- Locarno 2026: Nowhere To Lay My Eyes, At Night, Nobody’s Violence (August 15, 2026)
In these dispatches I often talk about themes naturally arising or not arising at all between films. Well, the throughline between these trio of titles couldn’t be clearer: They all thoroughly contemplate death and mortality. Two of the films are from veterans while a third one is a filmmaker’s feature directorial debut—though to be sure the latter has plenty of experience as a decorated shorts filmmaker too. Nevertheless, they all, to some extent, rebel against easy definitions, attempting to approach their weighty subject with the necessary rigor and complexity.
Leisurely yet profound, with “Nowhere to Lay My Eyes,” which had its world premiere in the festival’s Concorso Internazionale section, the multi-hyphenate auteur Hong Sang-soo offers one of his most existential works yet. The compact film, which netted Hong Best Director at Locarno, follows Sang-hee (Kim Min-hee, who won Best Actress at the fest), an experimental filmmaker venturing to Jeju Island with her younger brother to visit their mother (Choi Myung-gil) after a decade of geographic estrangement. While there she meets her mother’s new husband (Kwon Hae-hyo), who also happens to be a filmmaker. Contained within the familiar set-up are scenes well-known to any Hong fan: dinner table conversations, introspective thoughts about art, and ruminative walks—which are granted newer, arresting dimensions here.
Hong spends much of this melancholic film contemplating how art reflects death and mortality. For one, there’s Sanghee’s short films, one about a flower that we see at the picture’s conclusion, which appear to take comfort in life’s impermanence. The other cinematic end of this exploration resides in Sanghee’s stepfather, who explains that he’s spent two years filming a burial ritual called a “grass tomb,” whereby families place their loved one’s body above ground for it to decompose enough to polish the bones and then have the funeral. The description of the ceremony causes one to consider our imperfect relationship with death, and how senses of loss and acceptance that are equally hard to grasp.
Hong packs even more onto these themes: he contrasts the benefits of love and solitude, the ethics of documentary filmmaking with fictional dramas, and the war between Palestine and Gaza (though one wonders how much of this scene is meant to be didactic or probing). Throughout it all, he once again conjures patient performances from his actors; Kim and Kwon are especially fantastic at instilling rich inner lives to match these philosophical figures. Here Hong’s exacting compositions also feel less spontaneous and more planned, as though he knows he needs visual precision for such weighty talks to land. And while “Nowhere to Lay My Eyes,” in its quiet command of our mortal fears might suggest a slowing down of sorts, in reality, Hong Sang-soo is charging ahead with great intensity.
Beatrice Gibson’s assured feature debut “At Night” is a pensive picture fascinatingly set on a hypnotic Parisian night whose dreaminess belies the urgency of the film’s curiosity. For one, “At Night” understands the urban beauty of low-lit streets and rumbling transportation in a way that recalls Chantal Akerman’s “News from Home,” a film by a transplanted artist similarly consumed by the rootlessness of their life. Unlike that film, the correspondence isn’t between the filmmaker and her mother, but between six women, who share long debates at bars, in grocery stores, at bus stops, and on trains.
It’s on the latter where the film, which premiered in the festival’s Cineastí del Presente sidebar, begins. A static shot sitting high above train tracks watches as the locomotive barrels ahead. On the train is a British filmmaker director named B (played by Gibson), who is sending a voicemail to her partner back home. She explains that’s she arrived in Paris to location scout and misses her greatly. B’s story is later paralleled and then contrasted with Didi (Diocouda Diaoune), a single mother and Black immigrant unafraid of getting into rich political discussions. We oscillate between these two arcs whose orbits sometimes spin toward a few other women, which culminates in an incredible café discussion about sex, lesbianism, intersectional feminism, and aging. The ten-minute scene is nearly unbroken, relying on cutting whip pans to leap between perspectives. That immersive camera movement, coupled with dizzying, tactile 16mm photography of the florescent glow emanating from windows and the warmth of halogen streetlights reminds one that Ben Rivers shot this picture.
If the visual poetry weren’t enough, Gibson also includes specks of literal poetry as well, opening the film with a quote from the recently deceased poet Alice Notley and including a recording of her poem The Descent of Alette. Gibson, who previously premiered her short films “I Hope I’m Loud When I’m Dead” and “Two Sisters Who Are Not Sisters” at Rotterdam, experimental works whose abstractions buck against conventional plotting, re-states her interest in mood and ideas over story. That isn’t to say “At Night” is meandering. It’s quite laser focused. In fact, “At Night” is so fiercely independent in its construction and voice, it’s easy to slip into its open thoughts and soulful rhythms in a bid to grasp something on the edge of undefinable.
A Locarno and Berlinale veteran, Canadian independent filmmaker “Denis Côté (“Curling” and “A Skin so Soft”) returns to the former’s Concorso Internazionale with his latest work, “Nobody’s Violence,” a high-concept, slow-burn existential thriller about an atypical, hired gun. For one, Mira (Larissa Corriveau), the roving, stoic woman who moves from town to town with her tiny pup Mario, doesn’t carry a firearm or really any weapon. She also isn’t out to kill bad guys. Instead, she works for a company that sends loners like her to help with assisted suicides for those with terminal conditions. Harrowing and elusive, her narratively intriguing sojourns disappointingly soon give way to more conventional genre angst.
Before that misstep, what’s here is actually quite exciting. Côté spends much of the film’s first half avoiding giving answers. We instead follow Mira on her many jobs which moves between apprehensive clients who areeager to compassionately end it all. There’s one elderly woman who wants her hand held as she passes away and another young woman Mira meets in a car in a parking lot with six months to live. In between these jobs she finds some emotional release by playing with her dog and spending a day with the free-spirited Pierric Flanagan (Xavier Bergeron). Of course, not every experience goes smoothly: In one traumatic situation the grieving brother of the man who hired her verbally attacks her, causing her to question her profession. While one would think that soul-shaking moment would invite “Nobody’s Violence” to remain an elusive character study, Côté unfortunately moves the opposite direction.
He disavows the mysteriousness of his picture, which relied on brooding close-ups of an evocative Corriveau and dreamlike excursions shot handsomely on 16mm by Vincen Biron, for something more defined. The more answers he provides, the more magic his picture loses. “Nobody’s Violence” veers toward conventionality when Mira returns to her home base under the dogmatic eye of an unforgiving boss (Philippe Rebbot) intent on giving her further assignments rather than allowing her to mentally recalibrate. While this turn does set up a heartbreaking dilemma for her final mission, it feels like a bait-and-switch from the more morally complex questions the film gestures at in its first half—causing “Nobody’s Violence” to lose itself during its crawl back toward the familiar middle.
- Regina Taylor to Perform “Exhibit” at Atlanta Black Theatre Festival (August 15, 2026)
Audience members attending the main stage performance on closing night of the Atlanta Black Theatre Festival are in for a serious treat. At 7 pm on Saturday, September 5th, Golden Globe-winning actress, director, and playwright Regina Taylor will perform her own one-woman show, Exhibit, at the festival, aiming not only to involve theatergoers directly in its urgent subject matter but also to serve as a call to community. Taylor plays Iris, an African-American visual artist in her sixties who fears that her life’s work is on the brink of vanishing.
“Her work is being thrown out of the museums and galleries,” said Taylor. “Her books are being banned. Her name is being erased from the databases. And she’s confronted with the fear of erasure. This triggers her to think about the America that she grew up with—where we are now, where we were then—and it seems like we’re meeting at a crossroads. Are we moving forward or are we moving back? And what do we do? How do we adapt? It seems that over and over, our superpower as African-Americans has been the ability to adapt, to pass on a legacy, memory, or history to the next generation, and to light those fires.”
Regina Taylor performs her one-woman show, Exhibit. Courtesy of Theater Aspen.
In the play, Iris is approached by a young African-American curator who wants to save the artist’s legacy. She thinks that Iris’ symbolic black-on-black paintings would be a perfect fit for the museum, and could be placed alongside the works of artists like Picasso and Monet. Yet what gives Iris pause is the museum’s wish to not have the artist’s name on the pieces in her own retrospective. When Iris asks how one’s legacy is expected to survive without context, the curator points out, “Well, people know a Picasso when they see one!” Iris counters, “Until those who know are no more.”
“The play came out of living day to day in this present moment, being of a certain age and knowing what we’ve been through before to get to this moment,” noted Taylor. “Now it feels like things are being rolled back, and where’s the pushback to that? Exhibit premiered three years ago as part of the Solo Flights Festival in Aspen, and was directed by Phylicia Rashad. Since then, I’ve been dotting the country, doing the show at various venues. The piece was written so that it could be done anywhere and built to travel, though it has some accoutrements in terms of technology and video. I kind of based it on Spalding Gray’ Swimming to Cambodia, where you have a person with a script and projected images behind him that takes you from place to place.”
Regina Taylor performs her one-woman show, Exhibit. Courtesy of Curious Theatre.
Taylor will be performing Exhibit at Spelman College’s performing arts center funded by Samuel L. Jackson and LaTanya Richardson Jackson. As a direct address to the audience, the show invites each person in the theater to be Taylor’s scene partner as her character discovers new ways for telling her story. Iris’ experimentation with different forms of art inspired Taylor to create artworks of her own, some of which are on display on stage or in the lobby during a performance. Talkbacks are regularly scheduled after the show with teachers, students, or community leaders to open up a conversation about how people are addressing the times.
Taylor is also inviting artists to collaborate with her show by submitting their own artwork (spoken word, music, visual arts, etc.), which will be shared either onsite/in person or online. To submit artwork of your own, email Taylor at reginataylored@gmail.com.
“Theatre invites different communities to come together and share stories about who we are and where we came from,” reflected Taylor. “The audience then becomes the vessels of memory to carry those stories onward after the lights have gone out.”
Regina Taylor will perform Exhibit at 7 pm on Saturday, September 5th, at the Atlanta Black Theatre Festival (for tickets, click here), and will host an acting master class at 11 am on Friday, September 4th (for tickets, click here).
- HBO’s “Lanterns” Anchors Superhero Storytelling to Human Condition (August 14, 2026)
The highly anticipated “Lanterns” drops on HBO at an interesting time for the DC Universe. 2025’s “Superman” was a critical and commercial smash, a sign that maybe new head James Gunn was steering this ship in the right direction, but 2026’s “Supergirl” was a disaster, and audiences seem a bit skeptical that “Clayface” is what the franchise needs right now. Gunn is hard at work on 2027’s “Man of Tomorrow,” but the future of these films still feels a bit uncertain.
However, superhero fiction has taken a different shape on HBO with the well-liked “Peacemaker,” critical darling “The Penguin” (not technically part of Gunn’s purview, but associated in people’s minds), and now this weekend’s “Lanterns,” a project co-created by Damon Lindelof, who has proven he can shape this kind of material in a special way with the incredible “Watchmen.” The “Lost” and “The Leftovers” co-creator collaborates here with Chris Mundy and comic book writer Tom King to deliver the confident, engaging “Lanterns,” a show that, befitting its characters who can create something out of thin air, is never quite what you think it’s going to be.
Reportedly inspired by “True Detective” and “Slow Horses,” HBO’s “Lanterns” is a time-jumping mystery, a show that moves from 1996 to 2016 to 2026. The bulk of the first season takes place in that middle period, where we meet Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) and John Stewart (Aaron Pierre), the nation’s Green Lantern and possibly the next to hold that title, respectively. A former test pilot, Jordan was chosen by the Green Lantern Corps to be the interstellar peacekeeper that the Earth needs, but this vision of Hal isn’t your typical hero. Reportedly inspired by Sam Shepard’s work in “The Right Stuff,” Chandler gives Jordan the kind of deep cynicism that comes from being an underappreciated savior of the universe. We’ve seen this kind of character a lot recently as the cost of heroism has been refracted through shows like “Watchmen” and “The Boys,” but Chandler leans into his grounded screen presence well. Strangely enough, there are echoes of Eric Taylor from “Friday Night Lights” in this performance, as if Coach suddenly had to go from training young men to saving their lives: A blend of pride and exhaustion.
Lanterns (HBO Max)
That pride is challenged by the very existence of a Green Lantern recruit by his side. In the premiere, Jordan puts Stewart through the motions, sending his car off the cliff so John will use the ring to save himself at the last second. He’s essentially hazing Stewart, but what becomes one of the most interesting throughlines of season one is what’s underneath that behavior: A concern that Stewart isn’t an alternate; he’s a replacement. This creates a rivalry between these two very different performers that gives “Lanterns” most of its juice through their arcs toward the title Green Lantern. Jordan was chosen, but Stewart had to fight his way to this opportunity, something that’s explored in the context of race in the show’s third episode. The story around Jordan is that he was chosen because he was fearless, a word that means something different to young Black men in this country. Some of the writing in this episode can be a bit leaden (a problem that hampers more chapters here than in the superior “Penguin” and “Watchmen”), but it does speak to the show’s ambition.
That’s also reflected in the arc of the season, which can’t be spoiled here, but doesn’t play out as anyone will expect. Main arcs that one would think would last till the finale wrap up, time periods get jumped, character goals shift—it’s not as ambitious as something like “Watchmen,” but it’s not your typical season-long storytelling either, which keeps “Lanterns” remarkably unpredictable.
What is “Lanterns” about beyond its conflicted dynamic duo? In the 2016 bulk of the series, it’s a mystery about a shooting in Rushville, Nebraska that Jordan becomes convinced involves interstellar visitors. Why are they there? What are they looking for in the heartland of America? It brings Jordan and Stewart into the world of a lawwoman named Kerry (the excellent Kelly Macdonald), who becomes the grounded, small-town law counterpart to the interstellar chaos. She’s also a love interest for Jordan, even if she’s married to the town’s prince, Billy Macon (Jason Ritter), son of cowboy magnate William Macon (Garret Dillahunt), who clearly knows a thing or two about what’s going on in Rushville. He speaks elusively of his benefactor, a being that’s pulling the strings. We also meet William’s wife Zoe (Poorna Jagannathan), who’s a love interest for Stewart, and Ulrich Thomsen gets to snarl through a few appearances as the legendary Sinestro, while Nathan Fillion gets a few scenes that directly connect “Lanterns” to his turn as Guy Gardner in Gunn’s “Superman.”
Lanterns (HBO Max)
The writing on “Lanterns” ties character to plot, keeping us engaged in why Stewart and Jordan make the choices they do as much as the impact they have on the mysteries that shape them. It helps to have a cast eager to embrace character more than superpower, as Chandler and Pierre have done the detailed work often lacking from CGI-heavy MCU and DCU experiences. In many ways, “Lanterns” is an old-fashioned buddy action comedy given the remarkably different registers of Chandler and Pierre. The writers allow Chandler to be abrasively instinctual, the kind of guy who shoots first and asks questions later, while Pierre leans into a vision of Stewart informed by discipline. Jordan acts, Stewart plans. And yet there’s also tension between the two given there can be only one true Lantern. Watching these two characters figure not only each other out, but those who are pulling their strings from across the universe drives a lot of season one.
Some of that drive can be over rocky terrain. Given the complexity of “The Leftovers” and “Watchmen,” it’s a bit surprising to see Lindelof over-explain a few of his show’s themes this time around, although that could be under Gunn’s guidance given his work, as much as I like it, often displays a distrust that a wide audience can meet the writing halfway. There’s a version of “Lanterns” that’s a bit more elusive and interpretable than this one, which could happen in season two after the groundwork is laid.
Having said that, as an introductory outing, “Lanterns” is a success, incredibly watchable even through its flaws, and nearly heroic in its hits.
Seven episodes screened for review. Premieres on HBO on Sunday, August 16.
- The Opposite is Connection: Will Poulter and Noah Centineo on “Union County” (August 14, 2026)
Towards the end of Rian Johnson’s “Wake Up Dead Man,” Josh O’Connor’s Judd Duplenticy says of his suffering congregation, “And some got their miracle. Not being cured or fixed, but finding the sustaining power to wake up every day and do what we’re here to do.” This celebration of finding strength through community to make steady steps toward healing and betterment is a key part of what gives director Adam Meeks’ “Union County” its inspiring staying power.
Meeks’ film lends tranquility to a story of recovery, a quality usually not afforded to films of a similar ilk. Will Poulter stars as Cody Parsons, someone who was recently incarcerated and, as part of his recovery, was assigned to a county-mandated drug court program in rural Ohio. Having wrestled with opioid addiction, the film bears witness to Cody’s struggle to get back on his feet, learning to live one day at a time, even while the fear of relapse and the presence of past demons actively war against him. His foster brother, Jack (Noah Centineo), is in the same program, whose own struggles with relapse mirror Cody’s own.
A unique fixture of “Union County” is the way it was so deeply created in collaboration with the community it depicts (the best comparison I can think of recently is Greg Kwedar’s “Sing Sing”). Meeks and his team made the film in partnership with participants in an adult recovery court program in Bellefontaine in 2025. The film features real court hearings and recovery meetings, with participants being given the option to opt out on any given day if they weren’t comfortable being filmed.
Meeks intended to be “observational” rather than “impositional,” and you feel that in his and cinematographer Stefan Weinberger’s approach to filming the participants here. There are frequent close-ups, but the camera delights in holding on to the visages of these people and asking us to hold on to their humanity.
Poulter and Centineo shared the screen in “Warfare,” an intense experience that solidified their camaraderie on- and off-screen and also had thematic synergy with their roles in Meeks’ film. In an interview with assistant editor Clint Worthington, “Warfare” co-director Ray Mendoza shared that “What separates good production units or military units is, when mistakes happen, it all goes back to preparation and training. How fast can you get back on track?” This mirrors, in many ways, the slow, steady, and non-linear path towards healing that these recovery programs celebrate. The mistakes and slip-ups matter less than being willing to get back on the wagon, reset, and try again.
Ahead of the film’s release, RogerEbert.com spoke with Poulter and Centineo about viewing the courtroom as a sanctuary and a chopping block, changing the Hollywood grammar when it comes to depicting stories about recovery and addiction, and the ways their roles as Cody and Jack are in conversation with past roles in “Our Hero, Balthazar,” and “Dopesick.”
This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Both of your characters smoke quite a bit. No drag looks the same, and I’m fascinated by how your approach to smoking scenes has evolved throughout your career. How does working with a tactile prop like that, with its own rhythms, help you access your characters better?
Will Poulter: It’s interesting because my dad’s a medic, and one of his first questions to me after watching the film was “How many cigarettes did you smoke?” I was like, “Really? That’s your question?” (Laughs) It’s interesting because, with an action like smoking, my perspective is that it has to feel earned in some way, justified by a genuine element of the character, or be part of the culture they belong to; I wouldn’t want a character to do it arbitrarily.
I think of Noah and my experience on “Warfare,” and speaking to a lot of people with lived experience of serving in the military and a lot of the gentlemen that we were responsible for representing, smoking was something that was done as much to pass the time as anything else. I would assume it offered some form of stress relief, too, but often, as documented in the film, there were many idle moments when guys were just drinking tea and smoking cigarettes. Smoking was a way of feeling more proximate to the lived experience we all were simulating.
The cigarettes function in quite a different capacity in “Union County.” Smoking after meetings or after court hearings or after various elements of the recovery program was common, but there’s an almost deeper reverence for it. Obviously the folks in recovery are abstaining from substances, and so there are things that one can engage in without derailing the recovery process.
Noah Centineo: It’s about choosing which vice you’re comfortable with, if you will. Caffeine and nicotine … Those are the two common ones. If you can’t have other things, you’ll take those two. There’s something about having a prop like a cigarette that you’re able to see different people’s personalities come out. Everyone smokes differently, and you can see that in the campfire scene in particular.
Charles Melton mentioned that for “Her Private Hell,” Nicolas Winding Refn had him smoke more than 50 cigarettes in a single scene. I suppose that’s the record to beat.
WP: We may have him beat for the aforementioned campfire scene … we had to smoke a lot that day.
Photo: Leia Jospe.
When your director, Adam, stepped into the courtroom and witnessed participants go in for their check-in, it felt like a sanctuary. It was “a community of people seeking support, a handful of court employees there to help as best they could, and a pervasive feeling of empathy and the embracing of individual humanity.” I’m curious how that view, if it was communicated to you both during filming, informed the way you would operate and move in that space.
WP: Adam has an amazing way with words, and not only do I really connect with that idea, I think that’s consistent with what I observed as well. Adam often refers to this quote about sobriety from Johann Hari, who said: “The opposite of addiction is not sobriety, the opposite is connection.” What the courtroom kind of exemplifies is that idea that this is a place where folks find a sense of community, a sense of connection, and the support that folks feel in recovery is characterized by being around like-minded people who are also trying to get back on their feet and make better choices for themselves and those around them.
There is a sense of camaraderie, I think, that develops between both service providers and the participants of the program in that courtroom. I think one thing that is so beautiful about the program is that, unlike some of the more punitive and criminally weighted responses to folks who have substance abuse disorder, this is characterized by really humanizing people, taking the time to listen to people’s experiences, and finding out in a more holistic way what kind of possible support someone might need. That’s just a really beautiful response to a subject matter that is so heavily stigmatized.
People’s struggles are often responded to in a reductive way because our impressions of addiction are incredibly reductive and oversimplified. Noah got a chance to go out and spend some time and sit in on some court hearings about a year before the shooting, and it was invaluable to understanding why that is such a sanctuary, basically, how that is such a sacred space.
NC: It is very much a sanctuary for many, and it can also be a kind of chopping block.
You embody that sensibility in Jack so well, particularly in how you capture that character’s shiftiness and unease when being called up.
NC: Yeah, if you get questioned by the judge, bro, you’d be jittery. You get called up, kind of like confession, and you’re before this deity who is that all-powerful judge. If you’ve done well, atoned, done the right things, you get blessed, whether that is through receiving food stamps, bus passes, or credits. If you haven’t done well, you get punished. That’s not to say it is cruel or unusual by any means, but maybe it is further evidence that the courtroom could be a sanctuary.
Hollywood tends to over-sensationalize addiction, but there’s something about this that is so lo-fi, tender, and understated. What was rewarding about working on a story like this that operates at such a different register?
WP: It’s almost like two different sides of the same coin. One thing that I love about this film, and the reason that I really was drawn to it, was that it really challenged the stigma that is so asphyxiating when it comes to folks with substance use disorder. Within our industry, there is a responsibility to consider how we continually represent certain people and groups. Some of the stigma that exists around the subject of addiction has been proliferated by stereotypes on screen and the emphasis on negative stories when it comes to addiction. I love that “Union County” is, in many ways, a celebration of the progress and success that this program is achieving and of the participants who are committed to recovery.
This adult recovery program has a success rate of over 50%. There are 4,000 problem-solving courts across America. Many of them are focused on supporting folks with substance use disorder, but not all have this success rate.
I think the film, hopefully as much as anything else, will draw people’s attention to what the program in “Union County” is doing differently. Hopefully people will think differently when they do come into contact with someone who is experiencing addiction because I think that should encourage more grace and more empathy.
Will Poulter and Noah Centineo appear in Union County by Adam Meeks, an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Stefan Weinberger.
You’re working to change the grammar of Hollywood films for these types of stories, which can prioritize sensationalism over reality. The film feels in conversation with both of your past works. Noah, I think about your role as Anthony in “Our Hero, Balthazar,” and how that character, in seeing someone like Balthazar struggle, exploits instead of offering aid. Will, your work in “Dopesick” had your character on the opposite side of the opioid crisis from Cody. Can you speak more to the gift of being able to embody roles that feel as though they’re echoes of each other in some fashion?
NC: I think that one of the central themes in “Union County” is trust. That’s a general theme in some way with “Our Hero, Balthazar.” Anthony doesn’t have Balthazar’s trust, but if you’re going to be someone’s life coach, if you’re going to try to help someone, you would hope that there’s a little piece of trust there. I think the only trust is between Anthony and Balthasar’s mother, but Anthony abuses it to make money. Whereas, as you said, in “Union County,” this trust is very different. It is the trust between Annette Deao and the participants in the program that, I think, ultimately drives the program’s over-50 % success rate.
At the very end of the scene, when Cody is in the car and he’s tempted to use, he gets that idea: “Maybe I should call Annette.” Even if his body might find more solace in the drugs, it’s the trust that actually moves his hand to the phone. That is something that is earned throughout the film that’s not there, and I think that is the reason why Annette has had success and why these programs, as Will mentioned, there are 4,000 of them around America. It’s through this rigorous accountability, from the system holding its participants to the participants holding themselves, that trust can blossom for everyone’s benefit.
WP: I’m glad Noah brought up trust because I couldn’t agree more. Yeah, “Dopesick” was such an interesting education for me in terms of the opioid epidemic, and also I think some of the challenges that are unique to opioid addiction in respect of recovery. I think our show was weighted more toward the injustices of that epidemic, the widespread devastation it inflicted on so many people, and how, in many ways, that damage was irreparable. The lingering questions that “Dopesick” touched upon in the final episode are: “What workable treatments are there? What sort of actionable responses are there to this epidemic in the interest of recovery?”
Adam Meeks’ short film “Union County” and this full-length feature are the story that answered that question. Here was this program that was very successful, was helping folks get back on his feet and was also mindful of the fact that at its core, remained mindful of the fact that no one wakes up and decides to become addicted to heroin, that there are long and complex journeys often characterized by a situation where someone may have been reliant on medication and they were prescribed oxycodone by a doctor. We heard that repeatedly in our time sitting in drug court and within the community. So I think “Dopesick” just helped me gain a sort of understanding of that kind of reality, and then I was able to approach “Union County” with a pre-baked awareness of that complexity, and ultimately end it with a semblance of hope.
“Union County” is in theaters now via Oscilloscope Laboratories.
- Locarno 2026: Objet A, Tear Gas, Fire Flower (Hanabi) (August 13, 2026)
In this first dispatch from Locarno is a trio of films one might call “elusive.” They all capture weighty, human subjects: sensuality, war, and disaster—with a visual and sonic approach that’s difficult to grasp and, sometimes, even harder to love. They are all formally provocative works, made to push the audience to its breaking point. Consequently, they’re like little I’ve seen this year, and I’m sure unlike anything I’ll watch in the coming months.
A sensual exploration of the body and senses, Ann Oren’s “Objet A” assuredly follows in the footsteps of her equally playful film “Piaffe,” a film about a woman foley artist whose surprising growth of a horse tail draws her into an S&M world.
Her latest is about two married star surgeons—Ingeborg (Aenne Schwarz) and Adam (Louis Hofmann)—who’ve risen to fame by using fungi to generate skin. In scenes that recall “Phantom Thread,” they share the same daily routine: Ingeborg prepares breakfast (boiling eggs and toasting bread) while Adam works out (he does stomach crunches and uses an exercise ball). They sit in their austere black suits reading the newspaper before heading to work, where they perform hand surgeries. With one patient, a mysterious Gaia (Simone Bucio), they remove a sixth finger growing from her fist.
Through a confluence of events—Ingeborg, a kleptomaniac, fractures her leg after stealing a gold lighter from a man, requiring her to use a steampunk stump—Gaia becomes part of the surgeons’ world. The creation of this throuple causes disarray in Ingeborg and Adam’s relationship, revealing their physical distance when it comes to their physical attraction.
See, Oren is greatly intrigued by how we express our sexual desires and gain sensual pleasure. Here, the surgeons rely on their senses: touch, smell, and feel—to arouse one another. But there’s no penetration or even kissing. By simply rubbing Adam’s collarbone, Ingeborg gains satisfaction. Upon Gaia’s arrival, however, they lose appeal for one another. Ingeborg takes to licking her leather-bound stump and flirting with Gaia, while Adam peruses a bar where a nun hangs out. The latter attraction opens the film to having a religious theme, recalling Adam and Eve, especially as Gaia begins introducing apples, moss, and even mushrooms (mostly for smelling and licking) into the couple’s home.
In the film’s most climactic scene, Ingeborg and Adam engage in a naked orgasmic fever dream led by a scene of the pair crawling through the woods and into one another’s psyches. Oren isn’t much for explanation or clear characterizations. Much like Peter Strickland, she makes evocations to the viewer’s desires and phobias throughout her films in a bid to elicit impulsive yet revealing reactions.
If some filmmakers want to make it clear that we’re watching a movie, for instance, then Oren makes it obvious that we’re watching human acts whose close relationships or sexual wants are only shown to be outlandish upon reflection. And while “Objet A,” like any of Oren’s works, could be accused of overt obliqueness, the sensorial craft on display, the committedness of the actors, and the provocative subject matter make Oren’s vision overwhelming and indelible.
The writer/director Uta Beria takes a decidedly political bent with his rebellious coming-of-age narrative “Tear Gas.” This is a harrowing film filled with nightmarish imagery and chilling sounds. It begins, almost fittingly, with a funeral. Avto (Gaga Shishinashvili) and his family are taking his deceased father to be buried over the Russian border. Avto, along with his 18-year-old daughter Elene (Taisia Eradze) and his stern mother Dali (Mzia Arabuli, “Crossing”), conversely, occupy Georgia. Like the solemn ceremony they are attending, their country and their family are on the verge of change.
Elene serves as the eyes to the oncoming upheaval. The green-haired teenager navigates the testy relationship between her parents—her father, Avto, is a cop, and her mother, Tina (Kato Kalatozishvili), is a reporter—with a similar dexterity required of her fellow citizens to work through a government that cracks down on civil disobedience via extralegal avenues. She also takes Judo classes that she doesn’t particularly care for as she regularly allows herself to be chokeheld to the point of passing out.
Like many around her, she feels as though she’s trapped in inaction. So when her grandmother and neighbors decide to attend a demonstration in Tbilisi, she does so with incredible eagerness. But when she arrives among the throng of protesters, she neither remains with her grandmother nor searches for her mother, who’s reporting on the demonstration. She instead becomes interested in a few defiant teens, particularly a young boy, who excite her.
In these protest scenes, which appear to explicate how several generations are united yet experiencing several different rebellious wants at once, Uta captures the frantic kineticism of protest. That’s because he filmed inside actual demonstrations, which grants his framing a kind of spontaneity around the many moving figures within this amorphous crowd. He also somehow grasps a poeticism, like when tear gas is thrown at Elene and her friends; Elene stumbles through the smoke as strobing lights and sounds of sirens invade the frame.
In another instance, her father Avto is silhouetted by the gas as he beats a demonstrator with his nightstick, making for a bold contrast between the oppressed and the oppressor. Uta bends these imaginative moments toward groundedness by including real archival footage of past demonstrations. The result is a double coming of age, so to speak, for a teenage girl and for a country.
Uta accomplishes this balance by sometimes cutting away from the protests for familiar beats—the locking of eyes between avarice teens—and to the search by Elene’s parents and grandmother to find her. Each actor approaches the fast-moving material with assuredness, which makes the somewhat broad ending somewhat disappointing (then again, I’m not sure how else Uta would’ve concluded this film). “Tear Gas” doesn’t necessarily offer a resounding rebellious chime in its closing minutes, but it does keenly say that the work is yet to be finished.
Of all the films I’ve watched at Locarno, the most impenetrable is Anna Vaz’s experimental essayist documentary “Fire Flower” (“Hanabi”). An adaptation of Yoko Hayasuke’s Journal of a Radioactive Brain, the film, which was assembled over the course of a decade, is a reaction to the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake that caused the Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Plant to melt down. The stream-of-consciousness narrative oscillates between a meditative narrator describing their anxieties about radioactive elements in the food they consume, the air they breathe, and the ground they walk on, and interviews with different Japanese citizens who are equally worried by the toxicity (both political and physical) around them.
Vaz further scrambles the material via an aesthetic approach that’s as resistant as the wider society that refuses to accept that they’re living through the remaining consequences of the meltdown. It’s explained that many have instead called for “unity” and nationalism rather than allowing individuals to question the safety of their environment. Consequently, in the aforementioned interviews with her subjects, images of them speaking are matched with asynchronous sound, aurally demonstrating the disconnect between their truth and the accepted “reality.”
Like a journal, the narrative is further separated by dates doubling as chapters. Many of the early chapters draw out like a blade. At one point, Vaz evocatively films a sunset for a solid six minutes, allowing the reddish orange rays to envelope the screen. She wants us to sit with these images in a way that many of her countrymen will not sit with the possibility of the presence of radioactivity in Japan. As the film progresses, the chapters get shorter, almost mirroring the kind of erosion of memory often related to the aftermath of a disaster.
Finally, Vaz also wants to remind us that we’re watching a movie. She includes emails between herself and a source named K.A. (who provides videos and photos that could act as evidence) and between herself and Hayasuke. All of these components come together for a challenging watch because it cinematically actualizes fear and vulnerability of memory and awareness, particularly when it comes to the health of one’s body and mind. The film reaches for a knowing symbolism a tad too much in the summation of its many themes, sometimes even repeating itself beyond recognition. But Vaz’s single-mindedness to explore this subject in all its complexity brings one into her spell. We become subdued and lulled into a dream that more often than not lives as a nightmare.
- First Teaser for 'Star Wars: Ahsoka' - Season 2 with Rosario Dawson (August 15, 2026)
"We're in more danger than I thought..." Lucasfilm & Disney have revealed an impressive teaser trailer for Star Wars: Ahsoka - Season 2, the continuation of this epic Star Wars series about the Togruta Jedi. The first season launched back in 2023, featuring Rosario Dawson taking on the major role of live-action Ahsoka Tano, and this next season continues January 2027. From the looks of it, this is the actual Return of the Jedi sequel, featuring massive space battles, ghost Anakin, the Empire trying to return, and much more going on in the Star Wars universe. Ahsoka Season 2 is a fitting tribute to Dave Filoni's love of the original Star Wars films and his work over the past 20 years in animation & live action. "What started as one film has grown over 5 decades into a global phenomenon." Season 2 stars Dawson as Ahsoka, who was Anakin's apprentice, with Ariana Greenblatt as a younger Ahsoka. Also stars Natasha Liu Bordizzo as Sabine Wren, Hayden Christensen as Anakin, Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Hera, Ivanna Sakhno, Rory McCann, Eman Esfandi, Jeryl Prescott Gallien as Aktropaw, and Lars Mikkelsen as Grand Admiral Thrawn. So far so good! I'm digging this footage! Might actually be worth a watch when it debuts next year. // Continue Reading ›
- Paul Bettany Returns in 'VisionQuest' Trailer - 'WandaVision' Spin-Off (August 15, 2026)
"Who am I? I was an Avenger. But I’m not a hero anymore. I have his face, but not his virtue. All I have is his name." Disney revealed the official trailer for the next MCU spin-off series VisionQuest, a continuation of the acclaimed Marvel series WandaVision from a few years ago. This first trailer was unveiled during the Marvel presentation at Disney's D23 event this weekend. This specific series follows vibranium android The Vision, played by Paul Bettany, trying to regain his memory and humanity. He's now in hiding, but when a bounty is placed on his head, Vision is forced to forge real connections and embrace found family if he's to survive. The series cast includes Bettany as Vision, James Spader as Ultron, Todd Stashwick as Paladin, Ruaridh Mollica as Tommy Maximoff, T'Nia Miller as Jocasta, plus a new cast of AI characters: Emily Hampshire as E.D.I.T.H., Orla Brady as F.R.I.D.A.Y., Henry Lewis as D.U.M.-E, Jonathan Sayer as U, and of course James D'Arcy as J.A.R.V.I.S. This actually looks pretty cool, a series about robots and AI and, well, his family? I just hope they pull off all the complex digital intermingling. Welcome home, Vision. // Continue Reading ›
- Cute First Teaser for 'The Bluey Movie' Based on the Animated Series (August 15, 2026)
"Don't let it touch the ground!" Your favorite Australian pups are coming to the big screen next year! During their D23 event this year, Disney unveiled the cute first teaser trailer for The Bluey Movie. It's scheduled to hit theaters worldwide in August 2027 one year from now. Written and directed by the original creator Joe Brumm, the movie is a big screen continuation of the beloved animated children's show about dogs. The series first debuted in 2018 and became a massive hit worldwide now that it's on Disney+. The Bluey Movie is getting a slight upgrade turning them into 3D animated characters (with the same look) rather than the original 2D version. The film continues Bluey's adventures with her Mum, Dad and little sister, Bingo. The original voices of Melanie Zanetti as Chilli Heeler & David McCormack as Bandit Heeler will be back. This cute teaser doesn't show much aside from Bingo & Bluey playing a game of keepy-uppy together with a red balloon. I love this series, like everyone, and I hope this movie turns out just as delightful and uplifting. // Continue Reading ›
- Special D23 Trailer for 'Avengers: Doomsday' - Still Entirely Unexciting (August 15, 2026)
"All of you have lived stolen lives... but now you must give them back." Marvel and Disney have revealed a new hype trailer for the Avengers: Doomsday movie, hitting theaters December 2026 at the end of this year. (Same day as Dune: Part Three). The trailer comes from Disney's big D23 event, with a few new shots not seen in the full official trailer from SDCC. This crossover epic movie will bring EVERY superhero from two decades of Marvel movies together to battle the villain Doctor Doom - played by Robert Downey Jr. who has coaxed back again. The huge cast includes Chris Evans, Vanessa Kirby, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Paul Rudd, Wyatt Russell, Simu Liu, Florence Pugh, Kelsey Grammer, Lewis Pullman, Danny Ramirez, Joseph Quinn, Tom Hiddleston, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Alan Cumming, Rebecca Romijn, James Marsden, Channing Tatum, Letitia Wright, Winston Duke, Tenoch Huerta Mejía, Pedro Pascal, Ebon Moss-Bachrach & more surprises. This D23 preview has a new shot of McKellen back as X-Men villain Magneto, along with Doctor Doom raising the Sentinels. The rest is a rehash of the first full trailer. And there's still nothing exciting about it. Just close-up shots of people + some CGI backgrounds. Is this the only way they're going to market this movie?? Give me more story beats & plot points instead of the faces of every superhero. // Continue Reading ›
- Watch: 'Amziah King's' McConaughey & Patterson Talk Movie Posters (August 14, 2026)
"You will leave with more soul than you showed up with, guaranteed." Ain't that the truth! Now playing in theaters is the excellent Texas film The Rivals of Amziah King, directed by filmmaker Andrew Patterson (of The Vast of Night). As part of the final promotion, poster archive site Posteritati has debuted a video featuring of actor Matthew McConaughey and director Andrew Patterson visit their office to discuss posters. It ends with them talking about the design of the official poster for Amziah King (designed by artist Rory Martinez) but the rest of the time they discuss some of their favorite classic movie posters. Which is actually pretty cool to see cause McConaughey is also in there geeking out about all this artwork. The other posters they feature are for Spielberg's Jaws, 1933's King Kong, Leone's For a Few Dollars More, PTA's One Battle After Another. This is the second video so far from Posteritati borrowing the Criterion Closet concept - the first was with My Father's Shadow director Akinola Davies Jr. I'm really enjoying these videos more & more, because it's not just about new poster artwork, it's about what makes the classic designs so timeless and evocative. And it's exciting to see them discussed & featured all these years later. View the video below. // Continue Reading ›
