TIFF21 REVIEW: Sis dies corrents [The Odd-Job Men] [2021]

What could go wrong? It’s an important week for three handymen in Barcelona. Pep (Pep Sarrà) is retiring after decades on the job. Moha (Mohamed Mellali) is showing what he can do as his potential replacement. And Valero (Valero Escolar) is left to reconcile their swap’s extreme change to his routine with an empty stomach due to a last-minute attempt to lose weight before a family member’s wedding that weekend. There’s a bit of “old man yelling at clouds” with Pep’s last hurrah providing the opportunity to tell builders how…

Read More

REVIEW: Free Guy [2021]

Don’t have a good day. Have a great day. Every day is awesome for Guy the bank teller (Ryan Reynolds). While so-called “heroes” in sunglasses run roughshod on Free City by wrecking it with explosions, crime, and debauchery, his best friend Buddy (Lil Rel Howery) and him get their favorite coffee (medium with cream and two sugars), talk about hitting the beach, and greet everyone the same exact way they did yesterday … and the day before that. If not for the hole in his heart where love was concerned,…

Read More

FANTASIA21 REVIEW: Sukutte goran [Love, Life and Goldfish] [2021]

It was uplifting to some extent. There are two types of people in this world. Those who find a ninety-minute romantic comedy musical with a ninety-second song serving as an intermission break twee and those who find it charming. Middle ground doesn’t exist in this equation and director Yukinori Makabe rightfully refuses to pretend otherwise. His film Sukutte goran [Love, Life and Goldfish] (adapted by Atsumi Tsuchi from Noriko Otani‘s manga of the same name) wears its idiosyncratic feel-good sentimentality on its sleeve to provide the dreamlike environment Makoto Kashiba…

Read More

REVIEW: Rare Beasts [2021]

I still love and respect myself. I love this line from the director notes of Billie Piper‘s Rare Beasts: “When you live through nihilism/cynicism/hopelessness, your view of the world is not necessarily as it is, but rather your projection [of it].” She’s speaking about the frank tone and dialogue of the heightened world she’s constructed on-screen as writer/director/star, but she could also be talking about the lens in which we now view our own world via social media. You could say Piper has chosen the trending topic of “romantic love”…

Read More

FANTASIA21 REVIEW: King Knight [2022]

We’ve all got poo in our butts. Thorn (Matthew Gray Gubler) and Willow (Angela Sarafyan) are the perfect High Priest and Priestess of their suburban California coven. They are madly in love with each other and the lifestyle they’ve embraced as outcasts from the mainstream monotheistic monolith to which the rest of the world adheres. Their disciples believe in their leadership so fully that they’ll appear on their doorstep at night in search of answers to their most private struggles. This makeshift family has served them well and they’d do…

Read More

REVIEW: The Suicide Squad [2021]

Welcome to anything. The opening battle scene to James Gunn‘s reboot/sequel (with the addition of an article), The Suicide Squad, couldn’t have been orchestrated better. It has everything you’d want from an ensemble superhero film: action, humor, suspense, uncertainty, and—I cannot stress this part enough—death. Real death. The kind you can’t walk away from (unless you decide to go the MCU or Arrowverse route and dip a toe in the multiverse sandbox). We’re talking beaches of Normandy in Saving Private Ryan levels of carnage (no, I’m not saying it’s on…

Read More

FANTASIA21 REVIEW: Paul Dood’s Deadly Lunch Break [2021]

What did they teach you about revenge? A mother’s love can move mountains. It must in the case of Paul Dood (Tom Meeten) since he doesn’t really have anything else propelling him forward. Did he aspire to be a superstar? No. He merely asked his mum (June Watson‘s Julie) if she thought he had what it took while watching an episode of “Britain’s Got Talent”. She of course said, “Yes.” She said he was “better than anyone else on that show.” Love is blind, though, and unwittingly creates lies since…

Read More

REVIEW: Jungle Cruise [2021]

Pause for dramatic effect. The first thing you hear at the start of Jaume Collet-Serra‘s Disney theme park ride film Jungle Cruise is the melody from Metallica‘s “Nothing Else Matters.” We hear it again later during a flashback as if composer James Newton Howard thought the hard rock ballad somehow perfectly encapsulated the age of conquistadors enough to recruit the band himself. That’s obviously not the case. Disney President Sean Bailey apparently always wanted to collaborate with them and thought this property would be the best fit regardless of the…

Read More

FANTASIA21 REVIEW: Droste no hate de bokura [Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes] [2021]

I don’t know why. The logistics behind Droste no hate de bokura [Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes] are mind-boggling to fathom since time-travel stories are often confusing enough to keep straight when they aren’t filmed as a one-shot. The Europe Kikaku theatrical troupe embracing that extra challenge is thus wild. Group director Makoto Ueda admits he wouldn’t have written the script that way if he didn’t already trust his actors and know they could handle the experiment. Not that having them at his disposal necessarily made his and director Junta…

Read More

FANTASIA21 REVIEW: Muerto con Gloria [Ghosting Gloria] [2021]

Don’t be afraid of your senses, they are a wonderful gift. Sex is everywhere Gloria (Stefania Tortorella) turns. She can’t sleep because the people in the apartment above her are at it every single night like clockwork. A photographer takes antique images of couples outside the bookstore where she works—love captured with every smile. And her co-worker and best friend Sandra (Nenan Pelenur) has a new boyfriend each day to the point where Gloria never knows which beau she’s talking about. Gloria is tired, listless, and without any hope of…

Read More

REVIEW: Naked Singularity [2021]

Shouldn’t that ‘we’ be us? The title is a metaphor. Naked Singularity. It’s what makes the conceit behind Sergio De La Pava‘s novel so intriguing (the criminal justice system in America is a black hole consuming everything in its path, but, unlike in general relativity where an event horizon shields the act from outside observation, we are helplessly watching as it happens) and why director Chase Palmer and his co-writer David Matthews‘ cinematic adaptation leaves a lot to be desired. Because while the concept remains sound as the backdrop for…

Read More