A woodman's family and village was attacked 15 years ago. His wife was killed and his daughter was kidnapped. He gave chased across the globe but never found her. Then one day she returns...
Unseen Films
A collection of reviews of films from off the beaten path; a travel guide for those who love the cinematic world and want more than the mainstream releases.
Friday, April 25, 2025
Discordia (2025) Fantaspoa 2025
A woodman's family and village was attacked 15 years ago. His wife was killed and his daughter was kidnapped. He gave chased across the globe but never found her. Then one day she returns...
Neighborhood Watch (2025)
Simon (Jack Quaid) is a man with mental issues. Just out of the hospital, he is trying to get a job but the voices and hallucinations make it difficult. After he s.ees a young woman kidnapped off the streets, he goes to the police but they think he is an unreliable witness at best. In desperation he turns to his next door neighbor Ed (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) a former security guard who recently lost his job. Ed agrees to help Simon, figuring he could push him in a direction and let him go, but circumstance makes Ed realize that Simon maybe on to something.
If you are going into this film because the trailer made it look like a funny buddy film, you are going to be disappointed. While there is humor, it isn't a comedy. Simon is a deeply troubled young man and his battle with his demons makes this something much more serious than you may think going in. That isn't a bad thing, it just may take you a while to click with the very unique tone.
In all honesty this is more a character study than mystery, with so much of the film given over to Simon just get right enough to figure out if he saw something. It's a showcase for Quaid who makes us care deeply for his character. It's also a show case for Morgan who gets to show a broad range of emotion and have his character truly arc. By the time we get to the end we've watched both men change for the better.
I really lliked this film a great deal, though to be honest I wasn't always certain I would because until I got to the end I wasn't certain what the filmmakers thought of their characters.
If you want something that isn't your typical thriller, or character study, see NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH
April (2024)
An obstetrician gets into trouble when an infant dies during delivery. She followed the mothers request not to do a c section and that may have resulted in the child's death. As she awaits the outcome of the inquiry, which everyone fears will result in her being found out to be an abortionist, she broods on life.
Very brief thoughts on Foibles (2025) Fantaspoa 2025
Substance abuse based black comedy has a man try to help his ex get clean by forcing her to indulge until she sobers up.
Thursday, April 24, 2025
GUNMAN (2025) Fantaspoa 2025
Young hit man just out of prison can't seem to get by. Soon he finds himself back in the old life, but things are not quite as they were and he soon finds himself in way over his head with no way out.
YADANG: THE SNITCH (2025)
Former junkie finds he is very good acting as a facilitator between cops and crooks. He can get the bad guys to cut deals to roll over on their higher ups. However he begins to realize that he is ending up in a dangerous position and that if he doesn’t do something he is going to be the prosecutor’s next coup.
Good comedic thriller isn’t your typical crime thriller from Korea. While there is some tension it isn’t overly suspenseful, while there is action it isn’t an action film, and while there is humor it isn’t a comedy. By not falling into anyone genre the film keeps us on our toes as we wait to see how it all plays out.
I was entertained by the film. The cast of familiar faces sell the craziness on screen and the film is smart enough never to overdo anything. We are always connected with no slack moments.
Get some popcorn and go.
The Great History of Western Philosophy (2025)
I discovered THE GREAT HISTORY OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY when I was looking at the Festival Scope website and discovered the trailer. I was so taken by the film I reached out to the filmmakers and asked them to see it. I had and have no idea where this film is playing but I had to see it.
Director Aria Covamonas has crafted a tale about a a cosmic animator who is forced by the Central Committee to make a philosophical film under the gaze of Chairman Mao. The result is a film that bounces through the history of philosophy, Chinese history and with aLooney Tunes style madness. It's done via cut out and collage animation mshed up with public domain images and sound.
Think what would have happened if Monty Python had a political Terry Gilliam make animation shot through vat of concentrate hallucunogenic drugs and magic mushrooms, with a dialog track largely in Chinese, an absurd sense of reality and the sensibility of Salvador Dali while mimicing Eastern European animation during the Soviet years.
This may be the greatest midnight movie ever made... made some 50 years after the heyday of midnight movies. Watching this I was transported back to the mind melting years when I went to see the wild and wonton films that are now legends. Watching this was like being trapped in midnight cinema when wrong drugs kicked in.
WOW.
I am not going to lie, but I have no idea what is going on in this film but it bent and broken my brain in the best sort of way.
This film is cinematic ART (the capitalization is intentional) of the highest order.
To be certain this is not going to work foreveryone (squares need not apply) but for those who want something to open your mind without drugs (or even with drugs) THE GREAT HISTORY OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY is required viewing.
This is one of the greatest films I've seen in 2025...and maybe ever. You need to see this- you may not like it, but I'm damn sure that even as you stagger out into the day light you will know you have seen something.
Track this film down
Wednesday, April 23, 2025
THE TRACK (2025) plays SFFilm on 4/23 and Hot Docs on 4/27
Tuesday, April 22, 2025
Marq Evans talks THE DIAMOND KING which hits VOD Friday
I love Marq Evans. He is one of the best filmmakers working today. As I told him when I interviewed him recently I love that all of his films are completely different from each other. Other than the fact that he interviews each of his subjects there is absolutely nothing that connects the films. Where you know a Ken Burns film or a Scorsese film or a Spielberg film based on stylistic choices, Evans films are one of a kind. THE GLAMOUR & THE SQUALOR is not like CLAYDREAM nor are either of those films like THE DIAMOND KING. Evans tells his stories in the way that is best for that story, not what is easiest for him.
Earlier this week I spoke to Marq about his new film, THE DIAMOND KING, about the life and art of Dick Perez, who has created some of the most iconic baseball paintings ever. We spoke about the film, art, baseball and lot of other things. As with all of the talks we’ve had the conversations begin going in one direction and then wanders.
What follows is a good portion of our discussion. I trimmed it down so that it stayed more or less on point.
Before I let you dive into our discussion I want to again than Marq Evans for taking the time to talk and for making a wonderful film.
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Dick Perez and Marq Evans |
STEVE: Hello, Marq.
MARQ: Hey Steve.
STEVE: You all set for the festival this weekend?
MARQ: Yeah, pretty much. It's the first movie where I've been personally involved with some of the deliverables. I made my own DCP, which I've never done before.
I'm trying to do something differently on this project that I think will be good for me, and hopefully good for the project too, but it's making me a little nervous doing it all myself.
STEVE: At least that way you'll be sure nothing gets screwed up.
MARQ: Well, yeah, I mean, I did go and test the DCP at my local theater, it played, it looked good, it sounded good, but it's just like, oh boy, there's a lot of extra stuff going on here, but it's all good.
STEVE: You had a couple of preview screenings already for the film. How did you screen those, if you were just making the DCP print now?
MARQ: Those were four work in progress screenings. The movie is a little bit different now. I think 50% of the music was done, the other music was still temp, and then recently, I cut out a couple minutes of the movie, which the version you saw. That is the version that will be out in the spring.
One of the screenings was at a big baseball trading card convention that gets 100,000 people that go there, so I partnered with them this past summer for a sneak peek. One was at SABR, which is the Society for American Baseball Research. They have their convention, so I did a sneak peek there in Minneapolis, and then we did one at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Have you been there?
STEVE: I've never been to Cooperstown.
MARQ: I had never been, and I wanted to go my whole life, and so we shot, some of the movie there last year, and then we did a screening there in September. And then also, we just did one last month (ed: November 2024) at the Negro Leagues Baseball Team Theater in Kansas City. But those were all just basically Quick Time, playing it from a laptop. The Hall of Fame's got a great theater, but they were able to plug it into that.
STEVE: I would love to have gone to see it at some of those places, because I just would have liked to have seen the Q&As.
MARQ: Totally. They were all really great in their own way, and way different than a film festival. I'm sure there will be some baseball-loving people at Palm Springs that are going to come see it, but it's also probably just a lot of film lovers, documentary lovers, maybe some art people, whereas those screenings this summer, it was just baseball people.
It was a really good experience.
STEVE: If nothing else, you got a sense of it. I‘ve been told a lot of times with documentaries, the filmmakers don't always get a sense of how it plays for an audience, whereas with narrative films, I find that, at least with the people I've talked to, they'll screen the narratives a bit more for people than with documentaries.
MARQ And it wasn't even intended to be like as a preview screening It was intended just to take advantage of those crowds, especially with the convention and SABR, to kind of create awareness of it. And the things that I ended up cutting out of the film I noticed during the screenings, like, yeah, I should probably cut those things.
And so they ultimately ended up being kind of a test screening as well. But it was great. The audiences really loved it.
You know that was great to see. You know, I got the laughs where I was hoping. People laughed and people came away loving Dick Perez.
You know, ultimately that's when I was hoping for.
STEVE: I should have asked this at the start because I don't even know if I should be talking to you. What's your favorite baseball team?
MARQ: The Seattle Mariners.
STEVE: Okay, you're a Mariners fan. I can talk to you.
MARQ: That's probably not threatening to too many people because we've never even been to a World Series.
STEVE: I figured you were going to do one of the the LA ones. I was not expecting Seattle.
MARQ: I live Washington State. And you're a, you're a Mets guy.
STEVE: Yes.
MARQ: It's a good time to be a Mets fan. I mean, you know, they are looking solid. It'll be interesting to see how they continue.
STEVE: I’m a Mets fan because the family was originally Brooklyn Dodgers fans. They moved over. My father's aunt was a troublemaker and she would start brawls in Ebbets Field.
MARQ: Dick is in Brooklyn. He lives about a mile from where the old Ebbets Field was. It's an apartment complex now and it's huge. It's called Ebbets Field.
STEVE: How did you end up talking to Dick Perez?
MARQ: It all just started with an email.
My son got into baseball a couple years ago and he got into baseball card collecting. So we just pulled out my old cards and came across a bunch of the Diamond Kings that I had collected of some of my favorite players. And there was just that feeling of nostalgia that came over me with those cards.
And I got curious about the artists. I don't remember ever thinking about the artists of those cards when I was a kid collecting them. But that was my first curiosity of what's the story behind the artist Dick Perez.
So I looked him up and he's got an amazing website at DickPerez.com. But I just kind of got lost in a little bit because, you know, all of his art is on the website. So I realized he did way more than just these Diamond Kings.
He was the official artist of the Hall of Fame for 20 years. He's painted thousands of paintings, the whole history of baseball. And so right away I thought, well, maybe I could do a documentary that's part Dick Perez biography and part history of baseball through his work.
So that was the initial idea. And, that was before talking to him at all. That was just kind of thoughts on a weekend. And I emailed him. I found an email address for him. I emailed him.
CLAYDREAM was just coming out at the time. So this was June 2022. I was going to be in New York for the theatrical premiere of CLAYDREAM.
STEVE: Yeah, when I met you...
MARQ: Exactly. Right. That was it.
I stayed a couple extra days and ended up doing the interviews with Dick. But in the initial email, he was like, “hey, you know, this sounds cool. Let's talk.” So we had like an hour long phone conversation. We hit it off really well. And it was low pressure. I just said, why don't bring my camera and I'll stay for a couple of extra days. And if we enjoy it, then we'll keep going. And that was that. So he was just like, yeah, that sounds good. Let's do it. The idea was in June and in August, we started shooting.
Originally, I thought I would just interview Dick Perez, just do kind of the Errol Morris thing and just interview the subject. And I realized that I needed to expand that a little bit.
But the first couple of days I was just, going to interview him. I printed out a bunch of his prints. A bunch of his working prints. And we went through a bunch of that as well.
That's where it all started.
STEVE: How much, how much did you interview him?. I mean, you know, you've got him in a several locations where he's talking and going through art.
MARQ: Yes, we started the very first day. August 2022 would have been essentially two days, of interviews, which I think included him looking at the prints in his studio. That was two days.
And then three or four months later, I came back and did another interview, another day of interview at his place. We basically set up the same setup and had him wear the same clothes. So it's kind of like a take two of the master interview. And then the other thing kind of came later, like Cooperstown. I realized, well, that came from wanting to reunite him with Peggy Steele, his partner. And I thought Cooperstown would be a great place to do that. And so we did that there and made a day out of that as well, too. But the master interview stuff, that was over the course of about a year, but maybe four or five days.
“Picasso doesn't have one. Matisse doesn't have one.” I think he said that the first day. That came on the very first day of filming. And dang, dang, I just thought that was amazing. I loved it.
STEVE: How did you decide on the narration? I ask because it's one of the best narrated films that I've seen.
MARQ: Thank you for saying that. That's awesome. And again, I loved it, too.
I mean, I don't remember when or where or how the idea came up. But I do remember from the very, very beginning, I wanted to have an on-camera narrator. And I think it's something that I've been wanting to do for a little while.
I had the idea for projects that haven't got going yet or haven't been made yet. The first idea I remember for this came from, there's this true crime documentary that I've been trying to make for like five years based in Kodiak, Alaska. And just an amazing story that I really want to tell, but I just haven't been able to get it picked up.
THE DIAMOND KING stemmed from a lot of disappointment of projects like this one in Kodiak, Alaska, that haven't been picked up. And I had one about Stoic philosophy that we put together and just tried to go the more traditional way. It just hasn't gone anywhere. So I wanted to have a project that I could do without help, and I could do without another production company or having to raise too much money or any of that.
And that's really where THE DIAMOND KING started. But that was a little tangent there. This Kodiak, Alaska project is where I had the idea of an on-camera narrator where I thought that maybe I could create a character. And that particular true crime story has a lot of surrealism in it and there's psychics that are actually a part of the real life story. And I thought maybe I would create this character that was based off of my main character in another place, essentially. It would be an on-camera narrator, but eventually that character would have its own arc as well.
It was kind of the way that I conceived that. And it was partially based on the Wes Anderson movie MOONRISE KINGDOM. There's that documentary that takes place during that film and there's an on-camera documentary narrator in that movie. So that I think is kind of the seed of inspiration for it. It didn't happen with this Kodiak, Alaska or it hasn't happened yet, but I still like the idea of having an on-camera narrator. And so that's where it started.
I liked the idea. I thought about who's going to write it. I got connected to Joe Posnanski, whose writing I love. He did the Baseball 100. And he liked the idea. We decided to have these moments that are the history of baseball and we try to connect them as the film goes on. Joe wrote it over the course of a few months in between books, just a bunch of back and forth.
And then getting John Ortiz on board was due to one of my best friends Tracy Piippo. He and John were next door neighbors. And so I told him about this idea to have on camera narrator and I didn't have anybody in mind yet. He was like, well, you just have my buddy John do it. And I was like, oh yeah, that could be cool. So he introduced us and John and I hit it off and he loved the project. It turned out he was wanting to do something kind of like this.And he's a big baseball guy. And so it just worked perfect. And John was amazing.
We shot that in a day in L.A. And we did it at XYZ.
I love it. I mean, that John's performance was so good. I really loved it.
STEVE: It lifts the film up. Everybody seems to going away from on screen narration. But it works. And Ortiz is so good. He knits the whole film together. He brings the history together with the stories.
Forgive me for saying this, but I mean this as the highest compliment feels like a footnote film that belongs in Ken Burns' BASEBALL. I know It's kind of lazy to say that, to connect it to that, because the film stands on its own. But it’s the easiest way to I explain this to a general audience to many people Ken Burns is the pinnacle of documentary filmmaking.
But it stands on its own. It's a brilliant film.
MARQ: You know, it's funny, when I first got into documentary filmmaking, my tendency was to rail against the Ken Burns it's such a singular style, and it's like the Kleenex, you know, like everybody knows. I've always liked Ken Burns' movies, but I don't want to make movies like Ken Burns. But over the last five years especially, as I teach a lot of his stuff I see what a master of the craft he is in so many ways, and he makes it look so easy.
And so that is a high compliment. I probably wouldn't have taken it as a compliment ten years ago, but now I'm like, yeah, that's as good as it gets.
STEVE: I'm comparing that for other people, but the film stands on its own. It's not a Ken Burns film. In a weird way, it doesn't feel like one of your other films.
MARQ: Well, there's not a whole lot of conflict in there, is there?
STEVE: No, but even so you've done literally three different films, and if I put them down, if I showed your three films for audiences and cut out the credit, I don't think you could connect them up.
And that's an even higher compliment than the Ken Burns thing, because Ken Burns, if you put on a Ken Burns film, you know it's a Ken Burns film. And with your films, if you take, CLAYDREAM or THE GLAMOUR or this, they all stand on their own as completely different and unique films that are fantastic.
I mean, in all honesty, this is one of the reasons I love you as a filmmaker, is that you're doing things, and you’re going in unexpected ways, and you're giving us unexpected subjects, and each film is completely different, because you don't lean on what you've done before. It's like, okay, this is this subject. And that, as a filmmaker is rare. You're like perhaps three other filmmakers who are different every other time. None of your films seem like each other.
MARQ: Well, thank you, Steve, that's probably my favorite thing that anybody's ever said about my work. I really appreciate that. And, I love to hear it, because, you know, at times, you're like, you know, we all, every filmmaker, I'm sure, has to rip themselves off a lot, and I feel sometimes like, I am doing that, because you're leaning on your experiences, but I'm glad to know that the finished output doesn't come across that way.
STEVE: How much research into the history of the game did you have to do?
MARQ: I did a bit of research, and a lot of that came from Dick. He has an amazing book called The Immortal, and it's all of his art. It's got player stuff as well, so I leaned on that a lot because I'm making a movie about him, and with his work, so there was the research.
I learned so much about my favorite sport,. I love baseball, I've loved baseball my whole life. I grew up wanting to be a baseball player, and all that stuff. But I love it even more from making this movie, because of all of the stories, and stuff that I heard, and players that I wasn't even familiar with, and all the game players that I had no idea about. So there was a lot of research for sure, but it was probably more about, as it related to Dick Perez and his work.
And when it came to the narration talking to Joe Posnanski, who wrote a book called The Baseball 100. It's the history of baseball through its 100 greatest players 100 players but we learn about thousands of players, and you finish that book, and you learn about the whole history of baseball.
I kind of liked the idea that in a 90-minute movie, we’d learn about Dick Perez, but also leave viewers thinking “I learned a lot about the game of baseball too.: Beyond what happens on the field necessarily, and like, wins and losses, and stats, but like, the essence of the game. And so, so it's just a new appreciation, and a further appreciation of the game of baseball.
STEVE: That's what I love about the film is that I'm sitting there, I'm watching, and I'm thinking “I never knew that” I love that you're not getting the he same moments over and over again that you always hear about. It’s because of the artwork, so you hear the way the stories relate to the artwork and you're not getting things that you expect.
That's the thing about listening to Perez talk about his artwork, he's talking about, “I set this up, this painting like Matisse, whatever. And you're suddenly going “that's a great baseball picture” but then you're going like, “oh my God,” making other connections especially if you know the work of the other artist.
You're doing the similar thing with the history of baseball, where there's all these stories and stuff that are coming in that are deepening our appreciation for his art and what he's doing, and it's, it's just amazing.
MARQ: That's a big goal of the movie, just to show off as much of Dick's art as possible. And that was another thing with the on-camera area and the screen, is I realized it's one more way to not only tell stories of baseball, but to show off even more of Dick's work.
And then the other side of it became, became the animation with his work. I wanted the work to move, I wanted to do something with it, but obviously we didn't want to distract from the work, we wanted to try to elevate it. And the animator that I worked with, Dalan McNabola, brought so much life to the film and even more beauty.
STEVE: I'm thinking of the projections and the full screen images I was wondering how big is Dick’s artwork? Does he have a standard size that he works with?
MARQ: There's not a standard size. A lot of it is probably is smaller than you would imagine. His biggest pieces,like that Aaron's Judge that's in the movie, it's probably like 40 by 40. And then the pieces that are at the Citizen Bank Park in Philly, at the Bellevue Stadium. Those are on the bigger side, but like, you know, the Hall of Fame portraits that he did, and the Diamond Keeps portraits, I mean, those were all like, you know, 12 by 8 or something on the smaller side. But it really may range. He doesn't do anything massive.
STEVE: The reason I'm asking is as we're talking, I'm visualizing the film, and you see Perez with the paintings, and you see the paintings on the wall, but then the screen is filled with his art, or where Ortiz is standing there, and there's the projections on either side of him. And it's filling my head that there are these are massive paintings. But I know it’s an illusion.
MARQ: Yeah, exactly. And, we had to make decisions to crop a certain way to fit perfectly on those screens. Those screens make the work bigger than most of his paintings.
STEVE: That's always the thing. I'll go to the Met or Museum of Modern Art in New York, and you see some of the paintings that you've grown up with, and you get thrown off because you think, say, Persistence of Vision is just going to be this huge painting, and it's this little one, or the size of Starry Night is going to be some other size.
MARQ: Yeah, Starry Night's a good example. For me, a couple years ago, seeing Mona Lisa, I had no idea that it was such a small painting. In my mind it was this massive thing.
I saw Starry Night this summer for the first time at MOMA. And then, not only did making this film give me even more of an appreciation of baseball, but art. You know, I went through both MoMA and the Met this summer, two different trips, and seeing paintings and paintings of painters that Dick was inspired by, like seeing Sargent and some of these, that was really cool. And seeing the painting, Matisse, of the dancers that go around in the circle, that was the inspiration for Richie Ashburn painting. It made me look at all of that art there in a new way, which has been a lot of fun, too.
STEVE: Did you get to sit and talk to him about art beyond the baseball or his art?
MARQ: Mostly related to the artists that really inspired him or taught him. So you got John Singer Sargent.
You know, he's pretty much self-taught just by buying books and looking at these painters' work. So we talked about him a lot in that relation. And then just art, you know, his creative process.
He just turned 84 now, last week or two weeks ago. And his process is still the same. You know, he goes down, he wakes up at 5, 5.30, and he goes down and starts painting every day. You hear from writers, they write every day. And so I try to take a page out of that.
My next project I'm editing right now, and it's just, okay, every day. You know, it's every day. I wake up early and I go to work. That's what I do. I edit. And so it was really... I feel like I learned a lot from him just as an artist as well.
STEVE: Where are you going after Palm Springs with this?
MARQ: Nothing's really lined up right now. It's part of a totally different approach with this film where I was starting it with an idea of just interviewing one person because that was a way to keep the budget way down.
I'm going to self-release this film. I'm going to try to do everything.I'm going to try to do a lot of things independently. And a lot of things have been hard, without having as much of a team. And even just today, I emailed a publicist, kind of half that I know, kind of having second thoughts about doing all my own PR.
But I'm kind of ready to get the film out. I'm sure a festival run would benefit the film. But I also... I'm kind of just feeling like the film is ready to come out.We did those sneak peeks. We've done a pretty good job building an audience of baseball people that are excited about it.
I will probably consider a handful of festivals.And I've talked to a couple of them that I've been to before. But I don't think I'm going to wait to release it. I think we'll release it in the spring and I'll probably do it at least direct to audience and the TVOD. Probably as soon as like March or April and just doing those through my own, you know, little company.
I'm ready for it to be out. I'm excited for it to be out.
That's kind of where I'm at right now. We've got to finish the final mix still even if Palm Springs version is not the final sound mix because the composer couldn't get into the studio for the final stuff right away. So we've got to wait and then it's pretty much ready to release.
STEVE:It's not going to be done for the weekend, is it?
MARQ:Not the final mix. So basically, 99.99% of people would never know.
STEVE: It sounded good to me.
MARQ: We have to do the final mixes of the music and then the final mix of the film as well, too. And then we're good to go. And then it's like probably we've got an eight-week turnaround to release it from the moment we deliver everything. So that's my main focus more than additional festivals is getting it up and out.
STEVE: It's a baseball film, so spring training would be great. Opening day, even.
MARQ: Right before the season starts. Opening day, yeah. Although I don't want it to be everybody's watching baseball, they won't have time to watch the movie.
STEVE: But I would think you would rather have it during baseball season than not because in all probability if you were not releasing it yourself, somebody would tell you wait until baseball season.
MARQ: Tthat's exactly what I'm thinking.
STEVE: When you come to New York, let me know, we'll go to dinner. And bring your son because he was a blast when I met him.
MARQ That would be amazing. I'll definitely take you up on that.
Diamond King (2024) Hits VOD Friday
Picasso doesn't have a World Series ring. Matisse doesn't have a World Series ring - Dick Perez who has a World Series ring
Director Marq Evans returns with a look at artist Dick Perez. Perez is the official artist for the Baseball Hall of Fame, and he is tasked with doing the portraits of every person inducted into the Hall. However, he's also painted a well-loved series of baseball cards (the title of the film comes from it), done extensive work for the Philadelphia Phillies (hence his having a World Series ring) and he's made the history of baseball come alive for generations through his work.
Buckle in boys and girls this is a far-reaching film.
Nominally this is the story of Perez and his life and art, but at the same time the film is also several other things. It’s a look at the game of baseball over the years, it’s a look at memorabilia collecting (Perez’s art is on sport cards) and collectors, it’s a look at the immigrant experience (Perez came to America as a child and he became a fan of the game because it was a way of connecting to the kids around him) and it's a look at the history of art and how it influences how we see the world. And since this is a Marq Evans film there is even more going on.
Evans is one of the great filmmakers who make seemingly simple films that have unexpected facets to them. Evans seems to hate his films being about one thing and pulls as much into them as he can fit. He is never content to just tell you about a subject but about all the things that touch that subject, so you get a better understanding of it.
That said the most important facet of any Marq Evans film is always the film's subject, in this case it's Dick Perez. Perez is a cool guy. He is very aware of everything connected to his work. He is so aware that he is a brutally honest critic of his own work. He hates one piece he did for the Philadelphia Phillies that he says is the worst thing he has done and that he wants cremated with him. He is a man who loves baseball, and it is so much fun listening to him talk about the game from an artist's perspective. It's an even bigger blast since he not only discusses his own art and the game but the history of painting which results in some unexpected revelations of their intersections as he reveals the inspiration of his work in the work of the great masters. You will not look at any art in the same way again.
The film is helped by the on-screen narration by John Ortiz, who acts as a welcoming figure like the guy selling programs as you enter a stadium. Where most documentaries have moved away from on screen narrators, in favor of a voice of god, Evans leans into the on-screen presence as a way of making the film not a lecture but a story told between good friends on a sunny afternoon in a ballpark. Two minutes into the film Ortiz is our best buddy and we'll go anywhere with him. We want to sit and drink beers and have hot dogs with him. As a result of Ortiz's boisterous love of the game and the joy he feels in discussing it has become infectious and we fall deeper in love with Perez's art and the game of baseball. Ortiz needs to do more narration he is that good.
While the film is completely and utterly a film that stands on its own pedestal, the best way that I can explain how good the film is to say, lazily, that this great little film feels as though it’s a kind of adjacent to Ken Burns Baseball series since we get so much history mixed into Perez’s tale that it speaks volumes about not just art and baseball but the people who enjoy both.
This film is so good that I suspect that this will end up on endless repeat on the MLB channel for years to come.
What an absolute delight.
Highly recommended for any baseball or art fan.
The film World Premieres January 5,6,7 at the Palm Springs Film Festival. Tickets and information on the screenings can be found here. The film will be playing additional festival dates before being released sometime this year.
An interview with director Marq Evans will appear this weekend.
Lotus (2024) Fantaspoa 2025
Avant garde and perhaps a touch of surrealism blend together in a kind of experimental film that is going to thrill some people and send others to the exits.
Monday, April 21, 2025
It Feeds (2025) Fantaspoa 2025
A psychiatrist who has a psychic ability and her daughter have to fight to fight to save a young girl who is being devoured by a dark being.
JIMMY IN SAIGON (2024) opens Friday
Filmmaker Peter McDowell tries to get to know about his brother Jimmy who died when he was five. Jimmy had fought in Vietnam and then stayed on afterward. He attempts to figure out who he was, how he died of a drug overdose and who was the family he sometimes stayed with.
This is the rare recent film where even I gave you more details as to the story you still wouldn't know everything that is contained in this film. I say this because while the film is very much a portrait of Jimmy, the film is also the story of a family finally dealing with a lost a generation before. As Peter says at one point, it has been 48 years since his brother had died, at what point was it going to stop being raw.
I was captivated and I was moved. To me the real power of the story is not Jimmy's tale, but the stories of the people around him. For example there is an incredibly moving moment when a woman whose brother was Jimmy's friend is given a picture of her mother and breaks down. She had been forced to burn all the photos when the Viet Cong took over Siagon. It speaks volumes about how we are connected to those we have lost.
This is a great little film. It's an unexpected delight and very recommended.
Drop Dead City (2025) opens Friday
DROP DEAD CITY is a wonderful film. It’s timing couldn’t have been better. This look at the point at which the city of New York almost defaulted and was told to drop dead by then President Ford is surprisingly relevant.
As a document of what happened and why, as well as a portrait of New York City in the bad old days, this film can’t be beat. It’s a film that shows us how a bunch of guys who really didn’t do what they should have been doing almost killed a city. Its an eye opening tale that most aren’t aware of. Actually as some one who lived through the crisis I didn’t know the details of most of this and I was focused on the film more than many films of recent vintage.
Honestly there is so much information here I need to see this another time or two just so I can connect up the various bits with the way the city is now.
And speaking of now, watching the explanation of what happened I was shocked by what is currently happening in Washington. The cavalier attitude of the trustees of New York in the 70’s matches the attitudes of many currently running rough shod over the government in Washington. This film is a wake up call.
But I digress.
DROP DEAD CITY is a great film. While it can be a bit over whelming in the amount of information it gives us, its really nice to see a film that gives us a lot of material consider because it knows we can handle it.
Recommended
Portraits of the Apocalypse (2024) Fantaspoa 2025
I suspect if you are like me you are largely sick to death of zombie films. There is so little variation that they are boring. Even the shift into outbreak disease films has floundered. Yes there are some good one now and again, but mostly they are dead out of the gate.
PORTRAITS OF THE APOCALYPSE on the other hand is a great film. More something along the lines of what George Romero would have tried if he made another film, the film doesn't go the blood and gore route and instead mixes humor and horror in tales that firmly focus on the characters and how they react to the zombie outbreak over time.
Comprised of four parts each stand alone story takes place at a different time.
The first, the tale of a crooked cop at a crime scene gone wrong is set at the start of things and its funny until it isn't as she tries to fix what happened. Its a battle between her cop side and the bad girl voice in her head.
The second story has an older woman wake up her daughter because she is certain there is a rat in the house and because something happened to the cat. As the two women and the daughters husband ponder what is going on, they pay no mind that the man had been bitten earlier in the evening by a friend. This is another funny until it's not tale.
The third tale is told largely in video journal enties of a mother for her unborn child. Its a story that has an bleakness to it because we know from other tales this is not going to be happy.
The final section takes things into a new direction as father tries to contact his dead son through the use of a zombie. This is a chilling film since it changes the rules and resets the table of new ways to go with the genre.
I was blown away. Here at last is a zombie film that doesn't copy the past but builds on what went before to take things in new directions. This film potentially opens up new pathways and new doors that show us what the subgenre could be. This is one of the most heady films in the genre and one of its best. This film changes the rules.
Sadly while I am excited about this film, I suspect that the film is not going to please some film fans. Those who don't like the last trilogy from George Romero or films like MAGGIE, or MISS ZOMBIE, are not going to like some of the turns and the insistence of focusing on character over body parts. This is not a gorefest but social commentary and old school horror, and some people will balk.
On the other hand old school horror fans, or people who understand that horror is not just scares but about going deep into the human condition are going to eat this up.
One of the best films at this year's Fantaspoa and one of the finds of the year PORTRAITS OF THE APOCALYPSE is a must see.
Sunday, April 20, 2025
Samurai in Time (2024) Fantaspoa 2025
I made a huge mistake with SAMURAI IN TIME and I let it slip away until now. This film played so many other festivals that Ijust couldn't bring myself to see it. I should have because this is a fantastic film.
The plot has a samurai battling one of his enemies and being struck by lightning. This trasports him until now, specifically on to a film set where thy are working on a samurai TV series. Of course this causes problems and of course he eventually ends up working in the movies as a samurai.
Don't worry, know that much will ruin nothing because there is so much here thanks to clever plot turns and some incredible characters. Trust me, this had me going from being certain I knew where this was going to having zero idea. And even if I did know where it was going I didn't much care because I was having such a great time.
This film is a stunner. Sure it's just playing Fantaspoa but Third Window film is releasing it to home video on April 28th to the rest of the world. You need to see this.
Highly recommended
BLEAK WEEK: CINEMA OF DESPAIR’ FESTIVAL EXPANDS TO 10 THEATRES IN SEVEN CITIES - AMERICAN CINEMATHEQUE
AMERICAN CINEMATHEQUE’S 'BLEAK WEEK: CINEMA OF DESPAIR’ FESTIVAL EXPANDS TO 10 THEATRES IN SEVEN CITIES INCLUDING LONDON’S PRINCE CHARLES CINEMA
First wave of special in-person guests announced include Robert Eggers and Todd Solondz
Los Angeles, CA, April 15, 2025 – American Cinematheque is expanding its popular film festival, ‘Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair,’ beyond Los Angeles to seven additional cities across the US and internationally to London this June. The festival will continue to have its home in Los Angeles at the Aero Theatre, Egyptian Theatre and Los Feliz 3, but this year it will broaden its reach with screenings at renowned venues including the Hollywood Theatre (Portland, OR), Music Box Theatre (Chicago), Texas Theatre (Dallas), Trylon Cinema (Minneapolis), Paris Theater (New York), Coolidge Corner Theatre (Boston) and Prince Charles Cinema (London). In celebration of the festival, Turner Classic Movies will present its own selection of bleak cinema on Monday, June 2 that includes MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW, MAN OF THE WEST, CRIES AND WHISPERS, BREAKING THE WAVES and THE SEVENTH VICTIM with host Dave Karger on hand to introduce the first three films of the evening.
The festival kicks off in Los Angeles and Chicago June 1 to 7, continues in Portland and Minneapolis June 6 to 12, then heads to New York, Boston and Dallas June 8 to 14, before concluding in London June 15 to 21.
Founded in 2022, the American Cinematheque’s ‘Bleak Week’ is an annual weeklong festival that showcases dozens of the greatest films of cinema history from around the world that fearlessly plunge the depths of human despair. Says American Cinematheque Artistic Director, Grant Moninger, “‘Bleak Week’ has deeply resonated with both audiences and filmmakers alike, who have discovered they are not alone in their desire to explore challenging and often sad and uncomfortable truths about the darkest sides of humanity through the projected light of cinema. Over 20,000 people and more than 50 special guests have attended the festival the past two years, and we are proud to take ‘Bleak Week’ beyond Los Angeles and join forces with seven of our favorite movie theatres to co-present a vast program of incredible films to their ardent audiences. We applaud these theatres’ incredible year-round film programming and look forward to seeing each uniquely crafted festival.”
Robert Eggers and Todd Solondz will visit the Prince Charles Cinema and Paris Theater, respectively. The full lineup for all theatres, including other special guests, will be announced over the next month. Previous editions of Bleak Week have featured renowned filmmakers and actors such as Béla Tarr, Lynne Ramsay, Charlie Kaufman, Isabella Rossellini, Kenneth Lonergan, Al Pacino, Kogonada, Colin Farrell, Ari Aster, Gus Van Sant, Karyn Kusama, Paul Dano, Boots Riley, Jerry Schatzberg, Matthew Modine, Chris Pine, Ray Wise, John Hillcoat, J. Smith-Cameron, Allen Hughes, Anna Paquin and more.
Says Paul Vickery, Head of Programming for the Prince Charles Cinema, “I’ve been an admirer of the American Cinematheque for as long as I can remember - their newsletter is a daily dose of envy and inspiration - so the opportunity to work together on the first international instalment of ‘Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair’ is a programmer’s dream come true. The chance to extend our collaborative-reach across the pond is proof that this community of people who are all-consumed by the celebration of the big-screen experience are a global one, and we couldn’t be prouder to be part of it. But most of all, we can’t wait to bring a little piece of what the incredible team at the AC do on a daily basis to our screen in London. You are in for a truly misery-inducing treat!”
Dates & Venues:
American Cinematheque
Aero Theatre, Los Angeles, CA
June 1 - 7, 2025
American Cinematheque
Egyptian Theatre, Los Angeles, CA
June 1 - 7, 2025
American Cinematheque
Los Feliz 3, Los Angeles, CA
June 1 - 7, 2025
Music Box Theatre
Chicago, IL
June 1 - 7, 2025
Hollywood Theatre
Portland, OR
June 6 - 12, 2025
Trylon Cinema
Minneapolis, MN
June 6 - 12, 2025
Paris Theater
New York, NY
June 8 - 14, 2025
Coolidge Corner Theatre
Boston, MA
June 8 - 14, 2025
Texas Theatre
Dallas, TX
June 8 - 14, 2025
Prince Charles Cinema
London, England
June 15 - 21, 2025
ABOUT THE PRINCE CHARLES CINEMA
The Prince Charles Cinema, located in the heart of London's cine-famous ‘West End’, is a single-site independent cinema celebrated for its unique attitude, its vast programme of 150+ different films every month and its dedication to preserving the art of 35mm and 70mm film projection.
Since opening its doors in 1962, the cinema has remained a community hub for film lovers, offering a carefully curated programme that features a broad spectrum of films, from timeless classics and hidden gems to contemporary masterpieces from every corner of the world, providing audiences with a unique opportunity to experience the history of cinema where it was born to be celebrated; on the big screen.
ABOUT THE MUSIC BOX THEATRE
Operating since 1929, the Music Box Theatre has been the premier venue in Chicago for independent and foreign films for more than four decades, playing host to over 200,000 patrons annually. It currently has the largest theater space operated full time in the city. The Theatre is independently owned and operated. Its sister company, Music Box Films, is dedicated to curating a diverse repertoire of films from around the world and distributing them throughout the US.
Regular events produced, presented, and hosted at Music Box Theatre include our 70mm Film Festival; our annual 24-hour horror-movie marathon Music Box of Horrors; and Noir City: Chicago, co-presented by the Film Noir Foundation. The Music Box team is thrilled to be part of Bleak Week this year alongside the American Cinematheque.
ABOUT HOLLYWOOD THEATRE
ABOUT PARIS THEATER
The legendary Paris Theater is the longest-running arthouse cinema in New York City. It is also Manhattan’s only remaining single-screen cinema, and the borough’s largest movie theater, with 535 seats. Built by the French distributor Pathé as a showcase for their films and opened on September 13, 1948, the elegant theater, with its distinctive Arte Moderne style, became a premier venue for the best films from around the world. Over the years, many hits such as A Man and a Woman, Romeo and Juliet, Monsoon Wedding, Metropolitan, A Room With a View, and Belle de Jour were introduced to the United States with a theatrical run at the Paris.
In 2019, Netflix began operating the theater, giving new life to a landmark of New York moviegoing and introducing it to a new generation of film lovers. As the studio’s New York flagship theater, the Paris is the home for exclusive theatrical engagements, premieres, special events, retrospectives, and filmmaker appearances.
ABOUT TRYLON CINEMA
TRYLON is a 501(c)3 nonprofit, whose mission is to cultivate community by screening classic, contemporary, independent, and foreign films at Trylon Cinema in South Minneapolis and other venues throughout the Twin Cities.
They screen six nights a week at the Trylon Cinema, with regular special engagements at the Heights and Riverview theaters.
ABOUT COOLIDGE CORNER THEATER
ABOUT DALLAS THEATRE
ABOUT THE AMERICAN CINEMATHEQUE
Established in 1984, the American Cinematheque is a member-supported 501(c)(3) non-profit cultural arts organization dedicated to building an engaged film community through immersive film curation, conversation, and presentation.
The American Cinematheque celebrates the movie-going experience at the core of its mission. Since it first began showing films in theatres in 1985, the American Cinematheque has provided a wide range of film programming, with both new and repertory cinema, hosting screenings, panels and special events with thousands of filmmakers and luminaries.
The Cinematheque showcases over 1,600 films per year; it connects the filmmaker to the audience and film history to its future. Presenting in 35mm, 70mm, rare nitrate, and state-of-the-art digital.
Transcending Dimensions (2025) Fantaspoa 2025
Toshiaki Toyoda is a director I like. He's made some intereting films over the years and some real head scratchers- frequently at the same time. I don't always like his films but if nothing else they get me thinking.
Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer (2025)
This is a three part Netflix documentary about the Gilgo Beach murders on Long Island. The series looks at the publicly available information up to the present time.
This is a very good, if occasionally uneven, look at the search for the killer of multiple women found on the South Shore of Long Island in the area near Gilgo Beach. Part one focuses on the finding of the bodies and the victims. Part two focuses on the broken attempt by the Suffolk County Police to “find” the person or persons responsible. The final part is focused on the discovery and the arrest of the killer.
I liked this series, but at the same time there is a feeling that there is more coming. The feeling is the result of the series being only able to focus on what is in the public area. We know about the victims and we know about the corruption in the Suffolk County police and DA office regarding one officer and the then DA, and we know a little bit about the accused killer. However there is a large amount of details we don’t have. We don’t have details as to everything that Rex Heuermann did, how many women he ultimately killed, and all of the things the police did to catch him once the bad apples were tossed out and justice was finally being served. While there is a lot to chew on, there is a lot more we are going to get after the trials reveals all.
Quibble aside this series is worth a look.
Brief thoughts on THE OTHER PEOPLE (2025) Fantaspoa 2025
After moving into a new house with her father and step mother a young girl discovers he daughter has made friends with a boy who lives in the darkness.
This is a solid little horror film that has some nice chills. While not reinventing the wheel, it does have some nice sequences that keep us watching all the way to the end. If you like low key horror that isn’t all jump scares and blood THE OTHER PEOPLE is definitely worth your time.