Frog Fathers: Lessons from the Normandy Surf

If it weren't for them, D-Day might have been known as V-A Day, as in “Victory over the Allies.” The “Frogmen” of the Navy Combat Demolition Unit (NCDU), the forerunners to the SEALs, were responsible for opening paths on the Normandy beaches for tanks to land. Without those tanks, none of the soldiers that successfully landed would have stood a snowball’s chance. Four Navy SEALs pay tribute to their NCDU predecessors in director-editor-cinematographer Bob Whitney’s Frog Fathers: Lessons from the Normandy Surf, which releases today on VOD.

Truly, the events at Normandy are like a historical onion. It seems like you can always peel back another layer to learn something new about that extraordinary day. Such is the case for four retired SEALs, Steve “Gonzo” Gonzalez, Cory Zillig, James Papineau, and Ricky Brown.

In some ways, the quartet engages in a pilgrimage, visiting the hallowed sites of D-Day and diving amid the offshore wreckage that never made it to the beaches. Each SEAL chose a NCDU warrior, who was confirmed KIA at Normandy, to tell their stories, and keep their memories alive. Of course, this comes with the heavy realization that they were previously standing in the very locations where their chosen NCDU’s fell in battle.

Even for the experienced combat veterans, the stark realities of D-Day are downright harrowing to contemplate. Due to the near complete failure of the aerial and naval bombardments, it was entirely up to the NCDU to clear the obstacles and battlements, so the landing could proceed. As the SEALs recognize, their entire operation had to be conducted within a so-called “kill zone.” To further put that day in perspective, one of the SEALs’ historical guides explains that most of the German bunkers were not destroyed. They were abandoned, because the gunners ran out of ammunition.

Frog Fathers 2: Last Battle of the Pacific

Navy SEALs took out bin Laden, but during many of the early missions conducted by their predecessors, the “Frogmen” of the Navy Combat Demolition Unit (NCDU), they were unable to return fire. Instead, the demolitionaires were busy hacking away at their primary targets: the coral reefs blocking the amphibious landings of the Island-Hopping campaigns. Decades later, four retired special operators from multiple service branches return to rebuild the same reefs in director-editor-cinematographer Bob Whitney’s Frog Fathers: Last Battle of the Pacific, which releases today on VOD.

As in Lessons from the Normandy Surf, the film features a core group of veterans active with Force Blue, a non-profit that repurposes veteran special operators’ aquatic skills for marine conservation projects. Although the central quartet of Lessons from the Normandy Surf dived around the Normandy shore, as an act of remembrance, the vets in Last Battle have a specific mission off the coast of Okinawa. Nobody blames the NDCU for destroying the coral reefs. In fact, they all agree it had to be done. However, they can now rebuild the reefs, as part of a general healing process.

Indeed, the film’s four central veterans all give their NCDU predecessors ample credit for operating under far worse everyday conditions then they experienced during their service. For this film, retired SEALs Adam Wright and Bear Handlon are joined by retired Green Beret Dan Henderson and retired Marine Recon Rudy Reyes, whom many viewers might recognize as one of the staff on Fox’s Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test. Once again, they dive under the guidance of the film’s director of diving operations, Navy veteran Angelo Fiore (who also appears in Normandy Surf). Plus, retired SEAL Steve “Gonzo” Gonzalez returns in the off-camera role of assistant director.

There are considerably more underwater sequences in Last Battle, which will appeal to some viewers. However, while though the second film is about fifteen minutes longer, it is slightly less focused. Nevertheless, there are plenty of lessons to learn from Frog Fathers 2, particularly with respects to the Pacific Theater. Several surviving WWII veterans explain how daunting it was to face an enemy that stigmatized surrender.

Chimney Town: Frozen in Time, on ANA

Lubicci remains an orphan, but he is now a respected member of society, thanks to his efforts bringing down Chimney Town’s dystopian regime. Nevertheless, he is still a sad orphan, because he continues to mourn the loss of his friend, Poupelle, the magical junk man. Lubicci’s grief indirectly leads to his next adventure in Yusuke Hirota’s Chimney Town: Frozen in Time, the sequel to Poupelle of Chimney Town, which currently screens on ANA’s in-flight entertainment system.

For a year, Lubicci tried to rebuild Poupelle, but to no avail. Admittedly, the waifish but popular chimney sweep has plenty of friends now, but he cannot help missing Poupelle. Naturally, when a mouse snatches the bracelet that served as Poupelle’s heart, Lubicci gives chase, right through a portal to the realm of the Millennium Fortress.

Much to their mutual shock, Lubicci finds himself in a boat with a messenger cat he eventually dubs “Fluff,” who is delivering the soul-like clock of a newborn to the Fortress, for safekeeping. (To give you an idea of Fluff’s grumpy personality, it is easy to anticipate either Awkwafina or Natasha Lyonne voicing her for a potential English dub.) As long as the clocks keep ticking, the people they represent keep on kicking. Yet, ironically, the Fortress has its own timekeeping problem. The master-clock above the fortress has frozen, leaving everyone below confused as to the accurate time.

Consequently, the fortress’s ruler offers Lubicci a deal. If he can fix the clock, she will return him to Chimney Town. Of course, most clockmakers are intimidated by such a public repair job. Lubicci will have to recruit two brilliant but wildly eccentric outcasts. Yet, the problem runs even deeper, harkening back to the star-crossed romance Hirota and screenwriter Akihiro Nishino slowly reveal through flashbacks.

Initially, Frozen in Time seems so different from Poupelle of Chimney Town, it will throw fans of the original sleeper hit. However, they need to stick with it. Hirota and Nishino bring all their deceptively disparate elements together rather brilliantly. When they do, iIt all packs a staggering emotional wallop, especially for viewers who adored the first film.

Doraemon: Nobita’s Art World Tales, on ANA

As a feline robot from the future, with a documented 1,963 retro-high-tech gadgets, Doraemon can teach Nobita a lot about science. Yet, he also encourages the young Japanese boy’s interest in art. Inadvertently, that leads to trouble in Doraemon: Nobita’s Art World Tales, the 44^th Doraemon movie, released during Doraemon’s 45^th anniversary celebration, which currently screens on ANA’s in-flight entertainment system.

Essentially, Doraemon is sort of a cat-lover’s Mr. Peabody, who decided to travel back from the future to look after Nobita, a rather average Japanese boy. They have gone through a lot over the last 45 years, but Nobita hasn’t aged a day.

Seeking inspiration for their art class assignments, Nobita and his pals have been using the “Entering Light” to transport themselves inside paintings. Then one day, a hole in the space-time continuum opens up right above Nobita, dropping a mysterious painting on him. Presumably, it is related to the rift that swept away Princess Claire in the prologue.

Regardless, Nobita’s painting appears related to the mysterious Arturian painting reported on the evening news. Believed to be a relic of a lost ancient civilization, the painting creates quite a stir, because of its unearthly shade of “Arturian blue.” When Doraemon and Nobita use their light to explore the painting, Princess Claire stumbles out of the exit portal.

When Nobita and his friends find Claire wandering the streets of Tokyo, they offer to help her return home, via the Entering Light. Of course, it isn’t that simple. Once they reunite Claire with her childhood friend Milo (or Mairo), she learns she has been missing for four years.

Although the king and queen are thrilled and relieved by Claire safe return, a conspiracy is clearly afoot. Paintings have been stolen from the castle and the newly reinstated Princess soon discovers an impostor has usurped her place. She needs Nobita and Doraemon to expose the culprit.

Although Doraemon is well-known among American anime fans, his popularity here has yet to reach the levels of other anime franchises, which is a little weird. He is enormously cute, in a Garfield kind of way, while his adventures are more complex than you might expect. Frankly, Nobita’s Art World Tales will have your head-spinning with all its time-travel, worm-holes, and other mind-bending elements. Plus, there is a dragon. Arguably, the film’s tone is similar to the average Scooby-Doo movie, but somewhat more sophisticated.

Forged by War: The Navy SEALs, on History

The Navy SEALs are most renowned for their successful operation taking out bin Laden. Yet, they have completed thousands of missions that military experts consider far more dangerous and complex. But still, bid Laden was a big one. To commemorate Veterans’ Day, History [Channel] chronicles the SEALs’ history, from their roots in the Navy’s WWII-era Underwater Demolition Teams (UDTs) through their triumph at Abbottabad in Forged by War: The Navy SEALs, written and produced by Zachary G. Behr, which premieres this Wednesday.

Naturally, Forged by War starts with the raid on Abbottabad, but it rewinds to WWII after the opening credits roll. The UDT was a new innovation, created just in time to get an incredible amount of work. It was the UDT who cleared the mines from eight out of the twelve possible Normandy beach landing sites, armed only with knives (because water-proof ammunition had not yet been developed).

After the Korean War, the American military shrank to dangerous levels. However, JFK saw value in small, agile, elite units, so he supported the development of special operations units, as we now know them. Frankly, the Navy SEALs were enormously effective (and feared) during the Vietnam War. However, funding and resources for special ops were again drastically slashed after the American pull-out (because politicians never learn from history), which many of the on-camera commentators partially blame for the disastrous Operation Eagle Claw Iranian hostage rescue operation.

Eventually SEAL Team Six was created to conduct exactly that kind of mission. Giving credit where it is due, Forged in War explains the formative role played by late Commander Richard Marcinko (who went on to become a controversial author and media personality) shaping the unit’s ethos. In fact, Marcinko is a prominent presence, through archival footage.

Indeed, Forged in War features an impressive cast of experts, including retired SEALs Howard Wasdin and Rick Kaiser, who were both awarded Silver Stars for their valor during the Battle of Mogadishu. Other notable participants include Rep. Ryan Zinke (a retired SEAL), former CIA director Leon Panetta, Mark Bowden (author of Black Hawk Down), and commercial shipping Captain Richard Phillips, who was the subject of the Tom Hanks movie.

The Awakening, from Colombia

There is a new horror sub-sub-genre: “imperialist”-eating monsters. Yet, like most forms of extremist activism, they tend to do more harm to the locals they supposedly protect than the outsiders that are supposedly encroaching. So far, Beware Boiuna is probably the best of the lot. This one of rather middling—pretty much in all ways (but better than Shaman). An elite unit launches a special op deep in the Colombian jungle. You can guess what comes next in director-screenwriter Jaime Osorio Marquez’s The Awakening, which releases this Tuesday on VOD.

Sadly, Marquez died in 2021, before the production wrapped, so co-screenwriter Federico Duran and producer Jose Luis Rugeles eventually finished the film, as best they could, while striving to reflect Marquez’s intentions. Their efforts yielded a coherent, marketable film, so hats off to them, but Marquez’s previous films are probably better representative of his talents.

Regardless, the set-up feels very familiar. Corporal Rojas’s unit has orders to penetrate into “the Heart of Darkness” to terminate a notorious Kurtz-like terrorist. Of course, they assume they are the hunters, but they are really being stalked by a race of ancient monsters.

Indeed, they have done this sort of thing before. In a parallel 16^th Century narrative, a group of Spanish Conquistador adventurers and their Portuguese guide walk into a similar ambush—except they know they are doing it, having discovered the fresh corpses of another expedition. Such is the lure of gold.

Ironically, the minor Spanish flashback characters and much more distinctive than the major Colombian soldiers. All we get for the latter are rather standard issue character devices, like the medic, who left a pregnant wife behind. Rojas has his own separate set of flashbacks that establish his own childhood traumas, but Duran and Rugeles never successfully close this loop in Marquez’s absence.

De Gaulle: Resistance, in The Epoch Times

DE GAULLE: RESISTANCE nicely illuminates the French general's wartime strategy and tactics, but the film's best, most visceral sequences depict the Free French heroism during the Battle of Bir Hakeim. EPOCH TIMES review up here.

Kogonada’s Zi

Zi Wong does not have a doppelganger. Of course, if she did, that is exactly what the doppelganger would want her to believe. An expert seems to think her problem might be a brain tumor or a rare disorder that alters her perception of time, but is either alternative really that much better? No matter what the cause, Wong is in an agitated state of mind in Kogonada’s Zi, which is now playing in New York.

Wong has been seeing visions of herself, from either the past or the future. The latest sighting also includes an apparent companion, a free-spirited looking Westerner in a wig that isn’t fooling anyone. Fearing for her sanity, Wong is on the verge of taking a leave of absence from the Hong Kong Symphony, where she is a featured violinist. Just when her anxiety boils over, the strange wig-wearing woman stops to help her.

That would be Elle, who accepts Wong’s claims that she had visions of the two together, without judgment. She wants to help and believes an acquaintance working at the HK neurological center might be the best bet (their exact relationship will be revealed over time). Meanwhile, neither notices the mysterious man following and observing them.

Would it be strange if a film set in 1930’s Rome never addressed Mussolini and Fascism? Likewise, would it strike audiences as odd if a movie that took place in Chile, during the month of October 1973 never mentioned Pinochet or his coup? If so, you should have similar reservations regarding the way Kogonada never acknowledges the largest rollback of individual rights in our lifetimes, which happened in Hong Kong over the last six years. The curtailment of HK democracy is a hard thing to ignore, but somehow, Kogonada manages to do so.

If you think the man following Wong and Elle constitutes a heavily veiled commentary on HK surveillance, you will be disappointed when his true significance is revealed. This film reflects no interest in the slow ongoing death of civil society in Hong Kong, which, in effect, sanitizes the repression.

Frankly, Zi will disappointment viewers on multiple levels. Initially, there seems to be something rather intriguing brewing, but it just turns out to be another riff on Before Sunrise, with a veneer of Oliver Sacks-like speculation layered on top.

Larry Fessenden’s Trauma, or Monsters All

Contrary to popular belief, monsters are very social, especially those in the classic Universal tradition. Remember, Frankenstein met the Wolf Man and then they all got together at Dracula’s House. This will be a similar get together, featuring the vampire from Habit, the Frankenstein Monster-like Adam from Depraved, and the werewolf from Blackout, all directed by Larry Fessenden. It is a modern monster mash, but that is bad news for the beleaguered upstate New York town of Talbot Falls in Fessenden’s Trauma, or Monsters All, which is now playing in New York.

Fittingly, Talbot Falls was the site of a werewolf rampage in Blackout. Things got really messy, but it ended when Charley Barrett’s girlfriend Sharon Hammond shot him with a silver bullet. However, he managed to stagger away and his body was never recovered, so we know what that means.

Somehow, Adam, the stitched-together man created by Dr. Henry, with the financial backing of the rich arrogant hipster Polidori, found his way to Talbot Falls, where he secretly shelters Barrett, securing him during full moons. Unfortunately, they happen to live next to Cassandra, a librarian struggling to write a biography of George Washington Carver. For a palette cleanser, she writes a piece about Talbot Falls’ “trauma,” piecing together the spotty reporting and online rumors regarding Barrett and Adam.

This basically causes the small town to lose its mind. Her piece also attracts Sam, the vampire from Habit, who is curious to meet other monsters. Maybe Cassandra is right. Talbot Falls needs to face its trauma, but ironically, her story inevitably produces much more trauma.

Frankly, Cassandra and her co-worker-potential love interest Agnes are the film’s weakest links. Plus, the former’s incessant ideologically charged voice-overs regarding Carver come across as pretentious and ponderous.

Conversely, the relationship between Barrett and Adam is weirdly powerful. It seems like it is not a coincidence Adam is the namesake of the Frankenstein Monster-like figure in Dark Shadows played by Robert Rodan. In fact, Alex Breaux brings a similar pathos to the role.

Godzilla Minus Zero

Everyone knows Godzilla is the “King of the Monsters,” but he is sufficiently comfortable in his kaiju skin that he feels no need to belabor his royalty. However, when Ghidorah is dubbed “King Ghidorah” after his sudden mutation, you know there will be trouble. In fact, that will be the whole idea. When all their previous attempts to stop Ghidorah fail, Japan’s Large-Scale Disaster Response Bureau hatches a scheme to deliberately pit King Ghidorah against the true King in director-screenwriter-visual effects supervisor Takashi Yamazaki’s Godzilla Minus Zero, which opens Friday in American theaters.

At the conclusion of Godzilla Minus One, Koichi Shikishima and his fellow veterans found redemption by seemingly destroying Godzilla in the Sagami. Yeah, sure they did. Of course, we know better. Nevertheless, Japan finally started to rebuild and Shikishima started to live again. He married his girlfriend Noriko Oishi and they formally adopted Akiko, the war orphan they had been caring for. Then the dragon-like Ghidorah literally lands on Earth from outer space.

It hardly seems fair that Japan must endure another kaiju, but at least the Bureau director Kenji Noda is the most experienced man for the job. Formerly a weapons designer, Noda devised the successful strategy implemented against Godzilla in Minus One. However, the Bureau’s initial efforts prove counter-productive, causing the single-headed Ghidorah to morph into the three-headed King Ghidorah, who displays even greater destructive powers.

Biologist Kanji Murakami develops a plan to lure the newly resurrected Godzilla to King Ghidorah with his invention that simulates the affinity that causes birds to flock. However, Murakami hides a grim ulterior motive. Eventually, he hopes to unleash Godzilla on New York, to avenge his family, who perished at Hiroshima.

Minus One was the first Japanese film to be nominated for a visual effects Academy Award, which it eventually won. Consequently, expectations were high for Yamazaki to top the spectacle of the first film. On purely visual and auditory levels, he succeeds smashingly. Godzilla and King Ghidorah have never looked so titanic. Watching Minus Zero is about as close as you can get to an apocalyptic experience without risking PTSD.

However, Minus Zero lacks the thematic heft of its predecessor. The previous film was about redemption and rebirth, categorically rejecting the ideology of death that had driven Japan to ruin. In contrast, the new film takes a darker turn, exploring themes of revenge. Frustratingly, Yamazaki largely wipes out all the progress the returning characters made in Minus One, miring them in survivor’s guilt.

Still, Minus Zero continues to raise the bar for kaiju movie performances, building on the genre-redefining work in Minus One and Shin Godzilla. Ryunosuke Kamiki and Minami Hamabe continue to deliver keenly sensitive portrayals of the Shikishimas, but it is frustrating to see Yamazaki’s treatment of their characters. Hidetaka Yoshioka is terrific as Noda, while Masami Nagasawa perfectly compliments him as Makoto Aoyama, the Bureau’s earnest new meteorologist. Admittedly, Min Tanaka also eloquently expresses Murakami’s pain and fury, but his character arguably undermines much of what made Minus One so surprisingly uplifting.

NY Baltic ’26: A Goodnight Kiss

It might sound like faint praise, but Arvo Part’s Fur Alina is widely considered one of the most frequently performed contemporary classical compositions. There are pop songs on the charts that might have sold exponentially more copies, but Fur Alina has endured and will continue to endure. Irena Veisaite inspired the composition’s sorrowful tone. She lived to see better days, surviving both the National Socialist and Communist occupations, to become one of Lithuania’s most prominent public intellectuals. Giedre Zickyte profiles the scholar, human rights activist, and theater critic in A Goodnight Kiss, which screens during the 2026 New York Baltic Film Festival.

Nobody better understood oppressive statist regimes than Veisaite. Her mother (by birth) was murdered during the Holocaust. Then, the second mother who adopted and protected Veisaite during the War was arrested and deported to a Siberian labor camp. Eventually, the courageous Stefanija Paliulyte-Ladigiene returned to Veisaite, thanks to Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization, but the long separation taught her the true nature of the Communist regime, loud and clear.

In many ways, Veisaite’s story is a story of motherhood. The love and loss of her mothers, directly shaped Veisaite’s philosophy and world view. Similarly, Veisaite spent years apart from her own daughter Alina, because the regime refused to grant her permission to travel. Her resulting motherly misery deeply touched, and inspired Part.

Veisaite is a remarkable figure, who personalizes the parallels between the Nazis and the Communists. Yet, she steadfastly argued against any form of vengeance-taking or score-settling. Unfortunately, Zickyte started production just before Veisaite’s 2020 death from Covid. Obviously, that forced a re-thinking of her approach. Nevertheless, she had a wealth of archival video and footage of perhaps the final meeting between Veisaite and Part. It is like a gathering of giants, but it takes a dark turn, when she discusses the invasion of Ukraine, prompting Part’s ominous response: “a storm is coming.”

NY Baltic ’26: Kyiv Cake (short)

Intentionally bombing apartment buildings is an undeniable war crime. Putin does it all the time. Consequently, no matter how surreal this animated short gets, it is still firmly based in reality. Life was always hard, but it takes a tragic turn in Ukrainian filmmaker Mykyta Lyskov’s Kyiv Cake, produced by Estonia’s Joonisfilm studio, which screens during the 2026 New York Baltic Film Festival.

The father is often on the road working, or whatever. As for the mother’s cooking, heaven have mercy. Plus, the power meter has a literally monstrous hunger. Not surprisingly, as the little toddler grows up, he develops delinquent tendencies. However, he doesn’t realize how much he has, until Putin strikes.

Evidently, Lyskov thoroughly packed Kyiv Cake with symbolism average Ukrainians will immediately recognize, but might soar over the heads of outsiders. Nevertheless, international audiences will fully understand the anger and grief Lyskov expresses. Stylistically, Lyskov engages in bizarre flights of fantasy that share a kinship with some of Bill Plympton’s work. However, his final images land like a punch to the gut.

Yeon Sang-ho’s Paradise Lost

Ryu So-young raised an adorable little hologram. The son he was based on did not turn out so well, but it really isn’t her fault. Ryu Sun-woo was presumed dead along with the rest of his class when a serial killer abducted them during a class trip. However, Sun-woo returns as an adult, like Martin Guerre, but in this case the prodigal son’s identity is confirmed. The DNA test is positive, but the changes to Sun-woo’s personality are entirely negative in Yeon Sang-ho’s Paradise Lost, which opens in theaters this Friday.

The case of Sun-woo’s class abduction was particularly cruel, because not all the bodies were recovered (obviously), due to the killer’s disposal method, dumping them into a collapsing mineshaft. To ease the parents’ grief, a kind-hearted tech company (there must be some out there, right?), created digital AI programs based on their children. The AI programs reside in an online world called “Paradise,” which is a terrible name, but it lends itself to the ironically dramatic title. Through special glasses, parents could summon holograms of their digitized children to interact with.

As the years passed, many parents stopped visiting and even had their child’s program deleted, but not Ryu. She cannot give up the idealized version of her son. Then the real one shows up. It is immediately clear the flesh and blood Ryu has engaged in some serious criminal behavior. Nevertheless, the confused mother tries to make the best of it, until the real Sun-woo’s makes it impossible to ignore his cruelty.

Paradise Lost might be the darkest, most pessimistic thriller ever produced that still remains compulsively watchable. Adapting Oh Seong-eun’s novel, Yeon and co-screenwriter Ryu Yong-jae find a new way to caution against over-dependence on AI. Yet, that is not the source of peril in this film. Arguably, Yeon presents a new and fresh take on the subject, which is really something, considering how many films are trying to cash-in on AIphobia.

Drummer Boy, a Musical from Angel Studios

This film is directly inspired by a Christmas carol, but it is not really a Christmas movie (less so than Die Hard). Admittedly, it would not be inappropriate for the holiday season, but it best fits Independence Day. However, in 1776, most New Yorkers were opposed to independence from England, especially in Kingston. Young Benjamin Clem was an exception, but his older brother Jeremiah was not. At least, the elder sibling was unwilling to stand against prevailing sentiment. That means the two brothers could very well find each other on opposing sides of a battle in Ben & Joel David Smallbone’s movie-musical Drummer Boy, released by Angel Studios, which opens this Friday in theaters.

The Clems came to the Colonies with their father, the honorable Nathaniel Clem, who genuinely believed the New World offered the only opportunity for people to live free. Unfortunately, he died during the transatlantic passage, in a naval incident. His appointment was subsequently taken by the much less honorable Lord Balfour (not the future Prime Minister responsible for the Balfour Declaration). This Balfour is the father of Lady Elizabeth and the owner of household slave Emmaline, both of whom were childhood friends of Jeremiah.

Having reached adulthood, Jeremiiah reluctantly agrees to serve in the British Army, in order to preserve the economic viability of the Clem family’s mill. He also hopes to woo Lady Elizabeth, with his letters. Unfortunately, she has no interest in responding. Instead, Emmaline replies in her place, like an unrequested Cyrano, simply signing her letters “E.” Of course, as a slave, Emmaline is not supposed to be literate, but Jeremiah taught secretly taught her, during their pre-Colonial days.

Sadly, the brothers parted on bad terms. Jeremiah almost dared Benjamin to enlist with the Patriots, cruelly dismissing his brother’s potential as a soldier. The same incident that killed their father irreparably damaged Benjamin’s leg. Yet, he always worked hard. More importantly, young Clem can drum, a talent that holds more value for Maj. John Ambrose than mere musketry. He needs a drummer like Clem to signal charges and retreats and to keep their marching snappy.

Even though it is a traditional carol, “The Little Drummer Boy” became one of Christian pop group For King + Country’s signature hits, after adding it to their set-list for gigs during the holiday season. The Smallbones and screenwriter save the Christmas standard for a dramatic Christmas battlefield confrontation that is hugely manipulative, but also massively cinematic. Consequently, it quite stirringly expresses the film’s themes of forgiveness and reconciliation.

Aside from the semi-titular carol, the score is entirely contemporary, reflecting For King + Country’s style. Of course, there is ample such precedent when it comes to musicals. Frankly, viewers who dig Les Mis will most likely enjoy Drummer Boy, because they share a similarly passionate sweeping sensibility. Arguably, the biggest criticism of the Smallbones’ score applies equally to the majority of recent book musicals produced in recent years. That would be the songs’ uniformity of tone, making them sound more like movements of a single composition rather than discrete tunes in their own right.

However, Clem’s drumming interludes arguably provides some refreshing stylistic variety. Essentially, his martial percussion quickly segues into funky and flashy drumline-style breaks. Frankly, the drumming often sounds more “modern” than the songs.

Tazza: The Song of Beelzebub

In the “Penny for Your Thoughts” episode of The Twilight Zone, a coin that lands on its edge allows Dick York to hear people’s thoughts. When it happens to gambler Jang Tae-young, it saves his life. Having cheated death, his next goal is naturally revenge in Choi Kook-hee’s Tazza: The Song of Beelzebub, which is still playing in theaters.

Childhood friends Jang Tae-young and Park Tae-young were not just namesakes. They were like brothers from another mother. That was fortunate for Jang, because Park’s mother went crazy and burned down their home. For the rest of his school days, Park lived with Jang and his guardian sister. Eventually, they went into business together, building an online gambling empire. Having recently expanded into traditional luxury casinos, Park sends Jang to do a deal in Vietnam.

Unbeknownst to Jang, Park always envied Jang’s remarkable luck and more personable charm, so he sets-up his partner, leaving him in the hands of organ harvesting gangsters. Jo Joong-hwan’s schtick has always been asking his victims to choose: heads he takes their liver, or tails for their eyes. That is when Jang’ coin lands on its edge. A deal is a deal, so Jo secretly dumps Jang with his gambler friend, Kwak Dong-wook, who reluctantly nurses him back to health.

Quickly recognizing Kwak’s skills, Jang starts apprenticing with Kwak. As fate would have it, Kwak often plays on behalf of Chairman Sasaki, a high-ranking Yakuza considering an investment in the company Park stole from Jang. Sasaki’s resentful assistant Kaneko could also be helpful, if Jang can trust her.

Song of Beelzebub (a reference to the fatefully tempting hand of cards that Jang keeps drawing) is the fourth Tazza film, but it stands completely alone from its three predecessors. (However, it still makes sense to call it Tazza, because it was adapted from the final story-arc of the original Tazza manhwa comics.) It also probably ranks as the most violent film of the series, to a degree that might surprise viewers looking for something in the spirit of The Sting—but that also makes the stakes feel even higher, in a life-and-death kind of way.

Of course, there are still plenty of double-crosses and triple-crosses in the new and final Tazza film. Choi and co-screenwriter Kim Hyun maintain all the clever capery twists that made the franchise so popular. The Cain and Abel-level betrayal also gives the film extra bite. In fact, Roh Jae-won plays Park as such a slimy cold fish, the audience hates him even before he turns on Jang.

The Mongoose, in The Epoch Times

The high-octane car chases and car crashes in THE MONGOOSE are slickly executed (far better than in many other recent car-centric movies), but it also addresses the expeiences of Global War on Teror veteans wih the sympathy and sensitivity they deserve. EPOCH TIMES review up here.

Fright Rags Presents Tales from the Morgue

Horror comics need an endless supply of victims, whose deaths will leave readers amused, rather than mournful. Thankfully, the world has an endless supply of “influencers.” Problem solved. Fright Rags, the purveyor of horror themed merch, probably cultivates influencers, but they happily kill them off in their first published anthology comic, Tales from the Morgue (published inn cooperation with American Mythology), which releases today.

As fate would have it, Fright Rags really is head-quartered in a building that once housed the local morgue, or so they say. Talk about inspiration. Predictably, in the wrap-around narrative (written by James Kuhoric and illustrated by E.V. Cntada), a group of influencers break in, hoping to find and film creepy traces of the building’s macabre history. They encounter Andy, the night watchman, who claims he also served as the morgue’s final coroner. Andy has some stories to tell about his former clients.

Consciously appealing to fans of 1980s horror, S.A. Check’s “Pyromaniac” (also illustrated by Cantada) follows a group of supernatural obsessed Gen Zer’s (who are definitely influencer “adjacent”) as they try to raise the homicidal Jacob Stocker, a fireman with a criminal history similar to Kruger’s. Notoriously, Stocker caused an entire orphanage to burn down.

The Pyromaniac’s sinister fire-fighting suit definitely evokes My Bloody Valentine vibes. He really pops off the page. Previously, Fright Rags released an original soundtrack to a fictional Pyromaniac movie, so they clearly believe he has franchise potential. Cantada’s images will definitely further the cause.

G.O. Parsons’ “Maul Santa,” illustrated by Emanuele Tommarelli, also introduces a character who could have a lot of kills in his future. Fittingly, it is set in a mall, which are always nostalgic for horror fans (thanks too classics like Dawn of the Dead and Chopping Mall). In this case, Parsons evokes the sad decline of malls during the mid-2010’s. Doug Chanski was still employed as the mall Santa, but when a pack of Millennial meatheads started bullying him, Chanski snapped, impaling one on the rotunda Christmas tree.

Chronovisor: Viewing the Past, in 16mm

If you appreciate your privacy, thank the Catholic Church for preserving it. That is the ironic and perhaps unintended takeaway from this avant-garde science fiction film, inspired by a real-life semi-apocryphal pseudo-scientific invention. Supposedly, Benedictine monk Pellegrino Ernetti invented a device that allowed him to silently view anything that transpired in the past. A French academic based in New York dives down the rabbit hole in search of Ernetti’s suppressed invention in Jack Auen & Kevin Walker’s Chronovisor, which opens in additional markets this Friday.

It seems there are media accounts that Ernetti announced his invention in 1972. Subsequent accounts are skeptical and erratic. At one point, an image of Christ at the crucifixion was released, but Ernetti later disavowed it. Regardless, the Vatican allegedly confiscated the Chronovisor, disassembling and boxing up the components for safe-keeping, to persevere every nation’s military and state secrets, as well as personal privacy as we have always known it. Or did they?

Beatrice Courte will follow the bread crumbs, trying to sleuth out Ernetti’s ultimate fate as well as that of the Chronovisor. Consequently, much of the film consists of still photography of various news reports pertaining to Ernetti and his invention, which are especially bizarre, considering many (if not all) were actually published. You could consider them “true” fake news.

If you are intrigued by this weird intersection of religion and science, then Auen & Walker’s rigorously academic approach should appeal to you. Evidently, it was inspired by David Bentley Hart’s short story “The Memory Palace,” but the credits also acknowledge Umberto Eco and Jorge Luis Borges as additional influences, which definitely makes sense.

Kazakh Scary Tales, on Klassiki

Which would be harder for an honest cop to deal with, Kantas’s corrupt provincial government, or the infant-devouring Albasty, who is sort of like the Kazakh equivalent of La Llorona? The question is almost academic to Birzhan, because he must contend with both. Frankly, his honesty is debatable, but he is still more justice-minded than his new colleagues in director-screenwriter Adilkhan Yerzhanov’s Kazakh Scary Tales, which premieres tomorrow on Klassiki.

Birzhan was just transferred to Kantas—and he is keenly aware it was not meant as a promotion. Evidently, Birzhan previously made waves by trying to prosecute criminals. His new boss just wants his officers to close cases, not solve them. However, the shocking circumstances of Birzhan’s first case are hard to ignore.

Apparently, several mothers and their infants were murdered in a spectacularly gory manner at the local maternity hospital, overseen by Birzhan’s namesake. Everybody wants to rubber stamp the incident as some sort of misadventure, but these things don’t just happen. When Birzhan discovers the grotesque graveyard for stillborn and aborted babies on the fringes of hospital grounds, the inspector really digs in.

Since his fellow cops will not help, Birzhan assembles a not entirely voluntary kitchen cabinet, consisting of Sara, a dodgy fortune-teller with genuine but unreliable psychic powers of touch, and Ulmes, the local foul-mouthed pathologist. The truth is pretty horrifying and it might just consume Birzhan, in more ways than one.

Evidently, Kazakh Scary Tales was originally conceived and released as a streaming series, but it was re-edited into a feature for the international market. Frankly, aside from one long flashback detour, the resulting film rarely feels episodic. In fact, it builds nicely towards its legitimately dramatic climax.

Granted, when the audience finally sees the Albasty, it isn’t exactly believable, but the over-the-top insanity of its appearance still definitely counts for something. However, most of the film is distinguished by its quietly eerie atmosphere.

Nocturne, on Apple TV+

You could say Karl Anders has “suicidal empathy.” He is a social justice warrior, who works as an orderly in a maximum-security mental hospital. Of course, he immediately sympathizes with Jurek Walter, a serial killer held under conditions worthy of Hannibal Lecter, rather than the victims his new patient buried alive, with just enough water to prolong their torture. That makes Anders a danger to himself and others. However, long after the small Pennsylvania town of Fairhaven gave up all hope, one of Walter’s victims mysteriously reappears. Naturally, the cops who busted him desperately hope to find the long-missing boy’s sister, as well as the accomplice presumably holding her in creator Rowan Joffe and showrunner John Hlavin’s ten-episode Nocturne, based on Lars Kepler’s novel, which premieres Friday on Apple TV+.

The abduction of Michael and Felicia Frost still haunts Fairhaven, PA, so when the brother reappears, the police and FBI renew the search for his sister. For Jonah Lynn, the Walter case remains bitterly personal. He long-suspected Walter kidnapped his partner Sam Mendel’s wife Rebecca, eventually provoking his suicide.

Lynn retired, practically living as a recluse, but he somewhat kept in touch with his surrogate daughter, Saga Bauer, who now works as an undercover FBI agent. When the cold case suddenly turns hot, they both invite themselves onto the investigation. Police Chief Ellison is happy to have their help, but Special Agent Quinn is much more turf and protocol conscious. Nevertheless, they both get results, especially when Bauer inserts herself into Riverside Psychiatric, landing the cell next to Walter’s through her antisocial behavior.

Initially, Bauer’s infiltration is about as unofficial as it gets. Technically, Lynn and Nathan, a Fairhaven cop, broke the law, by hacking Riverside’s surveillance cameras to monitor her. Eventually, Ellison and Quinn also discover the operation, but they essentially just go with it, because what’s done is done.  Clearly, Anders frequently acts as a messenger for Walter, believing the inmate’s rights have been violated. Rather ominously, he also smuggles contraband items to the psychopath, not realizing their potentially deadly applications.

Adapted from the novel The Sandman, written by the husband-and-wife duo Alexander and Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril under their Kepler pseudonym, Nocturne is a moody serial killer thriller, that occasionally gives off horror vibes (especially when Lynn discovers creepy pagan runes hidden at Walter’s crime scenes). However, ten episodes (7 of which were provided for review) over-stretches a story that could have easily boiled down to six installments, or perhaps even feature length.

Nevertheless, despite its Scandinavian origins, Nocturne sympathetically depicts its characters’ working-class, Middle American values and the lingering communal trauma of Walter’s abductions. Liev Schreiber (the nemesis of spell-checkers) and Bill Camp are spectacularly gritty, grizzled, and world-weary as Lynn and Ellison. Viewers immediately see just how much weight the two lawmen continue to carry.

Zazie Beetz also portrays Bauer in absolutely harrowing, utterly unglamorous circumstances. Honestly, her stint in Riverside is far, far worse than what Vincent Price puts Lynn Bari through in Shock. Similarly, Chrissy Metz is often painful to watch, because she so convincingly expresses Ida Frost’s exhaustion and maternal desperation.

Joko Anwar’s Ghost in the Cell

Apparently, Norman Vincent Peale was right. Positive thinking will keep you alive in this Indonesian prison. At least it will keep prisoners safe from the ghost hunting people with negative auras. Of course, it is hard to maintain that positive energy, when the various prison gangs attack their fellow inmates, for conventional criminal reasons. Regardless, Anggoro and his friends are not getting released anytime soon, so they must survive as best they can in director-screenwriter-editor Joko Anwar’s Ghost in the Cell, which releases tomorrow on digital VOD.

Dimas’s editor was just about to water-down his expose on political corruption, environmental despoilation, and a series of bizarre ritualistic murders, but the ghost strung him up on his ceiling fan before he could proceed. Unfortunately, Dimas was convicted of the murder. Of course, it didn’t make any sense, but as the characters constantly remind each other: “this is Indonesia.”

Once inside, the corrupt Warden agrees to arrange Dimas’s murder, by placing him with Tokek, the prison’s worst psychopath. Yet, the next day, the would-be assassin is impaled on a showerhead. After a few more gruesome murders, Six, one of Anggoro’s mates, reveals he can predict who dies next because he can see auras. The previous victims always had the worst auras in prison, reflecting either extreme rage or despair. That means they must keep their auras positive to survive, either through prayer or “artistic” endeavor like dance. Of course, that becomes extremely inconvenient whenever rival gangs launch an attack.

Honestly, it is amazing that Ghost in the Cell exists. First of all, it is a horror comedy that is actually funny, which certainly sets it apart. It also savagely skewers Indonesia’s justice system. Yet, even more daringly, it presents Islamic faith in a way that is not disrespectful (at least not from a Western perspective), but still conspicuously enmeshed in the film’s outrageous comedy. It is not irreverent, per se, but it sure isn’t reverent either.

At times, it is also spectacularly gory. Even the serial killer in Se7en would consider the ghost’s crime scenes somewhat excessive. Regardless, despite the fearless physical humor, Ghost in the Cell is consistently tense and scary, because it taps into the realities of its setting. No matter what happens, Anggoro and his block-mates are stuck inside, with the angry ghost.

Marshals: Blast Radius

Their insomnia benefits our public safety. Deputy Marshal Andrea Cruz still has unresolved PTSD from her abduction, while her teammate Kayce Dutton has his moody passive aggressive son Tate moping around the house, so they start spending their nights apprehending fugitives. How many can there be in Montana? Evidently, a lot. However, one collars offers information on a much bigger fish in “Blast Radius,” tonight’s new episode of showrunner Stephen Hudnut’s Marshals.

Way back in “The Gathering Storm,” Dutton and his team-leader Pete Calvin inadvertently released Rudy Carpenter, assuming he was just another backwoods oddball. At the time, they were busy saving industrialist-turned-rancher Tom Weaver, but it was still rather embarrassing to learn Carpenter is a Unabomber style domestic terrorist.

Calvin’s boss, the slimy political appointee Harry Gifford, backed their decision, but he still constantly holds it over Calvin’s head. Since then, Calvin started chemo therapy and so far, so good. However, Gifford offers his support, in the most annoying and undermining way possible.

Clearly, “Bast Radius” sets up a two-part story arc, because it ends with a blatantly manipulative cliffhanger. Fortunately, director Guy Ferland leads up to it with a lot of door-kicking action, which will keep procedural viewers satisfied. There is also a brief flashback that might have Yellowstone franchise fans hoping it is a precursor of more Dutton lore to follow.

Capturing Bigfoot: The Truth About Patterson-Gimlin

If you spent a lot of time watching In Search of in the 70’s or History and Discovery Channels over the last two decades, you probably saw a lot of the so-called Patterson-Gimlin Film, famous for supposedly documenting the existence of a sasquatch (Bigfoot). Experts estimate it might be the second most widely watched amateur film, after the Zapruder Film. It has been debated for decades, but recently discovered evidence calls its veracity into question. Filmmaker Marq Evans chronicles the history of the film and explains why many Bigfoot “community” members now reluctantly agree it was probably a hoax in the documentary Capturing Bigfoot, which is currently screening in New York.

Roger Patterson was a legit cowboy from Yakima, who became preoccupied with Bigfoot lore. Even before he shot the familiar footage of the lady sasquatch striding through the forest, coyly looking over her shoulder into the camera, he was recording interviews with supposed witnesses. His young son Clint (now also a cowboy) was there for a lot of his Bigfoot chasing—not out of cryptozoological interest, but just to spend time with his father. However, he was not there when Patterson and his friend Bob Gimlin made the film that bears their names.

Even in the limited media ecosystem of the late 1960s, the Patterson-Gimlin Film became a sensation. Eventually, with the backing of his brother-in-law, Al DeAtley, Patterson incorporated the film into a longer documentary that they successfully four-walled in the early 1970s. However, Gimlin was somehow cut out of his rightful share of the film’s revenues, which led to hard feelings.

In fact, the film alleges DeAtley cut out just about everyone else, largely including Patterson, who tragically succumbed to cancer in 1972. Indeed, DeAtley clearly emerges as the villain of Evans’ film. Nevertheless, as his social position rose. DeAtley chose to distance himself from his Bigfoot associations, so he allowed the rights to the Patterson-Gimlin film revert to Roger Patterson’s widow, who made good money licensing the footage.

Ironically, Capturing Bigfoot is not really about cryptid chasing. Instead, it presents the Patterson-Gimlin Film as almost a “cursed” object, like the Hope Diamond or the Maltese Falcon, which poisoned friendships and fractured families. Furthermore, some of Evans’ on-camera experts outright suggest the hoax damaged other lives, by fueling some prominent Bigfoot hunters’ obsession with the cryptid.

The Terminal List, Season Two, in The Epoch Times

THE TERMINAL LIST's second season continues to aptly capture the Navy SEAL mentality, while serving up explosive action and paranoid deep-state intrigue. EPOCH TIMES review up here.

Gnomes, on CBC Gem

In the late 1970s, gnomes were bizarrely popular, thanks Will Huygen & Rien Poortvliet’s bestselling hardcover “field guide” gift book. A lot of people put gnomes in their gardens and forgot about them. Then, in the early 1990s, Leprechauns captured horror fans’ interest with a series of increasingly cheesy movies, over shadowing the gnomes. Those gnomes will kill for more attention in creator Joel Kohn’s six-part Gnomes, which premieres today on CBC Gem.

The Australian town of Nompton is only really known for its Gnome Festival, but for various neurotic reasons, police Sgt. Arnold Kipps is reluctant to leave. This year, Mayor Lachlan Morrison pulled out all the stops for Gnome Fest, borrowing a statue of the infamous Gnome Queen from a German museum, at considerable “unbudgeted” expense to the town. That would be the same Gnome Queen seen in the prologue, when desperate National Socialists officers tried to rouse her, to harness her power. They painfully failed at the latter, after successfully reviving her. Fortunately, her near dead caretaker managed to recast the containment spell, turning her back to stone.

Super awkwardly, Kipps inadvertently re-awakens the Queen after a rare night of drinking. It is hard to blame the guy. His ex, Ellie McKay, came back to Nompton with her obnoxiously woke boss, Superintendent Harvey Poll, to fire everyone and close the town’s station. He also still misses McKay, because she really was the one. Frankly, her departure is probably why his blood has the right purity to revive the Gnome Queen, if you follow.

The Queen immediately runs amok, turning the towns garden gnomes into her private army of little red capped maniacs. However, she will not regain her full strength until she wields her magic battle axe, which Kipps misplaced during his drunken wanderings.

Fallen Angels, Broadway in Movie Theaters

Noel Coward famously quipped, “I’m not a heavy drinker, I can sometimes go for hours without touching a drop.” In truth, he appreciated a glass of bubbly, the more expensive, the better, but he was no Bukowski or Faulkner. Frankly, his characters were more likely to get into trouble through inebriation than he was. That certainly happens to Julia Sterroll and her friend Jane Banbury in Coward’s play Fallen Angels, which was filmed live-on-Broadway and now screens in movie theaters, starting today.

Sterroll is totally fine with her husband Fred. Likewise, Banbury is perfectly comfortable with her husband, Willy. Yet, they both remember their wild days of youth with Maurice Duclos, a French ladies’ man worthy of Harlequin novels. Much to their excitement and panic, Duclos sends word he will visit London while their husbands are off on a golfing excursion. Should they run away to Brighton, to preserve their faithfulness, or should they stay, which presumably means succumbing to their pent-up desire?

They go back and forth debating whether it is better to run like cowards (so to speak), or face temptation head on. However, after several cocktails, and bottle of champagne, after dinner liquors, their decision-making judgement somewhat clouds.

Watching Fallen Angels during the current era of Puritanical woke humor is wonderful refreshing. Honestly, some of Coward’s zingers barely qualify as double entendre. The naughty meaning could not be any more nakedly apparent.

Likewise, Fallen Angels is about as boozy as Absolutely Fabulous—and maybe fifty percent funnier. Kelli O’Hara and Rose Byrne suitably vamp it up, visibly delighting in Coward’s urbane but acid-laced dialogue. They milk the debauchery for every last laugh—sometimes even from each other. Also, Byrne’s hairdresser deserves considerable credit for maintaining the levels of upkeep and unkemptness for Banbury’s coif.

Yaga, on AMC+

Most TV witches are either the “Good” Hallmark kind, or the persecuted, as in Sanctuary: A Witch’s Tale. Baba Yaga does not fit either mold. The mythic Slavic witch is a clever predator, largely driven by vengeance or lust. Of course, she never considers herself evil, per se. As each episode’s opening narration asserts, she always thought she had her reasons for what she did. Regardless, if she really is responsible for a spoiled rich kid’s disappearance, the outlook for the entitled wastrel is decidedly grim in showrunner Kat Sandler’s 8-episode Yaga, adapted from her own play, which premieres Friday on AMC+.

The Park family controls the northwestern coastal village Whitlock (they own the fishing industry, just like the Collins family in Dark Shadows), so when their son Henry disappears, Sgt. just-plain Carson must partner up with their private detective, Charlie Rapp, whether she likes it or not. Frankly, Rapp is more aptly described as a not so poor man’s Ray Donovan. Carson is stuck with him just the same. Initially, she finds him smarmy, but his shameless charm starts to wear her down. He also genuinely cares about Henry, in a big brother kind of way.

Weirdly, Park’s working-class roommate, Logan Casey can pass for his twin. In fact, Casey clearly has an unhealthy interest in his missing housemate-benefactor. Of course, they partied together, engaged in hedonistic behavior together, and perhaps even participated in weird cult rituals together.

Clearly, the occult perversely fascinates Park. Supposedly, local anthropology professor Katherine Hargrove appeared on his vanity podcast to discuss Baba Yaga folklore, but the tapes disappeared. Rapp and Carson also find an eerie Blair Witch-esque symbol under Park’s bed. In fact, that emblem keeps turning up. Meanwhile, Rapp tries to shake off ominous visions and hallucinations, perhaps sent by Baba Yaga herself, whoever she might be. Indeed, Rapp starts asking that very question, even though it sounds slightly crazy.

Like The Red King, Yaga straddles the border separating horror from mystery-thrillers. At best, there is probably some dangerous cult activity going on in Whitlock. Nevertheless, the malevolent practice of witchcraft is a very “real” possibility. Indeed, Sheila McCarthy has some deeply disturbing scenes as Elena Yaha, a half-mad old Ukrainian lady, who becomes a leading Baba Yaga suspect.

By the way, Yaga is absolutely not for younger viewers, even though it is not particularly violent or gory. However, it is safe to say there is considerable mature content. Nonetheless, the mystery is rather intriguing, thanks to the massively creepy genre elements.