Wolf Man

Wolf Man is good and spooky.

We follow Blake as he takes his family to visit his childhood home, an isolated place.

It’s gorgeous there. During the day, vibrant greens ground us as a sort of steady air blankets us, and we just feel like everything is going to be OK. But at night, as the locals and natives know, there are creatures, sicknesses to be careful of. Well, get ready for a long night, folks.

This is a high-quality production all around. The writing and pacing build steadily and believably, and the father’s actor does a great job of portraying his struggles to do right by his family.

The sound and visuals are phenomenal, used just enough and used creatively to open our minds. Good and spooky indeed.

Death of a Unicorn

Death of a Unicorn has a premise made to catch our attention. Too bad the movie can’t hold it.

The idea is that a father and daughter accidentally kill a unicorn. They do this on the way to a secluded estate, at which the father will have a sort of job interview with a wealthy family that owns a pharmaceutical company.

If you can believe it, that’s about as believable as the movie gets. The characters are one-dimensional (evil tycoon and spoiled son; emo daughter of over-worked father, etc.). Any time there is about to be a moment of genuine communication, something interrupts; this happens far too much to be realistic. And with landscape visuals that are computer-generated in a bad way, we’re taken out of this story a lot.

The comedic acting does range from good to great, though; kudos to the spoiled son, the calmly conniving mother, the bald butler. And the direction can be smart and subtle (for example, when the camera focuses on the mother walking over a printout of the daughter’s, it’s letting us know how the mom thinks, even if it seems like she was approaching sweetly). But we’re also given too many quick cuts of nothing actions to transition between scenes. It feels like the director knows the writing isn’t great, and is trying desperately to keep our attention.

To reveal any other plot points will spoil the movie, but if you use your imagination, you can make a pretty good guess about where this story will go.

Last Days

Last Days might be about a religious missionary, but it has all the intensity of an international thriller.

The based-on-a-true story follows John as he tries to understand why God made him. It turns out that this is not an easy question for him to answer, and so, the moviemakers whisk us around the planet, trying to keep us up with John’s flurried brain, and revealing surprises about his family, his religion, and the cultures that he encounters.

It really gets interesting when John decides that the best way for his talents to be used is to convert an indigenous tribe to Christianity—a tribe that has, to date, killed every single outsider that it has encountered.

Whatever you think of John’s choice, he is portrayed brilliantly by his actor. It’s hard not to be stung by the flames of brazen naiveté and soul-torturing confusion the radiate off of him; hard not to feel for that entreating smile.

The bad? There’s plenty. The movie spends a bit too much time with John. When we see his family, the scenes are mostly depthless. And worst of all, the writing is full of cheap one-liners.

Each of those things takes us out of the experience, but thankfully, we are always drawn back in. The thriller-style structure of the thing, John’s acting, and the best part—that the movie asks us to consider pernicious ideas—make up for all the bad.

Have you ever really thought about how love, funneled through an organization, can destroy entire cultures? Do you realize what immigrants must lose, over and over again, to survive in a new reality; and how their kids might feel lost as a consequence?

28 Years Later

28 Years Later follows a young person as they go out into a zombified world for the first time. The movie can be thrilling and scary and hardcore, though what makes it truly engaging is that it has just as much deep drama as that other stuff.

There are rules on the home island—a seemingly safe, communistic place which has survived for 28 years since the zombie virus first infected humans on the mainland. And so Spike, as a right of passage, must now go to that mainland and understand reality. Mom is sick and stays home, but experienced Dad joins.

It’s hard for our heart not to race as we take those first steps . . . or for any of the many firsts we’ll experience. Brilliant moviemaking amplifies this. Is that the wind, or is some thing exhaling? Nighttime cut scenes blast our senses like red seizure dreams, while during the day we march to a different sound—though, maybe, it’s a similar mania.

This one is just fun. It is no marathon of gore, but a compelling blend of past and present, good and bad, seriousness and camp.

Where the Wind Comes From

Where the Wind Comes From has veins of sadness reaching from its head to its toes. You’d think those might weigh it down, but really, they help the movie become the tender, mature thing that it is.

It follows Alyssa and her friend Mehdi, two young adults in economically-(and for them, socially-)depressed Tunisia, each of whom is upset for different reasons. As time passes (i) we learn why and (ii) Alyssa discovers an opportunity for the two to maybe change their lives and rise above this place.

Queue the road trip! The (platonic) chemistry between our leads works its magic, uplifting us often, and reminding us of the exciting, desperate hope that can categorize youth. The writing injects Alyssa—rough around the edges in red, more tricksy and impatient and perhaps ready to give up—and Mehdi—more by the book, cautious in blue—into situations that illustrate problems big and small, but it’s never an overdose.

Very few of the lines do feel forced, as do a couple of pans of the countryside, but most of the movie watches real. You begin to root for these two, for the world to not be so harsh. For the first time in a long time you listen intently to stories that a loved-one tells you about where the wind comes from, for example, the sort of bedtime story that you need to hear in that moment to relax, because sometimes, the bad dream is something that you’re already awake in.

What’s the point? Photo Credit: Frida Marzouk

Bubble & Squeak

Bubble & Squeak is absurd and a total head-scratcher. We might take something from it.

You’ll know within the first five minutes whether this is a movie you’ll want to finish. This first scene has Declan and Delores, on their honeymoon, being interrogated . . . in a country that has outlawed cabbages, because its society has, for several reasons, deemed cabbages an affront to all that is good.

If you’re still with me, there’s more: Most of the dialogue is brief, even hollow-feeling. People talk more about cabbages or the worst desserts ever or job titles than they do about real life problems—for example, the predicament in which they find themselves.

And so we follow Delores and Declan (played brilliantly) as they run from the police (played absurdly) through the forest, with line after line of silly nothingness echoing through our brains. Mix that together with locals and strange events, and we have an intriguing story.

If you enjoyed the first five minutes then you’ll appreciate the movie as a light frolick—until the end, when the snowball has that been growing is revealed. If until then you had laughed at all at the silliness, then now, you just might cry at the beautiful, bittersweet depth.

Maybe Bubble & Squeak is a movie I don’t understand. But maybe, maybe it’s a good-natured wink; a refreshing reminder that although life is absurd, if we stop fighting it, we might have time to hear ourselves, learn something, and create something good on our own terms. Pretty great takeaway from something that watches easy.

DJ Ahmet

DJ Ahmet is the one where a sheep walks into a dance party. What a brilliant, brilliant movie.

It follows Ahmet, a good-natured teen who’s just trying to bring some joy to his currently dull life. This can be hard in his North Macedonian village—a tuft of sheep fuzz laid on one of countless hills, hills so vast that they serve as constant reminders: without each other, we cannot survive.

It’s actually a joyous movie, though there’s plenty that dampens the mood. Ahmet’s mother has passed, leaving a vacuum that his father’s coldness and his younger brother’s traumatized silence cannot fill. Each day Ahmet faces reality, milking the sheep and missing school to support the family.

And yet . . . he finds moments to listen to some bangers—true dance music gold. He’s sure to nurture his younger brother and interact, somehow, with that one girl who also seems to value this music/dance stuff.

At the risk of drowning in superlatives here, every aspect of the moviemaking seems perfect. The writing wisely balances lingering emotion with pops of pure joy or silliness. Editing smoother than silk never gets in the way of the story and the expertly-chosen cast acting expertly. The direction is oh-so subtle and smart, letting the whipping wind do all the talking one time, tantalizing us with the random lighting from fireworks another. And the sound, the music? Driving; wonderful; fun!

DJ Ahmet is the way. Have heart, spend time with your people, and make time to let it all go with some music once in a while.

Big hills big sky small people.

Architecton

This is difficult to say, but Architecton is offensively long and boring. What kind of documentary hides its topic from its audience for most of its (98) minutes?

Well, I won’t hide things from you: For most of the movie you’ll watch rocks. No narration or screen-text will help you understand what you’re looking at, but hey, at least orchestral music will blast your eardrums.

Every so often you’ll hope to be saved by certain in-between scenes, during which an architect supervises the construction of a circle of—you guessed it, rocks—on his lawn. I wish I could tell you why he’s doing that.

Only in the last ten minutes or so do the moviemakers disclose the idea: Modern architecture, what with all its concrete, is short-term and harmful to humans and the planet, and ancient building techniques are not. Got it.

Nothing makes up for the fact that the movie hides this from us. Sure, a few of the scenes are truly gorgeous—I mean, have you ever seen rocks boil like water or coordinate like ants?—but they are not nearly frequent or brief or enlightening enough for this movie to treat us this way.

Maybe, just maybe, the moviemakers want us to feel the enormity of the scale at which we blast mountains to crumble their parts to pour concrete to raise buildings to later knock down buildings? But even if that’s right, we could’ve learned it in a more engaging and efficient way.

Dahomey

Forget the treasure hunt. Dahomey documents a treasure return, and wow does it satisfy the soul.

The backstory is that France is finally returning important cultural artifacts to the land from which France had stolen them during its colonial occupation (now considered Benin).

The main story is that people care about it. The return and the crime. And so the moviemakers very intelligently just set the camera down and let us watch as the people of Benin speak for themselves, one by one.

In differing languages and with differing ideas, the citizens take turns with the mic. This is thoughtful, emotional stuff.

It isn’t how all the people feel, of course—the people and the kingdoms from which these artifacts were stolen are long dead. But the moviemakers create space for them, too, by imagining how they might feel . . . by having an artifact awaken and speak to us . . .

This is a mildly outrageous act of imagination, to pretend that we can imagine how someone from the past feels about their culture being lost. But it stimulates our own imagination, and so, there’s something to it. The voiceover resonating deeply through our chests helps.

Dahomey explores legacy by watching today. For both the colonizers and the colonized, it is something special.

My Old Ass

What would you say to your younger self, if you could? Anything at all?

My Old Ass knows that we’ve all asked ourselves these kinds of questions before, and it builds a whole story around the idea. How funny, sad, deep, and wonderful it is.

We’ll follow young-adult Elliott as she prepares to move from home to the big city—and then just before, somehow, comes into contact with an older version of herself.

It’s, like, so weird! And honestly, pathetic! How her old ass still hasn’t settled down. I mean, she’s had so many years . . . Why is she being so cagey?

Part of what makes this watch so fun and charming is that these are different people with different senses of humor and life experiences—but also, not. The extraordinarily realistic performance by young-Elliott pulls at our heartstrings just as much as old-Elliott’s more muted, knowing facial expressions do.

Other technical aspects like the editing, direction, and location-managing are fantastic, too, but kudos go above all to the idea; to the writing. In the veins of time passing, people changing, and family aging, this movie finds gold.

Uglies

Would you do it? Get that one cosmetic surgery that’s guaranteed to make you attractive and carefree, forever?

In Uglies society seems to be built around this idea. On one side of the river live the uglies, the folks who haven’t had this surgery yet, and on the other side live the beauties, perpetually partying and happy.

Tally will have the surgery soon, which is amazing, because she can’t wait to be at peace. It’s what she’s looked forward to for years—what she and everyone else have been taught to look forward to. But as the date approaches people in her life begin to act strangely . . .

Uglies has an intriguing concept. Nice! But the movie doesn’t dig deep. The writing is mostly obvious and repetitive, and when it isn’t, it feels rushed. Some sort of action-sports flash-mobs are thrown in, too; all of the sudden music is blaring, they’re doing this now, and it’s not clear what it has to do with anything.

HollyShorts Film Festival 2024

Hollywood

In a place and in an industry where new is inevitable, some things have survived for generations. That big name on that one hill, for example. And the TCL Chinese Theater on Hollywood Boulevard.

In a way, this old theater is the biggest screen offered by the United States. It’s its own thing, but it inevitably captures and displays our personal projections about American moviedom. Think Hollywood is dying? Just look at that aging theater—its name having changed, the unhoused walking past it apathetically—and you are vindicated. Or do you think American moviedom continues to evolve? Just look at that iconic theater and be warmed by its monument; look how it sits on a street tiled evermore with the big names and big brains of each successive generation. Still a haven of fun after all these years.

How fitting, then, that from August 8 – 18, 2024, the TCL Chinese Theater was home to the 20th edition of the HollyShorts Film Festival.

HollyShorts

The HollyShorts Film Festival devotes itself to “showcasing the best and brightest short films from around the globe, [and] advancing the careers of filmmakers through screenings, networking events, and various panels and forums”. It displays movies running 40 or less minutes, and had about 400 movies in this year’s program—culled from over 6,000 submissions.

A cool thing about this festival is that it has four categories that are Oscar-qualifying: Documentary Short Film; Best Short Film Grand Prize; Best Short Animation; and Best Short Live Actiom. This means that if a movie wins in one of these categories, it’s allowed to submit itself to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for Oscar award consideration.

HollyShorts Screenings

Unable to attend in-person this year, I watched virtually. My tagline for HollyShorts 2024? Has more, with less gimmicks.

This is a beautiful thing. Some moviemakers seem to think that because a short is brief, they can make a whole movie built around just a gimmick. No meaning is necessary, the rationale goes, because there is a twist, and people enjoy twists.

This is bad logic. The very best movies—no matter their runtime—have sizzle that doesn’t fizzle. The curators for HollyShorts 2024 seem to know this, and their slate is full of varied movies that, from what I’ve seen, are as thought-provoking as they are fun.

Select Reviews from HollyShorts 2024

I did not watch 400 movies to make this list, but I watched a few. Here are some of the standouts.

• The Dog (12 minutes)

  • The Dog follows Claire as she tries to hold herself together at the veterinary clinic. Who knows how many hours/bad reviews/nervous trainees/desperate owners/sick animals she’s had to deal with? Must be a lot; she seems to dissociate now and then . . . Anyways, a unique dog walks in, and the mood changes drastically.

  • This story is tight and gripping, with great editing. But most importantly, it’s moving. Maybe Claire just needs some time to process. Maybe we all do. Maybe we can help someone else do so, too.

• Technicians (17 minutes)

  • At its simplest, Technicians follows David as he takes a gig job to install some nail-manicure machines. There’s more to it, though.

  • David is a trained software engineer with broken dreams, and you’d think he’d connect with Tippi at the nail salon, whose dream is to keep doing what she’s doing; but David has essentially been hired to replace Tippi and all her Vietnamese and Vietnamese-American colleagues who take pride in their work and in the moments that they can connect with (and make a difference for) their clients.

  • Some unnecessary directional flourishes add time to this story, but overall it’s touching and insightful. Though things may be changing faster than we’d like, there’s still great benefit to the pace of humanity—however inefficient some might argue that that is.

• Audrey (16 minutes)

  • Audrey is a trainwreck of a dinner-party. You can’t help but stare at it, even relish as it gets more and more uncomfortable.

  • This is because Audrey shows up unannounced to the party. And Audrey, you could say, is very, very high maintenance.

  • The host couple doesn’t know how to react to this—which makes for an absurd and fun watch. There is also something deeper going on, though, begging to be let out. To be discussed.

• Deal of a Lifetime (17 minutes)

  • Deal of a Lifetime follows a man as he tries to find affordable coffins. Just like everything else these days, the options are too expensive.

  • The man’s frustrated outbursts are just so entertaining to watch, and the lead shines bright in this role. So relatable.

  • As he interacts with his son and parents we learn that his care for economy is a shared family value; that underneath it all is love and support. Some quite touching moments in this one.

• The Final Copy of Ilon Specht (18 minutes)

  • This documentary allows two people to share a bit of their story. One is Ilon Specht, who trailblazed in marketing and created the phrase “because I’m worth it”. Another is her stepdaughter.

  • The Final Copy of Ilon Specht rains love even as it touches on hate in the context of family and society. There is hate that some women have for misgyonistic, dehumanizing men, and then there is hate that some women have for each other, even mothers to daughters.

  • Are you worth it? Ilon believed that she was, and she changed at least two lives because of that belief, regardless of the fact that her phrase became a marketing sensation. What might happen if you recognize that you are worth it?

• Indulge Me (14 minutes)

  • Indulge Me is a charming, tender journey. It follows what appears to be a priest living in a trailer, hearing short confessions that end with a buzzer ding.

  • With some impressive moviewriting and acting, we experience the past and new connections between strangers. And so, so impressively, this short has us asking ourselves why we are all looking for forgiveness. Is it so wrong to look for something good in the world, even if we have trouble finding it?

• Anuja (22 minutes)

  • Anuja is a young girl who works in a garment factory. She lives on the streets with her sister, too, but when there is an opportunity to take a test for boarding school entry, she might have a way out.

  • The scenes in this one skew cozy. Time spent with a loving family is wonderful, even if the world makes things harder than they have to be. What would happen if Anuja and other children like her are given the opportunity to flourish?

Fun Fact

Seventeen minutes seems to have been a popular runtime for the movies I watched this year. Is this an industry standard? Are moviemakers talking, or coming to this conclusion on their own? Does this runtime work better than others for our brains to digest a new story?

The Grab

The Grab may be the most important movie we ever watch.

It’s a documentary about how the richest countries in the world are using up or stockpiling their last natural resources—and then quietly doing the same with other countries’ resources, all at the expense of the less-fortunate.

If you can’t believe this is happening, oh my do you need to watch this movie. And if you can believe this is happening, you still need to watch this movie. The scale of the land-rape and the toll on humanity are already unbelievable. And things won’t stop until we stop them.

We learn all this thanks to brave and patient moviemaking (especially from director Gabriela Cowperthwaite) and the work of some extraordinary subjects: a small group of professional investigative reporters lead by Nate, the man who years ago unknowingly took the first step on a trail through the dark night of humanity’s soul.

The movie watches like a thriller, brilliantly edited and structured to build and build and build our fear as Nate (and sometimes team and other interviewees) explain how they have uncovered outrageous things, piece by piece, year after year. Intelligently metaphoric graphics and subtle music add to the gravity of it all.

The situation is far from hopeless, as we’ll see. But the movie does force us to consider the realities that (i) countries quite logically want to keep their citizens alive and happy and that (ii) countries have chosen not to invest in smarter ways of doing things, but instead are scrambling to plunder from other people what they think are the last basic necessities for human life. Colonialization not for luxuries, but for survival.

Yes, The Grab is a confrontation that can be hard to watch. But it is engaging and hopeful and illuminating, too—a movie that could change the course of history for the better. Watch it and talk about it.

Would Russia invade Ukraine for natural resources?

The Idea of You

Can a 40-year-old be swept off her feet by a 24-year-old international pop-music superstar?

Yes! And in a believable way, thanks to The Idea of You.

If you’re skeptical and maybe even disgusted by this premise, fear not; so is our lead, Solène. She has recently divorced her ex-husband and is just trying to live a healthy life, running her own art gallery and setting a good example for her 16-year-old daughter.

The problem is that a chance encounter has Hayes terribly interested in Solène—and vice versa. So begins a chain of daydream-like events.

It’s engaging and fun! And sad and frustrating . . . and this is partly why the movie shines. The writing recognizes that in real life love can be work; that prioritizing oneself can sometimes mean de-prioritizing others; that different genders encounter different standards.

Though it’s a high-quality production all around (casting, locations, production design, and the rest of it), what stands out even above the smooth pacing and subtle direction is the chemistry from our leads. So natural.

The Idea of You offers a lot, so open your mind to it.

Into the Shaolin

Into the Shaolin. A documentary showing us the places and people of the Shaolin Monastery, a cradle of certain kinds of Buddhism—and martial arts.

There is something majestic about its setting; a misty, green/gray human enclave on the side of a mountain. But even more enchanting is watching humans do what they do here.

Some of these people are here because they didn’t do well in school; others, because they liked cartoons or kung fu movies. Most of them are just here temporarily. It’s stretching and moving and obedience, yes, but also the desires and weaknesses of humanity on display.

There is no storyline to it. The format moves like the breeze. But it’s too fascinating and beautiful to lose interest for more than a few moments.

In an age where things move faster than they ever have—and are designed to continue to do so—it becomes refreshing to watch people decide to do something slower and more meaningful with their lives. Compelling, too, when family and money are on the line.

Love Me

With just a buoy and a satellite, Love Me has us asking some of the deepest questions. What a playful and profound movie!

The story follows our two robo-characters (the only things left of Earth that can interact with each other) as they . . . interact with each other . . .

The satellite was created to help whoever it might encounter, but to help Buoy, it needs to know who Buoy is. If only Buoy knew! Or knew how to know? Simple questions transform this movie into a charming and oh-so-painfully real journey of discovery. Brilliant moviewriting.

Our actors are up to the challenge, too, portraying what-we-might-call-life over vast distances, time periods, and emotional ranges, in such an affecting way. So impressive. Humbling, almost cutesy visuals of tiny lil’ Earth contextualize everything for us.

Love Me might be about robots, but it’s a funny, warm consideration of life and love. Hard not to like it.

Stress Positions

Terry is a bit of a mess, but he now needs to keep it together to care for his 19-year-old nephew Bahlul, who has a broken leg. Surely he can do so for a little while, right?

Well, first step is to get rid of all the sex-party stuff from the house—his ex-husband’s aging townhouse, by the way; the only thing Terry can afford to live in, because Terry hasn’t worked in years. And did I mention that Bahlul’s mom/Terry’s sister is disgusted by Terry’s gayness? Covid is striking, too, and none of this is stopping Terry’s friends from wanting to meet the “little brown-boy” male model that is Bahlul.

Welcome to Stress Positions! It is wit, heart, and cringe that’s hard to summarize, but fun to watch!

We follow Terry as he spins around his house trying to maintain a calm and care for Bahlul. It is comically stressful and charming. Disinfectant sprays will choke people, kitchen messes will break people, and banter will bite people.

Balancing out the high nervous energy is calm, patient narration from Bahlul and Terry’s friend Karla. Everyone is trying to live together, it seems, while also carving out a space all their own.

The moviemakers hint strongly that fiction can be freeing; that you can think of yourself the way you want to. For Terry, this might be the root of his unhappiness, but for Bahlul, it might be the path to a healthier life. Who knows? Let’s get some food delivered, drink too much, and talk about it.

Can’t clink pots; dirty hands.

Stopmotion

Stop motion animation is hard work. You move a puppet a centimeter, take a picture . . . and then repeat the process thousands of times.

If you’re lucky, that’s all you need to do to bring your work to life. But if you’re unlucky?

This is precisely the fun of Stopmotion. While Ella works hard at creating her own stop motion animation (which is of course driving her crazy), things outside the job begin to feel very creepily like the job itself. Almost like her project is taking over her life . . .

This is truly unsettling stuff, and all sorts of moviemaking techniques jerk us around in ways we don’t want to be moved. Hinges will squeak on your joints; putrid lighting and waxy meat will have you questioning your perception.

Are several scenes too long, making the movie feel dragged out? Yes. And is there a moral to the story? I can’t tell. But, this is a movie that shows how creation can sometimes bring agony; its sights and sounds are truly immersive, showing us thoughtful, professional moviemaking minds at work.

Whose movie is this?

As We Speak

This one flick at Sundance

(I killed to get in),

As We Speak it was called,

about rap as a sin.

About rap as a tool

to impeach and imprison;

and not as reflection,

creation, or vision.

It showed us the law,

prosecutors precise,

who twist up a lyric

just thinkin’ they nice.

That man who was shot?

At that store down the block?

Well Kemba once said:

All my competition’s dead…

So isn’t it clear?

He looks like he did it…

But that’s not PC so

let’s look at his lyrics.

Follow pattern, you see,

which is way way way old,

contra human responses

like blues jazz and soul.

So with Kemba we travel

to the poetry cradles:

libraries, floors,

of course diner tables;

to those jesters performing,

to those jokers locked up,

asking what happened?

and who gave a fuck?

And we see it’s just people,

calmness and eyes.

Jokes, explanations,

just done to survive.

So long story short,

this doc is a fluid:

factfiction blurring like

ain’t nothin’ to it.

One moment we’re student,

one moment on trial.

One moment we crumble,

another we smile.

So rap is on trial.

As we speak

yes right now.

Speech is on trial.

As We Speak

shows us how.

In a Violent Nature

Nature seems to go like this: You eat until you’re eaten. And In a Violent Nature seems to have been written with this in mind.

It follows Thing, who has been awakened, and who will not eat or sleep until it kills those who’ve disturbed it. Like those people staying in that cabin . . .

And so we trail a few steps behind Thing as it walks ever so patiently, step by step through the crunchy leaves, to do what it does. Its prey are so close—we can hear them talking, just out of our sightline. Moviemaking techniques like these make this a hair-raising, heart-pounding watch.

And yet, walking with Thing for minutes on end (even if weirdly therapeutic forest-bathing), we begin to consider: Why? And why do we care?

We learn very little about Thing; even less about its prey. So what if nature is violent, do we need a reminder of that? Another horror movie full of slaughter, just because somebody’s feelings were hurt?

If you like to see gore, this movie has it, and I suppose is creative in that way. But otherwise?

Guess who?