Director – Dylan R. Nix (The Demon of Serling, 10/31 Part IV)
Starring – Jason Eckles, David E. McMahon (He Never Left, Children of Sin), and Dylan R. Nix)
Release Date – 2026
Rating – 3/5

I’ve met some seriously talented filmmakers through Horror Society over the years. Some of them are responsible for some of my favorite films that I’ve seen in the last 15 years while other created movies that are part of my go to lineup for various reasons. These particular films mean a lot to me and I try to watch them as much as possible or, at least, once a year when I can. Some years ago I befriended author and filmmaker Dylan R. Nix who was kind enough to send over his indie horror anthology Baron Von Laugho’s Halloween Spook-A-Thon. I’ve worked this one into my annual October horror binge every year since.

I’ve reviewed several other films from him, like The Demon of Serling and Sharp Candy, and I’ve really enjoyed them all. Recently, Dylan reached out to me to review his new anthology Fun-Size Pieces of Sharp Candy: The Movie. I wasn’t able to get to it right away but as soon as I had the time I hit play on it. I want to thank Dylan for sending this one over.

**Spoiler Alert** The film follows Nix’s character Baron von Laugho (Nix) has he once again takes us on a chilling journey through three horror tales. The first involves a safe cracker who is tasked with opening an old safe for a small business unaware he was sealing his own fate. The second story follows director Dylan R. Nix as he breaks the news to fans that the film failed to raise the funds needed to bring his vision to life before he receives a bit of fan mail in the shap of a doll in the Baron Von Laugho garb. This awakens something sinister inside of him. The final segment follows a movie critic who finds himself locked up with David E. McMahon who is drugged and dressed up as the Easter bunny. **Spoiler alert**

Fun-Size Pieces of Sharp Candy: The Movie brings some of Nix’s short stories to the Baron von Laugho universe which is something I fully support. He is a huge fan of the genre and his films really demonstrate that. Fun-Size was a solid anthology for the most part but like any indie production, there is a few aspects of the film that I didn’t care for.

The acting in this one is a little underwhelming in a few scenes but is fairly well done for the most part. Nix is at home as his Baron von Laugho character where he carries every scene he is in. The supporting cat is a little inconsistent with some showing inexperience in front of the camera while others are very comfortable in their roles. It’s not poorly acted but there is a few awkward scenes.

The stories for the segments are very uneven but finds a way to work in the end. The bookend segment with Laugho telling horror tales actually works. I enjoy it and could see this hold it over for several more sequels. The first tale in this one is my favorite segment in the film. It has a Tales from the Crypt style ending that you don’t see coming and works very well. The second segment is the weakest in the film for me. I understand that this is more of a personal segment for the director when he was unable to raise the funds he needed to make the movie he wanted but it’s out of place in the film and completely derails what could have been a solid psychologal horror segment.

The final segment is very middle of the road. This Saw parody with the director taking his frustrations out on film critics with a drugged up horny David E. McMahon should have been the best thing ever filmmed by an indie director. However, it’s not as funny as it could have been. It feels like it’s trying a bit too hard and misses it’s mark. With all that being said, some of Laugho’s scenes were a little bit underwhelming due to some of the self-righteous dialogue. It didn’t fit the film and is a bit confusing.

Finally, the film doesn’t really have the gruesome deaths that most genre fans are looking for. The movie is very low budget and worked with what they had but money for practical effects were not in the cards. However, we do have a pretty wild looking nutsack that looks like something James Bell may have crafted. Overall, Fun-Sized Pieces of Sharp Candy: The Movie doesn’t really hit like The Demon of Serling and Baron Von Laugho’s Halloween Spook-A-Thon but it’s a solid watch especially if you are a fan of Nix. I fucking love horror anthologies and this one was worth a watch. Check it out.

In the summer of 2020, the year “Ted Lasso” debuted on Apple TV, the largest audience for a televised soccer match in the U.S. was 1.7 million. Shortly before the soccer-based sitcom returned for a fourth season last Wednesday, nearly 63 million viewers in the U.S. watched the World Cup final.

Brendan Hunt, the actor who plays Lasso’s loyal sidekick Coach Beard in the series, can’t prove the show is responsible for that growth. But since he can’t disprove it either, he’ll just go with the flow.

“I would love it if we’ve had a role at all,” he said. “If we are a pebble in that avalanche, then I’m happy.”

What the Emmy-winning series has undeniably done is bring soccer into millions of unsuspecting households that had previously avoided the sport like a plague. So while Jason Sudeikis, the star and co-creator, alongside Hunt, of “Ted Lasso,” insists the show is not about soccer, the sport sure gets a lot of screen time. And that has made the game more palatable and popular for a public that can now relate to it.

“We tricked them by putting soccer in a comedy show,” Hunt said. “The first thing you’ve got to do to get somebody to become a soccer fan is just make them care about one team, to find one team.

“In this instance we’ve made them care about this fictional team and that easily can transmute, if you’re not careful, into caring about other teams. And then hopefully the sport itself.”

After a three-year hiatus, “Lasso” returned for Season 4 last week with the series’ eponymous title character, played by Sudeikis, returning to Richmond to coach a fledgling second-division women’s team. Hunt’s understated character makes his first appearance of the season in Episode 2 Wednesday.

“He is clearly going through something,” Hunt said. “Is it just what happens to Beard when he’s away from Ted for too long or is there something important that has happened? We’ll find out before too long.”

Speaking of having gone through something, Hunt, who plays a fictional coach for a fictional team, spent the first part of his summer being a very real journalist at a very real tournament, attending 14 World Cup games in more than half a dozen stadiums — including the Spain-France semifinal in Arlington, Texas, which he watched from the press box, and the Spain-Argentina final, part of which he watched from field level.

“That was a really cool experience,” said Hunt, who did a World Cup podcast with Rebecca Lowe, the studio host of Fox’s tournament coverage.

But for Hunt, 54, the most passionate soccer fan among the writers and actors on “Ted Lasso,” the sport was an acquired taste. Half a lifetime ago, Hunt was a die-hard Chicago Bears fan working in residence with an improv group at a small, aging theater in Amsterdam when he got swept up in Dutch soccer culture.

Eventually, he said, he was contributing weekly columns to Sp!ts, a free commuter newspaper in Amsterdam, chronicling his growing infatuation with the sport. When Sudeikis, another Midwesterner, joined the comedy troupe, Hunt began proselytizing about the sport, using PlayStation games to draw in Sudeikis.

“I found a secret that I had to tell everybody,” Hunt said. “When Jason came to Amsterdam, by that point I was fully a zealot. It was like a new recipe. ‘This thing is great!’

“I’ve been doing it ever since. I just have a slightly larger platform from which to do it.”

That platform is “Ted Lasso,” based around a soft-drawling college football coach, and Beard, his quiet but intense assistant. The concept debuted in a 2013 promo for NBC’s coverage of the English Premier League, then launched as a full-blown sitcom during the angst and fear of the coronavirus pandemic seven years later.

The series, with its message of optimism, kindness and patience and its call to “be curious, not judgmental” — a sentiment Lasso mistakenly credits to Walt Whitman — proved to be the perfect tonic for those trying times. Before it paused after Season 3, it had become the most-watched original streaming series across all platforms and the first Apple TV show to cross the billion-minute mark in a single tracking week.

But in addition to all the messaging and positivity, the show also included soccer. The offside rule and promotion and relegation are the butts of repeated jokes and there are discussions of tactics, positions, formations and other game-related details that would have previously frustrated viewers.

“Lasso,” however, proved U.S. soccer IQ was higher than expected; the sport may not have become fully mainstream, but it was no longer a foreign concept.

“There’s just a wider sense of like, ‘yeah, we’re fine. Soccer’s fine,’” Hunt said of the U.S. public. “We don’t need to explain it to people or impress it upon people. The World Cup has sort of finally cemented that.

“It feels like less and less of a capital S struggle right now.”

For Hunt, who has been a season-ticket holder for LAFC and Angel City, getting to be a credentialed World Cup journalist — and a participant in the halftime show at the final — were once such far-fetched dreams that they never even made his bucket list. Getting paid to write scripts for a project he’s passionate about, then act out those scripts as a make-believe coach, was once only slightly less unbelievable.

Yet Hunt has done it all — and after a three-year break he’s back doing it again.

“It’s definitely fun,” he said. “For one thing it makes me a little more useful in the writers’ room than I would be on ‘Grey’s Anatomy.’ And it also means that a world that I already really enjoy has now opened its arms to us.

“The world of football, to have responded so well to this show, has been truly a touching part of this experience.”

And no one can’t prove the show hasn’t played at least a small role in making the U.S. a soccer country at last.

Rocketry: The Nambi Effect, The Railway Men (web series), Kesari Chapter 2, Dhurandhar, Dhurandhar: The Revenge, and now G.D.N. R. Madhavan has been doing quite a few biopics or movies based on real incidents in the last few years. The authenticity of these films may be debatable, but most of them serve as a medium to inspire the current generation. The latest biographical drama film from Madhavan, is based on Gopalswamy Doraiswamy Naidu Aka G. D. Naidu Aka G.D.N, the manufacturer of the first electric motor in India and a renowned entrepreneur. Apart from playing the lead role, Madhavan was involved in developing the screenplay and also acted as one of the producers for the film. Notable actors like, Sathyaraj, Jayaram, Priyamani and Dushara Vijayan, played crucial roles in the film. The Tamil and Telugu versions of the film were released in theatres. Did Madhavan come up with yet another inspiring biographical drama film? Who is G.D.N and what is his story? Let’s figure it out with a detailed analysis.

What is it about?

Gopalaswamy Doraiswamy Naidu Aka G.D. Naidu Aka G.D.N (the young role was played by Teejay Arunasalam and the middle and elder age roles were played by R. Madhavan) in British-ruled India in the early 1900s, is a motorcycle enthusiast. How did he buy his motorcycle? How did he end up manufacturing India’s first electric motor? How did he become a successful entrepreneur? What challenges did he face during the British Raj? What challenges did he face after India gained independence in 1947? How did he overcome those challenges? Forms the rest of the story.

Performances:

R. Madhavan is excellent in the role of G.D. Naidu. As always, he delivered a very restrained and likeable performance. He looked very believable in all the getups while portraying the various stages of G.D. Naidu’s life. During the climax of the film, he came up with a very emotionally driven heart-touching performance. Teejay Arunasalam in the role of young G.D. Naidu did well. He came up with a commendable performance.

Senior actors Sathyaraj and Jayaram got crucial roles and both of them made their experience count and delivered very good performances. Priyamani in a limited role made her presence felt. Dushara Vijayan in the role of the second wife to G.D. Naidu, delivered a good performance. Vinay Rai as the antagonist did his part well. Aditi Balan in a crucial role came up with a balanced performance. She did well during a very good payoff sequence in the climax.

Technicalities:

Govind Vasantha came up with a standard template-driven score for the biopic. His songs and background score served the purpose but there’s nothing special to talk about the music in particular. Cinematographer, Aravind Kamalanathan and the art department did a good job in replicating the bygone era well. Editing by Bijith Bala was good during the first half but it could have been much better in the second half.

Positives:

1.⁠ ⁠Inspirational Story of G.D. Naidu
2.⁠ ⁠Actors Performances
3.⁠ ⁠Motivational Moments

Negatives:

1.⁠ ⁠Overtly Commercialised Screenplay
2.⁠ ⁠One-Sided Narration

Analysis:

In earlier days, people used to read about well-known personalities across the world in books, later through the internet and through other news publishing agencies in various forms(i.e., print media, electronic media, etc.). Now, we are living in a generation where people use AI agents(ChatGPT, Grok, etc.), and then there is a large section of people who consume news about famous people tbrough instagram reels and YouTube Shorts. The question is – How authentic are these sources? The authenticity depends on the political affiliation, caste, religion and various other factors of the content provider or content creator. G.D.N maybe a biopic of a renowned personality but at heart, it intends to question the credibility of the source of the information we consume daily. A book or movie or an article or an Instagram reel or a YouTube short about a famous personality, is only the perspective of the content creator. More often than not, they tend to manipulate the facts or tend to exaggerate. So, it is up to us to select the right source to consume news or information. This is exactly the point, the director, Krishnakumar Ramakumar and Madhavan, tried to convey through, G.D.N.

Gopalswamy Doraiswamy Naidu(G.D.N) is known as the ‘Edison of India’. He was a school dropout but ended up becoming the manufacturer of India’s first electric motor. He was known as a technical redesigner and is also known as one of the wealth creators of Coimbatore in the early 1900s. Not just in the industrial sector but he contributed to the growth of electrical, mechanical and agricultural sectors in India. He inspired young people during the early and mid-1900s to focus on practical learning. He also started polytechnic colleges to let students study practical engineering in two years instead of four years. The film takes us through the inspirational journey of G.D. Naidu. It talks about the innovations he came up with, the challenges he faced not just from the British-ruled government in India but also from the politicians in independent India. The then British government, a few politicians in independent India and a section of the media projected him as a Tax dodger and a traitor. But did he really evade Tax? Was he really a traitor? The director of the film engagingly addressed these questions. At quite a few places, the film makes you feel inspired and your respect for G. D. Naidu will surely go a touch higher by the end.

It may be a biopic about G.D. Naidu but it also talks about Ambalapara Krishnan, an Income Tax Officer(ITO). Through the film, the director tried to show us the integrity of both individuals. The sequence between the two at the climax makes us get very emotional and we start to appreciate the integrity and self-imposed ethics by which both of them lived their lives. ‘As an income tax officer, I did my duties with utmost honesty and sincerity and always followed the rules mentioned in the book. I may have gone against you in fulfilling my duties but deep down I always respect you for what you did for the betterment of our country’, says Ambalapara Krishnan to G.D. Naidu. ‘As you said, I would have paid the penalties imposed by the British Raj and achieved my goals but had I done that, I would have become a bad example to the future young generations who dream to become entrepreneurs’, replies an emotional G.D. Naidu. This entire sequence serves as an inspiration to all the people who dream of becoming entrepreneurs. The film has quite a few such inspirational episodes which make you feel very motivated.

On the flip side, the screenplay of the film gives a feeling of watching a commercial entertainer. Both Krishnakumar Ramakumar and Madhavan as screenplay writers seemed to have put in a conscious effort to give commercial payoffs at regular intervals. A few of those payoffs appread run off the mill and exaggerated. The entire divorce episode during the pre-climax looked over the top. And, there were quite a few episodes where the director tried to deliver ‘playing to the gallery’ moments. These episodes may work very well in commercial entertainment, but in a biographical drama, they appeared exaggerated. Another drawback of the film is its seemingly one-sided narrative. Also, just like most of the biopics, the film suffers from an inconsistent pace. Especially, the drama during the initial hour in the second half unfolds at a very leisurely pace.

Overall, the subject matter which G.D.N dealt with is very inspirational and the message it tried to convey is also commendable. However, a bit more care would have been taken to tone down the one-sided narration and commercial elements. The possibility of you liking it depends on your definition of a biopic. If you like biographical dramas which only deal with the positive side of the individual, the chances of you liking G.D.N. are very high. You may slightly get disappointed if you prefer to watch a biographical drama with balanced narration.

Bottomline – Inspirational But Overtly Commercialised

Rating – 2.5/5

Tags GDN Movie Review