Cabali And The Tiki Mug Obsession(2025) New Port Beach 2025

This a dual portrait- one part is the history of tiki bars, the mugs they spawned and the people who love them, and the other part is the story of Fini, who took his love of tiki and his collection of mugs and decided to create a tki bar of his own.  The result is everything you wanted to know about tiki and hundred times more.

This is a solid little film about a niche way of life that I am kind of attached to, I am after all Parrothead and visited many a tiki bar chasing Jimmy Buffett. This film goes into great detail about everything tiki with a large portion of the film focusing on the mugs. What was once a disposable item is now worth thousands depending on who the artist was (a severed head one is the holy grail one). It’s wild.

Honestly this is a near perfect documentary whose only flaw is that it is over whelming. .  When I say that the film is a hundred times more than you’ll want to know I’m not kidding. This film will tell you pretty much everything, including going into great detail about the creation of the mugs. Yes the mugs are amazing, but there was a point where I just wanted to raise my hand and tap out. It doesn’t mean the film is bad, but it’s more along the line of needing a break to step outside and get a breath of fresh air.

Overwhelming nature of the film or no, I liked it. I had good time watching it. It’s the sort of film that I want to revisit when I can see it without expectations (I kept waiting for more things to click with my tiki experiences and waiting for certain tiki songs I know and love)

Highly recommended, especially if you can’t take a trip to the islands.

Catch up Posts: INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY, NE ZHA, and WAR OF THE ROHRIM

 NE ZHA
Visually spectacular animated film about a little man with great power which the gods want to use for their own ends. It and it';s sequel are more visually arresting then most American 3D films. If you want action- this film fits the bill.

INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY
Better that Crystal Skull but that's not saying much. Okay it's not bad, no really it's rather Okay. But the nostalgia, the half a step too slow pacing and over use of CGI kills the excitement.  It's not bad, and it's certainly better than the CRYSTAL SKULL but it's a couple of steps down from the original three films.

LORD OF THE RINGS: WAR OF tHE ROHRIM
American produced anime style film about an aspect of Middle Earth. This is a very middle of the road fantasy film that is visually an odd mix of computer generated realistic backgrounds and traditional anime character design. It never really works visually, which mixed with the meh story telling makes this a film I never fully engaged with.

THE ARK (2025) Woodstock 2025

When Russia invaded Ukraine Zhenye and Anatoliy Pilipenko opened up their farm to people who needed a safe place for their animals. Rapidly everything from dog, chicken and cows all the way to emus and crocodiles were brought to the farm so they could remain safe. Did they know what to do? Sometimes, and somethines the Googled. As Anatoliy traveles back and forth to the front, his family took care of their charges.

A worthy companion to CHECKPOINT ZOO from last year, THE ARK is one of the great films of the year. A glorious story of people taking care of animals (and people, the farm was opened up to people returning from the front so that the animals can help them decompress) this film will make you feel good.  This is good time with good people.

I really don't know what else to say. My desire is not so much to talk about the film, but rather just take a copy of the film and press it into your hands.  That desire actually says more about the film more than any words.

See this film

Brief thoughts on Floating Carousel (2025) Woodstock 2025

This is the romantic lives of numerous people in the big city. From a sugar baby, to a grad student, to several others, everyone is trying to find a connection. However things don't go as planned and revenge is in the air.

This is going to be a short piece. As a rule I don't like to write about multi-character films like this because the films tend to be very uneven. I always end up writing about one segment more than the others with the result is that it gives the appearance that the films are something they are not. This is something that goes back to the Gary Marshall or Neil Simon films of the past decades.

FLOATING CAROSEL is a solid entry to the multi-character genre.  The performances are good enough that they level the out any unevenness of some of the stories. And as for the uneveness it's minor.  The result is a sweet little film.

Worth a look.

Consessions (2025) Woodstock 2025

The last night of a movie theater as experienced by the staff and patrons. 

I love this film. It's a blast of nostalgia. While it may not be the best film of 2025, it has become one of my favorites, which is actually better since it means that I will be more likely to revisit it.

Reminding me, in the best sort of way, of DRIVE-IN, CLERKS, MATINEE,  and several other films, this is a film that is like the memory of having the best day at the movies with your friends. It's a film that feels familiar. It's a film that feels like it was set in another time (the film feels like a lazy Sunday afternoon in the 1970's)  but the truth is the film is set in the here and now.

It is a glorious viewing experience that you can relive over and over. It is a film full of wonderful cinematic references.

And a few clunky ones. To be honest despite being near perfect the film has a couple of seemingly forced movie references (say the Spike Lee glide), that while not bad as such, break the otherwise perfectly cast spell because they are a bit too noticeable.

On the other hand you won't care. Why? Because everything else in the film is so good you won't care.

A must see.

Willow and Wu (2024)

 Willow is asked by her boss to work with her husband on a video. What starts awkward results in them bonding.

This is an absolutely lovely film about two broken characters coming together. I know it might seem like a spoiler to say that but the truth is that this is such a lovely film that the joy is in the details. They are so joyous that I got misty at the end.

Kathy Meng has hit it out of the park. She has made a film that sings and fills your heart with emotion. It will also make you want to see what she does next.(A feature please)

A Breath of Mindfulness (2025)

A man's need for a moment of mindfulness causes chaos and meditation

Based on the teachings of Thic Nhat Hanh, one of my favorite philosophers A BREATH OF MINDFULNESS is an amusing animated film. Looking to do more than just entertain, the film seeks to get us to think about where we are at every moment. It's an unexpected delight

recommended.

F*** MY SON (2025)

I had just wanted to say that FMS is not a good film. It’s well made, but the script and tone don’t work. I wanted to simply say that despite the potentially offensive and inflammatory material the film never really engages and ends up just as sort of dull grotesque wallpaper that doesn’t provoke a reaction and leave it at that…

However, I couldn’t let it go at being that dismissive and instead I kept writing trying to engage with the film that desperately wanted engagement with its audience but never found the proper ground to do so. The result of my attempt to engage follows:

The film is the story of a mother and daughter kidnapped by an old woman who wants the mother to have sex with her mutant son. The mother doesn't agree so the old woman tortures the little girl.

What worked on the page, and which was very much for a select audience, is now 94 minutes of a failed attempt to make cruelty funny, then again, the torture of children really isn't funny under any circumstances. I'm not offended, hell, I was amused by the original comic, I just don't think the film works. It's never funny, even in a low brow Troma cartoon sort way.

FMS is going to be the poster child for why some comics should never be turned into live action films. What was once told in cartoony  square panels with simple pencil drawings that moved the tale along with staccto speed, is here told in long drawn out scenes. What before was glimpses of terrible things that our minds filled in, is here brought to life in long painful shots. Everything that punched you in the face and made you laugh at the same time on the page is now just gross and vile just because... And it is just because since nthe film only exists to poke you in the eye.

This film walks the fine line between being "a comedy" and being torture porn. If the film didn't have the old woman played by a guy in drag, and if the film didn't play scenes at a ridiculous level, this would have been unwatchably nasty. We know it's goofy because there are attempts at jokes and because of things like the son, who is clearly a man in a goofy suit with ten-foot string of a private part. Jokes are made in uncomfortable places, why? so we know its a comedy.

I sat there staring at the screen reconsidering my feelings for the comic because the film removes any black or gallows humor from the story. Partly because some things are no longer humorous when seen live action, but mostly because every attempt at humor failed either in the writing or execution. 34 minutes into the film I was shaking my head because I couldn't believe there was going to be another hour to the film.

What bothers me is that while the film wants to be like a John Waters film and be offensive, it never quite gets there.Why? because it's clear that while the filmmakers know how to push buttons and poke you in the eye to provoke a reaction, they have no conviction in their soul nor an ability to tell a joke.  Where Waters put himself out there and told us things he felt, the filmmakers here simply took a comic book by someone else and used it to make a film that will make them money and get them noticed. After all what are they pushing in the ads and promotional material, the "X" rating (forgetting that no films are rated X any more) and the offensive nature of what happens.  Yes Waters films were promoted as offensive, but they had something more to say.  FMS has nothing beyond the child torture and gross implied sex with rubber props.

The biggest sin that FMS commits is that outside of the opening Cinema Rules bit, the film isn't funny.  There are no laughs anywhere in the film. Every joke hits the floor like a dead weight. Part of it is that the jokes aren't funny, and part of it is seeing things like a little girl roasting to death while talking to imaginary meat creatures just doesn't result in laughs.

I know that just made some people want to see the film, but trust me you don't want to do it, this isn't a good film under any definition. What this is is simply a money grab, by filmmakers who want to get noticed and a releasing company that know thast telling people they shouldn't see something will put butts in seats. Exploitation hucksterism isn't dead, but when the film isn't good it's not going to have a long life.

THE SURRENDER (2025)

 The patriarch of a family dies, his wife who is very much in to new age cures, brings in a shaman to restore him to life. His daughter does not like the idea. Then again what could go wrong?

This is an odd film  that one one hand want to deeply disturb and scare the hell out of you and on the other it wants to examine family relationships and how we view the death of a loved one... and our lives. It's an interesting idea, that works in pieces and moments but which never pulls it all together in the ending. No seriously, what exactly is that ending?

I absolutely love the deeply disturbing mood this film creates. This is one of the most emotionally bothersome films of the last five years. I don't want to be there. The sequences with the care of the father remind me of when my mom was really sick. Flashbacks and then some. The second half of the film, the part dealing nominally with the ressurection and the dealing with past trauma is distubing for a variety of reasons, not the least of which it puts us in a place no cinematic treatment of grief or horror, has ever placed us.  Its a place of raw exposed emotions.

The problem is that the narrative doesn't work. Yes, it get the emotion right, but the narrative drifts off and what for about half the film was set in a reality, becomes something that feels like it's a metaphor or something symbolic. Is any of this real? Are the characters alive? I don't know and by the time we get to the final shot, which should be cathartic, is instead a giant WTF burger. I went from willing to give the film a benefit of the doubt, because I knew it would pull it out, to wondering how it could go so wrong.

It's so disappointing.

That said, most of the film is creepy and scary enough it's worth a try, just expect it to crash and burn as the end credits roll.

No Other Choice (2025) NYFF 2025

Park Chan Wook's NO OTHER CHOICE is the absolute best sort of film, one that provokes a wide variety of reactions and get conversations started. When the film ended Hubert and I started talking and we did not stop until I got off the subway 45 minutes later at Penn Station. If I hadn't done so we would have still been talking.

The plot of the film has a 25 year veteran of a paper company getting laid off with a number of other employees when an American company takes over the company. Desperate for a job when the money runs out, he deduces that the best way to get a job he is trying to get would be to kill the people more likely ti get the job. What follows is a comedy of errors as he tries to kill the people and it all goes side ways.

This is a well made black comedy that has divided audiences. While most people have liked the film the discussion has been as to how good the film is. At the screening I attended many people were laughing heartily and others were just sitting there and smiling. My reaction was to enjoy the film but not to love it. I never fully connected to the humor. It was a bit too mannered and not fully my  cup of tea.

While I didn't fully connect, I was appreciative of the film's pondering the cut throat world of capitalistic world. Its portrait of a world where people will kill to make a buck. It's a notion that is sadly being propagated by the head of the United States who wants to wipe out anyone who ever told him no. It's a world that I am not quite cut out for.

If you are a fan of the director or if you like a no holds barred comedic look at todays society this fiilm is for you.

Clown in a Corn Field (2025)

 

Clown In The Cornfield is a great film. This is an old school horror comedy (think KILLER CLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE)  where there are genuine, unforce laughs and genuine scares.

The plot of the film has teens in a town stalked by Frendo, the clown mascot of the Baypen Corn Syrup factory. 

Shot with a seriousness not usually found in most modern horror films with humor, this film grabs you early and holds you to the end. Not trying to be anything other than a genuine thrill ride the film mixes blood and laughs for maximum effect. It’s clear that the people behind TUCKER AND DALE FIGHT EVIL were behind it since that film is one of the few similar films to mix genres.

This is an absolute delight and destined to become a classic.

Highly recommended.

Monster Medicine (2025)

One night in s world were monsters eist with humans, a woman who is transitioning into a monster is brought into an emergancy room.

Good little horror short feels like a proof of concept for a feature film. The idea of a hospital where there are monster doctors is full of possibilities, some of which are highlighted in this short.

This is a sweat little horror film that will make you want to see more in this world.

Worth a look.

Brief thoughts on Dead Mail (2024)

 1980's set throwback to the 1980's drive-in concerns a dead letter office at the post office which gets a desperate note saying that someone is being held hostage. Will they try and locate the trapped person.

Feeling like an old school inde horror film DEAD MAIL is not like the current crop of horror films. This is a film about characters and mood. It is a film that wants to tell us a mysterious story and not just give us scares. Its a film that trusts the audience to follow a broken narrative, the film begins with the finding of the note then flashes back to telling us how we got there before moving into the conclusion. Filmmakers today aren't that trusting.

I like this film. It reminded me of the movies I used to criss cross Long Island to see in the various inde theaters before the slasher  profile came king at the box office. While it isn't a great film, it suffers with the same pacing issues as the old films, it does entertain and I was happy to be curled up on my couch watching and eating popcorn.

Worth a look for horror fans.

ecce mole (2025) NYFF 2025

Heinz Emigholz’s ECCE MOLE is glorious. I look at two location in Turin designed by Alessandro Antonelli.  It’s a film of spaces that makes us feel as though we are there and seeing the spaces for ourselves.

NYFF has been running films like this for decades and I have seen a great many of them. Some haven’t work and some have. When they work, and when they work as well as this they are glorious films that transcend just being a record of a place but make out souls sing.

Easily one of the best films playing this years festival ECCE MOLE is a must

COVER-UP (2025) NYFF 2025

 

COVER-UP is a perfectly adequate look at journalist Seymour Hersh.  The film is a look at the man looking back at his life.

Actually, the film covers his early life, coverage of My Lai, Watergate, corporate corruption,  Abu Ghraib and some of his stories from the last two decades of Middle East warfare. It is one man reluctantly telling his story.

A good overview of a man who changed the world for the better COVER UP is an okay film. Barely noticing anything that isn’t one of the big stories, and not doing much with his almost getting caught using forged letters (he didn’t know) concerning Marilyn Monroe and JFK the film leaves us wanting to know more. What about all the other stories he covered? We only see book and story titles with no indication of what is behind them. Is it bad? Far from it but where most other docs will bluff you into thinking you know enough, COVERUP makes damn sure we know there is way too much that we don’t know.  Why wasn’t this at least two parts?

If there is any real flaw is the endless fascination with his notes. Why are the filmmakers so intent on showing his illegible notes? There is no real reason given, other than he takes copious amounts of them with details. More important is why do they want to show them when Herch says that it could get some killed. Laura Poitras should know better than to grandstand, since seeing the pages adds nothing to the story and only creates a false sense of drama.

While Hersh deserves better, this film will do until we get a more detailed film.

Dangerous Animals (2025)

The operator of a shark cage adventure is in reality a psycho who likes to feed his charges to the sharks.

This is a good looking, very deliberately designed horror film, that over relies on loud noises or music and where we can pretty much guess how much of this is going to go. It's a well made film that is so mechanical as to be almost robotic.

DANGEROUS ANIMALS lost me early on. The opening sequence when Tucker jokes that no one will know if the couple will disappeared while they are talking to a guy on the dock seemed wrong. That guy would know.  At the same time I began trying to understand how it was that a guy working from a seemingly busy dock could have people disappear. Additionally Tucker is so clearly an invincible bad guy that watching him isn't fun.  

Honestly this isn't bad, but the plotting is so mechanical it just isn't fun.

HAIR, PAPER, WATER…(2025) NYFF 2025

 

I did not expect to like HAIR PAPER WATER. I really disliked co-director Trương Minh Quý’s  Việt and Nam, however this tale of a family headed by Mrs Hau is a deeply moving film. This is the sort of film we rarely see any more. It feels like some of the small docs from the late 70’s and early 80’s that shook up the form and influenced all the filmmakers that followed.

Hair is largely a the tale of one family told by one woman, with appearances by the various family members. We are sucked into the film and it’s mix of story and image pull us in and make us a family member. It’s a wonderful experience that makes us feel what life is like for the people on screen. We truly leave the here and now and end up in the there and then.

This is one of the best films at NYFF this year and an unexpected delight for those wanting off the beaten trail films.

Escape (2025) NYFF 2025

ESCAPE is kind of dull.

Masao Adachi’s portrait Japanese terrorist Satoshi Kirishima and resistance to the Japanese government since the end of the second world war is kind of bland. Shot in a low key style the film requires that you meet it half way. While I was fine with that it never pulled me in. I was watching scenes play out but I never was fully connected to them because this felt more like a performance piece than an actual story. I kept feeling that there should have been more there.

While not bad,  I was very aware why the film didn’t play NYAFF or Japan Cuts earlier this year.

A miss

Brief thoughts on The Dead Thing (2025)

 A young woman who has a fling with a barrista is left wanting more. Waking up in the mornin he has disappeared and she decides to try and find out why he left.

While very much a thriller, this is a film that has something to say about the one that got away. Why do we sometimes get connected to people who don't feel the same way? While the film views things from a suspenseful point of view, there is more going on.

As a straight thriller, this film isn't bad. It has some nice twists.

You'll forgive me for not saying more but  I don't have more than that to say.

SCARLET (2025) NYFF 2025

SCARLET is Mamoru Hosoda’s riff on Shakespeare’s Hamlet. While it is a starting point with echoes, it takes it into its own universe.

The film is the story of princess Scarlet (Hamlet) whose father is killed by her uncle.  Before she can kill him she is poisoned and sent to a kind of purgatory world that she has to cross to get to the infinite land. However, her uncle has also died, and he is entrenched in a castle guarding the path to the infinite land.

Visually arresting, SCARLET is a film you will want to see on a big screen. Images, such as the giant godlike dragon who floats over the world will blow your mind. This film as some of the most incredible images you will see all year.

Narratively the film is all over the place. Some sections work to the point that you will be reduced to tears, and others are simply intellectually interesting. Characters are unevenly drawn, with some of the uncle’s henchmen seemingly to be little more than a sketch despite having important roles. The rules of the after life also seem thrown together (the timeless nature for example)  for no really good reason except it allows certain things to happen. While never fatal, the film simply isn’t as narratively strong as any of Hosoda’s other films, despite having moments that are among the best things he’s ever done, which means they are high points in cinema history.

While Scarlet is imperfect, it is still a deeply moving film. While a doubt it might get an Oscar I do think it is a must see. This is a film that is going to influence a generation of filmmakers and story tellers.