This import to U.S. streaming audiences hails from Switzerland and features the subtitled languages of Swiss German and Turkish. The story deals with a second generation Muslim immigrant — a closeted gay — who beings a romance with an openly gay, Swiss national. Beyto is a champion swimmer, which makes his new love all-the-more complicated: it’s his swim coach, Mike.
While issues regarding LBGT issues have come a long way in the U.S., many in overseas countries do not know the joys to love freely without retribution. This sixth feature by writer/director Gitta Gsell (three narrative films and two documentaries) opens one’s eyes to the issues of sexuality, marriage, and the pressures of familial conflict that most American gays have never faced.
As you can see from the trailer below, this is a finely crafted work deserving of international distribution. Dimitri Stapfer, who stars as Mike, was nominated for a “Best Performance in a Supporting Role” award at the Swiss Film Prize (2021), while writer/director Gitta Gsell earned nominations at the Zurich Film Festival (2020), The Boston LGBT Film Festival (2021), and won the “Prix du Public” at the Solothurn Film Festival (2021). The screenplay is based on the novel, Hochzeitsflug (Wedding Flight) by Yusuf Yesiloz.
Beyto is now available from Lomotion AG Films in the U.S. on your preferred streaming platforms in December.
Directed by Louisa Merino (Managing to Win: The Story of Strat-O-Matic Baseball), this film is all about Jerry Tellin, a World War II fighter pilot from New Jersey who flew the last combat mission over Japan.
On August 14, 1945, fighter pilot Jerry Yellin flew the last combat mission of World War II to attack airfields near Nagoya, Japan, carrying with him instructions to continue the assault unless he heard the word “Utah,” a code signaling the Japanese surrender, which never came.
After his 19th mission over Japan, Yellin returned home to a dark life of survivor’s guilt and daily thoughts of suicide. Married with four sons, Yellin was forced to face his enemy once again when his youngest son moved to Japan and married the daughter of a Kamikaze pilot. Through deep agonizing soul-searching reflection, the two fathers eventually opened their hearts and their arms to each other.
By the time of his passing in 2017, Yellin had become an outspoken advocate for veteran mental health and co-founded Operation Warrior Wellness, a division of the David Lynch Foundation that teaches veterans transcendental meditation to help them better cope with the effects of PTSD.
I’ve been watching quite a few veteran-based documentaries lately and this is one of the better films that I’ve seen. It’s a film that will open your mind to the power of change, forgiveness and meditation.
Jerry’s Last Mission is available on AppleTV and iTunes from Utopia. To learn more, check out the official website.
A political meme — you’ve seen them if you’re on social media — is a purposefully designed visual framing of a position that is created to deliver an inside joke, trigger an emotional reaction and create a sense of belonging. Memes are an entirely new form of political communication and attempts to use them for good and ill are growing rapidly.
They’re also close in use and form to sigils, the secret language used in chaos magic. Is that intentional? Or do you need to know it’s magic to use the power?
Director/cinematographer Hayley Garrigus made a three-year descent into the anonymous internet underworld to explore the genesis of memetic magic. She was also able to get information from both sides of the political spectrum, such as Memetic Magic: Manipulation of the Root Social Matrix and the Fabric of Reality author R. Kirk Patwood, Billy Brujo, Carole Michaella, Sean Bell, Nick Peterson, Mason Inglaessia, “User 666” and “Marianne” and more.
This film won’t give you any easy answers, as both the right and left are given equal time. This has upset some people that reviewed the film, as there’s no condemnation for anything in this film. Instead, it’s fascinated by the fact that memes potentially enabled political candidates to be elected.
As someone that has experience with both chaos magic and binding rituals against political figures, as well as creating memes for both personal and professional uses, I understand what this film is trying to state. However, it’s pretty scattershot and moves in plenty of directions. Yet that’s just why it’s so fascinating, much like the woman who claims that she knows that Obama has walked on Mars and is working to kill all of humanity, but then pauses to ask if Garrigus would like some tea.
You Can’t Kill Meme is now available on digital streaming from Utopia.
It’s great to see the always-welcomed and familiar face of character actor Craig muMs Grant (yes, his name is stylized as such). His breakthrough role was as “Poet” on HBO’s Oz, while his many network and cable series appearances included the Law & Order franchise. He was working on the Starz series Highttown at the time of his death. He also appeared in Spike Lee’s Bamboozled (2000). He died due to complications of diabetes at the age of 52 (New York Times obituary) this past March. The Scrapper, however, will not be the end of his legacy: his final two films are in post-production: Life After You (with Kathryn Erbe of Law & Order fame) and Bitcon (with Frank Whaley), with No Sudden Move (starring Don Cheadle, Benicio De Toror, and Joe Hamm) also recently released.
Grant stars, here, alongside the film’s lead actor, writer and director Bari Kang. The Scrapper is Kang’s second feature film. His debut feature, Lucky (2016), a crime thriller that captured his immigrant experience, was respected enough in critical circles to be reviewed in-the-positive by The L.A Times — not an easy task for self-produced indie feature.
Kang is ex-con of Punjabi-Mexican heritage who now not only cares for his mentally-challenged brother, but also expecting a child on the way. To provide for his family, he takes on one last job. That “last job” — a violent robbery — may be the last of everything as he finds himself between warring factions of Punjabi and Mexican crime syndicates versed in money-laundering, drug running and human trafficking. When the job goes bad: he is pursued by both mobs in an act of vengeance.
If you’re a fan of Quentin Tarantino and the Goodfellas-side of Martin Scorsese, you’ll enjoy the effective, dark, gritty tone-on-a-budget that Bari Kang will bring to your favorite streaming platform starting December 7 from 1091 Pictures. You can also watch Lucky as a VOD on Amazon.
Both films are well-made, heartfelt passion works worthy of streaming and of your making it a double-feature night with Bari Kang.
“The Handler is by far my most action packed film; it is my throwback to ’80s and ’90s action films.” — Michael Matteo Rossi in the pages of The Movie Waffler
“Yippee Ki Yay!” Chris Levine as Rkyer Dune, aka The Handler.
Our first exposure to the work of South Florida-born and L.A. transplanted actor, writer and director Chris Levine (I Hate Kids, The Ice Cream Stop) was by way of his third screenwriting effort: the feature film No Way Out, released last year. Here, in his eighth feature film as an actor (he’s also appeared in array of shorts and web series), he stars in writer-director Michael Matteo Rossi’s fourth feature film. Levine is Ryker Dune: an ex-marine who makes his scratch as a mercenary. After a failed (never explained) mission, Dune returns with a lone, Tarantino-mysterious, ratty trash bag as he bunkers in a “safe house,” one that’s not as safe as he thinks: he now fights for his life against Russian and Samoan agents who want the bag’s contents, as his own ex-soldiers-in-arms are sent to kill him. The message by his bosses (an effective Michael Pashan as Vinnie Fiore) is clear: in our business, there is no such thing as a “last job.”
There’s slight, occasional moments of non-subtitled Russian and Samoan, all of which is well done, natural and not the least bit distracting (but will most likely be subtitled for its consumer stream and DVDs; I watched a press screener). What may be slightly distracting (to the few; not to me, as I’ll soon explain) are the CGI-created blood and bullets in place of the major studio-funded squibs and blood packs afforded to the films in which The Handler pays homage. The Handler, however, still offers us the best-made CGI B n’ B I’ve seen in any indie streamer of late, so kudos to the SFX team headed by James Poirier. In fact, The Handler serves as a production-solid introductory course as CGI-created artillery may soon be a cinematic norm for major studio A-List productions: In the wake of the Alec Baldwin incident, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has pledged his Seven Bucks Productions will no longer use real guns on sets and those “effects” will be taken care of in post-production. (However, the CGI deployed in The Handler is solely budgetary and not a politicized, reactionary knee-jerk.)
Those CGI artillery moments aside: The Handler is still a passionate, against-the-budget action-boiler where you do not hit the big red streaming button expecting an “aging action star” romp of the Liam Neeson variety rife with A-List, summer tent pole Bayos and Bayhems under the canvas with Bruce Willis as the Murphy’s Law Ringmaster. The Handler, like its predecessors, is action-packed with expertly choreographed fight scenes effectively executed by its obviously skilled cast as Chris Levine impresses with a major studio fighting edge that would give a Gruber brother concern. There’s nothing clumsy about the “action” in The Handler and it’s certainly above the frays of most of the indie action flicks that proliferate ad-stream services (such as Tubi). Rebooting Die Hard, Hollywood? Call up Chris Levine from the indie-streaming dug out. Need a villain to take over Alcatraz ? Call 1-800-Tyrone Magnus.
Where’s my Ryker Dune action figure with the Kung Fu grip?
Yeah, I’ve strolled down this new, indie-action streaming boulevard many enjoyable times, with Prince Bagdasarian’s Abducted and Steven C. Miller’s serviceable action-thrillers packed with morally-screwed characters, such as the Bruce Willis-starringFirst Kill (2017), the Nicolas Cage-starring Arsenal (2018), and the Aaron Eckhart-starringLine of Duty (2019). Ditto for Claire Forlani upending the male-dominated genre with Inferno: Skyscraper Escape and Precious Cargo. Those films, however, benefited from their higher, under $5 million budgets. So what we have with The Handler as the new house on the block (as well as writer-actor Giuseppe Lucarelli’s just-released Checkmate) is more akin to the pretty fine Eric Roberts-starring action thriller (and he’s in the film more than most of his 590-plus films), Lone Star Deception — and that’s not a bad thing.
And it’s a good thing that I’m enjoying my Micheal Dudikoff (Musketeers Forever), Leo Fong (Kill Point), Olivier Gruner (Nemesis, Velocity Trap), Ron Marchini (“Ron Machini Week“!), Chris Mitchum (The Serpent Warriors), and Jim Mitchum (Raiders of the Magic Ivory) rental days of yore with a serviceable streaming action thriller lacking that “star” streaming enticement of Eric Roberts as the nefarious element who wants Ryker Dune, our anti-hero, dead. Do we, however, need Roberts, here? No, sir, as the under-the-radar Michael Pashan and Tyrone Mangus fill his shoes just fine. Rossi’s pen gives the cast a nice collection of expected, retro-action one-liners, and cinematographer Jon Schweigart (100 credits since 2010) makes everyone look ’80s action sweet. Unlike most indie streams that indulge in the non-DVD or commercial cable TV format and eschew a tight, 80-minute format — for a sometimes get-on-with-it-already almost two-hour runtime — Rossi, along with editors David S. Dawson and Mike Peterson, keep us engaged courtesy of a spunky 77-minute run time (one hour seventeen minutes).
What’s really cool is the eight minute credit sequence (that takes us to the 85-minute mark): Rossi takes the time to spotlight his hard working cast with a closing series of vignettes to highlight each actor, along with their name; then, the credits are in a larger typeface and scroll at a more leisurely, non-major studio pace to give Rossi’s hard working crew their moment to shine.
And shine everyone has: they handled their respective disciplines with a class and style as an example to what other streaming action films must strive. True to the poster: The Handler does what it takes to get the retro-action job done.
“With each film I try to add even more action and thrills to the story and feel like this film packs a serious, non-stop action punch. I’m excited for the world to see it soon.” — Michael Matteo Rossi in the pages of Jumpcut
Where to Watch, Where to Buy
The Handler, which comes off a well-received screening at the Silicon Beach Film Festival held at the TLC 6 Chinese Theater on October 4, 2021, will world premiere via Uncork’d Entertainment on all the usual streaming platforms — as well as Amazon Prime — on December 7, 2021. You can keep abreast of the film on its official Instagram and Twitter portals. You can also learn more about the production of The Handler as Michael Matteo Rossi spoke this February with YM Cinema, in March in the pages of Geek Vibes, and in April for a podcast with Bravo for the B-Side. You can also follow Micheal Matteo Rossi’s work on Facebook.
Our thanks to Uncork’d Entertainment for the pull-quote on the 2022 DVD release, which you can now purchase at Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart.
Fans of Australian icon Vernon “The Wez” Wells will enjoy his starring in Rossi’s currently-in-production action tale, The Sweepers, due in September 2022. Wells also stars with Chris Levine — alongside Francis Capra (little Calogero in A Bronx Tale) — in Rossi’s upcoming Shadows, due to drop this November. (See what I mean: streaming enticement.)
Chris Levine’s previous feature, No Way Out, now streaming on Amazon Prime.
You can also enjoy the film reviews of Chris Levine’s co-star, Tyrone Magnus (the merc, Logan Strong), on his popular You Tube portal. You can follow Chris Levine’s career on Facebook and learn more about his career with his interview at Voyage LA. Be sure to keep your streaming platforms at the ready for Chris Levine’s continued work with writer-director Joe Hamilton, as they follow up No Way Out with I Die. You Live. and Woods of Ash.
About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook.He also writes for B&S About Movies (links to a truncated teaser-listing of his reviews).
One look this film’s ’70s drive-in retro one-sheet and you can see that Canadian writer and director Ryan Glover is one of us: raised on those classic horror films from the early days of video stores filled with wares from the ’70s. Primarily a cinematographer with 20 credits to his resume, The Strings is his third dual credit. He made his debut with a short, The Key (2008), and a Toronto-based drama, Hills Green (2013). Both films are collaborative efforts from Glover and his screenwriting partner, Krista Dzialoszynski.
A cross-pollination of horror and thriller, as the one sheet says: Catherine, a Toronto, Ontario, musician, will have her eyes opened in the dead of winter. As she stays at her Aunt’s remote cabin on Prince Edwards Island to work on new material for her next album. That is until a mysterious presence of an urban legend makes itself known. There’s nothing like a break up with a boyfriend to send you running to an island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence (one that empties out during the dead of winter) to make you easy pickings for a victim of a religious-based suicide by self-freezing in the cold, Atlantic-fed waters.
Glover accomplishes a lot with his slight location and small cast, expertly capturing the cold, barren isolation of the off-season island. However, if you’re in the horror market for “shock scares,” this isn’t your film. Be prepared for a well-written and acted character study buoyed by Teagan Johnston’s performance that brings Dzialoszynski’s scripted chills to fruition and only adds to Glover’s crafty camerawork.
Horror fans my recognize the names — for some additional streaming incentive — of producers Robert Menzies and Paul Moyer from The Blackcoat’s Daughter (2015), and Dave Conlon and Bruce Fleming, known for A Nightmare Wakes (2019).
You can now stream The Strings exclusively on Shudder.
When you’re an unknown writer/director with an up-and-coming cast of actors and you want to entice those to stream your film: cast horror icon Tony Todd in your comedy homage to “unsolved mystery” shows, most famously, the Robert Stack-hosted Unsolved Mysteries.
A meta-retro film, the story takes a look back on Myths & Mysteries, a ’90s-era reality-reenactment series hosted by Tony Todd. Their latest assignment is at an abandoned, haunted home connected to a pair of infamous bank robbers. The home’s haunting came result of the Wallach Brothers not knowing the home was sold and they murdered the newlywed couple-owners. The mystery comes not from the murders . . . but what happened to the Wallach Brothers.
Needless to say, Tony Todd — in an extended cameo — is the best actor of the cast. The production is on the weak side, but expected for an ultra low-budget indie. What the film lacks in those departments, it more than makes up in the writing. So while the horror aspects aren’t all that effective, the humor hits the mark and keeps you watching.
The Nashville, Tennessee-shot horror comedy stars Megan Duffy (Showtime’s The Affair), James Cox (aka, wrestling champion James Storm), and Kaitlyn Bausch (HBO’s Power and NBC’s Law and Order:SVU). Writer and director Andrew Ford and his partner Eli Osman are the veterans of four short films produced since 2008.
The Reenactment is their debut feature film and becomes available on Amazon, iTunes, Google Play, YouTube Movies, Cable and Satellite On Demand on December 7 through Freestyle Digital Media. You can follow the film on Facebook and easily access all of the platforms where it streams at Link Tree.
When a secret experiment goes horribly wrong — which may have something to do with the Nephilim — bioengineer Doctor Chloe (Kristen Kaster, puts out an emergency signal warning that she has special DNA that can help the world while also warning any would-be rescuers that a monster (played by Matthew Ninaber, who was Psycho Goreman, and wrote and directed this movie) is on the loose.
Two teams — a heavily armed militia and our protagonists Marshall (Ethan Mitchell) and Beckett (Jeremy Ninaber) — work to get into the compound, rescue the scientist and collect the reward.
Sold on the good name of the aforementioned Psycho Goreman, keep in mind that none of the creative team that made that movie have written or directed this one. This is much closer to an 80s creature feature like The Terror Withinso either be warned or be pleased.
Audrey Barrett, who the effects for this film and Psycho Goreman, created an amazing monster costume, however, Sure, all it does is repeatedly throw people into walls, but it’s a gorgeous practical suit, yet another throwback to the glory days of direct to rental 80s VHS (and before that as well).
I just wish it had a movie to go with the great effects.
Montevideo, Uruguay-based filmmaker Maximiliano “Max” Contenti has been at it since his first short released in 2001. He’s since made eight shorts, two features — Meneco viviente V and Neptunia — and one documentary.
An ’80s slasher meets ’70s giallo throwback that is set in the Wes Craven-Scream ’90s, The Last Mantinee, aka Al morir la matinée (Red Screening) is a movie for fans of both genres — especially giallos — as we are treated to over-the-top, creative kills. As with those giallos of old that we love: it’s not the plot we came for: all the colors of the dark are what we came for. And The Last Matinee has more color and style that several of the recent horror streamers we’ve watched put together.
The plot is simple and it’s set up quickly and it just gets on with it: it’s a dreary, soaking wet day with nothing to do — so you go to the comforting refuge of a grand ol’ theater to watch a showing of Frankenstein. The thing is: serial killers don’t like the rain either and get bored as well. Hey, why should our “Norman Bates” have to collect eyeballs in the pouring down rain when there’s a nice, warm theater filled with plenty of orbs to pluck so as to fill his bottle?
This is the type of sick, clever film that, when one of the victims is smoking and the killer slits their throat: cigarette smoke comes out of their throat.
Yeah, while it may be derivative to some — oh, let’s say Michael Soavi’s Stage Fright and Lamberto Bava’s Demons and Dario Arento’s Opera and Bigas Luna’s Anquish comes to mind — but I can’t recall the last time cigarette smoke puffed out of a slit throat. As with Luna’s cinema-with-cinema effort: the bloody events in the theater mirror the film on the screen.
Hey, we enjoyed it . . . more so than a not-so-clever Rob Zombie Xerox joint.
You can watch The Last Matinee on the Arrow Player. Just visit ARROW to start your 30-day free trial. Subscriptions are available for $4.99 monthly or $49.99 yearly. ARROW is available in the US, Canada, the UK and Ireland on the following Apps/devices: Roku (all Roku sticks, boxes, devices, etc), Apple TV & iOS devices, Android TV and mobile devices, Fire TV (all Amazon Fire TV Sticks, boxes, etc), and on all web browsers at https://www.arrow-player.com.
So when you hear, “This is a movie about a haunted advent calendar,” well you’d probably think that it’s pretty silly.
But Patrick Ridremont’s Le calendrier is way better than I expected.
Eva (Eugénie Derouand) once danced, but since her wheelchair accident, she’s fallen into a pit of despair. After the gift of a wooden antique calendar, she begins to get a surprise each day that changes her life. Some of them lead to death for those around her, but now that she can walk again, will all of the sacrifices be worth it?
There’s a great atmosphere in this movie, even if it doesn’t know how to end things. It also has a heroine who realizes that to get what she wants, she has to become someone that she is not. There are rules with this advent calendar and most of them can kill you.
It’s a pleasant surprise that this Shudder holiday exclusive is so good. I’m used to modern films not looking like anyone cares about color, lighting and composition. This not only looks great, it plays great and minor issues with the close, it just plain works. The art direction of the advent calendar is quite good as well.
After this, I’ll never have one that looks like that in my home.
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