Wisdom of Happiness, Starring the 14th Dalai Lama

He promoted "mindfulness" before it was cool. He still advocates nonviolence even though it is currently out of favor, with violence and terrorism regularly celebrated on the streets of New York and London (especially the anti-Semitic variety). In some ways, the Tibetan Buddhism espoused by His Holiness, the 14^th Dalai Lama has already had tremendous influence on the Western world, since his exile in 1959. Yet, in other ways, we need his teachings now more than ever. Fortunately, the Dalai Lama obliges, delivering essentially a summation of his teachings that he offers for both longtime followers and casual newcomers in Barbara Miller & Philip Delaquis’s documentary, Wisdom of Happiness, executive produced by Richard Gere, which is now playing in New York.

Although His Holiness provides a brief recap of his flight from Tibet, stressing how his willingness to come to an understanding with the CCP was undermined by Mao’s betrayal, he essentially seeks to lay a practical philosophical groundwork for personal happiness. He starts with the premise that everyone desires happiness and peace, which, arguably might only be half true in these times, while admitting that this will be an increasingly difficult goal in the 21^st Century (which is hard to deny).

Much of what the Dalai Lama recommends will dovetail nicely with the mindfulness movement/industry, such as his practice of conscious meditation. Yet, ironically, many woke extremists have turned against him, due to manufactured outrages. Nevertheless, for real “progressives,” His Holiness’s teaching should hold great appeal. Throughout the film, he champions scientific inquiry, suggesting that it is religious dogma that should give way when the two conflict. (Indeed, Dawn Gifford Engle documented his scientific curiosity at length in The Dalai Lama: Scientist).

Frankly, he serves up progressive catnip when His Holiness argues for greater female representation among national leaders, because he has observed women have an inherently more peaceful nature. Yet, the Dalai Lama is perhaps at his most progressive when he discusses the need for wiser environmental stewardship.

Truth & Treason, in The Epoch Times

TRUTH & TREASON, from Angel Studios, shines a light on he remarkable true story of Mormon Helmuth Hubener, the youngest prisoner of conscience executed by the National Socialists. It is a thoughtful period production that avoids bias, favoritism, and cheap sentimentality. EPOCH TIMES review up here.

Köln 75: The Making of the Hit ECM Live Album

ECM Records is known as an incredibly artist-friendly label. The Köln Concert is a major reason why they can afford to be so supportive. Keith Jarrett was well known for his previous releases and his sideman recordings with Miles Davis, but few A&R execs would have recognized the double live album’s commercial potential. Yet, it became the best-selling solo jazz album of all time and a perennial catalog seller for ECM. There were no standards, no arrangements, no sidemen, and no pre-planning. It was just Jarrett freely improvising on the piano. That might sound simple, but the events leading up to the solo concert are quite chaotic in director-screenwriter Ido Fluk’s mostly fact-based Köln 75, which opens today in New York.

Initially, Fluk’s film largely follows Vera Brandes, a German teenager who becomes an unlikely jazz promoter. Frankly, she and her friend Isa seem like rather shallow leftwing activists, but at least they like jazz. However, British tenor saxophonist Ronnie Scott finds Brandes rather charming. However, instead of anything untoward, the old gent propositions her to book a German tour for him, because he couldn’t imagine anyone “saying no” to her. Of course, old Ronnie’s instincts prove as sharp as ever.

Soon, Brandes is secretly running a considerable jazz promotion business, at the inevitable expense of her high school studies. She even hires her deadbeat older brother, to keep him from tattling to their emotionally abusive parents. However, she maybe bites off more than she can chew when she books the Köln Opera House, at great personal out-of-pocket expense, for a solo Keith Jarrett concert.

The film really gets going when it shifts its focus to Jarrett, as he suffers through a series of European engagements with his record producer, Eicher, who is also acting as a de facto manager. John Magaro is shockingly good portraying Jarrett, capturing his cerebral intellect, eccentric prickliness, spiritual depth, and the taxing physical pain he suffered. Instead of playing jazz cliché hopscotch, he really humanizes and embodies Jarrett’s artistry and anxieties.

It is also very cool to see Eicher getting his due credit and significant screentime in the film. Alexander Scheer’s quietly sympathetic portrayal makes it easy to understand why artists who sign with Eicher stay with ECM for years or even decades. Plus, Michael Chernus really elevates the fictional (but true-in-spirit) jazz journalist Michael Watts. He also archly delivers several of Fluk’s tongue-in-cheek jazz lessons, while nicely serving as a foil to open Jarrett up for audiences.

OTHER, on Shudder

If you put dumb people in a smart house, it reverts back to being dumb again. The same is true for movies. It turns out Alice’s late estranged mom’s house was too smart for her own good. Evidently, someone or something else hiding in the shadows has a better command of the system than she or Alice in David Moreau’s OTHER (a.k.a. Other, a.k.a. O.T.H.E.R.), which premieres today on Shudder.

Despite the inconvenience, Elena felt compelled to hide her face while she was running for her life, but the mystery stalker kills her anyway. For reasons that will be revealed later, Alice wants to have her body cremated quickly, so she can be done with her once and for all. However, she is stuck at her mother’s remote smart house, because the medical examiner won’t release her mom’s body. Also, the key-fob for her rental car mysteriously disappears.

The audience can see an indistinct shape scurrying down halls and around corners, but Alice can’t seem to notice. She is too busy fighting with the alarms and environmental controls. To further confuse matters, there is also a weird live-streamer skulking around the surrounding woods, who shouts unhinged-sounding warnings to Alice that she should cover her face.

Frankly, it is hard to describe OTHER, because it is so disjointed. It plays out like a collection of high-concepts mushed together during a brainstorming session. Arguably, even the title does not make much sense up until the final five minutes.

It is a shame Moreau did not spend more time filing down the awkward excesses of his script, because the execution is often oddly effective, particularly the way he contrives to avoid showing any faces except that of his star, Olga Kurylenko. The vibe is like a drunken fusion of Italian giallos and the unconventional POV of Good Boy.

The Black Phone 2: The Grabber is Back

Finney Shaw survived the Grabber in the original Black Phone movie, which was a good thing. Since then, he has been known as the boy who killed the serial killer, which hasn’t been great. Unfortunately, he is about to learn he and the Grabber have a deeper connection than he ever knew, which is very, very bad. Even though he is dead, the Grabber still wants a piece of Shaw and Gwen, his sister with the “shine.” However, the Shaw siblings are still tenacious survivors in Scott Derrickson’s The Black Phone 2, produced by Blumhouse, which opens Friday in theaters.

Several years have passed, but Finney still gets phantom calls on out-of-service pay phones (this is the early 1980s, so there are plenty of them out there), which he ignores and Gwen still has ominous dreams. Her latest vision is that of her late mother calling from Alpine Lake, a Christian winter-sports camp in the Colorado Rockies. Basically, if you camped at Alpine Lake as a teen, you could graduate to staying at the Overlook Hotel in The Shining as an adult, because similarly bad things happened both places.

In fact, three kids were killed at the camp shortly after their mother quit working there as a counselor. It was closed for years, but ‘Mando, a former employee, bought the camp and reopened it, so he could continue looking for the victims’ missing bodies. Wanting answers about the mother they hardly knew, Gwen convinces Finney and her pseudo-boyfriend, Arnesto Arellano (the brother of Robin, whom the Grabber abducted just prior to taking Finney), to join her as trainee camp counselors. However, a not-so-freak blizzard (again, this is Colorado) traps the three teens in Alpine Lake, with the Grabber, who has become something like Freddy Kruger.

The first film was a very Blumhouse production, mostly confined to the Grabber’s sinister dungeon. Fans might have been skeptical of the sequel’s wider scope, but Derickson and co-screenwriter C. Robert Cargill successful incorporate elements of The Shining and Nightmare on Elm Street, in a manner that feels compatible with the first film’s mythos.

However, sometimes it arguably departs from King/Hill family themes, in good ways, by giving the Shaw siblings’ father redemptive moments and not demonizing the camp for its Christian origins. Plus, regardless of where it was filmed (apparently somewhere in Ontario), Black Phone 2 feels like a very Colorado-kind of film.

The teen principals, Mason Thames and Madeline McGraw returning as the Shaws and Miguel Mora, switching from the role of Robin Arrelano to his younger [living] brother Arnesto, work well together and they all show a youthful maturity you rarely see in horror movies. These are clearly kids who have seen more than their share. Demian also gives grown-up viewers an adult presence worth caring about as Mando, while Jeremy Davies has some shockingly resonant moments playing the guilt-wracked Shaw father.

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Deathwatch, in The Epoch Times

TOM CLANCY'S SPLINTER CELL: DEATHWATCH was not really written by Clancy, but it probably better reflects the perspective of his novels than the most rcent movie adaptations. It largly avoids ideology, but invites sympathy for its former Navy SEAL hero, while delivering high-energy animated action. EPOCH TIMES review up here.

Panahi’s It was Just an Accident

Their relationship was so “intimate,” Vahid could recognize him by his smell and the sound of his walking gait. He was a prison torturer and Vahid was one of his many victims. Frankly, he never saw his tormentor’s face, but when they suddenly cross paths, all Vahid’s traumatic memories come rushing back to him. However, he wants 100% confirmation before taking the final step towards vengeance in Jafar Panahi’s Cannes Palme d’Or-winning It was Just an Accident, which opens today in New York.

Driving home with his pregnant wife and young daughter, Eghbal accidentally hits a stray dog (dogs have it rough in Islamist Iran). Shortly thereafter, their car starts sputtering, but Eghbal manages to coast to Vahid’s garage, where his co-worker gives the engine a temporary patch-up job. However, Vahid remains in the shadows, because hearing the man’s voice and squeaky prosthetic leg makes his blood run cold.

Overcome with rage, Vahid follows Eghbal home and continues stalking him. Soon, he strikes, abducting his former torturer—at least Vahid is ninetysome percent sure Eghbal is the man who terrorized him night after night. He is ready to bury the regime loyalist in the desert, but he wants to be completely certain, so he visits Shiva, a photographer friend of a mutual dissident friend, who also suffered at the hands of the interrogator with the artificial limb. She remembers the feel of the leg, because he often made her touch it (yuck, in the most believably disturbing way), but she never saw his face either.

When Shiva’s client, Goli learns why Shiva is so distracted by the contents of Vahid’s van, she insists on seeing Eghbal for herself, because she was also a victim. Yet, again, she cannot ID him with absolute certainty. Without changing from her wedding gown, she and her groom, Ali, join Vahid and Shiva, in search of Hamid, a further member of their imprisoned circle. However, Hamid’s ordeal left him with anger management issues bordering on mild psychosis. He will not be a stabilizing addition to their party.

Without question, this is one of the best films of Panahi’s accomplished career. In some ways, it brings to mind Death and the Maiden, but it is much more than that. This is a deeply humanistic film with a surprisingly absurdist streak. Vahid’s ever-growing carpool would almost bring to mind It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, if the subject of their quest was not so grimly serious. Indeed, this film is shocking one moment, funny the next, and then deeply unsettling. Yet, there is never any feeling of whiplash. Under Panahi’s sure hand, viewers understand this is what it is like to live in contemporary Iran.

The tremendous range and flexibility of the cast is a major reason why the constantly shifting gears come across so smoothly for the audience. They obviously appreciate the dire stakes and the simultaneously bizarre absurdism of their characters’ situation. Accident ought to win awards for best cast, but it won’t, because that would take guts.

The Mannequin

Everybody knows the Kim Cattrall movie was an outlier. The Twilight Zone and Christopher Eggleston’s Doctor Who taught us those model dummies bear watching. You never know when they might come alive and do something weird, especially this one. Up-and-coming fashion-designer Sofia Rojas should have been more suspicious since it came with her newly refurbished loft. Extra bonuses always turn out to be costly in horror movies, including hers. That would be John Berardo’s The Mannequin, which releases today on VOD.

Years ago, sleazy glamour photographer Jack Bernard murdered wannabe pin-up model Ruth Calvert in the loft. Then he murdered several more models in decades that followed. Perhaps he is still killing from beyond the grave, using the mannequin Rojas dubs “Alice Baldwin” as his Chucky-like vessel. Sometimes, the spirits of his victims also appear to be present, but they are never helpful—quite the contrary.

Regardless, Rojas’s first night in her new loft turns out to be a rough one. Several months late, her sister Lianna moves in, hoping to pick up Sofia’s fashion mantle as well. She will have the help and the hindrance of their friends, Hazel and Nadine. Although they resent some of Lianna’s poor coping techniques, they still try support her, especially when her behavior takes a disturbing turn. Unfortunately, the time they spend with her means they are also “marked” by the force controlling the mannequin, whether they believe it or not. Super-reluctantly, Lianna seeks the help of her ghost-chasing YouTuber ex-boyfriend Peter, who launches a red alert as soon as he runs a basic internet search on the loft.

Forgive Us All

It turns out Laura Ingalls Wilder’s family had it easy. This homesteading mother must contend with viral-rage-zombies, cannibals, and over-zealous quarantine enforcers. Rather conveniently (for them), the second and third are one and the same. You can’t blame her for remaining secluded in the family cabin with her grizzled father-in-law. Unfortunately, she still blames herself for her daughter’s death, so she hopes to achieve some redemption by helping a stranger in Jordana Stott’s Forgive Us All, which releases today on UK VOD.

Rory and her late husband’s father, Otto, try to keep to themselves and maintain a low profile—for good reason. Logan and Scout are those reasons. The former is apparently the leader of a clan of cannibals who have forged an alliance with the quarantine colony managed by the latter’s colleagues. Frankly, Stott and co-screenwriters do a poor job establishing the basics of this post-apocalyptic, neo-Western world, but that is a functional hypothesis.

Regardless, Logan, Scout, and a disposable henchman are chasing Noah, because he stole a vial of their antidote to save his infected daughter. Unfortunately, he did not get away clean. Having collapsed outside the cabin, Rory shelters him for the night, despite Otto’s misgivings. Of course, the three villains soon ride up demanding they surrender Noah. They offer to ignore Rory’s quarantine violations, even though they dismiss her private property assertions. According to Logan they abolished private land ownership, so we know which side Mamdani would ride with—and once again, it is not the good guys.

Frankly, there are seeds of potential greatness in Forgive Us All, but Stott can’t do them justice. By far, her biggest sin is the sluggish pacing. Basically, this film is the Power of the Dog of zombie westerns, but only in the unflattering ways. As previously alluded to, the world-building is also decidedly sketchy.

Among Neighbors

As part of its WWII strategy, Germany tried to kill or imprison the leaders of Polish society. They didn’t just target military and political officials, but also anyone who could inspire resistance or righteousness. The Soviets did likewise, both during and after the War. That left a lot of opportunists and collaborationists in positions to take advantage. Tragically, they often did so. They even murdered Yaacov Goldstein’s parents, who had thought they could restart their lives in the village of Gniewoszow, having survived the Holocaust. It is not Goldstein who makes that accusation. Yoav Potash interviews a living witness in the documentary, Among Neighbors, which is now playing in New York.

It seems unbelievably cruel that Goldstein’s parents were murdered by their neighbors, after the National Socialists’ defeat. Yet, that is exactly what Pelagia Radecka saw. At least Goldstein had a brief reunion with his mother, after the Allied victory, but she quickly left again in search of his missing younger brother, promising to return soon. Sadly, she never did.

Radecka had not seen Goldstein since before the war started, until Potash briefly re-introduced them for the film (both passed away after the production wrapped). Consequently, her testimony was not influenced by contact with the victims’ families. She was horrified by the murderers—committed by people she personally knew quite well—and terrified for her safety. However, in her senior years, she felt compelled to finally speak out.

Among Neighbors does not exclusively concentrate on the testimony and experiences of Radecka and Goldstein (although perhaps it should have). Periodically, Potash draws back to taker a wider perspective on Poland’s contested view of the Holocaust. Admittedly, much of what the film documents should alarm the audience, as when Anita Friedman and her grown son Adam Tartakovsky explain how they visited Gniewoszow in search of their family roots, but were essentially run out of town by an anti-Semitic “welcoming committee.”

Likewise, Potash thoroughly critiques the subsequently softened Polish laws that criminalized any official association of Poland and the Polish people with the atrocities of the Holocaust. However, the film never addresses the Communist regime’s 1967/1968 “Anti-Zionist” campaign, which purged Jews from positions of authority and even forcibly deported them. Frankly, the roots of the problem run deeper than the admittedly troubling but relatively recent Law and Justice Party.

Scarlet (NYFF), in Cinema Daily US

Mamoru Hosoda's anime feature looks big and sounds big, but it is also the most inventive and original riff on HAMLET since STRANGE BREW. CINEMA DAILY US NYFF review up here.

The Last Frontier, on Apple TV+

Alaska would be a terrible state to be a fugitive in. The weather is cold, gun ownership is high, and probably one out of every ten residents has their own reality TV show. Nevertheless, that is exactly where a special prison transport plane crashes. It will be Federal Marshal Frank Remnick’s job to coordinate the massive manhunts. In addition to the FBI, he has the dubious help of a scandal-tarred CIA officer thrust upon him as well in co-creators Jon Bokenkamp & Richard D’Ovidio’s ten-episode The Last Frontier, which premieres today on Apple TV+.

For some reason, the transport was diverted to Alalska, where a mystery prisoner, later identified by the codename “Havlock” was loaded Hannibal Lecter-style. Shortly thereafter, the plane crashes in the Alaskan wilderness. Remnick and his men have no idea regarding any of this when the land to investigate the remote crash-site, which soon becomes the scene of an ambush. Frankly, this might be one of the most spectacular and brutal action sequences ever filmed for television (directed with verve by Sam Hargrave).

Barely surviving, Remnick quarterbacks the search, ordering a statewide lockdown. He intuitively distrusts Sidney Scofield, who initially won’t even admit her CIA credentials. Eventually, she concedes she was reluctantly dispatched by the corrupt Deputy Director Bradford, because she was Havlock’s handler back when he was an asset, not so long ago. Obviously, she is supposed to make the problem go away, but Havlock always seems to be two steps ahead, especially when he kidnaps Remnick’s wife Sarah, an ER nurse treating the recovered survivors.

Honestly, The Last Frontier starts off amazingly, but eventually deflates into a stagnant puddle. Beyond the super-charged action set pieces, the early episodes have a lot of insight into Alaskans’ “frontier” identity and what community means up there. At one point, Remnick’s deputy Hutch, memorably portrayed by Dallas Goldtooth, explains to a suspect that Alaska is hard country, so if you aren’t connected to a wider community you will die up there. Likewise, Remnick utterly shames Scofield for her elitist Beltway snobbery.

Unfortunately, later episodes embrace juvenile “deep state” paranoia and a rather cynical “ends justify the means” approach to problem-solving. Frankly, Bokenkamp and D’Ovidio end up glossing over a whole lot of dead law enforcement officers and innocent civilians, just because “CIA bad.”

There is also a gross imbalance between the two co-leads. Jason Clarke is gritty and forceful as Remnick, but also appealingly grounded and almost “down home.’ In contrast, Hayley Bennett’s shallow, one-note charisma- and energy-challenged portrayal of Scofield probably does more than any of the stilted, conspiratorial agency backstabbing to undermine confidence in the CIA. However, there is a lot of good, earthy work from those portraying Alaskans, including Goldtooth and Simone Kessell, as Sarah Remnick.

100 Meters, in Cinema Daily US

100 METERS is a great anime sports film, but its complete disregard for the cliches and conventions of the genre makes it a great sports film for people who don't ordinarily like sports movies. CINEMA DAILY US review  up here.

Solvent: Body-Horror with National Socialist Origins

According to his grandson, old Wolfgang Zinggi was assigned to a concentration camp during WWII. After the war, he basically substituted “Zionists” for “Jews” in his anti-Semitic rants, peppering them with references to “the poor Palestinians,” because he knew he could get away with it. Zinggi disappeared and was declared dead several years ago, so a team of researchers hope to find some illuminating documents in his mold-infested Austrian house of horrors. Instead, they discover evil of another nature in Johannes Grenzfurthner’s Solvent, which releases tomorrow on VOD.

Krystyna Szczepanska is a Polish historian specializing in forensic fieldwork. She has used Gunner S. Holbrook’s recovery firm several times previously. They also happen to be on-again-off-again lovers. They will excavate with the permission of Zinggi’s grandson, Ernst Bartholdi, who hopes to use the footage from Holbrook’s helmet cam for some kind of ill-conceived publicity film. However, he will not want the world to see what transpires.

Szczepanska hopes to unearth concentration camp records. Instead, they find some kind of extremely contagious and invasive sludge, that might somehow be related to the mad scientist experiments at Zinggi’s camp. Regardless, tragedy soon strikes, killing one team-member and strangely debilitating Szczepanska. Months later, Holbrook still wants answers, so he returns for an unauthorized look-see.

Solvent is a hard film to fully get your head around. It is shot entirely from Holbrook’s perspective, found footage style, which ironically has a distancing effect. Not only does it directly address the Holocaust, which obviously entails considerable risks, it also incorporates a subplot involving war crimes in Bosnia. Those are heavy themes for a gross-out body-horror movie.

Nevertheless, Grenzfurthner and co-screenwriter Benjamin Roberts do their best to respect the sensitivities of potential viewers. It is also worth noting Holbrook’s dishonorable discharge from the American military was due to rather pedestrian larceny charges. The really scandalous stuff came from a later gig as a merc working for a Croatian militia.

Be that as it may, Solvent is a very strange and often extremely disgusting film. There are not a lot of obvious comparisons to the thing plaguing Holbrook and Szczepanska. The Zinggi farmhouse and related cellars and outhouses are also wildly creepy. Ordinarily, the production design team would deserve a lot of credit, but Grenzfurthner shot on-location, in his real-life late grandfather’s condemned property, which apparently truly was in the state suggested in the film, even including the toxic mold.

Red Alert, in The Epoch Times

Paramount+'s RED ALERT chroniclees the tremendous courage of ordinary Israelis and the savagery of Hamas terrorists during the 10/7 atrocities. Yet, it does so in an inclusive manner, reminding the world that Arab Israelis also suffered horribly that fateful day. EPOCH TIMES review up here.

John Candy: I Like Me, on Prime Video

He was born on Halloween and played Dr. Tongue on SCTV’s late-night monster movie parodies. Unfortunately, SCTV is not currently streaming on any platform, so an entire generation of Gen-Z’ers have probably never seen it. However, they have surely seen Spaceballs and Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, right? If not, they are in for a treat. There should be far more John Candy films for them to catch up with, but unfortunately, he left us too soon. Colin Hanks chronicles the actor’s life and work in the documentary, John Candy: I Like Me, which premieres this Friday on Prime Video.

As you would expect from films like Planes and Splash, there is a lot of humor and a lot of sadness in Hanks’ documentary. He had great success, as well as a good deal of insecurity. No matter how hard he tried, Hollywood often made Candy’s size the butt of their jokes. Casting directors even discouraged him from losing weight.

Nevertheless, he built a reputation for unusually sensitive comedic performances. Candy also appeared in a lot of dogs, out of misplaced loyalties. Nevertheless, he was a devoted husband and father. In fact, his surviving wife, son, and daughter all appear at length throughout I Like Me, without ever airing any dirty laundry. Frankly, the only interview subject who tries to dish any dirt would be Bill Murray, as part of a questionably conceived comedic bit.

As one would expect, Hanks had access to many of Candy’s friends and co-stars, obviously starting with his father Tom, who shared the screen with Candy in Splash, which is discussed at length, and Volunteers, which is excluded from his son’s doc (even though that is the film that brought the senior Hanks together with Rita Wilson). Regardless, the list of participants is quite impressive, including Murray (Stripes), Steve Martin (Planes), Dan Akroyd (1941, The Blues Brothers), Mel Brooks (director of Spaceballs), Martin Short (Really Weird Tales and a SCTV guest star), as well as a raft of his SCTV cronies, such as Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara, and Dave Thomas.

Deathstalker, Starring Daniel Bernhardt

Casual viewers might think of fantasy heroes as virtuous Tolkienesque dragonslayers, but for real fans, the irresponsible antiheroes are even more important. Conan was that kind of freebooter and so was Red Sonja (in the books and comics). The title character of Roger Corman’s 1983 rip-off has always been a cult-favorite, because he was so grungy and roguish. The reboot might not share much with the original, but at least the wandering swordsman still refuses to reform himself in Steven Kostanski’s Deathstalker, executive produced by Guns ‘n Roses’ Slash, which opens this Friday in theaters.

As the film opens, the universally despised Deathstalker makes his coin scavenging from dead bodies fallen in battle. That is pretty scummy behavior, but nobody challenges him, because he is too lethal. However, this time around, he “liberated” an amulet from a “mostly dead” knight that apparently carries a curse.

From now on, no matter what he does with it, it always turns up back in his pocket. Making everything worse, a demonic army led by his old nemesis, Jotak, seems hellbent on recovering the amulet, even if it does him serious harm in the process. To lift the curse, he must find Doodad, a little person wizard. However, Deathstalker must first save the sorcerer from his own magical entrapment. Heck, at this rate, Deathstalker is practically becoming heroic.

The ruckus but comfortable combination of bloody carnage and outrageous over-the-top humor will compute for fans of Kostanski’s previous films, such as PG: Psycho Goreman. Deathstalker also reflects the former makeup artist’s passion for practical effects. It doesn’t exactly transport the audience to an immersive fantasy world, but it certainly dives right in, embracing the hacking and slashing, as well as the creature-creation.

The Villagers, Starring Don Lee

Yuk Ki-chul came to the provincial town to be a P.E. teacher, but he will end up teaching the adults a few lessons in ethics, civics, and criminal justice. He is also supposed to collect past due school fees, but actually helping missing students is supposedly outside his job description. Of course, Yuk does not see it that way in director-screenwriter Lim Jin-soon’s The Villagers (a.k.a. Ordinary People), which releases today on VOD.

Yuk is a big guy, but he often feels like a small fry. His new P.E. gig was the only job he could get, after getting blackballed for publicly calling out corruption in the youth judo league—and it still required a kickback. Regardless, everyone at school is quite nasty, except maybe Kang Yoo-jin. She is earnest kid, who is trying to get the police, or anyone else, to investigate the disappearance of her friend. However, she instinctively distrusts Yuk, because he is yet another adult.

In this film, the grownups really are a bad lot. The teachers and administrators only care about school fees, the local hostess club traffics young women, with the protection of the local political bigwig, Kim Ki-tae, and the cops are all corrupt and smell of booze. Yuk hopes that doesn’t also include his old friend, Kim Dong-soo, who is still just a timid, conflict-averse patrolman, under the best-case scenario.

Obviously, Don Lee (Ma Dong-seok) is a big guy, but he is surprisingly human in this early star-vehicle (from 2018) that is only now getting an American release. This time around, he bleeds like the rest of us and needs a realistic amount of time to bash his way through doors. In fact, he even shows vulnerability as sheepish Yuk. Yet, he always shows massive screen presence.

Lee also develops a nice halting rapport with former child-thesp sensation Kim Sae-ron, who broke out in the box-office hit, The Man from Nowhere, but died under tragic circumstances this year, before her 25^th birthday. She plays the imperiled teen with a melancholy that is quite effective—and rather haunting, in light of her sad fate.

The Road Between Us, in The Epoch Times

Chronicling Ret. Israeli Gen. Noam Tibon's improvised rescue mission during the 10/7 terrorist attacks, the  documentary THE ROAD BETWEEN US is deeply personal story of family and community, as well as a gripping real-life thriller. EPOCH TIMES review up here.

The Dragon's Prophecy, in The EpochTimes

The interview segments with survivors of the 10/7 terrorist attacks in D'Souza's documentary THE DRAGON'S PROPHECY deserve to be seen by general audiences, far and wide. Some of the accompanying interpretations of Scripture will be controversial (even divisive), but much of the historical and archaeological context is illuminating. EPOCH TIMES review up here.

Brian and Maggie, on PBS

When he was in Parliament, Brian Walden was sort of like Labour’s Joe Manchin. He grew up culturally identifying with the Party, but became increasingly uncomfortable with its socialist extremists. As a result, when he joined the media as a long-form interviewer, Thatcher identified him as someone she could “do business” with. She was right, up until 1989. That fateful interview gets the Frost-Nixon treatment in the two-part Brian and Maggie, directed by Stephen Frears, which premieres tonight on PBS.

But seriously, shouldn’t it be called, Maggie and Brian? Thatcher remains a towering figure of 20^th Century history, but who remembers Walden, beyond British Gen X’ers (and older viewers)? Regardless, he was a prominent fixture of the early 1980s media landscape. Much to his London Weekend Television colleagues’ frustration, Walden developed a cordial relationship with Thatcher during her rise to power and the early years of her administration.

In fact, the first episode is surprisingly fair to Thatcher, essentially admitting, via Walden, that the UK was stagnating under socialism and desperately needed economic liberalization to spur competitiveness. Frears and screenwriter James Graham also show how Thatcher and Walden bonded through their similar lower economic backgrounds and commitment to meritocracy for all. In fact, the acknowledgement of the sexism the future Baroness Thatcher faced, even within her party, leads to Walden’s understanding why she can never admit weakness, which he exploits in the second episode.

Essentially, Thatcher’s downfall comes because she refuses to cop to any mistakes leading up to the resignation of her Chancellor, Nigel Lawson. Tell the truth, when was the last time you thought about Nigel Lawson? As presented by Graham, their key bone of contention was Thatcher’s close professional relationship with economic advisor Alan Walters, but the underlying issue was how tightly the exchange rate for the pound should be tied to Europe.

Lawson wanted to peg the Pound to the then Deutschmark at a rate of one to three, while Thatcher and Walters opposed exchange rate controls. Given Brexit and the austerity forced on many EU nations after relinquishing their ability to set national monetary policy, Thatcher’s skepticism of tying the Pound to Europe seems entirely vindicated. Consequently, it is hard to believe Walden’s interview could be so damaging—yet it was at the time.

Maigret, on PBS

A quick afternoon drink can still help fight crime. However, smoking a pipe is now frowned upon, but Chief Inspector Jules Maigret still carries his late father’s unlit pipe, as something to fiddle with to help him think. Georges Simenon’s famous slath is still an unusually cerebral copper, but this time around, he is younger and dramatically less jowly. Benjamin Wainwright joins the fraternity of Charles Laughton, Jean Gabin, Rupert Davies, and Gerard Depardieu (whose 2022 Maigret movie suddenly became far less commercial, thanks to his bro-mance with Putin), conspicuously standing out from fellow Maigrets. Regardless, the titular police inspector remains as incisive and intuitive as ever in creator-lead writer Patrick Harbinson’s six-episode Maigret, which premieres tomorrow on PBS.

As season one opens, Maigret has only just been promoted to Chief Inspector of “Le Crim” (a.k.a. the “Criminal Brigade,” much like the Major Case Squad in Law & Order: Criminal Intent), but he is already under tremendous pressure from Prosecutor Mathilde Kernavel to catch a gang of sophisticated armed robbers. Yet, much to her frustration, he is more interested in investigating the untimely death of Honore Cuendet, a refined cat burglar, whose philosophy of stealing, combining elements of elitism and egalitarianism, always amused Maigret.

Unfortunately, his seemingly questionable priorities offer an opportunity for Inspector Cavre, the rival Maigret was promoted over, to undermine his authority with the prosecutor. The rest of the Squad is solidly Team Maigret, particularly Sgt. Lucas (who is now a woman). “The Lazy Burglar” establishes Harbinson’s template, combining a classic, titular Simenon novel, with a second original, more contemporary mystery. He still spruces up the classic case, turning Maigret’s prime murder suspect into grotesquely wealthy Syrian wheeler-dealer, closely connected to the current regime.

The initial two-parter also introduces us to Madame Louise Maigret, the Chief Inspector’s beloved wife, who is also quite a bit younger than usual, but their close partnership represents the most important consistency with the previous Maigret productions fans know and love. In fact, this might be the most heartfelt, touching marriage currently depicted on television.

Maigret and Kernavel are initially on the same page at the start of “Maigret’s Failure,” investigating the disappearance of a popular influencer. Unfortunately, the Ministry insists Maigret take time out to protect Fumal, a widely despised, but powerful captain of industry. Ironically, Fumal personally requested Maigret, his old childhood nemesis, whom he now hoped to have as his new bodyguard. Instead, Maigret deduces Fumal fabricated the threats, so he cancels the protection detail. Super awkwardly, Fumal is murdered shortly after.

Although Harbinson takes a lot of liberties with Simenon’s stories, episodes three and four are good exampless of how he captures a good deal of the darkness Maigret often confronts in the novels. “Failure” also nicely leads into the next two-fer mystery, “Maigret Comes Home,” by establishing Maigret’s thorny relationship with the Countess de Saint-Fiacre, his father’s former employer. Unfortunately, the Countess becomes the victim in the two-part conclusion. Sadly, Maigret couldn’t return in time to save her, but he stays long enough crack the case, even though he is supposed to be in Paris tracking down a random psych killer.

Stella: A Life

Stella Goldschlag was Jewish and a jazz singer. In National Socialist Germany, that meant she had two very big strikes against her. Unfortunately, she dealt with her situation quite poorly, with a decidedly collaborationist strategy. She survived the war physically intact, but lost her soul, as viewers will witness during the course of Kilian Riedhof’s historically accurate biographical drama, Stella: A Life, which premieres today on VOD.

Their fans seem to think Goldschlag and her [almost entirely Jewish] swing band were hot stuff, but legit jazz listeners will be underwhelmed by her rendition of “Sing Sing Sing.” They will also be put off by her lack of compassion for fellow bandmates concerned about their imprisoned family members. Obviously, Goldschlag naively believes her blonde Aryan looks and her father’s WWI veteran status will protect her from the worst, but viewers know it won’t work that way.

The closing credits rightly assert Goldlschlag was both a victim and a collaborating perpetrator. It is easy to lose sight of that first part during Stella: A Life. Over the course of the early 1940s, she starts in denial, pivots to an exploitative role abetting her black marketeer lover, Rolf Isaakson, but then agrees to become the worst kind a collaborator when captured by the Gestapo.

In fact, Goldschlag herself volunteers to become a “catcher,” as they call the snitches they employ to ensnare other Jews. Initially, Goldschlag struggles to meet her quota, but she and the formerly reluctant Isaakson soon become quite good at it. Clearly, it helped sooth Goldschlag’s conscience thinking her betrayals would protect her parents. Yet, those promises turned out to mean absolutely nothing.

Riedhof’s film is very dark and in many ways quite demoralizing. Nonetheless, Goldschlag is an acutely human character and Paula Beer’s performance is truly fearless, because she never compromises or waters down the singer’s ruthless, manipulative, and self-centered persona. The way Beer shows Goldschlag clinging to her supposed victim status, despite all the pain she causes for her friends and neighbors really rings uncomfortably true. Indeed, had Goldschlag lived long enough, it is easy to envision her as one of the “as a Jew” “Anti-Zionists,” deliberately self-tokenizing herself, to curry favor with “Free Palestine” extremists (and in fact, Goldschlag later converted to Christianity and regularly expressed a virulent brand of anti-Semitism).

Colin Minihan’s Coyotes

Usually, coyotes are reluctant to attack people, but it can happen. In this case, maybe they heard some Acme Corp. executives live in the tony Hollywood Hills neighborhood. Whatever their reasons might be, they are clearly quite ticked off. A geeky dad has no idea why the feral pack is prowling around his home, but he quickly starts to regret their doggy-door in Colin Minihan’s Coyotes, which opens this Friday in theaters.

Scott is a bit of a man-child, but the recent success in comics allowed him to move his family into the exclusive neighborhood. His wife Liv, is a cool mom, but obviously the grounded one in the family. Their daughter has reached the stage where she is conspicuously embarrassed by her parents and generally surly to be around. According to their disconcertingly intense exterminator, they are also living with rats in their walls. Unfortunately, that won’t be the worst of it.

Since this is LA, they could lose power at any moment, for no apparent cause, so it is hardly surprising when a freakish storm cuts the electric lines. Unfortunately, that tree Scott was supposed to prune crushes Liv’s car, nixing their mobility and making him look bad. Consequently, when the coyotes attack, their only ally will be their sleazy, unstable neighbor Trip and hi “visitor,” Julie. Frankly, Liv and Scott never really think of a good euphemism to obscure the reason Trip pays her to spend the night with him, which leads to many an awkward moment.

V/H/S/Halloween, on Shudder

Most anthology films are like trick-or-treats bags on Halloween night. There’s always a lot of stale candy corn mixed in with the candy bars. In this case, the ratio of candy corn to candy bars is annoyingly high. However, each installment faithfully respects the found footage format and the theme. A new V/H/S anthology film has become a Halloween tradition on Shudder, so they truly embrace the holiday with a series of Halloween festivities that go spectacularly awry in V/H/S/Halloween, which premieres tomorrow on Shudder.

Ironically, the least Halloweeny parts of V/H/S/Halloween are the framing bits, known collectively as Bryan M. Ferguson’s “Diet Phantasma.” Supposedly, Diet Phantasma is a Halloween soda, but it is a little too horrific, causing outlandishly gory side-effects for the test subjects. Frankly, these wrap-arounds are rather confusing, because it is never clear what is the nature of the soda that makes it so deadly, and illogical, because killing off one test subject after another creates huge legal liabilities in the real world.

Likewise, the trick-or-treating gone horribly wrong premise of Anna Zlokovic’s “Coochie Coochie Coo” is all too familiar buy now. The two mean girl prospective victims are also a chore to spend time with. This segment is only really distinguished by some gross-out imagery.

Fortunately, it is followed by one of the strongest constituent films, “Ut Supra Sic Infra,” directed by Paco Plaza, co-creator of the [REC] franchise. After a Halloween party ends in a mysterious massacre, the police bring the sole survivor to the scene of the crime for a re-creation of the deadly events. For reasons that make horror movie sense, the found footage cuts out after someone reads the cryptic titular inscription on the wall three times. Unwisely, they make it a scrupulously faithful re-creation. The results are wild and macabre. If anything, this segment could have been drawn out longer, but least it never overstays its welcome.

Arguably, that is exactly what Casper Kelly’s “Fun Size” does. It also features teens who are a little too old and a little too rude for trick-or-treating, but they encounter a more original danger. It starts with a bowl full of weird, retro-sounding candy nobody recognizes. The sign says only one per person, but one idiot takes two. Suddenly, the bowl magically sucks them into a sinister candy factory, where they are menaced by a massively creepy pumpkin-headed ghoul. At first, it is subversively funny, but then it starts to drag.

Chicago P.D.: Consequences

Crime is up in Chicago and its all because of politics. That’s not Trump talking. It is an admission from a senior Internal Affairs officer, who refuses to reactivate Sgt. Hank Voight’s Intelligence Unit, even though they have been completely cleared of any wrongdoing. Instead, he keeps Voight assigned to beat work, grossly underutilizing his talents. Yet, Voight finds a way to work a big case anyway as he bides his time in “Consequences,” the thirteenth season premiere of Chicago P.D., which airs tonight on NBC.

Voight always had a knack for stepping on toes, but it almost got the best of him last season. Technically, his unit is now out of legal jeopardy, but two of his officers remain on leave and the rest are working beats, just like him. Voight is grumpier than ever, if not more so. Yet, he has a genuine knack for relating to the honest, working-class residents on his beat, like Aunt Aggie. Not surprisingly, he reverts to his usual beast-cop mode when she is hit by multiple stray gun shots.

Of course, Voight intends to track down the shooter, despite Internal Affairs’ shackles. That means forging an alliance with undercover ATF Agent Eva Imani. She instantly dislikes Voight because she is a reckless, corner-cutting lone wolf with authority issues, but he kind of likes her—for exactly the same reasons. In fact, Voight might have a spot for her, if he can get his unit up and running again.

Law & Order: SVU just released an episode unambiguously portraying ICE agents as villains, so Dick Wolf and his team are clearly not MAGA-inclined. That is why the “Consequences” episode lands with such irony. The whole premise of sidelining the Chicago P.D.’s most effective anti-crime unit purely for reasons could have been written by Pam Bondi. Yet, it is a sure sign of good storytelling when the plot points and characters turn in complicated ways. If showrunner Gwen Sigan and the writers’ room produce episodes that cut in ways they didn’t necessarily intend, that is probably a good thing. It clearly suggests more attention was devoted to story development than political takeaways, as they should.

Good Boy, Starring Indy as Himself

Indy is calmer under pressure than Scooby-Doo, but he is still just a dog. He has no frame-of-reference to understand what is happening to his owner, Todd. Frankly, us humans won’t always be so sure we know either. Regardless, Indy, the Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Terrier will do what he can to save Todd—and he really is quite resourceful in Ben Leonberg’s Good Boy, which opens Friday in theaters.

The audience quickly deduces Todd has a history of mental health issues, likely complicated by problems of addiction. His sister Vera definitely feels the need to keep tabs on him. She also clearly appreciates Indy’s healthy influence. Nevertheless, she is surprised and somewhat justifiably concerned when Todd suddenly moves into their grandfather’s long vacant farmhouse.

In fact, the suggestive old school VHS home movies that Todd watches clearly lead us to suspect some kind of sinister force contributed to Grandpa’s demise. Much to Indy’s alarm, the same mysterious force soon starts tormenting Todd as well. Or perhaps poor Indy cannot fathom Todd’s behavior, so he perceives it as something truly monstrous outside his own control.

Frankly, Good Boy would have been even more successful if it had more forcefully embraced the supernatural elements and foreclosed any metaphorical speculation. Nevertheless, a star is truly born in Indy, who is indeed a very good dog. Honestly, Indy probably gives one of the best starring performances you will see at the movies throughout the entire Awards season-dominated fourth quarter of 2025.

Evidently, it took Leonberg over three years to film Good Boy, because Indy (his own dog) had limited patience with the silly filmmaking process. However, it was worth conforming to his schedule, because hee is a wildly endearing and eerily expressive on-screen presence. Surely, Leonberg and his producer-wife Kari Fischer developed their own working methods with Indy, but they always got the perfect look from their star. Plus, Max has some highly memorable scenes as Grandpa’s old dog, Bandit.

Affinity, Starring Marko Zaror

It takes a strong mickey to knock out Marko Zaror, but there is a nasty drug going around Thailand’s dive bars. Of course, those are the only places the brooding former SEAL he plays would ever consider patronizing. He has a lot to forget, including the death if his brother, but he finds someone worth living and fighting for. Unfortunately, the same gang behind the super-potent compliancy-inducing drug has been hunting for Athena in Brandon Slagle’s Affinity, which releases today on VOD.

Bruno blamed himself when his brother died during a mission. The depressed drinking also went badly, when a gang of roofie-wielding criminals assumed he would be easy prey, but he came to in time to defend himself. His friends, Fitch, a former teammate, and Joe, a crusty expat, keep encouraging him to pull himself together. Bruno finally does exactly that when Athena washes up on his river dock.

She is clearly running from something, but the ex-SEAL agrees not to ask, as he nurses her back to health. Obviously, she has suppressed her tormented memories of a shadowy gang—and it hardly takes much cinematic intuition to figure out they are the same outfit behind Bruno’s boozy misadventure. In fact, the henchmen, led by the formidable Krieger soon re-abduct her, igniting a war with Bruno and Fitch, his reluctant backup.

Krieger’s boss not so shockingly turns out to be famous geneticist Dr. Kovalovski, who is up to some ridiculously crazy mad scientist business. Honest, it is hard to keep a straight face during the third act revelations (which many of the marketing descriptions perversely give away). For the most part, Affinity is a gritty exercise in Marko Zaror butt-kicking, but it has a truly wacky secret waiting to reveal itself—and wacky really is the most apt adjective.

Some fans might appreciate the twist, because it is certainly different. Regardless, Zaror does what he does best, early and often. He also gets rock solid support from Brahim Chab as his chief sparring partner, Krieger, and Brooke Ence as his comrade, Fitch. In fact, Affinity is notable for showcasing Ence’s first appearance outside DC-related properties (Wonder Woman, Justice League, and CW’s Black Lightning). She and Zaror make a good team—and she is largely spared the screenplay’s goofy excesses.

The Lost Bus, on Apple TV+

You would think after the 2018 “Camp Fire” killed 85 Californians, local politicians would have fixated on the dangers of forest fires—but they didn’t. Nor can they pretend they had no time to prepare contingencies for the 2024 California wildfires when real estate developer and civic leader Rick Caruso managed to arrange private firefighters and water tanks to safeguard the Palisades Village development. Paradise, California was at the epicenter of the painful lesson that went unlearned. It could have been far worse without Kevin McKay. Instead of a politician or a first-responder, he was a school bus driver who had to drive through Hell-on-Earth, inspiring Paul Greengrass’s true-life drama, The Lost Bus, which starts streaming on Apple TV+ this Friday.

You can blame global warming, or like Trump, the environmental policies that halted underbrush clearing. Either way, it won’t much matter to McKay once the fire starts blazing. He is a bit of a sad sack, who is particularly down since his father’s death a few months past and euthanizing his loyal dog during the opening minutes. Frankly, the latter probably hit him harder. Regardless, his petulant teenaged son Shaun is not about to stop arguing and sulking.

Nevertheless, McKay’s first instinct is to evacuate his son and somewhat infirm mother (played by McConaughey’s real life son and mother) when he first sees the black smoke choking the horizon. Yet, he agrees to pick up the 22 elementary school kids, who have no ride. Of course, he cannot take them alone, so by-the-book teacher Mary Ludwig reluctantly agrees to ride shotgun. Based on America Ferrera’s portrayal, she must be a real pain in the classroom.

Inevitably, each detour leads to another, forcing McKay’s bus into several precarious positions. Naturally, the spotty radio and cell service completely crash, leaving them cut-off from the rest of the world. They could really use a driver like Liam Neeson in the Ice Road movies, but the scruffy McKay turns out to be more resourceful than he looks.

In fact, Matthew McConaughey is aptly cast as the beleaguered McKay. McConaughey can both convincingly embody his working-class soul, while finding the tragic poetry in his existential struggles. Likewise, Yul Vasquez is credibly grizzled and commanding as Chief Martinez, whose role in the film is strictly business. Conversely, Ferrera’s character’s sole purpose seems to be making McKay’s job harder. Still, they do have a late but effective meeting-of-minds scene that helps build last-minute chemistry.

The sequences of runaway combustion look okay, but not great. Arguably, the little-seen documentary Paradise (ironically titled, given it follows insufficiently supplied Russian fire-fighters waging their own losing battle) more successfully captures the sensation of a raging woodland fire. However, Greengrass and cinematographer Pal Ulvik Rokseth vividly convey the ominousness of billowing black smoke.

It is nice to see a film that celebrates blue-collar heroism, which is genuinely how Greengrass and co-screenwriter Bruce Inglesby seem to relate to McKay’s story. They also largely avoid politics and ideology, except for some mushy and vague environmental throwaway references.