Movies, Films & Flix

I had an incredible time at TIFF, and I wanted to share my favorite films from the festival. These movies have stayed with me, and each one features something that resonated with me. Whether it’s Sung Kang directing thrilling racing scenes or the Mara sisters delivering hilarious performances, I can’t forget the films, and I hope people love them when they get wide releases.

Drifter

• Directed by – Sung Kang
• Starring – Sung Kang, Tamara Braun, Gregory Cruz

Shot in 22 days in California, Sung Kang’s ode to drift racing features the best racing I’ve seen in years. Cinematographer Bruce Thierry Cheung created inventive, breathtaking shots make Drifter look like a big-budgeted studio film. Sticking to Sylvester Stallone’s 50-year-old Rocky template (underdog succeeds). Sung Kang plays a  janitor named Tree, who moonlights as a drug courier at night for a local gangster. He spends his free time drifting around abandoned skate parks (which look amazing) in his Toyota AE86 Corolla (nicknamed Lola). Tree gets his chance to race. From there, he has to deal with gangsters, training, and racing against the best in the world. The story is simple, but the movie looks gorgeous, and you can feel how passionate Sung Kang is about drifting. Drifter is a treat, and Fast & Furious fans will love it. One of my favorite TIFF moments was the Sung Kang (and crew) Q&A following the screening because he genuinely cares for his crew and wanted to make something special.

In Alaska

• Directors – Jaap van Heusden and Vinnie Karetak
• Starring – Leo Matthew Temela, Noomi Rapace, Yin Wang, Zorga Qaunaq

Of all the films I watched at TIFF, In Alaska is the film I’ve thought about the most. The pacing isn’t great, and it takes a while to understand the film’s rhythm; however, it builds to something true and emotional. The lead character, Woody (Leo Matthew Temela), accidentally shoots a hole through an oil pipeline while trying to kill himself, and he finds himself hunted by Alaskan officials and FBI agent Susan Tarheel (Noomi Rapace), who empathizes with the young Inuk. I won’t spoil the ending; just know it tackles depression and sadness expertly, and I think it will speak to people who empathize with Woody. The on-location shoot in Canada adds a lot to the proceedings, and you feel like you’re getting a tour of the country.

Bucking Fastard

• Director – Werner Herzog
• Starring – Kate Mara, Rooney Mara, Orlando Bloom, Domhnall Gleeson

Bucking Fastard is a wonderful ride that features gas stations, caves, soap, digging, and perfect performances from Kate and Rooney Mara. Director Werner Herzog has crafted an unpredictably lively experience about two sisters who do everything together. They vacuum together (hilarious), they open cans together (hilarious again), and both fall in love with Orlando Bloom (hilarious). Many people won’t like that it’s essentially three films smashed into one, but I love how unpredictable and open to exploration it is. It won’t happen, but it would be funny if Rooney and Kate received joint nominations for their hilarious performances.

Fjord

• Directed by – Cristian Mungiu – R.M.N., (2022), 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007), Graduation (2016)
• Starring – Sebastian Stan, Renate Reinsve, Lisa Carlehed

Winner of thePalme d’Or at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, Fjord is another excellent film from director Cristian Mungiu. It’s proven to be divisive, but I think it does a fine job of exploring faith, politics, immigration, conservative groups, and parenthood. Sebastian Stan, Renate Reinsve, and Lisa Carlehed understood their assignments and played their roles with perfect caginess, keeping audiences guessing about who/what they are. Of all the films I watched at TIFF, Fjord is the one I’ve talked about the most, and I enjoyed researching what Mungiu was trying to say. The ending is a little too Being There, but Cristian does love a unique ending.

Turtle Island Rap

• Director – Alexandra Lazarowich
• Starring – A$h Da Hunter, Wiidaaseh, and Travis Thompson

Shot in cinéma vérité style, the Alexandra Lazarowich-directed Turtle Island Rap is a joy to watch. The three Indigenous hip-hop artists, A$h Da Hunter, Wiidaaseh, and Travis Thompson, are likable, talented, and totally comfortable on screen (credit goes to Lazarowich). Watching the artists juggle life, work, relationships, and their art felt thrilling because they are so open and comfortable in front of the camera. I’d love to interview Lazarowich and ask her about her filming style and how she made the talent feel so comfortable. I hope Turtle Island Rap finds a distributor because it showcases talented and likable people.

Quick Thoughts:

1. Jeon Do-yeon has charisma for days.
2. Possible Love is a thoughtful examination of class, depression, and possible love.
3. Best 2026 private beach.
4. I hope it will be remembered during awards season.
5. The 164 minutes fly by.
6. Best unused marble picnic table.

Much like last year’s Sentimental Value, Possible Love is an emotionally mature film written by a wordsmith who loves his characters. Director Lee Chang-dong (Burning, Secret Sunshine) spent 10+ years building Possible Love, and he and co-writer Oh Jung-mi wrote a movie filled with memorable moments, real feelings, and confident patience. The 164 minutes fly by and build towards a lovely ending that showcases earned character development. It’s already an awards contender, and I hope its momentum builds throughout the year.

The story follows two couples; the first is a blue-collar couple led by Ahn Mi-ok (Jeon Do-yeon, perfect), her unemployed (and deeply depressed) husband Choi Ho-seok (Sul Kyung-gu), and their son Choel. We first meet them as they are attending the funeral of one of Ho-seok’s coworkers who killed himself after losing his job at the local plant named SP Heavy Industries. It seems like half of the city’s denizens (including Ho-seok) lost their jobs to “restructuring,” and their attempt to get their jobs back led to a brutal beatdown by the cops. At the funeral, they meet Lee Ye-ji (Cho Yeo-jeong), a wealthy wannabe filmmaker who is filming the funeral for a documentary she is working on. Ye-ji is married to a super-rich tall guy named Sang-woo (Zo In-sung, who is great in Hope), who thinks her dalliance with blue-collar workers is a charming distraction. After hitting it off at the funeral, the always well-dressed Ye-ji starts filming the family and eventually makes them the lead characters of her documentary about laid-off workers. From there, the couple learns more about each other, and it leads to a weekend at a beautiful house (with a private beach) on the west coast of South Korea

Lee Chang-dong wrote novels and short stories before becoming a filmmaker, and his writing experience pays dividends when crafting characters. During a conversation, Mik-ok tells Ye-ji that when she was little,  she wanted to wash cars because she loved the rainbows that appeared when light caught the hose water spraying onto a car. Her ambitions may seem small, but her social class never let her be a wannabe documentarian, so she found joy in small moments. Ye-ji is an interesting character in that she’s wildly beautiful and married to a wildly rich businessman, so it seems she’s documenting blue-collar people for charity. However, her expensive clothes (which Mik-ok tells her not to wear while interviewing blue-collar people) and handbags mask the fact that she has an eye for filmmaking (except for recording sound), and her interactions with Ho-seok prove she can get emotions out of deeply depressed men who need to unload their burdens. There’s a bit when her assistants mention that she doesn’t use Sang-woo’s money for her films; instead, she applies for and receives grants for her projects. This is met with skepticism because she’s taking money from people who need the grants, when she could’ve just asked her rich husband for a blank check.

The actors bring something unique (and real) to the (marble) table. The last time Do-yeon worked with Chang-dong, she won Best Actress (for Secret Sunshine) at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. You can tell the actors cherish playing three-dimensional humans who inhabit a real world. Whether it’s dangling empty potato chip bags outside car windows, drinking too much soju, or recounting life-changing injuries inflicted by cops, the actors all register as real people who have real endings.

Chang-dong didn’t make the film until he felt it had meaning, and the end result is a gorgeous character study. Kim Ji-young’s (Decision to Leave = one of my favorite films) cinematography is pitch-perfect, using natural lighting, well-timed close-ups, and patience to make the film look fantastic. The costume design by Choong-yeon Lee (Burning, Poetry, Return to Seoul) is solid as always, telling a tale of class disparity and leading to a very funny joke about “looking nice.”

Final thoughts: Try to catch it in theaters so you can immerse yourself in the world.

Quick Thoughts:

1. Sandra Hüller is the best.
2. Excellent slap.
3. Between Ida, Cold War, The Zone of Interest, Hamnet, and Fatherland, Łukasz Żal is one of the best working cinematographers.
4. Paweł Pawlikowski sure can stage a scene.
5. What’s lovely about Fatherland is how it can be watched on multiple levels. You can enjoy the road trip, or appreciate what Pawlikowski says about isolation, depression, art, lack of roots, and family.
6. 6. Top five endings of the year. It’s beautiful.

2026 has been a solid year for biographies that focus on a specific moment in time. Tony lasered in on Anthony Bourdain’s formative summer in 1975. The Sian Heder-directed Being Heumann narrowed its focus to a 28-day takeover of the San Francisco federal building led by disability rights activist Judy Heumann. Fatherland looks at five days in the life of author Thomas Mann (Hanns Zischler), who, after a self-exile from Germany between 1993 and 1949, returns to Germany to receive a Goethe Prize in both East and West Germany. He’s accompanied by his daughter Erika (Sandra Hüller), who works as his driver (she drives a gorgeous 1948 Buick Super), interpreter, and speech editor. The original plan was for their son/brother Klaus (August Diehl) to join them, but he overdosed on sleeping pills the night before the trip. With the weight of the world on their shoulders, Thomas and Erika navigate a political minefield between West/East Germany, while grieving over the loss of their beloved family member.

For viewers unfamiliar with post-war Germany in the 1940s, the movie offers insight into a country split in two by the US/UK/France (West) and the Soviet Union (East). Both want the famous German author to side with them, but he meets resistance everywhere and still delivers his message to the masses, hoping to reunite and reform Germany. For people unfamiliar with Thomas Mann’s career, the movie provides enough information to explain why he and his family matter to German politics. In one of 2026’s best scenes, the audience gets insight into Erika’s life when she runs into her ex-husband Gustaf Gründgens (Joachim Meyerhoff). After a brutal conversation in which the word “nepo baby” is mentioned, she delivers the best slap of 2026. The film will inspire you to learn more about Erika and Klaus Mann, because they lived interesting lives fueled by adventure, sadness, FBI investigations, rumors, rally cars, persecution, and writing. The easiest/smartiest casting decision was hiring Sandra Hüller to play Erika, because the Oscar-nominated actor speaks three languages and exudes intelligence. Also, there’s no other actor on the planet who can match Hüller’s physicality when it comes to inhabiting a role.

Łukasz Żal’s cinematography is gorgeous as the 1.37:1 Academy ratio brings welcome vertical height to the film. The shots are composed to place the subjects in the lower frame, making the characters feel small in their high-ceilinged hotel rooms. The symmetry of the shots is fantastic, and the movie opens with a memorable locked-off five-minute deep-focus shot of a naked Klaus being asked (by Erika) to come along for the trip. He’s centered in the foreground (on the floor), his unnamed lover keeps up the middle ground, and the background is the wall of the room that makes Klaus seem very small (which makes sense narratively). Overall, it’s a gorgeous production, and it’s only 82 minutes!

Quick Thoughts:

1. John Turturro delivers a wonderful performance. A+ acting
2. The world needs more 88-minute movies.
3. The on-location shoot in NYC aids the film.
4. Giancarlo Esposito, Will Price, Tatiana Maslany, Victoria Morales, Steve Buscemi, Jamie Lee Curtis, Lori Tan Chinn, and Kelvin Han Yee are wonderful.
5. Director/writer Noah Segan learned from his debut film Blood Relatives (2022), and delivered an efficient, character-driven movie.
6. If you are a pickpocket, always wipe your fingerprints off of Yoo-hoo bottles.
7. Best 2026 jackets.

Written and directed by Noah Segan, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York focuses on the complications that arise when pickpocket Harry Lehman (John Turturro) steals a backpack and wallet from a mafia-connected twentysomething (Will Price). The tech-savvy kid figures out Harry’s identity from some fingerprints left on a Yoo-hoo bottle, and after beating up his pawnshop owner friend Ben (Steve Buscemi), he (and his crew) break into Harry’s home and threaten to kill Harry and his wife Rosie (Karina Arroyave), who is bedridden and catatonic. Harry is given until 4:00PM (6ish hours) to find a USB that gives access to hundreds of thousands of cryptocurrency. What follows is a trek across the five boroughs. Harry visits herb shops, Brooklyn-based stores, and meets Detective Allan Warren (Giancarlo Esposito), a longtime friend who helps his quest.

Cinematographer Sam Levy (Frances Ha, Lady Bird) shoots it beautifully, wisely aiming the camera at Turturro’s face and letting the actor’s expressive face hold the frame. Throughout the press notes, Buscemi, Turturro, and Esposito all praise Levy, and it’s fun that he and Segan were inspired by their love of director Robert Bresson (who directed Pickpocket) to shoot an old-school thriller. Cailey Breneman’s (On the Rocks, Poker Face) costume design steals the show because she found the perfect jacket (and shoes) for Turturro to wear. The salt-and-pepper jacket is clearly expensive (and old), but it shows how well Harry takes care of his belongings. Made by luxury menswear designer Zegna, Turturro wore a similar jacket in one of their fashion shows. In fact, all the coats are great, and a couple of them receive compliments during the film.

In the press notes, Turturro mentions the “structurally tight” screenplay, and the term perfectly explains the 88-minute movie. The neat thing about Segan’s script is that despite the ticking clock, it’s never hurried, and it lets you live with Harry as he travels around the city looking for the USB drive. There’s no insane editing, Harry’s never running through the streets, and his solutions are elegant (he doesn’t bash any heads). Segan’s first film Blood Relatives had a great core idea (a vampire learns he has a half-vampire daughter) and solid performances from Segan and Victoria Morales (watch Plan B), but you could feel Segan’s screenplay weighing the film down with too many ideas and themes. With The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, he’s learned from his experiences to craft a beautiful film that allows Turturro to deliver a perfect performance.