Black Zombie (2026)

This is a documentary on zombies, both the real ones and the ones from the movies.

This is a heady film in all the right ways. Seeking to restore reality to the out of control purely fictional notion of what zombies are BLACK ZOMBIE gives us a compelling history lesson of what the real "undead" are, while at the same time recontextualizing the zombies of popular culture.

I'm going to be honest and say I walked into this film blnd. Until I saw that this was a film for the Documentary Channel I didn't know what the film was, I simply  saw the title and decided to cover it.

Expertly done this film, this film will make you rethink the zombie on screen as well as freak out about the ones that inspired the movie monsters. The entire notion of being reduced to mindlesscreatures is frightening.

I need to see this film a couple more times, partly because it is so damn good, but more because there is som much here I have to see what I miss as well as connect up all the varios pieces

One of the great film finds at Fantasia and of 2026

Nightcap 9/6/26 Matt Schuchman has a new Podcast, remember the Music Doc Film Fest is coming and random notes

Matt Schuchman has a new podcast.  Matt is a long time friend with multiple outlets and podcasts. He's a guy you want at your party, since he's so trusted that Bryan Cranston let him answer questions for him and he can get Mandy Patankin to sing songs that are unexpected. Somewhere along the way he had me on his Overdue Rental's Podcast to talk about MURDER BY DECREE - but that's another story

The podcast is called Cue My Music. Matt says "Each guest is given 10 scenarios that could happen in real life and I ask them what song would be playing if that scenario was happening to them in a film. I'll then make a playlist of all the songs they chose so people can listen to it."

The first episode is quite good and based on knowing Matt and being interviewed by Matt, I know the rest are going to kick ass.

Please go here to subscribe.

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I want to again point out that the Second Annual Music Doc Fest at the Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame is coming at the end of the month.

Look at the schedule and buy tickets. There are some great things here and you need to see them.

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Toronto starts this week.

The mad fest will be throwing great film our way and because I’ve seen some of them, I know you should be keeping an eye on all the coverage.

I can not wait to talk about CHILDREN UNTOLD , about young girl in Japan after the end of the Second World War or DJINN WEDDING which is big and thick and meaty like the best novels.

I am still watching films so my curtain raiser is delayed.

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Keep reading since there is going to be a ton more coverage of Venice, including films like NO PARADISE IF YOU ARE KILLED BY A WOMAN which .... I have a lt of of thoughts and which as been submitted for Oscar consideration.

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I pick my NYFF public tickets this week and I have no clue.

Right now expect a lot of off the beaten trail coverage.

The Cinema Arts Center is Imploding - it's probably best to stay away

Dylan Skolnick has been removed from the Cinema Arts Center (CAC) in Huntington New York and the cinematic world of Long Island and New York and America has been rocked to its core.

Skolnick's parents founded the CAC and when they stepped down and passed away, he stepped in and kept the theater going and growing, most importantly he kept it alive during covid.  

The board announced Skolnick's removal and talked in hush tones in several brief and very undetailed emails.  They said something about fiduciary responsibility but no one knows what that means since Dylan has always been above board and transparent. As this posts I have not heard exactly what happened though there were several reports that Skolnick was trying to make sense as to why he was removed since the reasons weren't clear.  

Most people I have seen on the internet can't fathom why he was removed. From what I can gather from reading on in various forums and in discussion with people who are member of the center is that the people looking in was nothing that Dylan did that was wrong, the board simply wanted Dylan out and they needed an excuse - which they refuse to state. The thinking on the various message boards is that the whole affair is that it's a coup or hostile take over.

Personally, I think that unless the CAC board actually says what their problem are, (especially after saying nice thing about Skolnick early in the summer) they are going to lose the audience and destroy the theater. (There are a lot of indications that is already happening)

 Skolnick was/is a fixture. He has busted his ass for five decades making sure that all sorts of cinema had a place to screen on Long Island. Dylan was and is a force who cast a wider net than his parents (I and my friend Lou used to get into battles with Dylan's parents who told us they would never run films that Dylan later championed.) And more importantly Dylan doesn't just work on film at Cinema Arts but he is so respected that he works for theaters across America.

People like Dylan and according to published reports, they are already lining up to support him with many patrons,  members, scheduled presenters and friends of the cinema stepping away from CAC until facts are given. And lest you think this is just a Long Island thing friends who don't live in the area, but make frequent trips to the cinema because of how good their programming is, are not going to make the schlep from Lower Manhattan or Westchester. Friends who do repertory round ups for the New York metro are are now removing their coverage of the cinema.

Most interestingly since the firing this week it appears the cinema has either pulled films they were supposed to run or had the films pulled from them since for the first time in decades they are running current mainstream movies (COYOTE VS ACME) and films they had listed as running in their program (I believe they were supposed to be running Kent Jones' Late Fame) are now missing.  

If the distributors are behind the change of programing it's a death knell to the theater as am art house since it means that they are not buying the seeming bullshit and siding with the guy they have known for five decades and not the recently installed board. 

Its also the death knell since, as I said, why go to the theater when it is now just another multiplex. No one I know is going to go to Cinema Arts to see mainstream movies on a smaller repertory screen when there is an AMC 8 plex running the same movies on bigger screens with bigger sound a short distance away. 

Taking it further no one is going to keep their memberships since no one will  pay to be a member when you are no longer getting special films with special presentations. People are members to get special films not the same old stuff. Why have a membership to see a multiplex film?

To complicate CAC's problems further there are reports that several patrons have pulled their funding. This it shows a lack of trust for the board now in control and people don't trust how their money will be spent. If the patrons pull the funding will CAC have the finances to keep running if they don't have donors or an audience giving them money?

I honestly don't know what happened or why, but I have not seen anyone not supporting Dylan. Everyone seems to love him and are standing by him. According to what I was reading in the message boards anyone who has sided with the board is connected to the board. The lack of details has everyone siding against the board because their repeated emails refusing to say anything simply seem like ill thought out double speak and ass covering.

While I haven't spoken with Dylan in any sort of way but to say "hi" in passing in decades, I wanted to show my support. Based on having him orbiting in and out of my life for five decades and never ever hearing a bad word about him, and based upon what I have read and heard from friends closer to Cinema Arts, I'm going to side with him. 

I think most patrons, members and film goers who know him will side with him and step away...

...which kind of breaks my heart.

Please, everyone who may be thinking of going to the Cinema Arts Center stay far far away until Dylan is returned to his position and the board is removed.  Vote with your wallets, don't give them money and cancel any plans you had and do something that will actually do some good.

If you can please sign the petition to get him back. Even if you aren't from the area do so simple because Dylan doesn't just work for the Cinema Arts Center but he programs theaters across the country.

The Petition can be found here.

Diane in the Loop (2026) Venice 2026

Diane has a love hate relationship with men. She likes how they can make her feel, but she dislikes a lot about them.  Not long after her mother gets her out of jail, she finds out that years before here mother was raped. Her mom wants to forget and continue living her life, which involves going back to school. As Diane tries to deal with her feelings about life her mom tries to find her place.

I’ve seen this film a couple of times now and to be honest, I have no clue. Yes, it has some great lines and some great emotional moments and some deep truths, but at the same time it’s all over the freaking place. The tone doesn’t feel modulated it simply shifts from moment to moment. I never had a clue what I was supposed to feel, even on the repeated viewings. There didn’t seem to be a rhythm.  I say this because some films require you to go through it once to get the ah ha moment and you understand I never go that.

Another problem is who is this film about?  Diane, yes but the mom is there too. And that creates a big problem. Diane is a one-of-a-kind character. Truly unconventional on some many levels, you can’t help but like her but at the same time you want to kick her. You understand why she keeps getting arrested. She has a personality you want to punch. It doesn’t help that for all she is all you remember is her quirks. She didn’t feel whole but more a collection of pieces. At the same time, her mother is a much more welcoming character. You can feel the lives she lived and survived in her words and in her silences. We don’t get that from Diane who feels less than real.

After what amounts to three go throughs I still don’t know what I feel. There are some great bits here, but the off kilter title character keeps the film the wrong sort of off kilter

I would recommend it for the adventurous, but advise everyone else to read on it before seeing it.

A pointer toward The Natural State (2026) Telluride 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.

To Escape(2026) Telluride 2026

David Roberts brings his latest film to Telluride 2026 and kicks ass. This is a deeply affecting film that moved me.

The film is a collection of film clips from various prison films cut together to the music of Philip Glass. Its a look at the cinematic prison experience and the efforts to escape.

This is a glorious cinematic tone poem. Its a film that doesn't tell a story as such, rather it simply creates a headspace. Its a headspace that foreces us to consider what prison truly is. I was rocked.  It forced me to truly rethink what I thought. 

I loved this film. I loved it so much I watched it a couple of times.

This is a great filmmaking from a great filmmaker...and its even better than last year's SONG OF MY CITY which played TCM

House of the Wind (2026) Venice 2026

Josette, an elderly woman in Cameroon wishes to reconnect with all of her children who have left the country for a better life. As she works on a home in the hopes that they will return to, she meets a young woman in the village who changes her life.

I’m not going to lie; I am very mixed on this film.

Without a doubt this is one of the best-looking films of the year with a stellar cast, headed by Josette Kwanya as the sad matriarch. If there is justice in the world she will be in the mix for various awards because rarely, have you ever seen a performance like this where every part of her being is invested in a role. It’s a stunning piece of acting.

At the same time this is a film that doesn’t go anywhere. Yes, it’s Josette drifting through life, but at the pacing is often glacial and it feels like not much is happening. Yes. Josette changes over time but it’s such a closed-up performance that even in the end when she finally, kind of changes expression, it isn’t quite enough. Don’t get me wrong I will die on the hill that the performance is one of the best I’ve seen all year, I’m just arguing it is undercut by the narrative and pacing.

I understand the film is based on the director’s mother’s sadness, and it portrays that beautifully, but it walks a fine line between being engaging and being an endurance test and it frequently steps over the wrong way.

That said this is truly one of the great cinematic achievements of the year, but it’s only going to be for the art house crowd.

Brief thoughts on Teenage Wasteland (2026) hits Netflix today

This is the true story of a a bunch of high school kids who, inspired by their English Teacher, staqrt to make a film and in the process stumble on a mob connected conspiracy that is poisoning their community via the local landfill.

Old footage mix with new interviews tell a story that will give you hope that some times good things can happen.  This is a nice story where the little guy make a difference.  I was delighted.

This is a super film. Its a you are there film with modern commentary filled with reflection. Its a film that has more going for it than most documentaries because there is so much footage from events its chronicalling. We really feel that we are seeing everything.

See this film.

Brief thoughts on OCCUPATIONAL HAZARD: THE FIRST CORAL REEFERS (2026)

This is a look at the early days of Jimmy Buffett and the original group of musicians who made up the Coral Reefer Band. It's a film that looks at the hard partying early days of the group up until roughly the time that they began to clean up their act and not have the biggest rider for alcohol of any rock band out there.

I am a Parrothead. I have been one for about four decades. I've seen Jimmy Buffett probably close to 30 times. I have a complex relationship with the man, his music and the commodity that he became. It is also one shaped by my local venue, which was my least favorite place to see Buffett since they had a no alcohol on sale policy for years so everyone went in loaded, and was the wrong sort of drunk until close to the end of the concerts so it just stopped being fun. (I did love to go anywhere but home where that wasn't the case)

I mention this up front because my relationship with all of that deeply affected my feelings for the film.

To be honest this is a film full of great music and (mostly) great stories. It's a film that fills in a lot of details about the early days of the band that I had never heard before. I really enjoyed that part of the film.

At the same time, I essentially walked away from the film about a half hour in because I got tired of the endless tales of partying. I did come back, but I just stopped caring. I just didn't care to hear about people getting drunk or stoned, particularly when there aren't enough variations of the story. It's simply and we got drunk and performed and then partied over and over again. Yes, that was what they did, but frankly outside of garbage cans full of cocaine there aren't enough interesting stories here to sustain our interest. No, the getting trashed stories aren't everything, but it's mentioned every couple of minutes.

There are some great stories here wrapped in some really blah ones.

Parrotheads will want to see this, but I don't know how this will play to the unconverted.

By Any Means (2026)

A black FBI agent in 1966 Mississippi is teamed with a mafia hitman to break the murder of the leader of the local chapter of the NAACP.

Okay, let's get this out of the way, this is more inspired by an unconfirmed story than actually based on a true story. I say this because the while the murder is real, the only actual lead character that is real is Mark Wahlberg's hitman who is based on Gregory Scarpa a mean and nasty hitman who the FBI allegedly used when illegal methods were needed.  Yahya Abdul-Mateen II Agent Strider is said, in sources outside the film, to be based on Lindley DeVecchio, though the film does not state that, it simply states that it is based on an unnamed Black FBI agent.

Overall, I liked BY ANY MEANS. There are some great things in it, but at the same time one can feel that the filmmakers weren't certain what they wanted to do with the story. Are we doing a mismatched kind of buddy film, or are we going to have a serious look at what has to be done to bring justice? There are some great dramatic pieces and a couple of more violent set pieces that feel out of place. Is this a crowd pleaser or a film to make us think? I don't think the film knows. Thinking about the film over the last almost 24 hours since I saw it, I realize that the lack of picking a tone is what works against the film the most since it never clues us into what we are supposed to feel. I have spent much of the time trying to sort out what the film is, and I have not been able to figure that out.

The other problem with the film is that Strider doesn't arc, so much as lurch. He is a quiet beat down agent who wants to do good, he then is a bit of a bumbler and then he is a force of justice at any cost. There is no real shading to his character until late in the game, with the result that emotionally we don't fully feel his change from a good man to something else. There is a sense that things were left/cut out to keep the film moving and under two hours. We can go with his lurching, but it I just wish it was smoother because there is so much to the character that I wanted to like him more.

I like that there is a moral ambiguity to the film. The film truly makes you question whether we need to do something "by any means" to bring about change.  We watch that battle in the Strider character who wants to be the good guy but sees sometimes when fighting evil one must do evil things. It's an argument many people will not like but makes sense within the context of the film works.

Is the film perfect? No. But it does entertain and it is the first Hollywood film in a long while that actually feels like it genuinely wants to start a discussion about race and justice by not giving us pat feel-good answers.

Definitely worth a look.

Chronovisor (2026) opens tomorrow

Image from the ending in spectacular chronovision

Full disclosure at the start. I am coming at this film from a different perspective then most. I was trained as a historian in college, I ran a video store in my youth, and I have investigated the tale of the Chronovisor for the past several years. I mention this up front because those things are referenced in the review. As a result I came armed for bear.

THE CHRONOVISOR begins with a sequence that will cause a lot of people to turn the film off or walk out of the theater. It opens with our heroine speaking to two people at dinner,  no that's wrong, she is talking at two people at dinner about her work involving memory. After a long very complicated speech she begins to explain it as all one need to is imagine a house with many rooms and furnish each room with what we want to remember and then all we need to is walk through the rooms when we need to recall something. Its a long sequence that has a lot of jargon but little else. What this has to do with the rest of the film I'm not certain since the majority of the film is taken up by her quest to get information on the legendary Chronvisor, the machine created and then locked up by the Vatican because its ability to project any moment in time on a screen was too dangerous. 

I should say at the start the story of the Chronovisor is a real one. I have no idea if it's true, its been kicking around for decades. The short version is that the Vatican brought together, though not at the same time and place, many of the great minds of the mid- 20th Century to work on the machine. They did it. They then hid it away. One of the priests involved in the creation spoke about it and word got out. Things then got complicated when a picture of Jesus was "released". Or not. The priest saying he told the journalist Jesus looked like the photo, not that it was Jesus. This made people skeptical and created complications. Its a hell of a story and there are a number of solid You Tube videos on the subject as well as numerous articles if you want further details (most of which are not mentioned in the film).

I mention the true story and the sources at the start since if you have any interest in the story or seeing a good film you'd be better off tracking those down, especially since they are only a fraction of the run time of this 100 minutes mess.

And before you ask about how something like that would work and how you would tune it and know what you are watching, I have no idea. No one, in anything I've ever read or seen has addressed that. 

I am at a loss about what the point of the film is. I suspect it has something to do with memory and why wouldn't need it if we had something that could pull every moment out of the air.  However, I'm not sure. It's never explained.  A big reason is that all we have is one person's oobsession to find out about some thing. Unfortunately we don't know why our heroine is obsessed because there is no indication. There is no effort to connect it to her work on memory or her life or anything because neither she nor the film tells us, even in the margins. Actually she never says anything to anyone except for pontificating at a dinner or to ask for information concerning her search for the machine  or to talk to people on her cellphone in the hope of finding someone actually connected to the machine. 

A huge problem with the film is that we know nothing about the person at the center (I'd say or anyone else but there is only one character in the film). She moves from source to source, video tape to video tape or audio tape to audio tape but none of it connects. All we see obsession and what she randomly ingests informationwise in that quest. There is a repeated series of statements on screen about never knowing the people we meet, and its true, but at the same time I can get better read about who someone is from a two minute encounter than I ever got from 100 minutes with the cipher at the center of this film. We never see her eat or sleep or do anything outside of search. No, that's not true, she does smoke a cigarette while on the phone. She is a machine and nothing more so it is impossible know anything. Even the choice of the textual passage we are asked to read give no clue.

It doesn't help that probably a third of this film is reading text about the Chronovisor in various (translated) languages. Nothing happens, we are just asked to read various passages, many of which repeat or cover the same material. Why so much? I don't know. Seriously a good portion of the film is actual texts from books and magazines about the chronovisor that we are asked to read and reread. Its as if the filmmakers couldn't find words to tell the story so they stole other people's words to do so. I've read something that this is an effort to make it literary, or to give us the same experience as our heroine but the words are cherry picked and repetative and after a while it becomes kind of dull. For a film that nominally thinks its audience is smart enough to keep up with what it is trying to do the reptative nature of the text seems like that isn't the case. It feels like the directors didn't trust their audience so they hammered home the points they thought were important.

Another problem with the film is that things just happen. Everything  comes out of left field and having no logical reason. For Example, late one night, there is a knock on an inside door to her house, she goes and opens it and there is a box of archival materials of a priest connected to the machine that was sent from a Monroe College on a six month loan. What college would just randomly send archives to a person out of the blue? I say this because she reacts as if she had no idea it was arriving.

But the one thing that bothers me the most is that the film insists on keeping everything analog. There are no computers. It's not that there aren't computers, we never see any. There is no effort to show us any- except that out heroine has the latest iphone. Why isn't she using that to look something up? More to the point how is an academic, doing research in this day and age not using  a computer? I ask this as a historian. I ask this as someone who I believe has seen some of the passages quoted in the film on line. Why does she insist on using only magazines, VHS and audio tapes? One would think that some percentage of them would have been digitized. I ask this because she is calling people all over the world on her cellpohone but we never seen her with a phone book. (And why is she trying to reach some of the people she is trying to reach? Why does she think that decades on some of these people would be able to help her?... and help her instantly) 

The film makes no effort to explain or even infer why she is so analog. I honestly would have been fine if the film was set in an unspecified time, or if she had a flip phone, or better yet no celphone,  so we'd see it a as a few years back, but the  film is recent, something we see by the phone and because the conversations place the film in the 2020's.

Before you jump down my throat, I completely understand that movies don't have to explain anything. Indeed movies that don't explain things are often some of the best ones out there. The trouble is that this film doesn't just not explain anything, it never connects the pieces that are here. We don't know who the person is at the center, she is basically the same person from start to finish. We don't know anything really about the world she operates in. In theory its ours, but it may not be. We are simply thrown bits of information  but we don't have anough to connect them all up because there is huge holes in the heart of the film.

There is no logic or reason, just random events thrown at the screen to see if it sticks. 

To be certain the film does generate a certain amount of mood, but as a narrative it doesn't go anywhere. Even how it lurches from event to event has no reason to it.

The truth of the matter is this is a very pretentious art film made by some people who think they are very clever using ideas and notions they really don't understand in order to make a film that looks very intelligent, but isn't. I'm certain the filmmakers think there is something here, but it is not. Its a film that was made by psuedo-intellectuals in order to fool the rubes who need to be seen going to pretentious art house films in order to feel good about themselves.  If there is any actual clever things here they are wrapped so tightly in bullshit they are lost.

I wanted to stand up in the press screening and yell. I wanted to lecture everyone in the screening about how bullshit this whole film was. I didn't. (I did end up writing a very angry very profane first draft of this review because the film pissed me off so much)

There is one thing that happened bothered me on a deeply personal level - the way she restores the unspooled VHS tape (from the archive box)... as a guy who ran a video store in the VHS days my attiude as recorded in my notes was "jesus fucking christ to hell what is she doing?" as she put the tape on one reel, didn't thread it through the opening so the VCR heads could read it, and then just jammed the tape in before screwing it closed and playing it. It doesn't work like that. It was the moment where the film utterly and truly flew out the window for me because on the most basic level it had broken with all reality.

That VHS moment had me biting my tongue not to laugh out loud and scream.

(SPOILERS IN THE NEXT PARAGRAPH)

It also leads into the moment 80 something minutes in where the narative utterly and completely goes right off the rails as she finds out that the chronovisor is actually out in the world, stolen by a Portugese guy who has gone insane because the chrosvisor actually beams memories into your head and he treated it like a drug. So she goes off to Portugual, finds the house walks into it without knocking, walks past the insane guy and then turns on the Chronovisor (which is made of all parts decades newer than when it was supposed to be made.) We then get a this films version of the stargate sequence from 2001 (which does exactly what you think- shows us, kind of, historical events before replaying sections of the film in "chronovision"). 

(END SPOILERS)

What the hell is this?

It is like the ending of any number horror films, particularly of the found footage sort, where the POV shifts so they can give you an ending that doesn't connect to anything that went before (I'm looking at you Poughkeepsie Tapes) because the filmmakers didn't know how to end it, and thought the last minute change would freak people out and allow them to come up with an unearned ending.

What complete and utter bullshit.

Yes, I stayed to the end. I had to kill time before I went to lunch with my brother so I stayed...and I was hoping against hope they would pull it together... but no, it just stops. (And despite my hope there is no The Chronovisor will next appear in Avengers Doomsday card)

Nothing is explained or connected- at any point- and if something really happens it's just because the directors wanted it to happen and not because its organic or they have any clue about how to actually tell a compelling story.

This film is a mess.

LIARS OF BLACK MOUNTAIN ROAD (2026)

 

While driving a remote road, a couple hit a dog. Despite no one being around, they call the owner to say their dog was killed in a crash. Along the way the argue as to what is the correct thing to say to the owner and whether to take responsibility for the accident

Uncomfortable black comedy morality tale about doing the right thing. We all think we will do the right thing, but when it comes down to it, will we? Also, what if you and your partner are at odds over what is acceptable behavior.

This is a deceptively simple tale with a bite. Track it down

Brief thoughts on HELL (2026)

 

Bleak comedy about a farmer and the dark turn to his life.

This is a very good short that is very hard to write up. The reason is the briefness and the way the narrative turns. It's hard to really discuss the film without giving anything away and thus lessening the first trip through.

Know this is twisted tale that is worth tracking down. 

Sara Bareilles Good Grief (2026)

This film is nigh impossible to review. You are either a fan of the artist and are okay spending time with her or you are going to enjoy the hell out of the music and conversation but wish there was a tad more.

This is a portrait of Sara Bareilles as she records her latest album. It’s a film that starts with the artist literally getting the band back together and recording.  There is very little outside of the recording other than what was said between people in the room.

The film is really very good, but if you are like me and went into the film looking for a bit more, you might be disappointed.

Dear You (2026) opens Friday

Desperate for money, a young man travels to Thailand to find his grandfather who hasn't been seen for decades but who has been sending money and letters home for years. He is hoping to get some money from him to pay his debts. However, what he finds instead is something unexpected.

This is a story involving Qiaopi, the practice of family member working away from home sending money and letters home to loved ones. The practice lasted decades before more or less ending with the rise of modern banking. (details can be found here). While it is one of the things that sets the story in motion the truth of the matter is this is something much more moving.

The story of family, friends and obligation DEAR YOU is probably one of the best films you will see all year. There is a sense of life here the likes of which I've never run across in cinema before. Watching the film, I was watching people I know up on the screen. It didn't matter that the film is set on the far side of the world, I was watching my friends and family on the screen.

This film is absolutely glorious. While bits of it are clearly put together because of dramatic issues, this is a film that is ultimately about real people. We are not watching some contrived story but something that feels lived in. Is it any wonder that I could see people I know in it.

There were times when I was reaching for a tissue because what I was seeing really hit home?

How is it that this film is flying under the radar? I know the film closed the New York Asian Film Festival this year, but this should have been at a bigger festival like the New York or Toronto. No offense to NYAFF but as successful as the festival is, it runs so long that anything in the later portion of the fest simply isn't covered by the non-Asian press. I saw nothing about the film in my various feeds, which is a sin because this film so so good.

See this film. Bring tissues but go see it. Trust me, there is a very good chance this will be on your favorite of the year list.

Brief thoughts on Katy Perry: The Lifetimes Tour - Live from Paris (2026) which hits theaters tomorrow

A Katy Perry concert film.

Watching this film on the big screen was one of my favorite things to happen at Tribeca this year. The mix of sound and image perfectly reveals how great a performer Perry is. I was delighted and wanted to get up and dance...and I did... I went down the hall to the door and I danced for a few minutes.

I honestly don't think this will be as good on small screen with small film.

If you can see this on a big screen with big sound go see it.