LISTERS (A-minus) - A hat tip to SlashFilm for alerting us to this DIY documentary by a couple of stoners who decided to go birdwatching for a year and compete for the honor of spotting the most birds in 2024. It is a no-budget gem and a hoot from start to finish.
Owen Reiser (above right) is the man behind the camera, handling a lot of narration. Quentin Reiser, rockin' a porn 'stache and bed-head mullet, is the engaging star of the show. They set out in a 2010 Kia Sedona minivan, tricked out with a bunk-bed so they don't need hotel rooms, and will cover most of the country over 12 months. They have a special affinity for Cracker Barrel, which allows them to park overnight in
their lots without having to buy a meal, even while, on one occasion, they observe a body being removed from the restaurant
("From the grits to the gallows," the boys solemnly observe).
The Reisers are pretty sharp guys (they are quick studies when it comes to identifying birds by sight and sound), but they like to play goofy for the camera. They respect the birding world for the most part, though they do have a little fun at the expense of those who might take it a little too seriously. They sit at the feet of the GOATS among the Big birders, David and Tammy McQuade, whose armchair reminiscences are entertaining. But make no mistake: the brothers are here to amuse us. Call it "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 3."
Everything that could pass through the mind of a 12-year-old boy is fair game here. The brothers' Beavis and Butt-head banter shows an appreciation for the classics, like "Thrasher? I barely know 'er." They observe that calling a bird a dickcissel sounds like a putdown (especially when you pronounce it "dicksissy"). A fellow traveler pens an ode to "tits, cocks, suckers and boobies." The brothers refer to a trogon as a "trojan." When they spot a sandpiper they note, "That thing was pipin' sand all day!" At times, the comments approach the sublime; one bird is described as "holding its wings like theater kids hold their arms."
The visuals are striking throughout. It's not clear whether all the wonderful bird visuals were taken by them (the credits list a host of "contributers" and five camcorder operators), but the cinematography is stunning at times, on a par with the best nature documentaries. Along the way, the brothers roll out crude but effective graphics. They have jaunty descriptive identifiers for the people they run across, like "looks kinda
Amish"; when they incorporate their hockey buddies into a scene, one of them is ID'd by his goals-against stats. They have a serious side, too, though. They conduct investigative journalism into birders who have cheated
and padded their counts. (There is an honor system among the bird-counting "listers" of the title.) They distort voices and blur out faces; at one
point, they playfully blur out the face of a dog. The mix of absurdism and earnestness is deeply charming.
The Reisers develop an appreciation for the avian heroes of nature. They discuss how the sound of the common nighthawk reminds them of soccer practice as kids. Clocking a particular striking bird in the wild, one of them notes: "I'd run through a brick wall for that bird." They explore the idea that the use of phone apps and the intense competition might kill the true spirit of birding. One talking head, Hannah Toutonghi, serves as a sort of zen conscience of the film through discussions about the ethical nature of birding.
It is all entertaining and informative, silly and thought-provoking. It very likely is the best film of 2025 that you've never heard of.
PEACHES GOES BANANAS (C+) - The passionate dance-punk artist Peaches gets the documentary treatment here as she approaches 60, still sexually daring and provocative. The musician who named an album Fatherfucker and whose big hit was titled "Fuck the Pain Away" has barely lost a step, but this film does only glancing justice to her music and career.
The cameras mostly follow her along a tour of Europe in recent years. But we get little live audio, as if the filmmakers did not have the budget or technology to produce decent concert footage. Much of the dialogue consists of voice-overs, disembodied words that occasionally sync with the images but too often distract. It's a shame, because her body-positive message and the enthusiasm of her fans seem to make for fun concerts.
French director Marie Losier follows her back home, too, as we meet the parents of the artist born Merrill Nisker in Toronto, and we join visits with her sister, Suri, who suffered from multiple sclerosis. The film, thus, is more of a pastiche, an avant-garde project in its own right. It helps to be a fan (I'm a casual one, mostly from 20 years ago), and if you're not aware of Peaches' music, this one might be tough to get traction on.
ZEF: THE STORY OF DIE ANTWOORD (B-minus) - This is really nothing more than a glorified expansions of art videos by the South African rap-rave band Die Antwoord, supplemented with interviews with the couple, allowing them to whitewash their history.
Music-video producer Jon Day and animator Jack Shih curate this collection of videos and talking-head interviews with Ninja and his wife, Yolandi Visser, who give off bizarre avant-garde vibes more than a decade after breaking big with viral YouTube videos featuring their eccentric music and video styles. He is tall and angular, tattooed and intense; she is cute and mouse-voiced, with a winnowing glare. Their child, Sixteen, a young adult, has been a prop in their videos and her doe-eyed demeanor captivates in interviews separate from her parents.
We don't hear any of the negative assertions that have dogged the band -- though there is a mild reference to accusations of homophobia, but their default response is to just point to their DJ, Hi-Tek, who is gay, and shrug it off. Photographer Roger Ballen, a longtime collaborator, shows up to support two of his favorite visual artists.
You just know there is much more to the stories here -- I mean, what was up with their adoption of a troubled 9-year-old, who would later allege trauma from being exposed to sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll? How authentic is their cultural affinity for zef culture among lower-class Afrikaners? Their songs can be catchy, but is this mostly style over substance, the provocations of a failed rapper who found his mousy muse?
Regardless, the images can be quite compelling at times, and their hysterical rave-ups can be quite catchy. There's just something lurid about participating in a deep dive into the couple's lifestyle.
BONUS TRACKS
We previously linked to "Bag It" from Peaches. Here is her signature song, "Fuck the Pain Away":
"Tombstone, Baby" live in Los Angeles:
The most representative Die Antwoord song and video, "Fatty Boom Boom" (starts at 1:45):
In just a snippet, the Die Antwoord doc takes a break from the hectic and slips in this trippy interlude from Rodriguez, "I Wonder":
From the closing credits of "Zef," the hallucinatory "Age of Illusion" (featuring their daughter, Sixteen):
COVER-UP (B+) - Laura Poitras makes a pilgrimage to the knee of the granddaddy of investigative journalists, Seymour Hersh, and he curmudgeonly sits for her camera and shares stories, from his breakthrough reporting on the atrocities in Vietnam to his late-career missteps.
The first third of the documentary is devoted to the defining story of Hersh's career: his unmasking of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, orchestrated by Lt. William Calley. It is bookended with what is essentially the capstone to his career, his exposing of the torture at Abu Ghraib in Iraq two decades ago for the New Yorker. In between, Poitras seeks to dig beneath the stoic exterior of a man who guards his privacy as well as he protects his sources. (He also gets his due for his efforts, competing against Woodward and Bernstein, to break his share of Watergate stories for the New York Times.)
Poitras ("Citizenfour," "All the Beauty and the Bloodshed"), working with co-director Mark Obenhaus, borrows Errol Morris' tactics and plants her camera firmly in front of Hersh, and she places another one above him, sneaking glimpses at his archived notes. At one point she gets him to break down and threaten to halt the proceedings over her invasive questioning. She mixes in old clips of Hersh interviews and pieces it all together neatly.
Hersh comes off as a diehard soldier devoted to policing abuses of power. His personality is a bit of a tough nut to crack (his take on his gruff parents speaks volumes), but Poitras does an admirable job of picking at an old warhorse's brain and heart.
THE ALABAMA SOLUTION (A-minus) - Andrew Jarecki ("Capturing the Friedmans," "The Jinx") curates footage from smuggled cell phones to show the horrific conditions in Alabama's state penal system, in an echo of brother Eugene Jarecki's 2013 prison expose "The House I Live In." If you're not numb by now, you'll be shocked and appalled at the treatment of human beings in the deep south.
The scenes in the detention facilities -- blood, standing water, rats, drugged and mentally ill inmates -- might remind you of Geraldo Rivera's harrowing reports from mental institutions in the 1970s or the POW scenes in "The Deer Hunter." Jarecki focuses on a few inmates who communicate through video chats via smuggled smart phones. Robert Earl (aka Kinetik Justice) has done 20 years, five in solitary confinement, and he is an articulate spokesman for the rights of inmates. Melvin Ray is a jailhouse lawyer desperately trying to get the federal government to intervene. As he notes, it has always taken the feds to fix Alabama's ills, ever since Reconstruction; this time, the state is better equipped to fight off the U.S. Justice Department.
Key events ratchet up the drama. A mother pushes for answers after her son is brutally beaten to death, almost certainly under false pretenses. We see clips of the smug guard who did the killing, as he smirks through his deposition. We watch the mother, who is on oxygen, struggle to catch her breath and report the latest update after returning from a meeting with impotent prosecutors. The family's lawyer takes on the Sisyphean task of seeking justice; a key witness to the killing fears for his life.
Prisoners go on strike, withholding their free labor; that provokes a brutal crackdown meant to starve the men into submission. Earl is beaten and placed in solitary confinement; he takes video of rats swimming in his toilet. This is the belly of the beast. And Jarecki's camera refuses to blink or make these medieval conditions appear more palatable than they are.
A SAVAGE ART (B-minus) - One of the most celebrated political cartoonists of the modern era gets his due with this documentary subtitled "The Life & Cartoons of Pat Oliphant." It's mostly a hagiography -- Oliphant's daughter is an executive producer, and his son is essentially the narrator -- but the artist's powerful work pierces the platitudes.
A trio of filmmakers cobble together archival footage and clips of old interviews over the years with Oliphant, an Australian native who came to the United States in 1964, in his late 20s, to take over as political cartoonist at the Denver Post, where he won a Pulitzer Prize within three years. (He would later denounce the honor.) In the '70s he moved to the Washington Star, where his profile was heightened considerably in the nation's capital.
The documentary can be a little hard to follow at times, as it jumps back and forth in time and grabs snippets of interviews of Oliphant from a variety of sources. It would help, too, if the filmmakers gave the cartoons more time on screen and room to breathe. As it is, the film stands as a reminder of how potent and raw Oliphant's work could be. One scathing attack on the Catholic church is captured in an image of salivating priests chasing a gaggle of frightened children, withe caption, "The running of the altar boys." The origin of Oliphant's mascot, a penguin named Punk who offered pithy comments from the corner of the panel, is explained, and we get a pretty good sense of the artist's irascibility through the years.
The final third confronts both the decline of newspapers and political cartoons and the physical decline of Oliphant, now 90 and nearly blind, who was a respected painter and sculptor, as well, in his later years (in Santa Fe, N.M.). This all could have been just as insightful as an hour-long PBS special, though the in-depth history of cartooning was appreciated, and it certainly did not need his children papering over their father's personal shortcomings (including two divorces). And it could have let more of the work tell the story. Credit is due for the footage of New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, a Washington Star colleague back in the day, paying tribute to Oliphant with saucy memories delivered at a dinner in his honor.
WHEN FALL IS COMING (B) - I can't think of anyone who could pull off this slight, odd narrative -- about a grandmother's unhealthy compulsion to be with her grandson -- anywhere near as well as master storyteller Francois Ozon.
Helene Vincent is endlessly charming as Michelle, a stylish grandmother who may or may not be having cognition issues. She picks mushrooms with her dear friend Marie-Claude (Josiane Balasko) and ends up poisoning her own daughter, Valerie (Ludivine Sagnier), who thinks it might have been an intentional act so that Michelle could get more time with Valerie's adolescent son, Lucas (a sharp Garlan Erlos). Eventually something does happen to Valerie (and Michelle might have something to do with that), and Lucas comes to live with Michelle.
Meantime, Michelle extends kindness -- perhaps an unhealthy amount -- to Marie-Claude's ex-con adult son Vincent (a menacing but amusing Pierre Lottin). Helene Vincent shoulders the production like the old pro she is. Michelle's friendship with Marie-Claude (who is unhappy and unhealthy) is sweet, and her generosity -- if that's truly what it is -- is admirable. A couple of narrative zags keep the viewer guessing until the end.
This probably tracks most with Ozon's "In the House," another shaggy-dog story that meanders with some real and perceived twists. It also feels compatible with a recent Ozon film, "Everything Went Fine," which also dealt with death and family relations. Here he crafts a satisfying low-key thriller.
OTHER PEOPLE'S CHILDREN (2023) (C) - Tripping over the line between legitimate drama and Hallmark shmaltz, Rebecca Zlotowski turns in an earnest examination of a woman with a loudly ticking biological clock who seeks true love with a hunk who has a 4-year-old daughter. Will they make it? Will they make their own baby?
Virginie Efira (who played a woman with two families in "Madeleine Collins") stars as Rachel, a high school teacher who finds her dream guy in ruggedly handsome Ali (Roschdy Zem), who is separated from his wife and shares custody of little Leila. Zlotowski mixes dewy eyed romance and gauzy cinematography (the Eiffel Tower is photographed reverently) with generous "Red Shoes Diary" nudity and R-rated lovemaking.
Rachel falls hard not just for Ali but also for Leila. At school Rachel fends off a randy co-worker and nurtures a troubled student who could be the son she never had. Elsewhere, she bonds with her sister over the continued mourning for their mother, who died when they were little. Meantime, Rachel still must compete with Leila's mopey mother (a miscast 50-year-old Chiara Mastroianni). There is also a dying mother of one of Leila's classmates to ratchet up the melodrama.
The second half descends into soap-opera territory, and the drawn-out theatrics expose Efira's limitations as a leading actress beyond looking good in a shortie nightshirt. (We previously described her as bland, in a Kim Cattrall way.) A heartfelt epilogue helps, but many won't make it to that ending unless they can find a way to care about where all these folks end up.
BONUS TRACK
The trailer for "When Fall Is Coming":
In "Other People's Children," Rachel and Ali cement their affair to Dave von Ronk's "Cocaine Blues" ("... all around my brain"):
A couple of recent releases give a shout out to the 1970s:
THE MASTERMIND (B) - Master storyteller Kelly Reichardt turns in a serviceable but disappointing drama as she winds the clock back to 1970 for another laconic character study. She is saddled here with Josh O'Connor, who doesn't bring much to the role of a slacker who helms a motley crew of petty criminals to knock off a local art museum.
It has been about a decade since Reichardt's masterpiece, "Certain Women," and about 15 years since her pristine period piece, a pioneer-era western, "Meek's Cutoff." Her last outing, 2023's "Showing Up," was "as slow and uneventful as a movie can be," and "The Mastermind" might deepen the ruts forming under her wagon wheels. She has always been a patient filmmaker who composes in a minor key, but she needs a tad more inspiration to keep her latest one pumping.
O'Connor's James Blaine Mooney has parents with money, and his mother (Hope Davis) thinks she is writing checks to further his architectural career, which has actually stalled. Instead, he uses the money to promise payoffs to his bungling gang, and they pull off a half-assed heist. The robbery isn't the hard part though; it's the stashing and fencing of the loot that becomes the sticky wicket.
It is not like Reichardt to have so much trouble pulling together and maintaining a compelling narrative. She wastes Alana Haim ("Licorice Pizza") in the role of James' doting wife. The movie lights up in the final reel when James visits old friends who are part of the Vietnam War resisters' underground, and a pair of heavyweights jolt the movie back to life, briefly. Gaby Hoffman and John Magaro mold complicated characters in a matter of about 10 minutes, serving only to remind us that the rest of the cast cannot do the same across the 110-minute running time.
Most egregiously, though, Reichardt scores the buildup to the caper and the heist itself to loud, skronking, jittery jazz music. It is relentless, sometimes drowning out dialogue. As a dramatic device, it is too derivative to be effective. "Rififi" this ain't. (Composer Rob Mazurek, in his first film, must share the blame.) This one is an interesting exercise but not an entirely successful one.
INSPECTOR IKE (2020) (B) - Sometimes a cheesy idea and a script full of silly bits is all you need. Here a talented cast of well-trained comedians send up the "NBC Sunday Mystery Movie," which once blessed us with the likes of "Columbo," "McCloud" and "McMillan & Wife."
Ikechukwu Ufomadu co-wrote the script with director Graham Mason and stars in the title role, an unflappable old-school detective who also likes to share a food recipe during each episode of this faux show. (He also has a hacky signature move at the climax of each case -- presenting a set of handcuffs to the ultimate perpetrator in creative ways.) In this "episode," we know who the killer is from the start; it's just a matter of the watching the bumbling culprit -- an understudy knocking off the lead in a male version of "Annie" called "Mannie" -- tighten his own noose.
The humor owes a debt to "Police Squad," which spoofed the genre in 1982 (and led to the "Naked Gun" movies). The sight gags are easier to pull off if you are pretending it's the low-fi early '70s and your only competition in the satire field are the skits on "The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour." The decade and its shlocky shows are easy targets, and the crew is given a wide berth to commit broad slapstick.
This borrows funny folks (and a sense of humor) from the worlds of the TV shows "Search Party," "Los Espookys" and "Fantasmas," including Ana Fabrega as a doltish police officer; John Early as the victim; Aparna Nancherla as a leader of the troupe; and Matt Barats as Harry, the goofball murderer. They all revolve around Ufomadu's deadpan zen master, and their loose-limbed sketch-comedy skills make for low-key fun.
BONUS TRACK
Let's do a ranking of Kelly Reichardt's films from most to least favorite:
1. Certain Women (2016) 2. Old Joy (2006) 3. Meek's Cutoff (2011) 4. Wendy & Lucy (2008) 5. First Cow (2020) 6. River of Grass (1995) 7. Night Moves (2014) 8. The Mastermind (2025) 9. Showing Up (2023)
THE NEW YORKER AT 100 (B) - There is something mildly disappointing about a perfectly fine but ordinary documentary about the legendary New Yorker magazine as it turns 100. It's like taking a picture of the Grand Canyon; you just can't replicate it in two dimensions.
Director Marshall Curry's film is not exactly fawning, but it is certainly deferential. It stands in awe of everything the highbrow magazine has ever done. But it hits a lot of the high notes as it plays out like a greatest-hits album from a classic-rock band. There are the legends: John Hersey's Hiroshima piece; Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring," James Baldwin's "Letter From a Region in My Mind."
Staffers espouse gratitude for the steady guidance from the editor's office over the years. Kalefeh Sanneh says he is appreciative that the open-minded readership is "willing to go wherever you take them." We watch pen-and-notebook journalists in action -- John Lee Anderson abroad; Nick Paumgarten on the streets of the city; and Rachel Syme in a restaurant interviewing Carol Burnett. We spend time with the "vaunted" fact-checkers; they even fact-check the cartoons. We watch staffers pick through the cartoon submissions for the week. The visual style is represented by art editor Francoise Mouly (above).
One staffer relishes the irony of a magazine, widely viewed as elitist, strictly enforcing house style that demands an accent aigu over the e in "elite" in print. Thoughtfully, author Chimamanda Ngozi-Adichie cautions about falling into the trap of liberal/academic guilt; she reasons that a dose of elitism is necessary during a time when anti-elitism is swamping the nation.
The talking heads are legion. Actors Molly Ringwald and Jesse Eisenberg swoon when recalling the thrill of getting published by the New Yorker. We glimpse eccentric legends like cartoonist Roz Chast and film critic Richard Brody, who, like many others, discuss their process and craft. Hilton Als is the wise veteran; the dogged Ronan Farrow is the relative newcomer. Tina Brown is on hand to analyze her stewardship in the 1990s, widely seen as modernizing the paper just in time to save it from the dustbind of fussy history.
The central character is current editor David Remnick, and there is a little too much of him, at times delving into some of his family life that just isn't interesting. But overall -- as it churns through the publication's 10 decades methodically -- this is a surprisingly comprehensive snapshot of a very good magazine that still cares week in and week out. As its jam-packed weekly issues have proven in the past year, the New Yorker at 100 still has impressive game.
THE MERCHANTS OF JOY (B+) - This bright documentary is both joyous and insightful, as it delves into the hustle and bustle of small-business operators who sell Christmas trees on the streets of New York City.
Director Celia Aniskovich (riffing on a magazine article by Owen Long) frames the narrative as a tale of "five families" -- and her nod to organized crime is not inapt; the cutthroat practices can be mob-like at times, and there are several references to actual mafia infiltration of the sourcing of trees from places as disparate as Vermont and Oregon. It's a business where 11 months of prep inform five weeks of street-smart retailing. The entrepreneurs jockey for key locations and then supervise an army of seasonal workers, some of whom sleep in wooden sheds tucked behind the tree stands.
The business owners are all engaging. There is George, a big lug who could have played Bobby Baccalieri on "The Sopranos." He is looking for love as well as December profit. Heather (the NYC Tree Lady), a decade into recovery, likes to hire alcoholics and addicts as a way to help them get straight. Her soft touch with a homeless man discovered sleeping in her shed exemplifies her relentlessly upbeat attitude. Unseen but heard in telephone recordings is Kevin Hammer, a proverbial and mythological bigfoot on the block who talks New Yawk tough and shows little patience for playing kumbaya with the others.
Two families are passing the torch between generations. George and Jane, after 50 years, are ready to fully hand off to daughter Ciree, who has been running the operation for a while now. And then there is Greg (above), whose son, dubbed "Little" Greg (despite towering over his dad), dropped out of college and is taking over for his aging dad. The 60-something father is stout and has a white beard (and a jolly demeanor) and thus plays the role of Santa Claus at events. It's all a little too ho-ho-ho for my tastes, and the production values smack of a reality TV show competition.
However, Aniskovich is blessed with made-for-TV characters. Part of the fun is learning the process, from tree farming to setting up the stands to making the sales, rain or shine, snow or no. She even has a little twist at the end when drama enters the life of one of the families. All the characters are a joy to hang out with.
BONUS TRACK
"Merchants of Joy" reaches off the grid for its Christmas songs. That includes "Christmas Wrapping" by the Waitresses:
I took on the 24-hour challenge of seeing the latest epic films by two celebrated directors (starring two generational acting talents) and filing this review -- and nearly made it ...
ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER (B-minus) - Paul Thomas Anderson caught lightning more than a decade ago adapting Thomas Pynchon's "Inherent Vice." He tries to duplicate his luck here, but rather than stick with the original story, this movie is merely "inspired by" Pynchon's novel Vineland.
Anderson takes what was an interesting idea of Pynchon's from the 1980s -- the life of '60s revolutionaries who have gone underground -- and transports it to more modern days (albeit an era that still has pay phones), and he injects a repulsive storyline involving militant immigration jackboots and white supremacists, which are not mutually exclusive clubs. The gang of cretins is led by a character actually named Lockjaw and played hideously to the rafters by Sean Penn in what is destined to be immortalized as a classic crossword-puzzle definition of a "ham."
This is the umpteenth movie in which the old racist scum has the hots for black women, and Anderson serves up Teyana Taylor as the prize sex object. She plays Perfidia Beverly Hills, who gets a weird sexual charge out of freeing detained immigrants and robbing banks. Taylor (compelling in "A Thousand and One") gets to fire an automatic weapon while exposing her overripe pregnant belly. What she does not get to do is develop this character, who abandons her child and rats out her co-conspirators when caught by Lockjaw.
Perfidia goes into witness protection and leaves the child with the baby daddy, played by Leonardo DiCaprio. Father and daughter get new identities and a relocation to California, and 16 years later he's Bob, a stoner who can't remember the code words for the radical group that still exists underground. His 16-year-old daughter, Willa (Chase Infiniti, above), will turn out to have movie-super-hero skills like escaping from murderers and excelling behind the wheel as if she stole it from a car commercial. (It's the kind of movie where the climactic scene involves three vehicles on a highway where no other car will ever come along, miraculously. Did the $150 million-plus budget run out of gas or extras?)
DiCaprio flashes moments of brilliance, but the mayhem keeps interrupting and forcing him to run around a lot, not unlike the characters in 2021's "Licorice Pizza." (It's also the kind of movie where Bob can literally fall off of a roof, get up and escape his pursuers, miraculously.) The white supremacists are rendered as cartoon villains, who gather in a wood-paneled mansion and worship "St. Nick."
This collage of chaos sprawls across 2 hours and 42 minutes. By the second half, it is nothing more than a glorified episode of "The Rockford Files" (by way of Quentin Tarantino). Penn, ridiculously swole here, infuses his character with physical tics (complete with a distinctive gait) that might immediately take you out of the movie, far too aware that the masterful actor is performing. (He, too, comes off as super-human, walking away from an attack that would obliterate mere mortals. Miraculously.)
Only Benicio del Toro acquits himself here, in a minor role as an immigrant-protecting sensei; his subtle mannerisms during a DUI traffic stop run rings around the hysterical mugging of DiCaprio and Penn. Just as we recently realized that we were over Josh Brolin ("Wake Up Dead Man"), it is apparent that Sean Penn is well past his sell-by date. Meantime, the talents of Keke Palmer and Alana Haim are just wasted.
"One Battle After Another" is presumably intended to mock and satirize the military-industrial complex and its white nationalist agenda. But Anderson merely fetishizes that evil mind-set while also glorifying the violence of the radicals. (Willa will also gets to show off her skills with an automatic weapon.) I have very little bandwidth left for depictions -- positive or negative -- of Stephen Miller's goon squads, or enlightened Hollywood's useful idiots who purport to skewer the powers that be.
Anderson's film is at times clever, occasionally enlightening, but mostly annoying, stuck in a timeless limbo. The man who gave us pulpy but thoughtful fare like "Boogie Nights," "Magnolia" and "Punch-Drunk Love" (all in a row) is turning into another big-budget hack. The organized chaos that somehow jelled in "Inherent Vice" never coheres in this follow-up run at Pynchon's world.
MARTY SUPREME (Incomplete) - I've not been a fan of the Safdie brothers -- "Uncut Gems" was "messy, overlong," and "Good Time" was "macho bunk" -- but they went their separate ways this year, and Josh Safdie's "Marty Supreme," starring a manic Timothee Chalamet, looked like a fun ride. I made it through 85 of its 150 minutes, exasperated and exhausted from the $7 New Year's Day matinee.
As we noted during "Uncut Gems," Safdie simply tries to cram too much into this movie, in which Chalamet plays a ping-pong wunderkind in 1950s New York but mostly spends his time as a broke grifter scamming his employer/uncle, his married girlfriend (whom he apparently impregnated), and a businessman's wife, a faded 1930s starlet played by Gwyneth Paltrow, who is the only cast member who adds a human dimension to a character.
Chalamet is a whirlwind as the smarmy, fast-talking bullshit artist Marty Mauser. He is often sweaty and frantic, and not just in his ping-pong scenes. He is scrawny, with a wispy mustache, and it is difficult to believe throughout that he can swindle the Ritz in London for a royal suite or that his Lord Fauntleroy banter would work on Paltrow's classy dame. The whole thing, despite Chalamet's considerable talents, is a tough sell.
"Marty Supreme" is also dizzyingly violent, with hectic, in-your-face camera work that comes off like the work of Scorsese or Tarantino on even more cocaine. The middle hour goes down multiple rabbit holes, and each time Marty somehow, improbably never gets his ass seriously kicked. The ping-pong virtually disappears for a good chunk of the film. (Marty loses a world championship at the beginning of the film and prepares to avenge that loss the following year in Tokyo, but he does absolutely no training or practice in advance of taking on the world champ. "Rocky" this is not.)
Safdie simply forgot to tell a cohesive story with a sympathetic lead character. At the 85-minute mark, my senses were fully assaulted ('80s new-wave music blares, out of context, on the soundtrack), and I had little interest in finding out what happens to this asshole. I'll end by handing it off to a few reviewers who did gut it out until the end:
William Bibbiani, The Wrap: "'Marty Supreme' ... has no idea how to
conclude while saying something — anything — about Marty, his journey or
anything else. ... There’s no dramatic throughline that tracks, just desperation and an
incongruous conclusion that doesn’t organically follow that despair. ... It observes the destruction in Marty’s wake and shrugs, not because it’s
actually sympathetic, but because we’re supposed to be won over by his
all-American gumption in spite of his carnage."
Stephanie Zacharek, Time: "It’s about as brash and peripatetic as Safdie’s last feature, 2019’s Uncut Gems, ... but its undertones are nastier, and it’s somehow even more exhausting. ... He’s supposed to be a complex character, but maybe he’s just an unbearable one. ... For Safdie, a movie seems to be just an excuse for a million and one
digressions and distractions; he’ll throw anything at the wall to see if
it sticks. ... Amorality can be fun, but Marty Supreme has no emotional
core -- though it does try to grab us in its final minutes, when Marty is
unrealistically redeemed in a moment of mawkish sentimentality."
Roger Moore, Movie Nation: "Safdie strains to keep 'Marty Supreme' moving at an exhausting sprint
for its excessive, indulgent two and a half hours. He can’t. Even
Chalamet needs a breather. ... But in Safdie’s film, all this expended on-screen energy and effort isn’t edifying or rewarding. It’s just exhausting."
BONUS TRACKS
A clever little nugget in "One Battle" reveals that the hold music for the revolutionaries' secret phone network is Gil Scott-Heron's "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," the lyrics of which also furnish some of the secret counter-signs memorized by the members:
A rather obvious choice for "Battle's" closing credits is Tom Petty's "American Girl":
In our neck of the woods, we don't get all of the year's releases made available to us by December 31st. We will finalize our best-of in a month or so. Watch this space. For now, here is a list of 2025 releases so far that have scored a B+ or higher and will compete for the top spot.
SONG SUNG BLUE (A-minus) - For the number of tragedies that occur in this film -- about a husband and wife performing in a Neil Diamond tribute band -- it is tough to call it the feel-good movie of the holiday season. But what a joyful experience it was at the cineplex to behold the fervor that Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson brought to the story of a Wisconsin couple chasing their dreams in the 1990s.
Riffing on a real-life tale (and a 2008 documentary of the same name), Jackman plays Mike "Lightning" Sardina, a natural performer who jams in tribute bands but longs to front his own act. He is 20 years into recovery for alcohol addiction, and writer-director Craig Brewer provides a memorable introduction to the character via the AA meeting process (with a bookend to close the movie). Mike stumbles on the idea of being a Neil Diamond "interpreter," and he meets and falls for Patsy Cline interpreter Claire. He dubs them Lighting and Thunder, and they start to gain a following around the Milwaukee area.
Nothing is easy for them. They are divorced parents. (In fact, the kids are one of the best parts of the movie, especially Ella Anderson as Claire's daughter, Rachel.) Money is always tight. Mike, a Vietnam veteran, has a congenital heart condition; Claire suffers an accident that sends her into a spiral of depression and threatens their career.
With Jackman and Hudson all in, you might not care that the proceedings have a whiff of Hallmark to them at times. The actors sing Diamond's songs, and the movie resounds with Diamond's earnest ballads and jangly rockers. At times I sang along. I laughed, I cried. (I can't remember the last time I heard so many sniffles from a crowd -- and it wasn't just the old ladies.) It helps to have an appreciation for "Cherry Cherry," "Cracklin' Rosie," and "I'm a Believer," and tolerance for "I Am I Said" and, yes, "Sweet Caroline." There is a wonderful running gag about Mike's insistence on opening each set with the obscure Arabic-accented deep cut "Soolaimon." Eddie Vedder was a fan and had them open for Pearl Jam.
Jackman and Hudson are backed by a fine cast of character actors, including Michael Imperioli (as a Buddy Holly impersonator), Fisher Stevens, and an absolutely over-the-top Jim Belushi. Brewer has a tangible appreciation for quirky denizens of karaoke clubs and the public's yen for the classic radio hits of their youth. He captures the working-class grit of the characters -- down to the dirt under the fingernails of Mike, who is a mechanic by trade, and Claire's very Wisconsin accent (a tad overdone at times by Hudson).
Brewer wrote the script with Greg Kohs, who helmed the documentary 17 years ago. Whether you like his movies or not, you have to admit that Brewer knows how to put a film together. He broke through 20 years ago with "Hustle & Flow" and "Black Snake Moan," and he recently acquitted himself well with "Dolemite Is My Name." Here he whips his two stars toward passionate performances -- both as actors themselves and the energy of the characters they play.
I don't really need to know anything about the real Mike and Claire in order to appreciate "Song Sung Blue." I'm sure much is made up and twisted around to make it palatable to the masses. That's the point. It's a movie, fiction. It's 133 minutes of old-fashioned entertainment, and it couldn't have arrived at a better time.
JAY KELLY (C) - The decline and fall of Noah Baumbach continues. At this point, he is at the hobnobbing-with-George-Clooney stage of his flirtation with the Hollywood in-crowd. This profile of a movie star who wakes up at 60 and realizes that he is isolated from friends and family is trite, cloying and painfully twee.
Maybe it's the curse of his ex, Jennifer Jason Leigh, but ever since Baumbach took up with Mumblecore's ur-gal Greta Gerwig, he has succeeded with "Frances Ha" and not much else. He was revived in 2019 by "Marriage Story," but since then he has whiffed on a Don DeLillo interpretation; flopped magnificently by co-writing "Barbie" with Gerwig; and now he masturbates for 2 hours 12 minutes with "Jay Kelly," a movie that isn't even good enough to be criticized as derivative.
Clooney plays a thinly veiled version of himself -- suave, charming, talented, faux self-effacing -- as he hopscotches the world battling a late-in-life crisis involving his grown daughters, his loyal manager and his fawning entourage. He seems blind to the true extent of his luck-of-the-draw, and though on the brink of a valedictory tribute from the Italian film industry, he considers pulling the plug on the whole celebrity circus. Even so, he swans in crisp couture suit jackets, slums with his fans, and gets all puppy-eyed as he seeks belated approval from his daughters. (Riley Keough is thoroughly wasted as one of them.) All the while, he is adored and fussed over by rich Italian eccentrics. (Alba Rohrwacher is forced to demean herself as a fawning fan. She edges out a criminally mistreated Laura Dern in that regard.)
Jay actually wanders back to his past, George Bailey-like, wistfully observing his most memorable moments, tearing up at these mundane, sepia-toned dalliances. Yes, we've seen this all before, ad nauseam. This is Fellini for Dummies. It is Bargain-Basement Bogdanovich. (The end credits refer to the film, preciously, as a "Noah Baumbach picture.") Running gags and wisecracks get beaten into the ground. (There must be a dozen references to Jay insisting on a slice of cheesecake in his regular rider, even though he claims he never liked cheesecake. It was unfunny the first time.) And speaking of hang-dogs, Adam Sandler (from Baumbach's "The Meyerowitz Stories") hams it up as Jay's mensch of a manager, going around affectionately calling people "puppy" and ironically wearing a neckerchief simply as a glaring plot invention that fails to pay off in the end.
The film is full of cutesy touches by Baumbach that threaten to rot your teeth they are so treacly. Gerwig's steep decline continues in the role of Sandler's hectoring, scatter-brained wife, featured exclusively through phone calls involving their kids, which is as interesting as it is in real life when parents think their children are fascinating subjects of discussion. In my "Barbie" review, I predicted that Baumbach and Gerwig might "become the beloved it-couple in front-row seats at
awards shows, head-nodding toward Wes Anderson in the back." We're getting closer.
It has been 20 years since "The Squid and the Whale" and 15 since "Greenberg." Like Jay Kelly, Baumbach had a great run. Maybe, like Jay, Baumbach is surrounded by sycophants who don't want to rock the boat and tell him to snap out of his fantasy world.
BONUS TRACKS
I'm pretty sure this was the first time I danced in the aisles to a song over the closing credits of a movie. The hymn "Holly Holy":
Mike and Claire initially rehearse to a rollicking version of "Cherry Cherry," celebrating that giddy piano riff. Here is Diamond in the mid-'90s working it out on David Letterman's show:
The very first episode of MTV's "Unplugged," when it was hosted by Jules Shear, put together a hootenanny circle to perform Diamond's composition "I'm a Believer," which had been a hit for the Monkees:
"Song Sung Blue" was our annual Christmas Day outing. For the record, here is our full list from previous years,
in order of preference, updated:
THIS IS SPINAL TAP (1984) (A) - I might as well just link to the "quotes" section of IMDb for the pioneering mockumentary. While the novelty has long worn off, this goof on pompous British metal bands still has a hit rate that is unmatched.
The film often is barely more than a series of divinely inspired comedy sketches, many with punchlines you can still quote 40 years later. "Well, it's one louder." "This piece is called 'Lick My Love Pump.'" "No, we're not gonna fucking do Stonehenge!" "What's wrong with being sexy?" "Mime is money." "I shouldn't talk, though, I'm getting a little shaggy myself." "We've got armadillos in our trousers." "How could I leave this behind?" "It's a fine line between stupid and clever." "Hello, Cleveland!" And the marquee: PUPPET SHOW and Spinal Tap.
Part of the genius here is not so much the send-up of a pretentious band; it is the rich history of Spinal Tap, from fresh-scrubbed skiffle players, through the psychedelic flower-power '60s, into their calling card as one of England's "loudest bands," known for cycling through countless drummers who meet untimely deaths -- most notably the one who perished choking on vomit (just not his own). Add to the mix a growing rancor between the band's co-leaders, Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) and David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean) -- complete with a conniving new-age Yoko villain (June Chadwick) -- and you've got a strong narrative arc to put some meat on the bones of an 82-minute lark. Harry Shearer ties it all together as the dim-witted bassist (the band's "lukewarm water") -- whether he's having an on-stage mechanical malfunction, jamming out to "jazz odyssey," or trying to pass through airport security with a foil-wrapped zucchini down his pantleg. Rob Reiner, as the fictional filmmaker Marty DiBergi, is the ultimate straight man.
A parade of ringers passes through with spot-on turns: Ed Begley Jr., Fran Drescher, Billy Crystal, Paul Benedict, Paul Shaffer, Anjelica Huston, Bruno Kirby, National Lampoon veteran Tony Hendra as their bumbling manager, and Fred Willard as a square Air Force officer welcoming the band to another humiliating gig.
One of the keys here is the authentic musical background of McKean, Guest and Shearer, who not only improvised much of the dialogue but wrote and performed the songs. And credit goes to Reiner for his vision, which also riffs on the form of the "rockumentary" itself, such as "Don't Look Back," "The Song Remains the Same," or "The Last Waltz" -- right down to the details of the lip sores and fatuous guitar solos. Guest would go on to get accolades over the years for his string of hilarious mockumentaries, with many people assuming he made this one, too.
Let's not overthink it. Relish the song lyrics, the zingers, the pitch-perfect British accents, the shaggy hairstyles, the divine improv. It all landed at the right moment in time, and it was an instant classic.
SPINAL TAP II: THE END CONTINUES (C) - Reiner's final film turned out to be this tepid sequel reuniting his fellow senior citizens. Let's be kind to the boys and grant them their valedictory. Such generosity is especially warranted considering this is Reiner valedictory.
A tip of the hat to Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer, who all look like old women, as Reiner's Marty DiBergi catches up with the band -- scattered around the UK and America performing demeaning tasks in semi-retirement -- and follows them as they convene and rehearse for a farewell concert. The film has a promising start, as DiBergi tracks down the lads in their obscure circumstances -- Nigel Tufnel running a cheese and guitar shop; Derek Smalls a proprietor of a glue museum, and David St. Hubbins gigging in a mariachi combo.
But soon the unintended irony kicks in, as a loving tribute to musicians who have lost a step is rendered by a bunch of comedians whose best days are behind them. As vivid as the one-liners from the original remain to this day, the limp sequel effervesces after the credits roll. The core quartet brings in a different brand of ringers -- drummers like Lars Ulrich and Questlove, who gingerly decline to occupy the hot seat, and then big-time dinosaurs like Paul McCartney and Elton John. McCartney is his usual annoying, cloying self, while John actually injects some life into classics like "Flower People" and "Stonehenge."
The narrative -- will they pull it together for the reunion show? -- barely holds together. Jokes thud. Cameos from the likes of Bobbi Flekman and Artie Fufkin lack any zip. It's all rather quaint but mostly unnecessary.
WAKE UP DEAD MAN (C) - I can't remember the last time I've seen such a dud of a cast, and one so lacking in direction in the face of a convoluted script that tries to be more clever than it is. The third entry in Rian Johnson's "Knives Out" series is an exasperating bomb.
Josh O'Connor lacks the heft to carry this ribald story of a parish priest who gets caught up in a small-town murder mystery, and he is surrounded by second-tier actors, most of whom serve as mere placeholders. Daniel Craig, the star of the trilogy as detective Benoit Blanc, has little to play off of and instead spouts Johnson's throw-away dialogue, the one-liners plummeting into a comedic void, eliciting barely a cricket. (It's probably for the best that this is being released mainly on Netflix and not to muted cinema crowds.) Josh Brolin, who seems to have generally just worn out his welcome, emotes to the heavens as a MAGA monsignor who covets a missing jewel that incites the mayhem. Brolin seems about as relevant these days as his dad is. ("I know you are, but what am I?")
Veterans Glenn Close and Thomas Haden Church are shadows of their former selves, and the rest have very little to do. That includes Mila Kunis yelling a lot as the local police chief; Jeffrey Wright as a sassy bishop; Andrew Scott ("Blue Moon") as a frustrated author; Kerry Washington as a generic lawyer; Cailee Spaeny as a disabled cellist, for some reason; a defanged Jeremy Renner as a doctor with the nerves of Don Knotts, and Daryl McCormack ("Good Luck to You, Leo Grande") as a hackneyed social-media influencer. Yeah, the star power doesn't exactly jump off the page; nor does it leap from the screen. (And we thought the second film in the series, "Glass Onion," had a B-list cast ...)
Johnson trots out hoary chestnuts like the spritely character who repeatedly startles the protagonist by seemingly coming out of nowhere. The biblical wordplay is unrelenting. A typical joke suggests that the blinding of Saul at Damascus might have been merely a "bad case of pink eye." It's the cartoonish kind of movie in which a single punch knocks a man out cold (even if he is a former boxer) -- and then have him wake up next to a dead body and mistakenly think he killed the person. (What high jinks!) Kunis and Craig even have the temerity to make a reference to "Scooby-Doo," which is a challenging bar for "Wake Up Dead Man."
The narrative plods along and tips its hand often. If you think a man of the cloth who dies on Good Friday isn't going to be "resurrected" a couple of days later, you won't be winning this year's kindergarten connect-the-dots championship. And Johnson takes his sweet time slathering on the plot points. Did I mention this is nearly two and a half hours long? You are stronger than I am if you can make it through this without pacing or wandering off for a bit to check your email.
There are clever notes here and there, but nothing rises to that spoofy Agatha Christie level of giddiness of the 2019 original, "Knives Out," with its enthusiastic performances from the likes of Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Toni Collette and Alec Baldwin (with an assist from newcomer Ana de Armas). What felt fresh six years ago seems fully played out. We now have solid evidence of diminishing returns, and while we admire Johnson's throwback energy, it turns out he just could not capture lightning in a bottle again.
BUGONIA (B) - Here is my theory of how "Bugonia" made it to the big screen: Will Tracy -- an Onion and John Oliver contributor who broke out in 2022 with "The Menu" -- and co-writer Jang Joon-hwan penned this taut dark comedy about conspiracy theorists that was about 95 minutes long. Then Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos came along and said, "Don't worry about the final half hour; I've got this" -- and ran the whole thing off the rails.
Lanthimos drew attention with his avant-garde early work, "Alps" and "Dogtooth," but has made one good movie ("The Favourite") in the past 15 years. We had hopes that this heavyweight bout between Emma Stone (playing a CEO who is kidnapped over her company's environmental crimes) and Jesse Plemons (playing a man who believes that Andromedans are plotting to kill off earthlings). And it does sizzle, thanks to a clever script and its two stars, until jumping the shark into silliness in the final reel.
You need an appreciation for horror and sci-fi (or the nostalgic production values of the original "Star Trek" TV show) and patience for logical leaps in order to make it to the end of the film. You'll have to believe that a character with a broken kneecap can hobble away beyond the pursuit of security guards and law enforcement. You must withstand whipsaw changes in main characters' motives and actions.
However, for at least the first hour, this is an endlessly clever exercise that allows Stone and Plemens, two of the best actors of their day, to play to their strengths -- she as Michelle, a type-A CEO, and he as Teddy, the aggrieved conspiracy merchant who drags his mentally handicapped cousin into his felonious scheme, apparently out of a basic love for honeybees and their survival (and inspired by his mother's cancer that he attributes to Michelle's company). His is a familiar type -- smart enough to know how to look for information; dumb (or mentally ill) enough to fall victim to confirmation bias. Meantime, newcomer Aidan Delbis, as the cousin, brings nothing fresh to the familiar trope of the dimwitted patsy.)
It is fun to watch Michelle ply her business-school training and HR jargon when trying to talk her way out of her chained existence in the basement of the beat-up rural home. (It looks like the kind of house that a grown man would inherit -- decor, dust and all -- after his parents die.) It's a kick to watch her kick off her heels as she prepares to fight off the cousins during the initial kidnap attempt, using her self-defense training. As the trailer reveals, Plemons is a ticking time bomb who is not averse to ape-sprinting across a dining room table to furiously attack his captive in the middle of dinner.
Your mission is to decide whether two-thirds of a very good movie are worth the eye-rolls it takes to make it to the final credits. I managed it.
BONUS TRACK
"Bugonia's" climax makes compelling use of Marlene Dietrich's interpretation of Pete Seeger's "Where Have All the Flowers Gone," even if it feels unearned at the end:
STILLER AND MEARA: NOTHING IS LOST (B+) - Comic actor/director Ben Stiller, with an assist from his sister, performs a deep dive into his parents' lives, a public grieving and reconciliation as he picks through the extensive family archives after Jerry Stiller's death in 2020. Even though, as you'd expect, Ben pulls his punches a few times, he stumbles on some profound insights into the marriage and careers of the beloved comedy team from the 1960s and '70s.
Jerry Stiller met Anne Meara in the 1950s, and theirs seems like an authentic love story. His insecurities drove them toward success, while her talent and timing were critical to their success. They became staples on the "Ed Sullivan Show" in the 1960s, but they eventually embarked on successful solo careers in TV (and her on stage). Their marriage survived until her death in 2015.
The treasure trove here is Jerry Stiller's voluminous archives -- home recordings of the duo creating and rehearsing bits; family films when the kids were small; meticulously curated news clippings that tracked Ben's career. Ben Stiller takes the opportunity to evaluate his own performance as a husband and father, and the making of the film offers him an chance to repair his foundering marriage to actress Christine Taylor. He also bonds sweetly with his sister, Amy, also a comic actor.
Ben walks a fine line between mawkish and reverential. He mentions his mother's alcoholism but doesn't dwell on it and instead champions her late-life sobriety. He strongly implies that his father could be both a sweetheart and a tyrant, but he keeps it respectful. Jerry Stiller had an almost debilitating craving for approval. In one recording, Meara describes the duo's workaholic patterns as "joyless."
It would have been more fascinating, of course, to have been a fly on the wall to any Stiller and Meara couples-counseling sessions back in the day; their marriage skills are admirable. (Their act liked to riff on their mixed marriage -- he was Jewish, she was Irish.) But this is the next best thing to being there, and Ben Stiller is an engaging host who comes across as humble and grateful not only for what his parents passed on to him but also for the opportunity to present it all to the world.
COME SEE ME IN THE GOOD LIGHT (B) - It's never easy to watch someone die. This documentary takes the approach of a Hollywood drama in chronicling the final couple of years of poet and activist Andrea Gibson whose uphill battle against cancer is doomed all along.
As brave and determined as Gibson (above right) comes off here, there is no sugarcoating the challenges Gibson faced alongside a devoted wife, Megan Falley, a fellow poet. We spent plenty of time in hospitals and at chemotherapy sessions, and no aspect of their home life seems off-limits to the film crew. The hero's journey is two-fold: one is to position Gibson for the inevitable; the other is to root for Gibson to put on one last farewell performance (her shows had the energy of punk concerts at times) before death comes.
Director Ryan White has previously tackled such subjects as Serena Williams and Dr. Ruth Westheimer. Some of his scenes here feel awfully staged -- he gets the lighting just perfect at times, and his establishing shots can be downright Spielbergian. But he knows he has a compelling story, and he's there for the key moments.
We get to observe Gibson's writing process. The couple come across as insightful and honest. White does not overstay his welcome over 104 minutes. He provides an opportunity for the viewer to take a heartfelt journey and to pause afterward in gratitude.
BONUS TRACKS
Over the closing credits of "Stiller and Meara," Sonny & Cher with "Unchained Melody":
SENTIMENTAL VALUE (A) - Norway's Joachim Trier makes intricately emotional films for adults. And he has the talented Renate Reinsve in his regular troupe. Here, they reunite from "The Worst Person in the World" to tell a powerful story of a successful man trying to reunite with the daughter he has long neglected.
Reinsve (above left) is Nora, a theater actress (who has a TV show under her belt) with a chronic case of stage fright. She and her sister are estranged from their father, a well-known filmmaker who abandoned them and their mother when they were kids. Now that their mother, a psychologist who worked out of their beloved childhood home for years, has died, the father has returned to reclaim the family house. Gustav (Stellan Skarsgard) also seeks to kick-start his dormant career with a screenplay he presents to Nora, asking her to star in the film. She rejects the offer without reading the script, because she cannot imagine working with him.
Gustav turns to an American star, Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning) to play the role and to shoot the film in the family house that he, too, grew up in -- including a scene depicting his mother's suicide in the 1950s. The production bumbles along, as Gustav tries to adapt the film in English and Rachel struggles to find the right accent and overall tone for the role meant for Gustav's daughter. Nora -- stunned by the end of an unhealthy romantic relationship and convinced that she is only 20 percent sane -- bonds with her sister, Agnes, and her tow-headed nephew.
No one can so subtly convey a range of emotions, sometimes within seconds, like Reinsve. Her face at rest is a placid mask, like Isabelle Huppert's, but both actresses speak volumes with their eyes or a flick of an eyebrow. Skarsgard turns in a melancholy performance as a 70-something drunk and aged playboy.
The ringer here, though, is Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas (above right) as the sister, Agnes, who grounds the film (as a trained historian, she delves into her grandmother's mental troubles that followed working with the anti-Nazi resistance). She adds nuance beyond the typical daddy-daughter drama and steals every scene from her heavyweight co-stars. And it's a cliche to suggest that a building is an additional character in a film, but Trier makes that childhood home come alive, using arch camera angles to suggest a knowing and seeing being that lurks in the four walls.
About halfway through I paused to register my gratitude and luck at getting to enjoy this in real time, and then I dove back in, never once checking the time but instead savoring every moment of the two hours and 13 minutes, not a second wasted. The final 20 minutes perfectly tie up these loose ends, at least to the extent it is possible to heal generational wounds.
D(E)AD (A-minus) - Film experiences don't get much more joyous that this absurdist comedy about a man who stalks his family after he dies. The film's website succinctly explains the plot: "Tillie (Isabella "Izzy" Roland), a floundering young woman and her charismatic, alcoholic father (Craig Bierko), struggle to resolve their fractured relationship in the weirdest possible way: after he dies, his ghost appears in mirrors to haunt everyone in the family but Tillie."
Roland wrote the screenplay (directed by Claudia Lonow, Roland's real-life mom) and it positively sizzles with snappy dialogue and a galloping plot that careens across 96 giddy minutes thanks to a talented no-name cast. It is a clever take on the father-daughter dynamic, with Tillie flabbergasted throughout as to why her dad is snubbing her, even in death. Roland slips in some serious insight amid the mayhem.
The rich cast includes Roland's fellow comedian Vic Michaelis as her type-A sister, Violet; Lonow, a TV veteran, as Frankie, who is driven crazy by the reappearance of her dead ex-husband; Brennan Lee Mulligan as a deadpan phone-center drone who becomes a target of Tillie's crush; and veteran comic Eddie Pepitone as a Rabbi brought in to conduct an exorcism.
This plays like an extra-long episode of your favorite sitcom, and I mean that in a good way. It is an "Addams Family"-like romp with a sharp modern sensibility and terrific comic timing. Don't miss the truly independent gem made for $250,000 in Kickstarter funding.
HAMNET (B) - In which Chloe Zhao goes medieval on our asses. The director of "The Rider" and "Nomadland" spirals back centuries to show us William Shakespeare and his wife, Agnes, grappling with the death of the son who inspired "Hamlet."
If you can make it through the brutal slog that is the film's first hour, the second half (after the child dies) cobbles together a decent story of an estranged couple, brought back together in the final 20 minutes with the debut staging of "Hamlet," leading to a profoundly moving final scene. But that first hour is a chore, and I was tempted to just walk out. Jessie Buckley (Agnes, a nature lover and borderline "witch") and Paul Mescal (earnest wordsmith Will) are pitted against each other in an emotionally wrenching crying contest for more than an hour. Both performances -- rendered often in extreme close-ups -- crank the pathos to 11. Toss in a couple of screeching childbirths and the truly horrific death throes of an 11-year-old boy, and it's virtually unwatchable.
Buckley ("Wild Rose," "The Lost Daughter") and Mescal ("Aftersun") are formidable talents. But Zhao -- who has worked wonders with amateur actors, successfully mixing in Frances McDormand in "Nomadland" -- pushes her stars too far into the realm of misery porn.
In the end, however, Buckley and Mescal finally get a reprieve from the maelstrom. At the climax, the world suddenly goes quiet ("The rest is silence") and they exchange a long glance -- her leaning on the stage like a groupie, him in the wings, triumphant -- and we are reminded of their implicit, unspoken connection that whole time. It is a stunning moment of filmmaking that makes it worth the effort to tough it out until the end.
Chloe Zhao ("The Rider," "Nomadland") is back with a drama about Shakespeare and his wife (Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley) and their son who died young, "Hamnet."
Brazil's Kleber Mendonca Filho has been hit-and-miss (compare "Aquarius" with "Neighboring Sounds" and last year's "Pictures of Ghosts"), but we'll steel ourself for his latest 2.5-hour period piece, "Secret Agent."
Will Arnett stars in a moody film from Bradley Cooper about a man who stumbles into standup comedy during the dissolution of his marriage, "Is This Thing On?"
A documentary looks back at high school AV muckrakers who broke a big story about environmental harm in New York in the 1990s, "Teenage Wasteland."
Gus Van Sant is back with a '70s period piece about a hostage-taking at a bank, "Dead Man's Wire."
