DOC NYC ’21: Freedom Swimmer (short)

Hong Kong used to literally be a safe harbor. From 1950 to 1980, two million refugees swam to the freedom of Hong Kong from the Mainland. That was then. Now the waters surrounding Hong Kong represent something veery different, as the case of the 12 Hong Kong Youths, abducted on the high seas and held incommunicado in the PRC so grimly illustrates. Their crime was seeking freedom in the democratic nation of Taiwan. The grandfather of this short film’s narrator fully understands the circumstances then and now, so he encourages his unidentified granddaughter to follow his example in Olivia Martin-McGuire’s partially animated short Freedom Swimmer, which screens as part of this year’s DOC NYC.

One afternoon over tea, the woman’s grandfather tells her the harrowing story of his flight from the Cultural Revolution. He rigged a crude raft and braved roiling surf with her mother, who was then a very little girl. Of course, it was dangerous, but staying would be more perilous. He tells her matter-of-factly, when there is no hope, there is no fear. Ever since then, he has led a modest but free life in Hong Kong, but the point of his story is to convince his granddaughter to now leave Hong Kong, so she too can live in freedom.

Courage: The Belarus Free Theatre On-Stage and in Protests

In the West, we have comedians that want to censor jokes and journalists that want to censor the internet if it reports the wrong kind of stories. However, the Belarus Free Theatre (BFT) still believes in freedom of speech and expression—and they practice what they preach, despite the dangers they run under Alexander Lukashenko’s crude dictatorship. The BFT have been the subject of previous documentaries, including Madeleine Sackler’s Dangerous Acts Starring the Unstable Elements of Belarus, but it is a fellow countryman Aliaksei Paluyan who turns his lens on the free-thinking company in Courage, which opens this Friday in Los Angeles.

Maryna Yakubovich, Pavel Haradnizky, and Denis Tarasenka are talented performers, but like most of the BFT they are under-employed, because they have been blacklisted. 2010 was a bad year for the troupe and the company, but the lead up to the 2020 sham elections is shaping up to be even worse. Sackler’s doc largely concentrated on their rebellious stage performances, but Paluyan focuses more on their participation in the massive popular street protests. Yet, they had to coordinate their street demonstrating, so there would always be sufficient members to arrange lawyers and prison care packages for colleagues should they be arrested.

Frankly, the film’s slow start does not reflect the urgency of the Belarussian situation, but once Paluyan immerses us in the protests, we get a visceral sense of the strange combination of fear, violence, and hope that marked last summer for fed-up Belarussians. Sometimes, Courage captures sprawling chaos not unlike that depicted in Sergei Loznitsa’s Maidan, but there are also acutely personal moments, like the look in the eyes of young OMON secret police shock troops, who obviously want to be anywhere else but there.

Unfortunately, Paluyan’s film also makes it clear Belarussian activists need a refresher in Dr. Gene Sharp’s principles for revolutionaries, particularly when it comes to putting women and senior citizens at the front of demonstrations and having signs in English for the international press to read. Regardless, nobody can fault the average Belarussian protesters for the commitment and yes, their courage.

DOC NYC ’21: Alien on Stage

Few original films from 1979 are still generating sequels, theatrical documentaries, and even unlikely stage adaptations. Sure, the recent sequels have been questionable, but the second film has nearly equal status as a classic—and so does the third, for Fincher fans. Given extreme events that transpire, the idea of reconceiving Ridley Scott’s Alien for the stage would be daunting for anyone, especially for a company of limited means, like this amateur troupe of Dorset bus company employees. Nevertheless, they did just that, winning over super-fans Lucy Harvey & Danielle Kummer, who subsequently documented the production’s West End premiere in Alien on Stage which screens during this year’s DOC NYC.

Ordinarily, the Dorset bus drivers, known as “Paranoid Dramatics” would mount an annual holiday “pantomime” to raise money for charity. Basically, these were broad farces that encouraged ruckus responses from the audience. However, they decided to go serious for a year and agreed to give Luc Hayward a shot at adapting Alien. It would be a family affair, with his mom Lydia playing Ripley and his father Raymond creating sets.

As director, Dave Mitchell drew on his military background to whip the company into shape and keep them focused. However, Peter Lawford might have had the hardest assignment as the creature designer. Their initial week-long run in Dorset was not the sell-out they hoped for, but it attracted two curious patrons from London, Harvey and Kummer, who were inspired to arrange their special one-night only premiere on the West End.

Alien on Stage is an amiable film, but it is rather narrowly focused on the show’s genesis and the preparation for their West End “transfer.” (It isn’t much of a spoiler to say the Dorset players became a cult hit and would return in the year following.) However, they do a nice job of capturing the flavor of the show, which is unpolished but impressively resourceful. The Xenomorph costume really looks cool, while the chest-bursting effects are admittedly crude, but that is part of their charm.

DOC NYC ’21: We Are Russia

You would expect it would make American headline news if an opposition party in a large influential country arrived at their headquarters one morning to find the doors locked, the door knobs removed, and iron bars freshly installed over their windows. To make matters worse, one of their volunteers was locked inside with the people who had performed this surprise renovation. This is exactly what happened in Moscow, but our media is only interested in Putin in connection with conspiracy theories regarding Trump collusion. By the way, the kicker was the only person to face prosecution after this abuse of power was the innocent campaign worker trapped inside. He was a friend of the youthful activists documentarian Alexandra Dalsbaek followed when they took Navalny’s 2018 presidential campaign to the streets in We Are Russia, which screens during this year’s DOC NYC.

There are no talking heads in WAR and no dry backgrounders. If you don’t know who Putin is by now and how profoundly undemocratic his imperial presidency has been, I think you’re an idiot and Dalsbaek probably does too. Regardless, if you don’t get it by now, you will after watching these kids’ experiences (one of the Navalny volunteers is only sixteen).

When we first see Milena and her friends protesting, their efforts look almost negligible by American standards. One of them merely stands in front of government building holding a sign not much larger than a sheet of notebook paper, while the other two film and post on social media. Yet, time and time again, they get hassled and often even arrested by the cops.

In fact, Dalsbaek’s film makes it clear Putin’s Russia is, by any standard or definition, a true police state. It is impossible to effectively campaign for legit opposition candidates and those who try and inevitably arrested and prosecuted. It is hard to imagine the deafening outrage if western democracies kept their accused in cages during trial, but it is standard practice in Russia.

First and foremost, these activists deserve all kinds of credit for the guts and commitment they display. Fearless Milena even tries to hold her sign in front of FSB headquarters, prompting a police response in seconds (literally). They are risking their [relative] liberty and perhaps even their lives for a better government and a brighter future.

Aulcie: Israel’s First Superstar Athlete

Aulcie Perry was Michael Jordan, before Jordan was anything in sports—but in Israel. Perry nearly joined the New York Knicks, but was cut at the last minute. Instead, he signed with the Maccabi Tel Aviv pro club in Israel, whose 1977 European championship season was the subject of Dani Menkin’s previous documentary, On the Map. Perry was a major contributor to their success. Israel opened its arms to its new superstar, but Perry was not prepared for the temptations that come with fame. Menkin chronicles his rise, fall, and redemption in Aulcie, which opens this Friday in Los Angeles.

Perry’s family faced discrimination at its ugliest in the Jim Crow south and he grew up amid economic stagnation and gang violence in Newark, New Jersey. However, he found immediate acceptance in Israel, even though he conspicuously stood out from everyone around him. He literally towered over most Israelis, including his teammate. Then one night, Perry met Israeli supermodel Tami Ben-Ami, who was also quite famous for her long legs—and it was love at first sight, at least for him. He would later convert to Judaism, partly for her and partly because it truly spoke to his spiritual needs. He adopted the name Elisha ben Avraham, but remained widely known as Aulcie.

Unfortunately, Perry left a lot of unfinished business back in America. Later in his career, lingering injuries got him hooked on pain pills, which led to harder stuff. As with other athletes, drugs would be his downfall. Yet, even when he was expelled from the country, Israel still loved him. Actually, Israel was happy to welcome him back, but finally meeting the daughter he never knew would be trickier. In fact, that is the goal that drives Perry during the film’s contemporary scenes.

Aulcie is probably the best sports film of the year, so far (and Menkin’s On the Map is even more rousingly entertaining). It does justice to Perry’s dramatic life story, but it also speaks very directly about what it means to be Israeli. Perry was born an underdog, so it makes sense he found a home in an underdog nation like Israeli. He also had a great, but sadly tragic romance with the late Ben-Ami, who was truly the love of his life and vice versa.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, on Disney+

Serious question: did Disney/Marvel accidentally hire the wrong Tony Leung? They were quite distressed when their first martial arts film was not granted a coveted release slot for Chinese theaters, despite their profuse, prostrating apologies for the original comic book licensing Sax Rohmer’s notoriously stereotyped villain Fu Manchu, way back in the 1970s. Yet, it is worth noting Tony Leung Chiu Wai had issued statements in support of Umbrella protestors, whereas Tony Leung Ka-fai publicly backed the abusive HK police. (Also, it was partly filmed in Australia, a nation the CCP has been particularly belligerent towards.) Regardless, it seems Hollywood has been hellbent on selling its soul to a devil it does not understand. There is still no Mainland release date for Destin Daniel Cretton’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, but it finally starts streaming on Disney+ this Friday.

Shaun is not merely a laid-back valet attendant. He is really the son of powerful crime-lord Xu Wenwu, a.k.a. “The Mandarin,” but absolutely, positively not Dr. Fu Manchu. He came to America to break ties with his father’s organization, but they inevitably come looking for him. Fortunately, he manages to fend of his father’s unnaturally enhanced henchmen, much to the surprise of his hard-drinking platonic bestie, Katy. Fearing Xiu will next come after his estranged sister Xu Xialing, they rush off to Macau to warn her.

Now the leader of a rival Triad, Xu is less than thrilled to reconnect with Shang-Chi, but their father’s assassins essentially force them into a truce. The reunion with Dad is even more awkward, but eventually they get a warmer reception from their Aunt Ying Nan, a mystical guardian of the legendary city Ta Lo. They will help her protect their late mother’s idyllic home from Xu’s army and the power of the titular ten rings that keep him looking so youthful.

From the CCP’s perspective (and maybe Marvel’s) Tony Leung Chiu Wai might have been the wrong Tony, but for anyone who believes in principles like freedom of expression, democratic governance, human rights, and free enterprise, he is the right Tony—and he is indeed terrific in Ten Rings. Despite the plentiful CGI, his training for The Grandmaster clearly did not go to waste. More importantly, he truly humanizes the super-villain, while brooding like nobody’s business. Twenty years from now Ten Rings will probably be programmed alongside In the Mood for Love and 2046 during “Little Tony” Leung retrospectives.

Leung makes the movie, but Simu Liu holds up his end as the action lead. He also has winning chemistry with Awkwafina, providing non-cringy comic relief as Katy. You can sort of see her coaxing Liu out of his dramatic shell, just as her character draws his out socially. As Xialing, Meng’er Zhang matches Liu step-for-step in their fight scenes. Yet, nothing can match the thrill of seeing the great Michelle Yeoh continue to command the screen as Ying Nan. It is also fun to see Benedict Wong briefly turn up as Wong from Dr. Strange. However, Sir Ben Kingsley inspires face-palms with his shticky sad clown routine as Trevor Slattery, the woeful actor set-up to be the Mandarin’s fall guy (and supply a link back to Iron Man 3).

Dexter: New Blood

In movies and TV, there are some serial killers who need only one name to be identified, like Hannibal, Michael, and Jason. Dexter Morgan was definitely like that, especially since his show was simply called Dexter. After his disappearance at the end of his 8-season run, he has been known as Jim Lindsay (in honor of the author of the source novels, Jeff Lindsay). For ten years, Morgan/Lindsay has kept his predatory urges in check. Of course, killing is like riding a bike. It all immediately comes back to you. However, he is a little rusty on the cover-up afterward in Clyde Phillips’ Dexter: New Blood, which starts tomorrow night on Showtime.

After slipping away under the cover of a hurricane in the previous series’ conclusion, Morgan is now living as Lindsay in Iron Lake, New York (it will not be very placid there). He works at the local sporting goods store, where his knowledge of knives and guns comes in handy. So will his budding romance with Angela Bishop, the town’s chief of police. He thought he cut all ties to his past, so he is shocked when his son Harrison comes looking for him. The teen does not know his father’s shocking secrets, but he is enough of a Morgan to keep his mouth shut regarding family business.

Morgan managed to keep his “Dark Passenger” at bay through conversations with the interior projection of his late sister Debra, but the obnoxious and entitled Matt Caldwell will sorely test them both. Honestly, the mean-spirited wastrel is just asking to be murdered, pretty-please-with-sugar-on-top. Meanwhile, there is another, more traditional serial killer also operating in the woods around Iron Lake, but we only see the mystery perp heavily bundled up and in shadows, at least during the first four episodes supplied for review (out of ten).

If you are new to Dexter (aside from a general awareness of the premise), Phillips and his writers make it pretty easy to dive into Morgan’s new world and catch up on relevant backstory along the way. It is also really grabby thanks to the protagonist’s sly and admittedly twisted voiceovers. Morgan/Lindsay remains an enormously intriguing character, whom Michael C. Hall plays to the hilt. He still has the ironic smirk and the piercing death stare, but this Morgan is also haunted by the things he has seen and done. There is a lot to this character that Hall fleshes out nicely.

Pre-existing fans should be psyched by the return of Jennifer Carpenter, who is terrific offering Dexter her relentlessly tough love inside his head. We only just start to see the great Clancy Brown as the father of the missing Caldwell, but it is enough to show he brings his usual compulsively watchable craftiness. Jamie Chung also promises to be a scene-stealing wild card as true crime podcaster Molly Park.

Finch, on Apple TV+

In the not too distant future, next Sunday A.D. There was a man named Finch Weinberg, not so different from you and me. To keep his sanity, he built some robot friends, but they never got to riff on any cheesy movies, even though Jeff, his newest invention, shares similar coloring with Crow T. Robot. Instead, they are preoccupied with survival—that of Finch and his dog Goodyear—in Miguel Sapochnik’s post-apocalyptic Finch, which premieres today on Apple TV+.

The world is pretty much over and only a few survivors like Weinberg remain holed up in their hiding places. In his soul-scarring experience, nobody works together anymore. Weinberg’s scientific background has served him well, allowing him to hole-up in a power plant he manages to keep in limited operation. Unfortunately, his health is deteriorating, so he created Jeff to help him care for Goodyear. His service drone Dewey just does not have sufficient functionality.

Not long after he is powered up, Jeff helps Weinberg detect an incoming mega-storm. They must flee the entire Midwest region, so Weinberg decides to head towards San Francisco, for sentimental reasons, even though he has never left St. Louis before. Thus begins a road trip across the desolate wasteland ravaged by the vague cosmic disaster that is never fully spelled out. For Jeff there will be growing pains, but even crusty Weinberg will learn late life lessons too.

Craig Luck & Ivor Powell’s screenplay definitely leans into sentimentality, but the ever-reliable Tom Hanks bails out the film’s more indulgent moments with his haunted and world-weary performance as Weinberg. The comparisons with Castaway are obvious, but we come to understand he retreated to his own island long before Armageddon came crashing down. It is a smartly calibrated performance and Hanks truly looks gaunt and grizzled—you almost have to wonder if he shot the film while he was recovering from Covid.

Hell Hath No Fury, Featuring Mandylor, Vandenberg, and Bernhardt

People forget Germany first occupied France was during WWI—that’s why the front line was in France. Those who collaborated the first time faced reprisals that they repaid with interest during the National Socialist occupation. Many in turn faced similar or worse humiliation after the Allied liberation, like Marie Dujardin, the former mistress of a high-ranking SS officer. Ironically, Dujardin was in fact a resistance mole, but she has nobody left to vouch for her. However, she has knowledge of a secret stash of gold that is definitely worth something in Jesse V. Johnson’s Hell Hath No Fury, which opens this Friday in Los Angeles.

When we meet Dujardin, she is cooing romantically with the ruthless Von Bruckner. Yet, when their car is ambushed by the resistance, she claims to be on their side. He manages to take care of his would-be executioners, but she gets the drop on him. Or so she thought—those darned glancing face shots. She left him for dead, but she really left him facially scarred.

That leads to a nasty reunion when she leads three American GI’s and Major Maitland, their Kelly’s Heroes-style officer to the cemetery, where she tells them she hid Von Bruckner’s gold. He wants it too—and he is marching their way with all the SS troops still loyal to him.

HHNF is not exactly a love letter to the “Greatest Generation.” Technically, Dujardin is not exactly a stereotypical “woman scorned” either. However, Johnson, the prolific action director, stages some nifty battle sequences. Stuff gets blown-up and Germans get killed many satisfactory ways, but Johnson always keeps it all clean and legible on-screen.

He also has the benefit of a gritty, experienced cast, including Louis Mandylor, who certainly knows his way around a Johnson set (including the Debt Collector movies and maybe half a dozen others). Timothy V. Murphy is a real standout for the grizzled swagger and snarling attitude he brings as the working-class sergeant.

Kim Jee-woon’s Dr. Brain, on Apple TV+

Brain scientists are often a little socially awkward, at least in movies and TV, but Dr. Koh Se-won takes the brain biscuit. He can literally get inside peoples’ heads, but it is almost impossible for him to open up to anyone, not even his wife and son. However, when they are taken from him prematurely, he just so happens to have technology to help him get answers, from other people’s memories. Of course, as with any great innovation, his revolutionary process comes with unforeseen side effects and complications in Kim Jee-woon’s six-episode Dr. Brain, adapted from Hong Jac-ga’s web-comic, which is now streaming on Apple TV+.

The exact circumstances are not spelled out, but Koh was born with a different brain structure that contributed to his intellectual brilliance, but also put him somewhere on the spectrum. Despite his impassive emotional reserve, he marries Jae-yi and they have a son, Do-yoon, who is very much like his father. Unfortunately, Do-yoon was killed in a freak accident, from which Jae-yi never recovered—except maybe he didn’t. Suddenly, Dr. Koh has reason to wonder.

Using his handing-dandy brain-synching apparatus, Koh is able to transfer memories from recently dead brains into his own. It is a process he is still refining. It turns out he also inadvertently synchs many of their skills and instincts. However, the process is dangerously erratic when attempted with a living brain. Instead of true memories, Dr. Koh is flooded with images from their subconscious. Regardless, each time he synchs, his brain absorbs another huge download. If it were not for his atypical brain structure, he probably could not handle it.

Dr. Brain follows in the tradition of psyche-plumbing thrillers like Spellbound, Battle of Memories, and Dreamscape, where the subconscious is an equally important setting for the drama to play out as the offices and homes of its primary characters. It definitely plays to the strength of genre auteur Kim (Age of Shadows and I Saw the Devil), who brings a bit of a horror sensibility to first installment (a la Flatliners), before setting into psychological-thriller bag for the following five episodes. There are some devilishly inventive developments, including a brain-synch with a cat. Yet, Kim always keeps the conspiracy-driven tension and suspense cranked up high.

Lee Sun-kyun (the “have” father in Parasite) does the nearly impossible. He scrupulously maintains Koh’s emotional frozen nature, while making us care about his plight. Lee also believably portrays the changes that come over the scientist as he continues to transfer other people’s memories and feelings into his brain-basket. It is a real challenge, but he totally pulls it off.

Yet, the fan favorite of Dr. Brain is sure to be Park Hee-soon, who is wonderfully sly and grizzled as private investigator Lee Kang-mu. He and Koh come to collaborate together in an inventive way that would be spoilery to reveal. Regardless, whenever he comes on-screen, everything kicks up several notches. Seo Ji-hye does not get much backstory or character development as the cop investigating the bodies that start to pile up, but she is appealingly no-nonsense and quite credible in her action scenes.

The Center Seat: Lucy Loves Trek

The Desilu production studio founded by Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz holds several notable distinctions. It even won a Peabody Award for Orson Welles’ The Fountain of Youth, the only time an unsold pilot to have been so honored. However, they will always be best known for two series that became cash-cow franchises. Mission: Impossible was one. Star Trek was the other (and the more profitable, in the long run). By the time Desilu was producing both shows, it was entirely Lucille Ball’s company, so she gets well deserved credit for her support in “Lucy Loves Trek,” the first episode of History Channel’s 10-episode The Center Seat: 55 Years of Star Trek, which premieres this Friday.

Ball and Arnaz were remarkably savvy and even prophetic with regards to the television business. They bought the old RKO studio for their own productions, but started making money by leasing space to other productions. They also understood and secured re-run rights before anyone else, including the networks. When Ball and Arnaz divorced, he also divorced himself from the studio, so it was Ball herself who greenlit Star Trek.

Trek fans know it still almost didn’t happen. The network rejected the original pilot, but took the unusual step of ordering a second one, with an entirely new cast. The rejected pilot, “The Cage,” is now quite well-known, since it incorporated into the two-parter “The Menagerie” and has since been restored and released in its own right.

“Lucy Loves Trek” does a nice job of chronicling Trek’s development at Desilu, but it then mostly glosses over the entire run of the original series, focusing on the letter-writing campaign that saved the show at the end of its second season, the final cancelation, and its surprising success in rerun syndication. Subsequent episodes will focus on the animated show, films, and successive series, which must surely be leaving a lot original series lore and history on the table. Sadly, many original cast/crew members are no longer with us, but we do hear from Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, and the late Leonard Nimoy (in archival video).

Dead & Beautiful, on Shudder

Apparently, the only thing that brings out an individual’s true inner nature more than mutant superpowers is vampirism. That is what Lulu Wong discovers when she and her beautiful and entitled friends suddenly wake up with fangs following a bizarre ritual in David Verbeek’s Dead & Beautiful, which premieres tomorrow on Shudder.

Who needs New York or Hong Kong when the exclusive clubs of Taipei are so lavish and alluring? Yet, her fab five still inevitably grow bored with their constant partying. To liven things up, they establish a weekly tradition, in which each member takes their turn orchestrating some kind of surprise. However, when Anastasia Rublov arranges for a Shamanic ritual in the rainforest, they get more than the New Agey nature vibes she anticipated—perhaps due to influence of the original aboriginal people that maybe still haunt the land.

They obviously now have the fangs, but they do not know how many other traditional vampire tropes apply to their new conditions. Alexander Tsai, who still jealously carries a torch for Wong, is eager to embrace the vampire undead-style. In contrast, having recently embraced a half-baked version of Buddhism, Mason Van Der Bilt is hesitant to give up on their humanity. Shallow Lo Bin-ray falls somewhere in the middle, enjoying goofy shtick of vampires, whereas Rublov is confused on how it all affects her Instagramming influence.

D&B is super-stylism, filled with neon-lit clubs and glowing Taipei nightscapes, but it also has some interesting thoughts in its pretty head. Verbeek’s screenplay uses the vampire phenomenon to make some sly allegorical points regarding class and gender. (Anastasia’s talk of “transitioning” rings with current significance, without beating viewers over the head.) Yet, more than anything, their new undead state really seems to bring out who they really are. Unfortunately, in the case of the confused Wong, she still doesn’t seem to truly know herself.

Shock Wave 2: Andy Lau Back in the Blast Suit

Frankly, the bomb squad is probably the only department of the Hong Kong Police Force that hasn’t generated complaints for brutality so it makes sense that Andy Lau’s newest film involves bomb disposal. Of course, he has been here before, playing bomb squad Superintendent JS Cheung in Shock Wave. His story was pretty self-contained, but the franchise continues with a thematic sequel, in the tradition of the Overheard films. However, Lau’s new character is much darker and more conflicted this time around in Herman Yau’s Shock Wave 2, which releases today on VOD.

Nobody was better at disarming bombs than Poon Shing-fung, not even his partner Tung Cheuk-man. Tragically, it will be Poon’s career that will be cut short when the two are suddenly engulfed by a hidden bomb, after defusing two explosive booby-traps. Despite a prosthetic leg, Poon exceeds all the physical requirements to return to service, but the brass will only give him a desk job. Soon, Poon is consumed with self-destructive anger and anti-social resentment.

He is also quite suspiciously found knocked unconscious at the site of a hotel bombing. Rather inconveniently for everyone, the resulting shock wave left him in a state of complete amnesia. His old colleagues suspect he was working with the anarchist terrorists known as Vendetta, but we have to believe he was really working under deep-cover to infiltrate them, right?

Believe it or not, the handling of the amnesia angle is somewhat original and pretty intriguing. This being a Herman Yau film, a lot of stuff gets blown-up—in this case, a whole lot. However, the timing of Shock Wave 2’s apocalyptic images of mass destruction terrorism problematically come at a time when the puppet Carrie Lam regime is hyping up the threat of terror to justify Beijing’s draconian National Security Law. Yet, the truth is the law is being applied to forbid Hong Kongers from reading certain books, viewing certain movies, and voting for genuinely democratic candidates—none of which would prevent any of the crimes depicted in this film. As a result, there is a disingenuous vibe to the SW2 and its timing.

Andy Lau gives one of his best performances in recent years, seething with existential rage as Poon. Nevertheless, Lau’s fans have been disappointed by his cautious wait-and-see attitude during the height of the 2019 demonstrations and it was less than thrilling to read he serenaded the CCP at its anniversary bash. Again, seeing him now turn up in a “terrorism” thriller sets off alarm bells.

One Shot, Scott Adkins in One Take

Everyone that ever testified before a congressional committee has said “enhanced interrogation” or whatever does not work, because terrorists just make stuff up. However, the American military’s long-standing policy of not court-martialing POWs for anything they might divulge under torture would seem to contradict them (and it feels like a just position to adhere to). In Jean-Pierre Melville’s Army of Shadows, it was taken for granted that resistance members captured by the Germans would inevitably reveal all they knew. (It is a practice we don't condone, but we're also opposed to governing by slogan.) Regardless, characters keep telling us harsh interrogation just does not work, so they resort to a Hail Mary to avert a terror attack in James Nunn’s One Shot, which releases this Friday in theaters and on VOD.

This ill-fated mission will unfold in one seemingly continuous take for Jake Harris and his small team of SEALs. Their mission is to escort CIA analyst Zoe Anderson as she collects terrorist financier Amin Mansur to shuttle him to DC, where a dirty-bomb attack he bank-rolled is due to explode. He has said nothing while site commander Jack Yorke held him, but when he sees his pregnant wife is within the blast radius, she is sure he will change his tune.

Unfortunately, a small army of terrorists attacks the black site soon after Harris and Anderson land. Apparently, Haken Sharef and his jihadists do not trust Mansur to keep his mouth shut. They have the initiative and superior numbers, but they did not expect to find four SEALs on this grim island rock.

The Rope-style one-take thing can be a distracting gimmick, but it works better than you would expect here. The way Nunn constantly pans across the field of battle, viewers are keenly aware of how each of the combatants is moving independently. When we lose sight of one, only to have them suddenly pop up somewhere else, it feels like a real combat experience. Despite the one-take pressure, there is still some cool looking fight choreography. Of course, it helps to have someone with Scott Adkins’ chops as the lead.

As you would expect, Adkins is totally credible as Harris. Dino Kelly, Emmanuelle Imani, and Jack Parr do not get to take their SEAL characters on much of a developmental arc, but they keep up with Adkins during the long extended fire-fights. Ashley Greene Khoury plays Anderson with workmanlike competence, but it makes no sense for a junior desk officer to be on such an assignment.

Hammer House of Horror, for Halloween

In its 1960s prime, Hammer Films did gothic horror better than anyone. However, for their most successful TV series, they leaned into folk horror. Even in episodes that do not rely on traditional folk horror tropes, bad things tend to happen to anyone who visits the countryside. Hammer had co-produced a Frankenstein pilot that failed to sell as well as a previous anthology series that came and went, but in 1980 they scored a hit with genre fans when Roy Skeggs created Hammer House of Horror, which airs today as a Halloween binge on Decades TV (hang on, this will be a long one).

Rather fortuitously, the series starts with probably its best episode, “Witching Hour” (directed by Don Leaver and written by Anthony Read), wherein viewers quickly get a taste of the series’ blend of the sinister and the sexual. Film composer David Winter rightly suspects his actress wife Mary is having an affair (as we see with absolute certainty), but Winter has no idea she is in fact sleeping with his best friend.

Unfortunately, Winter’s jealousy and resentment leaves him vulnerable to the attacks of Lucinda Jessup, a 17^th Century witch, who transported herself across time to avoid a date with the stake. Ironically, it will be his estranged wife who tries to save Winter from her sexual and spiritual domination. Jon Finch (star of Hitchcock’s Frenzy, who turned down an offer to play James Bond) is a spectacular mess as Winter. Prunella Gee (the nurse in the rogue Bond movie Never Say Never Again) is terrific, but underappreciated by horror critics for her forcefulness as his wife (probably because of her sex scene), while Patricia Quinn chews the scenery like a world champion as Jessup. The folk horror is pronounced and pretty scary.

In contrast, “The Thirteenth Reunion” (directed by Peter Sasdy and written Jeremy Burnham) is more darkly ironic than outright frightening. Yet, it is interesting in its way, because it serves up some rather mordant cultural commentary. The strange business involves a reporter infiltrating a trendy but abusive New Age weight loss clinic—definitely shades of EST here. There is also an appealing budding romance between her and another patient, because neither are typical romantic leads, but it is rudely interrupted.

While “Reunion” is a product of its day, “Rude Awakening” (directed by Sasdy and written by Gerald Savory) feels somewhat ahead of its time, because of its circular structure. Norman Shenley is an estate agent who keeps waking up from dreams in which he is repeatedly punished for a crime he has not [yet] committed—the murder of his wife. Resolving to get to the bottom of things, he keeps driving back out to the creepy old manor of his nightmare, only to befall another gruesome fate, before waking up again.

This episode really doesn’t seem fair, because it almost amounts to cosmic entrapment. However, the variations of each successive go-round are quite compelling and Denholm Elliott is perfect as the luckless Shenley.

“Growing Pains” is an underwhelming evil kid-ghost story and “Charlie Boy” we’ll skip because its too apt to become cancelation bait. “The House that Bled Death” (directed by Tom Clegg and written by David Lloyd) is not perfect television either but it became notorious in the UK for a scene of blood showering down from the ceiling on a child’s birthday party. It turns out the house a young family bought at a bargain price really wasn’t such a good deal after all. This episode appears to be inspired by the Enfield Poltergeist that was also the subject of The Conjuring 2. The Hammer take is very different, until suddenly it isn’t.

Probably the most viewed episode is “The Silent Scream” (directed by Alan Gibson and written by Francis Essex), because it stars long-time Hammer favorite Peter Cushing. Martin Blueck looks like a kindly old man, but he is really a National Socialist war criminal (masquerading as a camp survivor), who befriends down-on-their-luck ex-cons like Chuck to lure them into his cruel Skinner-esque behavioral experiments.

“Scream” is easily the darkest, bleakest episode of the anthology. Cushing’s knack for shifting from kindly to malevolent at the drop of a hat serves the story quite well. The working-class pathos Brian Cox brings as Chuck heightens the episode’s claustrophobic discomfort. It is creepy, but a real downer.

A couple gets stranded on a country road in “Children of the Full Moon” (directed by Clegg and written by Murray Smith), as they often do in Hammer House. The reference to a full moon is not accidental, but the payoff monster fans expect comes very late in the episode. Mostly, it is about more creepy kids and a creepy old lady.

The New Dalgliesh

Most British TV detectives are usually DI’s or DCI’s (Morse, Lewis, Lynley, Frost, Banks), but P.D. James’ signature eventually rose to the advanced rank of Commander. He was also a published poet, with a tragic backstory, so he well understood the dark places of the human soul. Most importantly, Adam Dalgliesh was unfailingly professional and competent. The no-nonsense detective was a war-horse anchor for ITV (and then the BBC) in the UK and PBS’s Mystery in America, so it is not surprising to see him get a fresh new series treatment in Dalgliesh, which premieres Monday on Acorn TV.

In series’ first two-part case, “Shroud for a Nightingale,” DCI Dalgliesh is less than impressed with his new DS, the crass Charles Masterson. He does not take to Dalgliesh either, but he is somewhat intimidated by the detective’s commanding bearing. Still mourning his wife and unborn child, Dalgliesh is assigned the case of a poisoning in a nursing college, because of its sensitive nature. The school has powerful patrons and is expecting a high-profile visit. Tragically, there will be further murders, to cover the killer’s tracks.

The second two-parter, “The Black Tower” represents an improvement, because of the remote but visually striking location and it also gives us a break from the Dalgliesh/Masterson dynamic, which gets a bit tiresome. Dalgliesh arrives to visit an old friend in priestly orders, who is on staff at a provincial home for disabled residents, only to find he passed away a few days prior. That is just what Dalgliesh needs, more grief. However, he soon starts to suspect his friend was murdered, especially when more bodies start piling up.

Steven Mackintosh makes a worthy suspect and foil as Wilfred Antsey, the arrogant director of the almost cloistered home. He provides the sort of sparring partner “Nightingale” lacks. Although the local police chief is too lazy to mount a serious investigation, Dalgliesh finds an ally in Constable Kate Mishkin. In terms of themes, this could be the episode of Dalgliesh that hardcore fans of the original adaptations most appreciate.

The initial reboot season concludes with “A Taste for Death,” which auspiciously starts in a church. Inside, a disgraced politician and a local homeless man were sliced up, in a transparent effort to make it look like a struggle between them. To help his team, Dalgliesh has transferred Mishkin from Bristol, not exactly thrilling Masterson.

There is some decent procedural stuff in “Taste,” and it is great to see distinctive character actors like Jim Norton (seen on Broadway in The Mystery of Edwin Drood) and David Pearse pop up as Father Barnes and pathologist Miles Kynastone, respectively. Patrick Regis is also quite a notable presence as Gordon Halliwell, the loyal chauffeur of the deceased’s stonewalling mother.

Frankly, the rivalry between Masterson and Mishkin (nicely played by Carlyss Peer) feels flat and predictable, However, “Taste” really gives Bertie Carvel a chance to shine as Dalgliesh during the emotionally heavy third act. Although Martin showed a bit of feeling in his two Dalgliesh mysteries, Roy Marsden was always scrupulously reserved and detached (that was what made Dalgliesh Dalgliesh). Arguably, Carvel combines the best of both.

Snakehead: Inspired by “Sister Ping”

It only makes sense that a former Red Guard leader during the Cultural Revolution could so easily segue into human trafficking. In both roles, human beings were just masses to be exploited. The prosecution of her Chinatown syndicate brought wider media attention to the practice of human smuggling and the term “Snakehead” that described it. Her shrewd underworld domination inspired Evan Jackson Leung’s Snakehead, which opens today in theaters and on-demand.

As the woman who will become known as “Sister Tse” makes clear in her opening narration, she is neither an economic migrant nor a political refugee. She came to America, via Dai Mah’s trafficking network, for very personal reasons. To find her daughter. Unfortunately, she must first pay-off a debt of over $50,000 to Dai Mah. Initially, the Sister Ping-analog figures she can simply be consigned to a brothel, but Sister Tse is not so inclined. Impressed by her toughness and resilience, the Snakehead boss starts giving her low-level tasks in her criminal outfit.

Soon, Sister Tse earns Dai Mah’s trust and confidence, but also the jealousy of her thuggish son Rambo. His scheming girlfriend Sinh also has her claws out for Sister Tse. Plus, through these new associations, she attracts the attention of the FBI. As a result, each new high-priority assignment comes with considerably risk, but it is hard for Sister Tse to pass up chances to slash her debt.

Leong, who helmed the terrific doc Linsanity, brings a gritty street-level perspective and New York attitude to this years-in-the-making passion project. It is two-thirds crime thriller and one-third family tragedy, but the two parts fit together cohesively. He mostly refrains from lecturing the audience on policy issues, aside from an unflattering portrayal of a minutemen-style border patrol. (You could even argue it discourages illegal immigration.)

How They Got Over: Gospel Veterans Testify

There would be no rock & roll without “Rock Me.” You could say that satanic rock owes its existence to the Church. Indeed, Elvis Presley always acknowledged Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s influence on his music. Tharpe was a pretty big name already, even before he copied her act. Yet, it was the success of those who came before her who made gospel music a viable career opportunity for the musicians (primarily vocalists) whose oral history informs Robert Clem’s documentary How They Got Over, which opens tomorrow in Los Angeles.

Unlike other gospel docs (like Rejoice and Shout), Got Over does not go all the way back to the roots of gospel and Thomas A. Dorsey. He basically starts immediately post-war, when there were little job prospects for blacks in the Jim Crow South. Life and entertainment almost entirely revolved around the Church, where touring gospel artists might make gas money to the next town if they were okay, but could build a following if they had talent.

Although Clem covers Sister Rosetta and some of the women’s gospel ensembles, he deliberately focuses on the male harmony singers, who followed the lead of the original Golden Gate Quartet. Among those groups, he largely spotlights the Dixie Hummingbirds, thanks to original member Ira Tucker, whose commentary helps drive the film. Probably, the next most prominent group would Clarence Fountain and the Blind Boys of Alabama, which makes sense given their recognition beyond the gospel world.

Speer Goes to Hollywood

In the 1930s, Hollywood studios were reluctant to criticize the National Socialist regime, out of fear their films would lose access to the German market. Sound familiar? By the 1970s, Nazis were regular movie villains, but there was still great interest in adapting Albert Speer’s spin-controlling memoir Inside the Third Reich. Eventually, it became a two-part TV movie after his death, but Paramount thoroughly kicked the tires of a prospective feature film in the early 1970s. Vanessa Lapa contrasts Speer’s evasive recorded conversations with spec-screenwriter Andrew Birkin against the tapes of his Nuremberg tribunal in Speer Goes to Hollywood, which opens tomorrow at Film Forum.

The notion of Speer as the moderate National Socialist persists today, in large measure due to his widely read book. An architect by training, Speer was appointed Minister of Armaments, which entailed responsibility for the widespread use of slave labor at munitions plants. Of course, he claimed he never fully understood the horrific conditions workers endured. Based on the tapes, it sounds like Birken (whose credits include The Name of the Rose, The Final Conflict, and King David) gave him some benefit of the doubt, but kept hoping to hear some genuine remorse from Speer.

The thing is, we don’t really hear any of it, because much of the tapes had degraded to such an extent, Lapa was forced to re-record the transcript, which raises questions similar to those surrounding the Anthony Bourdain doc. The tapes were thoroughly cataloged and documented, so the words themselves are authentic, but there is maybe a degree of subjectivity in their presentation.

Yet, the real problem with the film is its over-reliance on unimpeachable footage of the Nuremberg Tribunal, which play out in long extracts. As a result, viewers who have seen Stuart Schulberg’s historically significant Nuremberg: It’s Lessons for Today might understandably feel like there is a good deal of redundancy Lapa’s film.

Only the Animals: A French Mystery Reveals Itself

This rural French mountain village is worlds away from the Texas seen in Blood Simple or the Kentucky of The Devil All the Time, but its rural noir dynamics are very similar. You might logically wonder how a tragedy there could be related to Abidjan in the Ivory Coast. Eventually the truth will be revealed, but director-screenwriter Dominik Moll will take his time teasing it out through flashbacks and narratives games in Only the Animals, which opens this Friday in New York.

Evelyne Ducat disappeared on the way to her winter vacation home, but Alice Farange does not understand how anyone she might know could be involved. She is also distracted by her own issues. Lately, she has conducted a rather open affair with Joseph Bonnefille, a rustic farmer, whom she met through her work at his insurance company. Unfortunately, that relationship is also about to take a sour turn, for reasons she does not understand.

Meanwhile, things are still frosty with her husband Michel, who is acting especially distracted lately. Regardless, she is still genuinely concerned when he returns home late at night, bloodied and battered. She assumes they are fighting over her, but what is really going on is much darker and more complicated—and it will take a while for the full picture to reveal itself.

Only the Animals is definitely constructed like a puzzle box, in which clues are teased in full sight, but viewers need Moll to keep rewinding the narrative, to provide the context needed to put the pieces together. Fortunately, they all really do fit together at the end. The truth will indeed be revealed, but before then, Moll manages to wring a fair amount of suspense out of the mystery. There is also a rather surreal left-turn taken during the third act, somewhat akin to Charles Sturridge’s A Handful of Dust.