Movie Reviews
Riddle of Fire (2023) – Movie Review
Riddle of Fire, 2023.
Directed by Weston Razooli.
Starring Lio Tipton, Charles Halford, Charlie Stover, Skyler Peters, Phoebe Ferro, Daniele Hoetmer and Lorelei Olivia Mote.
SYNOPSIS:
Three mischievous children embark on an odyssey to find the ingredients for a blueberry pie to bake for their poorly mother. Along the way they encounter poachers, a witch, a huntsman, and a fairy.
This fascinating picture’s writer and director Weston Razooli describes it as a neo-fairytale, and this helps to place the film. Beguiling, original and ultimately celebratory, the movie is a delightful romp through the imaginative worlds of childhood. Showing what is possible with a strong idea and creative focus, Riddle of Fire succeeds on a micro-budget when many projects falter with 10 times the amount of funds.
The film gets the feeling of younger years just right with the cast of child leads putting in brilliant performances with boundless energy and humour. The difficult to pigeonhole movie has a strong folklore and mythic influence that Razooli credits as an important part of his own growing up. The sense of creating your own world that exists on its own merits with your friends is put together beautifully.
Shot entirely on 16mm film, the movie focuses on Hazel (Charlie Stover), Alice (Phoebe Ferro), and Jodie (Skyler Peters) as they venture into the Utah forests to find the ingredients to make Hazel and Jodie’s mom a blueberry pie.
Why a pie? Well, their mum (Danielle Hoetmer) is feeling ill, and blueberry pie is the only thing that’ll make her feel better. So, off they go, out on their bikes armed with paintball guns to find exactly what they need. However, this being a fairy story imbued with magic and pagan influences, things don’t go to plan.
Along the way the friends get captured by poachers and end up deep in the wilds of the forest with no real clue as to where they are.
Also in the forest is the decidely unsavourary organisation of witchy types led by the intense Anna-Freya Hollyhock (Leo Tipton), with classic bad guy cowboy Charles (John Redrye) in tow. The group have designs on the kids, and the two gangs become involve in a hunter or be hunted type game of hide and seek.
The surreal touches of the film are charming to watch. There’s the anarchic feeling that the story could go anywhere, which it does. There is a hilarious dance competition scene where the youngest Jodie has to dance to save his friends! There is ill-advised drinking! There is toilet humour!
Overall though, Riddle of Fire is an excellently fun throw back to 1980s style kids adventure films (think The Goonies, Stand by Me) with an added folkloric element.
The music is also a huge part of this. While working on the film Razooli became introduced to the sub-genre of ‘dungeon synth’ and mixed in the computer gamey type tunes into the picture expertly well. This and the edits were obviously a lot of work. But it has been pieced together fluently and charmingly well, capturing the weird mystery of life where everything is new and different.
Sometimes you see a film where the cast obviously had a lot of fun and that doesn’t translate to the audience or to the quality of the film. That’s not the case here, though, where fun and magic are put across at every opportunity.
Fully deserving of the warm welcome it received at Cannes, Riddle of Fire has all the potential to become a cult classic. A memorable debut film by a filmmaker with a lot of promise.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Robert W Monk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=embed/playlist
Heat Advisory
from THU 12:00 PM EDT until THU 8:00 PM EDT, Eastern Montgomery County, Lower Bucks County, Philadelphia County, Delaware County, Eastern Chester County, Gloucester County, Northwestern Burlington County, Camden County, Mercer County, New Castle County
By and large, the zombie subgenre has bitten off more than it can chew in modern times. Between George Romero survival films and camp comedies, the well has become pretty infected. But once in a while, along comes a movie like This Is Not A Test.
Let’s sink our teeth into this new release and see how it stacks up against the classics.
The tone and tenor of this film represent the classic survival movies like Night Of The Living Dead. But the thing that grabs the audience about This Is Not A Test is the trauma of the characters. Holt shines as a withdrawn survivor of an abusive home, trying to cut through the wreckage to reunite with her sister. Each of the main characters have standout traits, and they bathe in strongly acted moments as the stress of the situation changes who they are.
The gore in This Is Not A Test is pretty strong. The attacks spring quickly and when they do, the special effects team does a good job showcasing the battle scars. The camera work is also frenetic in a good way, because the chaos of the chase scenes puts the viewers in a first-person perspective. This film lets you feel like a part of the survivors, so their journeys are interactive.
Longtime fans may say that there’s nothing new in This Is Not A Test, and maybe they’re right. There’s no fresh take on the monsters here, no crazy origin, nothing that we haven’t seen in the past fifty-eight years. But the pacing nails a great balance between getting to know the characters and getting the zombie splatter fest. The mental meltdowns of the characters feel well earned, and the arc of Sloane and her sister brings a lot of heart and investment to the story. Even the most jaded zombie horror fans will find something to appreciate here, even as a background movie.
Adam MacDonald has made another intense hit here, and This Is Not A Test is currently available to stream on Shudder.
- THE ODYSSEY
- Starring: Matt Damon, Tom Holland and Anne Hathaway
- Directed by: Christopher Nolan
- Rated: R
- Running time: 2 hrs 45 mins
- Universal
Our score: 4.5 out of 5
EPIC. If I was asked to describe Christopher Nolan’s latest film, that is the word I would use. He has mounted a film that rivals the greatest achievements of filmmakers like Cecil B. DeMille or David Lean. And, like the films of those mentioned, it’s runs a tad too long.
I was shocked, but pleased, to see that my 12-year-old granddaughter recently did a school paper on King Agamemnon. Thank goodness they’re still teaching History in our schools. Based on Homer’s “The Odyssey,” the film tells the story of King Odysseus (Damon) and his adventures which, if you’ve read “The Odyssey,” include the Trojan Horse, the Cyclops and assorted angry Greek gods. The film covers each of these adventures in great detail, sparing nothing in the production design department. While Odysseus is away – and he’s gone for a l-o-n-g time, his wife Penelope (Hathaway) has to endure a never ending string of “suitors,” men lining up in the hopes of replacing the King should he not return. The men are nothing more then scavengers, taking advantage of the law of Zeus, which decrees no one should be turned away. This angers the Queen’s son, Telemachus (Holland), who must control his temper when the men try to bait him into a fight, the idea being if Telemachus is killed, the new husband would become the King. It’s all very interesting and complicated. And long.
Director Nolan is one of the rare filmmakers who, in my opinion, has never made a bad film. From “Memento” to the “Dark Knight” trilogy to the Oscar-winning “Oppenheimer,” he has proven himself a true master of cinema. “The Odyssey” only adds to that distinguished resume’
The cast is a tribute to Nolan himself who, like Woody Allen, can pretty much get anyone he wants for his films because, as an actor, why wouldn’t you want a credit in one of his films. Besides the three stars named above, the cast includes Robert Pattinson, John Leguizamo, Zendaya, James Remar, Jon Bernthal, Oscar nominees Samantha Morton and Elliot Page as well as Oscar winners Charlize Theron and Lupita Nyongo. As MGM used to advertise, “more stars than there are in heaven.”
The script and story are pretty faithful to the source material, though for some reason it bothered me whenever Telemacus referred to Odysseus as “dad.” Never father. The weird things you notice. Visual.y the film is stunning and the Trojan Horse and battle of Troy are worth the price of admission alone. I will add that I did see the film in 70 mm and, if that format is playing in your town, I urge you to see it in that format.
On a scale of zero to five, “The Odyssey” receives ★★★★ ½
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