Film Review

O The Humanity

Chet Kozlowski — Thu, 07 May 2026 19:45:35 +0000

O The Humanity Chet Kozlowski May 7, 2026 - 15:45

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We are fascinated by the workings of hospitals. Evidence every TV show from Dr. Kildare to E.R. to Grey’s Anatomy (now in, what, its 79^th year? Kidding, 22) to the current fave, HBO’s The Pitt. We thrill to dedicated professionals charging purposefully down pristine halls, barking instructions and jargon. So much at stake, so many skills on display. They assess, they race against time, they grieve. We admire them and identify with them.

Medical dramas work best as episodic series. They are a continuum: save some, lose some; there’s always more to come. The new drama Late Shift is self-contained. It feels like it's happening in real time, but crisply distills an eight-hour shift to two. It’s a day in the life of Floria Lind, a nurse, not in the E.R., but nonetheless dealing with life and death.

Floria arrives at the hospital on public transit, the picture of empathy and cool efficiency. She’s cheery and professional, a locus of calm in an understaffed world. We trail her from room to room as she checks in with patients. Most are appreciative, like the African immigrant about to undergo surgery who shyly drops that he has no relatives or friends to stay with him. “I’m your friend,” assures Floria. To calm another, she sings to her.

Others complain: their test results have not come back yet; an ornery patient on private insurance times his services with an expensive watch and declares them mishandled. Inattentive doctors display a lack of humanity. Overworked and losing her cool, Floria’s mantra becomes “there are only two of us on duty.”

Of course, the center cannot hold. The shift wears on, and Floria’s patience wears out. She becomes harried and fed up. She deals with that damn watch. And finally, she turns her attention to the quietest of the lot, a squeaky wheel who hasn’t asked for notice, and whose circumstances turn out to be the most dire.

As Floria, Leonie Benesch is a perfect Everyperson. I’ve seen her in another workplace film on Netflix, The Teachers’ Lounge. She’s extremely watchable. As Floria, she presents as stalwart and natural. We believe in her. We root for her. Ms. Benesch has also been in Babylon Berlin and The Crown.

Director Petra Volpe has several films to her credit. She is as efficient as her protagonist. In her hands, Late Shift is Steadicam heaven: Ms. Volpe’s camera glides and dodges and hovers around Floria, a frenetic witness to the mayhem. The viewer is invested in Floria’s plight: with so many successes, it’s the failures that haunt. The climax is quietly devastating and set to Hope There’s Someone by Antony and the Johnsons, itself a haunting coda. Late Shift concludes as a parable and offers an incisive view of a health care system that is humane yet still imperfect.

Floria faces mortality itself, and we realize that tomorrow, or on her next shift, she will do it all over again.

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Late Shift. Directed by Petra Volpe. 2025. A Swiss and German production, in German with English subtitles. 92 minute

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Agatha Christie Gets Woolly

Brandon Judell — Sat, 02 May 2026 21:23:50 +0000

Agatha Christie Gets Woolly Brandon Judell May 2, 2026 - 17:23

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animation

Alexander the Great once mistakenly noted: "I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion." Clearly, the conqueror formed this faulty notion because he hadn’t met the ewes and rams grazing on George (Hugh Jackman) the shepherd’s farm in The Sheep Detectives.

But before we get to the woolies, please note that Mr. Jackman, although he is a grand songster and hoofer, has achieved much of his fortune and fame over the years by portraying Wolverine, a presence that could trigger mass heart attacks among any flock of livestock.

Here, with his claws retracted, he plays an agreeable vegetarian, so in love with his sheep, he individually names them, gambols through his fields with their offspring, and daily reads detective stories to his baaing pals. This is all before he is found dead one morning by Lily, the smartest of sheep (voiced by Julia Louis Dreyfus) and Mopple, the most worldly of sheep (voiced by Chris O’Dowd).

Based on a bestselling German novel Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann, with a screenplay by Craig Martin (The Last of Us), direction by Kyle Balda (Minions), and produced by the folks who have given us Sense and Sensibility, The Substance, and Cocaine Bear, one of the main challenges here was to shape an entertainment that wasn’t too cutesy like Shari Lewis’s Lamb Chop or too outre like Valdimar Jóhannsson’s Icelandic Lamb (2021) where an ewe gives birth to a boy with a sheep’s head. I won’t go into details. What happens in Iceland stays in Iceland.

The creators have mostly succeeded. These ovine creatures chatter amongst each other in standard English with varied accents, comprehend the chatter of us fallible humans, and are bigoted against anything born during the winter months. They could be from Brooklyn. Unequivocally, this herd should entertain most adult filmgoers and a whole lot of the prepubescent.

However, be aware that these sheep have been sheltered from what goes on in the outside world, having never left the field.

Checking out George’s corpse, Lily is confounded. She didn’t know “death” was for real. She was brought up believing humans became clouds in the sky just like her mates did. Mopple enlightens Lily on the spot but avoids telling her that recipes exist for “Moroccan-Style Braised Lamb” and “Lamb Patties with Fried Onions and Tahini Yogurt Sauce.”

So how did George wind up as he has? The buffoonish Tim Derry (Nicholas Braun), the lone local police officer in the abutting small town, believes the shepherd had a heart attack. The sheep know better and set out to find their keeper’s killer. After all, they have already been exposed to dozens of murder mysteries. How could real life differ?

There is a happy ending, of course, with a sentimental closing that will have you comprehend Little Bo-Peep’s anguish the next time you hear her rhyme. Also, I was unable to guess the killer’s identity, always a plus.

With a starry cast that also includes Emma Thompson and Nicholas Galitzine, plus the voices of Bella Ramsey, Regina Hall, and Patrick Stewart, The Sheep Detectives has enough charm, silliness, suspense, wit, and lush cinematography to make this a perfect outing for families and singles. Just be prepared to cover your eyes when the wild dogs show up.

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Get In On the Grassroots

Chet Kozlowski — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 22:46:45 +0000

Get In On the Grassroots Chet Kozlowski April 28, 2026 - 18:46

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Here’s a unique opportunity to participate in the funding of a film. Written and directed by Edna Luise Biesold, Cutting it Short will be about 14 minutes long and bills itself as a comedy about alcoholism. It takes place in real time during one night in a hair salon in which Sadie, played by Casey Killoran, risks relapse and exposure.

From the press pack: “Beneath the humor, the film is a plea for compassion and a reminder that people battling addiction are fighting private wars we rarely see. The United States is facing a significant public health crisis, with roughly 1 in 10 Americans aged 12 and older (approx. 27.9 million) living with Alcohol Use Disorder as of 2024. Despite declining participation rates, alcohol is the third-leading preventable cause of death, according to the NIAAA.”

Your opportunity: go to the fund sourcing site Seed & Spark and donate. Many of the production goals have been hit, but they’re trying to raise enough for actor housing, etc. Giving is multi-tiered, offering incentives according to the amount of your donation.

Go here to Seed & Spark to check out their sample reel, production decks, and more:

https://seedandspark.com/fund/cutting-it-short?utm_source=Email_referral&utm_medium=socia#story

Shooting is set to happen June 20-23, 2026

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Are We There Yet?

Chet Kozlowski — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 02:46:21 +0000

Are We There Yet? Chet Kozlowski April 22, 2026 - 22:46

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Endurance is the theme of the new film The North. Physical endurance by way of a 350-mile hike through the Scottish Highlands. Endurance that tests the bonds of friendship. And endurance of spirit, how far will you go with a secret inside you? The walk is, of course, a metaphor, but one that is enthralling and well executed.

Boyhood friends, now approaching thirty, embark on the 30-day trek. All starts out well: they are polite and deferential. Chris (Bart Harder), strapping and red-headed, is married, planning a family, and beset by a business that keeps calling him along the way. Lluis (Carles Pulido) is swarthy, unattached, and more upbeat. “Even a bad day in nature is better than a good one at the office,” he tells Chris. The pair are frequently seen as REI candy-colored specks dwarfed by a vast expanse of green, rolling hills. There is rarely anyone else in sight.

They do run into other hikers, at rest stops and in the few towns they pass through. But mostly they are alone with each other and with their thoughts. For all the camaraderie they don’t talk much about important matters. They walk, sleep in a lightweight tent, go through sun, fog, relentless rain and crippling wind.

Lluis’ knees give out and Chris goes on by himself, left alone with his thoughts and the concern—for Lluis, for his life—shows on his face. Lluis meets up eventually, with maps, insisting that they will fare better without their phones and GPS, like the pioneers did. Fellow travelers comment on their sleeping in the same tent: “You must be really close. Or hate each other.” Lluis casually reveals to one stranger a medical diagnosis he had never told Chris. That startles him; how could Chris not have known?

The filmmaking of The North is straightforward and unassuming. Director/writer Bart Schrijver lets the locations speak for themselves, the desolate and unforgiving beauty of the West Highland Way and Cape Wrath Trail, Likewise the acting: Mr. Harder and Mr. Pulido are both understated and naturalistic, an unlikely couple and increasingly sympatico to each other. The trip tests their bond. They show the fatigue of people who are too close for too long.

The smartphone is a player in all this. Technology imposes itself in modern ways. When Lluis ditches GPS, they flail. Poor Chris gets shrill calls from work at the most inconvenient times. Still, the very lightness and stealth of the technology and the equipment used in the filmmaking makes the narrative immersive. We glide alongside the men (interesting shots here of depth of focus), not giving a thought of the camera’s presence. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that some shots were done on the phone as well.

Set pieces are subtle and effective; a dark interlude sequestered in the tent as rain pours down; Chris, annoyed, striding along the beach, tosses off his backpack, walks on then thinks better of it and goes back to retrieve it; Lluis’ eventual submission to his pain is heartbreaking exactly because it sidesteps conventional drama.

Director Bart Schrijver’s adeptness at second unit work contribute to his eye here helming a feature. He is known also for Human Nature (2022).

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The North. Directed by Bart Schrijver. 2025. Distributed by Tull Stories. Runtime 130 minutes.

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Sex, Poverty, and Even Some Lesbianism: The Plight of Writers in French Cinema

Brandon Judell — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 20:50:11 +0000

Sex, Poverty, and Even Some Lesbianism: The Plight of Writers in French Cinema Brandon Judell April 7, 2026 - 16:50

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Among the over 230 films produced in France last year, the costliest was Antonin Baudry’s yet-to-be-released, two-parter de Gaulle. Whether we get to see this seemingly intriguing $89- million offering, based on Julian Jackson’s bio, De Gaulle, une certaine idée de la France depends a lot on the gods, indie film companies, specialty venues, and most likely 2027’s “Rendez-Vous with French Cinema.”

This year, the 31^st edition of Rendez-vous, an annual event organized by Film at Lincoln Center and UniFrance, showcased 22 features that assuredly supply une certaine idée of what’s happening in La République, the land that caused de Gaulle to exclaim: “How can you govern a country which has two hundred and forty-six varieties of cheese?"

Shoving aside the Brie de Meaux and the Camembert while plating the filmic, artistically this year’s offerings inspire little to complain about and much to praise, especially François Ozon’s masterful adaptation of Albert Camus’s classic, The Stranger; Oliver Assayas’ highly detailed look at the men who greased Putin’s rise to power, The Wizard of Kremlin; and Hasfia Herzi’s The Little Sister, a formidable Muslim lesbian coming-out tale that’s very reminiscent of Dee Rees’s lesbian classic Pariah (2011).

But for the moment, let’s address three films that delve into the inner sanctums of the writer’s mind that, unlike their American cousins, such as Barton Fink (1991), Shirley (2020), and Barfly (1987), do not deal with selling out to Hollywood, agoraphobia, alcoholism, or sex with Faye Dunaway.

Claire Simon’s documentary Writing Life: Annie Ernaux Through the Eyes of High School Students will work its magic best for those who have already read the Nobel Prize-winning author’s autobiographical novels; for teachers of literature; and for those intrigued by how, in other countries, classroom discussions of rape, abortion, and the tangles of womanhood are openly embraced. For those who don’t read, a viewing of Audrey Diwan’s Happening (L'événement) (2021), an award-winning adaptation of Ernaux’s novel recounting her plight as a university student seeking an illegal remedy for an unwanted pregnancy, will do.

Traveling from one high school to another within France and French Guiana, Simon captures students of all economic stations, all immigration statuses, and all levels of articulateness interacting with Ernaux’s works, books that would hardly be allowed shelf-space in school libraries stateside.

For instance, The Young Man (2023) begins: “Five years ago, I spent an awkward night with a student who had been writing to me for a year and wanted to meet me. Often I make love to force myself to write...I hoped that orgasm, the most violent end to waiting that can be, would make me feel certain that there is no greater pleasure than writing a book.”

Additionally, there’s Simple Passion (1993), a barely fictionalized chronicle of Ernaux’s adulterous love affair with a foreigner she is obsessed with. As for Happening (2000), besides dealing with a young woman getting a backstreet abortion, the novel recounts how her education has distanced her from her poor, unschooled parents. What can they talk about any longer?

Dr. Seuss, this isn’t.

The film begins with one instructor opening a discussion with her class this way: “‘Better not to be stuck up your own arse.’ Why does [Ernaux] write that?”

Another class explores how what Ernaux calls her “flat-writing” style affects how the reader confronts her content. The author has explained her technique as “no lyrical reminiscences, no triumphant displays of irony. The neutral way of writing comes to me naturally.”

Of course, these are teens, so no one can be that surprised when a young woman giggles as she reads this passage from Happening: “I saw a baby doll dangling from my loins at the end of a reddish cord. I couldn’t even imagine having that inside of me. I had to walk with it to my room.”

Ernaux, who is not physically present in the documentary, is inspired by how she overcame a working-class background to become a professor and then win the most prestigious literary award. Though not everyone is impressed. One lad reacted negatively to the following passage: “Naturally, I would never wash until the next day to keep his sperm inside of me.” He spouted: “Personally, I think this is rather shocking. Because, well, even if it is an autobiographical book, and she tells about her life, I think some details could have been left out.”

Ernaux had already pre-responded to that response in Happening: “Sometimes I wonder if the purpose of my writing is to find out whether other people have done or felt the same things or, if not, for them to consider experiencing such things as normal. Maybe I would also like them to live out these very emotions in turn, forgetting that they had once read about them somewhere.”

Moving on to fictional films about fiction writers embracing poverty and experiencing family loss for their art, both Valérie Donzelli’s At Work (Á pied d’oeuvre) and Anna Cazenave Cambet’s Love Me Tender seem to validate Aldous Huxley’s proclamation: “Perhaps it's good for one to suffer. Can an artist do anything if he's happy? Would he ever want to do anything? What is art, after all, but a protest against the horrible inclemency of life.”

In At Work, a nominee for Best Film at the Venice Film Festival, the spectacled, consistently unshaven Paul (Bastien Bouillon) shrugs off his successful career as a photographer to put fingers to keyboard, causing his family to move to Canada without him. Shortly thereafter, as his funds dry up, he sells off his cameras, then he’s forced from his three-bedroom apartment to a dreary basement studio, and by the end, he’s carving up roadkill for snacks.

But please note that Paul is not entirely Quixotean in his quest. His first two books were published and received critical raves but unspectacular sales. Now his third novel has been rejected for being too depressing. Who wants depressing in today’s world? His agent notes. That’s for the TV news.

In his race to the bottom, Paul heads to an employment agency, only to learn that, being 42, unable to speak English, and with just a high school diploma, he’s only qualified to be a freelance handyman. That he also insists he needs time off daily to write is not a plus when job-seeking. Soon, he is unclogging toilets, moving post-holiday Christmas trees to the gutter, and cabbing.

That his teen son offers to send him money is not an ego booster either. No wonder he jots down: “I am to misery what 5 PM in winter is to darkness.”

But despair sometimes ends even for the artistic, even for one like Paul who notes:

“Being a writer is like tending a flame that longs to go out.

Finishing a text doesn’t mean being published.

Being published doesn’t mean being read.

Being read doesn’t mean being loved.

Being loved doesn’t mean success.

Success doesn’t promise wealth.

And yet writers are immune to discouragement.

Many as I am doing now expend their last reserves of strength in writing.”

Amen. If only David Wallace Foster had hung around with Paul, we’ve might have gotten a sequel to Infinite Jest.

Meanwhile, across town in Paris, in Cambet’s Love Me Tender, based upon Constance Debre’s novel and not upon Elvis Presley’s 1956 feature debut, we meet Clemence (a superb Vicky Krieps) at a public swimming pool after she’s swum two kilometers. On her way to her locker, she saunters past another female. A look soon turns into an embrace behind closed doors. The first words spoken in the film are: “I’m going to come.”

Yes, Clemence left home three years ago, giving up her career as a successful lawyer to transform herself into an impoverished writer who just recently discovered she’s a lesbian.

Her husband, Laurent (Antoine Reinartz), of 20 years, who hasn’t agreed to a divorce, is neither happy about Clemence’s embracing of her creative impulses nor her refusal to yield to his sexual desires. As she notes: “He was the first man I slept with and, for now, the last.”

Seeking revenge after her Saphic confession at a cafe, Laurent refuses to let her see her 8-year-old son, Paul, and falsely accuses her of incest and pedophilia, thus depriving Clemence of unsupervised visits with the lad. “On July 4^th at 3:00 PM, he’ll ask for me to be stripped of parental responsibility.” She’ll soon have “the visiting rights of a junkie mother or violent father.”

Clearly, her current lover notes, “Now he knows you are a dyke, he’s pissed.” In fact, Laurent is so pissed that he brainwashes Paul into hating his mother.

As one shrink tells her, “Hate is a necessary part of love. There’s no love without hate. Those who say otherwise are either liars or cowards. It’s a vital part of a child’s love for his parents, especially a son for his mother, to hate her.” Freud argues the opposite, but vive la difference.

Anyway, between couplings, queer clubs, gay pride marches, motorcycling about in jeans and a tank top, plus testy confrontations with her spouse, girlfriends, and dad, Céleste, through both her writing and her fight for her son, overcomes self-doubt and the homophobic, patriarchal desolation strewn in her pathways. As the saying goes: “When life gives you prunes, make prune juice.”

(Rendez-vous with French Cinema was organized by Florence Almozini and Madeline Whittle in collaboration with Unifrance and Film at Lincoln Center.)

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Blood, Ballerinas, and Mistress Uma

Chet Kozlowski — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 01:20:02 +0000

Blood, Ballerinas, and Mistress Uma Chet Kozlowski March 24, 2026 - 21:20

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Let’s see here: a group of innocent young women: check. A breakdown in a foreign country in the middle of the night: check. A trek in the dark through sinister woods to a secluded roadside inn: check. Gnarly, leering strangers with less-than-honorable intentions inside: check.

Pretty Lethal is a mashup of all sorts of action genres. I count six before the title credit.

Yet it’s a hoot. It’s clever, and it’s surprising, and I laughed out loud several times.

A dysfunctional troupe of ballerinas, bickering amongst themselves to be the perfect swan, is tapped to travel to Budapest, Hungary, to perform a classical ballet. Bonnie a.k.a. Bones (Maddie Ziegler) is the fearless one, in competition to be prima with Princess (Lana Condor). Grace (Avantika Vandanapu) approaches everything with a religious fervor. Zoe (Iris Apatow, Judd and Leslie’s daughter, all grown up since This Is 40) is the protective sister of deaf dancer Chloe (Millicent Simmonds). Ms. Thorna (Lydia Leonard) is their chaperone and protector.

This is the crew that breaks down in the remote Hungarian woods, makes their way to a dark mansion populated with brawny Hostel-style henchmen. Because of the rain, they are forced to wear their pristine costumes while their traveling clothes dry. They soon realize they are not in the safest hands and are, in fact, prisoners of these burly dudes (including Julian Krenn and Béla Orsányi), led by a mysterious femme fatale, Mistress Devora. She’s the owner of the place and a former ballerina whose career came to an untimely end years ago.

Pursued, abused, and almost tattooed, the dancers rally and decide that the only way out of there is to put aside their squabbles and band together. Bones issues the battle cry after besting two assailants: “These guys are drunk and out of shape, and we’re prima fucking ballerinas!” And so, dressed in tutus, they plié and pirouette their way to freedom. Their increasingly blood-stained costumes become a running joke.

The actors give it their all, the set pieces are inventive (one, with the ballerinas dancing while kicking the asses of an overwhelming flood of brutes, channels Kill Bill Vol. 1, especially since their nemesis, Mistress Devora, is played with vitality by Beatrice Kiddo herself, Uma Thurman. Devora’s failed past and her debt to a criminal kingpin are integral to one of several climaxes.

Director Vicky Jewson delivers ninety minutes of well-conceived thrills. Her direction is crisp; she has many characters to juggle, aided by expert, nearly invisible compositing and stunt work. Writer Kate Freund takes the part of Sona, Mistress Devora’s second in command. Those ballerinas are all played by former child actors. The absurd images of Sugar Plum Fairies amongst bloody carnage is worth the price of admission.

As usual, I have a problem with the title. Can’t anybody name anything anymore? “Pretty?” Why, because the ballerinas are pretty? “Lethal” because there’s a body count? Really? How folks who can bring you such an original and fun film come up with a title that sounds like a 1980s teen drama is beyond me.

The film’s been in development for a while. Lena Headey was originally cast, presumably as Mistress Devora. It was originally titled Ballerina Overdrive (better, but no cigar).

Pretty Lethal is released on Prime Video. It deserves a better name and all of your attention.

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Pretty Lethal. Directed by Vicky Jewson. 2026. Released by Amazon MGM Studios. Runtime 88 minutes.

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Fallen Angels and O.G.s

Chet Kozlowski — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:57:40 +0000

Fallen Angels and O.G.s Chet Kozlowski March 23, 2026 - 20:57

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Fantasy Life is a welcome throwback to low-impact comedy like Annie Hall, Goodbye Columbus, and Blume in Love. Writer/director Matthew Shear’s work fits perfectly into the mold of Jewish-centric comedy. You half expect him to unzip from the forehead and the pre-pariah Woody Allen to step out. It’s not a bad model to follow, yielding laughs and knowing insights about the caprices of human nature.

When we meet 30-year-old Sam (played by the multi-tasking Mr. Shear), he is being let go from his job. Dazed and confused, he recounts this to Dr. Fred, his shrink, who tells him his son and his wife need a “babysitter” and suggests Sam apply.

David the son is a charismatic musician, a rock bassist. Diane the wife is a once-popular actress who has fallen out of demand and hopes to be “re-introduced” to the filmgoing public. Sam accepts the job watching their three daughters while David goes off on tour, and Diane, depressed about “aging out” (one scene has an autograph seeker mistaking her for another actress, Lake Bell), wanders through the house like a sleepwalker. She starts chatting with Sam, and soon they’re watching old movies together. Sam is smitten. A bond forms. Things come to a head when David returns and the extended family summers on Martha’s Vineyard, where tragedy almost strikes when Sam, who is prone to panic attacks, puts the children at risk.

It’s a simple enough premise and handled with wit and aplomb by Mr. Shear. Fantasy Life assumes an old-school structure, a few steps removed from sitcoms and passed through a Mumblecore filter. Besides Amanda Peet (Diane) and Alessandro Nivola (David), both believable and appealing actors, Mr. Shear must’ve practically peed himself to get the rest of the cast: O.G.s like Judd Hirsh (Taxi, The Fablemans) as the shrink Dr. Fred, Andrea Martin (Only Murders in the Building, et al) as Dr. Fred’s receptionist, and isn’t that Bob Balaban (Asteroid City, et al) and Jessica Harper (Phantom of the Paradise) playing the grandparents? Season this with turns by Zosia Mamet (HBO’s Girls), Holland Taylor (Bombshell) and the vivacious child actors Romy Fay, Callie Santoro, and Riley Vinson as the kids, and you have a satisfying feast indeed.

Amanda Peet has many films and TV shows to her credit, including The Whole Nine Yards, Dirty John, and Your Friends and Neighbors (I have a special place in my heart for her in Aaron Sorkin’s single-season Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip). Ms. Peet can be comic, elegant, and sexy at the same time. Her performance here as the conflicted Diane is subtle and a little heartbreaking. “I’m a wealthy white woman and I always feel like a victim,” she opines. She’s the prom queen in purgatory. Ms. Peet renders with delicate sorrow Diane’s quest to maintain her roles as mother and wife while remaining marketable. Ms. Peet is also listed as a producer of Fantasy Life.

Matthew Shear is a hyphenate to watch. This is his first feature film. As a writer, his script is witty and unpredictable; as an actor, he projects into Sam a vulnerability and self-awareness. His directing style is loose and not showy. In all roles, he’s willing to step back and give his able cast room to shine.

If I have any complaint about Fantasy Life, it’s a reliance on the lilting score by Christopher Bear. The music’s fine, don’t get me wrong. But too often, Mr. Shear undercuts the power of his scenes with its whimsy. Its placement softens some strong emotion. This instinct will hopefully relax as Mr. Shear gains confidence. I’m looking forward to his next effort.

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Fantasy Life. Directed by Matthew Shear. 2025. From Greenwich Entertainment. Runtime 91 minutes.

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I Put A Spell On You

Chet Kozlowski — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:27:10 +0000

I Put A Spell On You Chet Kozlowski March 8, 2026 - 20:27

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It all starts with a toad.

Young Aapo runs a pet shop with his mother in their native Yucatan. One day a Maya woman named Luz comes in, looking for a specific toad that has hallucinogenic properties. She belongs to a “conscious community of healers” called the Empire of Love, and they need exactly that type of toad for a ritual. She casts a seductive eye on Aapo and convinces him to deliver it to her in the jungle. Aapo motors out, naïve and unaware of what awaits him.

That’s the premise of the beguiling film Wetiko from writer/director Kerry Mondragón, which was made in 2022, and released now to select theaters.

Aapo’s journey twists and turns (Wetiko’s tagline bills it as a “psychedelic jungle thriller). A spirit moth flies in his ear and launches his visions. Luz (Dalia Xiuhcoatl, who has arrestingly angular features) transitions to Aapo’s ally as it gradually becomes clear that Aapo (Juan Daniel García Treviño) is being prepped to be the sacrifice du jour. The Empire of Love is a cult, run by the conniving gringo Shaman Zake Zezo (played adroitly by Neil Sandilands, who’s been in the films News of the World and Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes). Shaman Zake has displaced the former shaman under mysterious circumstances. He’s a smooth talker, promising transcendence, while maintaining a cadre of look-alike maidens called the Marias, women groomed to be at his sexual beck and call.

Then there’s that pesky toad. It keeps disappearing. Everybody keeps losing it, and their search takes us deeper into the depths of the jungle and brings more quirky characters into the mix, like Franky Whiteout (Jordan Barrett), Goddess Jenny (Claire Kniaz), and Goddess Sasha (Bárbara de Regil).

Writer/director Kerry Mondragón shot Wetiko in Mexico. In 2014, he was Spike Lee’s assistant and associate director on Lee’s Da Sweet Blood of Jesus. His debut feature, Tyger Tyger, was released in 2019. Mr. Mondragón’s style is loose and has a DIY appeal. His byword in Wetiko is color: saturated reds and blues and yellows peek gaudily out of a murky soup of browns and blacks (the primary action takes place at night). Much of the dialogue is in Spanish, and the English subtitles are yellow with a red drop shadow. Every frame of Wetiko is admirably crowded with visual information.

F.Y.I.: The term “Wetiko” is Algonquian, meaning “a cannibalistic spirit of insatiable greed, selfish consumption, and egomania.” That may be meant to describe Zake, even though the film embodies much more than his malevolent "mind virus." But Zake’s final act seems incongruous to the manipulator we’ve come to know. Wetiko begins and finishes with The Tremeloes’ version of “Silence is Golden,” a jolting contrast to the setting, but an ironic note at the end.

As far as phantasmagorias go, it’s pretty low-tech. During the hallucinations, there’s some use of a fish-eye lens. The ritual site resembles a beer garden, festooned with neon lights and glow sticks. The height of the special effects is shots seen through heat-sensing goggles. But that adds to its goofy charm. It reminds me of Roger Corman’s slapdash drive-in movies, in intention and budget. Wetiko is seat-of-your pants filmmaking that is also sincere and indigenous. It’s a trip worth taking.

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Wetiko. Directed by Kerry Mondragón. 2022. In English and Spanish with subtitles. Runtime 89 minutes.

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"Trust Is A Red Herring"

Chet Kozlowski — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 21:59:42 +0000

"Trust Is A Red Herring" Chet Kozlowski March 3, 2026 - 16:59

Topics

Film Review

Tags

drama

In the opening montage of the faux-documentary Group: The Schopenhauer Effect, various New Yorkers walk to the Group session, heeding their inner voices, which are ambivalent, argumentative, insecure, and so on. Once in the room, under their therapist’s guidance, they express their turmoil and, in doing so, help each other. The Group rules are simple: what’s said in Group stays in Group, and the participants can’t meet separately outside the office. It’s a closed unit and an effective form of therapy. The film is based on a successful web series that chronicles the fictitious practice of real-life psychoanalyst Dr. Elliot Zeisel.

The conceit of the film has the participants returning from Covid’s limbo of Zoom. They meet weekly and are happy to be back in person. A new member creates a disturbance: Alexis, a filmmaker who wants to observe the Group as research for an upcoming project. He’s been convinced by Dr. Zeisel to join and commit for real. His presence throws the balance off. The others object, fearing he’ll mine their serious purpose for trivial entertainment. They are wary of him until he proposes a plan that will encourage them all to make real therapeutic progress.

Sounds dry, I know, but fans of Showtime’s Couples Therapy, HBO’s In Treatment, and even Netflix’s Love is Blind (once they leave the pods) will find much to enjoy. First, there’s the buzz of identification (from common issues and skirting mental ruts; Dr. Zeisel’s probing questions and jolting statements —“Trust is a red herring”— blasts oneself out of complacency), and the superiority that comes with the illusion of solving the troubles of others.

The ensemble is seasoned actors, and the film and series are scripted and improvised. Thomas Sadowski (of HBO’s The Newsroom) is Alexis, the surrogate of the film’s director Alexis Lloyd (30 Beats). The cast is rounded out by Lucy Walters, Teresa Avia Lim, Ezra Barnes, Bernardo Cubría, Gabriela Kohen, Elisha Lawson, and Cara Ronzetti, all giving empathetic performances. The characters, even the disagreeable ones, become familiar quickly.

The mise-en-scène blurs the line between reality and fiction. It’s lots of close-ups by a handheld camera in a room. Yet Mr. Lloyd makes it compelling (my online screener kept bugging out, making me frantic to rejoin). I wonder how Group: The Schopenhauer Effect will play out on the big screen, given its YouTube roots. Watched on a phone or laptop, the segments put the viewer in the Group as well, producing an intimacy that could be lost when expanded. The conversion to a feature film also freezes the premise, making it a one-off rather than a reliable ongoing series. But the actors are appealing, and the insights edifying. We are sad when our time is up.

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Group: The Schopenhauer Effect. Directed by Alexis Lloyd. 2026. From Abramorama. Runtime 119 minutes.

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Local Color in Chiaroscuro

Chet Kozlowski — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 23:32:14 +0000

Local Color in Chiaroscuro Chet Kozlowski February 16, 2026 - 18:32

Topics

Film Review

Tags

dramatic comedy

Two new films shed light on the vagaries of modern Irish life.

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Perennial Light

Directed by Colin Hickey. 2024. Runtime 82 minutes.

Perennial Light is an ambitious work by filmmaker Colin Hickey, expansive in intent and minimalist in execution. Think The Tree of Life as a series of black and white stills, punctuated by pencil sketches.

Set along the Irish coast, the plot, such as it is, follows a young fisherman’s journey from childhood to adulthood, haunted by a mortal tragedy. But for Perennial Light, a plot is beside the point. The point is the images: a string of them, glowing, austere, barely moving, depicting snatches of memory that take to the skies in meditative drone shots.

This journey is nearly silent, with a simple score compiled by Juliet Martin that runs like water under it. This reductive approach makes for a montage that’s languid yet stirring. It’s a unique, somewhat lulling way to spend 90 minutes.

Mr. Hickey has been making shorts; this is his first feature. He uses nonprofessional talent in Perennial Light and assumes a part himself. He doesn’t ask much of the actors, sometimes just to stand still while the camera lingers on every detail.

These shots are intermittently dotted with childlike drawings and flipbook-style animations depicting babies, stars, and the cosmos. These illustrations are by Paolo Chianta, who shares auteur credit with Mr. Hickey, who is credited as “Writer/Camera/Editor.”

Happy mention goes to his large cast, which includes Finn O’Donovan, Clara Rose Hickey, Muriel Pitton, Jack Mahoney, and Ciara Hickey, among many others.

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The Spin

Directed by Michael Head. 2025. Runtime 92 minutes.

The Spin provides what’s absent from Perennial Light: color and comedy.

Two slackers, Dermot (Brenock O’Connor) and Elvis (Owen Colgan), own Boneyard Records, a struggling vinyl shop in Omagh, Northern Ireland. Rent’s due, child support’s due, and their best bet is a road trip across the length of Ireland to procure a cache of rare records. Mix High Fidelity and Coogan/Brydon’s The Trip, and you get the idea.

It’s a simple setup that pays off well. The duo has a goofy charm, as well as eccentric peripheral characters, like an overbearing landlady (Derry Girls’ Tara Lynne O’Neill) whose abuse Dermot finds oddly arousing. Quirky and breezy, the Irish way of puttin’ things is in evidence: Dermot says of a cohort, “Look into his eyes and tell me Dave hasn’t murdered someone.” Elvis debates his ex-wife over whether she threatened to “slaughter him like sheep” or “slaughter him in his sleep” (“Sorry, I misheard,” he says, splitting hairs). One episode has their backseat occupied by a man with a taxidermized dog, a stripper, and a nun.

Michael Head writes/directs/acts in films including Bermondsey Tales, Meeting Across the River, A Gangster's Kiss, The Gift, and the upcoming feature Jackie the Stripper.