After the acclaim he won for his first two films, Bi Gan certainly isn’t lacking in choices when it comes to what to make next. His latest film takes full advantage of the expanded resources available to him to execute an extremely ambitious vision. He stretches beyond the city of Kaili to tell what seems like a fantastical story with possibly science-fiction elements. But it’s really about cinema itself and the director’s intent seems to be to experiment and show off his mastery of a large variety of different genres and styles. I tend to dislike films that are overly meta and this is the case here as well. It’s a riveting watch as you’re never sure what Bi Gan is going to show you next but it doesn’t seem to me that he has anything interesting to say here.

Coming from the same creative team behind Talk to Me, this one bears many of the same hallmarks and lacks the unique imagery that defined the earlier film. Yet it fixes one of the most glaring flaws I complained about by developing the characters enough that I actually care about them and so I would consider it the better film. I am somewhat disgusted that much of the horror is achieved by victimizing children who have little ability to fight back or even understand what is going on. But I can’t deny how viscerally effective the technique is.

I wasn’t intending on watching this documentary but clips for it are going viral and my wife seemed vaguely interested. I’m familiar with neither Louis Theroux’s work nor any of the male influencers featured here. Still Theroux seems like a skilled interviewer and the influencers are obviously huge celebrities in their own niche. That means this does have value after all even if I’m familiar with most of the talking points. The most fun parts are certainly when Theroux speaks with the women in the lives of these men but the scariest part is when it suggests that political power is the logical next step of the movement.

I haven’t seen enough of Mike Leigh’s work and after taking the time to watch this one, I continue to be wowed by his ability to depict the lives of the British working class. This is ostensibly a film about abortion, one so realistic that it feels like it should be based on a real person. But it’s also about the lives of the working class, their concerns and their problems and how they’re forced to solve them in their own way because the laws as written were made by and for the rich.

This film was made by Zhang Lü, a Chinese director of Korean ethnicity. Its title refers to the White Pagoda that is a landmark in Beijing, said to be shadowless as due to a combination of its white color and sheer size, its shadow is difficult to perceive. It’s definitely one of those arthouse films with depths that are difficult to perceive as said tower’s shadow. In this case, it’s both subtler than I’d prefer and even when I can work out what it’s trying to say, the stakes seem too small to support the weight of its presentation.

I held off on watching this because I feel that zombies are way overused in media and it didn’t even seem like this adds anything new to the genre. I was persuaded my mind due to a friend’s recommendation and because I have a newfound appreciation for the work of Alex Garland. In the event, this turned out to be a perfectly cromulent action movie and a decent coming-of-age film. Thematically, it’s not that interesting despite an attempt to suggest a mythic link to England’s past. But it is entertaining and even does a bit of worldbuilding.

The slew of awards and international recognition this film won more than qualifies it a must-watch. I was hesitant to approach it however, being cognizant of its contentious and depressing nature. Indeed as the end of this documentary itself shows, the crisis at Masafer Yatta that is its focus, has since been overshadowed by the October 7 attacks. The Palestinian perspective it offers is both interesting and invaluable. Its images show exactly how a people is smothered to death slowly over the course of decades. Yet it probably doesn’t offer much that is new to those who are already reasonably well-read on the subject and is too roughly put together to be a great documentary.