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.

I interviewed Marq several years ago when CLAYDREAM was being released. It was one of the best interviews I ever did. It was a interview that became a conversation. When that film opened in New York I went to a screening just to meet Marq in person. In the process I met his son who needs to be his PR agent since I had a long conversation with him about some up coming projects that sold me on what’s coming down the road. When I met Marq that night he told me that he was in New York for new project he couldn’t talk about. That project was THE DIAMOND KING.

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.

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.

The film follows a woman who returns to her family's mansion after the first world war. She is going to sell it. However the staff has other ideas. Things get even more complicated with slimy people, a secret society and demonic forces wander through the proceedings as the woman ends up being asked to make a film....

Director Signe Birkova has made a challenging work of cinematic art... or maybe it's just a heady mediation on various ideas that is supposed to get us thinking.  Honestly I don't know since the film keeps moving at all times and periodically making an unexpected left turn down a road or through a door we never saw coming. One would think we would end up home again but we keep ending up further and further away.

I honestly don't know if it  amounts to anything, but it is intriguing. There is a lot to chew on here from war, to class to cinema and lord knows what else. I found I stopped taking notes at some point because to do so had me miss something that just happened. This is not a film look away from since everything changes moment to moment.

Its also a film hard to discuss since unless you've gone through it once discussing plot points or thematic elements are going to mean little.

I like it but I need to see it again to know what that actually means.

Recommended for the adventurous.

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.

This is one of the best horror films I've seen in a while. It's a film that sets a tone early and never lets it break until the end. Truthfully you need to see this film, if only for the first fifteen minutes. It is one of the best opening sequences of any recent horror film and sets the rest of the film up perfectly. While some may quibble that what follows isn't quite as good, I still think what follows is wonderful and scary and not really predictable.

What makes the film work is that the films conceit, that the mother can go into people's minds and see their trauma, or monsters (kind of like Kon's PAPRIKA or the unjustly forgotten DREAMSCAPE) plays out perfectly. It sets up a wonderful dual world of a light place and a dark place that will kill you one way or another.

I truly loved this film. While it may not be big and flashy, it is the sort of thing that you will stop and watch every time you run across it on TV.  I also love how it has Julian Richings appear for one scene that amps everything up.

One of the great finds of 2025

While the Fantaspoa screenings are done, the film is now streaming on Amazon on other digital providers.


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

https://hollywoodtheatre.org/

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

https://coolidge.org/ 

ABOUT DALLAS THEATRE

https://thetexastheatre.com/

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.

This time out Toyoda has made an absolute head scratcher. Yes it has some magnificent moments, but there is a point, say about ten minutes in where you you're going to know if this is going to be on your best of the year list or the worst. No that isn't fair, it won't be on your worst of the year list because you probably will have fallen asleep.

The plot has a hit man being paid to kill a guru and to find one of his followers who disappeared. At some point a conch shell is blown and a trip into space ensues...and then there is a return to earth with people changing identities. You are either going to be on the film wavelength and love the heady discussion or you are going to call horse hockey. Personally I liked the head games up to a point until I realized that this was similar to the directors 2020 film DAY OF DESTRUCTION  which threw a bunch of ideas out there and never quite connected them up.

Is it worth seeing? If you don't mind a film that is way better in the parts then as a whole. If you don't want mind games or narrative that doesn't come together stay away.

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.

Saturday, April 19, 2025

Girl America (2024) Fantaspoa 2024


Director Viktor Taus takes the story of his friend Zdena Vrbová whom he met when he was strung out on heroin. Her refusal to stay down when things were bad helped him to stand up anf get his life back in order. The story also mirrors the tale of thousands of Czech orphans who went in and out of orphanages and foster homes.

The film is the story of a woman who was called Girl America. She lived with her mother until she was removed the the Communist Czech government and put into an orphanage. She then bounced in and out of foster homes, frequently the result of her bad behavior. The film is a grand theatrical memory play as theolder Girl America tries to make sense of her life.

Do not go into this film thinking it is going to be a straight forward film it's not. It's highly stylized and very theatrical (it started life as a stage play). It is not for everyone (some comments on Letterboxd complained about the "broken" narrative and realistic nature.) however if you can go with it and let it do what it wants to, and if you can get on its wavelength this film with kick youin the chest. When it was done I was left starring at the screen. I hadn't so much lived another life so much as experienced it from inside another person.

This is a big screen movie. This is a film with its own point of view. It's a film that goes all in with all its internal references and sense of reality. We are inside of Girl America's head from start to finish and it is a place we have never been before.

Everyone bemoans that too many films are cookie cutter and are not doing anything new. GIRL AMERICA doesn't break the mold because it never was in one. Its a film crafted with pain and sorrow and a sense of life from the broken  shards of a life.

I am staggered and somewhere beyond words.

That may not happen to you but by god you should see this film in the hope that this film rattles the pillar of your own cinematic heaven.

Finding films like this is why I love Fantaspoa.

A Cell Phone Movie (2025) Fantaspoa 2025


Will Sterling plays a fictional version of himselfin a meta film about his attempts to make a film on his cell phone so that everyone can see what he is capable of. Of course the film was shot on a cell phone and  quest mirrors his actual quest.

This is an amusing  comedy that leans into it's concept with mixed results. Some times the conceit is a bit too much with some of the framing seemingly chosen to remind us that we are watching a cellphone video.

The performances are largely fine, with everyone not phoning in their performances (sorry). Though it must be said that Sterling, who is on screen for the whole film is sometimes a little too much playing toward a nebishy character in the early sequences before he decides  make the film. I wanted to smack him and tell him to calm down, then again Sterling the writer should have given himself better material. The film is considerably better once the film is set in motion but at that point he didn't have to make stuff up and just follow what was happening.

Worth a look if you're interested

Legend of Ochi (2025) disappoints

An ADDENDUM before we start:

This piece has gone through several drafts each one stripping  away the discussion and leaving just a list of grievences, making me wonder if I should have posted this for Festivus. It wasn't unintentional it was something that just happened.  The reason it happened was that I have been trying to explain my feeling for this film and it's gone from a simple "I like it but it's a mess" to more iterations until now where I realize that I am angrily disappointed in this film - almost everything works - I mean it looks great, the cast is there, the creatures are awesome- but the script is so lacking in characters and reasoning that the narrative thread snaps from the first instant- we are never told anything that gives us a backstory of what is happening or why; nor do we get real characters but line drawings (I won't insult the notion of sketches).  There is a sense that the director knows it all (this could have been a 5-hour film) but he just doesn't show it or thinks that his target audience of six-year-olds will never notice. And the fact that so much seems to be missing pisses me off because this should have been a truly awesome film that lived in my heart forever and instead it's become a piece of junk I want desperately to break apart so that someone will rescue the tale and tell it the right way, with real reasons and real characters that aren't lazily drawn to the point none of them make sense. I want the film that the pieces promise not this broken doll with its limbs and head chopped off. I should not have had to spend 100 plus minutes spending each one asking about why and what and how. I should have drifted off on the story. And because this film doesn't explain anything-internally nothing makes sense - I am left with not so much a review but an abbreviated list of questions about things I should never have noticed.

I apologize but this film broke my heart (I mean look at the Ochi they are so damn cool)

THE REVIEW

Ever since I saw THE LEGEND OF OCHI at NYICFF my friends were asking what I thought of the film.  I wasn't sure what to say. Should I tell them how good the film looks? Or should I talk about the grand operatic score? Or should I tell them the creatures are very well done.?

Did I say any of that? No.What I said was simply "It's a mess"

I don't care that the director said he made the film for kids, the film makes no sense.

The film takes place on the island of Carpathia which is in the Black Sea. The island is shared by a group of people and some big blue creatures called ochi which occassionally kill the live stock and the people. The people, lead by Willem Dafoe, hunt the ochi. WHen Dafoe's daughter finds a small ochi she decides to  return it to its family.  This doesn't sit well with he father assumes she has been kidnapped and wih his band of lost boys goes to find rescue her.

I don't know where to start but while the film looks great the rest of the film really is a mess.

I don't know if the script was as much of a mess as the film is, but I sure hope not. Nothing in the film is explained or hangs together. I have no impressions of the film,  I only just an endless list of a questions and plot problems. Raymond Chandler said that an audience will forgive one, perhaps two unexplained turns (one of the shootings in THE BIG SLEEP is never explained), but more than that you will lose the audience. OCHI is full of unexplained turns and questions requiring answers. Here is a brief list of some of them:

- Is this a serious film or comedy? Willem Dafoe is so far over the top and his delivery is so out there I didn't now if I was supposed to be laughing or not. It seems like a comedy but no one was laughing.

-There is no real back story. We are told the monsters and the people are on the island and they don't get along, but there is no effort to explain what exactly happened. This leaves us with no idea why is Dafoe is such a homicidal nut job.

-There is no explanation of the monsters. NONE.  The bits we know- that they live in the woods... er caves on the island and hunt live stock makes no sense.  They are animals, until they aren't.

-There is no character development. NONE. We have no idea who anyone is. We kind of have a vague sense of the three leads were a family, but beyond that we have nothing. This is especially interesting since the band of boys who hunt with Dafoe are given prominence on the poster, but all we now is that they cast offs from families and orphans. We know nothing  about any of them except that one of them speaks with a Brooklyn accent (his only line). (And why does their look make them seem more like thugs/ fascists  then kids?)

- A terrium of catepillars? With no top and no sense that they will be butterflies?

-Everyone speas with a different accent, and language. Dafoe speas like himself, Helena Hengel speaks with a scandanavian accent and Emily Watson speaks with an accent from Mars. One boy sounds like he is from Brooklyn. The music played on the radio is in a variety of different languages. The guy who has his car stolen speaks in a Slavic language.

-Emily Watson knows all this information about the ochi, but we don't now how. She allegedly taught her daughter words of the ochi, but we don't know anything. She know where they live but she never saw the paintings in the cave. She ran after her daughter... and brought her flute?

- When the daughter the daughter realizes she can speak ochi the film is subtitled...just for that one scene.

- Why does travel across the island takes however along it requires the plot.

-We have no sense of anyone on the island other then Dafoe and the related characters. There is no sense of the society living there even though we see them. Why did they send their kids to Dafoe? What about school? 

-There is no reason that Dafoe goes from a psychotic Peter Pan to loving father.

-Why does one of Dafoes boys break into the house and trash the place when they are just there to see if the daughter is there? (There is a whole line of questioning here about the society where this happens, why they can misbehave and why they cross the line from being thugs to being de facto fascist soldiers)

- What is the deal with the Petro character? One minute he's good soldier, the next he's kind of sweet on the daughter and the next he's being a bad guy again...until he's not. This just highlights that no one arcs and no event naturally happens things just happen because the director says so.

There is more, much more. Almost every moment in the film will have you asking questions. I took pages and pages of notes much to amusement of the people sitting a couple of seats down the row.

This film feels like it was a thousand-page novel and it was cut to a fraction of that length.

Weirdly the film kind of works (as long as you don't think about it). The reason is the score which does all the heavy lifting by cueing us to what we are supposed to feel. The film is so cliched in construction and the score works so well that even if you have noticed all the missing material the end still will make you weepy- why? Because the score fixlls in all the holes.

Is it a bad film? Objectively, oh yea. The narrative just doesn't work. But emotionally... it kind of does at least enough that if you can let the music carry you to where you are five years old and don't know about plot holes.

Ultimately this film pisses me off more than any film has in the last year or so. Why? Because so much of the film works, the visuals, the music, the creatures... that the complete failure of the script to work  is a freaking shame. Had it worked it would have been an instant classic, instead its a major disappointment... a disappointment that will even hit the film's five year old fans once they are old enough to ask questions.

The Embodiment (2025)(aka Under the Dominion) Fantaspoa 2025


After helping a priest who is also an exorcist, deal with his feeling of being possessed a therapist begins to have strange things happen around her.

This film feels like a number of low budget horror films I saw in the late 1970's and early 1980's where filmmakers did what they could to stretch the meger bucks they had. There is a certain way the films were shot, mood was at a maximum and effects at minimum. This made what happened more shocking. There was often long sequences of dialog where things were discussed that came into play later. THE EMBODIMENT feels exactly like those films and as a result I was filled with nostalgia. 

At the same time because of the way it's shot the film has certain problems. There is a lot of talk and some of the sequences are a little static. The film at times feels a little slow, more so if you've only seen modern horror and the constant driving films that are prevalent now. When the film springs to life in the final third I wondered why things couldn't have moved along quicker.

Is it a bad film? No, but it is a kind of throw back that may struggle to find its audience. On the other hand if you want something decidedly not Hollywood the film is worth a try.

Friday, April 18, 2025

The Killer Goldfish (2025) Fantaspoa 2025


From Yukihiko Tsutsumi the director of the 20th CENTURY BOYS and 2LDK returns with a one of a kind film concerning a series of murders being committed with goldfish.

Yes Goldfish.

I’m not going to say another word other than strap in and just go with it. This is a wild and crazy film filled with wild images and occasional WTF plotting. Sure some of it doesn’t make a lick of sense but by god this film is compelling. It’s just crazy enough that you buy everything that happens and are curious where it’s all leading.  Trust me don’t even try to guess where this is going, just go with it.

In a weird way this is what cinema is all about- showing us things we never experienced in a way that opens up our eyes.

This film is a blast and a half…and just loopy enough that you’ll never trust a goldfish again.

Recommended.

NEW BEGININGS (2025) Vision Du Reel


This is a portrait of Native American Vietnam veteran, Al Moon, who decides to travel across country to reconnect with the men he served with.

Feeling more like a narrative, this is one of the most beautiful films you’ll see all year. No documentary, other than a nature documentary, should look this good. It’s so good looking that you will think the film is a narrative. You will want to see this on the big screen.


One part documentary and one part essay, the film mixes Moon’s trip with his mediations on life. The result is a very low key film that is kind of hypnotic. One drifts off on the images and the ideas.

To be honest as good and as beautiful the film is I don’t know if I like it. The film is so incredibly low key, with so many hazy and shadowy images that I kind of drifted off. Yes I was enjoying the conversations when they happened but the film is so dream like it brought me close to sleep.

Yes this film should be seen for the images, but at the same time you may drift off to sleep before you see them all.

The Shrouds (2024) opens today


There is no getting around it, David Cronenberg’s THE SHROUDS is a disappointment.  Based on Cronenberg's own feeling after losing his wife, the film is the story of a man dealing with the grief he feels after his wife died. He uses his tech savvy to create burial shrouds for the dead that allow people to watch their loved ones decay. As he tries to reconnect to life, the cemetery is vandalized and conspiratorial plots involving the technology are possibly hatched.

This is the first film where Cronenberg lost sight of his characters for the plot. Perhaps this is the result of this being intended to be a miniseries for Netflix that got axed or perhaps it’s just Cronenberg wrote himself in the corner. Either way this film takes a long time before focusing on the characters and then in the final third it loses them again.

To be certain when the characters take front and center the film soars- the scene where the blind wife of one of Vincent Cassel’s clients touch his face was one of the best scenes in all of this year’s New York Film Festival and the sex scenes are both erotic and manage to drive the plot – but the truth is the film is too interested in the technical stuff to really work. In the words of Hubert Vigilla, with whom I saw the film, it’s like watching THE FLY and having it be about how the pods work.

I’ve been a fan of Cronenberg for decades and this is the first time one of his movies ended and I felt nothing. Both Hubert and myself were left staring at the screen by Cronenberg’s choice of ending point for the film since it doesn’t feel like a stop but simply mid action abandonment.

While the film is well made and has moments it really isn’t a good film. If the interpersonal bits weren’t as good as they are this would probably be the first truly bad David Cronenberg film.

For die hard fans of the director only.

Thursday, April 17, 2025

The Ego Death of Queen Cecilia (2024)


The Ego Death of Queen Cecilia is the story of a former big to do on YouTube, an influencer whose better days are behind her. Forced to take jobs she feels are beneath her, she struggles to regain her influence. She also attempts to frame a fellow influencer for a crime and it blows back as she finds herself in with some really bad guys.

Less a straight on thriller, the fragmented telling makes this more a character study of a desperate woman than a full on thriller. What will we do to be loved? Are we actually being loved on the internet or is it all an illusion? Is everything we tell ourselves just lies? This film wants to explore those notions, some times at the cost of a perfect narrative.

That the film works as well as it does is due to the cast. Jo Schaeffer as Cecilia is shattering as a woman somewhere beyond broken whose every step is forcing her to slide down a broken  razor into a heap of trouble. It’s a performance that hurts to watch at times as you want to scream at the screen for her to stop. Everyone else is a close second, with everyone giving performances that are real and raw.

This is a small gem of a film. Its something you should put on you radar