Elephant Boy (1937) Review: The Good, The Bad & How to Watch British Film, Adventure Venice Film Festival, 1937- 2 wins including: Best Director National Board of Review, 1937- Winner: Top Foreign Films Long before CGI could conjure up entire jungles at the click of a button, cinema had to rely on the real deal. In 1937, Robert Flaherty and Zoltan Korda teamed up to deliver Elephant Boy , an adventure film that stands as a fascinating bridge between raw documentary realism and classic Hollywood storytelling. More on Wikipedia or Mubi The Raw Magic of Elephant Boy The movie is adapted from "Toomai of the Elephants," a short story out of Rudyard Kipling’s iconic The Jungle Book . It follows a young, spirited Indian boy who dreams of becoming a great hunter, just like his father and grandfather before him. When a massive elephant hunt is organized, Toomai sets out to prove his worth, forming an unbreakable bond with a legendary, giant elephant named Kala Nag. W...
Cannes Film Festival Premiere- Eddington (2025)
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Cannes Film Festival Premiere- Eddington (2025)
A neo‑Western and political satire set in May 2020 in a fictional town in New Mexico. Joaquin Phoenix plays Sheriff Joe Cross, and Pedro Pascal is Mayor Ted Garcia—a feud between them spirals into ideological, pandemic‑era chaos.
The film had its world premiere at the main competition of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival on May 16, 2025, and was released in theaters by A24 on July 18, 2025. It received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised the
performances of the actors and satirical commentary. The film has
grossed $9.1 million worldwide against its budget of $25 million.
Ari Aster’s audacious sociological Western thriller tosses liberal
art-house orthodoxy to the winds. It’s set in the desert city of
Eddington, New Mexico, during the COVID summer of 2020, and the first
sign that it will tweak conventional wisdom is that the local sheriff,
Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix), refuses to wear a mask. But COVID is just
the trigger. “Eddington” presents the big picture of an angry, cult-and
conspiracy-addicted, maybe crazy new America slipping through the
looking glass, a kind of Great Crack-Up that the film views with a
poker-faced trepidations' glee.
"Eddington” is a polarizing experience. It’s timely, provocative, and visually audacious—reflecting America’s fractured media and political landscape through a bleak neo‑Western lens. Yet it often feels emotionally distant, tonally chaotic, and lacking in narrative clarity. If you’re drawn to slow-burning satire and enjoy films that provoke discussion rather than provide answers, Eddington has a lot to offer. But if you’re looking for emotional insight or subtlety, this may feel like a messy, overload spectacle. As a filmmaker, you might admire how Aster merges political satire with genre: western tropes, dark comedy, and thriller violence. Instead of supernatural horror, Eddington wields our real-life crisis—community breakdown under pandemic pressure—as its monster.
It’s telling that the final image is a data center, not a person. Aster suggests that individual stories become training data in an AI-driven world—where human meaning is already being overwritten. The narrative plays out as society crumbles: protests bleed into private feuds, families splinter, and power shifts in unexpected directions. There’s an eerie final image: a giant AI data center looming over Eddington—hinting that technology, not people, may be the true winner
Rotten Tomatoes shows a 67% critic rating, with a consensus noting strong cast and bold direction but frequent tonal misfires.
Most critics describe the film as ambitious but uneven, praising its performances while criticizing its incoherence and lack of emotional clarity.
✅ Strengths
Performances: Phoenix, Pascal, and Stone deliver measured, heavy-hitting turns. Phoenix especially stands out for blending quiet despair with dark humor.
Satirical tone: The film skewers both the right and left, internet conspiracies, social media culture — earning praise for its bleak honesty.
Ambition: Critics like Jacobin praised its uncompromising reflection of social collapse and ideological breakdown in 2020 America.
❌ Criticisms
Narrative diffusion: Reviewers argue it never settles on a central message, often feeling scattered and overwhelming.
Emotional disconnect: Some find the characters underwritten—especially female characters and racial dynamics—making it hard to empathize or find insight amid chaos.
Tone mismatch: Compared to his previous films (Hereditary, Midsommar, Beau is Afraid), Aster’s usual dread is dialed down in favor of satire. Some critics missed his signature unsettling emotional intensity.
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