Papi (2025)

If a movie about a strange and crazy day is commercially successful, why not recycle it and double the kookiness quotient? That seems to be the logic behind this followup to Freaky Friday.

The most impressive aspect of this film is the honest and natural performances given by the on-screen duo.

These confines won’t really encourage you to read the film as a metaphor for the nerve-inducing experience we’ve all been through over the last year, however — and in the interest of maintaining your dignity, you probably shouldn’t. While the sociopolitical commentary may have worked for the similarly-themed Buried (2010), in which we find Ryan Reynolds on his own buried alive in the Middle East, but this futuristic take on the premise is best left as a piece of distracting entertainment. Nevertheless, the atmosphere is no less suffocating, literally and dramatically.

Diversity is incorporated in a way that only aids in a well-rounded conveying of stories through different lenses. The show’s success is a testament to what audiences are craving: authentic stories that broaden the mind and heart. 

With mismatched eyes, a willingness to experiment with hair color and style, and a rail thin frame, Bowie always drew attention. But he shunned gendered attractiveness, creating his own space somewhere in between. This hallucinatory and often nonlinear 2022 documentary is a perfect salute to David Bowie’s life and career. Rather than interviewing those that knew Bowie, the standard convention for biographical portraits, director Brett Morgen mostly lets the artist’s images, performances, videos, and words speak to capture the essence of the artist. Bowie was more than just a pop star. He painted, sculpted, acted in films, and was a thoughtful and articulate person who gave sincere answers to even the most shallow interview questions.

After his family fled to England after the Vietnam War, Kit returns home to Saigon.