film festivals | The Last Movie Guy

Tuner (2025): When Talent Becomes a Crime

It is always interesting when a story introduces a protagonist with a physical disability, but also an exceptional talent that is, more often than not, used for some form of illicit activity. We remember Ricardo Darín in El Aura (2005) and his epileptic seizures, paired with an extraordinary intelligence for planning, which he uses to orchestrate the perfect heist. In The Lookout (2007), Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a man with a brain injury who ends up becoming a key piece in a complex robbery. We can even mention Baby Driver (2017), where Ansel Elgort’s character suffers from a hearing disorder but possesses an impressive ability to drive, making a living transporting criminals. It is this last film that Tuner most closely connects with in the way it structures its central character.

Milly: Queen of Merengue (2025): A Biopic Driven by Rhythm

Posted on June 3 by Hugo Pagan Soto

Few figures in the Dominican artistic landscape can truly be granted the title of legend, and Milly Quezada is one of them. The new film by Dominican filmmaker Leticia Tonos, Milly: Queen of Merengue, embraces the life and artistic journey of the Queen of Merengue. Fiction intertwines with biographical drama to create an ambitious story that spans decades, from her childhood and early steps in music to her rise as a musical icon.

Obsession (2025): A Psychological Horror of Control and Desire

Posted on May 29 by Hugo Pagan Soto

In John Truby’s book The Anatomy of Genres, his chapter on horror is one of the most interesting. The author treats it not just as a narrative genre, but as a direct expression of the human being facing death. Regarding the greatest dichotomy—life and death—the human consciousness knows we are going to die and we cannot avoid it, and the fundamental tension of horror stems from this. It is not the threatening monster, the killer, or the supernatural entity that terrifies us most; what is truly disturbing is the contradiction that being alive is the only condition for dying. In Obsession, director Curry Barker appeals to the most basic fundamentals of the genre to achieve a compact and powerful film that works perfectly.

Sugar Island (2024): The Echo of Slavery

Posted on May 15 by Hugo Pagan Soto

When the Caribbean sun of Hispaniola first burned the backs of those African Black bodies, a wound was opened. Sugar Island reminds us that this scar still hurts; more than 500 years later, the echoes of colonization continue to resonate. Rarely has Dominican cinema looked so rigorously at a past that cannot be shaken off. The reflection in the mirror is painfully difficult, and we prefer escapism so the mind can drift elsewhere. From that uncomfortable place, Johanné Gómez Terrero constructs a powerful narrative painted on a hypnotic, color-drenched canvas.

Bringing Up Baby (1938): A Classic That Shaped Cinema

Posted on May 6 by Hugo Pagan Soto

There are films so far ahead of their time that only history can grant them the recognition they truly deserve. Bringing Up Baby by Howard Hawks is the perfect example. A box office failure, dismissed by critics and ignored by the Academy, its impact was immediate and severe. Hawks even lost his job at RKO. This was meant to be the first of a six-film deal with the studio, but the financial disaster led to the contract being canceled. For Katharine Hepburn, the situation also became difficult, forcing her to buy out her own contract to leave RKO.