Week Ending 10/30/26

Just in time for election day on November 3rd, Watermelon Pictures has decided to waive all fees for their important new documentary American Doctor from October 30 through November 6 (US only).

That means two things:
• No theatrical rental fees or box office revenue sharing so theaters screening the film can offer free or discounted tickets.
• A free early streaming window of the film at Watermelon+.

Will it change any votes? I honestly don't know. Twenty years ago, maybe. But the tribalistic atmosphere of our current political climate (not to mention bad faith actors falsely equating critical speech about Israel with antisemitism) makes me wonder if this simply allows people already on the correct side of history to watch a film they haven't yet been able to otherwise.

Maybe the other side of the aisle will stumble upon it too and discover the truth about Israel targeting Gazan hospitals with intent—one of many war crimes they have been allowed to commit with impunity for years. We can hope.

What I Watched

It's not that nothing is taboo in Elliot Tuttle's two-hander. It's that Blue Film isn't afraid to confront the inherent complexities within taboo. And just because he dares to voice the similarities (and contrasts) between fetishism and pedophilia doesn't mean he's equating the two either. More than the acts themselves, Tuttle is interested in the shared emotional struggle these two characters must reconcile within themselves to find inner purpose and acceptance.

The whole is a constant push and pull between opposites. Morality and criminality. Pleasure and pain. Dominance and submission. Nature and nurture. Tuttle brings in religion as a defense and refutation. He provides Aaron (Kieron Moore) and Hank (Reed Birney) with masks that they've each tricked themselves into believing to escape the reality of their pasts. This vulnerable evening of confession proves as cathartically pure as it does damningly hypocritical.

It's all part of its unsettling erotic appeal. Two self-proclaimed perverts candidly describing their pervasions without judgment beyond an intriguing demand for dignity when it comes to their customers/victims. There's a self-awareness via hindsight that might surprise in certain instances—not to earn Hank forgiveness or empathy as much as leave room for human consideration. Some will surely suggest Blue Film seeks to blur lines, but I'd argue it makes them clearer.

Tuttle says this is his response to "the [exhausting] discourse surrounding sex in contemporary cinema," but it's also towards the equally frustrating discourse that demands films with flawed and irredeemable characters be dismissed as flawed and irredeemable as a rule. No, one of cinema's greatest strengths is using fiction to give shape to our dark realities and reveal nuance. Heroes and villains are reductive constructs. Aaron and Hank are but (superbly performed) men.

Director Michał Marczak got lost in the dark while scouting locations on the Vistula River when Daniel Dymiński came to his rescue. There was no one better suited for the task considering how much time he'd spent on that same water searching for his missing sixteen-year-old son Chris. It was months into what became a two-year obsession that loved ones feared might consume him whole with Marczak proving to be but one of many helped along the way.

Closure picks up around the one-year anniversary of Chris' disappearance from a bridge that CCTV footage caught as his last whereabouts. Daniel has honed his skills and expanded his experiments with GPS dummies carried by the current, metal detectors to ping the teen's braces, and detailed search protocols to ensure no stone, sandbar, or collection of driftwood goes unturned. He keeps looking while the whole of Poland prays Chris merely ran away.

It's a captivating glimpse into grief's many contradictions due to heightened emotions caring little for logic. Daniel is far enough removed from his past life to acknowledge work and money were no match for family and yet still so driven for answers that he's simply swapped one distraction for another insofar as neglecting his wife and other son. He's struggling to find the line between duty and compulsion—to save what he has and say goodbye to what's gone.

In that same vein, however, there's also an evolution of motive wherein he has become an expert at doing something the police obviously cannot. Daniel waxes on about how he might have found Chris had he known what he knows now—a likely notion considering the film opens on him finding a body minutes after the coast guard drove right by it. So, when a stranger asks him to find his daughter, will success help bring some peace or foster even more frustration?

That's the duality inherent to such a tragedy. The loss is unbearable, but the journey can often lead to new truths and purpose. It's just a matter of letting oneself exist in the space between. To understand that acceptance doesn't mean relinquishing hope. Marczak does a great job capturing Daniel's path to that understanding in a way that allows his potential for catharsis to spill over onto an audience in need of the same.

Because this isn't a film about one troubled boy. It's about looking inward at the youth suicide epidemic running rampant throughout the world and how we as a society can better appreciate what we have before needing to lose it first. It's about seeing how the psychological ecosystem has changed with new technology and how "being present" is about more than physical proximity. It's never too late to evolve even if it's too late for those you're doing it for to see it happen.

Curry Barker doesn't need to post his experiments in narrative minimalism now that he's made a bona fide hit in Obsession and has a new feature releasing from Focus Features next May, but you can't begrudge an artist for staying true to his roots. Is Mama Bear a complete thought? A tease for more? I just think he had a quick sketch idea and the means to see it through.

The gist: a house cleaner (Jon Lee Richardson's Floyd) is awoken by his cellphone after having fallen asleep on the job at a client's house. His friend is talking a mile a minute about a Lacy (Katie Sarife) coming to kill him for what he did, so Floyd obviously believes he's being pranked since he didn't do anything. Then he sees a trail of mud and blood leading to a wrench on the table beside him.

What happens next is par for the course for those familiar with Barker's work. A creepy figure. A comedic intrusion (Ericka Kreuz's homeowner Ms. Wilson). A payoff via Lacy's explosive arrival. And a reveal that will click everything into place with as much satisfaction as confusion insofar as you saying, "That's it?"

Slick. Creepy. Funny. It's a vibes-driven snack to keep the filmmaker in the collective consciousness and satiate the fans who "knew him when" ... even if a couple potential Oscar nominations will do a better job of that this winter.

Adapted from Dino Buzzati's early Italian graphic novel Poema a fumetti (itself an adaptation of the Greek tragedy centering upon Orpheus and Eurydice), writer/director Virgilio Villoresi (with assistance from Alberto Fornari and Marco Missiroli) uses the expressionistic aesthetic of the source material to play within a sprawling sandbox of vintage cinematic tricks including in-camera optical illusions, stop-motion animation, and visual composites.

Orfeo proves a kindred spirit to last year's Resurrection from Bi Gan. The 16mm textures and dream-like surrealism take Orfeo's (Luca Vergoni) lovelorn pianist into the afterworld to find his ballerina love, Eura (Giulia Maenza). It's an uncertain journey through an ornate villa (populated by Aomi Muyock looking like she stepped out of Matthew Barney's Cremaster series), darkened forest, and crowded train station to cheat and/or accept death.

It's a love letter to the medium that those already allergic to old titles like Jean Cocteau's own Orphic Trilogy will probably want to avoid too. Those who adore the art form, however, will find a lot to latch onto from this sensorial experience with wonderful music, an exquisite atmosphere, and kinetically fun sequences like a confrontation with the villa's "Master" taking the form of a floating coat who tempts Orfeo to abandon his mission for nostalgia and sex instead.

The whole embraces the bittersweet nature of life regardless of whether this version of Orpheus achieves his mission to reclaim his bride. I loved the idea of lost souls remaining in purgatory to watch the imaginary happy endings of past hopes that never came to be. That human desire to spend time and energy trying to futilely erase regret rather than create new dreams. A grief-stricken prison wherein we search for closure that can only be provided by us.

We've reached a moment in human existence where we can no longer ignore the reality that we're little more than commodities being bought and sold. Our educations are structured to teach us how to be better consumers. Our intellect is exploited by its financiers to warp any intrinsic utopian ideals into weapons for consolidating power. Our fears are manipulated to the point where we willingly act against our own best interests while praising our oppressors.

Anne Vithayathil's script for Orion, as directed by Jaco Bouwer, seeks to bring these truths to the forefront via a dialogue-heavy two-hander pitting a lone survivor battling amnesia (Drew Van Acker's Apollo) opposite a government agent (Andrew McCarthy's Jim) trying to discern what happened. What starts as a conversation between allies soon reveals itself as a series of psychological tests proving just how pervasive our ability to lie for personal gain has become.

The mystery of this tragic mission is therefore quickly made secondary to the motivations of these two men. Each new scene brings a revelation that recolors what we thought we knew until we realize what many have in the real world: truth no longer exists. Not as a collection of empirically agreed upon facts like the past. No, the proliferation of social media anonymity and misinformation rewired our brains to react from a baseline of mistrust rather than faith.

Our default mode of being has become so adversarial that we even argue despite holding the exact same opinions simply because we've adopted defensiveness as a survival technique. Pair that with the desire to trick people into giving you what you want because it's easier than proving its benefits (if any exist) and it's a wonder anything gets done. It isn't therefore difficult to believe Apollo might be just as disingenuous as Jim. Control, not knowledge, is king.

Language as an indoctrinating vessel is a huge piece of that puzzle. What's said and what isn't. How it's presented and to whom. If the words can or cannot mask intent. It's why emotion plays a crucial part too. How Van Acker and McCarthy act (it's great to see the latter in a juicy role) is often more important than what's said. Because our instinct to spot a lie is all we can trust now. At least until we can start offering a hand in peace again without first securing a knife in the other.

Orion delivers worthwhile commentary on how our technological advancements have helped deteriorate our already waning empathy via a lo-fi, one-set sci-fi conceit that leans into its production design and performances rather than stretch its admirable special effects beyond their means. Some of the heel turns are abrupt, but they're also universal and thus ensure everyone (altruistic or not) is revealed as a sociopath. That's a feature not a bug. We've all been corrupted.

Posters of Note

My weekly roundup of ten posters that caught my eye on the Instagram feed. Compiled on Blusky via #postersofnote.

Cinematic F-Bombs

This week saw The Double (2011) added to the archive (cinematicfbombs.com).

Movie Listings

Opening Buffalo-area theaters 10/30/26 -

• Aadarsha Kutumbam House No: 47 - AK47 at Regal Elmwood
• Breeder at Dipson Capitol; Scene One Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker
• Christmas at the Kringles at Dipson Flix, Capitol; Scene One Market Arcade; AMC Maple Ridge; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker
• Fjord at Scene One Market Arcade; Regal Transit, Quaker
• Kabaddi 5: After the Final Match at Regal Quaker
• The Mongoose at Dipson Flix, Capitol; Scene One Market Arcade; Regal Transit
• The Only Living Pickpocket in New York at Dipson Amherst, Capitol; Scene One Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker
• Paging Hezbollah at Regal Quaker
• The Scout at North Park Theatre (select times)
• Sight & Sound Presents: JOSHUA Live! at Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker
• Winter of the Crow at North Park Theatre (select times)

Streaming from 10/30/26 -

• Apocalypse Z: New World (Prime) – 10/30
• Big Baby (Shudder) – 10/30
• The Birthday Gift (Netflix) – 10/30
• Collision Course (Netflix) – 10/30
• SCTV: The Greatest Show You've Never Heard Of (Netflix) – 10/30
• Hunting Matthew Nichols (Shudder) – 10/31
• The Isolate Thief (MGM+) – 11/1
• A Dog's Perfect Christmas (Netflix) – 11/4
• One Year to Live, Buy a Man (Netflix) – 11/5
• Overacting (Netflix) – 11/5
• Terrell & T.O. (Prime) – 11/5

Now on VOD/Digital HD -

• Bloody Tennis (10/27)
• Cocoon: One Summer of Girlhood (10/27)
• The Dog Stars (10/27)
• Filipiñana (10/27)

"The message is therefore simple: Everything has contextual value. That this social commentary is also packaged within a gorgeous visual style almost seems unfair. Not a single second, word, or shot is wasted—including the end credits." – Full thoughts at The Film Stage.

• Forgotten Island (10/27)
• Ghost in the Cell (10/27)

"Anwar pulls no punches with the commentary on his country’s current state of affairs being rampant corruption. It’s why his hero Anggoro (Abimana Aryasatya) doesn’t demand respect from power. He earns it through kindness." – Quick thoughts at HHYS.

• Mum, I'm Alien Pregnant (10/27)
• Never After Dark (10/27)
• The Stunt Driver (10/27)

"It’s a pretty by-the-numbers period piece that works because of its eccentric characters. What begins as a farce populated by brash buffoons becomes about the drama inherent to the process behind this runaway train coming to fruition." – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• The Teenage Vampire (10/27)
• Verity (10/27)
• Love Kills (10/30)
• A Prayer for the Dying (10/30)

Press Kit Archive

Pieces from the Child's Play 3 (1991) press kit.