Roger Ebert

Let’s get this out of the way, first and foremost: I’ll probably never love a festival more than Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival. It’s long (runs at least two weeks), genre-focused (horror, sci-fi, animation, you name it), and eclectic as all get-out. On top of that, it’s exceedingly Canadian. So it was a delight to learn that, for my first year as an Assistant Editor for RogerEbert.com, I’d get to do more than pilfer Fantasia’s ever-generous screener library remotely this year – I would fly up to sunny Montreal, Quebec, and join the festivities.

The fest, which opened on July 18th this year and runs through August 4th, is a treasure trove of the year’s most out-of-the-way genre works. Japanese and Korean thrillers aplenty, French and Canadian (and French-Canadian) indies runneth over, and you’ll see more future Shudder Originals than you can shake a Psycho Goreman at. But the primary appeal for me has been steeping myself in the festival’s culture — an ugly American, taking his first brave steps across the national line to the relatively comfortable climes of French Canada. Sure, there are all the little nuances that set Quebec apart: the French language dominance, all the tres-continentale casual outdoor smoking. But there are the little festival traditions too: knowing audience members meow before every screening, or cheer when a wacky, decades-old commercial for Shin Ramen plays at the top.

But I also have a job to do, so here I am, breaking down the many, many films I’m catching at the festival during my weeklong stay here (and, surely, several days after I’ve returned stateside). And before we can get into all the scrappy little indies and international pictures Fantasia has to offer, it’s worth looking into some of the bigger-ticket items that have studded this first week.

Fantasia’s opening night picture was a deceptively sweet one, albeit with a pedigree that makes it perfect for the fest: Ant Timpson’s “Bookworm,” a surprisingly gentle and wry family adventure that borrows some of its thematic DNA from Timpson’s previous work, “Come to Daddy,” cleans up the gore, and replaces it with a heaping helping of Taika Waititi-an whimsy. Like “Daddy,” it’s another fragmented tale of fathers and children navigating a crisis, but this time with the roles reversed: this time, it’s a precocious eleven-year-old know-it-all named Mildred (bright-eyed newcomer Nell Fisher, “Evil Dead Rise“), guiding her absentee, failed-magician father, Strawn Wise (frequent Timpson collaborator Elijah Wood) through the wilderness to capture footage of a fabled black panther. They need the reward money to help out Mildred’s mother, who’s lapsed into a coma — which is the reason Strawn, who sired Mildred at a one-night stand and has never met her before, has finally dropped into her life with nary a clue how to parent. 

It’s a delight to see Wood trudging through the same mystical plains he did decades prior with the “Lord of the Rings” films, this time in a much smaller, more intimate tale of failed fathers forced to grow up simply to keep up with their children. The vibe of “Bookworm” is decidedly ’70s, from the hazy filmic look to the psychedelic folk tracks that permeate nearly every other scene. There’s more than a bit of “Hunt for the Wilderpeople” in its deadpan drollness, which Wood takes to nicely with his signature cluelessness. He and Fisher are fantastic foils, Fisher’s outspoken, encyclopedic knowledge throwing the barely-blustering Strawn for a loop in scene after scene. Then, when they actually face danger, whether it’s a mysterious backpacking couple (Michael Smiley and Morgana O’Reilly) with sinister intentions or the elements themselves, it’s often Strawn’s cowardice and anxiety that get them most in trouble. As a showcase for the two actors, “Bookworm” serves as a lovely, if occasionally repetitive, tale of estranged family connecting for the first time through crisis.

It’s hardly perfect: The low budget takes a hit on some of the more ambitious VFX sequences, and the first act takes its sweet time to establish the stakes for the adventure we’re about to embark upon. (Granted, the first shot of their journey, which stretches the boxy 4:3 aspect ratio to a glorious scope, complete with title drop, is inspired.) And the quest itself takes a rather circuitous route, which can help for character-building but often results in a loss of momentum. That said, “Bookworm” shows Timpson stretching his legs and trying out another film about fatherhood in a far different mode, going more “Goonies” than grindhouse. It’s an admirable effort, even if it doesn’t all coalesce.

One of the most anticipated films of the fest has been “Shelby Oaks,” the directorial debut of YouTube film critic-turned-filmmaker Chris Stuckmann. Stuckmann is a known entity with a big fanbase, so it’s tempting to cut him a little slack: after all, he seems a gregarious, enthusiastic dude in his videos, an enthusiastic fan of horror who wants to share his love for the genre by making his own entry. Luckily, thanks to his cachet, a successful Kickstarter campaign, and now the aid of executive producer Mike Flanagan and a recent acquisition by NEON (hot off the back of “Longlegs“‘ success), he has his chance to show what he’s learned in over a decade of film criticism. Unfortunately, “Shelby Oaks” demonstrates his ability to regurgitate the elements of the genre he loves, but not innovate on them. 

Frustratingly, critics have been hand-tied to reveal much about the film itself, preferring to save the “surprises” for a more general audience. As such, the way I can describe the film only really encompasses a certain stretch of the work, before other filmmaking choices take over. But what I can say is that, in its opening minutes, “Shelby Oaks” establishes itself as a found-footage documentary of sorts, investigating the mysterious 2000s disappearance of one of the hosts of a then-popular YouTube ghost hunting show called “Paranormal Paranoids.” Riley Brennan (Sarah Durn) is still missing more than a decade on, and her older sister Mia (Camille Sullivan) has been looking for her ever since. Eventually, a mysterious tape proves a break in her investigation, and soon she’s even hotter on the case to discover her sister’s whereabouts.

To its credit, “Shelby” successfully feels like a big-budget horror feature; cinematographer Andrew Scott Baird has a flair for both the grainy immediacy of YouTube and VHS footage, and the more contemporary styles of filmmaking that crop up throughout the picture. It’s decently atmospheric, with Stuckmann pulling off the basic mechanics of a spooky-scary scene, whether it’s building slow tension or jumping out at you to yell ‘boo.’ 

The problem is that none of this cinematic grammar seems to go anywhere or coalesce into something that feels satisfactory the more it progresses. The first half has a fascinating DIY investigatory feel to it — it channels the true-crime impulse to pore over footage to zoom in on new details, or chase down leads late at night despite all warnings. But as the clues start to take shape, the central mystery starts to feel a bit too familiar, an uninspired gumbo of everything from “The Blair Witch Project” to “Rosemary’s Baby,” with even more obvious cues eagle-eyed horror hounds will recognize. Sullivan seems a capable actress, but the script gives her little to do but follow bread crumbs and stare trembling off in the middle distance. (There’s also a queasy story thread that ties women’s worth to their fertility, which Stuckmann doesn’t complicate enough.) 

The film grasps at a kind of “elevated” horror (inasmuch as those terms mean anything), but doesn’t feel confident in doing much more than aping the things Stuckmann has seen work in other pictures. At most, it feels like a sizzle reel for the filmmaker, a chance to prove he can at least do the job, even if the story goes through the horror motions. I’m still interested to see what lessons Stuckmann learns from this experience and if he can leverage them into a more original, cohesive vision for his second try.

Alexandre Dumas’ “The Count of Monte Cristo” is no stranger to film adaptations – I’m partial to the 2000s Jim Caviezel/Guy Pearce one myself – but Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patellière’s 2024 version is a massive, lavish, and exceedingly French take on the material. Bursting to life as a kind of novelistic superhero movie, “Le Comte de Monte-Cristo” feels of a kind with Martin Bourboulon’s “Three Musketeers” duology from last year: baroque, expensive-looking, and exceedingly streamlined.

Unlike the 2002 version, “Monte-Cristo” relishes in its oversized three-hour runtime, which still clips through the broader beats of Dumas’ novel at an acceptable trot. You likely know the basic framework: stalwart sailor Edmond Dantès (Pierre Niney, looking a cross between Gael Garcia Bernal and Jake Gyllenhaal, depending on the angle) is betrayed by his friend Fernand (Bastien Bouillon) and exiled to a deep, dark hole in Marseilles’ most remote island prison. It’s there he meets fellow prisoner Abbé Faria (Pierfrancesco Favino), who helps him escape and points the way to a treasure map that will make him — you guessed it. There, armed with masks and a Machiavellian sense of trickery, he sets about insinuating himself in French high society with the express goal of ruining Fernand and the two others who aided in his wrongful imprisonment.

It must not be easy to condense a 1200-page novel to something clocking in at three hours even. But Delaporte and de La Patellière manage to squeeze Dantès’ tale of constipated revenge into something that feels big and melodramatic, evoking the golden-age Hollywood epics of old. There’s something of “Monte-Cristo”‘s antecedents in the film’s methodical, yet exciting forging of Dantès into the titular Count — the middle stretch, set entirely in the cobwebbed bowels of Château d’If, feels like a Napoleonic “Dark Knight Rises” in the way it breaks down, then reforges, its stalwart hero. 

Then he returns to France with his fortunes, and “Monte-Cristo” becomes a superhero movie with a hero whose primary moves are guile and social engineering. One of the most fascinating, oddly contemporary touches is outfitting Dantès with a series of eerily lifelike prosthetic masks for his disguises, including the Count himself. 

But amid all the crisp period detail, the sumptuous costumes by Thierry Delettre, and Nicolas Bolduc’s sweeping cinematography, “Le Comte de Monte-Cristo” complicates its tale of vengeance and the virtue of its hero. Niney charts a compelling path through Dantès’ loss of innocence, turning him from wide-eyed romantic to embittered puppeteer so slowly that neither you nor he can see the degradation. As the many pieces of his puzzle come together in one satisfying way after another, you see the ways the quest destroys him and his own sense of humanity. 

All told, “Monte-Cristo” is a mighty adaptation of the material, a thrilling, modern adventure hiding an aching romantic tragedy under its many cloaks and daggers.  

Few people have kind things to say about “X-Men Origins: Wolverine.” Receiving terrible reviews when it was released in May 2009, the film was meant to extend the X-Men cinematic universe in a unique way, giving Hugh Jackman’s mutant antihero Logan his own standalone film after being one of the main attractions in “X-Men,” “X2: X-Men United” and “X-Men: The Last Stand,” which at that point was one of Hollywood’s most lucrative franchises. So, 20th Century Fox figured, why not keep the gravy train rolling? Let’s make a movie where audiences get to see how Logan became Wolverine. Surely that would be a hit.

Truth is, “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” was commercially successful but not a big-enough smash to justify the studio continuing in that specific direction for future films. (Plus, it cannot be overstated how much true-blue comic fans despised the movie.) Still, that 2009 film has been discussed more in recent times than it has in years because of the imminent arrival of “Deadpool & Wolverine,” which will be the second big-screen pairing of those two Marvel characters—the first, of course, was in “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” which featured Ryan Reynolds as a very different iteration of Deadpool. (Even if you’ve never seen “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” you’re probably aware of it because of how much Reynolds has made fun of that film in his two Deadpool movies.)

If you revisit “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” you will not discover a misunderstood masterpiece. To be honest, I didn’t hate it when I saw it in 2009—I thought it was pretty disposable, although Jackman was predictably great—but I hadn’t given it a single thought in the last 15 years. But to prepare for “Deadpool & Wolverine,” I gave it a fresh watch. The movie’s still not good, but what was striking was realizing I was witnessing the beginning of an industry era that’s still with us—if anything, it’s even more pervasive today. “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” remains bad, but it also represents the dawn of Hollywood’s spin-off age. And that era’s problems are embodied in this movie.

“X-Men Origins: Wolverine” was by no means the first spin-off film—and it wasn’t even the first film of this kind spawned from a blockbuster. “The Fugitive” begat “U.S. Marshalls.” Brendan Fraser’s “Mummy” films gave us “The Scorpion King.” “Daredevil” paved the way for “Elektra.” The “Barbershop” series opened the door for “Beauty Shop.” “Bruce Almighty” was so huge that we got “Evan Almighty.” 

Those earlier spin-off movies had two things in common. One, they were mediocre, and two, with a few exceptions, they failed to be financial successes. Not many people would think back on those spin-offs fondly. Generally speaking, they felt a little desperate, a little undignified—merely vain attempts to extend franchises beyond their logical end point. True, “The Scorpion King” was actually a fairly sizable hit, but its sequels were cheapo straight-to-video affairs that didn’t feature Dwayne Johnson. To varying degrees, spin-offs were considered weird, vaguely embarrassing cash-grabs.

Of course, those studios and filmmakers probably went into those projects with lofty aspirations. Still, Fox’s attempt to make a Wolverine spin-off was treated as an ambitious undertaking and a major event. “There is no property more sacred to us than ‘X-Men,’” Fox’s co-president of production Alex Young told Entertainment Weekly before “X-Men Origins: Wolverine’s” release. In that same interview, Young acknowledged the movie was more expensive than its predecessors. “It’s bigger in scale and size than any of the other X-Men movies,” he said. “It’s also more primal and visceral. We haven’t even come close to this pitch of intensity and fury.”

Dismiss that as typical studio hype if you must, but at least it suggested that Fox was serious about “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” which traced Logan’s early days as he grows up with his half-brother Victor (Liev Schreiber), both of them blessed/cursed with mutant powers. They fight side by side in America’s most historic wars—the Civil War, the two World Wars, Vietnam—before being recruited by Major William Stryker (Danny Huston) to join his elite, super-secret team of mutant warriors. But soon after Logan sours on the distasteful government ops they’re assigned to execute, walking away from the group. But, of course, there’s no getting out—and Stryker sends his other soldiers to eliminate Wolverine, including Victor.

Even before it hit theaters, “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” was in trouble. Production delays, a rumored rift between the producers and filmmaker Gavin Hood about the movie’s creative direction, an unfinished script imperiled by the Writers Guild of America strike of 2007 and 2008: Any type of bad buzz you can imagine, this flick had it. Even worse, at the end of March 2009, the film leaked on the internet, which hurt Fox financially. Just as importantly, though, the leak revealed the movie’s myriad flaws. The studio tried to insist it was only a workprint, but the damage was done—fans now knew “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” was a dud. Put it this way: That Entertainment Weekly piece I quoted earlier focused almost entirely on the online leak and the behind-the-scenes creative differences, forcing executives and Jackman to go into spin mode. If you’re putting out a movie you hope will be a blockbuster, that’s not how you want the promotional tour to go.

Enough people have written about “X-Men Origins: Wolverine’s” creative failures that there’s not much need to reiterate them. But I would say that, watching this movie in 2024, it’s clear that so many of its issues stem from the general problem with spin-offs—a problem still with us today. The first red flag is right there in the title. “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” is an ungainly mouthful primarily because Fox undoubtedly wanted to cover its bases, making sure that you knew that this movie is about that Wolverine guy that you saw in those X-Men flicks. (Also, the studio was planning at one point to do a similar spin-off film for Magneto, with “X-Men Origins” being used as the linking title to these side projects.) If you wonder why modern spin-offs have titles like “A Quiet Place: Day One” or “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” that’s your explanation: The underlying I.P. needs to be front and center.

But the title is the least of this film’s weaknesses. Strange as it might sound, I think part of the reason critics were so down on “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” is that they hadn’t yet dealt with the glut of spin-offs that were soon going to come our way. This odd mutant strain of film was, then, kinda new—almost novel—in its departure from the franchise’s main storyline while, at the same time, spending a whole narrative on a character we already knew pretty well. Not just a spin-off but also a prequel and an origin story, “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” was a cluster bomb of all the event-movie subgenres that would come to dominate the multiplex. We just didn’t realize it yet.

That said, if “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” had been artistically successful, that novelty might have been more rewarding. Instead, we were saddled with an uninspired origin story, which is often the form that spin-off films take. Like many of them, “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” sought to explain mysteries of the character’s backstory—some of which, I would argue, most of us didn’t actually care about. How did Wolverine get that Adamantium skeleton? (Okay, yes, that would be interesting to learn.) What made him so angry? (Eh, I’m cool not knowing.) Had he ever spent a lot of time hanging out in the Canadian woods in order to stay off the grid? (Wait, I’m sorry, what?) The movie provided those answers—along with one that every spin-off/origin story simply must supply, which is “Hey, how did this guy get his cool name?”

The allure of origin stories is their ability to pull back the curtain, introducing us to a beloved character before they were fully formed. And if it’s a spin-off from a popular franchise, that also means the film can potentially try to depart from the tone and feel of the main movies. I’m in the minority because I actually like the “Star Wars” spin-off films, but one of the reasons I’m fond of both “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” and “Solo: A Star Wars Story”—see what I mean about those ungainly titles?—is that they consciously don’t feel like typical “Star Wars” movies. (“Rogue One” was a heist/war flick. “Solo” masqueraded as a buddy-cop comedy.)

If Jackman had had his way, “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” would have done something similar, seeking a darker feel than the earlier “X-Men” movies. That’s why he pushed to hire Hood, who’d directed the crime drama “Tsotsi” (which won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film) but had no experience helming franchise features. As Hood later recalled, “He’d seen ‘Tsotsi,’ and he really felt that he wanted to try to make this film about a guy who is a superhero, but doesn’t really like what he does and has all this post-traumatic stress disorder.” Crucially, this was the first “X-Men” film to come out after 2008’s “The Dark Knight,” a magnificently somber, epic comic-book movie that profoundly shifted how Hollywood thought of these properties. In that EW preview, Fox’s co-chairman Tom Rothman indicated as much, pumping up “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” as “very badass, and we knew it would push the furthest limit of PG-13. But once ‘Dark Knight’ came out, we saw that there wasn’t any level of intensity we couldn’t go to.”

Why “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” fails, of course, is that the studio didn’t have the courage of its convictions, resulting in an unfocused film that’s half-dark and half-goofy—and it’s especially goofy during moments when it’s supposed to be dark. (Logan’s cherished girlfriend Kayla, played by Lynn Collins, dies in his arms? Cue hilariously melodramatic overhead shot of Jackman bellowing, “Noooooooooo!” to the skies.) “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” was quippy one minute, then ultra-serious the next, the two styles failing to cohere. Reynolds’ wisecracking Wade Wilson, who will become Deadpool, feels grafted on from another film. (Indeed, Reynolds has said he had to come up with his own dialogue on set.) Just because audiences liked this X-Men world before, it doesn’t mean they’ll follow it anywhere. Hood and the producers never could decide on exactly what tone they wanted—instead of settling on one, they flailed around with several.

Sometimes, the lead singer of a successful band will do a solo album, either because he’s sick of the rest of the group or wants to pursue different styles than what he’s known for. What often happens in these cases is that, while the solo album is superficially appealing, it seems like it’s missing something. And, of course, what it’s lacking is the band you associate with the lead singer. Spin-off films can create a similar sensation: Wait, where are the other guys? 

As compelling as Jackman was in the “X-Men” movies, what made those films succeed was the ensemble—the mix of villains and heroes, the sense that these individual mutants were part of a larger community, even if some of them were foes. “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” didn’t introduce a single new character as interesting as Charles Xavier or Magneto or Jean Grey, but there sure were a lot of them—a backing band, if you will, of subpar session players. Rather than allowing Wolverine to command center stage, “X-Men Origins” made him seem lackluster around such dull company. You missed his cool buddies and vivid enemies from the previous films. 

So, yes, “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” has deserved its reputation as one of the worst Marvel installments. And yet, it predicted the future of franchises. “Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw.” “Spiral: From the Book of Saw.” “Bumblebee.” “Creed.” “Annabelle” “Ocean’s 8.” “The Lego Batman Movie.” “Birds of Prey.” “Puss in Boots.” Even “Deadpool” is itself a spin-off. Nothing ever dies—now it just gets recycled for an adjacent motion picture. In a different age, we might have gotten films like “Quint: A Jaws Story” or “Godfather Origins: Sonny Corleone.” (Although you’re well within your rights to argue that “The Godfather Part II” is sort of a Vito Corleone origin story.) Modern spin-offs vary in quality, but “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” showed studios how they could be done—maybe not well, but certainly good for a company’s bottom line. Jackman’s first Wolverine flick didn’t get much right, but that it certainly did.

Set at a conference for “thought leaders,” “The Way We Speak” is an ambitious drama that puts its cameras on a handful of characters wading into an arena of intellectual combat while dealing with emotional, psychological and in some cases physical challenges that threaten to unravel them. The performances are uniformly excellent. That all the key players (save for the lead) are not yet in-demand names is even more impressive. They carry themselves like stars (or endlessly reliable character actors) even if we don’t know them.

Faith versus Reason is the main attraction: a middle-aged writer named Simon Harrington (Patrick Fabian of “Better Call Saul”) who is finally starting to have a breakthrough is brought in to have a series of debates over three days with another rationalist, his longtime best friend and colleague George Rossi (Ricco DiStefano). When Rossi bows out due to health problems, he ends up squaring off against a last-minute replacement, Sarah Clawson (Kailey Rhodes), a young Christian essayist whose latest book has sold over a million copies. 

Offstage, Simon has an unsteady and sometimes heated relationship with his wife Claire (Diana Coconubo, possibly the cast’s MVP, at least in terms of the role’s degree of difficulty). She’s a famed medical researcher who has been in cancer treatment for years and is a rock for Simon even though her body is betraying her and she’s worried about survival. Simon, already a prickly sort and a drinker as well, begins to crack while worrying about his sick friend and sick wife and his own career ambitions, increasingly viewing Sarah not just as his opponent but his enemy, creating a ripple effect of ill-will that impacts other characters and makes the conference increasingly tense.

Written and directed by Ian Ebright in his feature debut, “The Way We Speak” has already been compared to the work of Aaron Sorkin. The comparison fits not just because nearly every single person in the story is fantastically, at times theatrically, eloquent, but because the structure, look, and overall tone channel the underappreciated “Steve Jobs,” a Sorkin-penned, Danny Boyle-directed movie set around three product launches. As it turns out, this movie has a lot of the virtues of a Sorkin joint, in particular a gift for snappy patter and keen insight into the dynamics of relationships between smart, accomplished, ambitious people. However, it also has some of the flaws, chiefly an overconfidence in its ability to confront and articulate the big ideas and timeless themes that are believed to be hallmarks of Important Drama. 

The content of Simon and Sarah’s onstage clashes is so basic as to seem beneath an institution lauded in the screenplay as a gathering place for the world’s brightest minds. The debates don’t go much deeper than an intro class. “How can you justify a righteous deity that allows so much suffering to play out without direct intervention?” is one of the questions posed by Simon, in a self-satisfied tone (like so much of what he offers) that suggests he believes this will be a knockout blow. When it comes to cinematically representing the substance of the faith and reason dialectic, Ingmar Bergman or Terrence Malick this film ain’t. 

Maybe we’re not supposed to think that the verbal combatants standing at those lecterns are as profound as they think they are? That’s a more charitable reading. Another is that the main event onstage is a pretext to externalize what happens internally when accomplished, ego-driven people get stuck under a spotlight for a few days while coping with intensely demanding personal matters (Sarah’s got her own issues, somewhat related to what Simon’s going through) and start to crack and behave poorly.

This is where the film most impresses. Ebright is ruthless, in the best way, when it comes to showing how people can be selfish and thoughtless in personal and romantic relationships, even when they think they’re behaving in an exemplary or at least decent manner.

Simon is already right on the edge of assholery when we first meet him. Fabian’s demeanor and vocal style in the part are reminiscent of Michael Douglas in some of his classic ‘80s and ‘90s charismatic heel roles. But he digs deeper into self-sabotaging unpleasantness and weakness than Douglas ever did, and as the film goes along, the character becomes increasingly difficult to excuse or tolerate, because he’s pretty clearly losing it and has no real sense of the damage he’s inflicting on himself and those around him (including the hosts of the conference). 

Sarah doesn’t emerge from the story pristine either, but one can at least make the case that extended exposure to Simon brought out bad elements in her personality (or perhaps suppressed anxiety/misery related to her own marriage) that might not have manifested until she showed up at the conference.

The most sympathetic character is Claire, who’s married to a seething mass of resentment in the form of a man. Simon, we learn, has been in her shadow for decades (supporting her, in his mind, emotionally if not financially) and has resentments that he should know better than to admit, mainly about the fact that his wife’s cancer is getting in the way of his long-deferred dream of being a famous writer. The movie is most compelling and spot-on observant when it’s deflating Simon. When he gets drunk at dinner, Claire heads out early and drafts a waiter to watch over him until he’s ready to leave. Simon asks his minder, “Are you familiar with futurism? Because I’m kinda famous for it.” “Oh,” the waiter says politely. “Right on!”

Before we get too deep into the story of Lou Pearlman, a pop music kingmaker who built his empire on a Ponzi Scheme, something needs to be addressed about Netflix’s three-part docuseries “Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam.” As technology advances, there are going to be deeper and deeper questions about what’s allowed in non-fiction filmmaking, and the creators of this series wade into what I would call some professionally murky waters. Pearlman himself died in 2016, but he published an autobiography titled Band, Brands, & Billions and the series uses passages from that book but puts them into the form of an A.I.-generated Pearlman, as if he’s being interviewed or giving a sort of presentation about his life. While no one is here to defend Pearlman, the decision feels a bit wrong to me. Written words in a book are not the same as an interview. How do we know a word or two aren’t missed in the translation? How do we know the emphasis on a certain word or idea is the right one? It feels like an incredibly slippery slope to turn books into something that looks like an interview.

Of course, morally gray areas are appropriate for the story of Lou Pearlman, a man who made pop stars in the ‘90s and ‘00s in a way that really changed music forever. The great revelation of “Dirty Pop” is that the whole thing was a scam as Pearlman was basically getting people to invest in these bands with little to no intent of ever getting them a return on their investments. Pearlman started his career selling blimps he didn’t own to companies, transitioning to actual plane rentals through Trans Continental Airlines before he noticed the success of New Kids on the Block, and set about to recreate it on a massive scale. He basically created the best-selling boy band of all time in The Backstreet Boys, but that is just the tip of the pretty boy iceberg as Pearlman went on to manage and shape NSYNC, O-Town, LFO, Take 5, Natural, and many more.

It was all a scam, and “Dirty Pop” does a decent job of recounting the facts. The Backstreet Boys were the first to notice that they weren’t really getting paid, filing a lawsuit against Pearlman. NSYNC followed suit, and the house of cards fell. As Pearlman scrambled to find the money he had mostly spent on other artists, people suffered. How much the people around Pearlman knew about his illegal and immoral wheelings and dealings is a bit of a gray area in “Dirty Pop.” The series is surprisingly defensive at times of Pearlman and his legacy, perhaps indicative of how much people want to defend something they love like the music he helped create. If you’re a Backstreet Boys or NSYNC fan, it can be hard to morally reconcile how something that brought you so much joy could have been so corrupt.

And yet “Dirty Pop” seems hesitant to dig into this complexity. The interviews with former boy banders are the highlight, but several of the big names are missing (including Justin Timberlake), giving the already-thin project a further sense that it’s incomplete. By the time Pearlman was caught, his crimes were labeled the longest-running Ponzi scheme in history. He used companies that only existed on paper to get investments that he basically spent on himself or further projects to keep the scheme going. The intersection of business, greed, and pop culture is a fascinating place, but it’s also perhaps too ethically complex for a flashy Netflix docuseries. How can something so beloved also be so painful to so many? Pearlman isn’t here to really answer that question, and the series can’t quite get there, even with their version of his own words.

Whole series screened for review. On Netflix on July 24^th.

Looking back at their last collaboration, 2019’s bloody cult horror hit “Come to Daddy,” you’d be surprised to see New Zealand writer-director Ant Timpson and actor-producer Elijah Wood turn their attention to a charming family-adventure flick. But “Bookworm,” which just premiered as the opening night of the 2024 Fantasia International Film Festival, still carries that signature Timpson DNA: The aching pathos of fragmented parental dynamics, a deep debt to the genre films of the 1970s, and surprising twists and turns that pivot a seemingly simple story down wild new routes. 

From the opening frames, with its closed-off matte aspect ratio, soothing folk soundtrack, and yellowed shots of taxidermied animals and esoterica, “Bookworm” firmly establishes its eponymous character, precocious 11-year-old Mildred (Nell Fisher), in the atmosphere of the 1970s. An avid learner and self-sufficient scholar of animals, Madeline suddenly finds herself adrift when her mother lapses into a coma. The solution to their rising medical bills, she thinks, is the hefty reward offered for footage of the fabled Canterbury Panther, a mythical cat lurking somewhere in the New Zealand wilderness. One catch: Her only companion is her newly-arrived father, washed-up magician Strawn Wise (Elijah Wood), whom she’s never met and who seems ill-prepared for the rough and tumble adventure ahead of them.

What follows is a charmer of a daddy-daughter picture, with the cheeky vibes and bright, Wes Anderson-ian charm of “Moonrise Kingdom” mixed with the deadpan wit of “Hunt for the Wilderpeople.” The pair scour the wilderness, build an erstwhile bond, and learn to grow and be patient with each other’s shortcomings. As for Wood’s Strawn, he gets the chance to be the father — or the man — he never got to be.

Ahead of its premiere at Fantasia, RogerEbert.com sat down with Timpson and Wood over Zoom to talk about the origins of the film in Timpson’s wild childhood, the long process to discover their brilliant child star in Fisher, and the links between Wood’s meek protagonists in both of Timpson’s films. 

This interview has been condensed for clarity.

I know that “Come to Daddy” was born partially from your father’s recent passing, and both it and “Bookworm” deal with these kinds of fragmented father-child relationships. Is there anything that you wanted to explore here that evolved about your understanding of your father or parenthood?

Ant Timpson: Look, this is a love letter to the ’70s in terms of filmmatic themes and the types of films I was obsessed with. But also, there was no helicopter parenting in that period of my life; the kids were free to roam. There were no GPS tags on us. The safety circumference around a house was probably 25 miles versus now, which is just the house. I grew up in a period in which kids had absolute freedom, and it feels very nostalgic to talk about it. 

So this came about from [screenwriter] Toby [Harrold] and I discussing the number one fear we had as fathers and parents: seeing total terror in our kids in a crisis situation, looking to us to step up, and seeing our fear reflected at them. It was based on a crazy family adventure I had a while back, which started as a nice Sunday afternoon walk with the kids and ended in complete disaster. There was an emergency call out and everything else. That hammered home the main theme for me, and I’ve always got to have this personal connection to the material. And Toby wrote a wonderful script with all these elements we’ve talked about for so long.

You mentioned the films of the ’70s; were there any that acted as specific influences?

You don’t use any things as Xerox; it’s more a flavor to explain to other people the sort of tone poem we were going for. It wasn’t things like “Deliverance” [laughs]. I love the wilderness survival films of the ’70s, the sort of man-alone style. This was more honestly “Robinson Crusoe on Mars,” “Swiss Family Robinson,” “The Wilderness Family.” These staple films. Like Robert Logan, the guy who was the stud father of the 70s who stepped up: he was in five of these types of films, where it was him and his family against nature and against all odds. I call them ‘general entertainment,’ you know. They didn’t pander to children at all, they were just pure family films. They weren’t really message-heavy, it was just about familial bonds and how people pull together under duress. They were really sweethearted. 

We wanted to capture that feeling that’s lost in cinema today. There’s a very genuine purity to it, but you have to find the right balance because it can become really saccharine. So you’ve got that sharp humor undercutting it all the way through, even through the personal trauma. That’s my escape valve for anything horrific in my life.

Elijah, when it came time to inhabiting the character of Strawn Wise, obviously I think there’s an interesting progression between Strawn and Norval [from “Come to Daddy”]. They’re both very nervous people, unable to fit into the surroundings they’re in, and have a strange delusion of grandeur about them. 

Elijah Wood: For me, the biggest challenge with Strawn was [learning the magic tricks]. There are a couple of moments in the film where specific magic tricks give you a sense of his real ability. For me, the most important thing was to be believable. That came down to card dexterity, to show that I’m comfortable with a deck of cards, so I can make that character a believable illusionist or magician. 

There was a magician I saw in Los Angeles over a month, Mike Pisciotta [of LA’s Magic Castle], just sitting down and doing card fans, messing around with the deck, and picking up a card in such a way that it was comfortable in my hands. The thing about Strawn, to your point about the delusions of grandeur, is that he presents as more successful than he is. And when you start to get under his surface, he’s actually kind of a failure. But I wanted that element of him to be real: he was good at one stage. But the rest was just the fun of a character with a sort of inflated self that is a protective element. He’s trying to present himself to his daughter as this capable, successful person. And the cracks start to show, and he can’t hold onto it anymore. The two of them are then thrust into scenarios beyond even his daughters’ [ability].

There’s an eagerness to impress that’s a parallel with both characters, too. But speaking of the daughter, talk to me about how you discovered Nell Fisher in the role.

Ant Timpson: We did a nationwide search in New Zealand, and looked at a few hundred kids around that age — anywhere from nine to 14 — and there were a lot of auditions. It’s one of those characters that could have gone off the rails of precociousness, so we wanted to find someone with that X factor and had an instant connection. Nell just leapt out. We did chemistry reads with Elijah, and it really popped up when you both hung out together. Hopefully, this doesn’t sound offensive, but she looked like she could have been Elijah’s love child [laughs].

I did a bit of due diligence on her; she’d worked on a low-budget film in New Zealand called “Northspur” when she was only eight, and she was really good. You could see something was happening there. Then she got “Evil Dead Rise,” so we talked to Lee [Cronin], the director; I wanted to know how fun she was on set and if he had any pointers. He just said, “Look, hire her immediately. She’s incredible.” Honestly, she exceeded all expectations; she was incredibly well-rehearsed and prepped. She knew the entire script so well that she was giving me notes throughout. Not that Elijah ever drops a line, but when other people did, she knew theirs. That’s skill. She’s going to be in “Stranger Things,” too, so we know she will be huge. 

Elijah, what was it like working with her on set? It must be fascinating to play that dynamic where you’re sharing a movie with a child, but your character is on the back foot for most of it.

Elijah: We had a few days of prep and almost a week of rehearsals, which was beneficial because the locations had all been predetermined. I mean, 90% of the film is exteriors, so it had to be really well-planned and thought out. In those rehearsal days we would visit those locations and rehearse the scenes that take place there. That was hugely beneficial both for us as actors and dynamically for what Nell and I were having to portray. That preparation was really key, because we could get to those locations and know exactly what we were supposed to do. 

The dynamic of Strawn and Mildred came through within the context of those rehearsal periods, where we were able to get into it and play. The relationship between yourself and another actor happens through the experience of working, and Nell is so lovely and wonderful that we fell into place really quickly. 

To your point about Strawn being on the back foot, she’s so precocious and so great at portraying that character that the dynamic presented itself really naturally. It was fun for me to play back foot to an eleven-year-old. It was great. And she made it really easy and so fun. 

Strawn arrives in the film with a rather ostentatious magician’s outfit, a long leather jacket with tails, a wide-brimmed hat, and long hair. What’s the story behind the costume?

Ant: Originally, Strawn was going to be this Criss Angel type; we would push it with the tattoos, piercings, and jewelry and go to town. But then we came to an amalgamation between a few of those early 2000s illusionists and a little rock and roll star. The crazy hat he first arrives with wasn’t part of wardrobe; that was the makeup guy’s hat. When I saw it, I was like, “That is a hat,” and we wanted to keep themes from “Come to Daddy” when [Norval] reveals himself at the start of the credits. 

Elijah: The idea is that Strawn did not come to New Zealand with the expectation of being immediately thrust into the wilderness, and so he didn’t bring a bunch of things with him for that purpose. But like Norval, a lot of the inspiration started quite extreme, which is actually a great way to start because you can then break it down to something that feels somewhere between reality and outside of reality. 

When many of us think of vacationing on the Mediterranean, the first things that come to mind might be the gorgeous blue-green crystalline waters, the picturesque villages anchored on the shoreline, and the many variations of seafood fare available within walking distance. Perhaps that’s part of what inspired rockstar John Allman (Harry Connick Jr.) to escape the pressures of the music business to catch a little rest and relaxation on the scenic island of Cyprus. Unfortunately, he’s confronted with a more serious problem when the house on a cliff he purchased turns out to be a destination for people looking to end their life. As he tries to connect with other locals about what he can do to stop the practice, he meets an aspiring singer named Melina (Ali Fumiko Whitney) and her mother, Sia (Agni Scott), an accomplished doctor on the island who once had a relationship with John many years before – and who now has another chance at love.

Writer-director Stelana Kliris follows the well-worn beats of a romantic comedy with her follow-up to her 2014 feature debut, “Committed.” In “Find Me Falling,” she gives the audience a few surprises and instead follows a predictable story of a long-delayed romantic reconnection featuring two handsome leads. However, the subplot about suicide just outside John’s doorstep feels strangely glib, dampening the mood of this escapist rom com from the jump: the movie is called “Find Me Falling” afterall. In some scenes, this plot detail is played for laughs, like when an exasperated John scolds a man looking downcast and heading to the cliff, “Now is not a good day to die!” Embarrassed, the man turns back, and John continues his emotional conversation with Sia. Other moments are much more sympathetic, like when John coaxes a scared young woman off the edge and promises to help her, but it’s a tonal whiplash from nights spent at a music-filled taverna, getting sunburnt on the beach, or reigniting a long-lost romantic flame.

As a tired rockstar looking to get away from it all, Harry Connick Jr. looks a little too polished but acts appropriately tired by all the small town mishegoss he finds on arrival. He seems embarrassed that people recognize him and is maybe one of the most unpretentious rock stars ever written for a movie. As Sia, Agni Scott plays the part of the accomplished woman who soldiered on with her career and single motherhood well, and she struts through the film with a stylish sense of nonchalance. It’s a performance that’s almost too cool and aloof, because as their characters may verbally pine for each other, the physical chemistry feels less evident, and their moments of passion look less exciting than some of their arguments.

However, Kliris’s script doesn’t just center on the film’s two lovebirds. She builds out Sia’s relationship with her daughter, Melina; her concerned sister Koula (Lea Maleni), who is weary of this dashing stranger who’s returned to Cyprus for what may be more than a change of scenery; and the family’s matriarch Marikou (Aggeliki Filippidou), who is always on hand to lend an ear, share her wisdom with her family, and cool tempers between family members. There’s a loving familial dynamic that develops alongside the romance that also grounds the story in the culture and place, not just using it as a narrative backdrop. Even Captain Manoli (Tony Demetriou) plays a vital role in giving John a tour of the town, introducing him to the taverna where John sees Sia for the first time in years, and has his own issues that John then helps him and his family in return.

By the end, “Find Me Falling” lands on uneven ground. It’s as if this lighthearted romantic comedy has its frothy bubbles burst by the sudden encroachment of dramatic interruptions and uninspired pop music and lyrics (John’s big hit is called “Girl on the Beach” and the song does not sound better than the title). It’s an odd choice that may affect some viewer’s expectations for a frivolous getaway romance, like using lime for a Greek dish that calls for lemon. It changes the profile of the movie, leaving an aftertaste that feels slightly off an otherwise decent meal.

Jane Giles and Ali Catterall’s documentary “Scala!!!” is about a legendary, notorious, hugely influential and long-gone London theater. But it’ll appeal to anyone whose formative moviegoing years were defined by eccentric, usually urban or college-town cinemas that programmed whatever the folks who ran the place found interesting and switched lineups every day or two. There are increasingly few such venues left, alas, with real estate having become usuriously priced all over the world and “content” having largely replaced the notion of “entertainment,” a thing one sought outside of the home. Witnesses to the Scala’s history include patrons, management and staff, many of whom were or became notable filmmakers or programmers, including John Waters, Ben Wheatley, Ralph Brown, Mary Harron, Beeban Kidron, and Isaac Julien. 

The thrill of transformation is a subtext. The Scala didn’t just show films, it stimulated interest in cinema, challenged and offended viewers (on purpose), and pushed the limits of what was then considered acceptable to screen in England. It championed pro-union and LGBTQ-friendly films, early works by subsequently legendary directors (including David Lynch’s “Eraserhead”), and underground movies that blurred arthouse and grind-house categories. One of the more fascinating tales is about the durable appeal of 1975’s “Thundercrack,” American filmmaker Curt McDowell’s fusion of an “old dark house” movie, a surrealist art flick, and a hardcore porno. “It was screened at the Scarlet constantly, probably from the day the cinema opened right to the time it closed,” says  says Alan Jones, co-presenter of London’s Shock Around The Clock horror festival at the Scala, and one of the film’s most entertaining interviewees. “Legend was that there was only ever one print of Thundercrack here at the Scarlet, and it was run until eventually it fell apart.”

Located in the King’s Cross neighborhood of London before it became gentrified, the Scala started out as a traditional theater, closed and reopened, and then for 15 years was essentially a film club catering to buffs of one sort or another. During the later era, the film’s focus, it was a “ground zero” locations for the budding fan culture scene in the UK, popularizing John Waters “trash” trilogy of “Pink Flamingos,” “Female Trouble” and “Desperate Living” and films by Russ Meyer, and hosting the first Avengers convention, meetings of The Laurel and Hardy Appreciation Society, and The Shock Around the Clock festival (described by critic Kim Newman as “Kind of like Woodstock for the bizarro generation”). 

The venue always struggled to keep its doors open but eventually succumbed to a variety of adversities, including rising costs, a siphoning away of repertory and art house viewers by home video. At the end, the killing blow might’ve been a lawsuit from Warner Bros. that was filed after the theater decided to disobey Stanley Kubrick’s decision to pull the film from UK distribution after what appeared to be copycat killings; after the Scala Film Club lost the case, it went into receivership, and while it reopened in 1999 and added two floors, it focused on live entertainment.

Non-obsessives may find a lot of the movie incomprehensible because so many of the titles and artists mentioned in it are more than 40 years old, but also because the era described is pre-digital. There’s a lot of comfortable shop talk about the physical processes of making and exhibiting the physical object known as “a film,” which had to be carted around in canisters and stored and handled properly so it didn’t break or catch fire. “I was always maintained that the Scarlet was willing to screen any length of celluloid that had half a dozen intact sprocket holes,” says Jones. “Because of that, the films tended to break.” They also sometimes tore, stuck in the projector gate and caught on fire, a frightening but literally luminous occurrence that the movie describes with a fair amount of reverence, even cutting editorially to a bit from the Peter Fonda film “The Trip” where the actor exclaims, “It’s like an orange cloud of light that just flows right out of us!”  

Based on Giles’ 2018 book Scala Cinema 1978-1993, this documentary remembrance is so enthusiastic that it can get exhausting, like listening to a lovable but manic and inebriated friend go on about his favorite stuff until the sun comes up (which, to be fair, is surely a stylistic feature rather than a bug; the Scala was known for its all-night marathons). But at a time when unabashed enthusiasm for anything is labeled “cringe,” it’s a treat to see so much energy expended to recall a venue and a community that was unknown to most, but felt like the center of the universe to the merry few who were part of it. 

Mounted horses bifurcate the hazy horizon, armed silhouettes in furious charge dash towards a village beneath them; in seconds, we see above and below, the predators and their prey, a telephoto lens collapsing space to signal their invasion.

Take this village too?

Take it! Take it!

Not so fast!

We just took their rice last fall.

They’ll have nothing now.

Very well.

We’ll return when that barley’s ripe!

It’s only a matter of time. They will come back. They must hire samurai — seven.

Speaking on the timeless power of “Seven Samurai,” filmmaker Jane Campion declared “I love it for its balance of humor, drama, and its deep affection for our noble and flawed natures.” With his landmark classic, Japanese writer-director Akira Kurosawa birthed the modern adventure film, and as it hits its 70th anniversary, it prevails as a thrilling, effervescent, yet boldly sullen epic. Between the volleys of arrow-fire and fraught duals, Kurosawa’s made a humanist masterpiece of our best and worst selves, towering above its many imitators nearly a century later. It is said to be among the most influential movies of all time. Without it, we not only wouldn’t have “The Magnificent Seven” (there have been more than a dozen straight remakes) or “Star Wars.” The influence of “Seven Samurai” is so generationally seismic, it’s as though it has penetrated the nitrate matter of film itself.

“Seven Samurai” contains dozens, possibly hundreds, of cinematic techniques that revolutionized how movies tell their stories. To summarize each of them is a Sisyphean task; in trying to list them all, you would only find another. I’ll do my best. To start, Kurosawa gave the kiss of life to outdated samurai archetypes, giving them a soul. He is the master of when to go wide, arranging actors with paint-brush precision (the villagers hunched in a demure circle, sitting in terror of their imagined end), and when to use the close-up, reserved for maximum impact (the village elder commanding them to find “hungry samurai”). Kurosawa mastered the disciplined practice of setup and payoff, and the way James Cameron stages the first half of his movies as a careful propping up of dominoes — locations, props, character motivations — only to knock them down in the climax, can be directly linked to “Seven Samurai.”

He perfected when to keep the camera steady, as in the famous duel, to accentuate the movement in-frame. And likewise, when to move it, to create momentum. Kurosawa was among the first to intercut footage at differing speeds, using slow-motion to punctuate the brutality of key deaths while the onlookers gazed in the normal 24 frames per second, an effect as central to “Hard Boiled” and “300” as to anime like “Attack on Titan.” Later, “Mad Max: Fury Road” will alternate its framerate shot to shot. His realistic handling of action would change action film forever, with Kurosawa’s cameras racing to keep up with his fighters rushing between the edges of the 1.33:1 frame, as though his multiple cameras were breaking a sweat.

In Kurosawa, his villains frequently die with the same frank brutality as his heroes, finding equality in death, a device Steven Spielberg subsequently used in “Saving Private Ryan.” Motifs are visually reinforced, subverted, and repeated again, Sergei Eisenstein’s rules of Russian montage looms over the 3.5 hour adventure epic. As in the early Westerns, heroes usually move on screen from left-to-right while villains descend right-to-left, yet to show the moral decline of the samurai class, he stages two montages so the samurai move both directions, as if good and evil have become a blur. He knows when to hold his shots and when to unleash a flurry of rapid edits, as when six of the seven warriors rush towards screen-right in a series of six percussive mid-motion match-cuts, as if to layer one over the other, the individual and the group as one. “Seven Samurai,” like all of Kurosawa’s great films, would be called fearlessly experimental if it didn’t flow with the steady exuberance of one of Japan’s woodland streams.

Kurosawa’s own influences are both obvious and contested. They are, at once, refreshingly cosmopolitan and distinctly Japanese, a combination that simultaneously earned him a reputation for “not being Japanese enough” while also priming his films for easy international export. It was he, not his contemporaries Yasujirō Ozu or Kenji Mizoguchi, who became the first Japanese to break through onto the global scene.

He pulled equally from the tragedies of Shakespeare and Noh Theater, the moral psychology of Russian and Japanese literature, the formal might of D.W. Griffith and Eisenstein, and the seedy bowels of film noir. And as any passing Kurosawa-head knows, the director was deeply smitten with the films of John Ford. Almost all of his films, whether his crime pictures or samurai epics, use this genealogy of influence to wrangle with the social unease and search for meaning in post-war Japan. His films ask, “how do we live, when so much has been lost?” giving an existential anchor to stories like when a rookie cop’s gun goes missing, a ronin wanders to town, or a village needs protecting. Arguably no filmmaker welcomed so many cultural traditions as Kurosawa, making it seem inevitable his films, especially “Seven Samurai,” would go on to influence a near-century of future filmmakers as he inspired others to do the same.

You feel the weight of all these influences on “Seven Samurai,” starting with the plot which on the surface is disarmingly simple, but deceptively works as a complex morality play. We meet an impoverished village beset by bandits, and they seek a group of warriors to defend their town from the oncoming attackers. The head of this warrior troupe is Kambei (Takashi Shimura), a wise but weary ronin (a samurai with no master) who recruits a diverse ensemble that ranges from the lethal swordsman Kyūzō (Seiji Miyaguchi) to the lovelorn aspiring samurai Katsushirō (Isao Kimura), who falls for a villager’s daughter. 

The most famous is Toshiro Mifune’s Kikuchiyo, among the great rapscallions on film, who uses the turbulent era in which the film is set to climb the caste ladder and become samurai, mostly by pretending to be one (his comic vulgarity is a clear pull from the supporting characters of Ford’s films, as is how he slowly grows in emotional weight). Together, they arrange a geometric defense of the town, like the flooding of a field to protect one angle of attack, or the building barricades on another, and so on. It is a few against many, and they seek to even the odds by narrowing the enemy’s points of attack, the Battle of Thermopylae set in fields of Japanese lilies and rice. The rain-soaked siege is one of the great action sequences put to film, exhilarating as hell and vibrating with what Lumet called the full “Kurosawa Sound.” Every carefully planted character moment, every thematic seed, comes into transcendent blossom.

A decade before guys like Arthur Penn and Sam Peckinpah reinvented the noir and western in the 1960s and 70s, Kurosawa was transforming the “Chambara” swordplay film. By supplying the same kinetic thrills as those 30s and 40s classics, Kurosawa got away with outwardly reshaping the samurai caste in an almost meta-textual way, what film scholar Tony Rayns called a “redefinition of warrior identity.” The “bushido” value system of the samurai class not only collided with the Western values of the U.S. occupation and the rapid cultural change that followed, but Kursoawa himself, who sought to create an ahistorical but more aspirational (yet richly human) incarnation of these core Japanese characters.

It’s Shimura’s Kambei who most embodies that ethos, warning Katsushirō from becoming a samurai and joining their near-hopeless cause: “You dream of training yourself, distinguishing yourself in wars, then becoming lord of your own castle and domain… but as you dream those dreams, time flies. Before your dreams become reality, your hair would turn gray like mine. By that time, your parents would have been dead and your friends gone, and you’ll find yourself all alone.”  Kambei’s confession of his lost dreams, mirroring those of the classic samurai, directly connects to what Kurosawa aims to achieve with “Seven Samurai” –– rather than have his warriors fight for land or title, they must defend the villagers as an act of nobility unto itself, beyond material gain. It would be a new kind of Bushido, a banner of virtue a new generation could aspire to meet.

While those earlier films depicted samurai either as noble heroes or endearing rebels, typically slavishly upholding the will of their masters, Kurosawa’s samurai are mostly rapists and thieves. In contrast to Kambei’s project of moral renewal, the only upstanding thing about these ronin is they will stand while stabbing you in the back. In one of the most desperate sections of the film, the villagers are ripped off by a samurai they hope to hire. He steals their rice and flees, a man without honor.

Later, in one of the film’s most famous moments, Kikuchiyo delivers an impassioned speech that reveals the farmers are also more complicated than their popular image suggests, accusing them of also being killers and thieves, “stingy, greedy, blubbering, foxy, and mean!” But who made them beasts, he asks. It is the samurai. This is a point Kurosawa underlines by revealing hero and villain both come from the same broken social system: the bandits raiding the rice farmers are samurai too, and the villagers are nearly as terrified of our seven heroes as they are of their attackers. All sides of the conflict shoulder degrees of complicity, a level of ethical nuance never before seen in a “Chambara” film.

“Seven Samurai” was an instant smash success, the second highest-grosser of its year, proving literary depth could flourish within what was once a throwaway genre, successfully melding the high and the low, the art-film with popular entertainment. That blurring of moral and social categories might make “Seven Samurai” the first truly “revisionist samurai” film nearly a decade before that became in-vogue, simultaneously playing as a rousing celebration and meta-deconstruction of the old “Chambara.” His most devoted of acolytes — notably George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, and Spielberg — then followed suit, taking that eroded division between genre and substance to heart. 

His seven samurai are self-sacrificing yet complex, fighting for the ideal of a classless utopia where farmer and ronin can co-exist in Zen-like harmony. Yet by “Seven Samurai’s” end, that remains only a dream. The once-forsaken ronin rediscover their usefulness and save the village, but at too great a cost. The lovable scoundrel Kikuchiyo has finally earned his place as a true samurai, only to die in the village’s violent defense along with three others, betraying Kambei’s earlier teaching: “By protecting others, you save yourself.” If only that were true.

As in “Ikiru” made one year prior, “Seven Samurai” shows how hope and failure, loss and victory, seem paradoxically intertwined. If Kurosawa was influenced by Ford, it’s a prescient grace-note that “Seven Samurai” then prefigures the closing shot of “The Searchers,” released two years later. In that iconic final shot, Ethan may have rescued Debbie, but he cannot rejoin the family unit, framed in a doorway he cannot pass, doomed to forever wander a purgatorial horizon. In “Seven Samurai,” Kambei knows that same dour truth. As the surviving ronin stand between the village graveyard and the farmers in hymn they helped save, they know theirs is a legacy of blood and violence they can never fully cleanse; they would only spoil the soil they’ve helped save. They, like Ethan, must depart. If the enduring legacy of “Seven Samurai” is that it hasn’t had one influence but many, its greatest might be how Kurosawa proved you can deliver pathos and poetry to any genre, by making a paean to the necessity of selfless heroism between the clash of steel and song. 

The restored version of “Seven Samurai” opens at Music Box Theatre today and is touring around the country.

“Istanbul is a place…where people come to disappear.” This is the sad conclusion arrived at by late in this moving film by one of its principal characters, Lia, a stern-faced older woman who has crossed over into the Turkish capital from the Black Sea’s Batumi, a desolate-looking spot in Georgia. A retired school teacher, she has left her home after making a promise to her now-dead sister. The promise was to find that woman’s child, who’s living in Turkey. All Lia has to go on is a name, and the fact that the now-adult child is transgender.

The movie, written and directed by Levan Akin, begins in the messy, tumultuous house where Achi, a young man who’s for all intents and purposes still a boy, lives miserably under the thumb of his older brother. Lia happens by the house, is recognized by one of its residents, and on the spot Achi concocts a tale, saying he knows the niece, Tekla, and has an address for her. He attaches himself to Lia, who accepts his company reluctantly, and soon they’re off, settling awkwardly in cheap lodgings and combing the poorer areas of Istanbul with not much to go on but hope.

The two actors who play Lia and Achi, Mzia Arabuli and Lucas Kankava, are marvels. Kankava has a wide-open face that registers Achi’s boundless naivete, which is always there no matter how cocky or obdurate he makes himself. Arabuli’s own expression as Lia is often pinched, but as time wears on her, and as she starts to let herself go in a “what the hell” sort of way — she likes to dip into a bottle of a fermented drink called “chacha,” a habit she initially tries to hide from Achi — a pained vulnerability makes itself felt. These are two lost souls who make an unlikely temporary fishbowl for themselves, far from homes they may never return to.

On one of their ferry rides, Akin’s camera makes a graceful camera move away from the anxious Lia and Achi and settles on the more content-in-the-moment face of a trans woman, whose story the movie then picks up. This is not, as is soon made clear, Tekla. The character’s name is Evrim, and she’s a woman who’s found a purpose. Near to completing a law degree, she works for a trans rights NGO that also looks into various cases in poorer neighborhoods; at one point we see her springing a young boy and his younger sister, who act on the peripheries of the movie’s central story threads, from jail. She’s confident and compassionate, enjoys a fairly robust sex life, but she’s subject to condescension — at best — from the various authority figures she’s obliged to deal with. Deniz Dumanli’s portrayal of the character is extraordinary, grounded, vanity-free.

Lia and Achi’s story will intersect with Evrim’s, but not right away. Akin is here working in a tradition established in Italian Neo-realism — and by the end of the film, he shows he can turn on the viewer’s tear ducts as deftly as De Sica did in his prime — but his narrative approach brings a vivid freshness to the proceedings. The camerawork he concocts with cinematographer Lisabi Fridell, often shooting through windows and doorways, often gives the viewer a “fly on the wall” feeling, but never becomes voyeuristic. It invites empathy, not titillation. And the movie’s portrait of Istanbul — roiling, unglamorous, and yes, packed with stray cats — makes the city a character in and of itself.

Within the first two minutes of Apple TV+’s “Lady in the Lake,” we learn that one of the series protagonists is dead. We watch as Cleopatra “Cleo” Johnson (Moses Ingram) is flung from the shoulders of an unnamed man into a lake, until her body disappears beneath the murky waters. Throughout her death, her monologue, done through voiceover, makes it apparent that while she may be dead, Cleo will haunt the narrative, and the people who had a hand in her demise. She directs this monologue to one character in particular: the series’ other protagonist, Maddie Schwartz (Natalie Portman). “You came in at the end of my story” she tells Maddie. “And turned it into your beginning.”

The series is based on the 2019 Laura Lippman novel of the same name, which was inspired by two real-life murders that happened during Lippman’s youth in Baltimore. The seven-part limited series follows Maddie, a Jewish housewife who is stirred out of her weary existence after a young girl from her community goes missing. An avid writer in her free time, she’s desperate to make a name for herself by investigating the girl’s disappearance, but while it initially feels like it comes from a selfish place, perhaps she’s closer to this missing girl than she wants to admit.

On the other side of Baltimore is Cleo Johnson, who Maddie first spots in a department store window. She’s dressed to the nines, almost immobilized through her modeling: a perfect representation of a doll. The way she’s framed in this first scene directly references how Maddie will continue to see Cleo throughout the series, stagnant and a perfect prop to use for her own successes. While this interaction is the only one they directly share, over voiceover it becomes clear that the two will somehow become tethered together. As viewers follow Maddie’s investigation, and her tone-deafness to the struggles of the Black community she moves into, Cleo’s final weeks play out in a similar fashion to Maddie’s.

The two women share little, yet their stories are paralleled. Maddie’s life as a housewife crumbles quickly — within the show’s first episode — and the life Cleo is attempting to build for herself and her children is unwoven by powers out of her control. While Maddie seeks agency by moving out of the suburbs and into a Black Baltimore neighborhood, Cleo’s story becomes gripped and controlled by the men around her. The contrasting of their stories could leave a bad taste in one’s mouth, but as the series unravels, director Alma Har’el handles this story with an appreciated amount of care. 

Cleo is often heard recounting the story at hand through narration, but after the first episode she takes a much larger role. Ingram and Portman share almost as much screen time as the other, and the show is all the better for it. Her character’s name, Cleopatra, is one that commands power and it’s fitting for a character played by Ingram, who feels revelatory to watch. With each tear that leaves her eye and each broken word that leaves her mouth, you feel as if you’re watching a star be born. The series is at its most interesting when she’s on screen, and thankfully, it’s apparent that Har’el and her camera both know this. 

The camera also frames its surrounding actors and set pieces exquisitely. There are an abundance of club scenes throughout “Lady in the Lake,” but there is a singular sequence featuring Ingram in Episode 3, that is a series standout. After witnessing something she shouldn’t have that begins to haunt her every move, Cleo takes to the club to release her inhibitions. Ingram throws her body around as if she’s exorcising demons, feet thumping on the club floor until it almost drowns out the singer on stage. Har’el frames the surrounding bodies on the dancefloor as if she’s filming churchgoers at a sermon, understanding this inherent link between dance and freedom. 

This is where “Lady in the Lake” is the best version of itself: when winding plotlines are abandoned for striking sequences that showcase the talents of everyone from the music supervisors to the actors on screen. And this only increases as the show goes on. While its pilot is quite weak, Har’el and everyone involved up the ante with every episode, until it becomes one of the most interesting limited series in a post-“Big Little Lies” world. In a streaming climate filled to the brim with series like this, it takes a lot for them to stand out. Thankfully, it feels as if everyone involved with this project gave it their all, and the result is fascinating to watch. 

“Lady in the Lake” is an adaptation done right, and while the blending of the two stories doesn’t always flow as well as it needs to, it’s impossible to not be intrigued by both Maddie and Cleo’s separate lives. The darkness Har’el leans into gives this series some cutting edge that the genre desperately needs, and it allows the story to bloom into something wholly original. From Mikey Madison reciting a haunting monologue from one of Anaïs Nin’s diaries, to Maddie’s fractured teenage memories, it feels like just when we as the audience think we understand where this show is going, the rug is ripped from beneath our feet, pulling us into the dark unknown along with the series’ characters. 

All episodes were screened for review.