Reviews

One of the best surprises of VIFF for me. Foreigner was funny and sharp, and explored Yasi's feelings about immigrating to Canada and trying to fit in in a new, fresh, and very entertaining way. This movie was camp, fun, and great to watch with a crowd

It had me in the first half. I think the story was interesting, and certainly one I hadn't seen before, but after a while it started to feel less intentional and more repetitive in it's messages and scenes. I really wanted it to come together in the end, but it came up a bit short for me.

Osm

Looks pretty and Josh O'Connor is good, but it's Boring.

Mean Girls Meet Carrie! Clever and entertaining but I’m still haunted by Yasi. The best thing about this movie was the relationships between Jasmine and her Grandmother and her Father. The new take on the old themes added to the entertainment value because I didn’t know where it was going. I gave it an 8 because it still haunts me, like they’re real and living in Vancouver somewhere.

Incredible suspense and horror series with supernatural creatures, very original and full of unreasonable and neurotic characters on the verge of a mental breakdown who try to live as if nothing had happened, surrounded by

Excellent series with young and adult protagonists, an excellent saga with multiple protagonists and incredible plot twists with the best character developments and epic and glorious deaths

One of the most entertaining and confusing series you'll ever see. You may have to watch it several times, but it's totally worth it. You could say it's one of the best series of this century.

The most fascinating war is never between armies, but between ordinary people. One Battle After Another understands (and exploits) this. Every scene is perfect choreography of guilt, desire, and politics, conducted with the precision of a maestro who knows his way around every instrument.
Jonny Greenwood’s score speaks for itself. His music heightens the tension and goes a step beyond, it's not just accompanying the action; it commands it. Every note aligns with a glance, a gesture, a movement, orchestrating a cold war between every character's interaction.
The characters, too, are unforgettable. Lockjaw (Sean Penn) who, by the way, is the film’s true star, embodies the hypocrisy of the political right (conservative, as an insult). The rest, Perfidia (Teyana Taylor), Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio), Willa (Chase Infiniti), and the “Christmas Adventurers” (a social-media-safe version of the Ku Klux Klan), orbit him like choir children in a distorted mass.
The story’s rebellious composition, though laced with humor (or perhaps because of it), carries a razor-sharp social commentary. The film dares to portray a society that uses morality as disguise and desire as weapon, and it points the finger directly at the viewer as the first culprit. Is it a conservative film or a liberal one? Perhaps it’s both, or maybe it’s just a way of scandalizing our compulsion to categorize everything.
Humor (as a coping mechanism) seems to be the only way to speak about what truly matters. In One Battle After Another, certain dialogues steep their way into the unconscious, allowing us to laugh at things that would otherwise be unforgivable. When addressing racism and sexual violence, for instance, phrases like “semen demon” and “sperm thief” create the illusion that the script knows its best defense is self-parody.
The subplot about immigrants arrives as an unlikely (but brilliant) detour. The sequence at the sensei’s house feels almost like a hidden film within the film, one that presses directly on the open wound of America’s most pressing sociopolitical and economic issues.
To balance out the film’s early liberal leanings (or perhaps to further confuse us about its stance toward the world) comes the portrayal of the abandoning woman. This overused archetype finds a dystopian tone, where Perfidia becomes neither victim nor heroine, but rather a kind of hypocrite (very on-point with the rest of this film's characters).
For the first time in a while, drugs serve a narrative purpose. Bob’s (Leonardo DiCaprio) excessive marijuana use leads to a payoff when he can’t remember crucial passwords, raising the stakes while offering much-needed comic relief.
One Battle After Another is a film unafraid of excess, filled with social commentary, uneasy laughter, melodrama, and satire. In the end, it becomes a grand choral piece about the simultaneous wars fought every single day.
Original Title: One Battle After Another
Year: 2025
Duration: 161 minutes
Country: United States
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Screenplay: Paul Thomas Anderson, Thomas Pynchon
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Chase Infiniti
Music: Jonny Greenwood
Cinematography: Michael Bauman
Production Company: Ghoulardi Film Company
Genre: Thriller, Crime, Drama
Synopsis: When their evil enemy resurfaces after sixteen years, a group of former revolutionaries reunites to rescue the daughter of one of their own.

The film jumps around between unrelated stories, but the structure feels like it will naturally resolve to mix them at some point. You wait and wait for it to happen, but it never does, which feels like a missed opportunity. Still, the individual stories are compelling and they contrast different aspects of how immigrants go through life in Canada decades after moving to their new country. The acting in all four stories is great, but the script relies too much on the sentimental instead of trying something new.

Está película es buena la mire con mis hermanitos y se divirtieron mucho la recomiendo 200% no se arrepentiran.

A solid sports drama with some good performances and excellent hockey scenes. It stumbles a bit in the first act with repetition, but once the story really gets rolling I had no complaints. It won't break any boundaries, but Youngblood is an enjoyable watch

Me encanta esta película es muy interesante y llena de emociones

Technically, I think it's excellent and has very good ideas about how to tell a story, using resources that were very innovative at the time it was filmed. But Woody Allen's self-adulation is tremendous.

The female characters are all reduced to clichés and only contribute sex to his life. They are foolish, empty, unable to drive or kill an insect... they fulfill absolutely every stereotype of machismo.

And that is the perspective that Woody or his character (basically the same thing) has about women, and it is normal for the time, especially in the United States of the 1970s, but it is so pretentious in the way it is told that it is too ridiculous.

The most impressive thing is that Woody Allen's “character” had so many partners and they put up with him. He wanted us to sympathize with him, and for me, he achieved exactly the opposite.

But anyway, it's not the worst movie in history, far from it, but I also don't understand why people consider it a masterpiece.

Harrowing and beautiful movie. A moving story about a young girl trying to do right in a world that makes it impossible to achieve a goal. Cinematography goes crazy. A simple story that has huge emotional effect. Rooster performance of the year, for sure.

Another masterpiece by Tasha Hubbard!
Meadowlarks, inspired by the 2017 NFB documentary Birth of a Family, was extremely convincing as a drama.
Tasha and her co-writer were very creative, they did not copy the characters of the documentary. They created entirely new characters to reflect a diversity of lived experiences by Sixties Scoop surivors. Of course, I was fond of the Flemish character in the film, who in the script lives in Antwerp, Belgium.
The actors, particularly Michael Greyeyes, were convincing. And the film is not a sob story. Despite the cruel background of Canadian history, there was a lot of humour in the film, which audiences at the 2025 Vancouver Int'l Film Festival appreciated by audible laughter.
I will remain a fan of Tasha Hubbard's oevre.
__VIFF 2025 film No. 4--

close enough welcome back 2005-2015 era woody allen

5-year old I-Jing’s innocent and playful point of view leads us into the adult world of complicated family relationships in this touching and funny coming of age gem. The kind of film I love!

VIFF2025

PS. Intimate iPhone cinematography?! Iconic natural performances? Impeccable comedic timing matched with heart wrenching punches? A charming child performer stealing the audiences hearts?? The Shih-Ching Tsou + Sean Baker duo have crafted another indie home run for the ages!!!

This is a polarizing movie. I loved how Luca approached this topic of assault and accountability. I'm still puzzling over this one. Visually, I adored this. I don't know what Luca puts into his shots, but I find them all utterly captivating. His creative choices are ambitious, flamboyant, and admirable. Luca doesn't take a side, here. He exposes the hypocrisy of all characters; there's no hero or villain. It's a movie about pain, getting over trauma, and the consequence of action. I can't wait to rewatch it. Luca's done it again. A brilliant and mature film.