Paolo Kagaoan

Toronto

Editor and Critic at Freelance

Salesman. Film Critic. Editor. Opinions are my own. He/them/hers. E-transfer me through Paolo dot Kagaoan at gmail dot com.

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Articles

COVID Cinema?: Our Review of ‘The Code’ on MUBI - In The Seats

2 days ago | intheseats.ca | Paolo Kagaoan

People tolerate the idea of tech surveillance because we spy on each other anyway – that’s one of the things that Eugene Kotlyarenko‘s The Code is about. That and the breakdown of the relationship of Jay Richard and Celine Unger. Peter Vack and Dasha Nekrasova play the couple also scrambling for solution to beat boredom. Their solution is to rent a haunted yet modern house in Yucca Valley, California. And because it’s COVID and they’re millennials, they’re on their phones, checking texts.
Netflix’ Untold: Our Review of ‘Liver King’ - In The Seats

3 days ago | intheseats.ca | Paolo Kagaoan

The new installment of Netflix’ Untold series looks at Brian Johnson, starting out as a regular dad. His children aren’t so regular though, having food allergies that can’t be cured no matter what he tries. So he tried only giving them food that he hunted and foraged and also found Mark Sisson on the internet. Mark Sisson came up with nine ancestral tenets for living that he started broadcasting on social media.
Runaway Debt: Our Review of ‘The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window And Disappeared’ on OVID - In The Seats

1 week ago | intheseats.ca | Paolo Kagaoan

Allan Karlson (Robert Gustafsson) is the titular character in The 100-Year-Old Man…. Living that long, he meets a lot of interesting people, like a Spanish communist who can’t keep his mouth shut. Fast forward to the present day, when he inadvertently steals money from three bikers (Jens Hultén, Sven Lönn, Bianca Cruzeiro) who seem dangerous. He doesn’t see this as theft and more like property exchanging hands, and he gets a few bystanders into some good trouble.
Netflix’s Untold: Our Review of 'Shooting Guards' - In The Seats

1 week ago | intheseats.ca | Paolo Kagaoan

Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton had their own challenges but they seemed to have similar journeys too. Entering the NBA draft six years apart, both didn’t get the placements nor the teams that they wanted from it. Both made their way to the Washington Wizards, part of a sports league adjacent to machismo and temptation. They got into gambling, and a gambling dispute highlighted the fact that both had personalities that were opposite.
Runaway Debt: Our Review of ‘Tattooed Life’ on OVID - In The Seats

2 weeks ago | intheseats.ca | Paolo Kagaoan

A yakuza, Tetsutaro “Tetsuo” Murakaami (Hideki Takahashi), kills a higher up, and leaves town with his brother Kenji (Kotobuki Hananomoto). They go by train where they meet Midori Kinosthita (Masako Izumi), who lives in a northern harbor / mining town. The town is where the brothers deal with their mommy issues while having romantic entanglements. These entanglements happen, obviously, with the local women.
Hot Docs 2025: Our Review of ‘Night Watches Us’ - In The Seats

2 weeks ago | intheseats.ca | Paolo Kagaoan

An Afro-Caribbean woman puts a cellphone in front of the camera. The smartphone has a picture of her son, the late Nicholas Gibbs. NFB tells Gibbs’ story in Night Watches Us, showing director Steven Varma interviewing Gibbs’ family. His family speaks for him because he’s no longer alive, falling victim to police gunfire in 2018. One of Night Watches Us‘ interviewees is Gibbs’ nephew, who talks about being each other’s support system.
Hot Docs 2025: Our Review of Learning to Fly Shorts - In The Seats

2 weeks ago | intheseats.ca | Paolo Kagaoan

Hot Docs’ official blurb for its Learning To Fly shorts have them showing “…the meaning and power of community”…. And yes, there’s a lot of that here, but there are other connective tissues among these short documentaries. Before I get to some of those connections, yes, I have some doubts on these short documentaries’ approaches. But the tens of people who know me by now know that all I need are some good aesthetics.
Hot Docs 2025: Our Review of ‘Mama Goals’ - In The Seats

2 weeks ago | intheseats.ca | Paolo Kagaoan

Every life is interesting – take, as an example, Charlotta Bjorck, who started working in healthcare when she was just 15. A decade later, she’s a wife and mother to two kids, one of them having behavioural issues, causing her to worry. That worry gets bigger as she decides to leave her healthcare job behind. She wants to be a comedian who does sketches on Instagram. Ok, maybe calling Bjorck an Instagram comedian feels reductive because she’s actually doing things to break into the mainstream.
Hot Docs 2025: Our Review of 'The Track' - In The Seats

2 weeks ago | intheseats.ca | Paolo Kagaoan

Ryan Sidhoo, the documentary filmmaker behind The Track, looks at Sarajevo, a city in Bonsia and Herzegovina containing multitudes. Within Sarajevo there’s beauty, history, slums, trauma, and a man who holds up hope for a future generation of athletes. That man is Semad Osmanovic, leaving his office to fix a luge track, a hazard now. He coaches three junior athletes – Hamza Pleho, Mirza Nikolajev, and Zlatan Jakić, that future generation scarred by past wars.
Hot Docs 2025: Our Review of ‘River of Grass’ - In The Seats

2 weeks ago | intheseats.ca | Paolo Kagaoan

Betty Osceola, a Miccosukee tribal elder, talks about humans and climate change. That what mankind is doing, especially our pollution, “throws nature’s cycle off….Think about it. You know it’s true”. Sasha Wortzel’s River of Grass features her narration, explaining Osceola’s walks, half spiritual, haf protest. Her documentary is full of contradictions in the best way. These contradictions somehow prove her point.