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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 09 July 2026

BEST BETS for the week: (Titles in Bold  denote opening this week)

CIELO

DISCLOSURE DAY

ROSE OF NEVADA

STEAL AWAY

SUZZANNA: WITCHCRAFT

THE ODYSSEY

 

 

 

FILM REVIEWS:

 

CIELO (Heaven) (UK/Bolivia 2025) ****
Directed by Alberto Sciamma

Written and directed by Alberto Sciamma, CIELO (Heaven), which translates to Heaven in English, is a Bolivian Indigenous folklore tale of how far one would go to achieve heaven.

The film begins with Santa, an 8-year-old girl (Fernanda Gutiérrez Aranda), murdering her father, followed by murdering her mother.  Putting her mother’s corpse in a barrel, Santa tracks her way across a desert and plains to make her journey, led by the stars to what she perceives as heaven.  Her encounters include a busload of female wrestlers, a priest, and a police chief, Gustavo (Fernando Arze Echalar), who investigates Santa for the murders as well as a priest.

Films about a long journey make good film fodder, the recent THE ODYSSEY being a prime example.  In CEILO, Santa makes an arduous and long journey that includes a coming-of-age one as well.

Director Sciamma inserts plenty of metaphors in his film.  The long-distance shots of the bus travelling long and winding roads indicate that the path to righteousness is not a straight one.  He also shows that heaven is also a place on earth and that (ok, cliched here), heaven is where one finds heaven to be.

The characters Santa encounters on her journey are colourful, imperfect and funny ones.  In fact, Santa’s character is also a fascinating one.  She is shown as a baby, hungry and crying, sucking on a dead fish, then bringing the fish to life.  When shown how to milk a dried-up cow, the cow suddenly produces unstoppable loads of milk.   In one scene, Santa bites Gustavo’s hand to bleed, but it cures miraculously, causing him to think about and later care for Santa.

Among the characters is a compassionate priest who offers spiritual guidance.  He tells Santa’s mother that with her child, they will never go hungry as they will forever have fish and milk.  The priest also tells her that many is more important than the Word of God.  Then there is the busload of female Indigenous wrestlers who protect and encourage her.  One of them takes her under her wing, and  Santa shows her gratitude by saving her life.  Then there is the comical Gustavo, the hardened policeman who initially arrests her but gradually becomes convinced she possesses miraculous powers.   He joins her journey in the hope of finding redemption for himself for not loving his wife.  He at first believes in Santa and wants her to take her to heaven, but she refuses to take him.  He is also instrumental in Santa’s survival, as are the other two characters,

CIELO is never boring as director Sciamma keeps his mystical tale intriguing and full of surprises, added with emotion.  He blends together fantasy and reality, aided by his cinematographer Alex Metcalfe, who often saturates the scenes with bright and blinding light.

CIELO has won major awards at Portugal’s Fantasporto Film Festival, including the audience award and cinematography award.

CIELO opens at the TIFF Lightbox on July 24th.

Trailer:

THE DEBT COLLECTOR (Thailand 2026) ***

Directed by Surapong Ploensang

THE DEBT COLLECTOR centres on Num, once one of Bangkok's most feared debt collectors.  For years he worked for criminal loan sharks, intimidating borrowers, beating those who failed to pay, and helping maintain a system built on fear. Although he convinced himself he was simply doing a job, the suffering he caused left deep psychological scars.

Eventually, Num is arrested and imprisoned. His time behind bars forces him to confront the consequences of his actions. Upon his release, he receives even more devastating news: he is suffering from a terminal illness and has little time left to live. Faced with his own mortality, he resolves to spend his remaining days quietly, hoping to escape the violent world that consumed his life.

The film begins with a fifth scene in which Nun is a debt collector.  The next scene is him in jail, without the film showing how he was arrested.  The film already stresses his need for redemption as there are quite a few scenes with a monk preaching karma.  Apparently the preaching is working well on Nun.

While trying to rebuild a modest existence, Num witnesses another brutal collection carried out by the same criminal network that once employed him. Innocent families continue to be terrorized by illegal lenders charging impossible interest rates, and desperate borrowers remain trapped in cycles of violence and intimidation. The abuse reminds Num of the countless lives he helped destroy.

Unable to ignore what he has seen, he intervenes to protect one of the victims. His actions immediately place him in conflict with his former employers, who regard him as a traitor. What begins as a single act of compassion quickly escalates into a deadly confrontation with the organized crime syndicate that controls much of the city's underground lending business.

As Num investigates further, he discovers that the organization has become even more ruthless than before. Loan sharks exploit the poor, manipulate vulnerable families, and enforce payments through intimidation, torture, and murder. Every attempt to help the victims draws Num deeper into the criminal world he hoped never to revisit.

THE DEBT COLLECTOR differentiates itself from the typical action Martial arts flick by ambitiously blending the crime thriller, martial-arts action, and redemption drama.  Director Surapong Ploensang still keeps the action as the film’s main focus.  The reality of Thailand’s loan-shark industry is on display in the film.  One assumes a certain authenticity. The film is a bit too long, running 2 hours and 15 minutes.  It could have been cut shorter and made more efficient.

Nadech Kugimiya as Num delivers a credible performance, with him displaying both his lean good looks and his fighting skills.  Kugimiya gives Num a weary dignity that makes the character believable as both a former criminal and a man desperate for redemption. 

The fighting styles employed in the film’s fight choreography are primarily Muay Thai, which is Thailand's national martial art.  As can be seen, Num relies on powerful elbow strikes at close range, knee strikes to the ribs, stomach, and head, with Roundhouse kicks aimed at the legs and body.  But Num also uses Western boxing fundamentals like cross jabs and heavy punching.  But weapons are also used, like knives and a gun, as observed in the first fight sequence at the beginning.  Because many encounters occur in cramped apartments, alleys, and warehouses, characters frequently use everyday objects like chairs, metal pipes, and other assorted furniture.  The sound effects of the fight sequences are impressive, allowing g the audience to feel the impact of the hits, thus affecting a grounded brutality that suits the reason for Nun’s desired redemption.

THE DEBT COLLECTOR is streaming already on Netflix beginning Thursday, July 23rd.

Trailer:

THE GOLDEN SPURTLE (Australia/U.K. 2025) ***
Directed by Constantine Costi

What is a golden spurtle?  Firstly.  A spurtle is a traditional 15th-century Scottish kitchen tool, typically a smooth wooden rod or paddle, designed for stirring porridge and stews without clumping.  Thanks to its low surface area and flat edges, it excels at folding batter, breaking up ground meat, and scraping pots without scratching non-stick surfaces.  The golden spurt is the annual prize given to the person who makes the best porridge in the world.

The charming doc is a co-production between Australia and the U.K.  The U.K. can be understood as the world contest takes place in Scotland.  Australia?  Well, one of the contestants hails from down under.

The Scottish village where the porridge contest is held, called Porridge Day, is Carrbridge.  Carrbridge is a village in Badenoch and Strathspey in the Scottish Highlands. It lies on the River Dulnain, off the A9 road, five miles north of Aviemore and eight miles west of Grantown-on-Spey. It has the oldest stone bridge in the Highlands.

Although THE GOLDEN SPURTLE appears at first to be about a quirky cooking contest, it gradually becomes a film about tradition, aging, community, and finding meaning in simple rituals.  Set in the Scottish Highland village of Carrbridge, it follows the annual World Porridge Making Championships, where contestants from around the world compete for the coveted Golden Spurtle trophy using only three ingredients: oatmeal, water, and salt.

The film features a few of the villagers involved with the porridge cooking contest.  The central figure is Charlie Miller, the longtime organizer and guardian of the competition.  After many years running the event, Charlie has decided this will be his final championship before retirement.  His biggest concern is not the contest itself but ensuring someone will continue preserving the tradition after he steps down. Throughout the film, he reflects on the responsibility of maintaining a cultural institution that has brought worldwide attention to his village.  At the end of the film, he is given a simple token, a baseball cap with the words Porridge Chieftain, but the act brings tears to his eyes.   Ian Bishop, a beloved local competitor and former champion. Ian's health is declining, and he knows this may be his last realistic opportunity to reclaim the Golden Spurtle. For him, winning isn't merely about personal pride—it represents bringing the title back to Scotland and honoring years of dedication to the craft. His determination adds emotional weight to what could otherwise have been a lighthearted contest.

Other colourful international competitors include

Lisa Williams, the reigning champion, returns determined to defend her title.

Nick Barnard, a veteran competitor, continues his long pursuit of victory.

Toby Wilson, an Australian chef, attempts to challenge convention with creative techniques while respecting the competition's strict rules.

The latest leg of the film shows the contestants making their porridge, and the winner is revealed at the end, who has a few words to say to the camera as well as the ones who did not win.

THE GOLDEN SPURTLE is not a doc about who wins and how winning the cooking comets is everything, but a charming story of tradition, preserving local heritage in a rapidly changing world, and finding purpose after retirement, while demonstrating friendship and community, with the pride in the craftsmanship of simply making porridge.

And discovering joy in ordinary rituals.  A charming, delightful, and entertaining doc all at the same time.

THE GOLDEN SPURTLE screens Sunday, July 26th at the TIFF Lightbox.

Trailer:

HER PRIVATE HELL (USA/Denmark2026) *
Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn

 

The film is set in an unnamed futuristic, neon-soaked metropolis.

A mysterious mist envelops the city, bringing with it a deadly supernatural—or possibly otherworldly—entity.

Elle (played by Sophie Thatcher), a troubled young woman, begins searching for her missing father.  Her journey intersects with that of Private K (Charles Melton), an American GI who is on his own desperate mission to rescue his daughter from what is described as "Hell."

Their separate quests gradually become intertwined as they descend into an increasingly surreal and violent nightmare where the boundaries between reality, memory, and the supernatural blur.

The film also involves both a glamorous movie-star milieu, making the film easier to watch (the actors, both male and female, are glamorous), and a series of grisly murders in the city.

Family conflicts involving Elle and her stepmother Dominique (Havana Rose Liu).  There is also some slapping going on.  Symbolic rather than literal depictions of "Hell," with dreamlike imagery and Refn's signature stylized violence and neon visuals.

Although Her Private Hell is set in a futuristic, Tokyo-inspired metropolis, most of the film was shot in Copenhagen, Denmark, where Nicolas Winding Refn built large custom sets to create the city's distinctive neon-drenched look.

Refn's signature visual style can be observed in the neon-lit streets and alleyways,

mist-filled urban canyons, stylized penthouses and luxury hotels, underground clubs and industrial interiors.

Director Refn himself warned that his film HER PRIVATE HELL is hell to watch, and he is right.  HER PRIVATE HELL is a stylish, boring, ill-disciplined disaster.  On the surface, it looks good, reminding one of spy thrillers like Mario Bava’s  DANGER: DIABOLIK or Joseph Losey’s MODESTY BLAISE.   But Refn’s film makes so sense (like the infrared-eyed monster that appears from nowhere at the end) and even Refn’s fans (which includes me - I loved his PUSHER trilogy) will be unimpressed. It should be noted that the film has got mixed reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, though it got a 12-minute standing ovation at Cannes where it premiered out of competition. The film does not do it for me!

If Refn made a disciplined, narratively strong spy film with this stylish look, the film might emerge as a cult hot classic.  But not such luck here!

Trailer:

 

SACCHARINE (Australia 2026) **
Directed by Natalie Erika James

SACCHARINE is a 2026 Australian supernatural horror film written and directed by Natalie Erika James. It stars Midori Francis, Danielle Macdonald, Madeleine Madden, and Robert Taylor. The film had its world premiere at the Midnight section of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival on 22 January.

Weight loss and the obsession with looking better make good horror movie fodder.  In the recent successful box-office and critical hit, the 2018 THE SUBSTANCE, directed by French director Coralie Fargeat, the protagonist played by Demi Moore does everything possible to get a more youthful body but with disastrous results.  In the new horror flick, SACCARINE, Hana takes questionable pills to lose weight.

After succumbing to an obscure weight-loss craze involving the eating of human ashes, lovelorn medical student Hana (Midori Francis finds herself terrorised by the ghost of the person she's eating.  She discovers she is consuming the ash of an obese dead person.  Yes, gross!  She seeks the aid of her best friend. Josie (Danielle Macdonald) helps her.

Despite the relatively simple premise, the film is disjointed, and the main story of how Hana can overcome e the spirit of the monster taunting her is blurry.  The odd ending does not help the film either.  For the not-too-demanding horror fan, the film delivers its shocks and scares expectedly.

But SACCHARINE has, with its premise, plenty of potential still to make a good horror flick.  Some sights can be genuinely disgusting - like an obese person or a person gorging down donuts and other creamy, soft pastries.  The cursing up of bodies to remove tumours adds to the uneasiness of certain segments.  Lead actress Midori Francis is pretty solid in her role, delivering a nuanced performance of a female caught up between losing weight and satisfying those around her, who she wants approval from.  The script also calls for Hana to be gay.  It all begins to sour when she is introduced to the pill from her formerly fat friend,  Melissa (Annie Shapero), who claims that it is a perfect remedy to lose weight.   Her desire to make out with fitness guru Alanya (Madeleine Madden) is another impetus.

Despite the film’s shortcomings, actress Midori Francis delivers an engrossing performance, and with its Australian setting and gay slant, SACCHARINE makes an overall ok watch.

Saccharine premiered in the Midnight section of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival on 22 January 2026, followed by its European premiere at the Special Midnight section of the 76th Berlin International Film Festival on 18 February.   It later had its Australian premiere on 4 June 2026 at the 73rd Sydney Film Festival.  SACCHARINE premieres in Canada for viewing on Shudder, the horror streaming service, on July 24th.

Trailer:

A SAD AND BEAUTIFUL WORLD (Lebanon/Germany/USA/Saudi Arabia) **

Directed by Cyril Aris 

Set in Beirut, it follows childhood sweethearts (from school) Nino (Hasan Akil) and Yasmina (Mounia Akl), who had lost sight of one another, reuniting in their 20s against the backdrop of political turmoil and social collapse in present-day Lebanon.

A SAD AND BEAUTIFUL WORLD is a romantic comedy at heart but with high aspirations and set during the bombings in Lebanon as the citizens often scramble to make a living or make sense of all the bombings.  Director Aris tries hard to be funny, as does his lead actor, but being funny is often a talent that delivers laughs to the audience when comedic timing and filming are tied together.  But most of the humour here is not funny, with the lead actor screaming out loud most of the time, resulting in annoying actions and scenes that one knows were played for laughs but did not work.  

The jokes are not much better, if any good at all.  Take this example: when Nino, after a romantic rejection, says he is going outside to kill himself, his colleague tells him to shut the door behind him.  Or the part during the financial crisis in Lebanon when Nino’s supplier tells him cash only.  “Where do I get the cash?  From my vault in Switzerland?”   The least a romantic comedy could do is to be at least funny!

The film had its world premiere at the Giornate degli Autori sidebar section during the 82nd Venice International Film Festival on 31 August 2025, where it shared the section's People's Choice Award..  When a film wins the audience award, it is always a red flag.  The film was selected as the Lebanese entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 98th Academy Awards, but it was not nominated.  Not surprising!

A SAD AND BEAUTIFUL WORLD is ironically a sad though beautiful (cinematography and atmosphere created-wise) effort.

A SAD AND BEAUTIFUL WORLD opens in Toronto at the TIFF Lightbox on Friday, July 24th.

Trailer:

SUZZANNA: WITCHCRAFT (Indonesia 2026) ***½

Directed by Andri Sofyansyah

SUZZANNA: WITCHCRAFT is an Indonesian folklore tale that takes place in a remote Indonesian village ruled by Bisman, a wealthy and ruthless village chief.  Although respected publicly, Bisman secretly maintains his authority through intimidation and the use of forbidden black magic (santet).

The film is cheesy all the way from the way Suzzanna is trained in her magical powers - 40 days and 40 nights of meditation while confronted by awful-looking demons while also escaping henchmen on motorbikes in the jungle while she loses her slippers running away from them.  But it is this cheesiness that makes the film all the more hilarious, intentionally or unintentionally one can never be sure.

Suzzanna is the beautiful daughter of Satriyo, an honest villager who refuses to support Bisman's growing tyranny. Bisman becomes obsessed with Suzzanna and wants her as his wife, believing that possessing her will strengthen both his social standing and his mystical powers.   Suzzanna has a beauty spot, or is it a mole; again, one cannot be sure.  Suzzanna rejects him, having no interest in the cruel ruler.

Humiliated by her refusal, Bisman decides to eliminate the greatest obstacle—her father. Rather than confronting him openly, he commissions a powerful practitioner of black magic to place a deadly curse on Satriyo. Soon afterward, Satriyo becomes mysteriously ill, suffering terrifying hallucinations before dying under circumstances the villagers cannot explain. Although everyone suspects supernatural forces, nobody dares accuse Bisman.

Devastated by grief, Suzzanna abandons her former peaceful life. Convinced that ordinary justice is impossible, she searches for someone capable of teaching her the forbidden arts. She eventually encounters Nyi Gayatri, an elderly mystic who understands the ancient practices of santet.

Initially, Nyi Gayatri refuses to help, warning that revenge through black magic always corrupts the person seeking it. Suzzanna ignores the warning and undergoes increasingly dangerous rituals involving graveyards, blood sacrifices, and communion with malevolent spirits. Each ritual grants her greater supernatural abilities while slowly changing her emotionally and spiritually.

This is a story where the fine line between good and evil is blurred.  Can witchcraft be used for the good of the village?  What are the consequences?

Visually, the film is polished. Practical makeup effects are generally more effective than the digital effects, which are occasionally. The carefully crafted atmosphere of the secluded Indonesian village and its surroundings, which include a river and waterfall, are effectively used to enhance the horrific fairy tale, and one that is set in the unfamiliar land of Indonesia.  The creature designs and witchcraft rituals are imaginative and reinforce the film's connection to Indonesian occult traditions.

The lead performance is compelling, capturing both vulnerability and menace as the character undergoes an increasingly disturbing transformation.  Is Suzzanna the victim or the protagonist?  Clearly the film depicts her as both.  And director Andri Sofyansyah has the audience rooting for her.  The romantic interest adds to the story's intrigue, heightening the ambiguity.

Because SUZZANNA: WITCHCRAFT is another popular  Indonesian horror, the films been released in many countries in Asia, but not yet in Toronto. The film opens for streaming on Netflix Thursday, July 24th.

Trailer:

THE TRUTHERS (Los creyentes)(Spain 2026) ***

Directed by Roger Gual

 

 

Ruth, a 30-year-old woman who has been estranged from her family for years, returns to her childhood home after learning that her mother has died under mysterious circumstances. Although the death has been ruled natural or accidental, Ruth senses that something about the situation is deeply unsettling.

Back in the isolated family house, she reunites with her father, Martín, a retired man who has become bitter, paranoid, and socially withdrawn. He spends his days obsessively researching an elaborate conspiracy that he believes is controlling society.  He covers the house with newspaper clippings, maps, coded notes, and surveillance equipment, convinced that powerful unseen forces are watching him.  His increasingly aggressive behaviour makes it difficult for Ruth to distinguish genuine fear from mental illness.

A truther believes in some conspiracy theory, usually a belief against a government case.

Why is the film called The Truthers in plural?  The title is clever and demands some thought.

The title The Truthers operates on several levels, and that ambiguity appears to be central to the film.

The English word "truther" has become associated with people who believe that governments, corporations, or other powerful groups are concealing the "real truth" behind major events. In popular usage, it often refers to conspiracy theorists.  Since Ruth's father, Martín, is consumed by elaborate conspiracy theories, he is literally a “truther."  However, the title is plural—The Truthers, not The Truther. This suggests that the film is about more than one person searching for the truth. The plural can be interpreted in several ways: Martín believes he alone knows the hidden truth behind his wife's death and a wider conspiracy.  Ruth is also a "truther" in her own way, trying to uncover the truth about her mother's death and whether her father is a murderer.

THE TRUTHERS works well as a psychological suspense thriller in which the audience is taken for a solid ride.  There is a lot of audience anticipation as director Gual plays with the audience's curiosity.  Ruth receives a phone call from her mother before her death while working in Berlin as a DJ, wanting to speak with her.  She says it is urgent.  Ruth never picks up the call or calls her back till her father tells her of her mother’s death by falling in the shower.  Ruth is suspicious, as the message left on the phone tells Ruth that she is worried, as her father is acting stern and she is scared.  Then, her father overhears the mother’s voice when Ruth plays the message.

The film eventually develops into a psychological cat-and-mouse game. Ruth searches the house for evidence while trying to determine whether Martín is a dangerous killer, a mentally ill man who has lost touch with reality, or someone who genuinely knows something others refuse to acknowledge. Every discovery deepens the mystery instead of resolving it, forcing Ruth to question both her father's stories and her own assumptions

THE TRUTHERS works well as a psychological suspense thriller in which the audience is taken for a solid ride.  It opens for streaming on Netflix July 24th.

Trailer:

WHAT TOMORROW BRINGS (USA 2025) **
Directed by Matt Engelberft

WHAT TOMORROW BRINGS highlights the unbreakable bond of love between sisters, and how fate and faith can intervene at our darkest moment.

As her world crumbles around her, Clara (Joely Engelbert _ must do everything in her power to protect her younger sister, Ruby (Phoboe Engelbert, while not divulging the secret that will shatter them both.

  The film begins with Clara, a high-school senior, writing in her journal as part of therapy. Her narration reveals that she is looking back on the most difficult period of her life. Flashbacks show that only months earlier she appeared to be a normal teenager balancing school, rehearsals with her band, and a romance with fellow musician Noah.

However, beneath the surface, her home life is falling apart. Clara's father died years before, and her mother has never recovered emotionally from the loss. Depression has consumed her, making it increasingly difficult for her to care for Clara and her much younger sister, Ruby.

Eventually, Clara's mother, seldom seen in the film,  admits she needs psychiatric treatment and leaves to enter a treatment facility.

Almost overnight, Clara becomes the only adult in the household. She hides the truth from outsiders, believing that if authorities discover the girls are living alone, they will be separated through the foster-care system.

Her priority is protecting Ruby from fear and uncertainty.

The film is quite a boring watch, as its manipulative nature makes clear.  There is nothing really wrong with each segment of the film, but there is little audience anticipation in the film, nothing that would entice the audience to want to watch more of the film.

There is sparse use of music, especially during dramatic scenes.  But being a small production largely made by family and extended family, one can understand a bit of amateurism involved.  But the music soundtrack heard is quite bad and often sounds like elevator music and inappropriate music at that.  But at least the everyday sounds—household noises, school environments, traffic—help ground the story in realism.  Silence is often used, and maybe an excuse, to underscore Clara's loneliness and emotional exhaustion.

WHAT TOMORROW BRINGS is truly a family affair.  Written, directed, and produced by Matthew Engelbert, the film stars Joely Engelbert and Phoebe Engelbert as sisters Clara and Ruby, with both also contributing to the writing.  Eli Engelbert served as producer and handled production sound and the soundtrack.  Ariel Engelbert and Zoey Engelbert both appear in the film and assisted behind the camera, with Zoey also handling hair and makeup. Caroline Engelbert contributed an off-screen speaking role and supported the production through catering and wardrobe.  Obviously, the family affair does not guarantee a good movie, as this movie proves.  It does show a sincere effort at best.  Shot entirely on an iPhone 15 Pro Max, WHAT TOMORROW BRINGS was filmed using full-scene takes without cutting within scenes. The film also features a brand-new original song written by Zoey Engelbert.  Again, this does not guarantee a good song, which is true again in this case. The song is mediocre at best,

  WHAT TOMORROW BRINGS had its World Premiere at the Santa Fe Film Festival, where Zoey Engelbert won Best Actress. The film has also screened at additional film festivals including the Richmond International Film Festival and Saints and Sinners Film Festival where it won Best Feature. The film has a runtime of 1:36:57 and will not be rated by the MPAA. Buffalo 8 will release the film on digital platforms on July 24, 2026.

Trailer:

 

 

Details

Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 06 July 2026

Everyone is going to see Christopher Nolan's THE ODYSSEY this week.

 

BEST BETS for the week: (Titles in Bold  denote openings this week)

DISCLOSURE DAY

THE ISOLATE THIEF

PETER ASHER: EVERYWHERE MAN

ROSE OF NEVADA

STEAL AWAY

THE ODYSSEY

FILM REVIEWS:

23000 LIVES (23000 LIBEN)(Germany 2026)***

Directed by Markus Goller

23000 LIVES (23000 LIBEN)(Germany 2026)M***

Directed by Markus Goller

 

A story that needs to be told?  The filmmakers think it is.

Inspired by the true story of ‘Jugend Rettet’, 23 000 Lives tells the story of a group of young people who no longer want to stand by and watch as countless refugees die in the Mediterranean on their way to Europe.  With no experience in sea rescue, they launch a crowdfunding campaign, buy an old fishing vessel, and go on to save the lives of more than 23,000 people. And hence the title.  But what begins as a shared mission full of hope and determination soon puts their understanding of law and justice to a severe test.

Jugend Rettet is a non-governmental organization (NGO) from Berlin. Its goal is to save drowning persons in the Mediterranean Sea. From 2016 to 2017, the organization operated the Dutch-flagged rescue ship Iuventa, which, according to the organization, rescued around 23,000 people.  Hence the film title.  The ship was seized by Italian authorities in August 2017.  The ensuing criminal proceedings against former crew members on suspicion of aiding illegal immigration ended in April 2024 with the case being dismissed, and the ship was returned in July 2024.

The NGO organization is divided into three divisions.  First, there is the Iuventa crew, with the straplines "Solidarity at Sea" and "Solidarity is not a Crime”.  The name Iuventa originates from the Roman god of youth and courage.  Second, there is a department to encourage political awareness of certain issues. Third, there is a discussion platform for the right of asylum.  The film briefly shows the three divisions

The film should be praised for its humanitarian message and emotional impact, while there are reservations about its dramatic structure.  Note that this is not a doc; the entire film is a reenactment.  

Performances from Louis Hofmann, Mala Emde and the ensemble cast are effective in portraying idealistic young activists whose optimism is gradually replaced by exhaustion and legal uncertainty.  Their performances help humanize what could otherwise have become a purely political drama.  Also impressive is the authentic recreation of rescue operations. The sea-rescue sequences are depicted with realism and aid in the film’s emotion and credibility.

There is so much more to the story of Jugend Rettet, and one can easily learn more online.  Director Goller’s film concentrates primarily on the human aspect, aided by credible rescue segments,

23000 LIVES (23000 LIBEN) begins streaming on Netflix Friday, July 17th.

Trailer:

 

BARRIO TRISTE (Colombia/USA 2025) **
Directed by Stillz

The new crime drama is called BARRIO TRISTE.  Many already know the word triste, which in French means sadness.  In Spanish, "Barrio Triste" literally translates to "Sad Neighbourhood".  It is a term used to describe impoverished and historically marginalized shantytowns in the city of Medellín, Colombia, that have been heavily impacted by poverty and systemic violence.  Because of its vivid, poetic name and haunting real-world history, it has become a prominent fixture in Latin American cultural and artistic storytelling:   The Film BARRIO TRISTE  gained international attention as the title of the acclaimed found-footage crime-drama directed by Colombian-American filmmaker Stillz.   The movie follows marginalized teenagers documenting their lives in the 1980s and 1990s.

For his feature directorial debut, STILLZ, best known for his music video work with artists like Bad Bunny, delivers a bold and hallucinatory vision that marks him as a filmmaker to watch.  Fans of American auteur Harmony Korine might recognize his thumbprint here (TRASH HUMPERS, KIDS, GUMMO, SPRING BREAKERS), although this is the first film made by Korine’s production house without him at the helm.  STILLZ is a photographer and director who has worked on countless music videos for artists including Bad Bunny, Rosalía, Rauw Alejandro, Omar Apollo, and more. He directed the short film in 2023, Doesn’t It Feel Like This Was the Beginning? Barrio Triste is his feature directorial debut.  The non-stop soundtrack was composed specifically for the film by avant-garde provocateur ARCA, and it makes the highs and lows of the narrative all the more enthralling.

Th film is not really found footage.  A gang of youths steal a filmmaker’s camera at the beginning of the film and start filming themselves and also a robbery they partake.  The film looks like cinema verite with a loose narrative and handheld camera techniques, making the film look like found footage.  This kind of film can be annoying to many, but it encapsulates a certain realism.   

There are a few segments that work well, the one with the bonfire and the two guys wrestling in the background, while others, like the segment with the camera following the light in a dilapidated building with flickering lights, turn out to be repetitive.  Some segments make no sense, with the camera just following an imaginary person around corridors in a building in the dark.  At times, the film feels and looks like the famous found footage horror film THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT.

The feature debut is from Bad Bunny collaborator STILLZ and features the first original score by Arca; BARRIO TRISTE is a generational portrait of Colombia’s forgotten youth, both personal and specific in its perspective, yet unclassifiable in its formal audacity.

BARRIO TRISTE premiered in Toronto last year at the Toronto International Film Festival.  The film opens at the TIFF Lightbox on July 17th.

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DESIRE (DESEO) (Mexico 2026) ***

Directed by Teresa Simon

Lucero (Ludwika Paleta), a successful lawyer with an apparently perfect life, allows herself to be swept up in an intense affair with her daughter's young swimming coach. What begins as a forbidden desire soon turns into a threat to the fragile balance of her marriage and her career.  As her world falls apart with tragic consequences and puts her love for her family to the test, Lucero discovers how far she is willing to go to protect her own.

DESIRE is another take, a female take on FATAL ATTRACTION with a female director, female protagonist, and many female characters in the story. But the film, which takes a while to establish its thrilling momentum, is predictable to a fault.  The film has a different feel in its first half compared to the second, which is more thrilling.  The film benefits from both Paleta’s convincing performance and director Simon’s stylish rendering of her film.  The film also stresses Lucerno’s fall from grace more due to her loneliness than her sexual desire.  The actors portraying the couple are also quite hot in their looks.

DESIRE is a Netflix original film that opens Friday, June 17th.  Entertaining, guilty watch with nothing much to gain or lose by watching it!

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THE ODYSSEY (UK/USA 2026) ****

Directed by Christopher Nolan

Christopher Nolan’s ambitious and this year’s most anticipated epic fantasy is a success.  Running at almost 3 hours, Nolan, who wrote and directed the epic, follows Homer's Greek poem ODYSSEY in the order of the chapters.

The story of the epic poem takes place over the final weeks of the journey and is divided into three distinct sections and shown chronologically in Nolan’s film.

1. The Telemachy (Books 1–4)

Ten years after the fall of Troy, Odysseus is still missing and presumed dead. In his home of Ithaca, a rowdy group of noblemen—the "suitors"—have overrun his palace, drinking, feasting, and demanding that his wife Penelope choose one of them to marry. Odysseus's son, Telemachus, is powerless to stop them. Encouraged by the goddess Athena, who guides him in disguise, Telemachus leaves home to seek news of his father, visiting other Greek heroes like King Nestor and King Menelaus.

2. The Wanderings (Books 5–12)

The narrative shifts to Odysseus, who has been trapped for several years on the island of the nymph Calypso. Thanks to Athena's intervention, Zeus orders Calypso to release him. Odysseus builds a raft but is shipwrecked by Poseidon (who is angry because Odysseus blinded his son, the Cyclops Polyphemus). Washing up on the island of the Phaeacians, Odysseus is welcomed as a guest and recounts his harrowing adventures over the past decade, including: 

The Lotus-Eaters: Men who ate the intoxicating lotus flower forgot their desire to return home.

The Cyclops: Trapped in a cave by Polyphemus, Odysseus and his men blind the monster and escape. 

Circe: The enchantress who turns Odysseus's crew into pigs. 

The Underworld: Odysseus travels to the land of the dead to seek advice from the blind prophet Tiresias. 

The Sirens & Monsters: Odysseus ties himself to the mast to hear the Sirens' deadly song without steering off course, and later navigates between the deadly six-headed monster Scylla and the whirlpool Charybdis.

The Cattle of Helios: After ignoring warnings, Odysseus's crew slaughters the sacred cattle of the sun god Helios, resulting in the destruction of their ship. Only Odysseus survives.

3. The Return to Ithaca (Books 13–24)

The Phaeacians safely transport Odysseus back to Ithaca while he sleeps. Upon arrival, Athena disguises him as an old beggar so he can sneak into his palace undetected. He reunites with his son, Telemachus, and a few loyal servants. Penelope, finally exhausted by the suitors, announces a contest: she will marry the man who can string Odysseus’s massive bow and shoot an arrow perfectly through the holes of twelve aligned axe heads. None of the suitors can even bend the bow, but the "beggar" steps up, easily completes the task, and reveals his true identity. Alongside Telemachus and his loyal servants, Odysseus slaughters the suitors and reclaims his kingdom. 

Nolan’s use of minimal CGI is noticeable in the film.  His film looks epic and real.  The majority of the sea voyage was filmed on a full-size sailing vessel in the Mediterranean, Scotland, and Iceland rather than against green screens. The actors learned to sail and row, and the production incorporated the real crew into many scenes.  The production built full-scale ships, practical sets, and animatronic creatures whenever possible instead of relying on computer-generated environments.  But CGI was used in areas like the giant Cyclops and in the removal of the rigs and safety equipment of the filmed shots.

Nolan elicits superb performances, especially from Matt Damon in the lead role, who reportedly went on a gluten-free diet and worked out to obtain a lean 168 lb. muscled body.  He is also reportedly spent a year growing his beard.  An unrecognizable John Leguizamo steals the show as Eumaeus, Odysseus's faithful servant and blind swineherd as does as does Samantha Morton as the witch Circe.  Robert Pattinson also deserves mention for his role as the villain.

THE ODYSSEY marks the world’s best filmmaker at his prime, telling one of the oldest and most mesmerizing stories of all time. The film, costing $250 million to make, should end up with a solid profit.  ODYSSEY opens everywhere July 17th,

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REMAKE (USA 2025) **

Directed by Ross McElwee

REMAKE is a documentary supposedly on the remake of the documentary hit in 1986, SHERMAN’S MARCH.  The film was a huge success in Toronto, opening at the repertory cinema, the Bloor, instead of the first-run cinemas.  It was a lengthy 155-minute film with equally long lines of people lining up to see the movie.

This is what SHERMAN’S MARCH is about.  Director Ross McElwee initially planned to make a film about the effects of General William Tecumseh Sherman's Civil War campaign through Georgia and the Carolinas, the Georgia portion of which is commonly called his "March to the Sea". A romantic breakup that the director experienced before filming made it difficult for him to separate personal from professional concerns; however, he shifted his focus to create a more personal story about the women in his life, romance, and religion. Other themes include the threat of nuclear war amidst the Cold War and the legacy and complexity of Sherman's own life.The film follows a repetitive narrative pattern: McElwee becomes enamoured with various women, eventually developing feelings for each of his subjects, only to have his romantic hopes dashed.  McElwee stated the film is a personal essay blending fiction and nonfiction.

Remake (2026) is not a fictional remake of an earlier film, but a deeply personal documentary by acclaimed filmmaker Ross McElwee.  It revisits his own life, his landmark 1986 documentary Sherman's March, and, most importantly, the life and death of his son, Adrian.

The film opens with Ross McElwee reflecting on the extraordinary way his career began. In the 1980s, he set out to make a documentary about General William T. Sherman's Civil War campaign, but the project gradually transformed into the autobiographical Sherman's March, a film about his own failed relationships and family life. Decades later, a Hollywood producer purchases the rights with the intention of turning Sherman's March into a scripted feature film.

SHERMAN’S MARCH is not a very good film.  But it is a decent and sincere film, a point that polarized the film, with audiences able to connect with the subjects.  The question is why the need to remake a mediocre documentary?  REMAKE follows the same way SHERMAN’S MARCH does.  It focuses on the family of Ross, particularly focusing on his son suffering from PTSD, who has a drug problem and dies in the process of making the film.  For those who thought SHERMAN’S MARCH was a classic. There are clips of SHERMAN’S MARCH included in REMAKE, with many of the characters in the original film interviewed in REMAKE.  REMAKE also documents the breakup of Ross’s marriage and his connection with his new girlfriend, also a documentary filmmaker, who allows him to film her, but not her face.  Again, it is not very interesting,

At best, REMAKE covers the themes of grief, addiction, family, memory, autobiography, filmmaking, and the limits of documentary as a means of understanding those we love.

REMAKE opens on Friday, July 17th at the TIFF Lightbox.

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ROSE OF NEVADA (UK 2025) ***** Top 10
Directed by Mark Jenkin

“We are going to stop tart fishing again,” says the drifter’s girl, to which the reply comes ‘Something’s going on.”  Surely these words are a premonition that something odd is really going to happen.

Director Mark Jenkin made the most awesome debut years back with a film called BAIT, also set in a Cornish fishing town, that put him on the filmmaking map.  That film never reached North America, but I managed to catch it on a video sent to me via internet from a British friend.  That film was scratchy deliberately, with director Jenkin saying that he rubbed the film on the floor to achieve the scratchy marks on the screen that resembled old film stock.  Like Jenkin's earlier films (Bait and Enys Men), Rose of Nevada was shot on 16mm film using vintage equipment, giving it a grainy, dreamlike quality.  Its eerie sound design and fragmented storytelling create an atmosphere that is haunting and unsettling rather than focused on jump scares or action.  The film takes time to settle, requiring a bit of patience, but Jenkin’s films have both a marvellous and mysterious look and feel about it.  This time, the story blends folklore, grief, and science fiction into an atmospheric story rather than a conventional thriller.  Aided by George MacKay’s moody performance, the film also makes an emotional turn that is more important than the time travel. ROSE OF NEVADA is the best film I have sen this year,

Thirty years ago, a fishing trawler called the Rose of Nevada vanished at sea with all of its crew. The tragedy devastated the village, whose fishing industry never recovered. Shops closed, families moved away, and those who remained were haunted by the loss.

One day, the long-lost boat mysteriously reappears in the harbour, looking as though nothing has happened. The villagers believe its return may be a sign that their fortunes can finally change.

Two men join the new crew:

Nick (George MacKay from 1917), a struggling husband and father desperate to provide for his family.

Liam (Callum Turner), a mysterious drifter hoping to escape his troubled past.

Along with veteran skipper Murgey, they take the boat out to sea. The voyage is successful, and they return with a full catch. But when they dock, they discover something impossible has happened—they have travelled back roughly 30 years, to the time before the original disappearance. The people in the village greet them as if they are the original crew of the Rose of Nevada

ROSE OF NEVADA is also set in a Cornish town with fishermen as subjects. Jerkin feels that fishermen have a lot to do in common with real life.  Jenkin’s second film, ENYS MEN, also never reached (I have not seen this one), though it premiered at Cannes, and ROSE OF NEVADA is the first film reaching North America that demands to be seen.  The film, at the time of writing, has scored a 95% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Though the film has an American-sounding title, it is a totally British film, the title of which is the name of the boat that disappeared at sea.

ROSE OF NEVADA, the first of three Jenkin films opening in Canada, opens at the TIFF Lightbox July 17th.

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STEAL AWAY (Canada/Belgium 2025) ***1/2

Directed by Clement Virgo

STEAL AWAY  is the new 2025 drama film, directed by Clement Virgo.  Adapted from Karolyn Smardz Frost's non-fiction book Steal Away Home, the film stars Angourie Rice as Fanny, a naive teenager in a purposely ambiguous country, whose illusions about the world are shattered when she forms an intense bond with Cécile (Mallori Johnson), a refugee taken in by her family.

The film begins with Once Upon a Time, like a fairy tale and a very grim one at that.  Evil lurks everywhere.  This is Canadian director Clement Virgo’s most feminine film, based on a female-based story written by a female as well.  There are plenty of female touches, and director Virgo has done his homework, as can be seen in the childbirth scene, water broken, cutting of the umbilical cord, and all.

Director Virgo creates and maintains the chilling gothic mood of this psychological thriller from start to finish, keeping the twists in the story (not to be revealed in this review) at the very end.

The story follows Fanny (Angourie Rice), a sheltered and naïve teenage girl whose wealthy family takes in Cécile (Mallori Johnson), a mysterious young refugee.   At first, Fanny is fascinated by Cécile's confidence, independence, and enigmatic past.  Their friendship quickly deepens into an intense and obsessive relationship, stirring feelings of admiration, jealousy, sexual awakening, and rivalry.

As the relationship grows more complicated, Fanny begins to question the seemingly benevolent world in which she has been raised.  The film gradually reveals that the family's comfortable existence rests on hidden systems of exploitation and oppression.  Cécile and Fanny discover that they are trapped in a society whose rules are designed to maintain inequality and control, and they must decide whether to challenge those forces or become complicit in them.

The credits say that the films inspired by the book.  The book is a work of narrative nonfiction based on the true life of Cecelia Reynolds, an escaped enslaved girl, whereas the film changes the tone to a fictional psychological thriller with allegorical and fairy-tale elements.

The original story is set in Kentucky, Canada (especially Toronto), and the U.S. South between the 1840s and post-Civil War years. It is set in an unnamed, ambiguous fairy-tale-like world that combines elements of the antebellum American South and contemporary Europe.

As there are already so many films based on black slave history, this fairy tale approach makes the film more intriguing, with director Virgo carefully reconstructing real historical events through archival research.  Symbolism, dream logic, suspense, and horror to explore race, gender, and power.  The film is also a coming-of-age story of Fanny, with the film focusing first on Cécile and then fanny coming into the picture.

Why the film is called STEAL AWAY is understood at the end of the film.

The film was shot in English, French, and Lingala – spoken by Cécile and other Congolese characters, emphasizing their cultural identity and refugee experience.

The film was shot entirely in Thuin, Belgium – a notable medieval town in Wallonia whose streets and architecture help create the film's timeless setting.

STEAL AWAY premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival and opens in theatres on July 17th.

Details

Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 27 June 2026

BEST BETS for the week:

BLOOD LINES

DISCLOSURE DAY

SHOOT THE PEOPLE

IN THE HAND OF DANTE (Netflix)

PETER ASHER: EVERYWHERE MAN

 

 

 

FILM REVIEWS:

 

BOUCHRA (Morocco/Italy/USA 2025) **

Directed by Orian Barki and Meriem Bennani

The beginning sequence of the fresh and inventive film BOUCHRA, shot in French, English, and Moroccan, has the word Casablanca appearing on th screen, then followed by the words New Your.  The audience sees a NYC subway train flying by, and an image can be seen.  The image forms into acid to animal, later revealed to be a coyote named BOUCHRA, also the name of the film. What initially looks like a horror movie then settles to be playful animation drama,

BOUCHRA tells the story of a queer New York filmmaker’s conversations with her mother in Morocco. A film that combines documentary techniques with an inventive narrative structure and uses 3D animation would be enough to make it a unique work.  But what makes it a singular piece is its disarming and affecting honesty, its surrealism belied with deep reality issues and emotional drama.

Thirty-five-year-old Bouchra, a Moroccan filmmaker living in New York, has reached an artistic dead end.  She sits in front of an unfinished screenplay, unable to decide how to tell the story of her journey from Casablanca to New York or how honest she should be about her life as a queer woman.  The film she wants to make is autobiographical, but painful memories and unresolved family issues leave her creatively paralyzed.  As obvious and predictable in this kind of art feature, the film BOUCHRA wants to make is the one the audience sees.  Does the audience care?  Orian Barki and Meriem Bennani do their thing and do not bother with whether the audience cares or not.  They just tell their story in their own way, which makes the film both fresh and interesting to non-commercial audiences and frustrating and a tad confusing for commercial audiences,

The confusion and freshness of the film compete as the narrative constantly shifts between Bouchra's present-day life in New York, scenes from the film she is trying to create,

memories of growing up in Morocco, and actual-style phone conversations with her mother.  One scene, when Bouchra is talking to her mother while making a dish in the microwave, is distracting and annoying.  The fact that Bouchra does not don a human face also does not allow her character to express emotions 

In the real world, Bouchra’s life in New York, Bouchra continues living within New York's queer artistic community.  She spends time with friends, goes to clubs, has romantic and sexual relationships, and discusses filmmaking with collaborators. Yet despite this freedom, she still hides important parts of her life from her mother.  The contrast becomes one of the film's central tensions: New York represents self-expression.  Casablanca represents family, tradition, and unresolved emotional ties.

The many questions raised in the film are left hanging, as expected in art films where the solution is not the goal but the journey towards it. Does Bouchra reconcile with her mother, who, with her father, kicked her out when she came out as gay?  Does Bouchra succeed in making her film?  How does her settling in New York as a queer immigrant end up, and how does Boxcar reconcile the two cultures?   This results in an artsy, confusing, and annoying film despite its different approach,

BOUCHRA opens July 3rd at the TIFF Lightbox with limited screenings.

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ENOLA HOLMES 3 (UK 2026) ***
Directed by Philip Barantini

To those unfamiliar with the character of Enola Holmes, Enola is also a brilliant detective and sister of Sherlock Holmes.

Enola Holmes is an American mystery film franchise created by Harry Bradbeer and Philip Barantini that has been produced by PCMA Productions and Legendary Pictures in association with Netflix since 2020.  The films in the franchise include Enola Holmes, Enola Holmes 2, and Enola Holmes 3.

The first two films are directed by Harry Bradbeer, and the third film is directed by Philip Barantini. All films are written by Jack Thorne and star Millie Bobby Brown as Enola Holmes, the main protagonist of the series.

This film begins in Malta, where Enola Holmes and Lord Tewkesbury have arrived for their wedding.  The ceremony is being held there because Tewkesbury’s late father served in Malta during the British occupation, and his mother believes it is the most meaningful place for the family.   Sherlock attends but is openly against the marriage, believing Enola is sacrificing her independence to become a Lady.  Enola insists she can be both a wife and a detective.

Meanwhile, Sherlock is secretly working on another case. Before he can explain it to Enola, he disappears.  At the same time, a dying Maltese soldier mutters what sounds like “wrath.” Enola later deduces he actually said “Rathe,” the surname of someone important. The soldier had been searching for Professor Adeline Rathe, believing she supported Maltese independence from Britain.  Searching Sherlock’s room, Enola finds a torn piece of an expensive woman’s dress. She tracks the woman through Valletta, but before she can question her, the woman is shot by a sniper. As she dies, she warns Enola, “She will kill you.” Enola pursues the assassin but loses him.  And the intrigue and action continue.

ENOLA HOLMES, unlike the other Sherlock Holmes films (except for one, Billy Wilder’s excellent THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES), is played mostly for laughs.  From the beginning, with comical narration such as how good stories always begin with a wedding, there is much humour, good solid English humour in this one.  For example, the carnival in Malta is exceptionally subtly funny if one looks loosely at what is on parade and the reactions of the people there.

There are also some snide comments about the British in Malta.  Enola is told that the British are not welcome in Malta, as they get the Maltese to fight and die in the British battles while not understanding how to run their country. The film was shot at the Shepperton Studios as well as on the island of Malta.

There are three reasons to watch ENOLA HOLMES 3.  Firstly, it is based on the popular mystery series books by Nancy Springer.  The second is that Enola is the sister of Sherlock Holmes in the franchise, Sherlock being the world’s greatest detective.  With the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle comes all the familiar characters, including Dr. Watson and villain Professor Moriarty, both of whom also appear in ENOLA HOLMES 3.  Thirty and most important reason of all is that ENOLA HOLMES 3 is directed by British filmmaker Philip Barantini, winner of 2 EMMY Primetime Awards, and who directed the miniseries ADOLESCENCE in 2025, one of the best series ever!

ENOLA HOLMES 3 opens for streaming on Netflix July 1st.

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PETER ASHER: EVERYWHERE MAN (USA/UK 2025) ***1/2

Directed by Daniel Geller and Dayna Goldfine

Who is Peter Asher?  Those in the music industry, and anyone who is a singer/songwriter, would definitely know.  He is a smart man, for one, immensely talented and musical. And this documentary, which brings one back to the nostalgic 1960s, does this gentleman justice.

PETER ASHER: EVERYWHERE MAN is a feature-length documentary inspired by musician, producer, and manager Peter Asher’s celebrated cabaret show A Musical Memoir of the ’60s and Beyond. Like his stage performance, the film traces an extraordinary life lived at the center of modern music history. From his early years as a child actor in 1950s London to the Swinging Sixties, Asher emerges as a Zelig-like figure in the culture of the era: one half of the pop duo “Peter and Gordon,” recipients of four chart-topping hits penned by Paul McCartney; the first head of A&R at Apple Records; and co-owner of the Indica Gallery, the epicenter of London’s countercultural art scene. Asher helped define a generation of singer-songwriters as producer and manager for James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, and others, cementing his reputation as one of music’s most influential behind-the-scenes forces of the 1970s and ‘80s. In the present day, he remains a vital creative force, still performing, producing, and most recently collaborating with Barbra Streisand on her acclaimed The Secret of Life duets album.

The doc unfolds with Peter giving a talk about his achievements on stage.  The doc unfolds in chronological, a way this reviewer prefers, instead of distracting over-styled ways.

Asher was born at the Central Middlesex Hospital to Richard and Margaret Asher, née Eliot. His father was a consultant in blood and mental diseases at the Central Middlesex Hospital as well as being a broadcaster and the author of notable medical articles. Asher's mother was a professor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. One of her pupils there was George Martin.mm Asher is the brother of Clare Asher, a radio actress and school inspector, and Jane Asher, an English actress and author.

One of the best things introduced in the docs the song, a hit written by Paul McCartney for the duo Peter and Gordon, a song that they performed.  The song is called “A World Without Love,” performed by the duo; a song that made it to number one in the UK charts, then the European charts, and then the American charts.  The song can be heard on YouTube, and I have played it several times already as it is such a beautiful and nostalgic song,

Quote: a bit of the doc is devoted to the duo of Peter and Gordon.  They were classmates and, in Peter’s words, the only other schoolmate that’d a guitar. As the story goes, they hooked up, formed a duo, and because ver popular locally.  Gordon, according to Peter, was the handsome one, and he was also the wild, angry, and more ill-disciplined one. Peter was known as the intelligent one.

PETER ASHER: EVERYWHERE MAN is a beautifully put-together documentary that celebrates the music and songs of the 60s’s. It is so entertaining as it shows how Peter Asher wove his way around to become a successful record producer while working with celebrities like James Taylor, Carole King, and Linda Ronstadt, among others.  Of court the Beatles are also on display.  Though the doc drags on a little in the middle, watching the entire film is indeed a wonderful experience.

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ROMERIA (Spain/Germany 2026) ***
Directed by Carla Simón

The film is shot in Vigo, where the story is set, the place where the protagonist Marina travels to find the truths behind her mother and father.  The film portrays the beauty of Vigo with its sunshine and beaches, clear waters for swimming, and beautiful archaic architecture.  Vigo is a city and municipality in Spain, in the autonomous community of Galicia in the province of Pontevedra, and the capital of the comarca (comarcas are divisions of Vigo) of Vigo.  Located in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula, it sits on the southern shore of an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean, the Ria de Vigo, the southernmost of the Rías Baixas.  The film promotes the city, clearly one to be visited.

As Marina explores Vigo, she reads passages from her mother's diary.

The diary paints an entirely different picture.

Instead of the cautionary tale described by her father's relatives, Marina discovers a passionate love story between two young people who dreamed of escaping ordinary life before addiction overwhelmed them.

Marina is young at 18 and subject to the pains of first love.  During her stay, Marina develops a tender attraction to one of her young cousins. Their relationship remains restrained and somewhat ambiguous, but emotionally it becomes important.  In the film, the romance is used to allowsMarina to imagine how her own parents may have fallen in love decades earlier.

This emotional parallel shifts the film away from straightforward realism into something more poetic.

The film contains a few sensitive and moving moments.  The one where grandfather Alonso gives Marina money for her former cinema studies so she does not need to go through the trouble of winning a scholarship is one that stands out.  “That is not why I am here (to Vigo), “ is her reply- an answer that explains a lot to the audience,

The film basically is about a girl who travels to visit her extended family to find out the truth about her parents, her parents who were drug addicts and who died of AIDs, a disease shameful at the time, and also still shameful now.  The family tried to hide the fact from the folks of Vigo, a city in which rumours spread.   There is really nothing wrong with the film, but it moves at a slow pace, often too slow for anyone’s patience.  One has to be patient to see how the story unravels and how emotions are felt.

The second half of the film is more fantasy as Marina imagines her parents, who then appear on screen.  They are shown, sometimes with Marina present as well, as free spirits who love each other tremendously while experimenting with all the different drugs they can find.

Eventually, Marina finds out more than she knew at the beginning of her parents, though her extended family gives her different accounts of them. It's up to Marina to put the pieces together and decide which are more accurate.  The film ends with a happy and contented Marina, which is expected when she finally accomplishes the task of discovering her parents.

ROMERIA opens in theatres July 3rd.

Trailer:

Details

Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 22 June 2026

BEST BETS for the week:

BLOOD LINES

DISCLOSURE DAY

SHOOT THE PEOPLE

THE ISOLATE THIEF

PETER ASHER: EVERYWHERE MAN

 

 

FILM REVIEWS:

 

ANIMALS IN WAR (Ukraine/Germany 2025) ***
Directed by Sviatoslav Kostiuk, Andriy Lidahovskyi, Alexei Mamedov, Ivan Sautkin,  Yuliya Shashkova,  Myroslav Slaboshpytskyi, and Maksym Tuzov

ANIMALS IN WAR is a war anthology film consisting of seven short stories from Ukrainian and foreign artists, whose protagonists are animals suffering from the terrible war in Ukraine.  The shorts are shown one after the other and not intercut, which means that the film is easier to follow without any short being interrupted.  With seven shorts in total, this is probably the only way to go.

The seven interconnected stories are inspired by real events from Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a war that is till going on. Instead of focusing on soldiers or politicians, the film tells the war through the experiences of animals—both wild and domestic—caught in the conflict. Each segment has a different director and visual style, but all explore themes of survival, innocence, displacement, and the bond between humans and animals. The film shows the compassion humans have for animals.  The question is, why don’t a lot of humans like Vladimir Putin have compassion for another human being?

The short stories include a white rabbit, a cow, a cat, a wolf, marine creatures, and other animals affected by the war. Together, the stories create a portrait of a country devastated not only on a human level but also ecologically.

Quite ambitious in getting the message across, a few segments work better than others.  The segment with the marine creatures is a tad too ambitious and confusing, while the rabbit and cow ones work best.  The rabbit segment, which has the least dialogue, is the most endearing, all because the rabbit is so harmless and adorable, an animal that has an affinity to human beings.   The animal becomes a symbol of innocence trapped in circumstances it cannot understand.  The rabbit experiences the terror of explosions, collapsing buildings, and sudden evacuations. Through the animal's reactions, viewers witness the psychological effects of war from a perspective free of politics or ideology.  The relationship between the cow and the boy who finds her is extremely moving, the cow providing milk to the boy while the boy tries to save her.  In the rabbit segment, the titles at the end indicate that the rabbit was a real pet that disappeared from its cage after a Russian bombing.  The cow featured in the film was also injured during shelling.

Academy Award Winner Sean Penn gets star billing in the film, the filmmakers obviously hoping his name would attract more audiences.  Penn features in the first segment entitled “Eagle”.  He plays an American sound producer working with a Ukrainian colleague. The story revolves around recordings of birdsong and natural sounds.  As the war escalates, the sounds of nature are increasingly drowned out by sirens, missiles, and explosions. The segment reflects on what is lost when war destroys not only lives but also the ordinary sounds and rhythms of the natural world.

ANIMALS OF WAR illustrates the effect of the war from a different perspective, from that of animals, both wild and domestic.  It is an ambitious film that works primarily through the observation of the effects the war has on innocent creatures that have not identified what is going on.

The film premieres via VOD and leading digital platforms on July 10th.

Trailer:

 

EVIL DEAD BURN (USA 2026) 
Directed by Sébastien Vaniček

The EVIL DEAD franchise is well and alive, and every film has been a success at the box office.    Sam Raimi, who directed and originated the first one, would be grinning in his grave when he is dead.

EVIL DEAD is an American horror franchise created by Sam Raimi consisting of five feature films and a television series.  The series follows various characters as they battle demonic forces unleashed by ancient grimoires.  The protagonist, Ashley Joanna "Ash" Williams (Bruce Campbell), appears in the original trilogy including The Evil Dead (1981), Evil Dead II (1987), and Army of Darkness (1992), all written and directed by Raimi, produced by Rob Tapert and starring Campbell. The franchise has since expanded into other formats, including video games, comic books, and, believe it or not, a musical.

The latest is EVIL DEAD BURN because there is a lot of fire and burning in the film, especially in the climax

One would expect the spirit of the EVIL DEAD films to be consistent, but in the latest offering, there is hardly any of the Sam Raimi humour that characterized his films and made them into a cult following. EVIL DEAD BURN does maintain consistency in terms of killing, blood, and ultra violence.  The film is not short of horror set pieces, but many of these do not make any sense.  For example, why and how do the demonic entities choose to possess the humans of the chosen family?  The protagonist is also subject to tons of violence that no human being in real life can survive.  Although this is a fictional horror film, there must be some kind of credibility.  One other character is tossed around the house by a demon while his back and backside are stabbed by a whole of knives and other assorted sharp objects, but he can still move around.

Following the death of her husband, Alice (Souheila Yacoub) and her late husband’s family come together at a secluded house.  The gathering becomes a "family reunion from hell" as members gradually turn into a new kind of living dead.

The film contains a loose narrative centred on the family of Alice’s husband.  But there are a few disconnected loose ends.  The beginning camp g horror sequence in which two fishing campers are brutally done away with has nothing to do with the rest of the film.  The film looks as if all the horror set pieces were filmed separately and then haphazardly put together.  Nothing makes much sense, especially how a human can withstand such brutal torture and violence when attacked.  

Director Sébastien Vaniček is a French director best known for his 2023 hit VERMINES (English title: INFECTED), a film much better than EVIL DEAD BURN.

Each film of the franchise has received generally positive reviews from critics, with the original trilogy developing a cult following, and has grossed a collective $300 million worldwide.  There is without doubt that EVIL DEAD BURN should score bloody points at the box office.  EVIL DEAD BURN opens in theatres on July 10th.

The filmmakers are so confident of the film’s success that a seventh installment, titled Evil Dead Wrath, is set to be released on April 7, 2028, and it will be a prequel to The Evil Dead.

 

Trailer:

GAIL DAUGHTRY AND THE CELEBRITY SEX PASS (USA 2026) **
Directed by David Wain

  Gail Daughtry (Zoey Deutch), a hairdresser in rural Kansas (with a nod to THE WIZARD OF OZ’s Dorothy in Kansas), and her fiancé Tom (Michael Cassidy) are two weeks away from their wedding when they discuss their "celebrity sex pass": the one celebrity they could have sex with, given the chance, without violating their relationship.  Initially, Tom chooses Tilda Swinton, and Gail chooses Jon Hamm.  After meeting Jennifer Aniston at a book signing with Gail, Tom switches his pass and, after pretending to leave his jacket at the store, goes back to have sex with Aniston, upsetting Gail, as she had considered the celebrity sex pass to be a joke.  Gail, upset, distances herself from Tom by traveling to Los Angeles with her friend Otto to attend a hairdressing convention.

Upon arriving in Los Angeles, Gail's briefcase is accidentally swapped with a briefcase belonging to Ludovica, a criminal intent on destroying the world's financial system, as her henchmen take a picture with Henry Winkler.  Enraged to discover this, Ludovica kills one of the henchmen before sending the other, Sergio, on a quest to find the briefcase and kill Gail. Sergio turns to his fellow henchmen, Niccolo, to find Gail; meanwhile, Gail explores the city with Otto. Gail realizes, after a visit to a psychic, that the only way to mend her relationship with Tom is to fulfill her side of the celebrity sex pass discussion by having sex with Jon Hamm. Gail and Otto attempt to locate Jon Hamm via his agency, CAA, and meet Caleb, an aspiring young agent. Taking pity on the duo, Caleb talks to the higher-ups, which causes him to lose his job. However, Caleb steals Jon Hamm's home address as he is leaving the talent agency and joins Gail and Otto in their quest.  

A lot is going on in Wain’s comedy, but everything turns out more hectic than funny.Dialogue can be corny at times too.  But director Wain does not care.  At the ending, where Gail rejects the groom, she tells him that he is her world, but there is a universe out there to explore.

The film also contains some unfunny parts such as Caleb convincing Mr. Slattery (playing himself) that he is the right right (Wright) brother and not the wrong right brother.  Instead of keeping that part short, it keeps going on and on.   On a positive note, A few of David Wain’s humour works, like the narration made by the local mailman, including a scene that is shot with the camera in a mailbox.

But one might forget that the entire film is based on an absurd premise, which in the words of Gail herself is utterly stupid.  And the film often feels like it.

Director Wain manages to elicit an impressive list of celebrities, including Jennifer Aniston and Jon Hamm as the two celebrities Garland, her fiancé, chooses.  Others include Weird Al Yankovic, Elizabeth Perkins, and Henry Winkler.

One must give director Wain credit for believing the material, his own material actually, that delivers a grand ending for his unromantic comedy.  

Trailer:

IKKA (India 2026) ***
Directed by Siddharth P Malhotra

 

 

A respected attorney must defend a murder suspect he previously brought down. Forced into the case, he bends every rule to secure freedom for his former enemy or risk losing all he cherishes.

IKKA is a fast-moving Bollywood crime drama that moves at breakneck speed (despite its running time of 2 hours and 20 minutes) and has the feel of those past 1960 cop thrillers.

 

(Full review to be posted in the evening)

Trailer:

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IP MAN: KUNG FU LEGEND (HK 2026) ***
Directed by Li Liming

The IP MAN franchise has been very popular with Asian audiences.  It should be noted that there are two of these.

The Donnie Yen series (main franchise) contains 4 films: Ip Man (2008) and Ip Man 2 to IP MAN 4: THE FINALE.

The Dennis To spin-off series, including this film reviewed here, tells independent stories about Ip Man and is not connected to the Donnie Yen continuity.

Both actors are martial arts experts, with Dennis To being a former Wushu champion and martial arts icon.

IP MAN: KUNG FU LEGEND is set in 1950s Hong Kong, after Ip Man has become an established Wing Chun master.  The film opens with Dennis Top as the IP MAN passes the 3 difficult tests in order to meet the standard and thus open his own Martial Arts school.  The first test involves fighting with one hand while holding an oil lamp.  During the fight, the light must not go out, nor any oil be spilt.  The second involves him fighting blindfolded and defeating his opponent.  The third is also just as impossible for any fighter, period.  Yet he succeeds.  He thus opens his own martial arts school and defends the local kung fu community against Western commercial interests and criminal organisations.  A Western-owned boxing gym and its criminal allies try to dominate the local martial arts community.  Local schools face closure through intimidation and violence, and Ip Man becomes the leading defender of traditional Chinese martial arts, culminating in a series of battles against corrupt businessmen, hired fighters, and gangsters.

The story involves him being framed and then convicted to prison.  This is the main difference between the other IP MAN films.  But the storyline is not as important as the action pieces, which are the reason fans go see the franchise.  The opening fight sequences are solid enough to impress and promise fans that more is to come.  The tone involves a bit of emotion with his wife and child, but again, like the other IP MAN films, the emotional narrative is lacking.

The film demonstrates the principles of Wing Chun—especially: centre line control, economy of motion, forward pressure, and close-range efficiency.  However, neither franchise depicts "real" fighting exactly as it would occur. Both are choreographed for cinema, and both occasionally sacrifice realism for dramatic effect.

Comparing the previous IP MAN films and the current one, KUNG FU LEGEND, 

centres on Wing Chun but tends to be more traditional in appearance, slightly slower and easier to follow and more focused on martial arts demonstration than nonstop action, willing to mix in techniques from other Chinese martial arts when the story calls for it.  The fights often resemble classic Hong Kong kung fu films from the 1980s and 1990s more than the sleek, high-intensity style of the Donnie Yen, original IP MAN  series.

IP MAN: KUNG FU LEGEND has no theatrical release in North America, but it goes straight to debuting on Digital, 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray & DVD July 14 from the Well Go USA distributor.

Trailer:

THE ISOLATE THIEF (USA 2026) ***1/2

Directed by John Suits

An emotionally resonant Civil War-era story of an isolated young woman who must outwit a malicious gang of outlaws, the new Western feature The Isolate Thief opens only in theatres July 10 from Radial Entertainment.  THE SOLARE THIEF is the story of the young woman Aida, who has stolen gold in the form of gold coins, hiding the fact from the army soldiers led bySean Bean who show up,

The film begins in the year 1865 at an American outpost manned by one woman, the daughter of a recently deceased army general.  An American outpost generally refers to a small, remote military camp or base established by the U.S. Armed Forces at a distance from main formations. These installations typically serve as the first line of defence to observe enemy movements, provide logistical support, or protect an area from surprise attacks. 

THE ISOLATE THIEF is touted as a Western, but it blends several genres:

a survival thriller, centred on one woman's fight to stay alive, a siege film, with a small outpost under constant threat from heavily armed outlaws, a cat-and-mouse suspense story, emphasizing strategy and psychological games rather than nonstop gunfights, and period drama, set against the backdrop of the Civil War and the lawlessness that followed.

Director Suits emphasizes the harshness of living in the cold winters.  The ground is hard and frozen, as seen in the segment where the soldiers are digging a hole to bury a body.  He also stresses the difficulty in killing, despite the many killings that occur.  The climactic killing and shootout is a desperate one in which the parties, including the surviving ones, are wounded.

The film has a strong female slant with two surviving women coming to each other’s aid.  Air is also depicted as a smart and educated woman compared to the rough and crude male soldiers.  The only male with redeeming qualities is Aida’s father, who is not seen in the film

Set during the closing months of the American Civil War, the film follows a young woman (played by Mackenzie Foy) who becomes the sole caretaker of a remote Union Army outpost after it has largely been abandoned for the winter. Her quiet existence changes when she unexpectedly acquires a cache of stolen gold that originally belonged to a ruthless gang of outlaws. When the criminals discover the gold is missing, they descend on the isolated outpost, convinced she knows where it is hidden.

With no realistic hope of rescue and surrounded by a frozen wilderness, she must rely on intelligence rather than brute force. She hides the gold while manipulating the gang, setting traps, exploiting divisions among the outlaws, and using the harsh winter environment to her advantage. As supplies dwindle and the tension rises, survival becomes a deadly contest of deception, endurance, and betrayal.

Overall, THE ISOLATE THIEF succeeds as a rare and entertaining, if quite violent, female survival horror film in a western setting that depicts the harshness of both the Colgate and the male beings.  THE ISOLATE THIEF opens in theatres July 10th.

Trailer:

MOANA (USA 2026) ***|
Directed by Thomas Kail

MOANA is the title of both the Disney 2016 and 2026 films.

The new Moana (2026) is a 2026 American musical adventure film serving as a live-action adaptation of Disney Animation's 2016 film. The third installment and the first live-action film in the Moana franchise, the film was directed by Thomas Kail ( theatrical acclaimed director) in his feature directorial debut from a screenplay by Jared Bush and Dana Ledoux Miller, and produced by Dwayne Johnson, Hiram, Dany Garcia, Beau Flynn, and songwriter Lin-Manuel Miranda. 

Moana is a coming-of-age adventure set thousands of years ago among the islands of Polynesia. It follows the journey of a young woman who must restore the balance of nature by returning a magical artifact to an ancient goddess.  Once upon a time, the benevolent island goddess Te Fiti created life throughout the Pacific using a glowing green stone called the Heart of Te Fiti. The demigod Dwayne Johnson's character Maui, who possesses a magical fishhook that lets him transform into animals, steals the Heart to give humanity the power of creation.

As Maui escapes, he is attacked by Te Kā, a monstrous lava demon who rises to protect the Heart. Maui loses both the Heart and his magical fishhook. Without the Heart, darkness begins spreading across the ocean, killing plants, fish, and entire ecosystems.

One of Disney’s formulas for success is wonder and magic in their brand.  Unfortunately, these elements are mostly compromised.  The live-action Moana is uncannily similar to the cartoon original – but at no point does it ever match it. While the cartoon's animation was dazzlingly bright and rich, the story new and fresh, with joyous animated character design and luminescent views of turquoise waves and verdant island scenery, the live-action rehash has lots of relatively ordinary-looking actors standing around in blurry CGI settings.  Also, the rehash and remake lack a fresh story.

As a musical, it is a minor one, and as a live-action film, it is also minor.  There are many animated parts in the segments with CGI monsters, which makes one wonder why make a live-action remake if there is so much animation in the first place.  The film is undoubtedly well put together, with the animated and live-action well integrated, but why go to all this effort in this very costly $200-$250 million production?  Like Warner Bros recent expensive box-office flop SUPERGIRL, the WB marketing team has some explaining to do.  Or be fired.  In these days when movies go straight to streaming services within a month, the main way to make money is to keep production costs low.  This is evident in low-budget hits like the recent BACKROOMS and OBSESSION.  Another reason is that this new MOANA is too close in time to the original MOANA animated feature, and MOANA 2 was not that much of a hit.

If one considers MOANA as a standalone animated live-action film, it is undoubtedly well put together.  As in Disney films, this story is formulaic with a lot of predictable tropes. For example, when the Dwayne Johnson demi-god character Maui swears never to return after his hook weapon is damaged, one knows he will relent when Moana is in trouble with the fiery demon Te Ka.

         Moana opens in theatres June 10th.

Trailer:

THE OUTER THREAT (Canada 2025) ***

Directed by William Woods

Hot on the heels of the Steven Spielberg blockbuster alien film DISCLOSURE DAY, this Canadian (from Ontario, closer to home) cheaper yet sharp version of an alien threat is entitled THE OUTER THREAT.  

After making a groundbreaking extraterrestrial discovery, astrophysicists Daniel (Mark O’Brien) and Michelle (Constance Wu) are forced to flee from home with their family, son and daughter in tow, pursued through the countryside by a relentless and anonymous assailant in the form of unidentified drones and an unseen pursuer begin tracking them.  Realizing they can no longer trust the authorities, they flee into the rural countryside with their children.  As the chase intensifies, the film keeps the audience guessing if the family is truly being hunted because of what they've discovered, or is fear and paranoia are distorting their perception of events.

As their flight unfolds, the line between cosmic revelation and human paranoia blurs, leading to a tense and emotional confrontation that challenges the boundaries of understanding, science, and survival.  There is the assumption that aliens exist.

It might be unfair to call THE OUTER THREAT a poor man’s version of DISCLOSURE DAY, as the film is not only pretty good but efficient enough to share many similarities with it.  For one, the aliens only just come into the picture near the halfway mark, similar to DISCLOSURE DAY, JAWS and THE BIRDS, where audience anticipation is kept at its height.  In THE OUTER THREAT, the attacking drones arrive only at the 30-minute mark.  Like another excellent alien film, M. Night Shyamalan’s SIGNS, the protagonist and his family are holed up right in nowhere, away from the city, so that if aliens have attacked, they are unaware.  The film is shot in Northern Ontario, where lots of countryside exists.  But the setting is in the United States.

THE OUTER THREAT also blurs whether the protagonists are uncovering an extraordinary truth or descending into paranoia.  That gives it more of an intimate, suspense-driven feel than Spielberg's blockbuster.  

The film stars Newfoundlander Mark O’Brien and Americans Constance Wu and William Fichtner.  Callista Crowe and Isaac Smelcer-Zhang steal the movie as the two kids.

By inevitable comparison to Spielberg’s DISCLOSURE DAY, because of the huge budget and already recognized and experienced direction of Spielberg, DISCLOSURE DAY is the superior picture, providing edge-of-the-seat thrills and action set pieces that only money can afford.  Still, the Canadian THE OUTER THREAT holds its own, all things considered.

. It is a pity that the film is going direct to Digital and VOD, as the film is good enough with excellent cinematography for it to be worthy of the big screen.  Director William Wood is also a notable producer.  William Woods is a Toronto-based filmmaker who began his career producing the 2016 thriller Mean Dreams, which premiered in the Directors' Fortnight at Cannes. Woods' most recent films as a producer include Castle in the Ground (2020) and The Kid Detective (2020).

THE OUTER THREAT is available on VOD and Digital on Friday, July 10th.

Trailer:

 

SHIPWRECKED:

SHIPWRECKED: NIGHTMARE AT SEA (USA 2026) ***½

Directed by Chiara Messineo

 

Everyone loves a good disaster story.  The new feature documentary SHIPWRECKED: NIGHTMARE AT SEA has one- a modern-day one that occurred less than a decade backwash Titanic proportions.  

The feature-length documentary that examines the catastrophic sinking of the Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia off the coast of Italy on January 13, 2012, one of the worst cruise ship disasters in modern history.   Using never-before-seen footage, recordings, and interviews with survivors and witnesses, the film reconstructs (there are lots of enactments that allow the audience to feel that the events are actually happening) both the accident and the chaotic evacuation that followed.

The documentary begins by introducing the Costa Concordia, a 114,500-ton luxury cruise ship carrying more than 4,200 passengers and crew on a Mediterranean voyage. The atmosphere aboard is festive as guests enjoy dinner, entertainment, and the amenities of what was then one of the world's largest cruise ships.  The disaster begins when Captain Francesco Schettino orders an unauthorized close pass—known as a "salute"—near the island of Giglio. The ship strikes submerged rocks, tearing a massive gash in its hull. Seawater floods several compartments, causing a complete power failure and leaving the vessel crippled.  Passengers initially receive reassuring announcements that the electrical blackout is only a technical problem. The documentary emphasizes how these delays prevented many people from realizing the seriousness of the situation. Meanwhile, the ship develops an increasingly dangerous list as flooding spreads.

The villain of the piece was the captain of the cruise ship.  Captain Gregorio de Falco abandoned ship, claiming that he fell into one of the lifeboats.  Not only was this man a coward, but he was the cause of the disaster.  His sentence to 12 years in prison is hardly enough punishment for the lives lost due to his act.  This man has also been accused of assaulting his wife and daughter.

The doc adds the personal element by interviewing different passengers and crew members, even though the sight of a tilting ship and the chaos on board during the crash - the interviewee survivors describe the screeching and scraping sounds.

Definitely worth a watch, SHIPWRECKED: NIGHTMARE AT SEA opens for streaming on Netflix July 10th.

Details

Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 21 June 2026

FILM REVIEWS:

BEST BETS for the week:

BLOOD LINES

COUTURE

DISCLOSURE DAY

SHOOT THE PEOPLE

IN THE HAND OF DANTE (Netflix)

UNIDENTIFIED

FILM REVIEWS:

 

BLOOD LINES (Canada 2025) ***½

Directed by Gail Maurice

 

Canadian Indigenous director Gail Maurice returns after her acclaimed ROSIE with another entertaining hit that also encompasses current Indigenous issues.  Maurice plays a mother, riddled with cancer, who returns to reconciliation with her daughter, taken away from her because of drink.  Meanwhile, the daughter, also a storyteller and store clerk, Beatrice (Dana Solomon), is completely taken by a new woman who arrives in her Métis community looking to find her biological family. Beatrice decides to help Chani (Derica Lafrance) in order to spend more time with her.  Meanwhile, a chorus of older women, collectively referred to as “The Grannies,” tries to get Beatrice to mend things with her mom. Director Maurice’s tale is also full of humour that lifts the dramatic tale up several notches.  Entertaining while making a point with an important message.

COUTURE (French Title: COUTURES)(France/US 2026) ***

Directed by Alice Wincour

Couture (French title: Coutures) is a 2025 drama film written and directed by Alice Winocour. It stars Angelina Jolie, Louis Garrel, Ella Rumpf, and Garance Marillier.

The film had its world premiere in the Special Presentations section of the Toronto International Film Festival on September 7, 2025.

Marked by a memorable performance from Oscar-winning French-speaking Angelina Jolie, the latest from writer-director Alice Winocour (PARIS MEMORIES) is a compelling new film, set in the Parisian fashion industry during fashion week, that weaves together multiple threads in which women of different ages and cultural backgrounds seek to wrest control of their destinies.

The film contains three narrative threads.

The first concerns Maxine (played by Jolie), an American filmmaker (of vampire films), going on a journey as she arrives in Paris for Fashion Week.  Maxine has finally achieved what she has worked for her whole life for getting this highly esteemed work.  But fate deals her an unexpected hand when she finds out she is diagnosed with breast cancer.  She has to deal with treatment under a French doctor played by French veteran Vincent Lindon.  At the same time, she has an affair with her cinematographer. played also, by French veteran hunk, Louis Farrell, himself a director in reality.

Maxine’s personal crisis intersects with two other women, forming the other two threads of the narrative, she encounters at her job: Angèle (Ella Rumpf), a veteran makeup artist writing a work of fiction based on her own experiences in the industry, and Ada (Anyier Anei), an 18-year-old pharmacy student from Nairobi who has just been “discovered” as a model and navigating a brand-new world. Each is confronted with choices small and significant, and must make life-changing career decisions.  As the fashion shows unfold, the women form unexpected connections. The film contrasts the glamorous public image of haute couture with the invisible labour of the women who create it.  The models are shown in a tube from various cultures, including countries like France, Sudan, and Ukraine. Their experiences become a meditation on identity, creativity, vulnerability, and survival.

Director Wincour’s film, at best, shows the ins and outs of the assembly of fashion week, from the workers’ points of view, in this case, a filmmaker, a makeup artist, and a model.  But each story with each of the characters’ personal problems looks terribly forced, resulting in more melodrama than needed in this fashion drama,  Wincour sacrifices subtlety with the glamour seen onscreen.  The script also appears disjointed, with th film not detailed enough in each of the topics brought up.

The title refers not only to high fashion but also to the idea of stitching together broken lives. Director Alice Winocour draws parallels between the precision of couture craftsmanship and surgery, suggesting that both involve repairing fragile bodies and lives.  The film moves quite slowly despite the many, many incidents happening in the story,

COUTURE premiered in Toronto last year at the Toronto International Film Festival and opens this week at the TIFF Lightbox.

Trailer:

IN THE HAND OF DANTE (Italy/USA 2025) ***1/2

Directed by Julina Schnabel

Nicholas P. Tosches was an American journalist, novelist, biographer, and poet. His 1982 biography of Jerry Lee Lewis, Hellfire, was praised by Rolling Stone magazine as "the best rock and roll biography ever written.”  But it is his book IN THE HAND OF DANTE that this film is based.

If you look at anything long enough, you will find something wrong with it,  No matter how beautiful it is that is what author Nick Tosche says about the poem, The Divine Comedy.  Nick says, “I used to love to, now I just like it.”

Director Julian Schnabel elicits superb performances all round from his actors, notably from Gerard Butler and others like Oscar Isaac and John Malkovich, who is always good.  Schnabel directed one of the most intricate and moving films, THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY, about a patient with a rare disease played by Matthieu Almaric who could communicate and publish ed a memoir by only winking one eyelid.

The film’s premise involves Oscar playing Dante in sequences shot in colour in Italy that explore his efforts in writing the classic and looking for mystical knowledge. He also plays author Nick Tosches, whose 2002 book In the Hand of Dante makes him out to be a renowned Dante expert employed by a mafia don to confirm its existence and then steal it for him. Those sequences, quite violent in parts, are shot in black-and-white to show contrast between the more artistic world of the 1400s vs. today’s brutal and greedy landscape, where art is just a commodity for some. He’s accompanied by ace assassin, Louie (Gerard Butler), and another goon, Lefty (Louis Cancelmi). The don, Joe Black (John Malkovich), sends them off to the Vatican, where supposedly the original manuscript could be verified and brought back to him.

The script co-written by director Schnabel and Louise Kugelberg is at times uneven and unpredictable, which in this case, works more positively for the film that runs a lengthy 150 minutes.  It is a slow-moving film, never boring, primarily for the film’s performances.

The scripts not without humour.  In one oft rare but funniest segments, Nick asks, “Why did you kill the dog?”  “Dosbark, comes the reply. Do you like dogs?” Nick is asked, and he replies yes.  “I do too,” comes the retort.  The two then engage in a conversation about how dogs are treated in New York. The conversation slowly leads to fucking broads who carry dog shit

It is interesting to note that Johnny Depp’s company bought the rights to In the Hand of Dante by Nick Tosches, with Depp eying to star and produce.  But Depp, originally slated to play Nick, has been replaced by Oscar Isaac.

The film had its world premiere out of competition in the 82nd Venice International Film Festival on September 3, 2025.   One month before its Venice premiere, it leaked online.  In March 2026, Netflix acquired distribution rights to the film. The film was released in the United States on June 12, 2026, before streaming on Netflix (in Canada) from June 24.

Trailer:

LITTLE BROTHER (USA 2026) *

(to be posted next week)

The film centres on Rudd (John Cena), a polished, highly successful real estate executive whose life is built around order, image, and control. He's preparing for the biggest opportunity of his career: an audition for a reality television series that could make him a national celebrity and dramatically expand his business. Every aspect of his life has been carefully choreographed.

Years earlier, Rudd had volunteered in a youth mentoring program similar to Big Brothers Big Sisters. His assigned "little brother" was Marcus (Eric André), an awkward but enthusiastic teenager who idolized Rudd. As Rudd's career accelerated, however, he gradually drifted away from Marcus, eventually abandoning the relationship altogether.

Watching LITTLE BROTHER, I noticed, besides the film not being funny, that I had not laughed once.  I checked the time, and it was already 20 minutes through the supposedly funny comedy.  I thought maybe to give it more time, but funnier it did not get.  The humour is baseless, and if one is wondering if the target audience is the younger kid, the off-colour jokes (“You did not fuck down, you fucked up”, says the little brother) indicate a more adult audience.  That point taken, kids will probably not find anything funny either.

LITTLE BROTHER is an example of what could be termed the ‘uncomfortable comedy’ where laughs are supposed to come from mishaps of the lead characters, the best example being Neil Simon’s THE OUT-OF-TOWNERS in which everything that can go wrong does, when a couple visits NYC.   So the mishaps in LITTLE BROTHER occur when Marcus crashes business meetings, blurts out inappropriate personal stories, and ruins carefully planned networking events.  He embarrasses Rudd in front of wealthy clients, unintentionally exposing how artificial Rudd's public image really is.  Every attempt by Rudd to quietly remove Marcus only makes matters worse, resulting in escalating chaos

The film becomes a series of increasingly outrageous comic set pieces, which unfortunately are unfunny, infantile, and pathetic as Marcus follows Rudd everywhere.

The film blends different comedy genres.  They don’t work. Some absurdist humour comes from Marcus (Eric André) behaving in wildly unpredictable ways that defy normal social expectations.  Another is cringe comedy in which it is supposed to be funny watching Rudd try to maintain his polished, professional image while Marcus inadvertently humiliates him in front of clients, coworkers, and television producers.  The buddy comedy is also attempted, as much of the story follows the familiar "mismatched pair" formula. Their contrasting personalities—Rudd's disciplined, image-driven approach versus Marcus's impulsive honesty—generate both conflict and eventual camaraderie but the comedic pair again becomes tiring when it delivers no laughs.

The film’s attempt at satirizing reality television, influencer culture, corporate branding, and the obsession with projecting a perfect public image also fall flat.

The film hits its lowest point when Little Brother progresses; the comedy gives way to a more emotional exploration of guilt, responsibility, and the lasting impact of abandoning someone who depended on you.  The change of tone in providing a message to the audience causes the film to sink into silly melodrama and sentimentality.

LITTLE BROTHER opens for streaming on Netflix Friday June 26th.

Trailer:

SUPERGIRL (USA 2026)***
Directed by Craig Guilepsie

SUPERGIRL is a new 2026 DC action hero movie, featuring Superman’s cousin.

In flashbacks, during the destruction of the planet Krypton, scientist Zor-El and his wife Alura evacuate along with many Kryptonians to Argo City, where Zor-El activates his force field system, which separates a chunk containing the city from the planet, preventing it from being destroyed. Eight years later, Alura gives birth to her and Zor-El's daughter, Kara. Eventually, it is discovered that the separation of Argo City exposed a mineral known as "Kryptonite", which is slowly killing the citizens via radiation. After Alura succumbs to her illness, Zor-El decides to send Kara and her dog Krypto on a ship headed to Earth, where they are greeted by Kara's cousin Kal-El, who is now living a double life as Clark Kent and Superman. Kara later tries to adjust to her new life on Earth, while also adopting the moniker “Supergirl".

In the present day, Supergirl travels with Krypto to several planets and parties in celebration of her 23rd birthday, while Superman often calls her, expressing concern that she is constantly off-world and unable to settle on Earth. During one of her stops, she encounters Ruthye Marye Knoll, the last survivor of her family who was murdered by the Brigand leader Krem of the Yellow Hills. Ruthye requests Supergirl's assistance in her quest for vengeance, but is denied. Krem hijacks Supergirl's ship alongside several Brigands, and also shoots Krypto with a poisonous dart in the process. Upon learning that Krypto has only three days left to live, Supergirl decides to pursue Krem to retrieve an antidote, while also reluctantly taking on Ruthye as her companion. While stopping at the planet Bilquis, Supergirl and Ruthye learn from a local couple, Bomar and Mareck, that the Brigands have been kidnapping young women to force them to be their brides.

Despite the tech-heavy CGI film, their performances of both Milly Alcock as Supergirl and Matthias Schoenaerts as the main villain demand mention.  But the film is more CGI special effects and makeup and costume than anything else.  The predictable storyline with two female protagonists does not help either.  Despite the under-2-hour running time, the film is a boring and often dull watch.

SUPERGIRL has a problem with its concept for a number of reasons.  It is surprising that the people atWarner bros. never examined the problems with greater detail.  Firstly, super action female heroes are, in fact, much less popular in action superhero movies.  This is not to be male chauvinist in my remarks, but history has shown that previous ventures like CATWOMAN have flopped at the box office. Females would be more inclined to cough out money to watch a romantic comedy or drama than a female action hero film.  And if males go, SUPERGIRL must be hot and sexy.  SUPERGIRL in the movie, for close to half of the screen time, shows the heroine running and she's dishevelled, rather than sexy.  The film's gothic look does not help either.  DC Comics is always about heroes based on the planet Earth. It is the Marvel superheroes that bounce off planets in the galaxy. The SUPERGIRL story goes against the flow and is set more in outer space and looks more like a Marvel sort of STAR WARS film than a DC comic book film.  SUPERGIRL is also not that well-known a character, so audiences might have a problem connecting with this film.  Presently, the box office estimate for the film’s opening weekend has been reduced to $35 million, down from its initial $55 million.  Looks like an unfortunate WB flop ahead, as the film costs $170 million to make, not including publicity; it has to make double that value worldwide just to cover production costs.

Trailer:

UNIDENTIFIED (Saudi Arabia 2025) ***
Directed by Haifaa Al Mansou

 

Saudi Arabian director Haifaa Al Mansour (Wadjda)’s latest film is a mystery crime thriller that unfolds like a true crime drama.  It is a female gender slant that pushes against gender norms and challenges simplistic narratives of femicide,  a female-driven detective story that transgresses all manner of jurisdiction in its dogged pursuit of justice.  A young woman’s abandoned body is found in the desert and bears no identification.  When the Riyadh authorities go to investigate, they recruit police department receptionist Nawal (Mila Alzahrani) to help the otherwise all-male team discover details only a woman would notice.  The intelligent and observant Nawal, a true-crime fan, possesses an unusual degree of knowledge when it comes to homicide investigations. While the police drag their heels, she quietly takes matters into her own hands, going to different all-girls’ high schools to ask about missing students, only to find the administrators uncooperative, wanting no part in any story about supposedly “sinful” girls.  But if it appears all too convenient that Nawal eventually finds all the clues and solves the case, there is more than meets the eye in a clever twist that one would never expect, lifting the film from what one would think is the typical murder mystery.  Well-plotted and delivered in a seldom-seen setting, UNIDENTIFIED is a surprise gem.

 

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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 11 June 2026

FILM REVIEWS:

BLIND LOVE (Taiwan 2025) ***
Directed by Julian Chou

Married Shu-yi (Ariel Lin) appears to lead an enviable life.  Her husband is a rising star on his way to becoming president of a hospital, her younger son is an inquisitive child just beginning to explore the world, and her teenage son Han (Jim Liu, Disney’s American Born Chinese) is a gifted Go player, though one quietly rebelling against the pressure to follow his father’s footsteps.  Behind this outwardly perfect image, Shu-yi silently holds the family together, her unhappiness carefully buried beneath the life she was told to desire.  This is family drama in the making, and it all starts to play out in what can be considered to be a predictable first half hour,

To make things worse, everything shifts when Shu-yi unexpectedly reconnects with Xue-jin (Ke-xi Wu), an enigmatic photographer and ophthalmologist with whom she shares a long-suppressed history. Their reunion forces Shu-yi to confront long-buried memories, longing, and desires, threatening to unravel everything she has built.  Yes, lesbian memories.  Meanwhile, Han crosses paths with the same charismatic woman, finding in her a new energy and passion that awakens desires of his own, drawing both mother and son into a collision course neither could have anticipated.  This, of course, calls for more family drama.

Taiwan is the first Asian country to allow same sex marriage.  This is observed in one of the film’s scenes when a crowd of LGBTQ+ members celebrates Pride, surrounding their car.  The husband remarks: “We already gave them same sex marriage, what else do they want?”

The film contains a few twists in the story, though one can predict how the film will unfold.  This is one of the main flaws of the otherwise long and winding two and a half hour drama.  From the way the emotions unfold, and the plot points revealed, it becomes clear that the resolution of the love relationships is not the issue, and would be left hanging, or how it ends up not mattering. The story focuses on the life choices that are taken and how to cope with regret, as changes in past life decisions are difficult to make.

Performances are all right, with Ariel Lin and Jim Liu as the stars and the son carrying the performances of the film.  There are certain more interesting aspects of the story, mainly non-gay, like the relationship between the father and son.  The father is depicted as a bigoted ladder climber, making him an easy target for the story. Otherwise, BLIND LOVE is an okay watch, with no overacting but still a bit of melodrama.

BLIND LOVE is a part of Film Movement+ Pride Month offering, premiering on the streaming service on June 19th 2026. 

Trailer:

THE DEATH OF ROBIN HOOD (USA 2026)**

Directed by Michael Sarnoski

Many years after his legendary exploits, Robin Hood (Hugh Jackman) is no longer the youthful hero of folklore.  He is an ageing, battle-scarred outlaw haunted by a lifetime of violence, theft, and killing. Jackman is hardly recognizable with his dishevelled beard and hair.  The film presents a much darker version of the character than most previous adaptations.  The darkness also transcends to the screen. The lighting is often poor, and one can hardly tell what is going on in many scenes.

The story begins after what Robin (Hugh Jackman) believes will be his final battle. The fight leaves him gravely wounded and near death. Alone and physically broken, he is taken in by a mysterious woman (Jodie Comer) who nurses him back from the brink of death.

Also dishevelled Little John (Bill Skarsgard, also hardly recognizable), whom the film claims Mohave then the identity of someone (Edward) he had killed, who is a good friend of Robin’s.  

I am not one to champion changes in classic stories or even in the classic comics like the BATMAN movies.  In the latter BATMAN films, Batman gets married, or his identity is known to many others, going against the DC comic universe. I cringe at the fact.  So THE DEATH OF ROBIN HOOD IS a new Robin Hood movie stressing that the Robin Hood myth is a big lie and Robin is no hero but a brutal killer and villain. Unless you like your film dark and violent with a slow-moving, reflective, and character-driven plot that is focused on guilt, mortality, and redemption.

So, Robin and the film have only one way to go.  What will Robin do now?  Seek redemption or just live with his sordid past?  Robin striving and getting his redemption at the very end is the only way this film can go.

Not that anyone cares in this really slow burn an, unwatchable film, one wonders what the filmmakers are thinking.  Another film, THE BRIDE! that turned into a flop, is another such film that filmmakers make that nobody wants to pay to see.

Trailer:

HUSBANDS IN ACTION (South Korea 2026) ***½

Directed by Park Gyu-tae

 

One can usually tell from the first 10 minutes of a film’s opening how the film will play out.  The beginning of the film shows a cool crook and drug king making tons of money using the latest techniques of the internet, not like the old days.  Then, the film cuts to a cool cop, in contrast, making an arrest and getting applause from the bystanders.  Then, out of the resin comes the old dough Lord who wants to reclaim his territory.  He arranges to meet the new cool crook, only to be made fun of.  It is an exciting beginning, but not really the premise of the film.  The film is about HUSBANDS IN ACTION, the two husbands, current and previous, who have to work together to do a rescue mission reluctantly.  Though the premise of unlikely partners is not uncommon in action-packed comedies, this Korean vacation is still fresh, with Korean-style humour, hilarity and solid action sequences.

HUSBANDS IN ACTIO is a buddy action-comedy in which two rival husbands become unlikely partners on a high-stakes rescue mission.

Rather than focusing on a married couple, the title highlights the odd-couple pairing of these two men: Choong-sik is a seasoned narcotics detective and the woman's former husband, and Min-seok, who is her current husband, a veterinarian with no action-hero experience.

When Choong-sik's ex-wife Si-nae and her daughter are kidnapped by a criminal organization, the two men must reluctantly work together to save them.

The title works on several levels:

"Husbands" emphasizes that the central relationship is not between hero and villain, but between two men who have both been married to the same woman.  "In Action" signals that this is an action-comedy rather than a domestic comedy. Their emotional rivalry is played out in the solid action set-pieces amid car chases, fights, cliff-climbing, and rescue sequences across multiple locations.

HUSBANDS IN ACTION opens for streaming on Netflix on Friday, June 19th.

Trailer:  

 

LITTLE BROTHER (USA 2026)

(to be posted next week)

Trailer:

MADDIE’S SECRET (USA 2025) ***
Directed by John Early

The premise behind the new gourmet comedy MADDIE’S SECRET is the secret itself, which is not explained till half way through the film.  MADDIE’S SECRET is that she has been living with bulimia, an eating disorder marked by cycles of binge eating followed by purging. She has concealed the illness from almost everyone around her, including her husband Jake, while presenting an image of cheerful success, till her best friend presses Maddie to tell her what is going on.

The film is written, directed, and starring John Early as Maddie.  Early performs the role totally in drag, which is noticeable as he still maintains his male features.  This does not pose a problem but makes more of a fun feature, especially seeing someone in drag act out all the typical female roles.

In Maddie’s Secret, essential alt-comedian cum director John Early plays the titular Maddie Ralph, a major foodie who works as a dishwasher at a trendy Los Angeles food content creation company. While her life seems picturesque — perfect hubby (Eric Rahill), wild lesbian bestie (Kate Berlant), and a cupboard full of women-owned, ethically-sourced chilli crisp to boot — she simultaneously conceals a dark past with a severe eating disorder. Knowing her history of self-harm conflicts with the perfect image she puts forth to her followers, she continues to hide her bulimic tendencies from friends and family, even when she begins to relapse. With stunning satire and a pitch-perfect read of the cultural room, Early’s debut is the announcement of a lively and inventive directorial voice.

The film’s best segment is the dance aerobics, where Maddie, while not feeling too well,  goes through all the choreographed moves, demonstrating poise, effort, and pain.  Early has Maddie show off a superb performance of acting in motion.

Director Early pushes the limits of the film a few times.  He pushes the limits of credibility so that Maddie’s husband, Jake, could believe that Maddie was pregnant all along without much question.  And Jake is also shown not as the typical hunk husband, but a slightly overweight and hairy husband, often sweaty after a workout, and wanting to hug his wife.  It is good here that things go against the stereotype, that someone as husky as  Jake could also be the perfect loving husband, and not too perfect for the story.  Director Early also adds an escape from the medical institution, housing Maddie for a few thrills to divert the story from being monotonous.  All these things are done for the sake of entertainment and for good fun.  For a film that covers a lot of serious material like bulimia, climbing up the corporate ladder, mother/daughter estranged relationship, and best friends relationship, the film manages to be light and entertaining.  The cast composition of more LGBTQ+ than straight people also adds a queer and exciting element to the mix.

MADDIE’S SECRET had its world premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival on September 4, 2025.  In October 2025, Magnolia Pictures acquired distribution rights to the film, which opens on June 19, 2026, at the TIFF Lightbox, just in time for Pride in Toronto.

Trailer:

OPERATION HADAL (China 2026) ***

Directed by Dante Lam

 

Operation Hadal or Operation Leviathan is a 2025 action war film. It is the follow-up to the 2018 film Operation Red Sea. Differing from the previous film's above-water action set-pieces, this film is about a nuclear submarine and features mainly underwater action.

In the near future, the Chinese Navy intercepts critical intelligence—an advanced super-submarine is secretly plotting a top-secret military operation against cities along China's southeastern coast. In response, China deploys its latest submarine, Longjing, to coordinate with the elite Jiaolong Squad in a high-stakes mission. The battlefield beneath the ocean is fraught with danger as the squad faces relentless traps, and the submarine engages in a series of intense confrontations with the enemy. As they manoeuvre through ambushes, they venture deep into the vast abyss filled with undersea volcanoes.

The bottom line of the story!  Though set in a fictitious futuristic world, the story contains frightening parallels with what is occurring in the world today.  In the film, it is the white caucasians agains the Chinese, who speak Mandarin.  So, it is likely that China is under attack by the U.S. for world dominance.  It is a scary game that puts entire countries at risk, in this case, the Chinese mainland, all for the sake of who can become number one, like kids playing King of the Castle.  In this film, it is good to see the Chinese as the good guys and the Americans (not named Americans, but obviously so, from the accents) as the bad guys.  Right now, the U.S. is claiming dominance over several countries like Cuba, Venezuela, Canada and Greenland.  The oddest thing is that Americans do not realise what their President is doing, and that is making them the most hated country in the world, for their arrogance and dominance.   One thing that is also for sure is that OPERATION HADAL, which costs about $150 million, puts a lot of Hollywood action blockbusters to shame.

Director Lam’s action set-pieces are very technical and involve both fighting above ground in enclosed spaces or underwater, often involving pyrotechnics, and hand-to-hand combat.  The landing of troops on the oil platforms in the beginning action sequence is indeed impressive.  But despite the action, the film suffers from weak character development and a weak plot and narrative.

The human Jailing team includes Meng Chuang, who leads the commandos. He is experienced but emotionally burdened by previous combat losses.  Han Xiao is a younger commando eager to prove himself. At the same time, Zhao Qihang commands the submarine Longjing and becomes the calm strategic centre of the story.  Nothing too impressive, as many military action films like this one spend time establishing camaraderie among the soldiers before placing them into increasingly impossible situations. 

“Hadal” refers to the hadal zone — the deepest region of the ocean, usually depths below about 6,000 metres (20,000 feet), including ocean trenches such as the Mariana Trench.

The word comes from “Hades,” the Greek underworld, and in oceanography, the hadal zone is considered an extreme, dark, high-pressure environment.

On the international festival circuit, OPERATION HADAL won a special jury award, the Golden Deer, at the Changchun Film Festival, Xuan Huang won the Golden Lotus Award as Best Actor at the Macau International Movie Festival (where the film was also nominated for Best Feature Film, Best Director & Best Cinematography), and the film took home the Golden Angel Award for Outstanding Film as the Chinese American Film Festival (C.A.F.F.).

OPERATION HADAL debuts on Digital June 16 from Well Go USA Entertainment. It is the third entry (alongside Operation Mekong & Operation Red Sea) in award-winning filmmaker Dante Lam’s epic war series.  OPERATION HADAL will also land on Blu-ray™ and DVD exclusively through Amazon® on September 29.

Trailer:

SHOOT THE PEOPLE (USA 2025) ***½

Directed by Andy Mundy-Castle

SHOOT THE PEOPLE is a doc that follows a traveller documenting global activists fighting for equality, LGBTQ+ rights, and more. The doc gains insights into their challenges and strategies for change through interviews and frontline photography.

SHOOT THE PEOPLE celebrates this traveller, Misan Harriman. 

“When I take a picture, and I put it on the internet, and I see millions of people deeply moved by it, that to me is something I am very proud.”m These are the words of British photographer celebrity Harriman. 

Misan Harriman (born 15 December 1977) is a Nigerian-born British photographer, entrepreneur and social activist.  As well as being one of the most widely shared photographers of the Black Lives Matter movement, Harriman is the first Black man to shoot a cover for British Vogue in the magazine's 104-year history. In July 2021, Harriman commenced his appointment as Chair of the board of trustees for Southbank Centre, London.  In October 2025, he was named as one of the UK's most influential black people in the 2026 Powerlist.

A struggle without documentation is no struggle at all. These are very powerful and truthful words uttered by a photographer when protestors told him initially to film them.  They then changed their minds after his words.

The film focuses on Harriman's efforts to capture major social justice movements through photography, especially the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests after George Floyd was killed by police officers, and pro-Palestinian activism. Through his travels, he meets grassroots organisers, civil rights advocates, and ordinary people fighting for equality and political change.

Rather than being a traditional biography, though the film sneaks Harriman’s life in it, the documentary uses Harriman's photographs as a way to explore broader themes of protest and resistance, civil rights and racial justice, digital activism and social media and the important role of photography in shaping public opinion.

The film also highlights the year 2023, when Harriman made his directorial debut with THE AFTER, a short film about a man who lost his family in a stabbing spree, starring David Oyelowo. The film, produced by Nicky Bentham for Netflix, was nominated for Best Live Action Short Film at the 2024 Academy Awards.  THE AFTER did not win, which is a shame, after the director spends a lot of time with Harriman and his wife preparing for the Oscar ceremony.  No one cares about the Academy Awards, says Harriman, not the trees nor my dog.  As director Mundy-Castle sneaks Harriman’s life into the doc, the audience sees Harriman and his dog, a beautiful male Rhodesian Ridgeback, running in the woods.

The film’s definitely anti-Trump, with President Trump shown at the beginning of the doc, preaching away.

SHOOT THE PEOPLE is about people, their right to protest and how the protests, whether calm or violent, become a change that will improve society.  This is the doc’s message, which comes through in flying colours.  SHOOT THE PEOPLE is also a tribute to a photographer who uses his wealth to spread kindness instead of separation and wickedness.

Watermelon Pictures is releasing BAFTA-winner Andy-Mundy Castle’s SHOOT THE PEOPLE on June 19 in Toronto at TIFF Lightbox. 

Trailer:

TOY STORY 5 (USA 2026) ***
Directed by Andrew Stanton

 

The first and arguably best  TOY STORY (TOY STORY 3 was exceptionally good, too) was made 30 years ago, and nostalgia reigns.  The first TOY STORY was directed byJohn Lasseter, and TOY STORY 5 is the latest in the franchise, with his name missing.  Also noticeably missing is the first toy owner, Andy (John Morris), who is dearly missed but has now grown up and gone to college, as seen in the sequels.  In number 5, the audience is left with Bonnie instead of Andy, just as films are now more female in the playing field.  The toy hero is now Jessie, a cowgirl with Woody and Lightfoot reduced to supporting roles.

The budget for TOY STORY 5 is a whopping $250 million, but at least the production \shows.  It is bigger with more spectacle and grandeur.  But often, it is the little things that provide the wonder for a Disney or Pixar film, and these little things are noticeably missing in this sequel.  This is not today that TOY STORY 5 is all bad, but the element of wonder must always be present in a movie.

The story’s also updated to current times.

The film begins with a cargo ship filled with a unit of high-tech edition Buzz Lightyear toys that crash-lands on a deserted island. Stuck in demo mode, the shipwrecked Buzzes escape the island and follow the North Star to return to "Star Command”.  The film’s a STAR WARS/Marvel Superhero feel.   

A now eight-year-old Bonnie receives a frog-themed tablet named Lilypad "Lily" from her parents in hopes of helping her socialize with children of her age. Bonnie soon becomes addicted to Lily and begins to neglect her toys. Jessie, having been appointed as the new sheriff of Bonnie's room since Woody's departure,[b] explains to Lily about Bonnie's need for a real friend, which Lily attempts to solve by sending a friend request to Chelsea, one of Bonnie's classmates, on social media.

Social media and the new iPad replace the traditional toy here.  But the toys have to prove themselves; even the string-wound Jessie looks dated in the film.

TOY STORY 5 delivers, but it is a strained delivery, and one can see that the filmmakers are straining to put new ideas into the story.  But TOY STORY 5 has its following, me included, and should make more than a tidy profit at the box office.

Trailer:

VOICEMAILS FOR ISABELLE (USA 2026) **
Directed by Leah McKendrick

 

Voicemails for Isabelle is a 2026 American romantic comedy film written and directed by Leah McKendrick. It stars Zoey Deutch, Nick Robinson, Harry Shum Jr., Lukas Gage, and Nick Offerman.

From the film’s opening sequence, where screaming girls are followed by a girlband boy fight in which the female clobbers the male, the opening credits show the majority of the cast and crew, and females.  Which is not necessarily a bad thing, but for this thing, the female slant becomes too obvious and a bit too much.

The premise of this romantic comedy, a genre this reviewer likes the least, concerns Jill (Zoey Deutch), who is a talented young pastry chef living in San Francisco. She is devastated by the death of her younger sister, Isabelle (Ciara Bravo), who died after living with cystic fibrosis.

Unable to let go, Jill continues calling Isabelle's old cellphone and leaving long, deeply personal voicemail messages.  Hence the film’s title.  Speaking into the phone becomes her form of therapy; she tells Isabelle everything she cannot say to anyone else—her fears, disappointments, romantic disasters, memories of childhood, and guilt over surviving when Isabelle did not.  So how does the romance come in?

The accidental listener, of course unknown to Jill and to be obviously her love interest, Isabelle's old phone number has been reassigned, and the new owner is Wes (Nick Robinson), a real estate agent from Austin.  At first, he thinks the messages are simply wrong numbers, but instead of deleting them, he listens.  The increasingly intimate voicemails fascinate him. Over weeks and months, he comes to know Jill almost entirely through her voice.  And love blooms in this feminine fantasy that is almost impossible to watch.

This is director McKendrick’s debut feature, her background being in short films and pop musicals, and it is obvious from here that anything commercial.  A lot of what can be seen in her film constitutes pop culture, like celebrity chef shows and influencer pop posts.

The serious emotional thread involves Jill’s dreams of becoming a successful baker,

and she's getting over her grief over Isabelle,

The film explores grief more than romance in its first half, which one needs patience to get over.  The film is not funny in the least, and sitting through this film is like going to a club filled with screaming young girls stepping on your feet.

But this is another romantic comedy where a relationship is based on a lie.  The secret

is that Wes never tells Jill that he has heard months of intensely private messages and that he knows details about Isabelle.  He also knows Jill's fears and hopes, and that their first meeting wasn't entirely accidental. This deception becomes the film's central conflict. And the audience has to sit through all this!

The story concludes as an emotional reconciliation between Jill and Wes, the obstacle in this Harlequin-style romance, emphasising healing and new beginnings alongside Jill's enduring love for Isabelle.  Yes, cliched territory, all the way!

VOICEMAILS  FOR ISABELLE is a Netflix original romantic comedy that opens for streaming on Friday, June 19th.

 

Trailer:

 

 

 

 

 

Details

Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 28 May 2026

Two action-packed Chinese movies make their debut this week.

 

FILM REVIEWS:

 DISCLOSURE DAY (USA 2026) ****

Directed by Steven Spielberg

 

DISCLOSURE DAY is a 2026 American science fiction film directed and produced by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay by David Koepp, based on a story by Spielberg.

 

` The story is set in the present of 2026, when the world stands poised on the brink of World War III.  Cybersecurity specialist Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor) steals a piece of extraterrestrial technology and related files detailing various events of human-alien contact dating back to the Roswell incident from the Wardex Corporation, a secret arm of the U.S. government. Wardex CEO Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth) detects the theft and has Daniel branded as a foreign spy, making him the target of federal authorities; Daniel goes into hiding at a convent with his girlfriend, Jane Blankenship (Eve Hewson).

 

In Kansas City (a nod to THE WIZARD OF OZ), television meteorologist Margaret Fairchild is preparing for work when a cardinal flies into her home, briefly observes her, and then flies away. The incident awakens latent psychic abilities, allowing Margaret to intuitively understand the thoughts and emotions of others and unconsciously communicate in languages she has never learned. During a live weather broadcast, Margaret unexpectedly begins speaking in an unknown language. Footage of the broadcast goes viral and draws the attention of Wardex, which identifies the language as extraterrestrial in origin. After being hospitalised and nearly getting captured by Scanlon's agents, Margaret also goes into hiding.

 

The film turns into both an action flick with lots of car chases and hanging on the edge of trains, with occasionally too many bits for the film’s own good.  But this is what moviegoers demand these days, and Spielberg knows it and delivers in the action and his audience's anticipation and suspense, a genre he is totally comfortable with.

 

Emily Blunt delivers the performance of her career, really immersing herself into the role of the human with all the intuitive instincts guiding her that no one quite gets, thinking she is plain crazy.  Director Spielberg has the audience rooting for her, wanting everyone to believe her, and also wanting her character to prove herself, as is a typical Hitchcock audience anticipation ploy.

 

The film contains dozens of nods to classic films.  There is a couple running in the rain holding their coats to shelter from the water, as in Woody Allen’s ANNIE HALL, or dialogue like “It is not that you have lost faith in God but you have lost faith in people,”  advises a nun, as compared to Mariel Hemingway telling Woody Allen to have a little faith in people at the end of MANHATTAN.  Nods to Hitchcock are too many to count, such as the revelation of what everything is all about, or at least a clue of it, happening only an hour through the film.  Hitchcock has the first bird attack after the audience had to sit through half of the film in THE BIRDS.  And of course, like the Richard Thornhill character in Hitchcock’s NORTH BY NORTHWEST, it is always the innocent person, not knowing what is going on, who is trapped in a web of intrigue, in this case, a conspiracy to hide alien contact.  

 

Spielberg’s first alien film, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, succeeded in keeping the mystery gaping and the audience guessing because the alien figure was never shown. DISCLOSURE DAY goes one step further with a full showing of the dialogue with the alien, a bold move. 

 

DISCLOSURE DAY, destined to be a hit as big as Christopher Nolan’s  ODYSSEY, is set to open everywhere Friday.

THE FURIOUS (HK/China 2025) ***

Directed  by Kenji Tanigaki

 

After the daughter of Wang Wei (Xie Miao) is kidnapped by a criminal network and he receives no help from the corrupt police, Wei sets out on a rampage to find her himself. His only ally is Navin (Joe Taslim) – a relentless journalist whose wife has mysteriously disappeared. Fueled by a furious vengeance, the unlikely duo ruthlessly fights against the kidnappers in this explosive martial arts showdown.

Action movies make a lot of money.  Examples being the John Wick franchise, the Bourne Identity franchise, the EQUALIZER series, just to mention a few.  The key to all these is the choreographed action scenes and maybe a little plot.  THE FURIOUS satisfies the plot criterion with a deaf-mute kung-fu expert father who trains his daughter before she is kidnapped in a human trafficking scheme involving top brass.  The plot is only secondary to the film, but at least the film plays the plot as if it is all important, which is a good plan.  The action sequences are excellent and better than the average Hollywood action flick.  The introduction of an archer bad guy and a strong man bad guy helps, too.  Just sit back and enjoy the violence!

I AM FRANKELDA (Mexico 2025) ***1/2

 

IT’S DOROTHY! (USA 2025) ***


Directed by Jeffery McHale

Strictly for fans of THE WIZARD OF OZ and the classic’s spin-offs of the film, this documentary examines the legacy of THE WIZARD OF OZ through a century of change, adaptations and legacy.  If one is unamused by the classic Judy Garland film, then what transpires might seem superfluous, redundant and boring.  On the other hand, the doc will take fans through a walk down the yellow brick road of nostalgia.

It's Dorothy! It is not a fictional story film but a documentary directed by Jeffrey McHale that explores the lasting cultural impact of Dorothy Gale, the heroine of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and its many adaptations. 

Since Dorothy Gale started her epic journey down the Yellow Brick Road 125 years ago in L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has become a celebrity, a brand, and a beacon for marginalised voices across our culture. IT’S DOROTHY! brings her timeless adventures in Oz to life through the human experiences of a new generation of star performers, infused with the spirit and influence of Judy Garland and more.

With a chorus of cultural icons, unforgettable music, and a magical remix of archival and cinematic art, this film centres the perspectives of women, people of colour, and LGBTQ+ voices. Exploring the meaning and evolution of a cherished character through the eras, Dorothy is celebrated as an enduring symbol of hope and a touchstone in our universal quest to fly over the rainbow and find home again.

The documentary begins by tracing Dorothy's origins in L. Frank Baum's classic novel follows her transformation into one of the most recognisable characters in popular culture. The doc hardly tells of Dorothy's adventures in Oz, as it assumes that audiences are already familiar with the story, but the film examines why Dorothy continues to matter more than 125 years after her creation. 

The film primarily moves through the many actresses who have portrayed Dorothy over the decades, focusing especially on Judy Garland in the 1939 film version.  It will be surprising to note that Garland was considered too old and unfit for the role, but her exuberance won the part.

Another actress in the spotlight is Diana Ross in The Wiz.  Critics initially panned THE WIZ, saying that Ross was tooled and coloured for the part.  But the act cherished her, and the film not only became a box-office hit but won many awards as well.  

A major section examines how Dorothy became an icon for people who feel like outsiders, such as the gay community, who are known as Dorothy’s friends. The documentary discusses the phrase "Friend of Dorothy" and explores Dorothy's importance within LGBTQ+ culture. Commentators argue that Dorothy's longing for acceptance, home, and belonging resonates strongly with marginalised communities. 

Throughout the film, interviews with performers, writers, critics, and celebrities—including John Waters, Margaret Cho, Lena Waithe, and Gregory Maguire—are interwoven with archival footage, clips from Oz adaptations, and discussions of how Dorothy has been reinterpreted across generations. 

The doc is available on VOD on 12th June

MATERNAL INSTINCT (USA 2026) ***
Directed by

 

OPERATION HADAL (China 2026) ***

Directed by Dante Lam

 

Operation Hadal or Operation Leviathan is a 2025 action war film. It is the follow-up to the 2018 film Operation Red Sea. Differing from the previous film's above-water action set-pieces, this film is about a nuclear submarine and features mainly underwater action.

In the near future, the Chinese Navy intercepts critical intelligence—an advanced super-submarine is secretly plotting a top-secret military operation against cities along China's southeastern coast. In response, China deploys its latest submarine, Longjing, to coordinate with the elite Jiaolong Squad in a high-stakes mission. The battlefield beneath the ocean is fraught with danger as the squad faces relentless traps, and the submarine engages in a series of intense confrontations with the enemy. As they manoeuvre through ambushes, they venture deep into the vast abyss filled with undersea volcanoes.

The bottom line of the story!  Though set in a fictitious futuristic world, the story contains frightening parallels with what is occurring in the world today.  In the film, it is the white caucasians agains the Chinese, who speak Mandarin.  So, it is likely that China is under attack by the U.S. for world dominance.  It is a scary game that puts entire countries at risk, in this case, the Chinese mainland, all for the sake of who can become number one, like kids playing King of the Castle.  In this film, it is good to see the Chinese as the good guys and the Americans (not named Americans, but obviously so, from the accents) as the bad guys.  Right now, the U.S. is claiming dominance over several countries like Cuba, Venezuela, Canada and Greenland.  The oddest thing is that Americans do not realise what their President is doing, and that is making them the most hated country in the world, for their arrogance and dominance.   One thing that is also for sure is that OPERATION HADAL, which costs about $150 million, puts a lot of Hollywood action blockbusters to shame.

Director Lam’s action set-pieces are very technical and involve both fighting above ground in enclosed spaces or underwater, often involving pyrotechnics, and hand-to-hand combat.  The landing of troops on the oil platforms in the beginning action sequence is indeed impressive.  But despite the action, the film suffers from weak character development and a weak plot and narrative.

The human Jailing team includes Meng Chuang, who leads the commandos. He is experienced but emotionally burdened by previous combat losses.  Han Xiao is a younger commando eager to prove himself. At the same time, Zhao Qihang commands the submarine Longjing and becomes the calm strategic centre of the story.  Nothing too impressive, as many military action films like this one spend time establishing camaraderie among the soldiers before placing them into increasingly impossible situations. 

“Hadal” refers to the hadal zone — the deepest region of the ocean, usually depths below about 6,000 metres (20,000 feet), including ocean trenches such as the Mariana Trench.

The word comes from “Hades,” the Greek underworld, and in oceanography, the hadal zone is considered an extreme, dark, high-pressure environment.

On the international festival circuit, OPERATION HADAL won a special jury award, the Golden Deer, at the Changchun Film Festival, Xuan Huang won the Golden Lotus Award as Best Actor at the Macau International Movie Festival (where the film was also nominated for Best Feature Film, Best Director & Best Cinematography), and the film took home the Golden Angel Award for Outstanding Film as the Chinese American Film Festival (C.A.F.F.).

OPERATION HADAL debuts on Digital June 16 from Well Go USA Entertainment. It is the third entry (alongside Operation Mekong & Operation Red Sea) in award-winning filmmaker Dante Lam’s epic war series.  OPERATION HADAL will also land on Blu-ray™ and DVD exclusively through Amazon® on September 29.

 

RENOIR (Japan/Singapore/France/Philippines/Qatar 2025) ***        

Directed by Chie Hayakawa

RENOIR captures the delicate and troubled transition from childhood to adolescence through the eyes of Fuki, an 11-year-old girl grappling with her father’s terminal illness, portrayed by incredibly talented newcomer Yui Suzuki.  Drawing on her own childhood experiences and set in the late 1980s when the director was the same age as her protagonist, Hayakawa’s narrative unfolds through the eyes of Fuki (Yui Suzuki), an 11-year-old girl coping with her father’s terminal illness. As Fuki navigates the emotional turbulence of preadolescence, she is left to fend for herself, with her mother (Hikari Ishida) overwhelmed by work and the stress of caring for a dying husband (Lily Franky).  The film is a slow burn but explores grief, emotions, adolescence, and a parent-daughter relationship.  The heart of the story is of Fuki’s father having cancer while her mother is working and stressed out over the situation, leaving Fuki much to herself.  The film covers too many issues, such as a sex predator and leaves too many unanswered questions about the issues brought forward.  One can argue that life is similar without many solutions, and director Jayakawa is providing a nuanced, though authentic, story of her past.

 

THIS ORDINARY THING (USA 2025) ****

Directed by Nick Davis

 

Haunting and unforgettable, THIS ORDINARY THING is a holocaust documentary that explores the heroism, bravery, and self-sacrifice of non-Jewish people throughout Europe who risked their very lives to hide Jewish strangers, a powerful reminder that one person can make a difference.

The film combines never-before-seen archival footage with the testimonies of over forty different people who, operating independently and at great risk to themselves and their families, saved thousands of Jewish strangers from almost certain death. Narrated by an all-star cast, the film is a timely reminder of the pockets of goodness that can rise in a sea of evil: everyday people helping others who were "different" from them. 

The film benefits from the talents of, in alphabetical order, stars like F. Murray Abraham, Jeannie Berlin, Eric Bogosian, Ellen Burstyn, Bill Camp, Carrie Coon, Hope Davis, Stephen Fry, Joanna Gleason, Marcia Gay Harden, Mamie Gummer, Harry Hadden-Paton, Jeremy Irons, Bill Irwin, Louisa Jacobson, Kasia Koleczek, Anna Krippa, Stephen Lang, John Leguizamo, Donal Logue, Kelly Macdonald, Helen Mirren, Bebe Neuwirth, Kelli O’Hara, David Hyde Pierce, Martha Plimpton, Lily Rabe, Rufus Sewell, J. Smith-Cameron, David Strathairn, Lily Tomlin.  They perform excerpts translated from the original transcripts.

The music for the film is by Tony-Award-winning Adam Guettel, composer of The Light in the Piazza, Floyd Collins, and numerous other stage and screen productions.

Notably, none of the people featured in the film thought of themselves as heroes. And yet the film, with immense contemporary resonance, causes each of us to ask ourselves, “What would I have done?”

Another film about the Holocaust? One might add.  But yet another film on the Holocaust that needs to be seen.  So that what had happened in the past will never ever happen again.

The film employs some of the world’s greatest actors, performing excerpts translated from the original transcripts. The cast, including Helen Mirren, F. Murray Abraham, Carrie Coon, Jeremy Irons, Ellen Burstyn, and Stephen Fry, have amassed five Oscars (and over twenty nominations), over sixty Emmy nominations, and over twenty-five Tony nominations in their illustrious careers.

The doc delves deeply into the motives of the sympathetic non Jews like Catholics, Protestants, and Muslims who helped the Jews.  “There is no collective soul.”  These words are splashed on the screen.  Souls with feelings are only present in individuals - not in governments or groups.  There is evil and good, and something has to be done to stop the killing of the Jews.  The doc elicits great gut-wrenching emotion when it shows what it is like, by archive footage and a voiceover of what the Jew ghetto was like.  With children crying mama, leftover dough in a pan turning green with mold, and abandoned dolls and food, the none Jew who walked through the ghetto to see what it was like said in one's words: “That night, I vomited blood.”

Nick Davis's moving documentary THIS ORDINARY THING, which will have a Nationwide (US/Canada) VOD Release on June 12 on Apple/ iTunes, Amazon, and all major platforms, perfectly timed to the anniversary of Anne Frank's birth.

THE VOICES OF OUR MOTHER (Canada 2026) **
Directed by Mark O’Brien

 

When a family matriarch falls seriously ill, relatives gather and discover their shared ancestral ties bind them in unexpected ways.

The story centres on Harriet Scaflen (Sheila McCarthy), an elderly woman who suffers a mysterious health crisis shortly after the death of her 95-year-old mother. Concerned for her welfare, Harriet's four estranged adult children return to the family home. As old resentments, family secrets, and long-buried grievances resurface, they begin to suspect that something far more sinister is happening.  What initially appears to be a family drama gradually becomes a supernatural nightmare. The siblings discover that an evil force connected to their family's past has awakened within and can be watched on Shudder, the horror streaming service, on June 12th, Harriet. The entity seems determined to keep her alive while exacting revenge on her children, forcing the family to confront both their fractured relationships and a terrifying supernatural presence.

THE VOICES OF OUR MOTHER is a Canadian movie shot on location in the town of Hamilton in Ontario.  It is a pretty bad film overall, but not for want of trying. The film has the titular Sheila McCarthy, who rose to fame starring in the Canadian film by Patricia Rozema’s I HEARD THE MERMAIDS SINGING, and went on to do big Hollywood blockbusters like DIE HARD 2 and THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW.  In this film, her performance is reduced to a series of screaming and more screaming.

As the synopsis of the film implies, the horror story involves a dysfunctional family that gets together when the grandmother dies, and the mother is hospitalized.  The doctor tells the adult children that their mother is very healthy, though she has dementia.  Obviously, something is not right here.  There are also many wrong things with the family.

William (played by the director himself) has an affair with his sister's wife.  Director O’Brien’s real-life wife, Georgina Reilly, plays one of his siblings.  Another sibling snorts coke while another sister is involved religiously in something or other.  The children finally conclude that the master is possessed, allowing McCarthy to scream even more, to be exorcized.

The film is all over the place and unintentionally hilarious at that.  The film is a mix of dysfunctional family drama (such as family gatherings like Thanksgiving or Christmas, but this one, when the mother is hospitalized), possession and exorcism horror, all dumped together, so that anything can happen at any time.  Skeletons come out of the closet as the siblings scream at each other.  Added to the drama is the fact that the children were all bused by their father while their mother just watched on and never did anything, something the children can never forgive her for.

Despite the film being all over the place, one could debate that the film can be considered to be a religious and occult horror with family secrets, generational trauma, and possession-style supernatural elements.

THE VOICES OF OUR MOTHER opens and can be seen on Shudder, the horror streaming service, on June 12th.

 

Details

Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 25 May 2026

FILM REVIEWS:

CAROLINA, CAROLINE (USA 2026) **
Directed by Adam Carter Rehmeier 

 

CAROLINA, CAROLINE is a 2025 American fictional romantic crime thriller focusing on a couple robbing banks while also making petty cash as con-artists.  The film aims high but turns out to be a poor man’s version of PAPER MOON (think con-artists played by father and daughter Ryan O’Neal and Tatum O’Neil) or BONNIE AND CLYDE.  The lead, Samara Weaving (niece of Hugo Weaving) is certainly no Faye Dunaway, and neither does Kyle Gallner even remotely come close to Warren Beatty.

Caroline (Weaving) is a gas station attendant in rural Texas.  Her father (Jon Gries) has raised her since her mother abandoned her as an infant. She meets Oliver (Gallner), a con-artist who runs a short-change scam on her employer.  They fall in love, and Caroline agrees to travel with Oliver as they search for her mother.  The two engage in scams throughout the South, including small bank robberies.  Eventually, they find Caroline's mother, who is a alcoholic who rejects Caroline.  Distraught, Caroline demands they escalate to larger bank robberies. They are successful in carrying out a string of bank robberies, but the police have noticed their modus operandi and are looking for the pair. During one robbery, Oliver threatens a mother and child with a gun, which creates tension with Caroline.  After a robbery goes wrong, they are forced to flee in a stolen car, abandoning their previously obtained loot. While they flee, they are pulled over by a police officer. Oliver shoots and kills the officer, which disturbs Caroline further. The two reconcile in a roadhouse, but police find them and surround the establishment. Oliver fires a gun into the air to create a distraction, allowing Caroline to escape as the police storm the building in reaction to the shots. He then fires in the general direction of the police, committing suicide by cop. Caroline manages to reclaim the lost money, throw the police off her trail, and buy a plane ticket out of the country, but not before pulling one last short change scam on the airport ticket window, which is cliched territory, 100%.

Despite the high rating on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of writing, as well as the tremendous effort put in by the two lead actors and the filmmakers, the film tries too hard, and it shows.  The first half is extremely slow and boring to sit through, especially when the two characters are slowly introduced to audiences in the film.  The film picks up in the second half.

There are flaws in the film, such as the total absence of Oliver’s background.  Oliver is initially shown as a conscious good guy who cares for the innocent person, but in the second half of the film, he goes on to kill innocent people who stand in his way.  Weaving is also afraid to show skin in the film’s explicit scenes, and it shows.  The sex scenes never show full or even partial nudity.  Weaving has her bra on throughout, which compromises the supposed intense love and sexual attraction they have for each other.

CAROLINA, CAROLINE  opens theatres Friday, June 5th,

 

THE MARKED WOMAN (La Desconocida) (Spain 2026) ***
Directed by Gabe Ibáñez

 

THE MARKED WOMAN (La Desconocida)is a Spanish Netflix original crime thriller open for streaming on Netflix on June 5, 2026. It is directed by Gabe Ibáñez and is based on the novel by Rosa Montero and Olivier Truc.

The film begins in an airport washroom, in which a woman is escorted to a plane, passing a key as insurance to a girl she had arranged to meet in the next stall.  The film then moves to the port of Barcelona, where police discover a young woman unconscious inside a shipping container. She has been bound and gagged, is severely injured, and has no memory of who she is or how she got there.  The mystery deepens when someone attempts to murder her while she is recovering in the hospital, suggesting that powerful people want her silenced before she can recover her memories.  Veteran detective Anna Ripoll, played by Candela Peña, and officer Quique Zárate, played by Pol López, investigate the case. Their search for the woman's identity becomes a race against time as they uncover links to organized crime, human trafficking, and an international conspiracy stretching beyond Spain.

The film blends both the solving of a crime and a crime mystery.  Things do get a bit confusing, especially at the beginning of the film, when one wonders what the beginning airport scene has to do with the woman found in the containment.  Also, the women all look the same; it takes time to figure out who is who.  Other than that, the film also works like an European noir film with international intrigue.

Trailer: 

MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE (USA 2026) ***
Directed by Travis Knight

 

A bit of history is necessary to appreciate the MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE 2026 action film.

Masters of the Universe (sometimes referred to as the He-Man or She-Ra series) is an American sword and planet media franchise created by Mattel.  The main premise revolves around the conflict between He-Man (the alter ego of Prince Adam) and Skeletor on the planet Eternia, with a vast lineup of supporting characters in a hybrid setting of medieval sword and sorcery and sci-fi technology.  Mattel released the original "Masters of the Universe" 5.5-inch action-figure toy line in 1982.  The series mythos began through the minicomics that came packaged with the toys throughout the 1980s. These initial mini-comics were soon followed by several children's books and serial comic books published by DC Comics. However, the setting and cast of characters became best known through Filmation's animated series He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, which debuted in the fall of 1983 and ran for 130 episodes over two seasons until November 1985.

Masters of the Universe has usually focused on two primary characters, the blond, muscular He-Man, "the most powerful man in the Universe", and his nemesis, the evil skull-faced, blue-skinned sorcerer Skeletor, and their many moral-themed encounters on the planet Eternia.  This is kept faithful in the film adaptation.  Set in a hybrid science fantasy world, He-Man battles with Skeletor to prevent him from conquering Eternia and discovering the secrets of Castle Grayskull, a mysterious ancient fortress with a skull-shaped facade, containing great power and magic.

In the film, the story begins with Prince Adam as a little weak boy training on his home planet when attacked by Skeletor.  Prince Adam lands on Earth, losing the Sword of Power.  After being separated for 15 years, the Sword of Power of King Grayskull leads Prince Adam (Nicholas Galitzine) Glenn back from his mother's home planet, Earth, to his father's home planet, Eternia, where he discovers his home has been destroyed and is now under the rule of powerful warlord and sorcerer Skeletor Jared Leto).  In order to reclaim his family legacy and save the world, Adam must join forces with his closest allies, Teela (Camila Mendes) and Man-At-Arms (Idris Elba) and embrace who he is truly meant to be: He-Man, the most powerful man in the universe.

Realizing the character's origin, the filmmakers have therefore opted for a friendlier, more comical tone.  There is a certain goofiness in the film, which provides humour for the family despite some really nasty adult humour, like a character called Fisto (Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson), so-called because he fists people, and He-Man has a dangling sword.  The childishness might be a put-off for adult audiences, but one must understand the target audience for this movie, and with this respect, the film succeeds, despite its rather lengthy 2 hours and 20 minutes running time.  Think CONAN THE BARBARIAN for kids.

The main lead, Nicholas Galitzine, is convincing as the goofy but terribly sexy blonde He-Man superhero.    Action set pieces are impressive, as the fighting techniques combine fantasy swordplay, military-style weapons training, superhuman strength, and magical warfare.

MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE opens everywhere June 5th.

Trailer: 

MEXICO 86 (Mexico 2026) ***
Directed by  Gabriel Ripstein

 

Football is everything, as one footballer says in one of the recent football movies.  This week alone, as interest in the FIFA World Cup peaks, two football films are opening on Netflix.  The first is a doc called POLDI, and the other is called MEXICO 86.

Some events might be true, but the main one in Mexico is hosting the FIFA World Cup.  As the words go, at the start of the movie: “These events could happen…”, everything indicates a sports satire,

Mexico appears to have almost no chance of hosting the World Cup. The country is still recovering from disaster, rival bids are emerging from powerful nations, including the United States, and many FIFA officials doubt Mexico's ability to organize such a massive event on short notice.

Mexico's improbable bid to host the 1986 World Cup was an audacious, against-all-odds feat made possible only by pure Mexican ingenuity.

Martín (Diego Luna) therefore launches a campaign built on improvisation, political maneuvering, deception, and sheer audacity. The film follows him as he navigates meetings with football executives, politicians, businessmen, and FIFA power brokers. He forges alliances, manipulates rivals, bends rules, and exploits every loophole available. The story portrays the world of international football as a chaotic arena where influence matters more than fairness.

Alongside the political intrigue is Martín's personal life. His relationship with Susana (played by Karla Souza) becomes increasingly complicated as she witnesses how far he is willing to go. She serves as both his confidante and moral compass, frequently questioning whether his pursuit of victory is worth the ethical compromises.

As the campaign intensifies, Martín's schemes become more reckless. The film mixes factual events with fictionalized anecdotes and urban legends, presenting a humorous but critical portrait of corruption, nationalism, and political opportunism. The tone remains satirical, highlighting how major sporting events are often shaped by negotiations and backroom deals rather than athletic achievement.

Director Ripstein’s film benefits from being timely with the FIFA World Cup just weeks away, and also a timely controversy on FIFA, with this political satire showing the business and occasional crooked part of the sport.  Diego Luna delivers a nuanced performance of an all too-eager-to-succeed, at all costs personality similar to the character in MARTY SUPREME.

MEXICO 86 opens for streaming this week on Netflix and is a Netflix original film.

Trailer: 

THE MURDER OF RACHEL NICKELL (UK 2026) ***
Directed by Lucy Bowden

 

THE MURDER OF RACHEL NICKELL is a Netflix true crime drama, a genre that Netflix delivers successfully ever so often.

Rachel Jane Nickell (23 November 1968 – 15 July 1992) was a British woman who was stabbed to death on Wimbledon Common in southwest London on 15 July 1992. The initial police investigation of the crime resulted in the arrest in controversial circumstances of an innocent man, who was acquitted.

Nickell was walking with her two-year-old son on Wimbledon Common when she was stabbed 49 times in the neck and torso and died at the scene.  A lengthy police investigation to find the perpetrator followed, during which a suspect was wrongfully charged and later acquitted—before the case went cold.

The doc follows the narrative convincingly in real time, resulting in the doc being an often chilling watch.  The doc is interspersed with many interviews, with Rachel’s boyfriend of the time, André Hanscombe, often with their son, Alex, as well as various police investigators of the crime.  The doc also contains lots of archive footage, both on the interviews taken as well as shots of the crime scene, especially of Wimbledon in South London, where the crime took place.

There are quite many separate segments in this true crime documentary that, though related by the common topic of the murder, have little to do with each other.

The first are the reactions to the killing. This can be divided into two parts: the reactions of the boyfriend, Andre, and then their son, Alex.  The father, Andre, is a dispatch worker who delivers outside as well as inside London.  According to him, things were going really well, especially with Rachel furthering her career.  It is, in his own words, like reality destroyed.  But his first response is to look after his son, Alex.  He questions his son, at the start of the film, who, at the time, saw the mother’s killer approach her and take a knife out of the bag.

When Rachel was murdered, the boy was seen clinging to the mother’s body.  The child psychiatrist says that children are very resilient and understand what has happened.  So, when Alex was informed by his father that he would never see her mother again, Alex never asked again.  Ale would sleep very soundly for hours only to be awakened very suddenly, often during his last hour of sleep.

The other part is the police investigation of the murder.  An expert from the United States was consulted as well as Paul Britton, a criminal psychologist, to create an offender profile of the killer.  Thirty-two men were questioned in connection with the killing; the investigation quickly targeted Colin Stagg, a man from Roehampton who was known to walk his dog on the Common. They decided that he fitted the profile and asked the psychologist to assist with designing a covert operation, code-named Operation Edzell, to see whether he would eliminate or implicate himself. The media later criticized this operation and the trial judge as effectively a “honeytrap’.

There is more to the plot that will not be revealed, but it is safe to say that there is much more to this true crime drama.  Director Bowden keeps her film well-paced and intriguing throughout, in what is a solid mystery, with details how the police go about doing their work diligently to find the killer.

THE MURDER OF RACHEL NICKELL opens for streaming on Netflix Thursday, June 4th.

Trailer: 

 

POLDI (Germany 2025) ***
Directed by Nicolas Berse-Gilles, Simone Schillinger and Kai Sehr

  

In POLDI, there is a certain playfulness, which livens the events and makes the doc a Netflix original sports biopic documentary on the legendary footballer born in Poland but played for both Poland and Germany, including when Germany entered the finals of the World Cup.

The film traces Podolski's life from his childhood as the son of Polish immigrants in Germany to becoming one of the country's most beloved football players and a member of Germany's 2014 World Cup-winning squad. It explores his rise from street football in Cologne to international stardom, highlighting both his successes on the field and his popularity off it.

Rather than focusing solely on match highlights, the documentary examines the man behind the public image. Viewers see Podolski balancing his football career with his business ventures, including restaurants and other enterprises, while reflecting on his identity, family roots, and connection to Cologne, the city where he became known as "Prinz Poldi" ("Prince Poldi").

A major thread involves what was intended to be Podolski's farewell season as a professional footballer. The filmmakers follow him through a period when retirement plans become uncertain and repeatedly change. Instead of presenting a neat ending, the documentary portrays the emotional reality of an ageing athlete trying to decide when—and whether—to step away from the sport that defined his life.

The film also explores themes of belonging and national identity. Born in Poland and raised in Germany, Podolski became a symbol of modern German football while maintaining strong ties to his Polish heritage. Through interviews, archival footage, and observations of his present-day life, the documentary reflects on how he navigated those dual identities throughout his career.

POLDI occasionally parodies sports biopics.  Largely narrated by Poldi himself, his real name being Lukas Podolski, he claims that this doc is not your usual sports doc, describing, with a sly eye, the most sports doc biopics centre 80% of the success of its subject, elevating this doc above the norma; conventional documentary.  But this biopic does circumvent including what most sports docs do, even though Poldi makes the criticism. 

 

Most biopics’ subjects suffer a bad phase in their lives, be it being on drugs, depression or other indulgences.  For Poldi, it is spat when he was hounded by the media during the phase when he did not perform well on the football field.  The film also focuses on what it is like for a sportsman to retire.  Poldi faces the dilemma at the age of 40, at the time of making this doc.

The film can be praised for presenting a more personal portrait of football legend Lukas Podolski rather than a conventional sports documentary. Instead of focusing heavily on goals, trophies, and statistics, the documentary explores his family life, Polish-German identity, business ventures, and uncertainty about retirement.  He retires at the age of  40, when this doc begins.  The film benefits too from  Podolski's good looks and natural charisma.

POLDI is a Netflix original doc that opens on June 4th and is available for streaming on Netflix. Good timing as the doc opens as the fever of the 2026 World Cup begins.

Trailer: 

POWER BALLAD (USA/Ireland 2026) ***½

Directed by John  Carney

 

POWER BALLAD is a 2026 musical comedy drama film directed and co-written by John Carney and starring Paul Rudd, Nick Jonas, Havana Rose Liu, and Jack Reynor.

Carney is an Irish director who shot to fame with his debut film ONCE, followed by SING STREET,  also a musical comedy drama about a song called ONCE. The title POWER BALLAD is so-called because the ballad or song is written by a guy called Rick Power. It is also a power song, which is called “How to Write a Song About You”.

Rick Power (Paul Rudd) is the lead man in a Dublin-based wedding band, having given up on his dreams of headlining Madison Square Garden after he met his wife, Rachel, and they had a daughter, Aja.  Rick is settled in Ireland, after giving up his dreams of becoming a famous singer/songwriter,

When the film opens, things start to take a turn, not necessarily for the better, depending on how one looks at it. He and the band are invited to perform at a castle wedding, and there they meet famous singer Danny (Nick Jonas), who is trying to release his first solo album after a successful boy-band career.  Danny joins them on stage for one song, and later on in the evening, he invites Rick to play together privately.

Whilst drinking and doing drugs, Rick plays a song he wrote for Aja when she was a baby, "How to Write a Song (Without You). When he returns to Los Angeles, Danny struggles to come up with a meaningful album, especially as his producer Mac (Jack Reynor, SING STREET) is unimpressed with the generic lyrics that are only fit to be album covers. Trying to find inspiration, Danny plays "How to Write a Song (Without You), and his girlfriend, Marcia, overhears it.

Six months later, Danny has released it, claiming it to be his original song. Rick tries to convince everyone it was actually his song, but without evidence, he is quickly dismissed. After a bride at a wedding requests the song, he refuses and is fired from the band. Rick then crashes his van, with Rachel and Aja both inside, resulting in him being thrown out of the family home.  Director Carney keeps his drama light, also thanks to Rudd, who is excellent at playing comedy.

This is a story that covers several issues, the main one being a famous artist being sued or questioned in this case by someone who claims to have written the song. The rest of the film follows Rick's struggle to reclaim recognition for his work. What begins as a story of revenge gradually becomes a more nuanced examination of artistic ownership, friendship, ambition, and what success really means.  Danny is not shown here as the villain, but a sympathetic one, who, at one point, asks his manager to cut Power a check. At best, the film cleverly explores how both men are trapped by their own insecurities and desires for validation

POWER BALLAD had its world premiere at the Dublin International Film Festival on March 1, 2026, and will be released in select theatres on May 29, before expanding wide on June 5.

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SCARY MOVIE (USA 2026) ***

Directed by Michael Tiddes

SCARY MOVIE is a parody film gone absolutely mad.  It is fast and furious, and with a joke or even a parody, every few minutes. It might be all a bit too much to take, especially when quite a few of them fall flat.  Thankfully, a funny one will appear right around the corner.  At times, including the conclusion, the gags get too many, especially when Ghost Face (known here also as fuckface) is revealed to be more than half a dozen different identities. 

This 2026 reboot of Scary Movie (often called Scary Movie 6) brings back the original stars: Anna Faris, Regina Hall, Marlon Wayans, and Shawn Wayans.  There are 6 of the Mayan family listed in the cast.  The story follows the group 26 years after the events of the original film, when a masked killer resembling Ghostface returns, forcing them to reunite and survive another wave of horror-movie chaos.  The original spoofed SCREAM and I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER horror films, but this one aims for everything

Rather than parodying a single movie, the film spoofs modern horror and franchise trends, including films such as Scream VI, Smile, M3GAN, Sinners, Terrifier, and many others, with GET OUT getting the most credit.   It also pokes fun at reboots, sequels, spin-offs, "legacy" franchises, and aspects of modern pop culture.

The film's basic plot is intentionally simple: a new killing spree begins, Cindy and her friends become targets again, and the movie uses that setup to launch a barrage of horror spoofs, outrageous gags, and self-aware jokes about the current state of Hollywood horror franchises.

The plot is mostly a framework for gags rather than a coherent mystery.  Not every parody lands well, and the humour can be extremely hit-or-miss depending on the viewer's taste.  But as they say, a good laugh-out-loud joke covers a dozen flaws, and SCARY MOVIE has quite a few of these moments.

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SEVEN SNIPERS (Australia 2024) ***
Directed by Sandra Sciberras

 

SEVEN SNIPERS is a lean, mean, no-nonsense action thriller about snipers.  The villain of the piece is played by Tim Roth again, a no-nonsense evil bee guy with no remorse for his bad deed whatsoever.  The heroine of the piece is played by Rahan Mitchell, who has to protect her daughter from being shot.  She recruits seven snipers who are done away with one by one by villain Tim Roth.

A retired elite sniper, Kris Hendricks (Radha Mitchell), and her daughter (Annabel Wolfe) live a quiet life in the remote Australian countryside. That peace is shattered when a ruthless warlord, aka The Dragon (Tim Roth), from her past returns for retribution. Calling in her old crew, she prepares to defend her family.

The film benefits from its hard-edged, tactical intensity. From the beginning of the film, director Sciberras holds a controlled pressure that never really lets go, reminiscent of past thrillers like Sicario, Zero Dark Thirty, and The Hurt Locker. But what works best is the creation of the sniper’s world, though one can argue that the plot is a bit implausible, in which camaraderie is imminent, though not without limits.  The audience is often forced to view the action through the lens of a sniper’s rifle.

The Aussie rural landscape of Kris’ farm, where the action takes place, becomes a tactical environment. The farmhouse feels like a defensive position rather than a home. The sound design and score carry a low, restrained tension that mirrors the mindset of people who have been trained to anticipate danger long before it appears.

Director Sciberras and her writer also include a human element in the action, though again, one might argue that this treads cliched territory. At the centre of the film is an emotional story about the cost of trauma and the way a past life can follow someone long after they have tried to escape it.

Everything that occurs leads to the climactic 19 minutes or so at the end of the film.  This is where the heroine and villain get to duel it out in a death match - sniper style.  The suspense is engaged primarily by expert editing with close-ups, an ending that includes a little unexpected twist at the end.

Radha Mitchell's performance as former sniper Kris Hendricks is one of the film’s positives is Tim Roth (who is always good) plays the villain. The supporting cast and characters are not too bad either. forgettable.  Annabel Wolfe stars as Hendricks’ daughter, alongside AACTA winner Lee Tiger Halley as her boyfriend, with Charles Cottier, Damien Ryan, Bianca Wallace, and Pacharo Mzembe rounding out the seven snipers behind the title. 

SEVEB SNIPERS is a competently made, lean action thriller with a running time of less than 90 minutes and a modest budget of $20 million, that succeeds through tension, atmosphere, and Radha Mitchell's performance rather than through story complexity.  This is yet another survival-thriller setup, and it is likely to satisfy, but don't expect the depth.

SEVEN SNIPERS is available on Digital June 5th, 2026

SIGNAL ONE (Canada/USA 2024) ***
Directed by Jonathan Sobol

 

SIGNAL ONE is a sci-fi first contact with an alien thriller with a twist.  The twist is that aliens are not always hostile, as is widely received.  “All alien forms are hostile” is the idea formulated by writers of Sci-fi like H.G. Wells.  But the aliens are not the typical ones envisioned.  The alien form in this movie is re-imagined to be energy, and energy that hovers, transforms and inhabits.  The idea does not always work, as it is less cinematic in nature, but the Canadian filmmaker tries his utmost best to provoke thought and change the audience’s perspective of an alien force.  Director Sobol imagines the true horror is not giant spaceships, but that of

human identity, free will, and civilisation itself, which can be rewritten simply through communication.

Unlike alien invasion films focused on war, Signal One treats contact as psychological, informational, and existential.

When tech billionaire Sam Houston hires the brilliant computer scientist Annika, she ventures to an isolated facility run by the brilliant, nihilistic creator of LITTLEMOUTH, a machine which can communicate with alien intelligence. Annika soon learns some humanity-altering facts: that we are not alone in the universe, that alien intelligences are communicating around us at every moment, and that we are likely too primitive to even remotely understand what they are trying to tell us. But when the goal of the endeavour shifts from listening to talking back, the project rapidly devolves into chaos. With contact comes consequences, and soon Annika and the team must work to ensure the very survival of our species.   

The title of the film, “Signal One”, refers to the first confirmed extraterrestrial contact,

the primary transmission frequency, and humanity’s first irreversible step into cosmic communication.

The film proposes a strong female protagonist, Annika, a brilliant (more than her male counterparts) but socially withdrawn computer scientist played by Isabelle Fuhrman.

Annika specializes in pattern recognition, deep-space signal analysis, and machine-learning systems designed to detect non-human communication.  She trusts algorithms more than people,

avoids close relationships, and becomes increasingly obsessed with strange mathematical anomalies appearing in deep-space transmissions.  Another strange minor female role is Lena (Kiera Allen), a disabled cryptographer who believes the signal may already be altering human cognition.

Director Sobol complements the sci-fi aspect by introducing character interaction.  The main male antagonist, who propels the events of the film, is a billionaire similar to Elon Musk.  Marcus Vale (Dennis Quaid), a charismatic technology billionaire, runs a secretive private research operation on a remote Caribbean island.  Publicly, he is known as a futurist, AI entrepreneur, and aerospace investor.  Privately, he has spent years searching for extraterrestrial intelligence.  Vale tells Annika that her discovery matches signals his organisation has secretly monitored for decades.  He invites her to join his isolated facility called Signal One.  Annika initially refuses, but after discovering her university files have mysteriously disappeared and government agents begin following her, she realises larger forces are involved.

The other male antagonist is Perry (British actor David Thewlis), the brilliant but deeply nihilistic creator of the “Littlemouth” machine, a man obsessed with communicating with alien intelligence, and one of the key figures behind the dangerous experiment at the centre of the film.

Though apparently functioning as the film’s philosophical core. Perry seems motivated by existential despair and scientific obsession.

SIGNAL OMNe is the most ambitious film from Canadian Jonathan Sobol, who broke into the filmmaking scene with CITIZEN DUANE.

SIGNAL ONE is an edge-of-your-seat story that asks what happens when we learn we aren't alone in the universe, that opens in select theatres and on demand everywhere June 5, 2026.

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WETIKO (Mexico 2022) ***
Directed by Kerry Mondragon

 

Deep in the dense jungles of the Yucatan, where the air hums and the ground seems alive, the new Indigenous film WETIKO follows Aapo, a young Maya man trying to survive the modern hustle without losing his roots. When he takes a quick-cash job for his family-owned pet store, delivering hallucinogenic bufo toads to a remote jungle ceremony, it feels like an easy score.  Aapo (Juan Daniel García Treviño) doesn’t wrestle with deep thoughts like that. He works in his mother’s pet store and patiently listens to her explain the restrictions on toad sales and toad “use” to the slim, sexy customer (Dalia Xiuhcoatl) who flashes a lot of cash in an effort to “rent” toads when buying some is out of the question.  One trip in, one trip out. Aapo is also enchanted by the pretty girl who enters the shop to purchase the toads,

  What begins as a promise of transcendence inside a shady eco-village quickly reveals itself as something far more dangerous. Led by Zake Zezo (Neil Sandilands, Sweet Tooth, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes), a smooth-talking, bloodthirsty shaman who feeds on belief, fear and control, the ceremony peddles enlightenment to Western spiritual tourists and new age seekers.   But as the powerful drugs kick in, reality fractures -- time bends, the jungle pulses, and Aapo is trapped in a hallucinatory war zone.

The film title is WETIKO,  a term from some Indigenous North American traditions, particularly among certain Algonquian-speaking peoples.

Wetiko refers to a malevolent spirit or condition associated with:

Extreme selfishness and greed

Consuming others for one's own benefit and 

A loss of empathy and human connection

In traditional stories, a person possessed by Wetiko could become cannibalistic, especially during times of famine. In modern usage, some writers and thinkers use "Wetiko" metaphorically to describe destructive greed, exploitation, or societal behaviours that prioritize self-interest at the expense of others.

As the film progresses through its first 30 minutes, which is the film’s best third, before it transcends into the typical horror film of a person trying to escape some cult, with supernatural forces at hand.  The film is based on a true story, as the words indicate at the start of the film.  The beginning is engaging, it features an innocent young kid, Aapo, who sells and has to deliver a bunch of toads right in the jungle for a ritual.  Zake needs the venom extracted from the toads, but apparently Aapo does not know how to it - only his mother does.

` As paranoia spikes and alliances collapse, Aapo realizes Wetiko isn’t a myth but a sickness -- greed, consumption, and spiritual rot spreading fast. Hunted, high and unravelling, he must choose whether to become another casualty -- or break the cycle before the jungle swallows him whole.

Despite its late release in North America, it premiered only this year.  WETIKO is an intriguing watch, especially in the beginning one-third.     The film is shot in Maya, Spanish, English, and the Language of Love.

WETIKO is finally available on VOD and all leading digital platforms on June 9th, 2026.

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THE YEAR BEFORE THE WAR (Gads pirms kara) (Czech Rep/Lagvia/Lithuania 2021) ***1/2 

Directed by Davis Sivanis Jr.

 

THE YEAR BEFORE THE WAR, in the context of WWI, has the setting in 1913, when the world is about to be radically transformed.  Soon, millions of men will march, singing, into the trenches, in other words, go to war.  On the precipice of the monumental events leading up to WWI, a young Latvian man named Peter (Petr Buchta) - but who claims to be called Hans - travels around Europe with little apparent purpose.  Beginning as a doorman in Riga, he is unexpectedly embroiled in a series of bizarre events that place him at the dead centre of political warfare of a number of emerging and defiant forces, falling into the literal and ideological crossfire of anarchists, communists, and nationalists alike.  Peter's unpredictable, often absurd, and sometimes tragic journey takes him through the untamed wilderness of Central Europe, ultimately bound for Vienna via the radical Lebensreform wellness community at Monte Verita in Switzerland.  Everyone he meets somehow knows him, calling him Peter.  He is shot at and forced to commit murder, has a romance with the spy Mata Hari, and is psychoanalyzed by Sigmund Freud.  Meanwhile, more notorious figures of the early twentieth century embark on their journey towards more violent revolutions, leading Peter to commit a series of life-changing acts that alter the course of history.

As implied by the synopsis, this is a surreal film with  German impressionist art direction and sets that put the audience in an absurd world.  The many patterns of architecture and repetitions of Peter’s unending journeys, as well as the absurdities, give the film a Kafkaesque feel, which should impress Kafka fans.  Though the film meanders without a narrative that is normally found in a commercial film.   There is no dull moment, as something unexpected always pops up, such as naked figures in a sanatorium or beheaded bodies.  True historical figures like Sigmund Freud, Lenin, and others also appear, and even if their names are not mentioned, the characters can be recognized by their looks.  The film is playful and intriguing, while being puzzling and complex.

It should be noted that the narrative can be difficult to follow, especially if one is unfamiliar with the historical figures.  As director Sivanis’ film deliberately avoids a conventional plot, the film feels like a dream or hallucination where nothing is real, and incidents are deliberately blurred and confusing. Despite the film’s unassuming title, it is not a historical drama but an intentionally intellectual art film exercise.  Accolades for the film’s art direction, costumes, and cinematography, 

 Though THE YEAR BEFORE THE WAR was made in 2021, it has never had an official run in Canada.  The film had its world premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (Netherlands), and the first documented Canadian screening was at the European Union Film Festival in November 2021.  The film finally comes to Toronto and will be available via VOD and all Digital Platforms on June 9th, 2026.

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Written by: Gilbert Seah

Parent Category: Articles

Category: Movie Reviews

Published: 23 May 2026

BACKROOMS (USA 2026) ***½

Directed by KaneParsons

 

The new film BACKROOMS is a somewhat fresh psychological horror, science fiction, and existential mystery with a twist.   It expands the viral internet “Backrooms” myth into a character-driven narrative about loneliness, reality distortion, and a terrifying alternate dimension. The film is directed by Kane Parsons and stars Chiwetel Ejiofor as an anxious patient and Renate Reinsve as his psychological therapist.  Both eventually get caught up in a web of an alternate reality in which escape seems impossible.  

The story is character-driven and consists of two main characters. The first is Clark, a middle-aged furniture store owner.   Once an ambitious architect and designer, Clark’s life has quietly collapsed, the reason he claims is that no lazy ass guy would hire him.  His career has failed, and he is reduced to selling antique furniture in a rundown warehouse.  His marriage ended, as a result, which the audience learns from his session with Dr Mary Riley, in a role-playing session in which Riley plays his wife.  His wife is never shown in the film.  But Dr. in law.

The second character only enters the horror genre after Clark disappears for several days, entering the backrooms through a wall, as if entering another dimension.

Dr Mary Kiley becomes concerned.  Police assume Clark abandoned his business or suffered a mental breakdown. But Mary notices bizarre details such as surveillance footage cuts out near the basement, blueprints of the building do not match interior dimensions, and strange electromagnetic disturbances occur underground.  As Mary eventually enters the hidden corridor herself, she experiences rooms repeating identically, impossible staircases, distant human voices, and brief glimpses of shadow-like entities.

At one point, she finds furniture from Clark’s store scattered through empty rooms, suggesting the Backrooms absorb objects from reality over time.  The endless corridors with an endless number of rooms form a labyrinth similar to the recent Japanese thriller EXIT 8, in which a passenger tries to exit a subway station.

The film is to be praised for its production and art direction, especially towards the end, when Dr Kiley escapes via an apparent ceiling exit, a lopsided staircase.  Director Parson keeps his vision on track in what might be the most psychologically intense experience an audience might partake in a film this year.

Parson’s film is particularly serious, with hardly any moments of humour, despite what could be described as Kafkaesque.  

Some audiences may be dissatisfied with the open and vague ending.  One clear thing is that director Kane Parson intended the ending to be such, as it goes with the flow of the film’s narrative.  The mystery is more frightening than any explanation, and if an explanation like aliens to a spirit entity is given, the story and horror would be compromised.  Parson’s film benefits from its nightmarish logic, uncertainty and cosmic dread that hangs throughout the film.  So the film almost certainly leaves viewers with disorientation, unresolved fear, and the feeling that reality itself is unstable, which for many really is.

BACKROOMS opens in theatres Friday, May 29th.

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CROSSING A DAWN (China 2026) *

Directed by Badoun Zhau

 

This Chinese romantic comedy, CROSSING A DAWN, has several things going for it.  Firstly, it is a first-love romance where the meeting is a bit awkward.  It is not love at first sight.  The two are young teens, and so, meeting another involves all the modern gadgets like cell phones, influencers and dating or meeting apps.

Played by Ma Sichun, Xu Qiu is portrayed as a daring, emotionally guarded young designer living in Beijing. She initially appears confident and independent, but beneath that surface is someone exhausted by modern urban relationships and uncertain about where her life is heading.

Xu Qiu is on a date when she unexpectedly encounters Chen Yuzhou. Rather than fitting the stereotype of a romantic heroine who immediately opens up emotionally, she is cautious and somewhat restless.  The film suggests that she has built emotional defences after disappointments in love and work. Throughout the night, she oscillates between flirtation, skepticism, and vulnerability.

Her personality is defined by contradiction: outwardly sophisticated but inwardly lonely,

playful yet deeply introspective, independent but secretly longing for emotional connection.

The romance is told from the female point of view.  The female in this case is not perfect.  She is desperate to get a date, smokes and steals a bicycle without any guilt.  A film. However, one should not condone bad behaviour like stealing and smoking, unless the film is meant to be a hard, bad ass movie.  The guy is charming and a pretty boy with a good body, who seems more innocent than the badass girl.  They go through the night, getting to know each other till the break of dawn.

Though light-hearted in nature, director Zhao’s film is quite a serious feature. 

The film is set over one night till dawn, and hence the title, during which a single woman and a single man experience a series of unique urban encounters that slowly become an unexpected date. Filled with self-reflection and introspection about the future, they must decide if what they want is something deeper -- or something fleeting.  The film uses Beijing’s nighttime streets, bars, and waterfronts almost as reflections of her emotional state — vibrant but isolating. Xu Qiu often drives the emotional rhythm of conversations, testing Chen Yuzhou with teasing remarks, sudden honesty, and moments of silence.

Though hardly known to North American audiences, the director Badou Zhao is a graduate of the prestigious Beijing Film Academy.  Badou Zhao makes his feature directorial debut with CROSSING A DAWN (JIN WAN ZHEN HAO).   He wrote and directed the 2022 short film TRUTHLESS, which explores complex personal identities; he previously received honours for the short film OVERTONES at both the London Short Film Festival and the Worldfest-Houston International Film Festival. Born in the Chinese province of Guangdong, his screenwriting credits include THE FUTURE HANDBOOK and LOVE IN A LOOP. 

The film opens in select theatres throughout Canada & the United States on May 29th, including Toronto-area cinemas.

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DEPARTURES (UK 2025) ***1/2
Directed by Neil ElyLloyd Eyre-Morgan

 

When gay films first showed up on the radar, there were so many themes not yet covered.  Themes like coming out, doing tricks, AIDs, bath houses, social unacceptance, and first gay love were explored for the first time. The new theme has run out with new ideas on the gay scene coming up scarce, so filmmakers have to come up with new nuances and ideas.  DEPARTURES show frequent gay meetings of a gay Brit couple in Amsterdam with largely beefy gay men instead of clubby slim good-looking twinks.

DEPARTURES is a British LGBTQ+ drama film centring on emotionally damaged men trying to navigate love, sex, self-worth, and identity in contemporary gay culture.  The characters are intentionally messy, vulnerable, and psychologically layered rather than idealised romantic figures.

The two main characters are Benji (Lloyd Eyre-Morgan) and Jake (DzvinTag).

Benji is the emotional core of the film. He is a gay man in his thirties from Manchester who desperately wants intimacy and emotional connection but repeatedly sabotages himself through insecurity, dependency, and self-destructive behaviour.  He is witty, self-aware, emotionally needy, and often painfully funny in the way he narrates his own suffering. The film presents much of the story through his memories and inner monologue, making him both sympathetic and unreliable. He is shown to be emotionally raw and vulnerable.

Physically, Benji is not portrayed as the stereotypical “perfect” gay leading man. His anxieties about body image and desirability become major themes in the film. He often uses humour, partying, sex, and drugs to mask loneliness and rejection.  The story explores his fear of abandonment, low self-esteem, addiction tendencies, and his longing for genuine love.  Benji’s emotional spiral after his breakup drives much of the narrative.  The film begins with his breakup

Jake is the charismatic but emotionally unavailable man with whom Benji becomes obsessed. He is physically attractive, masculine, sexually confident, and difficult to fully understand.  The relationship begins after they meet at an airport and start taking secret monthly trips to Amsterdam together. Jake initially appears exciting and liberating to Benji, but gradually becomes emotionally distant and manipulative.  Jake embodies several themes the film critiques:

toxic masculinity, fear of vulnerability, compartmentalized sexuality, and emotionally transactional relationships.  He is shown to be living a “double life,” suggesting internalized shame and unresolved identity conflicts.  He is neither villain nor hero. The film presents him as another damaged person who cannot give Benji the emotional safety he needs.

Other characters include Rya, Robbie, Kieran and Venessa, with the most interesting one being his Aunt Janet (Lorraine Stanley), who brings her client to Benji’s home, not to mention her stealing and selling Benji’s dog Banjo and selling it for 40 quid.  She loves Benji deeply but has difficulty expressing emotional understanding in modern language. She also carries trauma from domestic abuse and guilt connected to Benji’s childhood.  Janet represents generational tension: older attitudes toward homosexuality, working-class survival mentality, and imperfect but genuine maternal love.  Stanley steals every scene she appears in, her character being the most outlandish.

DEPARTURES comes off as taking a lighter look at what is quite a serious topic, a toxic relationship that can turn abusive at one point and loving the next.  The addition of animation to the scenes, such as hearts emanating from the characters, also lightens the heavy topic.

The film, which has received, at the time of writing, 95% approval on Rotten Tomatoes, succeeds in its emotional honesty, subtle and dark humour and raw depiction of toxic gay relationships.  The strong performances by Lloyd Eyre-Morgan and David Tag help as well.

DEPARTURES from Filmwelike opens in theatres May 22nd and is worth a look.

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THE FURIOUS (HK/China 2025) ***

Directed  by Kenji Tanigaki

 

Action movies make a lot of money.  Examples being the John Wick franchise, the Bourne Identity franchise, the EQUALIZER series, just to mention a few.  The key to all these is the choreographed action scenes and maybe a little plot.  THE FURIOUS satisfies the plot criterion with a deaf-mute kung-fu expert father who trains his daughter before she is kidnapped in a human trafficking scheme involving top brass.  The plot is only secondary to the film, but at least the film plays the plot as if it is all important, which is a good plan.  The action sequences are excellent and better than the average Hollywood action flick.  The introduction of an archer bad guy and a strong man bad guy helps, too.  Just sit back and enjoy the violence!  Opens across Canada May 29th.

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PRESSURE (UK/France 2026) ***½

Directed by Anthony Maras

 

The film centres on Group Captain James Martin Stag (Andrew Scott).  Stagg was a Scottish Met Office meteorologist attached to the Royal Air Force during the Second World War who notably persuaded General Dwight D. Eisenhower to postpone the date of the Allied invasion of Europe from 5 June 1944.

The time setting of the drama is the tense 72 hours before D-Day, and with the fate of the free world hanging in the balance, Pressure follows General Dwight D. Eisenhower (Brendan Fraser) and Captain James Stagg as they face an impossible choice: launch the largest and most dangerous seaborne invasion in history or risk losing the war altogether.  Though the film is based on the stage play by Andrew Haig, the film does not feel like one, as it includes footage of th Allied Normandy invasion at the end of the film.  The invasion was the beginning of Spielberg’s SAVING PRIVATE RYAN.  The movie focuses less on battlefield combat and more on the agonising decision-making that determined whether the invasion would proceed at all.

The story begins in southern England in early June 1944. Allied forces are assembled for Operation Overlord, the massive invasion of Nazi-occupied France. Supreme Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower faces enormous pressure from military commanders demanding that the attack begin immediately. Every extra day risks leaks, German discovery, worsening troop morale, and logistical disaster.  At the centre of the drama is Scottish meteorologist James Stagg. Stagg is tasked with interpreting chaotic and conflicting weather data from Allied forecasters. The English Channel is being battered by storms, high winds, and dangerous surf conditions. If the invasion fleet sails under bad weather, thousands of soldiers could drown before even reaching Normandy.

The film reportedly dramatised the fierce disagreements among meteorological experts.  One American forecaster, Irving Krick (Chris Messina, I CARE FOR YOU), believes conditions will improve enough for an invasion.  Others argue that the weather is catastrophic and unpredictable. Stagg, quiet but stubborn, increasingly clashes with military officials who want certainty where none exists.  As the hours tick down, Eisenhower must choose between delaying the invasion indefinitely, launching into near-suicidal weather, or trusting Stagg’s narrow prediction of a brief break in the storm.

  The decision is left at the climax of the film, though the world (audience included) knows that the invasion eventually took place, its painful success leading to the victory against Germany of WWII.

Historically, that forecast proved correct — the Germans assumed the storm made invasion impossible and were caught off guard.

The pleasures derived from the film are the dramatic performances of the actors, particularly of Andrew Scott delivering a controlled yet nuanced troubled decision, as well as Fraser playing General Eisenhower and also Chris Messina as the charismatic and over-confident other meteorologist who predicted contrary weather.

The talk-heavy and stage play original can be felt, and though this might put off action fans, PRESSURE is not an action film but a suspense drama that works wonders in the way it is delivered, thanks to all departments concerned, especially the performances.

PRESSURE opens in theatres May 29th

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ROOM TO MOVE (USA 2025) ***
Directed by Alexander Hammer

 

Autism is an affliction that has only recently been studied since the 1990s, when awareness of autism became widely known.  Autism, also known as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), is a condition characterized by impairment in social communication and interaction, as well as a need or strong preference for predictability and routine, sensory processing differences, focused interests, or repetitive behaviours.  Features of autism are present from early childhood, and the condition typically persists throughout life.  Because autism is a spectrum disorder, presentations vary, and support needs range from minimal to the person being non-speaking or needing 24-hour care.  In the Netflix doc ROOM TO MOVE, one such case, that of dancer Jenn Freeman, is closely examined.

Dancer Jenn Freeman channels her recent autism diagnosis into creating her first full-length dance piece, exploring identity through movement.

A major emotional thread of the doc involves Jenn trying to understand her identity after finally receiving a diagnosis at age 33. The diagnosis is both liberating and painful as it explains years of confusion and social struggle,\while she realizes how long she lived without understanding herself.

On the side, the film also subtly turns inward toward director Alexander Hammer himself. As he documents Jenn’s experience, he begins reflecting on his own perceptions and identity, making the documentary partly about empathy and self-recognition.

Despite a bit of receptiveness, director Hammer’s doc should be praised for its raw honesty about both his subject (especially in showing audiences how she endures pain and discomfort) and Jenn’s conflicted journey through life.

ROOM TO MOVE premiered at the 2025 Tribeca Festival before arriving on Netflix on May 27, 2026.

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