- TIFF 2026: Arrested Memory, Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney, Vintage Violence (September 21, 2026)
The Midnight Madness section at TIFF has a reputation for its histrionics and crowd-pleasing thrills, but it’s also a programming block that stealthily introduces delightful eccentricities off the beaten path. I love projects like “River,” “The Furious,” and “The Shadow Strays,” but they don’t even scratch the surface of the kind of weird that has graced the screens at the Royal Alexandra Theatre. There is a kind of iconoclastic spirit, a willingness to experiment with form and center unconventional characters that unites the outcasts under the same, comforting cinematic sky.
This dispatch features three films that play with the fluidity of memory, their unhinged visions no doubt bolstered by the fact that I caught most well after 12:15 AM.
Writer-director SABU’s “Arrested Memory,” which premiered first at Venice, may be steeped in the aesthetics and pastiche of neo-noir revenge thrillers, but make no mistake: this film is probably the silliest of the bunch. It is refreshing to see a project with performers so committed to physical comedy, and even though SABU keeps the film regulated squarely to the confines of entertainment, he finds ways to interrogate our easy willingness to uncritically listen to law enforcement figures.
I’ve become more weary of films that mine humor from cops’ incompetence and inadequacy, if only because we see the tangible, harmful effects of that negligence ripple through the country in real time. SABU’s film focuses on a famed Detective named Lee (Ethan Juan) and avoids this uncomfortable trap by keeping the realities of his abilities and strengths front and center.
Once Lee learns of a diagnosis that he’ll experience extreme memory loss, not too long after, he feels the effects in real time. He’s assigned to a new case to help bring back the son of a Japanese business tycoon, but he quickly forgets his place in the case or what he is supposed to do, resulting in him running away from his fellow police officers and the kidnappers alike. It escalates when he unknowingly goes on the run with the ransom money, causing his colleagues to believe he has defected.
Lee may have lost his mind, but he remains a top-tier brawler, and SABU uses this to explore thorny questions about what happens when unchecked power loses its supposed “moral” center. In his paranoia, the detective begins to fight back against friend and foe alike, liberated from the accountability that would normally keep him in check. The more you think about it, the more terrifying a character like Lee is, even though SABU keeps the film clipped at such a pace that it’s hard to fully reflect. The film is all tight, up-close camera angles so we can see Lee’s tortured expressions, interspersed with wider shots that frame how small Lee’s frame is against the backdrop of all that tears him asunder.
SABU’s film works best when it embraces its slapstick tone, and is less effective when it tries to make the audience lament its character’s memory loss. Plenty of films released this year focus on the destabilizing effects of losing one’s mental faculties, and “Arrested Memory” suffers when it tries to be both humorous and somber. SABU clearly put in the work to explore how a person in power who loses memory could lead to disastrous results; a gag involving a cell phone call is among the film’s funniest beats, yet it never overstays its welcome, even when it drags on. These scenes have an inventiveness that the film lacks when it tries to explore the reality of memory loss more straightforwardly. Like his protagonist, SABU should have felt free to forget certain trappings and embraced the freedom of spontaneity.
Speaking of inventiveness, with “Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney,” director Matthew Rankin (director of last year’s stunner, “Universal Language”) takes the documentary genre and has it snort several lines of cocaine. It’s a film that is difficult to write about, in that trying to distill the experience of viewing is antithetical to the expansive, slippery nature of the film itself, but it’s a trippy joy ride through Canadian history and politics, delivered by a voice that knows history is rarely linear and always filled with tangents. There is something galvanizing about seeing a director take archival footage and blend it into a psychedelic smoothie that must be tasted in order to be believed.
Some context for courtesy (more than you’ll get from Rankin, who gleefully throws his viewers into the michegoss without even the courtesy of an opening crawl): Mulroney is the 18th-century Prime Minister of Canada, and the film charts his initial failed bid for the Conservative Party leadership in 1976 to his landslide victory in 1984.
What happens in between, though, is where Rankin flexes his creative chops, transforming the political speeches and debates into the spasmodic stuff of legend. Take a sequence where Mulroney takes part in a televised debate against Prime Minister John Turner. As Mulroney fires back at Turner, Turner’s figure glitches and scatters, as if Mulroney’s words are literally cutting him down. It’s one of the many ways Rankin remixes archival footage to not just tell a story as it happens but to present the feeling of what it must have been like to experience them in person.
“My enemies keep saying I can’t do things, then I go out and do it,” Mulroney says via voiceover in the film. I cannot claim to know the contours of Rankin’s opps, but that same defiant spirit can be said of Rankin, who will not rest with telling history in a way that’s sanded down. More often than not, it feels like the way stories are told is shrinking as much as the types of stories we get to see are dwindling.
It’s tough to say that the approach Rankin lands here, with its inaccessibility for those who are not aware of Canadian politics and its all-too-fast editing, is the way all documentaries move forward, but there’s a delight in its novelty. You may not walk away understanding this film, but you certainly will not forget it. As Rankin’s film shows, may we all take more care to think about how we discuss the stories that shape us.
Also keeping the screen quite busy is director Eugene Kotlyarenko’s “Vintage Violence,” which, like his other projects, seems first and foremost preoccupied with how many smaller things he can fit in the frame at once. It has its own cheeky sense of humor and relies so much on Japanese puns that it wouldn’t be unfair to call it “Naked Gun” coded. But ultimately, its performers lovingly embody and ground the project amid its wild swings. As much as this wacky, lo-fi caper can feel a bit too busy for its own good, there’s something comforting about being taken for a ride by someone who knows exactly where he wants to go.
Then again, anyone who has taken a passing glance at Eugene Kotlyarenko’s anachronistic work knows the chaos that they’re getting into. Kotlyarenko sets the crosshairs of his long fascination with new media and algorithms against influencers and their platforms with “Vintage Violence.” Carter (Cole Sprouse) is a streamer who discovers a pile of old-school jeans and is convinced by a follower of his streams, Izumi (Kiko Mizuhara), to come to Japan to sell them.
Carter, believing Izumi’s business proposition is coded language for her interest in him, packs the denim in hopes of romance, unaware that the already-cuffed Izumi plans to work with her boyfriend, Hiro (Nijiro Murakami), to steal the denim. Hiro owes a debt to a crime boss, but the rules of atonement get muddled when the boss catches wind of Carter’s score and wants to seize it for himself.
There’s a lot of bloodshed and death for a movie that is really just about designer pantswear, and if you think about it too hard, the film feels like it can be too irreverent to be worth seriously considering. It’s a film that feels primed for our doomscroll era, as Kotlyarenko rarely presents any scene as it is: if characters are calling, he’ll show their split screens in the frame; if Carter is live streaming, we see not only him from the perspective of the film camera but the same scene from his phone camera.
This isn’t a film that waits for you to catch up; just when you think you have modulated to its wavelength, it introduces another character or wacky element that destabilizes you again. In that regard, it’s worth the trip, if only to test your resolve about how many times you can reinvest in the same movie. In a world of projects that can be punishingly banal because they’re straightforward, here’s a vision from Kotlyarenko that never ceases to be transfixing.
- TIFF 2026: The Spiral, Half, Anchors Aweigh (September 20, 2026)
Going from the Toronto International Film Festival to the genre-driven Fantastic Fest in Austin is funny for few reasons related to cultural whiplash, but it’s also interesting to track which horror films appealed to both Canadian and Texan programmers. This year’s FF includes “River,” “Kick On,” and two of the films in this dispatch, both standouts from either fest. The third is a Midnight Madness with its own unique personality that would have fit perfectly fine in Austin as well. The truth is that all three are worth a look when they escape this endless fest circuit, especially the first one.
Paolo Strippoli’s “The Spiral” actually has been to most of the major Fall fests, including playing at Venice and Telluride, a rare quadruple hit in just the last few weeks. It’s not common for any film, much less a horror one, to do the Italy/Colorado/Canada run, but “The Spiral” is not an average horror flick. It’s easy to see how it worked for these very different programs due to its blend of arthouse filmmaking, almost-biblical horror storytelling, and phenomenal performances. This is refined, riveting stuff, even if it runs a little long in its midsection. It recovers for a riveting climax in which Strippoli and co-writer Salvatore de Chirico tie their themes together, reminding us of a classic theme of horror fiction for generations: Be careful what you wish for.
“The Spiral” is a modern Faustian or Monkey’s Paw tale that starts with Anna (Jasmine Trinca) arriving at her daughter’s door. Alice (Romana Maggiora Vergano) doesn’t seem too happy to see her, but she has a story that she has to finally tell about the kind of family secret that would make the devil laugh. What seems at first to be just another story of gorgeous, wealthy socialites quickly becomes something else entirely when a young Alice has her leg mauled by a dog. In the hospital, praying that her child gets to keep her limb, Anna meets a mysterious stranger played perfectly by Valeria Bruni Tedeschi. She offers her a deal: Save one child’s leg but give the other child a life of torment as an obese child. Imagine having to make the choice between which child will suffer, and which suffering could be more easily overcome.
Anna takes the deal and begins a journey in which her wicked benefactor will keep returning to her offering a way out of her current predicament that only creates another one. “The Spiral” is a cascade of increasingly impossible choices, and Trinca is truly remarkable at selling the emotional cost that comes with each of these decisions. Working with Strippoli, they embed parental guilt into the fabric of this tale that Faust would have admired. Of course, most people aren’t making deals with the devil to protect one child over another, but every parent can relate to questioning if their choices were the right ones. Strippoli takes that concept to devilish extremes in a gorgeous, riveting piece of work that I can’t wait to see garner wider appreciation.
There won’t be “wide” appreciation for Samjad’s “Half,” but those who dig this kind of gory chaos will flip for it. This Malayalam-language road flick opens with a crawl about vampire blood, but it’s kind of a fake-out. Sure, the leads are undead, but there’s not really any lore or bloodsucking here: The only reason it matters that they’re creatures of the night is that it’s almost impossible to kill them. In a sense, “Half” is kind of like a vengeance thriller like “I Spit on Your Grave” mixed with “From Dusk Til Dawn” and “Mad Max: Fury Road.” Yes, it’s as chaotic as that sounds, and it’s a kind of chaos that can be alternately mesmerizing and numbing. It’s the kind of project where one truly appreciates the insanity of it all without quite being able to recommend it to those who aren’t primed for this kind of bonkers filmmaking.
“Half” lays its cards on the table early with the brutal slaying of a family by what looks like road warriors who won’t let anyone pass through their region. When twins Ethan (Ranjith Sajeev) and Ivy (Aishwarya Raj) happen into this deadly stretch of land, the thieves who run it grab them, torture, mutilate, and murder them. This is the kind of film wherein one of the bad guys literally urinates on Ivy’s silent heroine, which feels like it happens mostly so what unfolds in the second half of the film feels like something these monsters have coming to them. Of course, Ethan and Ivy aren’t killable, so they pop up and hunt down their new enemies, doing unimaginably violent things to enact justice.
And I do mean unimaginably. One of the first thieves that they find has his arm ripped off just short of his elbow, and then Ethan shoves the stump into his mouth and through the back of his head. People are boiled alive at an alarming rate, but it’s all done with a remarkable amount of impressive makeup work and tight fight choreography from Very Tri Yulisman of “The Raid 2”. “Half” is a film that’s never meant to be taken all that seriously, but its brutality is something that will be an instant turn-off for some people. This critic who’s a bit tired of the “Terrifier”-ying of horror never found it offensive, admiring the chaos of it all and the undeniable craftsmanship with which its captured.
Finally, there’s the admirably goofy “Anchors Aweigh,” a heavily stylized comedy in the vein of Tim Robinson or Nathan Fielder, which whom writer/director/star Matthew Barats has worked on “The Rehearsal.” Barats has made a film that’s kind of like a personal essay, a comedy inspired by a breakup that rattled his reality. Even at 70-ish minutes, it feels a bit like a short film that never quite figured out how to work as a feature, but it’s the kind of goofy project that could easily find a fan base, and an interesting announcement of a new talent.
Barats narrates “Anchors Aweigh,” detailing the story of how a breakup sent him spiraling through questions about his past and purpose. He ends up living on a boat, watching people take off to more interesting lives on the planes that fly above the harbor. After going through old VHS tapes of his youth, he discovers something horrifying: He’s been in stasis, waiting for something interesting to happen, for years. He feels stuck in life now, but maybe he’s always bee stuck in life?
Given how much he narrates a personal story, Barats’ sense of humor will truly be the determining factor as to if this works for viewers. If you laugh at lines like “I didn’t know the difference between the words ass and dick until the sixth grade” then you’re in for a ride. And to be fair, there’s a bit more going on here than just experimental comedy weirdness. It’s not the expression of a rising comedian; it’s a personal investigation and even maybe a bit of therapy. Very few directors would dare make their first movie about how they don’t have a lot of vision or ambition. That alone makes “Anchors Aweigh” kid of special.
- TIFF 2026: Primetime Program Spotlights Upcoming TV Hits (September 19, 2026)
As one of the first festivals to have a slate dedicated solely to television, the 11th year of the Toronto International Film Festival’s Primetime slate is the most expansive it’s ever been. The program is billed as one that spotlights “groundbreaking episodic storytelling and auteur-driven television from some of the world’s most exciting creators,” and this year proved to do just that. This year saw the program move in an interesting direction, in which it spotlighted more horror television than it has in any previous year, ushering in the fall season after a summer filled with heatwaves. That’s not to say the program was lacking in other stories as the spy drama “Slow Horses” premiered its newest season here, and the Jon Hamm-led thriller “American Hostage” took audiences by storm.
From thrillers to dramas, the festival also dedicated space to two Canadian productions. Though our country’s cinema has always been prevalent within the festival’s film selection, Primetime has always lacked the same dedication. Thankfully, four Canadian productions were put in the spotlight here: “Below,” “YAGA,” “Carrie” and “Alice: Pioneer of Cinema.” Not only do these series spotlight Canadian talent behind and in front of the camera, but the inclusion of these shows gives the festival credit as one that champions their own, no matter how small the production. In a political and media landscape rife with tension, Primetime’s recent slate proves that television, and Canadian television especially, deserves a place for celebration amongst even the biggest film premieres.
Primetime’s 2026 slate was the program’s most expansive yet, so without further ado, here are the highlights.
“Below” (Netflix, October)
Netflix’s “Below” follows Calvin Penney (Josh Hartnett), a widower and father whose ice harvesting job is being sabotaged by contaminated ice. Traumatized by his father’s death when he was a child when his family was forced to relocate their home, his memories begin to rear their ugly head as two of his three children come back to visit during a “Come Home Year,” where previous residents are encouraged to return to their hometown. While this homecoming reunites the entire family for the first time in years, it also gives way to a darkness that none of them are prepared to confront, uncovering interesting threads concerning assimilation and, of course, climate change.
As Calvin bestows the help of marine researcher Fonda (Mackenzie Davis) to get the scoop on the strange ice he’s been picking up, their investigation begins to unearth a conspiracy that has laid dormant in the town of Snook’s Arm for decades. What comes of this is a thrilling and gorgeously shot first two episodes that displays the beauty of Newfoundland, as well as the horrors that lie in the dark recesses of its waters. What lurks beneath is a creature that Calvin saw when his father was killed, who shows up again decades later to terrorize the inhabitants of this small community. Although he believes it to be a family curse, perhaps, what this creature really wants, is the solitude it was granted before the people of this town were displaced and forced to move into the only home it has ever known.
“American Hostage” (MGM+, September)
This psychological thriller series follows Fred Heckman (Jon Hamm), a small-town Indianapolis radio reporter who’s torn between staying at his job, or joining the big leagues in New York City. Just when he thinks the new job could offer him more money as well as more notoriety, he receives a call from Tony Kiritsis (Giovanni Ribisi), who has taken his mortgage broker hostage after facing foreclosure. Sound familiar? That would be because the film “Dead Man’s Wire,” which premiered last year at the Toronto International Film Festival, is based on the same true story.
However, this new series has a freshness to it that immediately grips you and doesn’t let go. Incessant and frenetic editing pairs well with sharp dialogue that inject some much-needed life into this series, and allow it to carve out some semblance of its own place amongst the versions of this we’ve already seen. The newsroom setting motors along like a well-oiled machine, with the clicks of buttons on typewriters and the scratching of notebook pages having a weight to them that solidifies the direness of the situation at hand. While Hamm is engaging throughout, it’s Ribisi who steals the show and makes the show a playground in which he can showcase a performance for the ages. Every shout escapes his throat with a sharpness that sounds almost painful, his eyes gleaming with unshed tears of frustration every time he’s on screen, proving that even if this story may feel overdone, staying for his performance alone will make it worthwhile.
CRYSTAL LAKE — Pictured: Linda Cardellini as Pamela Voorhees — (Photo by: Peacock)
“Crystal Lake” (Peacock, October)
Forty-six years after “Friday the 13th” debuted, Peacock’s new series “Crystal Lake” surprisingly doesn’t follow a group of horny teenagers destined to meet their ends at the hands of a machete-wielding killer. Instead, the series follows Pamela Voorhees (Linda Cardellini), whose world is shattered when her son Jason (Callum Vinson) drowns at Camp Crystal Lake. Nine months later, the authorities have still not found Jason’s body, making her unable to move on, and forcing her to stew in her grief and rage. Glimpses of Pam’s past start to resurface and quickly prove that this series will be unlike any of the films it spawned from.
When two men show up at her door one day saying they’ve found a body they want her to identify, the series finally kicks into gear, and morphs into a strange adaptation that, while head-scratching, is nearly impossible to take your eyes off of. This is thanks to Cardellini, whose portrayal of Pamela’s rage is brandished with as much tenacity as Jason’s various weapons, uncovering a layer to her acting prowess she’s never shown before. There are flashes of greatness present within these two episodes that sometimes meander, especially in a stylized opening credit sequence that differs in each episode, showcasing an ’80s slasher flare that the rest of these episodes are slightly devoid of. Cardellini and Will Catlett, who plays chief of police Levon Brooks, thankfully give us something to chew on as the series attempts to find its footing.
“Carrie” (Prime, October)
Like “Crystal Lake,” Prime’s adaptation of Stephen King’s Carrie promised a new take on an icon who shaped classic horror cinema. Adapted by Mike Flanagan, this version follows Carrie White (Summer H. Howell), a sheltered teenager who spent most of her life isolated by her fiercely religious mother, Margaret (Samantha Sloyan). While this is the story we’ve always known, there’s a massive difference here: Carrie enters public school for the first time after her father dies at the beginning of the series. It makes her all the more ostracized by her peers, who see her both as a pet project as well as a societal reject, and who use her naivety to usher in a cataclysmic event that they’ll never be able to take back.
The first two episodes bear almost no similarity Brian De Palma’s fantastic 1976 film, instead showcasing dull backdrops and dreary cinematography which make the show feel lifeless at times. Flanagan’s version seems to be concerned with Gen Alpha being the first generation defined by their reliance on cellphones and social media, and he uses this as the foundation of the story that he’s trying to tell. While I’m not quite sure it works so far, bold choices are hard to come by in modern adaptations, and I’m the first to admire when a remake takes a big swing. Although the first two episodes promise some big changes, perhaps Flanagan will pull it off, and this new version of “Carrie” will become seminal in its own right.
“Oxygen Masks Will (Not) Drop Automatically” (TBA)
Primetime has done a great job showcasing international titles that may or may not find distribution after they premiere at the festival, and this year they graced us with the stunning “Oxygen Masks Will (Not) Drop Automatically.” Based on a true story, the series follows Nando (Johnny Massaro), a gay flight attendant who, after being diagnosed with HIV at the height of the AIDS epidemic, comes together with his coworkers to smuggle treatment for the disease into Brazil, as the drug has not yet been approved by local health authorities. There have been plenty of films and TV shows released in the last few years about the AIDS crisis, but it’s not often that we see it from the perspective of those who were actively fighting to change legislation in their countries, in the hopes that they could buy time for their friends and themselves.
Despite its heavy subject matter, the series is filled with life. From the neon lights of a nightclub to the electric score that permeates various scenes, “Oxygen Masks Will (Not) Drop Automatically” feels like a desperate plea for viewers to understand that, despite the disease wreaking havoc on this community, HIV and AIDS didn’t feel like an immediate death sentence for everyone who contracted it. Visually stunning and narratively pressing, the series is a welcome change of pace from the dour pieces of media that are often created to tell the stories of the men and women who fought for their lives during the epidemic.
“Yaga” (Crave/AMC+, October)
The buzziest series premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival was undeniably “Yaga,” as this was the only Primetime press screening I had to line up for over the course of the festival. Adapted from Kat Sandler’s 2019 play of the same name, the series is inspired by the legend of the Baba Yaga: a witch who resides in a hut known to cook and eat children. In the Crave original series, she’s a spectator who haunts the show’s narrative after heir to billionaire commercial fishing company Henry Park (Hudson Williams) goes missing in the fictional coastal town of Whittock. Tasked with finding out his whereabouts is private detective Charlie Rapp (Noah Reid), whose vague connection to the Park’s is a point of contention between him and local detective Carson (Clark Backo).
Both actors add levity to the series and have a chemistry between them which crackles beneath the already tense foundation of “Yaga”’s broody setting. The complex bond between them grows when their investigation becomes complicated by university professor Katherine (Carrie Ann Moss), whose reputation with her younger male students becomes intertwined with an ancient magic that seems to be woven into the land Whittock rests on. Like “Below,” this series is bound to be a quintessential piece of Canadian television, showcasing the country in its beautiful glory, while highlighting its underrepresented talent behind the camera. Thrilling, and surprisingly sexy, there’s no doubt in my mind that the series will become a surefire hit once it premieres in October.
- TIFF 2026: Darlene Love: I Know Where I’ve Been, Edward Said: Between Worlds, The Hummingbird Paints Fragrant Songs (September 19, 2026)
It’s always risky to opt for documentaries that rely on well-known figures. Too often, the film rests on its subject’s laurels, giving you crowd-pleasing reminders of the figure’s importance without much to think about. But these three films at TIFF surpass those low expectations, placing the identity of a well-known person at their center and becoming indelible surveys that inspire you to learn more and admire more.
There’s no way you can watch Barry Avrich’s empathetic documentary “Darlene Love: I Know Where I’ve Been” and leave without infinite respect for its legendary subject.
Produced by Taraji P. Henson, the detailed chronicling of the talented singer whose voice powered several generations worth of hits recalls the best of these types of music profile documentaries: “The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart,” the Tina Turner documentary “Tina,” “Standing in the Shadows of Motown,” and “20 Feet From Stardom.” Darlene Love was an integral part of the latter survey of backup singers whose tantalizingly close proximity to center stage defined their careers. Love, who by that point had already experienced a career resurgence through her role in the “Lethal Weapons” series and her recurring holiday appearances on the “Late Show with David Letterman” performing “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home),” was an exception to her backing peers. But her road to attaining greater prominence was long, a fact that’s explained by the film’s many talking heads: Bruce Springsteen, Cher, Dionne Warwick, Andra Day, and more.
“I Know Where I’ve Been” is a loving, endearing tribute to the best voice of her generation. It tells her story through two methods. One occurs via sit-down interviews, which allow her to recount her partnership and falling out with Phil Spector (this film’s charting of his varied absurd appearances is a hilarious punchline), her difficult marriages and romantic relationships, and her continual ups and downs in an industry that took far too long to uplift her. The film’s second storytelling method comes from her live studio performances of some of her biggest hits, like “I Know Where I’ve Been” from “Hairspray” and “He’s a Rebel,” which was released under the Crystals moniker despite featuring none of its members. Listening to these songs reminds you not only how many pop hits Love shouldered, but also how few times she was directly credited for her efforts.
Love is an intoxicating presence with a hearty laugh. Both are tools she needs to wield when sharing her most painful memories. She freely recounts her two youngest sons’ incarcerations (she has three sons in total), her failed relationship with Righteous Brothers singer Bill Medley, and other personal tribulations. That doesn’t mean Love bears it all; she knows how to use humor to deflect Arvich from going deeper. But boundaries don’t mean she wants a hagiographic portrait of you. Love is actually quite brave in what she does share, a kind of courage that makes it easy to see why she possessed the stamina to return to the music industry after hearing “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” on the radio as she scrubbed floors as a cleaning woman.
If you’ve been living under a rock and don’t know who Darlene Love is, Avrich’s heartwarming film about her will make you appreciate that we’ve all lived under her tenacity and talent and heard her voice fill our days.
Maiken Baird’s “Edward Said: Between Worlds” reminds one that the oppression of the Palestinian people hasn’t been a recent phenomenon. It traces back to 1947 and has only grown more dire since. And while it’s become far more common today to openly support Palestine’s liberation, it wasn’t always that way. For nearly all of Edward Said’s adult life, he batted away Zionist slings to become a necessary conduit between America’s anti-Arab fears and the plight of his homeland through his appearances on broadcast television, his work as a speaker, writer, and thinker. Baird’s film is an essential primer for those who want to know about Said.
On its face, Baird might seem like an odd directorial match for this subject matter. She’s previously helmed “Ghislaine Maxwell: Filthy Rich” and “Venus and Serena.” But her career as a producer tells a different story with credits like “All That’s Left of You,” “Orwell 2+2=5,” “The White House Effect,” and the Academy Award-winning documentary “Icarus.” Her sweep through Said’s life and work is as effective as the heights of those films. She weaves in archival interviews, excerpts from his writings, and his appearances in documentaries, on the nightly news, and in talk-show spots to intertwine his remarkable story with Palestine’s dire history.
Though it’s been decades since his 2003 death from Leukemia, Said remains an engaging speaker. He eloquently explains his perpetual otherness. He’s a man whose parents hailed from Jerusalem and Nazareth, and whose lived experiences span the upper echelons of American society and the middle-class spaces of the Arab world. Both experiences shaped him. Baird traces Said’s leap into public thought, beginning with the publication of “Orientalism,” approachable without being obvious.
And while you’d probably get even more context by simply reading Said, “Between Worlds” wisely doesn’t sell itself as a comprehensive one-stop-shop documentary about him. This film is meant to inspire viewers to revisit or discover his work, and it’s quite effective at that.
As I alluded to earlier, I always hope a documentary’s style matches its subject’s personality. Èlia Gasull Balada and Matteo Norzi’s “The Hummingbird Paints Fragrant Songs,” which follows Indigenous painter Sara Flores as she advocates for her Shipibo-Konibo community’s rights, is as spirited as the artist’s advocacy. The Peruvian Indigenous artist, known for her Kené textiles, has risen from modest beginnings to exhibit her work in galleries worldwide and even design items for fashion brands.
Balada and Norzi know they have an irresistible subject. Despite her diminutive height, Flores stands tall through her infectious sense of humor, the warmth she shares with her daughter, and the fire she shows when fighting outside industrialists cravenly angling to deforest the Peruvian Amazon. Because the filmmakers are so enamored with her, they perplexingly don’t explain why she’s pursuing certain partnerships. Near the beginning, for instance, she agrees to design handbags for Dior. If you didn’t know that Dior has actually set baselines to achieve sustainability in the near future, you wouldn’t understand why she’d be interested in putting her name in tandem with a fashion conglomerate.
Still, the film moves with enough narrative fluidity, accomplished through a sleek edit and Flores’ immeasurable presence, for one not to be too agitated by what isn’t fully articulated. The work also carries a late-fame bittersweetness. In the winter of her life, Flores has finally gotten the global and nationwide recognition she’s richly deserved. Seeing Flores try to maximize her newfound celebrity for widespread change is galvanizing; seeing her fight wrist pain to produce enough work to not only maintain her artistic spirit but also keep the commerce of supporting herself and her family is sobering.
The documentary takes quite a few intriguing turns with the latter hurdle. Many suspect that a jealous neighbor might’ve cursed Flores. The filmmakers don’t necessarily pursue this thread. They instead present the idea, follow her pursuit of spiritual cleansing, and then leave the subject alone. Did they ever attempt to talk to those living next door to Flores? We don’t know. But once again, Flores and the film are so committed to their aims that it’s easy to ignore what might be perceived as glaring gaps.
As Balada and Norzi wind toward filming Flores’ Lima exhibition, her first in her home country, it thankfully does become more political, passionately supporting the Indigenous force working to protect the Amazon. “The Hummingbird Paints Fragrant Songs,” a rebellious cry on behalf of an artist whose reach, ability, and political voice can’t be contained, is a lovely introduction to one of the world’s great artists.
- ‘Youth” is a Portrait of Midlife That’s Anything But Mid (September 18, 2026)
The first episode of Sharon Horgan’s “Youth” opens with a montage of significant women thriving in middle age—Maya Angelou, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill—accompanied by a voiceover about the importance of the menopausal and post-menopausal years. “No decade moves faster than 50 to 60,” the narration says. “You have to make every second of your time count.”
Cut to Alex, a woman in her fifties who’s currently spending every second of her one wild and precious life scrolling through frivolous clips on social media. She only stops when she suddenly receives a text from her teenage son, causing her to drop her phone smack on her forehead.
As a woman in her fifties, it is tempting to say that I feel seen by this sequence. But that is an inadequate way to describe what it’s like to watch Horgan, the creator of “Youth” and the actress who plays Alex, spend valuable moments of her remaining vital years getting hypnotized by videos of birds with funny haircuts and women with disastrous plastic surgery. It’s more accurate to say that I’m on the verge of calling the police on Sharon Horgan because clearly she has been illegally spying on me for the past two years (at least) and is now broadcasting the details of my existence on HBO and HBO Max.
Alex faces the pressures that weigh down so many Gen Xers who must tend to children, aging parents, and the demands of their careers while trying to figure out when, exactly, they’re supposed to find sparks of joy before the proverbial game clock expires, and it’s time to check into assisted living. Even when things are going well, Alex doesn’t entirely trust herself to recognize it. “I’ve never had it all before,” she remarks at one point. “It’s usually more like having some, or having none.”
As the season begins, Alex, a book agent living in London, is specifically grappling with her son Ruari (Aran Murphy, a physical replicant of his father, Cillian Murphy), who has impulsively decided to drop out of university and move back home; her raging narcissist of an ex-husband (Owen McDonnell), who announces that he’s moving to Canada for an acting gig, along with his much younger partner; and a job where she always feels a couple of steps behind and desperate to earn praise from her boss and closest friend Sam (Sharlene Whyte). She also tries to go on dates, including one with an eager-to-please gentleman who insists that she let him pleasure her for as long as it takes until she climaxes. “I don’t know you well enough to be selfish in bed,” Alex blurts out.
It’s a great line, written, like all of “Youth,” by Horgan, who again proves that she is an incisive, nuanced and darkly hilarious observer of human behavior, especially when that behavior is exhibited by frazzled women on the verge of nervous breakdowns. She has done this before in series such as “Catastrophe” and “Bad Sisters.” But “Youth” should cement her status as TV’s premier chronicler of the upper-middle-class, middle-aged female experience.
Other series have obviously focused on characters like Alex and their concerns about aging, sex, parenting and pursuing their ambitions, but few have done it with such intelligence and verve. Horgan holds up a mirror to the experience of 21st-century mature womanhood, then whips out a microscope so we can see the most discomfiting parts up close. “Youth” is the kind of show that “And Just Like That…” wanted to be, but didn’t have the courage or audacity to become. You could also, perhaps, say the same thing about “Divorce,” the underrated HBO series that starred Sarah Jessica Parker and initially felt like a follow-up to “Sex & the City” before the official one came along. “Divorce,” by the way, was created by … Sharon Horgan.
While “Youth” sometimes uses hyperbole for comedy, its details ring so true that it can be both pleasurable and painful to watch. The dynamic between Alex and Ruari veers between loving and completely distant; often, he doesn’t take out his earbuds long enough to hear what his mother just said to him, which, if you have a college-aged child, is so relatable it leaves bruises in its wake. One of Alex’s former boyfriends, Patrick (Rupert Friend at his most charming), also becomes a central character; his chemistry with Horgan is charged and absolutely lovely. Their relationship reminds us that even grown adults can still relate to each other like the middle school kids they still secretly are, talking past each other instead of communicating more directly.
Patrick: “I don’t want to be an added stress in your life. You have a lot of things to concentrate on.” Alex: “So you think I’m being a bad parent.” Patrick: “How did you hear that with what I just said?” (Note: I totally understand how she heard that.)
While the general milieu of “Youth” may be familiar, some moments feel a little groundbreaking. In the third episode, Alex suddenly gets her period after not having menstruated for a full year, which convinced her that her cycle had definitively ended. (Menopause: it’s always full of surprises!) The series actually shows Alex discovering that she’s bleeding again, which may be a small detail but comes across as revelatory in a cultural landscape where menopause talk still unfolds mostly in whispers.
Concerned, Alex messages an online menopause forum. After explaining that she is having heavy bleeding after no periods for a year, she types: “Is that normal/a worry/cancer?”
Which captures exactly what it’s like to be a woman of a certain age in an era where we have access to so much digital information, yet still can’t always find the answers we seek. We want to know if everything is normal/a worry/cancer, and we also want to make sure every second of our time counts.
Seven of season one’s eight episodes were screened in advance for critics.
- One Final Day at an Old Cinema - 'Concessions' Indie Comedy Trailer (September 21, 2026)
"Who's even going to remember this place?" Magenta Edge Films revealed their official trailer for an indie film titled Concessions, another amusing love letter to a dying cinema and the patrons who don't want to leave. Also this year there's an Irish film titled Once Upon a Time in a Cinema set at a cinema, and last year there was the The Regulars set in London's old Prince Charles Cinema. From writer/director Mas Bouzidi, Concessions premiered at the 2025 Edinburgh Film Festival last year and arrives in the US to watch this fall (in limited theaters and on VOD). As the Royal Alamo Cinema closes its doors for good; the jaded staff, eccentric patrons, and an unhinged manager stumble through one last night at the movies — grappling with busted dreams, bad popcorn, and hard goodbyes. This was filmed on 16mm in Suffern, NY at the Lafayette Theater (see Google Maps). The film stars the late Michael Madsen (who passed away a few months ago), Steven Ogg, Josh Hamilton, Lana Rockwell, Ivory Aquino, Ari Barkan, Rob Riordan. Looks like an amusing indie creation that's all about how iconic (or maybe not) the movie theater experience is. Enjoy. // Continue Reading ›
- Official Trailer for 'Who Is Martin Mull?' Doc About the Cult Comedian (September 21, 2026)
"Martin Mull was the absolutely of top of comedy – and that's not what he did best." Netflix has unveiled the official trailer for a documentary film titled Who Is Martin Mull?, which hopes to answer this exact question! This is ready for streaming on Netflix starting in October. Some may know him already, the rest will recognize him as "ohhhh that guy!". Dive into the storied history of fan-favorite comedic actor Martin Mull (who you may know best as Gene Parmesan) in this star-studded doc. The film traces Martin Mull's restless reinvention from smoky folk clubs to primetime sitcoms to gallery walls, told in his own words and by the friends who watched it happen, including Steve Martin, Tom Waits, David Alan Grier, and others. Musician, cult comedian, unlikely TV fixture, and acclaimed painter — Martin Mull spent his life becoming someone new all the time, and no version was ever what anyone expected. I'm intrigued by this revelation about his other creative side and how all over the place his life has been. Looks like another fascinating doc. // Continue Reading ›
- Venice 2026 Recap - 6 Worthwhile Films to Watch From the Festival (September 21, 2026)
"He should be my film's protagonist." Time for a final recap. Each year, I am lucky for the opportunity to return to the splendid city of Venice in Northern Italy to attend the Venice Film Festival and catch the latest films premiering there. Unfortunately the selection at Venice 2026 was a huge disappointment - there were so few good films to talk about, that I can only really highlight these 6 films below worthy of being watched. The last few years were much better, but this year not a single film wowed me. This was my 10th year returning to Venice, and I'm always happy to be back, no matter how the films turn out (good or bad – it's fun to be there and watch everything). In total, I viewed 32 films during Venice this year. The Golden Lion winner (Woman Unknown) was not one of my favorite of the fest by a long shot, however the Grand Prix runner up Possible Love is the one that actually should've won instead. I'm depressed by just how bad the line-up was! Nonetheless, I still want to mention my 6 favorites from Venice 2026 anyway. I always do my best to watch as many films as I can, hoping to find any hidden gems and breakout hits amid the debuts. // Continue Reading ›
- Final Get Your Tickets Now 'Street Fighter' Promo Trailer + References (September 21, 2026)
"Three, two, one... fight!" Paramount Pictures has revealed one final "Tickets on Sale" trailer for the Street Fighter video game action movie arriving in theaters next month. This is looking like it could actually be one of the best video game movies we'll ever see – staying true to the iconic Street Fighter series of video games and what makes them so iconic to play. We posted the awesome full trailer back in April and second trailer earlier this month + a behind-the-scenes promo. From director Kitao Sakurai, this video game action movie lands in theaters October 2026. Street Fighters Ryu & Ken reunite when Chun-Li recruits them for the World Warrior Tournament. As they face a hidden conspiracy, they must confront each other and their past – or face destruction. The huge cast: Noah Centineo as Ken Masters, Andrew Koji as Ryu, Jason Momoa as Blanka, Roman Reigns as Akuma, Callina Liang as Chun-Li, Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson as Balrog, Andrew Schulz as Hibiki, David Dastmalchian as M. Bison, Cody Rhodes as Guile, Vidyut Jammwal as Dhalsim, Eric André as Don Sauvage, Orville Peck as Vega, Olivier Richters as Zangief, Mel Jarnson as Cammy, Hirooki Goto as E. Honda, Rayna Vallandingham as Juli. This new trailer highlights many real video game techniques & moves that are replicated in the movie. I'm ready! Bring it on. // Continue Reading ›
- Totally Crazy New Horror Trailer for 'Slayground' from Jeremy Saulnier (September 21, 2026)
Whoa! What do we have here?! Horror fans - don't skip over this preview. A24 has unveiled a surprise teaser trailer for a movie now titled Slayground, a Halloween haunted house horror movie from acclaimed genre filmmaker Jeremy Saulnier (of Blue Ruin, Green Room, Hold the Dark, Rebel Ridge). This secret teaser started playing in theaters this past weekend - everyone was surprised because this new title is so new it is not even listed online anywhere. Written & directed by Saulnier, the film was initially titled October, but since it won't release this October and A24 didn't want to wait until next year, they gave it a new title. It's still due out in theaters sometime soon this fall. Starring Chase Sui Wonders, Sophie Wilde, Stephen Root, Imogen Poots, Matty Matheson, Young Mazino, with Macon Blair. Details on what's going on are rather vague – but this trailer (and the sneaky viral website) is filled with CCTV footage of people going through a crazy scary Halloween haunted house. Maybe all the scares in there are actually real? It's run by a demon? There's also a reveal of a uber gnarly villain character at the end of this footage - check it out below. // Continue Reading ›
