Burning Man (2011)
This goes so far with chronology cut-up, despite whatever value it would have in the psychology of grief, it's not even so much the confusion of where your anchor is -- from where are we flashing back or forward -- as that it just becomes an affectation. Watching this movie also made me realize that sometimes the embarrassment at the intimacy that's being portrayed is about the conceit of it, not as if we've stumbled into someone's bedroom while they're having sex -- the bare event of it -- but as if we've stumbled into the parlor of their mind where they're in full sway of some idealization, the whole air of their conceit.
This goes so far with chronology cut-up, despite whatever value it would have in the psychology of grief, it's not even so much the confusion of where your anchor is -- from where are we flashing back or forward -- as that it just becomes an affectation. Watching this movie also made me realize that sometimes the embarrassment at the intimacy that's being portrayed is about the conceit of it, not as if we've stumbled into someone's bedroom while they're having sex -- the bare event of it -- but as if we've stumbled into the parlor of their mind where they're in full sway of some idealization, the whole air of their conceit.
Marty Supreme (2025)
It starts out great, like Uncut Gems, and even seems to be making of that rolling bustle a sort of epic American portrait, a tableau of life moving too fast to be caught still, spilling over. That's for about half, then the scene with Penn Jillette is exactly where it goes wrong. After that it's just pile-on concocted, which then works retroactively, to make the whole that way. There was a scene of catastrophe, itself a culmination of the orchestrated chaos, just before, and then the scene with Jillette does that again. The pile-up of all these pile-ups then becomes less like trying to keep up with the material, as in Uncut Gems, and more blown-up, embellished, flighty. And it ends up being so little about ping pong and then even about the character's hustling (it's loosely based on Marty Reisman and his book The Money Player). Director Josh Safdie uses music that's not of the period portrayed, and manages to bring it off in a way that's better than Dirty Dancing -- 80s stuff like "The Order of Death," "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" (well worn though they are for movies) and "The Perfect Kiss" -- and the fact it's music from the 80s makes it even more like, or like a reference to, that movie, than if he'd used modern music. In fact, the way this works, as an interesting material portrayal that nonetheless becomes more fanciful even in its ultimate use of all that, makes it even more like Dirty Dancing, analogous.
It starts out great, like Uncut Gems, and even seems to be making of that rolling bustle a sort of epic American portrait, a tableau of life moving too fast to be caught still, spilling over. That's for about half, then the scene with Penn Jillette is exactly where it goes wrong. After that it's just pile-on concocted, which then works retroactively, to make the whole that way. There was a scene of catastrophe, itself a culmination of the orchestrated chaos, just before, and then the scene with Jillette does that again. The pile-up of all these pile-ups then becomes less like trying to keep up with the material, as in Uncut Gems, and more blown-up, embellished, flighty. And it ends up being so little about ping pong and then even about the character's hustling (it's loosely based on Marty Reisman and his book The Money Player). Director Josh Safdie uses music that's not of the period portrayed, and manages to bring it off in a way that's better than Dirty Dancing -- 80s stuff like "The Order of Death," "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" (well worn though they are for movies) and "The Perfect Kiss" -- and the fact it's music from the 80s makes it even more like, or like a reference to, that movie, than if he'd used modern music. In fact, the way this works, as an interesting material portrayal that nonetheless becomes more fanciful even in its ultimate use of all that, makes it even more like Dirty Dancing, analogous.
Fight Club (1999)
It's a blizzard of satirical jabs at modern lifestyle egoism and soul-searching, with director David Fincher showboating, but it piles up premises before even getting to the main one of the title and without making much connection between them. It may be a satire of the phase cycle, of impressionably jumping from one thing to another in search of salvation, and that might be even the humor of the fight club itself, the self-destruction it more than implicitly amounts to. But even that doesn't play as humorous and seems to be as much its own muddled conceit as anything it would be a comment on.
It's a blizzard of satirical jabs at modern lifestyle egoism and soul-searching, with director David Fincher showboating, but it piles up premises before even getting to the main one of the title and without making much connection between them. It may be a satire of the phase cycle, of impressionably jumping from one thing to another in search of salvation, and that might be even the humor of the fight club itself, the self-destruction it more than implicitly amounts to. But even that doesn't play as humorous and seems to be as much its own muddled conceit as anything it would be a comment on.
Honey Don't (2025)
The next installment of Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke's collaborations of lesbian B-movie camp. See Drive-Away Dolls. The overall plan is more playful, but the dry, mordant quality comes off rote. It does have Wanda Jackson's rendition of Carl Perkins's song of the title.
The next installment of Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke's collaborations of lesbian B-movie camp. See Drive-Away Dolls. The overall plan is more playful, but the dry, mordant quality comes off rote. It does have Wanda Jackson's rendition of Carl Perkins's song of the title.
Queen of Chess (2026)
A documentary about chess grandmaster Judit Polgar, the greatest female player, traces her history and development also through her matches with world champion Garry Kasparov. Neither too flashy, nor too drab, with interesting interviewees, including Polgar and Kasparov, and some plucky soundtrack additions to suggest exuberantly bucking against the male-dominated field.
A documentary about chess grandmaster Judit Polgar, the greatest female player, traces her history and development also through her matches with world champion Garry Kasparov. Neither too flashy, nor too drab, with interesting interviewees, including Polgar and Kasparov, and some plucky soundtrack additions to suggest exuberantly bucking against the male-dominated field.
Dirty Dancing (1987)
This movie isn't what you might think, until the ending, which is everything you might think it is from stills, trailers and reputation. It's actually a grainier -- looking and feeling -- portrait of the early 60s along the lines of Diner or The Wanderers, and the title isn't referring to just some speciously derived romance performance, but to the popular forms of music and dancing, like rock 'n' roll, in the context of social and class tensions at a resort in the Catskills. Although it has a bit of after school special message earnestness to it, it manages some fairly evocative spread. But then there are the modern songs, of the era the movie came out rather than what it portrays, such as "The Time of My Life," which aged worse than the period music, and the finale is completely a flourish like that in a tone outside the period frame.
2/16/26
2/12/26
This movie isn't what you might think, until the ending, which is everything you might think it is from stills, trailers and reputation. It's actually a grainier -- looking and feeling -- portrait of the early 60s along the lines of Diner or The Wanderers, and the title isn't referring to just some speciously derived romance performance, but to the popular forms of music and dancing, like rock 'n' roll, in the context of social and class tensions at a resort in the Catskills. Although it has a bit of after school special message earnestness to it, it manages some fairly evocative spread. But then there are the modern songs, of the era the movie came out rather than what it portrays, such as "The Time of My Life," which aged worse than the period music, and the finale is completely a flourish like that in a tone outside the period frame.
Side Effects (2013)
From the period, at least since Magic Mike where Steven Soderbergh became a more composed director, this unfolds in an intriguing way, and has a nice tactic of relaying the involvement and suspense from one character to another -- a kind of who done what to whom - even though when it's all over and you have the whole picture, there's some pretty wild leaps involved.
From the period, at least since Magic Mike where Steven Soderbergh became a more composed director, this unfolds in an intriguing way, and has a nice tactic of relaying the involvement and suspense from one character to another -- a kind of who done what to whom - even though when it's all over and you have the whole picture, there's some pretty wild leaps involved.
Top Secret (1984)
This was the next project of the spoof sketch gag style comedy of writers, directors Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker, started with Kentucky Fried Movie and after their big success with Airplane, and it was Val Kilmer's debut. There are some good bits, like the inspired lunacy of skeet surfing and the deep focus joke, but it doesn't have the structure or pace of the airplane disaster movie parody and shows the difficulty of stringing together gags that have to work on their own without a stronger spine.
This was the next project of the spoof sketch gag style comedy of writers, directors Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker, started with Kentucky Fried Movie and after their big success with Airplane, and it was Val Kilmer's debut. There are some good bits, like the inspired lunacy of skeet surfing and the deep focus joke, but it doesn't have the structure or pace of the airplane disaster movie parody and shows the difficulty of stringing together gags that have to work on their own without a stronger spine.
The Doors (1991)
The movie where Oliver Stone's swaggery style may be most appropriate, so the match going on here isn't just Val Kilmer with Jim Morrison, but Stone as well. Even following Morrison's conceit, this comes off as a tilt on biopic, but still within that ambit. That works as much to situate the pretension.
The movie where Oliver Stone's swaggery style may be most appropriate, so the match going on here isn't just Val Kilmer with Jim Morrison, but Stone as well. Even following Morrison's conceit, this comes off as a tilt on biopic, but still within that ambit. That works as much to situate the pretension.
Next of Kin (1989)
This is the movie where Adam Baldwin kills Bill Paxton while Ben Stiller watches -- in case you need to know. It's also an attempt to make Patrick Swayze a serious action movie lead, which may have been part of the wrong-headedness of the concept, but it's certainly too wrong-headed to pull it off. Hillbillies versus wiseguys is the premise, but it doesn't waste any time on incisive or poetic comparison. And Liam Neeson is cast as an Appalachian. Only that and Swayze's getup approaches the zestier cheese of Road House or Point Break.
This is the movie where Adam Baldwin kills Bill Paxton while Ben Stiller watches -- in case you need to know. It's also an attempt to make Patrick Swayze a serious action movie lead, which may have been part of the wrong-headedness of the concept, but it's certainly too wrong-headed to pull it off. Hillbillies versus wiseguys is the premise, but it doesn't waste any time on incisive or poetic comparison. And Liam Neeson is cast as an Appalachian. Only that and Swayze's getup approaches the zestier cheese of Road House or Point Break.
JFK (1991)
Oliver Stone made the blockbuster movie version of being accosted by an assassination buff. I don't think there's ever been a movie built so entirely on exposition. With the sledgehammer artsiness that culminated in Natural Born Killers, he adds visual aid assault, propaganda-like rifle-cutting to images that materialize whatever point to make, superliminal, while otherwise shooting from dozens of angles, shifting the photographic scheme, roving the camera like a caged cat, and in case you don't get it, adding a soundtrack that mounts up like a jet plane arriving at your gate, especially over the drone of Kevin Costner in the last-act trial sequence. A barrage of stars confers the proper reverence, a la The Greatest Story Every Told, you know, like who John Lennon said they were bigger than, but JFK.
2/2/26
Oliver Stone made the blockbuster movie version of being accosted by an assassination buff. I don't think there's ever been a movie built so entirely on exposition. With the sledgehammer artsiness that culminated in Natural Born Killers, he adds visual aid assault, propaganda-like rifle-cutting to images that materialize whatever point to make, superliminal, while otherwise shooting from dozens of angles, shifting the photographic scheme, roving the camera like a caged cat, and in case you don't get it, adding a soundtrack that mounts up like a jet plane arriving at your gate, especially over the drone of Kevin Costner in the last-act trial sequence. A barrage of stars confers the proper reverence, a la The Greatest Story Every Told, you know, like who John Lennon said they were bigger than, but JFK.
Sentimental Value (2025)
With Joachim Trier's direction we don't get the sense we're watching these people's lives because it's too posed and swoony, especially when he's showing people in the theater for stage productions. The moments of drama, father writer director coming to terms with his life for his daughter and actress daughter coming to terms with that -- Trier doesn't get us to that point, certainly not in the first 40 minutes to an hour. And the clever trick with the frame at the end only bears out that problem by contrast.
With Joachim Trier's direction we don't get the sense we're watching these people's lives because it's too posed and swoony, especially when he's showing people in the theater for stage productions. The moments of drama, father writer director coming to terms with his life for his daughter and actress daughter coming to terms with that -- Trier doesn't get us to that point, certainly not in the first 40 minutes to an hour. And the clever trick with the frame at the end only bears out that problem by contrast.
Puzzle (2018)
Good execution by director Marc Turtletaub and his cast, especially Kelly MacDonald, Irrfan Khan and David Denman, and it builds up its situation and the tensions nicely. In going for the bigger drama stuff the emphasis is shifted to the metaphorical sense of the title, despite some nice lines about how much jigsaw puzzles were doing psychologically. We know the weight love affairs can have. Might be nice to see how the puzzling itself could create the same ripples and awakening.
Good execution by director Marc Turtletaub and his cast, especially Kelly MacDonald, Irrfan Khan and David Denman, and it builds up its situation and the tensions nicely. In going for the bigger drama stuff the emphasis is shifted to the metaphorical sense of the title, despite some nice lines about how much jigsaw puzzles were doing psychologically. We know the weight love affairs can have. Might be nice to see how the puzzling itself could create the same ripples and awakening.
Anaconda (2025)
The cloying way this tries to sell us back affection for the 1997 movie is a double sin, and makes the wrongness apparent every step of the way. The forerunner is a blockbuster version of a B movie, big-budget trash that's fun not because it's comedy, but because it's played seriously. This is a fanboy fawning processed version of Goonies for grown-ups mashed up with Saving Silverman and Jumanji.
1/30/26
The cloying way this tries to sell us back affection for the 1997 movie is a double sin, and makes the wrongness apparent every step of the way. The forerunner is a blockbuster version of a B movie, big-budget trash that's fun not because it's comedy, but because it's played seriously. This is a fanboy fawning processed version of Goonies for grown-ups mashed up with Saving Silverman and Jumanji.
The Secret Agent (2025)
Remarkably similar to One Battle After Another, but in the way that those and also Bugonia and Weapons are meditating on the times. Writer, director Kleber Mendonca Filho and his Brazilian cast, especially the lead Wagner Moura (who played Pablo Escobar in the series Narcos), give a more sober bearing, one that makes American films seem much more affected, though it's notable, too, that Benicio Del Toro comes off more like this in One Battle After Another, as he does elsewhere. The non-actorly style is plainer than neo-realism, but in Mendonca Filho's composition, it's also fascinating, watching things unfold naturalistically. It strikes as incongruous with some of the more fanciful flourishes, influenced as much by American movies themselves -- Jaws and The Omen among others -- and the jumping leg sequence. But even this is cited as fanciful reporting the characters are laughing at, and not without real-life reference.
Remarkably similar to One Battle After Another, but in the way that those and also Bugonia and Weapons are meditating on the times. Writer, director Kleber Mendonca Filho and his Brazilian cast, especially the lead Wagner Moura (who played Pablo Escobar in the series Narcos), give a more sober bearing, one that makes American films seem much more affected, though it's notable, too, that Benicio Del Toro comes off more like this in One Battle After Another, as he does elsewhere. The non-actorly style is plainer than neo-realism, but in Mendonca Filho's composition, it's also fascinating, watching things unfold naturalistically. It strikes as incongruous with some of the more fanciful flourishes, influenced as much by American movies themselves -- Jaws and The Omen among others -- and the jumping leg sequence. But even this is cited as fanciful reporting the characters are laughing at, and not without real-life reference.
Train Dreams (2025)
This seems influenced by Terrence Malick, but it's also studied that way, which makes it sometimes seem more derivative, and sometimes more likes its own thing. There are some confident, well-observed strokes from the script, dialogue, in one case giving William H. Macy an interesting variation of a character. The drift of it is a kind of dispersal, with time and spirit, but that comes to seem as much an unintended effect as thematic.
This seems influenced by Terrence Malick, but it's also studied that way, which makes it sometimes seem more derivative, and sometimes more likes its own thing. There are some confident, well-observed strokes from the script, dialogue, in one case giving William H. Macy an interesting variation of a character. The drift of it is a kind of dispersal, with time and spirit, but that comes to seem as much an unintended effect as thematic.
Rental Family (2025)
Brendan Fraser has an obliging quality that comes across in all his work, but this more modest production makes it apparent in a way other than that of the big popular vehicles he's been in. Which is also to say, uses it to a fault. The rental family idea in Japan holds lots to mine, and the movie opens up the question about the difference between that and acting, what that would be like for an actor, and larger questions about acting, lies and white lies, promise in the different contexts of those frames, obligation and deference. But it doesn't exactly track those questions. The various cases Fraser's character takes on with the job are treated with a more gliding montage style in an overriding sense of the fullness of experience, somewhat presumptive and redundant.
Brendan Fraser has an obliging quality that comes across in all his work, but this more modest production makes it apparent in a way other than that of the big popular vehicles he's been in. Which is also to say, uses it to a fault. The rental family idea in Japan holds lots to mine, and the movie opens up the question about the difference between that and acting, what that would be like for an actor, and larger questions about acting, lies and white lies, promise in the different contexts of those frames, obligation and deference. But it doesn't exactly track those questions. The various cases Fraser's character takes on with the job are treated with a more gliding montage style in an overriding sense of the fullness of experience, somewhat presumptive and redundant.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)
If you take out an overriding attitude or mood, tone down any sharpness or swerve, what you have left is business, in at least two senses. Neither comedy nor horror, as if afraid being too much one would detract from the other, this is a sort of leisurely hum, banking too much on just the formula of Valley Girl meets The Lost Boys. It's amazing how the sitcom Halloween party tone washes out such a cast, even Rutger Hauer and Paul Reubens.
If you take out an overriding attitude or mood, tone down any sharpness or swerve, what you have left is business, in at least two senses. Neither comedy nor horror, as if afraid being too much one would detract from the other, this is a sort of leisurely hum, banking too much on just the formula of Valley Girl meets The Lost Boys. It's amazing how the sitcom Halloween party tone washes out such a cast, even Rutger Hauer and Paul Reubens.
Barton Fink (1991) ♠
Before their more wily approach to the mundane with Fargo, the Coen brothers turned to the uncanny. This movie is as remarkable, especially in the market of American popular movies, as anything by David Lynch, for not being literal. It's a surreal parable, but the great thing about it, too, is that it doesn't really announce or proclaim this. It goes about it in an offhand way, as in the manner of its humor. The sardonic view of Hollywood doesn't leave us with comfortable ground either. As the plot twists it also drifts -- imagination, perspective, dream, framing story or story within story -- and Barton neither is nor has an outside. The theater, New York, a greater view or purpose, even for the common man that Hollywood would exploit, also get pulled into the drift and the satire, just as any sober view that would be Barton's or other. In this way, it even makes a set with Mulholland Drive as a loop of the fantastic involving Hollywood and the movies.
Before their more wily approach to the mundane with Fargo, the Coen brothers turned to the uncanny. This movie is as remarkable, especially in the market of American popular movies, as anything by David Lynch, for not being literal. It's a surreal parable, but the great thing about it, too, is that it doesn't really announce or proclaim this. It goes about it in an offhand way, as in the manner of its humor. The sardonic view of Hollywood doesn't leave us with comfortable ground either. As the plot twists it also drifts -- imagination, perspective, dream, framing story or story within story -- and Barton neither is nor has an outside. The theater, New York, a greater view or purpose, even for the common man that Hollywood would exploit, also get pulled into the drift and the satire, just as any sober view that would be Barton's or other. In this way, it even makes a set with Mulholland Drive as a loop of the fantastic involving Hollywood and the movies.
Raise the Red Lantern (1991) ♠
Red Sorghum and Ju Dou had been released outside of China, and this was already the fourth movie he'd made with Gong Li, but this established director Zhang Yimou as one of the best in the world. He had been a cinematographer before, such as on Chen Kaige's Yellow Earth, and that part of his movie making was never more apparent than here. But the sumptuous quality, rather than just a superficial sense of lush photography, also works with the shrewd observation of bodily comforts as part of the conditioning in this parable of divide and conquer, in the drier, blunter delivery with darkness more than just undertone. Based on a novella Wives and Concubines, the portrait it gives of a situation of women in a certain place and time is even more significant. The problem of calling it the plight of women, or even feminist, bears out the problem with that more generally: taking it as not pertinent to all. It's such a definitive breakdown of any sort of hierarchical system, let alone racket, where each is pitted against the other so that none really see the plight of all, it seems archetypal, like a fable. It also has a great score combining traditional Chinese opera with modern composition.
1/23/26
Red Sorghum and Ju Dou had been released outside of China, and this was already the fourth movie he'd made with Gong Li, but this established director Zhang Yimou as one of the best in the world. He had been a cinematographer before, such as on Chen Kaige's Yellow Earth, and that part of his movie making was never more apparent than here. But the sumptuous quality, rather than just a superficial sense of lush photography, also works with the shrewd observation of bodily comforts as part of the conditioning in this parable of divide and conquer, in the drier, blunter delivery with darkness more than just undertone. Based on a novella Wives and Concubines, the portrait it gives of a situation of women in a certain place and time is even more significant. The problem of calling it the plight of women, or even feminist, bears out the problem with that more generally: taking it as not pertinent to all. It's such a definitive breakdown of any sort of hierarchical system, let alone racket, where each is pitted against the other so that none really see the plight of all, it seems archetypal, like a fable. It also has a great score combining traditional Chinese opera with modern composition.
Annie Hall (1977) ♠
The peak of Woody Allen's work and one of them for American movies, at all but also because for comedy. While Allen would follow with great inventiveness, with at least a decade of great work before declining returns, he never matched the full stroke of this. It was also the first movie he made with Gordon Willis as cinematographer, which played no small part even in Allen's account of his movie making. As well as The Godfather movies, All the President's Men and Pennies from Heaven, among others, his projects with Allen, including Manhattan and Zelig, would add more range and impressive accomplishments for Willis. As Nietzsche said about great tasks as play (see comments for Le Million), this take serious matters comically, but comedy seriously. The dash of the play with form comes from the comic sense. When this won the Oscar for best picture in 1978 (at the ceremony for the films of 1977) a lot of people still didn't even know what it was. Now it's as iconic for the 70s, if less imposing, as Star Wars, which was also nominated that same year, and holds up even that time well for being such a great expression of it, also the end of an exceptional period of American movie-making when the Academy Awards largely reflected that.
The peak of Woody Allen's work and one of them for American movies, at all but also because for comedy. While Allen would follow with great inventiveness, with at least a decade of great work before declining returns, he never matched the full stroke of this. It was also the first movie he made with Gordon Willis as cinematographer, which played no small part even in Allen's account of his movie making. As well as The Godfather movies, All the President's Men and Pennies from Heaven, among others, his projects with Allen, including Manhattan and Zelig, would add more range and impressive accomplishments for Willis. As Nietzsche said about great tasks as play (see comments for Le Million), this take serious matters comically, but comedy seriously. The dash of the play with form comes from the comic sense. When this won the Oscar for best picture in 1978 (at the ceremony for the films of 1977) a lot of people still didn't even know what it was. Now it's as iconic for the 70s, if less imposing, as Star Wars, which was also nominated that same year, and holds up even that time well for being such a great expression of it, also the end of an exceptional period of American movie-making when the Academy Awards largely reflected that.
Colors of Time [La venue de l'avenir] (1995)
Despite laying out such an absurd array of paths to follow -- maybe they're shooting for a series -- and for how that also diffuses the significance of the jumps in time (the French title translates more literally as "the coming of the future") this manages to have hooks thanks to some of the performances and because, if even in its own more commonplace way, it manages to be about life styles, choices or phases we don't always treat fairly.
Despite laying out such an absurd array of paths to follow -- maybe they're shooting for a series -- and for how that also diffuses the significance of the jumps in time (the French title translates more literally as "the coming of the future") this manages to have hooks thanks to some of the performances and because, if even in its own more commonplace way, it manages to be about life styles, choices or phases we don't always treat fairly.
To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995)
Admirable game effort from Wesley Snipes, Patrick Swayze and John Leguizamo. In the case of Swayze, this shows even better range for him, with his lovable cheesy movies, than the few attempts at serious action lead, and even than Ghost. But, for example, this isn't nearly as campy as Road House or Point Break, whether on purpose or inadvertently, because of too much setup of melodramatic good conscience.
Admirable game effort from Wesley Snipes, Patrick Swayze and John Leguizamo. In the case of Swayze, this shows even better range for him, with his lovable cheesy movies, than the few attempts at serious action lead, and even than Ghost. But, for example, this isn't nearly as campy as Road House or Point Break, whether on purpose or inadvertently, because of too much setup of melodramatic good conscience.
Hammett (1982)
Francis Ford Coppola's Zoetrope produced this, and Coppola got Wim Wenders to direct it, but then when he wasn't satisfied with Wenders' work, reshot much of it, with the kind of studio movie reflexive approach of One from the Heart. The contrast can still be seen in the few remaining external shots Wenders supervised, the different view of Dashiell Hammett's San Francisco they suggest. The canned look and concoction of it all, recooking lots of Hammett bio material as one of his own stories, has a broad presentation, like a parody -- The Cheap Detective or Murder by Death -- that's trying to be serious. Coppola's own attempt at popular movie postmodernism, through also Rumblefish, had the effect of leaving out what he'd particularly been so good at, as if formalism or meta-movie-making were only more layers of icing with no cake.
Francis Ford Coppola's Zoetrope produced this, and Coppola got Wim Wenders to direct it, but then when he wasn't satisfied with Wenders' work, reshot much of it, with the kind of studio movie reflexive approach of One from the Heart. The contrast can still be seen in the few remaining external shots Wenders supervised, the different view of Dashiell Hammett's San Francisco they suggest. The canned look and concoction of it all, recooking lots of Hammett bio material as one of his own stories, has a broad presentation, like a parody -- The Cheap Detective or Murder by Death -- that's trying to be serious. Coppola's own attempt at popular movie postmodernism, through also Rumblefish, had the effect of leaving out what he'd particularly been so good at, as if formalism or meta-movie-making were only more layers of icing with no cake.
A Scam Called Love (2025)
A taste of South Africa via a culture clash, and one with a twist on the couple's introduction to the family, how they pass themselves, is interesting, but this builds up like so many forks of the story, and those like so many bits, often with flighty effects, like heavy suspense music during a seduction scene.
A taste of South Africa via a culture clash, and one with a twist on the couple's introduction to the family, how they pass themselves, is interesting, but this builds up like so many forks of the story, and those like so many bits, often with flighty effects, like heavy suspense music during a seduction scene.
Nebraska (2013) ♠
The paradox of realism or naturalism, besides of course the glaring one of not acknowledging the pretending, is that it will still have a stroke, a bent, a tone. Every story you decide to tell straight will still have accent, context, perspective, an emphasis just by context or situation or difference. Take for example The Straight Story, David Lynch's attempt, which is even "straight" by reference to his other work, compared to this. The way both of these movies play it straight is also not a purely documentary or kitchen-sink kind of realism, more a sort of plaintive but comic frankness. Alexander Payne goes more into the petty squabbles, grudges, gossip and banal nastiness, as if turning over the rock to reveal that with the process, a casual discovery of what's beneath the casual or faded. But there's also a lightness and gentleness to that, or an airiness like the sparse environs between Montana and Nebraska, mostly around the highways. After Payne's The Descendants, this seems even straighter, more unflinching, if just the accent of its gruffer denizens. But Payne also gives us with this a portrait and expression that are fuller for being slower, quieter, and about the commotion that goes on even that way.
The paradox of realism or naturalism, besides of course the glaring one of not acknowledging the pretending, is that it will still have a stroke, a bent, a tone. Every story you decide to tell straight will still have accent, context, perspective, an emphasis just by context or situation or difference. Take for example The Straight Story, David Lynch's attempt, which is even "straight" by reference to his other work, compared to this. The way both of these movies play it straight is also not a purely documentary or kitchen-sink kind of realism, more a sort of plaintive but comic frankness. Alexander Payne goes more into the petty squabbles, grudges, gossip and banal nastiness, as if turning over the rock to reveal that with the process, a casual discovery of what's beneath the casual or faded. But there's also a lightness and gentleness to that, or an airiness like the sparse environs between Montana and Nebraska, mostly around the highways. After Payne's The Descendants, this seems even straighter, more unflinching, if just the accent of its gruffer denizens. But Payne also gives us with this a portrait and expression that are fuller for being slower, quieter, and about the commotion that goes on even that way.
Ghost (1990)
Such a pastiche of plot points and popular movie airs it's like several movies collided. The setup of flaunty yuppie movie lifestyle, the pottery wheel scene that's already a spoof before it was spoofed so many times, the thriller thread, the comedy shtick with Whoopi Goldberg as a medium who finds out she's not fake, the extra supernatural stuff with the ghost training and the schmaltzy heavenly special effects -- lots of business piled on, and for all that a surprising amount of Patrick Swayze reaction shots that don't make much of his character and give him little to do. There's little actually clever or inventive and the biggest can of worms is a metaphysical variation on vicariousness and agency in intimacy or sexuality that shunts its implications for only the straightest melodramatic romance resolution.
Such a pastiche of plot points and popular movie airs it's like several movies collided. The setup of flaunty yuppie movie lifestyle, the pottery wheel scene that's already a spoof before it was spoofed so many times, the thriller thread, the comedy shtick with Whoopi Goldberg as a medium who finds out she's not fake, the extra supernatural stuff with the ghost training and the schmaltzy heavenly special effects -- lots of business piled on, and for all that a surprising amount of Patrick Swayze reaction shots that don't make much of his character and give him little to do. There's little actually clever or inventive and the biggest can of worms is a metaphysical variation on vicariousness and agency in intimacy or sexuality that shunts its implications for only the straightest melodramatic romance resolution.
Irresistible (2006)
Independent Australian production, written and directed by Ann Turner, brings together Susan Sarandon and Sam Neill, and Emily Blunt in an early role to show off her talent with accents and ambivalent mien. The variation on gaslighting has some subtler twists, and the outrageous thriller turns aren't quite as outrageous as other cases. It manages to be interesting and give some mood, if more tilted toward the furnishings.
Independent Australian production, written and directed by Ann Turner, brings together Susan Sarandon and Sam Neill, and Emily Blunt in an early role to show off her talent with accents and ambivalent mien. The variation on gaslighting has some subtler twists, and the outrageous thriller turns aren't quite as outrageous as other cases. It manages to be interesting and give some mood, if more tilted toward the furnishings.
Impulse (1984)
Tim Mattheson and Meg Tilly tried to parlay their recent fame into starring roles, and Bill Paxton and Hume Cronyn, one very young, the other not, also appear. The mysterious cause of strange behavior, people acting without inhibition, connected to an apparent earthquake, makes for more drama and suspense than horror effects, and there's no shyness about how characters will be affected, creating some twists on any pure melodramatic outcome. What they use for background material, however, that gets dredged up, adds to a scattered quality other than intended, no less because of the unevenness of dramatic weight.
1/8/26
Tim Mattheson and Meg Tilly tried to parlay their recent fame into starring roles, and Bill Paxton and Hume Cronyn, one very young, the other not, also appear. The mysterious cause of strange behavior, people acting without inhibition, connected to an apparent earthquake, makes for more drama and suspense than horror effects, and there's no shyness about how characters will be affected, creating some twists on any pure melodramatic outcome. What they use for background material, however, that gets dredged up, adds to a scattered quality other than intended, no less because of the unevenness of dramatic weight.
The Princess Bride (1987)
A begrudging fairy tale as if from the perspective of adults who may be a bit weary of the material from having to read to children. That's what the frame of Peter Falk reading to grandson Fred Savage sets up in part, but the humor of the whole is more mature wry and parodic if also affectionate. This is mostly due to the script and performances, that part of the execution. Rob Reiner had this project in mind after his directorial debut This Is Spinal Tap, but did The Sure Thing and Stand by Me before he got this off the ground. He didn't have the greatest attention to production design and photography (compare Monty Python and the Holy Grail which looks fantastic on a fraction of the budget). In a fun cast with interesting people popping up even in bit parts (like Peter Cook), Manny Patinkin most deftly carries the playful seriousness.
A begrudging fairy tale as if from the perspective of adults who may be a bit weary of the material from having to read to children. That's what the frame of Peter Falk reading to grandson Fred Savage sets up in part, but the humor of the whole is more mature wry and parodic if also affectionate. This is mostly due to the script and performances, that part of the execution. Rob Reiner had this project in mind after his directorial debut This Is Spinal Tap, but did The Sure Thing and Stand by Me before he got this off the ground. He didn't have the greatest attention to production design and photography (compare Monty Python and the Holy Grail which looks fantastic on a fraction of the budget). In a fun cast with interesting people popping up even in bit parts (like Peter Cook), Manny Patinkin most deftly carries the playful seriousness.
The Fortune Cookie (1966)
Billy Wilder brought Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon together, but this social comedy about insurance fraud though light in tone follows a pretty straight plan. It doesn't have the comedic punch of Wilder's own Some Like It Hot or The Odd Couple, nor the bite of Ace in the Hole (maybe a reason he played lighter with the satire), and it certainly doesn't have the sweep of The Apartment, though much of it looks like it was filmed in the same apartment. It does have an appearance by sports announcer Keith Jackson, his biggest in movies.
Billy Wilder brought Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon together, but this social comedy about insurance fraud though light in tone follows a pretty straight plan. It doesn't have the comedic punch of Wilder's own Some Like It Hot or The Odd Couple, nor the bite of Ace in the Hole (maybe a reason he played lighter with the satire), and it certainly doesn't have the sweep of The Apartment, though much of it looks like it was filmed in the same apartment. It does have an appearance by sports announcer Keith Jackson, his biggest in movies.
Primitive War (2025)
A mashup of dinosaur and Vietnam movies isn't so cockamamie -- well, novel -- if you remember Kong: Skull Island. While this doesn't aim for quite that budget level of blockbuster, it comes in somewhere between higher end B movie and lower level niche production company efforts. It's an Australian production with Jeremy Piven as the most familiar in a cast of lesser known actors, American and Canadian among Australians, giving the sort of intensity that makes this more serious than it should be, especially Piven. The CG ranges from impressive to more like what you'd expect for its budget, sometimes in the same shot. And there's definitely an extended interest in seeing dinosaurs chomp humans, so if you've wanted that from your dinosaur movies, you might be able to wade through all the exposition and business about Soviet experiments gone wrong, although this is probably more gory than most folks would want for the dinosaur appeal to children.
A mashup of dinosaur and Vietnam movies isn't so cockamamie -- well, novel -- if you remember Kong: Skull Island. While this doesn't aim for quite that budget level of blockbuster, it comes in somewhere between higher end B movie and lower level niche production company efforts. It's an Australian production with Jeremy Piven as the most familiar in a cast of lesser known actors, American and Canadian among Australians, giving the sort of intensity that makes this more serious than it should be, especially Piven. The CG ranges from impressive to more like what you'd expect for its budget, sometimes in the same shot. And there's definitely an extended interest in seeing dinosaurs chomp humans, so if you've wanted that from your dinosaur movies, you might be able to wade through all the exposition and business about Soviet experiments gone wrong, although this is probably more gory than most folks would want for the dinosaur appeal to children.
Tron: Ares (2025)
Tron: Legacy tried to be more chic, and this goes in -- well, another direction, if not quite opposite. It's so streamlined for action that it's thin on development, making it seem simplistic if it's not anyway. But, hey, it's got a Nine Inch Nails soundtrack.
1/1/26
Tron: Legacy tried to be more chic, and this goes in -- well, another direction, if not quite opposite. It's so streamlined for action that it's thin on development, making it seem simplistic if it's not anyway. But, hey, it's got a Nine Inch Nails soundtrack.
The Odd Couple (1968)
A happy balance that works out for all concerned, not least for Walter Matthau and Jack Lemon. It's a case of a theatrical play working well for the movie version, not because of opening up -- there's some of that, here, and it does add some New York City flavor, such as the night photography with the flashing signs at the beginning, and buses and Shea Stadium -- but because everything Neil Simon's play does well also keeps it from movie foibles. It's situation comedy in the truest, best sense, not firing gags or one-liners, or setting up punchlines like tee-ball, but creating a portrait of these characters from their situation and rolling that along through dialogue that always flows with its context.
A happy balance that works out for all concerned, not least for Walter Matthau and Jack Lemon. It's a case of a theatrical play working well for the movie version, not because of opening up -- there's some of that, here, and it does add some New York City flavor, such as the night photography with the flashing signs at the beginning, and buses and Shea Stadium -- but because everything Neil Simon's play does well also keeps it from movie foibles. It's situation comedy in the truest, best sense, not firing gags or one-liners, or setting up punchlines like tee-ball, but creating a portrait of these characters from their situation and rolling that along through dialogue that always flows with its context.
Nuremberg (2025)
This starts out almost as if it's too flip about the subject. But there are two qualifications of that, one in the movie itself, the other from the situation outside it. The movie sets up a progression that's a recreation of how it occurred then: the revelation of the full extent of the holocaust. So there is definitely a contrast, a setup for a scene at the Nuremberg trials that involves archival footage. The other matter is just how difficult it is to play this sort of thing, especially when everything this message works against has returned and is being normalized. A certain amount of mollifying good conscience has come with the warmed over lessons of World War II, and even the well-meaning rehearsals like Judgment of Nuremberg. But as much as there needs to be room for other types of reaction, there doesn't need to be concession made to unregenerate denial. This movie is also not just the trials, despite the title, but a related story, another route to them, that of a psychiatrist who interviewed Hermann Göring. Despite a somewhat slick, expedient approach, it manages to get its points across.
This starts out almost as if it's too flip about the subject. But there are two qualifications of that, one in the movie itself, the other from the situation outside it. The movie sets up a progression that's a recreation of how it occurred then: the revelation of the full extent of the holocaust. So there is definitely a contrast, a setup for a scene at the Nuremberg trials that involves archival footage. The other matter is just how difficult it is to play this sort of thing, especially when everything this message works against has returned and is being normalized. A certain amount of mollifying good conscience has come with the warmed over lessons of World War II, and even the well-meaning rehearsals like Judgment of Nuremberg. But as much as there needs to be room for other types of reaction, there doesn't need to be concession made to unregenerate denial. This movie is also not just the trials, despite the title, but a related story, another route to them, that of a psychiatrist who interviewed Hermann Göring. Despite a somewhat slick, expedient approach, it manages to get its points across.
Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere (2025)
Like Bruce Springsteen himself, with his music, this walks the line between popular cliche and anything it would be or be about otherwise: original music, more profound contemplation, folk or ballad or rock that is popular without being hackneyed or pandering. Further twists ensue with artistic integrity or authenticity, since even what is true, deep, natural, soulful, etc., can be a pat or trite idea, itself conventional or cliche, or without understanding of the complexity of artifice. Scott Cooper, who directed and wrote the script, based on a book by Warren Zanes and Springsteen's autobiography Born to Run, tries to make this more about the creative process, which is admirable, but it's also another kind of hazard. Trying to show how artists create often reduces processes of the mind to literal-minded depiction, biopic cliches. The movie starts out looking like that, but becomes more interesting where's it about the particular project and process of Nebraska. For related movie interest, the title track of that album was inspired by Badlands. Springsteen watching a movie or looking up articles on Charles Starkweather provides more pithy and interesting practical action, tracking away from melodramatic swells. I was also wondering if Jeremy Allen White would avoid the smoldering of either the beleaguered artist or the Carmy variety, and he does a good job of giving us a tack that's not just impersonation or derivative.
Like Bruce Springsteen himself, with his music, this walks the line between popular cliche and anything it would be or be about otherwise: original music, more profound contemplation, folk or ballad or rock that is popular without being hackneyed or pandering. Further twists ensue with artistic integrity or authenticity, since even what is true, deep, natural, soulful, etc., can be a pat or trite idea, itself conventional or cliche, or without understanding of the complexity of artifice. Scott Cooper, who directed and wrote the script, based on a book by Warren Zanes and Springsteen's autobiography Born to Run, tries to make this more about the creative process, which is admirable, but it's also another kind of hazard. Trying to show how artists create often reduces processes of the mind to literal-minded depiction, biopic cliches. The movie starts out looking like that, but becomes more interesting where's it about the particular project and process of Nebraska. For related movie interest, the title track of that album was inspired by Badlands. Springsteen watching a movie or looking up articles on Charles Starkweather provides more pithy and interesting practical action, tracking away from melodramatic swells. I was also wondering if Jeremy Allen White would avoid the smoldering of either the beleaguered artist or the Carmy variety, and he does a good job of giving us a tack that's not just impersonation or derivative.
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Entries by Greg Macon for the Facebook group Movie Brains, related to film comments on this website, Fixion. Text for movie comments this page © 2026 Greg Macon. Banner image and quote from Earth vs. The Flying Saucers.
Contact: mail@fixionsytes.net