A pointer toward Sad Girlz (2026)Tribeca 2026

If you want to be a film writer of any real quality you have to be aware of your own tastes and the tastes of the filmmaker. You can not always assume that every film you see is a film you are capable of reviewing. You need to know that some films are not going to be for you because you are the wrong audience.  You need to be able to step away and say, "this was never intended for me."

SAD GIRLZ is a film that was never intended for me, and while I will say a couple of quick things about it, I'm going to leave it for you to discover.

Nominally the plot of the film has two girls who are on the swim team together going to a party where something happens. The write up from Tribeca will make the film sound like it is a heavy drama and thriller because of what happens in the aftermath. However, the film is a serious coming of age film that looks at the relationship at the girls and ponders life and friendship.

The film is well made and well acted, and is such that it is telling a tale that is going to play best with young women several decades younger than myself. It's afilm that is exploring a life and experience that was alien to me and made me wonder how this woulf have played if I was 18 and female. That isn't to suggest the film is bad, instead it is simply to recognize that I did not connect to this film on any emotional level and so I don't feel qualified to speak about it being truly good ot bad - even if I can appreciate the quality of the filmmaking.

SACRIFICIOS (2025) FANTASPOA 2026

A father grieveing the loss of his son, heads off to sea and ends up pulling his son from the water, however if he wants to keep the boy alive the gods require a sacrifice.

This is heady and emotional film. The film is a look at grief, guilt and mouring in an unexpected way. While framed as a kind of fairy tale or something full of magical realism, the film is also a kind of horror film as we watch a man deal with the worst thing that most people can imagine. It's a film that seeks to ponder its ideas in unexpected ways, melding Christian ideas with those of the Aztecs. It is a film that is going to leave many in the audience broken.

When you see this film, don't think about notions of genre or classifications. SACRIFICIOS is not really anything other than one man's walk through the dark place of child loss. The shifts through various "genres" is simply a way of examining the dark night of the soul at the center of the tale. I say this because I know that since the film is playing at Fantaspoa some people are going to go into the film looking for it to be a horror film. It kind of is, but it really isn't. This is the best sort of film, an examination of the human condition in another form.

This is something special. See it.

Brief thoughts on DAUGHTERS OF THE FOREST CPH:DOX & SXSW

A look at two mushroom specialists and the relationship between people and mushrooms.

You will forgive me if I keep my thoughts on this film brief. I really liked this fim, but having recently spent a couple oif hours with my niece who loves mushrooms I feel like she should have been the one to be reviewing it so that you could get  a real sense of the wonderful  things that are in this film.

For me this is a great look at mushrooms and people, in particular the indigenious people of Mexico. Its a film that reveals how important mushrooms are. Its a film that connected me to the love my niece has forms them. 

Do yourself and take a trip.

Recommended.

The Woman of Stars and Mountains/ MUKÍ SOPALÍRILI ALIGUÉ GAWICHÍ NIRÚGAME (2023)

This begins as a look an a woman named Rita who ended up confined in a mental hospital for years because no one could understand what she was saying (she speaks a rare dialect). The film then changes along the way as things are not what they seem. 

This is more a ride then a desitination. 

Think of it as a film as a journey where we are told a story and slowly come to see the life and the circumstances that people live under. We see notions of racism and how our not knowing things, say an Indgenious dialect, cause problems for people. Rita wasn't really crazy she just couldn't commincate and lashed out. 

There is a lot to take in here. It is a bracing film that forces us to reconsider how we view each other and the things around us. It's an incredible film that I can't believe hasn't been on anyone's radar. This literally just missed beingon my best of 2025 list but the pacing of the film -which mirrors Rita's life- was a bit too slow for the mood I was in in when I watched the film.

Brief thoughts on WE SHALL NOT BE MOVED (2024)

Mexico's entry for the Oscars has an older attorney who has been attempting to find out what happened to her brother in the protests of 1968 receiving some information that sends he down a rabbit hole. 

Dry black comedy/drama is a mannered affair. Shot in a moody black and white it has the feel of a film that is trying to be something more than a comedy. I was amused for the most part and I interested enough that I wanted to see where it was going. At the same time there was something about the presentation that didn't connect to me and I felt outside of the action.

At the same time there is enough here to recommend it because I think if nothing else, you'll be like me and like the film.

THE SHIPWRECKED (2025) IDFA 2025

 

SHIPWRECKED follows the lives of several people as they try to navigate today’s world in their own way. A young man plants a garden, scientists in love, some peasants simply try to survive, a church restorer trying to bring beauty to the world and through it all we watch as they try and navigate the world.

When you see SHIPWRECKED, you will have to let it play out for a bit before it clicks. It’s not that there is anything wrong, simply that that the film shifts stories just as we connect to the story we are being told. Once you get into the film and fully feel the rhythms it goes like gangbusters. It’s a film that pulls you along and opens your eyes by showing you things in unexpected ways.

I can’t say much more than that because the film is a ride you need to see  because part of the magic is watching it weave the tapestry of seemingly unconnected stories into a magnificent Quilt.

Recommended.

I Am Frankelda (2025) Opens on the 22nd in Mexico

Please excuse me I am about to gush uncontrolablly.  This film had me staring at the screen wondering what I had gotten myself into. When it finished I was emailing friends and aquintances to see if they had seen it yet.

Simply Arturo and Roy's Ambriz I AM FRANKELDA (Soy Frankelda) is a cinematic masterpiece. This is a film whose visual wonders are going to make your brain explode.

Billed as the first stop motion film from Mexico, this is light years beyond what most studios are doing. There is so much detail in so many of the frames you are going to need multiple viewings just to catch everything. I completely understand why this film is on so many people's must see lists. 

The plot of the film is about Francisca, a young woman who writes fiction that can open the walls between worlds.  Her words attract the attention of Herneval, a owl prince. As the pair move in their worlds there is a plot afoot in Herneval's world would cause chaos for both worlds. 

While you may sense a similarity to other fantastical tales, what the Ambriz Brother do is to expand the material found elsewhere including their series FRANKELD'S BOOK OF SPOOKS and make it something new and wonderful. With the canvas of a feature film they were able to let things play out and not have to worry about having to end every couple of minutes. Characters are more fleshed out and themes hit home. Everything is allowed to fill out as fully as possible.

I'm going to be honest and say it isn't perfect, there are some clunky moments. There are a couple of times where the Ambrizs don't quite hit their target, but at the same time they are aiming to do infinitely more than any animation studio in America. I will gladly take a film like that this that is full of wonders, heart and idea, but has a couple of burps,  instead of a slick mindless distraction I'm going to forget.  I say this as someone who has been wrestling with how to write this up for a week, while other film have come and gone.

Honestly you don't need me talking about this film, pulling it apart and saying what I think you should see. What you need to do is go out and buy a ticket and find your own wonder and magic.

Recommended.

OCA (2025) Toronto 2025

I have been wrestling with OCA since I first saw it.  I’ve watched it three times now and I’m still not certain what I think of it.  Normally I would say that it is a good thing because it means I’ve remained connected to the film but with OCA I’m not sure if that’s a good thing, largely because I’m not sure I know what the film is trying to say.

The film is the story of a nun named Oca. She is in a dying convent in the country. It is only herself and two other nuns. Oca is prone to having mystical visions. She is sent by her superior to speak to the archbishop about saving the convent. She is told if she is not successful, not to come back. Along the way she meets some pilgrims carrying a saint, a rich woman with an important husband and a pilot who wants to go on leave but can’t because of the arrival of the archbishop.

Set up as journey of faith, OCA is a film that is always reaching to say something more than the surface. The people Oca meet are not just people but representation of some spiritual aspect. This is fine for the deeper meaning but for the human narrative the film feels artificial. Since everyone isn’t just a person, they never are human, and we never connect. My repeated watching of the film was a search for a human being on the screen and not a cinematic treatise.

Intellectually I like the film, but emotionally I don’t need to see it again.

A pointer toward Silent Light (2007) Locarno 2025

This is a restorartion of a film Barry Jenkins has called the greatest film of the 21st century.

Opening and closing with long tracking shots- the opening is of the sun rising, the closing is of it setting this the medatative look at an affair in a devout Mennonite community. 

This is a very deliberate film. It moves at the speed of life. Actually more accurately it moves at it's own speed of life. Events play out in real time only to have us realize that months have passed. It's a film that places us in a unique place and time. 

While I like this film, I don't love it.  I find that as much as the film strives to reflect real life, I find that the fingerprints of the director a bit too visible. Things play out as in life until they don't. The magic realism doesn't click.

On the other hand many people love this film like Barry Jenkins and it's on numerous greatest films ever made lists. 

If you've never seen it, give it a try.

I am Frankelda (2025) Fantasia 2025

Please excuse me I am about to gush uncontrolablly.  This film had me staring at the screen wondering what I had gotten myself into. When it finished I was emailing friends and aquintances to see if they had seen it yet.

Simply Arturo and Roy's Ambriz I AM FRANKELDA (Soy Frankelda) is a cinematic masterpiece. This is a film whose visual wonders are going to make your brain explode.

Billed as the first stop motion film from Mexico, this is light years beyond what most studios are doing. There is so much detail in so many of the frames you are going to need multiple viewings just to catch everything. I completely understand why this film is on so many people's must see lists. 

The plot of the film is about Francisca, a young woman who writes fiction that can open the walls between worlds.  Her words attract the attention of Herneval, a owl prince. As the pair move in their worlds there is a plot afoot in Herneval's world would cause chaos for both worlds. 

While you may sense a similarity to other fantastical tales, what the Ambriz Brother do is to expand the material found elsewhere including their series FRANKELD'S BOOK OF SPOOKS and make it something new and wonderful. With the canvas of a feature film they were able to let things play out and not have to worry about having to end every couple of minutes. Characters are more fleshed out and themes hit home. Everything is allowed to fill out as fully as possible.

I'm going to be honest and say it isn't perfect, there are some clunky moments. There are a couple of times where the Ambrizs don't quite hit their target, but at the same time they are aiming to do infinitely more than any animation studio in America. I will gladly take a film like that this that is full of wonders, heart and idea, but has a couple of burps,  instead of a slick mindless distraction I'm going to forget.  I say this as someone who has been wrestling with how to write this up for a week, while other film have come and gone.

Honestly you don't need me talking about this film, pulling it apart and saying what I think you should see. What you need to do is go out and buy a ticket and find your own wonder and magic.

Recommended.

SPARE MY BONES, COYOTE! (2025) Hot Docs 2025

This is a crushing look at the work of Marisela and Ely Ortíz have been roaming the US-Mexico desert looking to find the bodies of the migrants who were abandoned by coyotes on their treks into America. It’s a bitterly sad tale of a couple and their group who try to bring closure to the families who had their loved ones disappear.

This is easily one of the best docs I’ve seen this year.  

In a time where migrants are demonized this is a film that returns the humanity to the term. It's also a film that reminds us that there are still good people in the world. 

I was moved to the point where I can't really express myself.

In an age when the far right wants to make you think the people who are trying for a better life are monsters, this is reminder that they are people, with lives and families

Highly recommended.

The Great History of Western Philosophy (2025)

I discovered  THE GREAT HISTORY OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY when I was looking at the Festival Scope website and discovered the trailer. I was so taken by the film I reached out to the filmmakers and asked them to see it. I had and have no idea where this film is playing but I had to see it.

Director Aria Covamonas has crafted a tale about a a cosmic animator who is forced by the Central Committee to make a philosophical film under the gaze of Chairman Mao. The result is a film that bounces through the history of philosophy, Chinese history and with aLooney Tunes style madness. It's done via cut out and collage animation mshed up with public domain images and sound.

Think what would have happened if Monty Python had a political Terry Gilliam make animation shot through vat of concentrate hallucunogenic drugs and magic mushrooms, with a dialog track largely in Chinese, an absurd sense of reality and the sensibility of Salvador Dali while mimicing  Eastern European animation during the Soviet years.

This may be the greatest midnight movie ever made... made some 50 years after the heyday of midnight movies. Watching this I was transported back to the mind melting years when I went to see the wild and wonton films that are now legends.  Watching this was like being trapped in midnight cinema when wrong drugs kicked in.

WOW.

I am not going to lie, but I have no idea what is going on in this film but it bent and broken my brain in the best sort of way.

This film is cinematic ART (the capitalization is intentional) of the highest order. 

To be certain this is not going to work foreveryone (squares need not apply) but for those who want something to open your mind without drugs (or even with drugs) THE GREAT HISTORY OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY is required viewing.

This is one of the greatest films I've seen in 2025...and maybe ever. You need to see this- you may not like it, but I'm damn sure that even as you stagger out into the day light you will know you have seen something.

Track this film down

PÁRVULOS: CHILDREN OF THE APOCALYPSE (2024)

I want to just say "Don't read any reviews-Just buy a ticket and go see PARVULOS". I say that because the film changes and changes and changes and while you will know where a bit of this is going- you won't know it all and it will punch you in your face like a boxing glove filled with cement.

The plot, or as much as I am going to say, concerns three brothers after a plague has ravaged the world. Lots of people are dead and the brothers are living in the wilderness trying very hard not to have any contact with anyone.

That's all I will say about the plot....

...about everything else I will say that director Isaac Ezban's film is a wicked little gem. It's a film that is very much about family. It is a family drama disguised as a horror film. The horror stuff is merely the window dressing for a film about the love of three brothers. It's a film that soars because Ezban stays focused on the characters and lets us watch how they are forced to fight for each other as things happen. 

I know, I know many of you want to know how it is as a horror film. It's really good, but it's more a thriller than a straight on horror film. Yes, there are horror elements but as I said the film is more interested in other things.

Shot with a deliberate use of lens and muted color palate that beautifully put us in a time and place. It's a film where the images set the mood almost as much as the story. I wasn't sure about some of the way Izban used certain lens, but it grew on me, more so when I realized how off the images were making me feel- they were dragging me down the rabbit hole.

I'm sorry if this a bit rambling and disjointed but this is a film you need to see and not read about. The power of this film comes from taking the journey from first fframe to the last. It's a film where how the revelations are made affect how you feel. It's a film where you have to go with where it wants to take you because the film is not what you think it is. Nothing is as you suspect, and I don't want to give you any clues about what happens beyond what Ezban has allowed us to know.

Trust me on this, PARVULOS is a stunner... more to the point it's destined to be consider a classic.

CORINA (2025) SXSW 2025

Corina is a 28 year old woman who lives with her mom and will mot go past her block. A tragedy when she was young made it so she is terrified of venturing out. Thankfully her job at a publisher is nearby. When she alters a great authors work, she finds that she has to rush out and speak to the author or else have all hell break loose.

One of the most charming films I’ve seen in 2025, I’ve recommended it to several friends covering SXSW because it is so good.

This is a small joy of a film that will put a huge smile on your face. Blame everyone connected to the film because they have put together a lovely little film that has a wicked sense of humor (you will fear cars once you stop laughing).

I don’t know what to say other that when it was done I wanted to start the film and go again.

That’s a rave.

Highly recommended.

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

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

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

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

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

EMILIA PEREZ(2024) NYFF 2024

This is the story of an attorney who is hired by the head of a Mexican drug cartel to help him transition into becoming a woman and what happens after that. It is a musical drama thriller with a strong thread of social commentary. It is also probably unlike anything you have ever seen. It is a glorious filmmaking and a wonderful cinematic experience.

I honestly don't know what I think of this film. It is such an odd mix of styles and forms seemingly tied up in a telenovela form that not everything hits. Yes it's all extremely well done, but the film's one of a kind construction causes some bumps. This isn't the result of it being a musical, its much more complicated than that, rather it's doing so much more that I'm not certain it makes all of the connections it could or should.

That is not a knock, rather statement that I am having to take time to ponder this new form.

The filmmaking is masterful and Jacques Audiard  needs to get a best director nomination at the Oscars and everywhere else. I say this because he has made a film that shouldn't logically work, but instead wows the audience and leaves them feeling alive even if they aren't sure of how they feel about pieces of it.

The cast is great. Everyone sells their roles. It anyone had any doubts about the range of Selena Gomez or Zoe Saldana as actresses this film will put that to rest.

This film is a stunner and my lack of discussion is purely due to the fact that I'm still processing it.

Go see this film.

Brief thoughts on Lazaro At Night (2024) NYFF 2024 Toronto 2024

Three friends all try to get the same acting job. Afterward they get together and discus when they first met.

Dry art house comedy is not going to be for all audiences. Its a low key film  about largely bland people. Well except for Lazaro who is a bit of dick. He's the sort of a guy  you wonder how he he has any friends. 

To be honest I didn't much care for this. I kept  waiting for something exciting to happen or for me to feel something for someone on screen. it never happened.

For art house hounds only.

MEXICO 86 (2024) Locarno 2024

 

Director Cesar Diaz tells a story based on his own life about a woman who is forced to leave her son with her mother because she has to flee the country because of her anti-government activities. Ten years later, she returns to take her son back after her mother is diagnosed with terminal cancer. 

This is is a film that will sneak up on you and leave you teary. The final shots broke my heart. This is a wonderful look at the love of a mother for her child and the things that they sometimes have to do to keep them safe.

This maybe one of the most perfect films I've seen. Everything works from top to bottom, with the cast all worthy of Oscars or any other acting award you can think of. Yea there are highs and lows, but it's all part of the rhythms of the tale. 

I was going to just try the film to see how it was and then the next thing I knew the end credits were rolling and I was mopping tears.

That's a rave.

One of the most unexpected and wonderful cinematic discoveries of the year.

See this film

PÁRVULOS (2024) Fantasia 2024

I want to just say "Don't read any reviews-Just buy a ticket and go see PARVULOS". I say that because the film changes and changes and changes and while you will know where a bit of this is going- you won't know it all and it will punch you in your face like a boxing glove filled with cement.

The plot, or as much as I am going to say, concerns three brothers after a plague has ravaged the world. Lots of people are dead and the brothers are living in the wilderness trying very hard not to have any contact with anyone.

That's all I will say about the plot....

...about everything else I will say that director Isaac Ezban's film is a wicked little gem. It's a film that is very much about family. It is a family drama disguised as a horror film. The horror stuff is merely the window dressing for a film about the love of three brothers. It's a film that soars because Ezban stays focused on the characters and lets us watch how they are forced to fight for each other as things happen. 

I know, I know many of you want to know how it is as a horror film. It's really good, but it's more a thriller than a straight on horror film. Yes, there are horror elements but as I said the film is more interested in other things.

Shot with a deliberate use of lens and muted color palate that beautifully put us in a time and place. It's a film where the images set the mood almost as much as the story. I wasn't sure about some of the way Izban used certain lens, but it grew on me, more so when I realized how off the images were making me feel- they were dragging me down the rabbit hole.

I'm sorry if this a bit rambling and disjointed but this is a film you need to see and not read about. The power of this film comes from taking the journey from first fframe to the last. It's a film where how the revelations are made affect how you feel. It's a film where you have to go with where it wants to take you because the film is not what you think it is. Nothing is as you suspect, and I don't want to give you any clues about what happens beyond what Ezban has allowed us to know.

Trust me on this, PARVULOS is a stunner... more to the point it's destined to be consider a classic.

State of Silence (2024) Tribeca 2024

This is a look at the open season on journalists in Mexico as the cartels, business men and the government hunt and kill anyone who opposes them.

Disappointing and uniforming this film should be a warning to viewers about the dangers of an unchecked  government and corruption and crime instead it is a collection of the names of reporters with no clear indication of what they were covering when they were killed or threatened. Watching the film I found myself hopelessly lost as there was no explanation a to who anyone was or what we are really seeing.

I suspect that if you know about current events in Mexico this film may make some sense, but comeing from the outside I was totally lost.