DISTANCE

I’ve kept this in the drafts since the first wave of C-19 and completely forgot I wrote it. My knowledge of Hirokazu Koreeda’s filmography was pretty spotty prior to 2020. I had only seen Still Walking, Shoplifters, Nobody Knows and Like Father Like Son. After Shoplifters hit me like a ton of bricks I made it my purpose to get familiar with everything he’d done up to then (to be honest - I hadn't even made the connection that he directed all the aforementioned films I'd seen). With the world being shut down and having been laid off from a profession that got hit the hardest by covid, I had nothing to do but watch movies all the time. I made it my purpose to get familiar with Koreeda's filmography. Distance became an immediate personal favorite. I’m a sucker for incredibly heavy subject manner presented in a very dry and subdued kind of way.

Somewhere between the imagery of Ozu, the tone & pacing of Bresson and a very dark event loosely based on something that really happened lies Distance - the story about the trauma left behind from the actions of a death cult. Had this movie been made by any other director there’s a strong chance it would’ve been “edgy” & exploitative. Koreeda's execution is more reserved. Instead of focusing directly on cults and suicide, Koreeda drops us in the aftermath of everything and we’re left putting the pieces together.
In Distance, we follow the family of cult members that attempted to poison Tokyo’s water supply years ago. Things didn’t go according to plan but the cult did follow through with a mass suicide. Three years later, their family members gather at the cult’s former base to observe the anniversary of their deaths (in a way - they sort of form their own cult).

Neither Ozu or Bresson would ever make a movie like this but the visual similarities and surface-level influences are undeniable to me. 

Koreeda has never shied away from shouting out Bresson's work...

L'Argent /
Distance

L’ARGENT is like a textbook, which I review before shooting each new film of mine - Hirokazu Kore-eda, thefilmstage.com

L'Argent /
Distance

L'Argent /
Distance

L'Argent / Distance

When it comes to Ozu, Koreeda is a bit more dismissive. He has acknowledged the comparisons others have made but he clearly isn't a fan...

The motif of family in STILL WALKING is similar to MABOROSI, so perhaps that’s where the Ozu comparison comes from - Hirokazu Koreeda, therumpus.net

Early Spring / Distance

Early Spring / Distance

Early Spring / Distance

I think part of the reason Koreeda dismisses/resents(?) the Ozu comparison is partially because it is a bit lazy and predictable to compare two Japanese filmmakers that make contemplative dramas. But... Distance has some serious (surface-level) Ozu imagery to me (sorry if this makes me lazy). 

I also find it funny when a legendary director like Ozu is called influential and impactful in text form only and no one questions it or asks for a specific example, but when you show countless VISUAL similarities, suddenly everyone takes issue with it or suddenly can't make the correlation.

Early Spring /
Distance

Early Spring /
Distance

Koreeda pulled the idea of the death cult and their plan to poison Tokyo’s water supply from the real events of the Aum Supreme Cult and their attempt to carry out a chemical weapons attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995. Because Distance is loosely based on this tragic event carried out by some terrible people, the movie challenges the idea of who deserves to be grieved.

 

Grief and the idea of dealing with it has become such a vague subject. Especially in film. It’s gotten to the point where every movie is about grief in some way that it sort of lessens the definition. But Distance is one of the exceptions. Not only is the film about grief and how one deals with loss, but Koreeda complicates things by making the lost loved ones cult members who planned to kill thousands. Do they deserve to be grieved by their loved ones even if they attempted to pull off an unforgivable crime? Perhaps that isn’t for anyone outside of family to decide.

Either way this movie is a quiet masterpiece that weirdly became my comfort film during the first wave of the covid lockdown. I can't recommend it enough.

THE WOMAN IN THE YARD

I don’t think it’s any mystery that Jordan Peele’s influence has a grip on modern day Black-centered horror films and television. And for those that don’t know what I’m talking about or want to play dumb, just look at the last few years alone: Lovecraft Country, Them, Ma, Queen & Slim, Run Sweetheart Run, Opus, The Front Room, Tyrell, Master, Alice, Tales From The Hood Part 2 and more. Whether you like it or not - all these movies have Get Out’s DNA in them in one way or multiple ways.
And to be clear - it’s more than just “scary stories with Black people in them”. All of these movies are some variation of “watch out for the white boogeymen/boggeywomen”. Even Sinners sort of falls in to that category/genre of film. I have a personal issue with this because it’s like Black films can’t exist without white people haunting us. I don’t need a history lesson on the relationship between Black and white people in this country either. I get it. Trust me. I’m a large young Black male. I’ve experienced plenty discrimination and racism. But these days so much of our identity is tied to being scared of white people. I just think that gets a little tiring. And in an abstract kind of way, it’s reverting back to the bugged sweaty Black caricature from old Hollywood who’s always scared of something…

(I’m a little conflicted using this image of Stepin Fetchit because he was a talented man that absolutely paved the way for Black actors of today and often doesn’t get his recognition because he played a part in stereotyping Black people on film)


I thought The Woman In Yard was fine at best. More importantly, it served as a sign that perhaps we’re sort of moving in the right direction. It certainly has elements of Jordan Peele in the story but this time it isn’t some variation of Get Out. It’s more in line with US. Jordan Peele’s sophomore feature didn’t have the same impact as Get Out but it’s still part of the modern day Black film canon. It’s been memefied, parodied and referenced in pop culture in more ways than one. The story of The Woman In The Yard is pretty similar to US. A frightened family stays inside of a house due to a boogeyman/woman making their presence known on the outside. US is hardly the first movie with this basic premise. It’s the fact that US and The Woman In Yard are grief-heavy Black-centered horror stories where the mother is keeping a major secret from the rest of her family which is the reason they are being terrorized. I think it’s pretty hard to deny the similarities even on a surface level.

US / The Woman In The Yard

There are major differences. US is more fun and entertaining with jump scares and needle drops while The Woman In The Yard really plays up the grief and depression angle. *Spoiler alert* the movie is a very heavy-handed story about a grim reaper type figure trying to convince the mother to commit suicide after she accidentally caused the death of her husband.


US/Jordan Peele comparisons aside, my biggest gripe with this movie is that it could have been a short film. The first 10 minutes and the final 30 minutes could have been condensed to a 20 minute short film about grief, depression and loss with some cool references to german expressionist films...

Nosferatu / The Woman In The Yard

The film also sets up some interesting roadblocks/restrictions for the main character that don’t really go anywhere. The protagonist of the story is crippled and there’s no male presence to provide that stereotypical safety net of protection. Had this been a more straightforward horror film with those elements, it would have been more interesting to watch.


At the end of the day this a horror movie that isn’t some allegory about Black people being scared of white people so that’s a plus in my book. I need more of that.

NEVERMORE: THE RAVEN EFFECT

The idea of looking at professional wrestlers as artists is a tough sell even in 2025. There’s still a large faction of people that don’t even consider them athletes even when they’re literally doing athletic feats. So the idea of them being artists is still difficult to process for some. Believe it or not - there is a psychological element to wrestling both in front of and behind the camera. Filmed/televised matches and vignettes bring out all kinds of emotions in viewers. That’s an art whether you like it or not. Raven might not be as known to casual fans, but he is the epitome of a wrestling psychologist. He’s someone other wrestlers in the business would call a high IQ wrestler. Raven stands out from the likes of Hulk Hogan, The Rock, Ric Flair, Macho Man and more because his character/“gimmick” was a violent nihilist. The best single image to describe who and what Raven was is the image of him sitting in the corner of the ring with a scowl on his face. Typically, when wrestlers make their way to the ring they feed off of the audience and make their presence big. Raven was the opposite. He took his time to walk to the ring, he didn’t interact with the fans and intentionally sucked the energy out of the building. All of this is an art.

I know's it's somewhat lazy to look at a wrestling film through the lens of The Wrestler but there are real life events that happen even today that the film captures. Early on in the documentary we see a very uninterested Raven interacting with fans at a wrestling convention which is straight out of The Wrestler (this is sort of a reflection of the Raven character which has sort of become the real life persona of Scott Levy).

  

The Wrestler / Nevermore: The Raven Effect

Even with all the accessible information we have on professional wrestling today, Raven is often left out of the conversation of greatest ring psychologists or greatest cerebral wrestlers like Dean Malenko, Arn Anderson, Randy Orton and even Triple H. By not rightfully acknowledging Raven’s importance, it lessens his influence on the wrestling business. Nevermore delves in to the typical documentary stuff like archival footage, interviews from peers and delving in to the subject’s troubled upbringing, but the most important aspect of the film is Raven’s importance to the wrestling business and his insecurities around not being recognized enough. Before antagonistic antiheroes or likable bad guys like Steve Austin, CM Punk or Bret Hart in the late 90s, the Raven character was doing an iteration of that years before in ECW (eastern/extreme championship wrestling). Saying someone is ahead of their time is an overused compliment but it absolutely applies to Raven. Nevermore also doubles as a nice gateway in to the history of ECW and its influence on the wrestling business. By the mid 90s, wrestling was on a decline. The most exciting stuff was taking place in ECW. Not everyone could get it on television at the time making it easy for bigger companies to steal, copy and borrow from them without casual wrestling fans realizing it (I know hardcore wrestling fans don’t like to hear this but the casual fan is always considered the most important demographic to cater to). The idea of hardcore wrestling and using chairs and trash cans as excessive weapons in the ring was popularized by ECW and found its way in to the Attitude era of WWF/E and the NWO era of WCW. Obviously hardcore elements existed in wrestling prior to the 90s but ECW really innovated all of that (again - that’s an art). 

Undertaker’s crucifixion angle in the late 90s (right) came from Raven and ECW (left).

Steve Austin's beer drinking gimmick (right) came from Sandman in ECW (left)...

It is heavily speculated that Steve Austin (right) also got his finisher from ECW legend Mikey Whipwreck (left)...

The idea of total chaos in the ring being a weekly occurrence and not a special event came from ECW.

Successfully executing all of this on television and influencing others to imitate it is an art.


Thankfully this isn’t a WWE produced film so things aren’t hidden or sugarcoated to save face. Imagine a feature-length episode of Dark Side Of The Ring that takes its time to tell a somewhat lesser known but important story.

TRAIN DREAMS *UPDATED*

Train Dreams is a careful balance of visual poetry and the harshness of World War One-era America (the film spans 50 years but the majority of it takes between 1917 through the late 1920s). Director Clint Bentley certainly romanticizes old America in a very Terrence Malick-ian kind of way but he doesn’t shy away from showing the ugliness of chasing the American dream. A large chunk of the movie deals with loggers and railroad workers over a hundred years ago. People died horrible deaths in that line of work and Train Dreams straight up shows this. Another storyteller would have made this a tale about unionizing or the corrupt inner workings of the American labor force. Instead we get straightforward scenes of workers breaking bones or getting crushed to death by trees.
In the film Joel Edgerton plays “Robert” - a logger & railroad laborer that struggles with the loss of his family. While this is technically a light spoiler, the voiceover narration hints at the tragic event in the opening minutes of the film. The story is less about the tragedy (which happens before we even get to the halfway point) and more about how Robert deals with everything. No one can ever fully recover from the loss of a wife and child but he eventually moves on with his life to some degree. 

Earlier I mentioned Malick’s influence which is more than just visual (Will Patton's voiceover narration is right out of the school of Malick). Tree Of Life was an obvious visual reference point for Train Dreams but so are the earlier works like Days Of Heaven...

Days Of Heaven / Train Dreams

With Tree Of Life there are some vague/general visual similarities which look nice when placed next to each other…

Tree Of Life / Train Dreams

but then there's other super specific moments between both movies that really raised an antenna…

Tree Of Life / Train Dreams

Tree Of Life / Train Dreams

Tree Of Life / Train Dreams

Malick’s filmography isn’t the only thing Train Dreams evokes/borrows from/steals from. This fits in line with other films like Matewan or The Assassination of Jesse James…

Matewan / Train Dreams

The Assassination of Jesse James... / Train Dreams

The Assassination of Jesse James... / Train Dreams

In addition to following Robert as he moves through the different stages of grief and depression, Train Dreams’ secondary plot is about a fast changing America. The movie starts in 1917 and ends in 1968. Throughout the film Robert witnesses and struggles with everything from the chainsaw replacing the handsaw in his specific line of work to the accessibility of the modern television.
This is the type of movie that could potentially get hijacked for the wrong reasons by the wrong audience (chronically online right-wingers that incorrectly romanticize old white-centered America for the wrong reasons), but if you’re a fan of Malick-esque visual poetry and non-biased American history, this is definitely for you.

I went in to this with almost zero expectations and came out pleasantly surprised. This is definitely one of my favorite movies of the year. Next to films like Eddington, Sinners and One Battle After Another, this is one of the most interesting films about America to come out this year (America seems to be the biggest exploration/topic of 2025). The difference is Train Dreams is a good movie while the others have varying degrees of issues in my opinion. That doesn’t mean I dislike Sinners and Eddington but they are far from perfect. You can read my rant on One Battle After Another by clicking here.
With so many “nothing” movies clocking in at well over two hours, Train Dreams gets it’s point across in under 100 minutes (and I would have gladly taken a three hour version).

THE SMASHING MACHINE *UPDATED*

If you can put aside the fact that a 53 year old Rock is playing someone between the ages of 29-32, this movie is surprisingly good. I say surprisingly because I’ve never been a big fan of the Safdie’s films and I never expect much from a Rock performance outside of maybe being entertained. But this exceeded my somewhat low/non-existent(?) expectations. Benny Safdie made a solid movie after splitting off from his brother and The Rock (finally) gave a performance that wasn’t some version of his wrestling persona. To be clear - there are definitely some parts in the film where the pro-wrestler Rock starts to creep out but for the most part he keeps it at bay. And could you blame him? Part of the reason he was cast in this role was because of his pro-wrestling background. I’m sure he had to tap in to that persona for all the physically demanding parts.

Instead of trying to imitate Mark Kerr and do an impression of his unique high-pitched mid-western accent - he just acts. This is something a lot of veteran actors need to do when it comes to biopics. From Viola Davis as Michelle Obama to Sean Penn as Harvey Milk, it seems like actors are more focused on nailing an impression of the subject rather than give a genuine performance. And it usually ends up being an embarrassingly bad SNL skit-level portrayal. That’s not the case here.
At the end of the day this is a mostly single-performance driven movie and The Rock does a fine job of carrying everything on his back for the most part.

The Smashing Machine, based on the 2002 documentary of the same name, follows a 3-4 year period in the life of mixed martial arts legend; Mark Kerr. We follow the ups & downs of his fighting career and the toxic relationship between he and his girlfriend.
Again - most of this falls on the performance of the Rock but it isn’t the only highlight. The Smashing Machine is an interesting mix of brutal fighting scenes and the almost boring day-to-day routine of Kerr (arguing with his girlfriend, training, injecting steroids in secret, doing chores around the house etc). That formula worked for me. The movie goes back and forth between incredibly violent to mundane (the relationship between Kerr and his girlfriend was the most uninteresting part of the story for me).

The Rock wasn't the only performance of note here. I can already feel the snarky comments from the readers forming but I found Ryan Bader’s portrayal of Mark Coleman to be almost Bressonian (monotone, deadbeat, dry, etc). Prior to acting, Bader was a seasoned fighter (this movie only cast real life mixed martial artists). Because his forehead/brow and nose are so beaten up from years of fighting, his performance is lacking certain emotions because he can’t move his face like the average person. And it works! It adds to the realism of it all. There’s even sort of an entire second movie within the movie where we follow Coleman juggling his time between being Kerr’s cornerman/trainer/support system and an aging fighter with only so much time left.

Folks might roll their eyes at this one but all the scenes of Emily Blunt and The Rock doing chores around the house reminded me of Jeanne Dielman…

Jeanne Dielman... / The Smashing Machine

Jeanne Dielman... / The Smashing Machine

Goodfellas / The Smashing Machine

Punch Drunk Love / The Smashing Machine

There's a lot of nostalgia that comes along with The Smashing Machine. Throughout the movie Safdie reminds us that The UFC was a relatively new organization. I remember renting UFC vhs tapes with my friends in the early/mid-90's and following it early on. So when the film namedrops folks like Don Frye and Dan Severn, I'm reminded of my friends, the sleepovers and all the people telling us how UFC will never come of anything. I don't follow UFC at all these days because it's such a massive entity that's too multifaceted to follow. But every time Safdie hints at the early days of UFC I'm reminded of how I was one of the earlier followers decades ago.  

I kind of criticized the casting of The Rock earlier on due to his age but who else could have played a physical role like this? The Rock and Mark Kerr both fall under that racially ambiguous category. When it comes to known/established actors - The Rock was the only person that could have done this. Sure, Benny Safdie could have taken a chance on a no-name and/or up & coming actor but right now it’s about putting butts in seats at the movie theaters and we all know The Rock is going to do that. Even for an "indie" film. This is a separate conversation that’s much bigger than this one movie but we really have no big/physically imposing young leading men right now. Decades ago, 6’-1” actors like Anthony Quinn, Robert Mitchum or James Earl Jones played boxers & wrestlers and made it look believable. Unless I’m forgetting someone I can’t think of too many physically imposing young actors right now. There's also a venn diagram between modern pro-wrestling and mixed martial arts. It makes sense that a former pro-wrestler would play the part of Kerr.
Given how guys like Bautista, Cena and The Rock are used in films today, I can’t help but think how much the ball was dropped by the movie industry by not utilizing old school wrestlers like Harley Race or Nick Bockwinkel as tough guys in the 70’s & 80’s. Imagine Killer Kowalski or Buddy Rogers squaring against Clint Eastwood or Burt Reynolds. I know we had the occasional old school pro-wrestlers like Tor Johnson and Kola Kwariani pop up every now and then but the well was untapped (guys like Hogan & Piper paved the way but they weren't exactly draws). 

I think because we aren’t seeing The Rock pull off the same performance we’ve seen in almost everything he's been in, a lot is being made of this so-called “gritty” performance that's out of his comfort zone. Some are even talking Oscar-worthy. I don’t think The Rock’s acting was that good, but it works. 

If you're a fan of The Safdie's and weary of Benny going off to do his own thing, rest assured that The Smashing Machine has the same style as their previous movies (just slightly more subdued). If you're indifferent towards or not a fan of The Safdie's, I'd still give this a chance even out of curiosity.

SLACK BAY

“Eat the rich” or some variation of poor people uprising against or just straight up murdering or burning down “the establishment” has been a plot-point in film since damn near day one. And if it isn’t eating the rich - it’s an outside force disturbing the peace of a seemingly happy privileged family (Teorema/Sitcom, Funny Games, etc aren’t “eat the rich”, but their definitely adjacent). In my personal opinion, Bruno Dumont’s Slack Bay is one of the few examples of how absurd and sometimes fake that can sound. To be clear - I’m not caping for rich people or the establishment, but at the end of the day most people aren’t about that revolutionary life (myself included). It certainly sounds hot but at the end of the day “Eat the rich” is something fashionable for Twitter leftists to say when in reality, if given the chance, they would gladly switch places with the rich people they’re advocating for to be eaten (and the funny thing is - some of them are in fact rich and/or privileged). Parasite is the perfect example of this. I don’t love that movie like the general public seems to. It’s very well made and I understand the hype behind it. I also understand why folks clung to it so hard. The inconsiderate privileged people get their wake up call by getting hustled and eventually murdered. It’s also understandable how “the message” was a little lost on the viewers. The director gives mixed messages. It’s fine to give a mixed message or not have a clear stance on something that’s complicated but Bong Joon Ho sort of plays both sides. During the promotion of the film he cited Karl Marx in interviews and painted his protagonists out to be these desperate people with their backs against the wall and no other option but to hustle a rich family.
But at the end of the day, the poor family just wanted the same money and privileges of the rich family they took advantage of. There wasn’t anything noble. We’re not even going to get in to how they screwed over another poor couple in order to get access to the rich folks. I understand that’s part of the issue with the haves and have-nots. The have-nots are manipulated in to adopting a crab in the barrel mentality. My problem is Parasite nor the director do a good job at emphasizing that. It’s like every shitty decision or evil tactic exhibited by the underprivileged is never their fault. If you think I have it wrong that’s fine. But you can understand how one could interpret Parasite in the way I laid it out.
This isn’t about Parasite. It’s just the recent New York Times list of the best movie of the 21st century gave the film relevancy again because it took the #1 spot. Everyone’s praising it again like when it first came out and it got me to thinking about Bruno Dumont’s Slack Bay which is sort of like the “anti-Parasite”.

Bruno Dumont understands the absurdity of the idea behind “eat the rich” in these modern times so he went and made a truly absurd film. In Slack Bay, two investigators are looking in to the disappearances of rich tourists on a small French island. All clues lead the detectives to a local poor (and possibly inbreed) family of cannibals that are clearly behind it all.
In Slack Bay, the poor family that literally eats the rich doesn’t want their victim’s money, homes or resources. They’re just evil and mentally ill. It should be mentioned that this movie is not only absurd but a slapstick dark comedy. Instead of taking the subject matter super seriously like other “eat the rich films”, Dumont gets very surreal.

This is definitely another film that belongs in the same conversation as not just Parasite but Martyrs, Funny Games, The Maids, The Housemaid and La Ceremonie (a far superior film than all the movies listed). It’s also in that group of absurd films where an outside force ruins the lives of a seemingly well-off family like Pasolini’s Teorema or Francois Ozon’s remake; Sitcom.

Dumont also borrows heavily from his regular sources of inspiration like Jean Epstein and Fellini…

I am simply doing the same thing that Pharaon de Winter did by including in my film people from northeast France, as [Jean] Epstein also did - Bruno Dumont, Cineaction Issue 51, Feb. 2000

Finis Terrae / Slack Bay

Finis Terrae / Slack Bay

Le Tempestaire / Slack Bay

Le Tempestaire / Slack Bay

The Three Sided Mirror / Slack Bay

Finis Terrae / Slack Bay

Finis Terrae / Slack Bay

Finis Terrae / Slack Bay

L'Or Des Mers/ Slack Bay

Finis Terrae / Slack Bay

Finis Terrae / Slack Bay

Finis Terrae / Slack Bay

L'Or Des Mers/ Slack Bay

You start doing things by learning and you learn from people who have done it before you. They become your masters. Cinema is an art that comes with big history. I have learned and been influenced by Fellini - Bruno Dumont, film companion

8-1/2 / Slack Bay

Dumont steps outside of his usual Epstein/Fellini comfort zone and also takes from silent comedies…

I did watch a lot of Max Linder films, and the character in many of his films is this very bourgeois character who is made fun of - Bruno Dumont

Max In a Taxi / Slack Bay

I know Dumont hates the Bresson comparisons but between certain isolated scenes and the basic plot, which sort of takes from L’Argent, and its source material and certain isolated moments - there is some Bresson in the film…

He [Bresson] uses close-ups in a way that's very strong and that leads us, as viewers, to reflect on what we see - Bruno Dumont

L'Argent / Slack Bay

I feel like this with every Bruno Dumont film I write about but I cannot stress how much this movie is not for everyone. But at this point it’s become semi-obscure. You don’t really hear people bring this up that much even though it isn’t that old and has legitimate movie stars like Juliette Binoche (Dumont is known for working with non-professional actors but I find that his movies work best when there’s a combination of professional and non-professional actors working together like in Slack Bay). You’d have to be familiar with Dumont’s work or make some kind of an effort to seek it out. If you have somewhat of an open mind and looking for a potential alternative to something Parasite - this might be a good substitute.