Saturday, February 15, 2025

Panda Plan (2024) hits VOD Tuesday


Jackie adopts a panda at the Noah Zoo but it is wanted by a rich Saudi prince who pays a fortune to some bad guys to get it for him. Unfortunately they try to take it when Jackie is at the zoo.

This is a family comedy that's better than some of the films Jackie has been turning out recently. Its a film in which Jackie finally comes to terms with getting older where jokes are made at his expense. The humor produces knowing laughs. The action isn't bad, but it's clearly CGI enhanced. Actually a lot of this film is clearly computer enhanced. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. However it's good enough you won't care

I do have to say the way that people' go crazy when they see Jackie Chan is dead on. I've watched many adults loose their minds just to be in a room with Jackie.

Ultimately I was amused.  Sure this is a family film, if you want proof the twist at the end of why the prrince wants the panda is pure family territory.

Will you like it? Yea, I think so, but I suspect that you'll remember the panda more than Jackie.

Friday, February 14, 2025

The Good Sister (2025) Berlin 2025


Rose has a close relationship with her brother Sam. When Sam is accused of rape she is asked to testify against him. 

Well acted and good looking, this is a film that completely eludes me. I honestly don't know what the. point of it all is. It's not that the film is bad, rather things are so low key and so slow to manifest that I had a hard time trying to connect to it. We watch the pair together. How things play out, but I'm never quite sure why we are being told this story this way.

In all honesty the film is so low key that I think I may have drifted off for a bit somewhere in the second half and it is possible I missed something. But even if that is the case I didn't feel lost. Mostly I felt a bit lost because the film never really built to anything emotionally because everyone doesn't really say much, they stare.

If you like low key slow burn film try it. If not give it a pass.

Home Sweet Home (2025) Berlin 2025


Sofie begins her new career as a home health aide. We watch as she helps her client, interacts with her coworkers and tries to process her job so it doesn't affect her personal life.

This is a solid slice of life. It's an eye opening look at how aides interact with their clients and her job. It's a film that doesn't look away from what happens, and most importantly it doesn't create false drama. This is life as it happens, with the grind taking it's toll.

That the film works as well as it does i due tothe cast headed jy Jette Sondergaard. She, and the rest of the cast play it very real and very matter of fact. As a result we believe that everything is actually happening.

If there is a problem it's in that in the final half hour the film begins to swing things around so that the film can hed towards a conclusion. Threads begin to start to be tied up and there is a shift in construction and we suddenly are aware that the film is has music. I don't think the film had it before the final half hour and it's sudden emergence is a bit jarring since it seems to be there to guide us in our feelings, something the film had not really done before. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with it, its more that I was really enjoying just being allowed to react however I did with out musical nudges.

Quibbles aside, I really liked HOME SWEET HOME and it's worth seeing when it plays by you.

LAST RANGER (2024)


Oscar nominated short film concerns a woman who goes out with a gam warden to check on rhinos and while they are out they are attacked.

Small scale gem about the people fighting to keep the rhinos alive in the wild and safe from poachers (at least one rhino is killed everyday for it’s horn). It’s a celebration of both the animals and the wardens.

The film is based upon an actual incident that occurred to the rhino in the film.

This is a lovely little film and is recommended.

Thursday, February 13, 2025

The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie (2024) opens Friday


Seemingly coming from nowhere and seemingly unexpectedly wonderful THE DAY THE EARTH BLEW UP is a glorious feature film starring Porky and Daffy, who along with Petunia, end up fighting an alien invasion.

And when I said this is a feature film, I meant it. The film is not a series of black out sketches but a genuine feature film with a beginning middle and ending. There are blackout pieces but the film is entirely focused on a narrative thrust. Honestly the film shouldn't work, you shouldn't have eleven people credited its writing it and still have it work...and it does...pretty much flawlessly.

What makes the film work is that the film gets the characters dead on right and expands them. The film charts Daffy and porky's friendship from when they were kids to now. It lets them grow and be real people and yet the same characters. When the farmer who raised them essentially dies, we are moved. There are other deeply emotional moments, say Porky discovering and being frightened by Petunia, that bring out genuine emotions that you never really felt with any Looney Tunes project previously.  I never teared up with Looney Tunes before.

The best thing I can say is that this is on the level of the best animation being turned out today. It stands shoulder to shoulder with most of the great animated films of the last decade. Watching the film I was struck that the film would make a brilliant co-feature with WALLACE AND GROMIT VENGEANCE MOST FOUL, the film from Aardman and Netflix because it's a film that takes classic characters and breathes new life into them. There are emotions and complexity in both films that raise the stakes.

This film is one of the best film in the Looney Tunes canon and it is a film that probably would have delighted Chuck Jones, Friz Freling, Bob Clampett and the other animators because it shows how the creators of today built on what they did and went in directions they could only have hoped to go.(Warner studio heads would never have gone for a feature, never mind one with this much complexity and emotion.)

This is one one of the great films  and great finds of 2024. I honestly had little hope for this and instead founf myself completely blown away.

Highly recommended.

It's on the festival circuit and it's going to be released early next year- go.

Turning Red (2022)


I finally caught up wit Domee Shi's TURNING RED. The film is a the story of a young woman who has hit puberty and now turns into a gian red panda.

Just like Shi's Oscar winning BAO, TURNING RED is a masterpiece. A beautiful portrait of coming of age that echoes to everyone and not just young women or people of Chinese ancestory.  Watching the film, this older european guy toltally related to what I was seeing on screen.

Make no mistake Domee Shi is one of the best people working in animation today. That she has made to deeply personal, maginicently glorious films at the House of Mouse is stunning. Disney doesn't want films like this. That the film is considered a misfire by the studio is a huge error on their part since they were the ones who botched the release and getting word out.

This is a great film. It's one of the absolute best animated  film to come out of the big American studios in the last 25 years. 

Highly recommended- this is what movies are supposed to do.

Wednesday, February 12, 2025

ROUNDING (2022) opens February 14


First things first ROUNDING is no a horror film. Its more a psychological portrait of the main character that uses horror images. It is a film that will flummox you if you go in with any preconceived notions. It is a film that does not do what you think it will and does not behave as anything other than itself. I give this warning because I had to stop and not think about what I was seeing.

The film is about a doctor named James Hyman who transfers to a small rural hospital for his second year residency. Hyman had a mental collapse when a patient died and he feels that new set of surroundings will help him. Things are okay at first, but a patient who seems to have asthma but yet doesn't confounds him. Losing himself in trying to help the young woman Hyman slides farther and farther over the edge.

I am still processing this film because I went in expecting a horror film. As I said above I fought it for a chunk of its run time. Finally when I let it go I found it so much better because I could see the rhythms of the tale-rhythms that are not ones of horror but of a portrait of a man coming undone. That's not giving anything away- since there are still mysteries to solve. Instead of giving anything away it opens things up it gives us more material to chew on. It also makes the answers less easy. In a horror film answers tend to come in certain categories, say monsters, the supernatural mental illness. In real life things are less definite, less clear cut. ROUNDING isn't really clear cut. It's horrible at times but there is also great depths of sadness. 

To be honest the best thing I can say about this film is its going to haunt you. If you want a film that will engage you many levels this it. As this posts its been several days since I've seen the film. I've revisited this piece several times to tweak it or consider tweaking it simply because I can't let it go. Films you can't let go are the best kind.

See ROUNDINGS and see a film that will haunt you.

Tuesday, February 11, 2025

Spring Of The Vanishing (2024) Santa Barbara 2025


This is the story of a mother who is trying to find out what happened to her son  in Nuevo Laredo on the Texas border. It is a story that involves coverups by both the American and Mexican governments.

The short version of the story is that when the leader of the drug cartel that controled  Nuevo Laredo was removed a vacuum was created. Federal police were put in place. While they were supposed to be keeping the peace people started to disappear, some turning up dead.  The problems were the result of deals made between the the Mexican and US governments to get control of the border area.

This is a good film on an important subject. The whole notion of trouble in the border region between the US and Mexico is ahot topic thanks to the current adminstration, but as this film makes clear the issues are neiher nothing new nor as simple as the current bunch of authorities are making out. By focusing on the plight of one family the film allows us to get glimpse at the problems happening on a larger scale. It also allows us to emotionally connect to what is happening, as opposed to a cold and impersonal TV news broadcast.

This is a solid film and i recommended.

Monday, February 10, 2025

Universal Language (2024) opens Friday

 


I started laughing almost from the first frame and continued doing so until the end credits. I laughed more at this film than almost any American comedy of the last two decades.

At the outset the plot of UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE seems to be several different stories. The truth is it’s all one big interconnected tale, you just have to stick with it until all the pieces line up.  Don't worry that isn’t going to be a problem because the film is going to be making you laugh out loud for most of its running time.

The humor is very much absurdist of the best sort. Think of it as something akin to the manic madness of a Marx Brothers comedy but with a more modern and less devil may care attitude.  Referencing the Marx’s may make you wonder how that is possible, but something happens in the first few minutes that makes you realize that is the absurdist territory we are operating in. (I will not spoil it)

What I love about the film is that the humor isn’t dry or forced.  Too many absurdist comedies don’t feel real and feel like they are trying to make a point. Eugène Ionesco’s plays which are excellent absurdist pieces, can, when done badly feel forced. Here there is things feel silly absurd but they also feel grounded. We can see the things that happen actually happen.  I can see myself trying to figure out how to get stuck money, deal with stolen glasses or pretty much anything else that happens here including dealing with turkeys.

I laughed out loud from start to finish, and when I wasn’t laughing I was smiling.

And I know there is more to this film beyond the laughs, but the laughs and smiles are what I took away from the film, so that is what I am reporting on.

I love this film.

Highly recommended.

Sunday, February 9, 2025

FINE YOUNG MEN aka (HOMBRES ÍNTEGROS) (2024) Santa Barbara Film Festival 2025


Alf is a young man recently returned  to a Catholic school in Mexico after a stay in America. He quickly finds himself back ith his friends who are very alpha male always competeing to get drunk and score with the ladies. However Alf is more interested in one of the other young men in the school, however the macho rules of the group he travels with makes it impossible for him to give into desire. 

This is a very busy film with a kind of split personality. On one hand the film is an examination of  someone struggling to find out who they are and what want from life, and at the same time the film kind of loses that focus as an certain event shifts the film into an examination of society and how it looks to present itself as right and upstanding but is really rotten behind the curtain. It's a split that kind of works against the film because the two halves feel not always connected.

The real problem with the film is that the film is so well made as to be perfectly polished. It is shiny and waxed to such a perfect degree that our ability to connect to it kind of bounce off the screen. This is a film with a lot to say but it it is too slick to grab on to it. The reason for that is that the film is so perfectly constructed in order to make it's point it didn't create real breathing characters.  Yes we like them and we watch them but we don't  connect to them as if they were people we know. They always remain characters in a movie going through movie things. It's frustrating because the material and cast is better than the package they are contain in.

I don't dislike the film, I just wish it was it was better

Murder By the Clock (1931)

Creaky murder mystery about the unnatural death of the matriarch of a family and the attempt of the heirs to stay out of jail.

A rather complex tale the film demands attention because so much is going on. Full of over ripe performances this is the sort of movie that they don't do any more. Its perfect late night viewing especially with the great sets of the manor house , grave yard, secret passages and other strange things, this is a film that takes you to a dark and creaky place.

That said I don't think the film is anything other than good. As I said the over ripeness of it kind of diminishes the quality, but at the same time its got mood to burn.

Worth a look for a dark and stormy late night.

Saturday, February 8, 2025

Static Cling (2024)


A rauchous evening in a laundrymat, centered around a self centered guy who tries to make time with a beautiful woman just as he ends up trapped in is coat.

This is an amusing diversion of the silly humor sort. It's an amusing romp that is has bunch of digressions around a slender narrative thread.  It's frequently very funny.

Is this high art? Absolutely not, but it will put a smile on your face which is all you need to know.

Worth a look.

Friday, February 7, 2025

Knights War (2025)


A warrior knight gets mixed up with a prophecy about a red headed woman, withes and demons and ends up crossing over into another world to stop a great evil.

This is one of the best looking fantasy films I’ve seen in a long time. Sure the big budget Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones and Dungeon And Dragons look great, but they spend more than the GDP of many small nations doing it.KNIGHTS WAR, which is not as complicated in what it’s doing, looks just as good as those films. The effects don’t look bad, and it helps sell the film.

The cast here is first rate. No one phones it in. Too often in fantasy films actors emote like they are at a rennasiance faire emoing for the rubes. Here they heep it real and it works.

To be honest he plot is a bit overly convoluted (hence the brief description). There was a point where I stopped caring about the details and was just went with generalities. There is enough here that I didn’t need all the details. Besides, as I said above, the cast is so good they carry things along. 

I really liked this.

Recommended

Dark Nuns (2025)


Semi-sequel to 2015's THE PRIESTS, though it has no carry over characters that I'm aware of, follows two nuns  who get involved with the exorcism of a teen who is said to be possessed by a demon known as the 12 manifestions.

This is a creepy little horror film that overcomes any problems by the mixture of Asian and Western religios tropes (it's not just catholics, but also shaman as well) to keep us off balance, and well as some kick as characters, especially Sister Yunia (Song Hye-kyo) who maybe the most bad ass exorcist ever put on film. Seriously, I want to know what her back story is.

While the film isn't perfect, some of the link sequences between set pieces are not as compelling as the bigger sequences, the film still is haunting, with the performances and technical aspects of the film coming together to create moments you will always remember (I love the firey images).

The best thing I can say about the film is that I would gladly watch a sequel, when and if it ever materializes.

Recommended.

Love Hurts (2025)


Ke Huy Quan stars as Marvin, a top real estate saleman, whose life is turned upside down when his past comes to call in the form of Rose, a girl he was supposed to kill, but let live because he loved her.  Rose wants revenge on the people who wronged her and she also wants Marvin to be the bad ass he used to be.

This is a breezy 80 minute action film that feels like this was a two hour action film where the cut everything out except for the action. There is little to no exposition, just Marvin  being forced into doing violent things. Don't get me wrong there is bad about what is here except that the characters need  room to breath and for the action to be give a bit more in the way of reason for happening.  The result of it all is that Marvin is a guy who bounces between being a nebish and John Wick. I suspect the reason there are problems is that the script has been bouncing around for years. I'm certain that any changes or tweaks over the years wounded the film.

WHile the film has problems, odds are this will be a film you stop on every time you run across it on cable... but not so much for the compelling plot but because the cast is so good . Seriously they create a bunch of likable characters, who for the most part you root for (the whole thing between Marvin's Assistant and the killer make this a genuine emotional romance). The only ones you don't care for are the two chief baddies, Marvin's brother and the bad guy who set Rose up because they are the worst drawn of any  of the characters on screen. There is nothing there a few quirks (the bubble tea) and their vileness.

To be completely honest, despite sensing this was a longer better film chopped down, I like the film. It's very much the least of the producers films, the classic NOBODY and VIOLENT NIGHT are mentioned in the advertising but this isn't even close to their heights,  but in the right frame of mind it does entertain. At the same time I saw this for free at a press screening with free popcorn and soda. I don't know if this is worth full movie prices. (This is going to be a hit streaming)

Yes you should see it, but you just may want to wait for less that 15 bucks a head.

Thursday, February 6, 2025

The Night Is Dark and Colder Than the Day (2025) Rotterdam 2025


This is a mediation/essay on childhood that involves kids talking about their hopes and fears and sequences of them being kids and others doing things representative of their feelings.

This is very much an art house film. It is a heady film that forces the audience to engage with it. The film has much it wants to say and requires that you come along for the ride it has chartered.

How you react to the film is going to depend upon how you react to the very deliberate construction of the film. How you react is going to entirely depend upon how you like art films.

For me I was up and down with the film. Because of the varying styles of the film, one part documentary one part mediation, one part artistic exploration,  my interest varied. There are some great sequences in this film. There are also some sequences where I intellectually know what the filmmakers were reaching for but I don’t think they achieved it

Is it a bad film? No far from it. The truth is that I can see this playing several of the more serious festivals in the US (New Directors New Films, the New York Film Festival on one of the side bars). If there is any question about anything it would be I am uncertain about how wide an audience the film is going to get.

Worth a look for anyone who loves art house fare.

PAINT ME A ROAD OUT OF HERE (2024) opens tomorrow at Film Forum


This is a look at artists Faith Ringgold, who painted  piece of art called For The Women's House which was placed in Riker's Island as a means of inspiring prisoners to realize that they could achieve more,  and Mary Enoc h Elizabeth Baxter who was chosen to paint a new work to replace it. It's a lovely portarit of the two women  that also examines how society tries to incarcerate women of color.

This is a super film. Not only are we given a history of women in prison over the last half century, and what that really means for society, but we also get portraits of two incredible female artists whose art is changing lives because the people who see it can use it as a hand hold to help them change. It is not often that we get to see how art actually helps people, but this film shows us that very clearly.

You will be moved. In an age where the billionaires and oligarchs who are now running the country are trying to reshuffle money into their pockets by cutting funding for art and social programs, it's great to have a film that will remind us that these things matter.

Highly recommended, see the film when it plays either at the Film Forum or a theater near you.

Wednesday, February 5, 2025

Who's Behind Black Art? (2023) is on Aspire TV starting tomorrow


Four part  docuseries  about five up and coming black artists. The subjects are Tae Ham, Jewel Ham, Adrian Armstrong,Lauena Fineus, Mario Joyce and the film tells us they story, shows us their art and explains why they are going to be successful.

This is a great series. I don't normally watch a whole series at one time but this is just so good I watched it from start to finish in one go. Blame it on the series focusing on five great people whose stories speak volumes about more the art world.

To me this is one of the best documentaries I've seen on the art world because it connects the art, the artists and the real world together. Why does art matter? This film/series will explain it to you perfectly - it can change people's lives for the better. 

I can't recommend this series enough.

CREATURES OF HABIT (2024)


A reporter going over his work in a bar is joined at his table by a stranger who seems to know too much about him.

Much too short  short needs desperately to be expanded. Running only six minutes this is a creepy film that is a great presentment of a moment of time but leaves way too many questions to be fully satisfying. Make no mistake this is a great film, but the lack of a definite anything makes it feel like a proof of concept film rather than a full formed film.

Highly recommended none the less the film will make you hope this is expanded into a feature.

Tuesday, February 4, 2025

Perla (2025) Rotterdam 2025


Perla is an artist living in West Germany with her daughter who is a musical prodigy. She had escaped Czechoslovakia in 1968 when the Russians invaded.  When the husband send her word that he is dying she and her daughter go back, risking arrest. The trouble is he as an ulterior motive for having them back.

I like a lot of this film and I'm kind of disappointed in other parts.

The early part of the film where we watch Perla and her daughter trying to survive and get along are very good. The performances are spot on. We can feel the desperation in simply trying to get by and manage money which always seems to be just out of reach. There are several small moments that really, the use of Bronski Beat, give the film a lived in quality. 

The problem is that the film is very much an art house film and the plot takes some turns that feel contrived. It's a feeling that is intensified by the direction, which looks great, but which seems to be going for intellectual truth over emotional. There was point where the film shifted from an organic narrative to one that seemed to be headed toward one I could guess.

While the film is never bad, the problem it never soars consistently as as high a it does in parts.

Worth a look, but it's not something you need chase down.