Discussing, briefly, ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER, and where I think it should be placed in the Paul Thomas Anderson pantheon. Then, it’s on to AFTER THE HUNT, which wants to provoke in a lazy right-tilting fashion where #MeToo is treated like a Mark of Cain inconvenience for successful people asked to be accountable for misconduct/coercion/assault—plus there’s a side order of Trump-ish excrement thrown at perceived over-sensitive university students by professors/staff. Finally, there’s BLACK PHONE 2, which meanders and gives Ethan Hawke’s Grabber an origin story—and only connects when Madeleine McGraw’s Gwen is onscreen in grainy dreamscape scenes which evoke Zach Cregger’s WEAPONS more than Blumhouse horror fare.
Reviewing William Wyler’s final film, a bleak statement about irresolvable racism in the American South, plus Ernst Lubitsch’s final film at Paramount, a screwball comedy in which Claudette Colbert teaches seven times wed playboy businessman Gary Cooper how to value the institution of marriage.
Films from the Action Couple of the moment: Ana De Armas enters the John Wick universe as Tom Cruise finishes an almost three-decade run as IMF agent Ethan Hunt.
Reviewing a lesser-known Humphrey Bogart circus/carnival film, John Farrow’s teaming of Ray Milland and Barbara Stanwyck—and Willian Shatner going Full Shatner as a grifter/gigolo who also is a psychopathic killer in early 1970S Tampa.
New David Cronenberg film about death (and other obsessions) reviewed, plus Nicolas Cage going Down Under and not fitting in with a quite territorial clique of surfers.
A few words on the thankfully under-rewarded EMILIA PEREZ, plus reviews of Errol Morris’s return to true crime and Bong Joon-Ho’s return to science fiction that satirizes egocentric humans callously exploiting other humans in their employ.
Awards Season episode featuring films celebrated (I’M STILL HERE, THE BRUTALIST and A COMPLETE UNKNOWN) and ignored (THE ROOM NEXT DOOR and OH, CANADA).
Quick opinions of the first half of WICKED, the slept-on THE OUTRUN and estate-approved documentaries on Christopher Reeve and Humphrey Bogart.
Veterans Robert Zemeckis and Francis Ford Coppola emerge with technically audacious films which have generally been received with indifference/disdain.
Reviewing the debut films of Cameron Crowe (1983) and Anna Kendrick (2023).
Reviewing the film du jour by Coralie Fageat which, somehow, fails to confront the epidemic of Botoxed facelifting forced on most women working in show business, as well as enabling by other women in executive positions. At the beginning, Demi Moore’s 1996 film STRIPTEASE is mentioned to contrast the indulgence of the male gaze with the alleged boldness of her extended nudity (plus that of Margaret Qualley) in this motion picture.
Reviewing the fast-paced distillation of the ALIEN franchise, plus the dumped-by-Neon teaming of Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway and, finally, Daisy Ridley going full Hillary Swank as champion 1920s swimmer Gertrude Ederle.
