Rental Family (2025) * * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Hikari

Starring:  Brendan Fraser, Takehiro Hira, Mari Yamamoto, Akira Emoto

Phillip (Fraser) is a struggling American actor living in Japan.  He starred in a popular television commercial there seven years ago and has been working trying to recapture that level of fame ever since.  Rental Family isn't Lost in Translation, in which Bill Murray played a famous actor on the downside of his career visiting Japan.  Phillip isn't a has-been, he's a never-was.  

He's a kind, but lonely soul who lives alone and his only companionship is with a steady prostitute.  He also towers over anyone who stands next to him.  One day, Phillip's agent calls with a new job.  He is to attend a "funeral" in which the "deceased" lies in a casket, but isn't dead.  He holds the ceremony to see how many people would pay their respects.  The arranger of the funeral is Rental Family Inc., run by Shinji (Hira) who wants Phillip to work for him.  What does Rental Family Inc. do?  Their clients hire actors like Phillip for a variety of reasons.  In Phillip's case, he is hired by the daughter of a famed, but forgotten actor (Emoto) to portray a magazine writer doing a story on him.  The family wants the actor to feel better as he slips into dementia.  Phillip is also hired by a mother with a young daughter wanting to gain admission to a prestigious school.  The mom wants Phillip to pose as the child's long-lost father in hopes that it will make her happy enough to pass the tests for admission.  Then, Phillip is expected to walk away and never see the clients again.

This is a dicey business and the clients are lying to or playing tricks on their loved ones for temporary comfort, but it is natural for Phillip to develop a friendship with the old man or the young girl that makes them more difficult to walk away from.  That part is predictable, but Fraser makes it work with his sweetness and tenderness.  Because he's lonely himself, he finds these interactions help him as well. The other employees of Rental Family, Inc. take on tasks of their own, including a woman who poses as a man's mistress to take the heat when the wife ultimately finds out.  A company like Rental Family Inc. pushes the boundaries of legality and morality, not to mention taking an emotional toll on the actors.  

It's a shame that Rental Family isn't better than it is.  It takes a while to get going and it only covers the situations on a superficial level.  I enjoyed it in parts rather than as a whole.  I don't know if such a company exists.  In a sense, they are not much different than being prostitutes, except no sex is involved.  But for the right price, would that change?  

Fackham Hall (2025) * * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Jim O'Hanlon

Starring:  Thomasin McKenzie, Tom Felton, Damian Lewis, Katherine Waterston, Ben Radcliffe, Emma Laird

The rigid social etiquette of Downton Abbey and similar movies depicting the wealthy and powerful British society of the 1930's is skewered in Fackham Hall (get it? Sounds like Fuck 'Em All).  Like any movie with an Airplane! or Naked Gun style of comedy in which gags of all sorts are hurled at the viewer with varying degrees of success.  Fackham Hall has some jokes that land and others which cause the audience to groan, but there are worse things you can do with roughly ninety minutes of your time.

The Davenports live in Fackham Hall, but times are tough.  They may lose the property due to financial woes, but once their younger daughter Poppy (Laird) is married off to her first cousin Archibald (Felton), then all be right with the world...legalities be damned.  But Poppy chooses to abandon Archibald at the altar to marry a low-class manure salesman and now the family is pressuring Rose (McKenzie) to marry Archibald even though she doesn't love him.  She instead falls for a new servant (Radcliffe) who was sent there by his orphanage to deliver a letter for patriarch Humphrey Davenport (Lewis) but instead is hired mistakenly to be a member of the staff.

The plot is not as important in these types of spoofs as the jokes themselves.  The actors deliver the straight lines and the gags in the same manner.  It is better that they are not in on the joke or act as if they are.  They need to stay above the ridiculousness while being part of it at the same time.  Leslie Nielsen was a master at this, and these actors are all good enough to understand their assignment and make Fackham Hall operate as well as can be expected.  Movies like this are hit-and-miss anyway.  It's difficult to recreate Airplane! because that was groundbreaking in the world of movie comedy, but Fackham Hall does its best.  

Eternity (2025) * * *

 

Directed by:  David Freyne

Starring:  Miles Teller, Elizabeth Olsen, Callum Turner, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Olga Merediz, John Early

The afterlife of Eternity is depressing if you think about it, but Eternity exists in the emotion of the moment and as a romantic comedy of sorts.  Thank goodness the filmmakers decided to give Eternity a lighter tone because this stuff could get heavy.  In Eternity, a recently departed person arrives at a way station and has seven days to choose how he or she would like to spend eternity.  The place operates like a bazaar in which salespeople are pitching their eternity packages (Studio 54, suburbia, etc.)  Afterlife Coordinators are assigned to help them acclimate to the process and the people stay in a nice hotel room while deciding their fate.  

The catch is:  You can only choose one and you can't change your mind.  This becomes a bigger issue for Joan (Olsen) who arrives days after the death of her husband of 65 years, Larry (Teller), and finds her first husband Luke (who died in the Korean War) has been waiting for Joan to arrive so he could spend forever with her.  Does Joan choose Larry, with whom she had built a happy life and family, or Luke, who represents what could have been?  Not an easy decision, and the fact that Larry and Luke are both good people makes it harder for her.  She could always choose an afterlife without either person, but we know that isn't in the cards.

Joan's dilemma is the hook for Eternity, and it helps move it along.  Teller, Olsen, and Turner all play kind, likable people who understandably want what's best for themselves.  After all, we're talking forever and that's a mighty long time.  Luke and Larry know what they want.  Joan is more hesitant, and the pressure is unduly placed on the poor woman.  Even if one chooses with certainty, they are unable to opt out of their choice if they grow bored with the scenario after a few years.  They can try to escape their fate, but then they are tracked down by the afterlife police and tossed into "the void", which I guess is a version of hell.  Then again, having to choose only one eternity sounds like hell in and of itself.  I told you this stuff could get sad, but Eternity walks the tightrope between comedy and tearjerking very well.  Some people might have an issue with some of the romantic comedy aspects of Eternity, but to me it's better to laugh so you may not cry. 

Mr. Majestyk (1974) * * *

 

Directed by:  Richard Fleischer

Starring:  Charles Bronson, Al Lettieri, Lee Purcell, Paul Koslo, Linda Cristal

Vince Majestyk (Bronson) is a Colorado farmer who only wants to have his melons picked and make a living.  One morning, he finds himself in the middle of more controversy than he's used to.  Normally, he picks a group of hard-working Mexicans to pick his crop, but that morning he finds a troublemaker (Koslo) replaced his crew with an all-white crew.  Vince wants the group he picked and soon beats the hell out of the goon and is booked on assault charges.  He's a progressive kind of guy.  

That would be enough for one movie, but while Vince is being transported to jail, he runs afoul of a mobster (Lettieri) who is on the same bus.  The mobster's cronies shoot up the bus in an attempt to free him, but Vince takes him off the bus to safety.  The mobster strikes a deal with Vince to free him, which Vince reluctantly accepts because he doesn't trust him.  He instinctively believes the mobster will have him killed, so he makes a deal with the local DA to turn in the mobster.  Got that?  It'll all be on the quiz. 

Mr. Majestyk isn't about plot anyway.  It is a showcase for Charles Bronson's unique brand of violence and sly humor.  Mr. Majestyk maybe contain the most one-liners of Bronson's career.  He's having fun here and that makes a traditional action movie more entertaining.  Mr. Majestyk isn't intended to raise the genre to any new heights.  It's full of action and it works.  Sometimes that's all that is needed. 

Critical Condition (1987) * *

 

Directed by:  Michael Apted

Starring:  Richard Pryor, Rachel Ticotin, Ruben Blades, Joe Mantegna, Bob Dishy, Bob Saget

Critical Condition is all over the map.  It wants to be a thoughtful satire, madcap comedy of errors, and an action picture all in one movie.  The tone continually shifts until we get whiplashed with Richard Pryor trying his mightiest to keep it all together.  There is an able supporting cast to back up Pryor, but even they seem overwhelmed.

Pryor is conman Kevin Lenahan, who is framed in a jewel robbery, but due to his track record he doesn't expect to be exonerated at trial.  Instead, he fakes insanity and finds himself soon pretending to be a doctor at a local hospital on a dark and stormy night where the power goes out.  Kevin (or Dr. Eddie Slattery as he calls himself when making the rounds), desperately attempts to conceal his identity while planning his escape.  He finds himself giving medical advice and leading around an intern (Saget) and a veteran doctor (Dishy) who is terrified of lawsuits, all the while assisting the beleaguered chief administrator (Ticotin) who is doing her best under the circumstances.

I recall first seeing the movie when it was first released in 1987.  I was a high school student then and I declared it one of the worst movies I had ever seen.  Upon second viewing, I certainly don't feel that way now.  It's not a good movie, just one that is at war with its motives and its methods.  It wants to be all things to the audience, but it doesn't work out that way.  It is also sad to know that Pryor began his battle with MS at the time of this movie's release and putting forth the energy must have been tough on him.  I give him and the movie credit for attempting what it wants to do, but there is too much ground to cover.  

Now You See Me: Now You Don't (2025) * *

 

Directed by:  Ruben Fleischer

Starring:  Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Isla Fisher, Dominic Sessa, Rosamund Pike, Morgan Freeman, Ariana Greenblatt, Justice Smith, Lizzy Caplan

Now You See Me: Now You Don't is the third installment of the successful series following the exploits of The Four Horsemen, four magicians who ply their trade on amoral billionaires and relieve them of their riches.  They're Robin Hoods of the 21st century, but when you take into account the amount of money and planning it takes to finance these schemes, where is the break-even point?  Is it even worth it financially, or are they in it for the pleasure of watching the rich become poor or go to prison?

Now You See Me: Now You Don't begins, however, with a trio of the next generation of Horsemen publicly hacking a corrupt crypto jerk and distributing his ill-gotten gains amongst the poor and getting him arrested for his shady business practices.  This catches the attention of Daniel Atlas (Eisenberg), who recruits them for another mission:  To expose billionaire diamond mogul Veronkia Vandenberg (Pike-and I love her accent she employs for the movie) and steal the world's most valuable diamond from her.  That part is done rather easily.  It's when she sends her goons to kill everyone that things get dicey, and rather boring. 

It seems the Horsemen broke up due to personal squabbles since Now You See Me 2, but they reunite with just some minor bickering going on.  Their sleight-of-hand tricks in which they and the newbies show each other in games of one-upmanship are not really possible in the physical world we occupy, to paraphrase a line from Ocean's Twelve.  They look impressive, but we know they aren't really happening unless the Horsemen have become The Avengers.  

The Now You See Me doesn't live in the world of realism and doesn't need to.  The series is mostly forgettable and is a swerve fest. The actors are having a good time, but the plot twists and turns are so ludicrous they defy any suspension of disbelief.  There's suspension, and then whatever the Now You See Me series asks of its audience. 

Being Eddie (2025) * * *

 

Directed by: Angus Wall

Featuring:  Eddie Murphy, Charlie Murphy, Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, Pete Davidson, John Landis, Jamie Foxx, Kevin Hart, Val Young

You can forgive Being Eddie for being borderline hagiography because it's pieced together nicely, showing us the mostly positive parts of Eddie Murphy's life and career.  Vampire in Brooklyn is noted as a career low point, but mostly the interviewees give us positive takes on Murphy with Murphy himself providing a more in-depth review of his life than we've ever seen before.  

Murphy seems at peace with himself, living in a posh California mansion and maintaining a loving relationship with his wife and ten children.  The children range in age from early 40's to toddlers, and Murphy lovingly describes them as his rock.  When Murphy discusses something funny, his laugh is different than the one we saw in his earlier movies.  What is still the same is his confidence and his comic ability.  He isn't boring, and the final scenes showing him playing with Richard Pryor and Bill Cosby puppets (harkening back to an early childhood memory), are very funny.  The Richard Pryor puppet itself is a howl.  

Murphy grew up on Roosevelt, Long Island and predicted he would be a star by the time he reached eighteen.   He was off by one year.  He joined SNL when he was 19 during the much-maligned 1980 season which was the first during Lorne Michaels' hiatus from the show.  Due to underwhelming ratings and unfavorable comparisons to the original Not Ready for Primetime Players who departed the show the previous year, all of the cast members except Murphy and Joe Piscopo were fired.  SNL was where some of Murphy's greatest characters like Mr. Robinson, Gumby, and Velvet Jones were formed, plus his spot-on celebrity impressions made him a household name before he ventured into the movies.  

48 Hrs. (1982) was his feature-film debut and what a start.  The scene in the redneck bar where Murphy's Reggie Hammond takes control of a roomful of people who hate him made him a star.  Then, we have Trading Places and Beverly Hills Cop, which shot Murphy into orbit as one of the biggest box-office draws of the 80's.  Movies like Best Defense and The Golden Child aren't mentioned, although I found The Golden Child to be an amusing action adventure with Murphy playing against type.  The late 80's and early 90's brought about some flops, some of which aren't brought up, but then Murphy found himself on an upward career trajectory again after The Nutty Professor and a series of family-friendly hits like Daddy Day Care.  Dreamgirls pushed Murphy into awards consideration for the first time in his career.  He won a Golden Globe and SAG Award for Best Supporting Actor but lost out on the Oscar to Alan Arkin in what was a definite upset.  

The documentary then focuses on Murphy's return to host SNL in the late 2010's.  He had not been on the show in any capacity since the David Spade "a falling star" joke about Murphy which hurt Murphy to his core.  He wasn't angry with Spade for telling the joke as much as he believed he was betrayed by SNL for allowing the joke to air.  Was Murphy a mite too sensitive?  Possibly, but he's honest about himself and why he stayed away from SNL for years until hosting.  It represented a full-circle moment for him and Being Eddie makes the same conclusion.  

Being Eddie isn't perfect, but it moves along briskly and allows for Murphy to present an openness we haven't really seen.  He lived a mostly non-controversial life, but the movie is about the gift that keeps on giving: Murphy's comedy and his stand-up.  Being Eddie broaches the subject as to when Murphy will ever return to stand-up after stepping away from it in the late 1980's, and Murphy is coy with his response, but that would be quite a return.  

 

Nuremberg (2025) * * 1/2

 

Directed by:  James Vanderbilt

Starring:  Russell Crowe, Rami Malek, John Slattery, Michael Shannon, Richard E. Grant, Andreas Pietchsmann, Colin Hanks, Leo Woodall

One of the strengths of Nuremberg is how Hermann Goring (Crowe) is depicted not as a raging lunatic, but as someone with charm and manipulative skill.  Crowe is at-home and confident as Goring, showing him as the type of evil hidden behind a smile and a whole lot of girth rather than shouting and frothing at the mouth with villainous hatred. 

Nuremberg is a movie I wanted to like more than I did.  The subject of the perils of postwar Germany and trying war criminals without precedent is tricky and fascinating material, but Nuremberg meanders its way to the showdown between U.S. Justice Robert H. Jackson (Shannon) and Goring as he takes the stand in his defense.  Other than Goring's testimony, Nuremberg doesn't spend much time in the courtroom.  It assembles the first 22 members of the Nazi high command indicted for war crimes and other crimes against humanity and places them in a nearby makeshift prison with Col. Burton Andrus (Slattery) as the warden.  Andrus tells Jackson that if the trials don't go well against the first 22 defendants, then the trials will be scrapped, and the Allies will look ridiculous on the world stage.

However, Nuremberg focuses on psychiatrist Douglas Kelley (Malek), who is brought in to examine the defendants and determine if they are mentally fit to stand trial.  Kelley is sharp and competent, determining early on the traits of the members of the high command, including Goring.  Kelley, however, wishes to turn his meetings into a best-selling book, so his motives aren't strictly professional.  Kelley falls under the spell of Goring, even going so far as to act as courier delivering letters to Goring's wife and child who are in hiding.  Kelley's ethical boundaries are fluid, until he witnesses the horrors of the concentration camps on film which Goring claims to know nothing about.  I also liked Malek here, especially as he transitions from early cockiness to later insecurity and ethical confusion.  

But Nuremberg meanders on its way to the main event.  The undercard consists of unnecessary attention to Goring's family and uneven pacing.  I found myself checking my watch more than being engrossed, which is the last thing I expected from such riveting subject matter.  Instead, the effect is curiously diluted.  

The Running Man (2025) * *

 

Directed by:  Edgar Wright

Starring:  Glen Powell, Jayme Lawson, Josh Brolin, Lee Pace, Colman Domingo, Michael Cera, Daniel Ezra, William H. Macy, Amelia Jones

The Running Man suffers in comparison to the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle.  Is it more faithful to Stephen King's novel?  It may be, but it is a slog to get through, even from the early moments.  Glen Powell assumes the Schwarzenegger role but not the charisma to carry it.  At a bloated 2:13 running time, The Running Man asks a lot of any actor to carry.  

Powell is Ben Richards, an angry, out-of-work factory worker in a dystopian future blackballed from work by the state for whistleblowing about unsafe conditions.  His baby daughter is suffering from medical issues, his wife works at a gentleman's club presumably dancing, and Ben decides to travel down to the state TV network to try out for one of their game shows.  After a physical and psychological test, Ben is chosen to participate in The Running Man, the most watched show on the network in which contestants have to avoid being killed by "Hunters" as a rabid public is encouraged to report the contestants' whereabouts for lucrative rewards.   The contestant must survive for thirty days.  I liked the 1987 version in which Ben and his friends would have to only live through one night and four different bad guys harnessing various weapons such as a flamethrower or a chainsaw would stalk them.  This version also requires the contestants to send out a video each day to ensure the public and network he or she is still alive.  Does this create opportunities for doctored footage which turns people against Ben?  What do you think?

The show is run by oily network honcho Dan Killian (Brolin), who believes Ben could possibly be the first winner of The Running Man.   The show is hosted by the Jerry Springer-inspired Bobby T. (Domingo), who enthusiastically eggs on the proceedings like a modern-day P.T. Barnum.  Sure, these guys are bad, but at least they're fun to watch.  Powell looks the part of action hero, but he has only one dimension (angry), and the entire movie grows tiresome quickly as Ben travels from place to place encountering those willing to help him and those who can't wait to turn him in.  

Dragging out the action over thirty days is tedious and soon we find ourselves checking our watches more than getting involved in the action.  The Running Man feels as long as the thirty days in which the action is supposed to take place.  

Who Killed the Montreal Expos? (2025) * * *

 

Directed by:  Jean-Francois Poisson

Featuring interviews with:  Felipe Alou, David Samson, Larry Walker, Pedro Martinez, Vladimir Guerrero, Claude Brochu

The Montreal Expos last played in Montreal in September 2004 before moving to Washington DC and becoming the Washington Nationals.  Like the Brooklyn Dodgers moving west to Los Angeles in the late 1950's, the Expos' move created a civic pain which lingers to this day.  Walter O'Malley, the Dodgers owner who packed up and moved west, was so hated in Brooklyn that the following joke became prevalent:  If you have Hitler, Stalin, and Walter O'Malley in a room and you have a gun with two bullets, who do you shoot?  Answer: Walter O'Malley twice.  Only, I'm not sure how much jocularity is involved in that hypothetical. 

The closest thing to a Walter O'Malley in Expos lore is Jeffrey Loria, who bought the team in 1999, sold the team in 2002 to Major League Baseball, and went on to own the Florida Marlins.  His stepson David Samson was brought in to be the general manager, and the gregarious, vociferous Samson is by far the most entertaining interview subject.  Expos fans blame Loria and Samson for purposely running the team into the ground and selling, while previous Expos executives like Claude Brochu say that one person did not kill the Expos, but the economy, the inability to raise money for a new ballpark, and the 1994 season ending in a players' strike.  

The 1994 Expos were well on their way to the playoffs and the belief they could win a World Series.  The dream ended when the players struck in September, cancelling the remainder of the season including the playoffs.  Could they have gone all the way to a championship?  We'll never know, but that doesn't stop the living players from reuniting at events and declaring themselves the 1994 World Champions.  Maybe that's in jest, but it also may be a lament.  However, once the players returned from strike in 1995, baseball suffered and the Expos in particular sustained a loss of fan interest.  The fact that they played in Olympic Stadium which was crumbling and leaking like a sieve didn't help matters.  It was the only roofed ballpark where rainouts occurred because the roof had so many holes in it.  

Brochu is correct that there is no one person or event which caused the Expos to relocate to Washington DC in 2005.  As badly as Montreal's baseball fans would like to blame someone, and Loria and Samson are the biggest targets on the fans' dartboards, the truth is the Toronto Blue Jays have thrived and were involved in a seven-game classic World Series last month.  The Expos did not, and what frustrates fans most of all is how most of the reasons why the Expos are gone didn't involve anything that occurred on the field.  

The Great Debaters (2007) * * *

 

Directed by:  Denzel Washington

Starring:  Denzel Washington, Forest Whitaker, Denzel Whitaker, Nate Parker, John Heard, Jurnee Smollett, Kimberly Elise, Jermaine Williams

The Great Debaters is an underdog sports tale in which the underdogs are not athletes, but the debate team at small Wiley College in Texas during the 1930's.  Their coach Mel Tolson (Washington) is firm, committed, and believes they can win enough debates to soon face off against the best debate teams in the country, including Harvard.  Mel, however, also attempts to unionize the local sharecroppers which doesn't sit well with the local sheriff (Heard) and other farmers.  There is discrimination, racism, and the threat of violence against black people all around, which makes Mel push his team harder not just to be great debaters, but to secure their futures in a hostile world. 

Washington's directorial debut was Antwone Fisher (2004), which I saw a long time ago and would like to revisit.  In that movie and this one, Washington directs and takes on a supporting role, allowing his younger cast to shine.  The actors are very good, with veteran Forest Whitaker as the college president and father of one of the debaters offering steady support as well.  The debating scenes are not as stirring as Washington would like them to be, mostly because debating is not as cinematic as running with a football or hitting a game-winning home run.  

In the end, Wiley College takes on Harvard (who are seen as the best in the world at debating), although in real life Wiley took on USC, but I suppose Harvard has more prestige than USC.  Mel's team gets their moment in the sun, and when we realize the hard decades which lie ahead, it's moving to see it happen.  Washington can move a scene along and his presence as an actor is always helpful.  The Great Debaters is tricky ground, but Washington can handle it. 

John Candy: I Like Me (2025) * * *

 

Directed by:  Colin Hanks

Featuring interviews with:  Tom Hanks, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, Martin Short, Catherine O'Hara, Dan Aykroyd, Rose Candy, Bill Murray, Steve Martin, Macaulay Culkin, Andrea Martin, John Candy (archive footage), Chris Columbus, John Hughes (archive footage), Mel Brooks

John Candy was a naturally funny man.  His first appearance onscreen usually results in a chuckle or laugh.  He was full of warmth, good humor, charm, ability, and unfortunately weight and health problems which caused his death from a heart attack at 43 in 1994.  One thing Candy wasn't was controversial.  He was a beloved actor, other actors and crew members loved working with him, and no one had a bad thing to say about him.  Bill Murray, in the opening moments of John Candy: I Like Me, amusingly points out that he can't think of anything negative to say about Candy.  The documentary, while borderline hagiography, is still compelling because we still miss the guy 30-plus years after his death.  

It isn't the movie's problem that Candy was a sweetheart of a guy who carried the psychic weight of this father dying on his fifth birthday and while battling his weight demons was still outwardly cheerful.  However, if the interviewer brings up his girth, he is visibly uncomfortable but always played the good sport.  It would be wrong to try and create controversy where none existed, so we can still enjoy John Candy: I Like Me on its own terms.  The most sadness you will find is how insecure Candy was despite his great achievements. 

Tracing his early showbiz days with Second City and soon SCTV, his co-stars spoke glowingly about his talent and the person he was.  He married and had two children, and from all accounts, was a present and loving husband and dad.  He liked to party and hang out at the bar socializing with friends, and was reluctant to give up his vices.  When doctors advised him to lose weight and cut out drinking and smoking, he would simply find another doctor who would tell him what he wanted to hear.  His friends suggested he learned to eat and drink his feelings from an early age.  By the time he died from a heart attack while filming Wagons East! in Mexico, he had to have been close to 400 pounds.  

The best parts of John Candy: I Like Me involve behind-the-scenes stories of some of his most memorable films, including Stripes, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, Uncle Buck, Spaceballs, JFK, Home Alone etc.  The movies like Nothing but Trouble were filed under the "doing a friend a favor" movies which were box office bombs, but still benefited from Candy's talent.  I never saw Wagons East! and many others can claim the same thing, but watching it would invoke sadness because we knew he died during its filming.  The driving force behind John Candy: I Like Me is knowing that we will reach the sad time where Candy was taken from the world and his family at far too young an age.  He left behind quite a filmography, but there could've been so much more. 

Bugonia (2025) * * *

 

Directed by:  Yorgos Lanthimos

Starring:  Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Aidan Delbis, Stavros Halkias

I wasn't a fan of The Favourite or Poor Things, which were both beautiful to look at and unpleasant to endure.  Bugonia, even with its pessimistic or sometimes downright nihilistic approach, is a better, more involving movie than the previous Yorgos Lanthimos efforts mentioned.  And this is a film about a conspiracy theorist wounded by life who kidnaps a CEO because he believes she's part of an alien race sent to destroy all of humanity.  

Bugonia isn't the most fun movie to watch, but it's still engrossing because Michelle Fuller (Stone), the sleek CEO of a biomedical company spends the movie with a shaved head (the kidnappers believe she transmits messages to the mother ship through her hair) and trying to reason with the two men named Teddy and Donny (Plemons and Delbis) who are convinced of her alien origins.  Michelle of course believes they're insane, and there are issues below the surface which suggest that Teddy and Donny were damaged long before they ever set eyes on Michelle.  

Michelle's life as a CEO is far from glamourous.  She lives alone in a modest mansion in the middle of nowhere.  She awakes at 4:30am, undergoes a vigorous exercise routine, and then drives into the office where she tells her subordinates they are free to leave at 5:30pm unless they have work that needs to get done.  We have quotas after all.   A funny scene involves Michelle recording a company announcement discussing diversity and the speech uses the word "diverse" every other sentence.  "You need to diversify your language," she tells her speechwriter.  

Michelle is a cold CEO who just seems out of touch with humanity, which is something CEO's of often accused of.  She doesn't scream or cry or beg her captors to appeal to their emotions.  She approaches it coldly and logically, like Spock would.  She's very calm, and you wonder why.  Teddy is easy to dismiss as a nutcase, and when he and Donny chemically castrate themselves in order to lessen the distractions to their cause, then it's hard to argue that point.  But when the local sheriff (Halkias) tells Teddy he's sorry for what happened when he was Teddy's babysitter and that "I never did that with anyone else" as if that's supposed to comfort Teddy, we see the deep wounds which drive him.  We also learn of Teddy's drug-addicted mother who was made comatose by Michelle's company's experimental treatments, so we question whether his crimes against Michelle aren't personal too.  

Bugonia, like other Lanthimos' efforts, holds us outside with people who seem cut off from ordinary cheer.  The actors capably keep this tone up through the violence and plot twists which aren't all that surprising but are still chilling.  This movie wasn't made to please audiences, but it's still satisfying on its own terms.  

Limitless (2011) * * *

 

Directed by:  Neil Burger

Starring:  Bradley Cooper, Robert DeNiro, Abbie Cornish, Andrew Howard

The hero of Limitless is Eddie Morra (Cooper), a New York writer with writer's block and unfulfilled potential.  From his narration, he is intelligent, but is still stuck in a rut after his girlfriend leaves him and his publisher is looking for pages from here or they'll ask for a refund on the advance.  Eddie is going nowhere, until a chance meeting with his former brother-in-law on the street.  The brother-in-law provides Eddie with a special pill called NZT.  The user takes it and suddenly his brain power spikes to near 100%.  Eddie finishes his novel in four days and then becomes a financial wizard whose acuity catches the eye of Carl Van Loon (DeNiro), a billionaire financier who thinks Eddie is the next big thing on Wall Street.

The trouble is, and there is plenty, Eddie's intelligence dwindles when the NZT wears off, and he's also into a Russian mobster for lots of money who instead settles for a supply of the pills.  When he runs out, Eddie has to score more for himself and the mobster and is entangled in a deadly web where Eddie fears being discovered and his secret weapon exposed.  On a thriller level, Limitless is pretty good.  Cooper is a sturdy hero with understandable motivations and of course a touch of selfishness.  Who wouldn't want to be one of the smartest people on the planet and make zillions in the process?  Eddie finds he can live with the withdrawal and the complications which ensue, morality be damned.

Limitless wisely chooses to make the villains far more despicable than the hero.  Eddie wants to better himself and win his girlfriend back.  The rest don't mind blackmailing or resorting to violence and perhaps killing Eddie if need be, so Eddie wins by default and Cooper's effortless charm doesn't hurt. Eddie is a man who only wants to better himself and finds a miraculous way to do so.  Who can blame him?  That's the hook of Limitless.  

  

Only Murders in the Building (Season 5-2025) * * 1/2

 

Starring:  Steve Martin, Martin Short, Selena Gomez, Michael Cyril Creighton, Meryl Streep, Christoph Waltz, Logan Lerman, Renee Zellweger, Keegan Michael Key, Dianne Weist, Tea Leoni, Bobby Cannavale, Da'vine Joy Randolph

Season 4 of Only Murders in the Building ended with the death of Lester, the head doorman at the Arconia building, following Oliver's wedding.  The death was originally ruled accidental, but Charles, Oliver, and Mabel have different ideas.  They have a podcast, an insatiable love for being detectives, and apparently unlimited amounts of money and time to spend because they don't have jobs and can devote their energies full-time to solving murders.  Even the NYPD defers to them.  

I've stated in previous seasons that any tenant with any sense would move out of the Arconia because four previous murders occurred there.  They don't need a doorman; they need a SWAT team on the premises.  Nonetheless, Martin, Short, and Gomez attack the task at hand with glee and energy, while the supporting players and guest stars especially Waltz and Zellweger are having the time of their lives as zillionaires who manipulate the proceedings from the sidelines and trick the trio into not being able to discuss them on their podcast in a brilliant way.  That won't stop them from trying to solve the murder before Zellweger's Camila White buys the Arconia and turns it into New York City's first casino.  

Season 5 is an improvement over the past couple of seasons of the show, with some of the twists and turns being fun, but the show has not been able to recapture the magic of the first season.  It's my understanding that next season will bring the trio to London.  Good.  Give the Arconia a break.  They've been through enough.  

Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere (2025) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  Scott Cooper

Starring:  Jeremy Allen White, Jeremy Strong, David Krumholz, Stephen Graham, Gaby Hoffman, Matthew Anthony Pelicano, Odessa Young, Paul Walter Hauser

Deliver Me from Nowhere takes a curious but fascinating approach to a biopic about Bruce Springsteen.  It covers a dark period between 1981 and 1982 in which Bruce, fresh off his most successful tour and first top 10 hit, retreats to a secluded New Jersey home and records songs which would wind up as the basis for Nebraska.  Nebraska, despite not have any singles, videos, or even much press coverage at Bruce's demand from his record label, was still a top 10 album, but the record label didn't have songs like Atlantic City in mind when they wanted a follow-up to The River.  The record company wanted hits and singles to strike while the iron was hot.  Bruce defiantly gave them Nebraska. 

Springsteen was coming face to face with his inner demons, which his father Douglas "Dutch" Springsteen (Graham) battled when Bruce was a child.  Dutch wasn't outwardly abusive, but he drank and the threat of violence seemed to hover over the household.   Bruce finds inspiration in watching Terence Malick's Badlands and visiting his abandoned childhood home, but not relief from his own depression.  His manager Jon Landau (Strong) doesn't see Bruce as a meal ticket, but someone he cares deeply about and someone he has to talk off the ledge more than once.  Jon doesn't quite understand Bruce's need to write such melancholy songs, but he adheres to Bruce's vision and even tells CBS records that it's either Nebraska or nothing.  

Bruce also wrote and recorded songs for Born in the USA, the album which made him a global phenomenon, but shelved them in favor of the non-commercial elements of Nebraska, even to the point of transferring his home recordings to vinyl to retain the darkened, weary soul of those songs.  Bruce also begins a relationship with a single mom/waitress named Faye (Young), who of course falls for Bruce quickly and he finds he can't reciprocate, although he wishes he could.  Throughout all of this, Jeremy Allen White, the last actor you would suspect could recreate Springsteen's aura and moves, is more than up to the task of providing us with a sympathetic Springsteen with warts and all.  However, I think Strong's performance will generate the most awards buzz, as Strong gives us almost the anti-Roy Cohn (his Oscar-nominated role in last year's The Apprentice) in Landau, whose fierce loyalty and friendship to Bruce is touching.

We know that Bruce Springsteen became immortalized after Born in the USA, but Deliver Me from Nowhere shows us that Born in the USA wouldn't have possible without the downward spiral which produced Nebraska.  The movie, written and directed by Scott Cooper, gives us Springsteen's fall and winter before he emerges with a glorious spring and summer in both his career and his personal life.  Many battle depression silently and without the outlet and resources of a Bruce Springsteen.  Could you imagine if he was unable to express himself through music?  It's horrible to think about. 

The Crossing Guard (1995) * * *

 

Directed by: Sean Penn

Starring:  Jack Nicholson, Anjelica Huston, David Morse, Robin Wright, Piper Laurie, Richard Bradford, Robbie Robertson, Kari Wuhrer

The Crossing Guard contains moments of pure power and emotion which resonate with anyone who has lost a child.  The Crossing Guard is not merely a tale of a father seeking revenge on the drunk driver who killed his daughter, but it muddies the waters by making Freddy Gale (Nicholson) an alcoholic himself and by having John Booth (Morse), the drunk driver be sympathetic and trying to redeem himself.  Does it have lapses?  Yes, but none that are unforgivable, mostly because the underlying story is compelling enough.  

The Crossing Guard takes place roughly seven years after John killed Freddy's seven-year-old daughter Emily in a drunk driving accident.   John is released from prison, and Freddy informs his ex-wife (and Emily's mother) Mary (Huston) that he intends to kill John on the day of his release, which is met with horror from Mary.  As the onion layers are peeled back, we learn Freddy has never visited Emily's gravesite and his inability to heal and move on as best he can have been drowned in drink and nuzzling with strippers.  Is he going to kill John for revenge or to impress his ex-wife?  

John, meanwhile, takes up residence in a trailer behind his parents' home.  Freddy greets him with a gun and finds that John barely seems surprised.  When Freddy's gun jams, John asks for three days to tie up loose ends and to experience a bit of freedom before dying.  Freddy grants him the three days and marks the days on the calendar to when he can find John again and finish the job.  This tangent is not entirely convincing, and the movie veers off course as John meets a potential future girlfriend in Jojo (Wright), who realizes John's guilt may be too much for an obstacle to overcome.  But John, after some soul searching, decides that Jojo may be someone worth living for, while Freddy finds himself in the midst of drunken stupors and unhappiness. 

The final thirty minutes contain an angry heart-to-heart between Freddy and Mary which ends on a sour note and a long chase on foot in which John isn't running away from Freddy as much as leading him somewhere.  The payoff is worthy of the sometimes-uneven execution, with Nicholson's and Morse's performances providing the emotional resonance to propel the story forward, even if it seems at times, it seems stuck.  The final shots show us a moment in which John and Freddy can truly find the strength to heal together, although in such a scenario, you are never fully healed.  

Black Phone 2 (2025) * * *

 

Directed by:  Scott Derrickson

Starring:  Mason Thames, Madeleine McGraw, Ethan Hawke, Demian Bichir, Arianna Rivas, Jeremy Davies, Miguel Mora

The Grabber (Hawke) was killed at the conclusion of The Black Phone (2022), so what do we do for a sequel?  Since The Grabber's previous victims managed to contact Finney from beyond the grave via the black phone in Grabber's basement, then The Grabber can play by the same rules.  What we have is Black Phone 2, which continues the story in a suspenseful, hellish way and further illuminates the pure evil of The Grabber.  He is beyond redemption or any semblance of humanity.  

There is no question Black Phone 2 borrows its plotline from Nightmare on Elm Street as The Grabber terrorizes Finney and his clairvoyant sister Gwen (McGraw) from the depths of hell.  "Hell isn't flames.  It's ice," says The Grabber.  Gwen is tormented by dreams of a secluded camp in Colorado where it turns out her late mother worked years ago.  Why is she dreaming of the camp?  Why is she receiving calls on a black phone in her dream from her deceased mother?  Gwen is determined to find out and travel to the camp in the middle of a blizzard.   

Black Phone 2 takes place in 1982, four years after the original, and Finney is a lost soul suffering from PTSD who takes his anger out on weaker kids at school and smokes weed to self-medicate.  He goes along to help Gwen and soon finds himself answering a black pay phone at the camp which hasn't been operative for a decade.  Who is on the other end?  Well, The Grabber of course, while Gwen is dealing with visions of three missing kids from the camp who were The Grabber's first victims.  If the group can find their remains, then The Grabber's power from the beyond will be reduced or eliminated.  

Come to think of it, how was it that the remains WEREN'T found over the course of 15 years considering the location of their bodies?   Instead of quibbling over such logistics, I instead found Black Phone 2 to be a worthy sequel to the original, which was itself riveting.  This installment provides us with an icy, snowy hell and an aura which operates as one long nightmare.   It isn't just a slasher film with buckets of blood, but it was made with great care with Ethan Hawke again giving us a villain as evil as the nights are long. 

Good Fortune (2025) * * 1/2

Directed by:  Aziz Ansari

Starring:  Seth Rogen, Aziz Ansari, Keanu Reeves, Keke Palmer, Sandra Oh

Good Fortune begins with a lone angel named Gabriel (Reeves) standing on a high-above building overlooking vast Los Angeles.  This isn't City of Angels, although Gabriel, a "low level" angel who is in charge of preventing people from texting and driving, wants to do more to help humanity.  He focuses his energies on Arj (Ansari), a college graduate and out-of-work documentary editor who holds multiple demeaning jobs and lives in his car whose life feels meaningless to him.  Gabriel wants to show Arj that his life is meaningful.  How?  By having him switch lives with his former boss, tech bro Jeff (Rogen), who fired him as his assistant for using the company credit card to buy his date dinner.  

The plan backfires when Arj learns that money buys happiness for him, and Jeff doesn't seem to mind being Arj's assistant all that much.   In the meantime, Gabriel loses his wings and is forced to become human, where he holds multiple jobs and becomes a chain smoker.  The goal is to restore Jeff to his former life, have Arj understand that his life is worth something, and have Gabriel regain his wings.  This is It's a Wonderful Life with one additional character.  It would be like George Bailey switching places with Mr. Potter.  Do these things happen?  Of course, but it happens in a series of awkward transitions where the screenplay kicks in because it's getting late in the picture.

Good Fortune is sweet and has a heart, and the three leads are likable.  One fault is that Jeff, even though he's rich and has a penchant for switching between saunas and plunges in ice-water bathtubs to improve circulation, is generally a nice guy.  Yes, he gets to see how the other 98% of people live, but does he deserve it?  One improvement would have been to make him an insufferable prick.  I liked Ansari, who wrote and directed, as a down-on-his-luck guy who just can't get ahead.  We sympathize with him, and then there's Reeves, whose character oozes sincerity and kindness.   We enjoy their company, though the movie they're in is uneven.  

HIM (2025) *

 

Directed by:  Justin Tipping

Starring:  Tyriq Withers, Marlon Wayans, Julia Fox

HIM is incoherent and utterly lost.  It is Whiplash but inexplicably given the horror treatment.  There are demonic visions and hallucinations, gore, blood spurting everywhere, and a half-assed ending which is supposed to tie everything together but results in even more confusion.  If HIM would've treated its material with even a Jacob's Ladder explanation, that would've made at least some sense.

But alas, HIM tells the story of Cameron Cade (Withers), a college quarterback standout who is in line to be drafted by his hometown San Antonio Saviors pro football team, whose current quarterback Isaiah White (Wayans) has won eight championships and is considered the GOAT (Greatest of All Time).  Cameron will have big shoes to fill, and even more so after he is attacked at practice and suffers a horrific head injury which threatens to derail his career before it even starts.

Cameron is invited by Isaiah to train with him for one week in a compound in the middle of the desert.  This is no ordinary compound, and the training takes on gory and violent dimensions as Isaiah determines whether Cameron has what it takes to succeed him.   But there are creepy vibes and goings-on which should have alerted Cameron to head for the exit and hitchhike home, but then we wouldn't have a movie, and this case that's just fine.  HIM soon degenerates into a sloppy mess in which we give up even attempting to figure out what's going on, and we find we don't care that much anyway.  

Cameron is a blank slate with little appeal.  Isaiah is a merciless taskmaster, and one question (among many) is how the Saviors, last year's champions, are able to draft number one overall and snatch Cade.  Maybe they're trading up and found a real sucker as a trade partner.  The movie never explains, not that it has much practice at that.  The ending is a gore fest and then cuts to a black screen where the credits begin rolling.  What the hell just happened?  I assume the movie is saying you have to sell your soul to Satan to be the GOAT.  I suggest that anyone wanting to be the GOAT at anything should be subjected to watch HIM.  If you can stomach that, then that's sufficient. 

Superhero Movie (2008) * *

Directed by:  Craig Mazin

Starring:  Drake Bell, Christopher McDonald, Sara Paxton, Leslie Nielsen, Marion Ross, Robert Hays, Kevin Hart, Miles Fisher

Superhero Movie is a laffaminit spoof on the tail end of the Scary Movie parodies of the 2000's.  Is it worse than the recent Marvel movie slate?  No.  In some ways, it's 75-minute running time is a relief.  Movies like Thunderbolts are only halfway over at that time.  At least Superhero movie knows when to exit gracefully, or exit in any respect. 

The plot covers your average superhero movie with awkward teen Rick Riker (Bell), who pines for the comely Jill Johnson (Paxton) at his high school and is bit by a radiation-altered dragonfly on a school trip.  He then develops superpowers (except for the ability to fly) and fights crime while trying to battle the evil Lou Landers aka Hourglass (McDonald), who is terminally ill and injects himself with chemicals from his company and develops an insatiable appetite to kill.  So far, it's Spider-Man with the infusion of nonstop sight and verbal gags being hurled at the viewer relentlessly.  Some of the gags stick, most flop, and then we're left with a parody that doesn't much feel differently from the real thing.

Superhero Movie throws its jokes at us in Airplane! style, and it's worth noting that two of that movie's stars, Leslie Nielsen and Robert Hays, both appear in this movie.  They have no scenes together, but I think their off-screen reunion was probably more engaging than Superhero Movie.  Oh, and yes the Miles Fisher impression of Tom Cruise is spot-on, leading to a fun payoff in a movie where such gags that land are few and far between.  

Roofman (2025) * * 1/2

Directed by:  Derek Cianfrance

Starring:  Channing Tatum, Kirsten Dunst, Peter Dinklage, LaKeith Stanfield, Juno Temple

Roofman is a wild true story about Jeff Manchester (Tatum), a former Army ranger who fell on hard financial times in the late 1990's and resorted to robbing 45 McDonald's franchises in the Charlotte, North Carolina area.  He then attracts attention with his sudden upward mobility and buying the sort of items Jimmy Conway warned against after the Lufthansa heist in Goodfellas.  He's not your typical armed robber, though.  He has a heart, demonstrated when he locks one McDonald's staff in a refrigerator and gives his coat to the manager who didn't have one.  The judge doesn't see this mitigating factor and sentences him to 45 years in prison.  

Jeff, however, finds a way to escape from prison and live on the lam for many months hiding out in a North Carolina Toys R'Us circa 2004.  However, he falls for Leigh (Dunst), a recently divorced mom of two who has to deal with the prickly store manager Mitch (Dinklage), whose tactlessness and lack of sympathy is mistaken for good management skills.   Jeff manages to create a relationship with Leigh while living in the Toys R'Us where she works (unbeknownst to everyone) and evading capture, although it is telling that the manhunt for him tends to go away long enough for this story to be told.

Tatum is endlessly charming as our nice-guy hero.  There is also a sad element in which Jeff loses contact with his three children from his first marriage after going to prison, and he almost adopts Leigh's children as substitutes.  Dunst is effortlessly appealing.  But, the story itself suffers from its own limitations.  It can't end happily or in any other fashion than how it concludes.  How else would you make a movie based on this story?  Is he suddenly pardoned or does he escape capture by fleeing to another country?  Roofman is all setup and carries itself for a little while, but then we realize we aren't really going anywhere satisfactorily with this story.  

The Smashing Machine (2025) * * *

Directed by: Benny Safdie

Starring:  Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Ryan Bader, Bas Rutten

The Smashing Machine is the story of MMA pioneer Mark Kerr (Johnson), who came on to the scene in the late 1990's as the next big thing, and for a while he was until steroids and losing matches in Japan began to wear on him and his girlfriend Dawn (Blunt), who has substance abuse issues of her own.  The movie is well-crafted, an insider's movie that still manages to keep you somewhat outside, with Johnson transformed into Kerr courtesy of a jet black wig and makeup.  He looks like The Hulk minus the green body paint, but he has dimensions and an outwardly charming appeal.  But once the steroids and drugs take hold, they have the effect on him as gamma radiation did on The Hulk.

Johnson is up to the task of playing the affable Kerr, who goes out of his way to show love and respect to his fans and opponents, but his relationship with Dawn remains rocky.  The pre-release hype penciled in Johnson for a surefire Oscar nomination, but I think that may be hyperbole.  It's an effective, quirky performance in an effective, quirky movie.  The Smashing Machine isn't a typical sports biopic.  There is a "big match" at the end, but the match ends on a sour note and not with heroism or swelling music.  We see the real Kerr circa early 2025, and he's still living in the Phoenix area with a smile for everyone and a gait which suggest years of physical scars from the battles in the ring.

So that leaves us with the question:  Why make a movie about Mark Kerr?  Most people, with the exception of MMA insiders and hardcore fans, would know who he is.  The movie doesn't follow the traditional sports biopic arc of success, then failure, then a rebirth after dealing with the setbacks.  The movie doesn't conclude with Mark getting his hand raised in victory, but a a subtle laugh while taking a shower following another heartbreaking defeat.  The Smashing Machine isn't moving necessarily, but it is mostly involving enough to make it worth your while.  

Bone Lake (2025) * * *

Directed by:  Mercedes Bryce Morgan

Starring:  Maddie Hasson, Marco Pigossi, Alex Roe, Andra Nechita

Airbnb rentals are becoming the new stage for horror (see Barbarian, or at least the first thirty minutes).  There is always the possibility of a double booking in error going horribly wrong.  Bone Lake is a movie covering that ground which plays deftly as a tense psychological thriller involving two couples with one terrorizing the other over a weekend in a small mansion overlooking a serene lake.  

Bone Lake begins with a naked couple being hunted by an unseen assassin wielding a crossbow.  The arrow pierces the man's nether regions before switching over to the present day, where long-time couple Diego (Pigossi) and Sage (Hasson) are traveling to the lake in hopes of a quiet weekend away from the world's (and their own) troubles.  That ends quickly with the arrival of Will (Roe) and Cin (Nechita-short for Cinnamon and not Cindy), who also booked the home for the same weekend.  Rather than getting a refund, Diego and Sage decide to let Will and Cin stay.  At first, Will and Cin are overly friendly and ask a lot of personal questions before it becomes apparent to us, if not Sage and Diego, that Will and Cin are subtly and then overtly attempting to seduce Diego and Cin and make them question their love for each other.

That would be creepy enough, but there are sinister motives afoot and revelations about Will and Cin which play a role in the proceedings.  I didn't know what to expect from Bone Lake.  I'm glad there are no ghosts or supernatural forces at play, and the movie stays grounded in suspense rather than gore (until the end when comeuppances occur), in which case the blood spurts.  But Bone Lake is well-acted by four appealing actors who know their roles well.  Diego and Sage are sympathetic, while Will and Cin are quietly menacing.  We know they're up to something, but aren't sure what.  Bone Lake patiently plays out without dragging out, and that's saying something. 

The Patriot (2000) * * *

 

Directed by:  Roland Emmerich

Starring:  Mel Gibson, Heath Ledger, Chris Cooper, Tom Wilkinson, Jason Isaacs, Tcheky Karyo, Joely Richardson, Adam Baldwin, Peter Woodward

Mel Gibson channels the same rage which fueled his performance in Braveheart (1995) in the Revolutionary War epic The Patriot.  In The Patriot, Gibson is Benjamin Martin, a Southern farmer twenty years removed from his service in the French and Indian War, where he discovered his capacity for violence during some crucial battles.  He fathered seven children, his wife recently passed, and now the Redcoats are knocking at his town's doorstep.  The town favors war, but Benjamin argues for peace.  Soon, though, Col. William Tavington (Isaacs) kills his son, takes the other hostage to be hung for being in the Continental Army, and burns his home.  An enraged Benjamin seeks revenge, and so much for pacifism.

Gibson is at home in such a role.  We've seen the genesis of it in the Lethal Weapon movies and Braveheart, and now in The Patriot.  He's really good at these types of roles with his command of the screen.   The Patriot isn't a documentary of the Revolutionary War, but an action movie in which the Revolutionary War is a backdrop.  Col. Tavington is so malevolent and vicious that even his commanding officer Lord Cornwallis (Wilkinson), who wants the British Army to fight "a gentleman's war" admonishes him...to a point.  Meanwhile, Martin undoes all of his own arguments against fighting, which is understandable considering the circumstances. 

We have a competent, solid hero in Benjamin Martin versus evil personified in Col. Tavington.  The Patriot follows this formula to a tee, and delivers in that regard.  Some of the more personal subplots allow things to drag a bit, and if those were erased, The Patriot would be two hours of gripping action.  Even so, The Patriot still works as a skilled revenge picture. 

One Battle After Another (2025) * * *

Directed by:  Paul Thomas Anderson

Starring:  Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Regina Hall, Chase Infiniti, Tony Goldwyn, Benicio del Toro, Teyana Taylor

One Battle After Another is a political action movie.  It showcases both extremes in the right and the left and makes them both insufferable.  You have a leftist revolutionary group which robs banks, shoots people, blows up detention centers, and commits other acts of violence in the name of righteousness and ending oppression.  The right are secret white supremacists and run a shadow government while members like Col. Steven Lockjaw (Penn) clearly has a thing for black women, even though he's trying to gain membership to a "whites-only" wing of the government.  Anderson is probably thinking like we do:  Can we meet somewhere in the middle?

The opening scenes gives us Bob (DiCaprio), a bomb expert who manufactures explosives for the infamous French 75 who liberates immigrant detention centers while professing dialogue you would hear from 1970's radicals.  The leader, who is Bob's girlfriend is Perfidia (Taylor), who has some fun of her own when she encounters the center's commanding officer Col. Steven Lockjaw (Penn) and forces him to will himself to have an erection before taking him prisoner.  Lockjaw doesn't exactly object and we sense he likes Perfidia, which he makes clear when he runs into her later on after a botched robbery attempt.  The tables turn.

However, Bob and Perfidia have a child named Willa (Infiniti) and Bob takes her parenting duties far more seriously than Perfidia, who would rather be committing violence in the name of leftist ideology.  But as mentioned in DiCaprio's movie The Departed, when facing a loaded gun, does it matter whether a cop or criminal is holding it?  Years pass, Bob is in hiding and Perfidia has long fled to Mexico after turning state's evidence to Lockjaw after being captured during the robbery.  Willa is now a teenager looking to have friends and attend school functions while Bob smokes copious amounts of weed and drinks himself into a stupor.  When Lockjaw tracks down Bob and Willa, Bob calls on his old revolutionary buddies to find out her location, and due to the years of inactivity and drug use, he can't remember key passwords.

One Battle After Another also works as biting political satire with DiCaprio providing multiple dimensions as the zonked Bob, but the movie belongs to Penn, who grunts his lines and walks with a distinguished limp.  Seeing how he moves in civilian clothing vs. military fatigues gives us two vastly different sides of Lockjaw.  He's something of a mad dog who can't wait to be unleashed and is also conflicted up to his eyeballs, especially when he encounters someone like Perfidia, who makes his blood boil.  There is also a hinted connection between Willa and Lockjaw which casts a new light on the proceedings.

If anything detracts from One Battle After Another, it's the 2 hour, 40 minute running time.  It begins to feel bloated at times, and could use a good 20-minute trimming.  But it also treads into Dr. Strangelove territory, with characters who do nothing but fight in the war room, because what else would they have to do to make themselves useful?

The Living Daylights (1987) * * *

 

Directed by:  John Glen

Starring:  Timothy Dalton, Maryam D'Abo, Jeroen Krabbe, John Rhys-Davies, Joe Don Baker, Andreas Wisniewski

Timothy Dalton was the Bond the world may not have been ready for.  He was more serious than Roger Moore and Sean Connery, exhibiting a lean, mean toughness that no actor who played James Bond before ever tried.  Daniel Craig hit many of the same notes, but Dalton's Bond still seemed to enjoy showing up to work, while Craig's Bond was a borderline alcoholic and full of angst.

Bond is first seen in Prague scoping out an orchestra performance attended by Soviet General Georgi Koskov (Krabbe), who is looking to defect to the west.  However, before that, Bond witnesses the orchestra's beautiful blonde cellist (D'Abo) attempt to assassinate Koskov, but Bond hesitates before shooting at her (and missing).  Since Bond doesn't miss nor hesitate, we know he has his reasons that originate from above the waistline.  Koskov defects to London with Bond's help, but is soon "kidnapped" from the safe house by the KGB, which further raises Bond's ire and curiosity.  

Bond realizes that the cellist is Koskov's lover and the defection was a ruse designed to trick the British government into killing Koskov's boss General Pushkin (Rhys-Davies) and thus allowing him to conduct nefarious arms deals with a villainous arms dealer (Baker).  Bond, of course, is on to Koskov and his group of goons, all the while romancing the cellist who doesn't understand she is being used as a pawn.  

D'Abo is a looker, but lacks the substance of previous Bond heroines.  The Living Daylights introduces more of the ingenious gadgets the series was famous for, and the action scenes involve Bond and the cellist sliding down the mountainside in a cello case evading the baddies.  The movie itself is fun and gave us a new take on James Bond which worked for two movies until Pierce Brosnan came aboard in 1995's Goldeneye.  Brosnan was more of a return to the suave, sophisticated Bond.  Dalton is just a machine and I have to say it was pretty refreshing.  

Dead of Winter (2025) * *

Directed by:  Brian Kirk

Starring:  Emma Thompson, Judy Greer, Marc Menchaca, Laurel Marsden, Gaia Wise

Dead of Winter has the elements in place for a crackling thriller which somehow loses steam quickly.  What's left is a slog which runs only 98 minutes but feels interminable.  It takes place in Northern Minnesota, and with the snowy, ominous backdrop and a folksy female lead, it's hard not to compare the film to Fargo.  However, this is where the similarities end.  Fargo was a masterwork.  Dead of Winter is destined to be forgotten.

We meet Barb (Thompson) who is traveling to a Northern Minnesota lake to spread the ashes of her recently deceased husband.  The movie shows us flashbacks of them in their younger days.  Why this is, I don't know.  All these scenes accomplish is take us away from the present day in which Barb stumbles across a remote cabin where a married couple are holding a teenage girl hostage.  Dead of Winter hints at why the girl was kidnapped and maddeningly hides the plot from us until the end when the couple's aims are revealed.  The antagonist is a woman listed in the cast as "Purple Jacket" (Greer), who is terminally ill and suffers nosebleeds while wielding a shotgun and bossing her hapless husband (Menchaca) around.  

Barb, who speaks in the same accent as Marge Gunderson, while using her resourcefulness and ingenuity to help the girl out of her predicament.  It's certainly new to see Emma Thompson in an action role, and who knows?  Maybe she'll become the next Liam Neeson in this stage of her distinguished career.  But while Thompson is game, the movie lets her down.  By the way, Barb's late husband's name is Carl and the flashbacks remind me of Up, so we have a movie that combines elements of Fargo and Up, and succeeds at being nowhere near as good as either of those.  

Rudy (1993) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  David Anspaugh

Starring:  Sean Astin, Jon Favreau, Ned Beatty, Vince Vaughn, Jason Miller, Robert Prosky, Scott Benjaminson, Chelcie Ross, Charles S. Dutton

I've read about the factual inaccuracies of Rudy.  Well, there is a Daniel "Rudy" Ruettiger, Jr. and he played for two plays in a Notre Dame Fighting Irish uniform in the final game of the 1975 season.  Rudy is about how he found himself in that jersey.  It's a stirring story of a young man who didn't quit until he not only made the team, but found himself as both a footnote in team history and among its folklore.

Rudy (Astin) played high school football, but was deemed too small to play college ball.  He grew up in suburban Illinois as a Notre Dame fanatic, and roughly five years after he graduated high school and following the accidental death of his best friend in the factory where Rudy works, he lights out to Notre Dame to try out for the team.  The school breaks it to him gently that he needs to be a student there first and Rudy finds himself attending nearby Holy Cross college in order to work up the grades to get into Notre Dame.  Once he's accepted to school, then he has to essentially make the team as a walk-on, and even if he were to make the team, he'd be little more than a glorified tackling dummy.  That doesn't bother Rudy, who has made it his single-minded mission to call himself a member of the Fighting Irish.

Astin is focused, determined, and a textbook definition of an underdog.  While attempting to get into Notre Dame, Rudy takes a job as a member of the stadium crew.  If he can't play for them, he can at least be in the vicinity.  The head groundskeeper Fortune tells Rudy, "You're five foot nothing, 100 and nothing, and you'll walk out of here with a degree from the University of Notre Dame,"  The movie doesn't even tie Rudy down with a girlfriend, although he has one early in the film who is conveniently discarded.  The movie focuses on Rudy's dream and fighting spirit he exhibits in trying to obtain it.  It's not a spoiler that he achieves his goal, because otherwise there wouldn't be much point in the movie.  But then the movie takes it a step further by adding in a swelling, emotional score and a goose bump-inducing finale.  Did everything occur as the movie says to reach that pinnacle?  No, and who cares?  The movie is riveting in the tradition of Rocky, and that's not something I say lightly. 

The Senior (2025) * * *

Directed by:  Rod Lurie

Starring:  Michael Chiklis, Mary Stuart Masterson, Rob Corddry, Brandon Flynn, Todd Terry

The Senior is based on a true story of a 59-year-old former college football player named Mike Flynt (Chiklis) who learns he still has one year of college eligibility left and decides to try out for his old college football team in West Texas.  I recall there was a 1991 comedy called Necessary Roughness which covers the same ground, but the events of The Senior take place in 2007 and Flynt didn't realize the loophole until then.  I wonder if he visited the movie at some point later.  

Mike was a college superstar who was kicked out of college before his senior year due to repeatedly being involved in fights on campus.  We learn in flashbacks he was raised by a quasi-abusive father who taught him boxing by repeatedly punching his son in the face and insulting him into "being a man".  This made Mike quick to drop the gloves, so to speak, and engage in fistfights.  Years later, Mike is happily married, although with a resentful son Micah (Flynn) with whom Mike has a cold, distant relationship.  He works as a construction foreman with a loving, understanding wife Eileen (Masterson), and one day receives a reunion invitation of his old football team even though he never completed his collegiate career.

Mike reconciles with the teammate he fought back then and learns he still has another eligible year of college ball.  Mike decides to try out for the team not only as a lark, but as a way to remedy his belief that his life is somehow incomplete without football.  Coach Sam Weston (Corddry) thinks Mike wants a coaching job, and is somewhat relieved and amused that Mike wants to play football.  He figures Mike will be quickly cut, but then sees Mike is a determined individual who won't be dismissed easily.  Mike has his detractors, including a player who hits him with a cheap shot hard enough to keep him out of commission for most of the season.  Mike fights to come back, and soon finds he has the support and camaraderie of his teammates.  

The Senior doesn't break new ground.  It ends with a big game, and whether Mike will actually see playing time.   You would think The Senior is a retelling of Rudy, with one character actually referencing Rudy when describing Mike's tenacity, but it's a separate true story involving another man who won't quit and wants nothing more than to be a footnote in college football history.  Mike has no illusions about doing anything more with his career, and Chiklis is an embodiment of the pugnacious Flynt down to his bones.  The Senior also exudes care and reflection, with Mike learning that his father embraced faith later in life and maybe he should follow in his dad's footsteps to release his pent-up anger at his past.  We find ourselves rooting for Mike and that's why The Senior was made.  On that level, it is absorbing. 

A Big Bold Beautiful Journey (2025) * *

Directed by:  Kogonada

Starring:  Colin Farrell, Margot Robbie, Hamish Linklater, Kevin Kline, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Lily Rabe

Barbie, starring Margot Robbie as the title character, was a worldwide blockbuster.  If Margot Robbie continues to star in flops like A Big Bold Beautiful Journey (no commas), that goodwill will be erased.  That's Hollywood.  It isn't necessarily Robbie's fault, because the camera adores her like fewer actresses in cinema history, nor is the fault of Farrell, whose character Dave exudes likability and charm.  The movie itself wants to be a whimsical fantasy in which two people fall in love while on the Big Bold Beautiful Journey of the title, but it's a slog with its two protagonists fighting love every step of the way.

Farrell's Dave is a bland, single guy who takes care of his ailing father and has a lifetime of hurts which make him unwilling him to truly give himself to another person.  Robbie's Sarah is a woman whose mother died years ago, but yet is still in stagnation on the relationship front because she's the type who will hurt you before you hurt her.   For reasons that are supposed to be grounded in fantasy but are tiresome, the two wind up renting old Saturns at a bizarre car rental agency.  The Saturns are installed with a GPS that gives directions not only to your destination, but other aspects of your life.  Dave and Sarah attend the same wedding and flirt with each other, as two single people are wont to do, but they don't act on it.  If they had, then there would be no need for the Big Bold Beautiful Journey and that would've been just fine.

Before Dave and Sarah can admit to being in love, they travel to woodlands where a single red door is constructed in the middle of nowhere, and each must walk through it to confront the pain of their pasts before they can forge a path forward.  A Big Bold Beautiful Journey wants to be loved with every fiber of its being.  It wants to be Deep, Moving, and Offbeat, but I couldn't help but be reminded of the comedic twist in LA Story (1991), in which Steve Martin encounters a freeway traffic sign which gives him life advice at a time he desperately needs it.  A Big Bold... is that scene from LA Story over and over again.  

Freakier Friday (2025) * *

Directed by:  Nisha Ganatra

Starring:  Jamie Lee Curtis, Lindsay Lohan, Julia Butters, Manny Jacinto, Mark Harmon, Sophia Hammons

I didn't see Freaky Friday which featured Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan switching bodies on the Friday before Curtis' wedding, and that version was a remake of the 1976 Disney comedy featuring Jodie Foster and Barbara Harris living for a spell in each other's shoes and bodies.  I don't need to see the other versions to gain a full understanding of the complexities of Freakier Friday, in which Curtis and Lohan switch bodies with Lohan's daughter and Lohan's soon-to-be stepdaughter.  That's four bodies with switched bodies personalities and souls.   You could double it to make it eight and the law of diminishing returns would still take effect.  Four people doesn't make it any more funny.

Lohan's Anna is days from getting married to a kind, sensitive chef (Jacinto).  Their respective daughters (Butters and Hammons), however, do not get along and fight the marriage every step of the way.  After each of the women meets up with a psychic at Anna's bachelorette party, their personalities switch into the new bodies and the high jinks ensue with one unfunny situation melding into another as the wedding is thrown into peril. The actors are game and expend the required energy to try and make this work, but it's all for naught.

So, do the people all learn empathy for each other and forgive each other?  Does Anna, who shelved her own singing career to manage another teen singer, get a chance to perform one of the songs she wrote on stage in a supposedly stirring finale?  Is the wedding saved?  Do we even care?  For those who are keeping score, that's three years and a no.