When Glen Powell decided to take up the Tom Cruise mantle, I didn’t think he’d be so literal with it. 
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Tonal inconsistencies are the last thing one expects from an Edgar Wright experience, yet “The Running Man,” in large part due to the persona its star has already carved out, never lands on whether it desires to be a cynical satire, an alternative actioner, or a balance of the two, resulting in a mess of blurred intentions. No surprise, Scott Pilgrim is the highlight of the film; Michael Cera’s brief diversion provides a glimpse of what could have been had Wright wielded more confidence with the material. The ideas and analogies aren’t lost on 2025 America, yet none of it feels especially biting or as specific in its commentary as Wright’s riffs on other genres. Instead, this is the filmmaker’s least distinct effort to date. The casino with the neon crosses on the front was a nice touch. I also miss the days when Jansky would have been played by Andy Samberg. Crucially, this features one of the most secure towels in cinema history, and even if he doesn’t feel completely settled in the part, Powell is one hell of a legitimate screen presence

Typically, I’m a big fan of whatever director David Michôd decides to try his hand at, but despite this sports drama feeling like a "movie" movie, there is a distinct lack of passion behind the eyes. “Christy” begins in 1989 and spans 23 years, meaning the titular character, as played by 28-year-old Sydney Sweeney, is expected to play 21 to 44 yet she is hardly aged besides looking a little worse for wear around the eyes thanks to her physically and mentally abusive husband played like a caricature of a person by the (again) typically reliable Ben Foster. Further, the production design sustains its ‘90s atmosphere despite moving well into the 2010s - or maybe that's just West Virginia?

Say what you will about Sweeney, but between “Americana,” “Immaculate,” “Eden,” this, and her upcoming “The Housemaid,” she's not exactly playing it safe and is clearly interested in making interesting and ambitious - if not always successful - projects. She's not the reason “Christy” falls short either, somehow even overcoming this hairstyle choice to turn in a credible, weighted performance.

Four stars purely for the screenplay, though Richard Linklater's nimble direction guides this sometimes obnoxiously character-driven piece from one conversation to the next with a pace he makes appear effortless, while Ethan Hawke's performance as the grandstanding Lorenz Hart is somehow endearing despite the character's multiple attempts at intolerability.
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My favorite Linklater films and films about artists in general are those that seem to both admire their subjects while also not necessarily mocking but carry an air of self-awareness that the characters never know. “Blue Moon” largely does this through its exhibitions of Hart's interactions with other bar patrons. Whether this be Patrick Kennedy's E.B. White, Bobby Cannavale's Eddie, Andrew Scott's Richard Rodgers, or - most critically - Margaret Qualley's Elizabeth Weiland, the film layers in Hart's own quirks and pain without ever becoming as intolerable as its own protagonist.

The best way to watch “The Godfather: Part 2” isn’t 15+ years after watching “The Godfather,” but that’s exactly how I did it. I realize “The Godfather: Part 3” isn’t as high a priority for a classic film buff, but stick around and I might tell ya what I think of it sometime in the 2040s.

Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather: Part 2” wasn’t the highest ranked film on the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 greatest American films ever made that I’d never seen entering this project – that would’ve been Martin Scorsese’s “Raging Bull,” which I watched earlier this year – but it’s probably the one of the 12 films on my list I felt guiltiest having not seen.

“The Godfather: Part 2” picks up a few years after “The Godfather” left off, and things seem to be going fairly well for Don Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), who now lives in Nevada and is trying to control gambling and casinos. The film interjects Michael’s ongoings with the younger life of his father, Vito Corleone, first played as a child and then for much of the movie by Robert De Niro, in the role that won him his first Oscar.

The film goes back and forth between these two characters, telling Michael’s story in the present, and showing how Vito wound up in America and crawled his way from a nobody to a feared mob boss.

I found the Vito storyline to be the more intriguing of the two in ‘Part 2,’ whereas Michael’s ascent from a son who’s probably never going to run the family business to being thrust into control of it was the most intriguing part of ‘Part 1’ for me.

I think the problem with the Michael storyline in ‘Part 2’ for me, while intriguing and performed brilliantly by Pacino, is that it moves around quite a lot and quickly – the crux of it is trying to figure out who put a hit out on Michael and his family at the beginning of the family – but it sees us jumping around from Nevada, to New York, to Cuba to Washington, D.C. and all around, and let’s face it running the everyday business of the Corleone family just isn’t as interesting as an underdog story, which is what Michael was in ‘Part 1’ and Vito is in ‘Part 2.’

I’m surprised Pacino didn’t win the Academy Award for his performance in this film – just the rage he’s able to portray in the scene where his wife admits to having an abortion and wanting to take his children and leave him could’ve been enough for most voters. I say this, however, knowing that if I had a vote on this more than 50 years ago, I would’ve voted for Jack Nicholson in “Chinatown” instead. They both lost to Art Carney in “Harry and Tonto,” a film I have yet to see.

By the way, De Niro winning for Best Supporting Actor is fair, but you could certainly make the argument that he and Pacino were co-leads in ‘Part 2.’

In ‘Godfather’ style, there are some great kills in the film, my favorite being the comeuppance Don Ciccio receives in Sicily once Vito is old enough to avenge the deaths of his entire family when he was a young child. You know from the first minutes of the film that this is eventually going to take place, so it had to be good, and, boy, was it ever.  

Director: Jon M. Chu
Starring: Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande & Jeff Goldblum 
Rated: PG (action/violence, some suggestive material & thematic material)
Runtime: 2 hours & 18 minutes 

 
Let’s set the stage: 30 years after the original Gregory Maguire revisionist novel was released and just over 20 years after it was adapted into a musical stage play we have the conclusion of the two-part film adaptation of the musical that frames the Wicked Witch of the West in a more sympathetic if not less cynical light than was created by original Wonderful Wizard of Oz author Frank L. Baum and made infamous in the 1939 film, “The Wizard of Oz.” The Wicked Witch of the West, known as Elphaba Thropp in the world of Wicked and portrayed by Cynthia Erivo in the films, is as complex a character as any story might hope to have at the center of it. She is made an outcast, a revolutionary, along with clearly being one of the most inherently powerful beings to exist in her fictional world … why not use such an arc to explore multiple themes or craft it as a metaphor for any point in history - or period to come - in which shallow dictators weaponize our differences in order to ostracize those deemed as threats when simply different than the preferences of those with power? Especially poignant now, yes?
Such timeless ideas and such ongoing debates will seemingly never lose their potency but this was also the chief challenge presented to director Jon M. Chu, who was not only tasked with bringing this story and these hugely revered songs to life through the medium of film but with finding a new way into this story that had been seen by millions the world over. Chu never lost the strong point of view instilled in Maguire’s work, but the main point of contention with ‘Part I’ is that it didn’t consist of a strong directorial voice; it created a world, built the foundation of this central relationship yet none of it felt especially personal or powerful (or tangible) despite the dispersal of several totemic tunes. Whether more invested in the second half of the story himself or simply a result of finding his footing and becoming more comfortable/confident as production went on (assuming they shot somewhat chronologically), Chu’s flourishes as a filmmaker help make “Wicked: For Good” not simply the more interesting act from a narrative perspective but the more compelling and impressive case for said themes and ideas that will obviously (and unfortunately) never lose said potency.
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Picking up four years after the events of the first film, the yellow brick road has been completed, and Elphaba has fled the city of Oz. The newly labeled “Wicked Witch” has holed up on the outskirts while formulating both how she might expose Jeff Goldblum’s The Wizard and how to free the sapient animals that have been forced from their homes and jobs due to whatever allegorical form of prejudice you’d like to map onto The Wizard and Madame Morrible’s (Michelle Yeoh) reasoning. The quibbles with how the film conveys the amalgamation of Maguire’s original source material with Stephen Schwartz’s music and Winnie Holzman’s book begin with the lack of clarity in the Wizard and Morrible’s motivations and continue into trying to contort both the justification of Ariana Grande's Glinda’s conflicting feelings, along with the original Wizard of Oz story. This struck me as strange, considering I’ve seen the stage production and can recall reading about the differences in the novel and what changed when it was adapted as a musical, yet never have so many of the multiple reveals in this second half felt as rushed or convoluted as they do at certain points in the film version. Conversely, there are moments where the betrayal and sought-after vindication really work both thematically and dramatically. For instance, it’s almost a shame how little time is devoted to the dynamic between Boq (Ethan Slater) and Nessarose (Marissa Bode), whose mountains of unhappiness, inadequacies and the combination of anger and hate that comes as a result are kind of the keystone in just how easy it is for relationships and systems to devolve. There are moments, though, really powerful moments that make one want to forgive the leaps and twists too often required to credibly get from one plot point to the next.

As is known, this is obviously Elphaba and Glinda’s story and ultimately Elphaba’s, even if the friendship between these two women is at the heart of what makes the life and times of the Wicked Witch worth exploring. While the first film, which is very much the first half of this single story, showed cracks of who these characters would become in ‘For Good’ , both Elphaba and Glinda become more fully fleshed out in what are surprisingly unexpected ways. Whereas Erivo played things closer to the chest in the school-based portion of the story, the Elphaba character is given much more rein here to explore the power she actually has over her own life. Beyond the love triangle that involves Jonathan Bailey's Fiyero, Elphaba is largely attempting to correct the spell she cast to create the army of flying monkeys. As per the mythology of this world, no spell cast from the "Grimmerie' - a powerful, ancient spellbook of unknown origin, can be reversed. Elphaba's hope is that she might at least set the monkeys free, as they are being utilized by the Wizard to inflict violence and carry out his totalitarian agenda. Elphaba confronts both Glinda and the Wizard in multiple instances to combat the authoritarianism he seeks to impose, calling both of them out on how they've complicated her intentions with their blame game and how their manipulations of her public perception is nothing short of straight-up propaganda; again, themes that were only hinted at in the first half that have higher stakes this time around and are therefore more meaningful. This is what the whole of Wicked seeks to address: the making of Elphaba as an outcast solely due to the color of her skin, despite the interesting wrinkle that she is of noble birth. Her further exile due to her political beliefs that conflict with those seeking to maintain their unearned positions of power shows how the film stands firm in its beliefs, even as it does not always effectively convey that nuance is where the heartache lies.

On the other end of this relationship is Grande's Glinda, who is more restrained but just as effective in her performance this time around. Glinda is torn between fulfilling the aspirations she has held her whole life for status and authority and her obligation to her friend, who she knows is in a more honorable position, no matter how difficult it is to face and accept. I don't know that the screenplay gives Glinda the right leverage or a complete enough arc to really garner any audience sympathy, but Grande continues to exhibit her comic timing and incredible voice in such a fashion we want to continue to believe Glinda is earnest in her intent even though the aforementioned cynicism found laced in the source material would suggest not all is as it seems with the “good” witch either. Again, these are depths to the characters that go largely unexplored due to the obligation of the original Baum narrative where instead of further exploring whether Glinda is simply weak or conniving in deeper ways than thought capable we are instead introduced to a cowardly CGI lion who has the smallest of links to Elphaba’s past but whose testimony more or less shifts the entirety of those left on her side towards abandoning her. It’s not that these links aren’t cool and fun to put together - the young moviegoers sitting in front of me who clearly had no prior knowledge of how things unfolded certainly loved doing exactly that - it’s more that some of the high stakes of the relationships between core characters are too often undercut by extraneous facets that are more cute than critical.

Speaking of cute, one might be facetious enough to drill down on the silliness of this whole thing - is there a mandate that all women must wear green eye shadow in Oz? - but while ‘For Good’ still suffers from some of the initial installments biggest causes for complaints a la the zapped out color grading, the overabundance (and reliance) on CGI, and the bad lighting to try and counter balance each of those other issues these are technical quibbles with a film that has a built-in audience already immersed in this world and these characters ready to see this story brought to life in a way they’ve not experienced before. While these technical failings are certainly disappointing, what was more disappointing about the first film was that Chu offered very little by way of making Oz, and more importantly, the musical numbers, feel cinematic. Do these shortcomings still plague ‘Part II’ at times? Sure, especially considering that not only are there fewer musical numbers, but also fewer of the iconic film tunes to anchor its structure. While building toward the admittedly powerful titular track, Chu uses musical numbers to integrate camera techniques and shot selections that not only enhance the music but also complement the lyrics. This is most apparent during a new song titled “The Girl in the Bubble,” in which Chu utilizes a sequence of mirrors to emphasize Glinda’s feelings of wanting to be seen and respected while simultaneously feeling trapped. It is a sequence such as this, where different departments come together to create a singular vision, with every element doing some work at the story level that justifies a film adaptation of this already hugely successful Broadway show. Of course, I wish these sparks of inspiration and sheer creativity might have shown up more frequently throughout both films, yet ‘For Good’ manages to find its footing often enough with a more critical look at its themes and by simply being a more substantial artistic endeavor. These growing pains give this conclusion a measure of success as the version of this story that will now be the most known and most referenced for years and generations to come, even if it doesn't necessarily reach the heights to which it was capable. 

Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Starring: Rebecca Ferguson, Idris Elba & Gabriel Basso 
Rated: R (language)
Runtime: 1 hour & 52 minutes

Director Kathryn Bigelow’s latest film, “A House of Dynamite,” her first in eight years, is the story of what happens when the U.S. Government realizes it’s about to be attacked with a nuclear weapon but doesn’t know its origin and must decide how to respond.

The film is told from three different perspectives in a non-linear fashion, showing the same sequence of events through the eyes of different characters, with differing results as far as storytelling and entertainment go.

The story opens with Captain Olivia Walker (Rebecca Ferguson), the duty officer in charge of the White House Situation Room, and Major Daniel Gonzalez (Anthony Ramos), the commander of missile defenses at Fort Greely, Alaska. We meet other characters during this segment, including Deputy National Security Advisor Jake Baerington (Gabriel Basso), United States Strategic Command leader Gen. Anthony Brady (Tracy Letts), White House Situation Room director Admiral Mark Miller (Jason Clarke) and Secretary of Defense Reid Baker (Jared Harris), but the first 30 minutes or so is mostly through the eyes of Walker and Gonzalez with the nuke being found on radar, its trajectory being narrowed down to somewhere in the American Midwest and the missile defenses attempt to shoot it down, which evidently only has a 60% success rate.

The first segment, where we don’t yet know how the end result of the nuke is going to play out, is the most thrilling of “A House Full of Dynamite,” with the viewers getting to see how the events would play out – and supposedly the film is quite accurate with this – in real time.

And then we get the answer as to what happens with the nuke. And we get a perspective switch to where the main characters in the story are now: Gen. Brady, Baerington, and, to a lesser extent, Admiral Miller.

It was likely due to finding the performances of Letts, Basso and Clarke to be engaging that the second segment of the film – again lasting about 30 minutes in length – still worked for me. You see the incident from their point of view, and you see how a certain lucky few on the White House staff are whisked away to a safer, more secure location – sorry, Capt. Walker – and you see how they try to decide what comes next if the nuke does, indeed, wipe out a major U.S. city.

That leads to the third segment of the film, which is the most problematic and not what you want from the ending of your film, but I also didn’t mind it as much as many viewers and critics seemed to. This is where we finally get to lay eyes on the President of the United States (Idris Elba), who’s been out at an event and has only now been reachable by a satellite phone, which is why he’s the one character never seen during the first two segments.

Throughout the first two segments, we saw a bunch of people who knew exactly what they were doing, even if it didn’t always work out. But here, we have the leader of the free world seemingly not knowing what to do. Some viewers have an issue with this, but I ask you to look at who has been in the real White House over the last decade and tell me if you think they’d be in a great position if a similar situation were to happen.

I’m willing to give directors and screenwriters, Noah Oppenheim wrote this one, the benefit of the doubt when it comes to making movies in ways outside of the norm, but I do wonder if “A House of Dynamite” might have been a better film, or at least more entertaining, had it been told in a linear fashion.

Despite that question, I did mostly enjoy the film, and my issues had more to do with certain things that didn’t need to be in the script, but were, and by this I mean entire characters like Moses Ingram as a FEMA official and Willa Fitzgerald as a journalist, who seemingly had zero reasoning for being included, and made me wonder if things had been left on the cutting room floor.

“A House of Dynamite” is streaming on Netflix.

Director: Derek Cianfrance
Starring: Channing Tatum, Kirsten Dunst & Peter Dinklage 
Rated: R (language, nudity & brief sexuality) 
Runtime: 2 hours & 6 minutes

 
Director Derek Cianfrance’s “Roofman” is the incredible true tale of Jeffrey Manchester, a man who broke into McDonald’s in North Carolina via the roof in the late ‘90s, was caught, escaped from prison, and then hid out in a Toys “R” Us store.
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Jeffrey was a U.S. Army veteran struggling to get by with three kids and an ex-wife, and he turned to crime to get by and provide for his family.

As played by Channing Tatum in “Roofman,” Jeffrey comes off as a likable heroic figure just trying to survive tough times, which makes the character somewhat of a Robin Hood character to viewers. McDonald’s and Toys “R” Us as stand-ins for world leaders and billionaires in today’s country, throwing Gatsby parties while common folk lose their SNAP benefits.  

Tatum’s charm and everyman demeanor work perfectly for such a character, and we’ve seen Tatum pull this act off terrifically before in Steven Soderbergh’s underrated 2017 film “Logan Lucky.” “Roofman” is more of a dramatic tale of an individual pushed to steal through life’s downfalls, but Tatum once again knocks the role out of the park.

Hiding out at Toys “R” Us is where we truly get to see Jeffrey’s humanity, as he watches the employees do their jobs, including the hard-working, single mother Leigh (Kirsten Dunst), and how they’re treated by their uncaring boss, Mitch (Peter Dinklage). When Mitch refuses to donate toys to Leigh’s church toy drive, Jeffrey takes matters into his own hands, stealing a bag of toys and delivering them to the church himself – risking his safety in the process. At the church, he is introduced to Leigh, and the two quickly form a relationship, with Jeffrey taking over the alias of John Zorn, a government employee with classified status.

Tatum and Dunst have good chemistry that makes you root for their characters’ relationship, even though you know it could crumble at any moment. Jeffrey and Leigh are meant for each other, but ever since the days of Shakespeare, we know not all “meant to be” come to fruition.

“Roofman” has a talented supporting cast that includes LaKeith Stanfield, Juno Temple, Ben Mendelsohn and Uzo Aduba, but the main focus is on Jeffrey’s ordeal and his relationship with Leigh. Only Dinklage’s character really has a chance to stand out, outside of those two.

If you dig too much into the real-life story of Manchester, you’ll find out how this movie is going to end, as Cianfrance and co-writer Kirt Gunn stick to the real-life tale, when they easily could’ve taken creative liberties. I’d suggest watching the film and later reading up on the true story.

Director: Scott Cooper
Starring: Jeremy Allen White, Jeremy Strong & Stephen Graham
Rated: PG-13 (language, thematic material, smoking & some sexuality)
Runtime: 2 hours

​Bruce Springsteen is my idol.

So, there’s likely going to be bias on my part when it comes to a movie based on a portion of his life. I might like the movie more than some, but I’m also likely to be harsher on it if it doesn’t get things or the feeling right.

Director/writer Scott Cooper’s “Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere,” based on Warren Zanes’ 2023 book Deliver Me from Nowhere, on the making of Springsteen’s stripped-down 1982 solo album Nebraska, impressed me in how it captured the struggle of an artist who might not know the ins-and-outs of why he wants his art to be the way it is but deep down feels it has to be that way.

As a longtime Springsteen fan, Nebraska frankly isn’t the album I’d have chosen to build a film around. I’d have preferred a film about the making of 1975’s Born to Run, the album that both saved and made Springsteen’s career, and happens to be my favorite album of all time. But I can understand why Nebraska is the album where a filmmaker can get to the core of what it means to be a true artist.

Some critics are writing “Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere” off as just another biopic of a famous person. The biopic genre, especially those about musicians, has become one of the most hated film genres among many, especially critics, over the last two decades.

But ‘Deliver Me from Nowhere’ isn’t your typical biopic. It’s more of a character study of a man who feels something strongly, fights for it and struggles to understand it – it just so happens to be one of the world’s most famous music makers and a true story.

Jeremy Allen White inhabits the role of Springsteen, which is something I never really doubted. White has shown, for multiple seasons on his terrific television series “The Bear,” that if there’s one thing he can completely knock out of the park as an actor, it’s the role of a tortured artist. White has captured Springsteen's mannerisms and performance style exquisitely in this film.

The casting of the main roles in ‘Deliver Me from Nowhere’ was terrific, with Academy Award-nominated and Emmy Award-winning Jeremy Strong as Springsteen’s loyal manager Jon Landau. A movie on the making of Born to Run would’ve done a good job at explaining the Springsteen/Landau relationship, but we’re asked just to believe it for this time period. White and Strong do a good job of bringing the two's' brotherhood to the screen, even without much to explain it in the script.

Stephen Graham, fresh off his Emmy Award-winning performance in the terrific Netflix miniseries “Adolescence,” was a terrific casting for the role of Springsteen’s father, Douglas, who dealt with demons throughout Springsteen’s childhood that the musician would fight himself as an adult, which were undiagnosed at the time, but have later become known to be depression.

White, Strong and Graham are all terrific at acting without words, letting their facial expressions and body language tell an audience all they need to know.

Any weaknesses within ‘Deliver Me from Nowhere’ come from Cooper not being able to bring forth the “why” as to why Springsteen feels the way he does about his work on Nebraska. But you get the feeling, watching the film, that Springsteen probably didn’t fully understand the “why” himself; it was just a feeling deep down in his soul. Something he felt and needed to get out into the world before it ate him up inside. Yes, it had something to do with his father, his upbringing, and a feeling of imposter syndrome, but maybe the script could’ve been a little clearer about this.

I can’t believe I’ve waited this long to see director Frank Capra’s 1934 classic “It Happened One Night.” I’ve long been a Capra fan with “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town” and “It’s a Wonderful Life,” being among my all-time favorite classic films.

I think I might have been scared off of “It Happened One Night” because of its accolades. It’s one of only three films to ever sweep the major Academy Award categories, winning Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Screenplay (along with “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and “The Silence of the Lambs”). It’s one of those things where, if you never watch it, you can’t argue with its place in history as an essential.

Well, now that I’ve seen it, I don’t have to worry about it not living up to its reputation, because it absolutely does.

“It Happened One Night” is a romantic comedy with elements of ‘30s screwball comedy thrown in, that tells the story of an heiress, Ellie Andrews (Claudette Colbert), who runs away from home after her rich father wants her recent wedding to an adventurous pilot annulled. While running away on a bus to New York City, where she’s to meet her husband, she comes across an out-of-work journalist, Peter Warne (Clark Gable), and this is where the typical, though likely not in 1934, rom-com storyline comes along. Are they going to fall in love? Or are they just using each other for their own personal gains?

The script, written by Robert Riskin, which he based on Samuel Hopkins Adams’ short story Night Bus in Cosmopolitan magazine, is a great mixture of humor, romance and adventure. Riskin’s script has some killer lines of dialogue, like when Ellie’s father asks Warne if he loves his daughter, “YES! But don’t hold that against me, I’m a little screwy myself!” Then, of course, there’s the classic hailing a car while hitchhiking scene, where Ellie shows a confident Peter how easy it can be when you have the right skills.  

Gable, who was loaned to Columbia Pictures from MGM for the project because he didn’t currently have anything in the works and was drawing a paycheck anyway, was born to play the role of Warne, a charming, wry, wisecracking working man, who plays off the pampered socialite of Colbert’s Ellie incredibly well. Gable and Colbert in “It Happened One Night” make for one of the great couples of any rom-com in cinema history.

Capra, one of my all-time favorite directors, had a run in the ‘30s that likely rivals any director in film history for “greatest director of a decade,” and “It Happened One Night” was the beginning of his hot streak that would also include “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town” (1936), which would win him his second Best Director honor, “You Can’t Take It with You” (1938), which would win him his third Best Director honor” and “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” (1939), which might actually be the best movie of his career.  

Director: Luca Guadagnino 
Starring: Julia Roberts, Ayo Edebiri & Andrew Garfield
Rated: R (language & some sexual content)
Runtime: 2 hours & 18 minutes

 
Luca Guadagnino has always seemed more interested in instigating than he has entertaining, whether that be via sexuality, cannibalism or even peaches - the filmmaker is intentional about forcing audiences to not only engage with his work but consider it, question it and debate it. “After the Hunt” might be his most pointedly provocative project thus far as it is a movie expressly made for the purposes of the conversations that will come afterward. The fact I'm spending enough time thinking about this movie to write a review aside, I’ve never felt so passionate about something that I would choose to die on any specific hill (spare me your own opinions). I say this (probably optimistically) because I like to imagine people come to their conclusions and form their points of view based on insight or experience that would garner them valid reason for feeling the way they do, so while it is easy to say I understand where everyone in “After the Hunt” is coming from the film more or less forces the viewer to pick a side, to draw their own conclusions and in light of the conclusions one draws, question what those positions say about you as a person. 
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As the common enemy of the evolution revolution - a cis, straight, white male - I found this film to almost be designed as something of a trap for those who fall into any of the above categories and/or relate to or simply like Michael Stuhlbarg's character the most. Guadagnino and screenwriter Nora Garrett are fans of nuance, sure, giving multiple facets to everyone included in this elitist, privileged club but more importantly, relaying reason to simultaneously believe and doubt each person involved for different reasons. The core question of what did or did not happen and whether a line was crossed or if there were several comes in second to Garrett's thesis though, which she shares with Ayo Edebiri's character, this regarding virtue ethics. The majority of those in positions of such privilege and power who purport to hold the moral high ground only do so for the appearance of being virtuous and not because their actions would remain the same regardless of the circumstances; a truth that holds strong no matter how much one might pad it with philosophical babble.

It isn't said to be dismissive, but more so to communicate awareness that the kind of high-minded debates and conversations that take place in the Yale Philosophy department where “After the Hunt” is largely set can get so far up their own asses they often times go from profound to weightless at the drop of a hat. That said, one of the film's most scathing aspects of its many investigations is when Stuhlbarg's Frederik - husband to Julia Roberts' Alma - interrogates (or intimidates) Edebiri's Maggie when she comes over to their house for dinner after having accused Alma's fellow professor, Hank (Andrew Garfield), of sexually assaulting her. The entire situation is obviously a sensitive one, but Garrett has layered each character with complications that muddy the waters further. Maggie is a Black, gay student accusing a white, male teacher. Hank is a known favorite of the students who clearly has some unspoken bond with Alma, but he's also made Maggie aware that he knows she plagiarized her most recent paper. No details of said accusation are ever stated aloud between two characters. Maggie's parents are notable, wealthy and apparently donate much of that wealth to the university every year. Alma is caught in the middle and, along with Hank, up for tenure. She doesn't want to ruffle feathers, yet she understands in the current climate that optics tend to matter more than substance. Most thorny is the fact Alma seems to surmise the truth of the matter as dialogue like, "Is she brilliant or does she just think you’re brilliant?" and “kowtowing to a mediocre student with rich parents,” are muttered one too many times to not usher viewers toward the line of thought that Maggie is, if not lying, at least embellishing in order to orchestrate a particular image and convey a specific tone. 

Ethan Hawke plays something of an insufferable academic in the 2015 film “Maggie’s Plan” where he has a line of dialogue that has stuck with me in the decade since seeing it (and is a movie I only saw once). As a professor of "ficto-critical anthropology" he tells his students to, "Avoid the word ‘like,’ stating that, "it’s a language condom." Substitute "interesting" for "like" in that quote and you have exactly what Stuhlbarg is zeroing in on when the Maggie of “After the Hunt” joins him and Alma for dinner. Frederik questions Maggie every time she uses the word "interesting," pushing for a deeper insight into her current thesis not because he has any real interest in the subject but solely for the reason of exposing that she is unable to keep up intellectually. Is this holding a standard or inflicting undeserved hurt, again - that's up to the viewer, but what these actions explicitly suggest is that Maggie's sole objective is to lock down a credible source to legitimize her story and Alma, given her relationship to both parties, is the prize. Guadagnino, and I assume Garrett as well, would say they want viewers to draw their own conclusions and maybe my skewed by nature instincts are what led me to my own answers, maybe it's my inherent prejudices against the coddled and the elite that cause it to feel like everyone in Maggie’s world is a little fed up with her bullshit, but it also feels like Guadagnino and Garrett are very conscious of the game they're configuring. 

The casting of Edebiri specifically, as a woman of color in a position where society has failed women and women of color time and time again, is especially calculated in what could be considered either genuinely provocative or completely tacky; a Julius Eastman musical selection during a particular scene could push one over the edge either way. The issue here is that provocation should have a point and it's not evident even after thoughtful consideration what exactly “After the Hunt” means to accomplish with all of the said nuance and calculation. Making this pill even harder to swallow is that Edebiri lacks the ethos, pathos and logos to convince viewers the case is more complicated than it appears - resulting in a think piece that reassures the exceptions rather than analyzing why the rules are largely ignored.

To this end, “After the Hunt” seeks to address a multitude of hot button, objectively offensive issues yet by the time we arrive at the half-hearted and largely confusing conclusion it simply feels as if the film is exploiting this “shallow cultural moment” all while preserving itself in the aesthetic of a west elm furnished home. The topics on which the film touch both simultaneously have zero interest in and are completely consumed with facade. The film is a story of people who believe they're the smartest person in any room they enter, who understand what their outward image indicates and craft it with purpose while pretending it all comes naturally. The film gives off the same energy. The visual assistance of a consistently rainy campus against Roberts' wardrobe of icy white fabrics and austere blonde hair through to the Woody Allen font is all so specific yet none of it feels especially fresh and none of it is as enticing or scandalous as it wants to be considered. Guadagnino utilizes multiple close-ups only of character's hands in the midst of conversations with what feels like no reason beyond seeing what justifications critics might associate the choice with later. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' score feels drenched in ‘Social Network’ throwaways whereas it would seem one scene in particular was written immediately after Garrett witnessed Cate Blanchett in “Tár.” That all sounds more harsh than it might be meant as Roberts is the anchor that pulls all of the films theoretical ideas around "what is right?" and all of Guadagnino's stylistic choices together, but despite the pedigree of the production and the high acumen of the conversations occurring it becomes more and more apparent that the film wishes to benefit from bringing light to difficult topics while undermining the kinds of cases that the #MeToo and cancel culture movements were built upon.

Roberts is still a movie star and “After the Hunt” features what is some of her best, most interesting work in some time and it is her line about the difference between restorative justice and vengeance that speaks to the film's relationship with its broad topic in a way that doesn't necessarily make everything it offers more comprehensive but at least seems to clarify a key point. Guadagnino and Garrett's intentions might be for audiences to make up their own minds about who these characters truly are and what course of action they might take were they in their shoes and to their credit, a large part of the tone would suggest the filmmaker and screenwriter are mocking each of the individuals, their hypocrisy, and their egos - “Everything about this feels like a fuckin’ cliche!” - yet the instinct to exact retribution on the victim, no matter who a viewer places in that role, rather than seek to line the films dry humor with an authenticity about how badly the slanders against these movements need to be repaired feels morally irresponsible - especially when it concludes as it does. This is an entirely different discussion that ventures not into critiquing the film that was made but rather how it should have been made, so we won't travel that road. It does feel vital to note, however, that virtue ethics is labeled as such because it resists the attempt to define virtues in terms of some other concept that is taken to be more fundamental a la rules or consequences. “After the Hunt” understands the shades of variation and knowingly highlights this philosophy to emphasize the ease with which people will compromise their character while doing the same the moment it made the decision to muffle its own voice. I understand the film wasn't made to make us feel comfortable, but it might have at least alluded to something a little bolder.    

​Director Justin Tipping’s “Him” is a neat, niche premise that is rendered nearly nonsensical by the time we reach an anticlimactic fourth quarter, which holds about as much tension as a Browns-Dolphins game. It’s a collection of metaphorical imagery too ornate to be ignored yet too shallow and/or not bold enough to explore its full implications. “Him” seeks to equate the NFL and its deep traditions, aristocratic owners, cultish fanbases and lesser-than leeches waiting in the wings with their microphones to get a handful of meaningless words from the chosen few on the field to, well ... an actual demonic cult. It's an idea ripe with possibilities that can't get past its own ego, rendering it ineffective in both the sports and horror genres. 

For one reason or another, I expected “The Conjuring: Last Rites” to be a far richer send-off than what it ultimately turns out to be. Probably because they billed this as the case that forced the Warrens into retirement, but it turns out that this is due more to Ed’s health issues than anything strikingly unique about the case itself. Granted, these films have never had much of a strong narrative backbone. Even James Wan’s installments were more “this happens, then this happens” with nothing propelling us forward beyond the promise of the formula. Wan’s films, at least, had a certain degree of care for the human drama within the case files of Ed and Lorraine Warren, though, transcending the genre's tropes to make it all feel as personal as possible. Michael Chaves did this to less effect in 2021’s “The Devil Made Me Do It” and does so to even less success here; his main objective this time around being to establish the Warren’s daughter, Judy (Mia Tomlinson), and her fiancé, Tony (Ben Hardy), as the new generation of “ghostbusters”. 

Kogonada has crafted a romantic drama of yesteryear with arguably two of the most photogenic people on the planet, and yet, it is confounding how episodic, somewhat charming, yet completely devoid of genuine emotion, the final picture actually is.
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“A Big Bold Beautiful Journey” romanticizes romance to the point that Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie are essentially blank canvases, people with nothing to lose and no discernible personality, whose relationship immediately feels like a foregone conclusion. The twist is that Seth Reiss' screenplay is willing to call out the sham love can often feel like when such romanticisms are expected without the necessary hard work having been put in to make it real. As a result, these characters are so persistent in their belief that they'll never be in a successful relationship, we not only believe them but kind of don't care whether they end up in one or not.

What I did latch onto here was Farrell's arc as a man who grew up being told how special he was, being set up to wholly believe in his ambition, only for it to give way to a massive hole in his life and an inescapable disappointment when said ambitions don't become reality, giving way to a lifetime of feeling like a failure. As if constantly being told “no one’s good enough for you” actually has the inverse effect on one’s beliefs both about themselves and the world.

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn & Benicio del Toro 
Rated: R (language, violence, sexual content & drug use)
Runtime: 2 hours & 41 minutes

 
There is a moment in Paul Thomas Anderson’s tenth feature film, “One Battle After Another,” where Leonardo DiCaprio’s retired revolutionary Bob Ferguson is on the run in search of his daughter, Chase Infiniti’s Willa Ferguson. Bob is having a difficult time finding an electrical outlet where he can charge his phone so that he might make a call, allowing him to obtain the necessary information concerning a rendezvous point where he will hopefully be reunited with Willa. Thanks to Benicio del Toro’s Sensei Sergio, Bob finally finds a working outlet and proclaims multiple times, “I have power!” It’s a simple sentiment that, in the context of the scene, is celebratory and speaking specifically to Bob getting one step closer to finding his child, but because DiCaprio chooses to repeat the words more than once they inherently bear a significance that gives way to consideration of what these words sound like on their own, without the context in which they’re spoken. Without context, it is easy to assume that a statement such as “I have power” is more a proclamation than something meant to express happiness, which is Anderson's point: the noise is a distraction from the intent. 
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“One Battle After Another,” based loosely on Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel Vineland, is a movie all about how power works; about how much of civilization is built on the whims and desires of power-hungry men who both seek to shape the world in accordance with their own concepts of truth as well as eradicate any reminders of their own shame. This is true for characters on both sides of history in Anderson’s film, and the writer/director, despite making it clear who he believes are the good guys and who are the villains, does not let any one character off the hook. “One Battle After Another” could just as easily be seen as a cynical takedown of those in power as it can a hopeful rallying cry for change in a world gone awry but whatever lens one chooses to view it through, there’s no denying the big, broad, bombastic and most importantly - bizarrely beguiling - entertainment value Anderson is able to deliver alongside his countless ideas.

Scouring the layers and tremendous thought clearly implemented in both Anderson’s adaptation as well as his collaborative execution, what bubbles to the top is the complicated (to say the least) dynamic between Bob and his daughter. It’s not only that Infiniti’s Willa has hit her teen years, complete with independent thought and a more extensive understanding of how the world around her works, but mostly that these developments contradict Bob’s constant state of paranoia. Bob, who, in his own youth, was a revolutionary, is seen participating in the freeing of migrants from detention facilities and actively blowing up power grids for the underground organization known as the French 75. He has more or less checked out of society since going into hiding with Willa. Sixteen years have passed, and Bob freely admits to having fried his brain on drugs and booze as DiCaprio’s surprisingly tender (given the circumstances) performance seems to indicate Bob’s awareness that Willa is at her breaking point; no longer viewing him as a father who cares about her above anything but more as the sole reason she isn’t allowed to do anything. This moment in time is also easily viewed as a breaking point because the film sets in motion Sean Penn’s Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw tracking down Bob and Willa after he was both involved with and duped by Bob’s girlfriend and Willa’s mother, Perfidia Beverly Hills (a looming and luminous Teyana Taylor).

They say youth is wasted on the young, this idea that while young people are full of energy and ideals, they often lack the wisdom and perspective to use these traits effectively, while conversely, by the time wisdom and perspective set in, the energy to champion such ideals has been all but drained. Incorporating an extreme example, such as a group of revolutionaries, emphasizes the idea that this aphorism is not only true but also serves as a compelling reason why each generation seems to fail the next. Yes, Bob is a self-proclaimed bum who barely remembers the call signs of his cohorts much less his original motivations for placing his life on the course it’s taken, but he’s not a man without admirable priorities and Willa being at the top of that list - he was smitten with her from the beginning - has given him, if not doubts, at least reasons to consider said incentives as each obstacle he bumbles his way through in order to try and save her opens his eyes all the more to not only how much his mission failed, but how much worse it’s made life for what’s become his sole reason for living.

It is this level of introspection, combined with the broad genre spaces the film inhabits, while sprinkling in countless details that are uniquely funny and memorable, that makes “One Battle After Another” so accessible yet still wholly a Paul Thomas Anderson film. The character—and the details surrounding and within it—that symbolize and summarize this best is that of Penn’s Lockjaw. In broad strokes, he’s the villain of the piece yet when we get into his sexual quirks, sense of style (or lack thereof), and general posture we are served the specifics that make both the character and Penn’s performance monumental in their fields, while it is his aspirations of joining what is hilariously named the “Christmas Adventurer’s Club” made up of good sports like Tony Goldwyn, James Downey, Kevin Tighe, D.W. Moffett and John Hoogenakker that put this squarely in the realm of an Anderson film. The first half hour to 40 minutes of the film offers a foreword of sorts that is far more solemn than what remains in the final two hours, but it is the tone Anderson establishes in his introduction that paints both the sincerity and despair of DiCaprio's pre-Bob Pat and Perfidia's situation as contrasted by the shameless vulgarity on which Lockjaw operates and further, will prey upon them with. This is a difficult scale to balance, despite life often mirroring such drastic turns in spirit and attitude. Movies must oftentimes remain consistent across style, theme and temper to feel cohesive in their drive towards accomplishing an objective, but what makes each of Anderson's films so defiantly his own is how he lives in the unclean moments of life. 

In the third act of the film, there is a point at which Willa is being set up for execution. The viewer can infer what is happening, Willa is more than aware her clock is running out, and the bounty hunter (Eric Schweig), whom Lockjaw has requested deliver her to his merciless gang of mercenaries, understands he is leading a lamb to the slaughter. At the collision of these three entities, Anderson doesn't easily cut together a clean escape in which Willa and Schweig's Avanti combine forces to overcome the actual bad guys, no, he instead lets the camera rest on Willa's panicked face as she is initially left for dead by Avanti only to be given a window of time to escape because, unlike the mercenaries, his ethics haven't gone completely out the window due to his compensation. The audience experiences this scenario almost explicitly from Willa's vantage point - both physically and emotionally - meaning not only is there tension because of what is at stake, but because we must sit in moments of unease in the unknown. Such authenticity is often difficult to capture in a highly constructed and planned medium like film; yet, there are countless examples of these seemingly unpredictable, unclean moments throughout the film's entirety. From the sequence in which Sensei Sergio guides Bob through his "underground railroad situation" to Lockjaw's interrogation of Willa in an isolated convent, Anderson almost amplifies these moments in such a fashion so as to ensure this idea that there is some kind of divine plan that will ensure good always swings around in time to balance evil might only hold true if there are those who continue to show up out of love. One does not have to lead the revolution to enact change; presence is a kind of heroism all its own.

This, maybe oversimplified, conclusion makes it sound as if “One Battle After Another” can be boiled down to a single thesis statement which isn't necessarily true given the breadth of ideas the screenplay renders, but in this imagining of what revolution might look like in a present society as applied to the action genre while centering on a story about a father trying to get back to his daughter it is, once more, these themes that resonate most. Elevating said storytelling is the specificity and idiosyncrasies of the details in the world and characters Anderson employs, along with, of course, the previously noted style in which the film is captured. Aside from the portion of the conversation that could detail Anderson shooting on and having his film projected in VistaVision 35MM film, there is just something about kids skateboarding across rooftops, doing tricks while flares light up the sky behind them as World War III begins in the streets below all set to a Jonny Greenwood score that speaks to audiences on a deeper, more primal level. Like the story, the look is specific but timeless, it is energetic without being overwhelming - it too is unclean. 

This thread also applies to the performances, although my single complaint with the film is that a collaboration between Anderson and Regina Hall might have yielded more. Hall, known for her comedic chops, is almost completely mute here, and though her performance as a surrogate mother to the lost and confused Willa is heartfelt, one cannot help but hope this is only the beginning of a long relationship between filmmaker and actor. Otherwise, from DiCaprio's Lebowski-like aloofness (and wardrobe) that gives way to some of the funniest stuff the movie star has done to Infiniti's more grounded debut through to every single one of the smaller, supporting players - Wood Harris, Alana Haim, Shayna McHayle, Paul Grimstad, James Raterman, and countless others - each somehow find ways to stand out in remarkable fashion. Sensei Sergio's arrival in the movie signals a shift in energy altogether that allows the film to go from the aforementioned perspective of superiority and cynicism that sees Lockjaw and his ICE-like organization invent reasons to invade small towns like the fictional Baktan Cross (“Activate Eddie Van Halen!") to that of a more hopeful, optimistic perspective that shows people helping people out of nothing more than the humility that fascists would call humiliating. If it is Bob and Willa's relationship that dominates the emotional heft of the narrative, it is the equally enthralling dynamic between Penn and del Toro's supporting performances of two men who have no idea the other exists that highlights the competing ideologies of how this reality, not so far removed from our own, can manage to feel both critical and cathartic.