“10th year”
Available for rent or purchase on most major platforms.
Ben Goodger’s film begins by informing us that 10 years have passed since the extinction of humanity (hence the title) and the few survivors have resorted to cannibalism. Let’s talk about being misleading. There is very little consumption of human flesh in this film. This is a relief for those of us who were half-afraid of the apocalyptic versions of “Society of the Snow” and “Yellowjackets.”
This movie has no words at all, but it’s still pretty oppressive and stuffy. Goodger paints a desolate landscape where danger is ever-present, survival is always on the line, and every noise attracts unwanted attention. The action centers around an unnamed young man (Toby Goodger) trying to find the medicine needed to keep a seriously ill young woman (Hannah Khalik-Brown) alive. This is pretty much the scope of the script. What matters is the mood, and although it’s tough in Year 10, it’s maintained admirably. It’s rare to find a movie that makes you feel like it’s so hard to just get through the day. And it’s all for the privilege of spending more time in the hellish scene.
“My Old Us”
Stream it on Amazon Prime Video.
At the outset, “My Old Ass” appears to fit into a currently popular niche: the liberated feminist youth comedy. Elliot (Maisie Stella) is 18 years old and everything is going his way. She finally got the girl of her dreams and is enjoying last summer at the lake before leaving her family’s cranberry farm and heading off to college.
As if this wasn’t enough, Megan Park’s movie adds another popular element: a scramble for time in the Metaverse. After eating mushrooms with his best friends (Kellis Brooks and Maddie Ziegler), Elliot wakes up next to his 39-year-old self (Aubrey Plaza) and tells a certain Chad (Percy Hynes White) to stay away. be strictly warned. This is a problem because Elliot is in love with him. For a young woman, having contact with her older self (the two speak regularly on the phone, hinting at a not-so-wonderful future) is more worrying than falling in love with a man. There is little to do. When I thought she was gay.
Beneath its sordid exterior, “My Old Ass” ponders serious questions such as free will, the weight of choice, and whether it’s good to know what lies ahead and embrace hardship. So this is what was going on: The park put all of those familiar markers in place just to subtly subvert them.
“The Last Night on Earth”
Stream it on Tubi.
Holly (Leven Lambin) and Ryan (Jake McLaughlin) are a hot couple enjoying some quiet time in the Tennessee countryside in a sleek Airstream. But they’re not just chilling, they’re chilling before an asteroid wipes out the entire planet.
The premise of Marcos Efron’s film is similar to Don McKellar’s similarly titled The Last Night (1999), in which various Torontonians spend their final moments before the end of the world. The content is about living. The new film’s tone is calmer, gentler, almost New Age-like at times, even as Efron clumsily works two gun-toting menaces with sinister purposes. “The Last Night on Earth” is about a family determined to fully anticipate catastrophe, and a devout woman (Dee Wallace) from 1980s classics such as “E.T.” and “The Howling.” ), it is most effective to address episodes that are quietly upsetting, such as a brief encounter with someone. ). In the end, Ephron seems to be saying that the only question we face is, “How do we want our death to be?”
“Sky Peels”
Available for rent or purchase on most major platforms.
When his manager (Steve Oram) calls Adam (Faraz Ayub) a “people person” and asks him to say hi, it feels like a prank. Adam is a very nice person, but shy and quiet. You can’t blame him for not jumping for joy during his shift at a boring fast-food joint attached to an equally boring gas station, but a deeper malaise lingers nonetheless. When Adam learns that his recently deceased father (Jeff Mirza) thought of himself as “from somewhere else,” that is, not from Earth, but “from somewhere else.” It rises to the surface. What does that mean for Adam, who was already caught between his father’s Pakistani side and his mother’s white British side?
Moin Hussein’s films move at a deliberate pace that creates a hypnotic sense of existential uncertainty. Adam (called Umer by his Pakistani relatives) is at a loss. He already had a dark job in a strange liminal space and wasn’t sure where he would live after his mother moved away. Now he is also questioning his very humanity. But is he an alien or just alienated? The grim “Sky Peels” is a worthy entry into the growing science fiction subgenre of connections between non-Earthlings and aliens in the refugee/immigration sense, but it also explores the porous nature of mental health. It also questions the fluid boundaries of quality.
David (Prabhu Munkul, who is also one of the screenwriters) is playing with his grandfather’s radio when a storm hits and a woman’s voice is heard coming from the old-fashioned box. He realizes that he can actually communicate with her, and the two begin a conversation. The woman, Janani (Roshni Prakash), happened to be attending the same college as David, but since the two did not know each other, they decided to meet. The two become upset when the other does not show up, but eventually realize that they exist in different years. David in 2024 and Janani in 1996. (Aficionados of time-hopping romances will notice the same premise as “Ditto”)” is a 2000 Korean film that was remade in 2022 with the same title, hence “Ditto”. )
Director BSP Varma takes his time with the action, but as David and Janani discover what they have in common, the Goa-set “Murphy” becomes more established. can. A professor named Joe (Munkle again) plays an important role. The story picks up another gear. The film delves into the kind of paradox that emerges when you start tinkering with the past in order to change the future. If you’re chasing the future, it’s the present. Varma shamelessly heightens the romantic implications and storyline as David and Janani’s relationship beyond the airwaves is revealed. And it just feels right.
