military.
Apparently, Edge and co-scripter George Aza-Selinger looked around the world,
saw Assad razing Aleppo to the ground, Putin carpet-bombing Mariupol, Xi
committing genocide in Xinjiang, and Iran executing a generation of young women
for the crime of believing they have rights, only to conclude the greatest
threat to global stability is overly hawkish RAF officers.
If
you honestly believe that too, maybe you will enjoy season, because it is
painfully obvious right from the start the ostensive terrorists are actually
the good guys and the not-so secret bad guys are engineering a false flag
operation from within the RAF. Anyone who argues that is a “spoiler” must be a
complete idiot with zero intuition.
Collaboration yeilds short-term benefits, but holds long-term consequences, even for fashionistas, in Apple TV+'s stylish period drama THE NEW LOOK, which follows Christian Dior's rise and Coco Chanel's post-war fall from grace. EPOCH TIMES exclusive review up here.
Wynne has a creepier ringtone than the ones in either the Japanese One
Missed Call or the American remake. That rather makes sense, since she will be appearing in a cellular/wireless-themed horror movie. She definitely gets
tired of hearing that evil ringing in Luke Sommer’s Cellphone, which releases
today on VOD.
Wynne
is traumatized by her husband’s untimely death. She blames herself, because she
was behind the wheel. Since then, driving has been out of the question. To hide
from the world, she accepted a gig house-sitting Bob’s old country home. He
sure seems to burn through house-sitters, judging from the flashbacks.
Much
to her alarm, she sees these grisly images too, on the screen of her
smartphone. The sinister device seems to have an insistent mind of own. In
fact, it is really starting to freak her out. On top of all that, Wynne must also
deal with constant unannounced drop-in visits from Chris, an eccentric pseudo-handyman,
who clearly is a little screwy. His sudden appearances somewhat unnerve her,
but they also provide relief from her phone’s menacing behavior.
Somehow
Cellphone just doesn’t quite work, but it features two very effective
performances. Technically, Malcolm McDowell literally phones in his work as Bob,
who is only heard as voice on the phone and occasionally seen via FaceTime.
Nevertheless, there something aptly off about his ostensibly jocular tone.
Likewise,
Justin Malik Jackson is all kinds of crazy as Chris, but in ways that are hard
to pin down. The way he plays the character is a lot to take in, but not so
much that it overwhelms the film. Consequently, both Jackson and McDowell
reliably liven-up Cellphone whenever they are on-screen.
Nina Simone recorded classic love songs, like “My Baby Just Cares for Me” and
“I Loves You, Porgy,” as well as powerful protest music, such as “Strange Fruit”
and “Mississippi Goddam.” That probably makes this the perfect week to publish
a graphic novel biography. That was good marketing strategy from the publisher.
The editorial approach also works. There were many facets to the great jazz
musician and vocalist, who originally intended to be a classical pianist, so
twenty different combinations of artists and colorists illustrate her
life-story in Sophie Adriansen’s graphic novel biography Nina Simone in
Comics, which goes on-sale today.
Like
many jazz greats, Simone (born Eunice Waymon) grew up in Southern poverty,
gaining her first exposure to music through the Church. She had a prodigious
gift for music, but even learning classical was initially a stretch for her
devout preacher mother. Nevertheless, their community rallied to pay for her piano
lessons and advanced studies.
In
fact, her piano teacher, Muriel “Miz Mazy” Masisnovitch is one of the few
decent white figures Simone encountered in her childhood. Classical music was
her ambition, but racism and snobbery closed the best conservatories to her.
Instead, she found work in studios coaching vocalists, which led to bar gigs,
where she was eventually “discovered.”
Frankly,
each and every one of the artists has a sophisticated style that shows a hip
affinity for jazz. Artist-colorist Antoane aptly channels the vibe of Chuck
Stewart’s cover photography for her debut album, Jazz as Played in an
Exclusive Side Street Club in the section, “We Start Recording Tomorrow.”
Artist-colorist Mademoiselle Caroline illustrates “The Devil’s Music” in in a New
Yorker-ish illustrated style, but it still has a strikingly urbane
sensibility. In between, artist-colorist Adrien Roche provides another standout
passage in “Pivotal Figures,” which vividly evokes the mid-1950s era.
On this leap, Dr. Ben Song encounters a true rarity: a journalist who is
actually humbled by her past failings. Weirdly, instead of trying to replicate
this phenomenon, he attempts to rebuild her confidence in “The Outsider,” this
week’s episode of Quantum Leap, which premieres tomorrow on NBC.
Song
quickly learns he has leaped into the body of the new cameraman and producer
working with Connie Davis (energetically portrayed by Nadine Ellis), who was
once a hotshot New York reporter, but now she is chasing giant pumpkin stories
for a Denver affiliate. Song’s host has a hot-tip regarding a toxic pesticide
story, but the company is trying to scare him off. He figures he needs Davis to
take on the story before he can leap, but she is decidedly gun-shy.
Did
you know 50% of Denver was farmland? Apparently so, according to “The Outsider.”
Having grown up there around the time of
this leap, I would more likely believe that was true for the state of Colorado,
but, heck, when you are leaping through time, you don’t have time for those
details. You need to keep things big picture.
Song’s
leap is a decent, only-modestly-self-serving Woodward & Bernstein-style expose
in the general Lou Grant TV-tradition. It should be, considering how
often it invokes the Watergate journalists’ names. This episode does not
feature a lot time travel-specific elements, beyond the usual business of the
leap itself, but there is some serious business going on back at Quantum Leap
headquarters.
Unfortunately,
Tom Westfall is in a very uncomfortable position. Song’s
ex and on-again-holographic guide Addison Augustine just broke off their engagement. Now, he must terminate a
member of the Quantum Leap team to placate a shady tech titan. As usual, Ian
Wright will be protected, since the character is always immune from criticism,
but seriously, the computer whiz’s conduct during Westfall’s interview is stunningly
unprofessional and just plain annoying.
There are two reasons we have so many Christmas horror movies, one good and
one bad. Some filmmakers probably enjoy defiling a Christian holiday, but for
others, it is a convenient way to assemble a group of characters and keep them confined
inside, sheltering from the cold. Weirdly, nobody seems to have plans for the
holiday in this film, not even a pair of sibling Christian missionaries. Of
course, they want in from the cold, but what they find is even worse in Damien
LeVeck’s A Creature was Stirring, which releases Tuesday on DVD and BluRay.
It
is immediate clear to viewers Faith Larsen has a very difficult relationship
with her daughter Charm, over and beyond having named her “Charm.” Initially,
we assume she has a particularly nasty case of Munchausen-by-proxy, but there
soon seems to be good reason to worry if Charm’s temperature falls outside a
102-104-ish range.
Considering
Creature has been promoted as a monster movie (see title) and there is a
spiky thing on the DVD cover, it should not be too spoilery to mention a
monster might come out. That makes it rather awkward when Liz and Kory invite
themselves in, mistakenly believing the house is empty. They quickly learn how wrong
they were when Larsen whacks Kory’s knee with a bat tricked out like the one
Jeffrey Dean Morgan wields on The Walking Dead.
It
seems strange two missionaries would not be attending services on Christmas
night and yet here they are, apologizing profusely and pleading relief from the
cold, as well as medical treatment for Kory. Being a nurse, it is hard for
Larsen to refuse. Her medical training also helped her analyze Charm’s weird
condition. Unfortunately, Liz will misdiagnosis the situation, suspecting a
sinister case of abuse, whereas Kory starts to get the monstrous nature of the
danger they face.
This
could very well be the least Christmasy Christmas horror movie ever. Maybe the
Larsens would not have plans to observe, but surely the missionaries would.
Frankly, the title feels more like a marketing gimmick that borders on a
bait-and-switch.
LeVeck
creates a tensely claustrophobic vibe, but Shannon Wells’ screenplay is too
obviously trying to fool the audience. The final twist is more likely to
generate groans than gasps—and will definitely leave you questioning the
investment of your time in this movie.
