celluloid consommé

The second installment in this expansive science fiction series comes to the States on Blu-Ray and DVD. Box and disc art photo courtesy of Well Go USA. Frant Gwo’s prequel-as-sequel to 2019’s  The Wandering Earth  takes us back a bit to show how those giant engines got built in time to navigate an entire planet away from a rapidly approaching sun. And although those who have seen the first film know the results, the journey to get there gets filled in with multiple threads of people facing a devastating series of losses and setbacks. Gwo’s approach remains the same as the previous film in that it may have a long and unwieldy runtime but manages to fill it with stories engaging enough to populate multiple movies’ worth, however it fits within the enormous scope set by the 2019 film’s precedent. It’s Chinese event cinema at its absolute apex in  Wandering Earth II , and is the first time a film from the series has been available physically in North America. Video Press ente...

  “Who’s the monster?” Kore-eda Hirokazu has always been a filmmaker who zeroes in on snapshots of lives being lived. He explains himself how the viewers could imagine what happened before and after, and while he might not necessarily call his previous films storytelling, some will respectfully disagree. For  Monster , Kore-eda collaborates with screenwriter Sakamato Yuji for the first time, melding their similar styles together in perfect symbiotic cohesion. Sakamoto’s characters and dialogue make us feel like Kore-eda’s presence in the blueprints reverberates through as if it were one voice. In many ways their fruitful collaboration mirrors the subjects of  Monster , two separate individuals whose passion unites them, however unlikely it may seem. Mugino Minato is a young boy raised by his mother Saori, some time after his father has passed. Minato is reserved and Saori often finds him hard to read. During the opening of the film, a blaze destroys an entire building jus...

  New York City houses one of the oldest teaching hospitals in the US, the Mount Sinai Hospital. In it, there are a multitude of programs designed to aid healthcare workers and those in training for spiritual care. In a residency during the height of New York’s state of emergency, Margaret “Mati” Engel works tirelessly to tend to patients facing their own mortality, providing comfort where the medical staff cannot. Mati takes time to hear each patient’s experiences and fears for their immediate future and present while offering personal and spiritual peace. But this comes at a cost to her own mental and physical capacities, and Mati’s own internal struggles with religion come into question once she sees how dire the portrait of humanity has become. Leading the residency at this time is Rev. David Fleenor, who has taken charge of meeting with each member in residence to check in on their progress with patients they meet with regularly. He leads group discussions meant to focus every...