Looking California and Feeling Minnesota - Episode 140: One Battle After Another

After a long hiatus, the boys are back!! On this episode, Barry and I shout "viva la revolution!" as we talk all things One Battle After Another, the new PT Anderson film starring Leonardo DiCaprio. Topics discussed include the film's many failings, politics in film, and the current state of cinema, culture and the movie industry. 

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota - Episode 140: One Battle After Another

Thanks for listening!

©2025

Eddington: A Review - The Madness of Covid...and a Lot of Other Things

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT NOW.

Eddington, written and directed by Ari Aster and starring Joaquin Phoenix, hit theatres way back in July…but I only just saw it this past weekend…and I have a lot of thoughts.

The film, which bills itself as a “neo-Western dark comedy thriller”, tells the story of the fictional town of Eddington, New Mexico and the personal and political trials and tribulations it faces during the Covid pandemic.

Ari Aster is a filmmaker of whom I think highly – so why didn’t I see Eddington until this past weekend? Well, Aster’s first two films, Hereditary (2018) and Midsommar (2019), were really top-notch elevated horror movies that I loved, but his third feature, Beau is Afraid (2023), was a film that was so affecting that I literally could not watch it all the way through. In fact, I tried multiple times to stream Beau is Afraid and each time I made it roughly 30 minutes in and bailed.

To be clear, I am not saying Beau is Afraid is a bad movie (it might be but I can’t judge after watching only 30 minutes of it - twice), what I am saying though is that it was so affecting that I had a terribly uncomfortable visceral reaction to it – the reasons for which even I am not completely clear on (paging Dr. Freud!!) – so much so that I had to stop watching. This is something that has never happened to me before (or since).

So, when Eddington came out this past Summer, I thought that seeing it in the theatre was not a priority because I might want to bail on this one too. And so…all these months later when it is now available on VOD, I rented it for $4 and watched it. And oh boy…am I ever glad I did!

Eddington is the very best film I have seen this year, and it isn’t even remotely close. It is incredibly smart, insightful, bold, brave and brilliant.

This film is once again very affecting…even uncomfortably so…but it is such a compelling and dynamic film that it is impossible to turn away from it…even when you want to.

One of the reasons you may want to turn away from Eddington, is because it so expertly recreates the Covid experience – both socially, personally and medically, in such visceral and palpable ways that watching it literally feels like having a Covid fever dream.

Ari Aster masterfully captures the disorientation of the Covid era, which felt like an assault on our senses, psyches and souls. This disorientation from Covid (both the disease and the cultural reaction to it) created rampant hysteria and mania that spread like wildfire during the insanity of the Covid era. Ultimately, that hysteria is the true pandemic that thrives to this day having lived long after the disease of Covid has faded into distant memory.

Eddington is a comedy, a thriller, a horror movie and a political satire, but above all else it is an indictment. The indictment of how foolish and gullible and easily manipulated we all are. How even now we suffer from such aggressive cognitive dissonance that the excesses of the Covid era, and the worst offenders of Covid hysteria (and the accompanying BLM mania) have never been forced to acknowledge their egregious and calamitous errors, never mind pay for them.

As time passes and we gain more distance from the lunacy and imbecility of our current age, Eddington, with its sharp and incisive criticisms, will age like the finest of wines. The film’s insights will become more profound over time for those with eyes, and the intellectual courage, to see them.  

As you may have noticed I have intentionally avoided any and all plot points for Eddington, and that is because I think it is best watched with as little information known about it as possible. That said, I will try and convey my appreciation for the film despite my strict spoiler limitations.

First of all, Joaquin Phoenix, who plays protagonist Sheriff Joe Cross, gives a stellar performance. Phoenix is brilliant, his Sheriff Joe is a stew of subdued defiance and fury mixed with smoldering self-righteousness that often curdles into hubris.

Phoenix is the great actors of our time and he creates a deliciously complex character in Sheriff Joe, that is so captivating and subtly magnetic that it is a marvel. And Phoenix’s ability to convey physical ailments is truly stunning – and I will say no more about that.

The rest of the cast, which features Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone, Deirdre O’Connell, and Austin Butler, all have smaller roles but do exceptionally noteworthy work. Pascal, in particular, is an actor who can often grate, but his unlikability is used to great effect in the film. Stone’s role is small but she is completely bought into it and does exceptional work despite minimal screen time.

Cinematographer Darius Khondji does his very best work on Eddington, using the high desert landscape and the small-town setting to great effect. He also deftly paints with a deft palette and masterfully frames his shots throughout – heightening the drama.

The real star of Eddington though is writer/director Ari Aster. It took balls the size of watermelons to make this movie and Aster has them. He has been pilloried by many critics for Eddington, but I think that has more to do with the perceived politics of Eddington rather than the filmmaking skills on display from Aster. I also think many critics are among those who so wholeheartedly embraced the Covid and BLM hysteria and are so ravaged by cognitive dissonance that they aggressively resist any notions of coming to grips with how foolish they look in hindsight.

The reality is, is that the “conspiracy theorists” were right all along…and still are…or at least they’re more right than the buffoons who think “conspiracy theorist” is a derogatory term. The most amusing thing that has happened in the last five or six years has been that tinfoil hats have been transformed from objects of ridicule into crowns of knowledge and wisdom – worn proudly.

To be fair, the “conspiracy theorists” are closer to the truth than the normies…but they still are a far way off from the truth. The conspiracy theorist’s real enlightenment comes from the fact that they understand the one undeniable fact that “normies” are loathe to admit…that the “official” story is, always and every time, a lie. And Eddington is one of those rare movies that not only acknowledges that fact…but aggressively embraces it.

The unacknowledged mantra of the dystopian digital age is – “The map is not the territory” – as our culture is so detached from the territory of reality because they have their noses buried in the map…their phones. Because of this fact we as a people are easily manipulated – emotionally, mentally, politically, and Eddington is a film that slaps us across the face in an attempt to wake us from our technologically induced stupor – and it does so with cinematic and dramatic aplomb.

You may not want to see Eddington, but trust me when I tell you…you NEED to see Eddington, you NEED to absorb Eddington, and you NEED to eventually accept what Eddington is teaching you.

Make no mistake, Eddington is thus far the very best film of the year…and is also the most important film of the year, if not the decade.

©2025

Paul Thomas Anderson Films - Ranked Worst to First

PT ANDERSON FILMS – RANKED

Paul Thomas Anderson’s newest film, One Battle After Another, hit theatres at the end of September and has garnered massive critical praise and generated a cavalcade of conversation.

I love any conversation that involves the films of Paul Thomas Anderson…so I thought I’d start another one…namely by ranking his films.

PT Anderson is my favorite current filmmaker. He is a unique cinematic genius, a brilliant writer and an extraordinary director of actors. All that said…he is for many, an acquired taste…one which I have certainly acquired. Which makes it all the more profound when I DON’T like one of his films.

Anyway…without further ado here is my list of PT Anderson films ranked worst to first. This list is…ALIVE. It can change not just everyday but sometimes every hour. For example, just in the course of writing this piece my top three films flipped back and forth at least three times.

So here is the list…let the debate begin!!

THE NOT-SO-GOOD

10. Hard Eight (1996)– Hard Eight is Anderson’s feature debut and while it is a decent film featuring a solid performance from the ever-reliable Philip Baker Hall, it is definitely as bit rough around the edges. It’s impressive for a debut but not a particularly good movie.

Available to rent or buy on Amazon Prime

9. Punch-Drunk Love (2002)– This was Anderson shifting gears into a less ambitious cinematic undertaking after the sprawling Magnolia and the decade spanning Boogie Nights. The film is devoid of ambition though as Anderson makes the calamitous decision to cast the grating Adam Sandler as his lead in this unusual and dark romantic comedy. That was a very poor decision.

Punch-Drunk Love is beautifully shot, of that there is no doubt, but the script feels cloying and trite and the lead performance from Adam Sandler is unbearably amateurish.

I know people who have Punch-Drunk Love ranked number one on their PT Anderson list…those people are idiots.

Currently streaming on the Criterion Channel

8. One Battle After Another (2025)– All the caveats apply regarding my feelings about One Battle After Another. I’ve only seen it once…and saw it on a shitty digital projector at the local cineplex – which just got new chairs but failed to get better projectors and sound systems – so now people can be comfy and cozy watching movies on their sub-par projectors!

Anyway…maybe my feelings about this movie will change after I see this movie a few more times or with a better projector…who knows? But after one less-than-cinematically-ideal viewing I was not a fan. To Anderson’s credit, it is a tremendously ambitious film, but I thought it failed by almost every metric…including the performances.

Currently in theatres

7. Licorice Pizza (2021)– This film is really gorgeous to look at but ultimately, it’s all empty calories as there is no meat on the bones of its story.

The bottom line is it’s a rather vapid “hang out” movie that ends up being rather forgettable despite some great scenes and sequences.

Currently streaming on MUBI

THE VERY, VERY GOOD

6. Inherent Vice (2014) – I, unlike many, absolutely loved this movie and found it to be a psychologically profound piece of work that felt like a fever dream.

Like One Battle After Another it is based on a Thomas Pynchon novel…unlike One Battle After Another it is exquisitely crafted and filled with rich metaphor.

It also features top-notch performances from Joaquin Phoenix and Josh Brolin…and is laugh out loud funny on occasion.

To me, the list of best PT Anderson films really starts here with Inherent Vice, an audacious arthouse gem.

Currently streaming on Amazon Prime

5. Phantom Thread (2017) – One of the more elegant, eloquent and dark relationship stories in cinema history, Phantom Thread features luminous craftsmanship – most notably its cinematography and wardrobe design.

It also features one of Daniel Day Lewis’ greatest performances as the persnickety Reynolds Woodcock. Leslie Manville and Vicky Krieps also give truly phenomenal performances in the film.

Phantom Thread is an often-overlooked Anderson film…but it shouldn’t be.

Currently streaming on Netflix

THE GREAT

4. The Master (2012) – Ok…the final four films on this list are out and out masterpieces in my mind.

The Master is a tour de force film that boasts two all-time great performances. Philip Seymour Hoffman is utterly amazing as the cult leader/con man Lancaster Dodd – it is one of Hoffman’s very best performances, which is saying quite a lot since he was one of the greatest actors of his generation.

Then there is Joaquin Phoenix as the lead Freddie Quell. Phoenix’s performance isn’t just the greatest of his career, it is the single greatest and most revolutionary piece of acting in modern cinema history. You may think that is hyperbole, but trust me, it isn’t. Phoenix re-invented the art of acting with this intricate and stunning performance.

The Master is a mesmerizing meditation on masculinity and the modern man, and it requires multiple viewings to fully flesh out its meaning…and it deserves as many re-watches and you can manage.

Currently streaming on Roku

3. There Will Be Blood (2007) – There Will be Blood is at the very top of this list on many…if not most…occasions, as it is a full-on masterpiece featuring both Daniel Day Lewis, cinematographer Robert Elswit, and in some ways PT Anderson, at their very, very best.

A dark brooding tale about capitalism, masculinity and America, There Will Be Blood is a dramatic powerhouse that devours everything in its path.

Day-Lewis brings all of his substantial power and acting prowess to bear on his role as Daniel Plainview…who, in case you didn’t know…is an oil man.

There Will be Blood is as intense, expansive, jarring and invigorating a film as you will ever see. A truly spectacular piece of cinematic art.

Available to rent or buy on Amazon Prime

2. Magnolia (1999) – Magnolia is a bit of a controversial choice at number two as it was raked over the coals by critics and many fans back in the day. But the fact of the matter is it is the very best Robert Altman film ever made…and it wasn’t even made by Altman!

Magnolia features a cavalcade of top-notch performances, great writing, and some of the best editing in recent history…not to mention Robert Elswit’s glorious cinematography.

Tom Cruise of all fucking people, gives the very best performance of his career…and it is utterly amazing as Frank T.J. Mackey. Only PT Anderson could get Tom Cruise to be that great…and he really, really is that great in Magnolia.

Philip Seymour Hoffman too gives one of his best, most subtle, and most tender performances in the film as well.

I hadn’t seen Magnolia in quite some time and re-watched it this past week and it definitely still holds the same emotional power and melancholic mastery as it did when I first saw it 26 years ago.

Currently streaming on the Criterion Channel

1. Boogie Nights (1997) – As previously stated, There Will be Blood could easily be at this top spot, but the truth is that Boogie Nights is the PT Anderson film I have watched the most (I typically watch it at least once a year if not twice) and that I enjoy the most.

Seeing Boogie Nights for the first time back in 1997 was a religious experience for me – hell I was so enraptured by the movie I even wrote a paper on its symbolism and cinematography back in film school! It is a masterfully constructed film with a complex sensibility, a funny bone and devastating dramatic punch.

Boogie Nights announced PT Anderson as THE guy to watch in moviemaking and part of the joy of watching it was experiencing the giddiness of expectation for the unknown PT Anderson films to come.

Boogie Nights itself gets the very most out of actors like Burt Reynolds (a resurrection project – Burt gives his career best performance) and Mark Wahlberg (also giving his career best performance).

Then there is the unbelievably fantastic cast – Julianne Moore, Heather Graham, John C. Reilly, Don Cheadle, Luis Guzman, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Philip Baker Hall, Melora Walters, Thomas Jane, Alfred Molina and William H. Macy – all of whom are superb and give pitch perfect performances.

A great cast, a scintillating script, Elswit’s stunning cinematography and Anderson’s audacious direction make Boogie Nights his best film (at least for today), and most watchable – and re-watchable, and my favorite, film.

Currently streaming on Paramount +

Quibble all you want…but this is the official PT Anderson film ranking list!! If it makes you angry, that’s okay…because the list has probably already changed in the fifteen minutes after I wrote it.

In looking over Anderson’s filmography the thing that stands out the most to me…besides the glorious cinematography and usually inspired writing…is that Anderson is able to get the very best out of the very best actors around. You’d think that is an easy thing to do…but it isn’t.

Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood and Phantom Thread, Joaquin Phoenix in The Master and Inherent Vice, Philip Seymour Hoffman in Boogie Nights, Magnolia and The Master, Tom Cruise in Magnolia…and on and on and on.

PT Anderson isn’t just mandatory viewing for lovers of cinema and hopeful filmmakers, he is mandatory viewing for actors of all stripes and at every stage of their career. Beginner or old pro, actors everywhere can learn boatloads just by carefully watching PT Anderson films and seeing how a master director can elicit supreme performances from the entirety of his cast.

Alright…enough of my rambling…thanks for reading and hopefully I’ll see you at a screening of One Battle After Another where I try and catch the fever for this film which has thus far avoided me.

©2025

One Battle After Another: A Review - The Art of Cinema Loses Another Battle

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT.

One Battle After Another, written and directed by acclaimed auteur Paul Thomas Anderson and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, tells the story of Bob (DiCaprio), a revolutionary fighting the fascist powers that be while trying to keep himself and his family safe.

The film, which is inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel Vineland, and stars Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall, Tayana Taylor and Chase Infiniti, opened on September 26th and has been praised by critics and seen a modestly successful return at the box office – over $100 million, the biggest of Anderson’s career (with a budget of $150 million or so – also the largest of Anderson’s career, it has a long way to go to profitability).

Paul Thomas Anderson has long been the darling of film bros, and as long-time readers know I am the film bro-iest of film bros, so Anderson is my favorite filmmaker and I consider him to be the greatest filmmaker of our time. Anderson’s talent with the typewriter, the camera and particularly with actors, is undeniable. His filmography is proof of this as it includes a bevy of extraordinary masterpieces (Boogie Nights, Magnolia, There Will Be Blood, The Master) as well as a handful of exquisite and brilliant arthouse gems (Inherent Vice, Phantom Thread).

I found Anderson’s last film, Licorice Pizza, to be a disappointment. It was beautifully shot but beyond that it was a rather empty venture devoid of meaning or purpose.

So it was that I was somewhat trepidatious when going to see One Battle After Another. Despite my long-standing practice of embargoing information about films I’m interested in, news seeped through the blockade and I heard whispers about how One Battle After Another was fantastic.

In order to find out if that were the case, I went to a sparsely populated Sunday matinee at the local cineplex here in flyover country. The film was shot using VistaVision – a rarely used practice that can only truly be appreciated in like four movie theatres in America – and mine certainly wasn’t one of them. No, I watched the film like the rest of the hoi polloi – on a very shitty digital projector.

After sitting through the expansive two-hour and forty-five-minute runtime, my take away from One Battle After Another is this…it just doesn’t work. It isn’t funny, or even mildly interesting or the slightest bit profound. In fact, the only thing profound about this movie is how disappointing it is. It is such a misfire it makes the tediously middling Licorice Pizza seem like Citizen Kane.

As previously stated, I saw the movie on a digital projector, so take this with a grain of salt, but I also did not find the film technologically or cinematically impressive in the slightest.

When the film ended and I walked back out into the blinding daylight, I was stunned at what an underwhelming experience I had just endured. It was shocking to me that an enormous talent like PT Anderson could create such a lifeless movie that fails to stir even the slightest bit of a spark from such acting luminaries as Leo DiCaprio and Sean Penn.

One Battle After Another is garnering a cavalcade of critical adoration – not surprising considering two things – Anderson’s well-earned status as an elite auteur, and also the film’s political subject matter.

The film is essentially about a revolutionary group fighting a fascist government that rounds up illegal aliens – if it were a Law and Order episode they’d say it was “ripped from the headlines”. The specter – or odor, depending on your political perspective, of the Trump administration hangs over this movie like a ghost of Christmas past, present and, unfortunately, future.

No doubt critics, and most audience members, will get a thrill from the fight against fascists at the heart of the film. The problem though is that the film’s politics are both ludicrously heavy handed yet compulsively vapid, vacuous, trite and aggressively unchallenged. If you want to see a much better (and very different) film about modern-day violent revolutionaries, go watch 2022’s How to Blow Up a Pipeline – a flawed but feverishly compelling film.

Tonally One Battle After Another, labelled an action-thriller, struggles as well, as there is minimal action and even less thrills. Anderson’s other adaptation of a Pynchon novel, 2014’s Inherent Vice, was a weird and woolly conspiracy crime comedy, and I thought it was a wonderful piece of cinema and supremely psychologically profound. One Battle After Another is never as funny as Inherent Vice, and never as smart and certainly not even remotely as profound either.

I laughed exactly once watching this movie, and it was when a flustered DiCaprio tries to close a curtain and the curtain falls to the floor and he is left puzzled as to what to do next…and then apologizes. The rest of the time I was, as was the rest of the audience, as silent as the grave.

There were some amusing observations in the movie, particularly about the generational divide when it comes to revolution – the fragile Millennial/Gen Z woke keyboard warriors versus Gen-X’s hearty bomb-throwers…but that was minimal and not especially insightful.

As for the performances, much was anticipated when news came out that Leonardo DiCaprio would be teaming with PT Anderson…like a dynamic duo of generational talents.

DiCaprio gives, frankly, a rather forgettable performance as Bob, the stoner revolutionary trying to navigate life in the underground. Never once does he command attention, or feel as if he fully inhabits the character. To be fair, DiCaprio is not aided by the script, which has his flaccid character often deeply at odds with himself.

Sean Penn fares even worse. It has often been said of late that Sean Penn looks like all three of the Three Stooges combined, and that was never more-true than as his work as Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw, an obsessive and ambitious military man hot on the trail of revolutionaries.

Penn, an actor I greatly admire, gives a frivolous and forgettable performance as the fiery Lockjaw. He is all hat and no cattle. An empty vessel floating aimlessly through the doldrums of a poorly written script.

Regina Hall seems to be in a different, and much better, movie with her performance as Deandra, a revolutionary. Hall is grounded and human as Deandra, which is considerably more than anyone else in the cast can say.

Benicio del Toro does Benicio del Toro things and sort of waltzes calmly and coolly through his role as Sergio, a martial arts instructor and underground railroad engineer. Not once does he seem like anything other than a character in a movie.

Chase Infiniti is so lightweight as Willa, Bob’s daughter, she might as well have been a tumbleweed rolling silently through her scenes.

And then there is Teyana Taylor in the crucial role of Perfidia Beverly Hills – the most important revolutionary…and Bob’s wife and Willa’s mother.

Perfidia is supposed to be this dynamic, magnetic and undeniable energy who carries the revolution – and the first act of the movie, on her back with panache and flair. But Taylor is, unfortunately, a rather repulsive screen presence, which makes her being the object of attention and fetishized desire a rather ridiculous notion – so much so that it is unbelievable.

Taylor lacks the charisma and presence to pull off this vital role and the film is mortally wounded by it from the get go…and then DiCaprio and Penn stick their stakes through its heart all thanks to Anderson’s unfocused and unpolished script.

PT Anderson making two sub-par films back-to-back (Licorice Pizza and One Battle After Another) is an earth-shattering experience for me the poor little Gen X film bro. For the majority of my adult-hood he has been the guy. He has consistently been brilliant (the one notable exception is, thanks to the abysmal Adam Sandler, 2002’s Punch-Drunk Love), and to see him stumble twice in a row is jarring to say the least.

I hope I am wrong, but this feels like when in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, Muhammad Ali, the greatest of all time, lost his athleticism and his mojo. Ali shockingly lost to Leon Spinks in 1978 – but then got his belt back by beating Spinks eight months later. But even in victory Ali looked like the shadow of the great fighter and man he once was.

Two years later Ali was destroyed by Larry Holmes in one of the more brutal reality checks in boxing history. A year later he suffered an ignominious defeat at the hands of Trevor Burbick, thus ending his once glorious career.

PT Anderson’s most recent two films are not as bad as Ali’s last two fights…but they do feel the same to me. A giant of a talent losing his mojo and being humbled by Father Time is never pretty to watch.

The positive critical reaction to what I see as the failure of One Battle After Another is reminiscent of those who cheered when Ali got his title back from Spinks…thinking the great champion “still had it”. Despite the victory, he still didn’t have it. He was done. My great, great fear, is that the same is true of PT Anderson…not so much that he is done as a filmmaker, but that his best work is behind him and that it is all downhill from here. That is a terrifying notion to me as it signals that this once in my lifetime filmmaker is…just like me…coming ever closer to his end, both artistically and physically. And also…what the hell am I going to look forward to if I don’t have PT Anderson films to look forward to anymore?

Ultimately, it truly pains me to say that One Battle After Another is a rolling morass of banality and bullshit that never coalesces into a successful cinematic venture. To be blunt…it is not very good. Now, to be clear, PT Anderson’s version of not very good is considerably better than everybody else’s…but it is still not very good, and is certainly not a film I will recommend. I will watch it again though, as Anderson has earned that at a minimum with his past work, but upon first viewing, I found trying to find something good to say about One Battle After Another to be a losing battle.

©2025

R.I.P. Robert Redford: The Sundance Kid Once Saved Cinema

Robert Redford, the iconic movie star, filmmaker and Sundance Institute founder, died yesterday at the age of 89.

As gigantic a movie star as Robert Redford was…and he was a monumental movie star, particularly in the 1970’s, the most important thing about him is what he did for, or to, the film industry with his creation of the Sundance Institute and the Sundance Film Festival – which he took over in the mid 1980’s.

It is impossible to imagine the depths to which filmmaking would have fallen if Redford had not built Sundance, the place where “independent” filmmakers could develop and then show their films.

Without Sundance, the renaissance of cinema in the 1990’s, which includes the emergence of such filmmaking luminaries as Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson, would never have occurred.

Did Sundance quickly go from being sanctified and deified to becoming corporatized and commodified? Yes, it did. And is it now little more than a movie business version of the red-light district in Amsterdam? Yes, it is. But that doesn’t diminish its original importance or the good it did for cinema back in the early days…and it is crucial that we do not forget that when remembering Robert Redford.

As for Redford the actor, he was an impossibly handsome leading man who was gifted with a tendency toward stillness (a skill few actors possess) and the ability to share the screen with other actors with a charming effortlessness.

Redford was a good movie star, good enough that he could unflinchingly share a screen with Paul Newman, one of the biggest movie stars of all-time, for two memorable movies – Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and The Sting.

He was also a good and often underrated actor, who could comfortably share the screen with acting luminaries like Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep.

Redford, with his all-American good looks and stoic demeanor, resembled an old school movie star from the studio system but who hit his heights during the glorious age of the New American Cinema in the free-wheeling 1970s.

Redford catapulted to enormous fame in 1969 when he starred with Paul Newman in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – what some have called the perfect movie.

Butch and Sundance – with their snarky bromance, are essentially the template for every action comedy and Marvel movie of the last 50 years. You don’t get the Lethal Weapon, Die Hard and Marvel franchises without Butch and Sundance and their witty quips to one another under fire.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid really is a remarkable movie in that it is pure movie star popcorn entertainment but its shot with a glorious aplomb by Conrad Hall – and directed with verve by George Roy Hill.

Redford and Newman’s chemistry is legendary, and while many have tried to replicate it – like George Clooney and Brad Pitt, none have succeeded. The problem with Clooney and Pitt trying to be Newman and Redford is that Pitt is not Redford - despite Hollywood’s determination to make it so, and Clooney sure as shit ain’t Newman, no matter how much Clooney tries to pretend otherwise.

Redford’s filmography is, not surprisingly considering the length of his career, a mixed bag.

His best/most popular films are most certainly Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Three Days of the Condor, All the President’s Men and The Natural.

I can say without hesitation that I unabashedly love all of those movies, and love him in all of those movies.

As previously stated, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is popcorn perfection. Three Days of the Condor is a truly spectacular film and a glorious piece of 70’s paranoid cinema that I adore. All the President’s Men is a movie with undeniable momentum to it that compulsively compels. And finally, The Natural is, in my not-so-humble opinion, the greatest baseball movie ever made and also a phenomenal American myth that Redford perfectly embodies.

As much as I love those Redford films, the Redford movies that I find most intriguing are Downhill Racer, Jeremiah Johnson and The Candidate. These three films, all from the 70’s, show Redford giving his most complex performances, and are all really fantastic films that are often-overlooked.

The final movie I’d recommend is the lone late-period Redford movie that I think works well. The film is 2013’s All Is Lost directed by J.C. Chandor, which is about a man lost at sea by himself. Redford barely speaks at all in this movie, and it was a ballsy performance for him to undertake. I loved the film but others hated it. I think it’s worth watching now as it will take on particular profundity in the wake of Redford’s death.

Another movie some have mentioned is 2018’s The Old Man & the Gun, directed by David Lowery. I thought this film was a misfire, but I could see how it could be nice to indulge in its nostalgia now that Redford has passed away.

As for Redford as a filmmaker, I never really thought very much of his directorial skills. Redford was undoubtedly interested in independence and freedom for other filmmakers but as a filmmaker himself he was extraordinarily restrictive in his artistry.

The films Redford directed, Ordinary People (for which he won a best Director Academy Award), The Milagro Beanfield War, A River Runs Through It, Quiz Show, The Horse Whisperer, The Legend of Bagger Vance, Lions for Lambs, The Conspirator, and The Company You Keep, are all suffocatingly staid and cinematically conventional.

The lone Redford directed film that I would recommend is Quiz Show, and even that is a rather middlebrow piece of mainstream cinema that never quite rises to the heights you feel like it should.

Regardless of the merits or imperfections in Robert Redford’s acting and directing career, the truth is that anyone who enjoys movies, be they cinephiles or cineplex-goers, owe a huge debt of gratitude to Robert Redford. Without Robert Redford and his Sundance Film Festival and Institute, both the movie business and the art of cinema would be in much worse shape than they are today – and it;s important to remember that the Sundance Film Festival never happens if Robert Redford doesn’t become the Sundance Kid.

So, a big tip of the cowboy hat to the Sundance Kid on a job well done and a life well lived. Thanks for saving cinema…let’s hope that one day that it can rise from the ashes and once again be worthy of all you’ve done for it.

By the way…here is a 2013 article I wrote about Redford’s acting that you might find of interest.

Stillness: Lessons from Redford, DeNiro and Penn

©2025

Highest 2 Lowest: A Review - Lots of Lows and Too Few Highs

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. A misfire across the board that reveals Spike Lee as a spent creative force and Denzel Washington as firmly entrenched in the laissez-faire late stage of his career.

Highest 2 Lowest, directed by Spike Lee and starring Denzel Washington, is a remake/re-imagining of the 1963 Akira Kurosawa classic High and Low, and tells the story of David King, a music mogul facing moral, financial and familial pressures when his teenage son is kidnapped.

Highest 2 Lowest, which is produced by A24 and distributed by Apple Original Films, was briefly in theatres and is now available to stream on Apple TV +, which is where I watched it.

The film is the fifth collaboration between Lee and Washington, and the first since 2006’s Inside Man. Previous Spike Lee films with Denzel Washington include the sterling Mo’ Better Blues, the masterful Malcolm X, and He Got Game.

The Kurosawa film High and Low is nothing short of a masterpiece and features the filmmaker’s cinematic mastery as well as a powerful and deft performance by Toshiro Mifune. Spike Lee’s decision to remake, or as he claims “re-imagine” Kurosawa’s classic, is both a sign of Lee’s respect and of his hubris.

Having watched Highest 2 Lowest I can confidently declare that Spike Lee is no Akira Kurosawa and Denzel Washington is no Toshiro Mifune.

The truth is that Lee and Washington are the equivalent of hall of fame pitchers who once upon a time threw fastballs in the high 90’s, but are now reduced to grooving mid-80’s meatballs that do nothing but stir nostalgia for the good old days.

To be fair, Denzel Washington had a considerably longer peak than Spike Lee, and the argument could be made that at his best Denzel was better than Spike Lee at his best. In keeping with the baseball metaphor, Denzel at his peak was hitting 100 MPH on the radar gun, and Spike Lee at his shortened peak, was hitting 98 mph…but neither can even dream of hitting such heights now.

Highest 2 Lowest opens with a very captivating sequence which features a sunrise over New York City shot by drones with “Oh What a Beautiful Mornin’” from the musical Oklahoma playing over it. This opening is tantalizing at is shows Spike Lee at his cinematic best.

We are then introduced to Denzel’s character David King and his world, which features Ilfenish Hadera as his wife Pam, Aubrey Joseph as his son Trey, and Jeffrey Wright as his childhood friend and now driver Paul.

King is trying to navigate a big business deal in order to save his record label, and reignite his highly-acclaimed music producing career, which has been steadily slipping in recent years.

Then comes the inciting incident – Trey, King’s only child, is kidnapped at a basketball camp in the city. The way this turn of events is portrayed is so underwhelming and so dramatically impotent as to be amateurish.

Things dramatically, cinematically, artistically and creatively devolve so quickly from there that it actually shocks.

Denzel Washington is a great actor and movie star, of that there is no doubt, but he has entered the phase of his career which is reminiscent of late-stage Jack Nicholson – think of Jack in The Departed, where he does little more than show everyone how much he is “acting”.

Now, Denzel, or Jack, acting in this manner, where they show off for the sake of showing off, is fine, but it also isn’t good. The sheer charisma that Denzel and Jack possess makes their presence worthwhile, even when their acting work feels so forced and/or flimsy.

Denzel did this same thing in Gladiator II, and I found it entertaining, but here it feels like watching an acting class where the talented actor doing the scene didn’t do the prep work so now we have to watch them signal to us how much they are acting. (Anyone who has ever been in an acting class will know exactly of which I speak).

That said, Denzel Washington is definitely not the problem with Highest 2 Lowest…in fact he’s the best thing about it…and problem isn’t Jeffrey Wright wither, who is intriguing as Paul, the ex-con childhood friend who loyally serves his old pal and boss King.

One of the biggest problems with Highest 2 Lowest though is the rest of the cast, who are so atrocious as to be ridiculous.  

Ilfanish Hadera as King’s wife Pam is absolutely dreadful. It is stunning how out of her depth she is in a role that in more talented and steady hands would be pure red meat to be devoured with aplomb. Hadera is so dead-eyed and lifeless that when she’s on-screen it feels like you’re watching an autopsy.

Aubrey Joseph as King’s son Trey is another disaster, as he’s so wooden they could’ve just cast a mannequin in the role and been better served.

Another major issue is the trio of actors playing cops. John Douglas Thompson, Dean Winters, and LaChanze play the NYPD detectives assigned to solve the kidnapping and they feel like cast-offs from a Law and Order episode. It boggles the mind haw bad these three are.

Speaking of Law and Order, all of the police procedural stuff in this movie, and there’s a lot of it, feels like a third-rate Law and Order episode – which is tough because Law and Order episodes already feel third-rate to begin with…which I guess makes the cop stuff in Highest 2 Lowest sixth-rate?

The film tries to become a thriller as the kidnapping drama more deeply unfolds but it fails to muster even the most basic thrills…and it features one of the more contrived, flaccid and farcical chases in recent movie history.

On top of all that, Highest 2 Lowest also features one of the most god-awful, obtrusive and cloying scores in recent memory, thanks to Howard Drossin.

The truth is that at this point Spike Lee is an entirely spent creative force. After two decades of forgettable films, it seemed like Spike Lee might have gotten his mojo back in 2018 with BlacKkKlansman – a film for which he won a Screenplay Oscar. But instead of reinvigorating his work, Lee’s two follow-ups to BlacKkKlansman, the dismal Da 5 Bloods and Highest 2 Lowest, have been rather flimsy, instantly forgettable films.

Of course, there will be a plethora of Spike Lee sycophants who will shout from the rooftops how brilliant Highest 2 Lowest is, just like the fools who proclaimed the greatness of Da 5 Bloods, which is an amateurish mess of a movie.

But be not deceived…Highest 2 Lowest has a scant few highs and a cornucopia of lows. It is a major disappointment and an unfortunate signal that both Spike Lee and Denzel Washington may finally be done as artistic power players.

My recommendation is to skip the forgettable and foolish Highest 2 Lowest and instead go watch the tight and taut High and Low, as Kurosawa and Mifune prove they are infinitely better at telling this tale than late-stage Spike and Denzel.

©2025

The Phoenician Scheme: A Review - The Exquisite, but Ultimately Antiseptic, Wes Anderson Aesthetic

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!***

My Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. A beautifully crafted but ultimately empty cinematic venture.

The Phoenician Scheme is writer/director Wes Anderson’s twelfth feature length film (thirteenth if you count his collection of Roald Dahl shorts to be one film), and it adequately captures the conundrum of his cinematic style.

Wes Anderson burst onto the scene in 1996 with Bottle Rocket, a wonderfully quirky movie that catapulted both Owen and Luke Wilson to stardom as they played goodhearted misfits in a rather rough and tumble world.

Anderson then gave us Rushmore (1998), another quirky tale about a young misfit sort-of-genius/idiot navigating an often times cruel world, which propelled Jason Schwartzman into the Hollywood discussion. Rushmore established Anderson’s narrative aesthetic which has a foundation of - children acting like adults, and adults acting like children.

Then came 2001’s The Royal Tenenbaums, arguably Anderson’s best and most successful film, which told the story of a family of…you guessed it…misfits…led by a lovable scoundrel of a father, masterfully played by Gene Hackman.

Post-Royal Tenenbaums, Anderson’s filmography has had some ups and downs.

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) and The Darjeerling Limited (2007), both were terribly underwhelming and showed Anderson floundering to find his filmmaking footing.

The charming animated film The Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) was a fun breath of fresh air, but it was followed by Moonrise Kingdom (2012), which was so mannered as to be creepy and ultimately was of little value.

Then came The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), which, along with The Royal Tenenbaums, is my favorite Anderson film. It is stylistically as cinematically eccentric as any Anderson film but unlike the others, at its core is a darkness that is dramatically powerful. It also helps that, like The Royal Tenenbaums with Gene Hackman, The Grand Budapest Hotel has Ralph Fiennes giving a glorious performance at its center.

Unfortunately, after the epic heights of The Grand Budapest Hotel, Anderson learned the wrong lessons and instead of delving deeply into some dramatic darkness, he instead eschewed all drama in favor of a cornucopia of aggressive whimsy.

The French Dispatch (2021) and Asteroid City (2023) are perfect examples of this now cemented Anderson aesthetic. They are beautifully shot films which boast extraordinary production design, but that feature such copious amounts of twee that they end up being quite exquisite, but ultimately empty, cinematic exercises.

The same is true of the collection of Roald Dahl shorts that Anderson made for Netflix. Those films follow this same formula of cinematic saccharine, but they are much more digestible because they are short films.

In feature length, Anderson’s formula full of twee feels like a meal consisting solely of candy, entirely empty calories resulting in a dreadfully painful toothache.

The biggest issue with Anderson’s newest venture, The Phoenician Scheme (and with most everything post-The Grand Budapest Hotel), is that when Anderson uses contrived characters in real world settings – as he does in Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums, it can be very compelling and comedic, but when he uses contrived characters in cartoonish (but beautifully staged) settings, as he does in his recent era, it makes for tedious-to-the-point-of-tortuous amounts of twee.

The plot of The Phoenician Scheme revolves around Zsa Zsa Korda (Benicio del Toro) – one of Anderson’s many charming rogue male leads. Korda is…unsurprisingly…very peculiar. He is a mogul and a menace (dare I say it…Trumpian) – and the target of multiple assassination attempts which prompt him to have visions of meeting God. He’s also a father…but not a good one – think Royal Tenenbaum with more money.

The movie follows Korda as he tries, along with his longtime estranged, soon-to-be-nun, daughter Liesl (Mia Threapleton), and his assistant Bjorn (Michael Cera), to save a gigantic business deal to build a morally monstrous public works project– called The Phoenician Scheme.

The plot is really beside the point…as is the dialogue. The film is, like the rest of late-period Anderson films, a contrived exercise, like a diorama, filled to the brim with quirks and twee.

The performances are what they are. Del Toro makes for a reasonably watchable lead, and Mia Threapleton – who I did not know until this very moment is Kate Winslet’s daughter, is admittedly captivating as Liesl.

Surprisingly, Michael Cera, who you’d think would be the most Wes Anderson actor of them all, is actually a bit out of synch in the film.

The appearances of Bryan Cranston, Tom Hanks, Scarlett Johansson, Jeffrey Wright, Riz Ahmed, Benedict Cumberbatch and Rupert Friend in small roles are all pretty forgettable if not a little bit grating.

The Phoenician Scheme, which is currently streaming on Peacock, runs for an hour and forty minutes and not once during that entire run time did I give even half of a shit about any of the characters on screen or about what would happen to them or even around them.

Does The Phoenician Scheme look fantastic? Yes, it most certainly does as the cinematography (by Bruno Delbonnel) and production design are phenomenal.

Is the acting in The Phoenician Scheme good? Meh. It’s fine for what it is – a very mannered performance style that seems like it is more fun to do than to witness.

Is The Phoenician Scheme a good movie and worth watching? No, not really. It’s difficult to say that Anderson’s late period films are bad because they are so exquisitely crafted – but that craft often overwhelms the movies and renders them – if not undigestible, then at least unpalatable.

Wes Anderson is definitely an acquired taste, and though I acquired it early in his career, it seems in his recent era I have lost my taste for it as it’s all just a bit too sweet for my cinematic palate.

Anderson is undeniably a remarkable stylist, but his exquisite aesthetic has evolved to where it now overwhelms, so much so that his films are rendered emotionally antiseptic. At this point I feel absolutely nothing watching Anderson’s films…not joy, not happiness, not anger, not awe, not even interest.

So, if you want to see some stylish, silly cinematic musings then I recommend you go to Peacock and watch the beautiful but vapid The Phoenician Scheme.

If you’re looking for something more hearty…then you best go elsewhere because The Phoenician Scheme isn’t for you…just like it wasn’t for me.

©2025

Black Bag: A Review - Just Another Forgettable Soderbergh Film

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. An ultimately forgettable spy thriller that is devoid of thrills and banal to the core.

Black Bag, directed by Steven Soderbergh, is a spy thriller that follows the travails of a husband-and-wife spy team caught up in high-stakes MI6 intrigue.

The film, which stars Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett, was released in theatres on March 14th to little fanfare, and less than a month later is now available to stream on Peacock.

I remember seeing Steven Soderbergh’s directorial debut, Sex, Lies and Videotape, back in 1989 in the theatre with my girlfriend at the time. After the film we spent hours talking about it, which was a testament to what a unique, original and interesting piece of work it was. I remember thinking at the time how exciting it was that a talent like Steven Soderbergh existed and looking forward to seeing how his career played out.

Thirty-six years later I can tell you that I have never been impressed with Soderbergh’s work beyond his debut. In fact, I have found his career to be a terrible disappointment. That may come as a shock to some readers since Soderbergh has won Oscars and made big, successful movies, but to me Soderbergh has never lived up to his potential as either a filmmaker or an artist.

Sex, Lies and Videotape was a daring and insightful piece of work. It’s not the smoothest piece of filmmaking you’ll ever see, but it is a brutally honest depiction of humanity…and that is the thing that has been missing from Soderbergh’s work ever since.

Despite Soderbergh being a hero to film hipsters everywhere, his filmography mostly reads like an inventory of discount dvds you’d find if you were fishing at the bottom of the bargain bin on the way out of Walmart. Following Sex, Lies and Videotape he made Kafka, King of the Hill, The Underneath, Schizopolis, and Gray’s Anatomy…all films I’d be willing to bet readers have either never seen or if they have seen them have totally forgotten them.

Then came Soderbergh’s commercial success with Out of Sight, The Limey, Erin Brockovich, Traffic and Ocean’s Eleven (and Ocean’s Twelve and Ocean’s Thirteen). These movies were box office successes and some, like Traffic and Erin Brockovich, won Academy Awards. The most noticeable thing about this string of success from Soderbergh is that these films are all painfully vacuous – they are monuments to style over substance. Gone is the intellectual/emotional intrigue of Sex, Lies and Videotape, and in its stead is slick filmmaking, Hollywood posturing and absolutely zero gravitas.

These films are so thin and shallow that they nearly disappear upon rewatch. Traffic, which I really liked the first time I saw it, reveals itself to be a paper-thin piece of made-for-television tripe even upon re-watching it for the first time.

The Ocean’s trilogy were uber successful, and admittedly they have a certain undeniable energy and movie star momentum to them, but ultimately they are a little more than an exercise in style over substance.

Soderbergh’s films after this grouping are more artistically daring but prove the filmmaker lost his deft touch so apparent in his debut. Full Frontal, Bubble, Solaris, The Good German, The Girlfriend Experience, Che: Part One and Two and The Informant!, are, despite some interesting moments, a collection of entirely forgettable films.

2011’s Contagion, which is a compelling watch post-covid, is another of Soderbergh’s slick but empty vassals – like a high-end movie of the week. This was followed by Haywire, Magic Mike, Side Effects, and Logan Lucky…some of which were financially successful, but all of which were an insult to thinking cinephiles.

Then we get into the small production, self-shot current era of Soderbergh’s filmography….which includes Unsane, High Flying Bird, The Laundromat, Let Them Talk, No Sudden Move and Kimi. None of these films are good…and like his early era most haven’t seen these movies and those that did would barely remember a single thing from them. And yet, there are a certain class of cineastes who will vociferously praise Soderbergh up and down and say “I really liked (any movie on this list)”, which I always counter with, just because you like it doesn’t make it good or even cinematically worthwhile. These same people couldn’t tell you a single thing about the plot, story, purpose or meaning behind any of the secondary Soderbergh films they allegedly adore.

Soderbergh then returned to the Magic Mike nonsense with Magic Mike’s Last Dance, yawn, then went arthouse supernatural thriller drama with Presence, and now the spy thriller Black Bag.

If Soderbergh were a major league hitter his lifetime average would be well below the Mendoza line (.200). He doesn’t strike out a ton, but he does ground out weakly to second base an awful lot. His filmography is mostly a collection of second-rate, unremarkable, entirely forgettable movies.

The reality is that Soderbergh is a craftsman, sometimes a very good one, but he is not an auteur because he has nothing of interest or of impact to say in any of his films.

Which brings us to Black Bag. Is Black Bag a terrible movie? No. The truth is it doesn’t feel like a movie at all, it feels like an episode from some pseudo-prestige, AppleTV spy series or something that no one would watch or talk about (like almost everything on Apple TV).

The most notable thing about Black Bag is how insubstantial, inconsequential and irrelevant it is. It is a frivolous, fleeting and entirely forgettable film.

Black Bag’s story is, like much of Soderbergh’s work, convoluted to the point of being incoherent. It is also, somehow, cinematically slick but still devoid of any notable or distinct style.

The cast, which features Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett – no slouches, as the married spies, do professional yet unimpressive, dare I say, uninspired, work.

Fassbender, whom I’ve always liked as an actor, is tightly wound as George Woodhouse – a second generation master spy, but not tightly wound enough to be genuinely interesting.

Blanchett is Kathryn, George’s wife and his equal in the dark arts of spycraft, but she too gives such a restrained performance that she is never compelling, which is sort of shocking considering she is one of the great actresses of her generation.

The rest of the cast are at best uneven, with Naomie Harris doing strong work as agency psychiatrist Dr. Vaughn, and Rege-Jean Page truly abysmal as a fellow spy who may or may not be one of the good guys.

Black Bag attempts to be an Agatha Christie parlor game mixed with John Le Carre spy thriller with some marital drama thrown in for good measure, and of course it contains the usual Soderberghian tricks and reveals…but all of it falls decidedly flat.

None of the characters compel, none of the drama crackles, none of the spy game entices, and none of the thrills manifest. Black Bag is so mediocre and mundane as to be anemic and it feels like something you’d have on in the background while you do other things…which is a shocking thing to say about a movie starring such talents as Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett.

Ultimately, Black Bag is, like the overwhelming majority of Steven Soderbergh’s filmography, forgettable and not really worth watching. It is, unfortunately, a monument to the banality of Soderbergh’s work, and a reminder what a disappointment his once promising career has been.

©2025

Luca Guadagnino Streaming Double Feature: Queer and Challengers - What Else Can I Say...Everyone is Gay!

****THESE REVIEWS CONTAIN SOME SPOILERS!! THESE ARE NOT SPOILER FREE REVIEWS!!!****

 Queer: 2 out of 5 stars – SKIP IT.

Challengers: 2 out of 5 stars – SKIP IT.

Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino put out two films last year, Challengers and Queer, both of which garnered at least some awards buzz, but to the chagrin of some, neither got any Oscar nominations.

Having missed both in the theatre, I watched them on streamers recently and I have some thoughts.

Guadagnino came to the fore of film in America with his 2017 Oscar-nominated film Call Me by Your Name, starring Timothee Chalamet, which chronicled the gay love affair between a teenage boy and a man in his mid to late twenties.

Call Me by Your Name was showered with praise, including multiple Oscar nominations, but I found the film to be rather poorly constructed and executed, cinematically flaccid and philosophically infantile.

The thing that stood out the most to me in that movie is a monologue delivered near the end of the film by the teenage boy’s father, who reveals that he might be kinda gay and bemoaning the fact that he didn’t have a torrid gay affair as a young man. My reaction to that scene was to quote the Nirvana song “All Apologies” where Kurt Cobain sings the unforgettable lyric “what else can I say, everyone is gay”.

When I watched Challengers (now streaming on MGM+), which opened in April of 2024 and follows the ups and downs of a love triangle between a woman and two male professional tennis players over the course of a decade or so, that lyric was at the top of my notes after watching the film conclude in the absolutely gayest manner possible when both men realize in the middle of a big tennis match that they actually want each other and not the woman. What else can I say…everyone is gay, indeed.   

I avoided watching Queer, which opened in November of 2024, for quite some time because I assumed it would be the same old thing from Guadagnino. I finally watched it the other day (it is streaming on Max) and literally laughed out loud when Trent Reznor and Atticus Finch – who do the music for the film and for Challengers, opened the movie with Nirvana’s “All Apologies”, most notably the line “what else can I say, everyone is gay”. Bravo!

The reason I share this anecdote is because Luca Guadagnino, who is gay, seems completely incapable of understanding that there actually are people in the world who are not, in fact, gay.  Dare I say it…the reality is that the overwhelming majority of people in the world are not…you know…gay. According to some polls the percentage of gay and lesbian people in the world is roughly 3%, but in Luca Guadagino’s world it feels more like 103%.

In the past forty years or so homosexuality has transformed from being a much stigmatized and often criminalized trait into being a celebrated and shame-free lifestyle. It seems cinema, particularly gay cinema, is having a hard time catching up with the normalization of this once oppressed sexual orientation.

Let’s start with Queer. Queer, which is based on William Burroughs book of the same name, stars Daniel Craig as William Lee, a gay American ex-pat living in Mexico City in the 1950s who spends his time drinking, doing drugs and chasing men….definitely not in that order.

Queer could’ve, and maybe should’ve been great, or at least been celebrated by a film industry desperate to signal it’s progressive bona fides. But the film falls completely flat despite its witty Nirvana quoting opening.

Queer is such a bleak and dismal glimpse into the gay world (or A gay world) that I wouldn’t be surprised if some homophobic pastors  showed it to “confused” teens at gay Evangelical conversion camps.

All of the gay people in this film are the most repugnant and repellent human beings imaginable as they are all desperate, despairing, depressing and depraved. If they are supposed to be an accurate representation of gay men of that or any other era, then that is quite an indictment of that community. One can only assume, and hope, that the film is just focusing on one particularly grotesque group of gays that are not representative.

Daniel Craig, most famous for playing James Bond, no doubt took this role – which some might call gay-baiting, in order to get an Oscar, but his performance felt incredibly mannered to me and distractingly off the mark.

Craig, who has been the subject of quite compelling gay rumors himself, plays Lee as a sort of disgusting desperation incarnate. Lee is less gay as he is obsessive over gay sex, and he comes across like a two-bit actor playing Tennessee Williams in a community theatre production in Blaine, Missouri.

Lee isn’t the only repulsive character in the film, as Jason Schwartzman’s Joe Guidry is so revolting it sort of boggles the mind. That none of these people are even remotely interesting is secondary to how unappealing they are to spend time with.

The plot for Queer lacks any sort of emotional coherence, and devolves into a sort of dreamlike fantasia in the final third, which undercuts whatever gritty and grimy reality was established in the first two acts.

Ultimately, Queer felt like an over-indulgent exercise in gay exploitation rather than exploration, with Craig being so superficially committed to his character’s gayness it appeared like he just wanted to kiss a man in public to see if he could get away with it.

Challengers was the hipster choice for film of the year in 2024, but apparently, I am not a hipster because I found it to be so ridiculous as to be inane.

The film, which stars Zendaya, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist, is supposed to be this sexy jaunt through the world of tennis, but it, and its two lead males, is so transparently gay from the get-go, and features such unappealing dullards as the main actors, that I found watching it to be a tedious undertaking.

Let’s start with Zendaya. I just don’t get it. I admit I have not seen all of her work, for instance I tried watching the HBO drama Euphoria and thought it was garbage so I bailed…so maybe she is great in that…who knows? But everything I have seen her in she is an awful, anemic actress. The Spider-Man movies, Dune, and now Challengers. Just consistently bad, boring, dead-eyed and lifeless.

Josh O’Connor is supposed to bring a bevy of sex appeal to his role of Patrick, a talented but down on his luck tennis player, but he strikes me as a dullard and dopey looking doofus – which is probably why he was so good as Prince Charles in The Crown.

As forgettable as O’Connor is in this film, Mike Faist, who plays Art, his tennis and love rival, is like the invisible man. Faist, who I last saw in Spielberg’s useless remake of West Side Story, is a song and dance man, good for him, but he is so devoid of charisma he might as well be a tumbleweed. Good lord.

As Challengers goes on the story becomes more and more grating, as do the performances, until it all climaxes with the single most ridiculous, and gay, climax imaginable for a tennis movie…when Patrick and Art literally fall into each other’s arms in the middle of a tennis match.

What struck me about Challengers in the context of Guadagnino’s other work, is that the director really does seem to be incapable of understanding that people could not be gay.

Guadagnino’s approach on Challengers (and the father character in Call Me by Your Name) would be like a straight director making a movie about the Gay Men’s Chorus of San Francisco but the gay men in the chorus are actually, deep down, secretly straight.

Having typed out that last paragraph I now realize that I may have just revealed a billion-dollar movie idea…so remember that this material is copyrighted!!

In all seriousness, Challengers could have been an interesting movie set in a unique world, and the same is true of Queer, but Guadagnino has such a repetitive, one-track mind, that he is incapable of bringing any nuance, subtlety, intricacy or dramatic depth to his work. And so we are left with a one-note representation of gayness as some irrepressible truth that lies deep within us all. Sigh.

The bottom line is that both Challengers and Queer could have, and should have, been good, but neither rises to even the minimal level of being interesting, never mind entertaining.

In other words, you do not have to waste your time watching Queer or Challengers because I wasted my time watching Queer and Challengers. You’re welcome.

©2025

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 135 - Heretic

On this episode, Barry and Mike go door to door to spread the word about Heretic, the horror/thriller starring Hugh Grant now available on MAX. Topics discussed include the terrific cast, the fantastic first half of the film, and the trouble with finals acts.

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 135 - Heretic

Thanks for listening!

©2025

RIP Val Kilmer - My Best Friend

Val Kilmer – My Best Friend

When I woke up this morning, I was rudely greeted with a text from one of my oldest friends, Fat Tony, alerting me to the fact that Val Kilmer – my best friend, had died of pneumonia at the age of 65.

The story of how Val Kilmer became my best friend is one of my favorite tales to tell, but also one that I mostly keep to myself because it means so much to me. But now that Val is gone, it seems fitting to share the story in his honor.

The truth is that Val Kilmer was not really my best friend…but I did meet him and work with him once many, many moons ago.

The year was 1996, the place is New York City, and Val was doing promotional work for The Ghost and the Darkness, which he starred in with my uncle Michael Douglas. Ok…Michael Douglas isn’t my uncle either but you’ll understand the reference a bit later.

So Val Kilmer, who by this time had already given truly monumental performances in The Doors – as Jim Morrison, and Tombstone – as Doc Holliday, as well as superb supporting turns in Top Gun and Heat, and had starred as Batman, was doing the rounds trying to promote The Ghost and the Darkness, a movie about two lions in Africa that were hungry for human blood. (The Ghost and the Darkness is also where I learned that the most deadly animal in Africa is the hippo, and that hippos fart out of their mouth.)

On this promotional tour Val went to MTV to do an interview. Fat Tony, who has been my friend since we met in high school and once upon a time was my roommate in the big city, was working at MTV at the time and he came up with a little comedy bit to get me on the air with some celebrities. So Fat Tony called me up one day and said, “hey, you wanna do a scene with Val Kilmer?”

Needless to say, I said yes.

The next day I went to MTV and was sitting in my buddy’s dressing room and he was explaining the idea for the bit and also letting me know that everyone was really nervous about Val coming. You see, at this time Val Kilmer had the worst reputation of any actor of which I’ve ever heard. He was known in the industry as being very, very difficult…so much so that he was actually on the cover of Entertainment Weekly with the title “The Man Hollywood Loves to Hate”. Yikes.

Val’s reputation as a belligerent asshole was legend at this point, and the MTV staff were scared shitless of having to deal with him and prepared for an hour or so of eggshell ballet in order to just get the interview in the can and Val out the door.

Fat Tony and I didn’t know what to expect, and the producers at MTV were, out of fear, dead set against me doing my comedy bit with Val, but Fat Tony convinced them to leave it to him to ask Val if he was cool with it. I considered this a victory even though it seemed obvious that the petulant Val wouldn’t go for it.

Then there’s a big commotion and headsets buzzing and everyone at MTV is scrambling…the eagle has landed…Val is in the building. Val played both Jim Morrison and Elvis in different films and he set the MTV staffers into such a frenzy you’d think the real Jim Morrison AND Elvis had entered the building.

The tension was palpable in the building, but since I was with Fat Tony, a guy with whom I’d seen and survived a lot of dark and precarious situations – up to and including raging streetfights, I wasn’t nervous, just curious.

Then something remarkable happened…Val walked into the dressing room, looked Fat Tony and I in the eyes, introduced himself, shook our hands, sat down, and then just hung out bullshitting with us…for a few hours.

Much to our shock and delight, Val was just another dude who liked hanging out talking about movies, music, art, and all sorts of crazy shit.

At one point I chatted with him about the movie The Island of Dr. Moreau, which also came out in 1996. The movie was awful, and Val was the one who offered that assessment, but he talked about the joy and insanity of working with Marlon Brando on the film. His story of Brando just showing up one day covered in white pancake make-up and wearing a giant muumuu was hysterical and included a spot-on Brando impersonation.

Fat Tony and I then talked with him about The Ghost and the Darkness and how we used to tell girls that Val’s co-star on that film, Michael Douglas, was my uncle – which some people fell for because I had the most remote resemblance to him. Val laughed his ass off at that and then admitted he could see the resemblance…and then talked about similar pranks he pulled off as a younger man while at Julliard (none I’ll recount here).

The conversation with Val was wide-ranging and entirely engaging. He was just a good guy and he seemed to cherish the opportunity to talk to two regular dudes about regular dude stuff. Throughout the conversation he was gracious, charming, easy with a smile and a laugh, and persistently engaging and interested.

Towards the end of this rather magical few hours, Fat Tony very subtly brought up the idea of Val doing a comedy bit with me during the interview…and Val didn’t just go for it, he was excited by the idea, and we spent the next half hour or so talking about it and riffing about stuff we could do.

The conversation ran so long that producers got stressed because we were already way over time and so we cut the conversation short and had to shoot the interview. Val made it clear he didn’t care how late we ran…he was good to go.

So Fat Tony interviewed Val in the studio, and I set up out on the street for my “man on the street” question gag.

Then the time came for the bit and just as we had discussed previously, Val and I improvised a comedic question and answer thing, and he was awesome. He totally bought into the bit and he did his part with aplomb which made my part infinitely easier and we had a great time and then it was over.

The MTV people thought it was funny…Fat Tony thought it was funny…and Val thought it was funny. Success.

The interview then continued for a bit and I returned to the studio. When the interview ended Val could’ve just whisked off to the next thing but he didn’t. He made a beeline for me and he shook my hand and said “that was great”. I said “thanks for doing that, I really appreciate it”, and he replied, “any time brother”.

I then joked with him by saying “I don’t care what anybody says, I’ll work with you again”. He laughed, gave me a slight punch to the chest, and said amusingly, “and I appreciate that”.

After some more jocular conversation Val shook hands with Fat Tony and I and then went on his way with a smile. It is not hyperbolic for me to say that my interaction with Val Kilmer on this ultimately forgettable little comedy bit is, at least in my mind, the absolute apex of my rather abysmal acting career, and it’s all because Val Kilmer wasn’t just a great actor but a really good guy. Val didn’t just make my day by being so cool and kind and generous, he made my career. He was, without question, a bright light in this very dark world, and I am eternally grateful for his small act of acting kindness which remained illuminated through many a dark and dismal year.

HOLLYWOOD SIGNS

The “Val Kilmer is my best friend” joke between Fat Tony and I began on that day and whenever Val’s name came up in conversation it would always be preceded by “my best friend”.

Three or four years after my Val Kilmer scene, I was in Hollywood shooting a small movie. It was my first time in Los Angeles and I was actually staying on Fat Tony’s couch – he had moved there a few years earlier.

During my stay I went to a dinner with Fat Tony and a bunch of Hollywood producers…and I was in well over my head…and at one point the name Val Kilmer came up and I chimed in jokingly that “Val Kilmer is my best friend”…repeating the recurring joke between me and Fat Tony.  Well…the funny thing was that this is Hollywood and I didn’t realize this but to everyone else in the room it was very possible that I actually WAS Val Kilmer’s best friend…so they didn’t get the joke…and Fat Tony – amusingly enough…left me out to dry and scramble through the conversation on my own.

Immediately after saying Val was my best friend, a pall came over the table and one of the producers spoke up and said to me in all seriousness that I “should talk to Val about his behavior…he’s got a bad reputation”. My response to this was to stifle a laugh and just look mockingly concerned and condescendingly say “is that right?”

The producer didn’t know I was joking – and didn’t get my sense of humor, so needless to say, after that dinner my reputation in Hollywood was just as bad as Val Kilmer’s, but at least the “Val Kilmer is my best friend” gag was still wholly intact and would remain so to this day.

DARK SYNCHRONICITY

Another oddity, or irony, or dark synchronicity, regarding my best friend Val Kilmer is that Kilmer was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2015 or so, and went through years of brutal treatment which included surgery and chemotherapy which left him ultimately unable to speak clearly. My faux uncle Michael Douglas was diagnosed with the same cancer in 2010 and went through similar treatment, but came out of it more whole than Kilmer did. And here’s the topper…in 2011 my friend Fat Tony got the same exact cancer as Kilmer and Douglas and has gone through brutal treatment, including surgery and chemotherapy, for over a decade – he is thankfully cancer free today.

That Val Kilmer, Michael Douglas and Fat Tony, three people integral to that magical moment in my life those nearly thirty years ago, would all be stricken by such a particular, and particularly cruel, form of cancer, is something that has baffled and unnerved me for years.

THE BRILLIANCE AND THE BATTLEFIELD

I just happened to have watched both The Doors and Heat in the past week, and as always was captivated by Val’s brilliance. He was one of the more enigmatic actors of his age, and when he was locked in to a role with a great director, there was nothing he couldn’t do.

In many ways, Val Kilmer’s career is a conundrum…he was never as big or as famous or as accomplished as he should have been. Many will chalk that up to his “difficult” attitude…but I don’t, I chalk it up to Hollywood’s limited imagination and artistic ambivalence…and I chalk up his “difficult” reputation to small-minded, gossip-fueled company men who kissed up and kicked down and never gave a flying shit about artistry or what acting really is and what it means.

I think Val Kilmer never reached his full potential as a movie star was because he was an actor stuck in a movie star’s body. He was impossibly handsome and so Hollywood thought he should be a leading man, but Val’s soul was that of an actor, an artist, always searching for that ethereal and fleeting moment of artistic transcendence that drives all great artists.

There were times when he hit the sweet spot in a film where he was both movie star and actor…The Doors comes to mind. Kilmer’s performance as Jim Morrison is absolutely stunning. It is a work of great humanity, charisma and pathos. That Kilmer wasn’t at least nominated for Best Actor in 1991 for that film is a crime…and I believe he should have won the award. I think it is unquestionably true that Val Kilmer’s work as Jim Morrison is the best performance in film history to have not been nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award.

Another, less seen, film that I recommend is 1992’s Thunderheart, the story of an FBI agent sent to investigate murders on a Sioux reservation. In that film Kilmer gives one of the more layered, subtle and compelling leading man performances of the era.

Of course, the other films worth watching are Top Gun, where he brings the heat to his work as Ice Man, as well as his comedic early films Top Secret! And Real Genius, which show his silly side.

The 2021 documentary Val is another must-watch as it gives us a glimpse into Val’s lifebefore and after throat cancer, and it is very well-made and heart-breaking. The film, which I highly recommend, shows Kilmer to be much like he was with me in our brief time together back at MTV…engaging, interesting and interested.

And finally…no Val Kilmer film festival is complete without showing the true gems Heat, Tombstone, and Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang.

TOMORROW AND TOMORROW AND TOMORROW

I never saw or spoke to Val Kilmer again after our little scene together at MTV oh so many years ago…but I never forgot what a cool guy he was, how kind he was, how adventurous he was, and how professional he was. He didn’t have to be any of those things to a nobody like me, but he was, and that says a great deal about him, his character, his artistry and his humanity.

I’d like to think that when I shuffle off this mortal coil, and head to the undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveller returns, that I will be greeted by, among others, a smiling Val Kilmer, who will give me a punch to the chest and say, “hey brother, you wanna do this scene with me?”

Yes Val, I do…in fact, it would be an absolute honor.

©2025

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 134 - Sing Sing

On this episode, Barry and I head to maximum security to discuss the prison drama Sing Sing, starring Best Actor Oscar nominee Colman Domingo. Topics discussed include the terrific cast, the terrible marketing, and the paucity of quality films like Sing Sing. Stick around for the bonus discussion about the 'Mike-terion Collection' - the best of the movies that Barry and I have reviewed. 

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 134 - Sing Sing

Thanks for listening!!

©2025

Heretic and Longlegs: Two Horror Reviews for the Price of One!!

***THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!! THIS IS A SPOILERS FREE REVIEW!!***

Heretic – 2.75 out of 5 stars. SEE IT/SKIP IT.

Longlegs – 2 out of 5 stars. SKIP IT.

Heretic, written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, is a horror film that tells the tale of two Mormon missionaries, Sister Barnes and Sister Paxton, who attempt to convert Mr. Reed, a man who is not what he seems.

The film, which stars Hugh Grant as Mr. Reed, opened in the U.S. on November 8th 2024 and is available to stream on MAX, where it is currently the number one ranked movie.

Heretic was a success at the box office, raking in $58 million on a $10 million budget, and it garnered some positive buzz and even some awards consideration, with Grant receiving Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations.

I missed Heretic in the theatre but recently checked it out on MAX.

Heretic is one of those tantalizing movies that has a stellar premise, a wonderful set-up, terrific performances and a gripping first half, but that loses its way in its second half/final act and ultimately suffers greatly because of it. In this way Heretic reminds me Barbarian (2022), another horror film from a few years ago that was phenomenal for two acts and then stumbled badly in its final act.

The first half of Heretic really is remarkable as it deftly presents its characters and subtly creates tension. The film is at its best when it is essentially a philosophical and theological debate between the Mormon missionaries and Mr. Reed. The interplay between the three of them and Reed’s intellectual chess playing is extraordinarily compelling to watch.

Hugh Grant’s performance in the first half is outstanding as he chews the scenery and spits out dialogue with aplomb.

Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East as Sister Barnes and Sister Paxton respectively, also give top notch and very layered performances that in lesser hands would have been easily botched.

The dramatic interplay between Grant, Thatcher and East is a glorious stew for the first half of the film…but then a shift occurs (to avoid spoilers I won’t reveal it) and the script loses its way, and the film loses a great deal of its tension, and it is no longer as captivating a cat and mouse game.

Unfortunately, the film spins out of control in its final third to an alarming degree and it diminishes all that came before it. Gone is the intrigue, the tension, the intelligence, and in its place are some rather tired horror tropes – well executed but tropes nonetheless.

Again, Heretic’s fumbled final act reminded me a great deal of Barbarian because Barbarian made similar mistakes, such as expanding its story and setting unnecessarily which egregiously dissipated dramatic tension.

That said, there is no doubt that writer/directors Beck and Woods are skilled filmmakers as this movie is well-made, and are interesting thinkers…they just need to be more concise and more contained storytellers in order to make the most of their moviemaking opportunities.

Another horror film from last year that I just checked out was Longlegs, which hit theatres on July 12th, 2024 and is now available to stream on Hulu.

Longlegs was a big hit, making $126 million on a $10 million budget. It was well-marketed, and had very positive word of mouth, with many calling it the “scariest movie ever made!”

I missed Longlegs in the theatre and just watched it on Hulu and I can testify that Longlegs is most definitely NOT the scariest movie ever made. It is definitely creepy, and has some scary moments, but over-all it isn’t that scary and it also isn’t very good.

Longlegs is an exercise in creating mood, and it excels at that, but what it has in mood it lacks in story and character.

The basic premise of Longlegs is that it follows the travails of Lee Harker, and FBI agent in the 1990s assigned to the mysterious serial killer case Longlegs. Harker has the gift of clairvoyance and uses it in her FBI work, and so it seems she is a good choice to track down this killer.

As the story progresses, we learn more about Harker, and about Longlegs, and the more we learn the less it makes sense and the less we care about any of it.

The film is undoubtedly trying to pay homage to The Silence of the Lambs and create a newer more esoteric version of it, and it does a respectable job of capturing the weird and creepy essence of that film, but it lacks a coherent and compelling narrative to drive the story forward, and once again, it loses the plot in its second half.

The performances in Longlegs are all just a bit underwhelming as well. Maika Monroe does a decent enough job as Agent Harker, but shenever quite completely takes the role into her possession and instead seems just a bit too contained.

Nicholas Cage as Longlegs is certainly unnerving, but Nicholas Cage not as Longlegs is unnerving too. Cage never truly inhabits this sicko character but rather play acts at being a sicko…which has been the story of Cage’s career from the get go.

Blair Underwood and Alicia Witt have two supporting roles and neither of them feel fully fleshed out or adequately performed.

I left Longlegs with a certain sense of admiration for the film’s ambitions, and a certain level of irritation because it only succeeded in creating a marketing movement around itself rather than a great horror movie.

The reality is that Longlegs is a creepy vibes movie with some distinctly disturbing sequences that are nightmare fuel, but it is not a movie I would recommend because it never coalesces into a thoroughly successful horror venture. It ultimately falls flat in its fear-mongering because it can’t find a way to fulfill its promise and adequately finish.

Out of Heretic and Longlegs I would definitely choose Heretic even with its flaws, because it is vastly superior to Longlegs when at its best. Longlegs strikes me as the type of movie that pre-teens will absolutely freak out watching at a slumber party and keep themselves up all night trying to avoid nightmares…but unless you fit that demographic – I don’t recommend it.

If you’re a horror aficionado, then you’ll watch both of these movies…so my opinion is meaningless. But if you’re a regular person who only occasionally wanders into the horror genre, then I’d say the best option out of these two is Heretic.

©2025

September 5 and Saturday Night: Two Reviews for the Price of One!!

**THIS REVIEW IS SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS**

September 5: 4 out of 5 stars – SEE IT.

Saturday Night: 1.5 out of 5 stars – SKIP IT.

Last year two films came out that dealt with the behind-the-scenes drama of major events in television history, and I think it useful to review them both together…a two for one if you will.

September 5 dramatized ABC’s coverage of the kidnapping and killing of the Israeli Olympic team at the 1972 Munich Olympics, and Saturday Night chronicles the drama surrounding the premiere of Saturday Night Live in 1975.

Contrasting and comparing these films is useful because they both highlight the possibilities and the pitfalls of this very specific genre – the tv movie, or more accurately – the movie about tv.

Let’s start with September 5, which is directed by Tim Fehlbaum and written by Fehlbaum and Moritz Binder. The film was released on December 13th, 2024 and is currently streaming on Paramount+. It stars Peter Sarsgaard, as Roone Arledge – president of ABC Sports, Ben Chaplin as Marvin Bader – head of operations at ABC Sports, and John Magaro as Geoffrey Mason – head of ABC control room in Munich.

September 5 is an extraordinarily effective and affecting movie that is able to build and maintain dramatic tension, and believability, despite audiences already knowing how the story ends.

Director Fehlbaum, along with cinematographer Markus Forderer, are able to create a vivid reality in the claustrophobic confines of the ABC Sports control room in Munich as globe changing events are taking place a mere hundred yards or so from their location.

Fehlbaum never gives in to the temptation to break from the control room perspective and give a glimpse into the hostage situation or elsewhere. Everything we as viewers see is what Arledge, Bader and Magaro are seeing in the control room.

Fehlbaum also makes a very wise choice in his direction of actors, namely he keeps the performance style minimalist – there are no big dramatic speeches, no emoting, just realism of regular people doing their important jobs under extreme pressure….pros being pros. This approach makes it feel like you’re watching things actually unfold and not a movie, which heightens the drama and the emotional impact of the tragic events ABC is covering.

Another key to the film’s success is Hans Weibrich’s editing, which is subtle but tight, and keeps the film at a compelling pace and a captivating run time of 93 minutes.

September 5 is a real gem of a film – masterfully crafted and directed towards adults, the type so rarely made nowadays, and I highly recommend it…so much so that I think you should subscribe or get a free week to Paramount + just to watch it.

The drama covered in September 5 of ABC’s coverage of the massacre of the 1972 Israeli Olympic team is important because the decisions made in that control room still resonate in our culture today. For example, the decision to use the word “terrorist” to describe the Black September militant group who committed to kidnapping and killing – as opposed to say “commando” or “militant” or the just as loaded “freedom fighter”. This choice set up the paradigm under which the Middle East in general, and Israel in particular, would be covered by the media for the next fifty plus years, and continues to this day.

Which brings us to another television event that still resonates fifty years later, and that is the birth of Saturday Night Live, which is dramatized in Jason Reitman’s film Saturday Night.

Saturday Night hit theatres on September 27, 2024, and is now available to stream on Netflix. The film, which is directed and co-written by Jason Reitman, tells the tale of the wild and whacky events surrounding Saturday Night Live’s premiere on October 11, 1975.

The film follows Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) as he scrambles to put out a multitude of fires – which include out of control creative egos, corporate pressure and union resistance, not to mention the culture clash between old school television people and the young rebels Michaels has gathered for his SNL team.

There are lots of very familiar faces here…like Chevy Chase, John Belushi, Dan Akroyd, Gilda Radner, Laraine Newman, Garrett Morris, Jane Curtin, Andy Kaufman, Billy Crystal, Jim Henson, George Carlin and Billy Preston. For the most part, the actors playing these icons are, not surprisingly, less than a shadow of the stars they are portraying.

The one exception is Cory Michael Smith, who is quite good as Chevy Chase. Others, like Matt Wood as John Belushi, and Nicholas Braun as both Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson, are brutally bad.

Gabriel LaBelle, who plays Lorne Michael and who previously played Steven Spielberg in The Fabelmans – quite the power players, is much too young for his role here and lacks the charisma and charm to carry this movie for its bloated 109-minute run time.

Another problem with Saturday Night is that it tries to build tension through music and pacing, but it all falls very flat. It has no life to it, no energy, just a bunch of watered-down Aaron Sorkin-esque walk and talks that are a tsunami of sound and fury signifying nothing.

The actions of the characters in the film run counter to the drama building because none of them seem particularly frantic about going live in less than an hour. The most moronic of sequences involves Lorne Michaels leaving the studio with like ten minutes to go before airtime and walking to the skating rink at 30 Rock, where he has a talk with Gilda Radner and John Belushi. What makes this scene even dumber is that mere moments before Michaels gets there, Gilda Radner gives a melancholy speech to Belushi about how she feels like she’s in the future looking back at this momentous occasion…which of course is supposed to be moving since both Radner and Belushi died much too young…but it just feels contrived and manipulative and takes you out of the story even more than everything else.

Another gigantic issue with the film is that Reitner decides to make a pseudo-comedy about very funny people…which if you’ve ever spent even a millisecond with a comedian you’d know they are the most miserable and existentially burdened humans on the planet. Comedians are funny when they perform, and diabolically dramatic and depressed when they don’t…and Reitman never captures the suffocating gravity of that truth.

Instead, the Saturday Night just flits and flirts from one flaccid bit to another where something supposedly momentous occurs and then something else and then there’s this other thing and then the show starts and everything works out. Yawn.

I am sure it is no coincidence that this film came out the same year that SNL had its 50th anniversary, but the movie fails in every respect to make anyone care about that first show, or to elucidate why it mattered and still does today.

Saturday Night is exactly what you shouldn’t do when making a movie about the behind the scenes of a television event, and September 5 is exactly what you should when making a movie about the behind the scenes of a television event. Where September 5 is precise, meticulous, and contained, Saturday Night is vague, frivolous and dramatically scattered.

I watched the two films on back-to-back nights and it made me really appreciate the craftsmanship and artistry Tim Fehlbaum put into September 5, and the lack of detail and skill of Jason Reitman gave to Saturday Night.

The bottom line is this…September 5 is one of the best films of last year and you should definitely check it out…and Saturday Night is instantly forgettable and not worth a moment of your time.

©2025

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 133 - September 5

On this episode, Barry and I thoroughly investigate the 2024 hidden gem September 5, which dramatizes ABC's coverage of the 1972 attack on the Israeli Olympic team. Topics discussed include the restraint and focus of the film, the fantastic filmmaking and pondering how a movie this good got overlooked. We also spend some time discussing Gene Hackman and his legendary career.

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 133 - September 5

Thanks for listening!

2025©

11th Annual Slip-Me-A-Mickey Awards - 2024 Edition

11th ANNUAL SLIP-ME-A-MICKEY AWARDS

The Slip-Me-A-Mickey™® awards are the final award of the interminably long awards season. The Slip-Me-A-Mickey™®, or as some lovingly call them, The Mockeys™®, are a robust tribute to the absolute worst that film and entertainment has to offer for the year.

Again, the qualifying rules are simple, I just had to have seen the film for it to be eligible. This means that at one point I had an interest in the film and put the effort in to see it, which may explain why I am so angry about it being awful. So, any vitriol I may spew during this awards presentation shouldn't be taken personally by the people mentioned, it is really anger at myself for getting duped into watching.

The prizes are also pretty simple. The winners/losers receive nothing but my temporary scorn. If you are a winner/loser don't fret, because this year’s Slip-Me-A-Mickey™® loser/winner could always be next year’s Mickey™® winner!! Remember…you are only as good as your last film!!

Now…onto the awards!

WORST FILM OF THE YEAR

Blitz –A truly idiotic story, poorly executed…what happened to Steve McQueen? Once upon a time he was one of my very favorite directors and now he’s embarrassing himself, and frankly…me, with this amateur hour, woke-fueled garbage. Yuck. This movie is so atrocious it actually made me root for the Nazis to win World War II. Shame on you Steve McQueen…shame on you.

Trap – M. Night Shyamalan jumped the shark about twenty years ago and now he’s just flailing around in a kiddie pool filled with his own excrement. This is another idiotic story that is egregiously executed. M. Night needs to say goodnight and go away forever.

Megalopolis – Francis Ford Coppola is one of the greatest directors in film history, and Megalopolis is one of the biggest misfires in modern cinematic history…make it make sense. This movie is painfully awful…and so often borders on unwatchable it feels like it should be classified as a snuff film.

Juror #2 – Clint Eastwood is 2,000 years old and is still churning out shoddy and shitty movies like a man half his age. I’m glad Clint is alive and still working…I just wish he’d a make an even halfway decent movie that didn’t make me laugh out loud at how bad it is.

Nightbitch – This will shock you…but this is another astonishingly idiotic movie that is so poorly executed you’d be more entertained watching your neighbor’s dog shit on your lawn than watching this piece of shit. Everything about it is so stupid it makes my colon twinge.

And the loser is…NIGHTBITCH – This movie is so grating, so stupid, so self-serving, delusional and retarded it should force-watched, Clockwork Orange style, by terrorists in CIA prison camps as a form of torture. I also believe every single person associated with this film, or who liked this film, should be imprisoned in said prison camps for life.

MOST OVERRATED FILM OF THE YEAR

Emilia Perez – Jesus Fucking Christ this movie musical with the worst music in the world is unconscionably awful and so are the people who think it’s good, or even watchable. Thirteen Oscar nomination for this turd? Good Lord.

A Complete Unknown – This movie is the poster child for mundanity and is so painfully paint by numbers it feels like it never really existed. It is like a made-up movie they talk about on “Entourage” or something. Bob Dylan seems like he’s an original and interesting guy…but somehow they made a movie about him that is allergic to being interesting and is never once original.

And the loser is…EMILIA PEREZ – At least A Complete Unknown had good music in it…unlike Emilia Perez. Emilia Perez is the most virtue signally, moronic, dramatically flaccid, cinematically inept movie and yet it got thirteen Oscar nominations, which boggles the mind. How anyone could think this movie is even passable, nevermind good, is beyond me.

WORST PERFORMANCE OF THE YEAR

Adam Driver – Megalopolis – This doughy doofus is a turd with feet who was maddeningly miscast as a genius architect/city planner in Megalopolis, which is pretty funny because to look at him you’d think he has Down’s Syndrome or is at the very least Down’s Syndrome adjacent. Can this talentless fuck stick just go away already…please?

Saleka Night – Trap – Nepo baby embarrasses self in daddy’s movie – a story as old as cinema itself. This talentless lady makes Sophia Coppola in Godfather III look like Meryl Streep. Yikes.

Scoot McNairy – Nightbitch – God this guy absolutely sucks in Nightbitch…but on the bright side he also totally sucked in A Complete Unknown…so I guess it’s official…Scoot McNairy sucks. By the way…if this guy’s name was Doug McNairy instead of Scoot…he’d never get hired. Hollywood is fucking retarded.

And the loser is…SALEKA NIGHT – Trap: Saleka Night is so awful in Trap that she manages to make nepo babies look even worse than they did before – which is quite an accomplishment. This young lady needs to go to her luxurious room in her father’s expansive mansion and think about how awful she is at acting!!

SPECIAL ACHIEVEMENT IN CINEMATIC MALPRACTICE

Marielle Heller - Nightbitch director:  Ms. Heller is such an awful hack of a director, and always has been, that she should not only not be allowed to direct movies for the rest of her life, she should also not even be allowed watch movies for the rest of her life. Anyone this bad at their job needs to be punished in the extreme. Ms. Heller’s Nightbitch is supposed to be a comedy horror movie and yet it isn’t comedic or horrifying…but it is laughably bad and horrible…which I guess is as good as Ms. Heller can do.

POS ALL STARS

JLo and Ben Affleck – Ok JLo and Ben Affleck…please just fuck right the fuck off you fucking fucks. I don’t care about your fatal attraction to one another, I don’t care about your love or marriages, and I don’t care about your now dwindling careers. I don’t care about either of you…at all. So if you want to get back to together…that’s fine…JUST DON’T MAKE A PUBLIC SPECTACLE OF YOURSELVES!!

In the most predictable turn of events since gay sexual assaulter Kevin Spacey came dancing out of the closet with jazz hands flying, after the newlyweds for the second time JLo and Ben Affleck did annoyingly narcissistic movie projects together like JLo’s vomit inducing This is Me…Now: A Love Story or her vanity documentary The Greatest Love Story Never Told, and did Ben Affleck’s unfunny and annoying Dunkin Donuts commercials featuring JLO, they woke up one day and realized they are just as awful together as they are individually, and that the other one is just as awful as they are and want to get away from them like we all want to get away from them both.

I now beg both JLo and Ben…please…stay divorced and stay away from each other. Oh…and please stop doing fucking Dunkin Donuts commercials or shitty movies with whatever unfortunate asshole is your next spouse….it won’t end well…trust me…and no one wants to see or hear about it.

Oh…and while I never want to hear about Ben Affleck’s private life that he makes oh-so-public and then complains about people focusing on his private life made public, ever again…JLo…can you please do me a gigantic favor? Can you please disappear off the face of the earth you talentless whore? You are an atrocious “singer”, an abysmal actress and an all-around waste of human flesh…SO PLEASE GO AWAY!!

And also…JLo and Ben…congrats on being Piece of Shit All-Stars!!!

POS HALL OF FAME

Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs aka Diddy – Speaking of JLo…her former “boyfriend” Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs, aka Diddy, is in deep doo doo for being a sexual predator and piece of shit during his nearly thirty-year run as a music impresario, rapper and all-around annoying public figure.

Diddy has always been a poseur who play acted at being tough…and apparently straight. He has always reeked of being on the down-low, and it was pretty obvious to anyone with eyes to see that he was, like so many in the rap game, at least a part-time flaming homosexual and pederast if not pedophile.

Diddy’s persona as a brilliant business man was always as believable as his claim to being a talented music maker…in other words – not at all.

Diddy’s music is an embarrassment, and his business acumen is, like his sexuality and his popularity, a charade. Diddy is an intelligence asset and con-man, much like Jeffrey Epstein, who was put in place by a powerful group to serve a purpose…and he did that very well.

His music (and the music of his company Bad Boy), was meant to sow discord and depravity…and with backing by media and moneyed interests, it succeeded.

But apparently Diddy has run afoul of his paymasters…and now he sists in jail waiting for a cavalcade of charges against him to be adjudicated.

My guess is that Diddy may walk scot-free because he has the goods on a lot of powerful people which will serve as a get out of jail free card…or…he might get shivved in jail and take his secrets to the grave.

The important thing is that Diddy’s guest list from his famous parties, and the videos made at those parties, will only see the light of day in order to serve as a distraction or obfuscation from the Epstein lists and videos. Those Epstein lists and videos will never, ever see the light of day…because the people who have them are the same people who put Diddy in a position of power in the music industry, and are the same nefarious elites who run our government, media, Hollywood, and Wall Street.

Diddy is little more than a distraction from Epstein, and he will serve that purpose going forward and will be discarded or deceased before he ever tells his many tales…and he has many tales to tell.

The bottom line is that Diddy and his ilk, rich and powerful people who prey upon the young and the desperate, are the biggest pieces of shit in the universe…and they all belong in hell…but for now we congratulate Sean Combs – aka Puff Daddy/Diddy to the Piece of Shit Hall of Fame…you’ve certainly earned it you fucking piece of shit!!

And thus ends the fourth annual Slip-Me-A-Mickey™® Awards!!! To the winners/losers…don't take it personally…and God knows I hope I don't see you again next year!! To you dear reader…thanks for tuning in and we'll see you again next year!!

©2025

11th Annual Mickey©®™ Awards - 2024 Edition

11th ANNUAL MICKEY©®™ AWARDS

The ultimate awards show is upon us!!!

The Mickeys©™® are superior to every other award imaginable…be it the Oscar, the Emmy, the Tony, the Grammy or even the Nobel. The Mickey©®™ is the mountaintop of not just artistic but human achievement, which is why they always take place AFTER the Oscars!

This year has been a rather sub-par one for cinema but there are still a multitude of films eligible for a Mickey©™® award.

Actors, actresses, writers, cinematographers and directors are all sweating and squirming right now in anticipation of the Mickey©™® nominations and winners. Remember, even a coveted Mickey©™® nomination is a career and life changing event. 

Before we get to what everyone is here for…a quick rundown of the rules and regulations of The Mickeys©™®…The Mickeys©™® are selected by me…I am judge, jury and executioner. The only films eligible are films I have actually seen, be it in the theatre, via screener, cable, streamer or VOD. I do not see every film because as we all know, the overwhelming majority of films are God-awful, and I am a working man so I must be pretty selective. So that means that just getting me to actually watch your movie is a tremendous accomplishment in and of itself…never mind being nominated or winning!

Enough with the formalities…let's start the festivities!!

Is everybody in? Is everybody in? The ceremony is about to begin...

Ladies and gentlemen…welcome to the 11th annual Mickey©™® Awards!!!

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Jarin Blaschke – Nosferatu: Blaschke beautifully photographs this film and gives it a desaturated look with a stunning contrast between light and shadow and magnificent framing. A true cinematic master work that is glorious for cinephiles to behold.

Lol Crawley - The Brutalist: In many ways this is a minimalist piece of cinematography which does a lot with a little, and always in service to the story. From the opening tracking sequence on the boat to the insightful slow pan in the granite quarry, Crawley shows he can tell a story with visuals alone, and do it with aplomb.

And the Mickey©®™ goes to…JARIN BLASCHKE – NOSFERATU: An exquisitely shot film that goes to the top of the vampire cinematic catalogue.

BEST EDITING

Sean Baker – Anora: Sean Baker wrote, directed, produced and edited Anora and he did all of those jobs exceedingly well. The editing on this film is pretty miraculous as it keeps the proper pace and tone throughout and never fails to make every scene crackle with dramatic energy.

Hansjorg Weibrich - September 5: This movie could’ve felt dull and claustrophobic but thanks to Weibrich it is perfectly paced and wondrously put together and squeezes every ounce of drama out of its story and setting.

And the Mickey©®™ goes to…HANSJORG WEIBRICH - SEPTEMBER 5: In lesser cinematic hands, this movie is entirely forgettable but Weibrich’s edit turns this into a tight and taut dramatic thriller.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Bill Skarsgard – Nosferatu: Do what you’re good at…and Skarsgard is good at being creepy, and he turns the creep up to 11 as a horny vampire in Nosferatu. An original and truly horrifying take on the age-old vampire character.

Jesse Plemons – Kinds of Kindness/Civil War: Plemons is nominated for two performances…the first for his scene stealing work in Civil War as a “real American”, which was a stunning piece of acting, and for his performances in the anthology film Kinds of Kindness. Both films highlight Plemons’ impressive versatility and subdued volatility. Plemons is one of the best actors working today.

Yuri Barosov – Anora: From the get go Yuri Barosov jumps off the screen in Anora and commands audience attention. His performance is quiet and subtle yet shows a level of charisma that is startling. One hopes he gets a ton more work from now on.

Karren Karagulian – Anora: Karagulian is fantastic as the handler who must try and control and contain a wild Russian rich kid in Anora. Karagulian’s energy, intensity, subtlety, comedic timing and commitment are crucial to the success of Anora, and shows him to be a very skilled and talented actor.

And the Mickey©®™ goes to…KARREN KARAGULIAN – ANORA: Karagulian’s funny and ferocious performance in Anora is the hidden lynchpin to the entire movie…and now he has a Mickey©®™ for his efforts!!

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Margaret Qualley – The Substance: Qualley is an outstanding actress and she dives in headfirst into her role as the “ingenue” in The Substance. She lights up the screen with a dastardly, doe-eyed and sometimes demonic presence that is beguiling.

Monica Barbaro – A Complete Unknown: Who the hell is Monica Barbaro and where has she been hiding? Barbaro nearly steals the entire movie from under Bob Dylan’s prominent nose despite the fact that her character is criminally underwritten. A commanding and compelling performance all the way around.

Lady Gaga – Joker: Folie a Deux - I am not a fan of Lady Gaga…but I have to admit that she really is terrific in Joker: Folie a Deux, as she fits right in with the vibe of the film and gives it an allure and edge that is mesmerizing.

And the Mickey©®™ goes to…MARGARET QUALLEY – THE SUBSTANCE: Qualley brings a life and tempestuousness to The Substance that invigorates the film and elevates the material…and now she has a Mickey©®™!!

THE GENRE CATEGORIES MICKEY©®™ WINNERS ARE…

BEST HORROR FILM

Nosferatu – Everybody knows the Nosferatu/Dracula story…and yet Robert Eggers films his version so exquisitely, and his cast deliver such glorious performances, that this movie becomes an instant classic.

BEST ACTION FILM

Furiosa – The chase scenes in this movie are, not surprisingly considering George Miller is at the helm, astonishing. Visually vibrant, this movie contains some of the best and most breathtaking stunt sequences in years.

BEST COMEDY FILM

Anora – This is technically a dark dramedy but it still qualifies for me as a comedy. This movie is wickedly funny, powerfully poignant, and painfully insightful.

BEST ANIMATED FILM

Flow – The animation in Flow isn’t the best you’ll ever see but the depth and magnitude of the story are as profound as you’ll find.

BEST ACTOR

Joaquin Phoenix – Joker: Folie a Deux - Once again Phoenix disappears into Arthur Fleck and his alter ego Joker and gives a twisted and terrific performance as the most hated person and character in the world. Phoenix is still the best and boldest actor in the world.

Colman Domingo - Sing Sing: Domingo is absolutely astonishing as a dramatically driven prison inmate. This performance is both combustible and contained and is a gift to the art of acting. I had no idea Domingo could be this good…but he is…he really is.

Ralph Fiennes – Conclave: Fiennes, as always, gives a meticulous and mesmerizing performance as a Cardinal navigating Vatican intrigue. A joy to watch this master craftsman at work.

And the Mickey©®™ goes to…COLMAN DOMINGO – SING SING: Domingo’s exquisite performance in this movie is so intimate and intricate it is difficult to adequately describe. It is such a poignant, profound and powerful piece of acting work that it has elevated Colman Domingo to the absolute heights of artistic achievement with a Mickey©®™ award!!

BEST ACTRESS

Mikey Madison – Anora: Madison so thoroughly embodied a certain New York archetype that it felt like I was watching a home movie. A daring yet subtle performance that showed Madison has some serious chops when given the right material and direction.

Demi Moore – The Substance: I’ve never really thought much of Demi Moore as an actress, but in The Substance, she gives a phenomenal performance that speaks to the reality of the actress’ experience in the shithole that is Hollywood.

Emma Stone – Kinds of Kindness: Emma Stone’s overlooked performance in the arthouse anthology Kinds of Kindness is funny, intense and disturbing, and reveals an artistic depth uncommon in today’s cinema.

Lily Rose Depp - Nosferatu: Depp has been much maligned in her career, but she went balls to the wall as the love interest of a vampire in Nosferatu. Depp gives as committed and courageous a performance imaginable in a role that in lesser hands would have been ridiculous to the point of disaster.

And the Mickey©®™ goes to…LILY ROSE DEPP – NOSFERATU: Depp’s performance is such a tour de force it elicited giggles from moviegoers uncomfortable with such levels of commitment…that is an indictment of our imbecilic audiences and an endorsement of Depp’s artistic integrity and commitment. No one is laughing now that Lily Rose Depp has a Mickey©®™!!

BEST ENSEMBLE

Nosferatu: Lily Rose Depp, Nicholas Hoult, Aaron Taylor Johnson, Emma Corrin, Willemn Dafoe and of course Bill Skarsgard, give fantastic performances in this gothic drama.

Anora: Mikey Madison, M<ark Eydelshteyn, Yura Borisov and Karren Karagulian are all so good in this movie that it boggles the mind. A terrific ensemble with absolutely zero weak links.

Kinds of Kindness: Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe and Margaret Qualley crush their roles in this crazy anthology film that features acting brilliance across the board.

The Substance: Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley and Dennis Quad chew scenery and bring this movie to life with aplomb. All three give very brave and courageous performances for different reasons.

And the Mickey©®™ goes to…ANORA: Top to bottom this cast just doesn’t miss. A truly remarkable collective performance.

BEST DIRECTOR

Sean Baker – Anora: Baker brought a unique and original vibrancy, humor and drama to this twisted, modern-day screwball dramedy that made it deliriously compelling and captivating.

Robert Eggers - Nosferatu: Eggers is an exquisite filmmaker obsessed with detail, and his attention to cinematic detail is what makes Nosferatu so absorbing despite the fact that we all know the story.

Brady Corbet – The Brutalist: Corbet’s ambition and audacity are off the charts and he is reaching for the stars with The Brutalist…and he almost gets there.

Todd Phillips – Joker: Folie a Deux: I know, I know, I know, everybody hated this movie but me…but Todd Phillips gave a big budget middle finger to his critics and supporters alike with Joker 2, and he did it by making the most insane arthouse franchise film in history…and for that he gets a much-deserved Mickey©®™ nomination. Hey everybody…look at the big balls on Todd.

Tim Fehlbaum - September 5: Fehlbaum takes a story we already know in a contained setting and through sheer skill and talent fills it with exquisite drama. A truly remarkable achievement by Fehlbaum to avoid all the traps laid out before him and to make this film work as well as it did.

And the Mickey©®™ goes to…ROBERT EGGERS – NOSFERATU: Eggers is such a singular talent that he turned an age old story into a cinematically breathtaking, and darkly heartbreaking, blockbuster. Eggers is well-respected as a craftsman, and now he has the ultimate in prestige and respect in the form of The Mickey©®™ award!!

 BEST PITCURE

10. Furiosa – George Miller’s wild ride is bumpy at times but has a visual brilliance to it that can be breathtaking.

9. The Substance – This movie is as insightful about the female experience in Hollywood as any you’ll see. It loses its way in the third act but the first two acts are riveting.

8. Late Night with the Devil – This overlooked gem of a horror film is really original and very effective in conveying its creepiness and its relevant ideology.

7. The Brutalist – The Brutalist is ambitious and audacious, but unfortunately never quite lives up to its spectacular first half.

6. Kinds of Kindness – Yorgos Lanthimos is an acquired taste…and I’ve acquired it. This wild and weird anthology that always leaves you guessing is shockingly compelling from start to finish, and features some spectacular performances.

5. Sing Sing – This prison drama perfectly manages its mostly amateur cast and the underlying menace of life behind bars. A deeply moving and vibrant film that stays with you.

4. September 5 – Impeccably directed film that maximizes the drama without ever crossing over into melodrama. An undiscovered gem of a film.

3. Joker: Folie a Deux – This movie is a punchline…but the jokes is on all of us as director Todd Phillips once again is ahead of the curve in regards to the collective unconscious. Magnificent and malicious movie madness.

2. Nosferatu – A glorious exercise in cinematic mastery combined with electric performances makes Nosferatu a must watch.

And the Mickey©®™ for BEST PICTURE goes to…ANORA: Nosferatu won Best Director and Best Actress, but Anora comes from behind for the Mickey©®™ victory. Funny, insightful and frankly profound, Anora grabs you by the balls and never lets go…even after it ends. A masterful piece of moviemaking by Sean Baker and a fantastic cast, make Anora this year’s Mickey©®™ winner~!!

MOST IMPORTANT FILM OF THE YEAR

JOKER: FOLIE A DEUX and ANORA:

These two films, one much maligned (Joker) and the other much celebrated (Anora - Oscar and Mickey©®™ winner) are seemingly much too different to have anything in common.

One deals with a psychopathic comic book character singing show tunes as his demonic alter-ego, and the other with a strong-willed stripper striving for financial success.

But there is one thing that binds them both…namely that both films take place in worlds completely devoid of love.

Joker’s Gotham City and Anora’s New York are hellscapes because it is impossible for love to exist there, or for the inhabitants there to truly contemplate love and its absence. They aren’t sure what is missing but they know something huge and vital is…and its absence is destroying them….they try and fill it with money, sex, power…but nothing fills the void.

The reason these films are so important is because they reflect a growing darkness in our own world…where love in its many forms is being suffocated by a soulless culture hellbent on destroying love, beauty and truth.

It would be easy to think that love in the world of Anora is transactional…except it isn’t transactional, it is non-existent. Love is not the thing being bought and sold in Anora…power is…and dignity too. Love has nothing to do with any of it.

Joker’s Gotham is so devoid of love that it is hostile to human life like a planet with no oxygen and extreme temperatures. Arthur Fleck is so starved for love that he wastes away in this loveless landscape…but Joker…the devil…the king of hatred, cruelty and viciousness, thrives in this loveless world.

Love is not something that most people think about in regards to the big ideas of the world or geopolitics and all the rest…but a lack of love tells us a lot about what’s happening and what will happen.

For instance, the distinct absence of any love, or the ability to love, in these movies speaks to the American Empire’s devolution into capitalistic self-destruction. At this stage of the American Empire’s collapse, love is often transactional, a commodity to bought or sold in order to gain money, power or both.

In our cancerous culture, where religion is corrupt, wealth is worshipped, government self-serving, and pornography and gambling mainstream, vices have are now virtues and beauty and truth sullied and maligned. In this state of existance, the spiral downward for the American Empire isn’t just inevitable, it is accelerating at break neck speed, for with love goes humanity, decency and dignity.

Anora, like many Americans, had to detach from her moral and ethical foundation (and her humanity, decency and dignity) given to her by tradition (in her case her Russian ancestry), in order to pursue money by selling her soul and body one piece at a time…intentionally ignoring the fact that neither of these are limitless resources.

Arthur Fleck is the delicate and damaged among us…he is a fish out of water in this hateful world…the love he needs to survive isn’t kept from him because he is repulsive, he can’t get it or give it because it is non-existent in the world. He gasps and flounders about desperate for the life sustaining substance to fill his gills…but it’s not there for him…or anyone else…and its absence will undoubtedly kill him, sooner rather than later.

We are all either Anora or Arthur Fleck, and the evil ruling elite of oligarchs and aristocrats that lord over us don’t just not care about us, they actively hate us and want to exploit us and see us suffer. If you doubt this simply open eyes and look around at our country…homelessness, drug addiction, suicide, violent crime, broken homes and families, children abused, unhealthy food, malignant pharma, casino banks, justice-free justice system…and all the rest.

We will, if we haven’t already, like Anora and Arthur, be forced to degrade and demean ourselves at the altar of the ruling elites power and wealth, just to survive, or be crushed under the weight of the loveless world they force us to inhabit.

This is not a democrat or republican issue. This is not as conservative or liberal issue. This is an existential issue. And this issue isn’t just a fight for our literal survival, it is also a fight for our souls.

First, they crush your spirit, and then they suck out your soul. Arthur Fleck had his spirit crushed and then his soul taken by the darkness. Anora had her spirit crushed and sold most of her soul, but realized at the very last moment that she had one last chance at redemption and wholeness.

We are all either Arthur or Anora right now, and either the devil within us is going to take over or we’ll grasp on with all our might at the last vestiges of light in our dark world and save our souls from the malicious ghouls in charge who want to take them.

Don’t let them take them. Don’t let them win. Love one another. Use that love as a shield as you go to battle to destroy the ones who rule and despise you.

This is the only way.

On that oh-so-pleasant note…thus ends the 11th annual Mickey©®™ awards!!

Thanks for reading and all your support through the years…and stay tuned for the Slip-Me-A-Mickey©®™ awards coming soon!

©2025

Oscar's Round Up - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

OSCARS ROUND UP

Well…that was tough.

At the 97th Academy Awards some good things happened…namely that Anora, a movie I like and respect, won a bevy of awards – most notably Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress. And some bad things happened…like I had to sit through an abysmal Oscar telecast to see Anora win.

The Oscar telecast, as is its wont, ran an excruciating four hours and was chock full of lifeless musical numbers and impotent gags and jokes as it was hosted by feverishly flaccid unfunnyman Conan O’Brien.

The Oscars’ consistent futility through the years has earned it a well-deserved thrashing on the pop culture whipping post…and last night’s telecast was a target rich environment for those foolish enough to watch, but smart enough to discern the dearth of quality entertainment.

The Oscar telecast now only seems to exists for the sole purpose of being the target of much deserved ridicule from the viewing public. The highlight of my night watching was exchanging cutting barbs with friends over the inanity and banality of the entire enterprise.

Conan O’Brien is an acquired taste…and I can proudly declare that, just like herpes, syphilis and AIDS, I have never acquired it. Conan is, first and foremost, a writer…a bad writer but a writer nonetheless. He is not a performer. And it shows.

Conan’s go-to shtick is to be faux edgy and mix it with a narcissistic self-deprecation that reeks of arrogance. He relied heavily on that formula last night and it fell flat.

Conan’s opening gag, a play on the movie The Substance, where he crawls out of and back into Demi Moore’s body, was remarkable for how poorly constructed it was. The bit could have been funny as the premise was good, but Conan bungled it and prolonged it unnecessarily, thus defeating its purpose. As Shakespeare has taught us…”brevity is the soul of wit”, and I do declare - Conan O’Brien has no soul.

The comedy only got worse from there. The lowest point in terms of comedy was when Conan did a bit with Adam Sandler. The bit was a bad idea because it wasn’t funny, it was poorly executed and most of all…Conan and Adam Sandler are two of the most unfunny human beings to have ever been considered comedians. The two of them doing a bit together is like a black hole of humor…no laughs can escape the gargantuan sucking of it all.

Speaking of sucking…there was the Dune sandworm bit…which became a recurring bit. The less spoken about this the better.

The show also featured some of the worst musical performances in recent memory.

The show opened with Ariana Grande giving us as mediocre a rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” imaginable. This was followed by Cynthia Erivo, who I have been told is the greatest singer alive, belting out a decidedly pitchy rendition of “Home” from The Wiz and “Defying Gravity” from Wicked…both were exceedingly underwhelming.

Then there was the bizarre tribute to James Bond, which for some reason featured three songs, all of them sung so poorly it felt like some community audition show on cable access.

Some person named Lisa sang “Live and Let Die”, and did so very poorly. She was followed by a stunningly awful performance by Doja Cat of “Diamonds are Forever”. The highlight of Doja Cat’s performance was that she was singing notably off-key…you go girl!! And finally, someone named Raye sang an amateur version of “Skyfall” and it felt like a bad karaoke night had broken out at the Dolby theatre.

Then of course there was a tribute to Quincy Jones where Queen Latifah, who isn’t a singer but rather a rapper – and has the weak, tepid voice to prove it, attempted to sing “Ease on Down the Road” from The Wiz. The entire tribute, from Oprah and Whoopi Goldberg’s intro to Queen Latifah’s brutal belching out of the tune, were an embarrassment to the greatness that was Quincy Jones.

As for the awards…it was Anora’s night and writer/director/editor/producer Sean Baker won four awards himself and gave pleasant and heartfelt speeches each time at the podium. Others were less dignified.

Adrien Brody won his second Best Actor Oscar and automatically became the worst actor in history to have won two Best Actor Oscars.

Brody’s speech was rambling, self-serving and overlong…sort of like his acting career. That he was being cheered on and coached by his girlfriend Georgina Chapman…who has a real-eye for talent…she used to be married to Harvey Weinstein, says a lot about Brody, Hollywood and The Brutalist, and none of it good. It was also a nice touch that he called out “anti-Semitism” at the same Oscars where the Best Documentary winner No Other Land, about Israel’s apartheid and ethnic cleansing against Palestinians, can’t get distribution in the United States…just more proof that Hollywood, of all places, is “anti-Semitic”. What a fucking doofus. Yo Adrien, can’t wait to see you being awful in a second-rate movie or tv show in the near future!!

There were also a bevy of pronouncements about “first ever” status among winners. So, the guy who won Best Costume Design was the “first Black man” to ever win the award. Yawn. No one gives a shit or should give a shit.

In the pre-show red carpet coverage Julianne Hough gave a land acknowledgement about how the Oscars were taking place on the indigenous land of various tribes. These tribes, like all native tribes, have been fucked over a billion times by the federal, state, city and local governments here in the U.S.

That said, land acknowledgements irritate the shit out of me because they are solely designed to signal virtue, which is a repulsive form of moral preening and narcissism.

The bottom line on this issue is this…if it means so much to you quit making empty gestures like land acknowledgements and just give the fucking land back to the native tribes. And shut the fuck up.

As for the fashion…once again there were some major mistakes that stars made that always baffle me.

Little Timmy Chalamet dressed in an all-yellow suit that looked like it could have been made of denim and that made him look like he was a background dancer in a Big Bird stage show or Curious George’s handler. Timmy is 29 years old…but this outfit made him look like he was 12…not a good look Timmy.

Zoe Saldana, winner of Best Supporting Actress, wore an egregiously designed dress that made her look like a cheap lamp in a thrift shop. She’s a beautiful woman but goodness gracious she looked ridiculous.

There were a bevy of “performers”…like Doja Cat, who was dressed like a cat, and Miley Cyrus, who was dressed like a Belgian hooker on Halloween, who showed off their tattoos. I have to say visible tattoos on a woman look extraordinarily trashy. It also didn’t help that Miley shaved her eyebrows for some reason…and she doesn’t have the face for no eyebrows.

The biggest news about the Oscars, and what my readers have been dying to find out…is whether I won my Oscar pool for the 30th year in a row. The answer is…yes…of course I did. But to be fair I had a very bad night, going a paltry 16-23 in my picks.

The good news though is that the film I liked the most out of the nominees, Anora, won Best Pic, Best Director, best Editing and Best Actress.

Speaking of Best Actress, the biggest surprise of the night was Anora’s Mikey Madison beating odds-on favorite Demi Moore for the gold. I was shocked when it happened and happy for Mikey Madison, but it was impossible to not feel bad for Demi Moore, who, by all accounts, is a decent human being who has really fought hard to survive in this nasty, nasty business.

Oh…and one last thing…in an attempt to end on a positive note. I thought the funniest bit of the night was Ben Stiller giving out the Production Design Oscar on a set that failed to work in lifting him from below the stage, to stage level. It was a clever bit and was impeccably executed…kudos to Ben Stiller.

Too bad Conan O’Brien wasn’t as clever or funny as that bit.

Alright ladies and gents…that’s my Oscar round up. Stay tuned to this website in the coming days as the biggest awards show of all time…The Mickeys®©™ will be announced as will the Slip-Me-A-Mickey®©™ Awards!!!

So hydrate and buckle up everybody because the party has just begun!!

©2025

97th Academy Awards: 2024 Oscar Predictions Post

2024 OSCARS PREDICTIONS

The 97th Academy Awards are upon us and anyone with half a brain in their head and any semblance of a life doesn’t even remotely give a flying fuck.

Unfortunately, I do not meet the previously stated requirements…so here we are at my Oscar predictions post.

As long-time readers know I am the proud owner of the longest Oscar predictions winning streak in history…and even more remarkably, this is not just the longest winning streak in Oscar history, but the longest winning streak of any kind in any competition….EVER!

What’s it like to be the greatest Oscar predictor of all time? Thanks for asking…the reality is that it’s a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing because being great at anything is a gift from God. It’s a curse because…well it’s the dumbest fucking thing in the world to be great at.

And truth be told…and this stays just between us…I really have no idea what I’m doing. Of course, that works to my benefit because the members of the Academy who vote on the Oscars have no idea what they’re doing either, so I guess that’s why I succeed in reading their diseased minds.

Every year the trade papers in Hollywood publish interviews with anonymous Academy members in the hopes of deciphering who will win the awards. These interviews are extraordinary because they always reveal Academy members as being the biggest dopes, dupes and dipshits on the planet.

It's nice to fantasize that Academy members are dedicated professionals who take their craft, their art, cinema and the film community seriously…and then you read these interviews and realize these people are lazy and entitled pieces of shit with the worst taste imaginable.

My favorite part is that these people get to see all the nominated movies for free…in their home…and they still don’t watch them, or they watch just fifteen minutes of them.

Then there’s the mindlessly political pricks who won’t vote for anything that doesn’t have the “correct”, and most obvious, politics. Yawn. This explains a great deal about how the Oscars work and why we get so many atrocious movies not just getting nominated, but winning big awards.

The truth is that the Oscars are nothing more than a popularity contest for the adult high school known as Hollywood. The expansion of the Academy membership in recent years in order to be more diverse and inclusive, has only heightened that sentiment.

Regardless of how ridiculous some members of the Academy are, and how diminished the Oscars have become…I still watch the movies and watch the Oscar telecast. Although if I’m being honest…there’s a very good chance that I will bail pretty early on the telecast because I’m on the East Coast and I’m an early riser. Missing the Oscars would’ve been inconceivable a few years ago…but not now. I am now indifferent to the Oscars and very protective of my precious sleep.

As for my Oscar predictions this year, I have to be honest…I have almost no idea how this year’s awards will play out. It’s been a strange year at the movies, and unfortunately not a particularly good one, so picking winners is a fool’s errand. But as you all know…I am nothing if not a fool.

So…on to my picks!!

BEST PICTURE

Anora

The Brutalist

A Complete Unknown

Conclave

Dune: Part Two

Emilia Perez

I’m Still Here

Nickel Boys

The Substance

Wicked

This is a rather underwhelming collection of films, only one of which, Anora, did I think was very good. Does that mean Anora will win? You’re guess is as good as mine. If Anora doesn’t win, then Conclave will…or at least that seems to be how the Academy is shaking out. There is a miniscule chance that A Complete Unknown sneaks in out of nowhere…but I wouldn’t bet on it. If Emilia Perez or Wicked win then we have officially entered the End Times.

WILL WIN: Anora

SHOULD WIN: Anora

 BEST DIRECTOR

Sean Baker - Anora

Brady Corbet – The Brutalist

James Mangold – A Complete Unknown

Jacques Audiard – Emilia Perez

Coralie Fargeat – The Substance

Ok…this is an interesting category. Baker won the Director’s Guild award, which should give him the leg up here…but don’t be shocked if Brady Corbet or dark horse James Mangold sneak in and steal it.

WILL WIN: Sean Baker - Anora

SHOULD WIN: Sean Baker

BEST ACTOR

Adrien Brody – The Brutalist

Timothee Chalamet – A Complete Unknown

Colman Domingo – Sing Sing

Ralph Fiennes - Conclave

Sebastian Stan – The Apprentice

Lots of hub-bub about Timothee Chalamet and his win at the SAG Awards last weekend…but Oscar voting was over so his speech and such will have no sway. This is really a two-man race between Chalamet and Brody, but if they split votes there could be a dark horse winner in Ralph Fiennes. My guess is that two-time Holocaust survivor Adrian Brody pulls it off (this is a great Nikki Glaser joke).

WILL WIN: Adrian Brody – The Brutalist

SHOULD WIN: Colman Domingo – Sing Sing

BEST ACTRESS

Cynthia Erivo – Wicked

Karla Sofia Gascon – Emilia Perez

Mikey Madison – Anora

Demi Moore – The Substance

Fernanda Torres – I’m Still Here

A three-woman race between the big favorite Demi Moore, the ingenue Mikey Madison and the international, dark horse candidate Fernanda Torres.

I think Demi Moore wins it because it’s a great “comeback” story and makes Academy members feel good about themselves for some reason. Personally, I think Moore is good in the film and gives a “brave” performance, I just think Mikey Madison’s performance is much better.

WILL WIN: Demi Moore – The Substance

SHOULD WIN: Mikey Madison - Anora

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Monica Barbaro – A Complete Unknown

Ariana Grande – Wicked

Felicity Jones – The Brutalist

Isabella Rossellini – Conclave

Zoe Saldana – Emilia Perez

Zoe Saldana is the big favorite…but if there’s an upset it will come from Isabella Rossellini…and maybe, maybe, maybe…from Monica Barbaro.

WILL WIN: Zoe Saldana

SHOULD WIN: Monica Barbaro

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

 Yura Borisov – Anora

Kieran Culkin – A Real Pain

Edward Norton – A Complete Unknown

Guy Pearce – The Brutalist

Jeremy Strong – The Apprentice

I was not a fan of A Real Pain and not a fan of Kieran Culkin’s performance, but this shit is set in stone.

WILL WIN: Kieran Culkin – A Real Pain

SHOULD WIN: Yura Borisov - Anora

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Anora – Sean Baker

The Brutalist – Brady Corbet

A Real Pain – Jesse Eisenberg

September 5 –

The Substance – Coralie Fargeat

This is a fascinating category…if Sean Baker wins this…there’s a real chance he could win four Oscars in one night (Picture, Director, Screenplay and Editing), which would be incredible…so incredible I don’t think it will happen. I think the Academy spreads the love and rewards one of their own Jesse Eisenberg with the Oscar here.

WILL WIN: Jesse Eisenberg – A Real Pain

SHOULD WIN: Sean Baker - Anora

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

A Complete Unknown

Conclave

Emilia Perez

Nickel Boys

Sing Sing

Conclave is the frontrunner and presumptive winner…but if it doesn’t win then we might be in for a wild night.

WILL WIN: Conclave

SHOULD WIN: Conclave…I guess. I liked Sing Sing a lot but the script isn’t elite.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

Flow

Inside Out 2

Memoir of a Snail

Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl

The Wild Robot

A fascinating category…The Wild Robot is in the lead but I actually think Flow is going to win it thanks to the international contingent in the Academy.

WILL WIN: Flow

SHOULD WIN: Flow

BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE

Emilia Perez

Flow

The Girl with the Needle

I’m Still here

The Seed of the Sacred Fig

Emilia Perez had this wrapped up a few months ago and then the Gascon scandal hit and…well…not so good for Emilia Perez after that. I now think the vociferous Brazilian contingent drags I’m Still Here over the finish line.

WILL WIN: I’m Still Here

SHOULD WIN: Flow – I just really liked that movie.

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

Black Box Diaries

No Other Land

Porcelain War

Soundtrack to a Coup

Sugarcane

This has the potential to be the funniest category of the night. The Oscars are notoriously political when it comes to documentaries, so I think the Ukrainian war documentary Porcelain War will win because the simps in the Academy fall for this type of shit. The funniest outcome would be for the Palestinian documentary No Other Land to win because the presenter for this award is Gal Gadot…actress and former member of the Israeli Defense Forces. Watching Gadot have to give this award to Palestinian activists would be hysterically delicious …but it won’t happen for the same reason No Other Land has no distribution in the U.S. – because the people who run Hollywood (and our government) are Zionists or, at a minimum, Zionist adjacent.

WILL WIN: Porcelain War

SHOULD WIN: No Other Land

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT

A Lien

Anuja

I’m Not a Robot

The Last Ranger

The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent

I have no idea…

WILL WIN: A Lien

SHOULD WIN: No clue

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT

Death by Numbers

I am Ready, Warden

Incident

Instruments of a Beating Heart

The Only Girl in the Orchestra

I’m just picking based on the subject matter…which is exactly how the Academy members do it!

WILL WIN: I am Ready, Warden

SHOULD WIN: No idea

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM

Beautiful Men

In the Shadow of the Cypress

Magic Candles

Wander to Wonder

Yuck!

I’ve not seen any of these so I’m stabbing in the dark here.

WILL WIN: Magic Candles

SHOULD WIN: You’re guess is as good as mine.

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

The Brutalist

Conclave

Emilia Perez

Wicked

The Wild Robot

Interesting category that could be a harbinger of bigger things to come for some movies. If Wicked wins, then it might have a good run in a bunch of categories. Same with The Brutalist and Conclave.

WILL WIN:  The Brutalist

SHOULD WIN:  The Brutalist

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

El Mal – Emilia Perez

The Journey – The Six Triple Eight

Like a Bird – Sing Sing

Mi Camino – Emilia Perez

Never Too late – Elton John

I think all of these songs are awful….but what do I know?

WILL WIN: El Mal – Emilia Perez

SHOULD WIN: None of them

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

The Brutalist

Conclave

Dune: Part Two

Nosferatu

Wicked

Another interesting toss up category. I feel like Wicked could get some below the line love and these seems like a category it could win. That said, The Brutalist could start a big run here.

WILL WIN: Wicked

SHOULD WIN: Nosferatu

BEST SOUND

A Complete Unknown

Dune: Part Two

Emilia Perez

Wicked

The Wild Robot

I just want to say that I think it’s really stupid that a few years ago the Academy combined the Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing categories into one. Disrespectful and dumb.

WILL WIN: A Complete Unknown

SHOULD WIN:  A Complete Unknown

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

The Brutalist

Dune: Part Two

Emilia Perez

Maria

Nosferatu

I think Nosferatu should definitely win this award going away but unfortunately won’t. I think that The Brutalist gets the gold.

WILL WIN: The Brutalist

SHOULD WIN: Nosferatu

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

A Complete Unknown

Conclave

Gladiator II

Nosferatu

Wicked

I think Conclave and Nosferatu are head and shoulders above everything else in this category…which of course means they won’t win.

WILL WIN: Wicked

SHOULD WIN:  Nosferatu/Conclave

BEST FILM EDITING

Anora

The Brutalist

Conclave

Emilia Perez

Wicked

This category is a great indicator of how the night will go. Writer/director Sean baker also edited Anora…so if he wins then expect that film to do very well. On the other hand, there is a chance they give him an award here and then feel like that’s all he gets and spread the love elsewhere. Don’t find that non-prediction helpful? That makes two of us. Anyway…I think Anora wins but won’t be shocked if either The Brutalist or Conclave get the gold.

WILL WIN: Anora

SHOULD WIN: Anora

BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING

A Different Man

Emilia Perez

Nosferatu

The Substance

Wicked

I think Wicked could win here again because the simps in the Academy like shiny, shitty things. That said, this is a category where they can reward The Substance and I think they will.

WILL WIN: The Substance

SHOULD WIN: Nosferatu

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

Alien: Romulus

Better Man

Dune: Part Two

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

Wicked

A tough category…again this could be an indicator of a big below the line night for Wicked if it wins here. But…the craftsmen of Dune: Part Two are highly respected and they did do tremendous work. Toss up.

WILL WIN: Dune: Part Two

SHOULD WIN: Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

And thus concludes my Annual Oscar Prediction Post. There’s a very good chance that I go 10-23 this year so my recommendation is that you don’t gamble actual money based on my predictions…that would be foolish. But feel free to follow along Oscar night and see how poorly I did this year… for as the great American financier Jeffrey Epstein once taught us…all good things must come to an end…and this year might see the ignominious end to my miraculous Oscar prediction winning streak.

p.s. Don’t look for me at the after party!!

©2025

Emilia Perez: A Review - No es Bueno

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. Yikes. A very bad musical.

Emilia Perez, written and directed by Frenchman Jacques Audiard, is a Spanish-language musical that chronicles a Mexican drug kingpin’s transition from a man into a woman.

The film, which is France’s official Oscar submission, stars Karla Sofia Gascon as Emilia Perez/Juan Del Monte – the drug kingpin, Zoe Saldana as Rita Castro – his/her lawyer, and Selena Gomez as Jessi – Juan’s wife.

The movie has garnered a whopping 13 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best International Feature, Best Actress (Gascon) and Best Supporting Actress (Saldana).

The premise for Emilia Perez - where a brutal Mexican drug cartel kingpin yearns to live as his true self and therefore uses his vast wealth and power to undergo a transition and become a woman, is an undeniably intriguing one. Unfortunately, writer/director Jacques Audiard fumbles this premise so egregiously that the film is not just bad, but an absolutely lifeless and rather ridiculous bore.

One of the biggest problems with Emilia Perez is that it is a musical where the music is atrocious and the choreography pedestrian. Instead of being a conduit to heighten emotion, the music in this film acts as a barrier to emotion and genuine drama.

The film’s musical numbers all feel extraordinarily flat and lifeless, and cinematographer Paul Guilhaume’s camera does nothing to enhance  them, as he spends a lot of time with his camera swirling around with little to no motivation.

The film also lacks a visual crispness, distinctive color palette, and compelling framing, so it looks, and therefore feels, like a mediocre television show. Audiard has said he set out to make an opera, but to me he has made little more than a soap opera.

I would appreciate Emilie Perez for its audacity if it actually had any, but besides its premise, the film is as dramatically conventional and uninspired as can be. No doubt the film, and its supporters, thinks it has a lot of very interesting things to say on a lot of very important topics, but the reality is that it is unrelentingly allergic to profundity.

The performances in the film have received a lot of praise and award recognition, but I found them to be less than stellar.

Zoe Saldana has won a bevy of awards this year and is a favorite to win Best Supporting Actress at the Oscars, and while I acknowledge that she does a lot in the movie, from singing and dancing to emoting, I didn’t find any of it to be captivating.

This is not to say that she does a bad job, just that what she does in the context of the film, is more admirable in its effort than it is remarkable in its result.

Karlas Sofia Gascon, who plays both Juan and Emilia, is fine, I guess. She is nominated for Best Actress at the Oscars, and because of a scandal involving nasty tweets she once posted she has no chance to win, but I think she shouldn’t win because she gives a rather one-note, shallow performance.

I don’t think it’s entirely Gascon’s fault, but we never get to know Juan or Emilia in the course of the film, instead we get to see someone play-acting and not fully inhabiting the character.

And I will add, the notion that no one recognizes Emilia as the female version of Juan is one of the more absurd leaps that the film asks audiences to make…and that’s saying a lot considering that this is a Latin pop/rap musical.

Selena Gomez does her best as Jessi, Juan’s wife, but she, like the rest of the cast, isn’t given much to work with and doesn’t do anything of note with what she is given.

If I had stumbled across Emilia Perez on Netflix one night and watched it without all of the award’s hype and all the rest, I would simply say that it was an overly ambitious film that took a very big swing and missed badly. No harm in that…in fact, good for you for going for it. Better a big swing and miss than a tepid attempt and miss.

But for some reason, Emilia Perez has 13 Oscar nominations, the most of any film this year, and for a while there pre-Gascon scandal, it looked like it might win Best Picture. Thanks to that Gascon scandal, it looks like it will lose most of the major awards except for Saldana in Best Supporting Actress…so that’s good.

Of course, the reason why the film was so lauded by the Academy and by some notable critics, is that it preaches to the choir in regards to trans issues…so much so that the film literally canonizes Emilia in its final scene. And no…I’m not shitting you.

So, the film is set up to be a vehicle by which mindless Academy members and spineless critics can signal their virtue regarding trans and diversity issues. But then a funny thing happened on the way to Oscar gold…namely LGBTQ activists took umbrage with this specific depiction of a trans character…and Mexicans got pissed at an ill-informed Frenchman (Audiard) making a movie about the problems in Mexico. Uh-oh.

So Emilia Perez went from a liberal darling to a dastardly racist and transphobic villain almost overnight and Academy members and critics were confused because they don’t actually believe in anything…which ironically enough is also true of the film Emilia Perez.

Regardless of the controversy around the film and Gascon and all the rest, the reality is that this is not a good movie and it should never ever had gotten one single Oscar nomination, never mind 13.

The truth is that Emilia Perez says more about the people advocating for it and sucked in by its ruse than anything else…and what it says, like the movie itself, is nothing good.

My recommendation is to skip Emilia Perez entirely. It is not a good movie and its isn’t even a good-bad movie…it’s just a bad-bad movie. I watched it so you don’t have to…and trust me…you really don’t have to.

©2025