The Price of Goodbye (2025) ☆☆☆(3/4): A desperate funeral before death

Posted on June 16, 2026 by kaist455

South Korean independent film “The Price of Goodbye” is a low-key comedy ably swinging back and forth between absurdity and desperation, and I like that. While we are often amused by its several characters struggling in their silly little scam in one way or another, we also come to sense more of how desperate they are, and many of the funny moments in the film actually come from their accumulating desperation along the story.

At the beginning, we are introduced to a hospital nurse named Seon-yeong (Kang Mal-geum). Her father has been in her hospital since he became comatose several years ago, and now it seems that his close family members including Seon-yeong will have to say farewell to him. Her younger brother Il-hoi (Bong Tae-gyu) and his wife and son soon come to the hospital, but Seon-yeong is not so pleased to see Il-hoi at all, because she knows too well that he is more interested in collecting condolence money during their father’s funeral.

In-hoi is impertinently opportunistic, but he is also quite desperate to say the least. He and his family have been pursued by several loan sharks for his considerable amount of debt, and they really need any money right now before those loan sharks locate them. In addition, his son, who has somehow grown up fairly well despite his lousy father, is about to enroll in a medical school, and both In-hoi’s wife and Seon-yeong really want to see him follow his aspiration to the end without any problem, though they do not have any money for his tuition.

When In-hoi’s wife sends a text on his father’s funeral to a certain family member a bit too early, Seon-yeong comes to concoct a little scam which may benefit all of them in the end. They are going to hold a mock funeral for getting some money from that family member incidentally quite affluent, and Seon-yeong sees no problem in executing this scam at all. After all, it was diagnosed that her father will die within a few days, and, in her cynical viewpoint, they simply advance his funeral a bit for their convenience.

 While not telling anything to In-hoi’s son at all, Seon-yeong, In-hoi, and In-hoi’s wife quickly embark on setting up the mock funeral without being noticed by anyone in the hospital or the funeral service center inside it, and that leads to a series of small but intense comic moments for us. When that rich family member of theirs arrives earlier than expected, Seon-yeong and her accomplices must act as quick as possible, and they also have to be very, very, very patient before that rich family member eventually comes to show some generosity.

Needless to say, their situation later gets more complicated thanks to In-hoi, who becomes more selfish without any consideration on his family or his older sister. When he suggests that they should go further with their scam, Seon-yeong is naturally disgusted, but then she only finds herself going much further than he expected just for her dear nephew, and, what do you know, she and her accomplices come to handle a lot more than they imagined.

Steadily building up its comic momentum, the screenplay by director/writer Kwon Yong-jae, which was developed from his 2021 short film, also gradually fleshes out the complex human feelings among Seon-yeong and her other family members. Although her father as well as her younger brother has been a big emotional burden to her for many years, Seon-yeong still feels obliged to do anything necessary for her and her younger brother’s scam because, well, they are family. While she has been pretty tired of her husband’s irresponsibility, In-hoi’s wife tries to stand by him as much as possible, but he only makes her more despaired and frustrated instead. In case of In-hoi’s son, he mostly keeps his feelings and thoughts behind his passive appearance, but it is pretty clear to us that he does not like his father much, and we are not so surprised when he contributes to another unexpected plot turn later in the story.

The last act becomes darker and more serious as Seon-yeong and her accomplices desperately hold onto their scam to the end, but then the movie becomes surprisingly tranquil to our little surprise. This feels rather befuddling for us at first, but it somehow works because of what has been carefully built up along the plot, and we see a little glimmer of hope and optimism amid a lot of uncertainty around the main characters.

Like any good character comedy films, the movie depends a lot on the talent and presence of its main cast members, and its four principal performers are believable as realistic human figures to observe. While Kang Mal-geum, who has been more notable since her breakout performance in “Lucky Chan-sil” (2019) and was also the lead actress of Kwon’s short film, deftly conveys to us her character’s complicated emotional state even when her weary face does not seem to signify anything at all on the surface, Bong Tae-gyu, Jang Liu, and Jeong Soon-beom are equally effective in their respective parts, and the special mention goes to Yang Mal-bok, who was unforgettable in “The Apartment with Two Women” (2021) and effortlessly steals the show during her brief but indelible appearance here in the film.

 Overall, “The Price of Goodbye”, which I happened to miss in last December because I was busy with preparing for my little winter vacation in Australia, is a modest but engaging comedy film thanks to its solid storytelling and strong performances. Although this is his first feature film, Kwon shows considerable potential here as a good filmmaker, and it will be interesting to see what may come next after this promising starting point.

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Remarkably Bright Creatures (2026) ☆☆☆(3/4): Her octopus friend

Posted on June 15, 2026 by kaist455

Netflix film “Remarkably Bright Creatures”, which was released early in last month, is unabashedly sappy but somehow remains fairly entertaining on the whole. While it takes some time for us to accept the fantasy aspects of the story, the story and characters are handled well with enough sincerity and sensitivity at least, and you may come to forgive a number of clichéd melodramatic moments later in the story.  

The story, which is mainly set in some nice little bay town located somewhere in the Washington state, is driven by the narration of an old male octopus named Marcellus (voiced by Alfred Molina), who has lived at a small local aquarium since it was rescued several years ago. Having been rather bored and frustrated with his current state of life, Marcellus often observes a number of humans outside his water tank, and, as a creature of considerable sensitivity and intelligence, he has noticed the melancholic sadness of Tova Sullivan (Sally Field), an elderly cleaning lady who has steadily worked in the aquarium for many years.

Tova lives in a cozy little house alone by herself, but now she is about to make a very important decision on the rest of her life. Her husband reserved her spot at a facility for old people not long before his death, and she comes to consider this option more seriously as being reminded that she does not any close family member at all. She and her husband once had a son, but their son died due to some unfortunate incident a long time ago, and she is still haunted by those personal memories involved with him.

And then there comes an unexpected change into Tova’s life via Cameron Cassmore (Lewis Pullman), a young struggling musician who comes to her town on one day for a certain personal reason. When his old vehicle, which was inherited from his estranged mother who recently died, unfortunately gets broken, Cameron decides to stay in the town at least for while for earning enough money for repairing his vehicle, and, what do you know, he ends up getting employed as a temporary worker to substitute Tova when she gets seriously injured in one of her ankles.

Now you will get some pretty good idea on the rest of the story, and the screenplay by director Olivia Newman and her co-writer John Wittington, which is based on the novel of the same name by Shelby Van Pelt, does not exceed any of our expectation. Yes, Tova and Cameron do not get along that well with each other right from their very first day, but, with some little help from Marcellus, they eventually befriend each other more as time goes by. While Cameron comes to appreciate the generous attention from Tova, Tova’s daily life is brightened up a bit as she gradually allows him into her daily life, and she willingly assists Cameron a little in his ongoing personal mission, though the outcome turns out to be not so satisfying as she hoped.

In addition, Tova and Cameron encourage each other to go for their respective possibilities for some romance. When Cameron comes across a young lady running a little business of her own in the town, their Meet Cute moment is not exactly pleasant to say the least, but both of them soon find themselves more attracted to each other, after Tova gives Cameron some good advice on his sudden matter of heart. Although she still misses her dead husband, Tova decides to have a “meeting” with a local dude who has clearly been carrying a torch for her, and her several close friends are certainly delighted for that. In fact, they are instantly ready to support her in one way or another, and that expectedly leads to a rather awkward moment for them. 

Although he remains stuck inside the aquarium as usual, Marcellus functions as your average omnipresent narrator, and he even becomes a little more active later in the story. Around that narrative point, the movie often feels like a sort of cross between Oscar-winning documentary film “My Octopus Teacher” (2020) and Guillermo del Toro’s Best Picture Oscar winner “The Shape of Water” (2017), but this supposedly preposterous aspect of the movie actually works better than expected. Thanks to not only Newman’s sensitive direction but also the witty and colorful voice performance from Alfred Molina, Marcellus becomes the most interesting character in the story, and we come to care about him as much as several other main characters around him.

Whenever Molina’s voice acting does not steal the show, the other main cast members dutifully fill their respective spots in the story. Sally Fields and Lewis Pullman ably complement each other throughout the movie, and their earnest performances overcome some melodramatic plot contrivances during the last act. In case of several notable performers in the film including Joan Chen, Kathy Baker, Beth Grant, Sofia Black-D’Elia, and Colm Meaney, their good efforts are often hindered by their under-developed supporting roles, but Baker and Meaney have each own little moments to shine at least.    

In conclusion, “Remarkably Bright Creatures” is one of the more entertaining Netflix products during this year. Although it is sometimes a little too sweet and sentimental in my inconsequential opinion, the movie does its job as well as intended, so I will not grumble for now as fondly remembering that smart and amusing octopus.

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Earth, Wind & Fire (To Be Celestial vs That’s the Weight of the World) (2026) ☆☆☆(3/4): The story of that legendary band

Posted on June 14, 2026 by kaist455

HBO documentary film “Earth, Wind & Fire (To Be Celestial vs That’s the Weight of the World)” gives me a bit of enlightenment on one of the legendary bands in the American pop music history during the late 20th century. To be frank with you, I belatedly came to learn a little about Earth, Wind & Fire via one of its famous songs memorably utilized in Oscar-nominated animation film “Robot Dreams” (2023), and I was surely both entertained and enlightened enough thanks to this solid documentary.

The main center of the documentary is Maurice White (1941 ~ 2016), the founder and leader of Earth, Wind & Fire. The early part of the documentary focuses a bit on his rather unhappy childhood years in Memphis, Tennessee, and the documentary makes a point on how a certain childhood trauma of his often affected his relationships with others around him for the rest of his life. For herself as well as her son, his widow mother had to leave young White to someone else, and he did not recover from that trauma at all even after he came to live with his mother and her new family in Chicago several years later.

Anyway, as getting more interested in music, White eventually found comfort and stability in that, and he quickly showed a lot of potential as studying and practicing music. Not long after becoming one of the studio musicians at Chess Records in Chicago in the early 1960s, he joined the Ramsey Lewis Trio as a new drummer, and it seemed that he reached the top of his field as becoming one of the best drummers in the town.

However, White was not still satisfied enough as reaching for something more special, so he eventually decided to leave the band and then moved to California for making a band of his own in 1969. As many of you know, the American society during the 1960s was shaken up a lot by the demand for more freedom and change, and White was particularly influenced a lot by those New Age ideas which became pretty popular during that time. As a matter of fact, that rather weird name of his band was actually inspired by the astrological stuffs associated with him, and he was quite determined to go all the way with those New Age ideas represented by the name of his band.

However, the early years of Earth, Wind & Fire were not exactly successful to say the least. As often trying on the wild mixture between R&B, jazz, and gospel, the band surely shocked and confused audiences at that time, and even White became unsure about the prospect of his band because its first album was not sold that well.

Nevertheless, White did not give up at all, though his following drastic measure on the band hurt the feelings of his close collaborators a lot. He promptly fired most of his original band members, and then he gradually recruited the new members to fit with his artistic vision on the band. This was certainly a risky gamble, but it worked much better than expected. Once everything eventually clicked among the band members, Earth, Wind & Fire became much more popular than before, and it gave a number of hit songs to remember during the 1970s.

However, of course, this big success of the band did not last that long. White and his band tried to follow the changing trend during the late 1970s and then the 1980s, but, as shown from their tacky music video during the 1980s, the result was not very excellent to say the least. As many of their juniors ranging from Prince to Michael Jackson became much more prominent, the band only got pushed further toward past, and that made White decide to stop working on the band at least for a while.

As the band went down, White came to show more of the worse sides of himself to others around him, and many of his close colleagues still remember how much they felt hurt when he suddenly announced the temporary hiatus of their band on one day without any consideration. In addition, he was not that good to not only his longtime partner but also his children, and all of his children reminiscent well how absent he was before opening himself more to them as well as his band members later in his life.

Compared to the extraordinary aspects of director/co-producer/co-composer Questlove’s previous Oscar-winning documentary “Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)” (2021), the documentary feels relatively plain, but Questlove did a fairly good job of presenting the interesting human aspects of its main subject, and you will be often impressed by a number of prominent figures interviewed by him. While a number of the past band members and White’s close colleagues surely have a lot to talk about their experiences with White, several notable musicians including Lionel Richie and Stevie Wonder are certainly willing to talk about the considerable influence of Earth, Wind & Fire, and a certain very, very, very famous couple eagerly talk about how much the band has meant a lot to them (They used one of its most famous songs for their historical night in 2009, for example).

Overall, “Earth, Wind & Fire (To Be Celestial vs That’s the Weight of the World)” was both engaging and informative enough for me to check on the albums of Wind, Fire & Earth. As a matter of fact, I am listening to one of its compilation albums as writing this review right now, and I guess that says enough about how well the documentary works on the whole.

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Sheep in the Box (2026) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): A middling AI robot drama by Hirokazu Kore-eda

Posted on June 12, 2026 by kaist455

Hirokazu Kore-eda’s latest film “Sheep in the Box”, which was released in South Korean theaters not long after premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, approaches to its intriguing science fiction materials as gently and humanely as you can expect from him. As a matter of fact, it is actually a little too gentle to go further with its supposedly intriguing story premise, and it is quite disappointing for me to observe how it eventually fizzles as becoming too maudlin and contrived during its last act.

At the beginning, the story, which is set in the slightly futuristic world, introduces us to Otone (Haruka Ayase) and Kensuke (Daigo Yamamoto), a fairly affluent middle-class couple who lost their 7-year-old son two years ago due to some unfortunate incident. Although they have managed to go on with their life since that sad happening, both of them often cannot help but feel the lingering absence of their son between them, and then Otone is approached by a prominent AI robot company willing to provide a certain service for free. This company can make a humanoid AI robot based on their son and the memories of him, and they are told that this can actually provide them a chance to process their loss and grief.

While Kensuke is understandably reluctant, Otone eventually decides to request an AI robot version of their son after seeing how real a humanoid AI robot can be. Although it is well aware of its mechanical nature, the AI robot version of their son really talks and acts like him, and Otone soon gets more accustomed to this robot in contrast to Kensuke, who makes it clear to the robot that he does not want to be called “father” at all.

What follows next is a series of small episodic moments depicting how the robot gradually becomes a part of Otone and Kensuke’s domestic life. It acquires more information on their son as spending more time with them, and Otone, who is incidentally an architect, is more impressed by the robot when it shows some appreciation on the process of her latest project. Although there is still considerable distance between him and the robot, Kensuke allows it to be introduced to his work colleagues, and there is a brief but interesting moment between the robot and an old worker willing to share a bit of his expertise with it.

Needless to say, both Otone and Kensuke later become all the more conflicted about the robot. Even though they know that it is more or less than an object onto which they project each own human feelings, the robot really feels like their son to them at times, and that accordingly makes them face their pain and sorrow from losing him at that time. While Otone confronts the guilt of not being always there for her son due to her work, Kensuke turns out to have his own guilt behind his rather brusque appearance, and there is a sad scene where he desperately tries to get anything about his son’s death from the memories of his son stored in the robot.

Kore-eda’s screenplay unfortunately stumbles when it later attempts to show what the robot thinks and “feels”. Not long after meeting a bunch of other robots not so different from it, the robot embarks on a little project of his own without telling anything to Otone or Kensuke, and we are later served with a half-baked idea on how AI can learn humanity and creativity from us. Kore-eda seems quite sincere and serious about this, but, having seen too much of the negative aspects of AI during last several years, I cannot help but think of that familiar phrase: “Isn’t it pretty to think so….”

Furthermore, the finale does not work as well as intended while leaving us with a lot of shallow impression. In fact, I am now reminded more of how some notable science fiction movies and TV series did a much better job on those tricky possibilities between us and AI. Needless to say, Steven Spielberg’s “A.I. Artificial Intelligence” (2001) did a far more interesting and powerful job in the same genre territory, and the same thing can be said about recent American TV drama series “Alien: Earth”. While both of them impressed me for fresh and intriguing science fiction ideas, “Sheep in the Box” sadly does not have anything new to intrigue or impress me, and I was only mildly amused by its rather heavy-handed references on Antoine De Saint-Exupéry’s classic novella “The Little Prince”.

Although Kore-eda frequently struggles with the science fiction elements of his story, the movie is strewn with those distinctive artistic touches from him at least. As usual, he often uses trains or their recognizable sounds for little but precious poetic effects, and he also shows some skill and competence as usual in handling a number of child performers in the film. Although he is often limited by his under-written part, young performer Rimu Kuwaki holds his own place fairly well among his two adult co-stars, and Haruka Ayase and Daigo Yamamoto are effective in their modest but earnest performance.

In conclusion, “Sheep in the Box” is not a total dud at all, but it is still a major letdown considering how Kore-eda has steadily impressed us during more than 30 years since his remarkable first feature film “Mabrosi” (1995). Except “The Third Murder” (2017), all of his subsequent films are good or excellent in my humble opinion, and I would rather recommend any of them instead. Sure, the movie does have all the characteristics shown from many of his works, but it regrettably fails to generate enough interest or emotion from its very familiar genre elements, and I can only hope that Kore-eda will soon bounce from this passable misfire.

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Disclosure Day (2026) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): Familiar but masterful nonetheless

Posted on June 11, 2026 by kaist455

Steven Spielberg’s new film “Disclosure Day” feels like watching a maestro handling his familiar repertoires with expected but undeniably impressive deftness. While it does not have the unadulterated awe of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” (1977) or the sheer terror of the first half of “War of the Worlds” (2005), the movie is still a very compelling science fiction movie packed with ideas and intrigues, and you can instantly sense from the very first shot that you are at the hand of a masterful storyteller who can interest and then engage us a lot more than expected.

 The story premise of the movie is quite familiar to say the least. Since that famous incident Roswell, New Mexico in 1947, the existence of alien entities from the outer space has been steadily and thoroughly covered up by a powerful agency called Wardex during next several decades, but now this hidden truth is on the verge of being fully disclosed in public thanks to a small group of defectors inside Wardex including Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor). Needless to say, those Wardex agents led by Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth) are quite determined to stop Kellner by any necessary, and the opening scene throws us right into an urgent situation surrounding Kellner.

As Kellner keeps running away from the Wardex agents along with his girlfriend Jane (Eve Hewson), the movie also focuses on what happens to a Kansas City TV meteorologist named Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt). For some inexplicable reason, Fairchild suddenly finds herself capable of not only speaking several foreign languages but also sensing every personal detail of whoever she is looking, and she becomes all the more frightened and confused when another strange thing happens to her later. 

While it is not much of a spoiler to tell you that these two main plots eventually converge around the middle act of the story, the screenplay by David Koepp, which is developed from the story by Spielberg himself, does not hurry itself much as occasionally exploring its thought-provoking main ideas. If alien entities really exist out there, can the humanity possibly process this surprising fact well? And how much will it actually affect our religious and existential beliefs?

The movie wisely avoids giving any definite answer to these and other questions arising from its story, while only emphasizing the undeniable value of empathy and open-mindedness. At one point later in the story, Jane, who was once a nun, asks some big questions to one of the nuns in her former convent, and that nun’s thoughtful reply is certainly something we should remember if the existence of alien entities in the outer space turns out to be real in our life.

Meanwhile, the movie steadily keeps things rolling for engaging us more. Spielberg and his crew members including his longtime cinematographer Janusz Kamiński give us a series of splendid moments including the one where Scanlon attempts a sort of mind control via an alien device, and each of these superb scenes functions as a building block for the considerable dramatic power of the expected climactic part.

Some of you may think the finale is a bit anti-climactic, but I admire how skillfully and thoughtfully Spielberg handles this part. Some of the special effects in the film are not very realistic on the surface, and those alien entities and their spaceships in the film are not so far from what we have seen countless other similar stuffs including, yes, “The X-files”, but these elements are handled with a lot of confidence and competence at least. In the end, we become focused more on the human reactions amply presented on the screen, and the score by John Williams, who is thankfully active even at present despite being over 90, carefully modulates the complex emotional undercurrents swirling below the screen.

The main characters of the movie sometimes feel like more or less than plot elements, but Spielberg has a number of talented performers who can fill their respective roles with enough presence and personality. While Emily Blunt’s solid acting gradually occupies the center of the story as required, Josh O’Connor is also effective in his character’s inner struggle along the story, and Colin Firth and Colman Domingo complement each other well as the two opposing supporting characters in the story (It is really nice to see Domingo doing something much better than his embarrassingly cartoonish supporting turn in that disposable Michael Jackson biography film which came out several weeks ago, by the way). In case of Eve Hewson and Wyatt Russell, they manage to overcome their rather thankless parts, and Hewson is particularly impressive during a certain key scene of hers with Firth.

In conclusion, “Disclosure Day” does not reach to the greatness of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” or “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” (1982), but it is definitely another terrific masterwork from Spielberg. Yes, he was once a young but talented director ready to impress us more in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, and, considering how much he has changed and evolved during last several decades, that time will never come again. Nevertheless, he demonstrates here that he can still handle his old familiar science fiction materials pretty well, and that is especially evident from the very last moment of the film. I instantly sensed where the movie must cut to the end credits, and, to my small delight, it did that at that exact point. That is something I cannot experience that often, you know.

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Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man! (2026) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): His life and career full of ups and downs

Posted on June 10, 2026 by kaist455

HBO documentary film “Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!” is alternatively funny and touching as looking into many ups and downs in the life and career of Mel Brooks, a legendary American entertainer who will soon be 100 years old in this month. Although he may be near the end of the last chapter of his life, Brooks remains witty and spirited as before, and his jolly presence holds our attention with a lot of amusement for more than 3 hours.

The first part of the documentary mainly focuses on Brooks’s early years before his filmmaking career. He was born to a Jewish family living in a Brooklyn neighborhood of New York City, and he gives us some funny anecdotes on how he entered entertainment business during his adolescent years. After being on a stage for the first time in front of a lot of audiences, he became more convinced that he wanted to be an actor, but then he was drafted to the US Army due to the World War II.

Not long after the war was over, Brooks came to work as a comedy writer under a famous TV comedian named Sid Caesar. Along with many other young talented comedy writers ranging from Neil Simon to Carl Reiner, he constantly provided a lot of comic materials to their boss’s popular TV show, and Caesar became his biggest defender – especially when Brooks later demanded a salary raise to their producer.

Around that time, Brooks married Florence Baum, who incidentally worked in Caesar’s TV show at that time. As they came to have three children between them, she became a housewife while Brooks busily kept advancing in his career, but their relationship eventually got quite strained due to the growing estrangement between them, and Brooks is quite frank about how much he was responsible for their subsequent divorce in 1962.

And things got worse for Brooks after the end of Caesar’s TV show. He found himself struggling again, but then he came across Anne Bancroft, who was already a very successful actress at that time. Thanks to his persistent romantic pursuit, he and Bancroft quickly fell in love with each other, and that was the beginning of their loving relationship which lasted more than 40 years. Even though she was more successful than him, Bancroft kept motivating Brooks more and more, and that eventually led him to a couple of significant highpoints for his career. After the considerable success of his TV comedy series “Get Smart”, he got an opportunity to make his first feature film “The Producers” (1967), which became an unexpected hit and then garnered him a Best Screenplay Oscar.

Right from “The Producers”, Brooks demonstrated his own comic style and sensibility. To him, anything can be comedy, and he did not hesitate at all in making jokes involved with very sensitive subjects including racism. No matter how vulgar his jokes can be, he was ready to, as he once said, rise below vulgarity, and that is the main source of good laughs for us. For example, you may roll your eyes as observing how much the two main characters of “The Producers” go low for their loony scam plan, but you cannot help but laugh when their plan later culminates to one of the most outrageously funny moments in the film.

Although his next film “The Twelve Chairs” (1970) was a critical/commercial failure, Brooks soon came back with two comic masterpieces to remember: “Blazing Saddles” (1974) and “Young Frankenstein” (1974). While the former is a truly anarchistic (and vulgar, of course) parody on old western films, the latter is a seemingly serious but ultimately hilarious homage to Frankenstein movies, and they surely demonstrated the immense range of Brooks’s talent.

As shown during the second part of the documentary, Brooks’s filmmaking career had some big ups and downs after “Silent Movie” (1976) and “High Anxiety” (1977). Although his next three films, “History of the World, Part I” (1981), “To Be or Not to Be” (1983), and “Spaceballs” (1987), were not that successful, he established his own movie production company, which produced a number of acclaimed (more serious) films such as “The Elephant Man” (1980) and “The Fly” (1986). In case of “Elephant Man”, Brooks gave a chance to a young filmmaker named David Lynch without any hesitation after watching Lynch’s first feature film “Eraserhead” (1977), and the following critical success of “The Elephant Man” certainly boosted Lynch’s career a lot.

Around the point when he made his final feature film “Dracula: Dead and Loving It” (1995), Brooks’s career seemed to be near the end, but, what do you know, there came another turning point thanks to the enormous success of his Tony-winning Broadway musical “The Producers”. During the next 25 years, he kept going as usual while receiving a number of awards including an Honorary Oscar, and we will get the sequel to “Spaceballs” in the very next year.

Nevertheless, Brooks has become more aware of the approaching mortality as many of his friends and colleagues passed away one by one. He was certainly quite devastated when his wife passed away in 2005, and he was also deeply saddened by Reiner’s death in 2020. He and Reiner often spent a lot of time together in Reiner’s house as longtime friends/colleagues, and the documentary becomes poignant when Rob Reiner, who sadly died in last year, talks about how close Brooks and his father were to each other.

Overall, “Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!” is a funny and sincere tribute to its exceptional human main subject, and directors/co-producers Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio deftly assemble a various amount of archival footage clips and interviews to give an intimate portrayal of Brooks’s life and career. As far as I can see from the documentary, Brooks still has enough life and spirit for us as well as himself, and I sincerely hope he will amuse us more during next several years at least.

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Pee-Wee as Himself (2025) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): Reubens behind Pee-Wee

Posted on June 9, 2026 by kaist455

HBO documentary film “Pee-Wee as Himself” examines the life and career of Paul Reubens, an American comedian who has mostly been known for his famous comic character Pee-Wee Herman. Although he was a very talented comedian to say the least, he was also not so open about his private life even after several notorious scandals which could almost ruin his career and life, and it is poignant to see him openly talking about himself with some remaining discretion.

With Reubens as its main interviewee, the first part of the documentary focuses on his life and career before the creation of Pee-Wee Herman. During his childhood, he was a sensitive kid who became interested in acting as he grew up, and that is how he began to study at the California Institute of the Arts during the 1970s. Along with many other free-spirited young people in that college, he casually tried one unconventional thing after another, and his experience during that time was certainly one of the main sources of inspiration behind Pee-Wee Herman.

Meanwhile, Ruebens became more aware of his homosexuality – especially after he began a romantic relationship with an African American artist around his age. Fortunately, his parents still stood by him when he revealed his homosexuality to them, but Ruebens remained guarded about his gay life, and we observe a bit of reluctance from him when he talks about that romantic relationship which still means a lot to him.

However, Ruebens eventually became more focused on his career, and that led to the end of that romantic relationship. After frequently appearing in several TV shows such as “The Gong Show”, he joined an improvisational comedy team named “the Groundlings”, and that was where he could fully push his talent along with several notable members including Phil Hartman. Ruebens and some of his colleagues fondly remember many fun and exciting times of theirs during that time, and that is quite evident from those old video clips showing some of their highlight moments.

When Ruebens created Pee-Wee Herman, he and his colleagues did not expect much at first, but, mainly thanks to Ruebens’ effortless comic skills, this silly but amusing character became an instant hit among their audiences. As the popularity surrounding Pee-Wee Herman grew more and more, Ruebens came to perform this character on bigger stages as well as several notable TV shows, and this eventually led to the production of 1985 film “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure”, which was incidentally directed by a young filmmaker named Tim Burton.

Although the movie was his first feature film, Burton, who can be more offbeat than Ruebens as Ruebens himself admits, turned out to be a perfect creative partner for Ruebens. Burton’s own quirky artistic sensibility clicks well with the absurd comic style of Ruebens and his character, and their result became an unexpected hit to many others’ surprise.

When an executive from CBS later suggested that he should do a Saturday morning TV show for kids, Ruebens was rather reluctant at first, but he eventually decided to go all the way along with several close colleagues of his. While looking mostly appropriate for its target audiences, “Pee-Wee’s Playhouse” was full of colorful spirit and absurdity from the beginning to the end, and its irrepressible charm and personality drew not only many young audiences but also a lot of adults out there.

After the commercial/critical failure of the 1988 sequel to “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure”, Ruebens came to consider taking some time off. Once the last season of “Pee-Wee’s Playhouse” was completed, he went back to his family home in Florida for some rest in 1991, and that was when a notorious incident happened. He was arrested for indecent exposure at an adult theater, and the following scandal was a major blow to his life and career.

While mostly frank about many things in his life and career, Ruebens, who constantly tries to get some control over the documentary during his interview, is not willing to talk more about that dark period of his here in the documentary. As a matter of fact, he stopped the interview before director Matt Wolf and his crew were about to move onto that matter, even though he was actually dying due to his terminal illness at that point (As many of you know, he eventually died on July 30th, 2023).  

The second half of the documentary feels rather incomplete in case of the late years of Rueben’s career and life. As Ruebens steps back a bit, the documentary puts more emphasis on several other interviewees, but it is still touching to see how Rueben continued to work and live despite that scandal. As he points out at one point in the documentary, he is still remembered for that scandal and another hurtful scandal which happened several years later, but he kept going anyway, and his famous comic character subsequently got another big moment thanks to 2016 Netflix film “Pee-wee’s Big Holiday”.

On the whole, “Pee-Wee as Himself” presents the personality and humanity of its main human subject with a lot of sincerity and respect, and you may appreciate more of Rueben’s undeniable comic talent. It is a shame that he did not get a chance to be more open about himself before this documentary, but he has his last words at least, doesn’t he?

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Afternoons of Solitude (2024) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): The clinical but disturbing presentation of bullfighting

Posted on June 7, 2026 by kaist455

Albert Serra’s 2024 documentary film “Afternoons of Solitude”, which happens to be released in South Korean theaters a few days ago, deeply unsettles and captivates me for good reasons. Here is an austerely clinical but undeniably visceral presentation of bullfighting, and you will be quite mesmerized by a number of intensely vivid moments, regardless of however you feel about its rather gruesome main subject.

The central figure of the documentary is a Peruvian matador named Andrés Roca Rey, and the documentary simply and plainly focuses on how he and his entourage go through a series of bullfighting events in Spain. For example, we never get to know anything personal about Rey or any of his colleagues at all, and the documentary also does not provide any interview or narration to give us any background knowledge on its main subject.

As a result, we become a rather distant observer to whatever is unfolded on the screen, but I must tell you that it was often not so easy for me and several audiences around me to look away from the screen. As the camera of cinematographer Artur Tort Pujol, who also edited the documentary with Serra, steadily and patiently follows the actions of Rey and his colleagues on the field, the documentary gradually accumulates tension on the screen, and we become more nervous as our viewpoint is often limited by frequent close-ups. It is quite clear to us that anything fatal can suddenly happen from here or there, no matter how careful Rey and his colleagues are as gradually pushing their latest bull to its inevitable end.

This is certainly a highly risky profession, and the documentary sometimes observes Rey and his colleagues talking a bit with each other after their latest bullfighting event is over. As their vehicle is taking them back to their staying place, they throw some compliment to each other’s manly bravery, which makes an interesting contrast with their rather flamboyant attire. At one point later in the documentary, we see Rey wearing his pretty costume with some assistance from his dresser, and then we observe more of how cocky he must be in front of a bull which can kill him at any moment if he is not careful enough.

It is apparent that those audiences love to see Rey and his colleagues doing another bullfighting, but the documentary deliberately distances itself from the reactions of their audiences. Although we frequently hear a lot of gasps and cheers from their audiences, the documentary never shows them at all except a number of spectators close to the field, and we can only observe how much Rey and his colleagues are excited by a lot of cheers from their audiences.

While distancing itself more and more from Rey and his colleagues, the documentary sometimes seems to show a bit of sympathy to those poor bulls to be killed in one way or another by Rey and his colleagues. The camera often captures how the bulls become quite exhausted as attacked or teased more and more by Rey and his colleagues, and the most harrowing moments in the documentary come from when the camera lingers on their dying bodies for a while before they are eventually taken away from the field for the next bullfighting to follow.

Nevertheless, the documentary adamantly sticks to its neutral attitude as before, and this will provoke a lot of thoughts and feelings for yourself. In case of me, I was frequently repulsed by the bloody and brutal aspects of bullfighting presented on the screen, and I cringed and winced all the more during the last bullfighting sequence in the documentary, which is quite long without much interruption as phlegmatically but strikingly presenting all those acts of animal cruelty across the screen.

At the same time, I admired the considerable cinematic achievement by Serra and his crew. I became curious about how they closely and vividly shot all those bullfighting sequences in the documentary, and I was also impressed by how Serra and Pujol deftly generate narrative momentum to engage us more. As we see more of bullfighting, we come to feel more of the inherent professional danger of Rey and his colleagues, and our mind often cannot help but swing back and forth between repulsion and excitement.

As having such an ambivalent experience from the film, my mind went back to Georges Franju’s utterly unforgettable short film “Blood of the Beasts” (1949), which gives a vivid and unflinching look into what happens in those slaughterhouses of Paris day by day. Both “Blood of the Beasts” and “Afternoons of Solitude” show a lot of animal cruelty, but the former is a bit less, shall we say, disturbing as sharply recognizing how much our human civilization has depended on killing animals for meat. In case of the latter, we see animals maimed and killed just for fun and excitement, and that can look more atrocious to some of you.

Overall, “Afternoon of Solitude” is definitely not something you can casually watch on Sunday afternoon, but it is worthwhile to watch for those inarguably intense moments presented with considerable cinematic qualities to admire. I do not think I will soon watch this very uncomfortable masterwork again, but it induced a lot of thoughts and feelings from me during my viewing, and that is certainly something I will not easily forget.

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Masters of the Universe (2026) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): Mildly goofy and serious

Posted on June 7, 2026 by kaist455

“Masters of the Universe” attempts to do two different things together, and the result is a rather mixed bag on the whole. While it is sometimes as earnest and serious as its hero, the movie is also deliberately goofy and campy with some self-conscious touches, and I was just mildly amused at times while occasionally appreciating the game efforts from some of its main cast members.

As many of you know, the movie is the second feature film from the media franchise of the same name from Mattel. I still remember well the TV animation series which I often watched during my childhood years during the late 1980s, and I am also familiar with the 1987 feature film, which did not impress me that much when I watched in the early 1990s.  

Compared to many tacky aspects of its predecessor (This was one of many notorious products from the Cannon Group during the 1980s, you know), the movie surely looks better in technical aspects thanks to its much bigger production budget (Around 170-200 million dollars), but it frequently feels jumbled as wildly going back and forth between seriousness and goofiness. The movie surely has some silly fun with its broad archetype characters, but it often stumbles in plot and character development as struggling to establish its overall tone, and we only come to observe the story and characters from the distance with a bit of mild amusement and nostalgia.

Anyway, the story is your typical hero origin tale. Our hero, Adam Glenn / He-Man (Nicholas Galitzine), was a young prince of an alien kingdom named Eternia, but he was sent alone to the Earth when his kingdom was ambushed by a powerful evil warlock named Skeletor (Jared Leto) and his evil cronies, and the early part of the film establishes how he is miserably stuck in the Earth 15 years later. For returning to his kingdom, he needs a certain powerful magic sword, but he happened to lose it when he was swiftly sent to the Earth at that time, and he has desperately been looking for it whenever he is not working in the human resource department of some big company.

On one day, Adam comes across a possible opportunity to retrieve that magic sword. At first, he seems to fail in his mission, but, what do you know, he is later sent back to Eternia thanks to his old childhood friend Teela (Camila Mendes), and he soon comes to see how much Eternia has been changed due to the tyranny of Skeletor, who is still looking for that magic sword for becoming, well, the master of universe.  

Adam certainly feels overwhelmed by what he should do as the only hope for his kingdom, but, of course, he soon comes to see how much he can be changed thanks to that magical sword. Once he activates that magical sword, this mild-tempered lad is transformed into your average muscular beefcake not so far from the hero of “Conan the Barbarian” (1982), and this will surely tantalize many gay audiences out there just like the TV animation series aroused numerous gay kids like me. 

Nevertheless, Adam remains soft and gentle behind his new appearance. Nicholas Galitzine, who has been more notable thanks to several recent films including “Red, White & Royal Blue” (2023) and “Bottoms” (2023), brings sweet earnestness to his character, and his good performance clicks well with several supporting performers around him. While Camila Mendes imbues her role with enough feisty quality, Idris Elba, who plays Teela’s father, gives the best performance in the film as deftly balancing his character between humor and gravitas, and Kristen Wiig provides a wry voice performance as a certain robot character in the story.

However, the movie is relatively less fun in case of the villain characters of the film. Jared Leto, who has been criticized for unnecessary overacting more than once during last several years, surely gets a moment when he really needs to go over the top, but his efforts sadly do not reach the memorably fun performance of Frank Langella in the 1987 version. Skeletor in this version is merely sour and snarky without enough menace or amusement for us, and the only real fun during Leto’s scenes mostly come from Alison Brie, who plays Skeletor’s right-hand figure with sly gusto.         

Compared to his previous works “Kubo and the Two Strings” (2016) and “Bumblebee” (2018), director Travis Knight is less successful here in this film. Although several action scenes in the movie are handled with enough competence, they are merely drenched in a lot of CGI without much style or personality, and that is the main reason we become more distant to the story and characters. Furthermore, Eternia in the film is not particularly wondrous or enchanting, while only looking like the second-rate version of what we previously saw from “Thor” (2011) and its several sequels.   

In conclusion, “Masters of the Universe” is not totally without entertainment thanks to its several enjoyable things such as some engaging performances and the effective score by Daniel Pemberton, who recently impressed us with his superlative score for “Project Hail Mary” (2026) and did another good job here as delightfully quoting the main theme from the TV animation series from time to time. Considering what is shown around the end credits, there may come a sequel, but, due to the rather poor box office result of the movie at present, I do not expect that much, and I am already willing to move onto something more entertaining.

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Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu (2026) ☆☆(2/4): A mediocre special episode

Posted on June 3, 2026 by kaist455

I must say this right now: “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu” is the most tepid Star Wars flick since “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” (2019). Thoroughly uninspired and mediocre from the beginning to the end, the movie simply trudges from one expected narrative point to another without much sense of joy and wonder for us, and we are only consoled a bit by a very few moments of fun pasted onto it.

Yes, I know that the movie is sort of encore to the Disney+ TV series “The Mandalorian”, and, considering that I have not watched any episode from that TV series, I may not be an ideal audience for the film. However, even though I was willing to open my mind from the very beginning, the movie turned out to be no more than a very expensive and superficial special episode, and I do not think the fans of the TV series would complain much even if it went straight to Disney+ instead.

One of the main problems of the movie is that it takes its two titular characters for granted a bit too much. If you have not watched the TV series at all just like me, there is almost nothing for you to get any substantial understanding on the strong relationship between “the Mandalorian”, who is also known as Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal), and his little cute alien ward named Grogu, and they will just come to you as mere plot elements to roll from one narrative point to another. Perhaps, I should have watched the entire TV series first, but, folks, life has already been too short for me since I passed 40 a few years ago.

Therefore, I tried to enjoy the technical aspects of the film instead during my viewing, but, alas, director/co-director/co-writer Jon Favreau, who wrote the screenplay with Dave Filoni and Noah Kloor, does not try that much as merely being on autopilot mode. In terms of mood and details, the movie looks so visually flat and bland on the whole that I got frequently bored instead of becoming genuinely engaged and enchanted, and, the worst of all, the performers in the film often do not feel like inhabiting its backgrounds at all.

For example, just look at the main background of the first half of the story, which mainly revolves around the Mandalorian’s attempt to rescue the young son of that infamous alien villain character in “Star Wars: Return of the Jedi” (1983). When The Mandalorian and Grogu arrive at a big city on some alien planet, we are instantly disappointed as the city does not have much style and personality except looking quite drab and dark on the screen, and the only saving grace in this passable background comes from a little cameo appearance by Martin Scorsese, who is surely as talky as you can expect from him.

During its second half, which has the Mandalorian and Grogu get into a big serious trouble after they did the right thing for that alien lad in question, the movie shows some potential as introducing a number of different alien figures and creatures, but it lets us down again without anything new or fresh to impress us. Things get a little more interesting around the narrative point where an alien figure warmly played by Stephen McKinley Henderson appears, but, just like many other things in the story, this part is quickly discarded as the movie hurriedly moves its two main characters to the next narrative point.

Sure, there is a bit of cuteness thanks to Grogu, who is a small, adorable version of Yoda in the Star Wars flicks and is vividly presented on the screen via animatronics and puppetry augmented with visual effects. I and many other audiences were certainly charmed by this little likable alien character, and I was amused a bit whenever I watched Grogu doing some cute stuffs, but that is all we can get from this alien character, and the movie unsurprisingly uses Grogu as a convenient plot device more than once along the story.

In case of Pedro Pascal, who has been one of the reliable actors working in Hollywood during last several years. I can only tell you that he did a fairly good job of filling his role with enough presence and a bit of personality even though we do not see much of his face throughout the film. He and Grogu are mostly convincing as an odd duo to watch, but the movie does not give them enough space for more character development as often being busy with throwing them into more action along the story.

And the action scenes of the film are not particularly good or memorable in my inconsequential opinion. Unless he has to do some physical actions, the Mandalorian, who is incidentally one of the best bounty hunters in the galaxy, shoots here and there, and many of those bad guys (and aliens and robots) in the film are always shot down within a few seconds with no surprise for us at all. In case of the expected climactic sequence, the last-minute appearance of those X-wing pilots of the New Republic led by none other than Sigourney Weaver feels like being tacked onto that just for more bangs and crashed across the screen, but some of you may be a bit entertained by the very short cameo appearances of Deborah Chow, Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, Rick Famuyiwa, and Lee Isaac Chung (How nice it is to see Chung again after meeting him in person at the 2010 Ebertfest more than 15 years ago….).

Overall, “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu” dissatisfied me for its numerous weak aspects, and I must tell you that it actually made me less curious about the TV series. As writing the last paragraph of this review, I remember less of whatever I saw from the movie, and my mind is already ready to move onto anything better than this lackadaisical product.

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