GROUNDSWELL (2026) Cannes 2026

GROUNDSWELL is a not so much a documentary but a polemic that seeks to have us curb climate change by altering how we grow food and stop the destruction of the forests. It is a film that is full of eye-catching images, rapid fire tidbits in the way of facts flashed on screen, a soaring score, peppy narration full of hope and a complete and total insincere tone that made me want to turn off the movie  early on.

This is a well-meaning film with a desire to make it clear that we can fix the problems of the world. It is also  is an over produced film that is going to beat us into submission and pull us over to its side by throwing everything but the kitchen sink at us in a style so slick nothing sticks. This  the glossiest public service announcement you can imagine. Its full of so many rapid-fire facts that most of them fall by the wayside. I completely love that the filmmakers trust their audience to take in all the needed information but things move at such a clip that we don’t have time to process anything. I know much of this material from reading and from other films and I got lost and overwhelemed. 

This might have worked but the film gives us zero context for anything. We have facts but no context to hang them on. We are given the facts but nothing to impart the understanding of what they mean in relation to anything.

I got some bits:

The destruction of the environment is bad. Fine.

Thefilmmakers know how we fix it. Okay.

(raises hand) Are you going to tie any of this into the real world in a way that  it hits home and hits our guts so we get off our asses and do something?

No?

What what are you going to do instead?

"We are going to give you more facts, and more happy narration by rich celebrities who probably could do more than narrate a film that probably won't get seen widely enough and seems to exist to simply make them feel like they are doing something when they really aren’t doing anything."

I’m sorry for being snarky but this is an f-ing important issue and being made to watch a 100 minute feel good PSA that doesn't grab us by the genitals and make it clear that if we don't act, we are doomed, is not going to save to world. 

Again, I'm sorry but while all the facts are here (no really everything you need to know is here), but the presentation thinks more is more, that how fast we are fed all the information doesn't matter so long we are given it and that making it hopeful, doesn't work. 

There are other better and meatier documentaries on climate change (and go find one of those instead of wasting your time on this film.

Re-Creation (2025) Tribeca 2025

In 1996 French filmmaker Sophie Toscan Du Plantier was murdered near  her home in West Cork. While journalist Ian Bailey was suspected by the police he was never charged in Ireland. He was tried in absentia in France and found guilty. RE-CREATION is speculation on what might have happened in the jury room if Irish authorities had taken it to trial.

There have been numerous documentaries investigating the case including a Netflix limited series that Bailey sued  over. I've seen several of them and I am intrigued by the case. I still am not certain as to what happened. This is another attempt to make sense of the murder.

While some of the promotional material suggests that this is an examination of the facts of the case that will allow the audience to decide, this is actually a polemic that is arguing that Bailey may not have been the killer. I don't have a problem with that but there are issues with some aspects of the film.

The first problem is that director/star Jim Sheridan is a friend or aquaintence of Ian Bailey. (I'm still not 100% certain how friendly they were/are). While that's fine unto itself, presenting this film as a wholly neutral film (we are supposed to make up our own minds) doesn't work. The problem wouldn't exist if Sheridan wasn't in the film, but the fact  is he acting as the foreman and is steering the discussion and he does so in a manner that isn't natural. This is more a dramatic lecture not a dramatic film.

The other problem is that a great deal of what we see and hear are things that would never go before the jury. The conceit of this being an actual jury discussion is never really followed as the jury discus evidence that would not have been presented to them (such as statements of one of the witnesses who changed her testimony). I wouldn't have cared but as a real trial film this film collapses. (Yes I know what goes in the US is not what would happen in Ireland, but some of the evidence was listed as questionable by some of the documentaries)

While I like the film, its an intriguing concept, I really wish that Sheridan had simply made a documentary. He could have said what he wanted with out wrapping it in material that forces the facts and the fiction to grate against each other (why do you have Colm Meaney silently play Bailey when Bailey appears in actual photos? And why use Vicky Krieps  when all she does is just ask questions?)

My resenvations aside the film is worth a look, especially if you like true crime tales.

Hysteria (2025) Berlin 2025

A clash of cultures in and a round the making of a film  that is complicated when a Quoran is burned on a film set.

This film didn't connect to me. Blame the script which is less a drama and more a polemic. People don't discuss, they simply state their position and argue it. It's intellectually compelling, but it's not emotionally. I never really cared.

And I tried to connect this film. I watched the film three times and it never got better, there were lines  and positions and words, but there was no real words.

If you like heady discussions over real emotion give this a shot otherwise you can give it a pass.

Rumours (2024) NYFF 2024

Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, and Galen Johnson tell the story of a G7 meeting during a looming crisis and the weird things that happen as they try to write a draft statement about the events. 

A great cast including Cate Blanchett and Charles Dance chew the scenery in silly look at end of the world. It's a crazy film that doesn't really make any sense, but survives because the cast makes it worth watching.

At the press screening I attended the reaction was mixed. Some people liked it and some people didn't. The argument against the film was that there really wasn't much here. And to be honest I can see that, it is ultimately a shaggy dog tale with a wicked sting in the tale about the uselessness of our leaders, but I liked it. 

If you are a fan of the cast or the directors it's worth a look 

The Witness (2024) Venice 2024

A woman sees a politically connected man kill his wife, a dance instructor. However because of his connection the cops they won’t do anything. Will she give up or search for justice.

Damning portrait of Iranian society is a long pained scream. This is a film where men  are constantly complaining about how the women can’t do anything without their say lest it ruin their standing. Women are abused and literally killed because they are less then men. This is a film that shows just how stacked against women Iranian justice is.

Unfortunately THE WITNESS is so set on making it’s point that that film slips from compelling drama into being a polemic. This is a film that very much wants to make it’s point and it does so loudly, repeatedly. After a while I kind of tuned out as the filmmakers didn’t make their points but yelled them at me at volume.

And then strangely the final scene came…and I was completely shocked. I’m not going to say what happens but the ending sequence is truly one of the greatest endings of the last decade. It is so unexpected and note perfect  that it makes watching the rest of the film worth it. I don’t know if it’s remotely realistic but god damn it is emotionally dead on.

It really is a stunner.

If you want to see a great ending and get really pissed off at Iran I recommend THE WITNESS

NO ONE ASKED YOU (2023) DOC NYC 2023

 

This is a look at Lizz Winstead (co-creator The Daily Show) and her team of activists from Abortion Access Front as they crisscross the country attempting to keep abortion legal across the country. The film begins on the night before  arguments were made in the supreme court in the case the ended Roe and follows them in the weeks and moths that follow.

A very good, very funny polemic that works very hard to make certain we all understand that women have the right to control their bodies and their lives.  It’s wonderful time with some very funny and very smart people who argue their side clearly and succinctly.

I laughed my way from start to finish and felt called to step up.

The problem with the film, and it’s problem that the film had from the moment it was conceived, and that this film is very much a film for the converted. As good and as funny as the film is the film is almost certainly never going to be watched by anyone dead set against women controlling their own lives.  Actually the film is more likely to be picketed or burned.   Of course the mere  fact that the film exists is hopeful since there is a very good chance that it could get out to people on the fence and change some minds.

Recommended

Downwind (2023) Slamdance 2013

The first film on my Best of 2023 list is a gut punch film about the poisoning of the world via radiation from nuclear tests, waste and power plants. This is a film that will haunt you forever after you see it.

Beginning with the first nuclear tests in the American Southwest, the film makes clear that the US government, and others as well, have not had the best interest in the safety of anyone in mind at any point ever. Consider that the initial thought was to do the tests on the east coast so that the fall out went over the ocean, but they thought it would be cheaper to do it  in the west where less important (Native Americans) lived.  It's also made clear they new what the dangers were before the first bomb was exploded but they went ahead anyway.

Odds are if you are like me, you knew some of this before, but you didn't know everything and seeing it all together will over whelm you.

The film is a mix of science and social. We get both the science of where the fall out went and what it does and is still doing to people. While at the same time we see via tales of THE CONQUER (where most of the cast and crew got cancer), CHINA SYNDROME (which barely made it to theaters before Three Mile Island) and Lewis Black's comedy (the insanity of duck and cover) we see how radiation has affected what we see.  And sometimes things merge as when Patrick Wayne talks about the mound of dirt brought to Hollywood from the CONQUER location that is still at the studio and very radioactive. More crushingly the film is filled with the story of dozens of people who died from the direct effects of being exposed to fallout.

This film rocked my world. Yes, it can seem a bit like a polemic, but at the same time, there really is no "other side" to the fact we are all being poisoned.

I have no idea what to say except see this film. 

This is the first great film of 2023.

The Runner (2022)

Aiden is a rich  high school kid who is into running and drugs. After his mother turns him into the cops he is forced by the police to work as an informant unaware of what it is going to cost him.

I'm really not sure what I think of this film. To be honest, the cast is great, the crime stuff is compelling but the script is really bumpy. It tries to paint Aiden as basically a good kid with problems, but a lot of the time he comes off as an absolute jerk. One minute he's cocky and the next he's not. It didn't seem to me that it was a matter of him having different sides, it feels more like they simply have him behave as they need him to at the moment. The film also tries to do somethings with things shifting through time via flashbacks but it gets confusing.

I blame the script's wonkiness on the desire to make this film a polemic of sorts. This film very much wants us to consider the dangers of being an informant, however it's doing so by framing it as a slick crime drama. As a crime drama this film kicks ass,  the problem is the film occasionally wants to fold things into seriousness. The film isn't that. This is a really good, really solid crime drama that doesn't need to have pretensions spray painted on to it.

I need to apologize to the filmmakers and to you the reader because the flood of promotional material which pushed the deeper intentions of the film. Had I not been exposed to it I think I would have enjoyed this more. As a result this is worth a look for crime film fans.

Compulsus (2022) Fantasia 2022

After Wally takes out her anger and frustrations on the chef who was sexually harassing her friend, she begins to hunt men who are taking advantage of women.

This is a much too mannered film of female empowerment by way of a Death Wish/MS 45 like vigilante. While the idea behind the film is really good, execution is not. 

Designed to make a point over and a above it all this heartfelt scream about the #metoo movement never engages. The film is constantly trying to argue it's point at the expense of the story.  For example the dialog is much to measured and full of meaning, the male objects of rage are largely ciphers that we barely see (is this supposed to mean all men are evil?), and the performances are much too mannered to be real much of the time. The result is that the parts that are polemical seem to be a different film with characters disappearing during the "speeches".

I also have some quibbles with how some sequences , particularly the ones involving Wally assaulting men were filmed. The shot choices seem less than idea and rather static with the result there is no tension. It doesn't help that the music used in the attack sequences seems meant for another film with shots seeming not to match up to the beats of the images. 

While the film isn't bad, it isn't what it should be. 

SHADOW (2022) SXSW 2022

 

I don't know how to describe SHADOW. The film is a film about a meeting of disability activists who come together and argue about how best to get the respect that they deserve. It's an meta exercise with it clear that this a film and that there are people with disabilities before and behind the camera. It is also very formal much like a stage play.

Most assuredly a one of a kind film I find it impossible to really parse out my feelings for it. Part of it is that the performances would be considered all over the place owing entirely to the ability of the people on screen. Additionally the script is not natural, it is a polemic that is very much trying to present an argument.  As a result some of it is absolutely brilliant while other bits are noble misses.

Honestly it's wrong  to even try and critique the film simply because of so many issues. That isn't to say it's bad, it isn't, rather it's something that may not work for everyone.

Personally I like the film but I admire what it is trying to do more. I think the film and it's giving voice to the people it wants to empower is important. While some of this will move you, most of this is going to work best in your head where the ideas and debates can play out .

Definitely worth a look, this film is vital and alive in ways the vast majority of films can never hope to match.

WHO IS AMOS OTIS (2021)

 

Based on a play that was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2019. The plot concerns a man who kills the president of the United States and then claims that it was self-defense. He argues that the President’s move toward dictatorship was threatening his life.

This is a good but stage bound film that ponders if political assassination has a place. It is clearly a work of modern America when  Donald Trump sought to crown himself king, stacked the deck to remain in office and many pondered if some one shouldn’t kill him to prevent the loss of America’s freedoms. While some will argue Trump had to do what he felt had to be done, there was and still is a feeling that things are broken politically and the extreme wings of both sides  often suggest that murder is a viable way of dealing with those we don’t like.

I liked this film. While it is really less a film about characters than of ideas, it dos get you thinking. It doesn’t provide easy answers even if it leans toward certain conclusions. While the film would be better if it gave us real characters and not constructs, it’s not fatal to the film.

If there is any problem its that this really is little more than a filmed stage play. There are few sets and the camera set ups are minimal.  While I could argue that the ideas make this a film that needs to reach a potentially the larger audience a film will bring the play,  there is nothing in the presentation that makes this a living breathing film or representation of life. It feels like it would have been better on stage where the lack of action and small cast would have been forgiven.

Still the ideas are powerful and worth a look.

OPEKA (2020) Brooklyn 2020

Portrait of priest Pedro Opeka who is rallying the poor of Madagascar to band together to build a functioning  society since their corrupt leaders won't or can't.

This film about the second coming of Christ in the form of Father Opeka  gets on your nerves early and often. This is a combination of polemical ranting about the plight of the poor where Opeka sermonizes about the troubles in the world in an orgasmic PR love piece that is so ridiculously over the top that it makes the term hagiography look weak. I don't think a high end PR firm with all the money in the world could do as good a job as this film does in making Opeka look this godlike.

High volume ranting in your face aside, and allowing that Opeka is from Argentina the film borders perilously close to being the story of a great white savior going to save lots of brown people. While there are numerous films that take a similar tact, OPEKA somehow manages to take all the cliches and make them real. While it is clear from the film that Opeka is making a difference, and he probably is a nice guy, the presentation here is so overdone and so filled with pontificating  that the priest comes off looking like a know it all ass.

I lost interest early

Not recommended.

Defendersof Life (2015)

The problem with underage marriage is a serious problem in some parts of the world. In many cultures, older men take child brides which often results in the death of the women when their much too young bodies attempt to give birth to babies not much younger than themselves.

Filmmaker Dana Ziyasheva takes a look at the problem in Defenders of Life, a film about an anthropologist and her son who go to record the lives of the Ngäbe. There they become friends with Carmen and her granddaughter Esmeralda who is learning the ways of the world. Things take a dark turn when the young girl becomes engaged to a much older man.

I’m torn about this film. As a portrait of the Ngäbe people, the film is excellent. It’s a film that nicely puts us among them and teaches us about their vanishing way of life. On that level the film is worth seeing.

The trouble is the film makes two missteps, either of which would be fine, but together seriously weaken the film. First the film is largely told from the perspective of the anthropologist and her son. While this gives us a reason to be told the story, it doesn’t really fit the tale and makes it less real. The other problem is that the film is very much a strident message film. Almost from the first frame, the film takes a stand that it is about something. That would all be well and good but I don’t want to be force fed something that is good for me. It would have worked had the story simply been told from the perspective of Esmeralda and her grandmother but adding the outsiders  changes the dynamic in such a way that the film feels preachy. It puts our own morals front and center and makes us compare our way of doing things to those of the Ngäbe. It lessens the impact and puts in bumps that shouldn’t be there.

I don’t hate Defenders of Life, but I only kind of like it.

Currently available on Flix Premiere streaming service

Currently available on Flix Premiere streaming service

Blackfish (2013)

Very good documentary on the weird disconnect we have between killer whales as portrayed by Sea Wold and the rather nasty reality of keeping them in captivity.

Nominally the story of Tilikun, a killer whale captured in the wild and brought to Sealand, an low level aquarium. Several years later Tilkun pulled on of his trainers into the pool and killed her.  With the fun of it gone Sealand sold Tilikun to Sea World for breeding purposes only. The trouble was Sea World didn't do that it, they put him in the shows, and it eventually  killed another trainer (a couple years after killing a man who snuck into his enclosure).  The film uses the Tilikun story to explore the relationship between man and killer whales, as well as performing animals in general.

I'm going to keep this really short  and sweet- see this film. I''m keeping this short because I have about nine pages of notes, nine. Usually I take maybe two, I took nine. I damn near annotated the entire film and my initial draft of this review spelled out everything. I can't do that, it's not fair to you or the film since this is a film that you really must see because it raises tons of very important questions. Its a powerful film that makes you think about things you probably haven't thought about.

As good as most of the film is it gets itself into trouble in two places.  First the narrative thrust of the film gets lost in the second half of the film. the backbone for the first half is the death of  Dawn Branteau and the OSHA lawsuit the resulted from it. The problem is that in the second half, as the film throws its net wider to show the number of incidents with killer whales in captivity (and its only in captivity- they don't bother people in the wild) the film drifts all over the place and stops being about anything and instead is just someone shouting that there is something wrong.

The second place it gets into trouble is that the film raises the question of what our relationship with the whales would be if we didn't have places like Sea World, would they still be cuddly? Would they still be a symbol for conservation? .  It mentions the question in the final third or so of the film and then just leaves it hanging there, which would be okay but with the judges ruling and other matters affecting the future of animal shows and the animals themselves its a tidbit that should have been explored even in a cursory way, I mean will people care about the whales if they can't see them?

That said. A film that you really should see- though keep the little ones away since some of the talk and video might freak them out.

Promised Land (2012)

It could be argued that Promised Land had the makings of one of the best films of 2012. It is beautifully directed, has performances that seem so natural it seems more like people shooting the breeze than acting and it has a script that allows for some dynamic interaction between characters.

It could also be argued that there is a moment about 30 minutes into the film that it goes off the rails as characters become less important and the debate of fracing takes over. It’s the moment that the film goes from being one of the best of the year to one of the most just okay.

The plot of the film has two advance men (Matt Damon and Frances McDormond) going into a small town to buy up the mineral rights so they can drill for natural gas. Things are going along swimmingly until the high school science teacher raises unaddressed dangers. This sets in motion a series of events, including the arrival of an environmentalist, that upsets the plans to get in and out of the town.

I really like this film a great deal. It has great characters, great dialog and it feels strangely like home. The problem with the film is that once the environmentalist shows up the film ceases to become a drama and becomes more a polemic about the dangers of fracing. The drama is reduced as we deal with arguments that mostly seem to say that fracing is bad. The discussion is minimal and worse, repetitive. I drifted in and out.

On the other hand when they stopped going over and over the same arguments and dealt with the human moments the film instantly picked back up.

Reservations and disappointments aside, I really liked this film a great deal. To me this is mostly good times with good people, which makes this a film worth seeing on DVD or cable.

lambs for lions (2007)

The reason this movie died at the box office is not Tom Cruise. The reason this died at the box office is because its not a movie in any real sense. This is a a polemic on the state of the wars, the country, the politics, the media and all that we consider news and modern American society.

A three part film- Tom Cruise is a senator talking to reporter Meryl Streep about a new push in Afghanistan, Robert Redford is a professor trying to get a student to become engaged, and a platoon in Afghanistan begins Cruise's new push. Its a searing indictment of everyone in this country, on both the left and the right. No one is spared other than the military who are shown to be being throw away because our leaders don't care and because we really don't give a shit. Its a film thats going to really should piss off everyone.(no "one" is to blame, we all are)

As films of ideas go its very thought out and well argued. The problem is that its not very engaging. If you don't turn the film off after ten minutes odds are you'll ponder what you've seen but the trick is going to be willing to stay the course since the film is about whats being said on a level other than a dramatic level. Indeed even the characters, though they are well played and real, are more representational of ideas rather than actual people.(Media (Streep), Government(cruise), our founding fathers (Redford), ourselves (student)). I continued watching the film not because I was deeply engrossed on any level (say as in the early bits of Mind Walk, or My Dinner with Andre, or even-gasp- What the Bleep do we Know), but rather because it was a well thought out position piece that that was polite enough to ask me to consider its points. It isn't screaming left or right its just a piece that kind of takes stock of where we are and lays it out for us to consider. There are no real answers.

Clearly its a big ballsy move to make a "movie" like this and put it out for a public that prefers action to ideas. Its a movie that's road to box office hell has been paved with the films good intentions. Don't get me wrong, I do like the film, I just don't love it. I admire what its doing more than anything. To be honest I don't know if I can recommend the film, certainly I can't see paying 11 bucks a head to see it but on cable this is probably worth a gander, especially if you're willing to let the film say its piece. Ultimately, even though this is very much a movie for now, I think this film will act as guidepost for those in the future who will want to know where we were at this moment in time. I don't know whether that will mean the film is a classic or merely a historical record, thats for future audiences to determine. As for me I'd like something to engage my head and my heart.