Man who Stole the Sun (1979) at the Japan Society May 8

With THE MAN WHO STOLE THE SUN playing this weekend at the Japan Society here is a repost of my review from the early days of Unseen Films

Leonard Schrader, brother of Paul, wrote this story of a high school science teacher who builds his own atomic bomb which has become legendary in some circles as a "lost" classic.

The plot has a high school teacher kidnapped with his class. In the aftermath he presses forward with his desire to build an atomic bomb. Once he's done he uses the bomb to get what he wants, first he demands that baseball games are televised to their conclusion (Which never happened when the film was made). Later, as the cops struggle to find the teacher, he demands that the Rolling Stones be allowed to play Japan (their drug problems prevented that).

As a lost classic I think its time has passed, which is not to say that the film isn't worth seeing. This is a good little film. Actually as a terrifying look at something the world maybe staring in the face right now. Its a sobering little film. The idea that someone could build a bomb in their kitchen is frightening. Of course the result of doing it will probably turn deadly for the builder, something you see here (and which was left out of the similar and clearly inferior Manhattan Project)

There are two things that are wrong with the movie. First is its over length. The film runs nearly two and a half hours and to be honest its too much. The second thing is that the film is very much of its time. This is best explained by the demands that teacher makes. The demands are the sort of thing that will cause people to look sideways at the plotting. While I understand the point is to make the demands trivial, they're too much in a time warp. The problems are best described as "movie conventions from the late 70's" which manage to date the film (I guessed the year of release just by looking at how the film was made) even though its unnerving when you really think about it.

Flaws aside this is a movie to try and find (good luck since its damn near impossible to get a hold of). Its a disturbing little movie that will leave you uneasy.

Secret Agent (2025) NYFF 2025

The Secret Agent is one of the very best films playing at this year’s New York Film Festival. It has rightly won a boatload of awards and it probably will win another boatload as well.

The plot of the film has man coming to the city of Recife in Brazil in order to try to find a way out of the country. He needs to remain under the radar before he gets out of Dodge with his son.

Beginning with an opening scene that came from real life where the character Wagner Moura plays is shaken down by a cop who wants money not to arrest him, the film pulls us a long to its heart rending conclusion.  This is a film full of great places and characters. My friend Anthony, who hails from the same area of Brazil said, it’s all real, versions of some of the events happened to him. For Anthony this was a trip home without getting on a plane. For me this was just a hell of a ride. It’s a trip to the dark side as our hero tries to remain safe. It’s a film whose plot unfold like the layers of an onion. Details are revealed as needed in perfectly timed reveals. It was a fact that I was readily aware of because a couple of other films at NYFF never told us what we needed to know and we felt adrift. Here we are pulled along so perfectly that by the time the film ends we can’t believe it’s been almost 3 hours in the dark.

I would argue that the film is near perfect. The only misstep is that the film doesn’t completely explain how the story in 1977 ties into the modern section of the film since the film shows us a great deal that isn’t on audio tapes. How does the young woman know some of what happened? Related to that I adore how the film ends and how it wraps everything up. It is so damn perfect and real, telling us everything we need to know without showing us too much.

This is a staggering achievement and hands down director Kleber Mendonca Filho's best film.

Stockade (2023) opens Friday

Alham, a young Lebanese woman struggling to make enough money to stay in America, takes a job moving a package from New York City to Kingston New York. However things go sideways.

While STOCKADE is a good immigrant drama mixed with thriller and is worth your time, it highlights a problem that seems to be haunting many small films  and that is taking what could be a better drama (the problem of being an immigrant artist in America) and then trying to spice things up by making them a thriller.  The basic story doesn't really need the flavoring.

The problem here is that writer director Eric McGinty doesn't seem to know how to build suspense. Alham is well drawn but everyone around her seems to be there not because they are real characters but simply to be mysterious. In this film mystery is just being in the dark concerning things. Everyone knows more than our heroine and speak and act as if they just came in from John LeCarre novel. While we do want to know what is happening none of it feels genuine. Alham feels like she is being moved around these odd people just to frustrate her. 

Don't get me wrong, this isn't a bad film, it's quite good, rather this is a good film that should have been great but got lost in the mystery it was trying to spin.

Worth a look.

LISTEN CAREFULLY(2024) hits streaming tomorrow

 

A man discover his new born is missing and the people who took her tell him, over his baby monitor, that the only way to get her back is to follow what they say. He is then sent on a wild chase across the city.

This is the second film at Fantaspoa  where the main character has to follow directions being given them by an unknown source. Like that other film this one suffers from the fact that we've been here before. This isn't to say that the film i bad, more that it isn't anything special.

Give the film points for having a good cast and being well made, but it's not quite flashy enough to remain memorable.

Worth a look on a slow night but nothing to chase after.

Brief thoughts on Haunted Heart (2024)

A woman travels to a remote Greek island to take a job at a restaurant. Over the time she begins to fall for the owner, an American ex-pat who wants to keep his past hidden.

This is a great looking thriller driven by a great cast. Everyone hits their  mark and this is largely a really good thriller. Sure, the film covers ground we've traveled before but the cast and the filmmaking make it a trip that is worth taking.

At the same time, the film has one thing that works against it, and that is the film is much too long. As good as the film is, it needs to be shorter. It's not that there is anything wrong, it's more that the film isn't doing anything that requires this to be 128 minutes. It's not fatal but the film drops from great to good.

Run time quibble aside HAUNTED HEART is worth a look, especially on a rainy night on the couch.

Cheat (2024)

A woman begins an affair to fill the hole in her marriage. However she made a bad choice and soon finds herself in danger and fighting for her life.

This is a good little thriller  that holds our interest by taking a few extra twists and turns with things. I mention this because erotic thrillers of this sort  have been done to death over the years and its nice when you get one where  a twist are two are not anything that you can see coming. Sure you’ll see some of this coming way ahead of the  characters but at the same time you probably won’t see them all.

To be honest while I like these sort of thrillers when they are done right, I don’t often a lot to say about them because I tend to use them as palate cleanse after I’ve been watching weightier stuff. In the current  case this was the cleanse after Venice and TIFF.

I had a good time with CHEAT and if you like these small scale thrillers with a nasty edge, I recommend you take a look,

MALDOROR (2024) Venice 2024

This 1990’s set thriller based in part of actual events when the police organizations in Belgium were all competing with each other and trying to catch a psycho who was kidnapping young women. The film focuses on a young cop assigned to a task force who ends up taking things into his own hands because his superiors let things get away from them.

MALODOROR is a frequently tense little thriller. A tale of frustration as the cops desperately try to get their man, the film is going to have you sitting on the edge of your seat during several sequence…including the opening credits which is highly surprising.

Unfortunately the film is going to frustrate you. It’s not that the film takes any bad turns, more that the film is trying to cover a lot of ground. We aren’t just following the cop, but his wife, her family, and other people as well. The result is a film that appears to be juggling a lot of balls and isn’t always focused. Instead of a laser focused film the film feels rambling as there is an effort to give the film a broader  background.

There is so much to love in this film that I wish the film cut tighter and more focused because by the time you get to the end of two and a half hours you feel the wrong sort of beaten up.

My reservations aside, there is enough here both narratively and thematically that the film is worth a look.

THE MOHICAN (2024) Venice 2024

Joseph a goat herder in Corsica refuses to sell his land to the mafia. They think he is just being cagey and will eventually sell. He doesn't plan to. When he kills one of them men who was supposed to intimidate him he has to flee.  While the mafia tries to hunt Joseph down so they can force him to get revenge and sign his land over to them, his daughter refuses to back down and spreads Joseph's story.

Not what you expect thriller, travels closer to reality than pretty much any other similar story. This is not a film full of big action sequences, but small tense encounters that have weight because we are dealing with real people.  Even the bad guys have a realness to them. It's a film that you feel in your gut.

Beautifully shot, with a score that drives things forward THE MOHICAN is a film that grabs you early and keeps you watching to the end. More importantly it's a film that is going to make you wonder where events go after the fade out. Yes,  there is an ending, but you still want to know what happens to the characters past that.

While this is a small gem of a film, I don't want to over sell it. As I said above this isn't full of big action sequences. Instead this is a film where the characters carry the tale. If you want to see a super little thriller  THE MOHICAN is recommended.

PSYCHOSIS (2023) hits VOD today

Horror/comedy/thriller hybrid concerns a fixer who hears voices and has an internal narrator narrating his life, getting mixed up with drug dealers who run afoul with a criminal mastermind/monster and has to fight for his life and those he loves.

One of a kind film is one that is best seen with a large appreciative audience. Knowingly made, the film plays into things at times so that it will provoke the audience watching it adding to the fun. Looking like a waking black and white nightmare shot in the Academy ratio, the film feels like it should have been released back in the days when midnight movies played every Friday and Saturday night.

I really liked the film, though I wish I had seen it in a theater instead of a laptop. As I said above this is a film that would have been so much better with people reacting and talking to the screen. Even without an audience there is enough here to delight film fans who like the off beat and like call backs to cinema of old (this film might have made a hell of a serial)

Recommended.

Catching Dust in theaters and VOD 8/23

An artistic young woman living in the desert with her criminal husband is looking to get out. When a couple from the city shows up she talks her husband into letting them stay and it results in unexpected turns.

Unexpected is the best description for this film. While nominally a kind of noir relationship drama, the film takes turns that you probably won’t see coming. I know I didn’t see some of them which absolutely delighted me. I say that because so many similar films follow the expected paths that I tend not to gravitate toward seeing them because I’ve sorted it out ten minutes in.

The real reason that the film works are the performances. Erin Moriarty and Jai Courtney, in the leads are truly dynamite. They give their characters a grace and depth that you don’t usually see in films like this. We feel the weight of their actions and we feel their emotional connections in ways that give the finale a real kick. I did not expect to be moved as I was. Honestly Moriarity and Courtney are so good they make this a must see.

Recommended

Other Laurens (2024) opens Friday

The niece of a private detective asks him to investigate the death of her father, his estranged and rich twin brother. He supposedly died in a drunken car crash but the girl insists that her father had given up drinking. Getting to the house he finds things are odd with his American wife, bikers and assorted unsavory people wandering around.

Good looking off kilter thriller is a cinematic ride that is going to keep you guessing about what is going on to the very end. That last statement I mean in both a good way and a bad way. I mean it in a good way because this multilayer thriller has a lot going on. There is so much going on regarding the mystery and the themes the film is exploring beyond that that it takes a good chunk of the film before things begin to come together. The problem is that by the time the end credits roll I’m not sure they’ve explained everything. When I got to the end I wanted to watch the film again because I felt like I had missed something.

Unfortunately, I’m not sure there is enough there to make it worth a second viewing. While I enjoyed the ride, I didn’t care about the destination.  I don’t think I was really satisfied at the end.  Part of it was some of the digressions along the way specifically the speeches, and thematic explorations of who we are/rich vs poor really never lead anywhere. I also don’t like the way the film works overtime making things obscure for our hero only to give us a just okay resolution. Much of my dislike is how people speak in ways that people really don’t. It might just be the subtitles but at the same time some of the English dialog feels artificial as if it was written by someone who can speak American English but not in a way that Americans actually speak.

Forgive me if this review seems more negative that it should. There is so much in OTHER LAUREN I like, say what you will it has style to burn, and it made me really lean in and want to see where it was going, but I am really disappointed it didn’t stick the landing.

Reservation aside if you want to take a really good cinematic ride whose parts are better than the whole give this is a shot.

ALL ALONE TOGETHER (2024) Popcorn Frights 2024

A filmmaker with a questionable grip on reality has his horror films start to intrude into his life.

I really didn't like this film much. The problem is that Lincoln, the main character is more than bit odd. He is a guy who is a bit too in his own head and his own world which makes the intrusion of his fantasy world into his reality making  perfect sense. He's so disconnected from reality that everything that follows is more or less a foregone conclusion.

The problem of having a main character who is already nuts when the film starts rarely works.  The problem first became noticeable to me was in the film FALLING DOWN. The Michael Douglas' character was billed as being a regular guy, but the truth was he wasn't wrapped too tight going in. He was in fact already broken as the film started. While Lincoln isn't that broken he is close and it's clear there is a problem. When we get films like this I find it hard to connect because it isn't watch a regular person, it's instead gawking at a person breaking apart. 

I'd take a pass but I have read some reviews that loved this. If you do see this stay past the first ten minutes, the film opens with scenes from Lincoln's film and it's not very good, however what follows is worth trying.

There's a Zombie Outside (2024) Popcorn Frights 2024

Small scale thriller concerns a young man on an outing with friends who begins to annoy his buddies by insiting that he is seeing a zombie just outside the window. They don’t see it of course.

What is going on is not what it appears or is it going to go how you think it will. What is happening is something else and as a result this is a nice little palette cleanse of film from your typical horror stuff.  When I saw this it was after literally three festivals of heavy genre choices. I didn’t want a film that followed the well worn paths of horror and suspense, so when I started this gem of a film and found it taking it’s own path I was delighted. I knew I was going to see something where I wasn’t going to have figured it all out ten minutes in.

Watching this at home I paused the film went to get some popcorn and then came back and curled up on the couch,.

Is THERE A ZOMBIE OUTSIDE going to shake the pillars of heaven? No. But it will entertain, which having slogged through too many weak horror/thrillers of the last few weeks is more than enough to make me recommend this.

Strange Darling (2023) Popcorn Frights 2024

 

There are very few things that are a certainty, death, taxes and JT Mollner‘s STRANGE DARLING is going to be a film with a huge following. The story of a serial killer chasing after his latest victim who is trying fleeing is murderous intentions. It is told with enough style that Mollner is going to be dining out on it for decades to come.

Shot on 35mm this film is a technical marvel. A flash back to the driving films of the late 70’s and early 80’s, this is a film that recalls the technical virtuosity of films like VANISHING POINT, the first two MAD MAX films, RACE WITH THE DEVIL and drive in horror. MOLLNER knows his film history and he mines it for ore to use here. What he’s doing is not lifting bits or sequences, but instead using the past a template for his work. His film was built on those earlier films but not a copy of them. He is using film history the way it should be used – raising up the art form by standing on the past, not making an exact copy.

As a physical film this is one of the best films of the year and probably of the last five years. The skill with which this film has been assembled is absolutely beyond compare. If Mollner can make more films with this sort “oh wow” factor he will be hailed as one of the greatest ever.

However as much as I absolutely love the craft of the film I’m not really a fan of the storytelling. Told in six out of order chapters the story doesn’t really work. It’s a standard issue bad guy stalks a woman tale with a few twists.  The characters are not really real people, but are constructs that exist because the cast is so good. Additionally if the story wasn’t told out of order there wouldn’t be suspense. While allegedly based on a true story some late in the game turns feel added on just to keep the story going. Mollner may be a wizard in making the film, his scripting could use a little help.

But the script is not what you are going to remember when you come out of the film. What you are going to remember is the driving nature of this thrill ride of the film. It’s such a cinematic blast that you are going to want to go again not long after you get to the end credits- I know I did.

Recommended

Dirty Bad Wrong (2024) Fantasia 2024

A sex worker needing money for her son’s birthday books a client with a dark fetish in order to get money.

Disturbing suspense film is hard to write in because the film isn’t about the plot but mood, and the mood is as deeply disturbing as they come because you don’t where the hell this is going or how this is going to play out.

That’s a rave folks.

Its so bothersome I don’t want to write on the film because it makes me feel off.

Highly recommended.

The Killers (2024) NYAFF 2024 Fantasia 2024

THE KILLERS is a very good multipart film that suffers the fate of any portmanteau or anthology film in that the parts are uneven with the best ones making the others seem less thrilling.  This is especially true of this film where two parts are among the best films you’ll see all year.

METAMORPHOSIS concerns a man who runs in to trouble with the mob. He stumbles into a bar with a knife in his back and that’s where things get interesting. It’s a fantastic film that sets the bar impossibly high. It’s so good and the set up makes me want to see a feature sequel- particularly with the bartender.

CONTRACTORS is the story of a woman who pays for a hit and how the contract gets farmed out and the payment to the actual killer ends up getting less and less, It’s a wicked tale with a great deal of social commentary going on. It suffers following the previous story, but is still good.

EVERYONE IS WAITING FOR THE MAN is the second stunner. It maybe better than the first story. It’s the story of a bunch of hit men looking for a psycho killer and what happens when they run into a restaurant. It’s an ever twisting perfectly written tale that will make you lean in and anxious to see where it goes. It’s magnificent

THE KILLERS is the weakest of the bunch. Coming after two classics and a good  story the film ends up seeming like a form over content exercise. While it isn’t bad, it really either should have started the film or been released as a stand alone.

Reservations aside, I still love this film with the great parts making it worth the price of admission

A pointer to Mash Ville (2024) Fantasia 2024

This is more a pointer than a review. I say this because the off kilter nature of the film didn’t quite connect with me, I suspect because I saw it after a long day watching films.

The film has three brothers selling bootleg hooch. When a batch of their alcohol kills someone they have to go out and get it back. They then run into a bunch of cultists who are going around killing people and then praying over their bodies.  It’s a crazy battle for survival.

Well done with it’s own sense of reality, this is a nifty little comedic thriller that will grab your attention.  The problem for me was that while I was watching the film I found I wasn’t in the mood for a film that wasn’t straight forward.  Its wasn’t that I wasn’t liking it but more along the lines of not finding the thing you want to eat.Sure you have good food in the house but you don’t want that.

That said- I know MASH VILLE is very good and worth a look.

A Long Shot (2024) NYAFF 2024

This is an under the radar thriller that may very well end up on my end of year best list.

Gu, a former professional sharpshooter is forced to take a security job at a factory. Things become complicated when a tensions in the factory, hurt by the Chinese financial reforms, turn things into powder keg. At the same time his girlfriends son is close to going off the rails.

Social commentary collides with slow burn thriller in a film that slowly builds suspense until it’s almost unbearable. Credit the films low key gritty presentation  and the films take no prisoners attitude that makes up fear for the safety of everyone on screen.  It’s a hell of a ride that had me wondering where it was going to at the start and then staring blankly at the screen in fear for the characters I had come to love.

This is a great thriller of the sort that we only get from China.

Highly recommended for anyone willing to wait for the slow burn to pay off in spades.

ONPAKU (2022) NYAFF 2024

Real Estate investor from Hong Kong travel to Japan on business and ends up stuck between this world and the next.

Head scratching supernatural thriller has me uncertain as to why this film brought Josie Ho to the United States, couldn't they have picked a better film? This is a messy film where the narrative thread seems to be broken and so little is explained that there is nothing to really hold our interest. Worse it's a tale that begs borrows and steals from any number of other, better films.

The images are creepy and their marriage to the aggressive soundtrack makes for some scary moments, but they are few and fleetingly far between.

Honestly if this film didn't have Josie Ho attached to it this film would never have escaped to these shores.

A huge disappointment.

FOR ALICE (2024) NYAFF 2024

Tai Bo and Kuku So give performances for the ages in the tale of two lost souls who meet and become friends. It's one of the best films at this year's New York Asian Film Festival despite going a little banana shaped in the plotting.

The film has Bo's character going to stay for a brief time with his brother. He ends up running into a young woman who is trying to get the hell out of dodge because her mother's boyfriend is a creep. 

 A moody compelling film, this is a film where the the two leads give us everything by putting it on their faces and in their movements. It's an amazing film where you could watch it with the sound off and know what was going on because the leads are just so damn good.

I love this film a great deal. 

I love how it looks, which is stunning. It's a film where the images makes us feel we are in the rooms and on the streets with the characters.

I love how, for the most part, the film is all about the characters. I love how the film makes us belt in and go where ever the film is headed because we care about the characters on the screen.  I say this because as good as so much of this film is, there are moments in the last third where it takes a few less than organic turns. It's not fatal, but you'll wish the characters were give something better by the screenwriter. 

My quibbles aside, you need to see this. Tai Bo one again proves he's one of the best actors working today and Kuku So matches him stride for stride.

Highly recommended.