Vishal and Priya Bhavani Shankar in “Rathnam” (Photo courtesy of Ayngaran International)
“Rathnam” (2024)
Directed by Hari
Tamil with subtitles
Culture Representation: Taking place in Vellore, India, the action film “Rathnam” features an Asian cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: An enforcer for a Member of the Legislative Assembly gets caught up in a violent feud with corrupt businessmen who want to steal land ownership from a group of villagers.
Culture Audience: “Rathnam” will appeal primarily who are fans of the movie’s headliners and don’t mind watching idiotic action movies that are too long.
Murali Sharma in “Rathnam” (Photo courtesy of Ayngaran International)
“Rathnam” is just another long-winded, repetitive and idiotic action flick with no surprises and no soul. The movie has an unappealing subplot about the shallow “hero” falling in love with a woman who looks exactly like his dead mother. Other than that bizarre part of the story, “Rathnam” has the typical barrage of unrealistic fight scenes and murderous revenge schemes. It’s all becomes so dull and tiresome after a while. And it’s made worse by the movie’s too-long runtime of 155 minutes.
Written and directed by Hari, “Rathnam” (which takes place in Vellore, India) is the fourth movie collaboration for Hari and star Vishal. They previously worked together on 2007’s “Thaamirabharani,” 2014’s “Poojai” and 2022’s “Yaanai.” Vishal portrays the title character in “Rathnam,” which means “gem” in Tamil. This movie is far from being a gem-like treasure. It’s trash.
“Rathnam” begins in with a flashback to 1994, by showing how a group of three bandits commit robberies on the road. The three thieves throw eggs at the windshields of passing vehicles on isolated roads, to get the drivers to lose control of the vehicles and crash. The thieves then swoop in and rob the people in the crashed vehicles, regardless if the people are dead or alive.
The thieves use this heinous robbery tactic on a bus, which crashes and kills a total of 26 people. The thieves rob the dead and dying people before escaping. Later, when police try to catch the robbers on a cliff road, eggs are thrown on the police car’s windshield, and the police car falls over the cliff.
The movie then fast-forwards to 2024. Vellore is plagued by corruption from several politicians and business owners. Rathnam works as an enforcer for Member the Legislative Assmbly named Panneer Selvam (played by Samuthirakani), who sends Rathnam to do a lot of Panneer’s dirty work.
One of these criminal politcians is a council member named Babu Reddy (played by Pondy Ravi), who is seen trying to sexually assault a kidnapped teenage schoolgirl while he’s driving her in his Jeep. She jumps out of the car to escape and ends up in a hospital, where police have been called to interview her. Babu Reddy denies anything to do with the crimes he committed against this victim.
The next thing you know, Rathnam and three of his cronies hunt down Babu. Rathnam then kills Babu with a chainsaw. Rathnam’s weapons of choice tend to be anything with blades, because he likes to behead many of his victims. Expect to see many scenes of Rathnam slashing his way through fights by using large knives and machetes.
Fairly early on in the story, Rathnam talks about his past to explain why he turned out to be the person he is. When he was 5 years old, Rathnam and his mother Loganayagi (played by Priya Bhavani Shankar) were kidnapped. The kidnappers forced Rathnam’s mother to become a sex slave. She became an outcast in their community and committed suicide (by hanging herself) out of shame. “Rathnam” has some other flashbacks to his family’s past, with the flashbacks showing relatives such as Rathnam’s father (played by Ganesh Venkatraman) and Rathnam’s grandfather (played by Y. Gee. Mahendra).
Meanwhile, in the present day, three ruthless brothers have been bullying the villagers to sign over land to them. This dastardly trio of brothers are Beema Rayudu (played by Murali Sharma), Subba Rayudu (played by Hareesh Peradi) and Raghava Rayudu (played by Vettai Muthukumar), who have a connection to Rathnam’s past that won’t be revealed in this review. The villagers who don’t comply are at risk of being murdered by the Rayudu brothers, who have a large group of thugs working for them.
Rathnam’s love interest is a medical student named Malliga (also played by Shankar), whose father Vedha Nayagam (played by Jayaprakash ) and unnamed grandfather (played by Vijayakumar) are among the outspoken villagers who are resisting the threats and attacks from the Rayudu brothers. Rathnam is immediately smitten with Malliga the first time that he sees her because she looks identical to his dead mother. When Malliga finds out about this uncanny resemblance, she doesn’t think it’s creepy at all that Rathnam is attracted to her in part because she looks like his mother.
Rathnam and Malliga have a volatile relationship where they break up and get back together multiple times. Rathnam is very jealous and possessive and can fly into a rage if he thinks Malliga is having “impure” thoughts about another man. The movie tries to make this relationship look romantic when it’s actually an abusive and dysfunctional relationship.
“Rathnam” is filled with ridiculous fight scenes where Rathnam has unexplained superhuman strength and abilities. When he is outnumbered by opponents, the opponents just stand around and watch while Rathnam takes on one man at a time. It’s all such idiotic and lazy filmmaking. There’s nothing about “Rathnam” that can be described as “great” or “very good.” It’s all just a parade of mediocre-to-bad everything that is not worth the time of anyone who wants to see an entertaining action movie.
Ayngaran International released “Rathnam” in select U.S. cinemas and in India on April 26, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in New Mexico and briefly in Mexico, the dramatic film “The Absence of Eden” features a Latin and white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and criminal underground.
Culture Clash: A Hispanic undocumented immigrant and a white American border patrol agent, who are strangers to each other, have various ethical dilemmas before their worlds collide.
Culture Audience: “The Absence of Eden” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching dramas about the intersections of law enforcement and undocumented immigration in America, but the movie’s story is too muddled and unfocused to have much impact.
Garrett Hedlund and Adria Arjona in “The Absence of Eden” (Photo courtesy of Roadside Attractions)
“The Absence of Eden” has an absence of a cohesive plot. This clumsy drama portrays multiple sides of undocumented immigration and law enforcement in the U.S., but the story falls apart in the last dreadful 30 minutes. Some of the movie’s cast members give capable performances, but they are not enough to save this flimsy movie.
Visual artist Marco Perego makes his feature-film directorial debut with “The Absence of Eden,” which was written by Perego and Rick Rapoza. The movie had its world premiere at the 2023 Taormina Film Fest in Italy. “Absence of Eden” does not have a large number of people with speaking roles in its cast, but the movie tries to do too much in a jumbled way, and then tries to rush things along to an ending that is ultimately underwhelming and seems incomplete.
“The Absence of Eden” follow the stories of two main characters over a period of approximately a few months. The first main character is Esmerelda “Esmee” Rojas (played by Zoe Saldaña), an exotic dancer from Mexico. (Saldaña and Perego are married in real life.) The other main character is Shipp (played by Garrett Hedlund), an American border patrol agent for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Esmee is first seen in Mexico at her exotic dancer job at a seedy bar. Esmee is giving a lap dance to a cowboy customer (played by Leonel Garza) in a back room. The customer gets aggressive and tries to force Esmee at gunpoint into doing a sexual act with him. She resists, and in the scuffle that ensues, Esmee grabs the gun and shoots him dead.
In a panic, Esmee decides she’s going to escape by illegally crossing the U.S./Mexico border into New Mexico. “The Absence of Eden” was filmed on location in New Mexico.) Esmee grabs some cash and calls a secretive group that transports people illegally though U.S. borders. She makes arrangements to get this transportation to the United States. Esmee says goodbye to her grandmother (played by Petra Tovar Sanchez), who gives her personal journal to Esmee as a keepsake.
Esmee and a group of about six to nine undocumented immigrants make the journey by van to New Mexico. Emsee finds out that she has gone from one terrible situation to another. The transportation service is really a human trafficking operation that sells undocumented immigrants into illegal labor to unscrupulous employers. Some of the women and children will be sold into sex trafficking. Esmee has to fight off the sexual advances of the smuggler who’s leading this trip.
Emsee is in the van when she witnesses an unnamed young mother (played by Laura Cruz) get forcibly separated from her daughter Alma (played by Sophia Hammons), who is about 10 or 11 years old. The mother and Alma are understandably distraught and devastated when the mother is taken away to an undisclosed location. Esmee has compassion for Alma and starts taking care of this child while promising she will do everything she can to reunite Alma with Alma’s mother.
Esmee finds out that she is being forced to be a drug mule (someone who smuggles drugs for drug dealers) while she and a few other undocumented immigrant women have been sold into working as maids in a dumpy motel, where they are treated like prisoners under the watchful eyes of security guards at all times. The motel’s undocumented maids also get frequently locked up in rooms when they sleep, so they can’t escape. The motel manager Phil (played by Kevin Owen McDonald) is an elderly creep who seems to be attracted to Esmee.
Meanwhile, Shipp is stoic in his job and in his personal life. He has some “daddy issues” because his retired father was a well-respected ICE agent, and Shipp feels somewhat overshadowed by his father’s admired reputation. Shipp’s father, who does not have a name in the movie, is not seen on screen, but his voice can be heard leaving messages for Shipp, who doesn’t return the messages. (Ted Koch is the voice of Shipp’s father.)
Shipp is a bachelor who lives alone. His love life starts to heat up when he meets Yadira (played by Adria Arjona) at a bar. They hook up immediately in the back seat of his car. Yadira tells Shipp during their first encounter that she works as an elementary schoolteacher and she’s a single mother to a son named Gabriel (played by Chrysovalentis Martinez), who is 11 years old. Yadira lives with Gabriel and her grandmother Maria (played by Teresa Cepada Rodriguez) in a modest home.
Shipp works with a racist ICE border patrol agent named Dobbins (played by Chris Coy), who takes pleasure in being violently brutal to many of the undocumented Hispanic immigrants whom he detains. Shipp witnesses this brutality when he’s working with Dobbins. Shipp only stops the brutality if it looks like the victim might need to be taken to a hospital if Dobbins continues the assault.
Shipp keeps his personal life separate from his work life. However, one day at work, Dobbins convinces Shipp to bring Yadira on a double date for dinner at a restaurant with Dobbins and a woman named Rebecca (played by Sarah Minnich), whom Dobbins has recently begun dating. Dobbins doesn’t find out that Yadira is Hispanic until this double date.
“The Absence of Eden” wanders along for long stretches that don’t do much to further the story. What about Alma and her missing mother? That storyline is mostly forgotten, as much of “The Absence of Eden” shows various incidents that happen in the lives of Shipp and Esmee. Shipp is usually emotionally closed-off, but he begins up to open up to Yadira. The couple’s relationship becomes more serious when they declare their love for each other. However, in a movie like “The Absence of Eden,” a love affair like this will not go smoothly.
Saldaña and Hedlund have moments of portraying Emee and Shipp convincingly. The problem is that “The Absence of Eden” screenplay depicts these two main characters as mostly stereotypes. By the end of the movie, viewers will learn almost nothing about Esmee except that she’s an outlaw for killing a man in self-defense, and she decided to take care of Alma, who is not seen for most of the movie. Yadira is an interesting but underdeveloped character that limits Arjona’s nuanced performance. The rest of the movie’s cast members are serviceable and not outstanding in their roles.
The storylines of Esmee and Shipp converge in a very predictable and awkward way. Esmee has a preachy monologue near the end of the movie that is absolutely cringeworthy because it sounds “only in a movie” phony. The direction of “The Absence of Eden” tries to be gritty and artsy at the same time, but it just doesn’t work for this unfocused story. “The Absence of Eden” seems to want to make a big statement about the exploitation and brutality that undocumented immigrants can experience in America. However, that statement rings hollow when “The Absence of Eden” refuses to show or tell anything meaningful about the movie’s main undocumented immigrant and who she really is as a person.
Roadside Attractions and Vertical released “The Absence of Eden” in select U.S. cinemas on April 12, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed U.S. state, the supernatural drama film “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair” features a predominantly an all-white cast of characters representing the middle-class.
Culture Clash: A teenage girl participates in a mysterious online game that seems to change people who play the game.
Culture Audience: “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching a low-budget psychological thriller with good acting.
Anna Cobb in “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair” (Photo courtesy of Utopia)
The first thing that people should know about “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair” is that even though it’s advertised as a horror movie, it’s not a movie with jump scares. It’s not really a horror movie but more like a psychological drama about the effects of a mysterious online video challenge. Anna Cobb gives a compelling performance in this slow-paced movie.
“We’re All Going to the World’s Fair” is the feature-film debut of writer/director Jane Schoenbrun. It’s not a movie like 2002’s “Fear Dot Com” or 2014’s “Unfriended,” which are horror films about people who experience terror because they logged onto a website and made contact with an evil force. “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair” has some elements of that concept, but don’t expect to see serial killing in this movie.
The protagonist of “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair” is a teenage girl named Casey (played by Cobb), who lives in an unnamed U.S. state where it snows. (“We’re All Going to the World’s Fair” was actually filmed in New York state.) Casey has her own YouTube channel and appears to be a very lonely and isolated person who mostly interacts with people online. She is not shown interacting with anyone in person.
“We’re All Going to the World’s Fair” has a very small number of people in the movie’s cast: Only four or five people actually speak on screen. And none of them is ever in the same room as Casey, whose bedroom is in the attic of the house where she lives. The movie takes place during the winter season, because there is snow on the ground where Casey lives, which is in a remote wooded area.
Casey’s family life is vague. Viewers of “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair” will find out that Casey lives with her father, who is never seen in the movie. He is only heard yelling at her once, late at night when she is playing something too loudly on her laptop computer. Casey’s mother is not seen or mentioned in the film. If Casey has any relatives, they aren’t mentioned either.
“We’re All Going to the World’s Fair” begins by showing Casey doing a livestream for her YouTube channel, where she announces a little nervously to her audience that she’s going to take the World’s Fair Challenge. She logs onto an unseen website and says three times in a row: “I want to go to the World’s Fair.”
Then, she takes a pin button with a drawing of a skull and pricks the index finger on her left hand until a small amount of blood comes out. She smears the blood on the computer screen and plays a video that cannot be seen by viewers watching the movie. However, pulsating noises can be heard from the video that is being played.
The rest of “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair” consists of Casey becoming aware that many things about her are changing. Is it real or all in her imagination? That’s for viewers of the movie to decide. However, Casey sees videos on the Internet that show other people who took the World’s Fair Challenge have had things happen to them too.
“We’re All Going to the World’s Fair” is a “mood movie” that doesn’t have much of a plot but is very effective at creating a certain atmosphere and getting people curious about what will happen next. There’s one scene in the movie that can definitely be considered something from a traditional horror movie, but this scene comes and goes with no further explanation.
Casey has an ardent YouTube subscriber named JLB (played by Michael J Rogers), a middle-aged man who can be described as an obsessive fan of Casey. JLB (who uses a skull illustration as his online avatar) frequently checks in on Casey and expects her to communicate with him. JLB becomes increasingly worried about Casey when he notices changes in her.
Just like Casey, JLB also appears to be a lonely and isolated person, even though he doesn’t live alone either. There’s a scene in “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair” where a woman is briefly seen in the background of JLB’s home. It’s implied that this woman is JLB’s wife or live-in partner, but he never mentions her, and she is not shown speaking to him.
“We’re All Going to the World’s Fair” is a portrait of a slow descent into madness. It’s not the type of movie that will be enjoyed by viewers who are expecting a lot of action. But this very low-budget film has some striking visuals and a creepy tone that might be enough to unsettle some viewers, which seems to be the main intention.
Utopia released “We’re All Going the World’s Fair” in select U.S. cinemas on April 15, 2024. The movie was released on digital and VOD on April 22, 2024. “We’re All Going the World’s Fair” is available for streaming on Max.
Culture Representation: Taking place from 1996 to 2004, in an unnamed U.S. state, the dramatic film “I Saw the TV Glow” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A lonely teenage boy befriends a teenage girl, who gets him hooked on a fantasy TV series starring young people battling a villain named Mr. Melancholy, and the show affects what happens to them as they get older.
Culture Audience: “I Saw the TV Glow” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and are interested in watching symbolic-heavy movies about depression and queerness.
Ian Foreman in “I Saw the TV Glow” (Photo by Spencer Pazer/A24)
“I Saw the TV Glow” isn’t as scary as it seems, but it’s a very original film about obsessive escapism and denial of one’s true identity. The plot has more mystery than suspense. Viewers must be willing to interpret the movie’s LGBTQ symbolism. “I Saw the TV Glow” had its world premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and later screened at the 2024 Berlin International Film Festival and 2024 SXSW Film and TV Festival.
Written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun, “I Saw the TV Glow” explores themes about depression and queerness that are presented in ways that might be too abstract for viewers. “I Saw the TV Glow” has been described as a horror movie, but it’s really a psychological drama. There are a few brief horror-like images, in addition to one scene where someone has a mental breakdown. That does not make it a horror movie.
“I Saw the TV Glow,” which is told in chronological order, takes place from 1996 to 2004, in an unnamed U.S. state. (The movie was actually filmed in New Jersey. (“I Saw the TV Glow” begins by showing clips from a U.S. TV network called the Young Adult Network, which has a combination of original and acquired programming. One of the network’s more popular original shows is a weekly fantasy series called “The Pink Opaque,” which is set in America in whatever year that the show is on the air. “I Saw the TV Glow” pokes some fun at 1990s television, music and fashion in clips of “The Pink Opaque.”
It’s later explained in the movie that “The Pink Opaque” (and the show’s title characters) are two American teenage best friends named Isabel (played by Helena Howard) and Tara (played by Lindsey Jordan), who live in a typical suburban area but live secret lives where they are battle a demonic force called Mr. Melancholy (played by Emma Portner), the show’s chief villain who gives Isabel and Tara an obstacle in each episode. Isabel is the more prominent person of this teenage duo. She is described as an “expert in demonology.”
In “I Saw the TV Glow,” the protagonist and narrator is shy and quiet Owen (played by Justice Smith), who narrates the movie in hindsight as an older teenager and as an adult. Sometimes, he talks directly to the camera during his narration. Sometimes, Owen’s narration is a voiceover. The movie also has captions spelled out in handwritten pink letters.
When Owen is first seen in the movie, he is a seventh grader (about 12 or 13 years old) and played by Ian Foreman. It’s during this period of time that Owen meets someone who will change his life. Seventh grader Owen is shown accompanying his mother Brenda (played by Danielle Deadwyler) to a polling place on Election Day. The polling station is in a gym of a local high school where Owen will be a student in two years. Brenda takes Owen into the voting booth with her and shows him how to vote.
It’s at this gym where Owen meets sarcastic Maddie Wilson (played by Brigette Lundy-Paine), who is a ninth grader (freshman), about 14 years old, at the high school. Maddie is sitting on the gym floor, reading a book about episodes of “The Pink Opaque.” Owen soon finds out that Maddie is an obsessive fan of “The Pink Opaque,” which airs on Tuesdays from 10:30 p.m. to 11 p.m. in the time zone where Maddie and Owen live.
Owen and Maddie start talking about “The Pink Opaque,” a show that Owen has not seen at this point because he’s not allowed to stay up past 10 p.m., especially on a school night. Owen (who is an only child) lives with his married parents in a stable, loving and middle-class home. His father Frank (played by Fred Durst) is not as close to Owen as Brenda is.
Maddie tells Owen that she and her best friend Amanda (also played by Portner) watch “The Pink Opaque” together at Maddie’s place. Maddie invites Owen to join them and suggests that Owen lie to his parents by saying he’s spending the night at a male friend’s house. Owen takes that advice and sneaks over to Maddie’s place to watch “The Pink Opaque” for the first time (in a basement room), as Maddie explains the complex world building that the show has. Maddie later tells Owen, “Sometimes, ‘The Pink Opaque’ feels more real than real life.”
Maddie’s parents are never shown in the movie. However, Maddie mentions that her parents “don’t give a crap” when she goes to bed. She also says that she has an abusive stepfather. When Owen spends the night at Maddie’s place for the first time, he has to sleep in the basement. Maddie tells Owen that Owen has to leave by dawn because if Maddie’s stepfather sees Owen there, “he’ll break my nose again.”
After Amanda has left for the night, Maddie also tells Owen that Maddie thinks Isabel from “The Pink Opaque” is “super-hot,” and Maddie “likes girls.” Owen doesn’t have any reaction to Maddie telling him that she’s a lesbian, but he does get confused when she asks him if he likes boys or girls. He tells her he doesn’t know but he knows he likes “The Pink Opaque.” When Owen is a teenager, he mentions “The Pink Opaque” to his father Frank, who replies, “Isn’t that a girl’s show?”
Owen explains in a voiceover that over the next two years, Maddie gave VHS tapes of “The Pink Opaque” episodes to Owen so he could watch the show without having to stay up past his bedtime. However, Owen and Maddie don’t become close friends until 1998, when Owen (played by Smith) is a freshman (about 14 years old) in the same high school where Maddie is now a junior (about 16 years old) and is now a loner at the school.
Maddie and Owen reconnect at her place to watch “The Pink Opaque” together. It’s during this reconnection that Owen finds out that Maddie and Amanda stopped being friends about two years earlier because Amanda told people that Maddie touched Amanda’s breast without Amanda’s consent. Maddie denies this sexual harassment happened but she was then shunned by many people because Maddie was “outed” as a lesbian. Maddie is still bitter over how the friendship ended and also seems angry that Amanda would rather spend time on the cheerleader squad than watch “The Pink Opaque.”
The rest of “I Saw the TV Glow” is about how Owen’s friendship with Maddie and how their fixation with “The Pink Opaque” affect their lives. Without giving away too much information, the movie is full of metaphors and symbolism of Owen’s self-discovery of his sexuality, even though he is not shown dating anyone in the movie. There’s a scene early on in the film of seventh grader Owen in an inflatable planetarium that has colors reminiscent of the LGBTQ Pride flag.
“I Can See the TV Glow” has some scenes that go on for a little too long. For example, there’s a nightclub sequence that starts to look like a music video because it shows the full song performance of rock band Sloppy Jane. Better editing was needed for this scene because it doesn’t fit the flow of a conversation that Owen and Maddie are having in a nearby room at the nightclub.
“I Saw the TV Glow” might get some comparisons to Schoenbrun’s 2022 feature-film debut “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair,” another psychological drama (with some horror elements) about a teenage loner who gets caught up in something on screen that becomes dangerous. “I Saw the TV Glow” obviously has a bigger production budget and a larger, more well-known cast than “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair.” However, “I Saw the TV Glow” has a more abstract plot than “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair.” Some viewers will be puzzled over what “I Saw the TV Glow” is trying to say.
In the role of Owen, Smith is once again doing a character who is whiny, insecure and often looking like he’s confused or about to cry. Owen is not a bad person, but he can be annoying. Lundy-Paine gives a better performance as Maddie, but there comes a point in the movie where Maddie’s personality becomes almost numb, so the movie loses a lot of Maddie’s initial spark and charisma. “I Saw the TV Glow” can be recommended to people who don’t mind watching offbeat movies with a unique vision and a heavily symbolic story about how secrets and lies can kill a soul.
A24 released “I Saw the TV Glow” in select U.S. cinemas on May 3, 2024, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on May 17, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Pakistan, the comedy film “Babylicious” features almost all-South Asia cast of characters (with one white person) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A lovelorn bachelor, who has been dumped by his fiancée, goes to extreme measures to try to get back together with her before she marries someone else.
Culture Audience: “Babylicious” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and ridiculously cheesy romantic comedies.
Shehzeen Rahat and Syra Yousuf in “Babylicious” (Photo courtesy of Coconut Entertainment)
“Babylicious” should be renamed “Bloated and Atrocious.” This overly long romantic comedy is an onslaught of terrible, over-exaggerated acting in a problematic story about a bachelor going to extremes to win back an ex-girlfriend. There’s nothing truly romantic about this train-wreck movie, which essentially tells viewers that stalking and telling big lies are the best ways to win someone’s heart.
Written and directed by Essa Khan, “Babylicous” (which takes place in an unnamed city n Pakistan in 2023) has a very simple and weak plot that is stretched to the breaking point about halfway through this 130-minute junkpile film. It’s a one-joke movie about a graduate student named Omar (played by Shehroz Sabzwari), who is desperate to get back together with his former fiancée Sabiha (played by Syra Yousuf), who has become engaged to another man for an arranged marriage. (Sabzwari and Yousuf and an ex-couple in real life.)
In the beginning of “Babylicious,” Omar and Sabiha are engaged and acting very lovey-dovey in a field, where they snuggle and declare their devotion to each other. Omar’s nickname for Sabiha is Babylicious. Omar and Sabiha have been dating each other for about 15 months. But within the first 15 minutes of the movie, Sabiha has dumped Omar because her parents (who don’t approve of Omar) think they can find a better man for her to marry.
Sabiha’s new fiancé is Nabeel (played by Ankur Rathee), who is tall, confident, successful and affluent—everything Omar is not. Sabiha seems to like Nabeel and seems eager to marry him. But does she love Nabeel? Sabiha, who describes herself as “difficult” in the beginning of the movie, has gotten tired of Omar being financially unstable and indecisive about future plans, such as where he and Sabiha will live after they get married. There’s more to it than Omar’s income level. It has to do with his lack of boundaries in courting Sabiha.
How pathetic is Omar? It’s revealed later in the movie that when Omar and Sabiha were a couple, Omar asked Sabiha’s mother (played by Anita Camphor) for money to take Sabiha out on dates. (All of the parents in this movie do not have names.) Sabiha’s older brother Haris (played by Aamir Qureshi) also strongly dislikes Omar. Omar’s own parents (played by Adnan Jaffar and Laila Wasti) don’t seem to like him very much either. They think he’s a foolish dreamer.
Omar has a goal to open a building complex that he wants to call Sabiha Mahal (like the Taj Mahal), which he envisions as having a museum, a souvenir shop and a cantina. Omar wants Sabiha Mahal to be a romantic place to visit and an ideal location for marriage proposals. He even has a miniature model of the building that he likes showing to people. A middle-aged man named John (played by Shafqat Khan) is the building planner and Omar’s occasional awkward sidekick. John is an odd character who really didn’t need to be in this awful movie.
Omar’s two best friends are just as buffoonish as Omar is. Aadi (played by Aadi Adeal Amjad, also known as Aadi Amjad) is a misogynistic creep who thinks that any woman who pays attention to him could be his next girlfriend. Nido (played by Mohi Abro) is a nerdy wimp who is dominated by his rude fiancée Annie (played by Sabeena Syed), who is very materialistic and shallow.
There’s a terrible, not-funny-at-all segment of the movie where Aadi meets a woman who has been his online crush—only to find out that she’s a sex worker. Aadi (who has a chubby body size) shows how much of a hypocrite he is because he is disgusted that she is a plus-sized woman—she’s not fat, but she’s not thin either. Aadi was expecting her to look like a thin model.
Omar and Nido are with Aadi during this first meeting with the sex worker, who has shown up with her scowling pimp, who expects the men to pay for her services. One of the three pals ends up having sex with her, but doesn’t want his other two friends to tell this secret. There are no sex scenes in “Babylicious,” but there are some curse words used throughout the movie.
Omar does increasingly desperate things to try to get Sabiha to get back together with him. Most of Omar’s schemes involve stalking Sabiha. Expect to see many scenes of Omar showing up unannounced and uninvited to places where Sabiha is.
One of the first things that Omar does is enlist the help of Sabiha’s best friend Arwa (played by Shehzeen Rahat), who feels inferior to Sabiha in every way and is envious of Sabiha. Omar and Arwa pretend to start dating each other to make Sabiha jealous. But this scheme doesn’t go as planned.
Omar and Arwa pose for a fake photo where they look like they’re a couple. They post the photo on social media. And Sabiha ends up “liking” the photo. Sabiha also tells Omar directly and indirectly that she doesn’t want to get back together with him, but he won’t take no for an answer. There are repetitive montage scenes of Omar pouting and moping all by himself, in this movie’s ineffective attempt to make viewers feel sorry for him.
Arwa has her own issues when it comes to her love life. She rarely dates, and she lives with her single mother (played by Ayesha Mirza), who constantly shames Arwa for not being married. Arwa’s mother warns Arwa that Arwa could end up as an old and lonely spinster, as if being an elderly, unmarried woman is some type of crime. And so, when Omar and Arwa start hanging out together, Arwa’s mother mistakenly assumes that Omar wants to date Arwa, which leads to a few cringeworthy scenes of Arwa’s mother gushing over Omar like she has a crush on him as a potential son-in-law.
It all goes from bad to worse in “Babylicious,” which includes Omar deciding to use black magic to cast a spell on Sabiha. He convinces Arwa to get something that has Sabiha’s DNA (such as hair, blood or a fingernail) to be used for the black magic ritual. “Babylicious” is so stupid, Arwa doesn’t do the logical thing of going to Sabiha’s house and secretly getting a strand of Sabiha’s hair from a hairbrush. Instead, Arwa has to try to make Sabiha bleed or pull a strand of hair during Sabiha’s engagement party.
“Babylicious” also has a time-wasting subplot of several jewelers going after Omar and trying to beat him up. (Don’t ask.) Comedian/media personality Salman Saqib (also known as Mani) has a supporting role as himself in the movie. The action scenes in “Babylicious” are completely ludicrous and badly staged, with Omar suddenly getting superhuman abilities, with no explanation.
“Babylicious” has sloppy film editing, obnoxious characters (depicted with equally obnoxious acting performances), and no good reason to root for Omar and Sabiha to get back together. By the end of this horrible film, viewers won’t care about any of these characters and probably won’t ever want to see them again.
Coconut Entertainment released “Babylicious” in select U.S. cinemas on April 26, 2024. The movie was released in Pakistan on June 27, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Sydney and briefly in Los Angeles, the action comedy film “The Fall Guy” (based loosely on the 1981 to 1986 TV series of the same name) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A stunt double gets involved in a crime mystery while he tries to rekindle a romance that he had with the director of his current movie.
Culture Audience: “The Fall Guy” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and over-the-top action comedies that are predictable but have entertaining performances.
Teresa Palmer and Aaron Taylor-Johnson in “The Fall Guy” (Photo by Eric Laciste/Universal Pictures)
Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt are a great comedic duo and should have had more scenes together in “The Fall Guy.” Their collaborative scenes are the best parts of this uneven action comedy that is over-the-top but doesn’t take itself too seriously. The movie has a crime mystery that often gets overshadowed by the silly and bombastic stunt scenes in the film that don’t have much suspense. However, “The Fall Guy” doesn’t pretend to be anything but breezy entertainment with cartoonish violence and a little bit of an amusing romance.
Directed by David Leitch and written by Drew Pearce, “The Fall Guy” is based loosely on the 1981 to 1986 TV series of the same name. The TV series was an action drama, starring Lee Majors as the title character: a heroic stuntman. “The Fall Guy” movie released in 2024 is very much a tongue-in-cheek comedy that pokes fun at the movie industry and celebrity culture. “The Fall Guy” had its world premiere at the 2024 SXSW Film and TV Festival.
The movie’s title character is Colt Seavers (played by Gosling), an insecure and sensitive stuntman. For years, Colt has worked as a stunt double for an arrogant actor named Tom Ryder (played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson), who takes Colt for granted. Colt’s career and personal life become derailed after a stunt he was responsible for went very wrong on a movie starring Tom. An ashamed Colt then quit the movie business and then went to work as a parking valet at a restaurant in his hometown of Los Angeles.
Colt has another reason to be miserable: He is sad because of the end of an intense fling he had on the movie set with a sarcastically witty camera operator named Jody Moreno (played by Blunt), who seemed to have strong romantic feelings for him too. However, after Colt’s embarrassing stunt mishap that resulted in Colt quitting the movie business, he abruptly cut off contact with Jody. She interpreted it as Colt harshly dumping her.
One day, Colt gets an urgent call from fast-talking movie producer Gail Meyer (played by Hannah Waddingham), who insists that Colt go back to work as a stuntman for a sci-fi action movie called “Metalstorm,” starring Tom as a character named Space Cowboy. Tom’s real-life lover Iggy Starr (played by Teresa Palmer) has the role of Space Cowboy’s love interest in the movie. “Metalstorm” (which is being filmed in Sydney, Australia) also happens to be Jody’s feature-film directorial debut.
Gail says that Jody requested Colt for this job. But when Colt arrives on the “Metalstorm” movie set, he finds out that this request was a lie. Needless to say, Jody is very upset that Colt will be Tom’s stunt double for “Metalstorm.” Jody huffs to Gail about Colt: “I didn’t approve him!” Jody demands that they find someone else to replace Colt. Gail responds, “We literally have no one else.”
Also on the “Metalstorm” movie set is Dan Tucker (played by Winston Duke), who is Colt’s stunt coordinator and best friend. Dan becomes Colt’s sidekick in a lot of shenanigans that happen in the movie. When Tom goes missing, Colt is ordered by Gail to find Tom. Stephanie Hsu has a small and somewhat thankless role as Tom’s personal assistant Alma Milan. Colt also meets Tom’s drug dealer Doone (played by Matuse), who gives an unwitting Colt a drink spiked with a hallucinogenic drug. Colt hallucinates unicorns in a comedy gag that goes on for a bit too long.
During the search for Tom, Colt goes to Tom’s hotel room and finds a dead man in an ice-filled bathtub, The rest of “The Fall Guy” is a combination of a crime mystery and exaggerated action scenes, with plenty of explosions, car chases and violent fights. Colt and Jody have the expected love/hate banter, where they both don’t want to fully admit how much their breakup hurt them. Their relationship goes exactly where you expect it to go. (Watch the end credits for some “surprise” cameos.)
“The Fall Guy” can get a bit annoying at how it seems to be a little too enamored with its stunt scenes, at the expense of developing the more interesting relationship between Colt and Jody. Colt and Jody trade snappy quips, but the movie isn’t completely convincing when it comes to showing how this would-be couple’s feelings are supposed to evolve over time. The jokes in “The Fall Guy” are hit and miss and elevated by the headlining stars’ comedic talent. It’s the type of movie that could have been better but also could have been a whole lot worse.
Universal Pictures will release “The Fall Guy” in U.S. cinemas on May 3, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in 2022, on an unnamed Caribbean island, the dramatic film “Strictly Confidential” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few black people and one Asian person) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A wealthy widow summons the friends of her presumed-dead daughter for a reunion on an exotic island, and scandalous secrets are revealed during this gathering.
Culture Audience: “Strictly Confidential” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching tacky movies with horrible acting and a stupid plot.
Elizabeth Hurley in “Strictly Confidential” (Photo courtesy of Lionsgate)
“Strictly Confidential” looks like a parody of a bad movie, but it’s unfortunately no joke. This horrendous drama, which has a tawdry plot about privileged people with sordid secrets, is a time-wasting failure for everyone involved. Perhaps the only saving grace for this train-wreck film is that the movie’s exotic island locations are attractive. The cast members are all good-looking people, but those good looks mean nothing when there’s a lack of talent or personality in their performances.
Written and directed by Damian Hurley, “Strictly Confidential” (his feature-film directorial debut) was literally paid for by his mother, Elizabeth Hurley, who is one of the movie’s producers and is the biggest star of this garbage film. If not for nepotism, it’s very unlikely that “Strictly Confidential” would have ever been made. “Strictly Confidential” is not a “so bad it’s funny” movie. It’s a “so bad it’s torturous to watch” movie.
In “Strictly Confidential” (which takes place in 2022), Elizabeth Hurley portrays Lily Lowell, a wealthy widow who has had a very rough past year. In 2021, her husband Thomas died, at the age of 51. Within months of his death, her daughter Rebecca (played by Lauren McQueen, seen in flashbacks), who was 21 or 22, disappeared into an ocean at their Caribbean island home and is presumed dead. Rebecca left behind an apparent suicide note. Her body was never found.
Lily lives in a mansion on this island, which is not named in the movie. (“Strictly Confidential” was filmed in St. Kitts and Nevis.) It’s implied that this mansion is one of the homes that Lily has. Lily’s other child is Rebecca’s older sister Jemma (played by Genevieve Gaunt), also in her 20s, who had a rivalry with Rebecca and seems jealous that Rebecca got more attention from their parents.
Even in death, Rebecca is still getting more attention than Jemma. Lily has decided to summon all of Rebecca’s friends who were on the island during the summer that Rebecca apparently drowned in the ocean. Lily has invited these friends to stay at the mansion for one week to pay tribute to Rebecca. Jemma tells Lily that this reunion isn’t a good idea.
Lily replies, “It’s been a year. After next week, you never have to see them again. Maybe it’ll give us some closure. God knows, we can all use some.”
Lily has enlisted Rebecca’s best friend Mia (played by Georgia Lock) to track down everyone and tell them to go to the mansion. Mia is seen in the beginning of the movie having a nightmare about Rebecca—one of several of Mia’s bad dreams depicted in the movie—because Mia witnessed Rebecca disappear in the ocean. Mia has a lot of unresolved issues about Rebecca because Mia firmly believes that Rebecca did not commit suicide. During her time on the island, Mia conducts her own “investigation” to find out what happened to Rebecca.
One by one, the people in Rebecca’s social circle gather at the mansion. Natasha (played by Pear Chiravara) is an exotic dancer who reluctantly agreed to this reunion after Mia showed up at Natasha’s nightclub workplace to invite her. Will (played by Max Parker) is the boyfriend Rebecca had when Rebecca disappeared. James (played by Freddie Thorp) is Mia’s ex-boyfriend, who is described by Will as an “intense, weird psycho.”
There are also some locals on the island who seem to be there as “tokens” in small, supporting roles. Sebastian (played by Llyrio Boateng), who likes to walk around in a Speedo, is literally only in the movie to be a “rescuer” to “damsels in distress.” During Mia’s “investigation,” Mia meets a psychotherapist named Catherine Isaac (played by Agi Nanjosi), who had Rebecca as a client. You can easily guess what happens when Catherine gets a visit from Mia at Catherine’s home office, and Catherine briefly leaves Mia alone in a room with unlocked file cabinets.
“Strictly Confidential” is ostensibly a mystery thriller about what happened to Rebecca, but the movie spends most of its time stringing together a bunch of terribly acted scenes where the characters in the main ensemble have sex-related secrets revealed about them. For example, Lily has been having a torrid affair with one of the invited guests, and this affair was going on before Lily’s husband Thomas died. (The “Strictly Confidential” trailer reveals who this person is.) The movie’s sex and kissing scenes for this secret affair look very fake and awkward.
Lily’s adulterous affair is supposed to make viewers wonder if Thomas died of natural causes or if he was murdered. After all, Lily inherited everything from Thomas. There are other betrayals and lies that get exposed in the story. There’s even a badly staged showdown taking place on a cliff, where at least one person inevitably falls off of the cliff.
“Strictly Confidential” tries to have a retro tone that’s partly like “Dynasty” (scheming wealthy people) and partly like “Red Shoe Diaries” (softcore erotica), but it’s all just a weak imitation that falls flat. “Strictly Confidential” is very muddled and nonsensical, while the characters are completely hollow and boring. And just when you think things couldn’t get any worse in “Strictly Confidential,” the ending of the movie has a poorly conceived “reveal” that raises more questions that are never answered. That’s assuming most viewers who have the patience to watch all of this trashy movie will still care by the time the “Strictly Confidential” stumbles to its uninspired and idiotic ending.
Lionsgate released “Strictly Confidential” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and on VOD on April 5, 2024.
The following content is generally available worldwide, except where otherwise noted. All TV shows listed are for networks and streaming services based in the United States. All movies listed are those released in U.S. cinemas. This schedule is for content and events premiering this week and does not include content that has already been made available.
April 29 – May 5, 2024
TV/Streaming Services
All times listed are Eastern Time/Pacific Time, unless otherwise noted.
Investigation Discovery’s new docuseries “People Magazine Investigates: Surviving a Serial Killer” premieres on Sunday, May 5 at 9 p.m. ET/PT. The series is also available for streaming on Max.
“The Jinx: Part Two” “Saving My Tears Until It’s Official” (Episode 203) Sunday, May 5, 10 p.m., HBO
Movies in Theaters or on Home Video
No new true crime movies releasing in theaters or on home video this week.
Radio/Podcasts
No new true crime podcast series premiering this week.
Events
Events listed here are not considered endorsements by this website. All ticket buyers with questions or concerns about the event should contact the event promoter or ticket seller directly.
All start times listed are local time, unless otherwise noted.
An archival photo of Abba Kovner (back row, standing in the center) and the Vilna resistance in “Resistance: They Fought Back” (Photo by Ghetto Fighters’ House Museum/Abramorama)
Some language in Polish and Hungarian with subtitles
Culture Representation: The documentary film “Resistance: They Fought Back” features an all-white, mostly Jewish group of people historians, academics, Holocaust survivors and descendant of Holocaust survivors sharing historical information about what European Jewish people did to resist the Holocaust in the 1930s and 1940s.
Culture Clash: Resistance took many forms, including armed defense against the Nazis, smuggling away or hiding Jews from Nazi persecution, and providing food and education to Jewish people who were trapped in prison-like ghettos.
Culture Audience: “Resistance: They Fought Back” will appeal primarily to people interested in documentaries that have many personal stories about the Holocaust.
An archival photo of Jews from the Lodz Ghetto in “Resistance: They Fought Back” (Photo courtesy of Getty Images/Abramorama)
“Resistance: They Fought Back” is a vital documentary for anyone wanting a deeper understanding about the courage and the necessity of resistance by Jewish people and allies during the Holocaust. The movie combines history with personal testimonials. Many historical facts about the Holocaust are already known, but the individual stories revealed in this documentary aren’t necessarily taught in history classes.
Directed by Paula S. Apsell and Kirk Wolfinger, “Resistance: They Fought Back” features interviews historians, academics, Holocaust survivors and descendants of Holocaust survivors. Many of the resistance stories that told in the documentaries are directly from diaries, letters and journals written by Jewish people who were imprisoned in Nazi-controlled ghettos or death camps in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s. Some journals, letters and diaries were buried and unearthed years later. Others were passed down through families for generations.
Early on in “Resistance: They Fought Back,” American professor Richard Freund, a Jewish historian/archaeologist, makes a powerful statement about the Holocaust that can be considered the purpose of this documentary: “People have this myth stuck in their heads that the Jews went to their death like sheep to the slaughter, but this is where the real story begins: They fought back.” (Freund died in 2022, at the age of 67. The documentary has a dedication to him in the end credits.)
The real-life written stories in “Resistance: They Fought Back” have voiceover narration from several actors, including Corey Stoll, Dianna Agron, Maggie Siff, Romy Rosemont, Julie Benko, David Rosenberg, Lisa Loeb, Joel De La Fuente, Andrew Kishino and Mark Zeisler. Documentary viewers will get behind-the-scenes stories about several heroic Jewish resistance fighters that are testament to how many people resisted Nazi oppression in many different ways. Most of the resistance fighters who are mentioned this documentary were in their teens and 20s at the time they documented their resistance activities.
Abba Kovner was a resistance leader from the Vilna Ghetto in Vilnius, Lithuania. He is one of the more prominent people named in the documentary as someone who believed in armed resistance. Kovner became a commander of an informal army of Jewish resisters. Kovner (whose mother was murdered in the Holocaust) also insisted on including women as part of the armed fighters, even when several people under his command were sexist and said women could not fight alongside the men. Abba’s wife Vita Kempner-Kovner was also part of the resistance movement. Their son Michael Kovner is interviewed in the documentary.
Bela Hazan was a courier in the resistance movement in Gordo, Belarus. Because she could pass herself off as a gentile, she pretended to be Catholic so she could get past certain Nazi security checkpoints. Hazan carried food, messages and other resources to and from Jewish ghettos until she was imprisoned by Nazis. Her professor son Yoel Yaari is one of the people interviewed in the documentary. He gets emotional at one point and says he can’t go into details about the atrocities his mother experienced during the Holocaust.
Vladka Meed and Ben Meed were a married couple who were part of the Warsaw Ghetto Resistance in Poland. The Meed spouses believed in Amdah: unarmed resistance. This belief included educating Jewish children when Nazis outlawed it; doing charitable work for people in Jewish ghettos; and helping Jewish people escape or hide from Nazi imprisonment. Drs. Rita Meed and Steven Meed, children of Vladka Meed and Ben Meed, are interviewed in the documentary.
Rabbi Michael Schudrich, chief rabbi of Poland, comments in the film: “Education was a form of resistance. If you never lost your humanity, then in a very real sense, you’re helping to beat the [Nazi] Germans.”
Samuel Bak, a professional artist who survived being in the Vilna Ghetto, had his first art exhibit in the ghetto at age 9. Bak says art “kept the psyche of the people, more or less, alive.” Other Holocaust survivors who are interviewed in the documentary are Budapest resistance fighter David Gur and Warsaw Ghetto survivor Krystina Budnicka.
One of the most memorable Holocaust survivor stories comes from violinist Dana Mazurkevich, who escaped as a child from the Kovno Ghetto in Kaunas, Lithuania. Her parents gave her to a woman who smuggled Mazurkevich in a potato sack. At a Nazi checkpoint, Mazurkevich was making whimpering noises in fear, but the woman carrying her in the sack was able to fool Nazi security officials at the checkpoint into thinking that she had a live pig in the sack.
In the documentary, Mazurkevich says about her parents, who died in the Holocaust: “It took unbelievable courage that they could give me away, and not knowing if they will survive, or if they will survive.” She gets choked up with emotions when she adds, “I think it was a big, big act of resistance.”
Chaim Melcer, who was born in 1927, lived in the city of Sobibór, Poland, a few miles from the Treblinka Death Camp. Almost 2 million Jews were murdered at Treblinka Death Camp. Melcer says in the documentary: “We could hear the screams and smell the burning.” He and his father escaper and lived in a forest for two years. Tragically, Melcer’s mother and younger siblings were murdered in the Sobibór death camp.
“Resistance: They Fought Back” also has narration of letters from resistance fighter Marcel Nadjari, a prisoner at the Auschwitz death camp who was sent there from Greece at the age of 27. Jewish prisoners at Auschwitz were called Sonder Kommando. A letter that Nadjari buried in a thermos at an Auschwitz crematorium was found in 1980. In total nine different Sonder Kommando letters and diaries have been found at this site where the Auschwitz death camp used to be.
Other people of the resistance who are mentioned in the documentary include Oneg Shaber (Sabbath Delight) leader Emanuel Ringelbaum, Warsaw Getto Uprising Commander Mordeca Anielewicz, archivist David Graber, Feige Peltel, Vilna resistance fighter Ruzka Korchak and Sonder Kommando prisoner Elieze Eisenschmidt. Holocaust survivors who are mentioned include Eania Dunetz, Esther Raab, Ada Neufeld and Jack Kagan, a resident of Novogrudok, Belarus, who was rescued by World War II hero Tuvia Bielski. Descendants of Holocaust survivors who are interviewed in the documentary include Jack Kagan’s son Michael Kagan, Dunetz’s daughter Batya Cohen, Korchak’s daughter Yonat Robain, Neufeld’s son Ronnen Harran and poet Abraham Sutzkever’s daughter Hadas Kalderon.
Several academics and historians who are interviewed in the documentary. They include Pawel Sawicki of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, Ilya Lensky of Jews in Latvia Museum, Paul Baum of BGC Engineering and Tomaz Oleksy-Zborowski of Sobibór’s Museum and Memorial. Professors who are interviewees include Gideon Greif, Avinoam Patt of New York University, Dina Porat of Tel Aviv University, Yehuda Bauer of Hebrew University, Harry Jol of the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire, Patrick Henry of Whitman College, David Fishman of Jewish Theological Seminary, Michael Berenbaum of American Jewish University and Steven Bowman of the University of Cincinnati.
The documentary goes to several Holocaust locations, including the above-named museums, as well as Ponar Memorial and forest area, outside of Vilna, where Freund shows some of his students the death pits that were used to dispose of Jewish murder victims. Although “Resistance: They Fought Back” has disturbing and depressing accounts of the horrors of the Holocaust, the stories describe experiences of love and compassion not just for family members but for strangers who were also trapped in this terrible and shameful genocide. It’s this will to live and fight evil that will resonate the most with viewers of “Resistance: They Fought Back” and will serve as testament of the human spirit that ended up being much stronger than the Nazi forces who were defeated in World War II.
Abramorama released “Resistance: They Fought Back” in New York City on April 12, 2024, with an expansion to Los Angeles on May 10, 2024.
