Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 148 - Bugonia

On this barn-burner of an episode, Barry and I shave our heads and castrate ourselves as we fight over Yorgos Lanthimos' Academy Award nominated film Bugonia, starring Emma Stone. Topics discussed include the positives and negatives of Lanthimos' particular taste and style, challenging audience expectation, and Alex Jones, David Icke and the current conspiracy cultural moment.

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 148 - Bugonia

Thanks for listening!

©2026

The Smashing Machine: A Review - MMA Drama Lacks Punch

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. A missed opportunity of a movie that wastes a good performance by Dwayne Johnson with a bad script and sub-par filmmaking.

The Smashing Machine, written and directed by Benny Safdie, is a biopic that chronicles the personal life and career of esteemed amateur wrestler and MMA fighter Mark Kerr.

The film, which stars Dwyane “The Rock” Johnson and Emily Blunt, was released in theatres on October 3, 2025, and is now available to stream on HBO Max, which is where I watched it.

Director Benny Safdie, who along with his brother Josh, made his name as a member of the Safdie brothers directing duo, is flying solo with The Smashing Machine just like his brother Josh was alone at the helm on his new movie Marty Supreme. I reviewed Marty Supreme yesterday and revealed how underwhelmed and annoyed I was with that movie…now it’s Benny’s turn in the barrel. (As an aside, a scandal broke yesterday regarding the Safdie brothers and the mistreatment of an underage actress on the set of their 2017 film Good Time – but that is a discussion for another day.)

The Smashing Machine follows the ups and downs of Mark Kerr (Dwayne Johnson), a decorated amateur wrestler turned mixed-martial arts fighter, as he navigates the early days of MMA, a tumultuous relationship with his girlfriend Dawn (Emily Blunt), and drug addiction.

The Smashing Machine is a truly perplexing movie. It is one of those films where you are constantly waiting for the actual story to start, but it somehow never does. The whole venture feels entirely cursory, scattered and frivolous, which is an odd thing to feel considering the rather compelling life that Mark Kerr has lived.

It is also a movie that seems at odds with itself. For example, the film’s star, Dwayne Johnson, is notorious for his rather putrid filmography and The Smashing Machine was supposed to be his big-breakout as a “real” actor and a potential Oscar contender. But that didn’t happen because the film flopped at the box office and with critics. What is crazy though, is that Johnson is actually pretty good in the role of Mark Kerr.

Johnson, aided by some fantastic make up by Kazu Hiro, is…as incredible as it is to say since he is such a distinctive star – unrecognizable as Kerr. His face is altered to look like Kerr – or at least to not look like The Rock that we all know. And Johnson does a good job in the dramatic scenes where he must navigate a character that is both guarded and yet also on the verge of being out of control.

The problem though is that the film never lives up to the good work Johnson does in it. The script is a dramatically incoherent mess that flits from one inconsequential scene to another, inhabited by paper thin caricatures pretending to be characters.

You would think that the fight scenes would at least be where Safdie and his cinematographer Maceo Bishop would flex their muscles…but no. The fight sequences in this movie are so visually stilted and relentlessly dull that it is rather shocking to behold.

It isn’t just the fight scenes that are cinematically flaccid, as the entire film looks like a second-rate tv movie.

Emily Blunt plays Kerr’s girlfriend Dawn, who is both a loving partner and an insidious influence on him. Blunt looks amazing, and actually does decent work in the role, but her character makes absolutely zero dramatic sense thanks to the abysmal script.

Both Johnson and Blunt deserved better…a better script, better direction, better cinematography. But what they got was a series of disconnected scenes where they do their best but it is all for naught.

The Smashing Machine eschews traditional sports movie structure and narrative arc, and that would have been a noble arthouse choice to make if the film were even remotely well-made…but it isn’t and so this eschewing of sports movie orthodoxy becomes nothing more than just another frustration for viewers.

The most frustrating thing about the film is that it could have, maybe even should have, been great…and it had many paths to greatness but Benny Safdie chose none of them.

It could have been a straight forward sports movie…sort of an early MMA Rocky movie. Or it could have been an arthouse exploration of a fighter’s dark side and decline…like Raging Bull. But for some reason Benny Safdie took the very worst aspects of both of those type of movies and threw them together haphazardly and turned out a movie so instantly forgettable it feels like it doesn’t even exist when you’re watching it. Hell, it could have been an intimate and in-depth study on the intricacies of mixed-martial arts and the clashing of fighting styles…but it isn’t that either…and it isn’t a redemption story or addiction story or relationship story.

One would assume that since Dwayne Johnson did not get the Oscar nomination and critical-praise he was seeking with The Smashing Machine, that he will revert back to being The Rock and churning out the most reprehensible big budget garbage imaginable from this point forward. That would be unfortunate for everyone involved…audiences most of all.

One hopes that Johnson continues to at least take chances in the roles he chooses and avoids the pitfalls he has repeatedly fallen in to over the course of his career.

One also hopes that Emily Blunt, who is a terrific actress and very charming movie star, will choose more arthouse movies and more challenging roles going forward. She is someone who should be in Oscar contention year in and year out…but she needs to make better choices in the movies she makes.

As for Benny Safdie…I don’t know what to say. I didn’t like Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme but there is no doubt that it is a vastly superior to The Smashing Machine. Josh is definitely winning the battle of the brothers and has shown himself to be the filmmaking talent in the duo.

Benny has fancied himself an actor as well, with roles in both Licorice Pizza and Oppenheimer….and he was as awful in both roles as he was at directing The Smashing Machine. Not good for Benny…and considering Benny might be the source who leaked the new Safdie scandal on Good Time in order to sabotage his brother’s Oscar chances this year…it would seem a filmmaking reunion between Benny and Josh isn’t in the cards.

As for The Smashing Machine…I simply can’t recommend it to anyone…be they cinephiles, sports movie lovers or MMA fans. It is a terribly missed opportunity for all involved and an absolute waste of Dwayne Johnson’s rarely seen talents.

©2026

Marty Supreme: a Review - Supremely Over-Rated

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. An overlong, annoying, grating and irritating movie devoid of drama, comedy, meaning, and purpose.

Marty Supreme, written and directed by Josh Safdie, is a dramedy that chronicles the travails of an arrogant, narcissistic, world-class ping pong player/con-man in the 1950’s.

The film, which stars Timothee Chalamet in the titular role, hit theatres on Christmas and has made over $100 million on a $70 million budget. It has also garnered nine Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Chalamet), Best Original Screenplay and Best Cinematography.

Director Josh Safdie, formerly of the directing duo the Safdie brothers, is the darling of the hipster set. His previous film (directed by the Safdie brothers) was Uncut Gems, which was adored by critics and despised by me.

That film featured Adam Sandler in the lead role playing a grotesquely repugnant gambling addict on an extended odyssey. Marty Supreme follows a similar roadmap, it tells the story of a grotesquely repugnant ping-pong player who is an arrogant asshole and compulsive bullshit artist on an extended odyssey.

I have heard in my life a lot of people complain about one movie or another by saying that ‘there was no one to root for’, or something along those lines. I understand that criticism but have never found it compelling. I don’t need to root for someone to enjoy a movie…at all.

But the problem with Marty Supreme…and with Uncut Gems…is that I found myself absolutely despising every single character on-screen for the duration of the film. I wasn’t rooting for them or against them…I was just wanting them to go away. I also was mystified by these lead characters and the actors playing them because they lacked charisma and magnetism and yet were supposed to be charismatic and magnetic. Shrug.

The problem with Uncut Gems and Marty Supreme is not unlikable characters, but rather unbelievable one-dimensional characters that are unlikeable.  

What bothered me about Marty Supreme is that it is much too sprawling and meandering a movie to hold one’s attention on such a fruitless ride with such a repulsive character as the lead.

The film never grabs you by the neck and demands your attention because it lacks focus and dramatic verve. Marty goes from one frying pan into the fire situation after another, and none of them are the least bit compelling…just repetitive and grating.

Marty’s odyssey takes him all over the world and puts him into conflict with rich and powerful men of varying degrees wherever he goes…and while the rich and powerful don’t come across very well at all, Marty comes across even worse. Marty is such a relentless, gigantic douchebag that this movie feels like a piece of anti-proletariat agit-prop.

I’ve heard the argument that Marty Supreme is about ‘the pursuit of greatness’ and I find that argument to be sorely lacking. Marty is not pursuing greatness – the truth is ping-pong is a distant second place in his hierarchy to his ego and his baser instincts. He isn’t pursuing greatness he is pursuing his own gratification and self-aggrandizement.

What I find fascinating is that Josh Safdie is Jewish (and obviously his brother is too) and yet in both Uncut Gems and Marty Supreme he has turned his Jewish protagonists into the most awful human beings imaginable animated by nothing more than Jewish stereotypes. They literally have zero redeeming qualities. I am not sure why he has done that, but he has definitely done it. It is so bad that if a non-Jewish filmmaker had made those two films, they would have been pilloried for being anti-Semitic…and rightfully so.

I have intentionally avoided delving too deeply into the morass that is the plot of Marty Supreme in order to avoid spoilers and because it is annoying to even try and recall. Just know that it is all over the place and none of it is worth paying attention to.

There are so many worthless and wandering scenes and sequences in this film it made my head hurt…for example there’s an entire chunk of the movie dedicated to Marty and a dog that is so relentlessly inane and absurd as to be infuriating.

Timothee Chalamet is the favorite to win Best Actor at this year’s Academy Awards, and I get why that is and it has nothing to do with this particular performance but rather with how he has masterfully positioned himself in the industry over the course of his career.

The reality is that Chalamet’s Marty is not a masterclass in acting. It is like a reality tv star performance crossed with a twitter troll come to life. Chalamet has one very good scene in the film and it is his final one…but beyond that he is less acting than he is play-acting…and badly at that.

Something that aggravated me throughout the film is that it is set in the 1950’s and yet Chalamet, and everyone else, speaks in a modern vernacular and acts in a modern way. I understand this is intentional on the part of Safdie – as he uses modern music throughout too, but I found it annoying as it took me out of the story – a story I was struggling to stay in to begin with.

Gwyneth Paltrow plays Kay Stone, a former movie star now trophy wife, with whom Marty has an affair. She does the best she can with a rather thinly written character, and has one scene where she realistically gets frantic, but beyond that there’s not much to see here.

Cinematographer Darius Khondji does his usual supreme – pardon the pun, work on the film. It is well-shot and well-lit, but that doesn’t make its storytelling failures any more palatable.

The success of the Safdie brothers in general, and Marty Supreme in particular, is a mystery to me. I find this film, and all of the Safdie brother’s films, to be relentlessly vacuous, vapid and venal. That critics and hipsters adore them doesn’t make me question my feelings about these films, but reinforces my feelings about critics and hipsters instead.

Ultimately, I cannot think of anyone who I know who would enjoy Marty Supreme, or even appreciate it as a work of cinematic art…and that is because I do not think it is much a work of cinematic art at all.

If you’re a Safdie brothers fan and loved Uncut Gems, then you will no doubt enjoy the interminably long, rather irritating roller coaster ride that is Marty Supreme. For everyone else…there’s nothing to see here.

©2026

Hamnet: A Review - To Be or Not To Be?

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. A flawed but very affecting movie that features a fantastic performance from Jessie Buckley.

Hamnet, written and directed by Academy Award winning filmmaker Chloe Zhao, is a tragedy that dramatizes the life of William Shakespeare and his wife Agnes, as well as the alleged origins of the play Hamlet.

The film, which is based on the book of the same name by Maggie O’Farrell, who also co-wrote the screenplay, stars Jessie Buckley as Agnes and Paul Mescal as the bard.

Hamnet hit select theatres here in the U.S. at the end of November and is in wide release still. I watched it over the weekend.

Let me start by saying that I am the ultimate target audience for this movie. First off, I am a classically trained actor…so I’ve done lots of Shakespeare, including playing Hamlet. And more importantly, how I got to be a classically trained actor fits perfectly into the thesis of Hamnet.

Here's the story…twenty-nine years ago my best friend, creative collaborator and overall partner-in-crime, Keith Hertell, with whom I had suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that accompany life as an artist in a cruel world, was killed in a car crash in Titusville, Florida.

At the time of his death, Keith and I were working a soul-crushing office job together, and he took a Friday off to fly down to Florida for a wedding. He never came back.

Due to a lack of talent and skill I am incapable of adequately expressing the devastation I felt, and still feel, regarding Keith’s death. He was the most unique, original, talented and magnetic person I have ever met. He was brilliant in a multitude of ways – a staggeringly gifted actor, comedian and musician. The most notable thing about Keith though was that he was unanimously adored by everyone who ever met him. He had an absurdly kind heart, a razor-sharp wit and an easy-going, disarming smile.

In the wake of Keith’s shuffling off his mortal coil and departing for the undiscovered country, from whose bourn, no traveller returns, I was absolutely inconsolable. I was disoriented, furious and depressed. I had nowhere to turn. Religion would have been somewhere for me to go but I was so angry at what God had done that I declared war on him…a foolish endeavour, no doubt, but fuck him…I had nothing to lose. It should come as no surprise that my war against God was an impulsive, ignoble cause and I was soundly defeated…although it took considerably longer than to be expected – anger is a remarkably useful fuel.

Then one day out of despair I picked up a paperback copy of Hamlet. I read it. In those pages I found a profound reflection of my own grief. It all made perfect sense to me now. Hamlet wasn’t crazy…he was grieving – which looks a lot like insanity to those outside of it.

I vividly remember riding the subway one day and being lost in my thoughts of Keith and having tears streaming down my face, and then remembering something hysterical he had done and laughing uncontrollably, and then weeping again…and then I sort of snapped out of it and noticed that everyone on the subway was staring at me like I was a lunatic – which I sort of was. My behavior on the subway that day was a perfect encapsulation of Hamlet. Grief knocks you out of the rhythm of everyday life, and you seem mad because you’re so out of sync with everyone, and everything, else.

Reading Hamlet, I found a dramatic rendition of my grief, which felt like profundity, if not solace, or at the very least understanding…which then gave me meaning and purpose. I set out from that moment on a pseudo-religious quest to learn as much as I could about Shakespeare’s work – not in an academic sense, but in an artistic one. I auditioned for a Shakespeare company, got in…then trained as much as I could…and ultimately went to London and studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Pretty great experience born out of the most brutal experience imaginable.

Speaking of great experiences…or magical ones…I got to see Ralph Fiennes play Hamlet on Broadway thirty years ago…the best I’ve ever seen…then got to meet him – and his brother Joseph (of Shakespeare in Love fame), at RADA…pretty cool experience.

Which brings us to Hamnet. The thesis of the film is essentially that the play Hamlet was written in the deep throes of grief as a dramatic eulogy for Agnes and William Shakespeare’s lost child…which aligns with my experience of the play as grief personified.

The film is undeniably affecting, and boasts an emotionally powerful final twenty minutes that elicited from me guttural wails of grief, no doubt built up over a lifetime of heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.

The problem with Hamnet though, is that despite its moving final act, the film fails to fully form in its opening two acts.

The film is up and down…a walking dichotomy. For example, it is beautifully shot but poorly staged. There were multiple times where I marveled at cinematographer Lukasz Zal’s stunning work but was frustrated by a failure to provide adequate visual coverage of the dramatic events unfolding.

Another example is that the film boasts two exquisite performances from Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal, but the script never develops the characters in any substantial way to have the drama they endure be anything but window dressing for the rending of garments that comes in the final act.

Speaking of the performances, Jessie Buckley, who is nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award for her work as Agnes, is spectacular in the role. Agnes is a delicious character for an actress, wild and witchy, and Buckley devours her with aplomb.

Buckley is the embodiment of primal maternal energy as Agnes…mother nature incarnate. She is grounded yet ethereal, and is aggressively compelling.

In the final act it is Buckley’s Agnes that is our avatar, and we watch the dramatic events unfold on stage through her eyes and it is a truly magical and mesmerizing experience.

Paul Mescal is not given quite as captivating a character as Buckley’s Agnes, but he makes the most of his Shakespeare role and truly comes to life when he is called upon to actually recite Shakespeare’s written words.

As previously stated, I am a sucker for anything in the SCU (Shakespeare Cinematic Universe), and while I found the final act riveting and emotionally potent, I feel like Hamnet could have…and should have…been better.

Unfortunately, Hamnet never fully coalesces into the coherent cinematic masterpiece that it obviously possesses the ability to be…and that was disappointing.

That said, I still found the film very moving, and if you like Shakespeare and like to cry, then Hamnet might be for you too. Is it as good as seeing a top-notch performance of Hamlet on stage? No. But what is?

So is Hamnet to be, or not to be? The answer is that conscience makes cowards of us all, and thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied over with the pale cast of thought, and enterprises of great pitch and moment, with this regard their currents turn awry, and lose the name of action….and so it is with Hamnet.

©2026

Bugonia: A Review - The Madness and Mastery of King Yorgos

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. An arthouse gem of a film that speaks insightfully to the madness of our modern age.

Bugonia, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos and starring Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons, tells the story of two conspiracy-obsessed cousins who kidnap a CEO of a nefarious company.

The film, which is a remake of the South Korean film Save the Green Planet!, hit theatres on October 24th and didn’t make much of a splash – despite mostly positive reviews it made $40 million on a $45 million budget. It is currently streaming on Peacock, which is where I just watched it.

Director Yorgos Lanthimos is definitely an acquired taste…but one which I am grateful to have acquired. I remember years ago loving Lanthimos’s film The Lobster (2015), which is an absurdist arthouse black comedy, and highly recommending it to a friend of mine. He then went and saw the movie with his parents and all three of them hated the movie with the fury of a thousand suns. What can you do?

Since The Lobster, Lanthimos has churned out a bevy of really fantastic and unique films. The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2018) was a weird and woolly arthouse gem. The Favourite and Poor Things were phenomenal films that garnered Best Actress Academy Awards for their lead actresses Olivia Colman and Emma Stone respectively. Kinds of Kindness was an oddball anthology that was one of my favorite films of 2024.

Bugonia is right in Lanthimos’s wheelhouse as it is definitely an arthouse black comedy project but one that can appeal to more mainstream tastes if given the chance.

I won’t give much of the plot of the film away as I think it best to avoid any semblance of spoilers in order to appreciate the film to its fullest. But as stated in the opening paragraph, Bugonia follows the travails of Teddy (Jesse Plemons) and Don (Aiden Delbis), two conspiracy theorist cousins, as they plot to kidnap Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone), a hard-charging CEO of a pharmaceutical company.

The magic of Bugonia is that it could be a stage play as it is rudimentary in its dramatic set-up, but it is also gorgeously photographed by Robbie Ryan with a stunning simplicity. In other words, it is an actor’s dream of a screenplay – which Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons devour with aplomb, that is glorious to look at due to Ryan’s deft, subtle and crisp cinematography.

The performances of Stone, Plemons and even newcomer Delbis, are remarkable.

Emma Stone has two Best Actress Academy Awards and if we lived in a just world, she would be receiving her third one this year for her work on Bugonia. Stone is at the point in her career where she is so good her greatness is taken for granted and overlooked.

As the CEO Michelle, Stone delivers a dexterous and complex performance that is sharp, savvy and nimble. Stone’s Michelle is always believable even when she isn’t.

Jesse Plemons is a terrific and often overlooked actor and he brings the full weight of his talents to bear as Teddy, the “brains” of the two-man conspiracy addled operation.

Plemons’ Teddy is a cauldron of suppressed emotions and wounds ready to burst at the seams. Thanks to Plemons’ mastery, Teddy’s eyes betray his twisted and tormented inner life.

One of the more incredible performances in the film comes from newcomer Aiden Delbis as Don. Delbis, who is autistic, was discovered in an open casting call to play the autistic Don…and he is amazing in the role.

What is most striking about Bugonia is that it is ideologically audacious and philosophically brazen. There is something in the zeitgeist in the last year or so, with films like Eddington and now Bugonia, both of which wear their conspiracy obsession on their sleeves and poke their thumbs into the eyes of their target audience while pretending to cozy up to them.

As someone who is often contemptuously labelled a conspiracy theorist by friend and foe alike, I was both unnerved and overjoyed when Plemons’ Teddy numerous times vociferously pontificated an unhinged conspiracy rant that was alarmingly similar to rants that I’ve shouted over the years…so much so that I thought to myself the old joke, ‘I resemble that remark!’

Of course, the joy of being a conspiracy theorist in our current corrupt and crazy age is that the time between being ridiculed for presenting a conspiracy theory and that conspiracy theory being proven correct is at an all-time low.

While discussing the film afterwards with my wife, we spoke about how Bugonia is a perfect double feature with Eddington, a conspiracy themed movie directed by Ari Aster - and one of the very best films of 2025, when her keen eye spotted that Ari Aster is one of the producers of Bugonia. This makes sense, as both Aster and Lanthimos are unique auteurs and artists who are keenly aware of the collective unconscious and the murmurings of madness just beneath the surface of our civilization…and have dramatized that in their films.

Bugonia and Eddington are films that have expansive artistic vision and enormous political and cultural insight to them, which is in stark contrast to the current film bro darling and Oscar front-runner One Battle After Another.

One Battle After Another is what comfortable neo-liberal activists imagine themselves to be, while Eddington and Bugonia are glimpses of the ugly and messy reality at contrast with that self-serving and delusional vision. In other words, One Battle After Another tells liberal coastal elites what they want to hear, and Eddington and Bugonia tell them the unvarnished and uncomfortable truth. Or even more bluntly…One Battle After Another is what “resistance” liberals want to be, and Eddington and Bugonia are what they really are.

My despondence over the state of the world is well-documented. The world is losing its mind faster and faster as every hour of every day passes…and we hurtle blindly toward a conflagration that will engulf us all and suffocate all the humanity out of us and the world. (As an aside…if you think Venezeula is a one-off and not a continuation, or is the end and not the beginning - God help you because you’re too thick for words.)

In my despondence over the world, I turn to art to try and find some insight or solace or understanding…and what I usually find is artistically benign and politically malignant neo-liberal corporate capitalist garbage. But with Bugonia and Eddington I find hope amidst the hopelessness. If two great artists like Lanthimos and Aster are seeing and saying what I am seeing and saying…then at least there is a light that can be a beacon to others who have not lost their way in all of this darkness. Or maybe it isn’t as positive as all that…maybe I am just a cynical, self-serving prophet who is happy to see signs that I am right. Who knows?

All I know is that Bugonia is one of the best films of the year. Be forewarned…it is an arthouse film and it is not for everybody. But even mainstream audiences, if they go into the film with an open mind, can enjoy the madness and mastery of Bugonia.

So go to Peacock – and if you don’t have a subscription, you can get a free week trial – and watch Bugonia, it is well-worth your time, and it might even open your eyes and your mind.

©2026

Emptying the Notebook - Four Film Reviews for the Price of One

END OF YEAR HOUSECLEANING

As the year is coming to a close, I went back through my notebook and discovered some films I watched but did not properly review. So I figured why not just empty everything out and share some brief thoughts on these movies in case you were looking for something to watch over the holidays.

THE APPRENTICE – Available to stream on Amazon Prime

The Apprentice is actually a 2024 film but I never got around to watching it…and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised as I had very low expectations for the film and they were easily exceeded.

I expected a sort of run of the mill anti-Trump diatribe in film form…a sentiment I understand but which I believe would make for a rather dull feature film. What I got instead was a really incredible performance from Sebastian Stan as The Donald, in a rather nuanced and, all things considered, restrained biography of the early adult years of our current President.

Directed by Ali Abbasi, The Apprentice chronicles Trump’s ascent in the New York real estate and social world from a nepo nobody to a socialite somebody. Trump’s relationship with uber-scumbag Roy Cohn – portrayed with aplomb by Jeremy Strong, gives the background to his cutthroat approach to both business and politics.

The film is shockingly good in the first half in presenting Trump as an actual human being trying to understand the world and his place in it. In the second half it loses some steam, some perspective and nuance, but Stan never loses his grasp of the character or his humanity (or inhumanity as the case may be).

Sebastian Stan’s portrayal of Trump in this film is jaw-droppingly good. He doesn’t imitate Trump, but he is subtle in recreating some of his mannerisms and speech, and he gives a truly seamless and sterling performance. Stan was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar and Strong for Best Supporting Actor…and both nominations are very well deserved.

If you are looking for a solid movie to watch, you could do much worse than watching The Apprentice. That said, if you are burned out on all things Trump…I get it.

My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

WARFARE – Available to stream on HBO MAX

Warfare is a 2025 film directed by Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza that sort of slid under the radar when it hit theatres in April.

The film chronicles a single military encounter of a Navy SEAL platoon in 2006 during the Battle of Ramadi. It is based on the real-life experience of director Mendoza and accounts from his team members.

Alex Garland is a filmmaker who showed great promise in his debut feature Ex Machina, but who has disappointed since then. His most recent film, 2024’s Civil War, showed great promise as well but never was quite as good as it should have been.

Warfare is, in my unhumble opinion, Garland’s best film since Ex Machina. It is a rather simple set up, a platoon of Navy SEALS is stuck doing surveillance in a house in Ramadi. Then the shit hits the fan and a battle erupts.

The film is well shot by cinematographer David J. Thompson, and well-choreographed by Mendoza. The battle is chaotic and feels entirely real. The best thing about Warfare is that it feels like you are plunged into a real setting and situation with real warriors. It doesn’t have the usual Hollywood film structure or pacing or anything like that. There are no grandiose speeches are dramatic movie star posturing, just a cast of regular looking dudes thrown into a hellish environment and trying to survive it.

The film is not overtly political, but it certainly does have something to say about the Iraq debacle if you have eyes to see it.

I found Warfare to be an effective and affecting piece of moviemaking. It isn’t a great film, but it is a good enough one to recommend people check it out and do so with an open mind.

My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

28 YEARS LATER – Available to stream on Netflix

28 Years Later is the sequel to the 2002 film 28 Days Later, both of which were written by the aforementioned Alex Garland. It is the third film in the 28 Days Later franchise…and a fourth is on its way in 2026.

I greatly enjoyed 28 Days Later when I saw it in the theatre back in 2002, as it gave a real jolt of energy to the zombie genre – a genre I admittedly had little interest in or knowledge of.

Having revisited 28 Days Later recently, the shine has come off that film in many ways. It wasn’t quite as good as I remembered it (I hadn’t seen it since seeing it in the theatre).

That said, I went into 28 Years Later with an open mind. I found the film, which is directed by Danny Boyle – the director of the original, to be mostly underwhelming.

The movie features a top-notch cast of Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor Johnson, Jack O’Connell and Ralph Fiennes, so there is a great deal of potential there…but unfortunately it never coalesces into a compelling piece of cinema.

To be clear, it isn’t a bad film, but it also isn’t a great one…it just kind of exists. It is less a zombie movie than an existential and philosophical one…and that gives it some energy, but the plot and the execution of it all never quite comes together in a way that satisfies or satiates.

The biggest question I had at the end of the film was why was this necessary? I mean, I get that the first movie was compelling and the second – 28 Weeks Later (2007), was forgettable…but why make another movie in the franchise nearly twenty years later when there wasn’t exactly a rallying cry from the masses to get it done?

Ultimately, 28 Years Later is a pretty forgettable bit of moviemaking, something that has become all-too common in the last decade of Danny Boyle’s directing career.

I say skip 28 Years Later unless if you’re a gigantic zombie movie fanatic…but even then, you’ll be disappointed with the general lack of zombie mayhem captured on screen.

My Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

THE SHROUDS – Available to stream on The Criterion Channel

The Shrouds, iconic filmmaker David Cronenberg’s latest film, hit theatres in 2025 and is now streaming on The Criterion Channel.

The film, which stars Vincent Cassel, Guy Pearce, Diane Kruger and Sandrine Holt, tells the story of a widower who has invented a new technology called “GraveTech”, that helps the grieving to monitor the decomposition of their loved one in the grave. Yes…this is some weird Cronenberg-ian shit.

The film is a sort of glorious concoction that mixes the usual Cronenberg body horror with a philosophical mediation on love, death, life and the modern world. Throw in some conspiracy theorizing and some big business corruption and you’ve got quite the arthouse phantasmagoria.

If you are a fan of David Cronenberg – and I consider myself one…not a super fan but a fan, then you will absolutely love The Shrouds as it is quintessential Cronenberg – most especially late-stage Cronenberg, as a man grappling with his own mortality and the death of his wife.

If you’re a normal human being you will probably find The Shrouds to be a completely alien, convoluted, and rather ghoulish cinematic experience. I understand that entirely and don’t judge anyone for feeling that way.

But if you are a Cronenberg fan, or a fan of somewhat eccentric arthouse cinema from a quality filmmaker who sometimes makes somewhat eccentric arthouse cinema…then I recommend you at least check out The Shrouds.

Ultimately The Shrouds might not be everybody’s cup of tea, but it is undeniably an original idea…and that is pretty rare nowadays.

My Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars (3.5 out of 5 stars for Cronenberg fans)

If you want to check out some other Cronenberg films here is a brief rundown of movies to see.

Solid horror movies – The Brood, Scanners, Videodrome, The Fly, Dead Ringers.

Very Solid Mainstream Movies – A History of Violence, Eastern Promises, A Dangerous Method.

Gloriously Bat-Shit Crazy Movies Worth Watching – Crash (1996)

Alright gang…that is all I have for now. I hope everyone has a happy and healthy New Year!!

©2025

Train Dreams: A Review - A Malickian Meditation on Man's Search for Meaning

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. A well-made and moving mediation on the search for meaning and human connection.

Train Dreams, directed by Clint Bentley and written by Bentley and Greg Kwedar, chronicles the life of Robert Grainier, a working man in the northwest of the United States in the 1900s.

The film, which has a run-time of 102 minutes and is currently streaming on Netflix, stars Joel Edgerton, Felicity Jones, Kerry Condon and William H. Macy.

I knew nothing about Train Dreams prior to watching. I had no idea who whom the writer/directors were, no idea about the plot, no clue who starred in it. I went in naked as a newborn babe…and I think that’s a good thing…and because I think it’s a good thing, I will try my best to give as little information about the film as possible to you dear reader so that you can experience the film in similar fashion.

Train Dreams, which is based on the Denis Johnson book of the same name, is made by the same creative team – Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar, that made last year’s Sing Sing…a film that was well-done and very affecting. Not surprisingly considering Bentley and Kwedar, Train Dreams is well-done and very affecting as well.

The best way to describe Train Dreams is to say that it is Malickian – in reference to filmmaker Terence Malick. Train Dreams is, like Malick’s work, more meditation and contemplation than plot driven. It also, like Malick’s movies, is painfully human and addresses deep existential topics while desperately seeking profundity.

I love Terence Malick. His film The Tree of Life (2011), which I coincidentally just re-watched last week, is not just one of my favorite films but one of the very best films ever made.

Malick’s movies are often challenging to general audiences – a topic I’ve written about at length, but his artistry and philosophy connect with me in a very personal, intimate and deeply moving way.

For instance, Malick’s films after The Tree of Life – such as Knight of Cups (2015) and Song to Song (2017), were simply too esoteric for most people, but I was blown away by them.

For good or for ill, Train Dreams is Malick for mainstreamers….let’s call it Malick-lite. The film examines many of the same subjects as a Malick movie, and it uses much of the same visual style as a Malick movie, but it is not quite as impenetrable and esoteric as a Malick movie.

Bentley and his cinematographer Adolpho Veloso, somewhat mimic Malick’s floating camera style, and make the most of the gorgeous natural light and scenery…and montage is used to great effect throughout to generate emotion…all signatures of a Malick film.

There is a voice-over used throughout the film, which is from a third person perspective. This voice-over is a bit too on the nose for me, but it is also the device that makes this movie a Malick-lite instead of a straight up Malick. Malick uses voice-over, but they are first person, and they reveal internal dialogues and not used as a way to give context to the plot. This voice-over reduces the sense of this film being a meditation and contemplation, and tries to make it more mainstream and digestible. In a sense it succeeds, but I would have preferred the film without it.

What most makes Train Dreams Malickian is that it is a film about meaning…more particularly, our search for meaning…and the void we all have within us and some of us are even brave enough to acknowledge. The film dwells in the dark, empty places we all carry, and it masterfully portrays the yearning for connection…to others, to the world, to our true self, to God.

Joel Edgerton is an actor I generally do not think much of on the rare occasion I think of him at all. But to Edgerton’s great credit, he does a wonderful job in this film of being a blank slate when playing the protagonist Robert. He doesn’t push too hard or try to give too much, he just quietly exists in the frame and lets the context and story do all the work for him.

That may sound like an easy task, but it truly isn’t, and very few actors are capable of it. For example, in Malick’s To the Wonder (2012), Ben Affleck is unable to do that exact thing and is terribly uncomfortable in front of Malick’s camera. Sean Penn, Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain were masters of it in The Tree of Life (2011), as was Christian Bale and Cate Blanchett in Knight of Cups (2015).

Joining Edgerton in giving simple yet very affecting performances in Train Dreams is Felicity Jones. Once again, Jones does little more than be alive in front of the camera - easier said than done, and she fills the screen with simplicity. It also helps that she is a comforting beauty of which the camera makes the most.

William H. Macy was at one time one of the great character actors in the movie business, but that was a long time ago. In Train Dreams he is back at his best playing an aging logger who works with Robert. Macy has minimal screen time but he makes the most of it by giving a hearty and heartfelt performance.

Terence Malick films are akin to cinematic poems, you less try and figure them out than you let them wash over you. Train Dreams is not a cinematic poem, it is a bit too straight-forward for that, but it is reminiscent of that. It is a more mainstreamed version of Malick that while still an art house film, is an art house film made for general audience consumption - hence the Netflix deal. The truth is, for me at least, Malick-lite is better than no Malick at all.

Train Dreams isn’t perfect, but it is very well-made and skillfully acted, and it is artful in its genuine yearning for humanity and profundity….and for that I am grateful.

In our age of relentless cinematic midgetry, where lesser films are heralded as masterpieces (I’m looking at you Sinners and One Battle After Another – both painfully vapid and vacuous exercises), and hyperbole rules the day, Train Dreams is most definitely good enough to qualify as one of the very best films of the year.

While I’d love to say that everyone should watch The Tree of Life with their family on Thanksgiving night, but I am smart enough to know that would be catastrophic, but I do think Train Dreams is a solid choice for mainstreamers and cinephiles alike to watch together on Thanksgiving night over pumpkin pie and hot chocolate...and doing a double feature with Sing Sing would work well too.

©2025

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 143 - Weapons

On this episode Barry and I chat about Zach Cregger's fantastic horror mystery movie Weapons, now streaming on HBO Max. Topics discussed include how this is one of the best films of the year, Cregger as an elevated horror master - and the tricky next step in his career, as well as Oscar hopes for Amy Madigan, and respect for Josh Brolin and Julia Garner. 

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 143 - Weapons

P. S. SEE THIS MOVIE!!

Thanks for listening!!

©2025

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 142 - Frankenstein

On this episode Barry and I search for life in Guillermo del Toro's new Netflix movie Frankenstein. Topics discussed include del Toro's unique filmography, Oscar Isaac being an awful actor, and the tonal, visual, literary and artistic mess that is this movie. 

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 142 - Frankenstein

Thanks for listening!

©2025

Mr. Scorsese: A Documentary Review - Into the Mind of a Master

MR. SCORSESE

My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. A flawed but fascinating documentary that thrives when examining Martin Scorsese’s childhood, and stumbles when trying to navigate the personal politics of Hollywood.

Mr. Scorsese, directed by Rebecca Miller, is a five-part documentary series that examines the life and career of esteemed auteur Martin Scorsese.

The series, which debuted on October 17th, is available to stream on Apple TV+.

Martin Scorsese is, in my not so humble opinion, most definitely on the Mount Rushmore of greatest filmmakers of all-time. His career, which has spanned over half a century, is littered with such greatness it is difficult to fathom. But as Mr. Scorsese shows us, Martin Scorsese’s career, and life, has been anything but smooth sailing.

The series opens with an episode titled “A Stranger in a Strange Land”, which chronicles Scorsese’s tempestuous childhood in New York City’s Little Italy – a neighborhood which at the time was riddled with crime and violence.

The very best part of Mr. Scorsese is the first episode and all other episodes dealing with Scorsese’s childhood. The reason his childhood is so fascinating is that by examining it you can literally see where Scorsese’s filmmaking artistry was born.

A sickly child, Scorsese was confined to his apartment and had to watch the world through the panes of his window…which essentially created his worldview simulated through the box of a film screen. This detachment from the world allowed for his analytical side to connect with his artistic…thus a filmmaker was born.

In addition to being confined to his apartment, Scorsese’s severe asthma forced his father to take him to movie theatres during the hot summer days and nights – since movie theatres were the only place in the city with air conditioning which would ease his asthmatic symptoms. This gave Scorsese a great education in filmmaking and storytelling, as well as bonded cinema with his love for his father…a powerful force indeed.

On top of all that, Scorsese’s childhood was riddled with characters that would come to fill is films…gangsters, clowns, losers, thugs. Whether it be Mean Streets, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Casino or The Irishman, Scorsese’s movies are populated with some of the very same, or at least similar, people as those that populated his childhood.

Another staple of Scorsese’s childhood which directly relates to his films is his Catholicism. Scorsese obviously has a tortured relationship with Catholicism (I can relate), but it is undoubtedly the animating force in his artistic life.

Even the darkest of Scorsese films are fueled by Catholicism, in one way or another. As are his other more straight forward films about faith…be it The Last Temptation of Christ, Kundun or Silence.

As the docu-series progresses we watch Scorsese graduate the mean streets of Little Italy and attempt to navigate the even meaner streets of Hollywood.

As compelling as Scorsese is as a person, and as astonishing as his career has been, one can’t help but feel a bit cheated watching this documentary try and tell the story of his storied filmmaking. The reason for this is that Martin Scorsese isn’t just the subject of this documentary, he is also the controlling force of it. And no matter how honest Scorsese may attempt to be, it is foolish to expect him to really hold his own feet to the fire.

Due to the constraints of Scorsese’s position – an active filmmaker and producer, we never get the down and dirty truth about his struggles with Hollywood. The only brief glimpse of the ugly world of it all is when Harvey Weinstein is held up for the briefest bit of ridicule and contempt….and even that feels soft-pedaled and exceedingly safe.

That said, it is an important exercise to go through Scorsese’s career if for no other reason than it is easy to forget how astonishing and tumultuous it has been.

The highs of Scorsese’s career…which would undoubtedly be his films Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, and The Departed (his lone Oscar), take on more meaning when you understand the struggles he endured to even get his movies financed, never mind recognized.

It seems that no matter how great Scorsese was, and he is one of the all-time greats, Hollywood never embraced him and the money people never accepted him.

And so Scorsese was left to scratch and claw just to get movies made, and even when they were made he still had to fight to get them released in the form he wanted. A perfect example of this is one of Scorsese’s dream projects – Gangs of New York, which starred the biggest movie star of the era – Leonardo DiCaprio, and the best actor of the era – Daniel Day-Lewis, and yet Scorsese had to go to war with a grotesque pig like Harvey fucking Weinstein to keep control of the film. Ultimately Scorsese lost that battle, and the film greatly suffered because of it – and one is left to wonder how much even greater could his career could have been if it weren’t for the Weinstein types and their ilk fucking everything up.

One of the nice benefits of Mr. Scorsese is that it is chock full of people who normally would never appear in a documentary. For example, Leonardo DiCaprio is in it, Robert DeNiro is in it, as is Daniel Day- Lewis…who also happens to be married to the documentary director Rebecca Miller.

Miller brings a deft, if somewhat overly protective, touch to the documentary, no doubt herself informed by her artistically brilliant famous father – Arthur Miller, and his tumultuous life. Rebecca Miller’s instinct to protect Scorsese is probably born from her desire to protect her own father and also by the fact that Scorsese is so darn likeable and such a compelling figure.

If there is one takeaway from Mr. Scorsese besides the obvious – which is Scorsese’s singular artistic genius which was often beyond the world’s understanding, it is that Martin Scorsese seems like someone you’d love to spend as much time with as possible.

As a documentary about Martin Scorsese, Mr. Scorsese is a flawed work as it is much too deferential to be truly enlightening…but that doesn’t mean it is devoid of enlightenment. The first two episodes about his childhood in particular, are really fantastic and give as much insight into Scorsese as an artist as is possible.

If you are looking for a bareknuckle expose on the excesses of Scorsese’s life – of which there is much, this isn’t the docu-series for you…and if you’re looking for backroom Hollywood scuttlebutt…the same is true. But if you’re looking to discover what made Martin Scorsese the filmmaking genius he is…this documentary does as well as any could.

In writing this review I was tempted to put together a ranking of all of Scorsese’s films. After attempting to do so I decided against it because it is an impossible task. Scorsese is too great and too important a filmmaker to simply reduce his films to best and worst. His movies don’t work that way. I would feel the same about similar monumental talents like Akira Kurosawa or Ingmar Bergman.

Instead, I would just offer this brief viewer’s guide.

If you want to watch the seminal Scorsese works, start with Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, and Casino. If you want to dive a bit deeper into the canon then watch The King of Comedy, The Color of Money, Cape Fear.

If you want to watch the most accessible movies in the canon (notice I said accessible and not audience friendly) then go with The Departed, The Wolf of Wall Street, Shutter Island, The Aviator and The Irishman.  

If you really want a glimpse into the mind and soul of Scorsese then watch three often overlooked films (which are among my favorites) The Last Temptation of Christ, Kundun, and Silence.

And finally, the film that is so often overlooked people tend to forget he made it but which is truly a remarkable piece of work, is The Age of Innocence. The Age of Innocence is a parlor drama that most would think is out of his wheelhouse but which reveals Scorsese to be a truly master filmmaker. Just a tremendous piece of work.

In conclusion, Mr. Scorsese is not the greatest documentary about a filmmaker you’ll ever see, but it is an enjoyable handful of hours spent with one of the greatest to ever do it, and one of the more compelling directors in cinema history…so it is worth your time.

©2025

Frankenstein: A Review - Guillermo del Toro's Lifeless Monster

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT/SEE IT. If you’re a monster movie maniac like me then watch it out of curiosity, but just know this disappointing movie isn’t anywhere near as good as it could, and should, have been.

Frankenstein, written and directed by acclaimed auteur Guillermo del Toro, recounts the famous Mary Shelley tale of man’s cursed attempt at playing God.

The film, which stars Oscar Isaac, Mia Goth, Christoph Waltz and Jacob Elordi, is currently streaming on Netflix and is also available in some theatres, for those inclined to see it on the big screen.

As someone who truly loves Mary Shelley’s book, slavishly adores the 1931 James Whale Frankenstein movie, and is also a great admirer of Guillermo del Toro, it is a massive understatement to say that I was greatly anticipating this version of Frankenstein.

Every year come October, I make a pilgrimage to the Universal Monster Classics and my first watch is always Frankenstein – as it is my favorite of the bunch. That moody and mesmerizing movie is considerably different from Shelley’s book, but it is one of those rare cases where both the book and movie are great despite their differences.

As for Guillermo del Toro…I really dig his work too. I was one of the few who was happy when he won Best Picture/Best Director for The Shape of Water…which I found to be a psychologically and mythologically insightful film.

Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth is an emotionally powerful, politically vibrant and cinematically imaginative masterwork. His Nightmare Alley is an underrated gem, a true nightmare of a movie.

Del Toro’s last film before Frankenstein was 2022’s Pinocchio, an animated musical. Despite being allergic to musicals and wary of some animation, I thought that was a brilliant piece of work – both poignant and profound.

And so it was that I was greatly anticipating seeing Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, the film which he has spoken about being his dream project.

The reality of my experience of the film is thus…I love del Toro. I love Frankenstein. But I did not love del Toro’s Frankenstein.

Unfortunately…and frankly quite shockingly, this version of Frankenstein simply doesn’t work no matter how much I wanted it to.

Out of respect to del Toro I will start by focusing on what I did like about the film.

I thought Jacob Elordi did a terrific job playing the monster. Elordi skillfully captures the emotional tenderness that transforms into the turmoil that fuels the monster’s entire existence. It also helps that he is very tall and looms over the rest of the cast with ease and a certain sense of menace.

It also must be said that the monster make-up effects, as well as the effects of other corpses in various stages of experimentation, are imaginative, fantastic and well-deserving of Oscar gold.

Now onto the plethora of things that don’t work.

Let’s start with the script. The plot of the film is altered from the book – which is not a big deal, but the problem is that the script feels both bloated and emotionally emaciated. The main characters have been jumbled around and left in dramatic disarray, neutering the film of much of its emotional power. The structure of the screenplay is flawed as well and the dialogue is clunky and at times painfully on the nose, and is delivered with less than spectacular skill.

Speaking of which, a major issue with the film is that Oscar Isaac plays the lead Viktor Frankenstein…and he is not a good actor…at all. Isaac is an albatross around the neck of this film, and every second he is on screen the movie suffers. Not only is Isaac a bad actor, he is absolutely devoid of any charisma…rendering him a black hole on screen that allows no light or life to enter or exit.

Guillermo del Toro has often spoken about how Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) is one of his favorite movies. It is one of mine too. It isn’t a perfect film by any means, but it is the last piece of notable work by one of the all-time greats - Coppola.

That film was greatly wounded by a dreadful supporting performance from a dead-eyed Keanu Reeves struggling with a British accent. Thankfully, Reeves isn’t the lead, and his awful work is counter-balanced by the great Gary Oldman as Dracula, who absolutely crushes the role.

Del Toro’s Frankenstein is not as fortunate as Coppola’s Dracula…as Oscar Isaac is bad in the lead role and not a supporting one…and as good as Elordi is as the monster, he ain’t no Gary Oldman.

Mia Goth, an actress I quite like, is equally bad as Lady Elizabeth, Viktor’s soon to be sister-in-law. Goth is given a tough task due to the inadequacies of the script, and she never elevates the bad material into anything watchable or resembling human.

Christoph Waltz plays Elizabeth’s rich uncle and his character makes no sense and his performance is as confused as the writing.

Another major, and quite stunning issue considering the director, is that the film is remarkably underwhelming visually. Exactly twice during the film did I sit up and think – “wow…that’s a nice shot.” That didn’t happen until the last act of the movie – inexcusable for a cinematic great like del Toro.

Longtime del Toro collaborator Dan Laustsen is the cinematographer on the film and his work is painfully flat, devoid of crispness or cinematic flair – with no color and no contrast. It is genuinely shocking how remarkably dull this movie looks.

Another major issue is the dreadful CGI deployed in the film. Thankfully there isn’t a ton of CGI, but when it appears…most notably with wild animals – like wolves, it is alarmingly bad and very distracting. How can a movie with a $120 million budget and a master director who cares at the helm end up with such low-rent CGI?

Another issue is that the film is tonally all over the map. The visuals feel like something from a kid’s movie…and yet there are flourishes of ultra-violence mixed in among the soap opera melodrama which make the whole affair quite tonally off-putting.

And finally, the sets are poorly designed and the soundtrack is cloying and intrusive. But besides that, how was the play Mrs. Frankenstein?

The cold, hard reality is that del Toro’s Pinocchio is worlds better and more profound than his Frankenstein. It is also considerably darker and scarier.

The thing that grates about this version of Frankenstein is that it cost a ton of money to make, and del Toro has as much control as any director imaginable…and yet it all still looks so goddamn cheap.

Once again, I will refer to another remake of a monster movie classic…last year’s Nosferatu directed by Robert Eggers. Egger’s film is glorious to look at – gorgeously shot and masterfully made creepy. Eggers understands the assignment…and will continue it with his next remake of a classic monster movie with Werwulf…and I will run out to see it. What bums me out is that del Toro has fumbled his Frankenstein film and thus someone like Eggers won’t get a chance to make his own version of Frankenstein. That complaint may not make sense to anyone else, but it makes perfect sense to me.

I love the Universal Classic Monster movies…and I love when masters remake them well….like with Coppola and his Dracula (two years after his Dracula, Coppola also produced a Frankenstein film which was directed by and starred Kenneth Branagh – Robert DeNiro was the monster…I wanted to love that movie too…and was devastated when it really stunk), and I desperately wanted to del Toro’s Frankenstein to be glorious.

The truth is that in our techno-dystopian age of aggressively infantile AI struggling to take its first baby steps – which will no doubt lead to it outgrowing us and ultimately destroying us…we are primed for a great Frankenstein movie. Unfortunately, Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein isn’t it.

©2025

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 141 - A House of Dynamite

On this episode, Barry and I man the controls in the situation room and give our thoughts on the nuclear bomb that is Kathryn Bigelow's new Netflix movie A House of Dynamite. Topics discuss include Bigelow's up and down filmography, debatable creative choices and casting issues in this movie, and the beautiful, eternal, undying love shared between Rebecca Ferguson and I. 

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota" Episode 141 - A House of Dynamite

Thanks for listening!

©2025

A House of Dynamite: A Review - A Nuclear Dud

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. An instantaneously forgettable cinematic exercise that is so lifeless and inert as to be frustrating.

A House of Dynamite, directed by Academy-Award winner Kathryn Bigelow, examines the reaction from the U.S. government and military to the launch of a nuclear missile aimed at the United States.

The film, which is streaming on Netflix, features a cast that includes Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, Tracy Letts, Jared Harris and Anthony Ramos among many others.

There have been many notable films made throughout the years about the dire threat and fear of nuclear annihilation, Fail Safe and Dr. Strangelove immediately come to mind. Rest assured A House of Dynamite is not even remotely in the same class as either of those two classics.

In fact, A House of Dynamite is such a tepid, thin gruel, it barely even feels like a movie, never mind a good one. It looks, sounds and feels like a post-9/11, self-serious ABC Wednesday night drama series or something as equally superficial and vapid.

The movie is structured in three acts that are less acts as they are episodes…thus making the entire enterprise seem like one big “very special episode” of 24, Designated Survivor and The West Wing combined.

Unfortunately, it is also shot like a tv show, with very flat visuals, orthodox and rudimentary framing and camera work, obvious sets and forced melo-drama.  

The opening act of the movie holds a modicum of promise as it follows the people working the Situation Room at the White House when the alert comes that a missile launch has occurred. It isn’t great by any means, but compared to what comes in acts two and three, act one seems downright riveting.

In acts two and three, despite the countdown clock to the missile hitting the U.S., the film becomes remarkably inert dramatically. Act two and three are so poorly written, poorly directed and poorly acted that it is embarrassing to behold.

The film thinks it has something profound to say but its politics are as trite and vacuous as its drama. The whole venture is so devoid of gravitas it ultimately feels like a blackhole of self-seriousness that eliminates all responses to it except for derisive laughter – the most notable example of this is the film’s ignominious ending (which I won’t spoil).

Speaking of derisive laughter, there are a bevy of really bad performances in this movie, and some of them come from very good actors, which is baffling.

For example, Idris Elba is a terrific actor, but he is so afwul as the president in this movie it is jarring, and painful, to watch. He is so disconnected from the role, and to be fair it is horribly written, but he is also devoid of any charisma – which is shocking.

Jared Harris is another actor I really like but he is extraordinarily bad as the Secretary of Defense. Harris, like Elba, is British, and like Elba his American accent is sort of all over the place and entirely distracting. It also doesn’t help that his character is egregiously written as well.

Thankfully Anthony Ramos, of Hamilton fame, is American…but unfortunately, he is also an absolutely atrocious actor. I am sorry to say but it isn’t just Ramos’ work on A House of Dynamite…it is every film he does. Guy is a terrible actor. Please Hollywood…please just make Anthony Ramos go away.

To be fair to the cast, who are all not great in the movie (with the exception of the ultra-luminous Rebecca Ferguson who has one moment in the movie that is the only moment that feels real), the script is utterly appalling….and the direction is amateurish as well.

Which brings us to Kathryn Bigelow.

Bigelow is absolutely adored by some in the movie industry. I am not one of those people. I don’t have any inherent dislike of Bigelow’s work, in fact I have admired some of it, but I also have no time for false filmmaking idols.

Bigelow has made some popular movies, like Point Break, that I find to be forgettable popcorn nonsense. She has also made some serious pieces of cinema…like The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty. You can quibble with the politics of Zero Dark Thirty, but there is no quibbling over the quality of the deft and skillful filmmaking on display. The same is true, at least regarding the filmmaking, of Bigelow’s Academy Award winning film The Hurt Locker.

But unfortunately, those films were the undeniable apex of Bigelow’s career. Her follow up to Zero Dark Thirty, and her film previous to A House of Dynamite, was 2017’s Detroit…which was an absolute shitshow of a movie. It is one of the very worst films of this century…and maybe the last one too.

A funny anecdote, but after writing a much-deserved scathing review of Detroit, I had a dear friend cut me out of her life entirely in a rage. This was the height of the first Trump hysteria (God helps us that I had to say “first”) and the #MeToo and #OscarsSoWhite nonsense that gripped Hollywood (and much of the country) at the time. My former friend was suffering with Stage Four of Trump/MeToo/OscarsSoWhite/BlackLivesMatter hysteria – and I was immune to it. Due to her ailment, she apparently got so furiously enraged that I had the temerity to not adore Detroit – a movie about a racist police incident from the 60’s, that she could no longer bear to know me or read anything I wrote because apparently, I was a racist or sexist…or both…or something like that. At the time I thought that was bizarre to the point of being literally insane…in hindsight I still think I am 100% accurate in my diagnosis.

To be clear, not wanting to be my friend is not insane, actually it’s a very rational notion and a sign of good taste, but what is insane (and also a sign of the very worst of taste) is not thinking that the movie Detroit is nothing but an odious pile of elephant excrement. (I wholly encourage you to read my review of Detroit)

Regardless…or as some like to say…”irregardless”…Detroit was a mess of a movie, and while A House of Dynamite isn’t quite as insufferable as that, it is still close enough to be quite an uncinematic embarrassment.

The bottom line is that A House of Dynamite yearns to be a taut thriller chock full of profundities about the dangerous nature of our world and the current moment – a truly noble cause, but it is so dreadfully written, poorly constructed and amateurishly executed that it is rendered a dramatically impotent and cinematically flaccid affair.

The truth is that the vitally important topics addressed in the film deserved considerably better…and so do audiences. Unfortunately, audiences would’ve been better served, and definitely more entertained, if A House of Dynamite was titled A House of Dyn-O-Mite! and was a gritty drama about the golden years of JJ Walker from Good Times (only old people will get this joke).

Jokes aside, A House of Dynamite is streaming on Netflix, but it is so instantaneously forgettable that you shouldn’t waste even a single second of your time watching it.

©2025

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota - Episode 140: One Battle After Another

After a long hiatus, the boys are back!! On this episode, Barry and I shout "viva la revolution!" as we talk all things One Battle After Another, the new PT Anderson film starring Leonardo DiCaprio. Topics discussed include the film's many failings, politics in film, and the current state of cinema, culture and the movie industry. 

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota - Episode 140: One Battle After Another

Thanks for listening!

©2025

Eddington: A Review - The Madness of Covid...and a Lot of Other Things

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT NOW.

Eddington, written and directed by Ari Aster and starring Joaquin Phoenix, hit theatres way back in July…but I only just saw it this past weekend…and I have a lot of thoughts.

The film, which bills itself as a “neo-Western dark comedy thriller”, tells the story of the fictional town of Eddington, New Mexico and the personal and political trials and tribulations it faces during the Covid pandemic.

Ari Aster is a filmmaker of whom I think highly – so why didn’t I see Eddington until this past weekend? Well, Aster’s first two films, Hereditary (2018) and Midsommar (2019), were really top-notch elevated horror movies that I loved, but his third feature, Beau is Afraid (2023), was a film that was so affecting that I literally could not watch it all the way through. In fact, I tried multiple times to stream Beau is Afraid and each time I made it roughly 30 minutes in and bailed.

To be clear, I am not saying Beau is Afraid is a bad movie (it might be but I can’t judge after watching only 30 minutes of it - twice), what I am saying though is that it was so affecting that I had a terribly uncomfortable visceral reaction to it – the reasons for which even I am not completely clear on (paging Dr. Freud!!) – so much so that I had to stop watching. This is something that has never happened to me before (or since).

So, when Eddington came out this past Summer, I thought that seeing it in the theatre was not a priority because I might want to bail on this one too. And so…all these months later when it is now available on VOD, I rented it for $4 and watched it. And oh boy…am I ever glad I did!

Eddington is the very best film I have seen this year, and it isn’t even remotely close. It is incredibly smart, insightful, bold, brave and brilliant.

This film is once again very affecting…even uncomfortably so…but it is such a compelling and dynamic film that it is impossible to turn away from it…even when you want to.

One of the reasons you may want to turn away from Eddington, is because it so expertly recreates the Covid experience – both socially, personally and medically, in such visceral and palpable ways that watching it literally feels like having a Covid fever dream.

Ari Aster masterfully captures the disorientation of the Covid era, which felt like an assault on our senses, psyches and souls. This disorientation from Covid (both the disease and the cultural reaction to it) created rampant hysteria and mania that spread like wildfire during the insanity of the Covid era. Ultimately, that hysteria is the true pandemic that thrives to this day having lived long after the disease of Covid has faded into distant memory.

Eddington is a comedy, a thriller, a horror movie and a political satire, but above all else it is an indictment. The indictment of how foolish and gullible and easily manipulated we all are. How even now we suffer from such aggressive cognitive dissonance that the excesses of the Covid era, and the worst offenders of Covid hysteria (and the accompanying BLM mania) have never been forced to acknowledge their egregious and calamitous errors, never mind pay for them.

As time passes and we gain more distance from the lunacy and imbecility of our current age, Eddington, with its sharp and incisive criticisms, will age like the finest of wines. The film’s insights will become more profound over time for those with eyes, and the intellectual courage, to see them.  

As you may have noticed I have intentionally avoided any and all plot points for Eddington, and that is because I think it is best watched with as little information known about it as possible. That said, I will try and convey my appreciation for the film despite my strict spoiler limitations.

First of all, Joaquin Phoenix, who plays protagonist Sheriff Joe Cross, gives a stellar performance. Phoenix is brilliant, his Sheriff Joe is a stew of subdued defiance and fury mixed with smoldering self-righteousness that often curdles into hubris.

Phoenix is the great actors of our time and he creates a deliciously complex character in Sheriff Joe, that is so captivating and subtly magnetic that it is a marvel. And Phoenix’s ability to convey physical ailments is truly stunning – and I will say no more about that.

The rest of the cast, which features Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone, Deirdre O’Connell, and Austin Butler, all have smaller roles but do exceptionally noteworthy work. Pascal, in particular, is an actor who can often grate, but his unlikability is used to great effect in the film. Stone’s role is small but she is completely bought into it and does exceptional work despite minimal screen time.

Cinematographer Darius Khondji does his very best work on Eddington, using the high desert landscape and the small-town setting to great effect. He also deftly paints with a deft palette and masterfully frames his shots throughout – heightening the drama.

The real star of Eddington though is writer/director Ari Aster. It took balls the size of watermelons to make this movie and Aster has them. He has been pilloried by many critics for Eddington, but I think that has more to do with the perceived politics of Eddington rather than the filmmaking skills on display from Aster. I also think many critics are among those who so wholeheartedly embraced the Covid and BLM hysteria and are so ravaged by cognitive dissonance that they aggressively resist any notions of coming to grips with how foolish they look in hindsight.

The reality is, is that the “conspiracy theorists” were right all along…and still are…or at least they’re more right than the buffoons who think “conspiracy theorist” is a derogatory term. The most amusing thing that has happened in the last five or six years has been that tinfoil hats have been transformed from objects of ridicule into crowns of knowledge and wisdom – worn proudly.

To be fair, the “conspiracy theorists” are closer to the truth than the normies…but they still are a far way off from the truth. The conspiracy theorist’s real enlightenment comes from the fact that they understand the one undeniable fact that “normies” are loathe to admit…that the “official” story is, always and every time, a lie. And Eddington is one of those rare movies that not only acknowledges that fact…but aggressively embraces it.

The unacknowledged mantra of the dystopian digital age is – “The map is not the territory” – as our culture is so detached from the territory of reality because they have their noses buried in the map…their phones. Because of this fact we as a people are easily manipulated – emotionally, mentally, politically, and Eddington is a film that slaps us across the face in an attempt to wake us from our technologically induced stupor – and it does so with cinematic and dramatic aplomb.

You may not want to see Eddington, but trust me when I tell you…you NEED to see Eddington, you NEED to absorb Eddington, and you NEED to eventually accept what Eddington is teaching you.

Make no mistake, Eddington is thus far the very best film of the year…and is also the most important film of the year, if not the decade.

©2025

Paul Thomas Anderson Films - Ranked Worst to First

PT ANDERSON FILMS – RANKED

Paul Thomas Anderson’s newest film, One Battle After Another, hit theatres at the end of September and has garnered massive critical praise and generated a cavalcade of conversation.

I love any conversation that involves the films of Paul Thomas Anderson…so I thought I’d start another one…namely by ranking his films.

PT Anderson is my favorite current filmmaker. He is a unique cinematic genius, a brilliant writer and an extraordinary director of actors. All that said…he is for many, an acquired taste…one which I have certainly acquired. Which makes it all the more profound when I DON’T like one of his films.

Anyway…without further ado here is my list of PT Anderson films ranked worst to first. This list is…ALIVE. It can change not just everyday but sometimes every hour. For example, just in the course of writing this piece my top three films flipped back and forth at least three times.

So here is the list…let the debate begin!!

THE NOT-SO-GOOD

10. Hard Eight (1996)– Hard Eight is Anderson’s feature debut and while it is a decent film featuring a solid performance from the ever-reliable Philip Baker Hall, it is definitely as bit rough around the edges. It’s impressive for a debut but not a particularly good movie.

Available to rent or buy on Amazon Prime

9. Punch-Drunk Love (2002)– This was Anderson shifting gears into a less ambitious cinematic undertaking after the sprawling Magnolia and the decade spanning Boogie Nights. The film is devoid of ambition though as Anderson makes the calamitous decision to cast the grating Adam Sandler as his lead in this unusual and dark romantic comedy. That was a very poor decision.

Punch-Drunk Love is beautifully shot, of that there is no doubt, but the script feels cloying and trite and the lead performance from Adam Sandler is unbearably amateurish.

I know people who have Punch-Drunk Love ranked number one on their PT Anderson list…those people are idiots.

Currently streaming on the Criterion Channel

8. One Battle After Another (2025)– All the caveats apply regarding my feelings about One Battle After Another. I’ve only seen it once…and saw it on a shitty digital projector at the local cineplex – which just got new chairs but failed to get better projectors and sound systems – so now people can be comfy and cozy watching movies on their sub-par projectors!

Anyway…maybe my feelings about this movie will change after I see this movie a few more times or with a better projector…who knows? But after one less-than-cinematically-ideal viewing I was not a fan. To Anderson’s credit, it is a tremendously ambitious film, but I thought it failed by almost every metric…including the performances.

Currently in theatres

7. Licorice Pizza (2021)– This film is really gorgeous to look at but ultimately, it’s all empty calories as there is no meat on the bones of its story.

The bottom line is it’s a rather vapid “hang out” movie that ends up being rather forgettable despite some great scenes and sequences.

Currently streaming on MUBI

THE VERY, VERY GOOD

6. Inherent Vice (2014) – I, unlike many, absolutely loved this movie and found it to be a psychologically profound piece of work that felt like a fever dream.

Like One Battle After Another it is based on a Thomas Pynchon novel…unlike One Battle After Another it is exquisitely crafted and filled with rich metaphor.

It also features top-notch performances from Joaquin Phoenix and Josh Brolin…and is laugh out loud funny on occasion.

To me, the list of best PT Anderson films really starts here with Inherent Vice, an audacious arthouse gem.

Currently streaming on Amazon Prime

5. Phantom Thread (2017) – One of the more elegant, eloquent and dark relationship stories in cinema history, Phantom Thread features luminous craftsmanship – most notably its cinematography and wardrobe design.

It also features one of Daniel Day Lewis’ greatest performances as the persnickety Reynolds Woodcock. Leslie Manville and Vicky Krieps also give truly phenomenal performances in the film.

Phantom Thread is an often-overlooked Anderson film…but it shouldn’t be.

Currently streaming on Netflix

THE GREAT

4. The Master (2012) – Ok…the final four films on this list are out and out masterpieces in my mind.

The Master is a tour de force film that boasts two all-time great performances. Philip Seymour Hoffman is utterly amazing as the cult leader/con man Lancaster Dodd – it is one of Hoffman’s very best performances, which is saying quite a lot since he was one of the greatest actors of his generation.

Then there is Joaquin Phoenix as the lead Freddie Quell. Phoenix’s performance isn’t just the greatest of his career, it is the single greatest and most revolutionary piece of acting in modern cinema history. You may think that is hyperbole, but trust me, it isn’t. Phoenix re-invented the art of acting with this intricate and stunning performance.

The Master is a mesmerizing meditation on masculinity and the modern man, and it requires multiple viewings to fully flesh out its meaning…and it deserves as many re-watches and you can manage.

Currently streaming on Roku

3. There Will Be Blood (2007) – There Will be Blood is at the very top of this list on many…if not most…occasions, as it is a full-on masterpiece featuring both Daniel Day Lewis, cinematographer Robert Elswit, and in some ways PT Anderson, at their very, very best.

A dark brooding tale about capitalism, masculinity and America, There Will Be Blood is a dramatic powerhouse that devours everything in its path.

Day-Lewis brings all of his substantial power and acting prowess to bear on his role as Daniel Plainview…who, in case you didn’t know…is an oil man.

There Will be Blood is as intense, expansive, jarring and invigorating a film as you will ever see. A truly spectacular piece of cinematic art.

Available to rent or buy on Amazon Prime

2. Magnolia (1999) – Magnolia is a bit of a controversial choice at number two as it was raked over the coals by critics and many fans back in the day. But the fact of the matter is it is the very best Robert Altman film ever made…and it wasn’t even made by Altman!

Magnolia features a cavalcade of top-notch performances, great writing, and some of the best editing in recent history…not to mention Robert Elswit’s glorious cinematography.

Tom Cruise of all fucking people, gives the very best performance of his career…and it is utterly amazing as Frank T.J. Mackey. Only PT Anderson could get Tom Cruise to be that great…and he really, really is that great in Magnolia.

Philip Seymour Hoffman too gives one of his best, most subtle, and most tender performances in the film as well.

I hadn’t seen Magnolia in quite some time and re-watched it this past week and it definitely still holds the same emotional power and melancholic mastery as it did when I first saw it 26 years ago.

Currently streaming on the Criterion Channel

1. Boogie Nights (1997) – As previously stated, There Will be Blood could easily be at this top spot, but the truth is that Boogie Nights is the PT Anderson film I have watched the most (I typically watch it at least once a year if not twice) and that I enjoy the most.

Seeing Boogie Nights for the first time back in 1997 was a religious experience for me – hell I was so enraptured by the movie I even wrote a paper on its symbolism and cinematography back in film school! It is a masterfully constructed film with a complex sensibility, a funny bone and devastating dramatic punch.

Boogie Nights announced PT Anderson as THE guy to watch in moviemaking and part of the joy of watching it was experiencing the giddiness of expectation for the unknown PT Anderson films to come.

Boogie Nights itself gets the very most out of actors like Burt Reynolds (a resurrection project – Burt gives his career best performance) and Mark Wahlberg (also giving his career best performance).

Then there is the unbelievably fantastic cast – Julianne Moore, Heather Graham, John C. Reilly, Don Cheadle, Luis Guzman, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Philip Baker Hall, Melora Walters, Thomas Jane, Alfred Molina and William H. Macy – all of whom are superb and give pitch perfect performances.

A great cast, a scintillating script, Elswit’s stunning cinematography and Anderson’s audacious direction make Boogie Nights his best film (at least for today), and most watchable – and re-watchable, and my favorite, film.

Currently streaming on Paramount +

Quibble all you want…but this is the official PT Anderson film ranking list!! If it makes you angry, that’s okay…because the list has probably already changed in the fifteen minutes after I wrote it.

In looking over Anderson’s filmography the thing that stands out the most to me…besides the glorious cinematography and usually inspired writing…is that Anderson is able to get the very best out of the very best actors around. You’d think that is an easy thing to do…but it isn’t.

Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood and Phantom Thread, Joaquin Phoenix in The Master and Inherent Vice, Philip Seymour Hoffman in Boogie Nights, Magnolia and The Master, Tom Cruise in Magnolia…and on and on and on.

PT Anderson isn’t just mandatory viewing for lovers of cinema and hopeful filmmakers, he is mandatory viewing for actors of all stripes and at every stage of their career. Beginner or old pro, actors everywhere can learn boatloads just by carefully watching PT Anderson films and seeing how a master director can elicit supreme performances from the entirety of his cast.

Alright…enough of my rambling…thanks for reading and hopefully I’ll see you at a screening of One Battle After Another where I try and catch the fever for this film which has thus far avoided me.

©2025

R.I.P. Robert Redford: The Sundance Kid Once Saved Cinema

Robert Redford, the iconic movie star, filmmaker and Sundance Institute founder, died yesterday at the age of 89.

As gigantic a movie star as Robert Redford was…and he was a monumental movie star, particularly in the 1970’s, the most important thing about him is what he did for, or to, the film industry with his creation of the Sundance Institute and the Sundance Film Festival – which he took over in the mid 1980’s.

It is impossible to imagine the depths to which filmmaking would have fallen if Redford had not built Sundance, the place where “independent” filmmakers could develop and then show their films.

Without Sundance, the renaissance of cinema in the 1990’s, which includes the emergence of such filmmaking luminaries as Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson, would never have occurred.

Did Sundance quickly go from being sanctified and deified to becoming corporatized and commodified? Yes, it did. And is it now little more than a movie business version of the red-light district in Amsterdam? Yes, it is. But that doesn’t diminish its original importance or the good it did for cinema back in the early days…and it is crucial that we do not forget that when remembering Robert Redford.

As for Redford the actor, he was an impossibly handsome leading man who was gifted with a tendency toward stillness (a skill few actors possess) and the ability to share the screen with other actors with a charming effortlessness.

Redford was a good movie star, good enough that he could unflinchingly share a screen with Paul Newman, one of the biggest movie stars of all-time, for two memorable movies – Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and The Sting.

He was also a good and often underrated actor, who could comfortably share the screen with acting luminaries like Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep.

Redford, with his all-American good looks and stoic demeanor, resembled an old school movie star from the studio system but who hit his heights during the glorious age of the New American Cinema in the free-wheeling 1970s.

Redford catapulted to enormous fame in 1969 when he starred with Paul Newman in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – what some have called the perfect movie.

Butch and Sundance – with their snarky bromance, are essentially the template for every action comedy and Marvel movie of the last 50 years. You don’t get the Lethal Weapon, Die Hard and Marvel franchises without Butch and Sundance and their witty quips to one another under fire.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid really is a remarkable movie in that it is pure movie star popcorn entertainment but its shot with a glorious aplomb by Conrad Hall – and directed with verve by George Roy Hill.

Redford and Newman’s chemistry is legendary, and while many have tried to replicate it – like George Clooney and Brad Pitt, none have succeeded. The problem with Clooney and Pitt trying to be Newman and Redford is that Pitt is not Redford - despite Hollywood’s determination to make it so, and Clooney sure as shit ain’t Newman, no matter how much Clooney tries to pretend otherwise.

Redford’s filmography is, not surprisingly considering the length of his career, a mixed bag.

His best/most popular films are most certainly Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Three Days of the Condor, All the President’s Men and The Natural.

I can say without hesitation that I unabashedly love all of those movies, and love him in all of those movies.

As previously stated, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is popcorn perfection. Three Days of the Condor is a truly spectacular film and a glorious piece of 70’s paranoid cinema that I adore. All the President’s Men is a movie with undeniable momentum to it that compulsively compels. And finally, The Natural is, in my not-so-humble opinion, the greatest baseball movie ever made and also a phenomenal American myth that Redford perfectly embodies.

As much as I love those Redford films, the Redford movies that I find most intriguing are Downhill Racer, Jeremiah Johnson and The Candidate. These three films, all from the 70’s, show Redford giving his most complex performances, and are all really fantastic films that are often-overlooked.

The final movie I’d recommend is the lone late-period Redford movie that I think works well. The film is 2013’s All Is Lost directed by J.C. Chandor, which is about a man lost at sea by himself. Redford barely speaks at all in this movie, and it was a ballsy performance for him to undertake. I loved the film but others hated it. I think it’s worth watching now as it will take on particular profundity in the wake of Redford’s death.

Another movie some have mentioned is 2018’s The Old Man & the Gun, directed by David Lowery. I thought this film was a misfire, but I could see how it could be nice to indulge in its nostalgia now that Redford has passed away.

As for Redford as a filmmaker, I never really thought very much of his directorial skills. Redford was undoubtedly interested in independence and freedom for other filmmakers but as a filmmaker himself he was extraordinarily restrictive in his artistry.

The films Redford directed, Ordinary People (for which he won a best Director Academy Award), The Milagro Beanfield War, A River Runs Through It, Quiz Show, The Horse Whisperer, The Legend of Bagger Vance, Lions for Lambs, The Conspirator, and The Company You Keep, are all suffocatingly staid and cinematically conventional.

The lone Redford directed film that I would recommend is Quiz Show, and even that is a rather middlebrow piece of mainstream cinema that never quite rises to the heights you feel like it should.

Regardless of the merits or imperfections in Robert Redford’s acting and directing career, the truth is that anyone who enjoys movies, be they cinephiles or cineplex-goers, owe a huge debt of gratitude to Robert Redford. Without Robert Redford and his Sundance Film Festival and Institute, both the movie business and the art of cinema would be in much worse shape than they are today – and it;s important to remember that the Sundance Film Festival never happens if Robert Redford doesn’t become the Sundance Kid.

So, a big tip of the cowboy hat to the Sundance Kid on a job well done and a life well lived. Thanks for saving cinema…let’s hope that one day that it can rise from the ashes and once again be worthy of all you’ve done for it.

By the way…here is a 2013 article I wrote about Redford’s acting that you might find of interest.

Stillness: Lessons from Redford, DeNiro and Penn

©2025

Highest 2 Lowest: A Review - Lots of Lows and Too Few Highs

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. A misfire across the board that reveals Spike Lee as a spent creative force and Denzel Washington as firmly entrenched in the laissez-faire late stage of his career.

Highest 2 Lowest, directed by Spike Lee and starring Denzel Washington, is a remake/re-imagining of the 1963 Akira Kurosawa classic High and Low, and tells the story of David King, a music mogul facing moral, financial and familial pressures when his teenage son is kidnapped.

Highest 2 Lowest, which is produced by A24 and distributed by Apple Original Films, was briefly in theatres and is now available to stream on Apple TV +, which is where I watched it.

The film is the fifth collaboration between Lee and Washington, and the first since 2006’s Inside Man. Previous Spike Lee films with Denzel Washington include the sterling Mo’ Better Blues, the masterful Malcolm X, and He Got Game.

The Kurosawa film High and Low is nothing short of a masterpiece and features the filmmaker’s cinematic mastery as well as a powerful and deft performance by Toshiro Mifune. Spike Lee’s decision to remake, or as he claims “re-imagine” Kurosawa’s classic, is both a sign of Lee’s respect and of his hubris.

Having watched Highest 2 Lowest I can confidently declare that Spike Lee is no Akira Kurosawa and Denzel Washington is no Toshiro Mifune.

The truth is that Lee and Washington are the equivalent of hall of fame pitchers who once upon a time threw fastballs in the high 90’s, but are now reduced to grooving mid-80’s meatballs that do nothing but stir nostalgia for the good old days.

To be fair, Denzel Washington had a considerably longer peak than Spike Lee, and the argument could be made that at his best Denzel was better than Spike Lee at his best. In keeping with the baseball metaphor, Denzel at his peak was hitting 100 MPH on the radar gun, and Spike Lee at his shortened peak, was hitting 98 mph…but neither can even dream of hitting such heights now.

Highest 2 Lowest opens with a very captivating sequence which features a sunrise over New York City shot by drones with “Oh What a Beautiful Mornin’” from the musical Oklahoma playing over it. This opening is tantalizing at is shows Spike Lee at his cinematic best.

We are then introduced to Denzel’s character David King and his world, which features Ilfenish Hadera as his wife Pam, Aubrey Joseph as his son Trey, and Jeffrey Wright as his childhood friend and now driver Paul.

King is trying to navigate a big business deal in order to save his record label, and reignite his highly-acclaimed music producing career, which has been steadily slipping in recent years.

Then comes the inciting incident – Trey, King’s only child, is kidnapped at a basketball camp in the city. The way this turn of events is portrayed is so underwhelming and so dramatically impotent as to be amateurish.

Things dramatically, cinematically, artistically and creatively devolve so quickly from there that it actually shocks.

Denzel Washington is a great actor and movie star, of that there is no doubt, but he has entered the phase of his career which is reminiscent of late-stage Jack Nicholson – think of Jack in The Departed, where he does little more than show everyone how much he is “acting”.

Now, Denzel, or Jack, acting in this manner, where they show off for the sake of showing off, is fine, but it also isn’t good. The sheer charisma that Denzel and Jack possess makes their presence worthwhile, even when their acting work feels so forced and/or flimsy.

Denzel did this same thing in Gladiator II, and I found it entertaining, but here it feels like watching an acting class where the talented actor doing the scene didn’t do the prep work so now we have to watch them signal to us how much they are acting. (Anyone who has ever been in an acting class will know exactly of which I speak).

That said, Denzel Washington is definitely not the problem with Highest 2 Lowest…in fact he’s the best thing about it…and the problem isn’t Jeffrey Wright either, who is intriguing as Paul, the ex-con childhood friend who loyally serves his old pal and boss King.

One of the biggest problems with Highest 2 Lowest though is the rest of the cast, who are so atrocious as to be ridiculous.  

Ilfanish Hadera as King’s wife Pam is absolutely dreadful. It is stunning how out of her depth she is in a role that in more talented and steady hands would be pure red meat to be devoured with aplomb. Hadera is so dead-eyed and lifeless that when she’s on-screen it feels like you’re watching an autopsy.

Aubrey Joseph as King’s son Trey is another disaster, as he’s so wooden they could’ve just cast a mannequin in the role and been better served.

Another major issue is the trio of actors playing cops. John Douglas Thompson, Dean Winters, and LaChanze play the NYPD detectives assigned to solve the kidnapping and they feel like cast-offs from a Law and Order episode. It boggles the mind haw bad these three are.

Speaking of Law and Order, all of the police procedural stuff in this movie, and there’s a lot of it, feels like a third-rate Law and Order episode – which is tough because Law and Order episodes already feel third-rate to begin with…which I guess makes the cop stuff in Highest 2 Lowest sixth-rate?

The film tries to become a thriller as the kidnapping drama more deeply unfolds but it fails to muster even the most basic thrills…and it features one of the more contrived, flaccid and farcical chases in recent movie history.

On top of all that, Highest 2 Lowest also features one of the most god-awful, obtrusive and cloying scores in recent memory, thanks to Howard Drossin.

The truth is that at this point Spike Lee is an entirely spent creative force. After two decades of forgettable films, it seemed like Spike Lee might have gotten his mojo back in 2018 with BlacKkKlansman – a film for which he won a Screenplay Oscar. But instead of reinvigorating his work, Lee’s two follow-ups to BlacKkKlansman, the dismal Da 5 Bloods and Highest 2 Lowest, have been rather flimsy, instantly forgettable films.

Of course, there will be a plethora of Spike Lee sycophants who will shout from the rooftops how brilliant Highest 2 Lowest is, just like the fools who proclaimed the greatness of Da 5 Bloods, which is an amateurish mess of a movie.

But be not deceived…Highest 2 Lowest has a scant few highs and a cornucopia of lows. It is a major disappointment and an unfortunate signal that both Spike Lee and Denzel Washington may finally be done as artistic power players.

My recommendation is to skip the forgettable and foolish Highest 2 Lowest and instead go watch the tight and taut High and Low, as Kurosawa and Mifune prove they are infinitely better at telling this tale than late-stage Spike and Denzel.

©2025

Weapons: A Review - Big Creepiness in Small-Town America

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT.  A solid piece of elevated horror moviemaking that is worth watching when it hits streaming.

Weapons, written and directed by Zach Cregger, is a horror movie that tells the mysterious story of seventeen children in a small town who one night all run out of their homes into the darkness never to be seen again.  

Zach Cregger’s first feature film, Barbarian (2022), was two-thirds of a great horror movie that lost its way a bit in its final act. Despite its flawed final act, Barbarian showed Cregger to be a serious talent as it was a taut, smart, well-shot, well-acted and until its final act, very effective piece of horror filmmaking.

Weapons once again reveals Cregger to be a filmmaker to watch despite being somewhat similar to Barbarian in that as good as it is it still has some flaws that keep it from being great.

Weapons, like Barbarian with its commentary on Reagan and the destruction of the American working class, has some insightful social commentary artfully ingrained into its narrative core – the most obvious of which is the predation of children.

In an age where the Epstein files are forgotten before they’re ever released, and sex trafficking and exploitation of children runs rampant, a movie which opens by telling us it is a true story that powerful people have covered up, where seventeen kids disappear without a trace…is making a point for those with eyes to see and ears to hear.

Weapons is, in many ways but not all, Pizzagate, The Franklin Affair, Johnny Gosch, the Epstein story, and all the rest of the horrific child exploitation stories in recent times, subtly made manifest in narrative fashion…and that in and of itself makes the film unnerving – particularly if you have kids.

Cregger structures Weapons in an interesting way as the story is broken into chapters that feature the different perspectives of each main character – Justine – the kid’s teacher, Archer – parent to one of the kids, Paul – a cop in the town, James – a homeless drug addict, Marcus – the school principal, and Alex – the lone kid in the class who doesn’t disappear.

These perspectives are structurally staggered and non-linear and then intersect and converge to form the story as a whole. This approach really heightens the film and elevates what could have been rather mundane material in lesser storytelling hands.

Cregger’s greatest accomplishment with Weapons though is that he, along with cinematographer Larkin Sieple, create some very memorable and distinct visuals that stick with you.

For example, the poster for Weapons shows the silhouette of kids running in a very distinctive arms-out style, and that is used to very creepy effect in the film.

I won’t get into any of the details of the film to avoid spoilers – but I will say that there is a character in the movie that is so well-designed, well-acted, well-shot and visually unnerving that it makes you wince whenever it arrives.

There’s also a recurring motif of a certain door opening where it is so dark you strain to see what is in it, that is simple yet very effective. As is the scene where someone walks out of the door – a sequence that is chilling.

Cregger as a filmmaker is sort of a cross between Jordan Peele and Ari Aster. Cregger’s ability to create notable visuals is right up there with Peele – a noted visual stylist (although a filmmaker who struggles to tell a story), and his type of horror is reminiscent of Aster’s early work – most notably Hereditary and Midsommar.

Cregger’s skill, talent and style places him among the premiere “elevated horror” filmmakers of this era, namely Peele, Aster, and Robert Eggers.

What elevates Weapons besides Cregger’s storytelling and visual style, is a top-notch cast doing terrific work.

Julia Garner as Justine is a startlingly compelling character that is both sympathetic and abrasive. Garner, who was terribly misused in Fantastic Four earlier this summer, gives a very deft performance here.

Josh Brolin is really good as Archer, the devastated father determined to find out what happened to his son. Brolin has developed over the years to be such a reliably good actor that when he arrives on-screen you feel assured that the film is in strong acting hands.

Both Alden Ehrenreich and Benedict Wong, as Paul the cop and Marcus the principal respectively, really make the most of somewhat smaller parts that in lesser hands would have been thrown away, but in theirs are fleshed out to be really captivating pieces of work.

And finally, Cary Cristopher as the young boy Alex, is perfect as a creepy, lonely, sad and slightly scary little kid. Christopher looks like he could be the cousin to Damien from the Omen movies, and gives a really solid performance.

As much as I like Cregger, I do think Weapons has some issue that keep it from being a great film, but I will withhold the specifics of why so as not to spoil the film for those who want to see it – except to say that part of the conclusion to the mystery feels a bit unsatisfying…which is similar to how I felt about Barbarian. I’d also say that the film is better at being creepy than it is at being “horrifying”…but that is not necessarily a bad thing.

So, Weapons isn’t a great film but it is a good horror film…and in this day and age that is definitely good enough.

I think Weapons, just like Barbarian, is a perfect Halloween watch if you want to creep yourself out – particularly once it hits streaming. I also think it would make a wonderful companion piece to Ari Aster’s Hereditary.

In conclusion, writer/director Zach Cregger continues to show glimpses of brilliance in his second feature film and is quickly establishing himself as one of the premiere talents in the horror genre.

Weapons isn’t a perfect film, and it isn’t quite a great film, but it is a top-notch horror film that delivers copious amounts of creepiness, enough to have you squirming in your seat…but for less horror inclined individuals that seat can be in your home, and not necessarily in the theatre.

©2025

The Phoenician Scheme: A Review - The Exquisite, but Ultimately Antiseptic, Wes Anderson Aesthetic

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!***

My Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. A beautifully crafted but ultimately empty cinematic venture.

The Phoenician Scheme is writer/director Wes Anderson’s twelfth feature length film (thirteenth if you count his collection of Roald Dahl shorts to be one film), and it adequately captures the conundrum of his cinematic style.

Wes Anderson burst onto the scene in 1996 with Bottle Rocket, a wonderfully quirky movie that catapulted both Owen and Luke Wilson to stardom as they played goodhearted misfits in a rather rough and tumble world.

Anderson then gave us Rushmore (1998), another quirky tale about a young misfit sort-of-genius/idiot navigating an often times cruel world, which propelled Jason Schwartzman into the Hollywood discussion. Rushmore established Anderson’s narrative aesthetic which has a foundation of - children acting like adults, and adults acting like children.

Then came 2001’s The Royal Tenenbaums, arguably Anderson’s best and most successful film, which told the story of a family of…you guessed it…misfits…led by a lovable scoundrel of a father, masterfully played by Gene Hackman.

Post-Royal Tenenbaums, Anderson’s filmography has had some ups and downs.

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) and The Darjeerling Limited (2007), both were terribly underwhelming and showed Anderson floundering to find his filmmaking footing.

The charming animated film The Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) was a fun breath of fresh air, but it was followed by Moonrise Kingdom (2012), which was so mannered as to be creepy and ultimately was of little value.

Then came The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), which, along with The Royal Tenenbaums, is my favorite Anderson film. It is stylistically as cinematically eccentric as any Anderson film but unlike the others, at its core is a darkness that is dramatically powerful. It also helps that, like The Royal Tenenbaums with Gene Hackman, The Grand Budapest Hotel has Ralph Fiennes giving a glorious performance at its center.

Unfortunately, after the epic heights of The Grand Budapest Hotel, Anderson learned the wrong lessons and instead of delving deeply into some dramatic darkness, he instead eschewed all drama in favor of a cornucopia of aggressive whimsy.

The French Dispatch (2021) and Asteroid City (2023) are perfect examples of this now cemented Anderson aesthetic. They are beautifully shot films which boast extraordinary production design, but that feature such copious amounts of twee that they end up being quite exquisite, but ultimately empty, cinematic exercises.

The same is true of the collection of Roald Dahl shorts that Anderson made for Netflix. Those films follow this same formula of cinematic saccharine, but they are much more digestible because they are short films.

In feature length, Anderson’s formula full of twee feels like a meal consisting solely of candy, entirely empty calories resulting in a dreadfully painful toothache.

The biggest issue with Anderson’s newest venture, The Phoenician Scheme (and with most everything post-The Grand Budapest Hotel), is that when Anderson uses contrived characters in real world settings – as he does in Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums, it can be very compelling and comedic, but when he uses contrived characters in cartoonish (but beautifully staged) settings, as he does in his recent era, it makes for tedious-to-the-point-of-tortuous amounts of twee.

The plot of The Phoenician Scheme revolves around Zsa Zsa Korda (Benicio del Toro) – one of Anderson’s many charming rogue male leads. Korda is…unsurprisingly…very peculiar. He is a mogul and a menace (dare I say it…Trumpian) – and the target of multiple assassination attempts which prompt him to have visions of meeting God. He’s also a father…but not a good one – think Royal Tenenbaum with more money.

The movie follows Korda as he tries, along with his longtime estranged, soon-to-be-nun, daughter Liesl (Mia Threapleton), and his assistant Bjorn (Michael Cera), to save a gigantic business deal to build a morally monstrous public works project– called The Phoenician Scheme.

The plot is really beside the point…as is the dialogue. The film is, like the rest of late-period Anderson films, a contrived exercise, like a diorama, filled to the brim with quirks and twee.

The performances are what they are. Del Toro makes for a reasonably watchable lead, and Mia Threapleton – who I did not know until this very moment is Kate Winslet’s daughter, is admittedly captivating as Liesl.

Surprisingly, Michael Cera, who you’d think would be the most Wes Anderson actor of them all, is actually a bit out of synch in the film.

The appearances of Bryan Cranston, Tom Hanks, Scarlett Johansson, Jeffrey Wright, Riz Ahmed, Benedict Cumberbatch and Rupert Friend in small roles are all pretty forgettable if not a little bit grating.

The Phoenician Scheme, which is currently streaming on Peacock, runs for an hour and forty minutes and not once during that entire run time did I give even half of a shit about any of the characters on screen or about what would happen to them or even around them.

Does The Phoenician Scheme look fantastic? Yes, it most certainly does as the cinematography (by Bruno Delbonnel) and production design are phenomenal.

Is the acting in The Phoenician Scheme good? Meh. It’s fine for what it is – a very mannered performance style that seems like it is more fun to do than to witness.

Is The Phoenician Scheme a good movie and worth watching? No, not really. It’s difficult to say that Anderson’s late period films are bad because they are so exquisitely crafted – but that craft often overwhelms the movies and renders them – if not undigestible, then at least unpalatable.

Wes Anderson is definitely an acquired taste, and though I acquired it early in his career, it seems in his recent era I have lost my taste for it as it’s all just a bit too sweet for my cinematic palate.

Anderson is undeniably a remarkable stylist, but his exquisite aesthetic has evolved to where it now overwhelms, so much so that his films are rendered emotionally antiseptic. At this point I feel absolutely nothing watching Anderson’s films…not joy, not happiness, not anger, not awe, not even interest.

So, if you want to see some stylish, silly cinematic musings then I recommend you go to Peacock and watch the beautiful but vapid The Phoenician Scheme.

If you’re looking for something more hearty…then you best go elsewhere because The Phoenician Scheme isn’t for you…just like it wasn’t for me.

©2025