The Quinta’s Ghost is an animated horror short that dramatizes the twilight years of Francisco Goya, as he paints his Black Paintings in his house, the Quinta del Sordo (House of the Deaf Man). In a novel twist, the story is narrated from the point of view of the Quinta itself, responding to what Goya paints on its walls. The short, done in computer animation, brings the demons and other nightmarish imagery of Goya’s work to life, incorporating state-of-the-art techniques such as VR painting. It’s a hellish depiction of an artist suffering through grief, madness, and issues of identity.

Chile has had some top-notch adult animation, especially in the horror genre, but Petra and the Sun is better filed under morbid humor, and it was an especially effective example of it too. In the Andes, 71-year-old Petra lives a lonely life until hotter-than-usual weather reveals the frozen body of a century-old mountaineer. Petra takes the body home, thaws it, and spends some uncomfortably in-depth quality time with his preserved corpse…the disappearance of which the police are aware of. Despite its premise, this was one of the funniest films they showed, though it’s definitely not for the squeamish. I felt that the ending could’ve been handled better, but overall, this one I really enjoyed. This short also won a Special Jury Mention.

How is River is Born was definitely one of the more mature shorts in the set. A woman has a sensual experience with what appears to be a nature goddess, but ultimately ends up being something less yet significantly more. This one’s pretty simple in terms of story, and is mostly carried by the beautiful animation.

Ovary-Acting is a comedy short about a 34-year-old woman who is pressured by her family and motherly friends to have children. As the stress gets to her, she unexpectedly gives birth her talking ovaries, leading to a musical argument about the pros and cons of motherhood. The animation style, which uses knit puppets with 2D-animated mouths, brings to mind something out of an R-rated version of KaBlam! This was definitely a fun one to watch, and it has a great sense of humor and heart to it.

Still Moving follows a divorced mother having a stressful car ride with her daughter as they head to their new home. The strength of this short is in the animation, which is probably one of the best depictions of anxiety I’ve seen in recent memory. It’s really experimental, though it definitely seems to be the main focus of the short over the story.

A Night at the Rest Area is an anime short in which a group of anthropomorphic animals on a bus stop at a rest area. There’s really not much to say about this one in terms of story. However, what it lacks in plot it makes up for with gentle yet effective comedy about everyday life. There’s a real appreciation of the mundane, where even the jingle playing as the nearby vending machine heats up your meal is given focus. Obviously, the use of animals adds to a lot of the humor, and the sketchy character designs are great. One of my favorite jokes in this involves a convenience store employee who is anything but convenient, and the punchline being obvious doesn’t make it any less funny (or relatable). This one doesn’t have much but in a way it also has a lot.

The Piano is a hand-drawn short in which a young girl discovers her father playing the piano late at night, creating a bond that lasts into adulthood. The animation is amazing, the music is beautiful, and the ending will warm your heart, if not open the tear ducts. It’s another short with a simple idea done extremely well.

As mentioned before, Best Animated Short went to Playing God, which I definitely feel could’ve fit into either of the shorts programs. This also qualifies it for the Oscars, and I guess I’ll find out if it gets nominated (though the short that won Sundance might be tough competition). Hopefully I’ll get to see it at some point, but overall, the 14 shorts I saw (if we’re only counting the competition) were for the most part highly enjoyable and I loved a lot of the styles used.

I’ve seen a lot of animated documentaries that use the medium to tackle sensitive subject matter in ways that make the material more digestible and profound, but Endless Cookie, which premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, might be the farthest, and funniest, approach to this. The entire movie renders its subjects in a hyper-surrealist style that mixes flashy colors and crass humor, with many of the participants being portrayed as anthropomorphized objects. The film, a combination of vignettes mixing illustrated recorded accounts and scripted scenes, initially appears like the sort of thing that would get its directors hired by the likes of Adult Swim. Yet it’s right after you get accustomed to it that the film plays its true hand. Beneath its hangout-comedy vibe is a devastating look at the experience facing Canada’s indigenous population.

Seth Scriver has just received a grant from Canada’s prestigious “N.F.G.” to make a documentary about his half-brother Pete (with whom he decides to share directorial credit with). Seth is white but Pete is indigenous, and lives on a reservation so inaccessible that Seth can’t even visit without flying. The idea is that Pete will tell seven stories about life growing up as an indigenous person in the 1970s and 80s, in ways that are both funny and poignant, and Seth will animate over them. All he has to do is deliver the movie in seven months, the kind of goal you get when the money people don’t understand how feature animation works. Also, Seth and Peter get sidetracked. A lot.

Through a mix of stories and satirical sketches, the Scrivers paint a hilarious portrait of late twentieth century Canada. Fans of stoner/hangout comedies and cartoons like Regular Show will find a lot to love about this film’s plot threads, from Pete’s buddies stealing chickens off delivery trucks, to pressing their luck with the local pizza place’s “30 minutes or less” policy (with the restaurant eventually getting back at them in an extremely funny way). This is a film that often doesn’t take itself seriously, and it’s not afraid to veer off course. It’s freewheeling and goes where it feels like. (A small story about an animal trap takes up almost the entire runtime of the film to tell.) This also extends to the warts-and-all nature of what Seth decides to show. A lot of the early moments in the film are dedicated to trying to get clean audio, and a recurring bit involves the N.F.G. representative, portrayed as a slide ruler, repeatedly questioning Seth’s direction for the movie (as a progressively-smaller pile of money burns off to the side).

Of course, it’s not all fun and free pizza, and the movie isn’t only interested in fooling around. This is still a documentary about the indigenous experience in Canada, with recollections of police profiling, land grabs, and the specter of residential schools haunting even the most amusing of stories. Yet the film also finds way to mix its absurdist sense of humor into the proceedings. A fictional show called “Canadian Idle” shows Canadians being so passive upon hearing about indigenous incarceration rates and the factors contributing to them that they are rendered as car seats. The lawyer representing a wrongfully convicted indigenous youth is a literal snake. Police are caricatured as babbling cowards and, in probably one of the most unexpected political sequences I have ever seen in a documentary, a segment mixes the scars of colonization with a famous video game meme and a very cathartic parody of 90s first-person shooters. The tonal shifts sometimes get iffy, but for the most part, it works. There’s also a lot of great stories about Peter’s family and heritage, such his mom making snacks out of dried caribou stomach that, while he looks back on them as a fond memory of his family’s culture, he will admit smelled and tasted awful.

The animation work in this is hysterical, and really adds to the film’s tone. As mentioned, a lot of the film’s subjects are rendered as objects, such as talking socks, soda cans, and vegetables, and I loved seeing where the art style would go next. (Sometimes, actual objects end up talking too.) There’s also a ton of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it in-jokes and nods to Canadian/indigenous history sprinkled throughout for eagle-eyed viewers. Expanding the capabilities of documentary storytelling in extremely entertaining while still thought-provoking ways, it’s both a tribute to Canada’s native peoples and a good history lesson for those not in the know. I’ll be thinking about this movie for a while, and hopefully someone will pick it up so others can see it too.

The Sundance Film Festival is often the place to find the next great work of cinema, and since the pandemic, they’ve been allowing people at home to watch as well. This year, the festival selected thirteen animated shorts and one feature, Endless Cookie (which I’ll hopefully review at a later date). I unfortunately wasn’t able to watch all of them, as one short, Caries, was not available virtually. However, I did watch the rest, and I thought I’d share my picks of my favorite ones, along with an additional short that made great use of animation as well.

Paradise Man (ii) is honestly less an animated film than an inventive animated collage movie, but it was one of my favorite things I saw in the animated short film program regardless. It’s made almost entirely with repurposed images and GIFs of those white, big-headed, blank, faceless figures you find in stock media, but in the hands of Jordan Michael Blake, these nondescript cartoons take on new emotional resonance. Subtitled “Episode 1: Golf”, the short is an extended monologue by the titular Paradise Man, who initially starts out discussing his pursuit of getting a hole in one before a family tragedy causes him to reflect on his own existence and purpose. With the stock-based format and Paradise Man’s narration being supplied by a slowed-down automated voice, it initially comes across like something you’d find in the early morning on Adult Swim before hitting you with genuine and relatable poignancy. (Sundance also pointed out that Blake had previously been commissioned by Adult Swim to make a segment of their incredible anthology series Off the Air.) The short ends with the promise of a second episode, and I’m hoping Blake makes good on it. You’ll never look at stock graphics the same way again.

Arguably one of the best shorts, and the one that won the Grand Jury Prize for Animated Short Films, was As If the Earth Had Swallowed Them Up (Como si la tierra se las hubiera tragado). It tells of a woman who returns to her home of Mexico City, where she looks back on how, as a young girl, she came to terms with what happens to women in Mexico. The short’s endearing art style gives way to some truly harrowing sequences illustrating its serious subject matter, and I thought it was a great example of how animation can both make dark topics more accessible while at the same time enhancing their impact. It definitely deserved the top prize, which qualifies it for next year’s Oscars.

There were a few other shorts of note that I enjoyed. Hurikán, described as a “deep-fried romance from Prague”, follows the literally pigheaded titular character as he offers to resupply a beer stand where he has a crush on the bartender, only to find himself on the beer run from Hell. Gritty, darkly comic, and with great music, it brings to mind something out of the alternative animation of the 1990s when the film is set. Bunnyhood is a punky short from the UK that feels like a zine comic come to life. In it, Bobby learns that her mother may not always be telling the truth when a promised fast food dinner ends up being a trip to the hospital. The whole short is gleefully surreal and anarchic but not to the extent to where you can’t figure things out. Told in a crude but endearingly handcrafted animation style, this was one of my favorite watches of the selections this year. View from the Floor is a 5 minute piece in which Mindie Lind, a singer without legs, discusses her brief brush with fame, where she discovers that it wasn’t so much about her talent as it was about “inspiration porn.” A thought-provoking and funny take on how disability is perceived in the media, it’s a decent piece in its own. However, the short is actually a proof-of-concept for a feature length animated documentary of the same title, and that’s something I really hope gets off the ground because based on this, I’d love to see more.

Also, while not really an animated short, I nevertheless feel compelled to bring up a title from the documentary short film selections that uses animation in a great way. Three Sundances ago, Joe Hunting’s documentary We Met in Virtual Reality not only introduced me to the world of VRChat, but expanded my idea of what documentaries could be. Now, he’s back with The Reality of Hope, a live-action/machinima documentary short that presents a truly moving story of how fantastical virtual communities can inspire very real impact. Hiyu is a prominent member of VRChat’s Furality community, an organization of furry artists and creators, until his real life unexpectedly intrudes in the worst possible way: his kidneys are failing. Photographotter, another member, agrees to donate his kidney and fly from New York to Stockholm to save Hiyu’s life. Whereas We Met in Virtual Reality was filmed entirely within VRChat, The Reality of Hope alternates between real and virtual environments, reminding us that there are actual people behind the cartoon animals we initially see as our subjects. It’s a touching reminder of the power of community, and a great documentary for the gaming crowd. The use of video game assets in documentaries has been a bit of a trend recently that I have been fascinated with, and I hope it continues, especially if we get more films such as this. I also suspect it’ll be streaming in the near future as Documentary+ was listed as one of the companies involved, so hopefully you’ll get to check it out for yourself.

The other animated selections were Flower Show, Inkwo For When the Starving Return, Luz Diabla, Field Recording, Jesus 2, The Eating of an Orange, and A Round of Applause for Death.

• Firstly, we started “beefing up” our blog where we continue to write about Conventions/Events:
  
  New York Comic-Con: https://adultswimcentral.com/2024/10/29/new-york-comic-con-2024-in-pictures/
  Des Moines Con: https://adultswimcentral.com/2024/10/16/rilo-noahs-totally-awesome-des-moines-con-2024-adventure/
  AnimeNYC: https://adultswimcentral.com/2024/08/27/animenyc-in-pictures/
• Our movie guy, Avi kicked some serious butt at reviewing some stellar films at various Film Fests and other Events:
  
  Bad Actor: https://adultswimcentral.com/2024/06/19/bad-actor-a-hollywood-ponzi-scheme-review-how-to-succeed-in-business-with-lying/
  Didi: https://adultswimcentral.com/2024/07/23/didi-review-new-york-asian-film-festival-2024/
  Thelma: https://adultswimcentral.com/2024/06/21/thelma-review-revenge-is-a-dish-best-served-old/
  The Substance: https://adultswimcentral.com/2024/09/22/the-substance-review-a-beastly-look-at-beauty/
• We had some amazing interviews, podcasts, unboxings and so much more!
  
  The Final SomethingSomething Cast aired back in July but also gave birth to IMPROV! Inside Joke/Outside Voice Premiere: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meYsQV92FRo
  
  The Adult Swim Central crew returned for a special Swimcast with even more special guest Juston Gordon-Montgomery to chat about his new show, Invincible Fight Girl: https://adultswimcentral.com/2024/11/01/the-swimcast-invincible-fight-girl-interview-juston-gordon-montgomery/
  
  Yours Truly did some awesome interviews with Robert Kirkman and the super-talented people behind Skybound’s Energon Universe Comic Books, as well as filmmaker Tommy Avallone about his brand new “The House From…“ documentary about famous houses from movies that exist. ALSO! Got to check out some really cool and nostalgic squishy toys.
  
  Check out all of our interviews and more at: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcxFEnlkOOvP-Q4dk-HP9DDsOThwAqiBj
  
• …and that’s not everything! We had some fun, playing Call of Duty, Jackbox, and other games while also riffing The Hugga Bunch and other craziness over on our Twitch!

So what’s next…?

Continue pushing the beef/asking for interest…

First off… why not help us out creatively?

‘Nuff said.

Lastly. Can you spare some change?

Art Comedy Pop-Culture Network runs independently (mostly by me… by myself). Meaning it’s all out of pocket, equipment, website stuff, etc.

A MINIMUM of $1 on our Patreon not only helps us a tiny bit (the old adage “If 10 people gave $1, etc. etc…”) but you get content not heard or seen anywhere else, from classic podcast episodes to video content and a whole lot more!

Not into Patreon? We have a number of other ways you can help us out…

• Ko-Fi: Buy Art Comedy Pop-Culture Network a Coffee. ko-fi.com/acpnentnet – Ko-fi ❤️ Where creators get support from fans through donations, memberships, shop sales and more!
• Buy Me a Coffee: ACPN is Audio/Visual Entertainment – Twitch Streams, Podcasts, Blogs, and more
• PayPal: Donate
• Throne: https://throne.com/acpntertainment
• Subscribe on Twitch: https://twitch.tv/acpntertainment  
• Boost our Discord Server: https://discord.gg/ydMu2DAd8F
  
  
  And that’s pretty much all I can say. Here’s to a spectacular 2025!
  
  
  -John

According to director Alex Ross Perry, the indie rock band Pavement didn’t want a documentary made about them. It’s easy to see why. Many rock docs tend to follow a set pattern, following the band’s story before gushing about their legacy. That’s the best-case scenario. At worst, you get a prestige biopic primed for awards season, with a cast that may or may not resemble the real deal. (Perry even opened the screening by jokingly welcoming the audience to James Mangold’s Bob Dylan biopic with Timothée Chalamet, A Complete Unknown.) As Perry said during the Q&A, Pavement’s music defied easy categorization, and a hundred fans could each have different opinions about them. Encapsulating their career in a single movie about them wouldn’t make sense. This is why he didn’t make a single movie encapsulating their career. He made every single movie about Pavement, and just edited them together.

I wanted one “weird” pick for my NYFF screenings, and Pavements fit the bill more than I could’ve imagined. Part rockumentary, part mockumentary, brazenly satirical and refreshingly idiosyncratic, it is probably unlike any music movie I’ve seen. At first, it seems standard. It opens with “the world’s most important and influential band” Pavement breaking up in 1999 (which is described as “not a big deal”) and then reuniting in 2022 (“a huge deal”). As expected, from there the film alternates between two threads: tracing the band’s history through a wealth of archival material covering everything from international interviews to their appearance on Space Ghost Coast to Coast, and a present-day look at the band as they prepare for their first tour in 12 years (they briefly got back together in 2010). If that were it, I likely would’ve eaten this up anyway because I love 90s indie rock, but I probably wouldn’t have much to write about.

As mentioned, though, Pavement didn’t want a standard documentary, and Pavements is anything but. It’s not long into the movie before Perry plays his true hand. He’s not only directing a documentary about Pavement, but he’s also making an off-broadway jukebox musical about Pavement that re-interprets their songs. Not only that, he’s also making a museum dedicated to Pavement. Not only not only that, he’s also making a big-budget Pavement biopic with an all-star cast that seems primed for awards season. All at the same time.

From there, the movie basically becomes a mosaic, often using split screen to cover the movie’s five threads (six if you include the making of the biopic, which Perry also includes). Just in case that still seems too normal, half the movie is also a mockumentary. (The NYFF program guide called it a “sorta-documentary). Perry is filmed creating the musical, Slanted! Enchanted!, as a pretentious theater director, while the cast’s experience with Pavement ranges from them being longtime fans to finding out about them within the last few weeks. The bulk of the film’s humor, however, comes from the biopic, Range Life. Perry made his disdain towards these kinds of movies known during the Q&A, and it’s on full display here. I won’t spoil some of the best jokes, but suffice it to say, he was pretty spot on. The cast of the film-within-a-film is great and includes Fred Hechinger, Griffin Newman, and Nat Wolff as members of the band, while Tim Heidecker and Jason Schwartzman portray the executives of Matador Records. The real scene-stealer, however, is Stranger Things’ Joe Keery as lead singer Stephen Malkmus. Playing himself, he believes he’s bound for Oscar gold for this part, and all I’ll say is that he gets a bit too involved trying to get into the role.

The more the film goes on, the more the line between truth and fiction begins to become a liquefied blur. Even after looking it up, I was surprised to find out what was real and what wasn’t. (HBO sponsored the documentary screenings at NYFF this year. Noticeably, they didn’t for this movie.) This all may seem like an experiment that has a good chance of falling apart, and it does drag a bit at over two hours. Yet as the film goes on, a coherent story does begin to emerge, and everything started to make some sense by the end. If you don’t know the story of Pavement, as I didn’t, this should be a good primer and a hilarious comedy to boot. If you do know the story of Pavement, this should be a refreshing reprieve from the standard treatment I’ve seen bands like this get. Either way, you are not prepared for Pavements, and hopefully you’ll all get to see it soon.

The New York Film Festival, easily one of the city’s most prestigious film events, returned to Lincoln Center (as well as various other venues) last weekend for its 62nd edition. Unlike the Tribeca Festival, and other established film festivals like Sundance and Cannes (and especially Fall festivals like Venice and Toronto), the NYFF is not so much a place to premiere movies as it is a place to celebrate them. The festival’s feature film lineup is invitation-only, and contains some of the most anticipated movies from both the mainstream and the art house. In short, it’s a good chunk of awards season in about two and a half weeks. After a strike-addled edition last year, Hollywood’s A-list are heavily present for the festival once again. Yet, a big reason to attend the festival is to get the rare opportunity to see a lot of directors and actors from around the world (47 countries are reportedly represented in the lineup). Some of the year’s best movies are playing here, so I’m gonna try and talk about as many as I can, starting with probably the hottest ticket at this year’s festival.

If you don’t know the name Sean Baker, that may be about to change. He’s gotten a lot of love for his films, usually gritty comedy-dramas that spotlight marginalized communities. I first heard of him for Tangerine, his movie about transgender sex workers of color shot on an iPhone. From there he made The Florida Project, which earned massive acclaim and earned Willem Dafoe an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, as well as Red Rocket in 2021, which also recieved highly positive reviews. Well, I have to make a confession: I’m not the biggest fan of Sean Baker’s work, which makes me a minority in the art film community. Of course, I knew what was coming. Baker’s latest, Anora, is perhaps the most anticipated independent film this year. It won the Palme D’Or at Cannes and is a major awards season frontrunner. Given my attitude towards his last three movies, I knew it was touch and go on whether or not I’d enjoy this, so I’m just going to skip to the verdict right now.

Believe the hype. Anora really is that good.

Anora is a 23-year-old stripper in Brighton Beach who is assigned to a young man named Ivan because she speaks Russian. Ivan starts hiring her as an escort, during which Anora learns he’s the son of a Russian oligarch. It isn’t long before the two fall in love, and not even much longer than that when, partially because of romance and partially because Ivan has to go back to Russia, the two decide to get married so he’ll become an American citizen. Anora thinks she’s found the man of her dreams and struck it rich as a bonus….and then Ivan’s parents find out.

You are not ready for Anora. Baker’s films have always had an often darkly comic audacity to them, from frequent physical fights to things being set on fire, but this is easily his wildest movie to date. The initial feeling that this is an extremely graphic and profane version of a screwball comedy comes to a head in the film’s extended centerpiece sequence, which ranks among the year’s most accomplished, intense, and insane movie moments. To go any further would be criminal, but suffice it to say, it’s a heck of a ride.

It’s easily the funniest movie of Baker’s filmography. It isn’t all funny, though. You really feel for Anora throughout the movie, and there’s some utterly heartwrenching moments in this. It’s a very good script that combines riotous dialogue with a moving story about love, sex, money, and power. Sex work is a common topic in Baker’s films, but of all the movies he’s done, this is probably the most effective I’ve felt he’s been in conveying his themes. Mikey Madison gives an incredible performance as Anora, and at several moments during the movie, the audience burst into applause for her. That said, everyone in the cast does a great job in this. A lot of the humor in this movie comes from the characters playing off of one another (often loudly and with several four-letter words attached).

It all leads to up to an ending that will probably lead to as much discussion and interpretation as it will stay in your mind for quite a while. Combining anarchic, audacious comedy with heartfelt drama, Anora exceeded my expectations. Be sure to catch this one when it hits theaters on October 18th.

Since 1974, more independent film distributors have gone out of business than I could probably fit into this paragraph. Yet against all odds, one scrappy artist-driven studio is still around to celebrate its 50th year in business. I am of course talking about production company, distributor, and B-movie stalwart Troma Entertainment. Last weekend at the Lucky 13 Saloon in Brooklyn, Troma brought the festivities as part of their 24th annual TromaDance Film Festival. Initially created by Troma founder Lloyd Kaufman with inspiration from South Park’s Trey Parker and Matt Stone as an alternative to Sundance (after their film Cannibal! The Musical was rejected), TromaDance serves as a showcase for DIY filmmakers and some of the most out-there shorts and features available. Not only is there no entry fee, but the festival had free admission (though there was a suggested donation box), and while many of the movies featured have the kind of shock-and-shlock attitude Troma is known for, really, anything goes. (My G-rated high school film project made it into TromaDance 2014.)

Described by festival organizer Sabrina Mendoza as “a culmination of everything Tromaesque”, the festival consisted of a number of short film blocks and two feature films, Sweet Meats (as a work-in-progress focus group screening), and Murdaritaville. Unlike most of the times I’ve attended, the shorts were grouped by subject matter, with themes such as “Animation Nation”, “Shrooms ‘n’ Shit”, “Komedy Korner”, “Spooky Scary” and “Monster Madness”. Animation Nation was a particular highlight for me, not just for the obvious reason that I love animation, but because I was impressed with the quality of the techniques used. Considering the amount of effort animation takes, it was surprising how much the filmmakers were able to pull off with limited resources, including a number of shorts done with well-done cutout puppetry. The standout was easily Orchid, a short mixing stop-motion with chalk-like drawn animation that tells a story of drug addiction, murder, and monsters in a world populated by skeletons.

As mentioned, while a lot of the shorts did fit into the standard “Tromatic” aesthetic (I.e. sex, gore, and a lot of stuff that isn’t for the squeamish), there’s usually quite a lot of diversity on display, and this year was no exception. Last Day for Videos, for instance, was a melancholy documentary that focused on the closing of a Family Video in Kalamazoo, as the employees talk about what is lost from the communal video store experience in an age of streaming. The Triangular Door from experimental filmmaker Dylan Mars Greenberg was an anarchic, psychedelic work shot on Super-8 in which “the last survivors of an obliterated culture search for spiritual bondage in a reality show from hell”, narrated by noted Canadian art filmmaker Guy Maddin (which unintentionally created a link between TromaDance and the New York Film Festival, where Maddin’s new film Rumours is showing). Komedy Korner especially had a great deal of highlights, such as police procedural spoof Tornado County and Clownie Verses The Internet, an unhinged DIY short in which a clown gets his “revenge” on social media. Mendoza also had a short of her own in the festival, Coast to Coast AM, a re-enactment of an infamous phone call during Art Bell’s radio show.

Night 1 ended with a performance by Detroit-based band Fishfly, while Night 2 brought the arrival of Troma co-founder and head honcho Lloyd Kaufman, who took pics with fans. Meanwhile, Mendoza raffled off props from Kaufman’s upcoming movie The Power of Positive Murder, fresh off the shoot in upstate New York. The third day also had a Troma “Power Hour” showcasing the best and bloodiest moments from Troma’s 50 year history. Yet it wasn’t all fun and games, and Michigan video stores sadly weren’t the only thing being mourned that weekend. Earlier this year, Doug Sakmann, a longtime mainstay of the Troma crew and their events, died unexpectedly, making this the first TromaDance without him. He was memorialized in a heartfelt montage played during both nights, and as someone who knew Doug, his absence was definitely felt.

Mendoza told me that what separates TromaDance from other festivals is “the feeling of just wanting to be part of a greater community that is Tromaville” with “a bunch of people that have just shot things on iPhones [and] professional cameras…all here together to celebrate the power of filmmaking and disrupting media for 50 years.” Overall, TromaDance was a lot of fun, and if you’re in the New York City area (and have a strong stomach), I’d definitely encourage you to check it out next year. I’d also recommend that if you have a film to submit, do so. I mean, it’s free, and who knows? You might even make it in.

With a title like How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies, you’d probably expect this to be a dark comedy or a drama with enough gallows humor to laugh before you lightly dab your tears by the end. However, I had heard the stories about this film going into this. Weepy out-of-theater TikToks. Ushers handing out tissues. Even the person introducing my screening warned us “If you don’t have a tissue, you’re gonna have an issue.” Sure enough, what starts out seemingly innocent becomes an emotional sledgehammer that’ll have more than a few viewers turning on the waterworks. It’s worth it though, because this is one of the best movies of the year so far. After topping the Thai box office and breaking records in Southeast Asia, I was one of the first Americans to see this film for myself, and now I want to spread the word.

M, a slacker from a dysfunctional family, believes he’s just one gaming livestream away from never having to work a day in his life (despite his viewership saying otherwise). One night, his mother drops some devastating news to him: his grandmother has Stage 4 cancer and likely only has a year left. When his grandfather dies soon after, he decides to become his grandma’s caregiver. Not because he’s suddenly realized the gravity of the situation, mind you, but because his cousin was the caregiver for his grandpa and she inherited his house. All he has to do is win his grandma’s favor over the rest of his family and he’ll be set for the foreseeable future. Of course, that ends up being far more work than he imagined…

While Putthipong “Billkin” Assaratanakul is an established star in Thailand and does a great job as M, the real breakout star is Usha Seamkhum as the grandmother. Tough yet caring, in opposition to M’s laziness and apathy, the two play off each other extremely well. This made it especially shocking when I learned that not only was she not a professional actor, but actually pulled off the most intense moments in the film often in one take (though everything else apparently required up to 20). Even with the subject matter, this is still a very funny film, and probably the hardest I’ve laughed at a movie in a while.

However, while the laughs are plentiful, the drama is absolutely devastating. I’ve seen a lot of movies like this that tackle this subject with a light touch that’s funny and sad. This is not one of those movies. What everybody said about this film was true. As much as you’ll be laughing at it, you’ll be crying just as hard. It’s extremely impressive that this was a first-time filmmaking effort for director Pat Boonnitipat (after a career in television), because it feels so raw and real. While it certainly hits some of the standard notes for a story like this, though extremely well, what shocked me was how many parts of the story I didn’t expect. For example, a conversation between the grandmother and her brother ends up being an absolute gut-punch that made me look at her, and the story, in a whole new light.

As someone who’s had similar, if not worse experiences with their own grandparents, the theme of how we treat our elders in their final moments really resonated with me hard. I typically wait longer to say things like this, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this becomes a major contender in the Oscars this year, as the film’s quality and publicity make it a likely choice for Thailand’s submission for Best International Feature Film. As of this writing, the film does not have US distribution yet, so I want to spread the word as much as possible. It also won the audience award at the festival, so that should help raise its profile here even more. With strong character development, incredible performances, laugh-out-loud dialogue and drama that’s heartwrenching but nevertheless engaging, How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies deserves being named the top film of the New York Asian Film Festival 2024, and I hope you all get to see it soon.

Sean Wang’s first feature, Dìdi, not only won two awards at Sundance including the audience award, but also premiered right when he was nominated for an Oscar for his documentary short Nai Nai & Wài Pó. As I said at the time, while he didn’t win, he was still one of the biggest contenders for his short, a hilarious and heartfelt look at facing old age with dignity. For a feature debut, that’s certainly the kind of publicity money can’t buy, and thankfully, it doesn’t disappoint. A brutally frank yet compelling look at identity and the horrors of teenage life, Dìdi is a top-notch example of a coming of age story.

In 2008, 13-year-old Tawainese-American Chris Wang is referred to by his mother and grandmother as Dìdi (“little brother” in Chinese), and “Wang Wang” by his circle of friends. His older sister is finally going off to college, which means he won’t be fighting with her anymore. It’s the summer before high school begins and Chris is doing what kids his age do: making YouTube videos where people’s mailboxes get blown up, hanging out with friends, and trying to get the attention of the girl he has a crush on. However, it isn’t long before his social life begins hitting a few snags, and Chris desperately tries to find a way to fit in, learning more than a few life lessons in the process.

Dìdi is, for the most part, a standard coming of age story, but it’s a rough one. I remember my screenwriting professor once called Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade a horror film for its unflinching look at the modern experience of growing up in middle school, and that kind of movie is definitely an inspiration here. Sean doesn’t tone down the edgy cringe of mid-2000s youth in the slightest, and while those who can relate may be laughing, it’ll likely be through closed eyes. Yet while a lot of it’s played for laughs, it’s when it’s not that the film really becomes effective. There’s some devastating moments in this movie that really capture the feeling of adolescent alienation.

That said, what really elevates this movie above others like it is the film’s commentary on identity. Despite his efforts to fit in, Chris gets constant reminders of a sense of otherness, some playful, some definitely less so. Chris’ family life is also given a sense of depth, as his mother, an artist struggling to achieve recognition, feels pressured by the achievements of her friends’ kids, as well her own mother (who is Sean Wang’s actual grandmother, as seen in Nai Nai & Wài Pó). Characters that feel like they’re archetypes eventually change as the story goes on. It’s a movie that uses tropes while surpassing them, in a way that makes it feel fresh.

The movie is set in 2008, but doesn’t indulge in it. It’s not a nostalgia piece, but one that tells it like it was Sure, there are references to shock sites from the era and plenty of MySpace pages, but it feels natural. A lot of the story is told through the characters’ screens: YouTube videos, AOL messenger chats, and social media, and it’s utilized in a way that makes it feel part of the story as opposed to just watching someone’s monitor (more Searching than Unfriended).

Sean Wang isn’t interested in sugarcoating anything, and without giving anything away, I respected the film’s ending. Being a teenager can be hell, and Dìdi combines that knowledge with a story of the immigrant experience that puts it above a lot of coming-of-age movies. It’s a film that feels personal yet accessible. Just be prepared to cringe. A lot.

When Josh Margolin’s grandmother Thelma got a call from a phone scammer, they were thankfully able to stop her before any money was taken. Most of us would move on. Instead, he made it into one of the year’s best independent films. Serving as the first starring film role for June Squibb after a more than 70-year acting career, Thelma is a funny, heartbreaking movie about never letting age stop you from accomplishing something, even as you come to terms with mortality. Also, it’s partially an action movie. Yes, Squibb shows us that you’re never too old to be an action star.

93-year-old Thelma Post lives alone when she isn’t being visited and helped by her grandson Daniel (Fred Hechinger) for things like figuring out how to use computers. One day, the unthinkable happens: she gets a call from Daniel saying he’s in jail for vehicular manslaughter and he needs $10,000 bail. The good news is, it’s just a phone scammer and Daniel is fine. The bad news: She already sent them the money. With the police of little help, and her family considering whether or not she can live on her own, Thelma decides this sweet old lady isn’t going to be another victim. Inspired by Mission: Impossible, she runs off with Ben (Richard Roundtree, in his final role), an old friend now in an assisted living facility, to track down the scammers and get her money back.

In the wrong hands, this could’ve been a joke that got old fast. Thankfully, Margolin knows exactly what he’s doing. He turns what could’ve been just a mere series of action movie cliches with old people into a hilarious and often wrenching dramedy about the experience of aging, as well as how we view our elders. There’s real emotional weight to this story, and for obvious reasons, the stakes are extremely high. The rest of the family aren’t just the ones trying to stop her. Their concerns are treated as genuine, and the audience cares for them as well. The family also gets their own fleshed out arc, specifically through the parents’ (Clark Gregg and Parker Posey) overprotectiveness of Daniel and his guilt about the situation.

That said, the film is also an absolute gut-buster. The action movie stuff works, and a lot of the comedy is carried by Squibb herself. This is a great script, but Squibb’s delivery is absolutely perfect for this role, and for her first (belated) star vehicle, she does an amazing job. The cast overall is top-notch, and while Roundtree’s inclusion certainly fits the premise, it also helps elevate the themes. He serves as a voice of reason to the proceedings, as someone who knows he probably can’t do something like this anymore, and delivers some of the most emotional gut-punches of the film. The fact that this is Roundtree’s last role makes this all the more heartbreaking of a performance.

I will absolutely not spoil too much of this movie here, but overall, this is independent filmmmaking at its best. Margolin turns a personal anecdote into what is equally one of the best comedies and yes, action movies of the year. By the time it ends, maybe you’ll even look at your own grandparents a little differently. In her first starring movie role, Squibb gives one of the best lead performances of 2024, and as an unexpected action hero to boot. It’s been a long time coming, but I can’t think of a better honor than that.