Director: Michael Head
Writers: Colin Broderick, Mark McCausland
Stars: Tara Lynne O’Neill, Brenock O’Connor, Owen Colgan

Synopsis: Two music-loving but unlikely friends have two days to travel the length of Ireland to save their record store from closure. For one of them, not having a car is just one of the problems.

There’s a particular kind of film that doesn’t so much demand your attention as invite you to hop in the passenger seat. The Spin, directed by Michael Head, is exactly that sort of ride; a scruffy, warm-hearted Irish road trip comedy that knows the journey matters far more than the destination. Screening as part of Tull Stories’ Joy of Cinema strand and landing in UK and Irish cinemas from 27th February, it’s a modest film with modest ambitions, and, refreshingly, no shame about either. 

Set in Omagh, Northern Ireland, the story follows Dermot (Brenock O’Connor) and Elvis (Owen Colgan), two devoted music obsessives clinging to their struggling record shop like it’s the last vinyl pressing in existence. The shop is behind on rent, their landlord, Sadie (Tara Lynne O’Neill), is circling with sharp impatience, and the future looks as bleak as the moors. Then comes the miracle: a tip-off about rare Robert Johnson records for sale in Cork at a suspiciously low price. Salvation, it seems, lies at the other end of Ireland. They’ve just got to get there in time.

The set-up is classic buddy-movie territory. Two underdogs, a ticking clock, and a rusty blue car that’s seen better decades. But what gives The Spin its personality is its distinctly Irish rhythm. The humor is conversational, observational, and often delightfully daft.

Brenock O’Connor and Owen Colgan’s chemistry is undeniable. Like two old friends who’ve known each other for years, their performances are some of the more genuine I’ve seen in years. Tara Lynne O’Neill’s Sadie is a particular highlight: less pantomime villain than pragmatic operator, she injects just enough bite to keep the stakes from dissolving entirely into whimsy. The script is filled with ridiculous conversations, such as how much a horse costs, and with the Irish accents, the jokes roll off the tongue effortlessly. 

On their journey, the film opts for the scenic route. There’s a handy little map that helps time and distance pass for audiences who might not know how far they’re having to travel. There are plenty of shots of the beautiful, and damp looking, Irish countryside. Along the way, the duo encounter a smattering of locals and cameos, including Kimberley Wyatt and Maura Higgins in her feature debut, as well as blink-and-you’ll-miss-them appearances from Irish music stalwarts Barry Devlin and Steve Wickham. These moments add texture, but feel more like affectionate nods than fully integrated plot beats. But we do have to give a shoutout to some of the secondary characters who add so much fun and flare, especially the gentleman with the fox called Peter. His accent is very strong so subtitles might be needed.

The film’s strongest asset is its soundtrack. Based on a semi-autobiographical short story by Mark McCausland, who also provides the folk-inflected score, the music gives The Spin a soulful undercurrent. 

Still, The Spin isn’t without its rough edges. The pacing can drift, particularly in the middle act. The stakes, while clear on paper, rarely feel truly perilous. Viewers expecting high-concept twists or sharp narrative turns may find the film’s gentleness bordering on inertia.

Yet there’s a quiet confidence in that restraint. Director Michael Head has described the film as a “feel-good buddy movie that doesn’t take itself too seriously,” and that self-awareness proves its saving grace. The Spin isn’t trying to reinvent the road movie or dissect economic precarity with forensic depth. It simply wants to offer audiences a warm, communal laugh and perhaps a renewed appreciation for the simple pleasures in life.There’s something disarmingly charming about a film content to be small, funny, and heartfelt. The Spin may not change cinema, but it understands the simple magic of sitting in a darkened room with strangers, sharing a story that hums along like a favourite track on an old record player. This is the type of cinema audiences are screaming for – a complete breath of fresh air. With a heartfelt ending, this lovely little film makes for fun, easy viewing.

Grade: B+

Director: John Patton Ford
Writers: John Patton Ford
Stars: Glen Powell, Margaret Qualley, Jessica Henwick

Synopsis: Disowned at birth by his obscenely wealthy family, blue-collar Becket Redfellow will stop at nothing to reclaim his inheritance, no matter how many relatives stand in his way.

It’s hard to pinpoint just what is wrong with the new A24 film How to Make a Killing. The movie boasts an A-list cast, led by what was once supposed to be a megastar in waiting, but who has now delivered two box-office clunkers in a row, a potential star falling back to earth. Frankly, any time I see Glen Powell on screen now, I feel like I have to make a wish. However, at least Powell takes chances in a film that doesn’t know what to do with its wickedly delicious premise.

How to Make a Killing has its moments, but by the time the third act arrives, the execution fumbles and rushes, and the culmination comes across as a film without guts, especially for one with a money-first worldview. The ending never crescendos; instead, it offers a broad overview that panders to audience expectations. That is a strange choice for a studio that cut its teeth on bold, unconventional storytelling.

The Glen Powell vehicle builds toward total chaos and moral decay, only to refuse to enforce consequences and take the easy way out.

The story of How to Make a Killing is as old as time when it comes to Hollywood clichés. The film follows Becket Redfellow (The Running Man’s Glen Powell), a young man who was disowned by his family after his young mother, Mary (Blinded by the Light’s Nell Williams), chose not to have an abortion when her lover ostracized her in an attempt to get rid of the unwanted family scion.

However, not a day goes by that his mom doesn’t tell him stories of his blue-blood lineage to her blue-collar son. Mary made Becket promise to strive for the life he deserves. Unfortunately, Redfellow, shallow pockets and all, takes that too literally, wanting to make sure the heirs of today are gone tomorrow. Becket decides to kill the remaining seven heirs to the $28 billion fortune.

Things begin to get complicated, Byzantine indeed, especially when Ruth (The Royal Hotel’s Jessica Henwick), the girlfriend of one of Becket’s estranged, now-dead cousins, enters the picture. Also throwing her hat into the ring is Redfellow-lite’s best friend, Julia Steinway (Blue Moon’s Margaret Qualley), who wants to be an ivory opportunist and key conspirator in Becket’s plans.

Loosely based on Kind Hearts and Coronets, How to Make a Killing is from John Patton Ford, a critical darling after his feature film debut with Emily the Criminal. His sophomore slump lacks conviction, treating greed as a moral test rather than a behavior that cannot change. This is the moral of the story, something that cannot be turned on and off with ease. Instead, we have a script that rips off several movies as if this were a clean-out-the-fridge meal. 

Powell’s Becket is essentially Patrick Bateman, in a film without the sharp American satire the first act promises. Qualley’s character is a cliché we have seen thousands of times before: a childhood friend returning for that long-awaited, delayed reckoning. Where is the capitalistic pig,  cutthroat cannibalism we have come to know and love in films like Swimming with the Sharks, Glengarry Glen Ross, or even the recent Triangle of Sadness?

You know what I mean, where even a small taste of greed can send the most ethical person into a Wall Street tailspin? I can almost picture Alec Baldwin storming into John Patton Ford’s office, barking about closing, demanding a brass set from a Newton’s cradle as proof of consequence. To make matters worse, the actual murders are uninspired and lack cleverness, failing to push the envelope and matching the bland themes and subtext of Ford’s script.

If, for the love of money, is the root of all evil, especially in the times we live in, the pandering ending to How to Make a Killing is the coward’s way out. 

You can watch How to Make a Killing in theaters starting February 20th!

Grade: C-

Director: Gavin Polone
Writer: Andrew Kevin Walker
Stars: Georgina Campbell, James Preston Rogers, Malcolm McDowell

Synopsis:  A police officer tracks a killer after her husband, a highway patrolman, becomes one of his victims.

Andrew Kevin Walker is a screenwriter well known among cinephiles. His writing perfectly complemented David Fincher’s ambition for Se7en. His new screenplay, Psycho Killer, attempts to recapture the eerie serial killer magic of Walker’s golden years. The ingredients are certainly present. The film has a killer who keeps his face in the shadows. Visually, everything feels BDSM-inspired because Satanists are required to love leather for some reason. And of course, the soundtrack has an industrial kick, with opening credits featuring scribble fonts and grainy textures. The nostalgia should work, but it instead feels like an unintentional parody of a mid-’90s horror/thriller.

Directed by Gavin Polone from a screenplay by Walker, the film centers on a highway patrol officer named Jane Archer (Georgina Campbell). In our first introduction to Jane, we see her husband murdered by a mysterious, long-haired gentleman in a black car. The setup is shot beautifully, with the camera remaining fixed on the reflection of the psycho’s sunglasses. Then the first red flag reveals itself. The mysterious gentleman speaks, and the voice has been ADR-ed to make the character sound cartoonishly menacing. It’s like someone in the production watched  Nathan Explosion from Metalocalypse and thought, “This is the way.”

Following her husband’s death, Jane learns that the man responsible is a serial killer called the Satanic Slasher (James Preston Rogers)—a vicious serial killer who has been leaving a trail of carved-up corpses across multiple states. Unlike Se7en, the latest film from Walker does not shy away from having extensive sequences with the Psycho Killer himself. We spend long moments with the long-haired maniac as he brutalizes victims, scopes the classifieds for other satanists, and sleeps in hotel closets. His ability to hibernate in hotel closets is another head-scratcher, given Rogers’s towering stature at six feet five inches. It shows him curling up in a closet with a gun, which seems impossible since most motel/hotel closets are limited in space. 

The design of the Satan Slasher is incredibly on the nose and lacks nuance. He embodies Maynard James Keenan of Tool, but lacks the rockstar charisma. The overall execution reads like a collection of checkboxes for a mass murderer, such as they must wear black, have hair like Rob Zombie or Alice Cooper, and everything must feel “Metal.” For instance, one sequence sees the Satanic Slasher enter a Catholic Church to give confession, only for the conversation to end with him stabbing the priest in the neck with a giant metal straw and drinking the blood of the priest. The execution should be tense in moments like this, but instead, it accidentally feels like a movie making fun of the genre.

Se7en worked because the screenplay understood the simplicity of John Doe. He was a psychopath who could easily blend into the background because nothing about his presence screams dangerous. The 1995 film brilliantly commented on the expectations of evil as Morgan Freeman’s character, Detective Somerset, explains, regardless of the extremity of his crimes, “He is still just a man.” With Psycho Killer, the movie feels like Walker never escaped the 1994 timeline. One can almost picture Psycho Killer as the screenplay he wrote before Se7en, while sitting in his office listening to “The Downward Spiral” by Nine Inch Nails on repeat. The film desperately wants to relive the industrial rock era of cinema, when bad guys wore leather and rocked out to Stabbing Westward. Movies like Spawn, for example, borrowed heavily from this example. Admittedly, there is something terrifyingly pleasurable about the industrial rock aesthetic of ’90s thrillers. But the visual nature of movies like Se7en was never the draw; it was the exceptional character work and story. And for the most part, the film is completely absent from character development.

Psycho Killer is not a complete disaster. For about ten minutes, the film loosens up and embraces its own absurdity. The Satanic Slasher tracks down a wealthy Satanist through the classifieds. It’s here that we meet Mr. Pendleton, played by the incredible presence of Malcolm McDowell. The sequence has elements of world-building akin to John Wick, hinting at an underworld of ritualistic devil worshippers. The humor is played up because the Satanic Slasher is too weird for even them. However, the sequence is short-lived and follows a massacre, bathed in a distracting amount of CGI blood.

By the time the film concludes, it reveals a major plot twist that raises more questions than it answers. We are given the reasons the Satan Slasher has been on a bloodbath, and the reveal is devoid of emotion. We should feel a sense of emotional dread for Jane and those who may be affected by his master plan, yet we do not. And once the whole climax unfolds, we are offered a tease for a sequel that no one will rightfully beg for. At the end of the day, the film’s quality shouldn’t be surprising. Psycho Killer has been in development hell for years, and at one point, Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit was attached to direct. Even so, the idea that Andrew Kevin Walker wrote this screenplay is baffling.

Grade: D

Director: Werner Herzog
Writer: Werner Herzog

Synopsis: Follows a mysterious herd of ghost elephants in the jungles of Angola.

Werner Herzog is a filmmaker whose voice recalibrates how we look at the natural world. With Ghost Elephants, a lyrical and searching documentary presented by National Geographic Documentary Films, Herzog returns to familiar thematic terrain: obsession, endurance, and humanity’s uneasy relationship with nature. Yet here, in the mist-heavy forests of Angola, his gaze feels unusually tender, attuned not just to the grandeur of the quest but to the fragility of what may already be slipping away.

The film follows conservation biologist and National Geographic Explorer Steve Boyes as he attempts to prove the existence of the so-called “ghost elephants of Lisima”. Rumored survivors, possibly descendants of the largest land mammals ever recorded, are believed to exist only in legend. It’s a premise that fits neatly into Herzog’s long-standing fascination with myths that refuse to die and with humans being compelled to chase them, regardless of the cost. Ghost Elephants teaches its audience how to listen, how to move slowly, and how to trust knowledge systems long dismissed by Western science.

In the one hour and thirty-eight minute runtime, Boyes is joined by fellow National Geographic Explorer Kerllen Costa, and quickly learns that satellites, drones, and data sets are no match for the lived expertise of the KhoiSan master trackers, Xui, Xui Dawid, and Kobus. Their ancestral knowledge forms the film’s quiet backbone. And their tracking skills are incredibly fascinating and inspiring to watch. 

Herzog’s narration reflects on survival, extinction, and the human impulse. His voice is like that of an old university lecturer; someone with so much wisdom you trust and so you hang on every word. He guides audiences through this documentary almost as if he’s holding your hand. 

Visually, Ghost Elephants is striking without being showy. There are some beautiful underwater shots of elephants swimming against orchestral music. The Angolan highlands are captured in muted greens and silvers, their beauty inseparable from their opacity. The bushmen in the desert allow intimate close-ups of their rituals and dancing by the fire under the moon; it’s magical and mesmerizing. Long stretches of landscape unfold, reinforcing the idea that absence, too, is a form of evidence. When traces of the elephants do appear, they are fleeting and ambiguous, resisting the definitive proof that conventional documentaries often demand. There’s supporting evidence in the form of videos, old newspaper articles, and drawings, when discussing the media and how elephants have been treated throughout history, especially hunted for sport. 

There’s an incredibly sad section discussing poaching, game hunting, and even filming, and you’ll want more hope for the future of all animals being destroyed by humans. You’ll want more justice and change. But don’t worry, there’s not a lot of distressing footage used, and it’s not long, so don’t let this put you off watching. 

The documentary is very informative with easy-to-understand language and supporting images. The Smithsonian allowed the film to see elephant tusks up close and personal. Getting a look into these archives feels very special – being privy to something you shouldn’t. Toward the end, we get a glimpse into DNA and how data is used/going to be used in the future. They compare the Ghost elephant’s DNA with that of other species of elephants. 

If the film has a limitation, it’s its smoothing over the harsher political realities of conservation in post-colonial landscapes. The presence of Indigenous knowledge is celebrated, but its ongoing marginalization is only lightly interrogated. Viewers expecting a dramatic reveal might feel frustrated. Audiences will have to be willing to dwell in the unresolved, to accept that some truths exist beyond the reach of cameras and confirmation. 

Ultimately, Ghost Elephants is less a documentary about finding animals than about recovering ways of seeing. It asks whether reconnection with land, with history, with each other, is still possible in a world that prefers a fast pace and instant gratification to patience. Like the elephants it seeks, the film moves quietly, giving you time to absorb the information and learn something. The love and respect for nature, especially elephants, is heartwarming and inspiring. This is a gentle documentary, one for those interested in animals, nature, and adventure.

Grade: B+

Director: Yuen Woo-ping
Writers: Tai-Lee Chan, Chao-bin Su, Larry Yang
Stars: Jing Wu, Nicholas Tse, Jet Li

Synopsis: Dao Ma, the “second most wanted fugitive,” who is entrusted by his benefactor, the chief of Mo family clan, to take on a mysterious escort mission-escorting the “most wanted fugitive,” to Chang’an.

Yuen Woo-ping’s Blades of the Guardians might have set a record for the times I said, “Hell yeah!” during the course of a film. While that accomplishment is certainly not the lone merit the film enjoys, it stands as an excellent entry in the wuxia subgenre of martial arts films.

Despite being 80 years old, director Yuen proves he still has what it takes to deliver action spectacle, even under today’s action-movie standards. Blessed with his years of personal experience, a more than capable cast of actors, and the affording of a big-budget, Yuen delivers an action film to rival his multitude of classics in the genre.

Even with all that action adventure, there needs to be a semblance of plot, which Blades of the Guardians has in spades. Bounty hunter Dao Ma (Wu Jing) spends his days bringing in wanted bandits alongside his young nephew, Xiao Qi (Charles Ju). Dao Ma’s benefactor, Lao Mo (Tony Leung Ka-fai), asks him to escort the most wanted fugitive, Zhi Shilang (Sun Yizhou), to safety across the desert.

Joining Dao Ma is Lao Mo’s daughter, Ayuya (Chen Lijun), who has recently broken off her engagement to a powerful family leader, Xeyi Xuan (CiSha). As they flee, the group runs into the mysterious swordsman Shu (Yosh Yu), who is bringing in the sultry Yan Zuniang (Li Yunxiao). As political lines shift, one of Dao Ma’s former compatriots, Di Ting (Nicholas Tse), throws his hat in the ring in order to get their hands on Zhi Shilang.

All of that doesn’t really matter. It’s just a means to an end in order to get everyone fighting. And boy, do they ever fight. Gone are the shaky cam fights of the early 2000s. Instead of the gravity-defying acrobats of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (also choreographed by Yuen), we are treated to down and dirty martial arts with little suspension of disbelief. On the whole, these fights seem feasible in reality. At one point, Jet Li shows up as an evil regional governor just to have an excellent fight scene, and then goes away. And that’s in the first 20 minutes! If you can dispense with Jet Li after 20 minutes and still have another 100 minutes to go, you know you have something special on your hands.

Yuen utilizes the underseen parts of the Chinese landscape to give his film (and fight scenes) texture and substance. In a scene seemingly inspired by Mad Max: Fury Road, the group attempts to escape into a sandstorm to evade a caravan of pursuers. Dao Ma and Di Ting have an epic sword and martial arts fight as the sand whips around them and dust devils take the characters off their feet. It’s a perfectly crafted scene of imagination and innovation. Obviously filled with a mix of practical and visual effects, each progressive scene looks incredible and feels that much more impressive.

There is too much plot, and the various factions and former battalions blend together, but that doesn’t matter when you have the world’s coolest decapitation scene. It doesn’t matter if the audience is confused on the character allegiances…did you see the sword fight with oil and fire? Yuen has made a career of filling the frame with well-versed and easy-to-follow action sequences. Why did he decide to bog down the film with excess plot? Who cares? Look at that lady shoot arrows on horseback!

That action wouldn’t work if there weren’t charismatic actors doing the work. Wu, in particular, maintains a stoic heroism essential to the film’s success. Yu shows up as what seems to be a secondary character, to eventually emerge as the co-lead. Lijun might do the most impressive work as a righteously avenging angel of beauty and capability, while Li and Leung get the most weighty of scenes. All actors are very impressive physically and non-physically.Blades of the Guardians is just too freaking cool. Don’t get too worried about the plot mechanisms, you’ll catch up eventually. Just sit back and take in the first-class martial arts action adventure.

Grade: B+

Director: Matt Johnson
Writers: Matt Johnson, Jay McCarrol, Jared Raab
Stars: Matt Johnson, Jay McCarrol, Ben Petrie

Synopsis: When their plan to book a show at the Rivoli goes horribly wrong, Matt and Jay accidentally travel back to the year 2008.

17 years ago, two friends Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol had a singular dream: to start a band and play the Rivoli, a prominent bar and restaurant space in Toronto that would catapult them to the top. “Nirvanna the Band” would constantly try to make this dream come true, with all manner of absurd schemes and ideas put into play, though all of them were to no avail. Despite their trials and tribulations however, Matt and Jay stayed the best of friends, and kept things afloat no matter what. “Nirvanna the Band the Show” is a treasured cult show for many in Canada, being a love letter to the country and Toronto itself, as well as a fun and bizarre collection of adventures that never seemed to work out entirely for Matt and Jay.

Years after the series, the two friends make one more play to feature at the Rivoli with Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie. The plot is simple: now in 2025, Matt is still certain that he and Jay can potentially pull off this feat, and while Jay is still tagging along for the ride, he wonders if all this is worth it, or if they should just move on with their lives. In an attempt to get it right once and for all, Matt comes up with one final plan: to convert their RV into a time machine and going back to 2008, the year they first decided to play at the Rivoli, and change things so that life works out in their favor and they get the musical careers they had always wished for. However, as time travel usually works, once they make it back to Toronto 2008, things begin to go horribly wrong and change the future for the worse.

Much of Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie is a sequence of events that will make you wonder “how did they do that?” every 5-10 minutes of its 1 hour, 40 minute runtime, as the shenanigans and stunts become increasingly more bizarre and unbelievable. Johnson and McCarrol waste no time getting to it, opening the movie with a plan to skydive from the CN Tower into Rogers Stadium to announce they will be playing at the Rivoli. Much to the shock of the viewer, they do in fact go the extra mile and then some to make that plan come to life, and it is an astonishing feat of physical comedy and stuntwork, and that stunt is just a taste of what is to come. It had to be a logistical and legal nightmare for them to pull some of this stuff off, especially when the movie directly begins homaging Back to the Future and brings in very direct references and even Alan Silvestri’s musical cues to bring the journey to life. It is a testament to the duo, then, that Nirvanna is as real and tangible as it is. The result is one of the funniest movies of the year, and one of the wildest.

Johnson’s attention to detail and slick direction is on full display here, even when portraying 2008 in the most accurate way imaginable, with ads for The Dark Knight and Grand Theft Auto IV looming over them, loud screenings of The Hangover, using camcorders from the time to reflect the show’s original visual style, switching aspect ratios from 1.85:1 to 1.43:1, connecting moments from the original web series into the newly filmed footage seamlessly. Where this attention to detail is most effective, however, is in showcasing Toronto and its various landmarks. Nirvanna is unapologetically Canadian in every facet, being a love letter to Canada and its culture, with tons of in-jokes and references to nostalgic advertisements, celebrity situations, real events that made the news, food items and drinks–a lot hinging on an Orbitz bottle in this story–making the movie a whole lot more special.

Johnson and McCarrol are fantastic here, realizing the dynamic between their two fictional counterparts wonderfully, as Matt tries to remain more fun and youthful, coming up with plan after plan to finally become a success, as Jay is getting increasingly frustrated and thinking about going on his own path. And yet, the movie excels in showcasing their friendship and how despite everything that comes their way, they still look out for one another, especially when they get to revisit and remark upon moments of their lives while Nirvanna the Band was coming to fruition and are reminded of why they have endured all these years. It’s a surprisingly effective, heartfelt and hilarious ode to the people in your lives who will be there for you through thick and thin, even if it involves entertaining plans surrounding jumping off the CN Tower or going back in time using an RV. 

The less said in detail about Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, the better. It is a movie best experienced by just going to the theater yourself. Once they get back to 2008 and the timeline begins to get ruptured, the sequence of events that follow are outrageously funny, shocking, and even unbelievable to witness, and the result is a memorable continuation of the cult show Johnson and McCarrol started all those years ago. Do some jokes land a little less effectively? Sure. Are some plot beats predictable as it is a direct riff on Back to the Future? Also yes. Despite those minor gripes, one couldn’t ask for a more satisfying comedy venture from this team, and if Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie is any indication, it seems like they are just getting started as far as their vision goes, and the world is all the better for it.

Grade: A

Director: Mark Fischbach
Writers: Mark Fischbach, David Szymanski
Stars: Mark Fischbach, Caroline Kaplan, Troy Baker

Synopsis: In a post-apocalyptic future after “The Quiet Rapture” event, a convict explores a blood ocean on a desolate moon using a submarine called the “Iron Lung” to search for missing stars/planets.

Iron Lung has been hard to get a full gauge on since it was announced. The film is directed and co-written by Mark Fischbach – more commonly known as ‘Markiplier’ for his immense YouTube fame – in what is his directorial debut on the big screen. Thus, given his multi-million follower popularity, Fischbach’s name has clouded this film with a sheen of support from his varied cast of diehard fans. 

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but Iron Lung is more about Mark the filmmaker, rather than Mark the YouTuber. Even so, his transition from the latter to the former went smoother than most, it seems. Iron Lung is a visceral, well-acted, sharp thriller. It’ll do anything but blow you away, but for his first swing at a feature film on a reported budget of less than $3 million dollars, this is a win for Fischbach’s young future in the field.

Following Simon (also performed by Fischbach), the film is set in an apocalyptic future in which stars and planets have disappeared. Our main character is then forced to explore a desolate moon’s ocean of blood in a submarine; for the film’s circumstance, this is a groundbreaking discovery.

How exactly you could define this one, whether sci-fi, thriller, horror or otherwise, Iron Lung carves a unique identity regardless. It’s one of those that may combine a number of genres to tell a story that, despite being a bit thin, weaves through each of them with precision.

While it may overstay its welcome with a runtime just over two hours, Iron Lung manages to find success through sharp colors and claustrophobic sets, in addition to Fischbach’s strong performance as basically the movie’s only constant character. He’s emotional to an extreme at times, but the thing is shot more than competently in a way that structures his outbreaks in audience understanding. Angles are tight, and the walls of his literal iron lung, in the form of the aforementioned submarine, are grimy and pressing.

Fischbach is sweating and shouting in equal parts; if you’ve played the video game the film is based on, it replicates that intended feeling quite well. The concept’s nihilistic attitude, as tiring as it may be, is also retained. It’s a gritty watch that certainly won’t be for everyone. Then again, on a landscape of big, blockbuster movies without any stakes – not that this film is necessarily a blockbuster, although it shares a space with them – Iron Lung’s tangible stakes are a breath of fresh air.

And the film’s ending, too? It almost feels like a direct response to those sorts of movies; the sort that don’t challenge or ask anything of the audience. Iron Lung can be messy, unfocused and, at times, terribly slow, but it’s also a movie committed to this story to a fault. Fischbach clearly believed in the tale, and the film doing well at the box office in spite of its low budget and plain issues is a testament to general moviegoer’s desire for that.

After all, there’s enough in Iron Lung – whether or not you have a YouTube background with the director – to get just about anyone through on the early-year cinematic landscape. Especially considering the harsh reality that stuff like this, with a shoestring budget and sole vision, is extremely rare and becoming rarer with time, this is one to be celebrated.

Come for the noise about a content creator turned moviemaker, stay for properly eerie visuals and a solid lead performance, both of which drive this low-budget thriller up the wall and over the edge. Iron Lung is worth a look at least once for that reason alone. It helps that the movie looks good, plays things (mostly) straight and is clearly a passion project. Take the proper excuse to go to the cinema and be glad things like this can still exist in the medium today.

Grade: B-

Director: Jonny Campbell
Writer: David Koepp
Stars: Joe Keery, Georgina Campbell, Liam Neeson

Synopsis: When a highly dangerous fungus escapes from a secret laboratory, a former bioterrorism agent is called back into action. Alongside two young employees, he must confront an invisible and out-of-control threat.

Public storage facilities have become ubiquitous in our human landscape. There seems to be one off every interstate exit and one every ten city blocks. It’s a wonder these monuments of human hoarding haven’t made for fun fictional fodder before. There could be any number of horrifying, terrible things hidden in these units. So it stands to reason that a public storage facility built into the remains of a secret army base would have the most horrible things of all.

The plot of Cold Storage, while requiring a suspension of disbelief, is rather ingenious. A-list screenwriter David Koepp adapted his own novel for the film. It’s intricate, if farfetched, and each piece of the plot fits snugly together. Even the idea that it is farfetched is etched into the script and all possible plot holes you could try and poke at have an explanation, if a silly one. There are strange and funny characters, as well as circumstances that are shockingly ridiculous.

Without a solid cast, though, this script and plot wouldn’t work. The two leads, played by Joe Keery and Georgina Campbell, are charming and funny, but it’s the odd couple of Liam Neeson and Lesley Manville that steal the show. Neeson and Manville play old colleagues who had a hand in originally locking the deadly fungus away. The character’s comfort and knowledge of each other makes for an exciting chemistry. Neeson’s gruff believability mixed with his excellent comedic timing in tandem with Manville’s wild card bravado is a match made in heaven.

Even with this good script and excellent characters, the film relies far too heavily on deus ex machina for moving the plot along. There’s the old woman, Mrs. Rooney (Vanessa Redgrave), whose enigmatic reasons for being in the facility lead to her purpose and then quietly shuffling away from the horror. There’s Mike (Aaron Heffernan), Naomi’s (Campbell) exe, whose reason for being at the facility is even more bizarre. It’s not lazy writing, but it is a shortcut that feels like it moves the story along faster than it should. It could also be that the fungus itself is too powerful and this was the only way to show that. Even if it looks good on screen, this fungus is near unstoppable, which makes for a whopper of an ending.

The visual effects that bring the fungus and several of its hosts to life aren’t flashy, but they really convey how much of a destructive force it can be. The fungus is a lush green and it pulsates when it’s trying to find new hosts or just spreading across a surface. It feels like the filmmakers used CGI to enhance some delightfully gross special effects. The makeup team created some gnarly stages of infection. As fast as the infection and the plot moves, it’s exciting to see that level of detail for something so brief in many instances. Everything is so slimy and crawling, it’s wonderfully icky to watch this goo take hold.

A film like Cold Storage is a pure entertainment vehicle and it really delivers on that. In spite of what the logic center of your brain will say about some of the story elements, the portion of your brain that just wants something funny, gross, and entertaining will get an absolute kick out of this film. It’s worth taking in for the side bits of story alone, like Romano’s (Manville) little back-and-forth with her son as she and Quinn (Neeson) tote something that likely never should have left a military base from the son’s basement. Let the mayhem overtake you and you won’t be disappointed.

Grade: B

Director: Maryam Touzani
Writers: Nabil Ayouch, Maryam Touzani
Stars: Carmen Maura, Marta Etura, Ahmed Boulane

Synopsis: An aging Spanish woman in Tangier resists her daughter’s decision to sell her home. Determined to stay, she does everything she can to keep her home and reclaim the belongings of a lifetime. Along the way, she rediscovers love and desire.

When I went into Calle Málaga,  I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. I went in completely blind, and if you (like me) enjoy being put under a film’s spell, you will certainly be entranced here. Calle Málaga is a filling, heartbreaking, and rich film about one’s home and the forces that want to take that away from us. But I had no idea just how invested I would be by the city of Tangier, Morocco and the world set up by Calle Málaga. Simply put, Calle Málaga is as excellent as it is crushing.

Calle Málaga is about an elderly woman in Tangier named Maria Angeles (Carmen Maura) who is unceremoniously evicted from her home of over forty years and her fight to get it back. The kicker is that the person evicting her is Maria’s own daughter, Clara (Marta Etura), who legally owns the flat and is selling it to cover expenditures relating to Clara’s messy divorce in Madrid. The eviction, while tragic in its own right, has also given her a new lease on life. The set up and delivery is incredibly simple but its unremarkable quality is a major feature for this film. In going this direction, the film’s focus is incredibly controlled and you can then spend more time to see how the seeds planted through each scene blossoms until the very end.

Maria is a stubborn yet densely layered woman. Her resilience is admirable and left me immensely charmed during the duration of the film. This woman has a routine of seeing a childhood friend who is now a nun, vowed to silence, and Maria tells of her daily drama, going to her local street market asking the men who run the various shops to do favors for her, and visiting the graveyard where her husband and various deceased friends now reside. In another film, this routine could become incredibly stale and quite quickly, but Maura’s presence and charisma keeps the film moving. Hell, I can’t relate to an elderly Moroccan woman who is on the verge of losing everything but Maura can really sell it.

With that said, Calle Málaga’s greatest feature is its texture. Tangier, as much as Maria, is a character in its own right. The film’s director, Maryam Touzani, is a native of Tangier and her experiences and lifestyle feel rich and, although I’ve never been to Tangier myself, I feel as if I understand it better having seen this film. Tangier has been Maria’s home for all of her life, and the prospect of leaving it feels devastating. To an extent, Calle Málaga feels like a break-up film, given the untimely removal from her home. While obviously displacement places a greater toll on someone than a romantic break-up, the feeling of devastation is easily translated to someone who has never felt geographically displaced.

Calle Málaga pulls a veil over your eyes during the duration of the runtime. You are lulled into this false sense of safety, as if everything will be alright. Maria is at the hands of her daughter who has clearly made up her mind about what she’ll do with the flat without consulting her. But Maria is spunky, she fights hard to keep her home and rebuild it after parts of it go away. The heartbreak you feel at the beginning of the movie drops like a hammer at the end when you see how much community she has built for herself. Few films can pull off the “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me,” but at the end you feel betrayed, in the most morbidly delicious ways possible. I walked out of my screening heartbroken but proud to have been put under this film’s spell – to feed from the director’s hand then to take it away from you (thank you Maryam Touzani).

If you want to spend a good two-ish hours in the theater you will not be disappointed with Calle Málaga. I was the youngest person in my screening of the film, but that shouldn’t stop you from seeing it. If you want a good cry, whether happy or sad, you will have no shortage of reasons to pull from. A film that lifts you up then pushes you down should not feel this good (but it certainly does). Calle Málaga is a charming film and Carmen Maura completely captures your heart with her no nonsense drive as Maria.

Grade: B