celluloid consommé

  Micro Budget   is less a comedic mockumentary than it is a thoroughly demented behind-the-scenes special feature for a disaster movie that doesn’t exist. Directed by Morgan Evans and written by himself and Patrick Noth (who also stars as the director), the comedy film uses conventions from Christopher Guest’s brand of filmmaking and workplace sitcoms with a hint of Tim Robinson-esque humor to propel it. Evans and Noth weave in plenty of jokes throughout the film, assuring that if this one doesn’t work, the next one will. Terry (Noth) directs a dream movie of his about a meteor cratering the earth in a deadly impact on Toronto. The behind-the-scenes feature chronicles every single thing that goes on behind the camera, for better or worse. There’s a few things going on here: the surface-level  Office -type verité shooting style and delivery, the character study of each member of the film’s talent and production crew, and the movie-within-a-movie itself. The former’s effec...

Yuen Woo-Ping has had a chokehold on audiences since his first film credit. He started his career on Ng See-Yuen’s  The Bloody Fists  blocking fight choreography in 1972. Woo-Ping’s work stood out against an otherwise ordinary period martial arts from the 2nd unit director of  The Chinese Boxer , See-Yuen himself marking his debut on  Fists.  But Woo-Ping’s career catapulted from there. His style of staging fights on camera evolved over time, incorporating more balletic movements and wire work to combine with what some call “shapes” in fight choreography, particularly the use of animal styles and some exaggerated movements designed for the screen. Working closely with the physical portion of martial arts in filmmaking has put Woo-Ping in a critical position to direct them. His name has become synonymous with the genre for this reason. With his first feature since 2018’s  Master Z: Ip Man Legacy , Woo-Ping has brought back his signature fluid style in a new ...

Leticia Jorge and Ana Guevara’s meditation on mortality and legacy creates something beyond revisiting the twilight slice of love, recaptured to experience one last time.  Don’t You Let Me Go   illustrates what feminine love feels like without the need for things to be expressed aloud simply because a film audience is present. Their writing allows the performances of Chiara Hourcade’s Adela, Eva Dans’s Luci, and especially Vicky Jorge’s Elena to show us what unconditional love is between women — whether it’s connected by blood or a found family that supports each other. At the start of the film, Elena has passed away, her family and friends filing in to see each other. While Adela seems put together during the wake, she still juggles between disjointed conversations and arguments within the austere meeting areas made to look like hellish waiting rooms. At one point, she finds herself fielding an issue with the family’s polite animosity towards the hosts using a room where a la...