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For their 179th episode, two nostalgic film critics, two surround sound dads, and two crowd-ready teachers, Will Johnson and Don Shanahan, take a special episode to spell out an editorial they have in mind for a while. Will and Don carry on a conversation ranking the best theatrical experiences of their lives so far. From formative moments and cheers to memorable emotions, their very different lists will surprise and impress. Get to know our hosts some more with this one. Come learn more and stay for the mutual love and respect that the fun movies encapsulate. Enjoy our podcast!
Cinephile Hissy Fits is a Film Obsessive media podcast, brought to you by the Ruminations Radio Network. Please visit, rate, review and subscribe. If you enjoyed this show, we have more where that came from, with interesting hosts, and wonderful guests. All are available on iTunes, Spotify, and anywhere you find your favorite shows. Follow the show on Twitter at @CinephileFit and on Facebook. Also, find both Will Johnson and Don Shanahan on Letterboxd as the accumulate their viewings and build their ranks and lists. Lastly, check out their TeePublic store for merchadise options from stickers to t-shirts!
Without question, the most striking artistic quality of many on display in RaMell Ross’s brilliant and heartwrenching drama Nickel Boys is the design given to the audience’s viewpoint. Teaming with All Roads Taste of Salt cinematographer Jomo Fray, Ross assigns the camera the boxier Academy ratio and has it act as an alternating station of first-person points of view. In a short while, you, the viewer, get accustomed to the character exchanges with the camera, the mirror switches, and the weighty angular whips and pans. You cannot take your eyes off of the picture because the picture, thanks the use of this perspective, cannot take its eyes off of you either, and that’s a hell of an effect.
Nickel Boys is based on Colson Whitehead’s bracing 2019 novel The Nickel Boys, which tredded through the history of the infamous Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, a former juvenile reform institution in the Marianna, Florida, and earned the author his second Pulitizer Prize for Fiction in 2020. Matching Whitehead’s novel, RaMell Ross, making his narrative feature debut after his Oscar-nominated 2018 documentary Hale County This Morning, This Evening, employs nonlinear storytelling with two timelines to shed light on the life of Elwood Curtis.
Elwood’s story begins in the 1960s as a diligent student who impresses his Black school teachers. Encouraged to look beyond the selective and sanitized history he reads in his textbooks, the young boy shows the fervent potential to be someone wise, helpful, and special when he’s older. Growing into a teen to be played by gentle newcomer Ethan Herisse (seen earlier this year in the The American Society of Magical Negroes), Elwood begins to participate in the Civil Rights Movement activities in his local area, which troubles the benevolent and cherished grandmother Hattie (King Richard Oscar nominee Aunjunae Ellis-Taylor) who raises him.
LESSON #1: THE POWER OF EYE CONTACT– Circling back to the beginning superlatives, viewpoints become the guidance conduits of everything in Nickel Boys. Children and youths are often the ultimate voyeurs both as wandering eye watchers and urgent attention seekers. How far someone can see is linked to earshot limitations for hearing and listening as well. Nevertheless, the framing and movements of Jomo Wray create the illusion of posture and deftly capture the targets of focus the characters find and choose. After a hard stare, a wondrous gawk, a nervous peek, or fleeting glimpse of notice, once eye contact is made with the camera acting as our characters, moments develop, particularly when the eyes on the other side of the camera belong to the divine Aunjunae Ellis-Taylor. Extending an impressive streak that includes King Richard, The Color Purple, and Origin, the luminous Ms. Ellis-Taylor chalks up a second tremendous matronly performance for 2024 after Exhibiting Forgiveness.
Soon after Elwood earns acceptance at a HBCU for a tuition-exempt accelerated study program, he is pegged by police as a false accomplice to a car theft when he was only the hitchhiking passenger. Convicted as a minor, Elwood is sent to the segregated Nickel Academy reform school in rural Florida. There, he befriends the equally meek Turner, played by Brandon Wilson of The Way Back. With combined efforts on the inside of hopeful good behavior during stints of harsh physical labor and the outside legal fight waged by Hattie, the young men long for their release. The kinship conveyed by Herisse and Wilson is the endearing anchor of Nickel Boys, through and through, and the actors are captivating with their sobering portrayals.
LESSON #2: THE HIDDEN AND NOT-SO-HIDDEN SOURCES OF CRUELTY AND ABUSE– As Nickel Boys ventures into the dark recesses of the administrative practices of the Nickel Academy, the hints at off-screen corruption and violence increase. Utilizing that witnessing power of the cinematography, much of the trauma is shielded. For the viewer bound to what the camera shows with its gaze, the mental suggestions created likely are as cryptic as the unseen truths. The Dozier School for Boys operated in plain sight for 111 years. Hundreds of boys went “missing,” and too few people cared because they were “criminals” and “colored.” It took a failed inspection in 2009 to trigger a full investigation that produced appalling and still-incomplete results.
More and more, it becomes readily apparent in Nickel Boys that many young men never made it out of the facility, which is where the true Dozier story seeps into the film as a jolt of hard reality and dramatic heft. The reverberations of what transpired at the Nickel Academy singe the second timeline of Nickel Boy showing an middle-aged Elwood Curtis in the 2010s. Played facelessly by Hamilton Tony Award winner Daveed Diggs, Elwood runs a painting business in New York City. After years of suppressing the horrors of his teen years, he is closely following the news stories breaking of Nickel’s closure and investigations. Even more heard than seen, Diggs shoulders this movie’s coda mightily.
LESSON #3: BEING AT AN ARM’S LENGTH– Some of this intentional “arm’s length” perspective in Nickel Boys calls to mind the classic idiomatic saying of keeping things away from you. In a way and following Lesson #1, this distance is the space provided for talk when two people are together, friends or otherwise. In Ross’s film, the tools to close those gaps are the arms and hands acting as extensions of the body. The structuring of encounters enables Fray’s camera to capture hands that are welcoming, defensive, or in neutral places in between. It takes a special act or person to close the arm’s length of space, making even the simple gestures of a handshake or, even more impactful, a hug matter in the most enormous ways for characters that lack and crave that affection.
Ranging from scaffolded parallels to Martin Luther King Jr., Stanley Kramer’s progressive classic The Defiant Ones, and NASA’s Apollo program running concurrently in the social landscape to the symbolic appearances of alligators and donkeys, RaMell Ross’s swirling current of dreamy positive and negative imagery cements its overflowing empathy. By Ross’s own words, the camera intensifies objectivity and that speaks volumes for Nickel Boys. Its well-executed impact begs audiences to become further informed on the tragedy after finishing the film. In the end, we cannot let go of what the eyes and arms want, especially if those needs cannot be attained due to the grim circumstances of the story. Better than many works by peers and contemporaries, Nickel Boys longs for us to hold dear the bonds of protective brotherhood with a fascinating filmic experience.
This past fall, the eclectic western Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Illinois put on their inaugural film festival. The Oak Park, Illinois Film Festival. Divided into five thematic programming blocks, the festival organizers and leading board members curated a total of 17 films. Three of them were feature-length, and two of those were documentaries. Holding firm to local roots, each film entry had to have an Oak Park connect in front of or behind the camera to be eligible. By day, I am a proud elementary school teacher in the village of Oak Park and secured credentials to promote and cover the festival and its award winners on my outlet of Film Obsessive. With this third article, he collects the capsule reviews of the 17 films. Enjoy these buried treasures!
Program Block 1: “Falling Apart”
BREAKUP SEASON– 4 STARS
Image courtesy of Static Films.
Perfect for this recently concluding holiday portion of the calendar and the festival’s winner for Best Feature, Breakup Season mixes the Christmas trappings of laughs and charm with the emotional pitfalls of faltering romantic relationships. Written and directed by H. Nelson Tracy in his feature-length debut, the film stars Chandler Riggs (The Walking Dead) and Samatha Isler (Captain Fantastic) as the steady couple Ben and Cassie. They are traveling from their comfortable urban lifestyle to spend the week of Christmas with Ben’s family at their snowy, rustic homestead in La Grande, Oregon. When a giggle turns to a shiver within Cassie, we can already see this is not going to start on the right foot, especially when the dreaded “We need to talk” plea is made.
As the title suggests, Breakup Season quickly has Ben and Cassie split up in a rough argument. To spare his and her embarrassment, she’s willing to leave and travel to her family. The trouble is the inclement weather has grounded travel, trapping Cassie with Ben’s family. The awkwardness of this predicament from H. Nelson Tracy turns out to be frostier than the climate, making for a dramedy that could have easily drifted to the low-hanging fruit of cringe comedy or the overwrought fringes of melodrama. Instead, Breakup Season doesn’t shy away from baring difficult feelings from several extremely relatable angles. No one is really right or wrong, yet the jadedness is palpable.
Through it all, there’s a keep-your-chin-up vigor from everyone involved, including Ben’s parents (veteran character actor James Urbaniak of Oppenheimer and newcomer Brook Hogan) and quirky siblings (Unfriended’s Jacob Wysocki and newcomer Carly Stewart). Acting between the same rock-and-a-hard-place as her character, Samatha Isler greatly impresses with the wringer she’s taken through, as does the necessary maturation required for Chandler Riggs and his character. Isler handily won the Best Actress trophy of the Oak Park, Illinois Film Festival.
The implosion is hard to watch, but the silver linings and rich coffee shop song soundtrack lift spirits to balance the feels of this offbeat romantic comedy. Including Oak Park, Breakup Season has won 28 awards from 14 different film festivals in 2024. This one deserves to ping on larger radars and is available to rent on Amazon Prime.
WINDY & WARM– 3 STARS
Windy & Warm is a tender balm of a musical interlude. The short film features a guitarist (local filmmaker Eric Henry’s own father) meditating on a dynamic moment in Cook County’s Miller Meadows Forest Preserve in suburban Forest Park, Illinois. The sun is low and the air is quiet when the man begins to play a tune.
What unfurls in Windy & Warm is an outdoor performance of John Loudermilk’s “Windy and Warm” made famous by Chet Atkins. Shot and edited by Henry to include smooth dissolves and position changes, the flavor of the Atkins song creates the vision of a cowboy resting and enjoying the flora. The camera has close-ups of the strumming fingers while the sun absorbs the chords. The man and the song are living and breathing that perfect weather.
With the same inhaling and exhaling, Eric Henry’s short epitomizes stepping outside and feeling a vibe. Shot during the pandemic, Windy & Warm is a lovely video that can match that longing and spirit. The shift of seasons from Breakup Season to this afterwards in the first program block made for a nice stirring lift. Henry would go on to win the Best Music Video award of the OPILFF.
Program Block 2: “Overcoming Challenges”
GET AWAY DRIVER’S ED– 4 STARS
Created as a student project and inspired by a real-life experience, filmmaker and Oak Park graduate Ali Weber created the chipper and devious animated short film Get Away Driver’s Ed. The episode features a nervous 16-year-old driving student named Madison. Like many fellow teens, Madison will do anything to get her license. When she steps into the car with her strict instructor for her big test, that very threshold of “anything” and classic dynamic between teacher-and-student are humorously tested.
Get Away Driver’s Ed has fun with the notion of breaking rules to break other rules, as Madison’s instructor turns out to be more than she seems. In a fun turn of events, the instructor is a bank robber and is using her student to be, as the title suggests, her getaway driver. Once the aiding and abetting sugar-honey-iced tea hits the fan, Weber’s animated film switches to a widescreen aspect ratio signifying that it’s go time.
Needless to say, hijinks ensure. The result is a quick little hit of breathless fun, done with a savvy and accessible animation style. Weber’s short film feels like the kind of idea that would be advantageously and successfully stretched into a longer adventure and feature if given the chance to spread its wings. As a short, it still winningly succeeds.
LUNCHBOX ARMAGEDDON– 3 STARS
The next animated short film, Lunchbox Armageddon, gets its name from the fictional school garage band trying to find a vacancy. The metal-minded group was all set to thrash at the middle school talent show before tonsillectomy surgery sidelines the pipes of the lead singer. Without a proper frontman, the remaining members scramble to recruit untapped talent. Sure enough, they find a replacement from a meek and unlikely place.
Directed by the trio of Adam Tock, Kevin O’Rourke, and Joe Gustav, the visual style of Lunchbox Armageddon evokes the old-school speckled printing of classic comic books. The characters are cleverly proportioned, slanted, and curved to fit that exaggerated look. Likewise, the flow of the narrative moves in similarly invisibly-paneled fashion. Lunchbox Armageddon may crescendo to jam to its own music, but it’s the expectation-changing catalyst of new friendship that give viewers the widest smile. Both Lunchbox Armageddon and Get Away Driver’s Ed filmmakers were awarded Animation commendations by the OPILFF Board and represent a bright future of local artists.
INFERNO– 4 STARS
Image courtesy of Contrarian Films.
Impressing many Oak Park, Illinois Film Festival viewers smack dab in the middle of the second program block was the 2020 TV pilot-turned-short-film Inferno, written and directed by Oak Park native Wendy Roderweiss. Shot in Oak Park disguising itself as an unnamed California town, Inferno throws audiences into one of the wholliest and most toxic job interviews they may ever see in any setting.
We know the proverbial good buy right off the bat in Inferno. It’s Tommy Laudadio, played by steady TV actor Josh Bywater. He’s a considerate and noble law school graduate—which may already feel like an oxymoron—who desperately needs a job. Against his better judgement, Tommy takes a friend’s referral for an interview with a firm of divorce lawyers, a field he is simultaneously overqualified and ill-matched for in the decency department. Smartly, he’s interviewing them as much as they are interviewing him.
Quite quickly in Inferno, Tommy discovers he’s roaming and being courted to join a troupe of morally depraved attorneys all about the stacked dollars of billable hours. Shocked and appalled, Tommy goes through an odyssey of hand-wringing and wild encounters trying to determine if he’s willing to compromised his ethics enough for a regular paycheck. Poking the bear, the infiltrating Tommy sees places he can write a few wrongs and unswallow a few poison pills, much to the boss’s (David Pasquesi of Veep and The Book of Boba Fett) chagrin.
Inferno zips through this hornet’s nest with breathless comedic pacing. The quips and comebacks between Bywater and his prodding screen partners falls like leaves in October. Winner of the Best Actor trophy for that linguistic charisma, Bywater makes for a perfect character to root for in dishing out sly comeuppance. Man, this really would have been a steller jumping off point for a workplace comedy series. Roderweiss’s Inferno deserved better, but did succeed at earning the OPILFF’s prize for Best Narrative Short.
BATH SALT– 5 STARS
Image courtesy of OPILFF
Following the crowd-pleasing success of Inferno in the “Overcoming Challenges” program was the 15-minute 2017 short film Bath Salt. Cancer most certainly counted as a startling switch of tastes from the topical comedy. However, director Nadyja von Ebers’s work took its fifteen minutes as a short and hit some of the strongest emotional notes of the entire festival.
Bath Salt introduces Maura, played by the short’s writer Grace Melon of Henry Gamble’s Birthday Party and Death to Metal. She is an actress rehearsing on the night before a big play’s opening. Her line readings with Jill (Divergent cast member Janet Ulrich Brooks) are not going well, to the point where the instructor advises the younger woman to use and borrow from your life experiences as an actress. Reflecting later, that note uncoils history within Maura.
From there, Bath Salt poignantly wanders Maura’s stream of memories involving her friendship with Laney (Melanie Neilan, seen in Princess Cyd). At this undetermined time in the past, the two women are going through cancer treatments and find themselves sharing a bath with wine and laughter. Seeing this beautiful remembered moment transpire begins to inform on the fragile and nervous Maura of the present. It would be easy for Bath Salt, to pound an armrest on that thought and declare “now, it all makes sense,” but it doesn’t because the reverberating wake of that platonic bond shows itself to have greater meaning. For a short film to pull that level of relatable vulnerability is a powerful thing.
WONDERLOST– 3 STARS
Seguing from one type of young artist to another, the short film Wonderlost made by White Noise actor Michael William Chopra switches from a theatre stage to an art studio. Actress Ellie Duffey plays a young lady looking at a personal and career crossroads. While working within a school’s studio on her art of choice, she is facing the graduation step of entering the workforce. She’s a candidate for an entry-level graphic designer position and cannot decide whether to pursue it further.
Chopra’s Wonderlost may occupy the life goal space of a stereotypical “starving artist,” but it glides into its chosen tipping point rather than stomping into it. The overwhelming urge to spread wings and break out is front-and-center. However, a chance encounter with a church organist spins a new wheel within her our lead protagonist’s head by making the comparison of her inquiry of “why do you play” with his counter reply of “the same reason” she does her art.
Gradually, the challenge and confusion is assuaged in Wonderlost. Shot entirely in black and white with a handheld camera grabbing great light all over the college campus of Loyola University, this branching point of Wonderlost between a personal path and a career path is keenly juxtaposed to that monochromatic visual palette. With the same cinematic touch from Chopra, the artist’s soulful spirit is lifted by Duffey and shines through the grays.
THAT THING WE ALL SHARE– 2 STARS
Image courtesy of OPILFF
Directed by artist and actress Michele Jedlicka, That thing we all share breaks its 8-minute short film running time into three distinct chapters. Its summary centers on a woman confronting difficult memories when responding to a call from home. In “The Letter,” there is a voiceover and storytelling set to imagery. The visuals seem random and disconnected, yet are insightful as they progress.
Following that first segment is “The Journey.” It steps further out to chronicle a rural small-town experience with the biography of a woman and her family history. This ambled life takes place after the COVID-19 pandemic. That thing we all share crescendos with “The Answer,” which boasts representative casting of neuroexceptional individuals filled against a white background with more of that ever-present narration.
That thing we all share presents itself very much with the slant of visual performance poetry. Filmed with a mix of color and black-and-white institles, Jedlicka’s narrative of recalled memory may wonder through its transitions, but the imagery still has heartwarming quality that cannot be discounted. The film went on to win the Best Visual Elements award at this inaugural Oak Park, Illinois Film Festival for its costumes, special effects, and set design.
Directed by artist and actress Michele Jedlicka, That thing we all share breaks its 8-minute short film running time into three distinct chapters. Its summary centers on a woman confronting difficult memories when responding to a call from home. In “The Letter,” there is a voiceover and storytelling set to imagery. The visuals seem random and disconnected, yet are insightful as they progress.
Following that first segment is “The Journey.” It steps further out to chronicle a rural small-town experience with the biography of a woman and her family history. This ambled life takes place after the COVID-19 pandemic. That thing we all share crescendos with “The Answer,” which boasts representative casting of neuroexceptional individuals filled against a white background with more of that ever-present narration.
That thing we all share presents itself very much with the slant of visual performance poetry. Filmed with a mix of color and black-and-white institles, Jedlicka’s narrative of recalled memory may wonder through its transitions, but the imagery still has heartwarming quality that cannot be discounted. The film went on to win the Best Visual Elements award at this inaugural Oak Park, Illinois Film Festival for its costumes, special effects, and set design.
Program Block 3: “Reclaiming Pride”
HILLBILLY– 4 STARS
Image courtesy of Holler Home Productions
Connected to the town of Oak Park by its composer John Fee (the Wizards TV series), the 2018 documentary Hillbilly was selected to headline the “Reclaiming Pride” programming block. Playing at the Oak Park, Illinois Film Festival during the hotly contested 2024 election season and arriving with the pedigree as a Best Documentary feature winner of the Los Angeles Film Festival and Nashville Film Festival, the documentary directed by Ashley York and Sally Rubin resonated well with festival attendees, even with its six years of shelf life. Repeating its previous success, Hillbilly went on to win the Best Documentary category with the OPILFF.
Filmed during the 2016 Presidential Election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, Hillbilly was a piece of self-discovery for its director and narrator Ashley York. She grew up in the Appalachia country of rural Kentucky in Meathouse Hollow as a bit of a liberal unicorn before leaving the area for college and eventually Los Angeles to be a filmmaker. Putting York on camera as the central subject, Hillbilly follows her return to her hometown area to understand through interviews—including a series with her own family—the appeal then-candidate Donald Trump to that proudly unique and economically beleaguered subsection of voting citizens.
York’s personal story expands to examine the corporate and cultural exploitation of hillbilly culture by many forms of media and entertainment, where imagery from historical cornerstones like Deliverance to souped-up reality TV today turns manipulated stereotypes into misinformed identity. Throughout Hillbilly, Ashley finds fellow progressive islands of leaders and artists like author and activist Silas House that find empowerment and voices without shame. The resulting findings and statements of Hillbilly are an equation of depiction multiplied by dignity. Seeing how things have turned out in the eight years since 2016, a follow-up “sequel” would be incredible. In any case, see the festival winner Hillbilly yourself with a rental on Amazon or Apple.
GUARANTEED IN GARY– 2 STARS
Image courtesy of OPILFF
Paired with Hillbilly to close the third OPILFF block was the hyper-local documentary short Guaranteed in Gary. Filmmaker Darryl Parham tracked the recipients of an unprecedented guaranteed income experiment happening in Gary, Indiana, just outside of Chicago. For additional background, a selected group of Gary residents were set to receive $500 per month for an entire year. The goal of the program was to test both civil choice and financial decision options.
To see the ongoing results, the program recipients welcomed Guaranteed in Gary’s cameras before, during, and after this year-long time to follow their hopeful improvement. As fate would have it, what a difference consistent money can make. Each of the documentary subjects found enhanced their standard of living, elevated out of poverty, and set courses to stay out of it. If there’s a shortcoming for Guaranteed in Gary, it’s that ten minutes—even well-edited for construction and concise messaging—was not a deep enough dive into more informative recipients and the possible variety of peaks, valleys, and decision points possible for viewers to see for their betterment. Nonetheless, seeing ordinary citizens and non-actors taking literal ownership of their future was empowering to witness.
Program Block 4: “Fighting Back”
FIRE DEPARTMENT, INC– 5 STARS
Image courtesy of FDI Films
Without a doubt, the most hearty and vocal the inaugural Oak Park, Illinois Film Festival crowd got was during the local-produced documentary feature Fire Department, Inc. That’s because many of the brave firefighters and their families shown in the film live nearby and came to be in attendance. Can you blame the excitement for anyone for seeing their names or themselves in a movie? Not at all, especially in a documentary this honorable and important.
Directed by Colin C. Hughes, Fire Department, Inc. delves into the decade-plus struggle of the union members of the North Riverside Fire Department of North Riverside, Illinois working without a viable and fair contract. When a dearth of manpower caused overtime struggles and budget issues, a clash ensued between the local government and the firefighters union over securing proper and professional fire and EMT services to their community and surrounding area. For a time, the combative mayor, Herman Urbanek Jr., sought to privitize fire services with outside providers over using union individuals. The strife started a lengthy and ugly legal battle and court-of-public-opinion war of words that elevated to the state level and drew national support.
The thoroughness of Fire Department, Inc. is the quality that is most striking about the documentary. In lesser hands, this kind of documentary would be skimp on facts, figures, and evidence and merely fluff itself with hero worship. In a very professional fashion, Colin C. Hughes was able to secure and film multiple testimonials from both sides of the affair—including the petulant Urbanek—and also the local journalists who covered the long struggle as primary sources. As a whole, Fire Department, Inc. is a boat without holes or leaks. Every possible angle was given its due diligence while still making the appropriate room to celebrate the eventual and liberating real-life results. Those attending heroes were allowed to cheer and earned ours in return.
KICKSTAND– 3 STARS
Image courtesy of OPILFF
While difficult to come down from the semi-patriotic high of Fire Department, Inc., the cute-as-button 2013 short film Kickstand from local filmmaker Thomas Schultz made for a fitting digestif and exclamation point to the “Fighting Back” program block theme. No one likes bullies and the fights they start. Comeuppance to bullies can often involve the bravery to bring the fight back to them. That’s the gleeful edge of Kickstand.
Schultz’s film—short right in Oak Park back then with local school students—shows two local high school-ish aged meanies who strut the sidewalks tormenting the younger kids. When the number of teasing and minor assault victims multiplies, the pained sympathy spread. The last straw becomes when the bicycles of one kid is forcefully “confiscated” by the bullies. As a group, they throw down to not take the badgering anymore. Armed with squirt guns and water balloons, they new warriors make an alley battlefield stand. Featuring a western-tinged score by Allen Pierre Cotton, Kickstand is an fun homage translating old showdowns and evolving tumbleweeds and thoroughbreds into trash cans and bikes. The spunky heroism here was a blast!
Program Block 5: “Something’s Amiss”
ADA– 4 STARS
Image courtesy of OPILFF
The final program from the Oak Park, Illinois Film Festival was a free late-night selection of short films that allowed to festival to let its freak flag fly for a time. Up to this point, the programs maintained an upstanding properness, even when things got comedic. The filters, so to speak, were fiendishly removed, starting with ADA from director Geno DiMaria.
ADA sharpens an edge immediately introducing a solitary thirtysomething man named Jamie Carter (Jeremy Pfaff) living well-appointed apartment in the not-too-distant future. He’s recently been fired from his job over Zoom by a restructuring company, and the clues are everywhere from his disheveled appearance and the tailspin of laundry, dishes, and dead houseplants piling up in his living space. He’s been summoned to his computer to discuss his severance package.
In order for the benefits to process, Jamie must demonstrate his mental well-being, which puts him in an A.I. chat with the titular ADA. Jamie is passing the introductory questions until ADA drops the first hammer of “Are you experiencing any thoughts of self-harm?” Jamie’s wavering reply, escalates the programming of ADA to probe painfully further until lines are crossed.
ADA is a marvel of short film suspense. The bright computer screen light pierces the murky low light of the apartment to create an alluring and eerie atmosphere. The suspense is audibly scoreless and dominated by the actor’s bodily sounds and the clicks and beeps coming from the formidable A.I.. Pfaff ties it all together with a convincingly uncomfortable performance that creates several palpable breaking points in a short 15 minutes of time. DiMaria paces and timed this roller coaster of a thriller perfectly.
STAIRS– 3 STARS
Image courtesy of OPILFF
Continuing in the suspenseful and warped reality department was the 2019 short Stairs, produced and directed by Jeph Porter. The setup seems simple enough where an elderly woman (Joyce Porter of Better Call Saul and Itchy Fingers) with a cane arrives at the bottom floor of her walkup apartment building. Her titular opponent and obstacle lies before her as the camera tilts to show the enveloping height of the corridor.
Quite fittingly difficult for a woman this age, each section of stairs is a slog for the old lady. We feel the strain for her and carry the hope that she doesn’t have much farther to go. However, the stairs, in a perplexing fashion, don’t seem to end and the woman’s floor is not arriving. The tinges of terror set in for Stairs and we, the viewers, are pulled into this miniature personal hell. Porter and Porter certainly grab hold of your attention for the short, where, if there’s one quibble, four minutes isn’t nearly enough to wrap our heads around this swerve and any conclusion. With understanding to the nature of get-in-and-get-out short films, we still long for more. See the short fillm here on YouTube.
THE HIVE– 2 STARS
Made with DIY love is the student short film The Hive. Directed by the then-13-year-old Marco Esteban Delgado, this science fiction thriller was entered into the Young Filmmaker category of the OPILFF. The plot involves two orphaned teenage sisters who infiltrate a large building in the effort of trying to take down the popular virtual reality platform that has come to control a large majority of the general population.
While society at large can’t get enough of “The Hive,” these two girls know the evil truth behind-the-scenes. Their goal is to somehow take the system down and free their own mother linked to the system. Wasting no time with its nine minutes of running time, The Hive jumps right into the edgy future and ramps up the stakes for the young woman to overcome. The Delgado siblings in front of and behind the camera stay on the accelerator with heady themes and adventurous moments. While the underdeveloped crudeness is easy to see and the audio is roughly edited, the zest, creativity, and commitment is entirely present from all involved. There will be no shame looking back at this rookie effort and seeing the eager talent for the future. You love to see that passion come through and it does in The Hive.
FAMILY FOR CHRISTMAS– 2 STARS
Image courtesy of Grizly Gaze
In our second “meet the family for Christmas” narrative of the Oak Park, Illinois Film Festival after Breakup Season, it is very safe to call the brand new 2024 short Family for Christmas entirely different, even though they share the catalyst where the big meal is when everything goes wrong. Written and directed by the debuting Nick Pospisil, the short opens brightly on a nicely decorated Cape Cod-style home. Eric and Marshall (Andy Hart and Tyler Lubinus) arrive from home with a relationship that is going great. They are psyching themselves up for the possible family maelstrom on the other side of the front door.
With a reassuring “They’re going to love you,” they walk in and meet the stern elders, including Grandpa (Ron Beecher) and Mona (prolific Chicago actress Sandy Gulliver). Pleasantries are shared and then the probing questions and compliments gradually get weirder, right as the buzz get to the new guy. In essence, just a taste of something occurs and it all goes downhill with a fisheye lens switch that ramps up the growing disorientation.
Family for Christmas becomes a clinic in a how long a script can beat around the bush with double-meaning lines and double entendres. It’s cleverly hiding something and we have our suspicions in the audience, yet it’s not a full view of dramatic irony. We’re going through the same headspin as the visiting newbie. The big choice for a short film like Family for Christmas is whether to leave an audience hanging on the suggest of fulfilling the shocking possibility of what’s been guessing to arrive the whole time. Pleasantly and filled with dark comedy hilarity, Family for Christmas takes the second road and pays off its jolly fun.
FAVOR– 3 STARS
The final short of the late-night “Something’s Amiss” block and closing film of the first Oak Park, Illinois Film Festival was Dan Aho’s 15-minute film Favor. Playing in the 1990s-esque sandbox of murder and intrigue, Favor presents a test of trust between best friends. Most good friends say with reassuring emphasis that they have no limits or boundaries when it comes to the help they would offer one of this inner circle brothers. Well, would you help a friend get rid of a dead body in the middle of the night?
That’s the WTF problem dropped on the front door of Barry when his n’er-do-well buddy Dermot comes to him in the middle of a Los Angeles night with a body in his trunk. While roped into this bloody pickle of a situation, all of the rants, ravings, and questions come out between Dermot and Barry of who, what, and why permeate Favor. That feeling you’re watching something you’re not supposed to see becomes the can’t-look-away appear of Favor. Your gaze matches that of the cinematographer switching from being up in the problem or watching from across the street with the omniscient eye. The previously committed mistakes are clear, but it’s how they can be reckoned and ultimately covered up that gets rapidly interesting in this seedy potboiler.
A few words from Chief Editor Darryl Griffiths: ‘I can only start by saying a massive thank you to every person who has considered us a worthwhile read in their downtime, throughout 2024. Your continued support means a great deal to myself and the team. I would also personally like to shoutout fellow film-centric outlets […]
Stranger Things is the most anticipated TV show of 2025 in the US, with 507,858 monthly Google searches.
Wednesday and Severance rank second and third, respectively.
The Last of Us, Euphoria, and The Bear are also included in the top 20.
2025 is almost here, but for many they're looking past the big night and are already waiting for their favourite shows to return. A new study has looked at which TV shows are the most anticipated for 2025 in the UK, with Stranger Things crowned top.
The study, conducted by JeffBet, looked at the number of monthly Google searches for 34 TV shows set to be released in 2025 to find which ones Americans are most excited for. A total of 15 search variations were used for each show including ‘[TV show] release date,’ ‘[TV show] new season,’ and ‘[TV show] 2025.’
Stranger Things is the most anticipated TV show of 2025, with 507,858 monthly Google searches. With the upcoming release of season five approaching, there has been a lot of excitement around how the show will wrap up its final season. Regular faces will return, including Winona Ryder as Joyce Byers, and Millie Bobby Brown Bongiovi as Eleven.
Following in second is Wednesday, with 302,893 monthly Google searches. Jenna Ortega returns as Wednesday Addams in season two of Wednesday next year, as she continues to seek out supernatural mysteries at Nevermore Academy.
Severance is placed third, with 215,965 monthly Google searches. The concept of Severance has created a huge fanbase for the show, with audiences eager to find out what writers have in store for season two. Adam Scott will be returning as Mark Scout, and fans will see some new as well as old faces.
Ginny and Georgia comes in fourth, with 175,575 monthly Google searches. After a shocking season two finale, fans have been anxiously awaiting a season three release since January 2023. Not much is known about what will happen in the third season, but regular favorites will return - as well as new faces.
Rounding out the top five is The Last of Us, with 173,595 monthly Google searches. Since the post-apocalyptic drama was initially released, there has been a buzz around when season two will follow. Pedro Pascal is set to reprise his role of Joel, while Bella Ramsey returns to play Ellie.
The top 20 most anticipated TV shows of 2025:
Ranking sixth is Euphoria, with 133,386 monthly Google searches. Fans of Euphoria have been waiting for the long-awaited third season since 2022, eagerly waiting for more information on when it will be released. While not much is known about the premise of season three, it has been rumored that it will center around the lives of the main characters after they have left high school.
Following in seventh is You, with 128,632 monthly Google searches. The fifth and final season of the psychological thriller is set to release next year, with Penn Badgley returning as Joe Goldberg one last time. The plot of this season has been kept a mystery from fans, as they anticipate what will actually happen to Joe - and if he will ever receive any consequences for his actions.
Yellowjackets ranks eighth, with 119,545 monthly Google searches. With the interesting end to season two, the third season will likely reveal more about the events from the 1996 timeline and how these influence the characters' development in the present day. Not much has been revealed, however, it has been rumored that it will be one of the most shocking seasons to date.
Invincible is in ninth place, with 113,156 monthly Google searches. The adult animated superhero show has become a favorite since its release in 2021. With a cliffhanger ending, audiences have been looking forward to the third season which is due to be released early next year.
In tenth place is The Bear, with 99,295 monthly Google searches. After season three, the show got the green light to start production on a new season – a happy moment for fans of the comedy-drama. There were a lot of critical moments in season three that could change Carmy’s world forever, leaving the audiences with questions they hope to find the answer to in the upcoming release.
Speaking on the findings, a spokesperson forJeffBetsaid,
“Understanding which TV shows are the most anticipated for 2025, whether new seasons of beloved series or entirely new shows, offers insights into cultural trends, audience preferences, and the entertainment industry's evolution.
“Anticipation for returning shows often showcases the power of established fan bases. Social media and digital platforms have made fandoms more vocal, amplifying buzz around specific series.
“The excitement for returning shows suggests that US audiences deeply value continuity and long-form narratives, where characters and stories evolve over time.”
Sources:
Google Keyword Planner
Methodology:
A list of 34 TV shows set to release in 2025 were put through Google Keyword Planner to see which is the most anticipated across the US, based on monthly Google searches between November 2023 and October 2024. The below 15 search term variations were used for each show:
Christmas week arrived for Ian Simmons of the Kicking the Seat podcast and YouTube channel, and that means a host of possible big-ticket movies to see. Debuting in the darkest recesses of multiplexes and arthouse theaters this week is Robert Eggers’s monochromatic remake of Nosferatu, paying homage to the 1922 German silent film he and many others love dearly. Ian was ready to talk about it. So, for the special holiday, yours truly appeared as “Santa Critic” from “The North Pole of Elmwood Park” and joined Ian, Jeff York of The Establishing Shot and Pipeline Artists, Annie Banks of The Mary Sue, The Blonde in Front’s Cati Glidewell, and Mike Crowley of You’ll Probably Agree for the dais. Enjoy this grim-yet-festive chat!
The instinctive culmination of a prototypical sports film is a big event setting with some type of crowning achievement. The narratives are constructed to build these tipping points of success with suspense. If the journey has been framed right, the characters have earned their chance at rewards from their exhaustive hard work and preparation. Likewise, viewers come to sports films for those cathartic moments of satisfaction and savor their inspiration power long after. Rachel Morrison’s The Fire Inside follows that very finely-tuned trajectory but does something different with its cinematic stamina and steadfast platform. Hang tight. We’ll get to that.
LESSON #1: GIVE GIRLS A CHANCE– From the start, The Fire Inside introduces that the early 21st century where the readily apparent stigma is that girls, ladies, and women do not belong in pugilistic sports. The two-pronged issue was prejudicial judgments of toughness and the economic fact that far fewer people were willing to pay (and therefore also market and promote) to see women hurt each other. As Jason, her school classmates, and her sparring partners learned quickly, “she got hands,” where the proper place to judge Claressa and remove expectations was in the competitive ring and not with optics or gender identification.
LESSON #2: DO SOMETHING GOOD WITH YOUR PAIN– Rather than become another statistic of racial inequity and bucking the old W. Clement Stone adage of someone being a product of their environment, Ressa put her lived-in pain and anger into her sport. Jason set her on a path to qualify for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London where women’s boxing was being included for the first time. Greater than national patriotism to represent her town and her coach, Shields did not preen for the cameras and fought for her gender, skill, pride, and the chance to escape her obstacles. In full sports movie mode, The Fire Inside’s casual catchphrase fit for a t-shirt becomes “You can lose a fight, but not nobody can take your heart.”
Loyal boxing fans or anyone with Wikipedia at their fingertips knows what happened next. Witnessing gold medal moments, even dramatized ones in a movie powered by a triumphant score from composer Tamar-kali (Shirley and Palmer), never get old, especially historically significant one’s like Claressa’s. Folks can go home happy. Yet, this is where The Fire Inside veers on a new path from the norm and digs its heels into a deeper trench of drama.
LESSON #3: WHAT HAPPENS AFTER VICTORY— Scripted with a gold seal by Moonlight Oscar winner and current Mufasa: The Lion King director Barry Jenkins, The Fire Inside addresses the reality of what happens after victory for 99% of amateur athletes and Olympians. Not every gold medialist gets to be a Wheaties cereal box cover model, wined-and-dined at Disney World, or receive ticker tape parades as national heroes. Fearlessly, The Fire Inside takes us into the post-Olympic lull for Claressa Shields where promises from hanger-ons went unfulfilled, endorsements never matriculated, and recognition from monetary earning power disappeared.
This extended second half of The Fire Inside questioning “what then” and “what now” turns out to be as compelling, if not more so, than the jet-packed American Dream story that got us to this drop. The extra meat of real truths laid out by Jenkins and Morrison (in her directorial debut after being a stellar cinematographer in films like Mudbound)—both personal for Claressa and Jason and broader with the stumps addressing the unequal landscape existing for female athletes–-improves from the natural peak of the Olympics and intensifies the festering hostility that existed in Claressa Shields’s life.
The new challenge became whether or not Ressa could stay true to who she was and survive even longer with another Olympics a distant four years away. Before this rarely displayed denouement for a sports movie, Ryan Destiny and Brian Tyree Henry forged a bond truly worth rooting for. We come to love their dynamic. However, with these advanced trials and tribulations, any evils, so to speak, other than oppressive indifference from gender favoritism, are resolutely internal. Our two protagonists reach different breaking points that go on to elevate the weight and breadth of their performances. Rather than lament about troubles and detach from the movie, we lean in closer, giving proof that experts like Jenkins can improve on formulas when given the space, freedom, and encouragement to do so.
LESSON #4: BE SEEN– Even when the post-victory shift threatens and then suitable releases the stockpiled good graces, the film reconstructs broken spirits to a second and ultimately more meaningful long-term conclusion. In the end, the movie says it best with two sturdy mantras reading for office posters. First, “It’s not where you cheer from, it’s that you cheer” and, second, it’s “Show them you are too damn good to be ignored.” Both ring true of this movie’s appeal and impact. Because of its empathetic and transformative journey, The Fire Inside is engrossing entertainment perfect for this time of the year and stands out as a must-see sports film in an era with a dearth of quality in the genre. Shields and Crutchfield repped for their folks. It’s our turn to rep for them.
