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Podcast Review: Conclave

On this episode, JD and Brendan discuss Edward Berger’s new riveting political thriller Conclave! We were big fans of All Quiet on the Western Front a few years, so we’ve been anticipating this one for quite some time and Berger did not disappoint. However; we do get into a few reasons as to why we might like it differently than most others based on the reviews out there.

Review: Conclave (4:00)
Director: Edward Berger
Writer: Peter Straughan
Stars: Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow

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InSession Film Podcast – Conclave

20 Years of ‘Saw’: The Franchise That Was Never Supposed To Be

No horror franchise ends where it started. The first Nightmare on Elm Street was conceived as a genuinely upsetting horror film, a far cry from the cartoonish winking camp of Freddy vs Jason. The four-film deterioration from the meticulously crafted Oscar winning heights of The Silence of the Lambs to the assault on good taste that was Hannibal Rising marks a particularly steep decline. It’s hard to believe that the team behind the first Friday the 13th envisioned sending Jason to space, or that either Williams Friedkin or Peter Blatty would ever have approved of the barrel-bottom cynicism of The Exorcist: Believer. But at least two of those franchises get a bit of a pass due to the esteem their first entry is held in. You can’t blame a classic for its cash in sequels. 

Saw (2004) - IMDb

In 2021, Saw screenwriter Leigh Whannell gave a carefully worded interview to the official Saw podcast. In theory he was there as part of an ongoing promotion for the ninth installment in the series, Spiral, but Whannell tactfully separated his original from the films it would go on to spawn. To Whannell there are two Saws – the low budget, Se7en influenced original Sundance darling, and the increasingly gory labyrinthine soap opera of the sequels, from which he and original director James Wan quickly moved on. 

But the first Saw doesn’t tend to get insulated from its sequels the way some other franchise starters do. And given that the first film was fairly lauded on release as a deviously clever and inventive potboiler, it’s worth asking why. Should Saw be considered apart from what came after? And is what came after really such a step down that it needs to be? 

The answer to that is complicated. Twenty years on, the scrappy and ghoulish imagination of Saw is still electric. The hook is irresistible to most thriller fans – two men wake up chained on either side of a corpse in a bathroom with the instruction that one has to kill the other by the end of the day or his family will die. And the film absolutely delivers on its premise – the screws tighten and the twists keep coming up until the moment that would seal Saw’s fate as a franchise-starter – the corpse on the floor standing up and revealing himself as the true killer all along. This, along with pounding theme song “Hello Zepp” and the horrifying imagery of the ‘Reverse Bear Trap’ made the film instantly iconic, the kind of thing you just had to see. Saw made 100 times its budget at the box office. There was no world in which it didn’t get sequels.

But if you strip away those subsequent movies and imagine that Saw was a one off, you can start to see Whannell’s point. Because the first Saw isn’t really a horror movie at all. 

The first film could almost work as a contained stage play. It’s more character driven than audiences probably remember, with Lawrence and Adam’s suspicions of each other giving way to outright loathing and, by the end, respect, loyalty and something almost like friendship. Neither are particularly good people. But neither deserve to be here. It makes for a story that is a far cry from the later films’ succession of various bottom feeders shovelled into various meat grinders; we might not like Adam or Lawrence, but we come to invest in them and a lot of that is down to the way Whannell’s script gradually reveals their layers. 

The gore might also surprise some modern viewers, mostly because there isn’t very much of it. Even the infamous moment where Lawrence saws off his foot is far less graphic than its reputation would suggest – the worst you see is an initial cut and the rest is mostly left to the imagination. Elsewhere, the film borrows liberally from the Psycho shower scene strategy of fast cuts to make you think you’re seeing what you’re not actually seeing at all. There’s restraint to the violence and patience to the plotting yet the reveals, when they come, are exhilarating. 

There are elements that probably hold it back from being a respected classic in its own right. Whannell’s debut script is fantastic, but as an actor he’s less impressive. He mostly manages to hold his own against the veteran Cary Elwes, but both descend into some pretty bad high-school-theatre histrionics by the end. Wan’s direction borders on MTV-style freneticism at times, and not always in an enjoyable way. Saw is the work of young and inexperienced filmmakers but it’s work that demonstrates why Wan and Whannell would both go on to have such successful careers. 

Saw II - Plugged In

Saw II mostly stayed true to what made the original work. It’s more violent, yes, but the most upsetting scene in the film has almost no blood, relying more on the all-too relatable fear of needles. The two twists it ends with don’t quite have the same shock value as its predecessor, but they’re more satisfying and make more sense. 

But already the hints of what the films would turn into were in place. There are more characters and most are archetypes, in place to serve as canon fodder for Jigsaw’s new traps. Saw II retains points for a far more thorough introduction to Tobin Bell’s immediately compelling John Kramer, but the formula was creeping in. 

With every subsequent Saw film, the characters became more disposable and the gore more extreme. Within minutes of Saw III, more blood was spilled than the original film ever indulged in. There’s none of that ‘what-you-don’t-see-is-scarier’ judiciousness when you’re watching someone’s bones splinter out of their twisting limbs. 

The Saw franchise has often been dismissed as torture porn. Despite the fact that the first film wasn’t and many of the later ones have far more to recommend them than the uninitiated might assume, it’s hard to argue with that overall judgement as every subsequent chapter tries to top the previous ones for sheer bloodletting. By the time 3D entrails were flying at the audience in the seventh installment, Saw had gone the way of almost every horror franchise and descended into self-parody. It would take three attempted reboots to arrive at one that audiences actually liked – 2023’s interquel Saw X, which brought back Tobin Bell, Shawnee Smith and a relatively thoughtful focus on character. In short, the things that made the first few films work to begin with. 

But all of this risks implying that the later Saw films were more exercises in over-the-top gore than anything interesting in their own right, and this is where the legacy of the first film really paid off. The most fascinating thing about Saws III through VII, and the reason they retain such a strong following today, is the commitment they have to their own complex, convoluted and sprawling mythology. These are films that spend an inordinate amount of time throwing red meat to the forum dwellers – hints as to the whereabouts of certain missing characters, mysterious letters that take three films to be explained, flashbacks that give context to the actions of characters several films ago. It’s schlocky horror franchise as soap opera, and while the storytelling becomes a bit tangled and baroque at times, the chronological obfuscation, sleight of hand and layering of arcane clues could not be truer to the template established by Wan and Whannell in that first film.

Saw X (2023) - Movie Review : Alternate Ending

2017’s Jigsaw and 2021’s Spiral both tried to move away from the now somewhat tortuous plotting. Neither commit to hitting the hard reboot button, but they try to tell new stories with new characters and concerns. Neither won over either fans or the theoretical new audiences they were chasing. Saw X, then, returned with gusto to the mythology and foibles of the original cycle. In Saw VI a desperate John Kramer seeks an experimental medical cure to his cancer but is denied by his insurance company. When told not to strike out on his own due to the expense, he retorts “I have money”. This minor detail always begged the question as to why Kramer never pursued this seemingly effective option. Saw X, fourteen years later, provided a two-hour long answer, a plugged gap in the continuity that only hardcore fans would care about. For its trouble, it was a box office smash and earned the franchise’s first positive Rotten Tomatoes rating. 

It’s funny that Saw X is seen as a critical hit, given that nobody would argue that it’s better than the first two films, despite both faring far worse on Rotten Tomatoes. But it speaks to the fact that over the past two decades the Saw franchise, despite dismissals, has endured and a return to what people liked about the originals would always be welcomed with open arms. Yeah, Tobin Bell and Shawnee Smith look twenty years older than they’re supposed to given it’s set between the first and second films, but who cares? It’s Saw, original recipe! 

Leigh Whannell might beg to differ. But the secret of the Saw franchise and the reason the original has never quite been fully separated from the rest is that for all their excesses and shortcomings, the best of the later films thoroughly embraced the nasty cleverness, clockwork plotting, attention to detail, heightened lore and compelling characters that made the original stand out to begin with. Watching Saw today it’s clear that it was never supposed to be a franchise-starter. But the fact that it was speaks in the simplest terms to its power, impact and legacy. 

Episode 608: Janet Planet, Strange Darling & More Catch-Up

This week’s episode is brought to you by Audible. Get a FREE audiobook and 30-day FREE trial!

This week on the InSession Film Podcast, we talk about some movies we’ve caught up with over the last few months including Janet Planet, Strange Darling, Caddo Lake and more! We also talk about Venom: The Last Dance‘s box office and whatever LucasFilm is up to these days.

– Opening / Box Office (0:30)
After some opening banter, we open the show once again talking about the box office and the huge opening for Venom: The Last Dance. Smile 2 and The Wild Robot having good weekends as well, making it one of the best we’ve seen since the summer season.

– Rey Movie / Romulus Sequel / Other News Stuff (33:37)
Last week saw a lot of interesting movie news that we wanted to talk about. Star Wars seems immensely lost as the new Rey movie lost its writer, and leaving that film and the franchise in further limbo. We also heard that a new sequel to Alien: Romulus is in the works, as well as two new Predator movies coming next year. We also have to give a few thoughts on the new Blue Streak announcement and Apple throwing money at a live-action Oregon Trail.


RELATED: Listen to Episode 516 of the InSession Film Podcast where we discussed our Top 10 Movies of 2023!


Janet Planet / Strange Darling / More 2024 Catch-Up (1:02:41)
As we do from time to time, we wanted to give some space to talk about other 2024 movies we’ve seen that we haven’t reviewed in any official capacity. Specifically, we talk about Janet Planet, Strange Darling, Wolfs and Caddo Lake. JD also gives us brief thoughts on The Apprentice, Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, The Order, Young Woman and the Sea, In a Violent Nature, Problemista, Kill and Smile (2022).

– Music
Rey’s Theme – John Williams
Love Hurts – Z Berg

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InSession Film Podcast – Episode 607

Next week on the show:

A Different Man

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Women InSession: Who’s the Best Dracula?

This week on Women InSession, we are joined by Megan Kearns of Spoilerpiece Theater to discuss all the great Dracula films and performances over the years and which one’s we liked the best! We talk about Bela Lugosi, Gary Oldman, Nicholas Cage and others who have taken on the Count Dracula mantle.

Panel: Kristin Battestella, Jaylan Salah, Amy Thomasson

On that note, check out this week’s show and let us know what you think in the comment section. Thanks for listening and for supporting the InSession Film Podcast!

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Women InSession – Episode 107

Movie Review: ‘Canary Black’ Slogs Through Spy Stereotypes


Director: Pierre Morel
Writer: Matthew Kennedy
Stars: Kate Beckinsale, Rupert Friend, Ray Stevenson

Synopsis: It follows Avery Graves as she is blackmailed by terrorists into betraying her own country to save her kidnapped husband.


It’s that time again for the annual awful Kate Beckinsale action film that keeps popping up like the by-product of a sexually transmitted disease—seemingly trashy fun at first, but leaving you unprepared for the consequences. Beckinsale has turned the overrated Underworld franchise into a cottage industry of underwhelming genre films like Jolt and now, Canary Black. This predictable spy slogfest barely gets off the ground.

Canary Black Review: Kate Beckinsale's Hackneyed Thriller

Movies like Canary Black are predicated on your willingness to let go of plausibility, sit back, and enjoy the ride. However, with spy action films being released daily on almost every platform imaginable, you must do something to stand out. Canary Black stumbles on the fatal flaw of doing nothing exceptional, hovering aimlessly between average and below average. Prime Video sends this Canary down the coal mine in the search of endless cliches. 

Beckinsale struts around slowly in high-heeled boots, playing Avery Graves, a secret agent working for the United States government. Avery comes from a good lineage, being a second-generation spy. Her boss is the CIA Chief who goes by the name, Jarvis (the late Ray Stevenson), who worked with her father for years. Avery has been groomed to be a covert operative since she turned eighteen. Jarvis has taught her everything she knows and is also a close family friend. 

Avery’s parents have passed on, leaving Jarvis and her husband, David (Rupert Friend), as the only family she has. She has been traveling a lot lately, and David is worried about her stress and wants her to settle down, even pushing her to adopt some adorable puppies upon her return. However, after going into the office to brief Jarvis on her latest mission, she returns to find David missing, the house showing signs of a struggle, and a ransom demand that requires her to betray her country.

Canary Black is directed by Pierre Morel, the filmmaker who thrilled us with the original Liam Neeson hit Taken but has since delivered lackluster efforts like the John Cena vehicle Freelance and the problematic Jennifer Garner film Peppermint. (There’s even a scene in Peppermint where the main character attacks a cartel using a piñata warehouse as a front.) Canary Black feels like an unofficial sequel to that misstep. 

Canary Black Trailer Teases Taken Director's Prime Video Action Thriller  With Kate Beckinsale

The script, written by Matthew Kennedy, offers nothing that couldn’t be produced by someone after watching a couple dozen competent spy films from the past twenty years. Everything in Canary Black sets a low bar, from the gadgets (and their laughable use—especially a drone delivering Iris when she could have simply ordered a rideshare or, you know, walked). 

The movie feels like a ’90s retread, full of technology but completely ignoring the reality of constant digital surveillance and the risk of getting caught. Canary Black isn’t worth watching because it demonstrates how cinema is shifting from an art form to a content-streaming mill. The plot is a recycled cliché, with Beckinsale’s character stealing a secret file that will expose military secrets and agents—yada yada yada yada.

We can, however, give credit to Kate Beckinsale, who, at 51, continues to land action heroine roles in an industry that turns its back on women over a certain age faster than Leonardo DiCaprio on a girlfriend’s 25th birthday. However, spy films are such an oversaturated genre that audiences expect something smarter. The action needs to be extraordinary, and the plot points need to be, well, on point. Canary Black offers none, and we should demand more for our time.

You can stream Canary Black exclusively on Prime Video.

Grade: D+

Podcast VIP: Horror vs Thriller

On this episode, inspired by Variety’s Top 100 horror movies of all-time article, JD and Brendan talk a little further about what defines a horror film vs a thriller film. Some of the movies on that list probably veer more toward thriller, so we thought it would be fun to see where the line is and how these films align.

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Movie Review: ‘Don’t Move’ is a Fun, Hard-Edged Thriller


Directors: Brian Netto, Adam Schindler
Writers: T.J. Cimfel, David White
Stars: Kelsey Asbille, Finn Wittrock, Daniel Francis

Synopsis: It follows a seasoned killer as he injects a grieving woman with a paralytic agent. She must run, fight and hide before her body shuts down.


The new horror thriller Don’t Move may not have the gravitas or sheer dread of others in the genre, but it’s undeniably effective. To be fair, 2024 has been a standout year for horror thrillers. Just look at the embarrassment of riches we’ve had over the past nine or so months, with instant classics like Strange Darling, Red Doors, Longlegs, Trap, Cuckoo, and Smile 2 invigorating a typically tired genre that often goes for cheap thrills.

Watch Don't Move | Netflix Official Site

However, that doesn’t mean a good popcorn flick like Don’t Move should be ignored or scoffed at. There’s nothing groundbreaking or new here, but it’s almost an homage to classic bottleneck cast thrillers, with a hard edge and a classic misdirection setup, preying on a younger audience’s prideful empathy. Much of the credit goes to the leads, with committed performances from Yellowstone’s Kelsey Asbille and Origin’s Finn Wittrock.

If you want to go into the Netflix film fresh, I suggest skipping the following two paragraphs. However, if you’ve already seen the trailer, the excellent setup is spoiled anyway. The movie opens with a solemn woman, Iris (Asbille), who looks like she’s about to embark on her own Reese Witherspoon Wild-inspired adventure. Dressed in typical mom-athletic gear, she climbs over rocks and follows a trail to a cliff with a magnificent view overlooking breathtaking scenery.

Yet, there is something overwhelmingly sad as she takes in the setting, standing on the dangerous edge of the mountain. That’s when we hear a man approach, seemingly coming out of nowhere. His name is Richard (Wittrock), and he feels like her guardian angel, meeting by chance. He talks her down from a potential suicide attempt by connecting through shared trauma— with Iris revealing that her child died on this bluff and Richard surviving a car crash.

Don’t Move is produced by legendary horror-thriller filmmaker Sam Raimi, with directors Adam Schindler and Brian Netto (Delivery: The Beast Within) delivering a film with a visceral edge. Working from a script by T.J. Cimfel and David White (Intruders), the experience includes a few original elements. Still, it is mostly wrapped in a handful of frightening tropes that, while standard, are done competently—and at its best, quite well.

Don't Move' Trailer: Sam Raimi's Netflix Movie Stars Kelsey Asbille

The real draw here is the script. Iris is injected with a paralytic, adding a unique element to the standard chase-and-release horror tropes, and it ratchets up the tension in what is otherwise a familiar story. The added subtext of grief and the primal urge to survive deepens the experience. (Studies, as well as the documentary The Bridge, explore the immediate regret that often follows a suicide attempt, highlighting the desire to undo what feels like an irreversible action.) 

Don’t Move is worth watching because its concept allows the filmmakers to take the audience on an emotional rollercoaster, effectively engaging streaming viewers. However, it offers a fairly mainstream approach. For instance, the cinematography by Zach Kuperstein pales in comparison to more distinctive thriller styles, such as Giovanni Ribisi’s recent work or the work of Pawel Pogorzelski (Hereditary) and Dario Argento (Suspiria). The film lacks cinematic grit and stylization, with fewer tracking shots, wide-angle frames, or classic Steadicam work.

It’s those safe choices that can be frustrating, especially in contrast to the wonderfully visceral and entertaining films of 2024, which delivered blood, sweat, and anxious tears across the silver screen. The ending, in particular, could have been much stronger had it taken a riskier approach. Still, Don’t Move offers enough suspense, thrills, and memorable chills to warrant above-average engagement, holding your attention for a mild recommendation.

Just do not expect to think about the move long after it ends. 

You can now watch Don’t Move, which only streams on Netflix.

Grade: B-

Interview: Guy Maddin, Galen Johnson, and Evan Johnson, Directors of ‘Rumours’

For those rare individuals who are fascinated by the concept of a Canadian national cinema, Guy Maddin, Galen Johnson, and Evan Johnson are totemic figures. Their collaborative works have been celebrated by critics for their unfettered displays of emotional extravagance and willingness to experiment with techniques and forms drawn from the silent era. Even as their works have achieved an increasing amount of mainstream exposure and popularity, they remain firmly tied to an offbeat aesthetic that isn’t easy to pin down. Their latest film, Rumours (2024), represents an artistic evolution, in a sense, while still retaining the wry sense of humor that they have become so well-known for. 

Rumours Movie Reveals Official Trailer and Poster

Zita Short had the opportunity to interview the three filmmakers in the lead-up to the film’s release. 

Zita Short: In another interview you stated that audiences would be going into this film expecting a traditional satire but you wanted to complicate their understanding of the genre by introducing soap opera influences into the proceedings. What do you think the average viewer conceives of when they imagine a satire and how do you think our vision of this style of comedy has evolved over time? 

Galen Johnson: A lot of people interact with satire through the prism of Saturday Night Live. As much as I respect Saturday Night Live, that’s not what we wanted to make here. There’s always an element of melodrama in Guy’s work…

Guy Maddin: It’s my only way of understanding things. I convert 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) into a soap opera and then I start to understand it. Even if that’s not what’s intended. 

Evan Johnson: It’s funny that we started from the point of wanting to avoid making a typical satire. If you look at Doctor Strangelove (1964)…that’s my favorite movie. As we are dealing so directly with identifiable types of figures, such as presidents and prime ministers, we wanted to avoid certain types of easy denigration. I’m not saying that there aren’t other styles of political satire that I like, I am a big fan of Armando Ianucci’s work, but we wanted to complicate the viewers’ relationship with the characters on-screen. We didn’t want to give them this feeling of easy satisfaction and, in introducing elements of melodrama into the narrative, we force viewers to relate to these characters on some level and sympathize with their concerns. 

Guy Maddin: It creates an empathy and it brings you closer and it encourages you to identify. We can all relate to the experience of failing. 

Evan Johnson: We did start from a point of being quite angry at world leaders for their failures but we also ended up in the position of making a film that tries to address this big issue and failing at it. It was so easy to identify with them after going through something like that. 

Guy Maddin: Then again, these leaders are worthy of war crimes tribunals. 

Zita Short: Many commentators have noted that you have strong roots in Canada’s independent filmmaking community and this film represents a further step into big budget, mainstream productions for all of you. You previously directed a satirical documentary, Bring Me the Head of Tim Horton (2016), which documents the production of the blockbuster war film Hyena Road (2008). How was it to step into the shoes of a Paul Gross-like filmmaker and tackle some of the obstacles that he faced?

Guy Maddin: Maybe we deserved to have someone make a film that was as mean about us as that documentary is about Paul Gross. I just feel as though everyone just sort of fell for our trick. The same DNA is still there. We have bigger stars than usual and we have a few scenes set in the past and a few new locations but I like to think that we’re still up to the same old tricks. It just comes in a new package. I think people won’t come away from it thinking it’s alienatingly avant-garde or anything but it contains some interesting tonal shifts. 

Evan Johnson: It’s still alienating. After making something like Bring Me the Head of Tim Horton in which, some would argue, we mock Paul Gross, we deserved to have a big scale production that forced us to confront a lot of problems thrown at us. It’s just hard. You can’t move on the fly as much as you’re used to. 

Guy Maddin: I’m sorry about Bring Me the Head of Tim Horton. Well, I’m not sorry that we made it. I feel sorry for the people we made it at. 

Zita Short: Why do human beings find the concept of the apocalypse to be so uproariously funny? 

Galen Johnson: I think the humor is partially just a defense mechanism. 

Guy Maddin: I wonder if there’s a sense of relief. Some people feel that they do deserve that sort of grim ending. Perhaps that’s just my self-pity shining through. 

Galen Johnson: When we embark upon our writing process we are primarily concerned with what is funny. We can’t exempt anything from our silliness. The apocalypse is still valid material. 

Evan Johnson: I guess you could say that the end of the world is like a punchline. There’s something built into it where it just seems to function that way. 

Zita Short: Much of your work has been set in a specifically Canadian milieu and derives its power from your intimate knowledge of this environment. How did you adjust to making a film that centers around a more international perspective? 

Guy Maddin: I think it’s always important to ground your film in a strong sense of place. When I worked alone I made a whole film about my hometown called My Winnipeg (2007). That was a chance to get really specific. It was about my family and about my town. This film is set in a part of Germany that we don’t know much about. We did learn about the bogland in the area. There is something specific in the way that we needed these people to speak to each other. It needed to be non-ideologically and it needed to involve the setting aside of personal characteristics. 

Evan Johnson: We’re making a film set in Europe that is all about European politicians but you also have the Canadian Prime Minister at the center of it all. It was quite funny for us to imagine, in this foreign environment, this Canadian leader guiding these Europeans through everything. 

Guy Maddin: It was also important for us to capture the specifics of their professions and the roles that they play. 

Movie Review: ‘The Last Front’ is a Focused, Untold Story


Director: Julien Hayet-Kerknawi
Writer: Julien Hayet-Kerknawi
Stars: Iain Glen, Sasha Luss, Joe Anderson

Synopsis: Amidst World War I’s chaos, a grieving father turns hero, leading villagers to safety while evading a relentless enemy driven by vengeance.


World War I was an unprecedented event when it happened. It changed the way people thought and the way they looked at the world. It is a war that, unlike World War II, has not been examined, picked apart and retread hundreds of times in movies. If it is depicted, the war is often shown from the lens of its greatest impact, which was the brutal and dehumanizing trench warfare. Rarely do we see the civilian toll that the war took or even what warfare was like outside of those trenches.

The Last Front – The Steel Frog Blog

The Last Front seeks to tell one of these stories. The problem is that there isn’t enough exposition about the state of the war. We get a short title card about German advances into Belgium at the time the story takes place, but some of the set pieces become more confusing because of this. There are Belgian regular soldiers as well as resistance fighters who attack the Germans. The Germans seem to be trying to regroup, but they are pushed to take a different route, the direction of which is not made entirely clear. At one point, there is a pitched battle within a small trench in the middle of a forest and artillery going off, but no large guns in sight. It’s a needlessly confusing piece of an otherwise uncomplicated survival story.

The rest of the film would be fine without the complete perspective of commander and father, Maximilian (Philippe Brenninkmeyer) and his subordinate and son, Laurentz (Joe Anderson). It pulls us away from the idyll and class conflict that propels the beginning of the film. But those military pieces add color to the story and remind us that the distant booms in the night scenes aren’t put there by mistake. This story takes place during uncertainty and war. The war rears its ugliest head between the push and pull between the father’s 19th century gentlemanly warfare mindset and his son’s 20th century total war mindset. It’s this conflict that’s at the heart of why Leonard (Iain Glen) gets involved at all.

The Last Front (2024) - Movie Review

It also highlights a superb, if a little too arch, villainous performance by Joe Anderson. He plays Laurentz with the mix of a man who hates his military legacy and loves the chaos and power of war. His cold and calculating gaze sends shivers up your spine as his aim always seems terrifyingly true. It’s a great antecedent to Iain Glen’s stoic, reluctant, and brave Leonard. Leonard hates Laurentz because of what he did to Leonard’s family, yes, but he hates him even more because if he doesn’t stop him, he will do it to many more families.

The two concurrent narratives have their moments of slowness, but the film moves at a very good clip. Writer and director Julien Hayet-Kerknawi is the rare filmmaker who can make a war film under two hours long. It helps that there are no grand battle scenes to stage or hundreds of background characters to manage. It also helps that he keeps the story focused. Even though it would be helpful for more historical context, it is better that Hayet-Kerkwani sticks to the story at hand, which is the survival of the civilians caught in a war they wanted no part in. He’s able to find his emotional arc not only in a father avenging his slain children, but in a man grappling with the loss of his wife before the war.

There is a fantastical element within The Last Front that really works well. Leonard feels he’s not doing his best raising his children and he sometimes sees, but more often just speaks with the spirit of his wife, Elise (Trine Thielen). In one particular scene, Leonard has a position in a building overlooking where the German troops find cover from the sniper on the other side of the street. Leonard raises his weapon, but hesitates. Elise appears as if to give him strength. Her hand slides along his and presses so he will pull the trigger. It makes the spirit of Elise into a sort of vengeful presence, but it also serves to remind Leonard that killing one person who means you and everyone like you harm could save the lives of dozens of others.

The Last Front is a solid film. It has its moments of high drama, terror, and anguish with a beating, if staid, heart as well. It isn’t trying to create a new kind of genre, but to tell a simple story within a complex historical period. It has a good story, but it won’t try and teach you something grander about the larger conflict at play, which, in some ways, is to its detriment. The Last Front is worth your while if you want something that will hold your attention and leave you satisfied after it’s over.

Grade: C

Podcast Review: Red Rooms

On this episode, JD and Brendan discuss Pascal Plante’s disturbing psychological horror film Red Rooms! It’s a film that wasn’t on our radar until recently, but it’s turned out to be one of the very best films of 2024. A striking film that left us floored. The conversation we have here is one of our favorites we’ve had this year.

Review: Red Rooms (4:00)
Director: Pascal Plante
Writer: Pascal Plante
Stars: Juliette Gariépy, Laurie Babin, Elisabeth Locas

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InSession Film Podcast – Red Rooms

Movie Review: ‘Venom: The Last Dance’ is Entertaining and Uneven


Director: Kelly Marcel
Writers: Kelly Marcel, Tom Hardy
Stars: Tom Hardy, Juno Temple, Alanna Ubach

Synopsis: Eddie and Venom are on the run. Hunted by both of their worlds and with the net closing in, the duo are forced into a devastating decision that will bring the curtains down on Venom and Eddie’s last dance.


On the surface, it’s a head-scratcher how Venom has become a viable film franchise despite critical drubbing. However, if we’ve learned anything, the audience defines a hit—not to mention one with staying power; which explains how Venom: The Last Dance came to be. The Tom Hardy franchise makes money, all while people still pay for the theatrical experience instead of waiting to stream it on their phones. 

Venom 3: First Reactions After the Premiere

That’s nothing to dismiss nowadays when it has become harder and harder to put people in bedbug-infested seats and eat and drink overpriced concessions. The Venom films fought to be different. There has always been something punk rock about raging against the Hollywood suites, delivering a special effects-laden comic book film on their own terms. Now, the original scribe of the franchise, Kelly Marcel, takes the reins in her directorial debut with the franchise’s strongest effort, which, at its best, is pure punk rock comic book anarchy goodness, for better or worse.

The third chapter in the Venom saga features our anti-heroes, Eddie (Tom Hardy) and his parasite-like best friend, Venom (also voiced by Hardy), a symbiote with whom he has forged a special bond over the years as they navigate the world together. Now, escaping to an alternate timeline, Eddie and Venom try to outrun two forces: the God of the Symbiotes, Knull, and Rex Strickland (12 Years a Slave’s Chiwetel Ejiofor), an officer in the United States Army trying to rein in all the symbiotes around the world, with Venom being the last.

Along with Dr. Payne (Ted Lasso’s Juno Temple) and her right-hand woman (Clark Backo), they run the infamous Area 51 Military Base in Nevada, which is being decommissioned in a matter of days. However, before they do, Eddie’s old friend, Detective Mulligan (Stephen Graham), is brought in since he is still attached to his symbiote, Toxin, who attempts to explain what the military group does not: if Venom lives, the world will end. Rhys Ifans (Notting Hill) also has a small role, appearing to do his best Peter Stormare on happy pills impression, bringing some offbeat comic relief to the story.

Venom: The Last Dance Trailer breakdown

Marcel has always had a talent for adapting her storytelling and comic style to a wide range of genres. I mean, who else can write a heartwarming family film like Saving Mr. Banks, the smoldering “sexcapades” of Fifty Shades of Grey, and the sardonic wit of the Venom franchise? So many superhero films fall into the cookie-cutter, follow-the-rulebook, step-by-step, paint-by-numbers formula that the genre has grown tired over the past few decades.

Does Venom: The Last Dance have that? Sure, in droves. The “last” entry in the Venom franchise falls back into comic-book superhero tropes and sometimes feels rudderless. In particular, the beginning of the film features helpful but excessive exposition, explaining the background of the Venom character. Additionally, whenever the story tries to tie in the Area 51 cast of characters, it feels more like an extension of the previous films than anything original to contribute to the genre. Then, there is the ultimate eye-rolling moment where an essential character does something so dumb that it costs their friends and colleagues dearly. It seems to be only written to move the story to the third act, which is contrived. 

Where Venom: The Last Dance excels is when it focuses on its roots as a dark buddy comedy. Hardy revels in the role, playing the straight man to his alter-oppositional-defiant ego, Venom. The writing is hilarious, with Hardy’s Eddie serving as the straight man to Venom’s ominous quips, which can range from deranged to childlike. The humor comes fast and is absurdist to a degree. The scene with Eddie navigating the world with his symbiote partner has always been rebellious and anti-establishment, defying Hollywood blockbuster conventions. Yet, Marcel is brave enough to outline a hilarious dance number seen with an old friend that manages to keep the film, to a degree, lively and fresh.

Venom: The Last Dance' - Trailer for Third Movie Bites Heads Off, Dances,  Venomizes a Horse - Bloody Disgusting

The final result can be uneven, but the third act has more emotion and heart than you’d expect. (Though I think Hardy and Marcel downplayed the moment too much, the disconnect from the buildup made me feel that Hardy was adding a neurodivergent anti-social quality to his character.) However, the Venom franchise is a Marvel entry with shades of what DC Comics has done so well for years with the Batman franchise. Venom has always been a metaphor for the duality of mental health issues (in this case, schizophrenia), as well as the social isolation and alienation of the downtrodden and castoffs that society turns its back on.

Like I said, at the very least Venom: The Last Dance is entertaining, has a wicked sense of humor, and goes its own way, for better or worse.

You can watch Venom: The Last Dance this Friday only in theaters!

Grade: B-

Episode 607: Top 5 True Crime Movies

This week’s episode is brought to you by Transformers One. Follow us on social media for your chance to win a FREE digital code!

This week on the InSession Film Podcast, inspired by Woman of the Hour, we discuss our Top 5 true crime movies! We also talk box office, Blade‘s delay, Nolan’s new vampire movie and The Academy dismissing Hans Zimmer’s Dune: Part Two score.

– Opening / Box Office (3:28)
We open the show this week with more box office discussion as we get into the expected success of Smile 2. However; what’s even more compelling is that The Wild Robot continues to show out in its fourth week with another $10 million, despite it also being released on PVOD last week.

– Blade / Nolan / Zimmer (13:35)
Before getting to our top 5, we had to spend some time lamenting the MCU once again as it was announced that Blade was being pulled from the schedule indefinitely. The news itself isn’t surprising, but you do feel terrible for Mahershala Ali and the time he’s devoted to the project. It was reported that Christopher Nolan is doing a vampire movie set in the 1920s and good lord that sounds incredible. Finally, there was confounding news that Hans Zimmer’s Dune: Part Two score is ineligible for the Oscars this year, and it just doesn’t sit right.


RELATED: Listen to Episode 516 of the InSession Film Podcast where we discussed our Top 10 Movies of 2023!


– Top 5 True Crime Movies (1:02:41)
Coming off the heels of Anna Kendrick’s incredible debut film Woman of the Hour, we wanted to talk about more true crime movies. There are many, many great films that make up the category and narrowing it down to just five was very challenging, but we had a great time talking about why these movies absolutely rule.

– Music
I Believe in Fitness – Steve Jablonsky
A Time of Quiet Between the Storms – Hans Zimmer

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InSession Film Podcast – Episode 607

Next week on the show:

Venom: The Last Dance

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Chasing The Gold (NYFF 2024): The Cinematography of ‘The Brutalist’ Breaks All The Rules in the Best Way

Around midway through Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist, celebrating its U.S. Premiere in the Main Slate of the 62nd New York Film Festival, László (Adrien Brody) and Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce) sit down to have lunch. Van Buren pulls out a manila envelope containing images of László’s architectural achievements back in Budapest after being forced out during World War II. László begins to become teary-eyed. Van Buren apologizes for upsetting him, but László reassures him that the tears are a mix of shock, pride, and happiness. Of the pictures, he says, “I didn’t realize these images were still available, much less of any consequence.” It’s a touching exchange of dialogue with much to unpack. The Brutalist is full of dense scenes much like this one. But, in this single line, one of the primary lenses through which to view the film is discovered. It certainly rings true when contemplating this film within the context of the state of cinema. It’s hard to believe that a film like this was even possible to be made anymore, let alone be one that cinephiles (and hopefully general audiences) will rabidly flock to. And, of course, the imagery of this film wouldn’t exist without Lol Crawley, the Director of Photography of The Brutalist and frequent collaborator of Corbet’s. The only thing that is able to match the scope of Corbet’s script seems to be his vision. And Crawley seems to have brought it to life in sprawling and exciting fashion courtesy of VistaVision. Looking at a later conversation between László and Van Buren, this sentiment is reaffirmed. László explains he was drawn to architecture because his work could remain standing as a testament to artistry. With The Brutalist being shot on film, the same holds true: There is now an essential, tangible, and lifelong quality to Corbet’s staggering feat of filmmaking.

The Brutalist' Review: Adrien Brody in Brady Corbet's ...

As the first of many reels of The Brutalist begin to unspool, the audience is sent into a bit of a visual tailspin. Crawley focuses on a sleeping László, and in tandem with the score, jolts the audience out of the overture and directly into the film. It’s a dizzying and claustrophobic form of table setting for any film. But to do so for a 215-minute film, one can sense that the filmmakers trust the audience to come on board at the sheer scale of everything occurring. Trapped within the frame, both literally and within the circumstances László finds himself in during his journey to America, he finally makes it onto one of the exterior decks of the ship he’s aboard. Crawley captures the burst of light with blinding effect, and what was once chaotic now takes on a form of triumph. Still relying on the use of a whirling camera, we see László and a colleague cheering with excitement, but the audience remains unsure as to what they’re looking at. Only after the camera essentially flips backward, do we see a glimpse of what Crawley will reveal: It’s the tip of the torch on the Statue of Liberty. Barely able to take in the full scale of such an iconic landmark, Crawley’s camerawork captures the larger-than-life symbolism the statue came to represent for those coming into the country. It’s through these images that range from subtle to direct that  Crawley’s brilliant work on The Brutalist shines bright.

Take, for example, one of the many times Crawley utilizes deeply intense framing or one-takes, sometimes in conjunction with one another, to pull attention to the moments that might come to define a life. It’s often working hand-in-hand with the edit (masterfully done by Dávid Jancsó), but how Crawley manages to get up close and personal with the subjects without necessarily feeling like a close-up is staggering. It’s as if we’re standing an inch from whoever is on screen, focusing intently on them as they consider what their next action may or may not be. One scene that comes to mind like this takes place early on in the film. László is sharing a post-dinner celebration with his cousin Attila (Alessandro Nivola) and Audrey (Emma Laird), Attila’s wife, who have lived in Philadelphia for some time and have warmly taken him in. For the first time in the film, there’s an enveloping warmth to the imagery. Whereas everything in the first 30 minutes or so is made up of cold, stark imagery, this dining room is basking in the glow of dusk. But one gets the sense that László, still becoming acclimated to the life he escaped and the new life he has found himself in, is a bit out of his depth. The warm glow coming in through the shades is merely meant to offset this emotional dissonance we feel in our lead character. It’s this push and pull of the cinematography that makes it clear Crawley is working completely in line with the ideas present all throughout The Brutalist. So much of this film is about the internal and external conflicts we face on a daily basis, and whether the changes that inevitably come with a life lived force us to change. Is it even possible to hold onto our present selves when the past and future are both waging war on the choices we make? It’s one of the many juxtapositions present in the film, and of course, it doesn’t stop there. In fact, it only kicks into high gear from here on out. Once László begins bringing his brutalist architectural designs to life, Crawley is allowed the freedom to let loose and work beautifully alongside the script.

That’s not to say that at any point the first chunk of this film feels restrained. In fact, quite the contrary could be argued. The shot-on-VistaVision-film choice is such a bold undertaking at any level, but it pays off exponentially with each passing scene. Aside from being a visually rich film that works wonders alongside the thematic core of The Brutalist, it’s also straight-up one of the most aesthetically stunning films of the year. Despite the harsh, at times intentionally rough edges of brutalist architecture, Crawley captures the designs with a beauty and grace that is second to none. And the same can be said for the opposite notion. There’s such visual beauty in the scenes depicting ugliness and deplorability. The cinematography of any particular scene works in complete tandem with the thematic elements at play. One frequent technique Crawley returns to throughout the film is an extreme use of shadows. Rather than being another example in the all-too-often contemporary occurrence of a scene being underlit, Crawley very intentionally relies on deep shadows to convey a sense of dread and frustration.

During one unexpected, and unjust, confrontation between Attila and László, Crawley shrouds Attila’s face completely. The expressions Nivola is making cannot be made out in any capacity, but his tone is felt. For László, having been panickily awoken in his small storage room serving as living quarters, this scene takes the form of a claustrophobic nightmare in his mind.  There’s also a deeply shocking scene in the second half of The Brutalist that relies heavily on shadows. László and Van Buren travel to Italy in search of a piece of marble for the altar of László’s project. Everything filmed in Italy arguably forms the centerpiece of The Brutalist. There’s a staggering, otherworldly beauty in how Crawley captures this location. He reverts back to a shaky handheld camera, following these characters shrouded in complete fog. It’s as if this location, where many of the overarching ideas of The Brutalist coalesce and crystallize into a clear, devastating picture, exists in another realm. Crawley captures these massive, immovable blocks of marble with both reverence and horror. There’s an unexplainable beauty to them. And yet, seeing the sharp edges form tight alleyways and labyrinthian passages to walk through gives them a frightening quality. Crawley’s imagery gives them a form representing the cold interiors of men and the harsh exterior of a world that allows for such evil to exist within. In the pivotal scene of this sequence, and arguably the film, the empty halls being explored come to take on pure metaphor: such intrigue and menace exists amidst the emptiness, which could represent the true darkness found in banally evil mindsets.

NYFF: 'The Brutalist' is the movie epic of the year – The Pace Press

The Brutalist is sprawling in its scope. Yet, Crawley finds a way to unify the visuals of the entire film. Impressively, he also does so by utilizing a varied visual language. As such, the film can excite and engage at a moment’s notice. Whenever there is a massive shift in tone or visual identity, it’s wholly intentional on Crawley’s part. It’s a prime example of the cinematography of a film working in complete tandem with the vision of its director. The Brutalist was, by all accounts, a complete labor of love and determination. One scene takes the form of what feels like a 1980s pop music video. In another scene, Crawley intentionally shatters the 180° rule. With that term, it’s time for a quick cinematography lesson! The 180° rule is one of the fundamental building blocks of cinema. In the most basic of definitions, it’s a guideline of sorts that filmmakers can use to help orient their audience. In any standard dialogue scene that follows the 180° rule, the characters will always be facing the same direction for the duration of a scene. If a character is on the left side of the screen and another is on the right, they will each be looking toward the opposite end of the frame. And the camera will remain this way for visual consistency. This is so the audience will know which way each character is facing in relation to the space they’re inhabiting.

In The Brutalist, Crawley breaks this rule as a way of highlighting an immediate loss of identity due to outside influence. It’s disorienting by design. At one point, Crawley even forms a sequence out of imagery and style that can often be seen in typical home videos. These shifts in stylistic endeavor all dazzle, but they also serve a thematic purpose. All in all, The Brutalist is practically a peak example of what this column highlights from a cinematography perspective. Cinema is a visual medium. At a very fundamental level, when the images that make up a film look stunning, it’s cause for excitement and joy. But when those images also feed into the very essence of a film, forming a symbiotic relationship between our eyes and our emotions, that’s what elevates a film from beautiful to powerful. Crawley’s work on this film is exceptional and is just one of the many elements that come together to make The Brutalist one of the finest examples of American filmmaking this decade.

The Brutalist celebrated its U.S. Premiere in the Main Slate of the 62nd New York Film Festival.

Movie Review (NYFF 2024): ‘Nickel Boys’ is a Daring, Moving Masterpiece 


Director: RaMell Ross
Writers: RaMell Ross, Joslyn Barnes
Stars: Ethan Herisse, Brandon Wilson, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Hamish Linklater, Fred Hechinger, Daveed Diggs

Synopsis: Elwood Curtis’ college dreams are shattered when he’s sentenced to Nickel Academy, a brutal reformatory in the Jim Crow South. Clinging to his optimistic worldview, Elwood strikes up a friendship with Turner, a fellow Black teen who dispenses fundamental tips for survival.


In a 1996 interview with Charlie Rose, the late, great critic Roger Ebert gave what is, for my money, the foremost quote about the cinematic experience. When Rose asked why Ebert believed “no other artform touches life the way movies do,” he replied, “It takes us inside the lives of other people. When a movie is really working, we have an out-of-body experience.” Rose laughed: “You’ve seen too many movies, Roger.” Standing his ground, Ebert countered, challenging his interviewer to recall a time where he found himself so wrapped up in the story unfolding on screen that he wasn’t aware of his surroundings, let alone where his car was parked or what was going to happen the next day. “You only care about what’s going to happen to those people next. When that happens, it gives us an empathy for other people who are there on the screen that is more sharp and more affective and powerful than any other artform.” 

Watch the first trailer for potential Oscar heavyweight 'Nickel Boys' - The  Manual

In the years since the COVID-19 pandemic vacated movie theaters for an extended period and influenced studios to explore the streaming landscape en masse, that sensation has been increasingly rare. Anomalies existed in certain cases, of course. I can specifically recall the various feelings that washed over me when I watched films like Top Gun: Maverick, Nope, TÁR, Bones and All, and Aftersun, all in 2022. And while the out-of-body viewing experiences returned to a semi-regular state in 2023, the film year was dominated by two titles, and neither Oppenheimer nor Barbie really had that “you only care about what’s going to happen to those people next” quality that Ebert described. Christopher Nolan’s masterpiece is a biopic; even if you lacked a passing knowledge on J. Robert Oppenheimer’s life, you understood that the film about his life’s work and the consequences that followed his world-altering invention was rooted in truth, its outcomes thus predetermined. Greta Gerwig’s Barbie was, well, a movie about Barbie(s), as well as an exploration of identity and gender roles in modern society. When Margot Robbie’s Barbie tells a doctor’s office receptionist “I’m here to see my gynecologist!” at the end of the film, we aren’t exactly left wondering how that appointment went as we wander aimlessly into the parking lot, clicking the lock button on our keys in an effort to set off a “beep” that sends us in the proper direction of our vehicle.

On the other hand, RaMell Ross’ Nickel Boys feels like – and, in many ways, is – a revelation, not solely because of the technical command that lies within, and not evenstrictly due to the magnetic turns from its breakout star duo and the established supporting players that surround them. Adapted from Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, Ross’ film is uniquely-striking in just how potent and formidable it is, both as a feat of storytelling and as a triumph in emotional hijacking. It sounds dramatic, but to say that my facilities were rendered useless while watching it open this year’s New York Film Festival is not a  hyperbolic way to describe the circumstances of my first viewing of the film. In fact, it may not be intense enough. 

Indeed, I am certain that I was out-of-body while watching Nickel Boys, both on the festival’s first official day and its last, yet what might be an even stronger plaudit is the fact that my knowledge of the film’s events – both from having seen it once already and from having read Whitehead’s novel years ago – did not remotely hinder the viewing experience. It couldn’t have, even if it actively tried: The film is so sensitive and immense; it is wholly indicative of having a visionary talent at its helm. No amount of plot awareness could possibly take away from the judicious emotional onslaught it offers. Much like Ross’ prior film, the Oscar-nominated Hale County This Morning, This Evening, its artistic ambitions are features, not bugs or gimmicks, no matter how many short-sighted viewers wish to reduce them to such empty terms. 

Of course, Ross didn’t craft Nickel Boys with such praise as an objective. That he and his film deserve it are a natural byproduct of its mastery, both in terms of craftsmanship and narrative prowess. The proceedings entirely take place in Jim Crow-era Florida, beginning with Elwood Curtis (played as a child by Ethan Cole Sharp and as a teen by Ethan Herisse) coming of age in two separate life stages. During his youth, we only see Elwood in reflections – in an iron moving back and forth across an ironing board as his “Nana” (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) steams a bedsheet; in a store window displaying an array of television sets, all of which are broadcasting Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “How Long, Not Long” speech, which he gave in Montgomery, Alabama on March 25, 1965 immediately following the Selma-to-Montgomery March he led. As he matures, he comes into clearer view, though still only in reflections for a time, as Ross’ film is shot entirely from a point-of-view perspective. Cinematographer Jomo Fray (All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt) places his camera in lock-step with the two main character’s eyelines and head movements, only ever breaking that gaze in favor of retreating behind their shoulders, as it primarily does with one character (portrayed by the back of Daveed Diggs’ head) later in the picture.

His name is Turner (Brandon Wilson, giving the finest performance in a film full of them); he and Elwood meet a few days after the latter arrives at Nickel Academy, a facility dubbed a “reform school.” Though Elwood, a standout student, was supposed to begin taking advanced courses at Melvin Griggs Technical School – “Imagine a textbook with nothing to cross out,” Mr. Hill (Jimmie Fails), Elwood’s high school teacher, tells him – he never made it there. Despite Nana’s pleas that “he just got into the wrong car,” having hitched an unfortunate ride with a smooth-talking, well-dressed Black man that police accuse of stealing the car he drives. Simply put, a young Black man in the Deep South during the 1960s was implicated if present, actual guilt was of no consequence. 

Elwood’s “behavior” requires rehabilitation, something he hopes to be a smooth process considering how mild-mannered Nickel looks as he makes his way down its driveway while sitting in the back of a squad car, his second such situation in a matter of days. If only he was allowed to exit the car with his fellow passengers, both young White men, who might as well be going to an entirely different establishment than Elwood’s future home. This, of course, is the more menacing side of Nickel, the one domineered by the vacant, soulless Mr. Spencer (Hamish Linklater), a cruel White man who continuously warns the boys of “a place” for those who misbehave, somewhere they won’t like. He’ll “see to it personally.” 

Turner, who is introduced in one of the single best cinematic moments I’ve seen in many years, becomes something of a saving grace for Elwood’s sanity, insofar as that is possible in a place this vacuously cruel. We learn this the moment Elwood arrives. Ross, when not cutting to the opening scene from The Defiant Ones, featuring the voice of Sidney Poitier singing “Long Gone,” deploys the harshest, most ominous notes from Scott Alario and Alex Somers’ score. These notes, featuring sharp violin strums and the light taps of a drumstick against what sounds like a hollow pipe, evoking the sound of a strike against a jail cell’s bar.

Nickel Boys' Review: RaMell Ross' Superb Colson Whitehead Adaptation

The juxtaposition between the darkness this sequence is imbued with and the early scenes in which a seemingly-joyful Elwood spends time lying beneath the Christmas tree as his grandmother lets tinsel fall towards his body, or when he triumphantly joins a protest of a local screening of The Ugly American, show the brilliant cognizance employed by Ross in knowing that Elwood can both be raced and have faith in the country’s potential to be better, more accepting.

The way that Ross, the film’s co-writer, Joslyn Barnes, and Fray capture the similarities and differences between their two main characters are subtle yet distinct, and beautifully so. Ross has mentioned previously that he was curious while reading the source material about when Elwood was raced, and in the film, we see him repeatedly looking down at his fingertips, his forearms, even his grandmother’s knee in the bathtub; there was certainly a time in Turner’s life when he realized he was raced, but we don’t see it occur, as if it was so long ago in Turner’s somewhat jilted existence that he views it as having always been the case. While enjoying the solace of their dorm’s sparse rec room, Elwood journals and writes letters to Nana, while Turner scours the instructions on old toy pamphlets; when the boys sneak off to hide from the trials of the day in a storage shed, Elwood reads “Pride & Prejudice” as Turner listens to a ball game. The most concrete difference between the two lies in how Elwood’s naivety to society’s treatment of young men like him is, in a sense, disguised as optimism. He wonders aloud, “How can they do that?” when a note from his grandmother tells him that Nickel’s staff wouldn’t let her see him because he was “sick,” a falsity, not realizing that the answer to his rhetorical question is as simple as “because they can.” Turner, meanwhile, is fully aware that the only way someone like him can leave Nickel is to run. Still, they share kindred dreams for the future, one that features them both, free men in a world that leaves them be. Would that it were so simple.

As fascinating, gutting, and brilliant as Nickel Boys is, the same could be said for the experience that is watching (or reading) Ross talk about his film, as I was able to do twice at this year’s New York Film Festival. The first time came at a post-screening press conference on the fest’s first day, and the second during a discussion between him and Barry Jenkins. Besides being as much of an intellectual treat as it sounds, their exchange was full of further insight into how Ross came to adapt Whitehead’s novel. He has spoken at length in multiple interviews on when he realized the film needed to be seen from a “sentient perspective,” as it was called on-set – “Immediately,” is the short answer, – but what is even more fascinating about Nickel Boys’ construction is how the director and his crew gained a better understanding of who Elwood and Turner were as human beings beyond the page. As Ross described it, “The primary exercise in writing the film [was] using adjacent images… images that are one step removed from literal narrative thrust.” Ross went on to share that he believes “cinema skipped photography… when you make a [single] image, that’s it. It’s done. When you make a film, you’re sacrificing the singularity of the image for narrative length.” That process, in his eyes, sees a filmmaker going about things like, “This will do, because this will get us here, and it’s about getting here.” Ross balks at that. Instead, he wants his script and the images created from the words he and Barnes wrote to serve “the human process of being a poetic looker.” 

In and of itself, that’s both a beautiful way to put things and a beautiful idea at its core. But it represents something about Ross’ filmmaking sensibilities that transcends ability entirely, something that is more intrinsically linked to his humanity than his talent. Nickel Boys is many things, but above all, it is an immense statement about love. About how it can be communicated through photography, both when fixed and in motion, and how that should inherently be the pulse that propels a work of art forward, just as it does this film, perhaps more than any work of art in recent memory. 

While wrapping up their talk, Jenkins brought up his debut, 2008’s superb Medicine for Melancholy, a film that, fittingly, is as romantic a movie as was released during the 2000s. In noting how its festival run afforded him the opportunity to see the world, Jenkins told a story that dinner guests everywhere would salivate over if afforded the opportunity to bear witness: It was the day after Barack Obama was elected president, and ironically, Jenkins found himself at a dinner full of “these very hoity-toity Argentine intellectuals” who asked him, “What has the U.S. ever given to the world?” One guest answered for him: “Your people, they made jazz.” Another person chimed in: “The instruments, they weren’t for you until they were. And once they were, this whole new sound came out of them.” Jenkins then turned to address Ross directly, saying, “When I shout you out… it’s because the tools are now in your hands. And different sounds, different images come out of them.” If Nickel Boys is any indication – and it undoubtedly seems to be –these tools have never been in a better pair of hands.

Nickel Boys opened the 62nd New York Film Festival and will be released in theaters by Amazon MGM Studios on December 13.

Grade: A+

Movie Review: ‘Woman of the Hour’ is a Towering Directorial Debut for Anna Kendrick


Director: Anna Kendrick
Writer: Ian McDonald
Stars: Anna Kendrick, Daniel Zovatto, Tony Hale

Synopsis: Sheryl Bradshaw, a single woman looking for a suitor on a hit 1970s TV show, chooses charming bachelor Rodney Alcala, unaware that, behind the man’s gentle facade, he hides a deadly secret.


When an actor gets to direct a motion picture for the first time, the response is usually met with trepidation rather than excitement. Some high-profile stars have made a successful jump, while others have failed to do anything meaningful with the cinematic language. Recently, Kevin Costner has been living in delulu land by making his four-chapter Horizon: An American Saga that nobody outside Film Twitter (sorry, it’s true) wants to see, partly financed by his own money, while Brady Corbet is receiving the most significant praise of his directing career for his 215-minute VistaVision shot The Brutalist

Anna Kendrick Makes Directorial Debut With 'Woman of the Hour' Trailer

With Woman of the Hour, it’s now Anna Kendrick’s turn to make her mark in filmmaking. After a buzzy world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, crickets occurred until Netflix finally picked it up for a direct-to-streaming release in the United States on October 18. On the other hand, Canadians (like yours truly) got a wide, exclusive theatrical release from VVS Films and experienced Kendrick’s debut the way she intended. The result is a jaw-dropping drama that bursts with confidence at every turn to destabilize its viewers right as it opens with a cold and calculating sequence. 

But Kendrick’s confidence isn’t showy, a symptom that has plagued many actor-turned-director debuts. Instead of utilizing techniques to their fullest extent, the director usually indulges themselves in aesthetic platitudes and lose sight of the goals they wanted to lay out in their film. Kendrick never does so and immediately grabs our attention with its opening shot, a reflection of Rodney Alcala’s (Daniel Zovatto) camera as he takes a picture of the movie’s first victim. It’s hard to depict any serial murderer in a way that neither humanizes nor sympathizes with them. Unlike Ryan Murphy’s appalling Dahmer: Monster – The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, which attempted to justify the actions of Jeffrey Dahmer by positing him as simply a misunderstood individual, Kendrick never falls into the traps that have plagued many movies and television series on pathological abusers and killers. 

There’s no humanity in Alcala, even if he attracts young female victims by showing a more vulnerable side of him before violently raping and killing them. It’s simply a façade, and we quickly realize this by the second Kendrick and cinematographer Zach Kuperstein showcase how he photographs and subtly objectifies women. 

Kendrick smartly does not linger on the killings either; she shows enough for us to understand the extent of his manipulation and disturbing pattern of extreme, sadistic violence. One such scene depicts Alcala pushing victim Amy (Autumn Best) off a cliff, but we don’t see the impact. Instead, we quickly cross-cut to flashbacks involving Rodney being friendly to them before committing his crimes and the ‘present-day’ storyline involving Sheryl Bradshaw (Kendrick) attempting to make a big break within Hollywood. 

Her agent has tapped her to participate in an episode of The Dating Game and thinks it will bring her good exposure on screen. But the game is in and of itself deeply sexist, hosted by a man (Tony Hale) who seemingly takes pleasure in objectifying women and making jokes at their expense. Down on her luck, Sheryl reluctantly accepts and participates in the game in which she has to match between Bachelor 1 (Matt Visser), Bachelor 2 (Jedediah Goodacre), and Bachelor 3, who turns out to be Rodney. 

Now, Kendrick, being the intelligent filmmaker she is, has been constantly communicating to the audience with flashbacks that don’t serve to humanize the character of Rodney but instead to viscerally exacerbate the terror in such an upsetting way that the reveal of him being in the show hits like an actual punch to the stomach. This is felt through the eyes of audience member Laura (Nicolette Robinson), who recognizes Rodney from an event that led to the death of her best friend. While this parallel storyline doesn’t go as far as it should, how Kendrick visualizes discomfort when Rodney lurks out of the shadow feels more than a simple upset. 

It’s startling how she blocks the camera to create this sense of dread, in which women feel like there’s always someone lurking behind them. It’s blocking worthy of M. Night Shyamalan, always in service of the atmosphere and visual style that feeds the story Kendrick wants to tell. It makes moments of raw emotion all the more effective, particularly in its nighttime parking scene, which is so terrifying for reasons that transcend the mere stalker/prey setting, which is, in and of itself, distressing. 

This occurs throughout the entire movie. Kendrick shows us what she wants to show and operates with a complete mastery of the craft, with cathartic jumps in time that are always in service of her deeper message and are steeped in subtext and meaning. Of course, it’s not subtle, but it’s done in a way that humanizes the victims and gives them agency, even if they ultimately fall for Rodney’s fake persona. Kendrick treats Sheryl with the utmost compassion and respect. Sheryl is an average human being, unfortunately, led in a path of darkness that she won’t know until it’s far too late. But she sees past Rodney’s posture and knows he’s not who he presents himself as. 

Woman of the Hour' review: Anna Kendrick asks, 'what are girls for?'

To be honest, I kept waiting for Zovatto to show up in the film until I realized that he was playing Rodney all along after forty minutes or so had passed. That’s how good he is here, a petrifying display of torment that effectively crawls under your skin and goes beyond directly scaring you. This is riveting, psychologically active work that constantly changes depending on the victims he chooses, which makes him all the more chilling in front of any woman. And as Sheryl, Kendrick delivers a career-best performance that she unfortunately had not had the privilege to show until now. 

I was never a massive fan of Kendrick, the actor. But it’s not entirely her fault as the movies that she starred in did her no favors (The Twilight Saga and Pitch Perfect films, for example, while commercially successful, aren’t very good). Here, she’s not only in complete control of her movie but of her lead performance, which is often very funny (she’s got a rather dark sense of humor that very much plays in this critic’s comedic sensibilities), but, more importantly, quietly devastating. 

However, the most impressive aspect of Woman of the Hour isn’t necessarily Kendrick’s performance (it’s very good, don’t get me wrong), but in how she operates her film. Rarely have we seen a directorial debut this towering, controlled in what she wants to show inside the frames (and leave outside), and confident in how she structures its multiple storylines (sprinkled with images that tip the hat to some of her cinematic influences). It may not reinvent the wheel, but it’s so assuredly well-crafted and constantly captivating to watch that one can’t help but admire the work Kendrick has put in as a filmmaker in such an impeccable debut. Here’s hoping her next directorial effort comes out much sooner than later. 

Grade: A

Movie Review: ‘Brothers’ is Charmless and Laugh-Free


Director: Max Barbakow
Writers: Etan Cohen, Macon Blair
Stars: Josh Brolin, Peter Dinklage, Taylour Paige

Synopsis: Two criminal twin brothers, one who is trying to reform, embark on a dangerous heist road trip. Facing legal troubles, gunfights, and family drama, they must reconcile their differences before their mission leads to self-destruction.


The Prime Video comedy Brothers has all the makings of an under-the-radar hit, potentially striking all the right notes. For one, it comes from director Max Barbakow, behind the brilliant COVID-19 release Palm Springs. Perhaps no film was more embraced during the pandemic than Andy Samberg’s new classic, which found a home on Hulu when we needed it most.

Brothers Trailer: Josh Brolin, Peter Dinklage Are Twins in Movie

Next, you have two stars known for their dramatic work yet equally recognized for their charismatic and funny interviews. However, Brothers may prove that personality doesn’t always fully translate on screen. In this case, it’s a tediously familiar buddy comedy that never entirely comes together. As if taking likable leads and making them unlikable is somehow comedy gold.

The result is a charmless, practically laugh-free experience with little suspense. Nothing in Brothers feels fresh or done well enough that you can give the recycled nature of the script a pass. There is a reason why this film is just a reprocessed effort in the streaming wars aimed at producing content, not perfecting it. 

Brothers follows a pair of fraternal twins, Moke (Josh Brolin) and Jady (Peter Dinklage), who have been on the wrong side of the tracks their entire childhood. One reason is that Jady is a mastermind of criminal activities, relying on his brother’s intuition and smarts, such as picking locks to grab some quick cash. It wasn’t their fault; their father was long gone, and their mother preferred her men to be criminals with no muscles and even smaller brains.

Fast-forward to adulthood, Jady finds himself leaving prison on good behavior with the help of a shady prison guard (Academy Award winner Brendan Fraser). However, Moke has turned his life around. He has bought a house and is having his first child with his girlfriend, Abby (Taylour Paige of Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F). However, Moke loses his job because he never disclosed his previous criminal history, putting his family’s future in doubt.

Of course, due to the nature of movies, having Jady come back into Moke’s life comes with a well-timed opportunity. This involves a cross-country road trip to land the score of a lifetime. Then, they throw in the monkey wrench of their long-lost mother (Glenn Close), who shows up to micromanage their operation. Moke must resist killing her before grabbing the cash that will secure his family’s future. 

Brothers 2024 Movie Cast, Characters & Cameos (Photos) | The Direct

Brothers wants to be the hybrid love child of better comedy films like Twins, Step Brothers, and even Ruthless People, but it feels more like a step-child of Masterminds. While it is fun to see Dinklage revel in the role of an arrogant and apathetic criminal, Brolin struggles to find humor in a role that requires him to be a sad sack.

All of this is forced by Macon Blair (Small Crimes), whose screenplay is as contrived as they come. It is as if the filmmakers want to put a spin on tokenism to show the juxtaposition that these leads are supposed to be twin brothers when they look nothing alike in an attempt to establish some sort of baseline comedy, which is a jaw-dropping miscalculation.

Most scenes are ludicrous, even for a comedy, and not in a good way. One of the few silver linings is a moment in which Dinklage’s Jady has an affair with a prison pen pal who has a pet orangutan that is so out of place it feels like it was lifted from a different movie. However, the characters are paper thin, not to mention the plot, as if a beloved cast playing grimy characters is worth your time or subscription.

There was a reason why a film like Brothers was not screened for critics. (For that matter, it’s mind-boggling that it was given a very limited theatrical release.) The film never had the backing to go beyond its trappings and plays it too safe. It makes you wonder why innovative storytellers like Barbakow and Blair waited so long to make a movie with so little appeal that follows the genre rule book step by step.

If they needed four years to make Brothers, by all means, let’s wait eight more for their next project.

You can stream Brothers exclusively on Prime Video on October 17th.

Grade: D+

Movie Review (NYFF 2024): ‘Caught by the Tides’ Manages to Achieve Originality With Familiar Material


Director: Jia Zhangke
Writers: Jia Zhangke and Jiahuan Wan
Stars: Zhao Tao, Li Zhubin

Synopsis: In early 2000s China, Qiao Qiao and Guao Bin share a passionate but fragile love. When Guao Bin disappears to try his luck in another province, Qiao Qiao decides to go looking for him.


Of the two films at this year’s New York Film Festival to follow a jilted lover as she travels from city to city in order to find the devious man who abandoned her without warning, Jia Zhangke’s Caught by the Tides is the one that manages to weave a narrative that remains as mesmerizing as it is unconventionally-masterful. The other picture in question, Miguel Gomes’ Cannes-award winning Grand Tour, is certainly a brilliant, compelling work in its own right, a genre-bending tale that fuses its 1917-set plot and modern documentary footage together, something Caught by the Tides does in a similar fashion. But there’s something to be said for the significance of Zhangke’s latest, a poetic triumph in illusory construction that, with less, achieves more than other films of a similar ilk, if those titles even exist.

Caught by the Tides' Review: Jia Zhang-ke's Melancholy Love Story

The conceit, insofar as there is one beyond the general idea of a woman searching for her missing mate, is much more about the magnitude of Zhangke’s career, as well as how his long-time muse and partner, Zhao Tao, has been a stalwart in his filmography. His latest is hardly the first time Tao has been the focal point in one of the director’s narratives. Yet what makes it the most fascinating role she’s ever taken on is that it is quite literally 20-plus years in the making. Consisting almost entirely of footage from the archive Zhangke has been curating throughout the various stages of his storied career, Caught by the Tides takes the Chinese master’s cutting-room floor material – most of which includes a wordless Tao, who began working with Zhangke in his 2000 film, Platform – and puts it to imaginative, remarkable use. 

As per usual with Zhangke’s films, Tides’ structure allows it to say more about China’s ever-transforming socioeconomic climate than any of his other films, a surprise considering how heavily that narrative element is deployed in practically everything he’s made. Whether it’s a story about the tender barrier that exists between youthful ignorance and eventual maturation – Platform, Unknown Pleasures, and Mountains May Depart – or a chronicle how lives can inexplicably become marred by random acts of violence and the persistence of the country’s implicit underworld politics – A Touch of Sin and Ash is Purest White – Zhangke has never been one to shy away from getting his most important message across: That he doesn’t recognize his home anymore, and that such a sensation only becomes more apparent in the years since he began his filmmaking career.

Caught by the Tides is no exception to that rule, instead serving as an assertion that it is as pertinent now as it was in the early 2000s. When the film’s electric soundtrack falls away to make room for natural sound or some occasional dialogue, we often hear radio and television newscasts reporting that the nation’s water level continues to rise around the Three Gorges Dam (a structure that not only decimated 13 cities and displaced the inhabitants in the process, but played a prominent role in Zhangke’s 2006 drama, Still Life). It would make for a far more poignant cog in Caught by the Tides  machine if not for our cognizance of how similar its beats are to those of Still Life, not to mention the fact that Tao is periodically seen wearing the same outfit in this film that she wore throughout the former. For those who are new to Zhangke’s work, these sections may play out more naturally, even if they are too slight to digest properly. As for how such choices will go over completists, wagers should be set on one of two responses: Frustration at obvious repetition, or nostalgic admiration for the connection the director still has to his earliest work all these years later, even if partial attribution should go to his love for Tao. 

Caught by the Tides' Review: Jia Puts Old Footage to Poetic New Use

That this film moves with Tao like the tide does the moon should be no surprise, then, considering the intimacy that Zhangke and Tao have developed over the course of their entwined careers and life together. Regardless of its familiar elements, those of which occasionally felt like Zhangke wasn’t sure where else to turn other than back in the direction from which he came, Caught by the Tides is all the more captivating a project considering how, while carving out its own narrative, it consciously (and fondly) looks back upon a master at work, something plenty of films tend to do with a heavier hand than they should ever deploy. Films like Neo Sora’s Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus, a documentary consisting of one last performance from the legendary Japanese composer, and Jean-Luc Godard’s Exposé du film annonce du film “Scenario,” a snapshot of Godard’s storyboarding process that played as part of the Spotlight section at this year’s New York Film Festival, are gentle exceptions. But in Caught by the Tides’ case, it feels fitting for Zhangke to remain behind the camera, charting his directorial escapades through something both familiar and wholly original. As Tao once said of working with Zhangke on Mountains May Depart, the evolution of their partnership has afforded her more freedom to fill in “blanks” where necessary. What better way to celebrate the magic of cinema, not to mention a love born from it, than to take what couldn’t fill those old blanks and make something beautiful and new from their contents?

Caught by the Tides will be released in theaters by Sideshow and Janus Films on an unspecified date “in the coming months,” per Variety.

Grade: B+

Podcast Review: Woman of the Hour

On this episode, JD and Brendan are joined by Megan Kearns of Spoilerpiece Theater to discuss Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut Woman of the Hour! We love Kendrick as an actress, but the idea of her moving behind the camera very much piqued our interest. The buzz coming out of TIFF last yea was quite positive, and yet there’s an argument that the early reactions undersold just how good it is.

Review: Woman of the Hour (4:00)
Director: Anna Kendrick
Writer: Ian McDonald
Stars: Anna Kendrick, Daniel Zovatto, Nicolette Robinson, Tony Hale

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InSession Film Podcast – Woman of the Hour

Movie Review: ‘Exhibiting Forgiveness’ is Intimate, Raw, and Hopeful


Director: Titus Khapar
Writer: Titus Khapar
Stars: André Holland, Andra Day, John Earl Jelks

Synopsis: A Black artist on the path to success is derailed by an unexpected visit from his estranged father, a recovering addict desperate to reconcile. Together, they struggle and learn that forgetting might be a greater challenge than forgiving.


“I did you like my Daddy did me.” -La’Ron Rodin

Artist/filmmaker Titus Khapar’s debut feature Exhibiting Forgiveness asks why we forgive those in our lives who have caused us harm and reverberating trauma. Titus Khapar lands on the answer that we often don’t do it for the perpetrator, but for the sake of closing a chapter so we can move on. Exhibiting Forgiveness is a complex and layered piece of cinema that points to how religion in Black communities can both hurt and heal and highlights how the search for forgiveness requires more than a partial apology to be authentic.

Exhibiting Forgiveness' Review: André Holland in Titus Kaphar's Debut

André Holland, in a genuinely astonishing performance, plays  Tarrell Rodin a successful visual artist living with his singer songwriter wife Aisha (Andra Day) and his young son Jermaine (Daniel Berrier). Tarrell is a gentle husband, as well as an involved and loving father. He lives hours away from his hardscrabble life in poverty-stricken New Jersey where he was brought up. Tarrell might have escaped the physical reality of his childhood with his abusive drug addicted father La’Ron (John Earl Jelks) but the psychological scars are ever present in his nightmares and form the basis of much of his art. Tarrell struggles with exorcising the ghosts of his past. The final link he feels he can break is to bring his mother Joyce (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) close to his family and out of New Jersey, “because sons look after their mothers”. To do this, he has to return to the neighborhood where he was raised – a space which is both figuratively and literally filled with La’Ron as he turns up at Joyce’s invitation hoping to forge a renewed connection with his son and his grandchild (who he has never met).

La’Ron is recently clean after years of crack and alcohol abuse. He has “rediscovered” the Bible and promises Tarrell he’s a different man. Joyce is pushing hard for reconciliation, but Tarrell refuses to countenance La’Ron’s presence or hear him out. It isn’t until his stepbrother Quentin (Matthew Elam) tells him that Tarrell needs to do it for Joyce’s sake not for La’Ron’s that he agrees to spend time with him.

Tarrell films La’Ron as he “interviews” him about what brought him to the point of addiction and what he thinks justifies being let into Tarrell or Joyce’s life again. La’Ron was the son of an unhinged preacher who used violence on his own family and justified it as Godliness. After telling Tarrell an horrific story of his grandfather holding a gun to his grandmother’s head when La’Ron brought Tarrell and Joyce to visit him just after he was born, he ends it with saying “He was a good man.” Tarrell rejects La’Ron’s interpretation of “good” because no “good” man would beat his wife or son in the name of the Bible or for any other reason. “He taught me about hard work, I taught you about hard work. And look at you. You’re a success,” is essentially La’Ron’s justification. When Tarrell rejects La’Ron’s self-serving re-writing of the narrative, La’Ron loses his temper and throws a cup at the wall. “There’s the man I know,” Tarrell says, and he leaves.

Tarrell is burdened by such fierce resentment and justified anger at the PTSD his upbringing has wrought upon him that he can’t understand why Joyce wants him to forgive La’Ron so much. Khapar, uses a flashback technique and Tarrell’s paintings (which are Khapar’s paintings) to illustrate La’Ron’s monstrousness as a father caught in addiction. La’Ron was pitiless with both Tarrell and Joyce – his only focus being the next score and working Tarrell and himself to the bone to get it. Tarrell misses that perhaps why Joyce needs him to forgive La’Ron is so in part he will forgive her for not leaving him sooner, and so he will learn that he must practice forgiveness to be good with God.

Tarrell’s mental state begins to spiral further as he loses his touchstones and the only person who remains consistently around him is La’Ron. As patient as she has been with Tarrell’s broken psyche, Aisha tells him he must find a way to get his act together because he’s beginning to frighten Jermaine with the intensity of his panic attacks and how they manifest as blind violence (Tarrell punches holes in walls). If Tarrell doesn’t face up to the damage done, he is bound to repeat it no matter how hard he consciously represses his anger.

Tarrell’s child self played by Ian Foreman places him back into the past by wheeling his paintings in front of the houses in Orange New Jersey like a magical portal into a foundational hell. Although the device can be read as a little self-indulgent it is important to remember that Titus Khapar is a visual artist who has used his art and specifically erasing figures in his work to investigate how the white gaze has cut Black people out of history. Ian Foreman’s Tarrell tells the adult Tarrell not to go back inside the house on Gordon Street, but Tarrell has never left it.

Exhibiting Forgiveness' Review: A Fraught Reunion - The New York Times

Titus Khapar also points out how the personal and political artwork of Black artists and POC artists is still reliant on the “gaze” and patronage of rich white people. His agent Janine (Jamie Ray Newman) positively drools over the paintings he has been creating at the beginning of the film thinking in dollar signs. She’s forcing him back into a new exhibition mere weeks after the last. Tarrell doesn’t get time to ‘be’ after major upheavals in his personal life. Like La’Ron, Tarrell has learned that he must be an exemplary worker in front of White people to be considered of value.

Exhibiting Forgiveness stumbles a little in the dialogue with some of it coming across as cliché – but it doesn’t stumble in its intention or the acting. André Holland gives a towering performance and clearly learned the fundamentals of drawing and painting so the brushstrokes he places on canvas seamlessly blend with Khapar’s style. Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor rarely misses as a performer, and in Exhibiting Forgiveness her Joyce is both resilient and ashamed. What holds it all together is John Earl Jelks as the pitiless, pitiful, and self-pitying La’Ron. The interactions he has with Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Ian Foreman, and André Holland are electric. He may be clean, but he will never come clean about what he did.

Andra Day as Aisha gets to once again display her sublime talent as a vocalist with Aisha recording the song “Bricks” which forms the thematic foundation for Exhibiting Forgiveness. Written by Jherek Bischoff and Cassandra Battie and performed by Day, the song is a poetic summary of the struggle Tarrell is going through and the one Joyce and Aisha have acted as support networks for. The often-unacknowledged burden of Black women unknotting the destructive behavior of Black men.

Exhibiting Forgiveness is about finding a way forward by acknowledging the harm of the past and understanding the context out of which it grew. Tarrell says to his father, “You took the past and I forgive you. But the future, that’s mine.” Tarrell doesn’t forgive La’Ron because he fundamentally deserves to be forgiven, he doesn’t – he forgives him so he can stop the pernicious loop of damage and put an end to the fear that he will become the worst of La’Ron.

Exhibiting Forgiveness is intimate, raw, and hopeful. Tarrell takes control of his story and his art. Titus Khapar does indeed shift the gaze by honoring the work Black men and women do to acknowledge the past and its hold upon them and move forward into a future of their own making.

Grade: A-

Movie Review (Festival du Nouveau Cinéma 2024): ‘The Second Act’ Shows Human-Made Cinema is Worth Saving


Director: Quentin Dupieux
Writer: Quentin Dupieux
Stars: Léa Seydoux, Vincent Lindon, Louis Garrel

Synopsis: Florence wants to introduce David, the man she’s madly in love with, to her father. But David isn’t attracted to her and wants to throw her into the arms of his friend Willy. The characters meet in a restaurant in the middle of nowhere.


Quentin Dupieux is not a serious filmmaker. His films should not be taken seriously. They should instead be approached ironically, knowing that he doesn’t really want to say anything beyond flipping off the audience for wasting their precious time with him at every turn. Yet, many film critics unfamiliar with his work insist that there’s a deeper meaning behind his provocation or surface-level humor, partly explaining why The Second Act is one of his worst-reviewed movies. They think Dupieux is trying to say something about cinema’s (doomed) future in an era where streaming services (ergo, the Netflix logo appearing at the top of this) and artificial intelligence attempt to kill art as we know it. 

Tout ce qu'il faut savoir sur « Le Deuxième Acte » de Quentin Dupieux, qui  ouvre le Festival de Cannes - Elle

But he doesn’t have anything to say, and he knows it. In fact, he has repeated on multiple occasions that his films “don’t have any messages except to relax you and make you feel good. It’s like a calming bath, with a little bit of acid in it, to distract you from this distressing world we live in.” Once you know this inextricable fact from Dupieux’s body of work, one begins to approach The Second Act as a meaningless distracting affair that will culminate in nothing and is designed to make the audience pissed off at the lengths Dupieux takes to upset people. It’s all paradoxical, and if you’re trying to extract some form of sense into this work, you’re not only missing the point entirely but going to have a terrible time with it. I saw many reviews where the throughline was, “He’s trying to say something but isn’t saying anything.” Exactly. He’s not saying anything. You’re just the butt of the joke! 

But I can see why people may think Dupieux is saying something. In the first degree, the movie is absolutely designed to make you vehemently angry, with glib jokes that poke fun at everything and everyone, which include reactionary boomers who have a narrow-minded viewpoint of the world (in this case, homosexuality) and far-left activists who have to be careful in using the right words to not offend anyone. In fact, this is how the movie starts: with an almost unbroken 20-minute-long dolly shot of David (Louis Garrel) and Willy (Raphaël Quenard, always incredible with Dupieux) walking towards a café named The Second Act to meet Florence (Léa Seydoux) and her father, Guillaume (Vincent Lindon). 

In this very long scene where the two walk (and walk ad infinitum, a classic joke from Dupieux), one is more attuned to the times, while the other isn’t afraid of making deeply transphobic remarks if Florence ends up being so. But he corrects himself once he realizes people are (literally and figuratively) watching by looking at us and apologizing. It’s probably the only time that Dupieux has ever apologized to us, and it immediately jolts our attention that he has broken (once again) the fourth wall. It seems he wants to ensure no one gets offended until we realize the two are shooting a film and playing fictitious characters. 

Just like his last project, Daaaaaali!, was one long dream within a dream (within a dream within a dream), The Second Act is one massive metatextual film that’s never fully clear when it is the fake movie (apart from a Georges Delerue-esque score that punctuates moments of intense drama whenever the characters are in the fake movie’s diegesis), and when the movie on the making of the movie kicks into gear, only to reveal that it’s also part of the movie, and so on and so forth. He has no set rules in his movies, and one has to suspend their disbelief at every turn to know that he will break any convention he possibly can to make this experience feel somewhat discombobulating for the viewer. 

But that’s part of the fun of watching a movie like this. You eventually surrender to its unconventional narrative trappings because each actor goes from one ironic undertone to another. The most impressive of the bunch is Lindon, who breaks the fake movie’s diegesis just as the plot is starting to be set in motion and prompts another 20-minute-long dolly walk, this time with Florence (we eventually see how Dupieux pulled both sequences off with a bravura final shot that should give Jean-Luc Godard’s voiceover opening credits of Le Mépris a run for its money). It’s there that most should realize this film isn’t going anywhere, but they eventually make their way to the café, where a nervous waiter, Stéphane (Manuel Guillot), can’t pour wine without violently shaking his hands. The movie is now in total shambles because he has to practice doing it right before they can shoot again, which culminates with Dupieux’s sickest punchline in years (that he eventually repeats at the end, further hammering home that his films always swerve around in circles with no exceptions). 

Of course, Dupieux is an acquired taste. If you don’t vibe with any of his previous films, chances are The Second Act won’t do much for you. But the thrill of watching his movies is seeing respectable actors, such as Benoît Poelvoorde, Alain Chabat, Jean Dujardin, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Anaïs Demoustier, and Gilles Lellouche, among others, perform in ways you’ve never seen them on screen before. And it seems unreal that he would ever work with Léa Seydoux, Vincent Lindon, and Louis Garrel, three of France’s biggest stars, with legitimate global reach (Dujardin won an Oscar for The Artist but hasn’t a presence in other markets than France as strongly as Garrel and Seydoux). 

That’s why it feels miraculous to see them in this movie and deliver some of the best work of their careers. Garrel, in particular, an actor who is usually restrained in his emotional composure and intonations (see, for example, Martin Bourboulon’s The Three Musketeers diptych), now goes all in on Dupieux’s proposition and delivers a farcical turn that’s both unflinchingly hilarious and deeply sincere. Lindon has already tapped deep into his vulnerabilities throughout his career, most recently in Julia Ducournau’s Titane. Now, he just wants to let loose (a little bit) and have fun. He’s in perfect synchronicity with Quenard’s always ironic tone, leading into some of the film’s funniest  – and most surprising – laughs. 

Of course, with any Dupieux film, the highs of its gonzo comedy can often be brought down by scenes that go on for far too long, which he tends to do, even if his movies have never exceeded 95 minutes. You could feel this exhaustion near its conclusion, which seems par for the course for such a cyclical movie. But he smartly understands that it’s getting a bit long, leading him to wrap the movie in an experimental fashion that boldly asks filmmakers to leap more primal techniques as cinema becomes more expensive and is now (as in the case of the fake movie Dupieux showcases) led by artificial intelligence. It’s the only image in The Second Act from which you can extract meaning because Dupieux urges all of us to think about how a human can move a camera so it can be employed to its fullest potential. 

Artificial intelligence does not have the power to do what Dupieux does here, nor does it have the knowledge to create a human movie with characters steeped in reality and, above all else, emotion. The soul of The Second Act’s final shot is staggering. It’s an almost rallying cry against the trappings of A.I. that will never create something as meaningful as the mile-long track to pull off four impressive dollies that are always in different variations (medium shots, close-ups, extreme close-ups, long shots, you name it). 

A.I. may take away many things in cinema and kill the artform in ways that the doomers might have predicted long ago, especially if studio executives put their anti-art plans in motion. However, it will never remove a human’s desire for creativity, especially if they have ideas they want to see realized on screen. Human beings have an innate desire to create to survive, whether in the arts or in life. Without human-born creativity, we’re as good as dead. As a result, the final shot of The Second Act is a potent reminder of this fact, and it’s up to us to resist this affront to imagination and emotion by supporting human-made creativity, such as, among others, the trolls of Quentin Dupieux. 

LE DEUXIÈME ACTE Bande Annonce (2024) Nouvelle, Louis Garrel, Vincent Lindon

Of course, this film isn’t much of a jab at the audience as Daaaaaali!, only because he eventually reveals a vulnerable side of himself and tells us that the thing he loves doing the most may not be worth it anymore if it goes in the direction it’s heading. Like the Titanic hitting an iceberg (an apt metaphor used countless times in this film), the movie industry is close to hitting it straight ahead and killing itself for the worse, potentially damaging in ways that should’ve never been teased in the first place (for example, the use of digital necromancy or generative A.I. used to create opening credits sequences). 

It may not happen as quickly as some have stated, but it will occur if they do not reverse course now. As such, a change is in order, and Dupieux may be among the few filmmakers to instill it. Ironically, sure, but flipping off the audience in every movie could prove more effective than the audience thinks it is because they automatically attempt to reject it. However, by resisting, they, too, are conditioned to look away at robot-made garbage and call it out as the anti-art piece of hubris it is. 

I was wrong when I initially said that you could not extract meaning from Quentin Dupieux’s films. I should have said most of his films because The Second Act’s final image represents, in a simple gesture, why human-made cinema is worth saving by people who care so deeply about an art form that’s sadly in shambles. By doing this, Dupieux instills a warning to everyone: never accept machine-driven work. Always support human-made art. One path will ensure the perennity of cinema, while the other will destroy it. Which one will you take?

Grade: A