Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City in the summer of 2020, the comedy film “Stress Positions” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few black people, Middle Eastern people and Latin people) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A gay man, who’s in the midst of a bitter divorce from his estranged husband, let his young adult nephew temporarily stay with him, as the nephew’s presence becomes a source of gossip and intrgue with the man’s best friend and other people in his social circle.
Culture Audience: “Stress Positions” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in movies about the middle-class queer community in 2020s New York City, but this movie has a lot of unrealistic and silly dialogue.
Qaher Harhash in “Stress Positions” (Photo courtesy of Neon)
“Stress Positions” is the type of aimless and smug indie comedy that exists so the movie’s characters can aggravate each other and annoy viewers. The movie’s diverse LGBTQ representation deserves better than this incoherent story. It isn’t until the last 15 minutes that “Stress Positions” finally gets around to a part of the story that should have happened earlier. But by then, it’s too late to save this pretentious mess.
Written and directed by Theda Hammel, “Stress Positions” is Hammel’s feature-film directorial debut. She is also a co-star in the movie, where she portrays a gossipy and demanding transgender woman, who starts off as a supporting character and then turns into a co-lead character. (Hammel is a transgender woman in real life.) “Stress Positions” had its world premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.
The movie is unfocused and confused about which character’s perspective has the story’s main point of view. One person narrates the first half of the movie, while another person narrates the second half of the movie. It gives the impression that Hammel’s screenplay writing was such a jumbled process, she didn’t bother to make the screenplay more cohesive because she also directed the movie. Maybe another writer/director could have salvaged this story into something that was more entertaining to watch, because the movie’s concept had potential to be made into a much better film than “Stress Positions.”
“Stress Positions” takes place in New York City’s Brooklyn borough in the summer of 2020, the period of time when COVID-19 infection rates were among the city’s highest of that year. The narrrator for the first half of the film is a transgender woman named Karla (played by Hammel), who says in the beginning of the movie that Terry Goon (played by John Early), who also lives in Brooklyn, is her best friend from college. Karla explains that Terry is a homemaker who’s in the middle of a bitter divorce from his husband Leo, who used to be Terry’s boss when Terry was an intern.
Leo left Terry for another man and has been encouraging Terry to also find a new love. In the meantime, because Terry can’t afford his own place, he’s been staying in the former spouses’ apartment until the divorce is final. Karla also mentions in the voiceover that Terry has never had a real job, because he quit his internship to become a homemaker in the longtime relationship that Terry had with Leo.
Terry is very high-strung, but the COVID-19 pandemic and the divorce have made him even more stressed-out and jumpy. Terry is so paranoid about getting infected with COVID-19, he sometimes wears a gas mask inside his house if he’s around people he doesn’t know are infected or not. Terry also makes an unexpected house guest wear a gas mask sometimes.
Terry’s unexpected house guest is his nephew Bahlul (played by Qaher Harhash), who has an American mother (Terry’s sister) and a Moroccan father. Bahlul was born in the United States but was raised in Morocco. Bahlul has done work as a male model. He has arrived at Terry’s place with a broken left leg that was injured in a scooter accident. Therefore, Bahlul is mostly seen recovering in a bed, on a sofa or in a wheelchair.
Bahlul says his mother sent Bahlul to Terry’s place for a very good reason. As soon as Bahlul says this, you know exactly where this movie is going to go, since almost everyone in Terry’s socal circle is a member of the LGBTQ community. The only neighbors shown in this somewhat shabby walk-up apartment building are also queer. When Karla first meets Bahlul, he doesn’t say what his sexuality is, but she asks him if he’s ever dressed as a woman because he would make an attractive-looking woman.
Karla identifies as a transgender female lesbian. Her live-in girlfriend is a sarcastic and jaded author named Vanessa Ravel (played by Amy Zimmer), who is a politically active progressive feminist. Vanessa is somewhat self-conscious about originally being from suburban Larchmont, New York, because this suburb doesn’t fit her current image of being an urban hipster. Vanessa is also frustrated because she hasn’t been able to finish her second book. Vanessa’s first book is a novel called “Paulette,” whose title character was mainly inspired by Karla.
Karla has mixed feelings about the book. One the one hand, Karla brags to people that Vanessa wrote a book about her, and Karla sometimes autographs copies of “Paulette.” On the other hand, Karla feels resentment that Vanessa used her as the basis of the book, which apparently depicts Paulette as an unlikable character. Maybe the truth is a little to close for Karla’s comfort because Karla really is unlikable.
Karla is overly intrusive, rude, and more than a little racist and xenophobic. Whenever Karla meets people who aren’t white, Karla asks where they are from, because she expects them to give an answer that describes what their ethnicity is. If the person says that they are from somewhere in the United States, she asks the person where their family is from, to find out the family’s country of origin.
Karla does this when she meets a Grubhub delivery guy named Ronald (played by Faheem Ali), when he delivers some Greek food to Karla one evening. Karla and Ronald strike up a flirtation. And it soon becomes clear that maybe Karla isn’t quite the “lesbian” that she says she is. Ronald’s bicycle becomes a pointless subplot in the movie.
The movie’s big “event” is a Fourth of July barbecue party hosted by Terry in the apartment building’s tiny back courtyard. The movie doesn’t really explain how Terry goes from being so paranoid enough about COVID-19 that he wears a gas masks to Terry hosting an intimate gathering where people won’t be wearing masks, at least not when they’re eating and drinking. Two of the party guests are Terry’s obnoxious, cocaine-snorting soon-to-be-ex-husband Leo (played by John Roberts) and Leo’s fiancé Hamadou (played by Davidson Obennebo), who politely asks Terry to sign the divorce papers so that they can all get on with their lives.
Terry (who has some slapstick scenes where he falls down more than once in the kitchen) is a stereotypical neurotic New Yorker, but Terry’s story arc fades into the background as Karla and Bahlul (who is the narrator in the second half of the movie) have storylines that take over and dominate the movie. Bahlul talks mostly about his childhood in his voiceovers. Even with all this talk, very little is revealed about who Bahlul is as a person, except when he tells Karla he’d like to write a book. Karla advises that Bahlul have more life experiences that he could put in a book.
“Stress Positions” has an irritating attitude that having a bunch of eccentric New York characters is enough to make a good movie. One of these eccentrics is Coco (played by Rebecca F. Wright), a mute upstairs neighbor who lives alone and appears to be a drag queen. Terry tells Ronald at one point in the story: “Coco’s not trans. She’s mentally ill.” Coco has only one pivotal scene in the film. Otherwise, she’s just in the movie to so a catty snob like Terry can make snide remarks about her.
“Stress Positions” will probably find a certain number of fans who automatically want to gush over anything that can be described as “quirky indie filmmaking,” while ignoring huge flaws in the filmmaking. (A lot of the movie has amateurish dialogue and unimpressive technical production.) The truth is that if you take away the underrepresented “diversity” in “Stress Positions,” it’s just another poorly made beginner film that is often dull. The identities of the characters are not reasons enough to care when their personalities and the story are so hollow.
Neon released “Stress Positions” in New York City on April 19, 2024, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on April 26, 2024.
Culture Representation: The documentary film “High & Low – John Galliano” features a predominantly white group of middle-class and wealthy people (with a few black people and one Asian) who are interviewed about controversial British fashion designer John Galliano, who has worked for fashion brands such as Givenchy, Christian Dior (also known as Dior) and Maison Margiela.
Culture Clash: In 2011, Galliano had a fall from grace after a December 2010 video surfaced of him going on an antisemitic and racist rant, but he has attempted to clean up his reputation since then.
Culture Audience: “High & Low – John Galliano” will appeal primarily to people interested in documentaries about the fashion industry and controversial famous people.
John Galliano in “High & Low – John Galliano” (Photo courtesy of MUBI)
When all is said and done, “High & Low – John Galliano” is really about answering this question: “Does someone who was exposed for being antisemitic and racist deserve to make a career comeback?” This biographical documentary works better as a “where are they now” story than as a convincing argument that disgraced fashion designer John Galliano deserves to make a comeback. The movie has indications that Galliano’s sincerity can be doubted. Even with some celebrities praising Galliano in the movie, what really matters is what Galliano has done to make amends for the harm that he has caused and prove that he is truly reformed.
Directed by Kevin Macdonald, “High & Low — John Galliano” (which has exclusive interviews that were filmed from January 2022 to March 2023) includes the participation of Galliano, who ostensibly agreed to do this documentary so that it could be a showcase or platform for what he clearly wants to be his full redemption. According to the production notes for “High & Low — John Galliano”: “Galliano and Macdonald started talking on Zoom during the first lock-down in the summer of 2020. They first met in person in the spring of 2021 and that led to a ‘trial interview’ in August 2021.” “High & Low — John Galliano” had its world premiere at the 2023 Telluride Film Festival and made the rounds at several other film festivals that year, including the Rome Film Festival and BFI London Film Festival.
Born in the Britsh territory of Gibraltar on November 28, 1960 (as Juan Carlos Antonio Galliano), he was at the top of the fashion industry as artistic director of fashion brand Christian Dior when he was fired in 2011, after a December 2010 video surfaced of Galliano making antisemitic and racist remarks to a stranger at an outdoor cafe in Paris. It wasn’t an isolated incident. When asked about other bigoted comments that that he allgedly made in public, Galliano admits in the documentary that it’s possible he could have made other hate speech comments in his life, but those incidents weren’t recorded. Using drunken blackouts as an excuse, Galliano says he doesn’t remember a lot of horrible things that he’s done that people said that he did.
In the antisemitic rant that was caught on video, Galliano said to a woman whom he thought looked Jewish: “I love Hitler … People like you would be dead. Your mothers, your forefathers would all be fucking gassed.” For his antisemitic and racist rant that was caught on video, Galliano made public apologies, partially blaming being drunk at the time that he made these hate speech comments.
Because making antisemitic commentary is illegal in France, Galliano was charged with this crime and went to trial in 2011. He was found guilty and got a sentence of €6,000 in suspended fines. Galliano also talks about voluntarily receiving sensitivity training and education from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). This information is confirmed in the documentary by former ADL director Abraham Foxman, who says he was one of the few ADL leaders who wanted to meet with Galliano.
After getting fired from Dior for this bigotry scandal, Galliano became a pariah in the fashion industry for a few years. And then, he was hired in 2014 to be creative director of Maison Martin Margiela, now known as Maison Margiela. Although Galliano was able to crawl back to the industry for this lower-profile job, it’s obvious from watching the documentary that he wants to be back among the A-list designers. It’s unlikely he will ever return to the career heights that he had when he torpedoed his career.
“High & Low – John Galliano” will give viewers a lot of information about Galliano’s personal life and career, which the documentary tells in chronological order. Galliano admits that he’s a recovering alcoholic who’s been sober for “years.” (Galliano doesn’t get more specific about how long he’s been allegedly sober.)
He also hints at having many other addictions (he admits to abusing cocaine during the height of his career), but alcoholism, plastic surgery and a physical workout craze are the only addictions he fully admits to on camera. Even with these admissions, it’s hard to be convinced that Galliano is truthful in his claims to be clean and sober, when he is sometimes slurring his words and appears glassy-eyed and occasionally unfocused during his interviews in this documentary.
Galliano also apparently never personally reached out to say he was sorry to the people who were the targets of his illegal insults in that notorious December 2010 rant. Galliano claims that he was advised by his attorney at the time not to speak to the victims before the case was resolved. However, the court case has been resolved since 2011. He’s had plenty of time to make these amends, but he hasn’t done that, according to Philippe Virgitti, a dining companion of the woman who was the target of Galliano’s antisemitic and illegal rant in the December 2010 video.
Virgitti, who is interviewed in the documentary, was dining with this woman when Galliano spewed this bigoted hate in that December 2010 incident, so Virgitti saw firsthand what happened. Virgitti says that what wasn’t caught on video was Galliano saying other racist and antisemitic things to Virgitti (who has Asian heritage) and Virgitti’s dining companion. Although Galliano claims that he eventually made personal apologies to his victims by reaching out to them privately, Virgitti and Virgitti’s attorney Jean-Bernard Bosquet-Denis say that claim it isn’t true, and Galliano never made these private amends. Virgitti says the only apologies that he and his female companion got from Galliano were public and impersonal statements, which Virgitti believes are insincere apologies.
To the documentary’s credit, the movie’s very first scene addresses the controversy about Galliano by showing the notorious video. In an interview for the documentary, Galliano says of his antisemitic rant: “It was a disgusting thing, a foul thing that I did. It was just horrific.” Macdonald (who is also one of the documentary’s producers) can be heard off-camera asking, “Can you tell me how you ended up in that place?” Galliano replies, “I’ll tell you everything.” Galliano then pauses to light a cigarette and says, “I’ve got the shakes, so I need a cigarette.”
It’s compelling way to start the documentary, which then goes into telling the story of Galliano’s career rise, fall and attempted comeback. What emerges is a portrait of someone who’s had issues with addiction and anger for years—even before he was famous—but he was enabled by too many people because of his artistic talent, because he had a very charismatic side to his personality, and because he was making tons of money for a lot of people. In the documentary, Galliano says his workload was insane at the height of his career, and he turned to various addictions to cope.
Galliano grew up in a family consisting of his father Juan Galliano (of Italian heritage), who was a plumber; John’s mother Ana “Anita” Guillén (of Spanish heritage); and John’s two sisters. The family moved from Gibraltar to the United Kingdom when John was 6 years old. John’s older sister Rosemarie Husband, one of the people interviewed in the documentary, remembers their childhood this way: “I always had to look after John. He was quite disruptive. He wanted attention all the time.”
John says that he knew from a very early age that he is gay. One of the earliest indications of his interest in fashion was that he used to wear his mother’s makeup and clothes when he was a boy. John had a troubled relationship with his father, whom John describes as “very straight” and physically and emotionally abusive. John says his father could be violent if “I stepped out of line.” John remembers an incident when his father beat him up after John made this offhand comment about a young man he saw on TV: “Oh, he looks gorgeous.”
Just like many LGBTQ people with homophobic family members, John found a family of friends who accepted him and his sexuality. John’s first “found family” was in the fashion and artistic community in London, in the early-to-mid 1980s, when he attended and graduated from St. Martin’s School of Art. It was a life-changing experience for him.
John explains in the documentary: “During the [Margaret] Thatcher years, I wasn’t joining marches and things like that. I was into sketching and drawing. I ended up prepping a portfolio for St. Martin’s School of Art. They took on few people. The competition was really strong, but they gave me a place and a grant. I saw like-minded people. It was like, ‘My God, I’m not the only one.'”
David Harrison, a painter artist who was one of John’s friends at St. Martin’s School of Art, remembers: “He was very shy when I first met him. And I sort of loosened him up a bit. I always felt like I was his big sister.” (John claims that former Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren had once wanted Harrison to be the lead singer of the Sex Pistols, but Johnny Rotten, now known as John Lydon, ended up with the gig.)
Harrison says that he influenced John to go from having very suburban, designer-label taste in fashion to wearing vintage clothes. Harrison also talks about the dark side of John as an “out-of-control drunk. You’d have to sort of look after him.”
It was during his years at St. Martin’s School of Art that John says he became obsessed with the 1927 documentary “Napoleon,” directed by director Abel Gance. Napoleon Bonaparte and the 1800s fashion during this French leader’s reign also heavily influenced John’s fashion aesthetic for years. John took the advice of a St. Martin’s School of Art teacher to cut clothes like he draws, which is how John says he learned how to be a fashion designer.
His 1984 graduation fashion show “Les Incroyables” (“The Incredibles”) showed these influences in genderless clothes. The show was a big hit and got John noticed by many influential people in the fashion industry. In the documentary, fashion journalist/editor Hamish Bowles describes “Les Incroyables” as “one of the top five fashion shows I’ve ever seen. It was absolutely astonishing … You thought, ‘Here’s someone who was touched with genius.'”
Suzanne Von Aichinger—a former model who says she was John’s muse for years—makes a comment about John that probably inspired the title of this documentary: “He really had the high/low [sense of fashion]. He really knew how to balance the two.”
Even with some financial rough patches in the early years, high-profile work came fairly quickly for John, who worked as an in-demand independent designer with his own label, which he maintained, even after he was hired as the director of corporate-owned fashion brands. In 1989, he relocated to Paris, where his career soared to new heights. He became the head designer for Givenchy from July 1995 to October 1996, when he was named artistic director for Christian Dior, also known as Dior. Givenchy and Dior are both owned by luxury goods corporation LVMH.
But behind the glitz and glamour of this success, John still had a reputation for being a hellraiser with a nasty temper. Marie-Sophie Wilson, a former model who was one of John’s friends in the 1980s and 1990s, says that when he moved to Paris, she gave him a place to stay with her because he couldn’t afford rent for his own place. “He camped on my settee and destroyed my washing machine,” Wilson remembers.
Wilson comments: “There are definitely two Johns. There is a shy John and there is a quite mad John. He was a bad drunk. He really wants to get wasted until he drops.” Fashion editor Tim Blanks remembers John urinating on people without their consent in a nightclub. “He was just so off it,” Blanks says. “I just thought, ‘Boy, this guy is unhappy.'” Later in the documentary, John admits that even after he became a rich and famous designer, he was permanently banned from some hotels because of the awful things that he did.
Despite all of these warning signs, John continued to thrive in the industry. And it’s easy to see why. The documentary has several people who make excuses for him or won’t comment on his troubling actions that would get most people arrested if they don’t have fame, wealth and connections. Most of the people who have a financial incentive to praise John do nothing but praise John in the documentary.
One of his most vocal supporters is Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of the U.S. edition of Vogue and chief content officer of Condé Nast, who has her own problematic history of self-admitted racism. She says, “If you think of the great designers who really changed the way women dressed or look or how we think about fashion, immediately, you knew what John was doing. You realize he was one of them, so you had to help him.”
Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell and Amber Valletta are among the past and present supermodels who consider themselves to be John’s fans and say so in the documentary. Adding their commentary are Oscar-winning actresses Charlize Theron and Penélope Cruz, who just stick to flattery about John’s fashion designs. Also interviewed are several of his former business associates. They include Sidney Toledano, CEO of Dior from 1998 to 2018; Katell Le Bourhis, former advisor to LVMH founder/chairman/CEO; and Johann Brun, who describes himself as John’s first financial backer.
Other people interviewed in the documentary are DJ/musician Jeremy Healy, who found brief fame in the early 1980s as a member of the British pop duo Haysi Fantayzee; jewelry designer Vicky Sareg; John Galliano publicist Mesh Chhibber; Vogue editorial executive Edward Enninful; New York Times fashion director Vanessa Friedman; fashion writer Colin McDowell; fashion editor Sally Singer; John’s personal assistant Evelynne Tissier; John’s agent Anne Nelson; Condé Nast chairman Jonathan Newhouse; psychiatrist Boris Cyrulnik; addiction special Dr. Phillipe Bates; and John’s friends Paul Frecker and Tricia Ronane.
John’s personal life is described as a lot of co-dependent relationships, although he seems to have found contentment with his longtime love partner Alexis Roche, who is also interviewed in the documentary, but he doesn’t say anything insightful. It’s not surprising because most live-in partners or spouses are not going to say something brutally honest in a documentary that could ruin their relationships. John does not mention the names of any other significant lovers he’s had in his life.
The documentary has stories about Steven Robinson, John’s design assistant who died of a cocaine overdose in 2007, at the age of 38. Robinson (who worked with John for more than 20 years) is described by various people in the documentary as an intensely loyal gatekeeper, cocaine addict, and John’s best friend, who was in love with John, but they never had a romantic relationship. John’s personal assistant Tissier says of the relationship that Robinson had with John: “This co-dependency had some very toxic aspects.”
Parts of the documentary are meant to pull at the heartstrings. There’s a scene where John describes his mixed emotions over the end of his father’s life. John claims that his ailing father, who rarely expressed his approval of John, told John that he loved John before he died. However, John’s sister says in the documentary that she had to beg John to attend the funeral because John was busy with fittings for his next big fashion show. John says he took a private jet to the funeral and flew right back to work as soon as he could.
A “dramatic” part of the documentary is toward the end when John is invited to look at a special Dior archive collection. It’s the first time that he’s been allowed to set foot in this part of Dior headquarters since he was fired in 2011. John is visibly nervous and emotionally touched, but he also expresses pride and wonderment when he looks at the Dior clothing that he designed.
Viewers can look beyond these misty-eyed moments and lavish praise of a celebrity to see the heart of the matter. The measure of someone’s true character isn’t how talented that person is or how much money that person can make but how that person treats others and how that person reacts when caught doing something wrong. By those standards, people who watch “High & Low – John Galliano” can make up their own minds on what type of character he really has and how sincere he is.
MUBI released “High & Low – John Galliano” in select U.S. cinemas on March 8, 2024. MUBI will premiere the movie on April 26, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed dystopian society, the action film “Boy Kills World” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some black people and Asian) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A deaf and mute man, who was raised as an orphan and trained to be a warrior by a shaman, goes on a revenge mission against the tyrannical dictator whom he blames for killing his family.
Culture Audience: “Boy Kills World” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of videogame-styled action movies that have some offbeat comedy and don’t take themselves too seriously.
Famke Janssen in “Boy Kills World” (Photo courtesy of Roadside Attractions)
“Boy Kills World” is a cartoonishly violent revenge flick with touches of psychedelia and self-deprecating comedy in a dystopian society. The story drags with repetition in the middle of the movie, but a plot twist makes up for this occasional banality. This plot twist is not as predictable as another plot twist that happens around the same time.
Directed by Moritz Mohr, “Boy Kills World” was written by Tyler Burton Smith and Arend Remmers. “Boy Kills World” had its world premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival. The movie is based on director Mohr’s unreleased short film “Boy Kills World,” which has a similar concept.
In the feature-length “Boy Kills World,” which takes place in an unnamed dystopian society, a young man whose name is listed in the credits Boy (played by Bill Skarsgård) goes on a revenge mission against a tyrannical dictator named Beatrice Van Der Koy (played by Famke Janssen), whom he blames for murdering his mother (played by Rolanda Marais), his father (played by Ashley Dowds) and Boy’s younger sister Mina (played by Quinn Copeland) when Boy was about 13 or 14 years old and when Mina was about 9 or 10 years old. The teenage Boy is played by twins Cameron Crovetti and Nicholas Crovetti. Beatrice is the leader of the Van Der Koy family, who have several members who also abuse their positions of power to intimidate and kill people.
Every year, this bleak society has a mass murder event called the Culling, where Beatrice orders the military to go after enemies and kill innocent people on live TV. Boy’s family got caught in the Culling crossfire. Flashbacks show that he witnessed his mother’s murder. Boy was able to escape but became deaf and mute from the attack. He was rescued and taken to a remote wooded area by a mystic whose name is listed in the credits as Shaman (played by Yayan Ruhian), who raised him in isolation and trained Boy to become a warrior skilled in martial arts.
Boy does not talk out loud in the movie, so his inner thoughts are heard with the voice that he says was the voice of his favorite video game character. (H. Jon Benjamin does Boy’s voice in the movie.) Even in the flashback scenes where Boy is literally a boy, his voiceover is that of an adult man. Boy’s inner thoughts show that he can be self-deprecating and frequently sarcastic.
Boy says of the city that he left behind when he was rescued by Shaman: “This was never a great city. Hilda Vander Koy took it from us. She has a list of all of her enemies. If you’re on it, she’ll find you.” Boy adds, “Hilda took everything from me. And when I become the ultimate warrior, I’ll return the favor.”
Several scenes in “Boy Kills World” show that part of Shaman’s training includes blowing smoke from a hallucinogenic substance into Boy’s face. As a result, Boy often has psychedelic hallucinations. Boy says early on in the movie that there’s a state of being between reality and dreams. The visual effects for the psychedelia are among the more memorable aspects about this sensory overload film.
Boy frequently has visions of Mina appearing to him and talking to him and looking the same way since the last time he saw her. Boy and Mina had a very close and fun-loving relationship before their lives were torn apart. Even in his life as a vengeful warrior, Boy still gets teased and playful scolding from Mina, whom he sees as the only person in his life who truly made him happy.
During his vendetta quest, Boy encounters other members of the Van Der Koy family, including Hilda’s ruthless sister Melanie Van Der Koy (played by Michelle Dockery); Hilda’s arrogant brother Gideon Van Der Koy (played by Brett Gelman); and Melanie’s buffoonish husband Glen Van Der Koy (played Sharlto Copley), who is dominated by Melanie. (It says a lot that Glen took the Van Der Koy surname.)
The Van Der Koy family has a security chief named June27 (played by Jessica Rothe), and programmed assassin who wears a helmet and who might or might not be human. She has almost superhuman-like strength and becomes a formidable and elusive opponent to Boy. Meanwhile, Boy forms an alliance with two rebels: wisecracking Basho (played by Andrew Koji) and resourceful Bennie (played by Isaiah Mustafa), who both join in on the mayhem. Boy encounters many dangerous foes, leading to several brutal and bloody battles.
Skarsgård is quite skillful in combining the action and facial expressions required for this character who is supposed to be deaf and mute. Melanie the villain who is the most fun to watch in the movie, thanks to Dockery’s prickly performance. Janssen’s Hilda is a fairly generic and predictable villain, while Gideon and his bad jokes quickly become annoying.
“Boy Kills World” is by no means an intellectual movie, but some of the quips are amusing enough to keep most viewers entertained. One of the movie’s plot twists is very predictable, while other plot twists are not as easy to predict. The movie’s most surprising “reveal” has some imagination, which saves “Boy Kills World” from being just another violent action flick that’s a checklist of death and destruction.
Roadside Attractions and Lionsgate will release “Boy Kills World” in U.S. cinemas on April 26, 2024.
A scene from “Late Night With the Devil.” Pictured in front, from left to right: Ingrid Torelli, David Dastmalchian and Laura Gordon. Pictured in back, from left to right: Rhys Auteri and Ian Bliss. (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)
Culture Representation: Taking place primarily during a “found footage” tape made in New York City, on October 31, 1977, the horror film “Late Night With the Devil” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few black people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A late-night talk show host, who is desperate to boost his ratings, does a live seance on his show to summon the devil that reportedly possesses a 13-year-old girl.
Culture Audience: “Late Night With the Devil” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of star David Dastmalchian and well-made supernatural horror movies taking place in the 1970s.
Laura Gordon, Ingrid Torelli, David Dastmalchian and Ian Bliss in “Late Night With the Devil” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)
“Late Night With the Devil” hooks the senses with sinister suspense that might give nightmares to some viewers. This “found footage” horror flick taking place in 1977 shows parallels between devil possession and ruthless ambition. It’s an impressively made original horror movie that is an instant classic.
Written and directed by Australian brothers Cameron Cairnes and Colin Cairnes, “Late Night With the Devil” takes place in New York City, but was actually filmed in Melbourne, Australia. The movie had its world premiere at the 2023 SXSW Film and TV Festival. “Late Night With the Devil” does a superb job of recreating the late 1970s in every way, such as the production design, cinematography, costume design, makeup and hairstyling.
“Late Night With the Devil” begins with a voiceover narrator (Michael Ironside) with a fairly extensive backstory (shown in a montage) about the late-night talk/variety show host at the center of the movie. Jack Delroy (played by David Dastmalchian) was a popular radio host in Chicago when he was chosen to host and produce a national TV talk show called “Night Owls With Jack Delroy” (based in New York City) on the fictional UBC network. The first episode of “Night Owls With Jack Delroy” was on April 4, 1971.
Over the years, “Night Owls With Jack Delroy” had mediocre success, with the show always coming in second place to “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.” Johnny Carson had A-list celebrity guests. The guests on “Night Owls With Jack Delroy” were considered less than A-list, often with tabloid-like fame. Still, Jack earned enough respect in the industry to get an Emmy nomination for the show.
Jack is a member of all-male private club called The Grove, whose members are influential and powerful. The Grove’s secretive activities have been the subject of a lot of speculation. In November 1972, UBC owner Walter Bedford (played by John O’May) signed Jack to a five-year deal for Jack to continue to host and produce “Night Owls With Jack Delroy,” a show that is filmed before a live studio audience.
Jack’s personal life was also going fairly well: He married an actress named Madeleine Piper (played by Georgina Haig), who is described as Jack’s “muse and confidante.” Jack and Madeleine became known as a well-liked “power couple.” However, tragedy struck when Madeleine (a non-smoker) was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. In October 1976, she did an emotional interview on “Night Owls With Jack Delroy.” It was the highest-rated episode in the show’s history. Madeleine died soon after filming this episode.
After Madeleine died, Jack took a hiatus and “disappeared” for about a month. He returned to doing the show in December 1976. However, the show’s ratings went on a downward spiral. By the time “Night Owls With Jack Delroy” did its Halloween episode on October 31, 1977, Jack’s contract was up for renewal (or cancellation), and he was feeling enormous pressure. Jack and his fast-talking and ambitious producer Leo Fiske (played by Josh Quong Tart) were desperate to boost the show’s ratings, so they planned a Halloween episode that they wanted to get a lot of publicity.
Things went horribly wrong, of course. The rest of “Late Night With the Devil” shows the master tape from this episode, as well as previously unreleased footage. The show’s guests on this fateful episode were a famous self-proclaimed psychic named Christou (played by Fayssal Bazzi); Carmichael Haig (played by Ian Bliss), a former magician who became world-renowned skeptic of all things supernatural; “Conversations With the Devil” non-fiction book author Dr. June Ross-Mitchell (played by Laura Gordon); the book’s subject, a 13-year-old girl named Lilly (played by Ingrid Torelli), who was said to be possessed by the devil; and jazz singer Cleo James (played by Nicole Chapman), who actually never performed in the episode, due to all the chaos that ensued.
in the production notes for “Late Night With the Devil,” Cameron Cairnes and Colin Cairnes both say that Australia’s “The Don Lane Show” (which was on the air from 1975 to 1983) was a big inspiration for the concept of this movie. The character of Carmichael was inspired by the real-life James Randi, whose magician name was the Amazing Randi. And the character Lilly could be seen as inspired by Linda Blair’s Regan MacNeil character in the 1973 Oscar-winning horror classic “The Exorcist.” In “Late Night With the Devil,” Lilly is the only survivor of a cult that was ordered by cult leader Szandor D’Abo (played by Steve Mouzakis) to set themselves on fire.
Cameron Cairnes and Colin Cairnes also had experience working in TV studios and saw firsthand the intense stress that workers can experience when filming episodes. That’s why the “Late Night With the Devil” scenes (especially those take place during commercial breaks) are convincing and why the movie is so effective in showing an increasingly tension-filled environment.
After Madeleine died, Jack took a hiatus and “disappeared” for about a month. He returned to doing the show in December 1976. However, the show’s ratings went on a downward spiral. By the time “Night Owls With Jack Delroy” did its Halloween episode on October 31, 1977, Jack’s contract was up for renewal (or cancellation), and he was feeling enormous pressure. Jack and his fast-talking and ambitious producer Leo Fiske (played by Josh Quong Tart) were desperate to boost the show’s ratings, so they planned a Halloween episode that they wanted to get a lot of publicity.
“Night Owls With Jack Delroy” has an amiable band leader named Gus McConnell (played by Rhys Auteri), who is like many band leaders on late-night talk shows: He’s there to be a sidekick who laughs at the host’s jokes. As things spiral out of control, Gus’ conscience starts to bother him about decisions that are made to increase the show’s TV audience. When Gus expresses his concerns, the response he gets is entirely realistic in the cutthroat world of television. Subordinates are often told that if they don’t do what they’re told, they’ll be fired, and there are plenty of people who are ready to replace them.
The screenplay and direction for “Late Night With the Devil” expertly build the ominous tension throughout the story. The movie stumbles during one particular gruesome scene where the in-studio audience members stay, despite the horror they just witnessed. In real life, most people in this type of audience would leave the studio in fear or disgust. It’s a minor but noticeable flaw in the otherwise realistic-looking way that the audience is portrayed in the movie. And to be clear: “Late Night With the Devil” gets very graphic and does not leave a lot of the horror up to the imagination.
Dastmalchian and Torelli give the movie’s standout performances. As Jack, Dastmalchian has an uneasy desperation that becomes increasingly dangerous as he pushes the boundaries of what’s acceptable to put on television. Torelli does an excellent job of balancing the “innocent-looking” and “demonic” sides to Lilly, the mysterious girl who never seems entirely “normal.” Thanks to horrific scenarios and a knockout ending, “Late Night With the Devil” is a memorably disturbing scary movie. Some viewers might never look at TV talk shows in the same way again.
IFC Films released “Late Night With the Devil” in U.S. cinemas on March 22, 2024. Shudder will premiere the movie on April 19, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in the Australian Outback fictional town of Limbo, the dramatic film “Limbo” features a cast of white and First Nations/indigenous characters representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A police detective travels from an unnamed Australian city to Limbo to review a cold case about a teenager who disappeared from Limbo 20 years ago.
Culture Audience: “Limbo” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of Simon Baker and well-made, “slow burn” crime dramas about missing people and fractured families.
Pictured from left to right: Simon Baker, Andrew Dingaman and Rob Collins in “Limbo” (Photo courtesy of Brainstorm Media and Music Box Films)
The spellbinding and atmospheric crime drama “Limbo” moves at a pace that might be too slow for some viewers. But beneath this unhurried tone are simmering tensions and resentments over racism and generational trauma. Viewers expecting a format that’s similar to a TV series crime procedural will be disappointed by “Limbo,” which offers no easy answers to the mystery at the center of the story. However, by the end of the film, there is at least one outcome that shows the reality of how people can expect one thing and end up getting something else.
Ivan Sen is the chief creative force of “Limbo,” since he is the movie’s director, writer, cinematographer, editor, composer, colorist and visual effects supervisor. He is also one of the movie’s producers. “Limbo” had its world premiere at the 2023 Berlin International Film Festival and made the rounds at other film festivals that year, including the Toronto International Film Festival. “Limbo” earned three nominations for the 2024 Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) Awards—Best Indie Film, Best Lead Actor (for Simon Baker) and Best Supporting Actor (for Rob Collins)—and won the prize for Best Indie Film.
“Limbo” takes place in the Australian Outback fictional town of Limbo, but the movie was actually filmed in Coober Pedy, Australia, whose main industries are mining and tourism. “Limbo” was filmed in black and white, which makes the desert atmosphere look even more stark and at times even more foreboding than if the movie had been in color. In this remote area depicted in “Limbo,” feels of isolation and stagnation seep into the tone of the movie as well as the character performances.
“Limbo” begins with the arrival of police detective Travis Hurley (played by Baker), who drives into Limbo and stays at the only motel in town: the Limbo Motel. It’s an unusual motel because it’s partially inside a cave. (Several of “Limbo’s” scenes take place inside or near caves.) Therefore, Travis’ room looks like a cave room.
Travis is in Limbo for a few days to review the missing person case of Charlotte Hayes, a First Nations/indigneous person who lived in Limbo and who disappeared when she was a teenager 20 years ago. The case has gone cold, but Travis has been assigned to investigate the case and to find out if there are any new clues that can be uncovered. During his investigation, Travis gets more emotionally involved with Charlotte’s family than he expected when he first arrived in town.
Viewers soon find out that Travis is not a squeaky-clean police officer. One of the first things that he does when he goes in his motel room is melt an unnamed opioid powder in a spoon and shoot up the substance in his arm with a hypodermic needle. Most people will assume that the drug is heroin or Fentanyl, based on how Travis has a “nodding out” reaction after injecting this drug.
Travis’ drug addiction is not mentioned or shown again in the movie, until he has a private conversation with someone where he confesses that he uses drugs. It’s during this conversation that Travis also mentions that he was formerly an undercover narcotics officer and used drugs as part of this job. It’s unknown if he got hooked on drugs directly because of his narcotics officer job or if he had already been addicted. However, what’s clear is that his drug addiction is a secret from almost everyone Travis knows. He tells the person he confesses this secret to that this is the first time Travis has told anyone that he currently uses drugs.
Most of “Limbo” shows Travis doing interviews with Charlotte’s family members and other potential witnesses. The people he spends the most time with are Charlotte’s older stepbrother Charlie (played by Collins) and Charlie’s sister Emma (played by Natasha Wanganeen), who is a single mother raising three kids. The parents of Charlotte, Charlie and Emma are all deceased.
The family is still haunted by Charlotte’s disappearance and have become disillusioned about ever finding out what happened to her because police have treated cases of missing indigenous people as inferior to cases of missing white people. The indigenous people in the area call themselves “black” people. Charlie tells Travis that in Charlotte’s missing person case, police delayed investigating until a week after Charlotte disappeared. Charlie and Emma believe that if Charlotte had been white, police would have investigated Charlotte’s disappearance immediately.
Two of the children whom Emma is raising are actually Charlie’s biological kids: rebellious and sullen son Zac (played by Marc Coe) is about 12 or 13 years old, while cheeky and inquisitive daughter Ava (played by Tiana Hartwig) is about 9 or 10 years old. Emma’s biological daughter Jessie (played by Alexis Lennon), who is about 11 or 12 years old, has an absentee father, and she is often bluntly rude and brutally honest. For example, Jessie tells Travis that he looks like a drug dealer instead of a cop.
Charlie is a bachelor who lives alone. Why is Emma taking care of Charlie’s children? The movie doesn’t mention what happened to the mother(s) of Zac and Ava, but Emma tells Travis that Charlie had some type of guilt-ridden mental breakdown after Charlotte disappeared. For a while, Charlie was under suspicion for Charlotte’s disappearance, but he insists that he was falsely accused by two local indigenous men, one of whom had a personal grudge against Charlie. Charlie says he was at a cousin’s house when Charlotte disappeared. Charlie has been estranged from his children for years and doesn’t talk to them, but he will often drive by in his truck and look at his children, and then drive away.
As Travis continues his investigation, he hears more about the racial divide in Limbo. This racial tension doesn’t surprise Travis, but he sees firsthand how this racism can affect people’s lives and attitudes. Charlie is very suspicious of Travis when they first meet each other and says to Travis, “I don’t talk to cops, especially white ones.” However, Charlie eventually opens up to Travis when he sees that Travis is the Hayes family’s best chance of getting Charlotte’s case investigated. Emma is also wary of Travis at first (but she’s not as openly hostile as Charlie is), and she eventually agrees to be interviewed by Travis too, which she does separately from Charlie.
During interviews and conversations between Charlie and Travis, Charlie sometimes bitterly complains about how indigenous people are unfairly targeted by white law enforcement officers, who are quick to harass or arrest indigenous people for the same things that police officers excuse or ignore if white people do these things. There’s a scene where Travis and Charlie are talking outside while Charlie is drinking a beer. A police car drives by them and doesn’t stop. Charlie says to Travis: “Usually, they tell you to move along [for] drinking on the street like this.” Charlie tells Travis why he thinks the police inside the car didn’t stop to reprimand Charlie: “Maybe because of you.” In other words, Charlie is saying that Travis has white privilege.
Throughout the investigation, Travis keeps hearing about a white man named Leon, whom Charlie and Emma believe is the most likely suspect in Charlotte’s disappearance. Leon had a reputation in the area for hosting parties for young people, who got alcohol and maybe other drugs illegally from him. Leon seemed especially fixated on indigenous teenage girls. Leon had a green Ford Laser at the time of Charlotte’s disappearance. What happened to that car is revealed in the movie.
Travis finds out soon after he arrives in Limbo that Leon died of dementia the year before. Leon’s elderly brother Joseph (played by Nicholas Hope), who is a heavy drinker and is in obvious ill health, tells Travis about Leon dying and also shows Leon’s unmarked grave to Travis. Leon’s photo is never seen in movie, but it’s implied that Leon was close to the same age as Joseph, so Leon was most likely a middle-aged man when Charlotte disappeared. Travis also listens to audio recordings of interviews that police did separately with Charlie and Leon, who also denied anything to do with Charlotte’s disappearance.
As Charlie begins to cooperate more with Travis, Charlie points Travis in the direction of more potential witnesses in the First Nations/indigenous community. A middle-aged man named Stoney (played by Andrew Digaman), who is very suspicious of police, told Charlie that years ago in a pub, Leon once made a drunken confession to Stoney that Leon killed an unnamed person. Oscar Porter (played by Joshua Warrior), who had a personal feud with Charlie that involved at least one physical brawl, was one of the men who accused Charlie of having something to do with Charlotte’s disappearance. Travis finds out that Oscar’s accusation was because of something other than a personal vendetta against Charlie.
Because Travis is only in town for a few days, and he is the only investigating officer for this cold case review, the chances are very slim that Travis will solve this case in such a short period of time. However, there is enough revealed in the story for viewers to put together the pieces of this puzzle, as certain conclusions can be made, based on what Travis and other people discover. Viewers will have to look for visual clues, as well as consider things that are said and the credibility of the people saying these things.
It’s not revealed right away, but Travis is a divorced father who is no longer in contact with his only child (a son) because his ex-wife remarried, and his son likes his stepfather more than he likes Travis. When Travis tells Emma about his family situation, he describes it as bowing out of his son’s life, but you get the feeling that there’s more to the story that Travis isn’t telling, especially since his drug addiction undoubtedly affects all aspects of his life. “Limbo” doesn’t go too deep into Travis’ personal history, but this information about being estranged from his son is enough to see why Travis is emotionally touched by Charlie’s estrangement from his own children—especially with Zac, who feels abandoned by Charlie and is very angry at Charlie.
Emma makes a confession to Travis about something that happened in her past. This confession shows that Charlie isn’t the only one who feels guilty about Charlotte’s disappearance. Baker, Collins and Wanganeen give admirable performances as three damaged but not completely broken people who are doing what they can to ease some of their pain and hopefully heal. By the end of the movie, viewers will care not just about the “whodunit” aspect of the story but will also be concerned about the well-being of these characters.
“Limbo” is the name of the movie and the name of the fictional town in the movie, but it also describes the tragic state of mind that loved ones of missing people feel when they don’t know what happened to their loved ones who disappeared. Travis sees the trauma that this case has brought onto the Hayes family, so it makes him confront certain issues in his own life. The way that Travis reacts doesn’t make his problems go away but it might give him a little bit of redemption. “Limbo” is a solemn and meaningful reminder that when people talk about a system that fails, there are untold numbers of people who get hurt and might never recover.
Brainstorm Media and Music Box Films released “Limbo” in select U.S. cinemas on March 22, 2024. The movie was released in Australia and part of Europe in 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place on the East Coast of the United States, the action film “Civil War” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some Latin people and African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: During a civil war in the United States, a team of four war journalists take a tension-filled and dangerous road trip to the White House to try to get an interview with the U.S. president, who is under siege.
Culture Audience: “Civil War” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, filmmaker Alex Garland, and war movies that have observations about political turmoil.
Stephen McKinley Henderson in “Civil War” (Photo by Murray Close/A24)
“Civil War” has some gripping action sequences, but it’s not a non-stop action flick about gun-toting heroes. It’s an effective commentary about war journalism, political unrest, and the psychological toll on people caught in the crossfire. The movie is set in the 21st century, but the themes in “Civil War” are timeless.
Written and directed by Alex Garland, “Civil War” had its world premiere at the 2024 SXSW Film and TV Festival. It’s not a typical war movie because much of the story takes place during a road trip from New York state to Washington, D.C., with journalists as the central characters. The movie gives an accurate depiction of how being a war journalist requires a certain mentality, skills and attitude, including the ability to document what’s happening without getting involved.
The movie begins with an unnamed U.S. president (played by Nick Offerman) privately rehearsing a speech by himself at the White House before he gives the speech live on camera. “Civil War” does not offer a detailed explanation for why there is a U.S. civil war in this story, but it’s mentioned in the movie that Texas and California have seceded from the Unted States and formed a faction called Western Forces, which want to bring down the U.S. government. As eventually revealed in the movie, this U.S president (who is in his third term) is currently under siege by Western Forces, which want to assassinate him.
However, during this speech, the U.S. president is trying to put on a brave face during this crisis. He says of the U.S. military defense against this Western Forces attack: “Some are calling it the greatest victory in the history of mankind.” During his speech rehearsal, he changes this statement to: “Some are calling it the greatest victory in the history of military campaigns.”
The movie then shows the four central characters who go on a “race against time” road trip to try to interview the U.S. president at the White House before he is possibly assassinated. Joel (played by Wagner Moura) is addicted to the adrenaline rush of being a war journalist. He is the one who plans to interview the U.S. president. Joel’s jaded photojournalist colleague is Lee Smith (played by Kirsten Dunst), who is considered one of the top war photographers in the media.
The original plan was for Joel and Lee to go on this trip by themselves. However, they are accompanied by a New York Times journalist named Sammy (played by Stephen McKinley Henderson), who has an “elder sage” personality and uses a cane. Also along for the ride is an eager-to-learn aspiring photojournalist named Jessie Cullen (played by Cailee Spaeny), who thinks of Lee as one of her idols.
Lee isn’t very happy about adding these two people to the trip. However, Lee reluctantly agrees to have these extra two journalists join them in the press van. Sammy wants to prove that he’s useful in a media job that often discriminates against elderly and disabled workers. Joel thinks sensitive newbie Jessie can learn a lot from Lee.
Jessie and Lee met early on in the film when Lee came to Jessie’s aid in New York, during a violent street conflict between protesters and military police officers. During this conflict, Jessie accidentally got hit in the face with a police club while she was taking photos. Lee later found out that Jessie was staying at the same hotel when Jessie approached her in a lounge area to thank Lee for Lee’s help.
The rest of “Civil War” shows the harrowing events that happen during their dangerous and often-chaotic journey. However, there is also some dark comedy and a burgeoning camaraderie between these four journalists. It should come as no surprise that Jessie is the one in this group who goes through the biggest personality transformation because of what she experiences during the mayhem.
Jesse Plemons (who is Dunst’s real-life husband) has an uncredited role as a militant enforcer who holds certain people captive. Plemons’ role in the movie is not as big as his appearance in the “Civil War” trailer suggests: His screen time is less than 10 minutes. Two of Joel’s journalist friends named Tony (played by Nelson Lee) and Bohai (played by Evan Lai) have small but pivotal roles in the second half of the movie.
“Civil War” has several cast members who were also in Garland’s 2020 sci-fi/drama limited series “Devs.” Spaeny and Henderson are “Devs” alumni. “Devs” star Sonoya Mizuno has a brief role in “Civil War” as a rival journalist named Anya. Another “Devs” cast member is Jin Ha, who has a small supporting role in “Civil War” as an unnamed sniper who’s in a standoff with an unseen person or persons shooting from a large residential house. Karl Glusman (also from “Devs”) is in the same scene as an unnamed spotter who’s working with the sniper.
“Civil War” invites viewers to think about how you or people you know would react if this civil war really happened in the United States. There are scenes in the movie that show how some people want to block out the realities of this war and pretend that it’s not happening. Others want to jump in and do what they can to fight for causes they believe in, even if it means they will die. Other people are somewhere in between and acknlowedge the war but are just trying to survive without taking sides. “Civil War” doesn’t try to pass judgment on what unfolds in the movie, but it is an impactful story that shows there are no easy answers when it comes to war.
A24 will release “Civil War” in U.S. cinemas on April 12, 2024.
Some language in American Sign Language with subtitles
Culture Representation: The documentary film “The Tuba Thieves” features a racially diverse group of people (African Americans, white, Latin and Asian) who are connected in some way to music or the deaf community.
Culture Clash: The experiences of deaf people are contrasted with those of people with hearing abilities.
Culture Audience: “The Tuba Thieves” will appeal primarily to people interested in stream-of-consciousness documentaries that don’t tell a cohesive story but just show a collection of moving images.
Manuel Castañeda in “The Tuba Thieves” (Photo courtesy of PBS)
“The Tuba Thieves” has a misleading title and tries too hard to be an avant-garde documentary about deaf people. It’s really a pretentious, disjointed and tedious film that wants to fool people into thinking that it’s got something important to say. Don’t expect to learn very much about the people in the documentary, which has an unfocused collection of “slice of life” scenes awkwardly placed with re-enactments. “The Tuba Thieves” had its world premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival and made the rounds at several other film festivals in 2023, including CPH:DOX and the Sydney Film Festival.
Directed by Alison O’Daniel, “The Tuba Thieves” has this logline: “From 2011 to 2013, tubas were stolen from Los Angeles high schools. This is not a story about thieves or missing tubas. Instead, it asks what it means to listen.” What’s in this documentary are very boring scenes of some deaf people having dull conversations. Surely, their lives are more interesting than what ended up in this sloppily made film.
The deaf person who is most prominently featured in “The Tuba Thieves” is Nyeisha “Nyke” Prince, whose occupation is not mentioned in the documentary but she describes herself as “fashion blogger, hair stylist and model” on her social media accounts. Prince is not seen doing any fashion blogging, hair styling or modeling in weak and uninteresting film. Instead, she’s shown having forgettable conversations with other deaf people, including her lover Russell Harvard, who calls himself Nature Boy in the movie.
There are a few non-nudity scenes of Prince and Harvard in bed together. And then at one point, it’s shown that Prince has become pregnant during the making of the film, and she knows that he unborn child is a girl. The only real insight into Prince’s personality is when she has a conversation with an older friend named Warren “Wawa” Snipe and expresses her concerns about how good her mothering skills will be when she won’t be able to hear things, such as her baby crying.
Even less is revealed in the documentary about Geovanny Marroquin, who was a drum major at Centennial High School in Compton California, during the fall semester of 2011, when eight tubas were stolen. If you think it’s fascinating to see Marroquin get a palm reading or climbing out of a house window, then “The Tuba Thieves” is the movie for you. Marroquin says nothing in the documentary about the his perspective of being a student at the school that had these thefts. Centennial High School band leader Manuel Castañeda is shown re-enacting finding out that the tubas have gone missing.
“The Tuba Thieves” has some scenes of journalist Sam Quinones, who covered the news about the tuba thefts in The Los Angeles Sentinel. In one of the scenes Quinones interview, Hector Aguirre and Erik Huerta, who were students at Mira Costa High School in Manhattan Beach, California, when four tubas were stolen during the winter break of 2011-2012. That’s about the extent of any “investigation” shown in the movie. Aguirre and Huerta have nothing meaningful to add to the story. Quinones is also seen doing an unrelated interview with Voces del Rancho members Mariano Fernandez and Edgar Rodriguez about Mexican singer Chalino Sánchez, who used tuba instruments in his songs and who became popular in the late 1980s/early 1990s.
“The Tuba Thieves” production notes describe the documentary’s re-enactment scenes: “In ‘The Tuba Thieves,’ Los Angeles life during the time of the tuba thefts is interrupted by unconventional reenactments of historic concerts: an irritated man leaves John Cage’s 1952 premiere of 4’33″ (where a pianist sat at a piano for 4 minutes and 33 seconds without playing a note); punks and Deafies intermingle at the 1979 final punk show at an infamous Deaf Club in San Francisco; and students tell how they organized a 1984 surprise Prince concert at the Deaf University Gallaudet.” In other words, “The Tuba Thieves” has meaningless filler.
Also in this meandering documentary are scenes of airplanes flying. Why? Just to have sounds of airplanes in the movie. There’s also hidden camera footage of wild animals (such as lions) in an area that appears to be the Hollywood Hills. Watching an entire documentary about these animals would be infinitely more entertaining and informative than the self-satisfied and empty tripe that’s in the “The Tuba Thieves.”
PBS released “The Tube Thieves” in New York City on March 15, 2024, with an expansion to more U.S. cities, as of March 22, 2024. The movie will premiere on the PBS series “Independent Lens” on a date to be announced.
Culture Representation: Taking place in the early 1920s, in Littlehampton, England, the comedy/drama film “Wicked Little Letters” (inspired by real events) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Asians and black people) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: Two women, who have opposite personalities and who happen to live next door to each other, get into an escalating feud when one of the women is accused of anonymously sending hateful and obscene letters to the other woman and several other people they know in the area.
Culture Audience: “Wicked Little Letters” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and well-acted satires about crime and discrimination.
Timothy Spall in “Wicked Little Letters” (Photo by Parisa Taghizadeh/Sony Pictures Classics)
“Wicked Little Letters” not only has an accused libelous harasser on trial but this smart and funny satire also puts sexism, xenophobia and classism on trial. Top-notch performances give an incisive edge when the comedy gets too slapstick. The movie’s ending is a bit rushed, but the overall story should be enjoyable for viewers who like movies that poke fun at societal flaws and hypocrisies.
Directed by Thea Sharrock and written by Jonny Sweet, “Wicked Little Letters” had its world premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival. The movie is inspired by real events that took place in early 1920s England, when people in the small coastal town of Littlehampton were receiving anonymous, handwritten letters that had obscene insults directed at the letter recipients. “Wicked Little Letters” is partly a mystery about who is sending the letters and partly a send-up of how people react to the letters.
“Wicked Little Letters” also takes place in Littlehampton but condenses the real timeline of events from about three years to about a little over one year. The movie begins by showing that religious and conservative Edith Swan (played by Olivia Colman) has received the 19th letter in a series of obscene hate letters sent to her anonymously. Edith is a middle-aged, never-married bachelorette with no children. She lives in a townhouse with her parents: domineering and gruff Edward Swan (played by Timothy Spall) and passive and devoted Victoria Swan (played by Gemma Jones), who are understandably upset but the letters.
Edith shows this offensive letter to her parents. An outraged Edward wants to file a police report about these letters, but a reluctant Edith says she wants to avoid the embarrassment of making these letters public. Edith also says that whoever sent the letters deserves forgiveness and compassion. Eventually, Edward convinces Edith that they should file a police report because the only way for the letters to stop is to catch the culprit, and they need the help of law enforcement. Edith reluctantly agrees to give a statement to police.
Edward storms off the local police deparment and tells the investigating officer on duty about the letters. Constable Papperwick (played by Hugh Skinner) listens to what an angry Edward has to say and replies by saying that Constable Papperwick will fill out a form that will be filed for the police report. That response isn’t good enough for Edward, who thinks that Constable Papperwick isn’t taking the matter seriously. Edward insists that there should be a formal investigation.
Constable Papperwick relents and goes to the Swan home to do an interview with the Swans. Edward is quick to name the only person whom he thinks is sending the letters: a single mother named Rose Gooding (played by Jessie Buckley), who recently moved to the area from Ireland and who lives next door to the Swan family. Rose, who says her husband died in World War I, lives with her tween daughter Nancy (played by Alisha Weir) and Rose’s boyfriend (played by Malachi Kirby), who treats Nancy (who’s about 10 or 11 years old) and Rose with kindness and respect.
Edith then backs up the theory that Rose is sending the letters by telling Constable Papperwick more about why Rose is the most likely suspect. Rose and Edith actually started out as friendly acquaintances after Rose moved in next door. But some conflicts began to arise between the two women, who have opposite personalities.
The Swan family and Rose share a bathroom, which Edith says Rose often leaves in messy condition. Edith thinks that Rose is a foul-mouthed slob, while Rose thinks that Edith is an uptight prude. The Swan family also disapproves of Rose because she sometimes likes to have rowdy fun and get drunk at bars, which the Swans think is a very unladylike lifestyle.
Edith, who is nosy and judgmental, thinks it’s horrible that Rose dated several men before she began dating Bill. The Swans also don’t really approve of Rose because she’s Irish and an unmarried woman who’s “living in sin” with a lover. And it’s not said out loud in the movie, but it’s implied that because Bill also happens to be black, the Swans dislike that Rose and Bill are in an interracial romance.
At one point, someone anonymously called Child Protective Services against Rose. Nothing came of the CPS investigation, but Rose suspects that Edith is the one who called CPS to get Rose in trouble. All of these circumstances have made Rose the subject of gossip in the community, even before the obscene letters started being sent.
The tensions between Edith and Rose got worse during a birthday party for Edward, when a man at the party insulted Rose, and she punched him. This altercation ruined the party, and Edith put all the blame on Rose. Shortly after this party, Edith began receiving the obscene letters, which crudely accuse Edith of being promiscuous and kinky. The Swans tell Constable Papperwick that Rose is the only obvious suspect because she’s the only person they know who frequently curses like the curse-filled rants that are in the letters.
Constable Papperwick believes the Swans and immediately arrests Rose, who is charged with libel. Rose vehemently denies anything to do with the letters. Constable Papperwick and his boss Chief Constable Spedding (played by Paul Chahidi) think they have an easy open-and-shut case in proving that Rose is guilty. However, police officer Gladys Moss (played by Anjana Vasan), the only woman in the police department, is skeptical that Rose is guilty because there is no real evidence against Rose. Constable Papperwick and Chief Constable Spedding both think that doing a handwriting analysis is a waste of time and doesn’t count as evidence.
When Gladys expresses her concerns to Constable Papperwick and Chief Constable Spedding, these higher-ranking male cops are dismissive and condescending to Gladys in repeatedly sexist ways. Gladys suggests they should investigate further, because she thinks that Rose could be the target of a setup. Constable Papperwick sneers at her: “Woman officers don’t sleuth.” Chief Constable Spedding orders Gladys to stay out of the case. After Rose gets bailed out of jail, the obscene letters are sent to many more people in the community. And the scandal becomes big news in the United Kingdom.
In subtle and not-so-subtle ways, “Wicked Little Letters” shows the double standards that women face in society and how harsher judgments are placed on women if they do certain things that men are allowed to do without such judgment. Rose’s arrest is essentially because she does not conform to what this conservative community thinks a woman should be like: Rose sometimes gets drunk, she frequently swears, and she occasionally gets into fights to defend herself. A man doing the same things would not be condemned so severely.
Later in the movie, Rose finds out that Gladys is not allowed to marry and have children if she wants to keep her job as a police officer. It’s a sexist workplace rule that obviously doesn’t apply to men. When Rose asks Gladys why she wants to be a police officer, she says it’s because her father was a police officer, and she wants to do the work more than anything else. Gladys also has an adolescent niece named Winnie Moss (played by Krishni Patel), who also wants to become a police officer, and Gladys is mentoring Winnie.
The sexism doesn’t just come from men. An early scene in the move shows that Rose’s daughter Nancy likes to play acoustic guitar, but Rose tells Nancy, “Nice girls don’t play guitar.” (To her parental credit, Rose also tells Nancy to focus more on her academic studies.) On a more extreme level, Edith (who craves the approval of her strict and patriarchal father) has very bigoted ideas of what females should and should not do to be considered “respectable” and “feminine” in society.
“Wicked Little Letters” has some twists and turns in the story, which stays mostly faithful to the strange-but-true events that happened in real life. Although the names of the main characters have not been changed for the movie, some of the supporting characters were fabricated for the film. Rose finds some unlikely allies with three women who are Edith’s friends in a Christian women’s club that gets together to play cards: open-minded Mabel (played by Eileen Atkins), jolly Ann (played by Joanna Scanlan) and cautious postal worker Kate (played by Lolly Adefope), who is initially very suspicious of Rose.
“Wicked Little Letters” can get somewhat repetitive in showing how the odds are stacked against Rose. However, the investigation and the subsequent trial are intriguing and take comedic aim at the snobs in the community who are often hypocrites blinded by their own prejudices. The movie does not make adversaries Rose and Edith into caricatures. There are layers to Rose that show she’s a loving and responsible parent, not the unfit mother that she has been described as by her critics. Edith is also not quite as prim and proper as she appears to be.
Rose’s fiery personality and Edith’s reserved personality are seemingly at odds with each other. But Rose and Edith—just like Gladys—also share the common experience of being oppressed by sexism that wants to dictate or control how they should live their lives, simply because they are female. The heart of the film is in the admirable performances of Buckley, Colman and Vasan, who skillfully blend the film’s zippy comedy and the more serious drama. Amid the story about a criminal investigation and trial, “Wicked Little Letters” has poignant observations about female independence and female friendship—and what can be gained or lost under certain circumstances.
Sony Pictures Classics released “Wicked Little Letters” in select U.S. cinemas on March 29, 2024, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on April 5, 2024. The movie was released in the United Kingdom on February 23, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Skopje, North Macedonia, the dramatic film “Housekeeping for Beginners” features a white and Romani cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A social worker, who is a closeted lesbian and is the head of a household of other LGBTQ adults, tries to find a way to keep her “found family” together after she has to raise the two underage daughters of her deceased lover.
Culture Audience: “Housekeeping for Beginners” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching well-acted dramas about “found families” with mostly LGBTQ people as the main characters.
Mia Mustafa in “Housekeeping for Beginners” (Photo courtesy of Focus Features)
“Housekeeping for Beginners” is a “slice of life” film that doesn’t pretend to have all the answers about family life. Filled with emotions that are raw, tender and often repressed, this unusual drama offers a realistic look at a “found family” of LGBTQ people in North Macedonia. The mostly improvised acting performances are stellar, even when the story sometimes wanders.
Written and directed by Goran Stolevski (a filmmaker who is originally from North Macedonia and currently lives in Australia), “Housekeeping for Beginners” had its world premiere at the 2023 Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Queer Lion Award, a prize for LGBTQ movies. “Housekeeping for Beginners” was also North Macedonia’s offical selection for the Best International Feature Film category for the 2024 Academy Awards.
In “Housekeeping for Beginners” (which takes place in Skopje, North Macedonia), a social worker named Dita (played by Anamaria Marinca) is the head of her household. Dita is also a closeted lesbian to almost everyone outside of her household, which has become a safe haven for other LGBTQ people who have been rejected by their biological families. Dita is generous enough to not charge rent to any of the adults in her household.
In the beginning of the movie, there are eight people living in the household, and they will soon be joined by a ninth person. Dita (who is usually calm and level-headed) is living with her lover Suada (played by Alina Șerban), who has an acerbic and sometimes volatile personality. Suada has two daughters from two different deadbeat dads: daughter Vanesa (played by Mia Mustafi) is about 16 or 17 years old, while daughter Mia (played by Dżada Selim) is about 5 or 6 years old.
It’s later mentioned in the movie that the father of Vanesa was a drug addict who died of an overdose. Mia’s father is a drug dealer with a prison record and has not been involved in Mia’s life at all. Dita (whose father is a member of North Macedonia’s Parliament) met Suada because Suada was part of a social worker case that Dita had. Dita (who is originally from the low-income Shutka neighborhood) and her children are Roma. These differences in ethnicities and social classes are often issues in their family.
Also in the household is Dita’s longtime friend Toni (played by Vladimir Tintor), who is openly gay and who works as a medical assistant in a hospital. There are also three queer young women living in the household: Elena (played by Sara Klimoska), Teuta (played by Ajshe Useini) and Flora (played by Rozafë Çelaj), whose personalities are somewhat vague in this movie. It’s a house filled with camaraderie, love and the usual family tensions. But within a short period of time, things will drastically change.
The household gets an unexpected addition in the beginning of the movie: a 19 year-old gay Roma man named Ali (played by Samson Selim, who is Dżada Selim’s father in real life), who spent the night with Toni and doesn’t want to leave. Toni and Ali met on a gay dating app. Mia takes an instant liking to Ali. However, Dita and Suada are very wary of Ali because they meet him under awkward circumstances when Toni left Ali to look after Suada’s daughters.
Suada has pancreatic cancer, which has reached the terminal stage. Dita doesn’t see herself as a maternal type, but Suada insists that Dita take care of Vanesa and Mia after Suada dies. Suada’s death (which is already revealed in the “Housekeeping for Beginners” trailer) happens about 35 minutes into this 107-minute movie.
Complicating matters, North Macedonia does not have laws that allow same-sex marriages or openly gay people to adopt children . Dita is determined to keep her promise to Suada to have the family stay together, so Dita goes to extreme lengths to do it, including coming up with the idea to have Toni marry her. Meanwhile, Vanesa starts to rebel and threatens to run away from home.
“Housekeeping for Beginners” shows the emotional fallout of this pressure-cooker situation, as various family members experience grief and discontent over their lives. The movie doesn’t get preachy about discrimination against LGBTQ people, but it shows in unflinching ways how this discrimination can damage people and relationships. “Housekeeping for Beginners” is at its best when it demonstrates how family plays an important role in shaping people’s identities and loyalties, but family does not have to be defined by biology.
Focus Features will release “Housekeeping for Beginners” in select U.S. cinemas on April 5, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Northern Ireland, the dramatic film “In the Land of Saints and Sinners” features a predominantly white group of people (with one black person) representing the working-class, middle-class and criminal underground.
Culture Clash: A seemingly mild-mannered book dealer in a small town is really undercover, with a mission to kill terrorists from the Irish Republican Army (IRA).
Culture Audience: “In the Land of Saints and Sinners” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in movies about the IRA and are fans of star Liam Neeson and the crime dramas that he has been churning out on a regular basis.
Kerry Condon in “In the Land of Saints and Sinners” (Photo courtesy of Samuel Goldwyn Films)
“In the Land of Saints and Sinners” is exactly the type of movie that it appears to be. Just like almost every Liam Neeson movie with gun shootouts and other violence, this crime drama (which takes place in 1974 Northern Ireland) is very predictable. The talented cast’s credible performances elevate the formulaic story. Although it’s not a very original story, “In the Land of Saints and Sinners” is at least a straightforward and uncomplicated film that should satisfy people who are inclined to like this type of movie.
Directed by Robert Lorenz, “In the Land of Saints and Sinners” was written by Mark Michael McNally and Terry Loane. The movie had its world premiere at the 2023 Venice International Film Festival. At this point in Neeson’s career, he has been in “shuffle and repeat” mode in his movies, by playing the same type of character, but with different names and locations. Neeson’s typecast role is a brooding loner with a “particular set of skills” from a shady past, and he’s usually on a mission as a vigilante, agent, assassin or other “fill-in-the blank” gun-toter, who’s undercover or has gone rogue.
In “The Land of Saints and Sinners,” Neeson has the role of Finbar Murphy, a widower who seems to be a mild-mannered book dealer in the rural coastal town of Glencolmcille, Northern, Ireland. At home (where Finbar’s only companion is a cat), when Finbar is not puttering around his garden, he’s mildly flirting with his friendly widow neighbor Rita (played by Niamh Cusack) or having amiable chats with a local garda named Vincent O’Shea (played by Ciarán Hinds), who sometimes stops by for visits. Finbar and Vincent also hang out at a local pub, where they strike up an acquaintance with an African immigrant named Hasan Bello (played by Valentine Olukoga), a fiddler who is often part of the pub’s entertainment.
But trouble comes to Glencolmcille in the form of violent terrorists from the Irish Republican Army (IRA), which is fighting for Northern Ireland to be independent from the United Kingdom. Some of these IRA terrorists are hiding out in Glencolmcille, after setting off a car bomb in Belfast. This bombing (which is shown in the beginning of the movie), killed six people, including three children.
The leader of these fugitive terrorists is Doireann McCann (played by Kerry Condon), a callous and scheming manipulator, who’s not afraid of engaging in the same brutal violence that she expects her subordinates to inflict. The other people in Doireann’s crew are loyal henchmen Curtis June (played by Desmond Eastwood), quick-tempered Conan McGrath (played by Conor MacNeill) and hulking brute Séamus McKenna (played by Seamus O’Hara), who are all farly generic characters in a movie like this one. Condon is compelling to watch as the ruthless Doireann, who is volatile enough to make this movie’s viewers curious to see what she will do next.
“In the Land of Saints and Sinners” reveals very early on in the movie that Finbar is not as mild-mannered and squeaky-clean as he would like to appear to the community. There’s a scene showing that Finbar has kidnapped an unnamed official (played by Tim Landers), who is being held in the trunk of a car. Finbar drives the car to remote area, forces the man to dig his own grave, and then shoots the man.
Later, Finbar gets paid by cash in an envelope given to him by a local police officer named Robert McQue (played by Colm Meaney), who obviously hired Finbar to commit this murder. Finbar’s motives for becoming an assassin are murky for most of the film, but it’s pretty clear that he’s gotten involved in corrupt government dealings. In other words, Finbar is a typical Neeson movie character with gray areas of morality and ethics.
But just like a typical Neeson movie character, Finbar isn’t completely hardened and has a “softer side” to him. After he gets paid by Robert, Finbar says to Robert: “There’s more to me than this. I’d like folks to see it. I could plant a garden.” Finbar adds. “Are you going to miss me?” Robert replies, “Like a hole in the head.”
Finbar shows he has a “tough but tender” heart when he befriends a local girl named Moya (played by Michelle Gleeson), who is about 8 or 9 years old and is being physically abused by her domineering single father. In addition, Finbar develops a mentor-like relationship with a local young man named Kevin Lynch (played by Jack Gleeson, no relation to Michelle Gleeson), who is restless and bored in Glencolmcille and is looking for some action. Finbar’s paternal approach to Moya and Kevin are Finbar’s way of trying the ease Finbar’s feelings of guilt of his own failings as a father.
“In the Land of Saints and Sinners” (which has very good cinematography from Tom Stern) sometimes lumbers along at a sluggish pace, but the movie has an engaging authenticity with the dialogue and characters—unlike most of Neeson’s action films that have nonsensical plots and ridiculous characters who say and do stupid things. Because “In the Land of Saints and Sinners” reveals early on that Finbar is undercover with a false identity, there’s no mystery about what his intentions are and what he will do in the inevitable showdown between Finbar and the terrorists. There isn’t a bad performance in the movie, but “In the Land of Saints and Sinners” is the type of film where you know how it’s going to end within the first 15 minutes after the movie begins.
Samuel Goldwyn Films released “In the Land of Saints and Sinners” in U.S. cinemas on March 29, 2024.
