Rosemead (2025)

There has been a lot of talk about Lucy Liu, her radically against type performance, and how she knocks it out of the park in the tragic drama Rosemead and it's all warranted. Liu is transformational here and truly remarkable in a difficult role. The fact that she has remained out of the "awards" talk is an additional tragedy as this is a stunning performance in a compelling film. 

The film is quietly powerful. The approach of the story is to stick pretty close to the plot and just let the story unfold. Liu and Shou build credible characters and tell a story that is so terribly sad. The story centres on Liu's character's physical health and Shou's character's mental health yet it is remarkable that the film never implies that anything failed him or his family. It just sits with how difficult their health issues are so challenging and unsolvable that this story has to play out. I think that made it even more challenging a reality to exist in. 

Together the two actors do a wonderful job and the film keeps its pacing strong so it all feels very real and engaging. By the time it reaches its conclusion it again takes a very quiet and thoughtful approach to let its audience sit with the immense sadness it is presenting. I hope this leads to Liu getting even more diverse roles as she clearly can stand out. 

Rosemead

Starring: Lucy Liu, Lawrence Shou

Director: Eric Lin

Writer: Marilyn Fu

The Plague (2025)

The Plague gives us both the exciting film making debut of Polinger and confirmation that Blunck may be one of the best actors of Gen Alpha. Following up on his incredible role in Griffin in Summer, Blunck goes in a completely different direction here with equally impressive results. And Polinger  manages to find a unique visual language to tell his powerful, if not revolutionary, story of bullying in a way that makes it feel viscerally raw. 

The Plague is a movie that will upset you. It offers no resolution and no solution. It presents us with a very real world situation of destructive male behavior and gives us no example of hope. Our central character is a complicit victim. The perpetrator faces no consequence that promises any sort of change (we even see him very slightly face his own source of bullying). The adult establishment is perpetually inert and ineffective in responding. Another victim is unable to respond in any manner. And the bystanders are all happy to go along with and support the system which continues the abuse. The Plague is almost nihilistic in its portrait of toxic masculinity. 

In contrast to this it is a beautifully shot film. From the opening sequence on Polinger shows us he knows what he is doing. He focuses on underwater views which are both beautiful and unnerving. It creates an uncanny sort of feeling which sets everything off just so. His thesis is quite a condemnation and he crafts it so lovingly. It is such a powerful juxtaposition that culminates in a moment that can be read equally as surrender and escape. Is our protagonist Ben collapsing in on himself in sheer desperation or liberating himself from the curse he's been under. So much remains rightfully unanswered. His physical manifestations of "the plague" are never explained. How much of it is in his head, how much is psychosomatic, how much is a narrative representation of his self-hatred?

To call The Plague an "impressive" debut is reductive. This is a declaration of a film maker arriving. And Blunck is an actor just getting started. 

The Plague

Starring: Everett Blunck, Kayo Martin, Kenny Rasmussen, Joel Edgerton 

Writer/Director: Charlie Polinger

We Bury the Dead (2026)

I am honestly always surprised when someone make a new zombie movie that feels fresh and is entertaining. There are so many zombie films that you'd think all the plots have been done and there were no more new stories to tell. The Zombie genre is a real zombie-genre... a genre that won't die, and writer/director Hilditch's new one shows that once again there are still narratives worth telling. 

While I didn't think We Bury the Dead is the second coming, or anything, I still felt it had a compelling story that didn't feel exactly like something we had seen before. The idea of a woman seeking closure after her husband dies in a catastrophic event, and she hopes that he will come back to undead life was quite interesting and emotionally powerful. The film explores some dark places with Smith's subplot which brings the film to a rather satisfying conclusion (no spoilers). This ends up being a rather worthwhile entry into this film category.

Anchoring this is Ridley who continues to show what a good actor she is especially in genre films. I found her performance was subtle yet moving and lent itself to the challenges of this particular story. Supported by Smith with a quietly demented performance and Thwaites as the himbo who manages to be three dimensional, the film works because its cast pulls it off. 

While We Bury the Dead may not be one of the essentials of zombie film making, it is a worthwhile addition. I do wonder if it is the sort of film that might have thrived more on streaming than in cinemas, as it might be the sort of film more people would be willing to sit down to watch than to go out to see. Perhaps there is where it will find life. 

We Bury the Dead

Starring: Daisy Ridley, Mark Coles Smith, Brenton Thwaites 

Writer/Director: Zak Hilditch

Endless Cookie (2025)

The unique visual style makes Endless Cookie catch your attention but what makes it really stick with you is the natural nature of how the stories are told. This is a film about story telling and Endless Cookie is such a compelling way to take these stories in. The Scriver's pairing of film making with story telling comes together so beautifully that you can't help but get pulling into their stories. 

There is a juxtaposition between how odd the visuals are, from the characters to the animation, and how much it feels like someone you know telling you about their lives. The stories are sometimes hilarious, and sometimes quite moving. Sometimes they are involved and sometimes they get cut off and are left without resolution. However they play out it's impossible not to get pulled in.

I find often animation can achieve a greater approximation of real life than "live action" can. Endless Cookie, with its naturalistic ways of bringing the Scriver's family stories to the world, is a wonderful example of this. 

Endless Cookie

Writers/Directors: Seth Scriver, Peter Scriver 

Or Something (2025)

Or Something should have been right up my alley. I love movies where two strangers meet and spend the next few hours walking around, having discussions, and learning about each other. Before We Go, Weekend, Rye Lane, Paris 05:59, the f@#kin Before Trilogy. These are my jam. I as excited to watch this one. But Or Something is missing the main component. It's about boring people. It's about normies. People who talk about very typical things with very unoriginal perspectives. 

Written by its stars, they just don't offer anything interesting for the 80 minutes they spend getting to know each other. I kept waiting for there to be something interesting discussed but instead they always talked like they were uttering an AI's version of what they think two people might talk about. 

I appreciated the film's tour of NYC's average neighbourhoods. It felt authentic in its New Yorkness. The characters felt quite real. That's not my critique. They felt like very real...  boring average people. And that just doesn't float my boat. So while I like the form, this content just didn't spark anything for me. 

Or Something

Staring: Mary Neely, Kareem Rahma

Director: Jeffrey Scotti Schroeder

Writers: Mary Neely, Kareen Rahma