In COLD WALLET, a trio of Redditors (Raul Castillo, Tony Cavalaro, Melonie Diaz) take it upon themselves to make a crypto influencer (Josh Brener) pay for tanking the coin, freezing user assets and suddenly demanding they owe the app almost double what they paid to get to said position.

Their plan? Find the influencer, steal his cold wallet drives that store ALL his crypto balances and let them loose into the wild for any victim to reclaim. It's a Robin Hood deal.

But the mind games have only just begun and the danger of getting caught or - worse - only grows.

I'm not a big crypto head but you don't need all the knowledge to follow COLD WALLET. It works best as a pulpy home invasion thriller with a change in perspective. It's best to know these folks aren't, in any way, professional burglars. The results make for some funny setups.

COLD WALLET is playing in select theaters and available to stream on VOD.

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The Best Picture Showcase rolls on with Edward Berger's CONCLAVE, a drama about the election of a new Pope after the sudden death of the old Holy Father. Left with the responsibilities of wrangling every cardinal from 'round the world, along with their egos and ideologies, is a soon-to-be-exhausted Cardinal Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes). As the days and rounds of voting wear on, Lawrence fears, especially after the muckraking dredges up personal and professional drama, a wealth of spiritual doubts and a fear of what kind of person will spearhead the next few decades of Catholicism, that the right candidate, the one truly best equipped to be an ambassador of God's word, may be lost to the squabbles and pettiness of imperfect men.

This is a chess game, political theater on the world's stage. In some ways, CONCLAVE is brutally honest about the state of the world and its leaders. In others, I find an idealism that Frank Capra may grin at, god rest him. It's this balance between recognizing who we are and where we'd like to be that CONCLAVE dances with the most. How do we bridge the gulf and who's best equipped to lead us there?

If you play enough chess, you'll be able to see the winning route from a good distance and this movie is no exception. But Berger always has a good eye and the score sufficiently ramps up the tension. It's not my favorite nominee but I'm glad I saw it.

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ARMAND follows Elisabeth (Renate Reinsve), a single mother of the titular 6-year-old. She's called into Armand's school for a parent-teacher conference alongside Sarah (Ellen Dorrit Petersen) and Anders (Endre Hellestveit) the parents of Armand's best friend, Jon.

To say it's bad news is the most severe understatement. Jon has accused Armand of sexual assault, the violent and dehumanizing kind one would expect from someone with a high-schooler's understanding of sexuality.

Elisabeth is expectedly blindsided, fiercely defending her son and questioning the intents, the facts, the biases of all involved. Sarah demands justice for her son and immediate action on the school's part. Anders wants what his wife wants.

The school's de facto liaison, a junior teacher named Sunna (a sympathetic and highly pitied - the kind of pity derived from being someone sent first over the hill to sustain every rock, arrow, cannonball and nasty word - Thea Lambrechts Vaulen), is just desperately hoping a dialogue between the parents can inspire some concept of a plan.

If you're looking for a movie wherein you can crack the code and solve the mystery, this movie isn't it. It's more preoccupied with the parties involved. Their personalities and histories clash and it's in the discovery of the interplays that the story really plays out. Writer/director Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel drops these folks into a cavernous school with high ceilings, arched hallways. Every step echoes; secrets can be discovered regardless of whether the conspirators whisper. It's an environment haunted by the ghosts (maybe literal?) of tragedy, of the sinister and wounded natures that plague us all.

Near the end, Elisabeth discusses with Sunna the manner in which best to understand and perceive other people. It's not myopic nor impressionistic, but rather somewhere in-between. It's an amorphous yet graceful stamp on a movie whose surreal darkness can be a tough ask on an audience. Humanity is fickle and imperfect. To pretend otherwise betrays the very nature of who we are. I can't say this is gonna land well with everybody who watches it, but it gave me some chewable food-for-thought.

ARMAND is currently playing in select theaters nationwide (Shit, my AMC has a random 1:45pm showing of this thing and I just wanna be a fly on the wall to observe whose grandma's walking in to catch this fucker on a Tuesday.)

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Feras Alfuqaha loves to gab about moviemaking. His directorial debut, LIFELINE, premieres in select theatres and VOD on February 21st. It's the story of a suicide hotline volunteer (Josh Stewart) who receives a call from someone he believes to be his younger self (Judah Lewis). The caller says they're at a motel with gun in hand; they'll kill themselves at midnight. Clock's ticking.

Based on my interview with Alfuqaha, if I had to associate a word with him, it'd be preparation. He discusses the research needed to understand his main character's work, the decisions finalized before ever stepping onto a set in order to maximize his indie budget's potential, the discovery of characters and their intents done months ahead of time, the amount of effort required before the shoot in order to earn the luxury of on-set flexibility and so. much. more.

This interview's got grins and tangents aplenty, one of my favorites in recent memory.

Watch LIFELINE here: https://linktr.ee/lifelinemovie

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Feras Alfuqaha's LIFELINE stars Josh Stewart as Steven Thomas. Steven's spending his New Year's Eve volunteering at a suicide hotline during the graveyard shift. He's the only guy in the office during a time of year in which folks tend to really feel their pain. The holidays can be rough on some of us.

Steven handles a series of calls but one stands out: a college-aged kid who says he's gone to a motel with a gun with plans to kill himself at midnight. The kid's name? Steven Thomas.

What's initially perceived as a prank reveals itself to extend beyond any wealth of coincidences. Steven knows he's talking to a younger self. As memories of his own abusive childhood begin to seep through repression, Steven knows he only has a few hours to A) figure out how this phenomenon is even occurring and B) convince his younger self to stay alive for the promise of a better day and life.

The strength of this movie lies mainly in Stewart's performance. In his exhaustion, I see a man willing to carry the emotional burden of those to whom he extends a helping hand, regardless of the toll on his own body. As his younger, emotionally fraught self launches into self-destructive, nihilistic rants, Stewart's hesitation and expressions reveal that instinctual connection: Once upon a time, he did believe a version of this way of thinking. If you were to really crack the shell, I think he realizes he still believes in some of it, but also recognizes the need to adjust this perspective based on wisdom derived from experience. Older Steven isn't an easy role to bear and Stewart plays it thoughtfully and empathetically.

Genres blend and the mystery unfurls in enticing fashion. Once all is revealed, I found myself seeing LIFELINE as poignant, hopeful even. It's an entertaining and heartfelt ode to one's desire to pursue hope against seemingly insurmountable pain. And it's less than 90 minutes? What a win!

LIFELINE is currently playing in select theaters in L.A. & available to rent on VOD.

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I interview Michael Tolajian, the director of the new basketball documentary WE BEAT THE DREAM TEAM, premiering on Max February 17. We talk the personal impact the 1992 Dream Team had on Tolajian, the process of establishing relationships with his documentary subjects, which of his favorite directors could stand a chance in the NBA and a whole. lot. more.---

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A name like the Dream Team understandably comes with baggage. Who could make up a roster so great, the result can only be described as a dream? In the basketball world, guys like Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Scottie Pippen, John Stockton, Karl Malon-shall I go on?
These men were recruited to represent the United States in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, the first year in which NBA players would be allowed to play as Olympians. No pressure.
But as Michael Tolajian's new documentary WE BEAT THE DREAM TEAM showcases, pressure builds diamonds. Pressure, in this case, comes in the form of the Select Team, a group of collegiate players and future NBA superstars (Grant Hill, Bobby Hurley, Chris Webber, Penny Hardaway and more), tasked to stress-test the Dream Team before the Olympics.
And it's on a fateful day during the first scrimmage between this practice squad and their Hall-of-Fame counterparts that the unthinkable happens: The Select Team wins.
WE BEAT THE DREAM TEAM is part insider basketball, part history lesson, told 30+ years later with the same youthful exuberance by the gents who achieved what was considered impossible. The best teams internationally got whooped by the Dream Team to the tune of 30-40 point blowouts. These 19-to-21-year-old college students were the only ones who - ever - beat them. Talk about your underdog sports stories, am I right?
WE BEAT THE DREAM TEAM premieres on Max February 17th.---

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I LOVE YOU FOREVER is an anti-romcom. I don't say this in a way that suggests a cheeky, defiant stance against Valentine's Day. I say this because it weaponizes romcom tropes against us in its telling of an abusive relationship.
You can track the trajectory: lonely 20-something girl (Sofia Black D'Elia) meets accomplished 20-something guy (Ray Nicholson). He's thoughtful, attentive, hygienic. (Men, we can actually trip on the bar, it's so low.) They banter. They date. They kiss. They're an item.
But after this point? The tide changes. Guy calls girl every minute. Guy insinuates girl's cheating when she goes out with friends. Guy threatens self-harm at the slightest inconvenience. Girl blames herself, because obviously, if she hasn't had good romantic luck up until this point, she must be the problem. Girl loves guy even harder. Guy relays his therapist's message that girl's no good. Rinse and fucking repeat.
This is a caustic, frustrating watch with a good helping of dark humor sprinkled throughout. I like D'Elia and Nicholson's committed, tailored performances. I like the panicked, energetic camera work. But I'm not gonna say this movie's gonna hit for everyone. It's too messy, too entrenched in a pained point of view. However, the people for whom which this movie clicks are gonna grip onto it like a bear trap. Simply put, I know people who've gone through this. They're gonna get it. They're gonna latch on.

I LOVE YOU FOREVER is available to watch in select theaters and via digital rental services (Apple TV, Fandango At Home).

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Continuing the Best Picture Showcase, in which I cover this year's Oscars nominees for Best Picture, the road takes us to a tour-de-force of an original, pulse-pounding, "sickly entertaining" movie, Coralie Fargeat's THE SUBSTANCE.

This is an audacious, whip-smart body horror movie that's bound to break your heart as much as it'll force you to recoil in disgust...and maybe even make you laugh along the way?

Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) is an aging actress who, after being dropped by her network, doesn't know how to function without the kind of shallow, yet plentiful adoration show business provides. What remains are the painful reminders of her age, her beauty, her desirability, none of which are bolstered by her self-esteem. What is it that people say: We are our own worst critics?

An opportunity presents itself in the form of The Substance, an injectable drug that promises the user the ability to live in a new body, derived by the user's own DNA. Spend 7 days in the new and improved body, switch back to the old body for 7 days.

Elisabeth jumps at the chance, and after a revolting transformation sequence, out emerges the effervescent Sue (Margaret Qualley). As long as the balance is respected and all the rules followed, everything will work out fine. But if anyone ever followed the rules in these movies, we wouldn't have a movie, then would we?

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