Bloody Spear at Mount Fuji follows a group of travelers taking the road to Edo, each with a story. Front and center is the samurai Kojuro and his 2 servants, Genta and Genpachi, the “spear man” as he carries his master’s weapon. Kojuro seems like a good master, but we soon learn that he becomes a mean and belligerent drunk when he’s had some saki. He’s going to Edo to marry. Also traveling the road is an orphan boy, Jiro, who takes to following Genpachi like a little lost puppy. There’s also a policeman, hunting a thief who’s been harassing travelers, and the policeman suspects Tozaburo, a shady, quiet man traveling by himself. We learn Tozaburo’s story near the end. A singer is traveling with her daughter, and an older man is trekking with his beautiful near-adult daughter Otane. This last couple also have a dark secret at their destination in Edo. Learning all of these tales, and the adventures the group has, is what makes this film. Great story that interweaves throughout itself, and I’m a sucker for a great story. Spoilers follow, you’ve been warned.. Turns out Otane’s dad is taking her to sell into prostitution, as the family is destitute, and Tozaburo is going to try to pay off his own daughter’s prostitution contract, as he sold her there years ago. When they arrive, Tozaburo learns that his daughter died 2 years prior, so he uses his money to cancel the contract on Otane, rescuing her from a similar fate. Kojuro picks a fight with the wrong people, getting himself killed with Genta, but a fierce Genpachi gets his vengeance. Jiro is left trailing after Genpachi, who tells him to get lost, having lost his faith in life. Brilliant film, though maybe not a high rewatchability factor, once you know how it all ends. ★★★½

I liked the above film so much that I hunted down another from the same director (Tomu Uchida). The Mad Fox, released seven years later in 1962, is a period drama based on a bunraku play, or puppet theater. As such, there are some excellent fantasy elements. Once again, a great story; the film literally starts with a narrator telling us a story! We learn the background, that a well known seer named Yasunori foretells that he needs to adopt a particular girl. He thus sends out his two apprentices, Yasuna and Doman, to find the special girl. Yasuna picks a girl named Sakaki but leaves her younger sister Kuzunoha with her family. Years later, Sakaki has been raised as Yasunori’s heir, and that’s where the film picks up. Yasunori foretells bad things coming for the empire, but before he can provide clues as to how to avoid tragedy, he is killed by highwaymen, secretly sent by his wife. The old girl has turned her eyes on Doman, and wants him to be the next head seer, but Yasuna is still around. Thus, the unfaithful wife captures and tortures Yasuna and Sakaki, torturing the woman to death. This drives Yasuna mad, and he wanders the countryside alone. He stumbles upon Kuzonoha, and mistakes her for a reborn Sakaki in his madness. But another wants Yasuna’s love, a kitsune (fox spirit who can take human form) named Kon. Kon takes Sakaki’s form and pretends to be her, eventually settling into a marriage with Yasuna. Things come to a head when the couple is found by Kuzonoha and her father. Just about the only thing I didn’t like is how the film abandons the idea of impending calamity on the kingdom and becomes more about Yasuna and Kon, but even so, the journey in getting to the end of the film is wonderful. It is presented like a puppet show at times, with hand-drawn/painted scenery and sets, and fantastical elements involving the clan of kitsune. I loved it all. ★★★★½

The Naked Island, from director Kaneto Shindo and released in 1960, is an interesting film in that there is very nearly no dialogue, purposefully done to increase the feeling of struggle of its characters. It follows a family of four: a husband and wife, and their two young sons, all unnamed. They live on a small island where they farm, but the island has no natural water source. Thus, the adults are constantly (several trips a day) rowing their small boat across the water to a town on the mainland, in order to refill buckets to transport home. Every drop is cherished, and all goes to their food and sustenance, and also to feeding their crops. For the most part, the family toils all day, every day, working hard in silence with everyone doing their part without having to be told what to do. But there are some moments of levity to break up the monotony, such as when the boys catch a large fish, and the family takes it to town to sell to a fishmonger. They use the proceeds to eat at a restaurant, and get to see a TV, perhaps for the first time ever for the children, as they are in awe. The peace does not last, as one of the boys becomes ill, and when help is so far away, the illness becomes a disaster. I think I expected more from this film, some feeling of emotional or metaphysical heft, but it didn’t land for me. The movie is very well regarded so maybe just caught me on a bad day, and a rewatch in the future could leave me spellbound. ★★

As much as I didn’t love the above film, I returned to the director for Kuroneko, as it seemed more in line with another film he did that I absolutely enjoyed (Onibaba). Kuroneko is a period horror film, and opens on a brutal scene. A group of roaming samurai are returning to the area after a battle, and come across a small solitary house near a forest. Inside, they help themselves to the food and water, and then help themselves to the mother and adult daughter, raping and killing the women, burning down the house on their way out. A year later, the women are brought back to life though, having “made a deal with the devil” to hunt down and kill any samurai they find. As ghosts, they begin luring samurai to their deaths. We then get to meet Gintoki, a young man who, through a bit of luck, has killed an infamous warlord and returned to the local leader with the bad guy’s head in tow. The leader makes Gintoki a samurai, and tasks him with the job of hunting down these ghosts that are killing his samurai. Unfortunately, turns out Gintoki was the husband and son to the 2 murdered women. When Gintoki comes into contact with the women, and they recognize him, will they be able to follow their pledges, or risk returning to hell for breaking their vows? The movie is OK, but you can break down everything that happens in just a couple minutes, and feels really drawn out at times. Not nearly as thrilling as Onibaba. ★★½

I was wanting something a little less historical after all the above pictures, so I went with Pale Flower, a Japanese New Wave film from director Masahiro Shinoda. This is about as dark a noir as you will find, and it is glorious. Muraki is newly released from prison after serving 3 years for killing a man. He’s a yakuza and was tasked with killing a member of a rival gang, but he now finds out that the two gangs have made amends in his absence, uniting to confront a third gang currently encroaching on their territories. As such, Muraki is left wondering why he did time at all. At an illegal gambling den, Muraki is bewitched by the young and attractive Saeko, a mysterious woman whom no one seems to know anything about. Muraki approaches Saeko and she confesses she is a thrill-seeker, and wants in on bigger bets than what she can find on her own. Muraki’s connections get her in on a high stakes room, but that thrill only lasts so long, until she starts looking for other vices. The ultimate femme fatale if there ever was one. Meanwhile, Muraki’s boss has a new task for him, one that will most likely send him right back to jail. Outstanding film and Muraki is as cool and collected as any film noir lead in the history of movies. The epic black and white presentation comes off stark and envelops you in the seediness of the yakuza underworld. And the ending will leave you thinking. ★★★★½

• TV series recently watched: Neagley (season 1), East of Eden (series)
• Book currently reading: Empire of Blood by Richard A Knaak

Clayface is the third film in the newly rebooted DC Universe, and while Supergirl wasn’t a hit with critics (or myself), this movie rights the ship. A completely standalone film (it takes place in Gotham, but nary a mention of Batman), it is a body horror thriller that will make your stomach queasy and your pulse quicken, in equal measures.

In DC lore, Clayface isn’t a household name, more of secondary villain opposite Batman, and I think it was a good choice to use this story to try to build DC’s foundation. The film opens on Matt Hagen, a celebrated actor recently nominated for his first Oscar. Matt came from a poor background and rough childhood, but clawed his way up to the pinnacle in his field, and success has finally arrived. Unfortunately it disappears quickly, as Matt sleeps with the girlfriend of local mob boss Markos Szabo, who then cuts Matt’s face up in a gruesome scene. Facial reconstruction can only do so much, and Matt is left horribly disfigured. His agent and financial planner disappear, and before long Matt is broke and living in the slums of Gotham City. Just when he thinks all is lost, he sees a magazine article about a woman, Caitlyn Corr, who was experimenting with nanobots, tiny AI robots that get injected into the skin, that could possibly restore his face. Matt reaches out, eventually convincing Caitlyn to use him as a test subject.

At first, the minor procedure works, and over weeks, Matt’s face is restored to look like nothing happened. However, the first time he goes out in public, his faces literally starts to melt. He flees back to the lab, turns off the safety precautions, and injects himself with an overdose of the tiny nanobots. This seemingly cures him for good, but with a disturbing side effect: anytime he is cut, the rip in skin instantly heals, with blood even pooling up back into his body, as if the nanobots always return to the source. Now virtually indestructible, Matt hatches onto a plan to hurt those who hurt him. He gets a boost in his vengeance when he learns that the nanobots also allow him to change his face and figure, so that he can impersonate any person. Now he is truly Clayface, and no one is safe.

There are lots of stomach churning scenes in this film with a high level of gore; myself and others in the theater were squirming in our seats, so it is not for the faint of heart. But it is a thrilling film with action scenes and psychological rushes to go along with your feelings of nausea. I’d love to see Clayface turn up in a future DC film and square off against the caped crusader. ★★★★★

High Sierra, released in 1941 and directed by Raoul Walsh, stars Humphrey Bogart as aging gangster Mac M’Gann (based loosely on John Dillinger). Mac is supposed to be in jail for life for a bank robbery, but is paroled by a corrupt governor as a favor to the criminal underworld, so that Mac can pull another big job. After visiting his childhood home, a farm, to see how the area is going, he hits the road to California. He meets a farming family along the way (their story returns later) and then meets up with his cohorts for the upcoming heist. The two men are a couple of hot-headed buffoons, but one’s girlfriend, Marie, has ice in her veins to match Mac. She takes a liking to him immediately, but Mac is looking for “a nice girl” with whom he might settle down if he ever gets out of this life, so he is instead attracted to the farmer girl he met on the way in. Velma is a sweet, innocent girl, but she’s got a love back home. Mac and his two “friends” complete their robbery of a hotel safe, but the two younger men are killed during the escape. Mac tries to convince Velma to marry and run away with him, but she spurns his offer, and he takes Marie as his next-best option. However, the police are tightening their search, and it’s not looking like Mac will have that happy ending he envisions. I really enjoyed the dual nature of Bogart’s character, dancing the line between the man he is and the man he wanted to be. Despite being the lead, Bogart got second billing in this film behind Ida Lupino as Marie; the film company was worried that Bogart was mostly known for the B movies he’d been doing until now. However, screenwriter John Huston pushed for him, and when Huston directed his first movie later in the same year, The Maltese Falcon, Bogart finally got his top billing, and a star was born. ★★★½

Colorado Territory is a 1949 remake of the above film, again directed by Walsh (I’ll probably skip the third version, 1955’s I Died a Thousand Times starring Jack Palance and Shelley Winters). This one stars Joel McCrea, and the setting is shifted to the old west. Train robber Wes McQueen breaks out of jail but gets right back to what he knows best, and sets up a new train heist with a couple of newbies. The film plays out much the same as High Sierra, with some notable changes. The biggest, I think, is in the lead’s internal conflict. Bogart played a character that seems like he’s tired of his criminal life, which is why he is drawn to Velma, but there’s no beating around the bush this time. Wes openly states that this is his last heist, and afterwards, he’s out of the game. The innocent girl isn’t so innocent this time either, as the rancher’s girl tries to turn Wes in for the reward so she can go back to her beau; this whole scene just makes her counterpart, the worldly girl Colorado in place of Marie, all the more attractive for the viewer, as she sticks by his side till the bitter end. It’s an OK movie, doesn’t break any new ground and plays out like most westerns from this era, but it’s entertaining enough. ★★★

The Heiress knocked my socks off, such a great movie. Based on a play, which is in turn based on a Henry James novel, it stars Olivia de Havilland (my mom will know her as Melanie from Gone With the Wind) as Catherine Sloper. Catherine is homely and shy, much to the chagrin of her father the Dr Austin Sloper. Austin fondly remembers Catherine’s deceased mother, who was boisterous and always the life of the party, whereas Catherine is the polar opposite. Still, Catherine catches the eye of the young and handsome Morris Townsend. Morris and Catherine hit it off at a party, and Catherine’s aunt Lavinia (a recent widow now living with her brother Austin) is thrilled for the match. Austin, however, guesses Morris has ulterior motives. Morris has no money and Catherine is set to inherit quite a bit. Austin interviews Morris’s sister, who initially praises her brother, but when she meets Catherine, she too becomes quiet, perhaps realizing that maybe, just maybe, her brother is chasing money after all. Austin confronts Catherine with his doubts and says some truly cruel things to her, openly complaining about her faults such as lack of grace, wit, or anything that made her mother such a lovely woman. Still, the viewer doesn’t know what to believe, as Morris is so fervent in his affection. Catherine decides to run away with Morris, which will almost certainly get her disinherited, and the viewer finally realizes Morris’s true intentions when we see his reaction to this news. He never meets her on the day when they are supposed to go, and when he comes calling years later, after Austin has died and Catherine has become wealthy, we find that she has become a much different woman than the love-struck puppy she once was. Outstanding film with excellent, witty repartee between the various characters, and tremendous acting; de Havilland would win her second leading Oscar for the film. Excellent music throughout too, including the main theme, the tune to “I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You,” though naturally the original French version from the 18th century; Elvis’s version was still 10+ years off into the future. ★★★★★

The Girl Can’t Help It stars the effervescent Jayne Mansfield as Jerri Jordan, a curvy knockout who wants to be a housewife, but whose boyfriend Marty “Fats” Murdock wants to be a star. Marty, a mobster who is recently out of jail, wants to be taken seriously in the criminal underworld again, but he needs a pretty girl on his arm as part of the package, and wants Jerri to be that arm candy. To do that, she needs to be recognizable. Thus, he hires Tom Miller to make her a star. Tom is an agent with an eye for talent, but alcoholism and bad gambling debts have derailed his career. He still knows how to work a room though, and he and Jerri start making the rounds to clubs around town to build her reputation. Whenever questioned about what or who she is, Jerri responds with, “Ask my agent,” while Tom deflects, all to build mystery about this stunning woman, which of course gets everyone wanting her. Unfortunately Jerri has no real talent outside of the kitchen, though there, she makes a mean quiche. At every club they visit, the music becomes just as much of the film as the plot, featuring early pioneers in rock and roll like Little Richard, Fats Domino, Eddie Cochran, and others. The music is great, the film, not so much. It’s not bad or anything, just awfully predictable and staid, which is a weird thing to say about a film where rock and roll music plays such a big part. Probably had a more lasting effect when it was released in 1956. ★★½

The Great Escape is a (very fictionalized) version of events about the breakout from a Nazi camp, Stalag Luft III, during WWII. It follows a handful of POWs from several countries, including the UK, USA, and Australia, all united in their efforts to escape. This particular camp is housing prisoners who have had repeated escapes (or escape attempts) at previous camps, so it is for “the best of the best.” And that’s kind of how it opens, as prisoners are already looking for ways out on the first day there, often to humorous results. It quickly becomes apparent that no one is getting out of this camp, not without some heavy planning. So the prisoners set up a committee, and start digging. Much of the movie involves the very involved plans that they have to do make, and steps along the way, in order to dig tunnels for 250 soldiers through hundreds of yards of dirt to the other side of the fence, and the dangerous consequences for when some plans go awry. The climax is the actual escape, and it is a thrilling ride full of heart-pounding action. It is certainly refreshing to see actors performing their own stunts, like Steve McQueen flying over the hills of a countryside in a high speed motorcycle. Tom Cruise notwithstanding, you just don’t see that anymore. It’s a thinking man’s action film, with lots of dialogue, but thrilling nonetheless, and an outstanding cast including McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, and a young Charles Bronson as a digger with claustrophobia. ★★★★

The groundbreaking film Midnight Cowboy was released in 1969 and stars Dustin Hoffman (recently off his breakout role in The Graduate) and Jon Voight (in his first major role). Voight is Joe Buck, a naive young man from Texas who thinks he’s going to go to New York and make a ton of money as a male prostitute. New York is not as welcoming as he envisioned. His first “job” breaks down in tears and Joe ends up giving HER money, and his second, when he receives felatio by a man in a theater, the guy can’t pay. Soon broke, he ends up crashing on the couch of con man, “Ratso” Rizzo (Hoffman). Rizzo knows the streets as he’s been living on them for years now, but his deteriorating health is holding him back. Thus, he starts teaching Joe “his ways.” In flashbacks, we see the trauma that led Joe to leave Texas, and over time, Rizzo confesses his own troubled childhood. The two develop an unlikely but strong friendship, leading to an emotional ending. Brilliant film with tremendous acting by its co-leads (both would get Oscar noms for Lead Actor) and awesome dream sequences that give it an almost surrealist feel at times. Also really captures the grit of seedy New York of the 60s as well as the counterculture element prevalent at that time. The film received an X rating upon release (later amended to an R upon re-release in the 70s) due to overt homosexual themes, and is still to this day the only X-rated (now NC 17) film to win Best Picture at the Oscars. ★★★★½

• TV series recently watched: Stargate SG1 (season 6), Reacher (season 4), Slow Horses (season 6), The Diplomat (season 4)
• Book currently reading: Princess of Dune by Herbert & Anderson

I Was a Stranger is a startling take on the immigration crisis, told in 5 parts by the lives of 5 connected individuals. While it centers on Syria, it’s a story that can easily be translated to anywhere. First part is The Doctor, and it begins on a woman in Chicago in 2023. Amira is working at a hospital when she has a flashback to 8 years earlier in her homeland of Syria, where she is a doctor during the civil war there. After an air raid kills all of her family except her daughter Rasha, she makes the decision to flee the country. The second part, The Soldier, recounts a captain in Syria’s army trying to squash the rebellion, and the conflict he feels when his army executes a young boy as a “terrorist” for writing anti-government graffiti. The Smuggler follows, showing a man who has been getting Syrians and others fleeing the war on boats headed across the sea to Greece, but not for any altruistic reasons, and The Poet, about one particular family being smuggled. The Captain comes last, showing a man who works for the coast guard in Greece, and the decisions he makes as a small boat approaches his country. The film shines a light on the crushing immigration crisis that has been created (one stat says that half of the country’s population had been displaced during the Syrian civil war, let that sink in) and doesn’t provide any answers for what we can do to fix it. All we can do is help those that need it. I was pleasantly surprised to see this film was distributed here in the USA by Angel Studios, a group that doesn’t often challenge it’s very right-leaning audience. ★★★★

Olmo is an indie coming-of-age drama. Olmo is 14 years old, the son of Mexican immigrants, living in a trailer in the 70s with his sister and parents. He and his sibling, and most of their friends and neighbors, all speak fluent English learned in school, and while their parents understand English perfectly well, respond in their native Spanish. Olmo’s dad is bedridden from multiple sclerosis and is mostly paralyzed from the neck down, reliant on his family to change, clean, and go to the bathroom. Olmo is not a bad kid, but he’s just 14, at that age when your status among your friends and the girls you like (like Nina, who lives across the street) is paramount. Thus, he doesn’t always treat his ailing father kindly. He just wants to go outside and play and flirt. When Nina invites him to a party one night, on a night when he is supposed to stay home and watch over his dad, Olmo’s world may just shatter without him knowing it. I don’t know that the film breaks new ground, but it is told well, with a great vintage feel (since it takes place in the 70s), and is ultimately very heartwarming. ★★★½

The Salt Path, based on a memoir, is a biopic with a couple of 90s stars who’ve had a career resurgence of late: Jason Isaacs and Gillian Anderson. Isaacs is barely recognizable with white hair and beard, playing Moth Winn. He and his wife Raynor have recently lost their home in London due to a bad investment. Their kids at least can live at uni, but the older couple have no where to go. To compound problems, Moth has recently been diagnosed with a degenerative nerve disorder that will weaken him, and eventually he’ll lose control over his limbs and even things like swallowing. With no home and nothing to do, the couple decide, almost on a whim, to follow the South West Coast Path, a 600+ mile hiking trail, to Land’s End, the western-most point in the UK. Their only source of income is the $40 a week they get from a tax credit. Along the way, we see Moth’s progression, as he painfully walks over rough terrain, but we also see moments of hope and levity. Yes, they have to deal with the shame of homelessness from those they meet, and angry or careless others yelling about camping out on open land, but they also experience kindness and compassion. We also see them rekindle the love that initially brought them together. This movie got some flack from being too staid, and at times does seem rote, but absolutely gorgeous scenery and on-point performances by the two co-leads made for a very uplifting film. I loved it. ★★★★

The Last One For the Road is an Italian road movie. Two 50-ish year old friends, Carlobianchi and Doriano, are flat broke but always in search of their next drink. They actually are on a mission to meet an old friend, but that story develops slowly as the film goes along. For now, they are just hitting bar after bar, swindling or begging for drinks as they go. They befriend an uptight young college guy, Giulio, who needs a dose of confidence, and try to teach him their ways. Along the way, we learn the two mens’ stories. Many years ago, they and a friend, Genio, were skimming off the top at the manufacturing company all three worked at. Genio got caught, but split town to Argentina before arrest, and then the 2008 financial crisis hit. This wiped out Carlobianchi and Doriano, so they’ve been impatiently awaiting Genio’s return and a share of the hidden money. Enough time has finally gone by that he can return home, and is supposed to arrive at the airport the next day, and the two old friends, now with Giulio in tow, are on their way there. It’s a typical road movie, with some good moments, some that drag, but a lot of laughs along the way. Like a lot of road movies, it doesn’t seem like it knows how it wants to end, but the trip to get there is decent. ★★★

The Blue Trail, a lowkey dystopian film out of Brazil, takes place in a near-future where the elderly are sent off to “the colony” in order to ease burdens on family and resources. However, 77-year-old Teresa doesn’t want to go. She’s still very “with it” and doesn’t have any mental or physical issues, but the government won’t even let her book a bus ticket without her “caregiver’s” (daughter’s) permission. Teresa isn’t having any of that, so she starts looking for a way out of the country. Any legitimate way out, i.e. commercial travel, is out, so Teresa looks to people already living on the fringes of society, like smugglers and ne’er-do-wells, to get her out for a little money on the side. You’re never too old to have a grand adventure! Really good beginning, with some subtle laughs at the ridiculousness of the situation, but the movie fizzles in the last 30 minutes or so (and it’s a short movie at under 90 total minutes). ★★½

• TV series recently watched: Agents of SHIELD (season 2), It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (season 18)
• Book currently reading: Princess of Dune by Herbert & Anderson

Backrooms was one of the surprise hits of 2026, though maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise. Younger moviegoers are looking for something different, something from outside the establishment, and this wasn’t the only movie based on a web series released recently. This one stars Chiwetel Ejiofor as Clark, owner of a failing furniture store, who finds an impossible space in the basement of the building. He accidentally steps “through” a wall, and on the other side, a sprawling maze of rooms that seems endless. The rooms have weird, misplaced furniture, sometimes stuck in floors or walls, sometimes with strange sloping walls or tiny doors, in an almost Wonderland kind of way, if Wonderland was a terrifying land of monsters. Because Clark isn’t alone down there. He doesn’t know that in the beginning, though we do, thanks to a prelude before Clark’s story began, when we see a team of scientists studying the rooms and being hunted. But Clark is oblivious to start, so he gets his coworkers to come down to the spooky rooms and explore with him. It isn’t long before one of the trio is killed and the other goes missing, and when Clark’s therapist wanders into the rooms looking for Clark, we finally get (some) answers as to what the place is. Very creepy film, not too scary, though it will get your heart thumping a couple times. Obvious parallels to the unending and expanding House in Mark Danielewski’s House of Leaves (a book I read when it first came out in 2000, and again in the last year, coincidentally enough). If you like this movie, you should love that book. I think the book is better, for what it’s worth. ★★★½

Young Mothers is the latest French-language film from the Dardenne brothers, a team I generally enjoy quite a bit. This movie sucks though, and I couldn’t even get through it all, giving up half way through. It follows 5 young (some teenage) moms or moms-to-be, and hits home (time and again, and harder than a steel mallet) how hard it is for these girls. Their home lives suck, their relationships with boys suck, the system for them sucks. Yep, we get it. Guess what? It’s hard for teen moms. We all know that. I was a teen dad, and it was hard, but thankfully I had a wonderful family that got me through those first years. Without the support, I’d probably be in just as bad of a position as our heroines, but damn, what do you think you signed up for? I gave up on the movie when a pregnant girl goes into labor and starts calling for her mother, a woman who abandoned her as a baby herself and who she only just recently met. That was even too much drama for me, and I love drama. Le sigh. ½

SHTTL is a brilliant film out of Ukraine, taking place on June 21, 1941. The date is important, as it is the day before the start of Germany’s Operation Barbarossa, when they invaded the Soviet Union. Near the border of western Ukraine, where you can practically see the Germans across the border in Poland, Mendele has returned to his hometown, a tiny shtetl (small predominantly Jewish village). He left 2 years ago to go to Kiev to pursue his dream of filmmaking, leaving behind his childhood love Yuna, but with the promise that he’d return for her. Well, he is back, currently on leave from the Soviet Red Army. Away from home and in the big city of Kiev, he took on some communist values, and as such he’s not welcome by many in his hometown now. The shtetl is filled with communists, extolling its virtues and denouncing the Hasidic religious leaders and claiming Ukraine should join the Soviets (sound familiar?), souring many to their Russian neighbors. Mendele is now smack dab in the middle of this conflict, all the more so because, in the intervening years, Yuna’s father (the town Rebbe) has promised her to Mendele’s rival Folie, who has aspirations to become the next Rebbe. As Mendele moves around town, visiting old friends and his estranged father, he has flashbacks to moments that shaped him and others around him. The present is shown in black and white, but the past shifts to color, which is used to powerful effect. Like when Mendele goes to synagogue and sings, and the film turns to color, signifying that this is part of Mendele’s past. He’s left religion behind, never to return, and there’s a sense of melancholy, of a life lost. In town, Mendele and Folie argue, which blows up when Mendele angrily shouts, “One word from me and you disappear.” He probably said it in anger, but a nearby Red soldier overhears and comes in to reinforce Mendele’s words, leaving Mendele in shame. A gripping movie, as gripping a film as can be with nearly zero action and almost all dialogue. Powerful and emotional and supremely re-watchable. ★★★★★

The Stranger (French: L’Étranger) is based on a book and begins in Algeria in the early 40s, where a Frenchman, Meursault, has just been put in jail for killing an Arab man. In a flashback, we see a very blasé Meursault learn about the death of his mother. Without emotion, he goes to the retirement community where she was living, oversees her burial, and then returns to his life. He runs into an old friend, Marie, and the two immediately begin a whirlwind romance, all while Meursault continues to show little passion towards anything. A neighbor beats his girlfriend? Meursault doesn’t care. When an old friend and longtime family friend loses his dog? Meursault doesn’t bat an eye. Marie brings up marriage? Meursault is indifferent and noncommittal. When the wifebeater has a confrontation with the girl’s brother, Meursault casually takes a gun out and shoots the guy. Even at his trial, Meursault answers questions very matter-of-factly with zero passion. I didn’t get this movie at all. I’m sure there’s some deeper message in there somewhere, but it’s lost on me. The dude just doesn’t care about anything, even his own life, and marches to his death without caring. ★½

Not sure why I bothered with Adulthood, definitely seemed like the kind of comedy I never enjoy (and I didn’t). I think I just liked the idea of the premise. Noah (Josh Gad) and Megan (Kaya Scodelario) are siblings with an aging mother who’s just had a stroke and ended up in the hospital. Over at their childhood home, they find that the hot water heater has been leaking for awhile, leading to a mold problem, and while digging into the walls, they find a body tucked behind the drywall in the basement. It’s a woman that went missing when the two were kids, and created quite the story in the neighborhood at the time. As kids, the whispers on the street were that the woman’s husband killed her, but nothing ever came of it, and he died years later. Now Noah and Megan realize that their dear old mom offed the woman for some unknown reason. The two dump the long-dead body in a local swamp and figure that’s the end of it. Except, of course, the body is found the very next day, and their mother’s at-home nurse puts two and two together and tries to blackmail the siblings. There’s some quirky smalltown-ish characters in the film for some easy laughs, and some funny moments as the body count rises over the course of the flick, but there’s nothing here to warrant watching this one again, and most of the comedy is forced and too on-the-nose. ★½

• TV series recently watched: Lanterns (season 1), Ted Lasso (season 4)
• Book currently reading: This is About Running. This is Not About Running by Chris Bennett

The Heroic Trio is a superhero film with a fantasy element. A mysterious invisible kidnapper is stealing babies from hospitals, and police are powerless to stop them. It seems a trio of superhero women are their only hope. There’s Wonder Woman (not that Wonder Woman), a martial artist who’s really the wife of the police inspector; Thief Catcher, a gun-toting badass, and the Invisible Woman, who seems to be the very person kidnapping the babies. Turns out she is being coerced by an evil villain who lives underground, accessible through the sewers of the city. He’s looking for babies who could be future emperors, and the three women all have ties to him. However, they now must stop him and his powerful henchmen. It has a great cast, including Maggie Cheung and an early role for Michelle Yeoh (the film was released in 1993), but the movie is awfully silly. I can see the appeal though, especially for fans of 80s/90s B movie action flicks. ★★

Though I didn’t care for the first one, the sequel, Executioners, takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, and I’m a sucker for those films. It’s more of the same as the first, but does have less silliness, so that’s a plus. The fights are still goofy, but the story is better. After a nuclear war, drinkable water is rare, and controlled by one corporation. Most people scrape by on sips at a time, and the government seems powerless to secure more water for the population. The one water purification plant controls the pricing, and its owner has his eyes on the presidency. Our three superhero fighters will have to take him down and open up the water for everyone. The movie takes a little while to get going, but once a military coup breaks out, the shit hits the fan (in a good way). Leaps better than the first film, though I did admittedly have to rewind and rewatch a couple wildly zany fight scenes to see if I saw what I thought I just saw (and usually did). ★★★

Throw Down is from the same director (Johnnie To) but comes a decade later (2004), and this is finally a movie I really enjoyed from beginning to end. It begins on a young judo fighter named Tony, who has come to a bar to fight Bo. Bo was once a judo champion, but these days seems to only care for drinking and gambling. Tony isn’t going to take no for an answer, and starts trying to sober Bo up and motivate him into a fight. He is aided by a singer named Mona, who just wants to get a gig at Bo’s nightclub. And after awhile, we learn that Tony isn’t the only person who wants a piece of Bo; there’s another old champ who never got a crack at him either, and finally wants to get that chance. Lots of villains in this film, including pimps, money lenders, and downright crooks, but the film does a great job of showing the good side of bad guys and the dark side of good guys. Even the “main villain” shows that he has honor in the end. The plot is a little scattered, which at this point I just have to chalk up to the director’s style, but overall the story is really good and there’s some great, memorable scenes. ★★★½

A lot of moviegoers may not have heard of 2002’s Infernal Affairs, but there’s a pretty good chance you’ve heard of the American version that Martin Scorsese made based on it: The Departed (released 2006). While the movies are very similar, there are changes that I won’t go into. If you are new to it, it follows two diverging men, each a mole sent into the opposing organization. For the triads (Chinese organized crime), they send a young man to enroll in the police academy, and for the police, they recruit a young hotshot academy student off to infiltrate the triads. A decade later, each mole has excelled at his job. Chan has worked his way up in the criminal network until he is now regularly with the boss, and for the police, Lau has become a senior inspector with access to all of the police’s investigations. But now that they are each close to their targets, the danger level has ramped up, as one mistake can end in prison or death. They soon become aware of each other, and the race is on to discover their opposite’s identity. Outstanding film, filled with suspense and action in equal parts. I’d need to go back and rewatch The Departed to see which I like better, but this “original” version is definitely worth a watch. ★★★★

Mild spoilers below, since we have a direct sequel. There’s not much we can do moving forward with Infernal Affairs II, since Chan was killed at the end of the first movie, so instead, we get a prequel. This film shows Chan and Lau working their ways up their respective fields. We see the crimes Chan had to commit to get ingratiated with the crime lords, and on the other side, how Lau was able to move up in the police ranks, all while getting intel to the triads. We also see how Sam rose to a prominent role within the triads, and Chan’s and Lau’s individual roles in taking down the boss that held the position before Sam. There’s less action (though there are some mob hits) but more intrigue, and overall it’s a fantastic “how they got there” kind of story. Different actors playing the younger versions of Chan and Lau, but the rest of the cast is the same. I actually liked this one more! ★★★★½

Infernal Affairs III brings all the original cast back. It is told in present day (2003, when the film was made), after Chan’s death and what that fallout meant for Lau, and there are flashbacks to 6 months before that event, and some happenings leading up to it. More moles, more double-crossings, and honestly I got a little lost before it all came together in the end. The end is fantastic, really stressing the living hell that Lau finds himself in for the deeds he committed, and finally answering the question he’s struggled with since the first movie: can he still be a good person even if he committed terrible deeds? The ending saves the film, because there’s a little too much going on before that, but it’s a welcome and perfect final scene tying everything up together. ★★★½

• TV series recently watched: Furious (season 1), ST Strange New Worlds (season 4), Lioness (season 3)
• Book currently reading: The Gathering Storm by Jordan & Sanderson

The Resident Evil films, based on the popular video game franchise, have never been a hit with critics (nor for many fans) but they’ve always made *just* enough money to keep it going. You may be surprised to know that 7 of these films have been made since 2002. After a failed reboot attempt in 2021, which again didn’t make much money nor win over viewers, this newest iteration finally seems to have turned the ship around. Maybe not for me, but for many, as it set a franchise record at the box office and garnered an amazing 96% on Rotten Tomatoes.

The film follows a medical courier named Bryan. He’s just dropped off an organ at a hospital, as is tasked with another top priority delivery to a hospital the next city over. Top priority means big pay, so despite the winter storm dumping a blanket of snow outside, Bryan agrees. He’s driving through the snow, in the dark, talking to his girlfriend about their surprise pregnancy, when he hits a woman who has wandered onto the road. Bryan tries to do the right thing and gets out of his car to provide aid, only to find that she has run off into the woods, leaving a trail of blood. Bryan follows and finds her, nearly comatose. He coaxes her back to the car, just in time for a police officer to arrive. Bryan explains the situation and the policeman agrees to transport the woman to the hospital in his car, with Bryan following. They don’t get far before Bryan sees the cop car run off the road, and upon inspection, Bryan sees the cop dead and the woman, now very much alive and active, missing from the vehicle. In typical scary movie fashion, she jumps out and starts chasing Bryan, who finally shoots her with the cop’s gun. Bryan then heads to the nearest house, a farm, for aid, but the night, and his gruesome adventure, is just getting started. Bryan starts seeing all kinds of freaky things, and we learn that a virus has quickly spread over the area, turning people (and dogs!) into raving monsters. The item he is carrying towards the hospital isn’t an organ at all, but a possible cure, and the hospital needs it badly if this virus is to be stopped.

I honestly don’t get the love this movie is getting. It gave me exactly one jump scare (pretty early in the film too) and otherwise I laughed incredulously throughout. Good ol’ Bryan does just about every thing you aren’t supposed to do in a horror film, and they roll out every trope and stereotype you can think of. Tons of blood, and a couple creepy scenes (because a child is involved), but otherwise very forgettable. If a sequel comes out (and I’m sure it will) I think I’ll pass. ★★½

How to Make a Killing pretty much only exists because its two leads (Glen Powell and Margaret Qualley) are hot products right now. As a film, the original was much better (Kind Hearts and Coronets). No offense Glen, but you aren’t Sir Alec Guinness. Louis is awaiting a death penalty for murder and making his confession to a priest, telling his story. He was born to a woman who had been cut out of the vast family wealth when she married beneath her station. The man ended up dying shortly after, leaving the new mom and little Louis on their own. While poor, she raised Louis to appreciate the finer things of life, knowing that, though she herself has been cut off, Louis would still get a portion of that wealth, as it was tied up in an irrevocable trust. All Louis needs is to have the handful of men in front of him to die before he does. Louis gets this idea from a woman (Qualley), who he runs into and had a childhood crush on once upon a time, and so Louis sets off on his quest to take out his family members. Not nearly as funny as it thinks it is, but it is mildly entertaining, even if it is completely predictable outside of just a couple twists. It’s a very safe movie, which is why its audience score is so much higher than its critics score on Rotten. Just don’t expect anything great and you won’t be disappointed. ★★★

The Marching Band (French: En Fanfare) opens on a successful symphony conductor named Thibaut, rehearsing his esteemed group, before collapsing on stage. He learns that he has cancer and needs a bone marrow transplant, but thankfully he can ask his sister, as familial relationships carry a much higher chance of a match. Well, turns out she isn’t his sister, and Thibaut finds out the hard way that he was adopted. However, his mother was approached years ago about adopting Thibaut’s birth brother, which she declined at the time, so she at least knows he does have a sibling. Thibaut tracks down Jimmy, who has lived a very different life. Whereas Thibaut was given every opportunity from a wealthy upbringing, Jimmy was raised in the foster system by a working class family in a factory town. Jimmy displays many of the musical talents Thibaut has (including perfect pitch), but those talents were never nurtured. Jimmy wouldn’t trade his family for anything, but can’t help but wonder “what if.” He agrees to the marrow donation, which saves Thibaut’s life. Afterwards, the two brothers get to know each other, and Thibaut encourages Jimmy, who plays trombone in the local community band, to pursue his musical abilities. This leads to problems down the line, as Jimmy outkicks his coverage. When the factory owners talk closure, which would devastate the community, Thibaut hopes to step in and lend his support. Great film, funny and endearing, even if it feels a little safe and predictable at times. ★★★½

The two leads in Miss You, Love You come from a theater background, and this is the perfect movie for that, as it could be presented as a play and would definitely work. Diane (Allison Janney) has just lost her husband after a 3 year battle with Parkinsons. She is estranged from her son Tyler, and instead of coming to his step-father’s funeral, he’s sent his assistant Jamie (Andrew Rannells) to help his mom with the arrangements. Jamie’s in a tough spot, but he has a big personality that (maybe) can match Diane’s bombastic attitude. Throughout the film, we will get to know how she ticks, what caused the rift between her and Tyler, and see her open up. Jamie isn’t just a bystander though, he has plenty of demons in his own closet, much related to the death of his own parents. Very emotional movie obviously, with a knockout performance from Janney particularly. And because of the revelations that come throughout the film (which is why I can’t say much!), it’s one that can be watched again and again. ★★★★

The Drama imagines how a dark secret can wreck what is otherwise a very happy relationship. At a cafe, Charlie (Robert Pattinson) is smitten by a girl who walks in, and tries to go over and hit on her. After an awkward exchange because she’s wearing a headphone in one ear and is deaf in the other, they officially meet, and hit it off. Emma (Zendaya) is a sweet girl, and two years later, they are a week away from their wedding. They see their wedding DJ smoking heroine in the park, and later, while drinking with their best man and maid of honor, ask for advice on what they should do. One friend says maybe they just saw the DJ on the worst day of their life, and no person should be judged by that, and this leads to each confessing the worst thing they’ve ever done. Some are worse that others, until we get to Emma. Turns out that she, as a teenager, was bullied and an outcast, and she planned a school shooting. Not just thought about it, but was ready to carry it out, and is deaf in one ear from practice shooting her dad’s rifle. It only didn’t happen because a shooting at the local mall happened days before, and Emma thus changed her mind. This news doesn’t land well with Charlie (who at first thinks she’s joking) nor with the other couple; Emma’s maid of honor has a sister confined to a wheelchair after a mass shooting. Charlie starts to see the love of his life in a whole new light, and needs to make a decision in this last week before their nuptials. The idea of the film is very good, but I was not a fan of the editing, with lots of cuts and shifts in narrative mid-scene, bouncing around way too much. I guess it was made for the younger tik-tok generation? ★★½

Is God Is, on the other hand, is told in a wildly different way that seemed fresh and exciting. Twin sisters Racine and Anaia bear burn scars from a traumatic childhood event. Racine is “the pretty one” as her scars are just on one arm, but Anaia is burned across her face and chest. As such, Racine has always defended her sister, sometimes violently, against bullies. As adults now, they get the news that their birth mother, long thought dead, is alive. They go to visit her, and on her deathbed, she charges the two of them with a mission: hunt down their birth father and kill him. Turns out he beat her when they were together, and one day threw her in the bathtub and lit her on fire. The girls’ injuries came from trying to save their mother from the flames. Seems like a crazy mission, and the twins think so too, but one talks the other into it, and off they go. They have just one clue, for a woman their father shacked up with after leaving town all those years ago. One clue leads to another, in a string of increasingly bizarre encounters, all with the same evidence, that their father was a monster. When they finally find him, and the family he has now, we’ll see if the hunt was worth it. It’s a wildly entertaining film, very funny in a (very) dark way, with a rare turn from Sterling K Brown as a bad guy, even if I though it lost steam before the end. ★★★½

• TV series recently watched: The Walking Dead (season 1), Silo (season 3), Walking Dead: Dead City (season 3), House of the Dragon (season 3)
• Book currently reading: The Gathering Storm by Jordan & Sanderson

A few days I posted a set of films with nothing spectacular, but today the law of averages helped me out. The President’s Cake is an Iraqi film taking place during the Gulf War in late 1990, though it is not a war film itself. It follows a little girl named Lamia, whose parents are recently dead. She is being raised by her grandmother Bibi and they are very poor, with the US sanctions against Iraq making it difficult (impossible?) to get by. Going to school every day, Lamia hears the USA jets flying overhead, but tries to go about her life. At school one day, the teacher announces it is time to celebrate Saddam Hussein’s birthday, which is a national holiday in which everyone is expected to participate. By random draw, Lamia is tasked with baking a birthday cake for the class, and she has no idea how she will come up with the ingredients, as prices for eggs and staples have raised tenfold. Under the guise of taking her to the city to purchase them, Bibi is in fact looking to give Lamia up to a foster family, as she cannot care for her on her own anymore. Faced with this, Lamia runs away, and tries to gather the cake ingredients on her own. She runs into and is aided by classmate Saeed, whose father, a cripple, begs and clandestinely robs on the streets of the city. The two young classmates are in for an adventure, as predators seem to stand on every corner, trying to rob, fleece, or kidnap (or worse) throughout the city, all while Bibi tries to locate her, getting no help from the police who deride “these stupid peasants.” Eye opening coming-of-age film, one that gets you rooting for a happy ending, and incredible performance from the young Baneen Ahmad Nayyef as Lamia. The cast is all non-professional actors, but you’d never know it. ★★★★★

Ricky is a gritty indie film with a good cast to back up its hard themes. It’s not a complex movie, and the shaky camera syndrome in the opening scene had me thinking this was going to be a mistake, but there’s more under the hood, so to say. Ricky is 30 years old, but in many ways, is still a child. He’s recently released from prison after doing 15 years, meaning he went in as a teenager but comes out a man. We don’t learn for a long time what he did, but obviously it’s serious. Because of the situation, he doesn’t know basic things that most 30-year-olds do. He doesn’t know how to talk to girls. He is thrilled when he gets his driver’s permit. He’s as awkward as any teenager during his first sexual experience. His younger brother is, in many ways, more worldly experienced than he. The movie explores these ideas, as well as the harsh reality of a man trying to go straight and narrow despite the system being stacked against him. The film’s low budget is telling and the acting is very uneven (some standouts, but many underwhelming to say the least), but it’s certainly not a bad film with an important tale to tell. ★★★

Romería, a Spanish film, is about a girl looking for answers. It’s 2004, and Marina is graduating high school and wants to go to film school, but in order to qualify for the scholarships and grants she needs, she has to show her genealogy/ancestry. Her father’s name is missing on her birth certificate, as he and her mother were never married and both died when Marina was a child. She heads off to her father’s family in southern Spain on the sea, most of whom she hasn’t seen since she was a little girl, as they did not keep in touch. If she expected a warm welcome, Marina is sourly disappointed. Nearly everyone is nice to her face, but in a condescending, snarky way. The family is wealthy, and since she’s recently turned 18, they think she is there for the money. Marina has her mom’s diary, which talks about how she didn’t get along with Fon’s (Alphonso’s) sisters, and they do indeed seem to be real bitches. Marina’s cousins (her own age) are nice to her, but of the adults, only two seem to accept her with open arms: Fon’s cousin Xulia, and Fon’s brother Iago, who seems to have been the black sheep of the family. It is Iago who starts filling in the gaps of Fon’s life to Marina, and what she learns is startling. She was always told he died when she was a baby in 1987, but finds out he died in 1992, hidden away by his family like a leper. This leaves her feeling empty, wondering why he never came to Barcelona to visit her, but the pieces of his troubled life and tumultuous relationship with her mom start to come together slowly, about their shared drug use and ultimate deaths to AIDS. The film ends in a Fellini-esque dream sequence, as Marina tries to discover the truth, which lies somewhere between what she’s always been told and the stories Fon’s family is feeding her. Excellent movie about the secrets a family will keep. ★★★★

I watched Signal One reluctantly, because it stars Dennis Quaid and Josh Hutcherson, two actors who, for whatever reason, seem to always end up in subpar movies. But it also stars David Thewlis, who is great, and I am a sci-fi nerd, so I gave it a shot. Ended up reminding me a lot of The Creator, another science fiction movie with incredible visuals but a lackluster story. This one is about a woman, Annika (Isabelle Fuhrman), who is recruited to work at a top-secret facility built to communicate with aliens. A signal has been coming in, but so far, the scientists haven’t been able to crack it or figure out how to send a message back. Annika is able to do so, but she wrestles with the question on if we (humanity) should respond, as we don’t know what the aliens are trying to say. There’s exactly one thrilling moment in the movie, when the team responds to the aliens and the aliens answer back. We don’t know how to communicate, so like a baby copying its mother’s words, we just repeat something in the message sent to us. The aliens respond by turning off all all electricity on our planet for 8 minutes and 19 seconds, the time it takes sunlight to reach our planet, to tell us they heard us and they know where we are. This of course kills a lot of people (downed planes, interrupted emergency services) and creates panic, but it is the first step in opening our eyes to a greater universe, for good or bad. There’s far too many wild leaps of conjecture without any evidence (which is really silly for a movie purportedly based on science), and some silly B movie plot twists, but the overall idea of what first contact with an alien civilization would look like is pretty good. I liked the ideas, and the graphics are top notch, but the movie has too many flaws to be really great. ★★★

Ending on a great one today. Manas (Portuguese: Sisters) takes place in a tiny fishing village in Brazil and follows 13-year-old Marcielle, or “Tielle” as she is called. She misses her older sister, who left suddenly and seemingly for no reason a couple years ago, and is coming of age in a village with not-so-hidden secrets. We know something is up when she asks if a pregnant girl in the village got her belly on the barge (a bi-weekly visitor to the village to load up fish for sale, where the older girls engage in prostitution for extra money), and Tielle’s friend responds that no, it came from the girl’s father, and “Everyone knows that’s how it goes in this village.” It isn’t much longer before Tielle’s father asks her to go on a hunt with him, and he starts in on her. All of a sudden, Tielle’s protector becomes her attacker. When Tielle tries to bring it up to her mom, her mom defends him, and replies “Some things cannot be changed.” Tielle tries to take control in the only way she can, by putting on lipstick and going to the barge, where at least sex can be on her own terms, but this makes her father fly into a rage. Even the police seem to be powerless to stop it. But Tielle is not her mother, who looks past the man’s faults because he rescued her from her own abusive father, and she isn’t her sister, who stayed until she was old enough to leave on her own. Tielle is going to put a stop to this, one way or another. A lot of powerful imagery in this film, like when her dad leans over her one night under the light, and his shadow looms large on the wall. We learn in the end titles that the film is based on the stories of the women of Marajó Island, off the coast of Brazil, making this harsh film that much more important. ★★★★★

• TV series recently watched: Enterprise (season 3)
• Book currently reading: The Gathering Storm by Jordan & Sanderson

Reading Lolita in Tehran is based on a memoir and though it has a strong message of standing up to tyranny, it’s not a very well-done movie and I couldn’t get past the idea of its shaky premise. In the film, Azar returns to Iran after having studied and taught in the USA. It’s 1997, and the Iranian Revolution has just set up a new government in her native country, and Azar wants to be there bringing new ideas. She begins teaching at a university in Tehran, but it isn’t long before she gets pushback from students and the powers-at-be for teaching Western literature. When a new law is enacted that women must cover their hair, Azar refuses and eventually loses her job. That’s as far as I got in the film, couldn’t continue on. The acting isn’t great (to say the least), and all I could think was, “What did you think was going to happen?” I applaud her for standing up for what she thought is right, but don’t cry foul when you get what you know is coming. Kudos to her bravery, but it’s a blah movie that I couldn’t get through. ½

A Danish film, The Last Viking opens on a man named Anker (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) barging into his family’s apartment with the cops hot on his heals. He has just enough time to tell his brother, Manfred (the always-great Mads Mikkelsen), to bury a bag of money at their mom’s property before Anker is taken away. He ends up doing 15 years in jail for robbing a bank of 40 million kroner, but sticks to the story that he doesn’t know what happened to the money. When Anker is finally released, he returns to his brother for the dough, but in the ensuring years, Manfred, who was always a bit eccentric and strange, has gotten worse. He has developed dissociate identity disorder (formerly known as multiple identity syndrome) and thinks he is John Lennon, the Beatle. In fact, whenever anyone calls him Manfred, he instinctively tries to kill himself, jumping out of a movie car or any nearby window, whether the window is on the ground floor or a couple stories up. Anker brings him back to their parents’ property, now an Airbnb, in hopes to jog his memory on the money. Along the way they meet a psychiatrist with ideas of “reuniting the Beatles” with other mentally-ill patients who think they are Ringo, Paul, and George, thinking this may bring Manfred around. In the brothers’ search for healing, they must delve into their troubled and abusive childhoods. The movie has lots of humor, some mystery, and even a little mild action thrown in (as Anker’s former bank-robbing partner comes around sniffing for a share), but I couldn’t help but think the movie didn’t know what kind film it wanted to be. It’s a bit all over the place. Just when you think it is going to be a comedy, something cruel happens; just when Manfred has a moment of enlightenment and the movie becomes endearing, the moment is quickly shattered with something else unexpected. ★★★

Voicemails for Isabelle is exactly what you’d expect from reading the cliffs notes blurb on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s safe, expected, and just (barely) cute enough for a romantic comedy. Jill and Isabelle are sisters and best friends growing up, but Isabelle got the short stick and has fought various ailments all of her life, most notably cystic fibrosis. Continually bedridden, she has been Jill’s biggest fan as Jill would regale her with stories of school, boyfriends, and life. There was never any jealousy there, only well wishes, and Jill’s life is crushed when Isabelle eventually dies just as Jill is about to start culinary school. Jill finds solace in continuing to leave Isabelle voicemails on her phone, as a way of healing and “talking” to her sister. Unbeknownst, the number has been reassigned, and Wes has been receiving, and listening to, the messages. Wes and Jill are a lot alike, in that they’ve had a hard time finding a meaningful relationship, and as he hears Jill’s stories of her life, he starts to fall for her, though they’ve never met. He remedies that by “bumping into her” one day, and the two start falling in love. We all know where this is going, as eventually she will find out that Wes has been receiving all those voicemails. Even though you know how the movie will play out, practically from the opening credits, it’s funny and cute in all the right ways. No new ground broken here, but a decent date night movie. ★★½

Power Ballad is the latest from writer/director John Carney, who does all the music-themed movies. Better than the last, this one stars Paul Rudd as Rick Power, a former rock band singer who left his band just when they were on the cusp of stardom in order to marry and settle down. Married now for years and with a teenage daughter, Paul is in a wedding band in Ireland and has a good time doing what he loves. The band’s latest gig is in a castle of all places, and the rich clientele has a famous friend attending: Danny Wilson (Nick Jonas). Danny is a former member of a very famous boy band, but he hasn’t found success as a solo artist yet. Danny and Paul hit it off, and spend the night drinking and talking music, playing songs for each other. Initially, Paul thinks Danny is just a boy-bander, but finds that he’s actually quite talented, but the music industry just wants him to play the kind of music his fans are used to. Danny is blown away by a song Paul wrote years ago, but one he’s never been happy with parts of and never recorded or released. At the end of the night, Danny gifts Paul an expensive guitar and wishes him well. 6 months later, walking in the grocery store, Paul hear’s his song over the speakers. Turns out Danny recorded it and released it as his own, and it is zooming up the charts. Now Paul needs to hunt Danny down, wanting credit for his song, but proving so will turn out to be difficult. I learned a couple things in this movie: Paul Rudd really can’t act (he’s fooled me a couple times, but he’s cringe-worthy in this one), and Nick Jonas definitely can. Not a great movie, but like I said, more enjoyable than Carney’s last couple. ★★★

Carolina Caroline is about a young woman who gets swept off her feet by the thrill of being bad. She sees a con artist swindle a few dollars off a gas station worker one day, and confronts him. She doesn’t want to expose the crook; she wants to learn how he does his cons. The guy is intrigued by this beautiful girl chasing after him, and accepts. The two become bank robbers, and for a couple weeks, all goes well, until all of a sudden, it doesn’t. Turns out the guy is willing to do anything to avoid getting caught, but there are some lines the girl is unwilling to cross. It’s a juvenile movie, with childish dialogue, paper-thin characters, and a paint-by-numbers plot. Seems to have been written by a 12-year-old. Unfortunately no great movies in today’s batch, can’t win them all. ★½

• TV series recently watched: Sugar (season 2), Dexter (season 3), One Hundred Years of Solitude (season 2)
• Book currently reading: The Last Dream by Pedro Almodóvar