Talking about THE FALLNG SKY with Co-Director Eryk Rocha and Shaman Davi Kopenawa

 

This interview is a long time in coming. The interview was done on a Sunday afternoon in November 2024 before the screening of FALLING SKY at Doc NYC.  The film was inspired by the book by activist Davi Kopenawa the film is a look at the Yanomami community in the Amazon as they prepare to celebrate the life of Davi’s father-in-law who had just passed away. The film blew me away with it’s you are there depiction of life in this small community.(my review is here.)

The interview was done in the waiting  area of the Village East Cinema in New York City. It was a 40 plus minute talk with the film’s co director Eryk Rocha and it’s subject Davi Kopenawa and it was translated by Juliana Sakae who was the film’s publicist. It was a very animated discussion of the film  and the genesis from Davi’s book becoming, over the course of some seven years, a feature documentary. It was one of the most satisfying interviews I was ever a part of. It was so intense that I intentionally held off doing the transcription of the interview for the recent release (The film opened in NYC at the beginning of the month and it opens this week in LA.)

What follows is a good portion of that talk. It is not the complete talk for two reasons, one technical and one not.  The technical issue was due to the fact that about half way into the talk the theater waiting area which had been empty and devoid of people when we started, filled with people going to and from screenings.  What was just our four voices became multiplied and some of the talk got lost in a wave of cross talk. I, nor the personwho did the original transcription, could bleed out all the voices and as a result we lost some of what was said. The non-technical issue was due to my having to edit out some material for one of two reasons, either the discussion was super specific to the film and would have made no sense to anyone who hasn’t seen the film, and the other reason was that it was essentially off topic.

I want to thank Eryk and Davi for taking the time to talk to me, and Juliana for doing the translating and putting this together. 

STEVE:How did you guys end up coming together to make the movie?

ERYK: We went for Davi and Bruce to say that we wanted to make the movie. They liked the idea, and from there we started to develop the script, the research, this dialogue with Davi, with the Hutukara Association, which is the producer of the movie. We started to talk, and that was the starting point.

We never had the intention of making an adaptation of the book, because it's an unadaptable book. The film is much more like an inspiration of the book, or a dialogue with some aspects of the book. It was the starting point. It took us seven years from the beginning of reading the book to the movie on the screen, when the movie premiered in May 2024.

STEVE:That was going to be one of my questions… Why did it take seven years?

ERYK: Because during those years that we talked a lot with Davi, and researched and wrote some versions of the script. During this time there was the imponderables, like the death of Davi's father-in-law. That was when Davi and his community, the Watoriki, organized the festival in honor of his father-in-law. Davi and the leaders of the Watoriki invited us to go to their house, and for us to make this film of this incredible festival. A festival that celebrates the life, the rituals of the Yanomami. It's the festival that structures the whole film.

The ritual is called Reahu. We structured the entire film around it.  Reahu is a ritual that honors great leaderships when they pass, but also it's a celebration of life at the same time.

So, during the party, we were simultaneously together with Davi, every day, talking to him, raising questions, and  in this conversation stories would come up  that, along with the party, permeate the film.

STEVE: I don't know how big a camera crew there was, but how was it, dealing with all these people coming into your village? I know it's a celebration of your father-in-law's life, but at the same time, having people there, trying to film a movie around that, I thin would be a bit hard.

DAVI: Well... We met among ourselves. I met the leaders first. They asked, what are they doing here? What are they going to do?

They're going to take pictures, and film. What are they bringing? So I went to explain to them. Our leadership authorized it. It's not like in the past, now we're being recognized.

They could come and film and they could also participate in the big party we were preparing. A big party to celebrate the birth of my father-in-law, who passed away. 

Everything was open for them. It was very important for us to show our dance, singing, joy, and the community, thanking the wealth of our forest, thanking the wealth of our land, as it was created.

STEVE: I’ve watched hundreds of documentaries, but this film touch me a lot because it feels like it really represents the people. There's no barrier,  usually there is an invisible barrier between filmmakers and indigenous people.

DAVI: That's good. Thank you. That's good because this film is really very demonstrative.

The Yanomami people are sacred, they never, they never thought that a person who takes a photo, a film, would think to show our images to people in cities. That's why we wanted to show our image to the people

It's not the people of the city, it's the people of the forest that have lived for many years, many, that have never been filmed to show. So it's the first time that we wanted to show to the people, to so we’d be recognized and respected.

ERYK : Can I add something to what Davi said?  Davi and the Yanomami who watched the film, felt represented. I think this is due to a relationship of trust built over time.

We talked a lot before, exchanged many ideas, brought Hutukara Yanomani Association to the project, also involved a group of filmmakers, communicators and Yanomami in the film team, people making cameras, sound, production. Davi, Gabriela and I exchanged many ideas with Davi in the sense of communication, to really create a trust, a respect. The film is the result of seven years of work.

I think that time is the co-author of all films. So I think that what he felt materializes a little this process too.

STEVE: Time is the co-author of the film?

ERYK: Yes, time is the co-author. I think its this process of time, of relationship, of exchange, of being a hybrid team. I think all this has to do with the trust that Davi and the Yanomami had with us.

Friendship. Because it's not just a film for us, it's a life relationship, it's a commitment, it's an alliance that is forever. It's not just a film. We are friends now, a friendship that exists, that is being built.

STEVE: You talk about time and it's an interesting thing. The film opens with seven or eight minutes of everybody just walking into the village. It's one of the best opening shots of a film I’ve ever seen. Honestly, I was a little hesitant the first time I saw the film. I felt it might be too long, but once I got into the film, and then upon seeing it again, I realized it's actually one of the most brilliant things you do because however long that first shot is, you go from I'm in a room in America, to I'm in the forest. And it's just like these people are coming to me and we're going to engage.

It's this thing where it's like “we're coming to you, we're going to engage with you” and then they do and you walk out of it and you feel wonderful. You've met all these friends that you never knew you had before.

It's this wonderful thing. 

ERYK: Curiously, it was the first shot we shot of the film which is the Yanomamis arriving from the hunt. They went hunting a few days ago.

They're coming from the hunt to prepare the party for the community. So it was the first shot we shot a few hours after we landed in iWatoriki and I think it's a shot it's a synthesis shot of the film. It's a sequence shot of nine minutes.

It's as if the whole film is in this shot. And what he noticed is exactly what we feel, that they come walking slowly, they sprout from the ground they come walking with the forest together and the shot ends with Davi's look his face, his look looking at the camera. I think that's the theme of this film, this meeting, this clash between worlds, this confrontation between two worlds.

It starts with a more discernible shot, let's say, more abstract, the beginning, and it ends with Davi's look very strong at the camera, looking at us, chasing us. And I think this shot has a very theatrical a theatricality, a ritual. It's like a stage, the forest has this theatrical stage character.

And it's the time, it's the question of time, of respecting and understanding this time.

STEVE:  I want to know how much, input Davi had in putting the film together. Also, I'm curious if the film is the film everything that he wanted. from the film as well?

DAVI: So, I wanted to show our magic, the magic of the community, the movement of the Reahu, the Reahu movement, of preparing, painting, taking food out of the pots, so, that's what I wanted. I wanted to do something historical,  show to other relatives, non-relatives, the people of the city, to get to know them. So, we say that our movement is no longer like this, like this, curled up.

 We're like this, surrounded by the city. The city is far away, but we're not surrounded.

We have Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, so, what we want to do is show our different culture, our culture, our different language, to recognize, recognize, and protect our place, where it was filmed, and show to the people of the city that it was like this. In Watoriki, we're in our house.

Our house is the forest. Our house is the place. So, we're in Watoriki, in Brazil, and we're going to show our place where we live permanently.

I really wanted to show our image, the image of our community, the movement of Reahu since preparing the food, and then, you know, taking the food out of the earth.

I really wanted to show something historical, both for, they call in Brazil, relatives and non-relatives, it's like indigenous and non-indigenous people, and for the people of the city to know us, because our people are not isolated anymore, we are surrounded by cities, so we need to show our culture and our language in order to protect our own place. So, we are showing that to the people of the city, how he calls, and then we're showing our house, because we are Yanomami, we are Brazilians, and we're going to show where we are living, and he used the word permanently. 

ERYK: And then it was at the premiere of the Cannes Film Festival for us, the birth of the film, and it was present, it was truly very exciting. And now the film has just played, last week, at the Hutukara party, the 20th anniversary of the Hutukara Yanomami Association, there was an exhibition, and we are drawing now, we are planning a project for next year, to launch the circuit in several communities in Yanomami, in Huatorique, and in other communities as well, so that people can watch the film.

STEVE: That's the one thing I don't have a sense of from the film, is how big is Davi’s land?

DAVI: This film only focuses on one community, out of 350 communities inside the Yanomami land. It's a huge territory.

STEVE:That's how you get people to pay attention, is you show them one,  if you show one community, you're going to connect the people, instead of showing this huge community, because it makes it one-on-one, and that's what's wonderful about it.

ERYK: Yeah, that's it, it's a very... Although there are layers of information, of narrative, of information, which is important, but it's a film that bets much more on this experience of ours, on our relationship with this community, with Davi and the community, this immersion, this place where we've been for a while, and it reflects our experience we've had, this relationship of bringing, of how the energy of the party, the energy of the party of this people, of Yanomami, of this community, how this energy, this vitality, it roots the form and the language of the film.

I mean, we didn't arrive with a psychostatic, cinematographic project ready in our heads to execute, but we discovered the form, we had many intuitions, obviously, studies, intuitions, desires, inspirations, but we really discovered the form of the film from this daily relationship, this party, this intervibration with this community. From this, this energy was what inspired and rooted the form of the film..

STEVE:Just something that I wanted to say which isI think it's one of the reasons I love the film, is the film doesn't feel like a documentary. It feels like a narrative. And as a result, from my standpoint, for recommending it, I can tell people, see this movie, you're going somewhere, you're going to be told this great story about these great people.

Because I know some people don't like to watch a documentary. IThis is going to play like a drama. It plays out like you're watching Life in the Village, and it doesn't feel like I'm being told a documentary story. I'm being told a story. And I, which sounds kind of stupid, but the reality, but it's not.

It's sort of counterintuitive. It's being, people tend, a lot of people tend to connect to fiction, in some ways fictional characters, but with this, they're real people, but they feel like they're so well-rounded, I don't know how he did this, I don't know how he managed to get, everybody on screen feels like a fully formed character, which you don't get in documentaries. Somebody gets left out, and that's why it feels like a narrative.

It's that you're watching somebody who's, you're watching a movie where somebody wrote this out, and instead he's showing life, but it's being sketched out. Forgive me, I'm excited. I get excited about movies.

ERYK: Yeah, because the movie has a dramaturgy, it has a dramaturgical thought, and for the Yanomami there are no these catalogs between documentary and fiction that exist for us. The Yanomami the cosmology of the Yanomami, brings the dream as a fundamental question, from shamanism, from Yakuana, so this brings another perspective, right, which is not, so that's why the movie doesn't work with these categories, so, let's say, you can recognize this or that. As I said, we are very inspired by Davi's thoughts, by the fall of the sky.

THE FALLING SKY opens in LA on April 2 before opening in the rest of the country.

When Fall is Coming (2024) opens Friday at FIlm Forum

An older woman is kept separate from he grandson after an accidental incident with mushrooms. Becoming lost and untethered she drifts through life until she hires the son of a friend, just out of prison, to help her.

When you see this film leave your expectations at the door. What ever you think you know what the film is, it isn’t that. I’ve read several pieces on the film and while the details in them are correct none of them can fully explain what it is like to see this absolute gem of a film. In all seriousness this film is just a wonderful tale that is uniquely its own thing.

Actually what this film is is everything that American films are not. This film drifts in and out of story in ways that are never telegraphed or clearly worked out. It moves like life bringing together turns in unexpected ways.  People have interesting sides and secrets and none of them are big to do they just are.

Why do I love film festivals so much? Because I get to discover films like WHEN FALL… which broaden my ideas about what cinema  and storytelling are. Sure the film echoes a novel in construction but the truth is it does things that no novel could do. This is pure cinema in the most moving and human way.

I loved this film a great deal

Highly recommended

New Directors New Films 2025 starts this week

 

New Directors New Films starts this week and cineastes in the NYC metro area are going crazy.

Filled with films from new and upcoming filmmakers the festival is a good place to see the work of people who may one day become the next big thing. The festival is also the place to see a lot of works that may not get a big release until the filmmaker makes a name for themselves. I’m not being snarky, but it’s true, a lot of films that play the fest either never get a regular US release or only get picked up after the director hits (I’m constantly reposting reviews of films from a couple of years before) so if you want to see a film- do not hesitate.

The films at NDNF tend to be more art house than mainstream. This is great is you want to see good films, but not if you are looking for the next big Hollywood thing because the festival doesn't really do Hollywood much.

Additionally because the films are all over the place in subject and in style it’s hard to say what the festival is any year in particular. The festival casts a wide net and is great for people who want their cinematic horizons widened. At the same time I can’t say it’s all good because every year the fest is hit or miss depending upon my persona reaction to the films.

This year my favorites of what I’ve seen are as follows. 

CycleMahesh is a recreation of a man biking home during the covid lockdown. Not much happens but it is an absolute delight.

Holy Electricity has two guys selling crosses and it's just great time with great people.

Kyuka Before Summer's End is an experimental first film about a boat trip that should not work but somehow delights on every level

Listen To The Voices is about a young man from France finding a home in the place his mother came from. It's lovely

Timestamp is a doc about kids going to school in Ukraine during the war. 

Virgin of the Quarry Lake is a deeply disturbing thriller about a fractured relationship.

As always if there is something that looks interesting go see it because you may not get a chance to see the film again. And because a lot of the screenings sell out I suggest you buy tickets for anything that interests you sooner than later.

For tickets and more information go here

Liz Whittemore on Psychotherapy: The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write about a Serial Killer (2024) theatrical release starting 4/2 and will be on digital VOD 4/11.

This piece originally ran at Liz's regular home REEL NEWS DAILY

A hapless writer gets pulled into a scheme involving his wife, his impending divorce, and a serial killer yearning to be the subject of his next book. Tolga Karaçelik‘s first English-language film, The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write about a Serial Killer, makes its debut for Tribeca 2024 audiences.

After Suzie asks Keane for a divorce, Kollmick poses as a marriage counselor to throw her off the scent of their agreement. Suzie becomes suspicious with the discovery of each book Kollmick suggests Keane study. Convinced she is the target of Keane’s strange new behavior, the three become entangled in a complicated plot for individual satisfaction.

Britt Lower plays Suzie, Keane’s fed-up wife. Suzie has a type A personality and a pristine appearance. Her fashionably buttoned-up look, whether donning silk pajamas or a salmon-colored suit, is perfection. Her morose delivery is flawless.

John Magaro nails the role of Keane. He swings from overly nonchalant to manic as the film progresses. A celebration of childish floundering, this performance is hysterical.

The SHALLOW TALE 2Steve Buscemi is a legend. In pretending to be Keane and Suzie’s marriage counselor, he brings his murder advice into the sessions, equally confusing and intriguing his faux clients. Buscemi’s calm and confident nature is captivating.

The cast’s chemistry is spectacular. Buscemi and Magaro have a fun banter, but the most surprising firecracker moments happen between him and Lower. The way they both lean into Suzie’s macabre aura is a hoot. Karaçelik’s dialogue is witty. The cinematography from Natalie Kingston is beautiful, utilizing noir lighting.

THE SHALLOW TALE is weird, but the good kind of weird. It’s simultaneously so strange and dark you find yourself smirking and scratching your head, needing to know where it goes next. The film boasts a knee-slapping climax akin to a high-stakes ping-pong match. THE SHALLOW TALE is a dark oddball comedy that celebrates leaning into our authentic selves and the essence of communication, no matter the fallout.

SLOPPY SUNDAY (2025)

Christoff LeBlanc absolutely blew me away with his short SLOPPY SUNDAY.  The film is the story of a young prostitute who is looking to get out from under her pimp rocked me.

Raw, violent and foul mouthed SLOPPY SUNDAY is a film that works as both a crime drama and a character study. LeBlanc isn’t moving pieces around a chessboard he is instead observing real people in real situations. While there is a tiny bit of short hand in some of the side characters, owing to the brevity of the film, the leads are spot on. Actually the whole cast is spot on and make this something special.

This film is a winner and an excellent introduction to a filmmaker who is going to rock the world when he gets to do a feature.

Highly recommended

Conveyance (2025) Glasgow Film Festival

Conveyance is a neat little comedic horror film.

It’s the story of a couple who move into the perfect apartment which was offered at a ridiculously good rate…because its haunted.

While the tone at first is a bit uncertain, once the film gets going and it finds it’s footing this film and it’s mix of humor and horror delights. It’s a wickedly funny film about the people we choose to live with.

I smiled from ear to ear.

Recommended

Audrey (2024) Hits VOD April 1

When Ronnie's  daughter Audrey has an accident during a mother daughter fight and ends up in a coma, the family isn't all that sad. Indeed their lives begin to get better, even with Ronnie taking over her daughter's life.

Black as night comedy is completely off the rails. If you want good taste look elsewhere. If you want people to learn a lesson find another film. On the other hand if you want a film that will make you laugh, while you wonder if you should be laughing, this film is for you. If you want a film that will make you wonder if they are really going to go there, this film is for you. (Medea meets Black Swan? Oh yes)

This is a film that is very wrong, in a very right way. I had a blast watching it. While I'm not sure I will watch it again, I really don't like most of the people on screen, I had a blast the first time through.

Recommended.

Warden (2025)

WARDEN is a neat little film. A feature film from Marcus Alqueres who did the wonderful FLYING MAN a few years back, the film tells the story of a superhero/super human who calls himself Warden. A resident of  Brazil, he begins to manifest his powers as teenager and then begins to fashion himself into a superhero based on comic books.

Taking the form of a documentary the film explores what would happen if a super human appeared in the world and decided to follow the comics (for a while) and become a superhero. It posits the arc he takes from good kid to something else, while also charting the changing view that society has when viewing the “hero”.

If you are a comic book fan you’ve probably thought about these things. At the same time I don’t think we’ve really had anything that dealt with this sort of thing dramatically. Yes, we’ve had films where heroes exist but this is the first time where we have a story where the first one appears and then explores what that means. It’s an interesting discussion that is very grounded in reality.

I know that this may not play well or anyone wanting typical superheroics. This is not a Marvel or DC film, it is something different.  Actually it isn’t even like other film like Kickass or Super where we get regular people who do super things. This is firmly what do you we do when a superman shows up among us. (I’m guessing the lack of Marvel style mayhem is why people on IMDB have not rated it highly)

While I think the film tries to do too much and can be a bit too philosophical, I love that this film tries to do more than a typical hero film. I love that it aims to ponder what a real world hero would kick up. This  is a film that doesn’t take the easy way and forces us to engage with it.

Recommended.

Electric State (2025)

Set in an alternate world where Disney's audio animatronic displays lead to robots becoming a work force, obtaining free will and battling humanity for their freedom, a young woman chases after her brother who has gone into the no man's land where robots still live. Meanwhile the man who made the cyber devices that allowed mankind to win the war is secretly experimenting on children to ... who the hell cares?

Loosely based on an illustrated novel, words that are always damning in connection with Hollywood project, Electric State is a disaster. Leaning into the visuals the film creates a world that doesn't really make sense, in large part because it tries  to explain everything  to the point that none of it makes a lick of sense. (And please don't ask me to recount what doesn't work logically- just know none of it does.)

While I like many of the visuals , I really dislike that almost all the robots are cartoony or are mascots. That isn't something that probably would have happened in a real world. It makes it clear that this is only a movie made by people who don't understand the world.

It doesn't help that this is geared toward being a comedy. There is no suspense, just jokes and humor. There is no tension...and no laughs as all of the jokes crash and burn.

I would ask how this got greenlit and how the budget ballooned to over 350 million dollars but the Russo Brothers made four hit Marvel films before this so of course Netflix gave them cash. Never mind that their films outside of the four films were just okay and  box office losers.(Something Marvel has noticed and are now rethinking their hlming the next Avngers film)

Watching the film on the day it released I sat staring at my TV  slack jawed and broken. This film was everything that was wrong with Hollywood. It was a film that broke me to the point that I never wanted to watch another film again and for three days afterward I caught up on my writing just so I wouldn't stumble into a soulless cash grab like this again.

While there are bits in this that work, the vast majority is just a less than mediocre cash grab turd ball. I still hate that I stayed with it to the end hoping that it would pull it out in the end. I still want to burn Hollywood and the zombie execs who thought this was a good idea. I'm glad that a lot of great crafts people got pay checks out of this but other wise this film has no reason to exist.

Unless you want to go dead inside don't waste your time.

(If you want to see truly great film that covers a similar story line then watch MARS EXPRESS which is a French animated tale released in the US by G Kids)

The Woman in The Yard (2025) (Spoilers)

After an accident kills her husband, a woman and her kids find that a strange woman all in black is sitting in their yard.

This is a metaphor for grief, depression and the desire to commit suicide wrapped up in a the trappings of a short horror film  which was inflated to feature length.  It's a film that has some great visuals that get lost in script that not only doesn't give us any real details about anyone for over half the film, it then flip flops it's symbols in the final twenty minutes leaving us to scratch our heads. There is a great horror film a draft or two away from this film...its such a shame because this film could have been something.

The visuals are what shine in this film as it stands now. The woman and the shadows she casts are stunning. The effect crew should be commended for the work that they did. People will be talking about the images in the film for years. I think I said wow out loud a couple of times.

Unfortunately the film's script doesn't really work. While the film doesn't tell us much, we have to work things out on our own for the better part of an hour, when we finally do get a few fleeting details we kind of wish we knew more. We never get a sense of these people outside of their worrying about the woman in the yard. It would nice to know more about the parent child relationship other than mom has been different since the accident that killed her husband and left her with a broken leg. Yes this is the mother's story, but the kids don't have much to do. While the performances are good, the characters are one note...beyond what there should be for a single day. They shouldn't be. They are vital to the story and to th mother, even if this is pure metaphor there should be more characterization of the kids because ultimately the mothers mental state hinges on them and how she feels about them, how see sees them is key to everything. They shouln't be blank slates or one note as they are here. Their mom would see them as more even in the depths of depression.

While I could detail more than a couple of the plot turns that are head scratchers (why are door knobs suddenly falling off the doors?) the real problem here is the metaphoric nature of the tale. Yes this film is really the internal battle the mother has with grief and depression, so the question of how much of this is real is ultimately questionable, but at the same time there kind of needs to have an internal logic. That logic is missing as things kind of randomly happen at times. Even chalking them up to a fugue state bits don't hang together and seem to be there just to get a gasp from the audience.

Things go off completely the rails about an hour in when the shadows that had been  the main means of mayhem for the woman in black goes side ways first as she appears in the darkened room before the flashlight is turned on, and then when it is jetisoned completely for notions of a mirror world. What once was shadows becomes mirrors and we are left scratching our head. It might have worked if the daughters letters beyond the Rs were turned side ways... the the real problem with the film is the gotcha at the end doesn't work becaus the reveal that we are now in a mirror realm collapses because the shot before the final shot of the reversed signature is undone because the sign outside the house is not backwards.

I sat in the theater wondering if this was two films or two scripts mashed together. How could they not see that the shift metaphors didn't work?

This film should have kicked ass, I mean isolated momnts work, and in stead it left me feeling, as most films I've seen in 2025, like it's just okay and in a week I'll have no memory of this game try, despite the good bits.

There is enough here that its worth a look for the curious but honestly wait for streaming.

Thank You Very Much (2023)

Alex Braverman's documentary look at Andy Kaufman came as a shock to me. Normally I find that films that probe the history and psyche of their subject delight me with all of these hidden truths and things I never knew before. This time out while I saw a kindred spirit in a broken performer who never got over his childhood trauma, I also realized that the thing I always suspected was that he was a one trick pony who just repeated himself.

First I should say that Braverman's doc is a great film. It truly reveals Kaufman as both a human being and a performer. Its a film full of great clips and greater insight. A work of cinema it is truly a stellar achievement. And as such it should be seen.

The problem is that the film reveals Kaufman to be a person I like a hell of a lot less then when I went in. The problem to me is that Kaufman's performances, I can't say comedy because it's closer to stand up philosophy than comedy, always seem to be of a type. Do something mean or cringy and then flip it. The result is laughter not really because it's funny or clever but because it's a release from being made uncomfortable. While I found the idea that Kaufman's constant poking us to make us consider what is or is not real forced us to think, his method wore thin rather quickly since it always followed the same pattern. You showed us X but what about other ways of getting there?

Watching Kaufman in interviews and off stage broke my heart. I didn't see a performer, but a guy who was severely broken. I could hear the pain in his voice and the desperate need to be loved. In the footage we see he was always on in away that made me nervous. He wasn't a clown, just a guy trying to get hug from strangers... but while it provoked a reaction I don't think it was ever satisfying, so he had to keep doing crazier things to remain connected. ( As much as I understand his feeling of being betrayed by Dick Ebersol and SNL I also understand the break - you can't push and not have push back)

Half way into the film I found I went from liking Kaufman to pitying him and realizing he was nowhere near as clever as people had lead me to believe. Truly Latka was the best thing he did.

 I have no idea what your take will be. For me it's a well made film about a sad little man I never need see again.

Viet and Nam (2024) opens March 28 at the IFC Center

 In 2001 two miners in Vietnam have a passionate love affair as one of them plots to leave the country for a better life somewhere else.

This is a jumbled art house film where every moment is dripping with meaning and artistic pretension. Nothing just is, everything means something. The arrangement all means something. This is a film that has a lot to say, like a director making his first film and who isn't certain he'll ever make another so he throws everything into it. Unfortunately little of it sticks together. There is the gay romance, the desire to leave the country, class struggle, the desire to find lost loved ones from the war, religion, and about 19 other things.Everything takes center stage for a moment and then is dropped. It's never clear what it all means because nothing ties together. 

The performances are all zombie like. The notion of everyone being dead inside makes the film hard to watch because the film has a single tone. There is no life, only dead people. The dead eyed performances make even the sex scenes dull. While there seems to be passion, the facial expressions undercut it.

It doesn't help that the film now and again shifts to the metaphorical, not because the film needs it but because the filmmakers want to oversell the moment. The final sequence for example looks lovely and is heartbreaking but it kind of is just out there unconnected to anything.

I never cared.

While very well made, the film is so messy narratively and thematically I can't believe it's getting so much festival love. I understand this is the director's personal tale and statement, but it's so personal it means nothing to anyone else. 

A bust.

PABRIK GULA (Sugar Mill) (2025)

A group of young men and women who work as seasonal workers, arrive at a sugar factory and quickly run into trouble when they discover that the factory isn't on this plane of existence.

This is an uneven horror film where the story is there, the cast sells the proceedings and the sound and music crew undercut all of the terror by working every minute of the film and clueing the audience something is going to happen before it does. Seriously the music cues hit five seconds before anything spooky happens. That the score and soundtrack wound the film is a real shame because the images of the demons and the damned souls are so good that their chilling quality would have  been enhanced by some silence. Too many times we are signaled that a demon is near by the muspic well before they pop out.

 

If you can get past the music, this is a pretty good horror film. Yes, it's a bit over long, but the demons and the set pieces really kick ass and make this a film you will want to see. The horror images are chilling and are worth the price of admission.

Worth a look.

JANIS IAN: BREAKING SILENCE (2024) Opens Friday

This is a look at singer song writer Janis Ian who began to get noticed when she was 13 and ended up changing how millions of people saw the world.

Produced for American Masters, this look at the life and career of Ian is awesome. This film is everything you could want to know about her and then some. Full of great music and great stories it's sure to please fans and non-fans alike.

Grand Tour (2024) opens Friday

NYFF frequent flier Miguel Gomes returns with GRAND TOUR with the story of a British diplomat who flees the fiance he hasn't seen in 7 year by touring Asia. First we see his flight and then her pursuit.

Lots of great travel footage is wasted in a two part tale that never really works. The problem is the split tale. The tale of the diplomat is intriguing for a about ten minutes, until you realize that we know , and will know nothing about him at all. He is entirely a cipher. Well we know he's a diplomat and has a fiance, but that's all. Everything we learn is via voice over narration which doesn't remotely fill in the missing material.

The second half of the film is the quest of Molly, the fiance to see the man she loves. Actually beyond trying to marry him, she has something to tell him. While this portion explains much we didn't know about in the first part, the story still seems fragmentary. Too many details are given us by voice over. While the second half  made me curious how it was going to play out for Molly ultimately I found this journey was a waste of my time.

Not recommended

Penguin Lessons (2024)

True story of an English teacher who takes a job at a prep school in Argentina around the time of the coup in 1976 and ends up caring for a penguin he rescues because he simply won’t leave.

This is a sweet little film about how a penguin changed the lives of everyone he meets. To be certain the basic thrust of one man changing because of circumstances is a tale we’ve seen before, but the fact that this is true and the time it’s set adds all sort of shading to the material. This is not how Hollywood would have done it had a big studio gotten its hand on it.

That the film works is due in large part to the cast.  Sure, Steve Coogan and Jonathan Pryce are great, but the rest of the cast is excellent also. I love that the cast of kids who are the students actually make them all stand out. Also excellent is Alfonsina Carrocio who makes such a stirring impression that she brings tears to our eyes in the final moments. She’s also so good that I want to see everything she’s done previously… and whatever comes next.

This is super film and assuming you can fall into its unique rhythms you are going to have a grand time each and every time you see it.

Highly recommended.

Holy Cow (2024) opens Friday at the Film Forum

HOLY COW is the story of Totone, an 18 year old young man who loves to party. When his father dies he tries to curb his wild ways so that he can care for his young sister.

This is a sweet coming of age film that is closer to reality than any other coming of age film I’ve seen. Life is messy. Relationships are messy. There are sex and beer and stuff. If it wasn’t for more adult elements this would be a great family film simply because what we see is feels closer to life.

To be honest I need to see HOLY COW a second time to really see the film for what it is. I say this because the write up for the film at Cannes gave me the impression that the film was going to be a bit more narrowly focused. Instead the film is bit more wide ranging and covers a lot of territory.

It’s that wide ranging nature that kind of hurts the film slightly. The problem is that the film juggles a large number of plot and thematic threads at the same time while trying to focus on the romantic thread a bit too much. If the film were another fifteen or twenty minutes longer things would have been a bit smoother. As it stands now this is a good little film, which you’ll want to see continue. (A sequel? Yes please)

Nightcap 3/23/25: Sliding into the pause and some random notes on films

Scheduling the last of the New Directors New Films reviews and I am taking that previously mentioned break. I have three features and a short to review but the time table is relatively long. What this means is that I can kind of coast until the later half of April. 

That may not sound like much but it means I can play catch up on things I missed and want to see. It also means, outside of an interview I did this past week, I don't have to do I lot of writing. I think I've run out of words.

I need to find the desire to continue. I say that because I am running into way too many bad or mediocre films of late. Its as if the flood gates have opened and a lot of wastes of time escaped. I'm keeping bad films off my worst of the year list because they aren't as bad as others.

Actually the films this year have been firmly great or okay or bad. There hasn't been a lot of degrees. I either love something, thought it was okay and wanted to move on or hated it. Usually everything is I like certain things in a film and dislike others but its an interesting mix. What I'm seeing is not a mix.

It's killing my desire to cover films because there is little room for discussion

It also doesn't help that I'm feeling a bit isolated and antisocial. The last few weeks, while I have met up with some friends,  I've been spending way too much time alone. I feel like I've been living in a basement. Part of it is work, part of it is shifts in friends' schedules, part of it is taking on too much and part of it has been some health issues (nothing serious just annoying).

Most of the next six weeks look to be one review a day.

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As part of  cutting back I've been watching more and more films and series I'm not writing up.  These are things I just didn't feel like writing up.

To that end some random notes on movies I've been seeing and not reviewing in full (I may have mentioned some these before).

  

BORDERLANDS
After a couple of tries I think this all star scifi  film that is an absolute mess. It's a hypnotic road accident of a film with some great moments, an interesting performance by Cate Blanchett and a script that doesn't know what it wants to be be.  As background during multiple viewings it wasn't bad. Honestly there is enough here I wish they had a real script and a different director.

HERETIC

I desperately wanted to see this horror film because word among my friends was it was really good. I know some people said that the film was set up too much as a polemic on religion. For whatever reason the film disappointed. I think beyond it being over sold to me there is a formalness to the set up that it felt like a film checing off things in a ticky box. Yes it has moments, but over all it was just okay....that said I need a revisit.

CROSS 
This Amazon series is very good. I've liked all the cinematic configurations of the character. And this one is not exception. Is it my favorite? No but I will watch the next season.

ELEVATION
This Anthony Mackie action film about people have to stay above a certain elevation lest monsters get them isn't bad. It doesn't make a lick of sense, but tn minutes in you're just going with it. Definitely will watch this again when I run across it on cable.

SPEAK NO EVIL (remake)

The original film is so evil I never wanted to see the remake. Matt Schulman said it wasn't the original and I should see the mess they made of it. It is a mess, they removed th bleakness that made the original so powerful and watered it way down. Destined to be forgotten.

HERE
Why? It's an interesting idea but why?

I have watched several episodes of both the JACK RYAN and BOSCH series of Amazon and I liked them both. But I only watch them fleetingly

NEXT GOAL WINS

Taika Waititi needs to stop making movies. This is way worse than I imagined or heard. Everything is a joke and it might have been fine except none of the jokes are funny. See the documentary instead

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For those playing the home game I have finished the interview I did for THE FALLING SKY and it will run just before the LA play dates.

Girls and Gods (2025) CPH:DOX 2025

Portrait of Inna Shevchenko as she takes on the main stream view of religion and the misogyny it contains and ponders if there is a better way to move toward spirituality. 

This is a film that is going to sting a lot of people. Feminist Shevchenko is very straight forward and never backs down. Her view toward religion is a decidely anti-status quo one that will get on the nerves of many of the devoted followers of the various religions. She sees most beleif systems very anti- female. She also thinks that there is perhaps a better way, that isn't one of the choices with a hairy male comic thunderer at the center.

I don't think she's wrong, her point was argued by Nina Paley in her film SEDER-MASOCHISM a film that looked at being Jewish and that religion's notion of god via a conversation with her father. It was a film that very gently and very convincingly made similar points that got  people I know who saw that film thinking about how they view god.

As for this film points are made but I don't know how much will stick since this is not so much a discussion but a emotion fueled rallying cry by Shevchenko. It's a film that has one view point which it hammers away at over and over again. There is no real discussion or argument, more it's a statement of facts or it's an exploraion of a mindset, so there is nothing to engage because of it. This feels like a lecture or a polemic rather than anything else. The problem is that with anything like this is that you have a limited time before you lose the audience beyond the converted (and even then they can grow tired too).

I'm not saying that she 's wrong, only that after 105 minutes I felt the worng sort of worn down. 

Should you see the film? That depends upon your own point of view. While I agree with Shevchenko I don't feel the need to be lectured again.

Aquariums :The Dark Hobby (2021) hits VOD 3/25

 Dark Hobby is a look at the aquarium industry. More specifically it’s a look at the salt water aquarium industry which is stripping the reefs of Hawaii of the colorful fish. The trouble is that for 50 bucks and no training you can get a permit to collect fish. The trouble is that so many people are doing it the fish are disappearing and going extinct.  Worse the removal of such vast quantities of fish is destroying the echo system.

As someone who has had aquariums for much of his life, this is a shocking story.  I never realized that most fish last less than a year in their tanks and have to be replaced. (I say this because the fish that we had tended to last for years.) As pretty as the fish are I no longer see the reason to have something that is going to die so quickly.

While very much a one sided film, there really isn’t any talk about why putting the fish in a tank is a good thing, the film still makes its point if only in that it reveals how out of control the harvesting of fish is.  And it also reveals how dangerous can be  as the collectors violently try to stop the anti aquarium activists via means that are deadly.

If you care about the environment  this film is worth a look.

THE LAST AMBASSADOR (2025) CPH:DOX 2025

This is a portarit of the Afghan ambassador in Vienna, Manizha Bakhtari, who remains the country's only female ambassador since the Taliban's takeover.

This is a solid portrait of a woman doing what she feels is right under an incredibly difficult situation, she works for a regeime that very much wants to shut out women from public life. She has used her position to help Afghan women and girls continue to be educated, despite the Taliban ban on their going to school.

This is an eye opening film in a lot of ways. You would think that with all the problems the Taliban has created (she was appointed prior to their take over) that she would have walked away, but she is trying to do the right thing and make a difference. 

Watching the film is a bitter sweet affair. While you will take Bakhtari into your heart, you will hurt from the problems she faces and the impossible situations she has to deal with. She truly is a hero.

Recommended.

The Gorge (2025)

The action and monsters in this film are very cool, but the tonal shifts and a plot line that have you asking "Why?" every couple of minutes destroy the film.

The plot has two snipers each manning a tower on either side of a gorge somewhere in Europe. They are to prevent whatever is in the gorge from coming out. They are not to communicate but they do and a romance blossoms. Things become complicated when Miles Teller finds himself in the gorge and Anya Taylor Joy has to go rescue him and they discover what the secret the gorge is.

Long part of the black list of unproduced scripts, I'm left to wonder how many interations this went through. The ideas are cool, but the reasoning (it's not supernatural devils or creatures from the center of the earth) of it being a long running corporate project really makes no sense...especially since it went back to the Second World War.

Also a huge problem is the shifts in tone.  Thriller to rom com to action to meet cute ending gives us whiplash and destroys the suspense-once we hit the romcom bits I lost all fear either of the lead would die.

While not bad as such, I was ready to hang it up in middle, and only stayed to find out if the explanation makes sense.

Only worth a look on a desperate night on the couch

Good Boy (2024)

GOOD BOY is a nice little film. It’s the story of a young man who is about to commit a robbery only to have someone from his past appear. As the day goes on things go more and more sideways as still more people appear. 

Oscar short listed film is a tour de force for Ben Whishaw who just breaks apart as life shows that some times the best laid plans will never happen. The film survives because of his performance. He sells the insanity and makes us believe in what is happening. 

Currently n Disney + GOOD BOY is worth 15 minutes of your time.

Hood Witch (2024)

Mother and son who smuggle exotic animals end up in deep trouble and on the run.

This a tense little thriller that score points by not being like most other films out there. Set in a world most films never show us this is a place where everyone is connected by technology and where old beliefs still hold sway. Personal feelings and petty jealousy trump rational thought, and the result is a film where the mood is off. We aren't in Hollywood or even in the world of many European filmmakers but something made from a different point of view. The result is a film that grabs us and pulls us into a vice grip hold.

I loved this film. I loved that it didn't behave like anything that I've seen recently. Its a film that breaths and is alive and isn't a carbon copy of everything else.

I know this isn't a deep and detailed review, and I'm sorry about that, but the truth is that HOOD WITCH deserves to be seen on t's own terms and taken for what it is. I did not have any real idea of what the film was about and I think that helped the film feeling special. From the opening moments when the mother and son went through customs I realized I had no idea where this was going to go and it was a feeling that made me love the film more. It's something I want tou to feel so all I'm going to say is - if you hate the typical mainstream movies- see HOOD WITCH to have atrip to somewhere else.

A CURSED MAN (2024) Premiering in LA Saturday, March 22nd and VOD on Tueday the 25th

Filmmaker Liam Le Guillou investigates whether or not there is anything to spirituality and the supernatural by having a cursed placed on himself…and then he tries to have it removed.

This is an intriguing documentary that actually shows the various ceremonies that Le Guillou is part of. It’s so atypical that the film begins with a warning saying that the filmmakers are not responsible if anything bad or strange happens to the viewer after watching the film.

For me the most interesting part of the film is not the ceremonies  but the discussions that happen around them. The confused nature of the various shaman, priests and practitioners is gripping. Their confusion that anyone would want to put themselves into any sort of danger intentionally or not is very real, if one wants proof of something why put yourself in danger to do so?

I liked A CURSED MAN. I liked that it didn’t cut away from the various ceremonies. I liked that there was serious discussions about the mature of the “supernatural”. In the age of flashy cable TV shows that amp up and over sell every moment, I like that the film was tethered to reality.

Worth a look.

ANY DAY NOW (2025)

Off beat comedy crime drama that is nominally about the Boston art robbery from ---- that still remains unsolved. The reality is it is a look at a bunch of guys who are on the fringes who are just trying to get out of their own way.

The plot of the film has a hood (Paul Guilfoyle) making the acquaintance of a security guard in an art museum (Taylor Gray). He’s deeply in debt and  Guilfoyle has an offer for him that could solve his problem.

This is a small gem of a film that isn’t what you expect. I don’t think the trailer or the official write ups do this justice. The reality is this film that is its own thing. It doesn’t really follow the typical plot lines and instead give us a collection of atypical characters who don’t do the typical gangster sort of things.  Actually this plays closer to life than the movies with everyone being people rather than characters.

Honestly I had a blast with this. I loved the characters and I loved that we weren’t going down the same crime riddled road that most other American gangster film gives us.  We aren’t watching a film full of cliched characters.

Is this the greatest thing since sliced bread? No, but god damn is it entertaining.

I should give one word of warning, that while the film is billed as a comedy it’s not fall down funny. There are some off kilter laughs, but it’s not a straight comedy. Its also not a straight on thriller either, as I said it is its own thing.

Recommended

FAIRY CREEK (2025)

This is a look at the Fairy Creek Protests in Canada which resulted in 1200 arrests when the protesters attempted to stop the logging of old growth forest.

This is an absolutely beautiful film  about the right/need to maintain nature and it’s beauty. It’s a film that goes deep into the protests showing us the protesters and the members of the First Nation fighting to maintain the forest.  It’s a film that demands to be seen on a big screen where the images can truly give you a sense of what is being fought over.

While the arc of the film is largely what you expect, the film still holds our attention because of the urgency of the telling.

I really liked the film.

Recommended- more so if you can see this on a truly BIG screen.

Secret Mall Aprtment (2024) opens Friday

 

Jeremy Workman's latest film is a great deal of fun. It is the story of how a group artists built a secret apartment in the Providence Place Mall in 2023 and managed to remain there undetected for four years.

The press notes tell the story of how Workman had become friends with Michael Townsend in Greece. They were talking and Michael began to tell the story of how he and his friends had built this apartment in a mall that no one knew about and lived there for four years. Workman was entranced by the tale. However when Michael dropped the bomb that they and filmed the whole thing he knew he had to do something with the story. 

Continuing the wonderful run of films about people and stories you may or may not have heard about but should have, director Jeremy Workman brings us another delight. This is a film that is going to change how you look at public spaces. You will end up asking yourself could someone be hiding just outside of view. 

Explaining how it happened and why it might never happen again (circumstances collided correctly)  the film introduces us to some really fun people and lets us hang out with them as they relive this crazy thing they did. It's a film that will make you talk out loud as you lean in to see what is going to happen next.

I had an absolute blast watching this.

You'll forgive me for not saying too much about what happens, but so much of the delight of the film is seeing the things that happen along the way.

Easily one of the best films at this year's SXSW, it is highly recommended.

FISHBOWL (2023) is released Friday

 

Isel Rodriguez gives a staggering performance In THE FISHBOWL a film about a young woman trying to decide how to deal with the cancer that has reoccurred.

The plot of the film had Noelia (Rodriguez) running out on her partner and back home to her mother when it's clear her cancer is no longer in remission. There she reconnects with friends and family and ponders the damage done to the small island by the American military which left the landscape littered with unexploded bombs and poison.

While the script juggles way too many plot threads for a 90 minute film, we continue to watch and stay focused on what's happening because we fall in love with Rodriguez's performance. She lets it all hang out and we feel her pain, both physical and emotional. She brings us in and holds us close and as a result we are there for the duration. As a character study this film can't be beat.

This is one of my favorite films from  Sundance 2023

Recommended

AUM: THE CULT AT THE END OF THE WORLD (2023) opens Wednesday

This is the best film that I've seen on the Aum cult. I don't say that lightly having seen a good number of films both from the US and from Japan.

For those who don't know, the Aum cult gained infamy when the the cult released sarin gas in the Tokyo subway.  It was a move that put the group into spotlight that revealed all their dirty laundry. 

This film will tell you everything you want to know about the cult and then some. More importantly the film does what most other films doesn't do and that is put the cult into the context of Japan and the world.  The film also tells is clearly and susinctly what happened and why.  This is important because there have been several other docs that got lost in the teachings or lost talking to cult members

I loved this movie. This was the first time that I saw something on the cult where I didn't come away feeling they left something out.

If you love true crime this film is a must.

Devil's Stay (2025)

After a "succesful" exorcism results in the death of a young girl, weird thngs begin to happen at the funeral and it soon transpires that the demon that inhabited her never left.

I need to say at the out set that my having recently seen the similar Korean exorcism film DARK NUNS affected how I feel about this film. While the plots are not really similar there are enough simularities, owing to the subgenre of horror, that I found myself comparing them. That's not really fair but it happened.

The reason it happened is that this film has very deliberate structure. The film starts with a truly frightening sequence where the sounds of an exorcism fills a families house. Its one of the most chilling sequences of the last few years and it sets the stage for what is to come. After the explosive first sequence the film switches modes to a slow burn tale that slowly builds to the conclusion. While the slow build is fine unto itself it suffers from having come after a gangbusters sequence. My interest waivered.

This isn't to suggest that the film is bad or doesn't work, more that you need patience until the film clicks again. Once it does its creepy again.

My own reservations aside I had a good time and I look forward to hunkering down with the film again on some dark and rainy night.

Recommended.

Misericordia (2024) opens Friday

Alain Guiraudie's MISERICORDIA starts off as if wants to be a Hitchcockian thriller,  but it not so quickly descends into bedroom farce where it should have been from the start.

The film begins when a former employee man comes to the home of his former employer for his funeral and he ends up committing murder. Things become complicated as he tries to not let anyone know what happened.

Never getting the tone right MISERICORDIA flounders for much of it's running time. Not much happens. And up to a certain point you will be asking if it is this a comedy or a thriller? It isn't clear until almost the very end. 

Complicating everything is the fact that Guiraudie doesn't tell us anything about any of the characters. Lots of details are not in the film, such as the lead character being a former employee. Everyone has a back story they clearly know but at the same time we are not let in to any of it. What exactly is everyone's relationship? I have no clue because it isn't in the film (it is all revealed the press notes). The characters aren't cipher's they are voids.

It isn't until the murder happens that the questions as toi what is happening stop because we get a sort of narrative thrust. And it isn't until the film falls fully into farce that the film finds it's tone. But by that time the film is a complete mess even if we are laughing at it. (And don't bring the kids since erections are used as punchlines twice)

Yea I kind of liked it but this really should have been better.

Worth a shot

Remaining Native (2025) SWSW 2025

This is is a portrait of Ku Stevens, a 17 year old young man  living on the Yerington Paiute reservation in Nevada. He is a long distance runner who dreams of going to the University of Oregon. As Stevens trains and tries to get noticed by college recruiters he ponders his great grandfather  who fled one of infamous religious schools designed to make Native American children into good little Christian kids.  His grandfather ran 50 miles into the desert to find his freedom, its a story that haunts him.

This winner at SXSW is a good portrait of a young man trying to come to terms with the present while reclaiming his family's history. It's a good portrait of a good young man trying to make a difference. It's also a film that makes the story of the children much more real than many other documentaries that deal with the stolen childen that keep things at arms length. 

If you are interesteted in the tragedy of Native American children and a want to see a great bio, then this film is for you.

A Pause

 I mentioned a week or so ago I was running behind in my posting. The good news is I've kind of caught up.

The bad news is that getting there, coupled with couple of slates full ofilms that left me wondering "why am I still watching this crap" and watching the souless corporate disaster ELECTRIC STATE have made me need to step back. I need to step away from the steady diet of PR prepared cinematic choices. I need to watch more movies for me for a while.

Yes I will review the New Directors Titles I have and I will finish the other titles I requested (many of which I genuinely am interested in) but I taking a break and mostly doing me movies

What this means is after this week and into early April look for the quantity of pieces to fall. Hopefully the quality will go back up because there are a couple of up coming pieces that I cobbled together from hope and bullshit. The feeling positive or negative is genuine, but the pieces should have been just two sentences long not several paragraphs.

Now to begin to do fun stuff and look at Matt's list of titles so we can try this podcast thing again

Liz Whittemore on American Dreamer (2022) which is getting a Digital Download from 17th March in the UK

 With AMERICAN DREAMER getting a digital download in the UK, here is Liz Whittemore's review from 2022's Tribeca

There’s something about Peter Dinklage that makes him a brilliant leading man. Tribeca 2022 film American Dreamer is another example of his ability to captivate on screen. In Paul Dektor‘s feature directorial debut, Dinklage plays adjunct social economics professor and lecturer Dr. Phil Loder. As he speaks eloquently to his students, we witness a sly Indian Jones hommage from the front row. Perusing real estate porn, as so many of us do regularly, Phil is serious about finding his slice of heaven and stability in his career. Chasing tenure and respect, he stumbles across a deal in the classifieds that seems too good to be true. With the assistance of his smarmy real estate agent, played to perfection by Matt Dillon, Phil purchases an enormous estate. But there is a catch. His contract contains a “live-in” clause for the previous owner. 

Phil has sold his soul to a woman named Astrid. Thought to be on her deathbed, unpredictable circumstances lead Phil to hire a private detective (Danny Glover) while navigating a complicated relationship with Astrid and her skeptical daughter Maggie. The script dives into the mythic “American Dream” and what the concept means to each of us. Screenwriter Theodore Melfi allows MacLaine and Dinklage to do their proverbial thing. I was hypnotized by the ease of their scenes together. 

Shirley MacLaine brings her truest form with sass and spitfire. Her ability to make you smirk and piss you off is a gift. She’s a legend, and Dinklage keeps pace at every turn. Peter Dinklage has mastered the art of charming his costars and the audience. After watching him in Cyrano, his sex symbol status became solidified. In American Dream, Melfi and Dektor allow him to woo in only the way Peter can woo. Picturing him as a man that constantly has women in the palm of his hand is sheer perfection. His comic timing is unmatched. The magic permeates throughout his fully fleshed-out portrayal of a flawed man.

American Dreamer wins with a great score and soundtrack, stunning locations, funny fantasy sequences, and some clever transitions in the form of novel chapters. I had no idea where this plot was going, and damnit, that’s rare. It is easy to say that it is one of my Top 3 films from the festival this year. I cannot wait for larger audiences to experience this beguiling comedy when it inevitably gets distribution. You’re gonna love it.

Nora (2025) Cinequest 2025

A woman who gave up her singing career for a family, begins to rethink the choice when her husband goes on tour and leaves her to be a single mom.

Anna Campbell is a one woman band writing,diecting, starring and compsing NORA and should celebrated for doing so. There is some really good moments here and I want to see what comes next.

At the same time the film has one problems that hurts it.  The problem wth the film is the intergration of the music into the tale. While the performance sequences are fine, there are other sequences that are music videos. These sequences don't really feel as part of the film. They feel like the sequences were  created by someone not connected to the rest of the film. It feels like Campbells script was written with spaces left for the insertion of a musical sequence. Its not fatal but it hurts the film.

Uneven insertion of music aside NORA is worth a look.