Partially experimental, partially dreamlike, and partially confounding: that is the Lucid experience. 366 sat down with that film’s co-directors and star in an attempt to sift through the symbolism. As a result of this long-form interview, listeners will have some of their questions answered, though with plenty still left to conjecture—as befits a nebulous dream-quest coming of age drama-horror-comedy.
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DIRECTED BY: Ari Aster
FEATURING: Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone, Deirdre O’Connell, Cameron Mann, Micheal Ward, Matt Gomez Hidaka, Luke Grimes
PLOT: Spurred by his dislike of mask mandates and by personal animosity, an asthmatic sheriff in the tiny town of Eddington, NM runs for mayor, a decision that leads to a web of lies and violence and brings him into conflict with BLM protesters, antifa, and a pedophile-conspiracy cult.
COMMENTS: Come with Eddington and venture back in time to distant 2020, when a plague encompassed the Earth. Remember people’s noses constantly sliding out of their masks? Lining up to enter grocery stores spaced six feet apart? Conspiracists seizing upon citations of the word “coronavirus” from before 2019 as evidence of a “plandemic”? A swab roughly jammed up your nasal cavity at a drive-through testing clinic? Kids with assault weapons becoming YouTube celebrities? Banners hanging off cars bearing messages like “YOUR BEING MANIPULATED” [sic]? Incoherent anger and incipient violence in the air everywhere? It’s all here, in a cinematic memorial marking the moment America broke.
Eddington pits Joaquin Phoenix, a sheriff who commands little respect from his counterparts at the Pueblo tribal police, the populace at large, or even his own frigid wife, against Pedro Pascal, the incumbent mayor who’s cloyingly conciliatory in public, a hypocrite in private, and in bed with a data-center development, to boot. Phoenix’s impulsive plan to run for mayor against Pascal is the first of many poorly planned decisions. Things are complicated by incestuous love affairs in the town of about 2,000 lost souls. The politics of the wider world impinge on this microcosm in a sometimes humorous way; BLM protesters numbering in the dozens “block” Eddington’s main street, and a campaign rally at a Mexican restaurant draws even fewer folks. Still, although the political stakes are small, the body count will eventually be shockingly high.
Aster’s mockery is broad when it comes to the young privileged white kids too-eagerly radicalized by the Black Lives Matter movement—despite the fact that there is only one African American in this dusty hamlet, and he’s a policeman. The conservatives are treated with a bit more nuance. Sheriff Joe’s reluctance to mask up has a reasonable basis in asthma, and his wife and mother-in-law’s seductions into conspiracy culture are well-founded in mild mental illnesses greatly exacerbated by the stresses of lockdown. Aster makes every fevered scenario he dredges up from those dark days feel as crazy and relatable as it really was. The cast is excellent: Joaquin Phoenix stumbles and follows a gut feeling that always leads him astray, Pedro Pascal plays perhaps his least likable character, melancholy Emma Stone mopes in bed until she finally breaks. And, although it is not a particularly weird movie for most of its running time, the climax gets wild and disorienting, as Aster puts Phoenix through misfortunes and anxieties recalling Beau at his most fearful. No one comes out of this experience unscathed; the survivors all suffer from long Covid.
Had Eddington been made in 2015, it would have played like an outlandish satire in the vein of Southland Tales. Coming in 2025, it seems almost like a story you dimly remember scrolling past on your Instagram feed.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
Merely because the first quarter of the interview is somehow taken up by remarks about Rammstein does not make 366’s chat about Every Heavy Thing less informative. Indeed, few things are heavier than the “gay disco metal” of that rock group.
But Mickey Reece has a new movie out, and we get there eventually.
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Montréal 2025
No, I am not with the German wedding party, but it was kind of you to think so.
7/23: Every Heavy Thing
Mickey Reece drops a Brian De Palma-worthy sex-and-tech thriller on his hapless protagonist, Joe, an ad-man for a local newspaper. Stylish neon saturation, flickering screens, dangerous conversations, and an ever-rising body count steadily drip drip drip, pooling at Joe’s feet like so much stylish 1980s chic. Except Joe wants nothing at all to do with this nonsense surrounding him, and attempts valiantly to shrug off the machinations in order to lead his own, normal, hum-drum movie life. Reece once more plays around with genre (previous dissimilar genre outings include biopic and soap opera), and the fun he’s having with this project plays out in the final product. Joe’s determined passivity is relatable, and by the end you’ll agree with his friends: this reluctant hero is, for sure, “almost cool.”
The House With Laughing Windows
City dweller Stefano arrives in a remote Italian village to restore a painting in the local church. Hired by a fellow who is as diminutive as he is well-dressed, art guy checks in to the local hotel, only to be kicked out later and obliged to spend his nights at a semi-ruined old mansion. Quietly odd characters abound, hot chicks bed the outsider, and the cult of the artist whose work Stefano is restoring becomes more than a little menacing. But all told, I wish director Pupi Avati had gone full throttle. There’s danger: I want more; there’s violence: I want more; there’s atmosphere: I want more. As it stands, this movie will primarily appeal to dyed-in-the-wool giallo fans. Me, well, I am somewhat ashamed to admit there were stretches when the lull of the film score and the darkness of the theater almost tipped me into sleep.
Things That Go Bump in the East (Shorts Anthology)
“Magai-Gami” – dir. by Norihiro Niwatsukino
This must be a dry-run for a feature; but then again, sometimes that stretches things too thinly. Regardless, Norihiro’s little horror here is a creepy joy. Two young women visit a prohibited forest to encounter the titular entities for the purposes of Internet fame. A demon of hundreds of hands stares down one of Continue reading 2025 FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL: TRADITIONAL CUISINE, PART TWO
DIRECTED BY: DK Welchman, Hugh Welchman
FEATURING: Kamila Urzędowska, Mirosław Baka, Sonia Mietielica, Robert Gulaczyk
PLOT: The Peasants follows the Boryna family in 19th-century rural Poland, caught in a fierce land dispute tangled with love, betrayal, and tradition. Structured around the seasons, the story explores cycles of labor, desire, and fate, capturing a world where, despite every effort, nothing truly changes.
COMMENTS: The Peasants blends not just painting and animation, but also live-action footage—and somehow, this mix hits the viewer like a ton of bricks. Dropped in 2023, this historical drama comes from the minds of DK Welchman and Hugh Welchman, the duo behind Loving Vincent. Just like that film, this one is brought to life with stunning hand-painted animation, giving every frame the feel of a moving canvas.
It is one of the most labor-intensive films ever made. First, it was shot digitally using high-flying drones. The aesthetic is exquisite, with visual nods to “Young Poland” painters like Józef Chełmoński, Ferdynand Ruszczyc, and Leon Wyczółkowski: think “Partridges in the Snow” and “Grain Harvesters.”
Then came the animation marathon: 100 artists from Poland, Serbia, Ukraine, and Lithuania, fueled by coffee and the spirit of Jean‑François Millet, hand-drew 56,000 frames over five years—hammering away every day and night, four hours per frame. It was like climbing Everest with paintbrushes instead of ice axes and easels instead of oxygen bottles.
Production paused twice—first for Covid, then for war. Female Ukrainian animators were relocated to Poland. The men stayed in Kyiv, drawing under Russian bombs and frequent blackouts—true martyrs of art. Later, another 78 digital artists added in-between frames. In total, about a million person-hours went into the film.
The story is adapted from Władysław Reymont’s The Peasants, winner of the 1924 Nobel Prize—a four-volume, 1,032-page agrarian epic that rivals Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha sagas. Set in Lipce, late 19th-century Russian Poland, it centers on a brutal battle over 6 acres of land—roughly half a football field.
Land matters here: in the late 1800s, Polish provinces of the Russian Empire were in a dire situation. Peasants owned just 9.2 acres on the average, the lowest share in the entire empire. Nobles still owned 86% of the land, leaving the peasants scraps. The movie covers everything a country melodrama needs: blood, love, rebellion, funerals, psychological trauma, and sour cabbage.
The film, like the book, is structured around four “seasons”—spring, summer, autumn, winter—but these aren’t just times of year. They’re four faces of the same unending loop in time.
At the heart of it is the glorious Boryna household and a tangled love polygon: