Tuesday, July 8, 2025

THE ATOMIC BOWL: Football at Ground Zero & The Forgotten Bomb (2025) is on PBS on July 12


Greg Mitchell's latest is a quiet, but powerful punch in the face. Using a touch football game held in the ruins of Nagasaki as a focal point, the film reveals how how little we knew about atomic energy and how what we knew was controlled by the American government. It also makes it abundantly clear that there was absolutely no reason that the bomb should ever have been dropped. 

Greg Mitchell’s ATOMIC BOWL is going to rattle your cage. The film is a look at the football game that was played in the ruins of Nagasaki on first of January 1946.  It’s a film that shows how uninformed the American government was in the early days of the atomic age.

As with all of Mitchell’s films we aren’t getting just the story of the football game, but something more. This being a film from Greg Mitchell we get the well-researched and very detailed story of the events that led up to the game. But also we get the real story that he wanted to tell, which is how the Nagasaki bombing changed  the world and no one is talking about it. As Mitchell makes clear this second bombing wasn’t needed. The bombing was done because General Groves felt it had to be done. We can argue about whether the decision was right or wrong historically, but as the film points out the bombing changed warfare forever, it made civilian targets okay. The reason it made them okay is that the city had no military value. The bombing was just a show of force (one that should have brought more casualties  but the bomb went off course.)

The scary thing is that as Mitchell points out no one talks about the second bomb much. It’s an after thought that even discussions or films on the atomic bombs glance over (it’s only fleetingly mentioned in OPPENHEIMER). Mitchell tells us the story of the football game  not because it’s a great story, but because it allows him to discuss something that needs to be talked about. We need to know why its now okay to kill children.

The film is also a look at the damage everyone suffered as a result of the radiation. While you can chalk some of it to the fact that we didn’t know what the long term effects of the radiation, but as the film makes painfully clear a lot of it was the result of the American government hiding the horrors.

As I said at the top this film is going to rattle your cage. It’s  slow building gut punch that is going to leave you feeling battered and broken at the unexpected sadness of it. This is probably going to be the first great film of 2025 you’ll see.

Highly recommended

Monday, July 7, 2025

Little, Big, and Far (2024)In Theaters July 11

 


Jem Cohen's portrait of an Austrian astronomer who is pondering life and his work after turning 70.

This s a film you have to give yourself over to. Seemingly rambling in structure, the film is more a stream of consciousness tale that takes us into the mind of Karl that shows us clearly how he sees and processes the world. What at times is a film that will make you wonder where it's going, Ultimately comes together into something wondrous.

This is a film that will make you see the world in a new way.

Sunday, July 6, 2025

JAPAN CUTS and THE NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL start this week.

This week the two big Asian film festivals in New York New York Asian and Japan Cuts are going head to head. Cuts begins Thursday and NYAFF begins Friday.

Cuts goes until the 20th and NYAFF goes until the 27th.

I will have coverage of both festivals, including an interview with Kiyoshi Kurosawa for Japan Cuts so keep reading.

And if you have any interest in either festival just buy a ticket and go. My experience has always been if the write up makes it sound like something you should want to see then go.

Normally at this point I’ll have seen a whole bunch of films however as this posts I’ve only seen a few and so they will be coming in the form of reviews.

THE SHROUDS on Digital 7/8


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.

Saturday, July 5, 2025

Trainwreck Poop Cruise (2025)

 I saw this in on the Netflix recommendation list and I avoided it. I really didn't have any interest. Then in a weak moment I heard one of the New York morning sports radio shows talk about it and it sounded interesting. I figured I would try it. 

I should have realized it was not going to be good since the morning show I was listening to was the one I usually avoid.

This is a recounting of the Carnival Cruise ship which suffered a fire which burned out all the electrical lines stranding the ship and making it so the passengers were stuck for a week with no way to drive the ship and with no way to get rid of their human waste.

This hour long documentary doesn't say much beyond what could be told in ten or fifteen minutes. There are mentions of the debauchery of the cruise before the fire, the problems after, and the nightmare of what happened when they went to an open bar. Details are lacking because the film wants to keep it in the realm of good taste.

While not bad, I mean I did watch it from start to finish, I was left wonderingwhy was I bothering other than it is a trainwreck.  

Not recommended.

Friday, July 4, 2025

Ken Fries on Hearts of Darkness which opens today at Film Forum

This is a repost of a piece that appeared in 2010 in the early days of Unseen Films. It was written by Ken Fries

While Apocalypse Now is the fictional account of a war that took place in fact, Hearts Of Darkness is a factual account of a war that took place to create fiction. While the directors are George Hickenlooper and Fax Bahr, this is really a film about Francis Ford Coppola made by his wife Eleanor. Although there are interviews done in 1990 by the Hearts Of Darkness directors with the cast of Apocalypse Now (and they are rather revealing), the bulk of the film, and the truly fascinating material, is that which was shot by Eleanor Coppola back in 1976 while her husband Francis was attempting to make his masterpiece about the Vietnam War.

The documentary's title serves to tie source material together, as Francis' film was loosely based on the Joseph Conrad novel Heart Of Darkness, a story about an Englishman who captained a ferry boat in Africa searching for Kurtz. Francis' film was about a journey into the darkness and insanity of the Vietnam War with army Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) searching for rouge army Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando). Eleanor's footage chronicles the slow descent into madness of Francis as his Vietnam movie spirals out of control. His shooting schedule is at the mercy of the Philippine government, the production is going tremendously over-budget, personnel literally are having heart attacks (Sheen, who had already replaced the originally cast Harvey Keitel, missed many weeks of filming due to his ill health), and many very intimate moments are compellingly placed before us on screen. Francis has invested many millions of his own money into making the film, and he's not sure if what he has is brilliant or total garbage. In addition to the video footage that Eleanor shot during production, there were many conversations between the husband and wife, that she recorded without his knowledge, that reveal a very worried, disturbed, and tremendously stressed and pressured director and man. Little did anyone know that she invented the medium we now know as "Reality TV"; in this case, however, it truly is real, and makes for fascinating viewing.

Even if you have never seen Apocalypse Now, Hearts Of Darkness makes for a very interesting movie. Watching a man deal with a host of adversity makes for an interesting film. But if you have any knowledge at all of Francis Ford Coppola, and specifically Apocalypse Now, the events documented in Hearts Of Darkness, which begin to mirror the events depicted in Apocalypse Now, are indeed fascinating to watch. Your next viewing of Apocalypse Now will be in an entirely different light.

Currently out on stand alone DVD, but also available as an extra in the new super spectacular Blu-Ray edition of Apocalypse Now

Thursday, July 3, 2025

Talking to Kenneth R Frank about HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION

 


I have been circling Ken Frank and the other filmmakers connected to In The Garage Productions for several years now.  I have been watching their films from the early days, and watching the group grow as filmmakers. I have enjoyed all of their films. Ken and his crew are turning out amazing features for less than most other filmmakers proof of concept shorts

A couple years back I made a comment in a review of MY SISTER’S WEDDING that Ken should reduce the comedy and focus on making a drama. Insanely Ken took it to heart and made HOW I SPENT MYSUMMER VACATION and turned out his best film to date and one of the best films you’ll see all year. Ken, let me know what he did by inviting me to the crew and family screening and he blew me away. I went with Hubert Vigilla and the two of us spent an hour after the screening standing in Penn Station just discussing it.

When I got home I emailed Ken and asked to do an interview. Because we live near each other, and because the talk went all over the place, one interview became two dinners and a talk that last over four and a half hours.

What follows is a small portion of our talk focused on Ken and the making of  HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION. I removed roughly 55 pages of material, not because it is bad but because it is largely focused on being an inde filmmaker working with micro budgets. There is a another great interview in there, but to include it will overwhelm the story of the film at hand. (I am slowly working on trying to shape all of that extra material in to a long piece.)

I want to thank Ken for letting me see the film early and for being insane enough to sit through two dinners with me.


STEVE: How did you, and the in the garage guys get together? Because there is you, Chris {Mollica] and Steve [Tsapelas. Director of BIGFOOT CLUB] and everybody else in this tight cinematic family. 

KEN: So, it starts with, back in high school, Chris and I, who plays the father in this film, he's the star of Family Outing. We're the same age, we went to high school together. 

He wanted to be an actor, I wanted to write. I went to NYU, he went to Ithaca, and we kind of formed this company. We called ourselves In The Garage Productions, and we tried making movies. And this was in in the mini DVD tape days where you could kind of do something, but it was very hard to get anything kind of off the ground. 

So we did our best. And when we got out of school, my wife Shawna [Brandle}, who produces the films,  and I actually made a kind of legitimate business, and we did some, like, wedding photo and video, and we would end up in film.

 And we would go into the city and film plays, these little black box theaters and make DVDs for people. So we just took all these little video and photo jobs we could with the idea of, you know, getting experience, making a little money so we could buy equipment, and eventually making movies. And so Chris moved out to L.A. Chris ended up marrying Shawna's sister, so Chris and I married to a pair of sisters. And the four of us were the backbone of the company. And so as technology kind of got to a place where we could genuinely make a feature film, we made THE MIX. It was our first film.

 We shot the movie in 2014, and it on the streaming in 2017. We did The Festivals in 2016, and that was our first feature.

 And, you know, that was in the earlier days of streaming where you could kind of make a deal, get a movie out. We actually got a little minimum guarantee. It was encouraging enough at the time.

 It won a couple of awards. People liked it.

 Chris and I wrote the script together. He starred in it. We filmed it out in L.A. because he, by that point, had been in L.A. for, I guess, he'd been out in L.A. for, like, seven, eight years by that point. And he got a great crew and group of actors to be in it. I was teaching full time. You know, Shawna and I with our two little kids, like, hopped a plane to L.A., and I was the boom mop on set for a week in L.A., which was kind of crazy but worked well.

 And then the movie came out on streaming. I wanted to do something next. We got into a place in our lives where Shawna was doing her Ph.D. She had landed a full time tenure track position in a university, and we kind of always said, if we got to a place, if she could replace my income, I should focus on my writing and try to really do this, genuinely. And so it all kind of coalesced at the same time that that movie came out.

So I was like, all right, I'm going to pack it in teaching, and I'm going to try to write more and try to get movies off the ground. I stopped working full time, I started on FAMILY OBLIGATIONSs, and that was kind of the first one that we did back here in New York because we did THE MIX out in L.A.

FAMILY OBLIGATIONS was made in 2018, released in 2019, and kind of was a different environment. It was no longer like the early days of streaming, so it was kind of a little more getting closer to what it is now, where it's just chaos, it's crazy getting movies out. But we did it small enough and we had enough success with it that it was kind of like, I can wrap my head around this.

 And at the very last festival with that film, I met a guy who said, “what are you doing next?”

 I'd been looking for somebody to back us financially. He said, “I really like this film. What do you got?”

 And so that was kind of like a perfect storm of things happened. So he's been with us now for a couple films. I've been kind of leading the charge on this.

I met Steven at the festivals with FFAMILY OBLIGATIONS. so he came through that. Chris and I continued working together. So that's sort of the early beginnings to where we are now. And this movie, I guess to be kind of Steven's, is either a sixth or a seventh, depending on how you think of this one.

 STEVE: I think when I  went to the screening, somebody said something was the seventh.

 KEN: Yeah, so we did THE MIX, then FAMILY OBLIGATIONS, we did a movie called SOFA KING, I think you reviewed SOFA KING. And then we did UFO CLUB and MYSISTE'S WEDDING, and then this is, whether you count BIGFOOT CLUB and How I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION, or vice versa, we did them back to back.

 So it's really funny. My wife is a professor, and she got a Fulbright Fellowship to send us to all live in Japan for half a year. So I had had My Sister's Wedding set up, I had the financial investment, and we were set to go, but with the pandemic, we were kind of shelled for a while, and we were trying to get that off the ground.

 Stephen had similarly written a script and gotten financial backing to try and get that off the ground, and we were gearing up with our two kids to move to Japan for half a year, and my wife was saying to me, just please, let's not shoot two movies back to back and then move to Japan, that sounds dumb, and that's exactly what we did. We shot two movies back to back and then moved to Japan. We shot Stephen's movie in July and my movie in August, and then we went to Japan for five months, and we came home and those movies were kind of nearing the completion point and we were getting them out.

 And so now, Stephen kind of went back to his investor, I went back to mine, and they both said, let's do it again. I had a script ready and was gearing up to do HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION, and Stephen got the money to do BIGFOOT CLUB, and my wife said, we're not going to do this again, are we? We're going to do two movies back to back, and we did.

Yeah, so we kind of did the same, frankly, ill-advised thing again, we did two movies back to back. It was still a lot of fun, but it's kind of insane. So that's the seven, two that Stephen's written and directed, this is the third one I've written and directed, just me, Chris and I wrote THE MIX together, Kevin [Wolfring], who's worked on all the movies with us, directed SOFA KING.

 That's kind of the very quick origin story of it

 STEVE: I have to say, because I've watched you guys almost from the first, and it's like, you guys are getting better and better and better and better.

 And that you have these people who are around you, these filmmakers and actors and stuff, and it's like, how the hell do you do that?... Because I've met other filmmakers, and that you have this family of people who can work together is, like, rare.

 KEN: Yeah, we're very lucky. We go along, and with each project, you always go, OK, I know I want so-and-so to be on board for this, and we have a certain... And then there's always an outlier where you go, well, now I need somebody that I've never had before.

 With this movie, The Summer Vacation, we needed kids.... My kids have been in the movies just because we need a kid. It's certain logistical challenges with child actors.

 There's a permit from the state you have to get, and it's paperwork, and it's a fee, and then the actors you cast, they have to have certain accounting. The parents have to have what's called a Coogan account, so when you pay them, that means you have to use a certain payroll company. So it's a little restrictive, and  certain people look at it and go, oh, I guess we're not going to do that. 

But I'd written the story, and I'd said to my wife this really is what I want to do. And she just kind of looked at me and was like, you find new ways to make this hard. Every time out, we finally know how to do something simple, and you come up with something difficult.

So we've got to get these kids. And, you know, and like, Paolo [Kossi}, who plays the uncle in this movie, came from Steven. Steven cast him in this web series he made, and then he was in UFO CLUB, and I really liked Paolo. I shot UFO CLUB, so I really liked being on set with Paolo. I thought he was very funny, he was very good. And so I'd written this movie, and I knew Chris would play the father. Christina [Elise Perry] is, I guess her title is, like, director of development, or? At the Chain Theater. She's married to Kirk [Gostkowski]. Kirk was in my last movie. He was in My Sister's Wedding. And we've been seeing plays at Chain, going to the Chain Film Festival for years, and I said, oh, I'd love to get Christina in it.

Jerry [Colpitts] had been in FAMILY OBLIGATIONS and been in UFO CLUB. And so I had, like, the people all filling out, and I needed the kids. And that's like, you know, so you try to add to it.

 STEVE: Where did you get the kids?

 KEN: I wrote the thing, and it's a 13-year-old girl at the center of a movie. And Shawna said to me, where are you gonna find a 13 year old girl? But she’s one of those people that really can do anything. So if you're the type of person who goes, you know, I wrote a movie, but I gotta cast kids in it, and we gotta figure out a way to hire kids legitimately. She, by 9 a.m. the next day, has it. It’s  incredible.

 And so we went looking. Obviously, you go looking for her first, because it's the big part, right? So I'm looking, and I saw this girl.

And I guess I could lie to you, but I'll tell you legitimately, she's the first kid I found. I went looking for, you know, on Long Island, a girl about this age. You know, I go to Backstage, I go to Actor's Access, I go to the usual places.

 And I come across her. I know that Chris is going to play the father. I know Chris's look. As soon as I see her, I go, oh, she is very believably Chris's daughter. Chris is like half Sicilian, half Polish. Her dad is, I don't know if he's Sicilian, he's Italian. And her mom is, you know, I don't know if she's German.  It's like the combinations are perfect. You look at her, and you're like, she can believably be Chris's daughter, no problem. I watch her act, I watch her sing, I see her reel, I see all her stuff, I go, I show it to Shawna, I say, Shawna, this girl will be perfect.

 She goes, all right, you know, let's reach out. So I reach out to her mother. Her mother gets back to me right away. Lovely woman. We have a conversation. I send her the script.  We talk about what this is. She goes, let me look at the script. Raquel  [Sciacca] looks at the script. We talk. And she sends me more stuff. Just, you know, she can see more stuff that Raquel's done.

 Raquel did this thing, which I thought was great.  I laughed so hard. She did a thing for Cozy TV for their 10th anniversary. It was this bit where they did 10-year-old, in quotes, the Nanny. And the premise was it was the nanny played by 10-year-olds. This was a couple years ago. And she played Fran Drescher. Oh, good God. She was probably 12 or 13, but, you know, the idea of being a 10-year-old nanny.

 And it's hysterical. It's as funny as you'd think it'd be. It's staged in a theater. The narrator comes out and goes, we hope you enjoy 10-year-old nanny. And these kids come out, and they're in the costume, and it's funny.

 But then there's a link, and it says, 10-year-old Frasier. And I go, how about 10-year-old Frasier? And I see this little boy playing Martin Crane. And it says Dawson Sciacca. And I'm looking at him, and I'm like, it's gotta be. So I click through, and I find links here and there, and I go, okay, so there's an actress on Long Island named Raquel Sciacca.  

There's an actual line that says Dawson Sciacca. So I called, I speak to the mother again. I said, listen, I looked at the link she sent me.

 She said, I'm gonna go out on a limb here, and I'm gonna say that you're also Dawson Sciacca's mother as well as Raquel. She goes, yeah, yes, I am. I said, let me talk to you as the parent.

 I said, I have two children. Obviously, I contacted you about Raquel. And the part is, Raquel's what she wanted.

 You've read the script by now. She goes, yeah, I wouldn't bring it up with you, but since you're bringing it up, I said, I said, do you think Dawson would want to be the little brother, and you as the parent who's gonna be on set, are you okay with that? Because I could see this being a wonderful experience for your two children, or I could see this being absolutely maddening where it's both of them, and she goes, no, no, no, I think they've gotten to work together once or twice, and it's been really fun.

 So let me, that'd be great. So I got two for one. I just got lucky, you know?

 I didn't go looking for a brother and sister, but it fell in my lap, and I wasn't gonna say no to it.

 STEVE: How much of Dawson’s role, was written, and how much did he improvise?  I ask because it’s it's one of the most amazing physical performances I've ever seen. He's just really funny. The whole performance is him reacting. You can't teach that.

 KEN: Right. It's very funny, because there's an element of it that's the two of them. Raquel, They're both a little older than they look, she just turned 17, and he's turning 13, and they're playing 13 and 9.

 She's a senior in high school. She doesn't look it. We got her between her junior and senior in high school. And, he's my younger daughter's age. They took a picture together. My kids are towering over the two of them. It's very funny. Anyway, they have a big sister, little brother relationship.

 I'm so glad I've got a brother and sister because it's just there. Like, when he comes out and he's chasing them down the street and they're walking, there's just that thing of, like, oh, my God. I even joked on set one time because it took him a couple seconds to get ready to do a take for something, and he's kind of dragging, you know, he's kind of, he goes to put a drink down, but then he realizes he needs something and he goes back and Raquel's kind of waiting for him. I'm glad I could be there for what could be the last time Raquel ever worked with Dawson.  There's just  good family moments where you know you're just putting the camera on it, you know, and it's happening, you know.

 But the idea of the relationship was supposed to be that she was this kind of all brain all neurotic kid, bright, sees it, understands it, and he was just kind of the lost in the clouds, you know, dopey little brother. And he's actually an incredibly bright, very articulate, constantly thinking little boy who like, between action and cut just switched into like, which way did he go, George? He's a much more cerebral kid than that performance implies.

 STEVE:  But even then, there's a whole sense of life beyond, behind the eyes. I mean, that's always the one thing where you get with great performances is they are they acting with the eyes.

KEN: You know, like I said, it's very, very lucky in that we got who we got because if I had had to cast a little boy to play her brother and I had put the two of them in that bedroom and they have that conversation of why do people think I'm dumb, you know, you shoot that scene 100 times and probably 99 times out of 100 you don't get that that you get between the two of them but just him slowly processing what she said and smiling was like everything I would have hoped that scene would be and it's just him, I just put the camera on him and let him run it and you're like, okay, I don't have anything to tell you,

 STEVE: You nailed it, you know, like. How much did you have to retake?

 KEN: We, we did incredibly fast. We didn't reshoot anything in terms of so principle, we had, let's see, we shot one day at Town and North Hempstead Park up in Port Washington, just me and Raquel, Shawna and her mom. That's where she's running. I guess it was five days at a house in East, Quogue, East Quogue, and then we shot which is right by where my parents live, ironically. We crashed with my folks those days. 

That's where most of the film was shot. You know, it was week, between, I think it was June 24th to like June 29th maybe we were in that house. We also did Quogue Village Beach for the beach scenes and we did the Quogue Wildlife Refuge for the scenes of them walking in the woods,  and the bridge.Then we had a day in Buddy's house in Seaford. That's at their house before they go out where it's like the kitchen table where the uncle comes in. That's like the family's home. Her asleep in bed, them having this discussion about her going out.

 And then we did school out in East Quogue again and we did the funeral home. The restaurant was on the funeral home day. I guess a total of nine, ten days and we were shooting like ten, eleven, twelve pages a day. We had one or two days where it was really dull. The day of just me shooting her and running is very light in terms of script. So the other days we had to make up.

 So we're shooting probably about thirty set-ups a day, thirty-five set-ups a day. We're cranking through like ten, twelve pages of script. And like again, Raquel's in on every page. She's in every scene. She was a machine. She was fantastic.

 We ever got to a scene where she asked, what are we doing here? You're doing so much so fast.

 And you economize is like we're doing all the dinner table scenes right now in this location.

So we're going to put the Chinese food out and he's going to come in and we're going to do the dip with the Chinese food and then we're going to strike it and we're going to do lunch, we're going to do that. And you know, after you do two or three of those you go, I'm sorry, what the hell are we doing? I've been in this seat for six hours shooting nine pages over the course of a whole script.

And if you were disoriented and didn't know what you were doing, that's why I'm here. Don't worry, I'm directing. And Raquel was like, okay, here we go. And just nailed it.

 STEVE: How was everybody else?

 KEN: They were fantastic. I love ensembles, I love families, I love family stories. And to me, you're really just hoping that you put these people in the room and they just all kind of get on the same page.

 I was fortunate.

 STEVE: You're really good at writing that stuff. If you watch  MY SISTER’S WEDDING, and you can see it. That’s why I said you have to do a drama because you're writing these scenes of families that are so brilliant.

 KEN: I take it you probably grew up in a family like mine or something like that. Which is why it makes sense to you.

 I think for some people it connects. Some people really, they see something like this and they go, oh, yeah, the relationship between the father and the son, the way the siblings, like Clara and Richie are the adult siblings and the way they interact. And it's really just kind of born of, you know, I'm one of three and my wife's one of three. We have our own kids. We're those people in the middle. I've got two kids entering their teenage years. I've got parents who are approaching 80. I was saying to my wife today, if I was a painter, I'd paint families.

If I was a musician, I'd make music about families. It's what I'm always thinking about. It's what I'm always involved in.

 STEVE: You've managed to take everything in and put it on the screen, which is like brilliant.

 KEN:  Well, thank you. What's interesting about this film is that the idea is born out of an experience I had as a kid, but now I find myself writing and relating to it from the perspective of that kid, but also realizing that I'm the father in the film as well.

 You know, that I have the perspective of, when I was 11, my grandfather died. It was a summertime when I remember hearing that he was sick in May and he passed in October. And that summer was just very kind of crazy in the family.

 I think of that as my entry into the adult world where I think before then, I was young, I was a little kid, I thought that adults had the answers, they knew what they were doing, and that one day I'd get there. you know, I would see these people in charge are, you they tell me what's right and what's wrong, and I listened.  But I kind of saw, you know, confusion, I saw misunderstanding, I saw disagreement, I saw genuine tension and sadness, and just kind of was like, oh man, are we all just making this up as we go along? Because no one has a plan of what's going to happen here.

 And so, that was the genesis of this idea. But then I found myself also realizing that you watch your kids grow up and you see your kids have certain anxieties, or you see your kids confront certain things for the first time, and how you want to kind of, how you want to intervene or don't intervene, and how you talk to them about it, and so I also had that.

 I found that the father in me was, so I was in both positions doing it, and there was this moment where we were shooting in the driveway of the house, and it's complete, you know, it's very kind of classic filmmaking one-on-one stuff where like, you schedule it for a time of day when the light's going to be decent, and you're going to bang out three or four quick shots in the exterior, it's MLS, there's no dialogue, you know, it's like, okay, place the camera, and you're okay, you guys come out first, then he gets in the car, you guys follow, stay on the steps, the car pulls away, then I'm going to punch in, and then we're going to turn it around and we're going to get a different scene where the car pulls up, and you're just getting through your shot list, and it really hit me that shooting Uncle Richie and the two kids on the steps waving goodbye, I was like, this is the goodbye I didn't have, this is them realizing they're seeing their grandfather for the last time, and Uncle Richie realizing he's seeing his father for the last time, and I was like, how did I not realize I was doing this until right the second I'm doing this? And they're saying, sun's coming down, we got to move, we got to get inside and do the dialogue scene but we're only going to wrap the kids for this time because I only have so many hours with them, whatever, but I was shooting it, and like, oh my god, look what I did.

 It was a full circle. Because the analytic side of them doing it as a director, You kind of let go and you go, oh you wrote this however many months ago and now it's coming true.

 STEVE: How long did it take you to cut the film?

 KEN: It was quick. So, we wrapped shooting on July 2nd. I had a first full cut by the middle of August, so about six weeks later. Refined it, refined it, refined it.

 I sent off that cut to my composer, who's Kevin, who directed Sofa King, he's been my assistant director and he's edited my movies before, we've worked on them together. He was a former student of mine from when I was teaching. I sent the cut off to Kevin to do work on music.

 I locked picture kind of like early October. I said, alright, this is the edit. And I started doing all the sound work, I started doing all the color work. And really right before the holidays, it was like, alright, we're good. We did it.

 The thing is  whether I try to or not, the movies all end up being about the same length. It's just an ironic thing, they all end at like 82 minutes.

 I think, something of a product of the resources we have. We're pretty small and we're pretty fast.

 STEVE: But there's an economy to your storytelling. There's nothing strenuous and anything that's there is the right coloring.

 Do you throw anything out in any of your movies?

 KEN: I always hear filmmakers talk about they shot this scene, they cut it, or they had this sequence. And I have that back in the script phase.

Where I think about different movies, like FaAMILY OBLIGATIONS, 82 minutes. I could tell you, now, if I got to make that for 100 minutes, what I would have done, or in MY SISTER'S WEDDING. In certain cases, there's a whole other character I want to introduce but they just didn’t fit.

But it usually ends up being this size. And I'm very happy with that. I really like the way that works.

 What I usually try to do is, I sit and work so things find their way out through the course of the planning and the writing phase. And then, by the time I give the scripts to the actors its all set.

 I like to schedule a reading. You know, whether we've done it in person, we'll try to do it on Zoom a couple times. And, you know, kind of hear it through. And then sometimes after that, I will try to bring things into people's voices a little more, if necessary. It wasn't really necessary with this one. The kids were incredible.

 The child actors. The level of professionalism and training they have. Like, they really are trying to make what you're doing work.

 Because then, once you're on set, money's burning. And if you're setting up a shot that you don't think you're going to use, why are you doing it? I can't imagine shooting scenes that don't make it because I worked so hard to be able to have those scenes.

 And, you know, I do understand it from a narrative standpoint. There's something about how we've done this that... If we show up to shoot that day, I know I'm going to make this work because I really had to kind of claw to get this much.

I will have more from writer director Ken Frank soon.

HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION plays at the Miyakojima International Film Festival in OkinawaJuly 4-6. The film then comes home to play LIIFE in Bellmore (along with another In The Garage film make Steven Tsaplas' BIGFOOT CLUB).  Before it heads to Europe for the Nice International Film Festival 

HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION (2025) is having a busy summer at at the Miyakojima International Film Festival in Okinawa July 4-6, LIIFE in Bellmore July 10-13, the Nice International Film Festival and some others

 


The latest film from Kenneth Frank is a home run. It's a heartfelt and very human story of a 12 year old girl trying to navigate her summer vacation and her family. 

I'be been following the work of Ken and his cohorts at In The Garage Productions for several years now. Over that time I've been enjoying their films and watching them grow as filmmakers.

The last two films from Ken were comedies and I had mentioned in reviews that he should step away from the comedy and just focus on the drama, which has always been his strength.. In December Ken emailed me to say he made a drama and asked me if I wanted to see it.

Yes, yes I did. And yes yes you do.

The film is a beautifully acted, wonderfully told tale that gives us some very real moments in the life of a family that are going to echo moments in your life. Nothing feels false. Everything is dead on target. And while the time frame  feels slightly wonky, nothing that happens in the film feels wrong or off. Nothing feels added for dramatic effect. Events play out as they do in real life. There are no big screaming adult moments, only what Grace would see. There is no effort to wedge in false emotional moments.

The cast is first rate. The reason that the film works is because of them. Raquel Sciacca as Grace gives a starmaking performance and Dawson her real life brother turns in a magnificent physival performance that makes you want to go up and give him a hug.

After the screening Hubert Vigilla and I were discussing he film and comparing it to Annie Baker's JANET PLANET. Everything that Baker's film does wrong, this film does right. Here we have a lead character who is a real person and not a cliche or just an audience surrogate. She exits because she it genuinely the focus of the film.

WHAT I DID ON MY SUMMER VACATION is a genuine coming of age film about real people dealing with real issues. We are getting a real story and not a lecture by a filmmaker to their younger self.

This film is a genuine gem. Its filled with life and love and the confusion that life causes. It is a film full of genuine wisdom including a show stopping moment when Grace's Mom reveals the secret of of life. It's a moment so on target in it's perfection it hits like a bolt of lightning.

This film is glorious. 

I am in love with this film.

Search out this film.

Wednesday, July 2, 2025

ANGRY CARS (2025)


I love Shaun Clarke. He is one of the best filmmakers working in the world today. You may not have heard of him but it is true. He has been turning out wickedly wonderful shorts that make me smile with their unique sensibility.


Shaun’s latest film maybe my most favorite of his films. It’s certainly one of my favorite films of 2025. The film is called ANGRY CARS.  The film is about a bunch of cars driving at night and the craziness that results.


What makes the film work is its sense of fun. The backgrounds are real, the cars are cartoony, and the sounds of the cars are the sort of rum rum sounds we make when we play. It sounds childish but Shaun lifts it all up into another level somewhere in the rarified level of the best Looney Tunes. I roared with laughter as each new car brought some new complication. I also had to back up the ending when the text explanations of what happened had me laughing so hard I missed what the next one said.


What an absolute joy.

This film will make you laugh and want to share it with everyone you know.

This film isn’t just recommended but a must see.

The trailer can be found here

Tuesday, July 1, 2025

Zenithal (2024)


A man who runs a dry cleaner and who is forcibly celebate (his girlfriend wants a period of abstinance) ends up a suspect in the murder of a well known self help guru, and former action and porn star with a riduculously huge penis. Things get further out of control as the plot goes into mad scientist territory.

Love it or loath it film is one you'll either love or hate based upon you feelings for endless dick jokes. Yea, this tries to say somethng about male/female relationships and how the little head controls a man's life, but mostly this is a steady stream of sex/privates related jokes. If you can go with it you'll love it, if not you'll be like me and can't wait until it ends.

Running a breezy 80 minutes, ZENITHAL doesn't really over stay it's welcome, but at the same time it doesn't have a lot of depth to the humor. This would be better as a short film where it could have run at a break neck speed. As it is the film is a direct sequel to a short film, with all of the back story set up there.

I'm not going to lie and say I didn't laugh, I did, and I liked some of the turns, but at the same time there wasn't enough here for it not to feel like its one note.

Tether (2025) Dances With Films 2025

 


This is the story of a father trying to deal with the loss of his daughter in a school shooting and the security guard who froze and allowed it to happen.

Director Hariharasudhen Nagarajan and writer Anghus Houvouras's TETHER is a thought provoking look at the aftermath of the all too common occurance of a school shooting. The film goes beyond the typical stories we see in the media. There are no easy answers. More importantly people don't instantly get over the bad things that happen to them. People are broken weeks after the fact. Even the "bad guy"  authorities who didn't act are not what the media or social media present them as.  Nagarajan and Houvouras have made a film that is important and should be seen because of how it peels back the layers on an important issue of our time. We clearly see the casualties beyond those struck by bullets.

At the same time I need to warn you that as good as the writing and directing is the performances are a step or two down.  While the leads are adequete they never fully sell the grief and pain the way they should have.  When the final confrontation occurs it doesn't soar because  neither actor feels as fully invested in what is happening. Yes, how they are acting is good, but it doesn't feel as though it is being lived. I wanted to be broken and I wasn't.

My quibbles on the acting aside Nagaranjan and Houvouras have made an important film. It's a film that grabs you and forces you to consider what is happening to those left behind. It wonderfully does not give answers but instead, and more importantly it gives us the room to ponder the on going national tragedy in ways that the regular media and other films have not given us.

Recommended.

Monday, June 30, 2025

Grenfell Uncovered (2025)

This is a Netflix documentary on the Grenfell Towers tragedy that left 72 dead. The fire traveled up the outside of the building in the cladding. The result was a fire that looked like a Hollywood film.

This film will crush you.  It's a sad story that reveals how hundreds of people were put at risk for profit. 

The film is a mixture of survivors tales and the story of the investigation in what happened.  I was locked in to the film from start to finish, I'm not sure that the mix really works. While I frequently complain that many Netflix  series really should have been a single film, in this is a case it should have been two parts, one telling the story of the fire and one telling the story of the investigation and what it turned up.

My complaint aside, I was moved. This is a sad tale that is very likely to be repeated over and over again.

Recommended.  

Sunday, June 29, 2025

Mr Blake at Your Service (2023) is charming and playing around the country

 

John Malkovich and the cat

This is one of the great finds of 2025, Just as I was losing mydesire to watch movies, this joy came along and surprised and delighted me.

The plot has John Malkovich playing a successful business man mourning the loss of his wife. Looking to find a connection to the world he takes a job as a butler at the French manner house where he first met his wife decades before.   All is not wellin the house. The woman who owns the place is in financial trouble and and she too is mourning the loss of her husband. She wants a butler because she is planning on opening the house as a vacation rental.

I am not going to lie and say the plot does anything unexpected, it really doesn't. But what it does do is give us a great collection of characters we can fall in love with. Everyone is charming and the sort of person we want to hang out with. We like them and we like their little quirks.

Which brings me to Malkovich, I've never seen him play a straightman before. Seriously he plays essentially a regular guy and lets the others be the quirky ones. It's an eye opening experience because you realize just how good he is. Yes, we have had decades of great Malkovich roles, but at the same time watching this you realize what we could have had if he was just allowed to be a regular person on screen and not someone with an odd quirk. I suspect that he took the role because he was acting in French, which he is not supposed to be perfectly fluent in (there are jokes about him being English and not getting words right), but I still would have loved to have seen him do this other times.

What a delight. Once I gave myself over to it and realized the plot line wasn't going to be surprising I fell into the film and into the company on screen. I became one of them and by the end the turns had me getting misty.

I absolutely loved this film.

High art? Probably not, but this is better. This is the sort of film you'll watch repeatedly because you just love the place it puts you in. Honestly if this were in English this film would become a cable/streaming staple and in five years it would be considered a classic.

Highly recommended.


Cold Case: The Tylenol Murders (2025)

 This is a 3 part series looking at the cyanide murders playing on Netflix.

This is a solid look at the still unsolved "murders" in September and October of 1982. The series explains what happens and follows the trails as to what might have happened. It's a series that is going to give you a lot to think about. 

I really liked this series since it brought up a lot of details I never knew.  I remember being frighteneed and riveted by the events as they happened. I was also quite shocked when the case just kind of slipped off the radar. This film explains that.

There are some twists to this case that I never knew anything about, including one indication that this wasn't an intentional crime, but could have been an industrial accident that was covered up.

My only real complaint with the series is that breaking the series into three parts kind if infers that there is more to to this than there really is. I was slightly disappointed because I thought there would be a bit more to this. It's not fatal because this series still kicks ass.

Recommended.

Saturday, June 28, 2025

LAST GUEST IN THE HOLLOWAY MOTEL (2025) Tribeca 2025

 Every year at Tribeca you walk blind into a film and come out blown away by a film off everyone’s radar.  It’s a film the audience walks out of and wonders if we really saw the film we just saw or not. This year, on one of the last days of the festival LAST GUEST became that film.

I’m going to be no forth coming about what happens in the film because the film ultimately is an ever changing one with revelation that literally happen all the way through the end credits.  You can’t leave until the screen goes black because things keep happening.

The film is the story of Tony Powell who was the last person at The Holloway Motel. The property has been sold and it is going to be turned into homeless housing.  Powell is waiting for word as to when he needs to be gone by.  As he waits and makes his plans he talks about his life as life begins throwing curve balls at him.

While I am not going to say much I will say that Powell is a former soccer player from England who came to the US and stayed, essentially disappearing from the lives of everyone in England.  What happened and happens is not what you expect, an it makes for a compelling viewing.  It also results in multiple moments that left me crying.

This film is just great storytelling. I can’t recommend this film enough.

A SECOND LIFE (2025) Tribeca 2025

 Second Life is a great film. I was told by William Lustig, director of Maniac and Maniac Cop that it was one of the best films at Tribeca and I had to see it. That may sound weird having a horror director recommend a lovely drama but Lustig is a film fan first and he wants to see anything other than horror. I have  almost never discussed actual horror films with him.

The film is the story of a young woman in Paris during the recent Olympics. Her job is to get customers to their Air BNBs and make sure they are happy. She is largely miserable inside and trying to decide if she is going to stay or go. Along the way she meets a bouncy American and as they walk through the streets she comes back alive.

This film is pure magic. This is the reason I love the movies. It’s a wonderfully told story about real people. It’s a portrait of a few days in time. There are some revelations, much to chew on, and just great time with great characters. 

I was moved.

I was moved so much that I tried to get to an in person screening just so I could see it and have the world disappear.

Pretty much perfect from start to finish A SECOND LIFE is q film you need to see and to give yourself over to.

Highly recommended it will make you smile for days.

SHAM (2025) Tribeca 2025

 Takashi Miike  goes into seemingly unexpected direction, or unexpected if you haven’t see the wide depth of the hundreds of  films he’s made. The film is not a violent action film  but a measured exploration of he said she said where a teacher is accused of bullying one of his students. He never truly says he is guilty even as his school buckles under the hint of scandal.

Essentially a three part film , the mother’s version, the teacher’s version and then the court room case. It’s a film you have to stay with until it catches it footing, about a half an hour in, and then it is gangbusters. This is an incredibly well done drama about the cost of giving in to a falsehood. (that isn’t a spoiler since the film is supposedly based on an actual court case).

While the film doesn’t have a great deal of bells and whistles, it does have a rock solid hand steering things. Miike truly is one of the best directors working today. He is a man who can do anything and make it look easy. Why he isn’t better known  and why people don’t watch more of his films (all his films are not AUDITION or --- or ---) I will see anything Miike does simply because it truly will not be like anything else out there, even if it is a remake or version of a familiar tale.

Shame is a great film and highly recommended.

Friday, June 27, 2025

ICE ROAD VENGEANCE (2025)


Liam Neeson's Mike McCann returns to action in a film that is essentially unrelated to the first film. And  while it is basically another film in the Liam Neeson kicks ass series, the truth is it has enough twists that if you are forgiving, it's a really entertaining film.

In the film Mike is mourning his brother who wais killed in combat. The brother had hoped one day to climb Mount Everest, but died before that could happen.  When mike finds out that his brother wanted his ashes sprinkled on the summit, he books a flight and goes. Unfortunately while on the bus to the mountain he ends up in the middle of a battle involving bunch of bad guys who want to strong arm the locals in a small town to sell out so they can build a dam. This sets in motion a long protracted battle.

Okay, let me be up front, this film has a large number of problems. The effects are uneven, the action is uneven, the basic plot is well worn, there are some clunky turns and the pacing is a tad draggy at times. I know this. I am well aware of all the film's issues. 

And you know what? I enjoyed the hell out of this film.

I did, I really did.

This is the sort of film you stumble on and end up watching on a rainy Saturday night on the couch.  It is also the sort of film that I would have driven all over Long Island in order to see.

There are a couple of reasons that the film works. First we like the characters. We actually like the good guys and we hate the bad guys. 

The fact that we have likable characters adds to the second reason the film works, which is no one is safe. Everyone  gets hurt, shot, stabbed, punched. There is a  cost for eveything that happens. No one is superman, neither good huys or bad guys. Additionally Liam Neeson plays this as an older guy.  He is wearing down. There is a moment toward the end where it's directly referenced.

The film also works because its setting gives us a place to set the action we haven't seen hundreds of time before. How many Katmandu action films are there? Not many. 

I also love that once the film gets going things don't play out exactly precisely as we think they will. Yes there are turns that we suspect will go a certain way, but at the same time, they don't. The ending, for example is not exactly precisely what most Hollywood studios would have insisted to have happen. The ending is not a definite, but a maybe. (No I am not going to tell you)

And while there are problems some of the action, the truth is the action sequences are not the same old same old, in part because the setting, and in part because everyone ends up hurt.

I had a great deal of fun with this.

High art? Oh hell no- but one I will rewatch when I run across it.

Worth your time.


BOX MAN releases on home video June 30 From Third Window Films


Those who obsess about the box man become the box man

Gakuryu Ishii tells the story of a "box man", a man who lives inside a cardboard box. Based on a novel by  Kobe Abe, this film follows the Box Man as he talks about his life and his haunted by a photographer who is obsessed by him

Contemplating this film during the long period of time between watching and writing I think THE BOX MAN maybe Ishii's best film. A perfect marriage of story and cinematic skill this is a film that  perfectly showcases Ishii's skills as a filmmaker to tell a story that rocks us. I know that's an odd thing to say especially since Isshi has been rattling the pillars of cinematic heaven ince 1980's CRAZY THUNDER ROAD, but it maybe true. I know I will need to see the film again to be certain.

Even if it isn't Ishii's best, it's still a hell of a film and a must see. 

Feeling like a film from the 1970's with modern sensibilities the film is a heady mix of thought provoking ideas and off kilter turns. Sure the basic notion that we are all in our own boxes is there but at the same time there is so much more going on. Trust me on this there is plenty to think about on every level.

If you love movies or cinema or film you need to see this film. This is the sort of film that any lover of cinematic storytelling is going to eat up.

One of the great films that Japan Cuts in 2024.

Thursday, June 26, 2025

TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN (2025) Tribeca 2025

This is a look at artist Jens Haaning who scammed the Kunsten Museum out of $84,000 by giving them two empty frames instead of the cash in the frames. This caused a fire storm as the museum tried to get the money back, Hanning tried to stay out of trouble and leverage the controversy to his advantage.

Say what you will, Haaning is a scammer. He is the sort of artist that I have known for years who take advantage of rich stupid people and institutions by telling something cheap is worth a fortune. While I have a deep love of art I don’t like many artists and I’d like to pop them in the face.

Haaning is one I want to hit. He is clearly running scams and some times he makes money and more often he doesn’t has the vast  number of unsold works he still has. That he spent the money as soon as he got it isn’t surprising.  That he freaks out when he realizes things are not going to go his way is even less surprising.  

I was amused and horrified that we let con men like Haaning get away with his nonsense.

Worth a look.