Dusty Wright's Culture Catch - Smart Pop Culture, Video & Audio podcasts, Written Reviews in the Arts & Entertainment

Here's To A New Year!

Dusty Wright — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 23:36:30 +0000

Here's To A New Year! Dusty Wright December 31, 2025 - 18:36

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“I haven’t fucked much with the past, but I’ve fucked plenty with the future.” - Patti Smith

My new view of the universe remains positive, filled with empathy and compassion. It’s easy to be cynical after this past year. I lost some very close friends and family acquaintances to the great abyss, and the world lost some socially awakened giants across the arts, politics, and life. I’ve faced challenges in my personal life that I will not elaborate on. But I remain steadfast in my optimism for a better tomorrow for my children, my family, and for all of us.

Let’s focus on how we can lift each other up, not knock each other down. Let’s dance the night away and keep dancing into a new dawn.

Peace.

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Missing No More

Chet Kozlowski — Sun, 28 Dec 2025 01:48:25 +0000

Missing No More Chet Kozlowski December 27, 2025 - 20:48

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drama

I’ve been a fan of Jared Harris since seeing him as John Lennon in the 2000 TV film Two of Us (to Aidan Quinn’s Paul McCartney). He’s done a lot more since (and before) then, of course, but I remember him most as King George VI in Netflix’s The Crown, and Lane Pryce in Mad Men—his lined face, gruff demeanor, and throaty growl mask a pained tenderness. So I looked forward to seeing him in the new film Reawakening.

He plays John, an itinerant electrician. John and his wife Mary live a quiet working-class life in England. Their daughter Clare stormed out of the family home a decade ago. She was fourteen years old and presumably left to live on the streets. Mary mourns. John canvases neighborhoods, showing Clare’s photo, chasing phantoms, and tracking down leads that, over ten years, have gone nowhere. He sits on a TV stage to plead for clues on the tenth anniversary of Clare’s disappearance and slips into a trance while looking at a photo of her face.

And now, suddenly, Clare has returned. No fanfare, she’s just there on the doorstep. The years have left her lean. She asks forgiveness and wants to come home. Mary takes her in, no questions asked. But John is suspicious. Is it really her?

Juliet Stevenson plays Mary. She’s best known for Truly, Madly, Deeply and one of the best screen Noras in a 1992 TV production of A Doll’s House. Erin Doherty, who appeared in Netflix’s The Crown and Adolescence, whose delicately elongated features would inspire Modigliani, is Clare.

John and Mary’s conflict is played out in terse remarks courtesy of writer/director Virginia Gilbert’s literate script. John implores Mary to see the cracks in Clare’s story. “You must feel it isn’t right,” he says, to which Mary replies, “Don’t tell me what I feel.” When John asks Mary what this imposter could want, Mary cries, “Why should she want anything from us? We’re nobody! We’re nothing!” For her part, the woman skitters around the edges, there but practically not in the frame.

The return of the Prodigal lends itself to a thriller motif, often leading to violence and mayhem. And in fact, Reawakening is being marketed as a thriller of that stripe. But Reawakening isn’t that; it’s more modest and more thoughtful. The suspense comes from what the characters won’t or can’t do, how they are helpless. The ensemble plays an understated cat-and-mouse game of passing glances and conflicting emotions that addresses the loneliness of loss and what we’d do to relieve it. In the end, Reawakening gives poignant meaning to its title.

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Reawakening. Directed by Virginia Gilbert. 2024. Runtime 90 minutes. In theaters and on VOD.

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Enigmatic Enlightenment

Chet Kozlowski — Sun, 21 Dec 2025 17:20:56 +0000

Enigmatic Enlightenment Chet Kozlowski December 21, 2025 - 12:20

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Universal is an odd little movie. It seems to be made up of codes. First, there’s that title. Universal is hardly universal in any sense. It takes place in one setting, and the action is essentially a dialogue among three characters; no one else appears in the cast. It sets up situations and then doesn’t follow through, at least in an expected way. Are these missed opportunities or parts of the design?

Basically, in Universal, three people in a cabin in the woods confront the mysteries of the universe. Leo and Naomi are US-based British academics. They’ve been dating for three years. They arrive at a holiday rental, ready for relaxation. Leo has a wedding ring and is ready to pop the question. His plan is scuttled by Rickey, a graduate student at his college, who appears at the door. Rickey has been working in their mutual lab and made a startling discovery about “junk DNA,” Leo’s field of study, whose research will bring him tenure. Rickey drove hours to see him and avoids leaving. Remarkably, Leo and Naomi warm to Rickey’s discovery, which we see as primitively animated monochrome diagrams on her laptop.

Everybody is onboard with the premise. The actors give engaged, relaxed performances: Joe Thomas is appealingly nerdy as Leo, Rosa Robson softens convincingly to circumstances as Naomi, and Kelley Mack has an impish charm as the intruding Rickey. They talk, and they talk. There is precious little conflict yet several opportunities for it: a drug-fueled party; surprise nudity; a gun suddenly revealed. But little comes of them. And then the end credits roll. The ninety minutes have flown by, but to quote David Letterman, “It’s a long way to travel to find out the store is closed.”

Yet I would recommend Universal as a pleasant, low-impact experience. Weeks after seeing it, I think back on it fondly. The performances are shar,p even if it’s hard to figure out just what the film’s stakes are.

Writer/director Stephen Portland seems earnest and deals in clues here, but to a mystery only he can solve. Universal is pokey, and its arc is inconclusive, but it feels “organic,” very much intentional, and leaves you wanting more. Mr. Portland directed another film with a similarly generic one-word title, Something, in 2018.

In some respects, Universal feels like a prelude to a longer film. I wonder if there was more to it, and if the production was truncated by the tragic death of one of the actors. The film is dedicated to “the late” Kelley Mack, who plays Rickey, and who suffered a brain tumor, aged 33. Ms. Mack had a starring role in a season of The Walking Dead and did voice work for animated films. She might well have gone on to a solid career.

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Universal. Directed by Stephen Portland. 2025. Runtime 90 minutes. Available on demand.

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Surface Tension

Millree Hughes — Sun, 14 Dec 2025 20:29:05 +0000

Surface Tension Millree Hughes December 14, 2025 - 15:29

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sculpture

Lynn Chadwick: Hypercycle - Chapter II: Archetype (1963-1977)

Perrotin Gallery, NYC

Til Dec 20th

Herbert Read used the term "Geometry of Fear" in his introductory essay for the show he had curated as part of the British entry for the Venice Biennale of 1952, "New Aspects of British Sculpture."

Lynn Chadwick's pieces from that show, Beast, Bullfrog, and Maquette for an Unknown Prisoner, were in keeping with his theme of sculpture that emanated the collective anxiety of the post-war period.

He would later distance himself from the appellation, believing that his work did not have much to do with the war. I think he was more concerned with alluding to the engineering and architecture of rebuilding, while also evoking the landscape the British soldiers had been fighting for.

The small figures in the Perrotin show appear with their gowns caught in the breeze, advancing on tiny tarsi, ready to fly. This entomological association contrasts with the more industrial structures that appear to be just beneath the surface in other pieces.

"Sitting Elektra II" (1968) is an elegant female figure that resembles a resting dancer, with a bright triangular face and a bob haircut. Her small breasts and a possibly newly fertilized belly are represented on a highly polished square breastplate that contrasts with the rest of the grey figure. The posture with its broad shoulders and erect head has the quality of theatrical catalepsy. Like a figure chosen from the audience for a hypnosis act.

"Monitor" from 1965 is a tall piece that appears to have a soft, tentlike body with a batwing motif on the surface that suggests the nature of its understructure. It has a more manufactured "head" composed of two thinly separated, lens-like structures. These two flat rings look manufactured, almost as if they were found objects. The name helps redirect the gaze back to the viewer. It could be a tower in Foucault's Panopticon system of surveillance.

The dusty, tan-coloured surface re-humanizes the object, making it more tactile.

Chadwick's pieces have a fascinating surface created by different firing techniques, ranging from an almost matte ceramic feel to the ashier, lead-like surfaces of the figures.

"I actually wanted to produce a sort of touchable object, a tangible object. I really wanted to do that rather than be involved with intangible things like architecture." - Lynn Chadwick

He began his sculptures with a steel skeleton, often adding clay to the interior so that the structure showed through. He would cover the armature, wholly or partly, with a composite of plaster and iron filings, working it with his hands or tools to generate a gesture-scaled surface. This was the master model for lost wax bronze casting. There were a lot of finished experiments made in the Lyppiat studio forge to create the texture and colour of the final piece.

We would all like a little more geometry with our fear. Ours seems to come from all directions with no visible structure behind it. Lynn Chadwick does not make ironic statements through highly polished surfaces, as many of our contemporary sculptors do. His work is intratextual, relating to other elements in this dimension that he has created rather than quoting from other artists. It is a singularly personal work that relies on imagination and observation.

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MARTY SUPREME LIVES UP TO ITS TITLE

Gary Lucas — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 15:03:26 +0000

MARTY SUPREME LIVES UP TO ITS TITLE Gary Lucas December 9, 2025 - 10:03

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It's kind of humorous, given the Jewish-American hustling theme, if not downright appropriate that A24 are rolling out Marty Supreme on Xmas Day in theaters nationwide, as in this Josh Safdie joint Timothée Chalamet, who I hitherto dismissed as not really up to snuff in his assumption of the Bob Dylan mythos in A Complete Unknown, here ascends to full God-head status as Marty Mauser, Young Jewish Ping-Pong Hustler extraordinaire.

Ostensibly based on the real-life exploits of '50s table tennis hustler Marty Reisman, the half-Jewish-on-his-mother-side's Chalamet astonishes in this shaggy-dog version of Reisman's life and times in a 2-1/2 hour exercise in pure cinematic poetry that easily qualifies as Oscar-bait for Best Film of 2025. It's at the top of my list, in any case. And if there is any justice in the world (there isn't, but hey), Chalamet should win the Best Actor category hands down (and Gwyneth Paltrow as Marty's older woman girlfriend, the slightly faded actress Kay Stone, as well).

An advance screening at the Director's Guild here in Manhattan last week set the breathless tone of the film more or less with an audacious sequence concerning a graphic closeup in situ of one of Marty's sperm cells, after a furious competition with a whole gaggle of spermatozoa, breaking away from the pack to furtively fertilize the egg of his longtime married lover Rachel (played by a winsome Odessa A'Zion), which called to mind a similar transgressive sexual intra-vaginal closeup in French cinema badboy Gaspar Noe's 2010 psychedelic fever-dream Enter the Void.

The film documents the fall and rise of preternaturally gifted self-centered smartypants Marty Mauser, brimming with self-confidence and chutzpah aplenty, with the determination to establish himself as the GOAT ping-pong champion of the known universe by hook or by crook, to rise from the muck of his shabby genteel Jewish Lower East Side milieu, lovingly delineated by production designer Jack Fisk and cinematographer Darius Khondji.

Marty will not take "No" for an answer, and brashly motormouths and/or connives his way over, under, around and through one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after another–lying, cheating, stealing and seducing down the door to advance his career and make his way into the Table Tennis Championship of the World Finals held in London, where he is initially defeated. Obstacles overcome on the way to plotting his comeback include general impoverishment (we see him initially working half-heartedly at a shoe store); filial disapproval (a great comic turn by Dylan sidekick Larry "Ratso" Sloman as Mauser's uncle Murray Norkin and his mother played by Fran Drescher, who refuses to take seriously the notion of table tennis as an actual sport); ritual humiliation by predatory paddle-wielding fat-cat sponsor/enabler Kevin O'Leary (a regular on Shark Tank and a dead ringer for Bill O'Reilly); deus ex machine of an ancient bathtub literally falling through the rotting timbered floor of a grotty slum hotel (an appropriation of a bit in Ronald Neame's The Horse's Mouth) onto the southpaw of super-cult director Abel Ferrara, playing a seedy mobster named Ezra Mishkin (and what's in a name, Myshkin being the central epileptic character of Dostoevsky's The Idiot)—the dognapping and liberation of Mishkin's prize pooch entrusted to the safekeeping of Marty and Rachel; and numerous other picaresque episodes piling up one on top of another at breakneck speed which in the hands of a lesser director would prove both beyond belief and human endurance, but in the ambit of Safdie's assured story-telling mastery totally enthralled the audience at the DGA, who were mainly silent throughout this longish film, but dazzled and astonished by Marty Supreme's sheer humanity, wit and pathos, broke into cheers at film's end.

There are numerous cameos from the likes of Sandra Bernhard, Penn Gillette, David Mamet, Pico Iyer, and other notables who populate the world of Marty Mauser. Again, what's in a name—one thinks of both Art Spiegelman's holocaust-centric graphic novel Maus with its plucky Jews as mice, Paul Terry's uber-mouse superhero Mighty Mouse, whose persona Chalamet embodies, and the Mauser itself, a deadly German bolt-action pistol and rifle designed by Peter Paul Mauser in the late 19th century, a favorite of hunters and soldiers which saw plenty of action in both World Wars. An apposite choice of name for the pugnacious Chalamet, self-styled in newspaper interviews in the film as The Chosen One, who refers to himself as "the ultimate product of Hitler's defeat" and who gets off a jaw-dropping line about his first major ping pong opponent Bela Kletzki, a saintly Auschwitz survivor: "I'm gonna do to him what Auschwitz couldn't!" After gasps from reporters all around, he appends that with: "I can say that, because I'm a Jew." Shameless scoundrel that he is (although—spoiler alert—he gets a shot of redemption at the very end), Mauser basically is a more energetic, younger, brighter sexier version of the Safdie Brothers's protagonist the hapless and embarrassing diamond merchant/schlemiel Howard Ratner played by Adam Sandler in their previous film Uncut Gems (written by both Safdies and their regular collaborator Ronald Bronstein). There are many other references to and echoes of that earlier film within Marty Supreme (besides the titular characters' surnames: Ratner vs. Mauser). I loved Uncut Gems, but here, Josh Safdie, going it alone without his brother and with a much more expansive budget of 70 million bucks, has upped the ante by delivering what may be the last word on sports hustling.

Marty Supreme is possibly the most canny portrayal of the American side of the Jew as Striver (a/k/a The Ordeal of Civility) since, well, since Uncut Gems, and before that, the Coen Brothers' A Serious Man. I can't say enough good things about this film, which rockets from one jaw-dropping reversal of fortune after another like the whiplash back and forth of an epic ping-pong match. In Marty Mauser, Josh Safdie has crafted an enduring and ultimately likable despite himself character somewhat reminiscent of Paul Newman's blue-eyed pool shark "Fast Eddie" Felson in Robert Rossen's 1961 The Hustler (although Fast Eddie was never distinctly identified as being Jewish in that film), and of course, Richard Dreyfuss in Ted Kotcheff and Mordecai Richler's 1974 The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz.

Just unstoppable, like the title character himself.

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WARP

Millree Hughes — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 22:32:51 +0000

WARP Millree Hughes December 2, 2025 - 17:32

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Trespasser no. 4, 2025, Oil on linen over shaped stretcher, 72 x 96 inches

KARIN DAVIE: It Comes In Waves

Miles McEnery Gallery, NYC

Through 20 December 2025

Karin Davie is famous for a suite of extraordinary paintings that she showed in the 00s. They seemed to be her last word on the Stripe Painting, which had been her subject since the early 90s. She cut the stripes loose from the edge, and they recoiled like heavy rubber bands. These large abstract works consist of wildly interweaving fist-sized strokes on a coloured ground. The lines are painted wet on wet, picking up colour as they travel, each brush stroke loaded in such a way as to imply weight and volume and evidence of a light source or sources hitting the surface of the line. She never lets you forget, however, that this is paint speaking the formal language of Art.

In her dynamic new show at Miles McEnery, the stripe is back with a new set of instructions. The show consists of two sets of glorious paintings. Two red wave-like paintings, made up of two joined canvases, and a second group of wavy paintings, each in a predominant colour. They are unusual colours that can appear natural, artificial, or both. All of the second set has a divot cut into the top in the middle of the canvas, as if a giant's thumb has pushed into the picture plane.

"Trespasser No 4" is a particularly lovely golden-haired painting. Lines move horizontally in sensual gestures from one side to the other with a kink in the middle, so that by the time the last line is made, there is a groove or path running vertically through the canvas, finishing at the cut-in divot at the top. As the line moves, it picks up lighter or darker versions of the prevailing colour. The way that darker tones gather in parts of the image makes me think that the shadow of clouds has been cast on Van Gogh's "Wheatfield with Crows." The line sometimes stops firmly before the edge or runs on as if it didn't exist. Drawing attention to the formal limits of the canvas and then sometimes totally ignoring them.

Words have worked for Davie in the past. Not in a literal way that say "container" did for Ross Bleckner with his paintings of the '90s made in the shape of urns. But her '90s pieces were "wavy" Davie's and sometimes "curvy" Davie's. But after the '00s, she began looking inside for inspiration rather than at how she looked from the outside.

"Abstractionists see no more sections, no divisions between different sections of reality, and this is not surprising since reality has been transferred from the outside to the inside of the artist, where experience is all one, and everything exists on the same plane." - Guillaume Apollinaire

Strange Terrain no. 5, 2025, Oil on linen, 60 x 105 inches

A more internal perspective persists in the Red Wave paintings. In "Strange Terrain No. 5," we are reminded of both the sea and the body. These are gorgeous paintings, but she doesn't let you just fall into fairy-tale beauty. She brings you back to the real condition of the body. At one point, a cut opens up between the lines and drips over the undulating surface.

There's a carnal shadow. It's not only a billowing pomegranate sea at dusk, but it's also viscera heaving with the breath, the tissue that covers the ribcage.

Both Strange Terrain paintings are composed of two canvases. It means that when she is painting the horizontal stroke, she has to stop and then continue the line again on the next canvas. This deliberate obstruction asks the question, 'Is the action still authentic if it is made a second time?'

Or in this case, if the line is continued.

It harks back to one of her earlier diptychs like "Ummm….#1 & #2," 1993. Part of the Sidewalk series. Where a curvy form covered by stripes had to be repeated in the second painting.

Ummm….#1 & #2, 1993. Part of the Sidewalk series. Oil on canvas over shaped stretcher. Each canvas: 90 X 60 in

This emphasis on the performance side of painting reminds me of the difference between the guitar playing of Jimi Hendrix and Marc Bolan. It didn't matter whether Jimi was playing with his teeth or behind his back; you took the notes he played to be an authentic response to the music. But in a performance by T Rex at the Rainbow music venue in the early '70s, Marc ran his tambourine up and down the neck of the guitar until he finally ejected the tambourine into the audience. It really didn't matter what the sounds coming out of the speaker were; it was about the performance of the action. Marc was no slouch as a guitarist either, but he sometimes used the guitar as a prop as well as an instrument.

While I recognize that this example is not exactly the same thing, because Karin very much cares about what the painting looks like. I'm just using it to make a comparison between how glam was much more playful with the rock music form in a way that is similar to how the post painterly abstract artists used Minimalism. The exact same thing would be if Marc played an impassioned solo and then reproduced it, immediately note-for-note. That would be very Karin Davie.

Karin's work is about aesthetics and poetry. She asks: can a painted performance be authentic? Is the edge of the canvas the end of this particular state described by the painting? At the same time she's alluding to places and things in an optical way. This line casts a shadow, this one emanates light. This picture reminds you of waves. Consequently, the image seems to shift constantly between different states.

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Tree People

Chet Kozlowski — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 17:01:57 +0000

Tree People Chet Kozlowski November 28, 2025 - 12:01

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We see them all over Manhattan just after Thanksgiving. They come in, set up impromptu villages, and are gone in 35 days. Their mission: they're the folks who want to sell you a Christmas tree, and they are the subject of the sweet and exuberant new documentary The Merchants of Joy.

Think about it: you pass by them in the joyous Christmas season but rarely consider what drives them. Director Celia Aniskovich and writer Owen Long profile five families—Greg Nash and his son Little Greg, Heather Neville, Ciree Nash, George Smith, and Jane Waterman and George Nash–and follow them from planting to harvesting to sales on the street. We're with them as they transport goods, negotiate, and seal the deal. Selling trees is not an easy gig: the big stores (i.e., Whole Foods) underprice them ("We have to make four times what we paid for our tree to break even"), yet they keep coming as reliably as the holiday season.

Greg Walsh of Greg's Trees—who resembles Santa with his full white beard (and who plays that role to the hilt)—anticipates his son, little Greg (over six feet tall and camera-shy), taking over the business while diversifying into selling roses during the rest of the year. "You'll never make it just selling trees," Greg contends. George Smith shares the story of finding his soulmate. Tough-as-nails Heather Nevelle holds firm and takes names. Ciree Nash is the information center of the operation. George Nash and Jane Waterman run a family business from which George, at least, is about to retire.

We spend time with them on the lots, making deliveries, and at home. What emerges is a look at a subculture of folks who resemble vagabonds but are, at heart, serious businesspeople. The Merchants of Joy shows them off to great advantage: We see squabbles over turf when a rival tree company sets up across the street, and are given a window into interpersonal relationships. Each of them has a particular area of expertise. Ciree is especially proud of hiring the "the unhireables," folks who have been in jail, offering them the unique opportunity to make an honest return to society on terms they can live with.

The Merchants of Joy's pacing is jaunty. We move quickly from one issue to the next. It's a measure of the documentarians' skill that we get to know these people quickly, so when one is felled by a cancer diagnosis, it gives us pause. Discussion of long-term goals as well as criminal records keep things lively in the brisk 90-minute runtime.

The Merchants of Joy ends up being a celebration not only of Christmas but of New York City as well. "You're only as happy as you choose to be," one of the sellers asserts. The film trusts that adage, as well as the philosophy that there's "a person for every tree."

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The Merchants of Joy. Directed by Celia Aniskovich. An Amazon Prime Original. Runtime 90 minutes. On Prime Video.

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Awkward in the Heart

Chet Kozlowski — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 22:21:19 +0000

Awkward in the Heart Chet Kozlowski November 26, 2025 - 17:21

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We lost John Prine to COVID in 2020, the final stop on a long journey of ill health. He’d suffered bouts of cancer that left him stooped and crooked, a mere shadow of his former self. But, except for a brief respite, he never stopped writing songs and singing them.

The new film You Got Gold documents the time in Nashville, TN, on the occasion of what would have been his 76th birthday, a weeklong celebration that culminated in an all-star concert at Ryman Auditorium, his favorite venue. The party/memorial was put together by his wife, Fiona, and his son, Tommy, who sings “Paradise” with Dwight Yokum.

It’s a joyous tribute that befits his influence. Brandi Carlile, Steve Earle, Bonnie Raitt, and Jason Isbell are amongst the artists who took time out of their schedules to sing his songs and share anecdotes. Good feelings abound. The show includes many standout performances, as Bob Weir and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, The Milk Carton Kids doing “Storm Windows,” Swamp Dogg’s version of “Sam Stone,” and a rave up of "Knockin’ on Your Screen Door" by The War and Treaty.

The show is bookended with filmed performances by Mr. Prine himself, the first from 1978’s Austin City Limits, in which he is a young, scruffy troubadour doing "Six O’clock News," and later from 2019, with his family.

For those of us old enough to remember his debut album, promoted by Kris Kristofferson, it’s a reminder of the subtle, sensitive lyrics for which he’s known (Bonnie Raitt calls him Country music’s Hemingway: no word wasted).

Stars too numerous to mention pay tribute with Mr. Prine’s songs and, as in Lucinda Williams’ "What Could Go Wrong" and Kacey Musgraves’s "Walk in Peace," songs written about or dedicated to him. The film of the event is fresh and lively, well directed by Michael John Warren, and full of good cheer. It’s well worth the time spent to remember one of the most exuberant and prolific talents in folk and country music.

The title of this review comes from a story about Kurt Vile meeting Mr. Prine for the first time. His wife, knowing how much he admired him, expressed his discomfort with that turn of phrase.

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You Got Gold. Directed by Michael John Warren. 2025. Runtime 90 minutes.

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Justice For The Living And The Dead

Chet Kozlowski — Fri, 21 Nov 2025 00:55:48 +0000

Justice For The Living And The Dead Chet Kozlowski November 20, 2025 - 19:55

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Time is running out for the girls — now women — of the Magdelene Laundries scandal. Over 10,000 women and girls were confined in the Irish institutions between 1922 and 1996. There they were pressed into slavish work, incarcerated and tortured by the Roman Catholic nuns who ran the places. Since these homes were exposed as a cottage industry of trafficking, the survivors have grown old and infirm. Many have died. If they are to attain justice, it has to be soon.

There’s a desperation to the story of the Magdalene Laundries, which are now in danger of vanishing into history. The remaining survivors of this abuse are ageing, elderly, and vulnerable women who see this as a last chance for redress. Identities have been obliterated, searches have been undertaken, and the statistics are astounding_:one count contends that 57,000 children were separated from their mothers and trafficked to adoption.

The film Testimony uses as its starting point a small cemetery that stands in the way of the sale of High Park, one of the ”Mother and Baby homes” recently sold by the order. Exhumation revealed more bodies than documented, many unknown remains of women and children, marking the site as a clandestine mass burial ground. The incident opened new investigations, primarily by an intrepid group of academics, archivists, and activists. “Time was the one commodity these women did not have,” says Jim Smith of Boston University, who wrote a book about the “architecture of containment,” and never imagined it would launch a cause.

Testimony is more than just a document. It is a call to action, part of a campaign to recruit more women and bring justice to all. Many survivors tell their heartbreaking stories here on the premise that stories = testimony = evidence to counter the unwavering stubbornness of the Irish government to accept accountability.

Testimony follows an intrepid band of lawyers, academics, and volunteers known as Justice for Magdalenes. Mr. Smith is joined in these efforts by archivist Catriona Crowe, legal advocate Maeve O’Rourke, and activists Philomena Lee (about whom the 2013 film Philomena was made) and Mari Steed, one of the survivors, to name a few. Midway through the film, a busload of survivors is cheered by protestors, stigmas shaken off, in an exhilarating display that implies something has been won. But it’s only being acknowledged. Long overdue. Proverbial other shoes fall at a rapid rate from there, accompanied by new revelations and shocking statistics, one of which contends that 57,000 children were separated from their mothers and trafficked to adoption during the reign.

Testimony is directed by Aoife Kelleher, who deftly weaves interviews, news footage, and home movies into a damning indictment and vividly displays the frustration that the Magdalene matter has yet to be resolved. Ms. Kelleher has Irish TV series and movies to her credit, and feature films like One Million Dubliners (2014). Testimony is co-written by Ms. Kelleher and Rachel Lysaght.

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Testimony. Directed by Aoife Kelleher. 2025. Runtime 105 minutes.

If inspired by Mr. Kozlowski's solid review . . .

you should also check out several stirring fictional films on this topic, such as Small Things Like These and Philomena.

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Nicolas Cage is Jesus’s “Daddy” in The Carpenter’s Son

Brandon Judell — Mon, 17 Nov 2025 15:56:44 +0000

Nicolas Cage is Jesus’s “Daddy” in The Carpenter’s Son Brandon Judell November 17, 2025 - 10:56

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Making a film is seldom easy. Ask any director. You have to work with or against studio heads, screenwriters, agents, vegan actors, unsympathetic caterers, and those Porta Potty folks. Then, if you're hitched up, at the end of the day, you're obligated to go home and make believe you're interested in what your spouse and kids and their Lububus did all day.

Director/writer Lotfy Nathan, best known for his 2013 documentary on West Baltimore's illegal dirt bikers, had most of that to contend with, plus the Lord, in The Carpenter's Son. Shooting in Greece because Egypt was not welcoming to the subject matter, he and his crew had to reckon with more plagues than a Passover dinner. Thankfully, firstborn sons were spared, but according to press notes:

"Swarms of relentless flies took over the set, followed by an infestation of lice and fleas. To avoid the insects, the film began night shoots, plunging the set into darkness. Fierce storms disrupted filming, closing roads, flooding locations, and killing local wildlife. Frogs arrived en masse and suddenly died . . . . [Then] the day of a major shoot in the leper colony, thousands of wasps descended on the site. Nicolas Cage was surrounded, and multiple crew members were stung. The set had to be evacuated and ultimately abandoned." Almost makes Terry Gilliam's Don Quixote shooting sound like a picnic.

So what got the Lord into such a tizzy?

Well, the film, inspired by the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, opens with rather disconcerting groans. Apparently, Christ's virgin birth was a painful one. Shortly thereafter, his foster dad, Joseph (Nicolas Cage), and his genuine mom, Mary (FKA Twigs), atop a donkey with baby Jesus hidden, escape from the vicinity of Bethlehem. Why? Because King Herod had ordered the slaughter of all boys aged two and under. Known as the "Massacre of the Innocents," Giovanni Boccaccio, centuries later, took a break from writing The Decameron to swear that 140,000 tykes were slaughtered. Wikipedia notes that "most scholars reject the historicity" of the extermination. Ah, there those historians go again. Needless to say, Mr. Nathan showcases one bundled tot torn from his mother's arms and thrown onto a flaming pyre.

[An aside: While researching this review, I came across a discussion concerning whether Jesus burped as a baby and could have suffered from colic. Intrigued, I phoned the noted literary scholar Felicia Bonaparte, author of Will and Destiny: Morality and Tragedy in George Eliot's Novels. The good professor replied, the answer was definitely "Yes!!!" Christ was both completely man and completely God and thus exhibited normal tot behavior.]

With crickets a-chirping and goats a-bleating, years pass by. Wary of their son's identity being discovered, the nomadic family is constantly on the move until Joseph lands a job carving idols.

Well, Jesus (Noah Jupe), now a hormonally charged, strapping adolescent, one day in his new home, ganders through a window hole to witness his neighbor, a mute, lovely lass named Lilith, cleansing herself in the open completely nude. Guiltily awestruck, yet clearly enjoying what he views, he gazes on and on. But at that point, Jesus doesn't know who he is or how he came to be. That will be remedied shortly.

After the above-mentioned ogle, the teen begins teaching Torah classes with a menacing rabbi; brings a crushed bug back to life; is pushed onto a sleeping leper whom he cures to his own surprise; and is almost seduced into evil by a young Satanic temptress (Isla Johnston) who likes to hang from tree branches. Evenings aren't more peaceful. The teen dreams nightly of his own future crucifixion and learns that his real father is not the one he's been sending Father's Day cards to.

If that isn't enough for one Biblical epic, there are peaches poisoned by live scorpions; hills stirring with Satanic whisperings; the breaking of an idol; horror scenes that will freak out viewers suffering from ophidiophobia; and a sightseeing trek to view those already being crucified. Most enjoyable, though, is the feverish confrontation between Joseph and Mary, where she is asked whether Jesus was fathered by a Roman.

Truly, the reason most of us skedaddle nowadays to a Nicolas Cage film is that we're hoping to view another episode worthy of being added to his already top-heavy collection of absurd thespian moments. Or as Ben Walsh titled his Independent review of Season of the Witch (2011), "Nicolas Cage: From the sublime to the ridiculous."

May I here cite the too-oft-requoted Cage evaluation of his own career that opens Walsh's article: "I am not a demon. I am a lizard, a shark, a heat-seeking panther. I want to be Bob Denver on acid playing the accordion."? Mae West might have responded: “That's the right attitude, boy! Mmmmmm. Be like me. When I'm good, I'm very good, but when I'm bad, I'm better." With scraggly tresses, an untrimmed beard, mournful eyes, and a mouth besieged by woe, Cage's Joseph, attired in a ratty toga, does let loose several times. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?" he screams on learning Jesus has committed a miracle in public. "Without my protection, you would be dead." The screenplay even has Joseph explaining to the questioning Jesus why he's pouring some dirt in front of his hut: "If an evil spirit were to enter the house at night . . . the footprint of a rooster will appear in the sand." And one does.

Now, how you react to all of this depends possibly on how many films you've seen over the past 12 months. For example, the Metro's Tori Brazier shouts: "Nicolas Cage's Jesus horror movie is the most profound film I've seen in 2025." She's probably seen too few. If you are a devout Christian, you might scream, “blasphemous!" or be totally intrigued by this at-times bloody fantasy of Jesus' formative years. If you are a bit cynical, you might just chuckle a bit or look at the carryings-on with disdain. Is The Carpenter's Son too campy or too sincere? It's probably both.