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Film Review: ‘A Blast’

Syllas Tzoumerkas' striking soph feature tackles Greece's ongoing financial crisis with aggressive gusto.

By Guy Lodge

Film Critic

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Almost nobody is having a blast in, well, “A Blast,” and that statement can probably be extended to viewers of Syllas Tzoumerkas’ aggressive, agitated sophomore feature. Still, this story of a young mother’s manic nervous breakdown in the face of financial ruin displays more than enough rough-and-tumble directorial nerve, coupled with bristling socioeconomic critique, to magnetize those accustomed to the headier demands of Greek New Wave cinema. With its thrashing energy anchored by a fierce star turn from “Dogtooth” lead Aggeliki Papoulia, this unruly, exhausting but appropriately incendiary “Blast” has become a festival-circuit regular since its Locarno premiere; arthouse distributors, however, may need to stress the film’s driving pace and steamy sexual content to get auds to this particular Greek.

The national seething over Greece’s ongoing financial crisis has powered many of the country’s most striking auteur works over the last few years, though filmmakers have tended to address the subject through opaque allegory. Not so in “A Blast,” where scarcely any issue (or insult) goes unspoken, and where the narrative pivots drastically on a family’s ruinous business debts. As the characters snipe at each other, talking heads appear on background newscasts, opining that they live in “a country with no credibility.” Happily, the film’s sheer barrelling momentum largely fends off stodgy sanctimony; Tzoumerkas, who made an impression with his Venice-premiered 2010 debut, “Homeland,” has scarcely enough breath here for an extended diatribe.

If there’s no subtext to tease out in “A Blast,” however, the film’s fast, flushed, slip-sliding narrative structure makes ample demands of viewers’ attention. The proceedings open, as is all but de rigueur these days, near the end of the narrative trajectory, as an unseen motorist hurtles heedlessly down a darkened rural road, while a radio report describes a severe arson incident in the region. Viewers may guess the context of this scene before it resurfaces, though there’s enough boiling incident in the film to keep this prologue out of mind.

Following this propulsive opening gambit, we flash back to calmer times on the beach, where bright, college-age Maria (Papoulia) is revising for her law-school entry exam and sparring with her less confident younger sister Gogo (Maria Filini). From here on, the film moves swiftly back and forth between multiple time periods, deftly splintered and shuffled by documentary-schooled editor Kathrin Dietzel. If the actors’ unchanging appearance initially makes it difficult to determine exactly where each scene falls on the timeline, Tzoumerkas uses that disorientation to amplify a mounting, fevered sense of panic. Gradually, however, the full picture emerges: Maria has dropped her studies to run the ailing grocery store owned by her wheelchair-bound mother (Themis Bazaka), and married Yannis (Vassilis Doganis), a strapping sailor whose extended absences at sea leave his wife overwhelmed by her obligations to her parents and three children.

The end of Maria’s tether is therefore well in view even before she discovers the full extent, long concealed by her mother, of the family’s catastrophic finances — a situation viewed with minimal sympathy by weary banking consultants already beleaguered by the crises of innumerable other clients. With marital strain — only briefly allayed by bouts of turbulent headboard-rattling on Yannis’ infrequent visits — pushing Maria further to the brink, she lashes out at those around her in a fashion one might declare irrational even within the violent collated story world of recent Greek cinema.

“You’re a bit edgy as a family,” one bank teller mildly observes to Maria after a public tantrum with her father; it’s the most understated thing anyone says in the course of the film. Maria’s collapse may stand for that of many a disenfranchised individual against the system, though the “system” in place here is far from a single entity: The script, penned by Tzoumerkas and Youla Boudali, targets both the government and an alarming strain of extreme right-wing pushback, here represented by Maria’s brother-in-law Costas (Efthymis Papadimitrou).

Papoulia negotiates the character’s colliding moods and impulses with frazzled gusto in a bravura performance that nonetheless never succumbs to mannered hysteria. She’s supported by spiky ensemble work, with Doganis and Filini both making intrepid screen debuts.

Though the film’s energy may be reckless, its craft is never correspondingly coarse. Dietzel’s complex construction overreaches only in a climactic sequence of frantic, unilluminating cross-cutting between past and present. Tzoumerkas and d.p. Pantelis Mantzanas, meanwhile, make the counterintuitive decision to shoot this grim tale in bright, honeyed tones, to the point of making the characters appear actively sunstruck; it’s as clear a visual representation as any of the disconnect between Greece’s balmy, tourist-friendly surface and its fractious internal politics.

Reviewed at Thessaloniki Film Festival (100 Years of Greek Cinema — 2014), Nov. 2, 2014. (Also in Locarno Film Festival — competing; Sarajevo, London, Hamburg, Sao Paulo film festivals.) Running time: 80 MIN.

Production: (Greece-Germany-Netherlands) A Homemade Films, Unafilm, PRPL, Bastide Films presentation. (International sales: Homemade Films, Athens.) Produced by Maria Drandaki, Titus Kreyenberg, Ellen Havenith, Jeroen Beker. Executive producer, Cosima Maria Degler. Co-producers, Konstantina Stavrianou, Theodora Valenti-Pikrou, Mario Mazzarolto, Rena Vougioukalou, Panos Papadopoulos.
Crew: Directed by Syllas Tzoumerkas. Screenplay, Tzoumerkas, Youla Boudali. Camera (color, widescreen), Pantelis Mantzanas; editor, Kathrin Dietzel; music, drog_A-tek; production designer, Elli Papageorgakopoulou; costume designer, Marli Aliferi; sound, Dimitris Kanellopoulos; re-recording mixer, Marco Vermaas; stunt coordinator, Nicolas de Pruyssenaere; line producer, Titus Kreyenberg; associate producers, Marc O. Dreher, Martin Ludwig, Meinolf Zurhors0t; assistant director, Miltos Ntzounis.
With: Aggeliki Papoulia, Vassillis Doganis, Maria Filini, Themis Bazaka, Yorgos Biniaris, Makis Papadimitrou, Christoph Berlet, Eleni Karagiorgi, Haris Attonis, Alkis Zoupas, Nikolas Piperas, Lebo Masemola, Marso Fill, Constantinos Voudouris, Vassia Bakakou, Nikolas Spyropoulos-Chatzidakis, Leda Togia, Christos Pallogiannis, Panagiotis Katsolis, Dimitris Moschonas, Efthymis Papadimitrou. (Greek dialogue)

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By Mark Adams, chief film critic 2014-08-12T15:12:00+01:00

Dir: Syllas Tzoumerkas. Greece-Germany-Netherlands. 2014. 83mins

Set against the volatile backdrop of the collapse of the Greek economy, Syllas Tzoumerkas’ freewheeling and full-on drama is a shrill expression of anger, driven forcefully and with a certain fearlessness by a striking lead performance by Angeliki Papoulia as a free-spirited woman who reaches the end of her tether.

A striking performance by Angeliki Papoulia is the jittery, beating heart of A Blast , with her Maria a passionate an open soul who embraces life and love, but finds that passion beaten out of her by a variety of circumstances.

A Blast (which has a on-screen English sub-title of Explosion ….though A Blast suits it far better) never resorts to subtext or allegory as other recent Greek films which referred to the country’s economic situation have done, instead it tackles things full on with barely repressed anger and a ‘take no-prisoners’ attitude. Its smart structure, vibrant performances and lusty sexuality should make it of interest to distributors, while festivals (it had its world premiere at Locarno) will likely also be keen.

The editing structure sees the film flit back-and-forth in the life of blonde and forthright Maria (Papoulia), from carefree days on the beach, through her passionate affair with Yannis (Vassilis Doganis) and subsequent marriage, and to her grim realisation that the small shop she runs for her wheelchair-bound mother (Themis Bazaka) is in deep financial troubles. With three young children to look after, her anger – at her parents and the county’s situation – sees her take drastic steps…punctuated with explosions of her passionate anger.

To say that Maria is an emotional personality is something of an understatement, with the film punctuated by her outbursts – whether it be playfully crude banter with her sister Gogo (Maria Filini) or the plentiful scenes of her engaging in lusty and earthy sex with Yannis – which helps keep the film constantly on edge, as if waiting for the next ‘blast’ to hit the screen. It means that things move with a certain pace as the audience is forced to keep up with the constant time changes as the story veers back and forth over the years as Maria’s vibrant story is told.

As she has to try and deal with banks, her highly strung sister (who makes an inappropriate marriage), the fact her husband – captain of a container ship – is always away, her life seems to gradually unravel and she rather quietly (as a contrast from the earlier emotional explosions that punctuated her life) tries to adjust to the fact that her life is not what she thought it may be and takes drastic steps.

As she tells a support group of women:” Today, I want to share with you that I am absolutely unhappy. I’ve lived a ridiculous life. And I don’t know what to do to change it. I got married when I was twenty years old and I have three kids that I never want to see again. Neither them or my husband. From now on I only want to speak with strangers. Like you all. And I prefer the guilt to the life I had until this day”.

A striking performance by Angeliki Papoulia is the jittery, beating heart of A Blast , with her Maria a passionate an open soul who embraces life and love, but finds that passion beaten out of her by a variety of circumstances. Syllas Tzoumerkas (who made his feature debut with Homeland which premiered at the 2010 Venice Critics’ Week) keeps the film tense and edgy as it spirals towards a moody almost existential ending as she speeds alone in her SUV into the Greek countryside, evading police, and simply looking to escape.

Production companies: Homeade Films, unafilm, PAPL, Bastide Films, Movimento Film

Contacts: homemade films, www.homemadefilms.gr/ unafilm, www.unafilm.de

Producers: Maria Drandaki, Titus Kreyenberg, Ellen Havenith, Jeroen Beker

Executive producers: Constantinos Moriatis, Eleni Bertes, Syllas Tzoumerkas

Co-producers: Konstantina Stavrianou, Theodora Valenti-Pikrou, Mario Mazzarotto, Rena Vougioukalou, Panos Papadopoulos

Screenplay: Syllas Tzoumerkas, Youla Boudali

Cinematography: Pantelis Mantzanas

Editor: Kathrin Dietzel

Production designer: Elli Papageorgakopoulou

Music: drog_A_tek

Website: www.ablastfilm.com

Main cast: Angeliki Papoulia, Vassilis Doganis, Maria Filini, Themis Bazaka, Giorgos Biniaris, Makis Papadimitriou

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Angeliki Papoulia (Maria) Basile Doganis (Yannis) Maria Filini (Gogo) Themis Bazaka (Mother) Giorgos Biniaris (Father) Makis Papadimitriou (Costas) Eleni Karagiorgi (Niki) Christoph Berlet (Joy) Haris Attonis (Clerk) Nikolas Piperas (Christos) Manoussos Gakilazos (Navy officer) Alkis Zoupas (Navy soldier's father) Marso Fili (Navy soldier's mother) Konstadinos Voudouris (Navy soldier) Vassia Bakakou (Katia) Lebo Masemola (Hooker) Christos Paliogiannis (Hunter #1) Dimitris Moshonas (Hunter #2)

Syllas Tzoumerkas

Against the backdrop of an ongoing socio-economic collapse, a disillusioned mother of three is trapped in a vicious circle of terrible decisions and sharply ruthless actions. What can drive a perfectly normal individual to great extremes?

Recommendations

IndiePix, 83 min., in Greek w/English subtitles, not rated, DVD: $24.99 Volume 32, Issue 6

November 11, 2017

Rating: 3.5 of 5

Angeliki Papoulia delivers a raw and gripping performance as Maria, a woman teetering on the edge of a social precipice in filmmaker Syllas Tzoumerkas's A Blast . Told in a fragmentary fashion that jumps back and forth in time, the story follows Maria's life from her years as a promiscuous college dropout living with her boorish sister Gogo (Maria Filini) and affluent—albeit shady—parents (Themis Bazaka, Yorgos Biniaris), to her budding, intensely sexual relationship with handsome sailor Yannis (Vassilis Doganis). But after having three children, discovering her family's secret debts, watching her sister marry a fascistic cretin (Makis Papadimitriou), and desperately longing for physical love, the emotional time bomb that resides within Maria begins its inexorable countdown. Shot with expert technical proficiency, A Blast hinges on Papoulia's stunning portrayal of a wife and mother slowly coming to the realization that she is damaged goods and that her life does not at all resemble what she thought it would be. By turns naturalistically crass, considerate, and carnal, Papoulia's Maria is a beautifully realized role, worth the price of admission alone. Featuring sexually explicit imagery, this is highly recommended for more adventurous collections. ( J. Cruz )

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A Blast (2014)

Genre: drama / thriller, duration: 83 minuten, alternative titles: i ekrixi / η έκρηξη, country: greece / germany / netherlands / italy / bosnia and herzegovina / france, directed by: syllas tzoumerkas, stars: angeliki papoulia , vassilis doganis and maria filini, imdb score: 5,6 (962), releasedate: 20 november 2014.

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A Blast plot

Maria decides to completely turn her life around in crisis-ridden Greece. She sits alone in her screeching SUV, leaving her world behind. Behind her a fire and a suitcase full of money, in front of her the hopeless expanse of the highway. The day before, she was a caring mother, a loving wife and a responsible daughter. Today she went crazy.

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by Syllas Tzoumerkas

Maria is running away on the highway. She is alone in her roaring SUV. Behind her, fire and a case full of money. In front of her, the hopeless vastness of the motorway. Her crazy, accelerating course will stop at nothing. Only a day before she was a caring mother, a loving wife, a responsible daughter. Today she has gone rogue: she is determined to sweep away everything she has ever cared for.

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Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, blast from the past.

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"Blast From the Past'' opens with a cocktail party in 1962 at the home of Calvin and Helen Webber, where some of the guests whisper about how brilliant, but weird, Calvin is. Their host, meanwhile, mixes cocktails, tells bad jokes and hints darkly that "I could take a simple yacht battery and rig it to last a year, easily.'' Suddenly President John F. Kennedy appears on TV to announce that Soviet missiles in Cuba are aimed at U.S. targets. Calvin ( Christopher Walken ) hustles the guests out the door and hurries his pregnant wife ( Sissy Spacek ) into an elevator to take them down to his amazingly well-stocked bomb shelter, where fish grow in breeding tanks and the decor of their surface home has been exactly reproduced--right down to the lawn furniture on the patio.

Calvin is a brain from Cal Tech who has been waiting for years for the big one to drop. His prudence is admirable but his luck is bad: There's no nuclear war, but a plane crashes on his house and sends a fireball down the elevator shaft, convincing him there is one. So he closes the heavy steel doors and informs Helen that the time locks won't open for 35 years--"to keep us from trying to leave.'' That's the setup for Hugh Wilson's "Blast From the Past,'' a quirky comedy that turns the tables on "Pleasantville.'' That was a movie about modern characters visiting the 1950s; this is about people emerging into the present from a 35-year time warp. In the sealed atmosphere far below Los Angeles, nothing changes. Calvin and Helen watch kinescopes of old Jackie Gleason programs ("People will never get tired of watching these,'' Calvin smiles, while Helen's eyes roll up into her head). Tuna casserole is still on the menu. And unto them a son is born, named, of course, Adam, and played as an adult by Brendan Fraser .

Adam is trained by Calvin to speak several languages, and he masters science, math and history, while his mother teaches him good manners and gives him a dance lesson every day. His dad even tries to explain the principles of baseball to him. Try it sometime. Calvin is pleased as punch with how well his shelter is functioning, but Helen grows quietly stir-crazy and starts to hit the cooking sherry. Her wish for her son: "I want you to marry a nice girl from Pasadena.'' His birthday wish for himself: "A girl. One who doesn't glow in the dark.'' Eventually the locks open, and Adam is sent to the surface, where his family's pleasant neighborhood has been replaced by a ruined strip mall made of boarded-up store fronts and porno shops, and populated by drunks and transvestite hookers. "Subspecies mutants,'' he decides. Then he meets a real girl who doesn't glow in the dark, the inevitably named Eve ( Alicia Silverstone ). She can't believe his perfect manners, his strange clothes, his lapses of current knowledge or his taste in music. But eventually, as is the custom in such movies, they fall in love.

Brendan Fraser has a way of suggesting he's only passing through our zone of time and space. He was the "Encino Man'' and "George of the Jungle,'' and even in "Gods and Monsters'' his haircut made him look a little like Frankenstein's creature. Here he fits easily into the role of a nice man who has a good education but is, to borrow the title of Silverstone's best movie, clueless.

"Blast From the Past'' is the first screen credit for writer Bill Kelly , who co-scripted with the director, Wilson ("The First Wives Club,'' the overlooked "Guarding Tess''). It's a sophisticated and observant film that wears its social commentary lightly but never forgets it, as Adam wanders through a strange new world of burgeoning technology and decaying manners. His innocence has an infectious charm, although the world-wise Eve can hardly believe he doesn't know the value of his dad's baseball card collection. (Wait until she hears about his dad's stock portfolio.) The movie is funny and entertaining in all the usual ways, yes, but I was grateful that it tried for more: that it was actually about something, that it had an original premise, that it used satire and irony and had sly undercurrents. Even the set decoration is funny. I congratulate whoever had the idea of putting Reader's Digest Condensed Books on the shelves of the bomb shelter--the last place on earth where you'd want to hurry through a book.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film credits.

Blast From The Past (1999)

Rated PG-13 For Brief Language, Sex and Drug References

106 minutes

Alicia Silverstone as Eve

Brendan Fraser as Adam

Dave Foley as Troy

Christopher Walken as Calvin

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Blast (1997) Review

Blast | Blu-ray (MVD Marquee)

Director: Albert Pyun Writer: Albert Pyun Cast: Linden Ashby, Rutger Hauer, Kimberly Warren, Tim Thomerson, Norbert Weisser, Andrew Divoff, Yuji Okumoto, Vincent Klyn, Tim Thomerson, Sonya Eddy, Shannon Elizabeth, Jill Pierce Running Time: 159 min.

When I was 10 years-old, I thought you couldn’t get any cooler than Linden Ashby. That probably sounds amusing now, but I still think the actor was able to combine the amiable charm of someone like Owen Wilson with a bonafide martial arts background (Ashby studied karate, tae kwon do, and kung fu from the age of 21 onwards). Although he portrayed the parody of a martial arts star as Johnny Cage in 1995’s Mortal Kombat , one gets the sense in another life Ashby could have been the genuine article. More than anything, it was likely time working against Ashby: by 1997, the year he starred in Blast , the action movie boom of the Eighties and Nineties had more or less dried up, and former superstars like Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal were on their way to direct-to-VHS fare like The Legionnaire and The Patriot , respectively.

The shrinking market for traditional action fare is keenly felt while watching Blast, a movie you might call ‘ Die Hard in an Olympic training pool.’ The film arrives from notorious B-Movie king Albert Pyun, whose career trajectory more or less mirrored the dwindling favor of the action genre. While the Eighties saw him pair with Van Damme for Pyun’s biggest hit, Cyborg , and the early Nineties brought the likes of his visually impressive cyber-punk feature Nemesis , by ’97 it appears Pyun barely had a few pennies to rub together to make a film like Blast . In an echo of his later work like Ticker , Blast consists almost exclusively of tight close-ups on actors’ faces, as though the cast was never in the same room at once, and continually uses the same nondescript hallway to stand in for the entire floor of a building. On one hand, you have to feel for Pyun: there’s almost no conceivable way you could make a solid Die Hard knockoff on a shoestring budget. At the same time, watching Blast can be a dire viewing experience, the kind that only makes you sorry for yourself.

Blast’s (frankly bizarre) opening titles acknowledge the Centennial Olympic Park Bombing at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, and posit the movie as something like a dramatic reenactment of “what could have happened” if a band of terrorists had attacked during the games. This stab at docu-drama realism is an attempt to keep the movie grounded, but feels like a mistake as it lends the movie the feeling of a dull procedural. The first thirty minutes of the movie involve a whole lot of security checks, automated doors, and CTV monitors as the women’s Olympic swim team head to their Atlanta training facility. Thanks to a mole on the inside, Andrew Divoff’s ( Wishmaster ) heavily armed terrorists take over the pool and end up holding the entire swim team hostage. If their demands are not, the young women (featuring a 24 years-old and undiscovered Shannon Elizabeth of American Pie fame) will be executed one by one.

Enter our John McClane-style “wrong guy in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Linden Ashby, who’s a janitor(!) at the facility. Don’t fret: Ashby’s character is actually a former tae kwon do champion, now disgraced after a debilitating injury led him to a life of alcoholism. At first I was worried when Ashby was introduced with a hobbled leg, but the movie more or less forgets about his injury whenever it’s time for Linden to kick some ass. Unfortunately, it takes a solid forty minutes before Ashby’s character even realizes a terrorist plot is afoot, so those expecting an action-packed 99 minutes might find themselves disappointed by scenes of Divoff preening for the cameras as he rattles off his demands on national television, or Ashby’s poor co-worker (a charming Sonya Eddy, of TV’s Fresh Off the Boat ) fleeing Divoff’s armed goons down that same repeating corridor.

Considering Pyun’s experience working with martial artists like Jean-Claude Van Damme and Olivier Grunier, one would hope the action in Blast doesn’t disappoint, and thankfully what little hand-to-hand combat occurs proves well executed. There’s a kind of R-rated nastiness to the violence you don’t often see in these ‘ Die Hard ’-lites, with Ashby bashing bad guy’s faces into sinks or stabbing knives through throats. Ashby acquits himself well as an onscreen fighter, his background on display with a couple of high kicks and a flurry of punches. The real problem is that Linden Ashby doesn’t have much screentime and, worse yet, no one to play off of. Whereas Bruce Willis was able to interact with the likes of Al Powell and even Hans Gruber himself, Ashby spends most of the movie on his own, silently dragging his increasingly beat up body down hallways and stairwells. Whether this was due to a lack of imagination during scripting or Ashby having a limited number of days on set, we can only guess. Blast frequently cuts to the actions of a few of Pyun’s other stable players, including Tim Thomerson ( Dollman ) and Yuji Okumoto ( Nemesis ), as they work to defuse the situation from the Mayor’s office, but these scenes fall flat thanks to the movie’s ambition to realism. Pyun’s attempt to simulate a crisis management situation feels antithetical to the entertainment value of a B-level action movie; the wit and oneliners of Die Hard are solely missed.

I should probably mention Rutger Hauer is in this movie. The Blind Fury actor plays a counter-terrorism expert left a paraplegic after a previous run in with Divoff’s baddie. This basically means he appears periodically in a darkly lit room, offering advice on hostage negotiation to the police. I should also probably mention that, in a baffling move, the Dutch actor was hired to portray an American Indian, complete with some kind of fake tanner and long braids. It’s something you have to see to believe, much like the ending of the film when Hauer and Divoff finally come face to face. All I’ll say is that it involves a swimming pool and a bomb inside a wheelchair.

Blast is a strange one. The film arrives on Blu-ray from MVD Entertainment Group, a distributor who has recently made a name for themselves with their MVD Rewind Collection featuring Nineties guilty pleasures like Nemesis and Double Dragon . MVD have chosen to pluck the movie from obscurity and I’m not entirely sure why, unless they’re looking to fill out Albert Pyun’s filmography – a move I’m in full support of. While the scripting here feels dry and uninspired, I do get the sense that Pyun is straining to make an outsized project work on a miniscule budget. Pyun’s efforts can’t quite overcome a drab location, the lack of action sequences, and a charismatic lead who is conspicuously absent from much of the movie, but I can’t fault him for trying. If you’re feeling particularly charitable, or you’re a Linden Ashby superfan like I was at 10 years-old, Blast might provide a night’s modest entertainment. For everyone else, you’re probably better off rewatching Under Siege or Sudden Death for your inferior Die Hard fix.

Z Ravas’ Rating: 5/10

5 Responses to Blast (1997) Review

Sigh. I was hoping it would be along the lines of PM Entertainment’s best. It’d be great if there was a remake with an older, more seasoned Linden Ashby.

I havent seen much DTV stuff that stacks up to PM …. Many people just didnt get the formula.

Damn, I was hoping this film would be a blast …

No Pyun intended.

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‘Diarra From Detroit’ Is a Murder Mystery, a Romance, a Comedy — and a Star-Making Showcase

By Alan Sepinwall

Alan Sepinwall

Diarra From Detroit is, at various points, a hard-boiled mystery, a quarter-life crisis comedy, a complicated love triangle (that’s occasionally a quadrangle), and an ensemble hangout show about a group of longtime friends. Some of these elements in theory make sense together — though in theory they should not all fit within the same series. But the reason Diarra , which debuted last week on the BET+ streaming service, is among this year’s most pleasant TV surprises is how much it all makes sense when you watch it.

As Diarra begins channeling her “inner Nancy Drew,” her friends Aja (Dominique Perry), Tea (Bryan Terrell Clark), and Moni (Claudia Logan) insist she’s in denial about both Chris and Swa. At first, they’re annoyed by this increasingly weird investigation, which involves an unsolved Nineties kidnapping, the Greek mob, a naked Russian hit man who’s very into BDSM, retired players from the Detroit Pistons and Lions, a Mary J. Blige cassette, and more. But soon the group of them — plus Moni’s husband Roman (Bechir Sylvain) and friendly neighborhood criminal Danger (Jon Chaffin) — have to admit that Diarra is onto something here, and what starts out as an irrational quest becomes an enthusiastic group mission.

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And as showcases of versatility and star power go, this is pretty great. Kilpatrick has clearly written to her own strengths, but it turns out she has a lot of those. She is convincingly funny, sad, frightened, furious — whatever emotion is required, she plays it well, and with charisma. Like a lot of classic detective fiction(*), much of the story is narrated by our heroine. Abundant voiceover can be a crutch, or distracting (Apple’s Palm Royale is practically drowning in it). But as both writer and performer, Kilpatrick knows how to keep it lively, even as its most baldly exposition-heavy. In one episode, Diarra is narrating about the importance of a missing sneaker when a man bumps into her on the street. “Ow!” her internal monologue continues. “Can I have a contemplative moment? Fuck!”

(*) There’s even an upcoming episode that leans even more into the hard-boiled space, including a black-and-white flashback sequence about the Nineties cold case that Diarra believes is connected to Chris’s disappearance.

‘The Beekeeper’ Is Jason Statham Raging Against the Machine

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The labyrinthine plot is where the series is at its weakest, though that’s more a hallmark of the genre than any failing of this particular show. That said, the finale is largely focused on that complicated story, and in a way that doesn’t wrap everything up, preferring to leave things open for a second season. But by that point, Diarra From Detroit has more than earned another season, just as Diarra Kilpatrick has more than earned a chance to spread her wings even beyond this very entertaining project.

The first four episodes of Diarra From Detroit are now streaming on BET+, with additional episodes releasing each Thursday. I’ve seen all eight episodes.

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Babes review: michelle buteau & ilana glazer earn big laughs in endearing & deeply heartfelt comedy.

With Babes, the filmmaking team captures an authentic, and often underrepresented, facet of sisterhood and motherhood.

Babes heavily relies on Michelle Buteau and Ilana Glazer's exceptional comedic talents.
The film evenly focuses on both Dawn and Eden, offering a complete picture of their personal growth and friendship.
Babes showcases dynamic characters and thoughtful insights on friendship, motherhood, and societal expectations.

Babes follows two life-long friends as one of them embarks on a new adventure — motherhood. Dawn (Michelle Buteau) and Eden (Ilana Glazer) consider themselves sisters. Their relationship is seemingly unbreakable, as everyone understands what they are to each other, including Dawn's husband, Marty (Hasan Minhaj). But when Eden accidentally gets pregnant just as Dawn welcomes her second child, the two find their relationship tested as their family obligations, distance, and the responsibilities of motherhood threaten to tear them apart.

After becoming pregnant from a one-night stand, Eden leans on her married best friend and mother of two, Dawn, to guide her through gestation and beyond.

Ilana Glazer and Josh Rabinowitz's script is well-intentioned and funny.
Michelle Buteau & Illana Glazer have great chemistry and comedic chops
Pamela Adlon's feature debut is sincere & authentic
The film is heartfelt and touching

Despite the rather dramatic description, Babes is a comedy with some poignant dramatic parts . With Babes , the filmmaking team — Pamela Adlon, in her feature directorial debut, who works from a script by Glazer and Josh Rabinowitzand — captures an authentic, and often underrepresented, facet of sisterhood and motherhood.

Michelle Buteau & Ilana Glazer Have Incredible Chemistry

They're perfectly matched with the material.

Babes is nothing without Glazer and Buteau. The actresses are among the most highly recognized and beloved comedians working today, and both are still riding the high of their respective TV success. Broad City put Glazer on the map, so to speak, and she carries a bit of her character from the series with her as she plays Eden. She is an eccentric, charismatic, and cheerful woman who is content but doesn't necessarily have her life together.

Buteau is riding the high of her hit Netflix series , Survival of the Thickest , which has miraculously gotten a second season. As Dawn, Buteau, like Glazer, has some familiar traits from her TV character and a bit of her public persona, but there is a touch more gravitas to her performance as she plays the "serious" friend. Dawn is accomplished, married, and has another child on the way. She has moved to the suburbs and is living the kind of life many career-driven women dream of, with a supportive husband by her side to boot.

Babes is more than just a movie about motherhood; it's about the growing pains of being an adult, love, friendship, and finding new ways to come of age.

Babes relies so much on the pair's comedic instincts, which they adjust for every scene based on what is needed. Even when poignant moments arise, the actresses are acutely aware of how some levity in their delivery makes their character's plight more relatable and touching. Additionally, Glazer and Buteau have incredible chemistry, bouncing off each other so naturally.

The characters are not strictly defined, allowing Glazer and Buteau to imbue their own sensibilities, experiences, and quirks into their respective characters. It makes them so much more than characters in a story, as they represent the many women who have long-lasting friendships that can be more profound than the relationships they have with family members or romantic partners.

Babes Is Insightful About Motherhood & Sisterhood

But it doesn't forget about the comedy, which is genuinely hilarious.

With a premise like Babes , there is an assumption that Glazer's Eden would be taking center stage, while Buteau's Dawn is a supporting player. Thankfully, the movie is evenly split between the two, creating a complete picture of Eden's progression and Dawn's awakening. Eden is in a somewhat stagnant position. She is a mostly functioning adult, but due to some parental trauma, she is lacking in the responsibility department.

Babes (2024)

In a way, Dawn is more stable with a husband, child and a flourishing career. However, much like Eden's decision to become a mother, Dawn must reckon with the reality of being a mother of two, with her responsibilities quadrupling after promising to always be by Eden's side. Both women approach motherhood from very different places and perspectives, yet their journey involves more than just their children.

Glazer, Rabinowitz, and Adlon do an incredible job of creating dynamic, complex characters who express varying emotions and thoughts. The film showcases how there is never a singular problem when it comes to a friendship being tested. After years of pent-up emotions, recent life developments, monumental choices, and critical personality differences, Dawn and Eden's friendship reaches a point where it will either evolve or dissipate.

Babes is an absolute blast; it's honest, intentional, funny and moving.

Babes is genuinely curious about how that would happen when the relationship is built on such profound love and appreciation for each other. It also illustrates how societal structures that demand women hold space for more than just themselves and their families are significantly detrimental. Yet, Dawn cannot articulate or even recognize the grander ideas that influence her decisions. For a comedy to have this much nuance and still be funny is impressive. And rest assured, the comedy is very, very funny.

Babes is an absolute blast; it's honest, intentional, funny and moving. With brilliant lead performances from Buteau and Glazer, as well as an endearing supporting cast, the movie is engaging and entertaining from beginning to end. Glazer and Rabinowitz pour considerable care and consideration into this film, making Adlon's job easier when translating their work onscreen. Babes is more than just a movie about motherhood; it's about the growing pains of being an adult, love, friendship, and finding new ways to come of age. It's truly sensational.

Babes premiered at the 2024 SXSW Film Festival.

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Godzilla x kong: the new empire, common sense media reviewers.

Giant monster battles fun, humans meh in mega fight-fest.

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire Movie Poster: King Kong and Godzilla look ready for action, helicopters in foreground

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Amid the somewhat convoluted story is a theme of t

While the humans must chip in and offer their pers

The human characters are diverse on the surface le

Danger/peril and giant monster fights, with slammi

Infrequent uses of "s--t," "ass," "hell," "damn,"

Partially obscured bags of Cheetos shown.

Positive Messages

Amid the somewhat convoluted story is a theme of teamwork, as the monsters must learn to trust one another and work together to defeat a greater evil. The story also shows the importance of stepping up and offering your personal skills and services when needed.

Positive Role Models

While the humans must chip in and offer their personal skills and services they're needed, characters are pretty shallow and tend to contradict themselves. For example, Dr. Andrews at first wonders about the possibilities of the new subterranean world but at other times believes things are "impossible." And Bernie flips back and forth between being curious and excited about scientific possibility and behaving like a third-rate comical coward.

Diverse Representations

The human characters are diverse on the surface level, though none are particularly well developed. The main human character is a female doctor (Rebecca Hall). Co-star Kaylee Hottle comes from an all-deaf family, and her character, Jia, communicates with her adoptive mother via American Sign Language (ASL). Podcaster Bernie Hayes is played by Black actor Brian Tyree Henry, and Chinese-born Fala Chen plays the Iwi Queen. Rachel House, who comes from the Māori people of New Zealand, plays an important member of Dr. Andrews' team, Asian-Australian actor Ron Smyck plays a member of the Hollow Earth outpost, and Black actor Kevin Copeland plays a submarine commander. Many more characters of color and women in smaller/background roles.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Danger/peril and giant monster fights, with slamming, punching, choking, etc. Godzilla blows up a crab-type monster and showers yellow goo everywhere. Kong eats chunks of the creatures he's killed in battle, slurping stringy innards like spaghetti. He also rips open a hyena-type monster corpse and showers green guts all over himself. Bloody claw prints Human attacked and eaten by sentient tree roots. Outpost attacked, with a dead body seen underneath wreckage. Kong takes a young ape by the foot and swings it around for use as a weapon in a fight. Kong's paw is sliced open by sharp blade, as well as frozen and injured by frostbite. Ape heads displayed on poles. Character has a brief, angry rant about internet trolls.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Infrequent uses of "s--t," "ass," "hell," "damn," "God/oh my God." Character calls an internet troll a "trash bag."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Parents need to know.

Parents need to know that Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is the fifth film in Warner Bros.' MonsterVerse series. Violence, as expected, is the main issue. Expect lots of giant monster fights, with slamming, punching, and choking. Kong rips open a hyena-type monster corpse and showers green guts all over himself, as well as slurping up the innards of the creatures he's killed in battle. And Godzilla blows up a crab-type monster and showers yellow goo everywhere. Kong also takes a young ape by the foot and swings it around for use as a weapon in a fight. A sharp blade slices open Kong's paw, and a human is attacked and eaten by sentient tree roots. A dead body is seen underneath wreckage. Language includes infrequent uses of "s--t," "ass," "hell," "damn," and "God/oh my God." There's no sex or substance use of note. As usual, the monsters have more personality than the humans, and the story is too convoluted, but the big, boomy battles are fun. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

Parents say (2)
Kids say (5)

Based on 2 parent reviews

Lots of fun, strong child lead

What's the story.

In GODZILLA x KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE, peace has been established, with Kong living in the subterranean realm of Hollow Earth and Godzilla roaming the surface world. Dr. Ilene Andrews ( Rebecca Hall ) keeps tabs on them both while raising young Jia (Kaylee Hottle), the last surviving Iwi from Skull Island. Suddenly, Kong returns to the surface with a toothache, and Dr. Andrews calls in veterinarian Trapper ( Dan Stevens ) to help. Meanwhile, Godzilla stirs and starts traveling the world, absorbing enormous amounts of power. Dr. Andrews, Jia, Trapper, monster podcaster Bernie Hayes ( Brian Tyree Henry ), and pilot Mikael ( Alex Ferns ) accompany Kong back to Hollow Earth. There, Kong finally discovers a tribe of apes like himself, while the humans stumble upon evidence of an ancient civilization of Iwi. Everything leads up to a major showdown against an evil ape leader; to defeat him, Godzilla and Kong must bury the hatchet and work together.

Is It Any Good?

Par for the course for the MonsterVerse series, the monsters have more personality than the humans, but at least watching them battle and smash things has some visceral entertainment value. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire has to find some way to get the two big guys to join forces, and it's a convoluted process, with so many steps -- including a "chosen one" and a prophecy -- that the humans are mostly just there as exposition machines who must keep explaining the plot every time the camera points at them. As a result, they're reduced to familiar cardboard cutout types. Brian Tyree Henry has the hardest job, whipping back and forth between being a nerd who's both excited about discovering all this monster stuff and a whimpering coward, like something right out of an old Abbott & Costello movie.

That said, the Hollow Earth design is truly gorgeous, and the monster fights (which include some new guest stars) land with a concrete impact. Truthfully, the computer-generated characters are so much better at telling the story, with their wordless gestures and expressions, that Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire might have been better without any humans in it at all. But its biggest challenge may be that it's being released just months after the Oscar-winning Godzilla: Minus One , which was made for around a tenth of the cost of this one and is certainly 10 times better. There's more to monster movies than smashing.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire 's violence . How did it make you feel? Was it exciting? Shocking? What did the movie show or not show to achieve this effect? Why is that important?

How does the movie convey the importance of empathy , courage and teamwork ? Why are those important character strengths ?

Some of the characters use American Sign Language (ASL) to communicate. What makes that a form of positive representation ?

The first Japanese Godzilla filmmakers used monster suits and miniatures to create their special effects, not CGI. If you've seen the 1954 original (or its imitators), which do you prefer: low-tech practical effects, or something more realistic and high-tech? Which usually works better in movies?

Why do you think Godzilla has been remade so many times? What do you think filmmakers hope to achieve by remaking a classic?

Movie Details

In theaters : March 29, 2024
Cast : Rebecca Hall , Brian Tyree Henry , Dan Stevens
Director : Adam Wingard
Inclusion Information : Female actors, Black actors
Studio : Warner Bros. Pictures
Genre : Science Fiction
Topics : Monsters, Ghosts, and Vampires
Run time : 115 minutes
MPAA rating : PG-13
MPAA explanation : creature violence and action
Last updated : April 1, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Top 10 Godzilla Atomic Breath Scenes

#10: burning g spark heat ray, #9: spray blast, #8: infinite spiral heat ray, #7: god destroyer, #6: defeating orga, #5: blasting through the earth, #4: pulse blast, #3: shindo’s death, #2: kiss of death, #1: radiation heat ray.

Can a play say anything new about immigration? Turns out, yes.

‘hester street’ at theater j goes even deeper than the beloved 1975 movie version.

All American families are alike; each unassimilated family is unassimilated in its own way.

At first blush, the situation of the Podkovnik family in “Hester Street” seems far from singular: a Jewish family emigrates from Russia to New York in the late 19th century and tries to make a new life in the New World. It’s a story that, in its broad outline, probably resonates with millions of Americans, almost half of whom can trace part of their ancestry to Ellis Island. Adding another layer of familiarity is the fact that Sharyn Rothstein’s play is based on Joan Micklin Silver’s 1975 Yiddish/English-language film of the same name, which in turn is based on Abraham Cahan’s 1896 novella “Yekl: A Tale of the New York Ghetto.”

The Style section

After more than a century, is there anything new to say about the story of immigration and one family’s acculturation? It turns out, yes. The world premiere, billed as the “largest production” to grace the stages of Theater J in years, goes deeper than the justifiably praised film, with humor, panache and great affection for its characters — even its slightly more irritating ones.

“Hester Street” is set in the Lower East Side, a neighborhood jostling with a cacophony of accents and musical instruments, but much of the action takes place in a cramped tenement apartment. Wilson Chin’s turntable set accommodates not much more than a twin bed, a milk crate, a table, three chairs and a small stove. The dining room quadruples as the kitchenette, sitting room and parlor. Each time the door slams, you’re afraid it will uncouple itself from its hinges.

The room’s newest occupants are Jake (Jake Horowitz) and Bernstein (Michael Perrie Jr.), his devout roommate. They both find work as tailors and Jake, frequent patron of dance halls, strikes up a romance with a dancer named Mamie (Eden Epstein). Only problem is that he already has a wife and child living in Russia. When the play begins, he has not spoken to them for years, relying on letters to hear news of his family back in the old country.

It's in one such note that he learns of his father’s death. Jake, who is illiterate, asks the scholarly Bernstein to read the missive from his wife, and the terrible news passes through him like a kidney stone. The play, under Oliver Butler’s astute direction, imbues the father-son relationship with greater psychological depth than the film. Represented as a ghostly silhouette, Jake’s father exerts a powerful influence on his son even in death.

The paterfamilias also appears to be a proximate source of Jake’s Vesuvian rage, which he unleashes in unpredictable bursts upon his wife, Gitl (Sara Kapner). When Jake is reunited with her and young son Yossele (Katie Angell), almost everything about her irks him, from the way she insists on calling him Yankel, his old name, to the way she wears her hair — hidden beneath an oppressive black wig. Their fraught reunion happens on Ellis Island, where they are queried by a peremptory immigration official, who communicates in a mixture of English and trombone. The instrumental intervention is a clever way of conveying the Tilt-a-Whirl atmosphere into which Gitl, who speaks only Yiddish, is suddenly thrust, and effectively lassoes us into her Weltanschauung.

While Cahan’s novella canted toward Jake’s perspective, Rothstein’s play is an unabashedly feminist-forward retelling. As played by Kapner, Gitl is a beguiling mix of George Bernard Shaw’s Eliza Doolittle and Ibsen’s Nora. She’s an embodiment of everything Jake left behind in the old country. Her conversations with her husband are carried out in Yiddish (English supertitles are helpfully projected onto the two curtains dividing their bedroom and living space). She slowly learns English from her young son, who teaches her the words for common household objects. The language lessons are some of the finest moments in the play, with Gitl turning words over like a newly acquired garment.

Mrs. Kavarsky, Jake’s matronly landlady (a scene-thieving Dani Stoller), takes it upon herself to transform Gitl into an “educated” lady of the new world. (The elder woman is a delightful source of unsolicited advice. “You should grow like an onion vid your head in the ground,” she tells Jake.) At a low moment, Gitl goes in search of a love potion to save her ailing marriage. It’s no use; Jake spends almost all his free time with Mamie, who incidentally lends him $25 to furnish his apartment.

In different hands, Mamie would be a makeweight part — a garden-variety siren — but here she’s even more of a sympathetic character than in the film. An orphan who became a popular dancer on her own steam, she’s better resourced, financially and psychically, than many of the other characters. “I don want no man to say, I had to take her just as she was, wid’out a penny,” she tells Jake in one of their first encounters.

Even as she successfully lures him away from Gitl, she indirectly creates the means for the spurned wife to seek happiness elsewhere. Ultimately, love, like energy in the first law of thermodynamics, is not quite created or destroyed, but acquires a new form.

Hester Street , through April 21 at the Edlavitch DC Jewish Community Center. 2 hours 30 minutes, including an intermission. edcjcc.org .

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Blast photos.

A former martial artist (Linden Ashby), now a janitor, faces terrorists holding women athletes hostage at an international event.

Genre: Action

Original Language: English

Director: Albert Pyun

Producer: Gary Schmoeller , Tom Karnowski

Writer: Hannah Blue

Release Date (Streaming): Jul 25, 2018

Runtime: 1h 38m

Production Co: Cruel Stories Inc., Filmwerks

Cast & Crew

Linden Ashby

Jack Bryant

Andrew Divoff

Kimberly Warren

Diane Colton

Rutger Hauer

Norbert Weisser

Commando Rescuer

Tim Thomerson

Police Commissioner

Yuji Okumoto

Vincent Klyn

Intense Man

Thom Mathews

Jill Pierce

Barbara Roberts

Chad Stahelski

Robert Lennon

Jahi J.J. Zuri

Terrorist Pursuer

Terrorist 1

Jim Koehler

Paul Eliaopolous

Terrorist 5

Albert Pyun

Hannah Blue

Gary Schmoeller

Tom Karnowski

Paul Rosenblum

Executive Producer

George Mooradian

Cinematographer

Natasha Gjurokovic

Film Editing

Anthony Riparetti

Original Music

Shelly Boies

Production Design

Costume Design

Teri Blythe

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‘Opening Night’ Review: A Stylish Movie Becomes a Sludgy Travesty

Ivo van Hove’s stage adaptation of the 1977 John Cassavetes film, with music by Rufus Wainwright, turns a taut character study into a corny melodrama.

A woman in a purple dress stands with her hands purple onstage, in front of a large projection of her face on a screen behind.

By Houman Barekat

The critic Houman Barekat saw “Opening Night” in London.

In a London auditorium, a work of art is being desecrated. “Opening Night,” John Cassavetes’s understatedly stylish 1977 movie about an actress struggling with midlife ennui, has been reimagined as a musical by the Belgian director Ivo van Hove, and the result is a travesty.

Its antiheroine, the Broadway superstar Myrtle Gordon (Sheridan Smith), has landed the lead role in a play about a middle-aged woman. But she isn’t feeling it: Though she is about 40, she insists she can’t relate. She stumbles through rehearsals, clashing with the director, Manny (Hadley Fraser), and the playwright, Sarah (Nicola Hughes), then goes rogue during previews, taking liberties with the script.

To compound matters, the actress develops a neurotic fixation on Nancy (Shira Haas), a 17-year-old fan killed in a car crash moments after getting Myrtle’s autograph. Convinced that Nancy is a cipher for her own lost youth, Myrtle intermittently hallucinates the dead girl’s ghost, and even converses with it. Myrtle is unraveling, but the show — somehow — must go on.

It’s a compelling story line, filled with dramatic possibilities, but “Opening Night,” which runs at the Gielgud Theater through July 27, is scuppered by a series of poor choices. Smith is miscast as Myrtle, for a start: Her onstage bearing exudes a homely approachability rather than high-strung poise or inscrutable aloofness.

Benjamin Walker is wooden as Maurice, Myrtle’s stage co-star and ex-partner, who Cassavetes himself played charmingly in the film. The estranged couple’s brittle onstage chemistry is an essential ingredient in the drama; here, they seem like actual strangers. Haas’s spectral Nancy is a disconcertingly cutesy symbol of youthful feminine vitality, a sprite-like figure who scurries around the stage in a short skirt, knee-high socks and platform boots — suggesting not so much a young woman as a pubescent child.

The songs, by Rufus Wainwright, are algorithmically bland. Several address aging, including the unsubtly titled “A Change of Life” (about menopause) and “Makes One Wonder,” a duet in which Myrtle and Sarah realize that, as women of a certain age, they may have more in common than they’d like to admit.

Others are about showbiz: “Magic” is an upbeat cabaret-style number about the wonder of the stage; “Moths to a Flame” is a somber, sentimental paean to the indefatigability of thespians everywhere. There is a brief foray into rock opera during an excruciating scene in which Myrtle, having figured out she must banish Nancy’s specter to get herself back on track, scuffles with the girl-child amid flashing strobe lights and 1980s-style power riffs. It’s so schlocky that it almost feels like a sendup.

Jan Versweyveld’s set is a theater within a theater. The rehearsal space occupies the foreground, and a row of vanity mirrors at the rear of the stage represents the backstage area. As in van Hove’s 2019 adaptation of “All About Eve ” — another story about the emotional travails of an aging actress — camera operators stalk its perimeter, transmitting close-up, real-time footage of the actors onto a big screen above the stage.

The idea is to ramp up the psychodrama by bringing us up close and personal, but there isn’t much intensity to intensify. The multiple angles add little to the experience. (The occasional bird’s-eye view is particularly unnecessary, unless you happen to have an interest in the topography of hairlines.) A screen caption at the start of the show informs us that a documentary film crew is recording the company’s rehearsals — a plot device that is supposed to make this camerawork feel less like a gratuitous gimmick, but so flimsily transparent that it has the opposite effect.

There are one or two good moments, including a tense rehearsal scene in which Myrtle objects to having to endure an onstage slap. She says it’s humiliating, but Manny insists it’s artistically necessary. Smith renders the standoff with a bleak comic pathos: At one point she even slaps herself to forestall the blow. (For van Hove, who is known for pushing his performers to the limit, this material is close to home.) Near the end, as the characters make their final preparations for opening night, the big screen cuts to recorded footage of theatergoers passing through the Gielgud foyer a couple of hours earlier — a clever touch that spurred a ripple of amused murmurs from the audience. But these are slim pickings.

As an artist yearning to take back control of her narrative, Myrtle should resonate at a time when questions of agency — for women and minorities, among others — are on many people’s minds. But van Hove’s corny treatment trivializes her suffering. Cassavetes’s movie had an elliptical quality that drew viewers in through the strength of its narrative artifice and the power of the actors’ performances; here, the story never comes to life, and the themes are labored. Van Hove has transformed a taut, subtly observed character study into a sludgy melodrama.

Opening Night Through July 27 at the Gielgud Theater in London; openingnightmusical.com .

Blast (2004)

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Review: In ‘Femme,’ a secret act of vengeance comes disguised as erotic flirtation

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The most revelatory aspect of the art of drag is how it lays bare the centrality of performance in our everyday lives. That’s most obvious when it comes to thinking about gender. Wigs, heels and makeup go a long way toward revealing femininity to be a kind of armature deployed as intentionally on the streets as it is on a stage. In “Femme,” Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping’s debut feature, that kernel of truth becomes the anchor for a deliciously vicious London-set revenge thriller.

When Jules (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) steps into the spotlight at a bar as his alter ego, Aphrodite, you can see he’s in his element. With voguing dancers flanking her, Aphrodite is aptly named. She is a goddess of the night. If you saw her lit only by moonlight, you’d be forgiven for being so taken with her grace. But such magic tends to disappear under the humbling fluorescents of a corner store, particularly unkind to drag makeup.

“Is that a bloke?” Jules overhears a friend ask Preston ( George MacKay of “1917”), as Aphrodite stands in line waiting to get a pack of cigarettes. Quietly, in a tight close-up, you see the queen trying to figure out how best to react to Preston’s posturing homophobia. Should she shrink herself into nothing or try to shine as brightly as she’d done on stage?

She opts for the latter. “How can you call me a fag in front of all your friends when I caught you checking me out earlier?” she says. All too quickly the scene devolves into a violent blur. Stripped, kicked and recorded on Preston’s phone throughout the ordeal, Jules is left with nothing. No wig. No dress. No comebacks. No dignity.

Imagine his luck, then, when one day at a bathhouse, Jules spots his assailant (all abs, tats and attitude). In a split second, whatever self-pity had taken a hold of him following the attack is gone. He pursues Preston (who, it seems, doesn’t recognize his victim), hops in his car and kicks off the erotic, tense tête à tête that structures this slick, stylish queer neo-noir.

Two men have a confrontation against a wall.

Scouring the web for sex videos of outed masc “straight” boys, Jules begins concocting a plan. If he can get Preston on camera, maybe he can finally find closure, find a way to make good on the taunting line that first egged this loutish guy into senseless violence. Pulsing with Adam Janota Bzowski’s drone-like synth score, lit by James Rhodes’ neon-tinged cinematography and cut with flair by Selina Macarthur, that scene is but one moment when “Femme” firmly establishes itself as a bold self-assured debut.

Already a keen performer, Jules quickly becomes everything a closeted guy would want. Using his coyness as his most versatile seductive power, Jules (and, in turn, Stewart-Jarrett) nails the role of homme fatale the film requires. That includes dressing “normal” for his dinner “dates” with Preston and playing into the fantasies he knows excite him.

These late night encounters begin with a wild kind of violent, volatile chemistry. But they soon become more tender. Away from his mates, Preston is much softer than he purports to be when drowning in oversized sweatshirts and hardened grins. And armed with such a protective partner (or maybe so close to recording his revenge sex tape), Jules is finally able to climb out of the depression that had derailed him.

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The question throughout the film, of course, is whether this budding relationship is or could be real. These are two young men who move in worlds that constantly demand that they perform. Both are experts at code-switching and calibrating their moves, their words and even their bodies in any given context. The two begin by offering one another versions of themselves they can’t show others. And as they each wonder whether such vulnerability will be anything but a liability, we’re left to wonder instead whether film and romance alike can end in anything but violence.

To watch Stewart-Jarrett (a glittering steel blade) and MacKay (a hardened fist blooming) play this pair of wounded would-be lovers is to witness two actors walking on a razor’s edge. Their characters’ mercurial motivations are often violently splintering, to the point where you’re never sure what, if anything, is authentic after all.

Within that funhouse mirror of an erotic-thriller premise, “Femme” proves to be a gorgeously mounted meditation on queer and queered performance. As Freeman and Ng’s film arrives at its necessarily cruel, bloody ending — as surprising as it is inevitable — you’re left as torn as its central pair. Bruised, yes. But perhaps all the stronger for it.

'Femme'

Not rated Running time: 1 hour, 39 minutes Playing: Now in limited release

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IMAGES

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COMMENTS

Film Review: 'A Blast'
Film Review: 'A Blast' Reviewed at Thessaloniki Film Festival (100 Years of Greek Cinema — 2014), Nov. 2, 2014. (Also in Locarno Film Festival — competing; Sarajevo, London, Hamburg, Sao ...
A Blast (2014)
A Blast: Directed by Syllas Tzoumerkas. With Angeliki Papoulia, Basile Doganis, Maria Filini, Themis Bazaka. Against the backdrop of an ongoing socio-economic collapse, a disillusioned mother of three is trapped in a vicious circle of terrible decisions and sharply ruthless actions. What can drive a perfectly normal individual to great extremes?
A Blast
A Blast. By Mark Adams, chief film critic 12 August 2014. Dir: Syllas Tzoumerkas. Greece-Germany-Netherlands. 2014. 83mins. Set against the volatile backdrop of the collapse of the Greek economy ...
A Blast
A Blast (Greek: Η έκρηξη), is a 2014 film directed by Syllas Tzoumerkas about a woman's disillusionment and revolt in the frame of the Greek financial crisis.The film stars Angeliki Papoulia, Vassilis Doganis, Maria Filini, Themis Bazaka, Makis Papadimitriou and Yorgos Biniaris.. Tzoumerkas' second feature film after Hora Proelefsis, A Blast had its world premiere at the International ...
A Blast (2014)
4/10. Lacking in substance. grantss 11 December 2015. Lacking in substance. Told through a series of flashbacks, and odd cuts, this movie is about a woman who suddenly just drives out down the highway, seemingly running away from something. We see her relationship with her husband - how they met, fell in love, had kids and the trials and ...
A Blast (2014)
Film Movie Reviews A Blast — 2014. A Blast. 2014. 1h 23m. Drama/Thriller. Cast. Angeliki Papoulia (Maria) Basile Doganis (Yannis) Maria Filini (Gogo) Themis Bazaka (Mother) Giorgos Biniaris ...
A Blast (2014) Review
A Blast. Rating: 3.5 of 5. Angeliki Papoulia delivers a raw and gripping performance as Maria, a woman teetering on the edge of a social precipice in filmmaker Syllas Tzoumerkas's A Blast. Told in a fragmentary fashion that jumps back and forth in time, the story follows Maria's life from her years as a promiscuous college dropout living with ...
A Blast
Rotten Tomatoes, home of the Tomatometer, is the most trusted measurement of quality for Movies & TV. The definitive site for Reviews, Trailers, Showtimes, and Tickets
A Blast
Movie Info. Maria leaves her life behind to escape on the highway with a case full of money. Genre: Drama, Mystery & thriller. Original Language: Greek. Director: Syllas Tzoumerkas. Producer ...
A Blast (Movie, 2014)
A Blast (2014) Alternative titles: I Ekrixi / Η Έκρηξη. Country: Greece / Germany / Netherlands / Italy / Bosnia and Herzegovina / France. Directed by: Syllas Tzoumerkas. Stars: Angeliki Papoulia, Vassilis Doganis and Maria Filini. IMDb score: 5,6 (961) Releasedate: 20 November 2014. This movie is not available on US streaming services.
A Blast
A BLAST. Maria is running away on the highway. She is alone in her roaring SUV. Behind her, fire and a case full of money. In front of her, the hopeless vastness of the motorway. Her crazy, accelerating course will stop at nothing. Only a day before she was a caring mother, a loving wife, a responsible daughter.
A Blast (movie, 2014)
A Blast - Ausbruch (Germany) Une déflagration (France) Drama. Thriller. Against the backdrop of an ongoing socio-economic collapse, a disillusioned mother of three is trapped in a vicious circle of terrible decisions and sharply ruthless actions. What can drive a perfectly normal individual to great extremes?
Blast From The Past movie review (1999)
Powered by JustWatch. "Blast From the Past'' opens with a cocktail party in 1962 at the home of Calvin and Helen Webber, where some of the guests whisper about how brilliant, but weird, Calvin is. Their host, meanwhile, mixes cocktails, tells bad jokes and hints darkly that "I could take a simple yacht battery and rig it to last a year, easily.''.
A Blast
Is A Blast (2014) streaming on Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Max, Peacock, or 50+ other streaming services? Find out where you can buy, rent, or subscribe to a streaming service to watch it live or on-demand. Find the cheapest option or how to watch with a free trial.
Blast (1997) Review
The shrinking market for traditional action fare is keenly felt while watching Blast, a movie you might call ' Die Hard in an Olympic training pool.'. The film arrives from notorious B-Movie king Albert Pyun, whose career trajectory more or less mirrored the dwindling favor of the action genre. While the Eighties saw him pair with Van Damme ...
Blast From the Past
Movie Info. Adam Webber (Brendan Fraser) has lived his entire life in confinement in a fallout shelter in Pasadena, Calif. When the Webber family's rations of food and supplies grow thin, Adam's ...
Blast (1997)
With "Blast", Albert Pyun presents us with his B-movie version of the "Die Hard" scenario. Aside from the stop-motion fighting sequences and familiar plot elements - even down to the hero's ex-wife being the terrorist's last hostage - the movie also featured deflated performances from Andrew Divoff and Rutger Hauer.
Farewell, Mr. Haffmann
Farewell, Mr. Haffmann - Movie Review. Randy Steinberg. April 2, 2024. In November 2023, I reviewed a Holocaust rescuer film titled Irena's Vow. I believed the film's heart was in the right place but lacked nuance and layers. ... Randy Steinberg has been a Blast film critic since 2011. He has a Master's Degree in Film/Screenwriting from ...
23 Blast Movie Review
What you will—and won't—find in this movie. Parents need to know that 23 Blast is based on the inspiring true story of Travis Freeman, a Kentucky high school football player who went blind -- but, owing to the support of his coach and teammates, was able to play despite his disability. Religion is portrayed as one of Travis's sustaining ...
Blast, A (Η Έκρηξη) : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet
Blast, A (Η Έκρηξη) Greek Cinema, Syllas Tzoumerkas, Angeliki Papoulia. Running away on the highway, Maria is alone in her roaring SUV. Behind. her, fire and a case full of money. In front of her, the hopeless. vastness of the motorway. Only a day before she was a caring mother, a. loving wife, a responsible daughter.
'Diarra from Detroit' Review: Diarra Kilpatrick's Mystery-Comedy Is a Blast
Diarra From Detroit is, at various points, a hard-boiled mystery, a quarter-life crisis comedy, a complicated love triangle (that's occasionally a quadrangle), and an ensemble hangout show about ...
Babes Review: Michelle Buteau & Ilana Glazer Earn Big Laughs In
Babes Is Insightful About Motherhood & Sisterhood But it doesn't forget about the comedy, which is genuinely hilarious. With a premise like Babes, there is an assumption that Glazer's Eden would be taking center stage, while Buteau's Dawn is a supporting player.Thankfully, the movie is evenly split between the two, creating a complete picture of Eden's progression and Dawn's awakening.
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire Movie Review
Movie Review. 1:05 Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire Official trailer. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. Community Reviews. See all. Parents say (2) Kids say (5) ... Would love more Godzilla but whatever it's a blast. Show more. D B. Parent of 10 and 15-year-old. March 29, 2024 age 9+ Strong child role model and teamwork
Top 10 Godzilla Atomic Breath Scenes
One of the most badass scenes in 2021's "Godzilla vs. Kong" just has to be when Godzilla charges up his atomic breath for a blast that cuts straight through solid ground, down to the Hollow ...
'Hester Street' at Theater J review: Yes, a play can say something new
At first blush, the situation of the Podkovnik family in "Hester Street" seems far from singular: a Jewish family emigrates from Russia to New York City in the late-19th century and tries to ...
'Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire' Review: Running Out of Steam
Nothing about "Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire" makes sense, which is not, on the face of it, a problem. We have not settled into cushy cinema seats with our comfortingly stale popcorn to ...
Blast
A former martial artist (Linden Ashby), now a janitor, faces terrorists holding women athletes hostage at an international event.
'Opening Night' Review: Ivo van Hove Makes a Stylish Movie Into a
"Opening Night," John Cassavetes's understatedly stylish 1977 movie about an actress struggling with midlife ennui, has been reimagined as a musical by the Belgian director Ivo van Hove, and ...
Blast (2004)
(2005) Blast ACTION A straight to rental low budget "Die Hard" movie on an oil rig. The movie stars Eddie Griffin as Lamont Dixon, who has been left guardianship to a young kid as a result of losing his actual father as a fireman. He brings this kid to his new job which is part of a crew to drag an oil rig to the coast of California with a tug ...
'Femme' review: Vengeance in the guise of erotic flirtation
Review: In 'Femme,' a secret act of vengeance comes disguised as erotic flirtation George MacKay, left, and Nathan Stewart-Jarrett in "Femme," a deliciously vicious London-set revenge ...