Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026) ☆☆☆(3/4): Brand Old Familiar Day

Posted on July 29, 2026 by kaist455

“Spider-Man: Brand New Day” works best whenever it is just about its earnest superhero character. As a matter of fact, it could just try less on connecting itself with those other notable characters of Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and then go its own way. However, not so surprisingly, it eventually becomes another chapter belonging to the current stage of MCU instead, and that is a bit of disappointment to me although I was entertained enough during my viewing. 

Anyway, Tom Holland is still likable and engaging as Peter Parker / Spider-Man. In “Spider-Man: Homecoming” (2017) and “Spider-Man: Far from Home” (2019), his character was often like the lap dog of Tony Stark / Iron Man played by Robert Downey Jr., but Holland and his character finally began to grow on us more in “Spider-Man: No Way Home” (2021), and, to my little delight, now Holland comes to show more of his talent and presence here in “Spider-Man: Brand New Day”.

The opening part of the movie covers what happened during several years after the grand finale of “Spider-Man: No Way Home”. As many of you remember, Peter chose to get himself erased from the memories of everyone around the world for not only saving the world but also protecting two close friends of his: Michelle “MJ” Jones-Watson (Zendaya) and Ned Leeds (Jacob Batalon). In the end, both MJ and Ned came to forget Peter just like everyone else, and they subsequently left New York City for going to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for their college education.

However, after graduating from MIT four years later, MJ and Ned are back in New York City, and that surely hurts Peter a lot, who has steadily followed MJ and Ned’s college life via Ned’s social media account. He even wrote a personal letter for MJ, but he is reluctant to send the letter to her because 1) she still does not remember him at all just like everyone else including Ned and 2) getting involved with him again may lead to another danger for her.

In addition, Peter has often been quite busy as doing a lot more than being your average friendly neighbor to the citizens of New York City. Day by day, there are always incidents to be handled by Spider-Man, and his valiant efforts have been appreciated a lot by not only millions of citizens but also the New York Police Department, which is mainly represented by Detective Jean DeWolff (Liza Colón-Zayas, who has been more recognizable to us thanks to her Emmy-winning supporting turn in American TV comedy series “The Bear”).

And then there comes a very big and serious case on one day. Somebody attempts to attack one of the facilities of the Department of Damage Control (DODC), and Peter surely comes to the spot as soon as possible, but he soon faces an opponent who may be more than an equal match to him due to a certain kind of superpower. As he tries to get more information about this opponent in question, we come to sense that there is something fishy about DODC and its director Bill Metzger (Tramell Tillman, who effectively generates an aura of shady assurance as he recently did in his Emmy-winning supporting turn in Apple TV+ drama series “Severance”).

In the meantime, Peter also struggles to deal with several personal issues. His physical condition begins to show considerable change due to his genetic background (You all know that his genome is mixed a bit with that of spider, right?), and this sudden biological change puts a lot of strain on both his mind and body. In addition, he gets a chance to get close a bit to both MJ and Ned, and we get some small humorous moments during his reunion with MJ and Ned, who still do not remember him as before. 

While it is not much of a spoiler to tell you that MJ eventually gets involved more in Peter’s ongoing adventure, the movie surprises us a bit as generating a substantial amount of gravitas from their very awkward situation later in the story, and Holland and Zendaya ably handle several key moments between their characters. While Zendaya brings considerable warmth and thoughtfulness to her character, Holland is simply terrific when his character is reminded again of the irreversible consequence of his sacrificial choice, and Jacob Batalon expectedly provides some comic relief as your average nerdy fanboy.

In contrast, the movie becomes more generic whenever it presents several familiar superhero characters from those MCU products. Jon Bernthal, who is incidentally another Emmy-winning performer from “The Bear”, Florence Pugh, and Mark Ruffalo put some game efforts, but their characters do not have much surprise for us on the whole, and so does a certain substantial character played by Sadie Sink, who is clearly destined to open the door for more familiar superhero figures to come next.

Moreover, the action scenes in the film are not particularly impressive to me. Thanks to the competent direction of director Destin Daniel Cretton, who should be more remembered for his remarkable second feature film “Short Term 12” (2013) than being a merely hired director in “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” (2021), these action scenes are mostly slick and efficient, but they do not have much style or personality on the whole. In my inconsequential opinion, the only fresh thing is how the climactic sequence is eventually resolved via a simple but sincere moment of real empathy, understanding, and communication instead of resorting to more bangs and crashes to numb us.  

In conclusion, “Spider-Man: Brand New Day”, which is incidentally the 38th feature film for MCU, lives up to its very subtitle to some degree even though it is limited a little too much by the ongoing phase of MCU. It does not lift me up that much from the accumulating superhero movie fatigue, but it succeeds fairly well at least, so I will not grumble for now.

Posted in Movies | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Serpent’s Path (2024) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): A passable French remake by Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Posted on July 29, 2026 by kaist455

Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s 2024 film “Serpent’s Path”, which is the remake of his 1998 film of the same name, is an interesting attempt which does not always work in my humble opinion. While mostly not so different from the original version in terms of story and characters, the movie occasionally feels rather strained in its new background, and it eventually does not surprise me a lot compared to the original version.

This time, the story is set in France instead of Japan, and the opening scene shows the beginning of a criminal plan executed by a man named Albert Bacheret (Damien Bonnard) and a Japanese psychiatrist named Sayoko Mijima (Ko Shibasaki). They kidnap a guy named Laval (Mathieu Amalric), and, after putting him in the trunk of their car, they quickly take him to an abandoned building where they are going to torment him for extracting any confession from him.

The motive seems very simple at first. Some time ago, Albert’s little young daughter was murdered in quite an atrocious way, and this poor little young girl’s death is involved with some shady organization with which Laval was associated. Quite convinced that Laval is the one responsible for his daughter’s death, Albert begins to corner Laval in one way or another with some assistance from Mijima, who remains mostly calm and detached in contrast to her accomplice.

However, their plan becomes complicated after Laval desperately claims that the killer of Albert’s daughter is actually some other member of that organization. Albert and Mijima subsequently decide to kidnap that figure in question too, and that figure in question soon ends up being chained to a wall along with Laval, who is certainly not so amused to be stuck along with that dude.

Meanwhile, we get to know a bit more about Mijima and Albert. He met her at a local hospital where she has worked as one of its staff members, and she was quite willing to help him as observing how troubled he looked in grief and guilt after his daughter’s death. While she does not tell that much about her motive, Albert gladly accepted her help, and we observe how he comes to depend more on her – especially when both of their two captives claim that they did not kill his daughter.

The adapted screenplay by Kurosawa and his co-adapter Aurélien Ferenczi remains rather elusive about Mijima, who looks quite ready to go further than her accomplice but still does not reveal much on the surface. There are a few little private moments which show a bit more of the feelings and thoughts behind her phlegmatic façade, and there is also a subplot involved with a Japanese patient of hers. Nonetheless, she remains cold and distant as before, and we come to wonder more about her ulterior motive.

We become more uncomfortable as Albert and Mijima approach closer to whatever may lie at the end of their plan. That shady organization associated with their captives turns out to be much more horrendous than expected, and they also have to confront more bad guys on their way. In the end, there comes a climatic sequence where they face someone at the center of that organization, and then it turns out that Albert is no better than their captives from the very beginning.

However, the overall result of the remake version is relatively dissatisfying compared to the original version, which handles the story and characters more effectively and succinctly within its shorter running time (85 minutes). The remake version, which is around 30 minutes longer than the original version, somehow lags from time to time, and it also does not surpass that grim and disturbing quality of the original version even though mostly sticking close to the plot and characters of the original version. While the original version often distinguishes itself with the murky sense of anxiety behind its clinical attitude, the remake version feels rather flat and sterile with its slick texture and mood, and it also falters more than once during the finale, which is a bit too contrived due to some modification for a little surprise for us.

Anyway, it is a bit intriguing to see how Kurosawa shows some competence in a foreign territory. As a matter of fact, he already tried on French language film in “Daguerrotype” (2016), and, just like Hirokazu Kore-eda in “The Truth” (2019), he does not have much problem in handling his mostly French cast members. While being not so awkward in her French speaking, Ko Shibasaki gradually takes the center of the story as required, and Damien Bonnard is effective as the other crucial part of the story, and several other cast members including Mathieu Amalric, Grégoire Colin, and Slimane Dazi are also solid in their respective supporting parts.

In conclusion, “Serpent’s Path” is fairly watchable as Kurosawa tries a little variation experiment on one of this notable works, but I would rather recommend the original version instead. Nevertheless, with this film and two other films “Chime” (2024) and “Cloud” (2024), Kurosawa had a very productive year in 2024, and he already made his next film “The Samurai and the Prisoner” (2026), which was incidentally shown at the Cannes Film Festival early in this year and will probably be shown here several months later. I am certainly looking forward to watching that new film of his, and I sincerely hope that I will be more interested and engaged.

Posted in Movies | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Serpent’s Path (1998) ☆☆☆(3/4): A darkly twisty revenge thriller

Posted on July 27, 2026 by kaist455

Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s 1998 film “Serpent’s Path”, which happened to be released in South Korean theaters in last week, is darkly twisty and compelling as gradually revealing its disturbing big picture of remorselessly cold-blooded revenge. At first, the situation surrounding its two different main characters looks rather simple on the surface, but then we slowly begin to sense something more than that, and then we get quite chilled by how coldly and mercilessly the movie delivers its inevitable finale. 

When we are introduced to Nijima (Show Aikawa) and Miyashita (Teruyuki Kagawa) during the opening scene of the film, these two main characters are about to embark on something quite criminal. They are going to kidnap a certain person targeted by them, and we soon see them taking this figure into an empty abandoned factory after their successful kidnapping. 

As Nijima and Miyashita torment their captive in one way or another, we slowly gather a personal motive behind their criminal plan. Some time ago, Miyashita’s little young daughter was horrendously murdered by someone associated with a local criminal organization, and Miyashita, who turns out to have been connected with that criminal organization, believes that their captive killed his dear daughter’s death as a punishment for him. 

It seems that all Miyashita and Nijima will have to do is extracting any kind of confession from their captive, but, not so surprisingly, the story soon takes an unexpected turn as their captive desperately claims that some other member of that criminal organization is actually the killer of Miyashita’s daughter. Although they do not trust much of what their captive said, Nijima and Miyashita eventually decide to kidnap that other guy too, and that surely makes their situation all the more complicated than before.

While Miyashita understandably becomes more nervous and agitated than before, Nijima does not seem daunted at all by their increasingly messy circumstance, and we are not so surprised when he later turns out to be a high-level mathematics teacher. Constantly calm and phlegmatic, he methodically observes and then handles the ongoing situation of him and Miyashita just like he does on those complex mathematic problems in his class, and Miyashita naturally depends more and more on his rather elusive but undeniably dependable accomplice. After all, he simply wants the revenge for his dead daughter by any means necessary, and he is sincerely grateful to the considerable help and assistance from Nijima, who seems only interested in whether he and Miyashita can actually succeed in their criminal plan.    

Meanwhile, the plot thickens a bit more during the second half of the film as Nijima and Miyashita get themselves into more complication along the story. Needless to say, the members of that criminal organization begin to realize that they have a very serious trouble to be handled sooner or later, and one of them is particularly ruthless even though being mostly silent throughout the film.

Just like many of Kurosawa’s films such as “The Cure” (1997), there are several shocking moments of violence in the film, and many of them are clinically presented on the screen with a wry sense of dark humor. While we get some nasty laugh whenever things do not go that well for Nijima and Miyashita, we often wince more than once as observing more of their remorseless violence against their targets and opponents, and we become all the more uncomfortable as the movie continues to stick to its distant attitude – even during the climactic sequence which is incidentally filled with a lot of chaos and mayhem.

Curiously, the movie remains cold and distant to Miyashita’s psychological struggle along the story. Sure, he is really angry and devastated about his personal tragedy, but he is actually no better than those several figures targeted by him and Nijima, and you will agree that he richly deserves what he gets in the end. I will not go into detail here on that, but I can tell you instead that what happens around the end of the story can be regarded as a chilling case of poetic justice and revenge, and the following ending will probably make you re-examine the rest of the film. Is it possible that Miyashita has already been condemned to a sort of perpetual personal hell?

The main cast members of the film are effective in their respective parts. Show Aikawa and Teruyuki Kagawa ably complement each other with their contrasting acting methods, and I particularly enjoyed how Aikawa’s low-key performance functions as the hidden heart of darkness later in the story. Yûrei Yanagi, Shirō Shimomoto, Kaiei Okina, and Kaoru Sunada have each own moment along the story, and young performer Hana Sato, who plays Nijima’s little but prodigious young student, holds her own small place well during a few key scenes of hers in the movie. 

On the whole, “Serpent’s Path” is as unnerving and interesting as you can expect from its director, who incidentally directed the remake version of his movie a few years ago. I have not watched the remake version yet, but, considering that he was quite productive as making not only the remake version but also two other works “Chime” (2024) and “Cloud” (2024) in the same year, I surely have some expectation on the remake version, and I will soon duly report on whether it is as good as the original version.

Posted in Movies | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

The Fin (2025) ☆☆☆(3/4): An odd and strange South Korean dystopian film

Posted on July 27, 2026 by kaist455

I could not help but become mesmerized more and more by the dystopian world of South Korean independent film “The Fin”. Although I found its supposedly futuristic background a little outrageous at times, the movie is filled with a considerable amount of vivid mood and detail from the beginning to the end, and I gladly went along with that even though I often observed its story and characters from the distance.

During the first half of the film, we gradually get to know a bit about its dystopian background. Although South and North Korea were unified some years ago, things have become quite bad for everyone in the unified Korea due to some serious environment disaster. While the land is almost completely blocked from the polluted surrounding sea by the massive wall, mutant humans called “Omegas” are forced to clean the beach beyond the wall, and, not so surprisingly, these people are also forbidden to go over the wall.

At first, the story follows Sujin (Kim Pu-reum), a young civil servant tasked with supervising several Omegas working in her assigned area. At one point early in the film, we see her attending a lecture on Omegas along with many other civil servants, and we get to know a bit about how much Omegas are different from “normal” humans. For example, their feet are quite different from normal human feet, and they also have a small “fin” on their back besides being capable of making sounds which can be harmful to normal humans.

On one day, Sujin and her colleagues handle the dead body of one recently diseased Omega, and then she notices that one of the other Omegas under their supervision is disappeared. It soon turns out that this Omega escapes beyond the wall without being noticed by anyone, and we gradually gather that he is looking for someone living beyond the wall.

That person in question is Mi-ah (Yeon Ye-ji), a young woman working at a small indoor fishing center. On the surface, she looks like one of numerous plain citizens going through their shabby daily life day by day in their grim neighborhood, but, of course, she is actually one of those Omegas illegally residing beyond the wall. While she is certainly careful about hiding who she really is, she has a few local people willing to help her in one way or another, and there is a little poignant scene between her and a generous old shoemaker who willingly provides her a little prosthetic for hiding a certain noticeable physical part of hers.

Meanwhile, we also get to know a bit about how things are also miserable for Sujin. She has lived with a close family member who is mentally unstable, and it is apparent to us that she has been quite exhausted as struggling to support herself as well as that close family members of hers, who is usually stuck in her own world without showing much care or attention to Su-jin.

It is not much of a spoiler to tell you that the two narrative lines of the movie eventually converge at a later point of the story. Not along after his arrival at Mi-ah’s workplace, the aforementioned Omega is tracked down and then arrested by Su-jin and her several colleagues, and Su-jin begins to wonder about why their arrested Omega came there. In the end, she comes to pay more attention to Mi-ah, and the mood becomes a bit tense as Su-jin spies more on Mi-ah.

Without hurrying itself at all, the movie takes its time as before, and you will come to admire more of its indelible mood and details. Needless to say, the production design of the film is fairly modest due to its small budget, but it is still quite impressive as constantly imbued with an ample amount of style and atmosphere. As a matter of fact, these locations in the movie feel so palpably real on the screen that I became all the more curious about how director/writer Park Sye-young, who also served as the co-producer/co-editor/cinematographer of the film, and his crew found and then utilized several locations shown in the film. Trust me, you will instantly believe that the characters are really living and struggling in its modestly futuristic background, which often looks like the gloomy cross between all the worst sides from both South and North Korea.

And you will be also impressed by a number of small but precious moments of visual beauty along the story. For instance, movie often makes its main locations look alien and strange via moody and desaturated color tones, and that makes an interesting visual contrast to several unexpected dreamy colorful moments presented later in the story. As the camera closely focuses on the faces of its several main cast members at times, the movie somehow establishes a bit of emotional ground for its story and characters, and Yeon Ye-Ji and Kim Pu-reum deserve to be commended for ably filling their respective broad roles with enough sense of life.

Overall, “The Fin” is another distinctive work from Park, who previously made a feature film debut with “The Fifth Thoracic Vertebra” (2022). Although I struggled a bit to follow what and how it is about, I admired the bold and fresh cinematic style of “The Fifth Thoracic Vertebra” nonetheless, and I did not hesitate to choose it as one of the best South Korean films of 2023. With “The Fin”, Park surely makes more advance in his promising filmmaking career, and we can all agree that he is one of the most interesting new South Korean filmmakers at this point.

Posted in Movies | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Contempt (1963) ☆☆☆(3/4): Until there is nothing but contempt for him

Posted on July 25, 2026 by kaist455

Jean-Luc Godard’s 1963 film “Contempt”, whose recent 4K restoration version was released in selected South Korean theaters in last week, is a distant but fascinating cinematic experiment. Although I am not so enthusiastic about the film unlike many others, the movie is still interesting to observe and appreciate as one of several notable works from Godard during the 1960s, and you may also occasionally sense a bit of the considerable tension between him and his producers behind the screen.

When the movie was made, Godard was regarded as one of the coolest filmmakers in the world after making his first feature film “Breathless” (1960), which is regarded as one of the most significant milestones in the movie history. Along with many other young and ambitious French filmmakers such as François Truffaut, Agnès Varda, Éric Rohmer and Jacques Demy, he was on the front line of the French New Wave during the 1960s, and he received more acclaims and praises via several subsequent films including “My life to Live” (1962) and “The Little Soldier” (1963) before working on “Contempt”.

However, things did not go that well for Godard in case of “Contempt”. To him, the movie, which is adapted by him from Italian writer Alberto Moravia’s 1954 novel “Il disprezzo”, was a sort of experiment on whether he could push himself a bit toward commercial filmmaking, but he did not get along that well with his producers Georges de Beauregard, Carlo Ponti, and Joseph E. Levine. For example, his producers insisted that the movie should show more of the body of their lead actress Brigitte Bardot, and Godard followed their demand as shooting the opening scene which does present more of her body, but he deliberately made this scene look quite tame. Sure, his usual cinematographer Raoul Coutard’s camera observes a lot of Bardot’s body, but there is not any sense of sensuality or tantalization at all, and we come to pay more attention to her character’s frustratingly banal conversation with her writer husband Paul Javal (Michel Piccoli).

And then we see how their supposedly stable relationship gets imploded mainly due to how much Paul lets down his wife, Camille, in one way or another. He is recently hired as the screenplay writer for some big Hollywood movie production led by an American producer named Jeremiah Prokosch (Jack Palance) in Italy, and Prokosch is not so amused about whatever his director, who is played by legendary German filmmaker Fritz Lang, has been doing for a while. He promises to Paul that he will get paid well for writing a new version of the screenplay which is incidentally based on Homer’s “The Odyssey”, and Paul is quite willing to bend himself in exchange for that. In fact, he even has his wife be around Prokosch even though it is clear that Prokosch is interested in getting closer to her.

Needless to say, Camille is not so pleased about that, and that leads to a memorable sequence where she and her husband argue a lot with each other inside their new apartment. The more they argue with each other, the more apparent it is to us that there is a growing emotional gap between them, and we are not so surprised as Camile comes to show more frustration and, yes, contempt toward her husband, who still cannot see why his wife becomes quite angry and frustrated with him.

At one point during this sequence, Paul tries to be more reasonable with his wife, and Godard and Coutard make a notable visual choice to draw our attention. As Paul and Camille’s conversation goes on, Coutard’s camera moves back and forth between them, and their growing emotional distance is amplified further on the widescreen of 2.35:1 ratio. However, Godard was not so willing to use Cinemascope from the very beginning, and you may be amused a bit when Lang throws a wry comment on that early in the story: “It wasn’t made for people. It’s only good for snakes – and funerals.”

As the story eventually arrives at its last act mainly set in some big summerhouse in Capri, Italy, the movie gives us some sunny and beautiful location shots besides a bit more of Bardot’s body, but it sticks to its detached attitude as before. In the end, there is nothing but contempt in Camile’s relationship with her husband, and Paul is all the more devastated by what suddenly occurs next.

The main cast members often struggled during the shooting because of Godard’s improvisational filmmaking style, but most of them acquit themselves fairly well on the whole. As the main star of the film, Brigitte Bardot, who incidentally passed away in last year, is quite natural in her sensual presence, and she certainly holds her own place well among her fellow main cast members. While Michel Piccoli is effectively petty and contemptible as required by his increasingly unlikable character, Jack Palance often feels strained in contrast mainly because of the clash between his supposedly slick character and his usual rugged screen persona, and Fritz Lang simply enjoys himself to the very last scene of the film.

Overall, “Contempt” is not that great compared to “Breathless” or “My Life to Live”, but it has a number of interesting elements including the game efforts from its main cast members and the memorable score by Georges Delerue (You may remember that Martin Scorsese, who admires the movie a lot, utilized its indelible main theme for accentuating the equally troubled marital relationship at the center of his 1995 film “Casino”). I merely admire the movie instead of loving it, but that is what we usually feel about most of Godard’s works, isn’t it?

Posted in Movies | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Dead of Winter (2025) ☆☆☆(3/4): Emma Thompson can also do some action, folks

Posted on July 25, 2026 by kaist455

Brian Kirk’s 2025 film “Dead of Winter” is a small but efficient thriller which will draw your attention for not only its competence but also its lead actress. Although she is approaching to 70 at present, Emma Thompson demonstrates another side of her undeniable talent here in this film, and you will enjoy and admire how this wonderful British actress carries the movie to the end with considerable commitment.

The story is set in some remote rural region of Minnesota, US during one cold winter day. Although it is getting colder and snowier, Thompson’s character, an old widow named Barb, continues to drive her vehicle to a certain big lake which means a lot to her and her dead husband, and then she happens to get lost on a detour to that lake. As trying to find any help, she subsequently comes upon a nearby cabin, but then she senses something suspicious about a guy supposed to be its owner.

Anyway, without asking too much, Barb goes back to her vehicle, and she eventually arrives at that lake which is quite frozen now, but then she witnesses something quite disturbing. She hears several gunshots, and then she sees some young woman trying to run away from that suspicious dude, who manages to catch that young woman and then takes her back to his cabin. Because she cannot call the police as her cellular phone does not work, Bard decides to check up the cabin for herself, and she soon finds that young woman tied and locked inside its basement.

At first, this looks like a simple case of kidnapping, but the story gets a bit darker with the arrival of a woman who is clearly that dude’s wife. Although the movie does not explain much of this couple’s purpose behind their kidnapping of that unfortunate young woman, it does not take much time for us to discern not only what they are soon going to do to her but also a desperate personal motive behind that, and we are all the more chilled by that.

Needless to say, Barb is the only chance for survival for that young woman, and, though she is just a plain old lady, she becomes quite determined to try to rescue that young woman as much as possible. Needless to say, that couple later come to realize that they have a serious trouble to take care of, and the wife is ready to eliminate Barb by any means necessary, but Barb turns out to be smart and resourceful enough to evade them in one way or another.

Now this sounds like your average action thriller flick, but the movie sticks to its restrained mode as often emphasizing the freezing wintry atmosphere surrounding its few main characters. While there are some chase and action along the story, we come to sense more of the physical vulnerability of Barb and her opponents, and we are not surprised when her mind occasionally goes back to those good old times between her and her dead husband, which are certainly filled with warm and soft ambiance in contrast.

Although these occasionally flashback scenes seem rather redundant at first, they eventually function as a part of the dramatic narrative of the film. While her life has certainly felt quite emptier after her husband’s death, Barb still does not lose her ability to care, and that is why she willingly stepped forward for that young woman in danger from the very beginning. Even when the circumstance later becomes quite dire for her and that young woman, she still finds will and determination to go on nonetheless, and there is some genuine poignancy when she finally follows her dead husband’s last wish around the end of the story. 

And Thompson often surprises us as ably embodying her character’s weary but steady determination. No, she does not do anything like what Liam Neeson has frequently done during last 18 years since “Taken” (2008), but she is thoroughly convincing as her character handles one trouble after another along the story. When her character must do some emergency job on a serious physical wound of hers at one point in the story, Thompson never flinches at all while conveying more of her character’s vulnerability to us, and you will wince more than once as her character works on that physical wound bit by bit. 

In case of several other main cast members in the film, they are more or less than mere plot elements, but they dutifully fill their respective spots as much as required. While Laurel Marsden does a bit more than being a typical case of woman in danger, Marc Menchaca and Judy Greer are well-cast as the two villains of the story, and Greer, who has shown more of the serious side of her acting talent during last 15 years since her small but crucial supporting turn in “The Descendants” (2011), is absolutely intense and menacing as her character is driven more by despair and madness. Yes, it is often horrifying to see how much her character will go for her ultimate goal, but you will also pity her character a little due to her increasingly desperate circumstance. After all, this is a really serious matter of life and death for her, and that makes her all the more dangerous later in the story.   

In conclusion, “Dead of Winter” works thanks to its palpable mood, solid storytelling, and the admirable efforts from Thompson and Greer. Its level of achievement is rather modest, but it is certainly nice to see Thompson doing something different and unexpected as she has often done during last three decades, and I am sure that she will impress us more during the rest of her acting career.

Posted in Movies | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

The Return (2024) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): The bitter return of the king

Posted on July 24, 2026 by kaist455

Uberto Pasolini’s 2024 film “The Return” is a grim, shabby, and bitter tale based on the second half of Homer’s “The Odyssey”. Unlike Christopher Nolan’s new film “The Odyssey” (2026), the movie does not have much action or spectacle on the whole, and it mostly focuses on the brooding mental struggle of a traumatized man barely recognizable even to his family after his long-awaited return. This may look like an interesting retelling attempt on Homer’s classic story on the surface, but you may be disappointed to see that the result turns out to be somewhat flat and ponderous despite the fairly good efforts from its two lead performers.

The main background of the story is a Mediterranean island named Ithaca. Around 10 years have passed since the end of the Trojan War, but Odysseus (Ralph Fiennes), the king of Ithaca, has not returned yet, and almost everyone in the island has presumed that he died. Nevertheless, his wife Penelope (Juliette Binoche) still believes that he will eventually return someday, though there have been a bunch of dudes eager to marry her for getting the control of the island.

As these suitors have not only ruined the island but also cornered his mother in one way or another for years, Odysseus’s young son Telemachus (Charlie Plummer) has been quite frustrated to say the least. He also hopes for his father’s return, but the situation becomes all the direr for him and his mother day by day, and he becomes more conscious of what may happen to him if she ever chooses to marry one of those suitors.

Unbeknownst to Telemachus and his mother, Odysseus has already been in the island as shown from the opening scene of the film, but he hesitates to return to his wife and son as still coping with his post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). While he may be relieved to be at the end of his returning journey, he does not feel like belonging to his good old home, and he often struggles with not only those dark memories of the war but also how much he has changed after many years. In fact, he is not so sure whether he can be recognized by his wife and son.

Meanwhile, the story becomes a bit tense as those ambitious suitors keep trying to coerce Penelope into marrying one of them. No matter how much she tries to stand her ground in front of these loathsome dudes, Penelope often finds herself trembling behind her supposedly unflappable appearance, because, well, she is not entirely free from her own human need as reflected by one certain moment in the middle of the story.

As Odysseus continues to brood over what to do next, we often observe the harsh and brutal aspects of his world, and this certainly reminds us more of how vulnerable his wife and son can be under their increasingly desperate situation. Needless to say, he must take some action for them sooner or later, but he is still reluctant, and then there comes an eventual moment when he sees that there is really no alternative for him at all.

However, while occasionally showing some interesting storytelling potential, the screenplay by Pasolini and his co-writers John Collee and Edward Bond often struggles to maintain our attention. As getting mired in more misery and brutality, the story merely lurches from one expected narrative point to another without generating much interest to engage us, and it is also hampered a lot by its rather superficial characterization. For example, it just scratches the surface in case of Telemachus’ supposedly deep daddy issues, and that is the main reason why his sudden choice around the end of the story is not so convincing to us. Furthermore, the movie resolves all those evident emotional issues between Odysseus and his wife a bit too easily after the climatic sequence where he takes care of all those suitors (Is this a spoiler?), and that is another disappointment in the film.

Anyway, Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche, who previously performed together in “Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights” (1992) and “The English Patient” (1996), remind us again that they are two of the best movie performers in our time. Fiennes, who also served as one of the executive producers of the film, did a good job of conveying to us a heap of trauma and guilt behind his character’s shabby appearance, and he is especially compelling when his character reminisces a bit about what he witnessed during the Trojan War. On the opposite, Binoche is usually required to look stern or frustrated throughout the film, but she has her own moment when Penelope faces how much her husband has changed after all those years around the end of the climactic sequence.

In case of several other notable main cast members in the film, they are sadly under-utilized due to their under-developed supporting part. Although he has shown some considerable talent since his breakout supporting turn in “All the Money in the World” (2017), Charlie Plummer somehow looks rather lost and strained compared to his fellow cast members including Tom Rhys Harries, Claudio Santamaria, and Marwan Kenzari, and Kenzari deserves some praise for bringing a bit of human depth to his villainous supporting role.

In conclusion, “The Return” is a little too disappointing for me to recommend, but you may be interested in checking it out someday due to “The Odyssey”. Just like Nolan did in that film, Pasolini simply tries to do something different with Homer’s familiar classic story, and it is a shame that his result did not impress me enough.

Posted in Movies | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Hokum (2026) ☆☆☆(3/4): In a spooky Irish hotel

Posted on July 21, 2026 by kaist455

Damian McCarthy’s latest film “Hokum” is a solid genre flick filled with dark mood and details to be admired and appreciated. While it surely evokes countless other similar horror films about haunted places, it has its own distinctive elements to observe and enjoy, and the overall result is another interesting work from its undeniably talented director.

Adam Scott, who has recently been more prominent thanks to his Emmy-nominated lead performance in Apple TV+ drama series “Severance”, plays an American novelist named Ohm Bauman, and the movie begins with the ongoing writing process on Bauman’s latest work. He is quite determined to make the ending as bleak as possible, but then he finds himself haunted by something associated with his past, and then he eventually goes to some rural area in Ireland.

After he arrives at an old local hotel, we get to know the purpose of Bauman’s visit. This is the place where his parents, who died many years ago, went for their honeymoon, and he actually brings the two containers which contains his mother’s and father’s ashes, respectively. We later see him putting them inside the hole in a certain big tree in the forest not so far from the hotel, and we come to sense more of his troubled state, which is probably associated with some trauma involved with his parents’ death. 

However, the hotel does not look like a particularly good place for him to stay. Although it does not feel that ominous compared to that coldly creepy hotel in Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” (1980), the hotel is rather moody in old-fashioned ways, and Bauman notices that a certain place in the hotel is heavily locked down. He later comes to learn that this place, which was originally intended a big suite for honeymooners, has been regarded as a haunted place by its aging owner and his employees, and the owner, who is incidentally a wheelchair-bound cranky old man, really believes that nobody should go there because something really dangerous is inside there.

 Needless to say, Bauman is skeptical about this, but, of course, he subsequently finds himself more associated with this supposedly bad place. I will not go into details for not spoiling any fun for you, but I can tell you instead that 1) Bauman comes to care a lot about one of those hotel employees after one sudden incident and 2) he later comes upon some other dark secret inside the hotel besides whatever is lurking somewhere inside that ominous suite.

Once its hero finds himself trapped inside its main stage for horror, the movie slowly and carefully accumulates a moody sense of dread and anxiety across the screen, and it also shows some wry sense of dark humor as its hero gets cornered more in one way or another. No matter how much he tries to find a way out, the situation feels all the more hopeless for Bauman, and the movie toys with that particularly during one suspenseful scene where he struggles to alarm a certain character on the outside. In addition, his mind somehow becomes more and more disturbed, and the movie serves us a darkly humorous moment as something deliberately pushes him into facing more of what he has been desperately trying to look away from

Before eventually shifting itself onto the full-throttle mode during its last act, McCarthy’s screenplay prepares enough ground for its drama and horror. With its realistic rural atmosphere and a little freakish folktale, the movie sets the ground for what will be eventually unleashed onto the screen later in the story, and it also adds a bit of colorful human touch by an eccentric dude who happens to befriend Bauman early in the story. As the plot progresses, we get to know more about what makes Bauman tick, and we come to have some more understanding on him.

As the troubled human center of the movie, Scott gives us a complex human figure to observe and then empathize with. At first, Bauman comes to us your average self-loathing jerk who just happens to be a fairly good writer, but Scott did a subtle job of conveying to us the emotional wounds buried behind his character’s rather abrasive appearance, and the story often feels like a sort of twisted therapy session for Bauman. In the end, he has no choice but to face not only whatever scares him from the outside but also what has really been eating him from the inside, and we naturally come to brace ourselves more for what may happen to him in the end.

Several main cast members surrounding Scott ably fill their respective spots around him. While Florence Ordesh provides a bit of precious warmth to her certain scene with Scott early in the story, David Wilmot brings some dopey humor to the story as the aforementioned eccentric dude, and Peter Coonan, Michael Patric, Will O’Connell, and Brendan Conroy are also effective in their supporting roles.  

 Overall, “Hokum” is another enjoyable genre work from McCarthy, who previously gave us “Caveat” (2020) and “Oddity” (2024). After showing considerable potential in “Caveat”, he ably moved onto “Oddity”, and then he successfully advances further here in this film. In my inconsequential opinion, he deserves much more attention than before, and I think we can have some expectation on how far he will advance after the commendable success of his first three films.

Posted in Movies | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Passenger (2026) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): A little road trip horror flick

Posted on July 21, 2026 by kaist455

“Passenger” is a little modest horror flick which mildly entertained me without surprising me that much. While it is a bit too thin and generic in terms of story and characters, the movie works to some degree in its familiar genre territory, and it provides some skillful moments of terror and dread along its rather predictable route.

After the prologue scene which effectively sets the ominous tone of the story, we are introduced to Tyler Genocchio (Jacob Scipio) and Maddie Brecker (Lou Llobell), a young couple who recently decided to quit their respective jobs and move out from their apartment in New York City for freely enjoying their life on a van. During next several weeks, they happily travel together here and there in US, and then Tyler proposes to Maddie to her surprise and delight during one evening.

However, their happiness does not last that long. When Maddie subsequently drives their van along some remote road in the middle of the following night, and something quite strange and disturbing occurs, and then she finds herself gradually disturbed by some unknown influence. At first, she just notices a mysterious figure from the distance, and then there come several small but disconcerting signs. In fact, she even gets a serious warning from a stranger she happens to encounter at one point early in the story.

Needless to say, a sense of dread is slowly increased around not only Maddie but also Tyler, and the movie doles out a series of good moments to bring more tension and anxiety to the screen. I particularly like how it dials up and down the level of suspense during one long-take scene where the camera fluidly pans around Maddie as she walks toward the van alone by herself, and I also enjoyed a key scene where her supposedly romantic moment with Tyler is unexpectedly interrupted by something lurking beyond their sight.

Meanwhile, Maddie comes to learn a bit about whatever is targeting her and Tyler. There are a number of old secret signs shared among hobos and nomads on roads, and what seems to be a mere scratch on her van turns out to be one of these signs. She also reads some online articles about something demonic which may exist somewhere on roads, and it becomes more apparent to her that this insidious entity has haunted her and Tyler since that disturbing happening early in the story.

As its two main characters are more terrorized along the story, the movie sometimes takes some time to bring a bit of human depth to them. Although they really love and care about each other, it later turns out that Maddie has not been entirely happy about their current van lifestyle in contrast to Tyler, and this naturally puts additional strain on their relationship besides their immediate issue with that demonic entity. Their characters feel rather superficial and conventional at times, but Jacob Scipio and Lou Llobell mostly click well with each other during several quieter moments between them, and that is the main reason why we continue to care about whatever may happen to their characters in the end.

However, the other parts of the film feel rather deficient in comparison. For example, the screenplay Zachary Donohue and T.V. Burgess does not delve that deep into its interesting story background which will certainly take you back to Chloé Zhao’s Oscar-winning film “Nomadland” (2020), and the same thing can be said about what may provide a slim but possible chance of survival for its two main characters. Furthermore, I was also disappointed to see that the movie seriously under-utilizes Melissa Leo, an ever-reliable Oscar-winning character actress who is unfortunately stuck with a functional role during her brief appearance.

In case of the demonic entity frequently terrorizing its two main characters, the movie surely provides a fair share of shock and awe as this entity reveals more of itself in front of Maddie and Tyler later in the story, but I must point out that this is not so distinctive or memorable compared to what we have seen from those countless horror flicks about demonic entities. While things surely get more tense and disturbing during the expected climactic part, there is not much surprise for us in the end, and we become more aware of its glaring plot contrivance.

The movie is directed by André Øvredal, a Norwegian filmmaker who drew my attention for the first time with his second feature film “Trollhunter” (2010) and then made several other genre films including “The Autopsy of Jane Doe” (2016), “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” (2019), and “The Last Voyage of the Demeter” (2023). As far as I can see from some of his previous films, he is a good genre filmmaker who knows how to engage us more with good mood and storytelling, and that is evident also in the more effective parts of “Passenger”, though these good parts do not compensate enough for its weaker parts enough in my inconsequential opinion.

Anyway, “Passenger” is not a total dud at all due to the competent efforts from Øvredal and his crew members including cinematographer Federico Verardi, but it is one or two steps below the level of achievement shown from Øvredal’s better works. No, it did not bore me a lot, but it did not scare me a lot either, so I will let you decide on whether you are going to watch it for killing your spare time.

Sidenote: Please do not confuse it with Vadim Perelman’s “The Passenger” (2026), a thriller film starring Kodi Smit-McPhee and Djimon Hounsou.

Posted in Movies | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Normal (2025) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): A sheriff in one supposedly normal town

Posted on July 20, 2026 by kaist455

Bob Odenkirk is surely an interesting actor to watch. At first, he drew my attention via his scene-stealing supporting turn in American TV drama series “Breaking Bad”, and then he took the center in the following spin-off TV drama series “Better Call Saul”, which incidentally garnered him a series of Emmy nominations. Meanwhile, he also showed more of his versatile talent via a number of notable films including Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-nominated film “The Post” (2017), and then there came “Nobody” (2023), where he cheerfully entered the realm of John Wick movies.

In case of Ben Wheatley’s 2025 film “Normal”, what Odenkirk does here is not so far from what he previously did in “Nobody” and its following 2025 sequel. This time, he actually played a really ordinary dude who just happens to get himself involved in a very violent situation, and the movie works to some degree as he ably balances his plain lead character between humor and gravitas.

After the prologue scene set in Japan, the screenplay by Derek Kolstad, who incidentally wrote the screenplay for both “John Wick” (2014) and “Nobody”, quickly establishes how Odenkirk’s plain policeman hero, Sheriff Ulysses, has worked in a little town located somewhere in Wisconsin. As reflected by its very name, the town looks pretty normal and boring without much trouble, and that is quite fine for Sheriff Ulysses. After all, he recently came to the town as an interim sheriff to be replaced sooner or later, and he has been quite contented with filling his position day by day while getting to know some of the town residents at times. 

However, Sheriff Ulysses begins to sense something odd during the funeral of his recently deceased predecessor, who died outside his house under a rather suspicious circumstance. According to a town doctor, that was just a very unfortunate accident, but Sheriff Ulysses comes to have some reservation on that after he notices a young woman who turns out to be his dead predecessor’s daughter. For some unknown reason, she is not allowed to attend her father’s funeral, and she does not talk that much about the reason even when she comes to have a chance for some private talk with Sheriff Ulysses.

Still, Sheriff Ulysses prefers to do as little as possible, but then there comes a much bigger problem. A couple of small-time criminals attempt to rob the only bank in the town, but, what do you know, this bank turns out to be not your average rural bank at all, and it does not take much time for our sheriff hero to get involved more into this increasingly dangerous situation. He sincerely tries to resolve this crisis as soon as possible without causing any unnecessary mess at all, but then he soon finds himself on the line of fire along with those two unfortunate criminals.

What is eventually revealed next will not surprise you that much if you have ever watched “John Wick” and its several sequels – or John Carpenter’s classic action thriller film “Assault on Precinct 13” (1976). With a very few figures willing to help him, Sheriff Ulysses must defend himself in front of a big bunch of unexpected opponents ready to eliminate him by any means necessary, and, of course, he turns out to be quite resourceful. Fortunately for him and his few comrades, there are a heap of weapons available to them, and the movie has some nasty fun with how they corner their opponents in one way or another.

As the movie doles out its rather exaggerated actions along the story, the movie also shows a bit of seriousness as our hero shows some compassion and understanding to those few figures around him. While not asking too much, he generously provides a warm shelter to his dead predecessor’s daughter, and she certainly appreciates that. In case of those two criminals, they turn out to be more sympathetic, and we see why Sheriff Ulysses comes to care about them a lot more than expected.

And we get to know a bit more about our hero. Not so surprisingly, he has some dark past he is still struggling to deal with, and there is a little ironic scene where Sheriff Ulysses eventually confronts that dark past as phlegmatically talking with one of his opponents, who is incidentally about to kill him after showing him a little generosity.   

In the end, the movie expectedly culminates to a comically intense climax full of extreme violence, and we surely get some fun and entertainment while often wincing a lot for good reasons. Just like he did in “Nobody” and its sequel, Odenkirk willingly throws himself into a lot of chaos and mayhem, and his considerable commitment is one of the main reasons why the movie can continue to hold our attention. Although most of the supporting characters in the film are more or less than cardboard figures to be eliminated sooner or later, a number of supporting performers around Odenkirk dutifully fill their respective spots as much as required, and Henry Winkler is particularly hilarious when his supporting character makes an unexpected exit in the middle of the film.  

In conclusion, “Normal” can be regarded as a merely substandard variation of what we have seen from “John Wick” and “Nobody”, but it is a mostly watchable genre product mainly thanks to its lead actor’s talent and presence. In my humble opinion, he really needs to move onto some other area for more change and advance in his career, and I am sure that he will do that sooner or later.

Posted in Movies | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment