‘Carter’
Stream it on Netflix.
Just minutes into this new South Korean import debuting, it’s obvious we’re in for a crazy ride. Shortly after waking up with amnesia and a cross-shaped incision on the back of his neck, Carter (Joo Won, star of the original Korean version of “The Good Doctor”) recovered enough to brutally send dozens of half-naked enemies. in a bloody melee inside a bathhouse. He hears a woman’s voice in his head who informs him that a spreading virus is turning people into bald, zombie-like maniacs, and that he must deliver the antidote to North Korea. Should Carter, a former rogue CIA agent, trust a disembodied voice from North Korea to begin with? You have a guess.
This sci-fi-inspired actor’s plot matters less than his lyrical violence and dizzying camerawork. Director Jung Byung-gil (“The Villainess”) has crafted a series of virtuosically unbalanced sets, and Carter is a turbocharged hybrid of Jack Reacher, Ethan Hunt and Jason Bourne. One high-speed chase has our indestructible hero hopping on a bike and three moving pickup trucks, and another repurposes the wireframe action codes of high-flying Asian cinema with fighters plummeting from an airplane. The ending leaves the door wide open for a sequel. There better be one.
At the stylistic and moral antipodes of “Carter”, the gently philosophical first feature film by Jake Wachtel, which resembles a cross between “Small Change” by François Truffaut and “The Goonies”, interspersed with reflections on the evolution of the mind. human. Set in the near future Phnom Penh, Cambodia, “Karmalink” belongs to the branch of science fiction concerned with spirituality and metaphysics: where do we come from and what makes us who we are. are ? How is our consciousness formed and transmitted? The key here is that the film is rooted in Buddhism.
Teenage Leng Heng (Leng Heng Prak, who sadly passed away after filming wrapped) is convinced that his dreams, informed by his past lives, will point him to a treasure that, in turn, will help his family stand up to local developers. . He teams up with Srey Leak (Srey Leak Chhith), a local smart girl, and soon the pair find themselves embroiled in the activities of a scientist (Sahajak Boonthanakit) exploring artificial consciousness. Co-written with Wachtel by Christopher Larsen (the Lao sci-fi film “The Long Walk”), “Karmalink” juxtaposes Buddhist beliefs and neurological research in intriguing ways, against a backdrop of overdevelopment and exploitation – and yet the film often retains a playful sensibility, thanks to its young actors.
‘Exhibition 36’
Rent or buy on most major platforms.
Famines, wars, ecological destruction: the Earth dies of a thousand wounds in the first feature film by Mackenzie G. Mauro. It’s unclear which is the fatal – all we know is that the movie takes place over the last three days before the final switch is flipped. Not that Cam (the quietly charismatic Charles Ouda) seems to be affected by this final countdown. He continues to sell prescription drugs to his regular customers and obsessively take black-and-white photos, with an old-fashioned camera, of a deserted Manhattan. This could be a case of ultimate resignation. Or maybe aloof voyeurism is Cam’s usual attitude.
For a moment, it feels like Cam is going to sink with the ship into a state of self-indulgent passivity: why bother doing anything since there’s no future? The plot feels like a flimsy excuse for an expressionist look at a man and a city mired in doomed expectation. Mauro shot his film at a time during the Covid-19 pandemic when New York was in limbo. The setup is reminiscent of Ben H. Winters’ novel “The Last Policeman,” in which the titular cop continues to do his job knowing the planet is doomed by an incoming asteroid, but “Exposure 36” is more reminiscent of “Downtown 81, in which Jean-Michel Basquiat played an artist wandering the abandoned streets of pre-gentrified Lower Manhattan.
‘Tight’
Rent or buy on most platforms.
They look weird, these women: it’s not so much their Victorian attire as the fact that their face is covered with a bonnet and breathing mask combo. And then they shoot a man who made the mistake of getting a little too close to their home, a sealed glass house that protects them from a memory-destroying virus known as Shred. Kelsey Egan’s tight-knit group of survivors from South Africa’s film are made up of a mother (Adrienne Pearce) and her three daughters (Anja Taljaard, Jessica Alexander and Kitty Harris), caring for a infected brother (Brent Vermeulen). The women’s highly ritualized existence takes place outside of time and space – the film often sounds like a perverted fairy tale about a cult – until a newcomer (Hilton Pelser) enters their sanctuary. Anyone familiar with both versions of Pasolini’s “The Beguiled” or “Teorema” knows that the point of tight-knit cinematic units is to see how they react to intruders. Egan isn’t afraid of gruesome details (like with what happens to female victims) but the prevailing mood once the stranger enters the scene is one of forbidden erotica. As slow as its pace may be, the film rewards patience.
‘Double’
Rent or buy on most major platforms.
If the awards were more welcoming for genre films, Karen Gillan (“Doctor Who”, Nebula in the Marvel Universe) would be celebrated for her tremendous performance in this deadpan dystopian comedy from Riley Stearns. After vomiting copious amounts of blood, Sarah de Gillan learns – during an absurd visit to the doctor – that she suffers from an undetermined terminal illness that will kill her at an undetermined time. To save her mother (Maija Paunio) and her boyfriend (Beulah Koale) from grief, she decides to undergo a “replacement” procedure: Sarah gets cloned and begins to train her double (Gillan again) to take her place. What the original Sarah didn’t predict was that her loved ones would end up preferring double.
As if that weren’t enough, Sarah is informed that her illness is in remission. Alas, legally there can’t be two of the same person – women have to fight until only one remains. Leaving nothing to chance, Sarah begins intense combat training with Trent (Aaron Paul). The film’s boldest move isn’t so much its premise as the fact that neither Sarah nor her double are likable – Gillan plays with both abrupt exasperation and unfiltered frankness. It’s rare to see a performance so committed to keeping the audience at bay, and yet so oddly entertaining.
