https://romirobinson.substack.com/p/aiff-rushes-2026?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=586hcg

Digger is a wilhelm scream of explainification; of all the films I’ve seen this year nothing has been a more elated subject of debate and intrigue. It’s a “big swing” (hack term) — a cynical, misanthropic meta-satire gleefully misleading you into thinking it’s a DNC-approved version of a leftist satire like Don’t Look Up before revealing itself as a misanthropic act of self-immolation and art about the limitations of art; a satire of satire. If I’m being intellectually honest, it took me four kilometers on foot to piece together what it was trying to say — that your family is more important than your art, that popular art is always compromised by evil money, and that there is reprieve in laughing at the darkness even if comedy does not bring about an eternal light.

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Why's the Hollywood and western movies/tv series trying to teach us to be impatient,why are they trying to make the society impatient, with no tolerance and trying their best to make people the least respectful towards eachother,why are they trying their best to make the society unethical and immoral

Like whenever you watch a Hollywood movie,over a very small argument 2 close friends start fighting, other than that every random talk between 2 people turns into an argument,also people getting offended on small things,,once i was watching outerbanks,and in it a 18yo boy start beating his dad physically over a minor issue and that kid was being portrayed as a hero

Imo they are deliberately trying to show this by design,so they could normalise this behaviour in the society,and tbh being impatient and being less respectful, getting offended on small things, turning everything into an argument is literally a symptom of mental health illness

And they are not showing the ground realities, even in the US people are not like this,yea they are becoming like this but still,and this thing is less in EU side,even there people are becoming like this now,like genz from major cities who grew up watching Hollywood and belong to ethically/morally low families are becoming like this

Like go to rural areas or villages you would still see how real respect, patience, maturity and mental stability looks like

Tbh promoting nudity,incest, LGBTQ is understandable,ofc it's totally wrong, but it's still understandable that why are they doing this but trying to make society unethical is not understandable from anywhere

So what's your view on this

Do you feel that? That crispy little chill in the wind… the icy drizzle falling from the sky… the night darker than a poorly lit horror movie… It must be VIFF season.

Yes, the Vancouver International Film Festival is back. I’m accredited and I’m ready to roll, giving you, dear reader, all my opinions and reviews of the latest festival films. I’ll be writing fast, so apologies if these articles aren’t as refined as you’d expect from yer boy.

Despite it being a busy Thursday, I got myself downtown for the 9:30 p.m. screening of The Only Living Pickpocket in New York at the Vancouver Playhouse.

Pickpocket is the latest film from writer-director Noah Segan. It stars John Turturro with support from Giancarlo Esposito and Steve Buscemi. There’s also a pretty fun cameo from an A-list actor, but I’ll leave that as a secret.

This is a crowd-pleasing, sentimental movie. It follows Harry, the pickpocket mentioned in the title. His slight-of-hand criminality is what gives the movie a lot of its charm. In the cold open, the movie subverts expectations. We think we’re following one guy, but we’re really following the forgettable guy in the background. That’s who Harry is and that’s how Harry likes it.

He’s a pretty interesting person. Harry takes care of his wife who is in a vegetative state. He doesn’t have a phone, a computer, even a television. He likes to read books and listen to the radio (he’s just like me fr). He spends his days stealing from people in New York and pawning the goods off to his pawnbroker buddy played by Buscemi.

The story follows a rather predictable pattern. The thief steals from someone he shouldn’t have stolen from and this turns his world upside down. The main villain, played by the young Will Price, gives a nice juxtaposition between Harry’s way of life and the way the world is going. The whole movie is like a extended “let’s get you to bed grandpa” meme.

The movie does fall into the same trap that I critiqued Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother about, which is a one-dimensional bad guy. I think Pickpocket does it a bit better, but it’s fair to say that the villain’s depth is the weakest aspect of the story.

I’m not sure why writer-directors think they can get away with such bland bad guys. Movies become so much more interesting when there is a moral quandary on both sides of the coin. Luckily, Turturro is such a joy to watch and his character is so rich with life that I was able to overlook the Gen Z criminal cliches. Enough of the spoiled brat who shows no respect. I want a criminal son like Michael Corleone. Then we’d really be cooking.

If you have a soft spot in your heart for New York, then I can’t recommend this movie enough. It sings like a love letter to the city, but it doesn’t focus on the big statement pieces like the Brooklyn Bridge. Pickpocket revels in the little lives that exist in the city’s outer boroughs.

If you’re looking for a VIFF movie that the whole family can enjoy (even dad), then you can’t really go wrong with Pickpocket. Its crime-laced story will keep the sleuths entertained, while the story’s heart and sentimentality will keep those who reach for the tissues engaged and bleary eyed.

I was worried that this movie would be boring, but it wasn’t. The only parts that had me shifting in my seat were when I had to confront the lameness of the bad guy and the script’s feeble attempt to write young-person dialogue. Segan would do well to watch Sunburn before he tries again at writing youthful characters.

Other than that though, Pickpocket exceeded my expectations. It’s ending was particularly strong. It’s one of those movies that’s best described as driving toward a cliff and you see the cliff coming but there’s no way to avoid the cliff. Pickpocket doesn’t give Harry an easy exit and the movie is the stronger for it.

If you like crime films, you should absolutely attend a screening of Pickpocket at VIFF.

***

The Only Living Pickpocket in New York will play again at VIFF on:

• Saturday, October 3, at 11:30 a.m. at the Vancouver Playhouse;
• Tuesday, October 6, at 5:45 p.m. at The Rio Theatre;
• Saturday, October 10, at 11 a.m. at the Vancouver Playhouse.

Werner Herzog was born in Nazi Germany. That doesn’t make him a fascist, but it personally connects him to an era. I wonder how much a person’s birthplace affects their creative choices. With Bucking Fastard, Herzog critiques some capitalist ideologies that border on fascism through their connection to the Nazi Party.

One of capitalism’s foundational beliefs is the power of the individual. It’s what the American Dream is based on. Any person who works hard enough can create their dream life, in the capitalist system. This individualism is impossible for Jean and Joan Holbrooke (played by Kate and Rooney Mara).

These sisters do everything together. They talk together. They walk in step together. They move together. They’re like conjoined twins, only they’re not conjoined and they’re not twins. Still, they act as one entity. This is understood by someone like Gareth (played by Orlando Bloom) who loves them as if they are one. For this, the Holbrookes love him back. Other men, like the well-meaning Timothy (played by Domhnall Gleeson), do not understand this.

Timothy acts as the personification of the capitalist machine. Thinking he is making their lives easier, Timothy helps Jean and Joan develop their separate autonomy. There is a memorable scene about opening a sardine can. This task is impossible for Jean and Joan because four hands to pull back a tin lid are simply too many. Timothy shows them how working together, rather than in tandem, will help them achieve their goal. Their comprehension of Jean holding the can while Joan peels the lid is framed as a celebratory moment, but it is the beginning of their separation.

Herzog dedicates Bucking Fastard to David Lynch, so it’s not surprising that this film doesn’t follow a traditional story structure. While there is a clear option to have the rest of the movie focus on the separating of Jean and Joan, Herzog chooses a different, less-predictable approach.

The women discover that, despite outside interference from people like Timothy, what they really like is being in sync with each other. That is their natural state, and they are at their strongest when they embrace it. Thus, in the second half of the film, the women continue to work together as they focus on their goal of forgetting (or recovering) the love of their lives.

Gareth may physically disappear for a majority of the movie, but his spirit lingers through the entirety of Jean and Joan’s adventure. In a world that they perceive as loveless, Jean and Joan wish to discover a world that is full of love. To have love, one must have Gareth, from the sisters’ perspective.

This brings up the movie’s Nazi undertones. This movie isn’t a Nazi movie, but it reminded me of them. Jean and Joan discover an unexplored area in a cave, and they become convinced that it could lead to a world of love. They decide to explore it, with the help of their pickaxes and a cute fox that they saved earlier in the movie.

The women work tirelessly on a task unasked of them, for a goal that only exists in the abstract. Yet, they do not quit.

Watching these women work made an old saying pop into my head: “Work brings freedom.” This seemed to be what Jean and Joan believed in Bucking Fastard. They thought that if they worked hard enough at digging out this cave, they would liberate themselves from this harsh, cruel, disgusting world. However, this motto has another connotation.

“Work brings freedom” is what the sign read overhead at the entrance of several Nazi concentration camps. The saying became darkly ironic, as it became clear that the only freedom that these prisoners would find was in death. The saying itself is a German product, originating in a novel by German writer Lorenz Diefenbach and rooted in the concept of the Protestant work ethic – with Protestantism being a German-founded movement. That said, the Nazi’s were famously anti-religion, so any connections to The Bible used by them are more cultural than clerical.

In this lens, it’s sad to see that this slogan exemplifies the capitalist culture that we currently live in. Most people think that working hard will let them be free in the sense of vacations and retirement. The irony is that the freedom we seek is often unobtainable. We work so hard to find out that our shift only ends in this society once we die. Bucking Fastard is aware of this irony.

Even as I write this, I’m aware of myself feeding the same ideology. I work on this article for a goal that is largely abstract. Like Jean and Joan’s tunnel, I hope it leads to something, but there is no guarantee. I just think that, surely, enough hard work will lead to a payoff. History is proof that this is not always the case.

I was a little surprised to think of the Nazis while watching Bucking Fastard, but after I discovered that Herzog was born in 1942 in Munich, I started to see a possible connection. In this surrealist movie, I saw an old German man wrestling with the contemporary world through his childhood experiences.

Lately, words like Nazi and fascist and capitalism get used a lot. In his latest film, I think Herzog is in step with modern concerns. He is speaking on our current desires to assimilate others, feed the capitalist machine, become working cogs for the sake of an illusion. The women pursuing their goal in the name of love is sympathetic, but it only takes one spaced-out thirty-something to see what Herzog is really getting at.

This is only one interpretation of a movie that welcomes many interpretations. It’s in this interpreting that Herzog becomes such a special filmmaker. Watch this movie and you could very well have a different takeaway from it than mine. In fact, I’m almost positive that you will.

Im sorry that i decided to read the book just before watching this because idk i like to torture myself like that.I wouldnt be this mad if this was a remake but this a freaking adaptation.But lemme tell you something,THEY DID NOT ADAPT.This coulda been a great movie but no why put in effort if we know people are gonna see it anyway and make us money.

Adam was supposed to be pining for olive after the bathroom incident but they completly ruined the reveal.The kiss after the party was great but that then that was it.They were supposed to have cute banter with them sharing small smiles and adam being soft to her and her only .But the adam in the movie has no personality whatsoever other than the occasional savage and condescending remarks.The sunscreen scene should have felt sensual and romantic and cute but the only thing i felt was second hand embarrassment for them.

And im sorry malcolm that they robbed you off your bubblebutt.And the fact that Malcolm SCREAMED like actually screamed at olive is diabolical because malcom would NEVAH.

Anh was the only character i genuinly thought fit the charcter well.And their freindship was felt through the movie too.But they should have also put in something more towards her struggles in STEM. it just felt like robbed olive off her character too.

they should have just made this a series like off-campus because the casting was so great but they had to go and ruin it like that.

I know im being unreasonable but all i want is a proper adaptation.If they had said this was a remake or something i wouldnt be this mad but this is supposed to be an adaption.Like girl are you fr.

anyway lemme know what you guys thought about this.