Roots of Fire: Modern Cajun/Creole Music

It turns out music will survive if people value it. In the late Les Blank’s recently re-released 1989 documentary, I Went to the Dance, it often feels like the audience is watching the end of an era for great Louisiana roots music. Then this film comes a long, like the response to its call, introducing us to a generation of younger musicians building on the foundation of their elders. Maybe nobody is getting rich, but Cajun and/or Creole music is alive and kicking in Abby Berendt Lavoi & Jeremy Lavoi’s Roots of Fire, which opens this week in theaters.

After years of being told to scrupulous differentiate between Creole and Cajun, the Lavois’ talking heads now come along a ask us to basically consider it all “French Music.” After all, the black accordion legend Amede Ardoin first recorded just about all the foundational Cajun standards in the 1920s—and then went on the perform with white violinist Dennis McGee, who is widely considered the original defining Cajun musician.

On-camera commentators like Musician Jourdan Thibodeaux also point out the Arcadians had already mixed to a large extent with indigenous Canadians, before the British expelled them from the Maritimes. As far as the musicians in the film are concerned, everyone who plays music in Southwest Louisiana share considerable cultural commonalities. There is a spirit of brotherhood expressed throughout the film, at least until someone mentions the English (which is fair enough, given Arcadian history).

Obviously, the music is good, because we see Cajun musician and record label producer Joel Savoy throw a shindig for three groups of local friends, who were all nominated for the Best Regional Roots Album Grammy in the same year. (None of them won, but that’s no reason to put a damper on a good party.) Clearly, Cajun musicians are not inclined to allow extraneous details detract from the music, considering Savoy still regularly plays with his ex-wife, fiddler Kelli Jones.

Sung Kang’s Shaky Shivers

Considering how many slashers were set in the 1980s, both back then and in recent retro homages, some Millennials might wonder how anyone managed to live through the Awesome Decade. Yet, the 1980s and early 1990s felt so much safer and more rational than our current times. Technically, this horror mash-up takes place in 1993, but its roots appropriately go back to the Eighties. All kinds of monsters get in on the act in Fast & Furious thesp Sung Kang’s feature directorial debut, Shaky Shivers, which has a special nationwide Fathom Events screening this Thursday.

Obviously, things are bad, judging from the in media res opening. Lucy seems to think she is a werewolf and we will have reason to suspect she is correct. It all goes back to the previous day. First, an incredibly annoying customer tried to redeem a coupon from 1987 at kindly old Bob’s ice cream shop, where she works at with her best friend, Karen (you could have a name like Karen in the 1990s, without feeling any irrational shame). Then a sinister hippish Earth Mother cultist demands free ice cream out of a sense of entitlement. When Lucy refuses, something bites her.

Fast-forward back to the prologue—and she’s a werewolf, but that will be the least of their problems during the sunlight. Lucy had Karen drive her out to the local summer camp that was closed under mysterious circumstances, to put an end to her lycanthropy, but her friend was not prepared for the madness in store for her. Before night falls again, they must contend with zombies, big foot, and a black magic cult.

Shaky Shivers often feels like a monster-themed Mad Libs that was accidentally adapted for the screen, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Kang definitely leans into the mayhem and embraces the messy joy of practical effects, but somehow, he manages to downplay and minimize actual physical violence.

The Origin of Evil

The Dumontets are rich and French, so it is no wonder they are litigious, even among themselves. Yet, they still live together. The prodigal daughter might even move in with them in. Lucky her. They are uncomfortable to be around, but there is still the rich part. Social climbing gets dangerous in Sebastien Marnier’s The Origin of Evil, which opens Friday in New York.

Stephane Marson is not exactly Serge Dumontet’s long-lost daughter, since he never bothered to look for her. However, once she suddenly presents herself, he realizes she might just be her father’s daughter (illegitimate or not). Naturally, she wants to keep her prison-inmate girlfriend a secret from her new “family.” However, the new Dumontet daughter might have even darker secrets, but maybe that is why old Serge takes a perverse liking to her.

Of course, it does not hurt that she annoys Serge’s proper daughter, George Dumontet (both daughters have men’s names, because that was a Serge thing). George is one last appeal away from wresting control of the family empire away from the old man. In the courtroom, his shopaholic wife Louise sides with George, but she largely maintains neutrality within their seaside villa, despite her tart tongue. She is even somewhat receptive to Serge’s surprise daughter. Obviously, with serious money at stake, things are going to get ugly.

Origin will remind some viewers of vintage 1960s and 1970s Claude Chabrol—and not just because its French. This is a deliberately paced thriller that takes its time introducing its characters and their circumstances. It isn’t until about halfway through that Marnier and co-screenwriter Fanny Burdino unveil their first big twist, which definitely changes everything.

In fact, Origin is a deliciously clever, in ways that earn comparison to films that would be spoilery to mention. One thing is safe to say: the Dumontet family sure is something.

Mark Cousins’ The Storms of Jeremy Thomas

If given a choice, an independent film producer like Jeremy Thomas would probably prefer to be the subject of a documentary helmed by an idiosyncratic auteur whose approach is always a little off-center. At least we can hope that is the case, because that is what he got. Whether viewers feel the same is an entirely different question. Regardless, the celebrated but not-necessarily household-famous producer gets his due in Mark Cousins’ The Storms of Jeremy Thomas, which opens Friday in New York.

How big is Thomas in the business? He produced Bernardo Bertolucci’s best picture-winning The Last Emperor. Yet, Cousins devotes more screentime to Dom Hemingway and Young Adam that the epic story of Pu Yi, the boy emperor. We even see more from Thomas’s Oscar acceptance speech than from the movie itself. That should give you idea of Cousins’ highly subjective perspective.

Instead, he structures the documentary as a road movie, accompanying Thomas as he drives from his country cottage to Cannes, where his latest film is premiering, Takeshi Miike’s First Love. Frankly, cineastes could probably eagerly devour a documentary solely devoted to Thomas’s collaborations with Miike, also including Blade of the Immortal, 13 Assassins, and Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai.

By the way, Storms is not always safe for work, because Cousins’ second thematic chapter, “Sex,” does indeed show a lot of it. It isn’t inappropriate given Thomas produced Roeg’s Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession, Cronenberg’s Crash, and Bertolucci’s The Dreamers, but just keep this in mind if you want to stream Storm in an internet café later. Bizarrely, Last Emperor is also ignored during the subsequent chapter, “Politics,” even though the scenes of the Cultural Revolution cry out to be compared with those of the May 1968 protests in The Dreamers (same director, even).

Cousins only interviews a select handful of Thomas’s colleagues, none of whom are directors (one might wonder about his thoughts on that matter). In any event, we hear from Debra Winger (The Sheltering Sky and the unmentioned Everybody Wins) and Tilda Swinton (Young Adam and Only Lover Left Alive), who is rather amusing to watch as she tries to justify Cousins’ choice of title to herself during one of their interview sequences.

Bad City, on DVD

Kaiko City is a fictional Japanese metropolis, but the way the criminals run the city will look very familiar to residents of Los Angeles and Chicago. Gangs might end up literally running the city if mobbed-up businessman Wataru Gojo wins the mayoral election. A secret task force is determined to take him and his Korean gangster allies down before than can happen in Kensuke Sonomura’s Bad City, which releases tomorrow on DVD.

Ordinarily, we probably wouldn’t mourn for the Sakurada Yakuza clan, but at least they were homegrown and conducted themselves by some sort of code. However, Gojo prompted Korean gangster Kim Seung-gi to take out the Sakuradas, because he thought they had evidence of their collusion with high-ranking government officials. It turns out he was wrong. The proof is still out there, but they still managed to greatly weaken a major rival.

Prosecutor Hirayama’s case against Gojo just collapsed, so he will try a more off-the-books approach with his new double-secret task force. Technically, it will be run by his former protégé from Public Safety, Kaori Koizumi. However, the driving force will be the Eastwood-esque Det. Makoto Torada, a disgraced cop doing time for a murder he did not commit. Supposedly, he killed the son of “Madam,” the figurehead boss of the Korean mafia, whom Kim ought to show more respect towards.

It is always rewarding to see a film about an old guy kicking butt—and brother, is that ever Torada’s specialty. Although he is not superhuman, his cussedness almost counts as a superpower. His withering stare could knock small birds out of the air. The trio of regular cops attached to the task force also compliment him nicely. There is the big, burly Kumamoto (elegantly nicknamed Kuma or “Bear”), Nishizaki (who is a bit squirrely, but has legit martial arts skills), and the naïve rookie Megumi.

Sonomura knows exactly what people want in a throwback Yakuza movie, so he never over-complicates things. There is a fair amount of intrigue and betrayal going on with the opposing gangs, but he makes sure it always boils over into street-fighting at regular intervals. Frankly, the big, blowout gang-wars are amazing sights to behold. They are absolutely brutal and deadly intense, but they are also messy, ugly, and sometimes downright clumsy, which is exactly how street fight look in real life.

Gale: Stay Away from Oz, on Chilling

How can a franchise that is all about witches not be horror? Disney inadvertently proved the point when their 1985 sequel Return to Oz freaked out a generation of kids. Finally, someone had the conviction to lean into the horror potential of L. Frank Baum’s classic children’s books, in this short film that is obviously intended as a proof-of-concept prologue. Dorothy Gale’s granddaughter definitely isn’t in Kansas either, but she does not yet understand her family’s fantastical history in Daniel Alexander’s Gale: Stay Away from Oz, which premieres tomorrow on Chilling.

Emily Gale never knew she had a grandmother named Dorothy, until she discovered her ancestor’s notebook among her late mother’s things. However, she is hoping the woman might have some answers regarding the strange nightmares and visions that have plagued her, since her sessions with her analyst, Dr. North, have not helped much.

The nursing home director is definitely surprised to see her, but not necessarily in a bad way. Nevertheless, the visit with her strange grandmother raises more questions than answers. For instance, the elderly woman compulsively clicks her heels is disconcerting and her emphatic warning to “stay away from Oz” is even more disturbing.

So, what is going on? Of course, viewers might have a better idea than the younger Gale, since we can pick up on all the references to footwear. The Oz-isms are as heavy as those of any David Lynch film, but they always make sense within the narrative (screenplay credited to Matthew R. Ford and the story to Alexander). It certainly succeeds in intriguing viewers as to what a full feature could look like.

Karen Swan makes a suitably Dorothy Gale-like heroine as the innocent granddaughter Emily. However, the real star is Laura Bailey, who chews the scenery with relish as the mysterious Dr. North. Margaret Hamilton and Jean Marsh (from Return to Oz) would definitely approve. Of course, it leaves much unanswered, which is its job as a teaser, but that will inevitably frustrate the sort of viewers who wants everything spelled out immediately.

Gale looks great, especially for a scrappy, boot-strapping short. There is no question this is the freshest take on Oz since Return to Oz (that counts Wicked too). It is also pretty fitting, when you consider the 1939 film’s macabre behind-the-scenes reputation. Recommended for fans attuned to the dark side of Oz (the Emerald City rather than the prison), Gale: Stay Away from Oz starts streaming tomorrow (9/18) on Chilling.

Psycho: The Lost Tapes of Ed Gein

Robert Bloch is overdue for a retrospective film series somewhere, but for now, we’ll just have to keep waiting. At least viewers are reminded Hitchcock’s Psycho was (relatively faithfully) based on Bloch’s novel, which was largely inspired by the case of Ed Gein, a.k.a. “The Plainfield Ghoul.” Gein is considered the first modern American serial killer, even though he was only directly connected to two murders. For the first time ever, several forensic experts (and a few podcasters) finally hear Gein’s own voice on newly discovered police recordings in the four-part documentary special Psycho: The Lost Tapes of Ed Gein, directed by James Buddy Day, which premieres tomorrow on MGM+.

In 1957, the crimes Gein committed were truly shocking. Even in the jaded 2023 of today, they are still plenty disturbing, but we have been somewhat conditioned to their nature, by the movies he inspired. Psycho and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre were directly modeled on Gein and there is a little bit of him in Hannibal Lecter too.

Consequently, you might be able to imagine some of the horror investigators found at the Gein house. They were there because of his impulsive and not well-thought-out murder of Bernice Worden. What they found was a horror show of body parts, either strewn about his apartment and as well as housewares and clothing crafted out of skin and body parts. However, most of gruesome materials were plundered from the local cemetery. In fact, several of the talking heads understandably make a big deal that there was never a proper accounting of what Gein took from where.

Frankly, Gein’s voice on the titular long-lost tapes is rather underwhelming, in a maybe predictably banal way. Arguably, it is more interesting listening to his primary interviewer, Judge Boyd Clark, a nearby authority figure, who happened to own a portable tape-recorder. As a jurist, he might have found his questions to be leading. On the other hand, he remains remarkably calm, despite the absolutely ghastly circumstances, drawing out Gein to a surprising extent.

The empathy and respect for the victims expressed by several contemporary forensic experts and Gein biographers is also quite notable. In an awkward contrast, the jokey banter of the “Last Podcast on the Left” true crime bros often feels inappropriate. Generally speaking, the dramatic recreations are competent and sometimes evocative, with relatively little tackiness. However, some of the ironic archival stock footage incorporated to make the 1950s look silly and sinister reflects a questionable bias. We remember Gein because he was the first and a shocking anomaly. When someone commits similar crimes today, they barely rate a Dateline special, so let’s stop pretending the 1950s were an era of terrifying violence.

Elis & Tom: The Artists and the Recording

To a large degree, Antonio Carlos “Tom” Jobim’s career was defined by collaborations: albums recorded with Stan Getz, Astrud Gilberto, Frank Sinatra, Edu Lobo, and Miucha as well as songs co-written with lyricist Vinicius de Moraes. One of his greatest collaborations nearly didn’t happen, but fortunately, there was a meeting of minds and hearts that resulted in an absolutely classic album. Filmmakers Jom Tob Azulay & Roberto de Oliveira explain the respective career arcs of Elis Regina and how they worked together on their eponymous Bossa Nova record in Elis & Tom, which releases today in Los Angeles.

It all started with record label executive Andre Midani, who wanted to do something special for Regina’s ten-year professional anniversary. At that time, she was far more commercial in Brasil than Jobim (thanks to her MPB records), but he was still Jobim, a worldwide jazz superstar and godfather of the Bossa Nova movement.

Initially, Regina and Midani merely intended Jobim to be a “special guest” on an album of his songs, but that is not how Tom Jobim rolled, Instead, started exerting far more control over their sessions than Regina expected. She nearly abandoned whole project, as her surviving colleagues explain in detail. Happily, for listeners, Regina and Jobim made peace with each other and Jobim made peace with Regina’s arranger, Cesar Camargo Mariano.

The film begins and ends with “Waters of March,” which seems fitting. Probably no more inscrutable song was ever penned, yet it is endlessly evocative of imagery and memories. Of course, Regina and Jobim caress it perfectly.

Azulay and de Oliveira incorporate restored 16mm footage of the rehearsals and recording sessions that are often revelatory. In some cases, the rehearsals might be even better than the final product. Despite being looser and rougher, they have that in-the-moment spark, reflecting Jobim’s jazz grounding.

Wilderness, on Prime

Marriage, ambition, commitment—in the real world these things all lead to happiness, stability, and success. However, in the new subgenre of post-Gone Girl “unreliable narrator” thrillers, these never contribute to happy endings. This time around, Olive “Liv” Taylor (not Tyler) will explain the source of her scorn to viewers and show us what she did about it in creator Marnie Dickens six-episode Wilderness, based on B.E. Jones’ novel, which starts streaming today on Prime.

Taylor’s home life was a mess growing up, but she thought she was past all that when she married the well-heeled, socially-ingratiating Will Taylor. She even agreed to sideline her journalism career when his hospitality company transfers him to New York. It is a sacrifice, but it comes with the bonus of much more distance between her and her high-strung mother Caryl. Then Taylor discovers her husband cheated on her.

Of course, he makes all the usual excuses and prevarications: it didn’t mean anything, it was a one-time thing, blah blah blah. She sort of maybe believes him, until she discovers it was even worse than she thought. Nevertheless, she agrees to his suggestions of a healing dream vacation to Monument Valley, the Grand Canyon, and other big western marvels of nature. However, she starts harboring homicidal ambitions, as she relentlessly explains in the ponderously overwritten narration.

Wilderness would have been a lot more fun if it went for a Hitchcockian vibe rather than emulate the Adrian Lyne-style of sexual thriller exemplified by Deep Water and Fatal Attraction. Dickens’ adaptation (assisted by Matilda Feyisayo Ibini for episode four) cannot seem to decide whether viewers should wish a plague on everyone’s houses or root for Liv Taylor, who increasingly displays sociopathic tendencies, especially as innocent people get swept up in the chaos she unleashes.

However, the extent to which Wilderness humanizes and even empathizes with Cara Parker, “the other woman,” adds a surprisingly interesting dimension. In fact, Ashley Benson’s portrayal of Parker might be the best thing going for this series. Eric Balfour (the CTU freelancer who used to date Chloe on 24) is probably the second best thing, playing her clueless boyfriend, Garth. Unfortunately, though, we spend must more time with the Taylors, for obvious reasons.

Yui Kiyohara’s Remembering Every Night

It might be suburbia, but in this Japanese 'burb, the streets are clean, the neighborhoods are quiet, and the weather is sunny. The people you meet also tend to be friendly, gentle souls. If you are going to lose your way, this wouldn’t be such a bad place for it. A handful of characters will indeed get somewhat lost, as they crisscross each other’s paths, but the peaceful tone is constant throughout Yui Kiyohara’s Remembering Every Night, which opens tomorrow in New York.

Tama New Town was conceived as a commuter community for people working in Tokyo, so it probably is not the best place for the suddenly unemployed fortysomething Chizu to look for work. Her meeting at the unemployment office is a bit awkward, but she is probably more interested in reconnecting with the old friend she suddenly started thinking about. As she wanders around Tama’s verdant streets, she spies Natsu, a 22-year-old college student dancing in the park.

Natsu is also thinking of an old friend, Dai, who died tragically young. Eventually, she meets up with their mutual friend, Fumi, for a remembrance. Unlike the other two women, Sanae is working today. The 33-year-old’s meter reading job keeps her outside, walking through the neighborhood, which makes her the perfect person to keep an eye out for Takada-san, a senior citizen prone to confusion, who wandered away from his home.

There is almost no tension in Kiyora’s follow-up to Our House (her charming postmodern multiversal family drama), not even Takada-san’s subplot. Remembering Every Night is definitely a thinner film, but its Japanese-ness makes it a pleasant, low-stress viewing experience.

Radical Wolfe: The Writer with the Right Stuff

If you want to understand 2023 New York, read a novel published in 1987. Everything Tom Wolfe wrote about the media creating their own “narratives” and sleazy activist heightening and exploiting social divisions for their own benefit is even more true today than it was then. His nonfiction classic Radical Chic should also be required reading before anyone watches Bradley Cooper’s Leonard Bernstein movie. It is therefore the perfect time for a Tom Wolfe documentary. With zeitgesty timeliness Wolfe would appreciate, Richard Dewey delivers one in Radical Wolfe, which opens this Friday in New York.

Rather fittingly, Radical Wolfe is somewhat “adapted” from Michael Lewis’s magazine article. Today, the relevancy of ink-on-paper magazines is almost non-existent, but they were an important voice when Wolfe started writing for Esquire. In archival interviews, Wolfe recounts how it all almost didn’t happen, due to severe writer’s block on his first big piece, but by sketching out his notes for some other writer to flesh out, he ended up writing what would become known as The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine Flake Streamline Baby.

Dewey and Lewis address Radical Chic head-on, focusing on the Bernstein family’s embarrassment to have their radical activism exposed for public ridicule. Former Black Panther Jamal Joseph tries characterizes Radical Chic as an attempt to belittle and minimize their efforts to make positive social change. Sadly, former Black Panther Alex Rackley was not available for comment, because he was tortured and executed in 1970, by other Panthers who suspected him of being a police informant.

Dewey’s talking heads arguably miss the full significant and prophetic legacy of Bonfire of the Vanities, even though the film includes commentary from a genuine “Master of the Universe,” Peter Thiel. Anyone who read the story of Sherman McCoy’s legal misadventures would have heard deafening echoes in the Rittenhouse trial and other media circuses over the past three years.

One thing everybody is dead right about: no major media publication today would have the guts to publish a contrarian like Wolfe. Even the frankness of The Right Stuff would get him cancelled. The brutally honest depiction of racial politics in The Bonfire of the Vanities would be a non-starter. It is a sad fact our culture no longer values culture and it is openly hostile to free expression.

Michael Jai White’s Outlaw Johnny Black

You can take the kid out of the tent revival, but you can’t take the tent revival out of the kid. Lord knows, Johnny Black tried. Like all legit gunslingers, he has dedicated his life to killing the man who shot his Pa. He thought he turned his back on his father’s old time religion, but it will creep up on him again when he is forced to impersonate a preacher in Michael Jai White’s Outlaw Johnny Black, which opens Friday in theaters.

Black learned to handle firearms from his trick-shooting Army veteran revival-preaching father, but Bullseye Black’s lessons in turning the other cheek never did take. After young Johnny Black watched outlaw gang-leader Brett Clayton gun down his father out of pure racist spite, the boy vowed to avenge him. It has been a few years, or decades, but he is still vowing.

At this point, Black’s gun-toting ways have made him an outlaw too, even though his targets all have it coming. His latest scrape with the law ended with a very narrow escape, but the desert would have killed him were it not for the intercession of the Rev. Percival Fairman (and the Lord, according to the preacher). Shortly thereafter, Black wrongly assumes Fairman dies in a skirmish with a Native tribe (yes, really), so he impersonates Fairman with his new flock in Hope Springs and with his unseen correspondence fiancée, Bessie Lee. To complicate matters, Fairman turns up very much alive and Black starts to fall for Bessie Lee’s sister, Jessie Lee, the strategist behind the town’s legal resistance to evil land baron Tom Sheally.

White, who stars, directed, and co-wrote OJB with his Black Dynamite partner Byron Minns, largely sets out to do for Blaxploitation movies what their previous spoof did to the tropes of blaxploitation in the tradition of Shaft and Coffy. However, Outlaw Johnny Black is much more successful because it is less shticky, more grounded, and less didactic. Weirdly enough, the themes of faith and forgiveness also connect to a surprising extent. This film just works, quite well in fact.

Of course, White is a total badass as Black. Initially, he definitely puts an emphasis on the “anti” in anti-hero, but he slowly humanizes the gunslinger, while showing off his first-class martial arts chops. Frankly, he makes Black’s arc more compelling than most of those seen in “serious” 1970s revisionist Westerns.

The Inventor, the Animated Da Vinci

Everyone knows Leonardo da Vinci was Italian, but there is a good reason why so much of his art is in France. That would be King Francis I, da Vinci’s final and closest patron. That Mona Lisa probably turned out to be a solid national investment. The polymath has reached his twilight years, but there is still much he wants to learn in Jim Capobianco’s The Inventor, “co-directed” by Pierre-Luc Granjon, which opens Friday in New York.

As the film opens, the free-thinking da Vinci’s position in Italy is tenuous at best. His patron Cardinal is fading in health and influence, while Pope Leo X grows increasingly bellicose. He sounds a lot like Steven Toast, so you know he must be a blowhard. Providentially, the younger, more cultured Francis I offers a handy escape hatch.

Nevertheless, da Vinci and his apprentices still reasonably assume it is best to keep his anatomy dissections under wraps, even in France. Da Vinci remains consumed by his quest to discover the seat of the soul, but Francis wants him to whip up something big to impress his fellow monarchs. Da Vinci’s progressive architectural concept for the “ideal city” is not exactly what the King had in mind, but his sister Marguerite is convinced, perhaps more so than da Vinci intended.

The Inventor is a charming animated film that should delight fans of Will Vinton’s Adventures of Mark Twain. It takes liberties with history and science, but it embraces the spirit of da Vinci (at least as we have come to understand it). Also quite refreshingly, Capobianco’s screenplay is completely disinterested in da Vinci’s sexual exploits or speculation on his sexuality, unlike Da Vinci’s Demons and especially Leonardo.

Instead, The Inventor prioritizes animation to explore da Vinci’s inventions and scientific studies. Most of the dramatic scenes are animated in a stop-motion style not unlike vintage Vinton. However, the 2D animation, inspired by the look and feel of da Vinci’s sketches are probably even more distinctive, even though they are largely devoted to da Vinci’s expressionistic reveries.

The Swarm, on CW

The oceans have always been dangerous. Ships sink. People drown. That was even before something started apparently weaponizing marine life against us. Obviously, the most responsible course of action would be draining the oceans and paving over the sea floors. Presumably, that is the intended message of this new European-produced English-language environmental thriller. Adapted from Frank Schatzing’s door-stopper novel, the eight-episode The Swarm kicks off Tuesday night on the CW.

First the whales started acting strangely homicidal, which is quite puzzling to First Nations cetologist Leon Atawak. Then an outbreak tears through France, which virologist Dr. Cecile Roche traces back to mutated lobsters. Dr. Sigur Johanson, reluctantly consulting for a Scandinavian energy corporation, finds a similar mutation in sea worms right in a trench they were prospecting. It turns out those little creepy crawlers can burrow at a remarkably fast clip—so much so, they could destabilize continents.

Grad student Charlie Wagner also identifies strange oceanic hotspots that seem to correspond to areas of unexplained marine phenomenon, including the sinking of the research vessel her best friend was assigned to. Eventually, these globally scattered scientists (not including any Americans) will discover strange signals that possibly tie all these events together. Unfortunately, the world’s bureaucrats are not ready to listen to them. They are too busy with the armies of mutant crabs over-running coastal populations. At least there is a Japanese shipping tycoon who has been monitoring their findings.

Beyond the environmental finger-wagging, the series’s greatest drawback is the shallow characterization. Each major character gets one really nice, emotionally resonant scene, but they are all spread out over eight episodes. Mostly, we watch Johanson, Wagner, Atawak, and Roche point at computer screens and complain about how nobody listens to them. Meanwhile, there is a cameo from Dr. Fauci admitting his agency funded a Chinese study that created aggressive mutant crabs and lobsters, purely for research purposes, but that is totally coincidental to the current outbreaks. Okay, just kidding.

This was clearly an expensive production (reportedly, it is the biggest budgeted German TV production ever), featuring a lot of decent looking underwater cinematography, maritime disasters, and mollusks behaving badly. Yet, ironically, it largely neglects the human element.

Hide: The Graphic Novel

You can count on the horror genre to find the dark side of all our childhood games. These days, you can also count on young adult (YA) fiction for unsubtle political commentary. This graphic novel adaptation of a popular YA novel does both—and as you would expect, the former is more interesting than the latter. As the story opens, Mack reluctantly agrees to participate in an adult hide-and-seek contest, because she doesn’t have many options and she has always been good at hiding. Of course, the game is more serious than players realize in Hide: The Graphic Novel, Scott Peterson’s adaptation of Kiersten White’s YA novel of the same name, illustrated by Veronica & Andy Fish, which goes on-sale this Tuesday.

Mack will be one of fourteen would-be-influencers, under-achievers, and general screw-ups competing in the long-deserted amusement park for the $50,000 prize. Some are not so bad, like Ava 1 (or Ava 2 depending on which of the Avas you were speaking to). The one who was a veteran takes a liking to Mack, which rather surprises her. The other Ava isn’t so bad either, but she cannot resist making an alliance with jerkweed Jaden.

In a game like hide-and-seek, it should be every man for himself, but there is something weird about this contest. Readers can see players leaving the game meet a particularly gruesome fate, but it takes a while for the Millennial-nothings to catch on. They think they are participating in a potential reality show, but they have been set-up by a sinister cabal. All will be revealed in the ancient journal hidden somewhere in the labyrinth-like grounds of the creepy old Amazement Park.

Hide is not just another And Then There Were None rip-off. There is a very explicit fantastical horror dimension to the characters’ two-by-two disappearances. However, there is a privileged human cabal also involved. It isn’t exactly the patriarchy, because the busybody hostess Linda is secretly running the show, but very clearly represents the elite of the economically elite. (Ironically, Linda makes a better case for the exploitative schemes afoot than maybe Peterson or White intended, when she bemoans Millennial/Gen Z slackers’ eagerness to participate in her “reality show” rather than do real work.)

The Changeling, on Apple TV+

North Brother Island near the Bronx was once a quarantine site for Riverside Hospital, but it is now an uninhabited bird sanctuary managed by the City. Somewhere nearby, there is a mysterious island that maybe holds the answers to some sinister fantastical questions. To get there, you must take a detour through the Twilight Zone, or the Looking Glass, if you prefer. A series of unimaginable tragedies will motivate Apollo Kagwa to seek those answers in creator Kelly Marcel’s eight-episode The Changeling, adapted from Victor LaValle’s novel, which premieres today on Apple TV+.

There are a lot of parallels between Kagwa’s family history and that of his future wife, Emma Valentine. Kagwa’s long, slightly stalkerish courtship of Valentine also mirrors that of his father’s pursuit of his mother, way back in the garbage-strike-stricken New York City of the 1970s. We will go back to that time frequently, because The Changeling loves its flashbacks.

Just when Kagwa thought he was making progress with Valentine, she leaves for a year-long research trip to Brazil, where she has a disturbing encounter with fortune-telling witch. (The Portuguese is accurately translated in the scenes, by the way.) Kagwa is delighted Valentine wants to pick-up where they left off when she returns. However, she still carries “something” from the witch.

Eventually, they have a baby, which should be great. Sadly, Valentine’s post-partum depression metastasizes into paranoid psychosis. She becomes convinced their baby is not really their baby. She is also bedeviled by harassing texts that apparently magically disappear whenever she tries to show them to Kagwa. Eventually, she does something unspeakably rash that will deeply scar Kagwa. Yet, after some time passes, he seeks greater understanding into her state of mind by seeking out the mysterious Cal (short for Callisto).

The Changeling is jam packed with pretentious literary allusions. It also has an annoying habit creating more obscure mysteries with every ostensive revelation. Throughout it all, it is impossible to miss its fairy tale inspirations from LaValle’s constant once-upon-a-time narration. Frankly, viewers will get a general sense The Changeling is an unadaptable novel Marcel tried to adapt anyone, on a dare. Perhaps the production ran out of money too, because the final episode clocks in at a mere half hour and suddenly transforms from a weird micro-scale fable into a macro-scale earth-shaking fantastical spectacle, with little transitional warning.

The Nun II: Back to The Conjuring Universe

She is not really a nun. It is a demon, who has assumed the shape of a nun, to pervert a symbol of Christianity. Everything Valak does is evil, but there is also good in the “Conjuring Universe.” Eventually, Lorraine Warren will vanquish Valak at the (absolutely terrifying) end of Conjuring 2. Until then, Sister Irene will continue battling the demon in the 1950s-set prequels. Sadly, she will have to face Valak without Father Burke in Michael Chaves’s The Nun II, which opens tomorrow nationwide.

Of course, The Nun I set up a sequel, most likely involving “Frenchie,” the well-meaning lug who saved Sister Irene during the conclusion of the first film. He has been working his way west from Romania in the four years since, as has a disturbing rash of clerical suicides and desecrations. As the only still-living Romanian convent exorcist, Sister Irene is ordered to investigate, whether she likes it or not, which she doesn’t. However, her new friend, the rebellious Sister Debra, invites herself along, even though Sister Irene gravely warns the inexperienced nun that her tenuous faith will be profoundly tested.

The trail leads to France, where Frenchie now works as a custodian at a religious but not Church-administered school for girls. The bullied Sophie thinks he is charming and her mother Kate, one of the school’s teachers, does not necessarily disagree, but weird things have been happening since he arrived.

Catholic theologians can probably nitpick The Nun II to death, but it is probably more respectful of the Church and more thoroughly steeped in its teachings than just about any horror movies since William Peter Blatty’s first and third Exorcist films. Frankly, the way it incorporates Catholic rituals in its climax turns out to be a shockingly rewarding payoff. It also teases an “apostolic” connection that makes a lot of sense in the Conjuring Universe.

Taissa Farmiga is terrific as Sister Irene, especially when showing how she draws strength from her faith. Jonas Bloquet, Anna Popplewell, and Katelyn Rose Downey really engage viewers’ sympathies as Frenchie, Sophie, and Kate. One of the things that made the primary Conjuring series so effective were the family dynamics of both the Warrens and the people they helped. The audience cares about everyone in those films and Nun II really follows their example.

Gold Run: Norway’s WWII Gold Convoy

In 1940, Norway’s Krone had real value, because they had a gold standard. Of course, that meant the national bank had a lot of gold in its vaults, to back up its currency. When the Germans invaded, stealing that gold was a high priority. Bureaucrats from the central bank and finance ministry worked with the military to deliver Norway’s gold to the Allies for safe keeping. They are losing the battle, but the Norwegians complete their heroic mission in Hallvard Braein’s Gold Run, which opens tomorrow in New York.

Fredrik Haslund is a boring mid-level political appointee, but that is why his boss trusts him. Unfortunately, that means he gets the call when it is time to ferry Norway’s gold reserves to a British destroyer waiting not so patiently along the coast. The minister knows Haslund will meticulously account for each and every gold bar. That is also why he so annoys Maj. Bjorn Sunde, the crusty commander of his military escort, which includes a celebrity, former communist poet Nordahl Grieg. (To his credit, Grieg broke with Stalin and the Party when they signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Non-Aggression Pact). At least Haslund’s activist sister, Nini, a veteran of the Spanish Civil War, will lend her skills as a scout and English translator to his make-shift convoy.

Haslund is not an obvious hero, but Ingvar Berge from the finance ministry inspires even less confidence. However, he will be reluctantly paired up with Odd Henry, a grizzled truck driver, who is man enough for the both of them. They will all have to get their acts together and work as a team, because Major Otto Stoltmann is hot on their trail.

Gold Run is a solidly respectable war drama that sometimes feels more like the streaming/TV movie that it started its life as in Scandinavia, representing Viaplay’s first original film. It is a great story, especially when it shows two undeniably heroic professions, soldiers and economists, working together at a time of national emergency. However, most characters are just deep enough to give them an internal crisis to exploit during critical turning points.

Although the battery of three screenwriters never really delve into Grieg’s politics (he was an honest anti-fascist, instead of a Party stooge), the depiction of the national bard is still far from hagiography. He often appears somewhat full of himself, but his “first reading” of his classic wartime poem is pretty stirring stuff.

Amerikatsi, in the Epoch Times

AMERIKATSI somehow finds the uplifting elements in its tale of a prodigal Armenian's return to his homeland, straight into a Stalinist-era prison. There are some issues, but its merits are greater. EPOCH TIME review up here.

Joyce Carol Oates: A Body in the Service of Mind

Stig Bjorkman certainly had a number of advantages in his choice of documentary subject. As of yesterday, she has published two memoirs and a collection drawn from her journals, as well as a wealth of fiction and non-fiction writings inspired by her life. Plus, for someone who describes herself as a “private person,” she recorded quite a few television interviews over the years. If you want to become an expert on Joyce Carol Oates, your biggest challenge will be finding the time to read all the primary sources, including the book of interviews Bjorkman released in Sweden. For years, he regularly proposed a potential documentary. Finally, she agreed to participate in what became Bjorkman’s Joyce Carol Oates: A Body in the Service of Mind, which opens Friday in New York.

Obviously, JCO is first and foremost a writer, as acres of paper-stock can attest. She is best known for long “great American novel”-style works that use the family saga as a vehicle for social and political commentary. However, readers who do not share her Ivy League perspective might find her genre outliers more rewarding, including her more mass market pseudonymous thrillers, which Bjorkman duly covers. (I particularly recommend her gothic mystery Mysteries of Winterthurn). Black Water is also a significant work, of manageable novella length, transparently inspired by the untimely death of Mary Jo Kopechne in Ted Kennedy’s car.

Unfortunately, JCO’s politics are much more predictable and much less interesting. During the Trump era, she became something of a Twitter warrior, which seems like a colossal waste of her time and ours. As the son of a Vietnam veteran and a Vietnam-era vet, her and her husband’s relocation to Canada during the war and her shallow anti-war sentiments are disappointing. Apparently, the plight of the Vietnamese “boat people” refugees and the sacrifice of those who did serve left little impression on her. For those with a somewhat different perspective, this section of Bjorkman’s film is a bit of a poison pill.

8 Found Dead

Here are two things horror movies hate: online B&B’s and old people. This one has both, so it is highly likely several people are going to die. Just how many? Off the top of my head, I’m going to guess eight. Annoyingly, there are probably even more flashforwards and flashbacks than corpses in Travis Greene’s 8 Found Dead, which releases Friday in theaters.

The prologue is totally unfair to Jenny, because when she arrives at the desert party house, she spends hours cleaning up after the previous renters, before the slasher finally gets around to killing her. There will be more bodies, as we can tell when Greene flashes forward to two divorcing sheriff’s deputies, Blake and Bobby Miller, responding to a 9-1-1 call. However, they only count five bodies.

Presumably, whatever happened involved Richard and Liz, a weird old couple (for horror movies, that is a redundancy) who claim they have reserved the house instead of Sam the influencer and Dwayne her boyfriend. They make the same claims when the couple’s friends Carrie and Ricky finally show up several hours later—but they never mentioned having met Sam and Dwayne earlier.

Screenwriter Jonathan Buchanan’s fractured timeline is not nearly as clever or effective as Greene hopes. Frankly, it mostly comes across as a labored attempt to build misleading suspense. The film also feels like an homage/rip-off of Ti West’s X, given the creepy hyper-sexual talk that comes out of the mouths of the scary old people. Several of the victims in this film look exponentially healthier than Richard and Liz, so there are basic physical credibility issues too, especially since their suspicious behavior should nullify the element of surprise.

The Truth About La Dolce Vita, on Film Movement Plus

Giuseppe "Peppino" Amato would have appreciated the notorious behind-the-scenes chaos during the production of Apocalypse Now. While the Vietnam drama nearly killed Coppola and Sheen, the stress of producing Fellini’s La Dolce Vita very directly led to Amato’s financial ruin and early demise. Filmmaker Giuseppi Pedersoli combines traditional documentary elements with re-enactments to tell Amato’s side of the story in The Truth About La Dolce Vita, which premieres Friday on Film Movement Plus.

Arguably, Amato only had himself to blame. He bought the screenplay from Dino De Laurentiis, after receiving the blessing of Padre Pio. He then brought in his frequent producing partner Angelo Rizzoli, who never really got the film and eventually left Amato holding the bag. Throughout much of the increasingly costly production, Amato acted as a go-between, taking heat from Fellini, Rizzoli, and everyone else the director was feuding with.

Throughout Truth, it is clear Pedersoli is showing us Amato’s truth. Fans of Fellini should be warned the hybrid doc often makes the auteur appear to be little more than a spoiled child—and Rizzoli fares even worse. (However, De Laurentiis, seen in archival interviews seems admirably philosophical about losing out on a masterpiece.)

Luigi Petrucci is also quite engaging playing Amato, in what nearly amounts to a one-thesp show. However, his dramatic sequences exclusively focus on the troubled titular production and they are largely drawn from studio memos and trade interviews. As a result, the re-enactment dialogue is a little dry at times.

Korean Cinema’s Golden Decade: The Devil’s Stairway

There is no way Dr. Oh’s hospital is up to code. The first and second floors are connected by a rickety staircase, with a banister that constantly falls apart. There is also an incredibly steep fire escape out back. Frankly, old Satan would probably approve of either and they both contribute to the skullduggery in Lee Man-hee’s The Devil’s Stairway, which screens as part of the film series, Korean Cinema’s Golden Decade: The 1960s.

It is Dr. Oh’s hospital, but since he has no sons, he hopes his chief surgeon, Dr. Hyeon Gwang-ho will take over when he retires, assuming he marries Oh’s flighty youngest daughter, Oh Jung-ja. Hyeon has had the same idea, which is why he has kept his affair with Nurse Nam Jun-sik on the down-low. However, when Dr. Oh’s succession plans become known to the general hospital, Nurse Nam makes it clear she is more than willing to cause a scandal for Hyeon. While they are “discussing” the matter, Nurse Nam “falls” through the rotten banister.

The good news is Nurse Nam is already at the hospital, so she receives immediate treatment. The bad news is Dr. Hyeon will be her attending physician. Frankly, there is a good chance she will not survive her convalescence, but then again, maybe it isn’t quite that simple. There will indeed be a lot of twists and turns, which is why the copy for the series justifiably invokes Clouzot’s Diabolique.

Stairway is definitely a noir thriller, but Lee and cinematographer Seo Joeng-min often play with the visual language of horror, especially as Hyeon’s paranoia warps his perception of reality. Admittedly, cineastes who have seen Clouzot, Hitchcock, and similar masters will probably guess what is going on, but it is jolly entertaining to watch. Lee triples and quadruples-down on atmosphere and the first act’s lurid sexual tension would have been considered risqué for Hollywood movies of 1964, its original year of release.

Little Richard: I Am Everything, on CNN

He truly was the “architect of rock & roll.” Richard Wayne Penniman was rocking before Elvis and at one point he had Jimi Hendrix in his band. His shows had more energy than Springsteen’s and more flamboyance than Elton John’s. Actually, his flamboyance is a major focus of Lisa Cortes’ documentary, Little Richard: I Am Everything, which airs Monday on CNN.

Penniman was the third son out of twelve children for his father, a Pentecostal deacon and bootlegger, who often took issue with the future rocker, because he was small, sensitive, and gay. That last part is maybe a little more complicated, but not to his dad. Of course, Penniman could sing, starting in the Church and then on the chitlin circuit (which sometimes included drag performances).

While giving a rough chronology of Little Richard’s life and career, Cortes’ central theme is the tension between his sexuality and his Evangelical Christianity. She also interviews his longtime off-and-on girlfriend Lee Angel at length, which is where some of those complications come in. Yet, there is no mention of his classic supporting turn in Down and Out in Beverly Hills, which contributed considerably to his 1980s comeback (the soundtrack also featured one of his final hits, “Great Gosh A’Mighty”). On the plus side, the coverage of Little Richard’s gospel period is pretty solid.

Maybe his identity issues will mean a lot to some people, but his fans would probably rather hear more about his music. Little Richard is a legend, so it is nice to get some sense of his personality. Even today, his wicked sense of humor still often plays like knowingly outrageous performance art. Yet, he is still entitled to some privacy, even posthumously, which is why Cortes’ obsessive interest in his romantic life and sexual pursuits sometime feels excessive and intrusive, especially when there is so little song-by-song discussion of his recorded output.

Orca, in The Epoch Times

In some ways, ORCA is a crowd-pleasing sports film, but it also vividly reflects the current Iranian regime's misogyny and the violent thuggery dissenters often face, especially those involved with the "Women, Life, Freedom" protest movement, which helped inspire the film. EPOCH TIMES review uo here.

Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose

"Gef the Dalby Spook” was probably the most famous fictional mongoose after Rikki-Tikki-Tavi. Supposedly, some people actually believed he was real, but seriously, a talking mongoose with clairvoyant powers? Nevertheless, well-known paranormal researchers of the 1930s duly schlepped out to the Isle of Man hoping to catch a glimpse of the conveniently illusive weasel-like creature. The Hungarian-American Nandor Fodor was one of them. His increasingly absurd investigation unfolds in Adam Sigal’s Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose, which opens today in New York.

Lately, Fodor has been a bit out of step with his fellow paranormal investigators, because he has become more of a debunker. Nevertheless, his old friend and mentor Harry Price (famous for the Borley Rectory haunting, as seen in films like The Banishing) insists Fodor needs to check out “Gef.” Frankly, Price’s account of his own investigation is less than convincing. He admits he never saw the mongoose with his own. Oh, and by the way, the daughter of Irving family, who own the farm where Gef supposedly lives, just so happens to be a ventriloquist. Despite his skepticism, Fodor agrees to make the trek, bringing his long-suffering and possibly torch-carrying assistant Anne, with him.

It seems like Sigal is striving for ambiguity on the question of Gef’s existence, but he never earns our agnosticism. Frankly, it all looks like a fortuitously timed hoax that coincides with Fodor’s middle-life crisis and possible nervous breakdown. It is hard to tell just what kind of tone Sigal was going for, because the film slips and slides all over the place.

However, if it was indeed intended as a comedy, the funniest part (maybe the only truly humorous segment) is the stinger, featuring the cast and crew unloading on Sigal’s unprofessionalism. Anyone who endured Sigal’s previous film, the messy island-of-broken-toys Chariot, might like to add choice comments of their own.

By far, the best part of the film is Christopher Lloyd, who is charmingly eccentric playing Price. Poor Simon Pegg labors like a coal-miner working a double shift as Fodor, but Sigal’s script does not supply the material to support his conversion from Scully to Mulder. Minnie Driver always brings a lot of fresh energy to any film she appears in, but the role of Anne feels conspicuously tacked-on and tangential.

Frankly, the only reason many fans will be watching Nandor Fodor is to hear Neil Gaiman, supplying the voice of Gef. He does sound appropriately eerie. I suppose if a mongoose could talk, he might sound a lot like Gaiman.

Sigal just cannot fit these pieces together and even at what should be a manageable ninety-six minutes, his pacing drags. This probably sounds like an eccentric lark, sort of in the tradition of the 1980s films Michael Palin made without Monty Python, but it is weirdly flat and inert. Not recommended, Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose opens today (9/1) in New York, at the Quad Cinema.

Les Blank’s I Went to the Dance

For some reason, French lyrics sound so much better when accompanied by accordion and violin. When you add washboard, you’re really in business. You will hear a lot of serious Louisiana sounds, particularly Creole, Cajun, and Zydeco music in the late great music documentarian Les Blank’s 5K-restored I Went to the Dance (a.k.a. J’ai ete au Bal), co-directed with his longtime collaborator (and editor) Maureen Gosling & Arhoolie Records founder Chris Strachwitz, which opens today in New York.

As you should know, Cajuns were originally the Arcadians, who came Louisiana, the nearest French-speaking region on the continent, after the English expelled them from Nova Scotia. Tourists often get chewed out for confusing Cajuns with Creoles, but Blank’s experts, folklorist Barry Jean Ancelet and songwriter Michael Doucet, emphasize the cross-pollination between the two Louisiana cultures.

Blank always had a sly, slightly eccentric sensibility that some people still don’t get, because they aren’t sufficiently hip. I Went to the Dance is a great example. It starts with a very funny musician’s joke from accordionist Marc Savoy, who later delights Blank by standing on his instrument to demonstrate its strength.  Of course, there is also a whole lot terrific music from musicians like Clifton Chenier (whose appearance is relatively brief, since Blank already devoted a full documentary to him, Hot Pepper), Queen Ida, Dennis McGee, Marc & Ann Savoy, Michael Doucet & Beausoleil, and Dewey Balfa, who gets credit for launching the Cajun music revival at 1960s folk festivals.