Heat of Madness(2026) Stiges 2026

A crook with a tentative hold on reality is hoping to for one big score. However, his plans go horribly wrong endangering not only his life but the life of his wife and unborn child.

Karim Ouelhaj returns with mean and nasty film that is like an unending march into hell on the road to redemption where no one and nothing is safe. While not as bleak as his previous film, MEGALOMANIAC which was about the children of a serial killer, HEAT OF MADNESS is almost as trying a visual experience. Karim Ouelhaj seems to want to punish his audience just as much as his characters and I suspect that he will soon have people not  wanting to see his films because they are so deeply affecting.

While I liked Ouelhaj‘s previous film it didn’t quite work for me as a whole. It seemed to be more about effect than narrative. With this film however Ouelhaj is still going for the jugular but he has a tighter grasp on the narrative and focus. It isn’t all about great shots, but about one man unraveling. What I loved about this film is that Ouelhaj amps up his visual style, the opening sequence is ethereal and dream like in some ways with images I wish I had seen on a truly huge screen.

Not for the weak of heart HEAT OF MADNESS is a killer film. It’s a kind merging of noir and horror into something truly uncomfortable.

Recommended.

Natural State (2026) Woodstock 2026

This is a look at the time Julie Thayer spent with"anti"guru U.G. Krishnamurti. Krishnamurti said their was no such thing as enlightenment. That he wasn't to be followed. He challeneged everything you were and thought. He either broke people or sent them away enlightened.

 Full disclosure, because of my late friend Lou I had run across UG  many years ago. We had long discussions about the man and his thoughts. Lou was facinated. I knew that his way wasn't my way and I was cerain he was someone taking money  from people who didn't realize that they could chart their own lives. This would lead into days or weeks long discussions of philosophy and religon which largely ended up with the end point that the number of the paths to god is as many as their are living beings. There is no great truth just an observation that so two people go the same way even if they walk side by side.

But I digress.

The film is made from hundreds of hours shot by Thayer who documented everything about master, from roundtable discussions to trips to K Mart. Its a warts and all look at a man, his followers and his vidographer. I say that because the film is very much about Thayer as anyone else. Its a trip into her life with the man who would shape who she became.

And at this point I leave you to decide if you want to see the film or not. I say that because twenty years of discussion about the man and his philosophy most certainly plays into how I feel about the film. I can not in good graces begin to know what you will think of the film or the people at the center. For me it was an interesting ride that kicked up a lot of the past for me.

Is it worth trying? Yes, especially if you are interesting in atypical ways of seeing life.

Lanterns Season One

 

LATERNS is really good.

A revision of the relationship between Hal Jordan and John Stewart, as well as the Green Lantern mythos, It’s a wonderful rethink of the characters but in a real world situation.

A dual story of now and the investigation of Hal’s death and then, the events that brought that to fruition, the film is the story of two guys trying to do what’s right in a messy world.

For me the first six episodes are perfect.  They are a slowly building tale that ends at the perfect place to pause. Where episode 6 ends should have been the end because that’s where you want to stop and reflect.

Episode seven flounders. Stuff happens but it feels like all exposition to get to the next chapter.

Episode eight flounders and then nailed it in the final minutes with an exchange that left me sobbing.  I honestly don’t know if this will work for a second season, but I want to find out.

I know DCU and Green Lantern purists have been having a cow over the changes. My attitude is to hell with them (I mean people are upset they killed Hal and he’s been dead in the comics for decades). The old versions of the characters are still there, but like every other change or version that has come down the pike in the last 60 plus years it’s simply a temporary rethink. Like the Elseworlds line that brought some classic stories these tales are perfectly fine on their own. Ultimately there have been too many versions over the years so there is no point in getting upset as to what is the right version- every one is.

Is the show worth seeing? If you want a story about people and not super heroics, absolutely. This is a story of flawed and broken people that is largely extremely well told.

Brief thoughts on Midnight Dreamer (2026) IFFSA Toronto

In a dystopian future where people are reduced to numbers, two brothers are hunted by an unnamed killer.

If you are a fan of thrillers MIDNIGHT DREAMER is one to watch. While the dystopian world doesn't always make a great deal of sense, but the plight of two brother on the run thrills. 

There is a reason I love looking at smaller films and smaller festivals, which is simply you get to see films that open up your world view. The films you find are not like the mass produced product from Hollywood. The films  have a point of view that we haven't seen before and introduce you to new directors. Watching this film from the International Film Festival of South Asia Toronto I was introduced to Pakistani-Canadian filmmaker Khizer Khani who gives us a thriller that is colored by his South Asian upbringing. It's his perspective that brings life to what should have been a by the numbers film. Instead of a film that is hurt by any short comings, we get a film that itrigues us with choices and voices that we don't see.

This is an unexpected treasure. When MIDNIGHT DREAMER gets near you, give it a try. 

Brief thoughts on THE BOYS AND THE BEES (2026) Woodstock 2026

This is a portrait of the Ray family, a Black family earning a living on a small farm in Georgia. Over the course of the film we see the life they live and watch as their sons learn to tend the bees in their hives.

This is a small lyric little film that reveals the beauty of family and the way we grow over the course of our life.  It is a small jewel of film that reached out and touches your heart in the best sort of way.

Highly recommended

we're nothing at all (2026)

Herman Yau makes his best film and his most frustrating film at the same time.

The film is the based on true story about a bus explosion on a city street. The police investigate and try to piece together what happened and who was responsible.

To be perfectly honest the police procedural portion of this film is as good a film as I’ve seen this year. It’s frank discussion of the bombing and its nuts and bolts look at how the police investigate some thing as terrible as this is fantastic. This seemed to be as close to a police investigation as I’ve ever seen put on film. Its meaty and honest and truly great.

The problem is the material is the soap opera tales of all the people on the bus. By the numbers doesn’t do it justice. The people stuff is wildly over the top. More so the tale of doomed gay romance. It never felt real and felt like it was being used simply to pull at the heart strings of the audience. I wasn’t so much engaged but strapped to a chair and forced to watch.

I was frustrated because it was too much of a slog to get through the drama to really enjoy the police procedural.

If you can put up with the soap opera, the police stuff is worth a look

clean hands (2026)

True life story about a narcotics cop dealing with the fact his daughter is an addict. The film follows the pair's journey to the founding of a place to help people get clean.

Zach Braff's on target performance as a cop is the best thing in this wildly uneven even film. Swinging from bad cliche to deeply moving, often from moment to moment, this film is the ver definition of all over the place. Braff's sterling performance often has to interact with actors who seem to have wandered in from another film. The script mixes real moments with WTF ones as if the writer was working on a solid scsene but suddenly had to rush and cribbed dialog and plotting from a bad TV series from the 70's.

Its facinating to watch but at the same time it isn't very good. 

I heard a couple of people say Braff was so good they thought he could end up in the Oscar mix, to which they added that it would never happen because the rest of the film will weigh him down.

While I am super critical, a number of people at the P&I screening were less so and thought it was okay on it's own terms.

The choice to see it is yours.

Brief thoughts on Vintage Violence (2026) Sitges 2026

A live streamer investigating an abandoned house in the middle of nowhere finds a bunch of vintage blue jeans. Its a haul that is worth a lot of money. One of his followers convinced him that if he flies to Japan he will be able to make even more money.  The guy jumps on a plane, unaware that his follower is planning on scamming him and taking the jeans to pay off a debt to the yakuza....but the yakuza finds out and descides to take the jeans for themselves.

While the humor and the horror don't always mix, this is for the most part a wicked little thrill machine. This is a film of escalating insanity that keeps you watching because you will want to see how this plays out. Odds are you will be like me and have a blast seeing this and waiting for the next turn.

A kind of word of warning, this film has a very busy style. Split screens, multiple angles and images mix with computer and phone screens to make a film with a lot of information both visual and aural being thrown at you. Normally I would tend to shy away with a film that has such a busy form, but here it all works.

I don't know what else to say other than - What a wonderful blood soaked delight. Get some popcorn and enjoy.

Recommeneded.

FREE JOAN LITTLE (2026) Woodstock 2026

Portrait of Joan Little, who was sexually assaulted while in prison and killed her attacker, a prison guard. She was aquitted of the killing

Let  me cut to the chase, this is one of the best films you'll see this year. 

It is a film that will shake you ton your core and piss you off. Just because some one is in prison it doesn't mean that they should be sexually brualized, which is something the film makes clear that most prisoners experience. 

I was moved.

I have no notes because this film is as perfect a film as you can see.

In an age when sexual violence against women is on the rise, FREE JOAN LITTLE makes clear that it is never okay, regardless of their status because their simply being a human being and deserving of respect trumps all other reasoning.

See this movie and be moved.

Ranting on Street Fighter (2026)

 

Latest attempt to make a live action film based on the Capcom game is like watching four versions of one story thrown in a blender and then having pieces randomly pulled out and assembled until the two-hour mark was reached at which time the end credits rolled before the story was done.

The plot, such as it is, has Lord Bison staging a martial arts competition so he can steal some sort of energy from a powerful fighter named Ryu. I won't go into details because the rest of the narrative so frayed that plot points go nowhere. Characters show up and do nothing. Things happen and then are ignored. This is so badly put together that this is a film about a fighting contest where the fights are weak and the actual competition happens off screen and involves lots of walk overs.

While the anime sequences promise a better much more serious film that would be worth paying money to see, the rest of it seems to have been written and made by horny 12 years old who don't know how to talk dirty or tell a joke. Everything seems to be stupidly smutty. Many of the jokes involve guys getting hit in the balls by fists or feet or sexualized women abusing men. The rest of the jokes are about guys almost being gay. There are more sexual references in this film than most adult films.

The one thing in this film that works is the cast. Everyone sells it to the point that you wish the film was better. I mean that across the board, this cast deserved so much better. Their performances are wasted (particularly Orville Peck who plays Vega, the gut with a mask but is given next to nothing to do other than stand there. It could have been anybody)

Who thought this was a good idea?

Yes, I will concede that some of this works, but at the same time the editing is so awful that we just bounce from thing to thing randomly....

...and it doesn't end- it just stops...clearly the filmmakers and the studio are optimists because they are hoping for a sequel that is never going to happen. (I keep thinking there is a five-hour version somewhere that makes actual sense and covers all ten thousand plot points they skipped.)

While the animation keeps it from being a total waste, this is a film that is going to play best when you can get drunk and riff it with friends.

Case 137 (2026)

An internal affairs officer investigates an incident during the yellow jacket riots in 2018 France where a young man was hit in the face by a police projectile which stattered his skull.

This is a very good look at how the police are viewed and how they investigate their own. We are hooked early and are dragged along with the investigation. Its a mystery of sort that plays bettwer than many actual cinematic mysteries of recent vintage.

The film is absolutely compelling from start to almost finish. What I mean by that while the film lays out the investigation and the characters beautifuly, the film shifts in the final minutes to become a polemic about the police and society. The wind up becomes a less a conclusion than a lecture. While it isn't bad it takes the edge off the satisfaction.

Wobble at the end aside, this is a solid film and worth your time and money.

Bucking Fastard (2026) NYFF 2026

Rooneyand Kate Mara play two sisters who speak and act as one go through their lives.

A film that only Werner Herzog could pull off BUCKING FASTARD is weird little film, supposedly based on two real life sisters who tormented a truck driver for 15 years. While the girls torment their neighbor Orlando Bloom for a bit, the film's focus is more on the women's attempt to find a place in a world. It's a weird film with a weird view of reality.

This was the last film I saw at the NYFF, and I've been sitting on it for several days now, trying to make sense of it. I've had friends explain how they see the film and I think they are all right. However, as right as they are, their takes are not mine and I am trying to sort out what I think.

After several days I'm still not sure.

It's weird. It's a wild ride. I liked it (but I didn't love it). It's a definitely a return to narrative form for Herzog whose last few narratives didn't work for me. But even liking it, I don't know what else to say.

I'm guessing you're going to have to make up your own mind...so see it.

Hallowarrior (2026) Hits Shudder Friday and it's your next favorite Halloween favorite

 

The world has ended. Civilization has fallen. Some disease has killed everyone on earth...Only young Pumpkin (a glorious Milly Shapiro) remains. As far as she knows she is the only person left. She has been trying to to contact someone, anyone, via radio.  No one answers.  As Halloween comes around again she decorates her house and prepares for the trick for treaters.  She knows no one will come, but she hopes they will. 

And then some one arrives....

Ben Sottak's HALLOWARRIOR is wondrous. 

A throw back to the exploitation films of the 1970's and 80's it's a post apocalyptic tale of the sort they don't do any more. Its is raw and real. It's lived in and imperfect. It is flawed like its characters, however you won't care  and instead you'll want to curl up on the couch to eat candy and watch horror films with them. 

This is a film that is unlike anything we are seeing these days in the genre field. Not interested in blood and gore (though its here) and not interesting in producing scares (though they are here), this is a film that is entirely about the characters. This is something we haven't had since George Romero died a few years ago. 

As much as I want to talk about the characters on the screen I am going to only talk about Pumpkin. The reason for that because if I talk about anyone else I might say too much.  I will argue that Pumpkin is one of the greatest women ever put on screen. A Halloween loving outsider, she is the only sort of person who could survive in an empty world.  Far from strong, she is a severely damaged young woman. She may seem strong but she is beyond broken. One has to applaud writer director Sottak for going that dark. Watching the film at the Tribeca P&I a certain revelation  at first produced no reaction, however a call back later in the film, in a dark moment, had some gasping because what was just coloring was revealed to be a sign of horrific sadness and soul so broken it may never heal.  

That Pumpkin remains in our hearts through every moment is due to the work of Milly Shapiro. I  would love to say that she should get an Oscar, but frankly this time out I'm going to say fuck that and say that Shapiro is going to get something greater, immortality as a classic character of cinema.  Shapiro keeps Pumpkin human and some one we love no matter what happens. We never ever want anything bad to happen and we want to see her survive and maybe come back in  a sequel. I truly believe that Shapiro has crafted a performance that is going to live on forever. Shapiro has given us something we never get in the movies a heroine who is shattered and missing pieces and yet stronger than anything in the known universe.

She is going to be the totem for a good many people.

And apologies to the rest of the cast- you are that good too- I just can't say anything lest I say too much.

The plot of the film is unexpected. Yes, the film has Pumpkin meeting some new people, and yes we know they are bad news, but what happens and how it plays out isn't what we expect. The twists and turns are more real than we usually see. There are no super human villains nor the not really dead twists, this is just an ever growing battle for survival that is not typical Hollywood. (Again this feels like Romero)

Okay - let me explain something HALLOWARRIOR is it's own glorious thing. Ben Sottak has made a film that exists in its own universe and is not like anything else. The reason I am mentioning the director from Pittsburgh is not to suggest Sottak is riffing on him, rather it is simply  to do two things. First I want to place the film in a certain rarified air. This is on a cinematic mountain top like the other guys work. Secondly I need to be able to explain to you what you are going to see with out revealing too much. I am using the other guy simply so you can have a sort of idea what it is kind of like.

I have to mention that the world in the film is wonderfully constructed. We believe the world has ended. We believe in small part because of Covid, but more because the clues we get ring true. We are not given exposition, we are given clues. The world feels lived in. Details come in references not sentences. Unlike the recent Spielberg film, which stops every couple of minutes to explan things or tell us things we don't need to know, Sottak simply lets the characters live their lives and trusts the audience to keep up and figure it out. I love being treated as co-conspirator and not a mindless child.

I'm not going to lie and say the film is perfect, it is not. There are things that don't always work, or feel like an odd flourish. At the same time the flaws  give the film a battle scar or two that make you realize this film was birthed via struggle and a great amount of love. Go with the flaws. Trust me, if you go with the bumps early on, by the time the shit hits the fan you won't care, you'll just want to know who lives and who dies.

Finding a film like this is why I love randomly going to movies. 

Movies like this are why I started Unseen Films, small hidden gems that need to be brought into the light and shared. This is a film that reminds me that originality and creativity in cinema isn't dead and that there are filmmakers who can take familiar forms and create something unique.

HALLOWARRIOR is a joy. Its one of the great finds of Tribeca and 2026.

Go see it.

Mouse (2026) opens Friday in Los Angeles

A petty thief  gets catfished by a lonely hearts pen pal...who is unaware that that the thief is not who he says he is.

See this film.

See this film and stay with it.

I say that because this is a film that this film, part film noir and part autobiographal confessional is unlike almost any film you've seen. It's not that what we are see is on the face of it anything new. We've seen stories like this before, however what sets this film apart is what writer director and star Kenny Riches does with the material. Reshaping the material so that we get characters and shadings we haven't quite seen before Riches has created a film that makes us lean in. We know this is not going to end well, but we can't look away.  We don't look away because there is something here that looks the right sort of different. 

I squirmed in my seat. I winced at some of the turns. I didn't want to watch this go off the cliff- and then...

Well, that will be telling.

I really liked this film. 

While I will not lie and tell you that this is the greatest film you'll see all year, I will say it's most certainly one of the more entertaining films of the year. It's a wonderful gem of a film- more so if you a noir film.

Recommended

Breeder (2026) opens October 28

A college student who is trying to save the bees but can't get the funding is given the oppurtunity to have his dreams made but a crazy dog breeder. There is of course a catch...

This is an uncomfortable black comedy/horror film that does what it does well but never truly finds its own way. We've been here before so we largely know what is coming.  A bigger problem is that there is a point about the half way mark where some twists and turns start dropping and they feel more for effected, either to make us laugh or to come out of left field to make us surprised.

I didn't hate this, rather I was more frustrated that this wasn't better or at least had a character I liked.

Nightcap 11/12/26 - the next few weeks.

Some random notes:

NYFF is done. 

There were some great things, I got a letter from Andre Gregory, I saw the new Godzilla -twice, discovered DAO, FATHERLAND and ONE MORE TIME, I managed to get the Hong Sang Soo piece up and out of my head.

That said for a variety of reasons NYFF didn't work for me this year. Some stuff having to do with life, some with the films and some with the changing face of film coverage. Mostly it was not enough time with my friends, sure I had a creak time wit Matt, Ed, Shahnaz, Hakan, JB, Hubert, Kurt  and the rest of you, but there just didn't seem to be as many people I knew as in years past and it made me sad since I go to the fest to see friends. It was the first fest in 35 years that kind of disappointed me

The only thing that I will say publicly about my grievances was I hated that the festival only seemed to let people load people into Alice Tully from the right side of the theater. It was annoying if you were on that end.

Please don’t do it next year.

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I went to NYC Comicon this year and it made me sad.

The con now is all big corporate. It seemed less comic and more big media and social media.

I had not been to the con for a year or two- and the difference was glaring.

Not sure what the point of it is any more since any of the real creative stuff  has either been priced out or pushed to the fringes.

Probably won't go again because as much as the fans are lovely (I got in to a glorious discussion about Godzilla with a couple of random fans),  Reed Pop sucked the life out of it and is now just selling an incredible simulation of a convention made up of broken mop parts, sealing way and lint

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DOC NYC is coming.

I don't don't think I've seen many films going in - I've reposted the films I know I've seen.

Beyond that I'm not certain how much I will cover. As Randi pointed out she can tell I'm burned out. She said much of my writing has suffered and she wanted me to close up shop for a couple of months. I can't do that but instead, with apologies to DOC NYC, I'm going to be pickier.

Keep reading to see if that actually happens.

--

Beyond DOC NYC the rest of the year is going to be freeform. I’m just kind of unfocused on film right now so I am putting things together as I go. 

I know the Thanksgiving week is all big budget all star films of the type they don’t make any more (for good reason). I have five films done. I may add a few more.

Look for Woodstock reviews this week (there are some fantastic films there), as well a film fromStiges and some other goodies.

I also have long interviews with Marq Evans about CAPTURING BIGFOOT and Patrick Meaney about THE VANISHING TOUR coming as soon as I tweak them a bit more

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A reminder HALLOWARRIOR hits Shudder Friday. 
Its not perfect but I loved it.

Double Dragon (1994)

Video game movies from the early-to-mid ’90s. Boy, what a great… no, not that. A solid… hmm, no, not that either. It was… a time. Basically, things didn’t really improve much until Mortal Kombat came along a couple of years later. Somewhere in the middle of all this was Street Fighter, notable mostly for riding the arcade game’s insane popularity. And, of course, for the stories of Jean-Claude Van Damme being a menace behind the scenes.

Unfortunately for Double Dragon, by the time it hit theaters in 1994, the hype surrounding the franchise had already begun to cool off.

Now, I can only comment on that so much. Double Dragon—the movie—arrived years after the third game hit the NES, which wasn’t as well received as the previous entries. I’m pretty sure there was another game somewhere in there, too. Needless to say, nothing was exactly turning things around.

Anyway, let’s get to the movie. Or let’s not, because it takes very little inspiration from those first few games. Hi, Super Mario Bros.

The story follows brothers Billy and Jimmy Lee, who find themselves protecting half of a mystical medallion from an evil businessman named Koga. Along the way, they team up with a gang of vigilantes, fight some mutated goons, and occasionally gawk at Alyssa Milano’s ass.

As for the setting, it takes place in post-apocalyptic times. Why? Gangs, I guess. And that's an easy way to introduce different characters and story beats. I mean, fighting was basically the whole idea behind the game. Scroll to the right, punch and kick everyone in the face. The movie does deliver on some action. It's not entirely entertaining, but the MPAA decided it was enough to slap a PG-13 rating on it, which I'm sure didn't help things in the long run.

Ok, so, characters? Check. Do they get their signature red and blue outfits? Well, it's on the poster, but it doesn't happen until the very end of the movie. Hi, Super Mario Bros. Do they get to fight one of those big, bald-looking villains from the game? Umm, sort of?

Ok, let’s just file that under “maybe not.”

Honestly, the one reason to watch this is for Robert Patrick as Koga. He is hamming it up, which makes it fun as hell whenever he’s on screen. Much like Raul Julia in Street Fighter, he’s very aware of what movie he’s in. 

Good for him for going straight from Terminator 2 to this steaming pile of... Hey, did I mention Alyssa Milano is here? Yep, she sure is. And the film loves doing that thing where our main duo keeps staring at her like, "You seeing this, bro?" Because we all know you watched Embrace of the Vampire. Ok, that came a year later in '95, but for joke purposes, roll with it.

Our two leads, well, one of them fits. Mark Dacascos. Legit trained in martial arts, he's convincing enough despite the silly script. He later went on to star in the highly underrated 2001 film, Brotherhood of the Wolf. And became The Chairman on the hit TV show Iron Chef.

Speaking of TV, that brings us to the other half of the Lee brothers. Scott Wolf, who rose to fame with the drama series Party of Five. I know of it, despite never watching a single second. So, I can't really comment on his acting ability in that arena. But in an action film, or a cheesy game-based movie, it just doesn't work. I'm not buying it.

The special effects leave a lot to be desired. But compared to the competition at the time, they were almost par for the course.

Funny enough, one of the screenwriters was Peter Gould, who would later go on to write for Breaking Bad and co-create Better Call Saul. We all have to start somewhere.

The film was released in November '94 and bombed. Critically and commercially. Street Fighter, which came out a month later, didn't fare much better with fans and critics alike, though it did much better at the box office. Again, apples to oranges. One property was red hot, and the other was only mildly warm.

Where does this rank on the video game movie scale? Despite its many flaws, I can't put it at the bottom because of how bad this genre has been. Especially with what came in the years that followed (see Uwe Boll's filmography). It's not overly memorable. It just sort of exists in this weird little vacuum of time.

Now here's a fourth wall-breaking scene with a Double Dragon arcade cabinet. That's at least worth 50 points.

Following Harry (2024) hits VOD Tuesday

While watching FOLLOWING HARRY I felt that we as a species have been lessened by the passing of Harry Belafonte. He was a man who in his almost 100 years changed the course of humanity for the better. He was man who put pretty much to shame. As one person says when he was 19 he was getting out of the army after fighting in the Second World War and then decided he had things to do to make the world a better place. While known for years as a singer and actor, he used his bully pulpit to speak about the need for change and the betterment of society.  When he retired from performing he threw himself in fighting the good fight and helping the younger generations to learn how to fight their battles.

OLLOWING HARRY is a mix of Belafonte speaking about his activist role and the remembrances of those who he was helping to continue his fight. It is a warts and all discussion of the battle where things are not all rose colored skittles and beer, but instead tough and brutal. It’s the story of a never ending fight against hatred, evil and darkness. It is a piercing light through the darkness of our times highlighting the fact that there are good people still out there.

I was moved…and made to feel kind of small at how little I’ve done. I expected that because no one was Belafonte.

This is a glorious film you need to see.

Miller Night Football (2026)

This is a portrait of the Monday night Football experiment of having Dennis Miller on the show.  It’s a short little film covering the arc of what happened.

For those that don’t know ABC thought Monday Night Football was getting stale. They hoped to revive rating by bringing in Dennis Miller who was super-hot at the time. It was a moved loved by some, hated by others but which got people to tune in because they just wanted to see what happened. The experiment lasted two years before John Madden was brought in and caused Miller and Dan Fouts to be fired.

Outside of the clips there isn’t much here. It’s a more or less straight forward telling that doesn’t do anything special. For me, I a former Miller fan this just proved that he has become kind of insufferable.

Ultimately, I liked it but even at roughly half an hour its too long.

Once Upon a time in the Middle East (2026)

This poster does not do this film justice

China's Oscar nominee kicked my ass. It shouldn't have done that because it is a messy, all over the place film, but it has an urgency and a heart that bleeds off the screen and grabs you by the throat and drags you along.  Sure, it can be an odd mix of humor and real-world horror but when the film reached its conclusion I started to cry tears of bittersweet joy.

This is the exact sort of film that I started Unseen Films to highlight. An off the beaten track wonder that is bumpy but heartfelt, and way more intriguing and wonderful than most films out there. 

The film has a Chinese chef returning to a (fictional) country in the Middle East (read it as Iraq). He hasn't been there in two decades. They want to know about his last time there, during the war when he was alleged to be part of a terrorist attack. The film then flashes back, and we see as he travels to the Middle East to run a restaurant for two years in order to pay off a debt. Not long after arriving a war starts with the US. As battles rage around them the chef and the people try to keep as many people as possible safe, particularly the kids in a local orphanage.

This is not a conventional war drama. This is a film about the pain and cost of war. It's a film that doesn't look away, and film that leaves no one unharmed.  Everyone either dies or is deeply scarred. There are no superheroes, only survivors.

Uneven in tone and style, watching the film can leave you with whiplash as comedy and tragedy merge, as do hope and heartache. The film is realistic at times and movie like at others. Some scenes play out realistically and others seem to be soap opera. It's a weird jumble that doesn't always work, but for the most part does.  If the film fails to get traction it will be because some audiences won't know what to make of it.

At the same time the characters and the underlying emotion click. The fact that we like a lot of the characters helps this film go. We don't want the people on the screen to die, but that isn't always possible. Emotionally this is a plea to end the insanity of war, and the film is going to make every effort to get that across. The result is a film that sneaks up on you and brings well-earned tears in the end.

What makes the film a must see for me is the fact that the film doesn't take the easy or familiar road. It's a film that is going to tell its story its way because that is the way it will have maximum impact.

No, the film isn't perfect, but that doesn't matter. It's alive with a burning desire to tell a story and to change minds and the result is a film that has reawakened my love of cinema after a tough slog through a festival where almost all the films were designed to look good and win awards. ONCE UPON A TIME... may be up for awards, but ultimately, it wants to save people's lives, which for my money is more important than having a shiny thing on a shelf.

Recommended.