The 36th Annual Notre Dame Student Film Festival, January 24-26th, 2025

I've been covering the Notre Dame Student Festival on and off since 2014. Below are the highlights along with favorable ratings. Of note: this is the first time I voted on the potential winners.  

Try Again * * * Stars

-Imagine Christopher Nolan on holiday, making something low budget and without a script. That's the gist of Try Again, a savage, dark, total mindf*ck of a short film. Requires multiple viewings to figure out the whole kit and caboodle (as only Nolan himself would have it). 

Mazi Remastered * * * Stars

-As something about a DJ from the South Side of Chicago, Mazi Remastered is a laid back, swiftly edited docu in which the funky beats dictate the rhythms of the digital underground subjects (pun intended). Mazi, well he seems like a cocksure guy who never feels like he's worked a day in his life. Hey, he gets away with it. 

Veritas * * * * Stars

 

-Made by what looks like an expert, student filmmaker, Veritas for me is this year's best entry in ND's 2025 festival. It's about Catholic nuns named the Dominican Sisters who teach at a school in Northern Kentucky. A rack focus here, a close-up there, the camera peeking in everywhere, Veritas has its vassals not really knowing they're being filmed. Opaque and quietly powerful stuff.

You Are Home * * * * Stars

-Melissa Cook was a Notre Dame softball player who died tragically in a scaffolding accident via the city of Chicago. A stadium was named after her in the documentary, You Are Home. Hey, this is more than just a lamenting docu mind you, this is veridical realism. Unfolds like a sledgehammer, packs an emotional wallop.  

Footprints of Glory * * * Stars

-An expeditious, cross-cut-type short about diving and possible soon-to-be Olympic dreams, Footprints of Glory is just over four minutes but carries a hint of pure ebullience. Oh and like all great pics, the music is everything, well pretty much everything.

Written by Jesse Burleson

One of Them Days 2025 * * 1/2 Stars

"THAT A GIRL GOES THROUGH"

What I learned from 2025's One of Them Days, is that its diegesis is somewhat pukka. I mean you have two roommates who have one full, 1st of the month to come up with the rent money (and other life-threatening monies) or they'll be on the street or worse yet, dead. "Days", well it stars Keke Palmer and SZA, two actresses who exhibit a ton of get-up-and-go as tenants Dreux and Alyssa. "You lucky she holding me back!" Hex yeah.

Anyhow One of Them Days is like a female version of Friday or a female, farce version of say 2001's Training Day. It's in the look and feel as tar-pitted LA takes center stage with Ghetto Birds, pigeons, and split rims all intact. 

So yeah, everything in "Days" happens in almost 24 hours (hence the title) and there are plenty of high jinks and uncertain hazards along the way. I mean for nearly 97 minutes we watch Dreux and Alyssa try to come up with $1500 bones (which eventually elevates to over six grand) and it becomes rather vexing and um, frustrating. Yup, it's not easy when you have to deal with a cheating broke boyfriend, a lady thug with reprisal on her mind, King Lolo the drug lord, and "Biscuit Bandit" trying to thwart the operation (don't ask). "I just wanna be all alone, and you think I treat you wrong". Sing it Monica! Sing it girl!

Hit ditties and yeasty, pastry robbers aside, One of Them Days is billed as a comedy but you hardly guffaw, probably because the characters and sitches in it feel lifted from other flicks of the same nature (ever seen anything directed by Rick Famuyiwa, Steve Carr, and/or John Singleton? Exactly). It's not a bad pic but I don't see a stoner cult following or repeated viewings in the near future. "Days" gone by.   

Written by Jesse Burleson

Back in Action 2025 * * 1/2 Stars

ACTION MANAGEMENT

Two CIA agents who happened to be romantically involved, leave the life only to be pulled back in after a YouTube video of them beating up some ruffians at a club surfaces over a decade later. That's the rub of 2025's Back in Action, a vehicle so carefree and lightheartedly savage, it might qualify as a cinematic gainsay. 

Anyway I'm a sucker for movies where bone-crunching fight sequences and taekwondo aptitude rule the roost. With "Action", there are plenty of both, filmed three-dimensional and set to music by Etta James, Dean Martin, and James Brown (yikes). Back in Action, well it earns its title, starring Jamie Foxx and Cameron Diaz as operatives Emily and Matt, kicking and punching and head-slamming their way to skirmish glory. It's like The Bourne Identity for couples, Mr. and Mrs. Smith without tykes attached, a better version of 2010's Killers, Diaz in Charlie's Angels mode (woot woot). "That's not why we were cool". Uh, thank you for the insight Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds. Don't clip me for I'm just the writer. 

So yeah, do I plan on recommending Back in Action? Almost. The brawling, death-defying stunt work, and car chases are modernized, streamlined, and cool. It's the scripted stuff in between that's a little dicey (and kind of stupefying to be honest). I mean why do Emily and Matt's characters feel the need to say whatever pops in their heads (improvisation overload)? And why are their kids so darn annoying and almost passive by nature? And um, why is "Action's" plot so evocative of every spy flick ever made? Finally, why does "Action" never take the time to take itself seriously, being way too tongue in cheek for its own good? Questions, questions, questions and only the pic's distributor Netflix can answer them. Oh wait, this is Netflix's veritable par for the course. Asked and answered. "Back" handed. 

Written by Jesse Burleson

Ad Vitam 2025 * * Stars

AD HOCKERY

"This peaceful little life". Car chases and killings and ransom kidnappings and balloon sky riders oh my! Peaceful my stinking butt!

So OK, what is Ad Vitam? Well it's a movie I guess and mysterious words of wisdom too. Ad vitam, yeah it means "for life". Me, I'm "for" a plot gloss as to why an FBI agent seems to have people wanting to either kill him or arrest him. Yeesh!

Anyway Ad Vitam is a slickly-made thriller, so slick in fact that it distracts you from how choppy it is from a narrative standpoint. Although directed by four-timer Rodolphe Lauga, "Ad" looks like something action monger Brian A. Miller would've done ten years ago, shiny and glossy and violent and hollow and well, pedestrian. Look for low budget, typewriter title cards, clear the area police action, and rather plodding shootouts. About the only things missing from Ad Vitam are Thomas Jane, Bruce Willis and some monotonous, cue card line readings.

As per the last paragraph, I can't really compute the actual diegesis of Ad Vitam, I just can't. The film has no wiki page anyway and that just makes everything that much more frustrating. I mean I know "Ad's" lead is the sleepwalking Guillaume Canet, a cross between the poor man's Bradley Cooper and the poor man's Patrick Dempsey. I know the film is told mostly in slogged flashbacks, with training scenes for members of GIGN's tactical unit interspersed with sudden bursts of brute force. I know there's a pregnant wife character (Stephanie Caillard as Leo) who doesn't mind harming said pregnancy slinging fists of fury. Um, I know Netflix is involved (shocker). Finally, I know Ad Vitam was shot in the country of France ("wee-ooh, wee-ooh). Now is that enough my beret-loving "Frogs?" Not for a recommendation. "Ad out". 

Written by Jesse Burleson

Blind River 2025 * * * Stars

SEE THIS LIGHT

Blind River has to do with stealth kidnappings and Mayberry mayhem and well, poky waterways too (hence the title). It fashions itself in the conch of stuff like Gone Baby Gone and Mystic River and 2014's Sand Castles, movies where young girls are abducted and families are completely shattered. In the case of "River", an unseeing woman goes on her own little crusade to find her daughter who went missing on Christmas Day. "You hold on too tight and I'm just afraid you're going to suffocate." Ugh. 

Blind River is directed by Carissa Stutzman, an unseasoned helmer who looks like a seasoned pro giving her film a somber air, an effectively ill-lit look, and a precarious tone. "River", well it was shot entirely in Mentone, Indiana, a town not far from where most of my family grew up. Yup, Blind River feels like Northern "Hoosier State" personified, a slice of Middle America, Americana if you will. You can smell the husky corn, breathe the shamba oxygen, take in that Midwestern hospitality, and taste those greasy pork tenderloin sandwiches. Believe that. 

"River" stars Annalise Basso, Steven Ogg, and Tracey Campbell and is distributed by Lifetime Television. Compared to most flicks on that long-running, basic cable channel Blind River has better acting, less camp, less soap opera operatic, and more attested production values (trust me on this one). The vehicle is a crisply edited, gravely told, whodunit or should I say, who done did it. There's even a twist at the end where we find out which tyke snatcher um, you know done did it. Add a musical score for the ages that evokes Hans Zimmer in his heyday and an Indiana locale that's rural everyman in every town and you have one of the most surprising offerings of early 2025. "Unlazy rivulet". 

Written by Jesse Burleson

Don't Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever 2025 * * 1/2 Stars

ALIVE HE CRIED

A millionaire named Bryan Johnson, decides by all means necessary to do whatever it takes to extend his life beyond the normal expectancy. The documentary about Johnson's extremity is aptly titled, Don't Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever (naturally). 

Anyway I as a critic have always favored docus, whether they be about famous people or pseudo famous people or well, dead famous people (no pun intended). With "Don't Die", we have Johnson who's somewhere in the middle. I mean I didn't know who he was until yesterday but now I'm getting an education. Bryan Johnson's got nothing but money so he can afford to take 54 pills a day and get red-light therapy and get plasma exchanges and um, inject himself via some gene therapy. Basically he spends all his time trying to prolong his esse so it's like he doesn't uh, have a life (har har). Bri, I hope it was worth it bro. "100 years is not going to be enough". Oh boy.

Vitamin B12's and discretionary income aside, Don't Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever is a clean, well-made, almost sterile vehicle by producer/director/cinematographer Chris Smith. There's nothing flashy, no tricks, just a look that seems borrowed and/or adopted from Alex Garland's sci-fi thriller, Ex Machina (hint, hint). 

There's interviews (mostly from Bryan and his son), a few archives, but mainly techy stuff about how Johnson's going to defy the mysterious aging process and various whatnots. Bryan Johnson, well he comes off as a little pretentious and "Don't Die" seems a little long-winded for a running time of an hour and a half (could've been more effective as a segment on 60 Minutes which has probably already happened). Still, Don't Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever is a rather beguiling watch. It's like the antithesis to what the late Morgan Spurlock did when he hit up good old Mickey D's two decades ago. 

Written by Jesse Burleson