Take a workplace robot named Auto, the company jerks his chain, and he transforms into a killing machine when he discovers a more efficient model will replace him.
Before Garo Setian directed, produced, and edited Automation, he co-wrote the screenplay with Rolfe Kanefsky and Matthew L. Schaffer.
The film stars Elissa Dowling, Parry Shen, Graham Skipper, Sarah French, and Sadie Katz as office employees assail into danger by a vindictive robot.
The storyline caught my attention, but I didn’t think the movie would be intelligent as a sci-fi thriller. Sure, it’s low-budget, and the script is witty. But, more heart in this movie and the creative team’s performance would have been good. But, it’s hard to do so within the financial means.
Then, it’s revenge time for the robot, and he is not messing around. I liked the movie’s unorthodox chills.
The Blu-Ray release of the movie includes separate commentaries with Setian and Writer Rolfe Kanefsky and Setian and Anahit Setian with Producer Dan Bowen, deleted and alternate scenes, bloopers, Behind The Scenes featurettes Writing The Screenplay and Building “Auto” with “Evil’ Ted, “Auto’s Voice” An Interview With VO Artist Jim Tasker and bonus interviews with cast and crew.
Harris, played by Gino Anthony Pesi, is fatigued without peace with the world. He makes a living as a taxi driver. His next fare, Penny, played by Brinna Kelly, intangles themselves trapped in a neverending ride that loops and loops, eventually changing their lives eternally.
Written by the lead actress, Kelly, and directed by D.C. Hamilton, when Harris picks up a lovely woman named Penny as his next fare, he finds himself captivated. Notably, right up until she disappears from the back seat without an imprint. As he frantically tries to come to terms with what happened, he resets his meter and is promptly back to the time she first climbed into his cab. He and Penny find themselves entangled in an endlessly circling ride that transforms their lives eternally.
The Farescreened internationally, taking many awards, such as the Director’s Prize for Overall Concept and Execution at FilmQuest, the Special Mention Jury Award at Fantasporto, and Best Dark Fantasy/Supernatural Film at the Miami International Science Fiction Film Festival.
Overall the story is intriguing with believable acting and unpredictable. I expectations of what I thought would happen didn’t. I could not figure out what was the cause of the looping. The movie is romantic and worth seeing as an indie film. It reminds me of a Hitchock film or an episode from The Twilight Zone.
It’s a fun horror movie with lots of blood and gore.
Cameron Macgowan wrote and directed Red Letter Day, which is a rambunctious horror-comedy. A recently divorced mother, played by Dawn Van de Schoot, adjusts to a new life in a quiet suburban community. Her two teens, played by Hailey Foss and Kaeleb Zain Gartner, receive mysterious red letters instructing them each to kill or get killed.
The bloodshed begins, and the family finds themselves in a chase against time to defend the people they love from the ones they assumed they knew.
The movie world premiered at the renowned Cinequest Film Festival. It played at other horror fests, including Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival, L.A.’s Screamfest, FrightFest London, and both Sydney Underground and Calgary Underground Film Festivals.
The movie is Macgown’s feature directorial debut. His previous work won awards and received critical acclaim worldwide for international film fests, including Fantasia, SXSW, and the Toronto International Film Festival.
The neighborhood nightmare flows well, and the acting is believable, with Schoot carrying the overall story well. The movie is low-budget, but it’s a funny, independent horror movie. I recommend it to diehard horror fans because they have a soft spot in their hearts for films like The Red Letter. Honestly, the special effects were impressive and convincing while entertaining the 75-minute runtime.
Some supporting performances were limited, but I liked the family dynamic, with Schoot strengthening the story. The story held itself with standard horror effects with vats of blood and gore — not a terrible option. The third act is intense, with a clever ending that pays off. I compare it to Stranger Things and Get Out.
The rest of the cast includes Tiffany Helm, Roger LeBlanc, and Peter Strand Rumpel.
The Blu-ray is available, including features such as an audio commentary with the executive producer, director, and cinematographer. The exclusive featurettes Suburban Skirmish—The Making of Red Letter Day and Her Eyes—My Dance through the movies with Actor Tiffany Helm.
Written, directed, and co-produced Janice Engel, the documentary Raise Hell: The Life & Times of Molly Ivins tells the story of media firebrand Molly Ivins. A tall woman of six feet and full of Texas trouble, which took on the Good Old Boy corruption wherever she found it.
Director Janice Engel
Her razor-sharp wit left both sides of the aisle laughing, and craving ink in her columns. She knew the Bill of Rights was in peril and said: “Polarizing people is a good way to win an election and a good way to wreck a country.” Molly’s words have proved prescient. Now it’s up to us to raise hell. In her home state, the 2019 SXSW Festival awarded the documentary “Audience Award Winner.”
Engel first heard about Ivins over six years ago, “My soon-to-be producing partner, James Egan, told me to go see this one-woman play Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins starring Kathleen Turner. So, I did, the last week it was running in LA. I was knocked out by who Molly Ivins was, how she spoke and who she so brilliantly skewered. Both James and I could not believe there had never been anything done on Molly Ivins, so we jumped in full throttle, and here we are six-plus years later.”
Molly Ivins
A well-formulated documentary offers a view of a strong woman in a man’s world. She worked hard and bit hard at what she thought was unfair. Engel explains how she came to know this remarkable woman, “I also discovered on a much more personal level that both Molly and I shared a similar trajectory: a deep distrust of patriarchal authority and a need to stand up for the underdog. Her politics are my politics, and as her pal, Kaye Northcott so aptly says, ‘Molly hated anyone who would basically kick a cripple.’ Me too! Her rallying cry to ‘Raise Hell, that… this our deal, this is our country …that those people up in your state capitols, up in Washington, they’re just the people we’ve hired to drive the bus for a while,’ resonates deeply. She said, ‘If you don’t vote, you can’t bitch, that’s in article 27…’ Ya think! That alone cemented our kinship and my overwhelming passion to share her story.”
The movie tells the story of a woman who changed through decades of working as a journalist – not only physically but spiritually. She worked hard, laughed hard, but I could tell her passion or mission in life had taken its toll. But still, her message resonates with me. We need to vote and hold our position in what we believe. As Engle stated, “I am grateful to be able to share Molly Ivins with her ‘beloveds’ but even more important, introducing to a hungry public who needs her humor, brilliance, and prescience. Molly Ivins challenges all of us to take personal responsibility for political and social issues that impact our lives. RAISE HELL: The Life & Times of Molly Ivins is a lightning rod to get involved in grassroots projects, local and national politics, and voter registration. If we want change, it starts with us.”
I couldn’t agree more. I highly recommend you see this movie about a strong, smart, and fascinating woman, who communicated what we all think about politics. Though I can’t entirely agree with all of her philosophy, I do agree with her passion.
“As we continue her fight, let’s all remember her understanding of what works against the Powers-That-Be,” states Engle.
“The best way to get the sons of bitches is to make people laugh at them.” – Molly Ivins
Written and directed by Aleksey Kozlov, Battle of Leningrad involves World War II’s Siege of Leningrad – in which Nazi Germany blockaded the major Soviet city for 28 months. The situation ranks as perhaps the single most brutal and devastating military campaign in modern history.
Now, the story of horrifying siege told through the lives of people caught in the middle of it in Battle of Leningrad. Produced in Russia, the story began in September 1941. On the Eastern Front of World War II, Kostya, played by Andrey Mironov-Udalov and his fellow Russian cadets tasked with evacuating thousands of civilians out of war-torn Leningrad. The purpose is safety aboard Barge 752.
While Kostya’s commander initially worries that the barge may be too outdated to sail across Lake Ladoga safely, the evacuation completed. Even Kostya finds time to smuggle his fiancé, Nastya, played by Maria Melnikova, aboard the bare to join him on the journey. But tragedy quickly finds them, and the story is about survival.
An unrelenting storm strikes that evening, and Barge 752 begins to break down and leak, threatening to sink. Kostya, Nastya, and the rest of the ship’s occupants are hopeful for rescue the next morning. They find themselves in even greater danger when the first responders are not what they hope them to be — planes to rescue them, but enemy aircraft, geared up for attack.
The film is epic on a grand scale while allowing enough focus intimately on the unique individuals caught up in an enormous tragedy. Kozlov’s movie is similar to Dunkirk, Saving Private Ryan, Stalingrad, and Titanic.
The movie is full of rage with intense circumstances on board the barge with the impending attack plays with remarkable clarity.
The battle scenes are energetic and penetrating along with a dramatic storyline about a time in history that continues to interest storytellers like Kozlov.
Mironov-Udalov and Melnikova bring honesty to their relationship and circumstances. It is through their eyes we experience the horrors of WW II in Russia.
Danish director Mads Brügger and Swedish private investigator Göran Björkdahl attempt and solve the mysterious death of Dag Hammarskjöld. In 1961, United Nations secretary-general Dag Hammarskjöld’s plane mysteriously crashed, killing Hammarskjöld and all of the crew. The documentary offers the possibility of the assassination of the outspoken dignitary.
During their investigation, they uncover a crime far worse than killing the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Though the documentary might sound appealing, it is long and arduous to get through because the filmmaker lacks substance to make the movie enjoyable.
However, Cold Case Hammarskjold had its world premiere at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and is the winner of the World Cinema Documentary Directing Award.
The documentary uses two black women as secretaries, typing Brugger’s script or narrative. For the audience, this is quite confusing because the timeline is convoluted with two different typists. The filmmaker doesn’t explain why he does this until the end of the movie.
He tries to add humor to dire situations, which fall flat and add no meaning to the story.
Around midnight on September 18, 1961, a small plane flying over a remote part of Central Africa crashed, killing all 16 people on board, including then-U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld who was en route to negotiations for a cease-fire in the ongoing Congo Crisis.
The accident was officially blamed on pilot error. However, rumors have persisted for decades that it was a well-planned assassination. But who wanted Hammarskjöld dead, and why?
Swedish private investigator Göran Björkdahl and Mads Brügger
With the twists and turns of an elegantly plotted murder mystery and the intrigue of an international espionage thriller, Cold Case Hammarskjöld winds its way through three continents and almost seven years of investigative reporting. Director Mads Brügger and his colleague, private investigator Göran Björkdahl, follow a series of ever-more-startling leads, red herrings, misdirection, and dead ends. They uncover evidence that puts them on the trail of a story more bizarre than they ever imagined.
From Zambia and South Africa to the U.K., the U.S., Russia, Spain, and beyond, Brügger conducted an estimated 50 interviews with witnesses both central and peripheral to the tale, leading him into a continually widening maze. Known for his offbeat journalistic style, the filmmaker deadpans, “At first, I just enjoyed the idea of two middle-aged Scandinavian men setting out to uncover a conspiracy to kill the Secretary-General of the United Nations. What could go wrong there?”Using vintage news footage and photos as well as exclusive interviews and archival documents, Brügger unveils a journey in which answers only create more questions. What is the meaning of the mysterious playing card found intact on Hammarskjöld’s partially scorched body? Why was an unassuming young marine biologist murdered? What did witnesses see in the sky that night? Could it all be an elaborate hoax perpetrated by an eccentric, highly skilled propagandist?
Danish director Mads Brügger with a local
“For me, Dag Hammarskjöld was most of all a ticket to all the things I really enjoy,” Brügger admits in the film. “Tracking down Belgian mercenaries, telling tales of evil men who dress in white, the ace of spades found at crime scenes, rumors about secret societies. This is why I went along for the ride, not really knowing where it would lead. For almost seven years, Göran and I worked a murder case. But we never dreamed that we were on the verge of discovering a kind of horror that would put my shenanigans to shame.”
Their discovery mildly shocking but has enough push to keep you interested in the movie without giving all the details of the storyline. The documentary falls flat in the end because the story doesn’t seem to arch fully but stays flat throughout the movie. Perhaps, South Africans will find this movie more exciting.
