Doc Watch: But I Play One on TV ...

 

EVERYONE IS LYING TO YOU FOR MONEY (B+) - Ben McKenzie seems like a nice guy. Good looking. Smart too. Wrote a book. And, hey, wasn't he that guy on "The O.C." 20 years ago? And Det. Gordon on "Gotham" 10 years ago? 

 

I wasn't familiar with McKenzie but he comes off as amiable and charming, and he has a degree in economics, so he's as good a person as any to turn a skeptical eye to the cryptocurrency market. McKenzie sets out to expose the flimsiness of the cryto schemes and dares the Doge bros to prove him wrong. Among his targets is a soft one, Sam Bankman-Fried (above left), who in retrospect seems like an obviously disturbed con man. (He ended up in prison.)

McKenzie brings a breezy, self-deprecating style to his fast-paced 90-minute documentary. He jumps out of the gate with a clever misdirection, and the comedic tone is set. He is fond of recording fans recognizing him out of context in the wild. He banters with an old buddy, whose curiosity about crypto helped inspire a book by McKenzie and this movie, filmed over several post-COVID years.

McKenzie knows a good hook when he sees one, and when you are married to Morena Baccarin ("Deadpool," TV's "Homeland"), you work her into the narrative. (She's good with a spousal side-eye.) Who am I to kick Morena Baccarin out of any movie; at times, though, her appearances come off as a humble-brag by the writer-director-star. He hangs out on the set of a movie starring Baccarin and Gerard Butler, proving the hunky leading man to offer an Everyman's opinion on the topic. (It also generates a typically droll one-liner from McKenzie, when he transitions to the next scene by intoning, "Maybe Gerard Butler was right.") However, McKenzie also feels the need to work his kids into the story, and that's where this spills into the self-indulgent. 

We watch McKenzie crash crypto events, expose potential charlatans and testify before Congress. I don't know enough about the topic to know which side is right and which is wrong, and you don't need to take a side to enjoy the film. You can be agnostic and appreciate McKenzie's genuine journalistic inquiry and get swept up in this obvious labor of love from an appealing guy. 

BONUS TRACK

From the end credits, "Joining a Cult" by Annika Norlin:

The Best of 2024: How Does It Feel?

 

People keep asking me whether I've seen the new movie about Bob Dylan. I haven't, although there's a chance I'll sample it at some point out of morbid curiosity.

I'm not a fan of biopics, especially those involving lives I experienced in real time and people I once admired. It seems silly, for example, to watch Will Smith (a fine actor) pretend to be Muhammad Ali. And I've appreciated some of the work of Timothee Chalamet, but do I need to see America's Puppy do a karaoke imitation of the nascent folk-rock god? (For similar reasons, I don't need to see "Saturday Night" or "September 5.") Besides, Bob Dylan himself was the ultimate work of fiction; what's the point in fictionalizing a fiction -- or worse, trying to faithfully replicate it?

As I get older I get pickier and fussier. But I still believe in chapters, in turning the soil every few years. In recent year-end posts I've dumped on a lot of old favorites, as in the category below titled "It's Not You, It's Me." And so it can be refreshing to take a pass on familiar filmmakers and instead take on new favorites. 

For the past 10 years, no one has made movies like Sean Baker. His camera is agile (he shot 2015's "Tangerine" on an iPhone), and his characters are authentic, which helps bring out the humanity in groups like sex workers and poor people, without leering or wallowing in poverty porn. His "Anora," along with Jesse Eisenberg's "A Real Pain," showed a 360 command of moving-picture storytelling -- a fine touch for characters and dialogue and the pace of a narrative. They recalled some of the best of the American New Wave of the 1970s.

Some films below were debuts or were by directors whose work was new to me. "Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat" is probably a love-it-or-hate-it, two-and-a-half-hour deep dive and jive into the events in Congo around 1961. If I'd gone on a different night I might have walked out; instead, I gave myself to it and let it hypnotize me. It's one of five documentaries that made the Top 15.

It was also in 1961 (January) that Robert Zimmerman made his way to New York City, thirsting for fame. By 1965 he was a rock star. A decade later I discovered Dylan. It was fun to hop on the bandwagon and ride it into the '80s and '90s with him -- but it was a special treat to be able to sneak backward in time unearthing his catalog, scouring record bins and peeling away the layers of his personas. Nothing Hollywood produces can recapture that experience of discovering it for the first time. 

Maybe the kids will get a kick out of that era on the big screen and experience their own anthropological revelation, albeit in digital form. Maybe I'll see "A Complete Unknown" -- turns out, it is playing at the Guild Cinema the first weekend of March -- and perhaps I'll even like it. Am I an easy mark, after all? "Either I'm too sensitive, or else I'm getting soft."*

***

Below you'll find a ton of movies to sample, most from 2024, but some that hurtle you back decades. Where possible I point out where you can stream them (My main go-tos are HBO-Max, Mubi, Criterion, Netflix, and the library's free Hoopla.) Each film citation has a link to my original review.

THE TOP 15 of '24

  1. Anora. Sean Baker is the new master, and "Anora" is an assured, entertaining romp with a great cast. (In theaters.)

  2. Flipside. A journeyman filmmaker assembles his life's work into a moving visual collage and a profound rumination on the career paths we all take. (Hoopla/Criterion)

  3. A Real Pain. A pristine production by Jesse Eisenberg chronicles cousins revisiting their roots on a Holocaust tour of Poland, earning Best Screenplay. (Hulu)

  4. Bird. Andrea Arnold hits her peak and takes Best Director as she returns to her under-class roots alongside her 12-year-old avatar. (Mubi)

  5. Soundtrack to a Coup D'Etat. An inventive approach to a historical footnote. Let it wash over you, like a jazz performance would. (Kino Now)

  6. Between the Temples. Jason Schwartzman and Carol Kane were exquisite in this melancholy tale of middle-aged gloom. (Netflix)

  7. Sugarcane. A harrowing exploration of the horrors brought by the Catholic Church on Indian schools in the 20th century. (Hulu)

  8. His Three Daughters. Sibling dynamics play out and recriminations blossom as the trio sit vigil for their dying father. (Netflix)

  9. How to Have Sex. An assured debut about the harrowing odyssey of a college girl seeking to lose her virginity. (Mubi)

10.  Terrestrial Verses. The quiet power of vignettes showing Iranians navigating their theocracy and bureaucracy. (Criterion)

11. We Were Famous, You Don't Remember. A pristinely rendered history of the '80s heartland band The Embarrassment (a band you almost certainly do not remember). (Night Flight Plus)

12. Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary. As much fun as you can have reminiscing about the softer side of rock from the mid-'70s to the mid-'80s. (HBO-Max)

13. Problemista. More delightful whimsy from the gloriously inventive mind of Julio Torres. (HBO-Max)

14. My Old Ass. A sweetly Canadian gem about our youthful choices and our adult regrets. (Amazon)

15. Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World. "This sprawling, raunchy, rollicking black comedy, ostensibly about hyper-commercialization, captures the zeitgeist of our crude, unraveling modern culture." (Criterion)

JUST MISSED THE LIST

• The hodgepodge philosophical exercise "The Arc of Oblivion"
• Ken Loach unspools another heartfelt drama, "The Old Oak" (Hoopla)
  
• The subtly effective slow burn, "Teachers' Lounge" (Netflix)
  
• More gals comically behaving badly, "Babes" (Hulu)
  
• The inventive animation of "Flow" (In theaters)
  
• The simmering psycho-suspense of "Babygirl" (In theaters)
  
• The modern Mumblecore comedy "Free Time" (Hoopla)
  
• Daisy Ridley carrying the off-kilter black comedy "Sometimes I Think About Dying" (Mubi)
  

 

MORE TOP DOCS 

• BS High. A highly engaging study of a scam artist. (HBO-Max)
  
• Martha. An intriguing by-the-numbers portrait of better-living guru Martha Stewart. (Netflix)
  
• Dusty & Stones: A classic fish-out-of-water buddy flick.
  
• MoviePass MovieCrash: In this doc about a well-known con job, "the narrative is fascinating from beginning to end." (Netflix)
  
• Smoke Sauna Sisterhood: "It's as if an entire nation of women is exfoliating and expiating all of their hopes and sins." (Mubi)
  

 

TOP PERFORMANCES

• Nicole Kidman going deep in the psychological jangle of "Babygirl."
• Yura Borisov is the secret weapon in "Anora." And then Darya Ekamasova shows up as the icy mother-in-law.
  
• OMG, Mia Goth in "Maxxxine" and Esther Povitsky in "Drugstore June."
  
• Elizabeth Olsen stands out as she co-stars with Carrie Coon and Natasha Lyonne in "His Three Daughters."
• Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin are perfect road buddies in "A Real Pain."
• Barry Keoghan is all soul, and he melds with newcomer Nykiya Adams in "Bird."
• Comic welterweights Jason Schwartzman and Carol Kane lived up to their billing in "Between the Temples."
  

 

GUILTY PLEASURES

• "Deadpool and Wolverine" pulverized us with its wordplay and the charm of Ryan Reynolds. (Disney+)
  
• "Maxxxine" completed the trilogy by director Ti West and star Mia Goth that started with "X" and "Pearl." (HBO-Max)
  
• "Hit Man" was a surprisingly effective misdirection from Richard Linklater. (Netflix)
  
• "Drugstore June": Esther Povitsky is hilarious as a would-be social-media influencer who endures a series of micro-agressions. (Hulu)
• Our sole Holy Crap of the year goes to the psychotic mess that was "The Substance." (Mubi)
  

 

THE LEFTOVERS

Some 2023 films we caught up with:  "A Thousand and One," about a mother fighting for custody of her son, would have cracked our top 12 if we had seen it in 2023 (Hulu) (Hat-tip: Tamara). ... Then there was the haunting sci-fi psych-out "The Five Devils" (Mubi); a mesmerizing personal memoir about family and reconciliation, "Sam Now" (Criterion); a belated release of a 1998 film from Cauleen Smith, which turned out to be her only feature, "Drylongso" (Criterion). ... We couldn't make it to the one-third mark of "Oppenheimer"; "The Holdovers" was too derivative for its own good. ... "Chile '76" was "a chilling lesson in defying both the political system and social castes" (Hoopla), and at three hours, "The Delinquents" was a fascinating character study (Mubi).

Wayback Machine: We finally gave a proper write-up to an all-time favorite, Lynne Ramsay's "Morvern Callar" with Samantha Morton (Amazon). ... We took a trip to the Aughts to explore the roots of Mumblecore; and we reveled in the 2009 documentary "Anvil: The Story of Anvil." ... "The Big Easy" is still a rollicking good time; we went back to 1934 for "It Happened One Night"; the 1953 Argentine classic "The Black Vampire" was the best of the Guild Cinema's summer film-noir festival (Criterion). ... We discovered a perfect nugget about the scrappy staff of an alt-weekly, "Between the Lines" from 1977 (Criterion/YouTube). ... The Coen brothers were in their prime with 2008's "Burn After Reading." ... And we dared to bring our modern sensibilities to "Blazing Saddles." (Most of those were via DVD.)

R.I.P: We gave a sendoff to TV legend Norman Lear by screening "The Night They Raided Minsky's"; on the music front, we were shaken by the death of the epic engineer Steve Albini; and we devoted three posts to double features in memory of the great Gena Rowlands. (Expect a similar tribute to David Lynch in the coming months.)

 

IT'S NOT YOU, IT'S ME

(Well, maybe this time it is you. 

Some of our favorites let us down.)

 

• How do you make Julia Louis Dreyfus unwatchable? "Tuesday" figured it out.
  
• Jacques Audiard swung for the fences and hit a solid double with the frustrating "Emilia Perez."
• Wim Wenders bored us with his Boomer shtick in "Perfect Days"
  
• Diablo Cody wrote the embarrassing horror rom-com "Lisa Frankenstein"; we went on Valentine's Day and walked out.
  
• A quartet of films from newer filmmakers that were so sluggish and uneventful that we pulled the plug early (because Life Is Short): "Here" (not the Tom Hanks movie); "Mother, Couch"; "Janet Planet"; and "Evil Does Not Exist."
• "I Used to Be Funny" took Rachel Sennott and a great first act and botched it all.
  

COMING ATTRACTIONS

Here are a bunch we wanted to see but didn't get the chance:

• About Dry Grasses
• Union
• Slow
• Hard Truths
  
• Close Your Eyes
• The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed
• The Idea of You

Join us in 2025 as we track down those titles and more of the finest movies you wouldn't otherwise think of watching.

BONUS TRACK

* - "If You See Her, Say Hello":

 

The Suggest of 2024

 

It's no secret that it takes us an extra month or so, here in flyover country, to get to all the 2024 releases in order to make our best-of list. Watch this space. For now, here is a list of all of the year's releases, so far, that have earned a B+ or better and which will compete for the top spot.

• His Three Daughters
• Flow
  
• A Real Pain
• The Teachers' Lounge 
• Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary
• Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World
  
• Terrestrial Verses
  
• Deadpool & Wolverine
• Drugstore June 
  
• BS High
• The Arc of Oblivion
• How to Have Sex 
  
• My Old Ass 
• Babygirl
  
• Sugarcane
  
• Dusty & Stones
• Anora
• Martha
• Free Time
• Problemista
  
• Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat
• The Old Oak
  
• Babes
• Between the Temples 
• We Were Famous, You Don't Remember: The Embarrassment
  
• Sometimes I Think About Dying
• Flipside
• MoviePass/MovieCrash
• Me
• Smoke Sauna Sisterhood

Mo' Meta

 

DEADPOOL AND WOLVERINE (B+) - If I ever live to see the day when we don't have anything resembling "cinema" anymore, I'll think of this head-spinning vulgar gag-fest masquerading in super-hero body suits. That applies to the death of movies either literally or figuratively.

You would be wise to be wary of a third entry in the "Deadpool" series. I farmed out the first one to a fan of Marvel movies, though I did go back to view it myself to prepare for the sequel, in 2018. Choose any excerpt from that 2018 review, and it would apply to this latest one, which teams Ryan Reynolds in the title role with Hugh Jackman's reanimated Wolverine from the X-Men series. For example: "Reynolds besieges the viewer with randy one-liners, fleeting pop-culture references, and obscure Marvel call-backs (and loopy call-backs to call-backs)." Check.

This movie is more self-aware than Deepak Chopra. It doesn't break the fourth wall so much as bulldoze through it; Reynolds does it so powerfully you might expect someone to yell out, "Hey, Kool-Aid!" The references fly by at warp speed. Even if you are not an obsessive Marvel nerd or a subscriber to the paper edition of Variety, you can still enjoy the random lines you manage to catch in this blizzard of pop-culture references. It's easy to succumb to the shotgun approach to screenwriting. The words pelt you as much as the CGI weapons do. It's an endearingly funny form of entertainment.

Reynolds and crew up the ante here in two ways. First, the script is riddled with not just puerile humor but hyperactive homo-erotica that devolves into multiple anal-rape jokes. Second, the snarky asides to the camera wink not only at the Marvel universe but also to the movie studios and backroom shenanigans that resulted in Disney gobbling up Fox's studio assets since the last film hoovered up bajillions at the box office. (Someone counted, and there are five such references.) Uncle Walt must be proud. (Seriously, he seemed like one dark dude who would appreciate a good butt-fucking joke.) Also, a lot of guys get gored in the crotch by Wolverine's claws, for good measure.

It's all as bleak as it is relentlessly aiming to be hilarious. Maybe one day we'll look back on 2024 when there was an endless budget for the third film in a super-hero series, you hired five writers (including Reynolds and director Shawn Levy), you snapped your fingers and people like Channing Tatum and Jennifer Garner show up in glorified cameos, you can charge $19 for a ticket to a standard screening, you mock the former studio by half-burying its memorable logo in a scene of post-apocalyptic devastation (CGI, of course), you blow up stuff for fun, you stuff scores of people in Deadpool costumes just for fun (were some CGI?), money is no object when it comes to song rights, and you can mock the whole production process in every other scene with self-referential disdain. What an embarrassment of riches now, and in the future when we fondly look back because we are so desperate to suppress the reality of the mid-century water wars.

But darn it, it's still 2024, and we have the luxury of spending our disposable income on frivolous guilty pleasures. And Ryan Reynolds is a classic movie star. He's so winkingly Canadian that you just want to wag your finger at him and pinch his cheeks. So naughty, this one. Reynolds even pulls double duty as a de-aged Fabio-like alternative-universe nice-guy Deadpool (actually called Nicepool), all young and handsome, fond of French kissing his mop of a little dog and in need of a cult de-programming. Deadpool's geeky alter-ego, Wade Wilson, is a welcome wake-up call, as he cuts a little too sharply with his working-class satire of us wage slaves. 

Jackman gives as good as he takes as Wolverine, who gets pulled out of a bar for this latest mission to save the world. Jon Favreau is wonderfully deadpan in a set-up scene that informs the audience that Robert Downey Jr. won't be showing up as Iron Man. His banter with Reynolds is the best of the movie. 

The jokes are so plentiful that the writers -- like Major League ballplayers these days -- need only hit about .230 to be considered successful. Reynolds and Leslie Uggams go toe-to-toe rattling off euphemisms for cocaine -- Forrest Bump, White Girl Interrupted -- as if they were actually fighting over the dregs of an eight-ball. Deadpool likes to refer to a lie as "an educated wish." He accuses a sloshed Wolverine of having "whiskey-dick of the claws." He tells Blind Al (Uggams): "If you could hear the look on my face, you'd smell how sad I am." And when Wolverine is tired of Deadpool's verbal diarrhea and, in a menacing tone, dares Deadpool to utter just one more word, the boy wonder pauses and eventually complies:  "Gubernatorial." 

Yes, it's all such mindless fun. I will say, though, whatever ketamine-fueled algorithm that spat out the final script has a pretty heavy third-act moment of true bonding up its sleeve. There is actually a method to this madness, and Reynolds and Jackman certainly know how to work an audience. 

So what's a couple hundred million in service of providing an air-conditioned refuge from the high-desert heat in August? So what if the billion dollars in profit will get plowed back into a four-qel or reduced to powder form and snorted off various parts of bodies lolling around Ibiza. Whatever balm you need to face down our modern existential threats as we peer over the edge into the Void ...

BONUS TRACKS

The meta mania builds to such a frenzy that it comes out the other side, and the use of Madonna's "Like a Prayer" is not only appropriate to the climax but it is somehow emotionally effective:

And what's a bar scene without some pure-grain Patsy Cline sloshing through "You Belong to Me":

Mentoring

THE BOX (B+) - From Mexico comes this quiet affecting story of a teenager who thinks he has found the father who abandoned him long ago. It is a cautionary tale about the perils of mentoring the younger generations.

Hatzin (Hatzin Navarrete) leaves Mexico City for a small town to retrieve a box that, he is told, contains the remains of his father. But as he's getting on the bus to head back home, he spots a man on the street and is convinced that the man is his father, based on a picture he has seen. 

That man, who goes by Mario (Hernan Mendoza) runs an employment service that helps staff factories, although he is scaling up to start up his own factory. Either way, he regularly exploits workers, including a young woman who eventually goes missing after speaking up for her rights. Director Lorenzo Vigas conveys volumes through sparse dialogue and dazzles with the broad vistas he splays across the screen.

Mario hires on Hatzin, and they develop an uneasy rapport. At one point, Mario seems to let on that he really is Hatzin's long-lost father, but you can't be sure that he isn't doing that merely to deceive and exploit the boy. Meantime, Hatzin -- a naif who was raised by his grandmother -- slowly becomes hardened, culminating in an unspeakable act. Like father, like son, sadly.

ROGER DODGER (2002) (A-minus) - Perhaps the cinematic equivalent of doing a line of cocaine, this black comedy features an arrogant playboy taking his teenage nephew out on the town in New York City to school the boy in the art of slaying the ladies. Of course, Roger is mostly talk and doesn't necessarily wield all the skills he brags about.

Campbell Scott is riveting as the clever, loquacious Roger, who happens to be the boy-toy of his boss, the older Joyce (Isabella Rossellini), at the advertising agency where he flashes his skills. Roger has the verbal dexterity not only of a manipulative ad man but also of the slickest hustler. The opening scene -- Roger and his colleagues, including Joyce, bantering fiercely around a restaurant table -- is a master class in dialogue writing, courtesy of Dylan Kidd, who would never recapture the magic of his feature debut as writer-director.

The secret weapon here is the nephew, Nick, also played with verbal nimbleness by Jesse Eisenberg, in his big-screen debut. Nick has never had a girlfriend, and he is looking to his uncle for some inside dope on the dating game. Roger, caught off guard at first by the unannounced visit, dives into the exercise with vigor and not a little vulgarity. Roger is a know-it-all who savors the opportunity to impart his wisdom to the next generation of cads.

They meet two women on the prowl for the evening, Sophie (Jennifer Beals) and Andrea (Elizabeth Berkley), who roll their eyes at Roger but are charmed by innocent little Nick. Both sides will score points in the battle of the sexes. Meantime, Joyce moves to dump Roger, unleashing a pandora's box of his insecurities.  

While the sexual politics here can seem a bit corny to the modern sensibility, the film does not come across as dated on its 20th anniversary. It's just as entertaining as it was back then, eons ago. There is no denying the sizzle among Scott, Beals, Berkley and Eisenberg and the simmer of Rossellini. (Also, look for a very young Morena Bacarrin ("Deadpool," Showtime's "Homeland") in an early scene, batting away Roger's advances.) And Kidd's script is endlessly inventive, the one-liners sharp and believable. 

You'll know from that opening scene if it's your cup of tea or whether you might want to leave this one confined to the bar scene of the gloomy past.

Best of 2018

As always, it takes us an extra month to put together an informed list of the best films of the past year, and after a flurry of last-minute viewings this past weekend, here we are.

It was a quiet year, and we have no profound insights to bring.  "The Rider" and "Foxtrot" were released early in 2018, and no movie really came close to the powerful storytelling of those two deeply moving films. "Shoplifters" was in the ballpark. After our top five, there's a noticeable drop-off.

Documentaries made a strong showing, with three in our top ten and a particularly strong crop represented below under More Top Docs.

We're not diving as deep into these movie reviews since the start of last year, but we're seeing nearly as many movies. By our count we reviewed 66 2018 releases in the past year and about as many older releases. We are still in the same slump we were in last year as far as our enthusiasm for movies in general and our view of the industry. Weeks would pass when there was no new release worth paying for. But there still is fun to be had at the cineplex and the art house.

If you're picky, you can still appreciate the genre. Pick through the following lists and see what you find.

THE TOP FILMS

 

  1. The Rider - A heart-wrenching look at a real family, their life dramatized by this bold, poignant film.
  2. Foxtrot - An ingenious story, told with grit and whimsy.  From Israel, this had the year's BEST SCREENPLAY.
  3. Matangi/Maya/M.I.A. - A fastidiously curated presentation of the video life of the rapper M.I.A. It pulses with life.
  4. The King - Eugene Jarecki continues his examination of the soul of America, creatively riffing on the life and legacy of Elvis Presley.
  5. Shoplifters  - A script as precise as a Swiss watch, and a searing tale about a broken family.
  6. En El Septimo Dia - A feel-good movie about a working-class immigrant who just wants to play soccer on Sunday.
  7. Outside In - Edie Falco and Jay Duplass plumb depths of sorrow and missed chances in this quiet character study.
  8. Let the Sunshine In - Juliette Binoche is impeccable in this tale of middle-aged love and ennui.
  9. Won't You Be My Neighbor - What a joy to spend time with Fred Rogers and daydream about a gentler culture.
10. The Endless - The best time-twisting sci-fi thinker since "Primer."
11. Private Life - Kathryn Hahn and Paul Giamatti sink their teeth into a juicy New York story from Tamara Jenkins.
12. Dark River - This overwhelming slog from Clio Barnard is difficult to avert your eyes from and hard to shake after seeing it.
13. A Star Is Born - Hooray for Hollywood. Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper grab this one with gusto and put on a hell of a show. Highly entertaining.
14. Izzy Gets the Fuck Across Town - Mackenzie Davis romps through this day-in-the-life LA story of a spurned lover on a slovenly mission.

BONUS TRACKS

We got to a few leftovers from 2017, too late to make last year's list. A few that stood out:
The visually stunning magical realism of Viktoria; Annette Bening giving it her all as a fading diva in "Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool"; and Cullen Hoback, whom we met years ago at the Santa Fe film festival, offering a strong polemic, "What Lies Upstream."

JUST MISSED THE LIST

(Honorables mentioned)

• Burning
• The street-punk sagas Skate Kitchen and Minding the Gap
• Mr. Roosevelt
• The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling
• Fahrenheit 11/9
• Cold War (including BEST DIRECTOR, Pawel Pawlikowski)

MORE TOP DOCS

• Dark Money
• Three Identical Strangers
• They'll Love Me When I'm Dead
• Escapes
• The Rape of Recy Taylor
• They Shall Not Grow Old

GUILTY PLEASURES

• Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood
• The Week Of (yes, an Adam Sandler comedy)
• De Palma
• The mindless summer fun of "Deadpool 2" and "Ocean's 8"

TOP PERFORMANCES

• Olivia Colman and Emma Stone in the slightly disappointing farce "The Favourite."
• Kathryn Hahn and Paul Giamatti in "Private Life."
• Juliette Binoche in "Let the Sunshine In."
• Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper in "A Star Is Born."
• Young Jyo Kairi in "Shoplifters."
• Julianne Nicholson in "Who We Are Now."

IT'S NOT YOU, IT'S ME

(Some of our favorite directors didn't thrill us this time around)

• Wes Anderson's direction was meticulous and loving in the stop-action "Isle of Dogs," but we struggled to care about the story.
• Lynne Ramsay went super-dark down a Joaquin Phoenix rabbit-hole in the squalid but off-putting "You Were Never Really Here."
• Andrew Bujalski never put it all together while delivering a solid effort, "Support the Girls."
• Spike Lee had a golden opportunity with "BlacKKKlansman," and he under-performed.
• The Coen brothers entertained but didn't wow with the inessential "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs."
• Alfonso Cuaron couldn't draw me in to his visually riveting "Roma."
• Diablo Cody ("Juno") and Jason Reitman ("Up in the Air") dropped a dud with "Tully."
  
  

COMING ATTRACTIONS

(Haven't caught these yet)

• Golden Exits
• Bisbee '17
• Monrovia, Indiana

Stay tuned for reviews of those three titles and plenty more, albeit in condensed form, as we gleefully charge into 2019.
  

Pulp Fiction - Summer Edition

DEADPOOL 2 (B) - Ryan Reynolds is a charmer, even when being a nihilistic smart-ass in a super-hero movie.  The original "Deadpool," which we recently caught up with as show prep, required some fast-forwarding through the violent scenes, and I wish I'd had that option at the megaplex for the sequel. But this zips by fast enough in right around two hours, and if you are inured to cartoon violence you might not mind it.

Reynolds besieges the viewer with randy one-liners, fleeting pop-culture references, and obscure Marvel call-backs (and loopy call-backs to call-backs).  T.J. Miller has a bigger role, and he and Reynolds have a verbal sizzle together. The story is far-fetched, as you'd expect. Characters die but come back via the after-life. Leslie Uggams' blind lady character walks the line between offensive and hilarious.  Reynolds seems all in (he gets a screenwriting credit), and a CGI scene that gives him "baby legs" (complete with "Basic Instinct" leg-crossing) is one for the ages, certain to give teenage boys a go-to reference decades hence in a way that "Caddyshack" once did for us. (And I never tired of his quaint exchanges with the super-perky Yukio (Shioli Kutsuna).)

The self-mocking swagger takes the air (the piss?) out of the usual Marvel bloat, and I alternated between laughing out loud at some of the gags and rolling my eyes as the stupid battle scenes. It's all embarrassingly good, raunchy fun.

OCEAN'S EIGHT (B) - A great cast elevates a clever script that tries a little too hard to be clever in this female counterpart to the Steven Soderbergh's tripartite tribute to the Rat Pack, back at the turn of the millennium, when Harvey Weinstein's boys had all of the toys. Sandra Bullock, whose comedic chops we discovered in "The Heat," is more muted than she's been in the past, but she's generous with her co-stars. 

Gen X and Millennial uber stars like Cate Blanchett and Anne Hathaway savor their juicy bad-girl roles. Dame Helena Bonham Carter is charmingly daffy. The single-named Rihanna and Awkwafina bring a punk freshness to the genre. And Sarah Paulson and Mindy Kaling solidify the middle of the lineup.

The plot is clever. You can spot a few holes, but for Hollywood summer fare, the plausibility ranking is unusually high. Director Gary Ross does his usually workmanlike job behind the camera, with a writing assist from newcomer Olivia Milch. Celebrity cameos whiz by. Bullock wisecracks like Barbara Stanwyck. The 110 minutes fly by pretty quickly, and you end up more entertained than insulted. Good enough for summer.
 

So I Don't Have To: More Men in Tights

In an occasional feature, we present capsule reviews from correspondents who go see the movies that we don't have an interest in seeing.  Today, veteran filmgoer Phillip Blanchard weighs in on yet another super-hero action spectacle, "Captain America: Civil War": It’s no “Batman v. Superman,” but there’s something vaguely off-putting about this latest installment in the Avengers franchise.  Here, the captain and Tony Stark square off in a disagreement over whether the United Nations should have authority over the Avengers, since the superhero team has a history of destroying cities (New York, Washington and the fictional Sokovia).   The intraoffice violence that ensues pits Avengers against Avengers, which, to paraphrase the recent Honest Trailers treatment of “Deadpool,” means no one can do any real harm to the others. “Civil War” wants to make a statement about government regulation vs. free will, but it makes a convincing case for neither. It’s also too long (2 hours, 27 minutes). That easily could have been avoided by cutting all the Spider-Man scenes. Guest grade: B

So I Don't Have To

In an occasional feature, we present capsule reviews from correspondents who go see the movies that we don't have an interest in seeing.  Today, veteran filmgoer Phillip Blanchard weighs in on yet another super-hero/career-reboot action extravaganza, "Deadpool":

I go to movies like this with my son. He’s now 18 and I still questioned my parenting watching “Deadpool.”

It’s a comedy superhero film and much of it is very funny. But while I generally don’t object to foul language or graphic cartoon violence, this is a bit much.

Ryan Reynolds is a step above most Marvel actors, and it’s always nice to see Morena Baccarin ("Homeland"). Despite the film's overdependence on shock language and mutilation, I was happy to see it. But I doubt I’ll see it again.

I did wonder why several parents brought their 10-year-olds to see it. Maybe I’m not such a bad parent after all.

GUEST GRADE: B