Forgeries and artistic integrity clash in entertaining "Christophers"

Sir Ian McKellen must be old. I thought he was old in the LOTR franchise, and that was filmed nearly thirty years ago. In The Christophers, at the ripe old age of 86, he's a formerly celebrated painter, Julian Sklar, whose adult children resort to unethical activities in order to secure his inheritance. The problem? Lori Butler (Michaela Coel), the woman assigned to forge his titular painting collection, clashes with the eccentric old man. Their back-and-forth banter is the heart and soul of the movie.

Steven Soderbergh continues to be one of the most prolific American filmmakers, often releasing two movies in a single year. The Christopher may not be his ultimate masterpiece, but given the mediocrity of last year's Presence and the highly overrated Black Bag - and thanks in large part to McKellen's winning performance - it's the best work he's done in many years.

☆☆☆

Zazie Beetz is a badass like few other in blood soaked "They Will Kill You"

 

Imagine fusing Kill Bill and Ready or Not franchises in a lab. What will you get? Nothing less than They Will Kill You, a blood soaked action-horror in which Satanists get sliced in various ways. When Asia Reaves (Zazie Beetz) gets released from prison, she looks for her little sister in a gothic New York City high rise. What she finds there are a group of devoted Devil worshippers. All immortal, all batshit crazy, looking to kill or sacrifice her for their personal gain. Needless to say, arms, feet and heads get sliced - to say the least.

Russian filmmaker, Kirill Sokolov, has made a movie that is mostly all style, with very little substance. But it matters little, when all is said and done. Much like his 2018 dark comedy, Why Don't You Just Die?, They Will Kill You is not here to make us question the meaning of life. It's an ultra violent, entertainment where (mostly) good people triumph over great evil (still don't understand how a ten year prison sentence turns a woman into an ultimate warrior, but whatever). This may not be everyone's cup of tea, but it delivers exactly what it promises. As long as you expect nothing else, you should meet the end credits with a smile on your face.

☆☆1/2

Gosling's charm & Weir's material elevate "Project" to cellestial heights

 

Andy Weir's 2021 novel, Project Hail Mary, was a whopping fun-ride. After I read it in 2024, I was charmed by Weir's ability to fuse hard sci-fi with a moving story about a solitary teacher who's thrust into an international plight to save our Solar System's sun before it's eaten away by an alien virus (known here as Astrophage). When I heard that a movie was in the works, with Ryan Gosling in the lead role, my smile stretched from ear to ear.

Having just seen the movie, I can proudly say it does Weir's novel true justice. It is, more or less, exactly as I'd imagined it. Even the alien Rocky, an Eridian extra-terrestrial, is a charming, lovable pile of connected rocks - as it was in my imagination. While this human/Eridian duo meet up in the deep cosmos, they learn to communicate, and use their scientific prowesses in order to save their respective planets from Astrophage's threat.

Project Hail Mary is a relatively early 2026 blockbuster release, and may not resonate in the public's memory by the time movie awards season kicks in. It is a moving drama nonetheless, a smart science fiction experience, and an exciting save-the-universe quest - all rolled into one. I won't be forgetting it anytime soon.

☆☆☆1/2

These "Fruits" too rotten to enjoy

 

Perhaps I would not be so peeved at how bad Meredith Alloway's Forbidden Fruits really is if the Rotten Tomatoes score didn't gift it with a whopping 76%. Imagine something similar to 1996's The Craft - which was no masterpiece, by the way - but worse. And not just a little. Much, much worse. 

But I digress.

The four heroines in Forbidden Fruits are flat as characters. They're egotistical, and - considering this is marketed as a dark comedy - grossly unfunny. They speak like poorly written archetypes of film school screenwriter hacks, and occupy a plot so thin and dull it's difficult to sit through it. When you add the flat visual element - movie's cinematography resembles an early 2000s direct-to-Cinemax far - the result is a toothache, sans novacaine. My one confession: I didn't even make it to the end. I dare you to.

1/2 ☆

Borgli's "The Drama" bites and scathes as a contemporary satire

 

Perhaps no current filmmaker has explored the sensitivity of modern society as the Norwegian director, Kristoffer Borgli. His previous movies, Dream Scenario and Sick of Myself, were biting satires that made us cringe and laugh. In his latest, The Drama, a young couple, Charlie (Robert Pattinson) and Emma (Zendaya) meet and fall in love. 

Shortly before their wedding, they are joined by friends (Alana Haim and Mamoudou Athie) over numerous glasses of wine. Things are said, confessions made, until Emma admits to having had - once upon a time - bad thoughts (very bad thoughts) at one point in high school. Her friend is disgusted, and angry. Soon, Charlie is also torn, unsure of himself. Should he go through with the marriage, after knowing what he knows about his future Mrs?

The Drama tackles modern wokeness, examining humanity's tolerance about people's past sins. Emma never carried out the bad thoughts she possessed as a confused teenager, she merely had them. No one was hurt as a result: not a single person. Yet she's doomed to pay for them, even now. Should she have ever said anything to begin with? Whatever happened to 'silence is golden' rule? This movie is insightful, bold, funny, but above all else - honest. I strongly suggest you see it - and everything else Borgli has created.

☆☆☆1/2

True story of "Tow" is drowned by a weak plight of a disappointing heroine

 

As a homeless woman living in her car in Tow, Amanda Ogle's (Rose Byrne) life is turned upside down when her 'home' is - you guessed it - towed. She follows this unfair incident (the car was initially stolen, then allegedly towed, where it eventually accrued over $20k of fines due to storage and additional legal fees, etc) for over a year, sleeping in shelters and getting on the good side of Barb (Octavia Spencer), the woman in charge of (what I imagine) is the cleanest, poshest homeless shelter ever.

The irony in this fact-based tale is that, despite her social and financial shortcomings, Ogle's plight is half-sympathetic. The reason? Her car was barely worth a thousand dollars, yet she fought for it with a vigor of someone who was chasing a prized possession worthy of a million bucks. Now, I'm not downplaying the authenticity of Ogle's story; but I am questioning why this 'drama' expects us to care for a character who's such a disappointment as a person that - in America, of all places - she behaves as if she's living in war torn, sub Saharan Africa. If you want to truly appreciate Byrne's talents, check out If I had Legs, I'd Kick You instead.

☆☆

All build up and no payoff mute this "Undertone"

 

A movie that's advertised as a new trope of horror should deliver uncommon scares. Unfortunately, writer/director Ian Tuason's Undertone fails to deliver in its final act. It is all the more disappointing because, for majority of its ninety plus minutes, the movie presents us with a likeable heroine, Evy (Nina Kiri), a nighttime podcaster who spends her days taking care of her aging, ill mother. Throughout, Evy and her off-screen podcaster co-host (voiced by Adam DiMarco) play audio clips on air, some of which have sinister vibes.

Part Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation (where the protagonist attempts to make sense of sounds), part 2012's Sinister (a grossly underrated horror movie), Undertone never reaches the climax of either film. It is a good idea, in and of itself, but no more than that. Here's hoping that Tuason's next project is followed all the way through, instead of merely tickling our bones, for the sheer sake of it.

☆1/2