REVIEW: My Father’s Dragon [2022]

I’m feeling really cautious! When the only home Elmer Elevator (Jacob Tremblay) ever knew becomes deserted and the grocery his mother (Golshifteh Farahani‘s Dela) owned is foreclosed, the duo is forced to move to the big city of Nevergreen amidst its hustle, bustle, industrial pollution, and mistrustful inhabitants. Gone are the days of knowing your neighbors and finding them the perfect item hiding in one of the shop’s corners. Now it’s scrounging every penny in the hopes of paying rent to Mrs. McClaren (Rita Moreno) so as not to be…

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REVIEW: Wendell & Wild [2022]

Let the revisionism begin. Sometimes tragedy begets opportunity. Case and point: Henry Selick‘s The Shadow King being unceremoniously scrapped by Pixar. It was supposed to be his follow-up to Coraline and the buzz was strong before things went south. So, while Selick took a step back creatively in the aftermath, he found “Key and Peele” debuting on Comedy Central. The director would ultimately finish its five-season run and declare Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele the “boldest, bravest, and funniest” comedy duo of his lifetime, vowing to reach out and broach…

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REVIEW: The Woman King [2022]

Relentlessly, we will fight. Nine times out of ten when a white actor visits Africa, learns a “cool” historical detail, and returns to Hollywood pitching it as the “next big thing” logline, disaster strikes if a finished product even gets produced. Maria Bello is therefore the lone exception considering she did exactly that here. A 2015 trip to Benin—former site of the Dahomey kingdom—brought with it an education on the West African region’s famed all-women warrior regiment known as the Agojie. It went around town, got passed over or lowballed…

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REVIEW: Vesper [2022]

You don’t know the cost of dreams. It’s the New Dark Ages and the world has devolved to mimic a YA novel’s class system with the poor left to fend for themselves in desolate wastelands while the rich remain protected in Citadels sprinkled throughout their expanse. Animals are dead. Plants are dead. Most humans are dead. To survive means scraping by with what few seeds you purchase from the cities, each lasting only one season. The cost is the blood of children and why those with power in the swamps…

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REVIEW: The Enforcer [2022]

You fight for me. I fight for you. Miami kingpin Estelle (Kate Bosworth) is looking for insurance. Not because she doesn’t trust her usual muscle Cuda (Antonio Banderas) anymore, but because she’s not sure how much time he has left in the tank let alone how well he’s going to adapt to a world running on online currency. Stuck in jail for a decade, his return is therefore just in time to train his replacement: a street fighter named Stray (Mojean Aria) who makes a living always battling above his…

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TIFF22 REVIEW: Muru [2022]

He’s chasing taniwha. New Zealand’s Tūhoe people have faced more than a century of aggression for daring to keep their culture alive. As relayed at the start of Tearepa Kahi‘s thriller Muru (a Māori word for their process of redressing transgressions), the facts are undeniable. In 1916, the police staged a raid to arrest Tūhoe prophet Rua Kenana on charges of sedition (he would later be acquitted and instead charged with resisting). A half-hour gunfight ensued leaving two dead and six wounded. Then the police staged another in 2007 to…

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REVIEW: Bullet Train [2022]

Why do you laugh at fate? It was supposed to be simple. Ease his way back into the snatch and grab game. He’s not even carrying a gun—not that that ever prevented people from dying while he worked. It’s why he considered quitting. And why he’s in therapy. But he’s a new man now. Ready to think positive. Maybe even listen when his handler Maria says the “bad luck” befalling those around him is “good luck” for him. It’s not like he’s died yet. So, she names him Ladybug (Brad…

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REVIEW: 비상선언 [Bisang seoneon] [Emergency Declaration] [2022]

We’ve become his guinea pigs. As described at the start of Jae-rim Han disaster film in the sky, everything is supposed to stop the moment a pilot initiates a Bisang seoneon [Emergency Declaration]. It alone lets everyone involved know that the plane is in real danger of crashing. Other aircraft are instantly diverted into circling patterns, the nearest runaway is cleared for landing, and it becomes all-hands-on-deck to ensure the safety of passengers and crew on-board. And the general populace condones those measures because they don’t know when they might…

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FANTASIA22 REVIEW: 搜神傳 [Su Huan-Jen] [Demigod: The Legend Begins] [2022]

Many things could happen in a minute. The Huang family and Pili International Multimedia are back on the big screen, two decades since their feature debut Legend of the Sacred Stone, and, if the end credits of Chris Huang‘s Demigod: The Legend Begins are to be believed, they have many more chapters in-store for their hero Su Hua-Jen. Utilizing the Taiwanese technique of budaixi (operatic glove puppetry), expert cinematography to hide the puppeteers, and impressive computer augmentation for special effects, this tale of leadership strife in the Wu Lin mountains’…

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FANTASIA22 REVIEW: 범죄도시2 [The Roundup] [2022]

And no balsamic vinegar. Set four years after the events from The Outlaws (known as Crime City in Korea), new director Sang-yong Lee and screenwriter Min-Seong Kim bring Detective Ma Seok-do (Ma Dong-seok aka Don Lee) back to the big screen with The Roundup (or 범죄도시2 [Crime City 2]). A standalone film with a couple characters returning via tongue-in-cheek reveals, you really don’t need to know anything beyond what we learn at the start. While Jeon Il-man (Gwi-hwa Choi) is the police captain, he knows it’s better to get out…

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FANTASIA22 REVIEW: Polaris [2023]

In a post-eco-disaster 2144, a young girl (Viva Lee‘s Sumi) lives as a polar bear cub in the snow. She crawls around with her “mother,” growling under the stars until a sound is heard in the distance to open this world up wider. Sumi travels over the hill to discover a group of Morad hunters wielding machinery to cut down trees and brutalize whatever creatures might cross their path. When one inevitably sees Sumi in the distance, she screams to rally her ragtag clan and give chase. Most ferally run…

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