Unseen Films

I'M NOT EVERYTHING I WANTED TO BE
Photographer Libuše Jarcovjáková looks back on her life via her photos and diary entries. A hypnotic trip into the life and head of a woman who charted her life and the life of people on "the fringe" of communist society.  While not for everyone, the fact the film seems to be all photos, may make some crazy, for those looking for a one of a kind experience are going to eat this up 

RIEFENSTAHL
Melding an interview with Leni Refienstahl when she was well over a hundred plus the things found in a deep dive into material provided by her estate and elsewhere, this look at the life of the director, photographer and actress seeks to put the question to bed as to how in bed she was with the Nazis. This is a very good look at Riefenstahl that reveals that the stories she told for decades of her never having read Mein Kampf and not being aware of what was going on isn't wholly true.  More grounded and more realistic than some doc that sought to either reform her reputtion or dump it in the trash, the film reveals, as with everyone, that nothing is wholly black and white. At the same time anyone looking for certainty one way or another is bound to be disappointed since there is no smoking gun, even if there is a gun. Worth a look.

Here is my list of films that profoundly disappointed me or just were painful to get through or downright bad. Apologies to anyone offended but a nuber of films disillusioned me and made me want to give up watching films. 

WOLF MAN may not really be the worst film of the year it was the first huge disappointment. Having nothing to do with a wolf man or werewolf, it is instead simply variation on the contagion/zombie film where people turn homicidal, with some slight body changes. Echoing too many other better films the film fails to be scary. Worse it's not even in the same ballpark as the directors previous Invisible Man film

AMERICAN THEATER is about a canceled theater director putting on a show in Georgia. I'm not sure if it's serious or if it's a scathing portrait. Either way it plays like a Christopher Guest film and not in a good way.

PERIPHERY OF BASE a painful art house film where we watch people wandering around a worksite in Mongolia.  From a guy speaking jibberish to images that are blurry (people are out of focus) this was a physically painful film I refused to review.

THE GORGE may not really a true worst of 2025 some of  the other films on this list, but its weird tonal shifts and narrative illogic (a gorge hiding mutating human from a science experiment started by nazis is guarded by soldiers from the east and west for a corporation) make it a waste of time,

ELECTRIC STATE - The Russo Brothers make a soulless turd ball of a movie. (While it shares some of the flaws of THE LEGEND OF OCHI it is several sub-basements lower). The film disillusioned me so badly I didn't watch new films for weeks afterward.  I still haven't recovered since it points the way to the death of real art and the place the cess pit of corporate greed truly begins to kill anything remotely creative or soul stirring. Why do I think the MCU is dying next December? This film.  It made me realize that the Russos are not good filmmakers and we are doomed as a society and a culture. Seriously.

I finally saw THE NEXT GOAL WINS- Taika Waititi's version of the story of the American Somoan  soccer team trying to get to the World Cup and turns it into a film where everything is a joke and none of the jokes land. It does no one any favors. (see the documentary it is based on)  Worse than I feared and not any good at all.  While his BOY AND THE OCTOPUS shines, he hasn't made a feature I've liked since HUNT FOR THE WILDERPEOPLE. I know the film was held up because of reshoots because of Armie Hammer, but I think it was the film was shit from the get go and they were trying to save it.

DOOM ASYLUM - I saw this at the drive in in Pittsburgh and it crushed my soul. Nominally the story of guy who survived an autopsy and went crazy. It's twenty minutes of material stretched to eighty. Whats worse is that  the film badly uses a mish mosh of Todd Slaughter film clips that make his films look like shit instead of knowing over the top film. This film is only good for sleep but you still may end up doomed to live in the shittiest level of cinematic hell forever.

Canone effimero- painful 11 part documentary on ethnic music in Italy. Imagine the dullest school documentary or film strip but twenty times more painful and touted as a truly great thing by so called adults who know whats best.

I am an early American adopter of the work of Osanu Tezuka. I was hooked as a child by the series Kimba The White Lion and Astroboy (aka Mighty Atom). I was watching the series as soon as they hit American TV in the 60's. It has been all down hill from there.

I didn't start reading Tezuka's manga until the 1990's when it was more readily available in the US, and it was eye opening. In a weird way it was life changing because the manga was and still is some of the greatest stories I've ever read. None of the anime adaptions (with the exception of Pluto, which is bsed on a managa based on an Astroboy story) has maintained the complexity of Tezuka's graphic work simply because the animation doesn't have the room to tell the stories right.

Over the last few weeks, I find I've been haunted by his masterwork PHOENIX which is multi-part time spanning tale about humanity from birth to death in a far-off future. The phoenix of legend always figures in in some way, either as a character or a symbol. The tales quietly reference each other and echo thematically, but they are all self-contained tales.

The series is out as a download at Amazon at 10 bucks a section, but the print edition is scarce and when I want to track to down the books years ago, I had a hard time, and probably over paid for some volumes. (For the record Tezuka never finished it and while we have the beginning and end pieces there are parts in the middle he never set to paper. 

Trust me if you take the time to read it all (that's the important part because the individual stories do tie together thematically) it will haunt you too.

The other Tezuka tales that haunt me are:

ASTROBOY of course. I've read everything that has come out in English. The stories of a robot boy are all over the place because Tezuka was doing all sorts of things with them. Some are comedy, some tragedy, some action, some serious, some toss offs. It's all over the place much like any long running characters body of work. It inspired Pluto: Urasawa x Tezuka, a retelling of one of the best Astro stories about a robot killing off other robots that pays homage to the original and deepens the tale in ways Tezuka would have loved.

BUDDHA haunts me. It is the arc of the life of the man who would become Buddha. It's the journey of one man to enlightenment and what he discovers along the way. Covering 8 volumes in the American edition, it is a work that will stay with you long after it's done. At times a tad uneven, the work still manages to be greater than the sum of its parts with the tale revealing much about the nature of mankind and the individual human heart.

DORORO is the story of a ronin who travels with young man who is missing 48 body parts that were given to demons. The pair travel the world attempting to reclaim them. The source of both animated and live action adaptions, DORORO is a hell of an idea that ended up getting abandoned after it being canceled.  I've read that Tezuka was unhappy with details of publication, however, what exists is really good and influenced generations of artists and storytellers because what is here is so gripping you want more or to try and do something similar. 

BLACK JACK is a disgraced and unlicensed doctor with his own sense of right and wrong. Willing to do anything for the right price, he will help those who need it and make sure the privileged feel the pain of their existence, the stories are almost always thought provoking. There are hundreds of stories, almost all a dozen or so pages, the series has spawned both live action and animated adaptions. It's a great kind of fantastic noir with a heart

While Tezuka's work can be all over the place, you should wade in and try him because when he's good he's among the best to ever tell a story.

---

After today the year end lists start. 

---

If you were curious about some of Oscar animated films on the short list here are some reviews and interviews:

QUINTA'S GHOST
THE GIRL WHO CRIED PEARLS
SNOW BEAR (with interview)
PLAYING GOD (with Interview)

---

How do you know a rating on IMDB was cooked?

There are five IMDB reviews four of them are 10 out 10. It has 20 reviews one is a 1 out of 10, two are 7 out of 10 and seventeen are 10 out of 10. It is also not on Rotten Tomatoes

---

As I said earlier there will be no Unseen Film Awards this year. I just couldn't do it. Largely the last two or three weeks have just been watching sports, odd TV shows and whatever randomly hit my fancy. I say that because I still have about three dozen 2025 FYC screeners yet to watch and little desire to watch them.

---

What will the new year bring? Coverage of Dances with Films New York, Berlin, Rotterdam, and Sundance. After that who knows. 

---

As 2025 fades - I wish you all a glorious and magical, in all the right ways, 2026

ELWAY
Netflix documentary portrait of John Elway. 

While not bad the film is everything you'd expect from a victory lap documentary about beloved sports figure, which is the problem.  I enjoyed it but but I wish it was more clear eyed and less loving. Still it killed 90 minutes while I did other things.

MARCELLA
Portrait of Italian cookbook write Marecella Hazan.

This is fine if Marcella is of interest to you, but it is exactly like so many other portraits of other cooks that there is very little here we haven't seen. It is also way too loving. I didn't hate it, but as someone who loves food films, I found it less than compelling.

BLUR TO THE END
Another documentary about the reforming of Blur and their striving to make new music together.

We've been here before in the other films documenting their journey to make music. At this point this feel more like the Apted UP series but for a rock group, and not always in a compelling way for non-fans.

ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER is in the minds of some people the great film of the year, or the decade or ever. I delayed seeing it because the hype was going to get in the way...I knew that I wasn't going to love it on that level...so I waited.

I didn't expect to dislike as much as I did. I don't hate it, but I surely don't love it enough to put it on my best of the year list or include it in my critics' groups voting.

A tonally all over the place "black comedy" ONE BATTLE is an overly messy story of revolutionaries, the man hunting them and the current far right mind set that non-whites and immigrants are bad.  The plot has a pair of revolutionary lovers getting into trouble when a bank robbery goes wrong. One goes into witness protection, and the other raises their daughter. Into the mix add a military man who hunting them having an affair with one of them. 

Much of the film is played deadly serious with a very well-earned paranoia coloring everything. At the same time Paul Thomas Anderson (PTA) has a bumbling bomb maker played by Leonardo DiCaprio as the main character. Di Caprio feels like he's from another movie. He's twitchy and manic and kind of makes you wonder why anyone would spend time with him, other than he makes good bombs. Yes, his twitches are funny but at the same time you wonder about how he remains upright and alive in a world where the authorities are just shooting people dead. Instead of pulling me in, DiCaprio's manic nature pushed me aside. I kept hoping he would get killed so the film didn't feel like it was swinging from pillar to post.

Part of the problem is the film's inspiration. Because PTA didn’t feel that he could do justice to Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland, he wrote his own script that was inspired by Pynchon’s work.  It’s a nice thing to do, but there is a reason that there are only a couple of films based on his works and that is because what Pynchon does with words really doesn’t translate well to cinema. Pynchon’s words bend the ideas and smooth out the rough spots that occur with his off-kilter plotting.  His plotting  and characters are so of his world that when you try to film the events of his novels things don't work on screen remotely close to how they are on the page.  What should be humorous comes off as awkward or forced. This forced nature is the problem here, the melding of humor and serious, particularly in DeCaprio’s performance, falls flat. I know several people who have called it the best performance of the year, but I don’t think it is. I think people are noticing it not because it is a good performance integrated into the story but that it stands out like a nail from a floorboard that needs to be hammered down.  This is particularly apparent when you compare it to Sean Penn’s role as a psychopathic military man. Yes, Penn’s character is wildly over the top and is in many ways the same crazy as DiCaprio, but he keeps his performance more controlled. He fits in with the rest of the cast who are playing it closer to real.

I am also not certain about the world the film operates in. It feels like the wrong sort of alien. While I appreciate the fight for immigrant rights, the political battle of blowing places up and other acts seems like it is 50 years out of date. The whole thing feels like it’s a world view from the 1960’s or 70’s, but not from reality, but from a world view gained by watching movies. I found it kind of quaint. Especially when you add in the whole secret white supremacist plot line. The white supremacists aren’t hiding anymore, and they haven’t been for the better part of a decade. The hate mongers are out in the open and running the government.  The sense of unreality is something that PTA has been battling with off and on in his films. For example, while I know that his LICORISH PIZZA is based on actual events the truth is that the time period in which it was set, feels completely alien. I was alive and of the age of those characters, but none of it felt real, even for characters living on the other side of America. Actually, like OBAA it felt like it’s a world view created based on movies and not life as lived. 

I have issues with the pacing. I’m not certain why this film needs to be almost three hours. You will forgive me but in the last few years I have become kind of aware of films that aren’t using their run times adequately. I’m not talking about film that are setting a mood, or a sense of place or time, but films that seem to have not gotten their narrative under control. I shouldn’t be aware that time is passing or in this case stagnating. More to the point if a film is going to ramble a bit, as this film seems to do, there has to be a point where the narrative pulls in the loose threads so that we see the whole cloth as something more than what we thought. The rambling and the too long scenes should pay off. I don’t think they do. At the risk of getting beaten up, I really think that you could have chopped 45 minutes to an hour out of this and not lost anything. Actually, I think you’d have a tighter and meaner film. 

Understand I don’t hate OBAA, but I truly don’t see what people find so magnificent.  No wait, strike that, I do think the basic plot line is solid, but I don’t think that PTA’s version of the film is what it should be. I think it’s the work of a director who the last two times out seems to have lost his way. Not that he’s always been perfect (INHERENT VICE is messy), but this feels like a film that is battling with itself to try and tell an important story about the politics of today's world and then couch it with some off beat characters and absurd sense in a desperate effort to make it palatable to the masses. I do think PTA sees the various lines that seem to exist today, but I don’t think he fully knows how to draw them so that it really matters. I never bought the world of the disenfranchised seen here and always felt it was not being accurately being drawn by a man who grew up as part of the Hollywood establishment.

 

The Girl Who Cried Pearls is a lovely but incredibly bittersweet film. It’s another winner from the National Film Board of Canada that has been Oscar shortlisted.

The film is a memory tale of a grandfather telling the story to his granddaughter of the young girl who lived next door to him. She was abused by her evil stepmother and cry herself to sleep. When she cried, she cried pears which she put into a hole in the wall.

This is a beautifully animated film that is full of melancholy. The lives portrayed are not happy ones. While we know that some of the characters will be okay, there is no guarantee for others. It’s a film that is very much like life or the original dark versions of Grimm’s fairy tales.

That this gem of a film is coming from Canada isn’t surprising. The film board is responsible for some of the best animated shorts of the past five or six decades. They don’t aim for happy, but films that are good and enlightening. Unlike Hollywood, bittersweet doesn’t bother them.

While I don’t think the film will win the Oscar, I’m guessing Snow Bear will probably do so because it looks like Disney, I adore the fact that Oscar got it right and has this marvel in the mix.

Recommended.

TRON ARES
This visually impressive entry in the Tron series is also the weakest in the narrative department. Telling the story of forces competeing to find the code that will allow computer generated objects and people to remain in out world permanently. The narrative is simplistic and utterly confused. It does everything we expect with no surprises while complicating everything in weird layers put there just to make the film look much more intelliget then it is. Yes, the set pieces kick ass, but the truth of the matter thats all this film is. Yea, part of me wished I saw this in 3D but the other part knows I would have chaffed at paying almost 30 bucks to do so. Worth a look if you want to see some amazing visuals, but you can skip it if you want a meaningful story.

SPRINGSTEEN:DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE
I've heard that this film didn't do all that well at the box office and I know why, you need to be a Springsteen fan to have any connection. Where other recent musical bios like those of Dylan and Robbie Williams brought non-fans into the mix, this film forgets to connect us to the superstar main character. This is feels like a feature length moody music video that is striving for something artistic. I forever felt like I was on the outside, with no idea who many of the people were. It doesn't help that the usually good Jeremy Allen White seems to be doing a send up Bruce. I was giggling instead of buying it.
For Springsteen fans only.

 

ORWELL 2+2=5
A look at the life and work of George Orwell, particularly focusing on 1984 and other anti-authoritarian work and filtering it so that it echoes the world today.

This is a well-made and compelling film that acts as a warning about the authoritarian leaders springing up across the globe. It clearly shows that 80 plus years ago Orwell was ringing the alarm bells.  My issue with the film is that if you know Orwell or have been paying close attention to what is happening there is not a great deal new here. Yes, we can never be warned enough, but at the same time this film is not going to reach the people who need to hear it since this is way above their reading level and far removed from their reality TV tastes

THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME
The latest from Wes Anderson doesn't make a lick of sense but it deeply connected to me because it's the right sort of silly and because it feels very much like Anderson is trying to make something that feels like what would happen if Peter Greenaway tried to make a Looney Tunes film in the style of Wes Anderson.  It's an incredibly sly and dry film that just does everything well. Yes, it's lighter than most other Anderson films but at the same time the lightness seems to have freed up the director so that it's a free doodle that gives him to do magical things on every level that he would never do in a  more serious film. I was delighted beyond words because it was just fun for fun's sake.

Recommended.

This Oscar shortlisted documentary is probably the best of  Albert Serra‘s films.   I say that as a filmgoer who has mixed reactions to his films. For me either he makes art films that are intriguing until you realize that he isn’t going to pull  it together in the end or he makes films that look great but just ramble around and never hook you. As much as he endlessly disappoints me, there is always something there that makes me want to try the next one. That is not a knock, rather that’s kind of a rave because I keep coming back when I didn’t like the last one.

AFTERNOONS is a look at a couple of bullfighters as they head to the ring and fight their bulls. It’s a film that is beautiful even as it pulls the beauty and poetry of the “sport” apart. It’s a film that, even with the savagery, holds our attention and makes up think about what we are seeing.

Worth a look if you don’t mind the blood.

I recently finished the series TIM BURTON LIFE ON THE LINE which had the first episode play at Tribeca in 2024. 

The series started with the intention of being a 90 minute film, but there is too much stuff regarding Burton and his friends and collaborators were more than willing to talk so an hour and a half went to over four hours.

When I originally saw the first episode at Tribeca some 18 months ago I kind of groaned at the start and winced thinking it was going to be a conventional retelling of Burton's life. However almost instantly the film changed and morphed into something spectacular and moving. 

This is not a conventional bio of Burton- yes it tells the story of his life, but the series is structured so that people like Danny Elfman, Winona Ryder, Johnny Depp, Michael Keaton and everyone else talk about Burton in relation to their lives. They don't tell what HE did but what THEY did together. How did working on the various projects change their lives. By allowing the everyone to talk about themselves and their connections to Burton the film becomes something bigger and greater than just a guy who makes movies and instead becomes a portrait of a force of nature who has changed the world.

More simply put it's an explanation of why following your dream and voice is a good thing, especially when you can find people who need to follow your example.

You have to understand that the series is  less aboput,the films and more about the man. The films are there, the focus is really on Burton the man and the artist. I say this up front because there is a  moment or two where the series seems to be unfocused. The march through his films goes side ways, we get lost in say how they did CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY or SLEEPY HOLLOW before pulling it back around to Burton and we realize the films aren't the point of the series, the artist is. You have to remember that unlike the recent  Scorsese docuseries, this is not going to tell you everything about Burton's movies, but rather a great deal about the man himself.

When I reviewed the first episode of the series last year when it played Tribeca and it floored me. The episode promised an in-depth look at not just Tim Burton but his collaborators. It is this look at how Burton makes everyone around him better is what sets the series apart. It’s a move that puts Burton into the greater history of cinema.

The second episode of Tara Wood’s Docuseries made me cry. Danny Elfman talking about how Burton’s work allowed him to move away from Oingo Boingo and be the writer/performer he wanted to be made me misty. That Wood is blessing us with moments like that, in a film that is essentially about someone else, speaks volumes to why the series is one of the greatest films on film I’ve ever.

The episodes are focused on groups of films. For example the second episode focuses on  four films, EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS, BATMAN RETURNS and ED WOOD, detailing how Burton connects to the subjects of his films and how those films  made the careers of people like Johnny Depp (who was revealed to be a great actor) and Danny Elfman who was became a music god. The third episode focuses a great deal on his work SLEEPY HOLLOW, CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, ALICE IN WONDERLAND, BIG EYES and the films he made with Helena Bonham Carter. 

While we get a great a lot of stories about who the films came to be and were shaped, we get more information on the creative process that went into them. Elfman, Depp and Carter go into detail about how they work with Burton. Christoph Waltz ends up becoming a defacto narrator of sorts with his off the cuff comments putting everything about being a creative visionary into context. (I want to now talk to Waltz about his films because I think the insight into things on a larger scale he would give would be amazing)

When I saw the first episode I said that if the series maintained the promise of the first episode it would be one of the greatest films on film ever made. It has more than lived up to that, It is one of the greatest looks at films and filmmaking.   It is a film that is so full of stories and images and magic that you will want revisit multiple times because there is simply too much to take in.

I can't tell you how wonderful this is.

Highgly recommended.  If you love the movies you must see this.

If you want to see the film go here.

One of the better Eddie Constantine films I've seen has Eddie as an ex-American soldier who returns to Germany after the war to find the young girl he left behind and collect the box of jewels he hid for her father. However the world has changed since the war ended and getting the box means battling other forces who want the loot for themselves.

I believe this is one of the few films you'll see where you can hear Eddies real voice in English. Despite being an American he was making films in Europe which means that all the voices got dub. However this time out the film is a British co-production so all of the English speakers  aren't dubbed (at least as far as I can tell.) Hearing Eddie speak is a minor treat.

Well plotted film is largely nothing new but there are enough surprises along the way that we are forced to ponder if Eddie is going to come out of it all alive and who is playing him. I really had no clue and was happy to go along for the ride.

Another joy was  the inclusion of  Christoper Lee as one of many people looking for the box. I know had I paid attention to the opening credits I would have realized he was lurking around, but I didn't so his appearance absolutely delighted me.

I really like this film a great deal and where many of Constantine's film survive on his personality alone to see one that brings together a great cast, great script and everything else makes this a sheer delight.

Highly recommended.

Based on a documentary of the same name, SONG SUNG BLUE is the story of Lightning and Thunder a duo who made waves being an interpreter of the music of Neil Diamond. Hugh Jackman plays Mike Sardina, aka Lightning, and Kate Hudson is his wife Claire Sardina, aka Thunder.

And before you think you know how this goes, you don't. There are the sort of twists that only life can throw at us and have us believe it, because it's true. I mention this because I know a number of people who have gone into the fim thinking they knew where it was going only to find they didn't (they hadn't seen the documentary or knew the story).

Hugh Jackman is great as Mike. He is playing into his strengths being able to sing and act and play to the crowds. This is peak Jackman. Kate Hudson is amazing as Claire. Its a complex role and she nails it.  I'd like to see her do another musical.  The rest of cast is also excellent, and I do need to mention Jim Belushi who again shows that he is now one of the great character actors working today.

My feelings for the film are all over the place.  There are some glorious moments in this film. I mean there are some the best moments you'll experience at the movies all day. The mix of story and song and performance mix together to create something special. At the same time way the story doesn't always work. What seems to be a simple story becomes something complex in the second half and I'm not sure if director Craig Brewer modulates the shift correctly. The tone in the second half didn't feel right. I'm not sure if it's the director or the script which speeds up some of the events. I was moved at times, but I was also disconnected at others.  The best way to describe it is as if the film wants to use a crowd-pleasing Hollywood framework to tell a story that is much too complex for that sort of telling.

I also need to mention that the one thing that haunted me about the film from early on. Even though I loved a lot of the film the one thing I kept thinking was "why are they telling me this story." While I know it's a great showcase for the performers, I never had a sense of there being a reason for this story to be told. What does the film do that the documentary didn't do? I'm not sure.

I know I sound cranky and that I hate the film, but the truth is I do like the film, but I wanted to love it.

Definitely worth a look- but be aware your mileage will vary.

 

THE PLAGUE is a look at bullying set in a water polo camp. The film centers around a 12-year-old boy who becomes the target for the camp’s bully.

This is a great looking and well told tale of bullying. It’s a film that hits every expected note and does so with images that you will want to hang on your wall. It is a film, that on its own terms is very well done.

The problem for me is that everything in this film is so above and beyond your typical film that it kind of disappoints that the story is so run of the mill. There are no unexpected turns, and the characters are exactly the sort of people we have been force fed for stories like this.  I wanted it to say something new.

My quibble aside THE PLAGUE is very good and worth a look

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

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

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

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

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

Sylvain Chomet makes a biography of Marcel Pagnol.

BREAKDOWN 1975
This is a Netflix documentary on the state of America and cinema in 1975, which is said to be the last year where independent films and a bleak outlook could be top at the box office.

This is a kind of interesting look where the film industry was 50 years ago. It has tons of clips, great talking heads and absolutely the worst organization in a film on film I've seen...probably ever.  mForgive me but I lived through the time and I was a film goer and a film fan and I saw what happened, but I had a really hard time understanding what they were aiming for. There is no real organization, just a dropping of subjects randomly, which are followed by a weird wandering off in another direction because well they need to give context for the point they are trying to make... but which they really don't because the film gets distracted.

I needed several tries to get through it...and while the bits are great the whole is just not worth it.

MURDER IN MONACO
This is a look at the death of Edmond Safra examamining who was behind it.

Don't read on the film, just get a boel of popcorn and some drinks and then sit down for one hell of a ride. This is one of the great finds of 2025. It's a twisty turny film that made me stop working on the computer to just sit and watch the film because I didn't want to miss anything.  When it was done I sat there slack jawed wondering what in the hell I had just seen, and what had actually just happened because... I'm not sure.

That's a rave.

I have no clue how this will play on a second viewing but on a first- it's a wild ride you must take.

All hail Amanda Seyfried who gives a raw and revealing performance, both literally and figuratively, exposing herself in everyway imaginable. If she is not in the Oscar mix I would be upset since rarely have we seen a film or performance this bold. Even as I would love to say that it's an Oscar Bait one, there is something way too visceral for that. Besides I don't think it's her doing anything other than going with the script which is utterly and completely Oscar Bait.

I utterly  have no clue about the TESTEMENT OF ANN LEE as a whole. To be quite honest it has some of the greatest things I've seen this year (including Seyufrieds performance) but it is also has some of the worst things I've seen and is painfully reptative that I drifted off about a third of the way in and only occasionally connected from that point.

The film is the story of Ann Lee (Seyfried) the founder of the Shaker movement as we know it. The film follows entire life of Lee from birth to death. It tells the story using narration and songs and dance.

The idea of a religious musical about the Shakers sounds a bit odd but it kind of works. The music is all based on Shaker hymns and, along with the cinematography, are the one constant through the film. I would genuinely want an album of the music.

The problem is that the film is wildly all over the place on almost every level, and a lot of it just doesn't work or doesn't work past a certain point. Forgive me, there is so much here that needs to be discussed I'm going to do it off the top of my head (and probably leave points out).

Let me start with the sex. I have no issue with the sex but I want to know what in the hell director Mona Fastvold was thinking. Its not that I mind seeing the sex, but the flagulation before and during intercourse is shot in such away as to make the most artistic porn film jealous. I wouldn't have cared if we saw it once, but there are a couple of sequences and Seyfried looks to be enjoying it a bit too much, which is odd since the earlier part of the film makes it clear that she was not one for sins of the flesh.

Holding on to that the thought, the reason we know that, or are supposed to think that, if that is indeed the case, is because the film's constant narration tells us that. Actually the problem here is that the whole film is narrated. We are told pretty much every thing we need to know. We do not really hear anyone say anything other than something that makes a point of religous standing. Yes, I know that this is the point, after all the film is being narrated by one of Lee's followers, but it limits who the people on the screen are. They really aren't characters. Any dialog is formal and or stilted. All the action plays into the narration with no indication by what we see that perhaps what we hear isn't the case (which would have been more interesting)

And this is a huge problem. While the film looks spectacular, the film more often than not feels like a weird living tableux. The film feels like director Fastvold watched some of films from Peter Greenaway I keep going back to NIGHTWATCHING) and then tried to replicate or riff on the style, but did so without giving us characters. The result is a film that feels like a college theater piece reformatted for the screen.

Speaking of which while I love much of the dancing, and I am in awe of many of the dance sequences, the quickly deteriorate into a sameness that kind of bore. Dance in film or on stage is suposed to be an express of emotion character and story, but the moves and motions here are from a limited pallate.  I couldn't believe that a movement that sought to have people moved by god (the shaking) would have such limited reactions. I ended up looking for video of services and I discovered two things, first the Shakers move in all sorts of ways, and second much of the dance seems to have been lifted from A SHAKER WORSHIP by Salli Terri, which is a 22 minute dance piece.

I honestly don't know. There are sequences here that soar to the sky and they are connected and set among so many WTF sequences that I don't know what to think. This is one of the most Oscar Bait films I've seen this year. Recently learning that Brady Corbet, who made the wildly over rated pretentious Oscar bait film THE BRUTALIST, some how makes me understand what happened - except that when ANN LEE works it's light years ahead of THE BRUTALIST. (perhaps if Fastvold had worked with Greenaway instead of Corbet this would have worked better)

Should you see it? If you are a collector of one of a kind cinematic experiences, absolutely. Everyone else your mileage will vary.

Cinematically I am a little bit heartbroken. 

I project that I have been working on for several months with a number of people has been stalled indefinitely.

Welcome to Hollywood.

What bothers me about the stalling is that a number of truly great films may get lost as a result. I know that doesn’t mean anything in the course of the world, except to the people who made the films, but getting their work seen matters a great deal.

And I honest to god really do care about these small films and these up and coming filmmakers. I love being able to find these gems and getting eyes on films that might otherwise get lost the mix. I adore that sometimes I can watch filmmakers grow and get better and make masterpieces.

TO me it matters.

And with that in mind over the next few weeks, while you are watching films please take time to look at some small films. Look for off the radar gems like Ken Franks HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION, which is on Amazon and which has a performance for the ages from Raquel Sciacca, who is going to be huge in a year or two. (and its a great family film)

Or try Steve Tsapelas’ BIGFOOT CLUB on Tubi. (And it's a great family film)

Or the offbeat horror film MAN FINDS TAPE on VOD.

Or the grossly under appreciated Psycho Therapy: The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write About a Serial Killer which is on Amazon Prime

Or CHIQUITA on Amazon about a biker who finds enlightenment(and it’s short-only 46 minutes)

And try some shorts like the Oscar Short Listed SNOW BEAR which is among the best films of any length (on You Tube)

Or Marcellus Cox’s masterful two hander LIQUOR BANK (On You Tube)- which is one of the great films of the year

Please go off and try something off the beaten path and see the life that is hiding in the shadows- trust me you will be amazed at what you find….

THE CHORAL is the story of a choral society in a small village in England in 1916 trying to put together a performance when all the men are off to war. It’s a film that looks at life on the home front as villages try to get by when all of the men are gone and no one is around to do the jobs (classes are canceled because teachers have gone to war).

Directed by Nicholas Hytner and written by Alan Bannett this should have been a home run, especially with Ralph Finnes in the lead. Unfortunately, this isn’t anything special. While far from bad the film plays more like a run of the mill episode of Masterpiece Theater. It’s a film that moves by the numbers rather than with any real passion.

I drifted off. Yes I stayed to the end, hoping that something moving would happen, but it never did.

While its worth a look, I’d wait for a streaming release.

We may look shady, but we are professionals. - Don Lee

Don Lee plays a muscled bound guy who literally punches demons out of people in the story of a trio of demon hunters trying to rest a major demon from a young woman.

Enjoyable but uneven mix of horror, action, humor and religion. It is a grand popcorn film that is just balls to the wall fun. I have no idea why this film works but it does. Sure, a lot of it is ridiculous, but the film is so cleverly constructed that it knows it and it just goes with it.

I smiled and I laughed, and I jumped and I got chills. I kept wondering why they didn't go with a straight horror film, but then I realized that I would have lost some great zingers and seeing demons punched out of people.

This film is a just a blast. It is so much fun that you will want a sequel...oh please can we have one?

If you can go with the odd shifts of tone, you will end up loving this. I mean I can't wait to sit down and watch it again.

Highly recommended.