Knight Life (2025) Hits VOD Tuesday

This is a look at the men and women who have taken up the life of knights and perform jousting at Renaissance fairs across the country.

This is a good look at what it takes to be a knight in shining armor in the modern world. Yes we get a look at the bad old days, but this film is focused on the people doing it now. This film gives you a good idea of everything that you need and makes it clear that it takes great skill in order to do it.

I really liked this film a great deal. As some one who grew up making knight’s weapons and fighting the kids in the neighborhood, this film was blast. If only I had stayed with it, and been closer to a renn fair I might have jousted.

If there is any flaw in the film is that the film feels a bit padded at times. There are a bit too many sequences where not a lot happens. Yes it sets the sense of place but it doesn’t move anything forward.

Still the film is a lot of fun and worth a look.

Gen_ (2025) Sundance 2025

The underscore is part of the title. It is there because the Gen of the title can lead into any number of words.

This is the story of Milan’s Niguarda public hospital where Dr. Bini over sees the teams of doctors trying to help their patients undergoing in vitro fertilization and dealing with questions regarding their gender identities while dealing with the rules set up by the very conservative government.

This is an observational documentary following Bini and the doctors are they try to make the lives of their patients better. Set to a jazz score the film gets us up close and personal to the day to day operations of the doctors and patients.

This is a good little film that entertained and informed me, but which didn’t really stick with me. The problem is that as much as we are in the rooms with the doctors and patients we are still seemingly behind a wall, we remain outside observers. That doesn’t mean the film is bad, only that I never fully connected.

OUT FOR DELIVERY(2025) Sundance 2025

A woman with terminal cancer is trying to end her life with dignity, but things are not going her way. Then she meets Mark.

Sweet end of life black comedy is…some how incredibly charming. Sure it’s bumpy but by the time the film reaches its conclusion we are chuckling and wiping a well earned tear from our eyes.

I don’t have much to say beyond that other than no notes, and please don’t ever turn this into a feature.

Recommended

Sort of thoughts on Harmony (2024) Animation First 2025

Jesus Perez, who is 33, travels through space in order to bring a greeting from earth. On the planet he encounters strange creatures that were formed because different species can into breed.

I have no idea. This is an alternately amusing and deeply disturbing surrealistic journey to another world where creatures can only say yes and no, and the main character is a rambling Christ clone with a frozen face and weird movements.  

It's both terrible and weirdly compelling. I couldn't look away despite wanting to stop watching. This is a head trip without taking drugs.

I honestly don't know what I think, but I do know that if you love off the beaten path films, this one is a must see.

The write up on the film for Animation first says that director Bertrand Dezoteux created a website: harmonie.center/en. that is a companion piece to this film "The platform engages audiences to delves into Jesus Perez’ larger mission and enterprise, “Harmonie Center.” I am frightened of going there.

Yuku and the Himalayan Flowers (2024) Animation First 2025

 

Yuku is a mouse from a large family. She lives with her family in a big house where there is a cat. She sings songs while playing the ukulele. As her grandmother's health fails she decides to try and find the Himalayan Flowers which always give light.

Oddly paced animated film is one part musical, one part adventure and one part meditation on death. (Grandma need the flowers so that when the mole comes to take her underground she has light and doesn't spend eternity in darkness.) Its a film that is frequently amusing, occasionally dark and completely unexpected.

I'm not sure what I think of this film, but I am amazed that it packs so much into it's mere 65 minutes.  To be honest I wish that the film ran a bit longer so that the film didn't seem rushed. There are a lot of musical numbers and set pieces which sometimes push the plot aside.

Still this film moves, has great characters and some solid songs.

Worth a look, if you can score one of the free tickets at Animation First.

Eden on MASTERS OF TIME which is playing Animation First Sunday

With Les Maîtres du temps playing this years Animation First Festival, here is a look at the film from Eden Miller who reviewed it as part of her look at the cinematic work of Moebius

This is a repost Les Maîtres du temps (also known as Masters of Time) seems like it should be great. It was directed by René Laloux and designed by Moebius. The two of them should have been able to create a visionary masterpiece of animation.

And the truth is, they did, if you adjust your expectations a little.

Although based on the 1958 novel The Orphan of Perdide by Stefan Wul, the plot is secondary to the visuals. It's mostly about a boy named Piel who is stranded on a planet and space pirate Jaffar is sent to go save him.

Or something. As much danger Piel seems to be in, Jaffar and evil exiled prince Matton, his sister Belle, and old friend Silbad spend a lot of time talking and more or less just kind of hanging out. There's little urgency in terms rescuing Piel. And weird stuff that has nothing to do with anything happens -- like a planet where everyone turns into faceless angels and Piel encounters strange creatures on the planet he's on. It goes absolutely nowhere fast, until a resolution comes out of nowhere.

But to want a plot from this movie is maybe asking a bit too much. It is, rightfully so, all about the trippy -- and usually beautiful -- visuals. Much time in spent deliberating over the freaky angel-like creatures and alien landscapes. Two childlike creatures named Yula and Jad have their share of screen time, discussing various philosophical concepts about living. The film's not about the ultimate goal of saving Piel -- it's about everything that leads us to there.

Still, this is the kind of movie you're either going to connect with or you're not. I don't think there's too much middle ground. If the odd and often complexly dazzling look of the movie and its purposeful pacing doesn't appeal to you, Les Maîtres du temps will probably just confuse you at best or bore you at worst.

I know both Moebius and Laloux were disappointed with the final product, but that actually makes me a little sad. The movie is far from perfect, but in many ways, its imperfections is its strength. A more straightforward film would not have been as interesting, even if it would've been more satisfying.

Thoughts on Rose (2021) which opens Friday

Ten minutes into ROSE I realized that I saw this film several years ago when the film was playing the festival circuit. I was going to pull out my review and repost it but I’m not certain I actually wrote it up. I am telling you this because what follows is less a review and more a pointer.

ROSE is the story of a 78 year old woman who has to come to terms with the sudden death of her husband. Not feeling that it would be right to close herself off from the world she decides to live life to the fullest, thus making her kids crazy.

Yes we’ve been here before. This is a story that has been told in one form or another since the movies began. At the same time it’s rare to get a version that is as warm and inviting as this one. Yea, we know the tale, but we haven’t met these people. It’s the cast, headed by the great Françoise Fabian, that make this film work gloriously. Because of them we are among friends and not just watching a movie.

This film is a delight, and it was a joy to unexpectedly revisit it. See it and make new friends.

Recommended.

Eternal You (2024)

This is a look at how people are using AI programs to reconnect with dead loved ones.

Based on the reactions coming out of Sundance the odds are this film is going to make you feel weird. People were grossed out and made incredibly uncomfortable by the notion of a computer program simulating the dead and giving them voice. My reaction wasn't quite that strong but I completely understand why people were bothered by it.

This is a good look at the whole situation, from the people creating the programs, to the people using them and the people opposing them. It's a well done trip down the rabbit hole including looking at some of the weirder things that have happened.

Do I have any interest in talking to the dead? Not really. I carry my deceased loved ones in my heart and have conversations with them when I need to. I trust the voices I hear in my head are closer to reality then the fabricated ones found on line.

That said. If the subject interests you I do recommend this film. I expect it to have a long life on and off the festival circuit.

Star Trek: Section 31 (2025)

The anvil of justice is planted firm, and fate who makes the sword does the forging in advance. The words of truth are simple. — Aeschylus

Starfleet — where fun goes to die. — Philippa Georgiou

Star Trek is one of my favorite TV series. All of 'em. There’s not a dud in the bunch. Whenever* (*this has never happened) people ask me if there are any Trek series I dislike, I sing:

I love every Star Trek that I see
From Deep Space Nine to Discov-ery

So: writing out my thoughts about Star Trek: Section 31 is a little like reviewing chocolate cake: bring in on, and more portions, please. You have been warned. That said:

Our first glimpse of Philippa Georgiou (the always-magnificent Michelle Yeoh) in the Star Trek Universe was in the teaser of the first episode of Star Trek: Discovery. The captain of the USS Shenzhou, Georgiou walks (or treks?) across a desert form a visual symbol — the Starfleet delta — in the sand to see her and series protagonist Michael Burnham safely home. She is guru and mother-figure to Burnham, beloved by her crew, much-decorated and spoken of in the same breaths of admiration as Archer, April, and Pike. It’s one of my favorite openings to a Star Trek series, which hints at most admirable traits of a Starfleet office: leader, mentor, helper, pathfinder, a beacon of hope and promise. By the time the opening credits rolled around, I was eager for more adventures of Captain Philippa Georgiou.

This is not that Philippa Georgiou.


This is Emperor Georgiou: the cruel, conniving, omnipotent dictator of the Terran Empire in Trek‘s much-used (occasionally overused?) Mirror Universe, later brought into the Discovery series as an uneasy ally to Burnham and Discovery, willing to do the dirty work a Starfleet officer wouldn’t. Making her the protagonist of a Trek movie is a risky venture. This is, after all, the Georgiou who destroyed planets, enslaved civilizations, and served up Saru for dinner. The writers of Discovery gave her something of a redemption arc which continued as the series catapulted itself into the 32nd century, far beyond the historical scope of any other Trek show; she’s eventually sent backwards in time by the now humanoid Guardian of Forever, and that’s where we find her at the beginning of this movie, running a morally grey space station somewhere in between the end of the original Kirk’n’ Spock Star Trek and The Next Generation (the device of Philippa Georgiou being “temporally incompatible” with the 32nd century is mentioned, brushed past quickly and without much comment in Section 31, which is vital to its effectiveness: the more you already know about Star Trek the better, but if you don’t care, it’s okay to just ignore it).

Georgiou’s recruited by Alok (Omari Hardwick), an agent of Section 31, the hush-hush dark ops section of Starfleet introduced in Deep Space Nine. S31 balances on a slim narrative edge of “whoa, these guys betray everything that Starfleet stands fo!r” and “well, somebody’s gotta do these dangerous clandestine assignments to preserve freedom.” The latter is definitely this movie’s take on the section, and Georgiou joins Alok’s motley crew of dodgy specialists to pull off a grand heist of a dangerous weapon.


Once the plot gets rolling, it’s a fairly rote heist-and-chase story, so the appeal here is the characters: mix’em all together into a Mission: Impossible style exotic cocktail and let’em bubble. They’re introduced in an inventive highlight where Georgiou uses a Sherlock Scan to detect and identify them inside a crowded cantina. Joining Alok and Georgiou are Quasi (Sam Richardson). a shape-changing Chameloid (see: Iman in Star Trek IV); Zeph (Robert Kazinsky), a cyborg dubbed a “Swiss Army Knife” by Georgiou; Melle (Humberly Gonzalez), an enticing Deltan (see: Persis Khambatta in The Motion Picture), who make us obsessed with bald-headed woman all over again; Rachel Garrett (Kacey Rohl), straight-laced Starfleet officer and future Enterprise captain (see: “Yesterday’s Enterprise”); and Fuzz (Sven Ruygrok), a Vulcan with startlingly obvious emotions (see: Eddie Murphy in Meet Dave). Not everybody, of course, gets out alive.


This is unashamedly a darker Star Trek (even Paramount+’s opening “starship makes a flyby in the shape of the Starfleet Delta” is accompanied by ominous music) and is specifically designed to eschew the Trek house look with new designs of space stations (Georgiou’s home base is a gorgeous intertwined spiral construction), non-Starfleet spaceships (although not until the second hour; the first several acts remain teasingly on the ground), and fabulous costumes, especially for the women, most specifically for Yeoh). There’s no real groundbreaking advances made here in cinematography, although it at least avoids the usual blue and orange color palette — by lighting the movie in golds and dark blues. Still, the fight sequences are fun and you can usually tell what’s going on even in darkly lit scenes, although it seems a shame to waste the natural agile talent of Yeoh by chopping her fight scenes up into furiously edited second-long segments.


Yeoh is of course the stand-out here, having a grand time as always, with a performance just delightfully short of pure ham, always one step ahead of the rest of the galaxy. Your mileage may vary on how much you can forget or forgive her character’s backstory of killing trillions in the Mirror Universe, but a genocide or two aside, she’s just a delight. There are some nifty (CGI) special effects, an inventive battle sequence where Georgiou fights a phase-shifted mercenary through walls and floors, a whole lotta technobabble about a bio-superweapon that makes the Genesis Device look like a class-1 phaser...you know, the little one. This galaxy-threatening weapon has, naturally, Star Trek’s usual Terrible Untold Past™, and there’s clever late-act shenanigans using the sci-fi physics of a garbage scow – Quark (the Richard Benjamin one, not the Ferengi one) never had it so good. And in the end, the universe is saved by Star Trek’s version of a Furby, a weapon given no absolutely Chekhov (or Chekov) warning. Still, it’s all done with such a light touch it’s pretty forgivable.

So the big question is, of course: will you like it? Wellllll, I did, a lot. But as mentioned earlier on, I’m a sucker for just about everything set in the Star Trek Universe, and despite some creaky dialogue and clichéd plot coupons, Section 31 was a lot of thrilling fun, and it’s a great vehicle for the always-delightful Michelle Yeoh to continue the story of one of Trek’s most interesting women.

But is it Star Trek? There’s no boldly going, there’s no strange new worlds...but to me, the beauty and the truth of Trek is all contained in that goofy little third-season pendant Gene Roddenberry forced on Leonard Nimoy in order to sell trinkets through his mail-order store: the IDIC. Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations, amirite, folks? Trek shows need not, should not always be Starfleet crews braving the far reaches of the universe searching for strangely lighted Paramount backlot worlds and oddly rubber-foreheaed aliens. Different genres of Star Trek — mysteries, thrillers, romances, comedies — give life to and enrich the past impressive nearly sixty years of mythos and legend. Section 31, like Lower Decks and Prodigy — two series I enjoyed immensely — is something different. That’s always a breath of fresh air in this galaxy.


And if it features a star as charismatic as Michelle Yeoh playing one of the least likely heroes in the Star Trek Universe — well, that’s a brave new world as well.

Star Trek: Section 31 is directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi and written by Craig Sweeny. It runs on the Paramount+ streaming network beginning January 24.

Tattooed4life(2024) NYJFF 2025

TATTOOED4LIFE  is the story of a Tattoo artist who lost a loved on in the 10/7 attacks in Israel. She comes up with a fractal inspired design in honor of the people lost which she puts on to people mourning their own loss.

This is a good film telling one story of loss and commemoration.  While the film is  small tale that stands on its own, I kind of wish is were longer or a less isolated tale. I liked the film but I felt this would have been more powerful at the center of a larger film, largely because the film takes a while to get its emotional footing, and by the time it does that it is over.

My quibble aside, the film is powerful and worth a look. 

My Life As A Zucchini (2016) is playing Animation First 2024 this weekend

Short (it runs just over an hour) animated film was the Swiss entry in the Foreign Language Oscar race in201. It was also one of the best reviewed animated films of 2016, and one of those films that is GKids brought to US audiences because its a great film that would confound any other studio and they are the only ones who will have any clue how to market it.

Based on a well loved novel by Gilles Paris, ZUCCHINI, or COURGETTE in the original, is a very bittersweet look at childhood, ts a film that is going to play differently depending upon where you are age wise since the older you are the more you are going to connect with many of the notions because you'll have actually lived though more of what happens. While the film has a certain amount of darkness, the film is ultimately a hopeful look at how one gets a family. I'm told the film is toned down from the source novel which could be rather bleak, just like childhood.

The plot of the film has a boy who is called Zucchini by his mother moving to an orphanage. It seems that Zucchini has accidentally killed his mother and his father is nowhere around. As he adjusts to life and makes friends he ends up smitten with a Camille, a rebellious young woman who is dumped there by her aunt.

Told in a series of expanding vignettes that show the passage of time ZUCCHINI is a magical film that really will remind adults what its like to be a child. Granted we were not all orphans but but we all had to interact with other kids and adults and this film manages to reveal that perfectly. We have been here before or at least been there in some form or another. It is beautifully modulated so that there is laughter with the tears.

Everything about the film is near perfect from the voice cast to the visuals it all comes together to make a film that is going to sing in the hearts of many people who see it. Watching it I couldn't help but think how many people I knew who were going to absolutely fall in love with the film. This is a film that is going to go into that warm place that that many people keep reserved for their most cherished films such as the work of Studio Ghibli, not because it shows us an idealized version of childhood, rather because it shows us childhood as lived that makes it okay to remember it all.

I love the film a great deal.

If I had to be pick on the film for anything it is it's incredibly brief running time. Shorn of it's end credits and it's brief mid credit "actor interview" the film only runs about 61 minutes. The film feels much too short. The film has barely grabbed you by the heart strings when it's ending. Its a rare film that you can argue should be longer.

THE SPOILS (2024) NYJFF 2025

This is a look at the question of reparations concerning looted art work from Nazi Germany. Focusing on the case of Max Stern who was a Jewish art dealer who escaped to Canada before the war after he was forced to liquidate at unfair prices by the Nazis. When the City of Dusseldorf tried to hold art exhibits in his honor old wounds are opened up and road blocks appear.

This is a very good film about the problems of opening up old wounds and the thorny problem about how to make things right after almost a century. It’s not an easy question to answer and THE SPOILS makes a solid attempt to unknot just the problem with this exhibition but also the problems with reparations in general. It doesn’t seem to shy away from the complicated questions.

I really liked this film a great deal. Even if I wasn’t interested in the subject this film would have hooked me with its compelling presentation.

Recommended.

The Performance (2024) opens Friday

 

This is the story of a group of dancers who leave the American club circuit for Europe lead by Harold who was born to dance. Harold’s father is not happy since the family has struggled to come to America to get away from the rampant antisemitism and now, in 1936, the Nazi’s are on the move. Once there they are offered a very large sum of money to go to Berlin for a single performance. All their expenses will be paid. However things become very complicated when it’s realized that it’s a Nazi function.

At the top one thing need to be clarified and that while THE PERFORMANCE is being billed as Arthur Miller’s last work, it is actually simply based on one of his short stories. I am not saying this as a knock against the film simply that I went in thinking this was based on a screenplay or play. I also say that because the film feels like a short story.

This is a beautiful well-acted short story of a film. Having the rhythms of a short piece of fiction the film stays very much in the confines of the tale it’s telling. There is nothing outside of Harold‘s (Jeremy Piven) view so we don’t get a sense of the world outside of his view. There is nothing wrong with that, rather it simply means that all of the shots of cities and such are via archival footage. It’s also a tightly plotted film with nary a wasted moment making it one of the few films of the last decade that feels entirely complete, with no sense of filler or a sense that there could be more (That’s a rave.)

The cast is across the board wonderful. This maybe Jeremy Piven’s best role in years. Like costar Robert Carlyle  he completely disappears into his role and I had to check the promotional material and IMDB several times to be certain that he, and the rest of the cast really were the actors listed.

It should be noted the film is important today because of the rise of out spoken antisemitism, and it should be applauded for showing the destruction it causes.

Additionally the film is important because it is probably going to be the first great film you’ll see in 2025. It’s a moving testament to the human spirit that will leave you deeply moved. See this when it plays near you.

The Most Precious of Cargoes (2024) Animation First 2025

In Poland during the Second World War  the wife of a woodcutter  takes in a baby that  was thrown from a train going to the concentration camps. She and her husband struggle to raise the child, while the man who threw the baby struggles to survive the camp.

Michel Hazanavicius shifts gears yet again with an animated film about the miracle of survival and the things we will do for the ones we love. It's an odd move for a man who is best known for his comedies and the results are extremely mixed.

There are some great sequences in this film as well as some head scratching moments. Feeling less like an organic tale and more like a very serious, very important novel, the film never quite comes together because the film never fully connects the two halves. The result is a film that feels a bit like sermon.  

I was intrigued for a while but the film began to lose me as the film started to tell us about the man who threw the baby from the train. It's not that these sequences,  having to do with surviving in the camps, are bad, indeed they include some of the most crushing sequences I've ever seen  about the Holocaust, but rather they never fully mesh with the sequences about the baby and the woodcutters wife. a big part of the problem is the style of the images are too dissimilar.  The woodcutter sequences are more lyric and realistic where the images of the man are closer to some of the surrealist art that sprang up around the war.

While a wasn't connected from start to finish the film still threw up some staggering pieces such as the post war sequence where the man stumbles on the woman and the child selling cheese on the street.  The whole sequence of recognition of finding the now grown child, while also seeing his horrific physical persona is one of the most crushing moments I've ever seen in any film.

Perhaps I would have liked the film more had the ending amounted to something but the film never ties up all the threats ans the 20 year jump ahead didn't amount to much.

Worth a look for those interested in stunning uses of animation or atypical Holocaust stories.

The Other (2024) NYJFF 2025

This was the first great film I saw in 2025.  In a world being broken by hatred, the film makes clear that the only way to begin to end the madness is to meet and open lines of communication.

Filmed before the October 7 massacre and the madness that followed, THE OTHER is a series of interviews with both Palestinians and Israelis telling the story of how the conflict between them directly affected their lives. Largely the stories are a catalog of loss chronicling how they lost a loved one to the violence.  Then over time the film begins to turn and become something else. It becomes and exploration of people reaching out  and trying to bridge the gap.

I was deeply moved by this film.  When it ended I was  left wiping tears from my eyes and trying to find words to express how much this film means to me.

Go see it. This will be one of the best films you see this year.

Highly recommended.

Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story,(2024) opens Jan. 24 in NY & Jan. 31 in LA

With LIZA... opening Friday here is a repost of my review from last year's Tribeca

I'm at a loss about how this film flew under the radar at Tribeca. This is a truly great portrait of Liza  from the death of her mother onward to today. Full of incredible and probing interviews, including with Liza herself, it is a film that perfectly explains why Liza is an Icon and why she moved generations of people.

This film floored me. I went into the film expecting to like it and wander out with a enough for a couple of quick lines, instead I staggered out, jaw hanging open with too many words. I don't know what to say except see it.

How good is the film it was the source of two animated discussions about how the film doesn't have a buyer yet. No one could sort out why a film this good wasn't picked up and slotted for release.

A must see for fans and non fans.

Nightcap 1/19/25 Animation First and Sundance start this week

My good friend Hubert’s birthday tomorrow and I want to start with a quick HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

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The always wonderful Animation first starts Tuesday at New York L'Alliance and runs through the weekend. A glorious collection of animated films and live events it is always a delight. As this posts I will be reposting reviews of MY LIFE AS A ZUCCHINI and MASTERS OF TIME. I also have tickets to a couple of films on Saturday the 25th when I will be joining the ever wonderful Eden who will be coming into New York  for the festival.  I will have reports from the road, but you should just buy tickets to anything you can- especially the shorts which are always excellent.

For more information and tickets go here.

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Sundance starts this week and as always it will be laying out the films that will be big deals later on in the year.

Because it’s too much of a pain in the ass to try and get one of the limited remote viewing slots, and because I don’t view an on line pass as financially worth it for me I will be covering the festival based on the screeners that I’ve been able to round up through other means.

To be completely honest, Sundance is the one festival I don’t feel the need to cover officially. The reason is not because the films are bad but more that almost every film seems to get a release. While I would love to cover the smaller films that need a push I can’t sell my soul to do a few films. (That said if you have a small film playing the fest email me and I will get you coverage)

Reviews when embargoes drop

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For the few of you who haven’t noticed Sundance’s sister festival Slamdance has moved into February. I will have a lot of coverage of that festival. Additionally I’ve seen a number of the features and I can say the festival rocks and is worth your time and money.

And if you aren’t in LA know the festival has a virtual component.

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I know David Lynch passed away this week.  I  still don't have words. I will post something when I do.

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I will not discuss the regime change that is to occur tomorrow in the United States. I will only say, good luck and God bless and may we all survive to fight another day.

Torah Tropical (2024) NYJFF 2025

 

This is a lovely little film.

TORAH TROPICAL is the story of a family in Columbia who converted to Orthodox Judaism and their efforts to make a life in the faith and to move to Israel.  It’s a film full of great people you will want to scoop up and give a hug to.

I don’t know what I was expecting but I was not expecting what I got and I was delighted as result.  This story of a family in love with their faith is just wonderful. No it is not all skittles and beer but because we connect to everyone on screen we will take this ride with them.

Yes I know this isn’t much of a review but at the same time some films don’t require deep explanation, they just need to be handed to you and be watched.

Recommended

A LEGEND, debuting on Digital, Blu-ray & DVD January 21

Billed as a sequel to the 2005 film THE MYTH, A LEGEND is really closer to a remake (though don't quote me it's been long enough since I saw THE MYTH that I could be overstating it) . The film is the story of a professor, played by Jackie Chan, finding some ancient relics that mirror ones in his dreams. His dreams tell the story of the battle between the Huns and the Hans and a beautiful woman tasked with keeping the land safe.

I know a lot of people are getting upset that they used AI  to make Jackie tat look younger, but the truth of the matter is that the film has a more serious problem and that is a wildly uneven script. Drifting erratically from grand action to soap opera and back again the film feels like it doesn't now what it want to be. The film feels like it is trying to make a point about the glory of China instead of being an entertaining action film.

I know I have been admonished by some of my friends for covering films from China owing to their crack down on artists and dissenters, but the truth is the Chinese government intervention in the making of films is going to do more damage faster simply because no one is going to want to see the films or the art produced. A LEGEND, like several recent other films from China, has the feel of a film that had the government crawling all over it, making it less enjoyable because the plot feels contrived and the film praises the glory of a mythical China that exists only in legend.

While the action is very good (if incredibly slick) I'm not sure it's quite up to the task of making the film  worth seeing. The problem is there is too much blah around it.

Lost City (2024) NYJFF 2025

This is the story of how the city of Amsterdam used the tram system to effectively deport the entire Jewish population of the city during the Nazi Occupation.

This is a film that doesn’t play like other Holocaust films in that almost the entire film is told by the survivors of the deportation while they stand on the streets of the city or take a tram ride around it. The film begins symbolically with a tram leaving the depot and ends with a tram returning. This effectively bookends the story of the whole sad affair.

What I found most troubling was how the use of the tram mixed with the modern telling makes the whole thing deeply disturbing. The context makes the deportation quietly banal, which is what it was designed to be. The Nazi's didn't want a fuss. I was deeply bothered by it and completely came to understand why it all happened.

A word of warning about LOST CITY, when I originally saw the film I went through the film  and it’s tale and I liked it, but I didn’t love it. However after the film was over and I was allowed to let the entire film wash over me I found I was becoming more and more disturbed by the implications of the film. As a result the film became not just a retelling of a historical event but a dire warning for a society on the edge of falling into darkness.

Recommended