Best of TIFF 2024 – Part One

The 49th Annual Toronto International Festival (TIFF) offers countless movie options for professionals and fans of all ages, and this proud Phoenix Film Festival critic has caught 39 films in the Great White North, so far.  I recommend a ton of features, but here are five of my favorites, The Best of TIFF 2024 – Part One, and on Sept. 20, I’ll add an additional five for a Best of TIFF 2024 – Part Two article. 

Thank you for reading, and I’ll see you soon, Phoenix! 

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“Anora” – Director/writer Sean Baker’s boy-meets-girl movie is an electric and turbulent exotic-dancer-meets-Russian-billionaire love story.  Anora (Mikey Madison), or “Ani” as she prefers, dazzles Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn) with seductive charm, and his freewheeling charisma and monetary excesses astonish her.  This dynamic duo disregards their safety belts on their wild rollercoaster affair.  Baker’s films (“Tangerine” (2015), “The Florida Project” (2017), “Red Rocket” (2021)) live on society’s fringes, but this high-roller flick frequently lives in lavish spaces.  With kinetic camerawork and captivating performances, this comedy – with, of course, grounded drama too - flies as Baker’s most vivacious film. 

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“The Girl with the Needle” – Karoline (Vic Carmen Stone), a seamstress, can’t make ends meet in Copenhagen while her husband fights in The Great War.  She’s forced to move into a dilapidated flat that sets in motion her desperate journey where harsh lines of societal classes and limited choices for women lead her to an unexpected landing spot with a new friend (Trine Dyrholm).  Director/co-writer Magnus von Horn’s gorgeously shot black and white picture contrasts and compliments the exceedingly bleak narrative, and Stone delivers one of best performances of the year. 

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“The Seed of the Sacred Fig” – Germany’s Foreign Language Oscar submission, directed and written by Mohammad Rasoulof, is set in modern-day Tehran, where a family of four – at first - internally struggle with the differing generational outlooks on the 2022/2023 hijab protests.  However, the focus changes once the patriarch, Iman (Missagh Zareh), faces a specific work crisis that spills into the home.  Rasoulof’s stressful whodunit is filled with paranoia as Iman, Iman’s wife, Najmeh (Soheila Golestani), and their girls, Rezvan (Masha Rostami) and Sana (Setareh Maleki), attempt to cope with their in-house commotion as well as country-wide turmoil.

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“The Substance” – When 50-something actress Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) feels the effects of Father Time, she turns to a mad-scientist treatment, a mysterious green liquid known as The Substance, and suddenly, her 20-something self (Margaret Qualley) appears!  How cool, right?  Well, there’s a catch.  Uh oh!  Director/writer Coraline Fargeat’s (“Revenge” (2017)) sensational body-horror tale gorges on gore and proudly holds up a maddening mirror to society’s demand for impossible beauty standards.  Moore and Qualley are terrific, both inside and out! 

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“The Village Next to Paradise” – The sun is always shining in Paradise, a modest oceanfront village in Somalia, but there isn’t enough commerce for residents to save for a rainy day.   Mamargade (Ahmed Ali Farah), a gravedigger by trade, can’t find enough work and even asks a colleague if any deadly drone strikes have recently struck…to help support his day job.  He lives with his sister Araweelo (Anab Ahmed Ibrahim) and his young son, Cigaal (Ahmed Mohamud Saleban), but Mamargade leans on her for financial support while she also grapples with the depressing economic status quo.  Director/writer Mo Harawe’s tranquil pacing and commitment to the three leads’ arcs deliver a mesmerizing watch over 132 absorbing minutes.  

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Relax with Five Movies about Working on Labor Day

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Labor Day offers workers a chance to unwind, barbeque, or visit with family and friends.  In my book, any vacation day is perfect for watching a movie, so here are five films centered around working to appreciate during your day off!   

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“9 to 5” (1980) – Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and Dolly Parton starred in the second highest-grossing movie of 1980, $103 million and second only to “The Empire Strikes Back”, as three women use figurative laser cannons and lightsabers to smash an unjust workplace in amusing and empowering fashions.  Judy (Fonda), Violet (Tomlin), and Doralee (Parton) plot against their boss, Franklin Hart (Dabney Coleman), after his repeated sexist slights, and the triad winds up running the company while keeping Mr. Hart indisposed.  All three leads are especially likable, and Fonda offers the biggest surprise with her understated performance.  Arriving in theatres during the height of the women’s liberation movement, the film – and Parton’s song - struck a chord with audiences, especially with women impacted by discriminating office environments. One can imagine packed 1980 movie theatres bursting out in laughter and emotional release when Doralee threatens Mr. Hart by saying, “I’m gonna get that gun of mine and change you from a rooster to a hen in one shot.”

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“Clerks” (1994) - Working behind the register of a New Jersey convenience store would appear to be a stress-free job, but no one warned Dante Hicks (Brian O’Halloran) about his upcoming day in writer/director Kevin Smith’s hilarious first feature, one filmed in black and white on a shoestring budget.  Dante deals with a constant stream of oddballs looking to buy cigarettes, candy, and milk while his ex-girlfriend drops by and two harmless drug dealers loiter outside.  Highly conversational, Smith’s picture paints the struggles of directionless 20-somethings, as Dante and his best friend, Randal (Jeff Anderson), opine about the original “Star Wars” trilogy and pornography, and they plan a street hockey adventure too.  No, Dante’s work is not overly laborious, but he was “not even supposed to be here today.” 

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“Night Shift” (1982) – Michael Keaton, while playing Bruce Wayne in “Batman” (1989), famously uttered, “Come on.  Let’s get nuts!”  Well, Keaton’s breakout performance as a New York City morgue driver, Bill Blazejowski, in director Ron Howard’s “Night Shift” is delightfully over-the-top and nutty.  Bill is a loose cannon, a self-proclaimed idea man, who wears sunglasses inside, repeatedly sings “Jumping Jack Flash”, and convinces his morgue partner, Chuck Lumley (Henry Winkler), into running a prostitution ring from their place of business during the – you guessed it – night shift.  They aren’t pimps but “love brokers,” as Bill declares.  Winkler’s mild-mannered, soft-spoken take on Chuck is nowhere near the self-confident Arthur Fonzarelli from “Happy Days” (1974 – 1984), and Henry and Michael enjoy straight-man-versus-zany-lunatic comedic chemistry while overseeing the “oldest profession” in a new locale.  The main plot thread features Chuck’s hopeful journey towards gaining his self-assurance and potentially finding romance with Belinda (Shelley Long), but Keaton’s star-making turn lights up the day, swing, and night shifts!  

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“Norma Rae” (1979) – Sally Field won her first Best Actress Oscar by playing the title role in director Martin Ritt’s picture about a single mom toiling in a North Carolina cotton factory.  Persistent and altruistic, Norma Rae Webster (Field) fights for workers’ rights against unfair conditions.  She’s a leader, and the words “stand up” can be taken literally when Norma Rae raises a “UNION” sign above her head.  All eyes - on-screen and in the audience - focus on her.  It’s an iconic cinematic image, Field’s grandest moment, one that topped her on-screen mischief as a California teen in “Gidget” (1965-1966) and her act as an airborne philanthropist in “The Flying Nun” (1967-1970).  The movie – nominated for three other Oscars, including Best Picture – is based on the true story of Crystal Lee Sutton.

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“Two Days, One Night” (2014) – In writer/directors Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne’s emotional roller-coaster, Sandra (Marion Cotillard) takes a temporary leave of absence from her job at a Belgian solar panel company due to depression and anxiety.  Still, the higher-ups might permanently remove her from the company payroll to cut expenses when they offer the other employees a choice:  keep your bonus or keep Sandra employed.  In a fascinating look at the human condition, Sandra approaches each of her coworkers over a weekend to ask for their vote of confidence, and her colleagues respond in various – heartbreaking and sobering – ways.  The Academy rightfully nominated Cotillard for a Best Actress Oscar, as she masterfully captures the internal churn of potential downsizing while her character attempts to discover her self-worth. 

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Between The Temples – Movie Review

Directed by:   Nathan Silver

Written by:  Nathan Silver and C. Mason Wells

Starring:  Jason Schwartzman, Carol Kane, Caroline Aaron, Dolly De Leon, Madeline Weinstein, and Robert Smigel

Runtime:  111 minutes

‘Between the Temples’: Schwartzman and Kane offer keen performances in this eccentric comedy

Benjamin Gottlieb (Jason Schwartzman) is having a bad day.  

While sitting in a local Upstate New York bar, minding his own business, and drinking a mudslide, Ben overhears a stranger poking fun at him.  Ben, to his credit, confronts the bully but is knocked to the floor with one punch.   

Ooof.

A random patron (Carol Kane) comes to Ben’s aid, but in a rare moment of fate, Ben realizes that this Good Samaritan is his elementary school music teacher, Mrs. O’Connor, who now goes by her maiden name, Kessler.  Carla Kessler, a grandmother, doesn’t remember Ben from all those years ago.  Still, they awkwardly connect – in the here and now - through the aforementioned violent circumstance and their scholastic link.

Let’s go back to Ben.  He is having a bad YEAR.  

This 30-or-40-something is depressed.  Ben is no longer together with his wife, Ruth.  (The audience doesn’t immediately know why, but we discover the reason later.)  He moves back home with his two moms, Meira (Caroline Aaron) and Judith (Dolly De Leon), and even attempts suicide.  

Ben looks for some spiritual relief as a cantor for Rabbi Bruce (Robert Smigel) at Temple Sinai but, when called upon, fails to sing in front of the shul.  However, when Carla, in her 60s or 70s, shows interest in having a bat mitzvah (because she never had one as a kid), Ben and she have a harmonious opportunity to support one another through her future celebration and music.  

Director Nathan Silver’s “Between the Temples” is music for Schwartzman and Kane fans.  Their characters form an unlikely new friendship in this curious, eccentric comedy that’s driven and filled by purposely awkward, character-driven discourse as Ben and Carla attempt to overcome their individual challenges.  

Sad sack Ben has much more internal work to do than Carla.  He needs a team of therapists.  Moving in with your parents, who provide comfort (and a roof) but little practical advice, 20 years after graduating from high school is an obvious tell.  

As Ben, Schwartzman, one of Wes Anderson’s go-to actors, is the polar opposite of the fearless, overconfident Max Fischer from his breakout performance in “Rushmore” (1998).  Here, a directionless Ben wallows in grief and self-pity and in a way, reminds this critic of Richie Tenenbaum (Luke Wilson), the struggling tennis pro in another Anderson classic, “The Royal Tenenbaums” (2001).    

Ben is down 40-LOVE in the game of life, but he discovers purpose by mentoring Carla on her bat mitzvah journey.  

By design (or through possible financial limitations), the film looks and feels made on a shoestring budget and possibly filmed with an iPhone or two.  Silver and cinematographer Sean Price Williams’ cameras (or phones) bob and weave on location in Kingston, NY, a small town with a population of 24,000, located 100 miles north of New York City through a local bar, restaurant, a couple of homes, and a temple.  The photography often/sometimes seems grainy, where the natural light isn’t enough.  The look is distracting at first, but it weirdly gives the story authentic vibes, as if Ben and Carla’s tale could almost be a random documentary.  Ben and Carla even talk with their mouths full at lunch, including the former player spitting out his food on the table. 

The camerawork and comedic banter use a similar style that made “The Office” (2005 – 2013) famous (my apologies, I’ve only seen a handful of the original British production episodes).  Uncomfortable exchanges frequently occur, and the subsequent big-screen image will then settle on a close-up of a character’s face for a reaction shot.  De Leon, Aaron, and Smigel play along with the gags nicely, and so does Madeline Weinstein, who is Gabby, a potential love interest for Ben.  

For lonely Ben, Carla becomes a friendly fixture of time, so she could be the cure on his way to recovery!  The screenplay spins most of Ben’s backstory yarn in the first act, but Carla’s reveal twirls throughout the second and third, and Kane gracefully works through it beautifully.

Speaking of grace, Smigel offers a sturdy, foundational supporting performance as the ever-steady rabbi, lightyears away from his maniacal Triumph the Insult Comic Dog alter-ego.  

Still, “Between the Temples” might have shades of Triumph in spirit because Silver, Schwartzman, Kane, Smigel, and the cast aren’t afraid to say, “I keed.  I keed.” 

 Jeff’s ranking

2.5/4 stars

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Sing Sing – Movie Review

Directed by:   Greg Kwedar

Starring:  Colman Domingo, Clarence Maclin, Paul Raci, Sean San Jose, David Giraudy, Patrick Griffin, Sean Dino Johnson, and John “Divine G” Whitfield

Runtime:  105 minutes

‘Sing Sing’:  This real-life incarceration drama sings with hope and authenticity

“The world expects brothers like you and I to walk in with our heads held down.  No, you got to walk in like a king.” – John “Divine G” Whitfield (Colman Domingo) 

John “Divine G” Whitfield champions a theatrical stage company.  He writes, produces, and performs in live-action plays, and he’s done so for years.  John is passionate about his work and enjoys the freedom to showcase his creativity.  

Freedom, however, is in limited supply for John and his acting troupe, Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA), because the performers are, in fact, incarcerated persons serving sentences at the Sing Sing Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison, which sits about 40 miles north of New York City.  

Director/co-writer Greg Kwedar’s touching drama is an ensemble piece where an assembly of men caucus for a constructive common good to improve themselves and the world by creating art.  

Kwedar takes a holistic, expressive approach to convey this story.  Throughout the 105-minute runtime, he and cinematographer Pat Scola include dozens of shots that starkly contrast the warm, colorful labor of love in creating theatrical art with the cold, hard truth of incarceration.  

A prime example of this cinematic juxtaposition arises in the first act, as close-ups of a delicate, almost-glowing stage curtain with angelic qualities along with an emotional Divine G are soon followed by the RTA players glumly forced into a militaristic-like procession and marching to their cells.  Divine G lives in a tiny space with his roommate, Mike Mike (Sean San Jose), in an unassuming concrete corner marked by two doors, B27 and B28, and we don’t know which one houses the two men. 

Triumph and joy from the stage morph into anonymity and desolation.  

“Sing Sing” lives and breathes in these physical and emotive spaces with barbed wire, towering fences, and intimidating but weathered brick and mortar, retaining the men who routinely recite their acting approaches and lines in small circles, accompanied by smiles, laughter, and frequent confessionals.   

(Note that Kwedar and his team filmed the outside of Sing Sing but not inside because the facility is still in service.  Instead, they shot indoors at the nearby Downstate Correctional Facility, which properly captured bleak, institutional vibes.) 

To tender an authentic RTA presentation, the vast majority of on-screen actors are RTA alumni, including Sean Dino Johnson, Patrick Griffin, David Giraudy, and – in a stunning breakout performance – Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin, who also earned a writing credit.  In fact, according to the film’s production notes, over 85 percent of the cast are RTA alums.  Domingo, San Jose, and Paul Raci (who plays the company’s director, Brent Buell) help anchor the RTA cast to this film production, but Johnson, Griffin, Giraudy, Maclin, and many others steer the narrative with their personal stories.  Tales of past acting successes, current wants on the working play - a time-traveling comedy, “Breakin’ the Mummy’s Code” with appearances from Hamlet and Freddy Krueger (yes, that Freddy Krueger!) – caring moments of friendship, reflections on past mistakes, and dreams.  

The engaging, intimate reveals and prep sessions that help bring “Breakin’ the Mummy’s Code” from Brent’s paper to life on stage feel organic through Acts I, II, and III, but we also get a bit lost in the timeframe.  Now, the end goal is clear, but the individual, personal moments, at times, tend to drift as loose, leisurely storytelling choices that raise questions on the film’s direction in the moment on our way to a hopeful conclusion.   

However, not in Divine G’s and Divine Eye’s cases.  

Divine G, a long-time RTA veteran, and Divine Eye, a newcomer to the troupe, weave their mentor-pupil thread through the ups and downs of rehearsals and life lessons.  Divine Eye, a drug dealer inside these walls, brings an element of contention to this otherwise merry RTA cast.  We see G and Brent push and pull Eye to bring out his best for “Mummy’s Code”, but they also know when to limit their efforts to not quell his confidence nor raise his ire.   

Maclin, in his first feature film role, stands toe-to-toe and alongside Domingo as they build a budding friendship.  Kwedar includes several quiet, emotional scenes where Eye leans on G, while we also hope that G will allow Eye to repay his kindness.  

“Sing Sing” is a film about men creating a cohesive bond and introducing tangible, positive change into the universe.  That universe includes events within Sing Sing’s stark walls, but these feelings extend outside as so many real-life graduates of the program have not returned to incarceration, breaking an all-too-common cycle.  

Does the real-life John “Divine G” Whitfield reach total freedom?  You’ll have to stay until the end to discover his fate, and my advice is to wait through the end credits with your head held high.  

 Jeff’s ranking

3/4 stars

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It Ends with Us – Movie Review

Directed by:   Justin Baldoni

Written by:  Christy Hall based on Colleen Hoover’s book

Starring:  Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni, Jenny Slate, Hasan Minhaj, Brandon Sklenar, Alex Neustaedter, and Isabela Ferrer

Runtime:  130 minutes

‘It Ends with Us’ delivers an important message along with a never-ending array of rom-trauma cliches

Lily Bloom’s (Blake Lively) life is starting to blossom, and “Blossom” is her middle name.  Truly.

This 20-something Bostonian moved from Stephen King country in (fictional) Plethora, Maine, and she owns a massive, gorgeous flower shop, one overflowing with buds and florets.  

One evening, while sitting on the roof of a pristine apartment building, she meets a guy, a striking fellow named Ryle (Justin Baldoni), who also happens to be a neurosurgeon.  

You can’t make this stuff up.

(Ryle looks like a runway-model version of Sacha Baron Cohen (a.k.a. Borat), but this Superman doctor deploys smarmy, creepy player vibes and pursues Lily like a stalker.  He won’t take no for an answer.  Ick!  Unfortunately, she caves to his pressure, but hey, we need the movie to happen, right?)

This is a dream scenario for Lily.  Could life get any better?  

Life is a far cry from her nightmarish upbringing in King’s Pine Tree State, where she witnessed her father’s lifetime ritual of inflicting domestic abuse on her mother, Jenny (Amy Morton).

Has Lily overcome her past, and has she escaped this cycle of abuse? 

“It Ends with Us”, based on Colleen Hoover’s 2016 novel (so, apparently, you can make this stuff up), attempts to answer these questions.  Baldoni performs triple duty as a director and producer as well.  

This critic did not read Hoover’s novel because a 50-something man is not the target audience.  Now, if Larry Bloom opens a hugely successful sports bar (with no apparent means of raising the capital), Gisele Bundchen swings by the pub, and she instantly falls for Larry, perhaps I’d buy that book.  

No question, the “It Ends with Us” film adaptation offers an important message about attempting to defeat past demons and face present challenges.  Baldoni and screenwriter Christy Hall (“Daddio” (2023)) do an admirable job of revealing Lily’s adolescent experiences and tying them into her days as a businesswoman grown-up.  The film volleys between the two experiences and frequently returns to a time when teenage Lily (Isabela Ferrer) and her first boyfriend, Atlas (Alex Neustaedter), navigate their awkward but sweet courtship.  

Quite frankly, young Lily and young Atlas’ relationship – with grounded moments of making cookies, a bus ride, and first kisses - is engaging and feels more authentic than the happenings with our present-day heroine.  Let’s have a 130-minute big-screen story with young Lily and Atlas instead.  

Anyway, Blake’s Lily bestie, Allysa (Jenny Slate), and her husband, Marshall (Hasan Minhaj), have more money than God and throw luxurious parties.  We don’t see Lily dealing with the day-to-day stresses of owning a business or supplier issues, watering the plants, or working with customers other than Ryle or current-day Atlas (Brandon Sklenar) stopping in to say, “Hello.” 

Ryle works an easy, breezy 9-to-5 work schedule because brain surgeries aren’t in high demand in Beantown, and Lily prepares dinner before he gets home.  Her floral shop runs itself.  Of course, Ryle and Lily’s relationship in this film is paramount, so day-to-day operational challenges aren’t significant, but “It Ends with Us” decorates a fantasyland of domestic riches, and a never-ending utopia of tranquil conveniences splash on the screen. 

Baldoni, cinematographer Barry Peterson, and art directors Marci Mudd and Annie Simeone offer Lily a welcoming environment while including montages of big city life as an array of maudlin songs similar to Paula Cole’s “I Don’t Want to Wait” from “Dawson’s Creek” (1998 – 2003) shower through the movie theatre’s speakers.  The film also frequently cuts away to momentary wide shots of downtown Boston in between scenes so often that shades of Tommy Wiseau’s infamous “The Room” (2003) – where he deploys a similar strategy with San Francisco – creep into view. 

Granted, “It Ends with Us” isn’t a bad film, but it’s an all-too-familiar cinematic formula that feels like a nuanced grandchild of “The Burning Bed” (1984), a TV movie starring Farrah Fawcett that gave birth to 100,000 or so similar cautionary tales.  

Admittedly, “It Ends with Us” is critic-proof and will probably pack theatres, like “Transformers: Age of Extinction” (2014) did with an entirely different audience.  But hey, if millions of young women take away the positives of the movie’s message through Lively’s and Baldoni’s capable performances, who can argue with that, right?  So, cheers to that hopeful sentiment.

Still, the same lesson can be gleaned while watching countless other rom-trauma options via streaming, and “It Ends with Us” won’t be the last such film to cover this dicey topic. 

Jeff’s ranking

2/4 stars

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The Duel – Movie Review

Directed and written by:   Justin Matthews and Luke Spencer Roberts

Starring:  Dylan Sprouse, Callan McAuliffe, Denny Love, Hart Denton, Maria Gabriela de Faria, Rachel Matthews, Christian McGaffney, Ronald Guttman, and Patrick Warburton

Runtime:  100 minutes

‘The Duel’:  This modern-day dramedy, about an old-school idea, successfully balances humor and anxiety

“Revenge is a dish best served cold.” 

Woody (Callan McAuliffe) discovers that his girlfriend had an affair with his best friend, Colin (Dylan Sprouse), and he decides to serve revenge with fiery heat. 

Woody burns Colin’s surfboard, one with colossal sentimental value.  Colin’s late father crafted the board for his son, and it’s now charred into smoke on a Southern California beach in the black of night.  

The audience witnesses this striking, burning sight, but Colin does not.  Still, the thought of his BFF torching this personal memento ignites Colin’s ire, and the two 20-somethings need to settle their differences.  

Talking it out over a few beers while playing “Madden NFL 24” won’t cut it.  

They decide that a more somber solution is required, and Woody and Colin choose a duel to the death.

This story sounds as serious as a heart attack, but directors/writers Justin Matthews and Luke Spencer Roberts’ “The Duel” is a comedy too.  Woody, Colin, and their buds, Sam (Denny Love) and Kevin (Hart Denton), wander from California to Mexico on a road trip to see this duel declaration through.  The screenplay basks in the absurdity of this mutually destructive threat, as Sam and Kevin act as the on-screen observers for the audience.  They attempt a voices-of-reason responsibility for Woody and Colin, but Sam and Kevin are unwilling chaperones or wingmen for their stubborn besties.  

In a way, “The Duel” shares some parallels with the teen comedy “Losin’ It” (1982), in which four kids – led by Dave (Jackie Earle Haley) and another Woody (Tom Cruise) – head to Tijuana to party.  

In both movies, four naive young men throw themselves into the deep end of the pool, tread water, and attempt to reach a secure edge for safety, although in “The Duel”, the stakes are dramatically higher. 

With Woody and Colin taking a stoic and unyielding outlook towards destruction, the screenplay leans on Love’s Sam, Denton’s Kevin, and other colorful characters for comic relief. 

Sam and Kevin comedically balance one another with the former’s optimism and the latter’s gloom and doom, and their engaging on-screen time is welcomed.  

Along the way, they meet Christof (Patrick Warburton, best known as Puddy from “Seinfeld”), an eccentric database of high-stakes mano e mano combat knowledge and a collector of personal warfare instruments in his warehouse-district abode.  Christof’s instructions, via his elegant and posh cadence, help guide Woody and Colin into a choice of terminal tools.  

However, they need a locale to sanction this collision, and they bump into a small-time dealer, Joey (Christian McGaffney), who will help escort them south of the border to a drug kingpin, Rudolpho (Ronald Guttman).  Sam’s and Kevin’s comedic exchanges with Joey generally miss, but the cocaine-fueled Joey certainly provides an element of danger.  On the other hand, Guttman’s Rudolpho shines with all the feels of a Bond villain.  He eloquently speaks like an aristocrat while providing comfort in his lavish Biltmore-like estate but also exudes a sense of gravitas and finality.  He and his dozens of guests expect a real-life lethal contest with the pomp and circumstance of a holiday banquet and after-dinner entertainment on lavish grounds.  

Credit Matthews and Roberts’ team for finding such a beautiful locale for the film’s second and third acts and cinematographer Robert Brinkmann, production designer Gordon Strain, and costume designer Lara de Bruijn for capturing the opulence all around the four men. 

Speaking of beauty and opulence, a debutante named Aphrodite (Maria Gabriela de Faria) engages with the boys as a wacky but informed loose cannon.  The guys (and the audience) clasp onto this semi-sane person as the slow-moving madness of a duel seems inevitable.

Still, Woody and Colin have free will and could back out, but what would be the consequences if they canceled their clash at Rudolpho’s estate?  

In the 21st century, men might settle their disputes over conversation, social media, or the previously mentioned beer and video games, but “The Duel” places two modern-day men into a potential promise of physical consequences for unjust actions.  

Matthews and Roberts throw the audience and the players into an uncomfortable arrangement and build tension to see if Woody and Colin will push forward with their declaration.  Over the course of a 100-minute runtime, simple talk leisurely becomes an authentic threat, and the filmmakers and supporting cast successfully play with humorous tones while insecurity also runs high.  

Revenge is a dish best served cold, but will cooler heads prevail?

“The Duel” delves into a struggle of ideas between eras, faces the audience, and answers this question.   

Jeff’s ranking

3/4 stars

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Twisters – Movie Review

Directed by:  Lee Isaac Chung

Written by:  Mark L. Smith

Starring:  Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell, Anthony Ramos, David Corenswet, Sasha Lane, and Maura Tierney

Runtime:  122 minutes

‘Twisters’ spins in place compared to its 28-year-old predecessor 

In 1996, “Twister”, a tornado-chasing action-adventure flick starring Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt, took movie audiences by storm and funneled a massive box-office take of just under half a billion dollars. 

Director Jan de Bont’s 90s disaster thriller is filled with twisty terror but also whimsy as a ragtag collection of scientists and researchers regularly encircle, with daredevil abandon, nature’s whirlwinds.  However, the will-they-or-won’t-they romantic tension between Bill (Paxton) and Jo (Hunt) is the emotional glue that holds this entertaining picture together. 

Twenty-eight years later, a sequel, “Twisters”, blasts into theatres.  Although the film – at times - attempts to capture the magic of the original, “Twisters”, directed by Lee Isaac Chung (“Minari” (2020)), takes a noticeably sharp tonal shift from whimsical and hazardous to melancholy and hazardous.  In other words, this movie isn’t terribly fun.  Furthermore, the 2024 weather phenomena may be more dangerous and more frequent, but the menacing conditions don’t offer enough scares, save a couple of places, including the opening few minutes where tragedy strikes.  

No, “Twisters” isn’t a tragedy, but it feels like an ordinary event.  

As mentioned, the movie opens with a traumatic happening in which a bright, plucky student, Kate Carter (Daisy Edgar-Jones), leads her team to chase an Oklahoma tempest, hoping to “tame the tornado.”  Essentially, she and four others, including her boyfriend, Jeb (Daryl McCormack), try to dissipate the tornado with a chemical compound in the form of a powder.  Kate’s hopes are rained out, and the disastrous incident haunts her for years, five to be exact.  

We find Kate a shell of her previously confident and bubbly self, even though she has a great job in New York City.  A friend and colleague, Javi (Anthony Ramos), pays her an east-coast visit and talks her into returning to the Sooner State to chase tornadoes again.  

Well, storm chasing is now an Olympic sport!  Several teams, with varying uniforms, are hopped up on triple macchiatos, a scene that seems plucked out of “Midnight Madness” (1980).  Still, with all the supporting researchers and assistants roaming around, Sacha Lane’s Lily and David Corenswet’s Scott are the only halfway memorable ones.

Javi runs a corporate machine of SUVs and Type-A fellas, and Kate uses her hometown intuition to help his team find tornadoes so they can take 3D pictures.  

Tyler Owens (Glen Powell), a YouTube sensation known as the Tornado Wrangler, leads a rival faction.  He’s from Arkansas, dons a cowboy hat, and says, “If you feel it, chase it!”  

Catchy!

Powell easily emits arrogant Hangman vibes from “Top Gun: Maverick” (2022), but Tyler shows a compassionate, sensitive side, mainly because he’s attracted to Kate and her tornado know-how.  

They could make a lovely couple if the script allows it.

The human components of “Twisters” center around a potential romance between Tyler and Kate and also her struggles over the past.  She essentially wallows in self-pity during the present.  These two ideas intertwine, and Powell is especially good at balancing Tyler’s flashy, thrill-seeking tendencies with genuine empathy and care for Kate.  Edgar-Jones’ performance is adequate for the story, but her character places her in a one-note bind.  Kate’s frequent malaise runs in place over the same ground for most of the 122-minute runtime and grows tiresome.  However, in the third act, she has a shot at redemption in a climactic confrontation.  

If you buy into Kate’s internal churn and arc, this film could spin you into cinematic delights.  If not, “Twisters” rains and reigns with boredom as Tyler, Javi, and Kate’s mom (Maura Tierney) incessantly offer encouraging words – in quiet, intimate spaces - to our lead.  Chung and screenwriter Mark L. Smith are so focused on frequently raising Kate’s spirits through several one-on-one pick-me-up talks that this plotline sucks all oxygen out of the Oklahoma atmosphere.  

We’re left with the “hope” for bigger and badder weather systems.  

Unfortunately, the tornadoes – as villains without faces - are hit-and-miss.  Sometimes, they evoke angst (like in the opening few minutes), and other times, they feel like boilerplate, CGI creations from a Hollywood laptop.  Tyler’s souped-up truck, ironically, quells much of the danger because – at a press of a button – two corkscrew drills spring from his vehicle, drill into the ground, and secure his savage method of transportation and its passengers, even when he parks it within inches of a tornado.  

Nice!  But then, where’s the danger?  

So, cinematographer Dan Mindel and the special effects team conjure a refinery explosion and a rodeo’s utter decimation.  In another scene, innocent bystanders huddle in place in a specific brick-and-mortar building while 300 mph winds rip away the said bricks.

Well, tornado science has come a long way since 1996, so maybe the on-screen Oklahoma residents will be OK when facing these weather disasters.  

That’s encouraging, but as a movie, “Twisters” spins in place compared to its 28-year-old predecessor. 

Jeff’s ranking

2/4 stars

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Touch - Movie Review

 Directed by:  Baltasar Kormakur

Written by:  Baltasar Kormakur and Olaf Olafsson, based on Olafsson’s novel

Starring:  Egill Olafsson, Palmi Kormakur, Koki, Masahiro Motoki, Meg Kubota, Masatoshi Nakamura, Yoko Narahashi, and Ruth Sheen

Runtime:  121 minutes

‘Touch’ taps into tangible feelings of love found and lost

“Looking back as days go by.” – Kristofer (Egill Olafsson)

 Director/co-writer Baltasar Kormakur’s film “Touch”, based on co-writer Olaf Olafsson’s 2022 novel, taps into tangible feelings of love found and lost. 

It’s about aging and taking inventory of one’s life. 

It’s about looking back, touching memories of first love, reaching out for closure, and either shutting a door forever or leaving it open for a second chance. 

Well, “Touch” is a sweet, tender, worthwhile story that swims in cross-cultural waters, but it wades in place at times with pacing issues due to the casual beats of ordinary, clumsy courtship rituals.

Kristofer, a septuagenarian Icelander living in his home country in 2020, has health problems.  His doctor informs him to address his affairs.  This daunting message forces him to immediately ponder a romantic relationship that ended over 50 years ago, and he must seek his long-lost love, Miko. 

The film returns to 1969 when Kristofer (also played by Palmi Kormakur, Baltasar’s son) studies at The London School of Economics.  This idealist has “lost interest” in his studies.  His buddies, who resemble the minor assembly of Harvard snobs in “Good Will Hunting” (1997), don’t understand Kristofer when he quits school to be a dishwasher at a Japanese restaurant near campus.

Quite frankly, Kristofer doesn’t entirely understand his foggy decision, but life clears up when he meets Miko (Koki), the beautiful and kind early 20-something daughter of the restaurant’s owner, Takahashi (Masahiro Motoki). 

The congenial and soft-spoken new dish hand has zero food service experience and can’t speak Miko and Takahashi’s native language, but he’s eager to learn.  He works hard, pays deference to his co-workers, becomes familiar with the menu, and learns Japanese in his spare time. 

Kristofer is a model employee but a bit awkward around Miko, who isn’t shy when asking questions.  She makes subtle first moves and peruses him in measured steps while her father isn’t looking.  Miko and Kristofer eventually engage in a tender, heartfelt romance, as they spend stolen moments at the restaurant but also between Miko and her dad’s apartment, Kristofer’s place, and the trains traveling to and from blue-collar neighborhoods. 

The two immigrants – from different nations - engage in intimate conversations, where they learn about each other’s cultures, but Miko’s past is wrapped in vulnerabilities.  The screenplay breaks from traditional dating questions and into fascinating territory when exploring a hellacious period in Japan’s history.  Kormakur and Olafsson have plot-device reasons for including this particular fact.   

Koki’s Miko is constantly fascinating, as she carries a bold confidence that conflicts with her demure impressions when she’s around her dad.  Meanwhile, Kristofer may have shown bravado when dramatically changing his life, but he’s a bit sheepish and willing to be led in his new environment.

As a couple, the two are inexperienced with affairs of the heart, which requires patience from the audience.  Their frequent and familiar new-relationship discourse occurs in quiet rooms and free of fanfare.  Cinematically, there is little to enjoy in 1969 from a production design perspective, as the couple never explores London’s wonders, like Big Ben, a rock concert at a club, or a trip to the zoo.  Instead, Kristofer and Miko pontificate in ordinary spaces, where the most engaging background object (on-set) is a painting of Jesus Christ who faces their bed. 

Still, while we visit 1969, we wonder how their divine relationship ends.

Well, Kormakur splits his time between 1969 and 2020 and frequently volleys between the two Kristofers.  The technique helps alleviate the slow-as-the-London-traffic pace in 1969, as 2020 Kristofer’s scavenger hunt for clues about Miko jettisons him on a worldwide search. 

Egill effectively carries Kristofer’s emotional baggage like a badge of honor.  This private, thoughtful character maintains his dignity, but the feeling of loss and the absence of endless time wears on him like an anvil and motivates him to quickly find answers about Miko.  It’s not lost on the audience that Kristofer’s determination doesn’t slow or stutter in the face of COVID lockdowns.  

Contrasting 1969’s mundane art direction, cinematographer Bergsteinn Bjorgulfsson draws a few absolutely gorgeous shots of natural surroundings and a stunning view of a specific cityscape to accompany 70-something Kristofer on his hopeful journey.  Generally, Kristofer is on his own in this massive world, and these sweeping moments help emphasize this point.  Still, his stepdaughter, Sonja, occasionally calls, and a brand-new friend, Kutaragi (Masatoshi Nakamura), offers warm, pleasant company for our lead for a short while. 

Perhaps Kormakur is saying something about the contrasting art direction styles from 1969 and 2020, where we, as human beings, might take life for granted in our youth but relish every moment in old age. 

In our youth, we have all the time in the world…until we don’t.

 Jeff’s ranking 

2.5/4 stars 

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June Zero - Movie Review

Directed by:  Jake Paltrow

Written by:  Jake Paltrow and Tom Shoval

Starring:  Noam Ovadia, Yoav Levi, Tom Hagi, Tzhai Grad, and Joy Rieger

Runtime:  105 minutes

‘June Zero’ has value and shares unique perspectives. 

Adolf Eichmann. 

He was a Nazi officer and one of the top organizers of the party’s Final Solution to exterminate the Jewish population.  Years after WWII’s end, Israeli agents apprehended Eichmann in Argentina and brought him to trial in 1961.  

Director/co-writer Jake Paltrow’s “June Zero” is set during this time and place.  However, rather than covering intricate details about Eichmann’s court case, the film focuses much of its 105-minute runtime on three ordinary individuals in three different real-life narratives that, tangentially, are connected to the man.  

Innocently connected.

Actually, “June Zero” is about – spoiler alert - Eichmann’s execution.  Paltrow and co-writer Tom Shoval should be applauded for taking a unique approach in covering such a grim slice of history.  Paltrow and Shoval explore how Eichmann affected the three aforementioned human beings, but cinematically, the audience is left with mixed results.   

Well, a little better than mixed.

David (Noam Ovadia), a 13-year-old Libyan raised in Israel, is experiencing mixed results in life.  He regularly shoplifts and sometimes drags his little brother into trouble.  His father knows David’s shaky pastimes, so he scores him a job with a small factory, one that builds ovens, so his son will spend hours working rather than run around town with hijinks on his mind.  The enterprising young man earns favorable status with the owner, Zebco (Tzahi Grad).  Still, David and Zebco earn some tense moments, and their heritage differences and vast age disparity highlight David’s vulnerability in a new country and as the only child on-site. 

Noam and Tzahi deliver convincing performances as this odd couple, and they both become tied to Eichmann through the factory’s chief product, even though this Eichmann connection isn’t as engaging as David’s journey of hopeful reform. 

Haim (Yoav Levi) is a corrections officer who works at a prison near the factory.  He’s usually concerned with reform, however, this middle-aged, by-the-book guard is entirely consumed with one prisoner, Adolf Eichmann.  This Nazi officer waits for his likely execution within the four concrete walls of this facility, and the stress of his presence has Haim and almost everyone else on edge.  Paltrow captures Eichmann’s everyday gestures, like sleeping or receiving a haircut, with gravitas and fear.  We never see Eichmann’s entire face, which emits sickening-mysterious vibes. 

David’s and Haim’s yarns are strung together with the one shared thread, but Micha’s (Tom Hagi) tale is not.

Without warning, the film whisks us to Poland, and Micha is a tour guide for the remains of a WWII Jewish ghetto.  He recounts his time in this particular ghetto and later reveals a link to Eichmann.  Micha’s heartfelt screentime resonates, but the sudden movement across the continent and no apparent tie to David and Haim is puzzling.  The screenplay’s shift feels random, as if Micha’s story belongs in an entirely different film, which throws off the previous rhythms with David and Haim.

“June Zero” breaks its own rules, like starting a Scrabble game and announcing after 45 minutes that every vowel played is worth 10 points…for the next 20 minutes only.

Otherwise, the film doesn’t play around with communicating ways that the Nazi Party impacted these three people, whether a boy finds an unlikely source of employment, a corrections officer feels trauma over an unwanted guest, or a new guide recalls his distressful childhood. 

Rather than take big swings at massive, nightmarish blows that impacted the globe, Paltrow dramatically reduces the scope, 16 years after WWII’s end.  He skillfully films in intimate, personal spaces and introduces intriguing characters, but the movie is – unfortunately – hampered by a couple of baffling editing and narrative choices, including an odd denouement. 

Still, “June Zero” has value and shares unique perspectives. 

Jeff’s ranking

2.5/4 stars

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Let’s celebrate Eva Marie Saint’s 100th birthday!

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Eva Marie Saint turns 100 years young on July 4, and while celebrating the United States’ Independence Day, let’s also applaud this Oscar-and-Emmy-winning actress by enjoying her work that has lit up the big screen for decades.  

Diehard and brand-new Ms. Saint movie fans should first watch her Supporting Actress Oscar performance, opposite Marlon Brando, in “On the Waterfront” (1954) and her tangled turn with Cary Grant in Alfred Hitchcock’s all-time classic thriller, “North by Northwest” (1959).

Eva proudly carries north of 80 film, television, and podcast credits (87 to be exact), per IMDb, and here are three other movie performances to enjoy.

Happy birthday, Ms. Saint! 

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Louise Frederickson, “Grand Prix” (1966) – Director John Frankenheimer’s sprawling racing spectacle has no shortage of stirring road contests where Formula One drivers compete on sharp curves and straightaways at 180 mph, including a jaw-dropping opening at Monte Carlo.  Off the track, Pete Aron (James Garner), Scott Stoddard (Brian Bedford), Nino Barlini (Antonio Sabato), and Jean-Pierre Sarti (Yves Montand) contend to find romance.  This big-budget ensemble piece includes American fashion reporter Louise Frederickson (Saint), who rolls into the sport to work on a racing car magazine issue and falls for Jean-Pierre.  Saint and Montand share warm chemistry, as Louise offers charm and support and gains acceptance of Jean-Pierre’s hazardous lifestyle while he shares his increasing reservations about driving at breakneck speeds.  The on-screen personal relationships run neck and neck with the four-wheel battles on the asphalt in an engaging 176-minute picture from start to finish.  Buckle up. 

Selma Wilson, “Loving” (1970) – Selma and Brooks Wilson (Saint and George Segal) are living and loving the American Dream with their two children in their Connecticut home.  Not exactly.  Brooks is having an affair with Grace (Janis Young), and a colleague’s wife, Nelly (Nancie Phillips), hopes to be his next extramarital tryst.  Meanwhile, this freelance illustrator desperately tries to win “the Lepridon account” for short-term financial security.  Meanwhile, Selma preserves order at their suburban homestead and attempts to persuade Brooks to move their family to a larger home.  Selma is steady, loyal, and beautiful but also clueless about Brooks’ philandering ways and loose-cannon sense of humor, which lands him in trouble within the ad agency community.  Neither Grace nor Nelly is physically threatening like Alex Forrest (Glenn Close) in “Fatal Attraction” (1987), but Selma seems like a genuine prototype for Beth Gallagher (Anne Archer), Dan’s (Michael Douglas) wife in Adrian Lyne’s 1987 thriller.  Selma wishes for a happy domestic life while her thoughtless husband makes miserable mistakes in director Irvin Kershner’s dramedy about stumbling on corporate and social ladders. 

Miss Franny, “Because of Winn-Dixie” (2005) – “And then one morning, the preacher sent me to the store for a box of macaroni and cheese, some white rice, and two tomatoes, and after that, everything changed,” Opal (AnnaSophia Robb) says.  In director Wayne Wang’s light family film, Opal and her dad (Jeff Daniels) move to the Friendly Corners Mobile Home Park in Naomi, Fla., but this little girl misses her friends.  She doesn’t have any in Naomi until she encounters a bulky, orphaned dog, a Berger Picard, in a Winn-Dixie grocery store and names him after the said establishment.  Wang’s movie is about building resiliency and making connections.  Winn-Dixie assists Opal with both as she meets and regularly visits three adults in town: a pet store worker, the formerly incarcerated Otis (Dave Matthews), a blind, recuperating alcoholic named Gloria (Cicely Tyson), and a storytelling librarian, Miss Franny (Saint).  This pet movie holds a short leash on heartbreak but lets the narrative run loose on healing and hopeful feelings.  Saint, Tyson, and Matthews all deliver friendly, heartfelt moments as recurring supporting players, including Miss Franny’s sincerity when accepting Opal and Winn-Dixie’s friendship.  “That would be fine.  That would be grand.  Just grand,” she says with a winning smile.  

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Kinds of Kindness – Movie Review

Directed by:  Yorgos Lanthimos

Written by:  Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthimis Filippou

Starring:  Jesse Plemons, Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, Hong Chau, Mamoudou Athie, and Margaret Qualley

Runtime:  164 minutes

‘Kinds of Kindness’:  Yorgos doesn’t kill his audience with kindness.  He tests our endurance for cruelty. 

Yorgos Lanthimos’ previous film, “Poor Things” (2023), rightfully triumphed with riches of Academy Award gold with four Oscar wins - Best Actress, Production Design, Costume Design, and Makeup and Hairstyling - out of its 11 nominations that included Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, Cinematography, and Best Supporting Actor.  

(For the record, Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo gave the Best Actress and Supporting Actor performances, respectively, that this film critic saw in 2023, but let’s not digress.) 

“Poor Things”, his most ambitious creation – with a depraved backstory that “blossoms” into a soaring, whimsical, albeit twisted adventure - bursts with bizarre and wondrous opulence.   

His new movie, “Kinds of Kindness”, strips down the pomp and circumstance of big-budget whimsy.  Lanthimos and co-writer Efthimis Filippou conjure three short stories that dwell in the depths of depravity.  Yes, this anthology offers a few moments of straight-up hilarity – like an uber-specific sports memorabilia sight gag, one that would make Wes Anderson proud, but a majority of the scarce (other) laughs transpire due to disbelief and anxiety. 

It's a challenging picture and probably one that hard-core Yorgos fans or those who appreciate their cinema with extra helpings of cynicism will enjoy.  “Kinds” scoops concepts like selling your soul for Corporate America, relationship distrust, and desperate wishes for acceptance.  Control, power, and ambition light up, like a Saturday night on Las Vegas Blvd., and the three stories feature an invisible judge and jury that silently opine about morality in ways that made “The Twilight Zone” (1959 – 1964) and “Tales from the Crypt” (1989 – 1996) famous. 

In this case, Lanthimos holds up a mirror to the current state of the human condition, and audiences won’t like what they see.  Shadowy tones connect the three tales but also through the exploits of one consistent supporting figure named R.M.F. (Yorgos Stefanakos) and a terrific ensemble – Stone, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe, Hong Chau, Mamoudou Athie, and Margaret Qualley – who play different characters in each story.  The cast is certainly up to the task.  Everyone across the board offers compelling performances during each narrative. 

(My favorites here are Dafoe, Plemons, and Qualley.)  

Part of the allure is observing the said performers dive into completely different roles as the film moves from Part I to Part II to Part III. 

“Kinds” premiered at Cannes 2024, and Plemons took home the festival’s Best Actor award for this unapologetic arthouse picture.  Plemons’ characters are the primary focus in the first two installments.  Parts I and II land on target with Lanthimos’ (supposed) intention of pessimism and irony, setting up our everyman protagonist (Plemons) with two claustrophobic situations where escaping with a clear conscience appears unattainable.  

The welcome pacing, frequent reveals, shocking turns, and an ambiance of doom align with our director’s signature, even though the laughs – this time - feel almost as infrequent as a snowball fight in Phoenix.

However, the picture cools during the third segment, in which Stone dominates the screen rather than Plemons.  It’s not the two-time Oscar winner’s fault.  The script meanders between two lukewarm narratives, and each doesn’t pack the wallop of the first two episodes.  

While the movie’s first two yarns spin rather quickly, the third strings us along like a Monday morning traffic jam.  Without holding a stopwatch during the screening, the first two tales feel about 45 minutes each, while the third seems like 90 minutes on its own.  The film’s total runtime is 164 minutes, so this critic’s estimates are probably pretty close.

The third act is a disappointing slog, and the rare levity throughout the picture compounds the disenchantment, even with its striking conclusion.  

Still, “Kinds of Kindness” leaves a mark with plenty to ponder once the (final) end credits roll, including attempting to piece together the connections between the stories.  It’s a film that may need to be seen a few times to connect the warped dots (assuming they do connect)…if you can sit through this troubling triad of tales for multiple viewings. 

Yorgos doesn’t kill his audience with kindness.  He tests our endurance for cruelty. 

Jeff’s ranking

2.5/4 stars

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Janet Planet - Movie Review

Directed and written by: Annie Baker.

Starring: Julianne Nicholson, Zoe Ziegler and Will Patton. 

Runtime: 113 minutes.

Pulitzer-winning playwright Annie Baker’s ‘Janet Planet’ a meditative memory of childhood

“I’m going to kill myself.”

The opening moments of “Janet Planet” are suffused with dread. A girl alone at night, held in a static shot, announces her intention to end her life to an unseen, unheard person on the phone. She’s small and awkward, this bespectacled ginger girl who wants to die. After a long, pregnant beat, the girl adds, “I said I’m going to kill myself if you don’t come get me.”

A held breath then a sigh of tentative relief, that uncertainty of whether to feel amusement or alarm, captures the horror and humor of encroaching adolescence in debut filmmaker and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Annie Baker’s beautiful, bittersweet “Janet Planet.” Baker’s meditative vignette of early 1990s girlhood is a different, more truthful kind of coming-of-age tale that moves at the pace of life, full of terrible waiting. 

That death-desiring girl in the film’s opening scene (at summer camp, it turns out) is Lacy (Zoe Ziegler), the by-turns tender and feral 11-year-old daughter of single mother Janet (Julianne Nicholson), a free-spirited acupuncturist bouncing between boyfriends and oddball pursuits in the woods of western Massachusetts. “Janet Planet” occupies the summer before sixth grade, that middle-school cusp in which the simplicity of childhood begins to yield to the complications and mess of more adult responsibilities and desires. 

Lacy is an odd duck. She complains she doesn’t make friends easily. She plays an electric keyboard, poorly. In the shower, she sticks wet clumps of her hair to dry on the tile. She sleeps at night in bed with her mother and can only fall asleep if they’re touching, her hands cupping her freckled face in the dark. With her big eyes, made bigger by her round gold glasses, Lacy observes the outcasts who orbit luminous Janet like satellites: bad boyfriends, would-be cult leaders, down-on-their-luck friends.

There is her mother’s boyfriend Wayne (Will Patton), a sharp-tongued ogre with migraines and little love for Lacy. Then there is Regina (Sophie Okonedo), an actress friend with nowhere else to go after she leaves what might be a cult. And then there is the would-be cult leader himself, Avi (Elias Koteas), who professes his captivation with Janet. These misfits move in and out of Janet’s life, in and out of her home, as wide-eyed Lacy takes it all in for us.

Lacy (and the camera) loves Janet in all her frustrating, glorious imperfection. “I’ve always had this knowledge deep inside of me that I could make any man fall in love with me if I really tried,” Janet says. “And I think maybe it’s ruined my life.” Nicholson gives an alluring, earthy performance. Her Janet never settles, yearns for something she can’t find; she won’t apologize for the search, however messy it is. 

“Janet Planet” commands a certain patience. Like the summer it inhabits, it moves with a sun-struck slowness, lingering on the mundane. It feels the way it feels to remember how your mom smelled, how her earrings glittered in the sunlight, how her voice sounded over the ambient hum of cicadas. 

The film quickly trains you to stop bracing for dramatic turns. Will Janet’s ex-boyfriend break into the house? Will the toaster oven left unattended burn it down? Those are questions for a more conventional movie. In “Janet Planet,” as in real life, nothing much happens. And like real life, that emptiness can be frustrating until you look back and realize the days weren’t so empty after all, that every day meant so much.

Barbara’s ranking

3/4 stars

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The Bikeriders – Movie Review

Directed by:  Jeff Nichols

Written by:  Jeff Nichols, based on Danny Lyon’s book

Starring:  Austin Butler, Jodie Comer, Tom Hardy, Mike Faist, Toby Wallace, and Michael Shannon

Runtime:  116 minutes

‘The Bikeriders’ could rev its engine more often, but the film is a memorable ride

“Get your motor running. Head out on the highway.  Looking for adventure and whatever comes our way.” – “Born to Be Wild” by Steppenwolf

“Sunday, Monday, Happy Days. Tuesday, Wednesday, Happy Days.  Thursday, Friday, Happy Days.  Saturday.  What a day.  Rocking all week for you.” – “Happy Days” by Pratt & McClain

Director/writer Jeff Nichols is back.  From 2007 to 2016, he directed a slew of critically-acclaimed films, including “Shotgun Stories” (2007), “Take Shelter” (2011), “Mud” (2012), “Midnight Special” (2016), and “Loving” (2016).  This critic has seen them all except “Shotgun Stories”, and I recommend the four latter movies.  

With “The Bikeriders”, he rides with a big cast.  Austin Butler, Jodie Comer, Tom Hardy, Mike Faist, Toby Wallace, Michael Shannon, and several other players play out the story of The Vandals, a Chicago motorcycle club that formed during the 1960s.  Based on Danny Lyon’s 1968 book, Nichols includes Danny in his movie, played by Faist, who interviews and takes photos of the group during their travels.

We see Danny run around with the club, but most of his interviews are with Kathy (Comer), a 20-something wife to Benny (Butler), one of The Vandals.  Kathy is the movie-conduit for spinning the Vandals’ yarns, and Nichols and Danny refer to her for guidance throughout the 116-minute runtime, but with mixed results.  Brit-born Comer captures a noticeably sturdy American accent that seems Chicago-based, with some possible hints of New Jersey and North Dakota’s “Fargo” thrown in for good measure.  There’s nothing wrong with Jodie’s performance, however, Nichols features Kathy’s discussions with Danny so frequently that The Vandals’ adventures are interrupted too often with unnecessary rest stops rather than letting the story run for longer stretches.    

Anyway, Kathy paves the way for Benny and her arc as well as the two-wheeled brotherhood trajectory.  However, the movie deliberately settles into everyday happenings with the club rather than event-based milestones.  

Nichols seems determined to immerse the audience in the biker experience, and it’s not an opulent one.  The film squeezes out all the glamour and leaves us with grit.  Relaxed discourse floods the screen about grabbing beers, meeting other riders from different states, memories of failed career prospects, and complaints of “pinkos” who go to college and wear short pants and tennis shoes.  The riders (and some of their girlfriends) relax in a park, drink beer in various gravelly establishments or inside someone’s home, forge club rules, decide on new members, or fight, with fists or knives, with each other or other assemblies.  

This former riding-only troupe becomes a society without black ties and cotillions.

These men are not exactly living on the margins but riding on the edge with Darwin.  Survival of the fittest and loyalty to the club are the two basic codes.  

The group’s founder, leader, and principal rule maker is Johnny (Hardy), and Hardy is utterly compelling as the man who the others admire but also fear crossing.  Johnny is burly and dangerous with an “On the Waterfront” Terry Malloy-like vibe.  Although Johnny’s not unreasonable.  He doesn’t govern with a cruel iron fist but a quiet strength.  Still, he will battle when challenged, and “fists or knives” is his response as these occasions occasionally surface. 

In 2024, hurt feelings may suddenly arise over reading an errant Facebook post, but it’s impossible to see any of the bikers in this film weep over a differing political opinion or sports-team insult.  Body blows and blades settle disputes here, and afterward, a couple of frosty beverages help celebrate new friendships, but not always.  

However, the most compelling aspects of conflict center around Benny in the film’s long game with his two most essential relationships, Kathy and Johnny.  

Benny meets Kathy and courts her in the most Arthur Fonzarelli-ish fashion in front of her home. So much so that her soon-to-be ex-boyfriend is simply resigned to his inevitable fate without even a whiff of a confrontation.  Kathy buys into Benny’s motorcycle lifestyle, but for how long? 

Meanwhile, how long does Benny purchase daily tokens for Johnny’s club, and what would happen if he attempts to cash out?  

These two plot pillars primarily keep us sitting with attention and wonder.  Yes, “The Bikeriders” may make too many pit stops and could rev its engine more often, but Nichols hands the audience a comfortable pillion and a memorable ride.  

As Fonzie would say, “It’s cool.”  

Jeff’s ranking

2.5/4 stars

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Thelma – Movie Review

Directed and written by:  Josh Margolin

Starring:  June Squibb, Richard Roundtree, Parker Posey, Clark Gregg, Fred Hechinger, and Malcolm McDowell

Runtime:  97 minutes

Squibb shines, whether ‘Thelma’ works on her action-star moves or industrious needlepoint projects

“What’s an inbox?”

Danny (Fred Hechinger), Thelma’s (June Squibb) 24-year-old grandson, stops by her place for a visit.  He loves his grandma and enjoys their time together.  At the moment, he helps her sort through email.  

This upbeat 93-year-old may not have completely mastered the ins and outs of navigating through her messages, but Thelma is primarily self-sufficient while also listening to Danny’s software tutorial.  

Thelma is friendly with her daughter, Gail (Parker Posey), and son-in-law, Alan (Clark Gregg), but she seems closest to Danny, which is a refreshing surprise in 2024.  Since director/writer Josh Margolin created “Thelma” based on his real-life grandmother, who is currently 103, this film’s on-screen bond between the Greatest Generation and Gen Z is easily understandable.  

At times, “Thelma” is an easy-breezy action-adventure comedy, one that’s sometimes as sweet as your grandma’s chocolate chip cookie recipe, but Margolin includes gravitas about the struggles of growing older, and the daredevil side of this PG-13 story lies with Thelma taking control of her destiny on the concrete streets of Southern California. 

A telephone scam artist pilfers $10,000 from Thelma and rather than shrug her shoulders and move on, she rolls up her sleeves, and says, “I’m gonna get it back.” 

She trusts Danny with her life, or at least her email account, but turns to a long-time friend for help.  Ben (Richard Roundtree) lives at the Belwood Village retirement home, but the man owns a scooter that can run 43 miles on one charge.  

Ben says, “It’s bright red, so you can see me coming.” 

So, Thelma and Ben form a dynamic duo as they gather clues and make their way – albeit gradually – toward Van Nuys to hopefully find the aforementioned ten grand! 

The film is money when Roundtree (in his last film performance) and Squibb’s on-screen characters partner like two detectives, vigilantes, or “Mission: Impossible” action stars who act with intention, and their AARP experience and gadgets proudly parade on display.  Thelma and Ben are not running down baddies or jumping in a Camaro and ramming about town, but the screenplay paves the way for believable, grounded progress, even though speed isn’t their greatest asset. 
The pair isn’t earning gold medals in the 100m dash during their golden years, but they are still here to compete in the game of life.  The film offers some moments of slapstick fun, including when Thelma and Ben search for a gun and also dodge Danny, Gail, and Alan.  This troubled triad is desperate to find their elderly matriarch (and Ben, too), which adds another hurdle for Thelma and Ben’s 43-miles-per-charge buggy to leap over.

However, Danny, Gail, and Alan’s stretches as overprotective worrywarts don’t quite work comedically.  Posey has a lengthy resume for comedy, but Gail and Alan become clueless adults, often represented in high school comedies, and Danny’s attempt to win back his girlfriend emotionally spins in a San Fernando cul-de-sac.  Still, Gail and Alan effectively communicate the stress of the sandwich generation, and Danny’s moments with his grandmother are endearing.

Much of the 97-minute runtime has 94-year-old June Squibb front and center.  The Oscar-nominated Squibb (“Nebraska” (2013)) started her television and film career in 1985 (while in her mid-50s) and is generally known these days as a supporting player for large ensemble pieces, but not here.  June shines in this lead role as Thelma and delivers spry moments of physicality.  This nonagenarian’s agility will surprise, and she might easily outflank your 70-something Aunt Edna.  

June and Josh generously give Thelma three dimensions: sensitivity, innovative skillsets, and sass.  She’s a woman who will actively and lovingly listen to her grandson but then justify using a gun for the first time by saying, “How hard can it be?  Idiots use them all the time.” 

She’s stubborn and relishes her independence but will happily open her home to family when they aren’t chasing her all over town.  

Although Thelma may have fallen victim to a scam, she’s not a 24/7 victim.  This engaging character has something to say whether Thelma works on her action-star moves, industrious needlepoint projects, or (thank you, Danny) answering emails from her inbox.  

Jeff’s ranking

3/4 stars

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Inside Out 2 - Movie Review

Dir: Kelsey Mann

Starring: Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, Lewis Black, Tony Hale, Liza Lapira, Maya Hawke, Ayo Edebiri, Paul Walter Hauser, and Adèle Exarchopoulos

1h 36m

We can all recall those awkward moments from our challenging adolescent years. Cinema has a way of uniquely recreating these uncomfortable encounters throughout many coming-of-age movies. Kelsey Mann's "Inside Out 2" is no exception. This sweet and sentimental sequel takes a poignant look at maturation, with Riley, now 13, navigating the tumultuous waters of the teenage experience. "Inside Out 2" crafts a relatable story that uses the foundations established in the original film as building blocks for a more complex emotional tale. It also proves that the best Pixar animated films are the ones that grow with their young audience. 

"Inside Out," released in 2015, introduced audiences to Riley and her parents, who were moving from Minnesota to San Francisco. Along the journey, Riley's colorfully rendered emotions inside her mind assist with maneuvering through the pre-teen complications of living in an unfamiliar city. 

"Inside Out 2" sees Riley (Kensington Tallman), now a teenager, making another change from middle school to high school while also saying goodbye to her best friends, Grace (Grace Lu) and Bree (Sumayyah Nuriddin-Green), at a summer hockey camp. All these complicated life experiences bring chaos to the emotions trying to keep up with the rapidly changing times. Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Disgust (Liza Lapira), Fear (Tony Hale), and Anger (Lewis Black) are assisted in these new life experiences by Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser), and Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos). 

At one moment in the film, a construction crew enters Riley's mind and posts a sign that says, "Pardon our dust. Puberty is messy." "Inside Out 2" handles the messy parts of being a young person inundated with a wealth of new feelings with thoughtful observations and insightful outlooks. Whether the literal chasm formed when sarcasm is discovered, the composition of Embarrassment compared to the other emotions that display the magnitude of an embarrassing moment, or the inescapable web that forms as Anxiety tries to solve every possible problem that Riley could experience. Unsurprisingly, the production sought the guidance of a group of teens, dubbed "Riley's Crew," to consult on the authenticity of the moments in the film. These flourishes of creative storytelling and care with character building give "Inside Out 2" a very relatable and honest quality.

The new emotions bring an essential element to the storytelling, but they are also a charming addition. Anxiety quickly proves the new dominant emotion the moment Riley realizes she may be alone, without her best friends, when she goes to high school. Embarrassment wears a hoodie that tightens with every awkward moment. And Ennui, a scene stealer many times, is French and can't be bothered to leave the couch. Having new emotions to introduce creates a balancing act of Riley's original emotions mixed with the new ones, but it seldom feels like one is getting more attention than the other. 

The theme of 'maturity' in 'Inside Out 2' is handled with ingenuity by writers Meg LeFauve and Dave Holstein. Riley is developing a core belief system that shapes her growing sense of self. Amidst the myriad of emotions, Anxiety takes control in a way that is both protective and self-destructive. The writers strike a perfect balance, never delving deeper than necessary for the story. The film's success lies in dramatizing these complex emotions in a thematically truthful and coherent way. In creating connections for the emotional characters, the viewer fosters an understanding of the essential partnership between Joy and Sadness. It thoughtfully creates a visual representation of how Anxiety creates a storm of chaotic control. At its best, 'Inside Out 2' sparks a dialogue about feelings and emotions, allowing young people and adults to have the opportunity to engage in an open conversation. 

"Inside Out 2" is a charming sequel with an important story. The themes are wonderfully connected on a personal level for young people and adults. The animation is exuberant, the characters are rich with wit, and the storytelling proposes insightful ideas that make this film a winning combination on numerous levels. Pixar has crafted a sequel that honors the original film and paves a new story that stands on its own.

Monte's Rating

4.00 out of 5.00 

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Tuesday – Movie Review

Directed and written by:  Daina Oniunas-Pusic

Starring:  Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Lola Petticrew, Leah Harvey, and Arinze Kene

Runtime:  111 minutes

‘Tuesday’ is an eccentric, emotional story that might resonate seven days a week and twice on Tuesday

Fifteen-year-old Tuesday (Lola Petticrew) is sick.  

Tuesday can no longer walk.  This kind, gentle soul sits in a wheelchair or in bed and sometimes breathes with the daunting assistance of an oxygen tank and its cumbersome plastic tubes.  

She is dying. 

Her mom, Zora (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), has the impossible task of coping with the reality of losing her little girl.  

The reality is that director/writer Daina Oniunas-Pusic’s feature film debut is an emotional experience.  It works with big, sweeping ideas that are resourcefully presented by a small central cast but also packaged with a bizarre turn that realigns a foreseeable narrative onto a startling path. 

Although some occasional supporting players make bit appearances on this cinematic road (to offer a larger context outside of this family’s worldview in the United Kingdom), most of the screentime belongs to Zora, Tuesday, Tuesday’s nurse, Billie (Leah Harvey), and an uninvited guest, Death (voiced by Arinze Kene). 

Death arrives in an unexpected but not completely outlandish form.  However, his supernatural abilities visually astound and accentuate his essence, and he speaks with a weary, gravelly baritone voice.  

(Even though, historically, Death can be thought of as a genderless entity, the character in this instance is voiced by Kene, so this review will refer to Death as “he.”) 

In the movie’s opening few minutes, Oniunas-Pusic expertly establishes Death’s purpose and mindset, exploring mixed feelings of doom and sympathy.  Death doesn’t relish his profession but views it as an ongoing duty that eases suffering.  He’s oddly humane, even though he ends lives – one at a time – with exceptional efficiency.

Later in the first act, Death greets Tuesday, an empathetic, thoughtful young lady who connects with this timeless presence, one who must perform a grave task.  However, the 111-minute big-screen story has just begun, as an intricate dynamic between this duo includes a necessary third player, Zora, an unapologetic and suffering mother who would sacrifice anything for her daughter.  

“Tuesday” is an A24 film, and A24 enjoys an admirable long-standing reputation for introducing movies with eccentric and startling tales, ones that take chances but are sometimes not easily consumable by mainstream audiences.  “Tuesday” is no different, and in fact, Oniunas-Pusic’s picture could be the poster child for this idea or at least share a “wall of fame” with countless works, like “Under the Skin” (2014), “The Lobster” (2016), “Midsommar” (2019), “Men” (2022), or take your pick from five dozen others.

The aforementioned bizarre turn will not be shared in this review, nor will the form of Death.   Hopefully, walking into the theatre, you will not be privy to either piece of knowledge.  Oniunas-Pusic’s twisted twist is a mesmerizing surprise that will provoke disbelief and probably some chuckles, whether intended or not.  This critic laughed at times, by design or perhaps out of anxiety.  Either way, the startling plot device works.

Still, the film’s core centers around a mother-daughter relationship, an eternal bond that, unfortunately, has a temporary hold in the physical form on planet Earth.  Even with a detour that lasts for an extensive portion of the runtime, the movie mostly keeps that connection’s focus in plain view or hovering behind the scenes.  

“Tuesday” is both broadly philosophical and intimately specific, and Petticrew’s Tuesday is earnest, calm, and reassuring despite her (probable) fate, which we may or may not witness on-screen.  Meanwhile, Louis-Dreyfus, enjoying a terrific second act after “Seinfeld” (1989 – 1998), is profound and utterly believable in moments of anguish when Zora faces unmanageable strife or the anticipation of it.

No question, audiences can anticipate that Tuesday’s and Zora’s exchanges of love and adoration should resonate for anyone who cares for a family member…seven days a week and twice on Tuesday.  

Jeff’s ranking

3.5/4 stars

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Bad Boys: Ride or Die – Movie Review

Directed by:  Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah

Written by:  Chris Bremner and Will Beall 

Starring:  Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Jacob Scipio, Eric Dane, Vanessa Hudgens, Alexander Ludwig, Paola Nunez, Tasha Smith, Melanie Liburd, Rhea Seehorn, and Joe Pantoliano

Runtime:  115 minutes

‘Bad Boys: Ride or Die’ is a familiar, formulaic trip

“I need this.  Bad Boys, one last time.” – Mike Lowrey (Will Smith)

Mike Lowrey says the above declaration to his long-time detective lieutenant partner, Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence), in the third “Bad Boys” film, “Bad Boys for Life” (2020), 17 years after “Bad Boys II” (2003).  

Promises, promises.  

Mike meant to say, “I need this.  Bad Boys, one last time before the next time.” 

Mike and Marcus are back for another buddy-cop action comedy, “Bad Boys: Ride or Die”, where again, as the film opens, Marcus feels sick due to Mike’s driving.  Potential vomit aside, this series looks more and more like the “Fast and Furious” franchise, which, depending on your perspective, can be a good or bad thing. 

Mike and Marcus continue to work with Advanced Miami Metro Operations (AMMO) for tech, firearms, and man-and-woman-power support.  Our dynamic duo is part of a larger team, and the word, family, has never been more prominent in this series than in the movie’s fourth installment.  

Marcus and his married family-man status versus Mike’s bachelordom was always a thread lifting moods and offering carefree banter in small spaces between the otherwise constant arrays of bullets, dead bodies, and drug dealers.  In fact, Marcus touts in “Life”, “Don’t you know that family is all that matters.”  

Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) famously quotes “family” in the “Fast and Furious” movies even though a majority of the team are friends.  “Bad Boys” embraces this concept.  In “Ride or Die”, Mike finally gets married very early in the first act, and relatives – through blood or marriage – are prominent throughout the movie.  

Fans of both big-screen juggernauts will most likely enjoy “Ride or Die”, as Smith and Lawrence continue to embrace their BFF-alter-ego-chemistry, and after a couple of initial uncertain moments in the first act, Smith’s star power and charisma return to the movies, at least in my view.  Welcome back, and directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah also return (after “Life”) to orchestrate Mike and Marcus’ trek into combatting dastardly disarray and diving into bombastic bloodshed.  

Both comedy and 90’s-style action are on display as Smith, Lawrence, El Arbi, and Fallah throw everything but the kitchen sink at the screen, including dizzying hyper-camera movements, an amusing Skittles sequence, and a humongous Florida predator.  (Think of The University of Florida’s athletic teams’ name.)

However, if you aren’t a “Bad Boys” fanatic, this picture – unfortunately - will not be the cinematic golden ticket to win you over. 

As previously mentioned, Mike gets hitched, but Marcus receives a massive health scare.  Rather than the fright chasing him into retirement, Marcus feels invincible, and his indestructible new nature baffles Mike in an ongoing bit during the movie’s 115-minute runtime.  

The lieutenants, however, feel vulnerable now that someone frames the late Captain Howard (Joe Pantoliano) as a corrupt conspirator with nefarious drug cartel connections.  Mike and Marcus spring into action to find this shadowy figure and end this smear campaign. 

This someone, a despicable dude and formidable opponent, James McGrath (Eric Dane), works with lethal efficiency, but he carries the charisma of seltzer water minus the bubbles.  

Mike and Marcus don’t know where to find him or who he is.  The audience sees his face, and McGrath is a “faceless” and heartless baddie with zero nuance or mustache twirls.  He is deadly but not a compelling villain against our captivating leads.  

However, as fate would have it, McGrath wants Mike’s son, Armando (Jacob Scipio), dead.  So, Mr. Lowery and Mr. Burnett stick with (and then team up with) Armando to eventually find McGrath. 

To complicate matters, McGrath targets Mike’s new wife, Christine (Melanie Liburd), Marcus’ wife, Theresa (Tasha Smith), and his family.  They also must beware of Judy (Rhea Seehorn), a U.S. Marshal who vows to kill Armando because he assassinated her dad, Captain Howard, in “Life”.  Oh, Judy’s daughter, Callie (Quinn Hemphill), tags along for good measure. 

Family!

Kin is the glue that attempts to emotionally hold the thin construct of a plot together, as Mike, Marcus, AMMO, Armando, Judy, and McGrath and his minions battle in a frantic and silly CGI aircraft scene, gunfights everywhere, including on foot in the countryside, in Marcus’ home, and at an abandoned amusement park.  There is so much gunfire that it melts into background noise and might numb you after a while.  

So much, that Marcus might be right.  He could be invincible, no matter how many bullets zip through the air.

With Mike and Armando reconnecting after “Life”, Mike’s marriage, Marcus’ new attitude, good humor within AMMO, Judy, Mike’s ex-girlfriend Rita (Paola Nunez), and Marcus’ son-in-law Reggie (Dennis Greene) on the scene, El Arbi and Fallah could easily piece together “Bad Boys V”.  This movie and series feel like they are cruising on autopilot right now, and that’s not necessarily a good thing.  If Armando and Reggie survive this film, they could be a next-generation Bad Boys, and, for the record, Marcus’ son-in-law delivers the movie’s funniest moment.

Anyway, like “Fast & Furious” or “Friday the 13th”, I can’t see the series ending.    

You know what they say, “Bad Boys, one last time.”   

Jeff’s ranking

2/4 stars

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The Watchers – Movie Review

Directed by:  Ishana Shyamalan

Written by:  Ishana Shyamalan, based on A.M. Shine’s novel

Starring:  Dakota Fanning, Olwen Fouere, Georgina Campbell, and Oliver Finnegan

Runtime:  102 minutes

Shyamalan’s ‘The Watchers’ is an intriguing and eerie watch

Mina (Dakota Fanning) runs an errand.  She’s a 20-something American living in Ireland’s County Galway, but this glum loner also runs from her past, estranging herself from her family, including her sister, Lucy.  

In the present, she’s asked to transport a bird, a parakeet or parrot of sorts, to Belfast, and this talking feathered friend frequently repeats, “Try not to die,” because the night before, Mina unfortunately said to it, “I’m going out.  Try not to die.”

Oh, Mina, please be more deliberate with your words.  

Still, this otherwise charming birdie is her sole companion across the western Emerald Isle.   Well, shortly after her navigator spouts, “One-hundred and six kilometers to reach your destination,” they find themselves stranded in a thick, arboreous forest.  Arrival in Belfast now seems as unreachable as discovering a rainbow and an associated pot of gold. 

Mina is in danger.

Ishana Shyamalan takes a risk and steps out on the cinematic ledge to write and direct her first feature film, “The Watchers”, based on A.M. Shine’s 2022 novel.  Her famous father, M. Night, helped produce the movie, and “The Watchers” is an effective eerie mystery that plunks Mina, her bird, and three other individuals, Madeline (Olwen Fouere), Ciara (Georgina Campbell), and Daniel (Oliver Finnegan), in a claustrophobic predicament.   

For safety’s sake, they must take refuge in a (roughly) 500 sq. foot shelter to avoid The Watchers, a threatening brood of who-knows-what.  Madeline, Ciara, Daniel, and Mina’s protected haven will not be described in this review other than it’s an unexplainable structure sitting in the middle of nowhere, and a portion of it allows The Watchers – aptly named – to gaze at the four caged humans and one bird. 

Fortunately, the survivors can leave their essential abode and walk freely outside during the day.  Still, The Watchers appear after sundown, and there aren’t enough daylight hours to reach the forest’s edge, past the “Point of Return” to return to civilization.   

Hence, they’re trapped in this woodland prison, filmed on location in Ireland.  Shyamalan and cinematographer Eli Arenson commendably deliver a palatable sense of doom by capturing overwhelming acreage, untouched by the industrial age, in every direction, along with production designer Ferdia Murphy and set designer Jil Turner’s contrasting bizarre brick-and-mortar lifeline grasped by the survivors after dark.   

Shyamalan plants an intriguing premise that flourishes with three questions.

Who are The Watchers?

How does their evening sanctuary exist in the first place?  

How can the five (including the bird) escape? 

As the four (largely) work together to stay alive, Shyamalan steadily reveals morsels of answers through a refreshing, enlightening array of spooky surprises throughout the first two acts rather than keep us in the dark until the very end.  

This thoughtful decision keeps the pacing on point, which is especially important because the story could have bogged down with a small cast of characters endlessly stewing over interpersonal conflicts.  The film avoids this trap, as the focus primarily remains on the aforementioned questions (and following the rules to survive) and much less on individual backstories other than Mina’s, which Ishana and Dakota regularly revisit.  We discover the broken branches on our lead’s family tree.    

Admittedly, the third act wraps up too quickly, and the story breaks a bit with some plausibility questions.

For instance, where do Mina, Madeline, Ciara, and Daniel bathe?  

How can this route between Galway and Belfast not result in 100,000 similar annual fates like Mina’s, and can’t Google Maps help beforehand? 

The shelter’s origin will raise some credibility doubts too.

Still, Rod Serling didn’t explain every far-fetched nuance in his “The Twilight Zone” series, like in “Time Enough at Last” (1959), where a simple bank vault would protect Henry Bemis (Burgess Meredith) from a nuclear war.   

(I mean, come on.  How can that happen?  Although, hey, they don’t make stuff as sturdy today.  Just turn to your washing machine or toaster these days, but I digress.)

So, the war here between rewarding a captivating idea versus how-would-that-actually-work mechanics is won by the former in a movie created by someone with a recognizable surname, and Shyamalan takes chances that payoff with plenty to ponder afterward.   

Step on that ledge again, Ishana.  We’ll happily watch.

Jeff’s ranking

2.5/4 stars

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Young Woman and the Sea – Movie Review

Directed by:  Joachim Ronning

Written by:  Jeff Nathanson, based on the book by Glenn Stout

Starring:  Daisy Ridley, Tilda Cobham-Hervey, Jeanette Hain, Kim Bodnia, Ethan Rouse, Stephen Graham, and Christopher Eccleston

Runtime:  129 minutes

‘Young Woman and the Sea’ is a splashy, celebratory biopic along with some pools of shallow storytelling 

The English Channel, which separates England and France, is 21 miles across at its widest point.  

New York City is 3,480 miles from the English Channel, and in 1914, visiting England or France or swimming the Channel isn’t a thought in NYC resident Trudy Ederle’s (Daisy Ridley) head.  

As “Young Woman and the Sea”, decorated swimmer Gertrude Ederle’s biopic, begins, she suffers from measles as a small child.  Trudy nearly dies, but what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.  

Director Joachim Ronning’s film – written by Jeff Nathanson and based on the 2009 book by Glenn Stout - tells a vitally important story of women’s sports history, but the movie doesn’t feel like a strong Oscar contender.  Ronning doesn’t wade into the details of Ms. Ederle’s grueling training or her mindset, passion, and drive for the sport. 

The film doesn’t explain them, nor do we hear Trudy say, “I love swimming because…”

However, this Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer production effectively dives into the societal obstacles Trudy faces as well as the Ederle family’s varying degrees of support during her journey, and these dynamics work to build a rousing, splashy celebration of the woman. 

The family lives happily in their modest New York apartment.  Henry (Kim Bodnia) - a butcher by trade and is cut with a traditional mindset - loves his wife, Gertrud (Jeanette Hain), and their three children, the oldest, Meg (Tilda Cobham-Hervey), Trudy, and Henry (Ethan Rouse).  Swimming only occurs to the five as a sport or pastime when Gertrud suddenly decides that the girls should learn in case of a life-or-death circumstance.  

Meg and Trudy take to the water like fish, and Cobham-Hervey and Ridley offer some warm moments as their sister alter-egos enjoy laps around the Coney Island Pier.  Meg and Trudy are close, and the actresses and Ronning stress this point with several opportunities for sisterly bonding in and out of the water.  

Recreational strokes soon become formal lessons when Gertrud decides (yes, she decides, despite Henry’s objections) to enroll the teens in Lottie Epstein’s (Sian Clifford) swimming classes.  

Gertrud and Lottie have unwavering convictions and are both natural leaders.  Gertrud carries a quiet, self-assured confidence, while Lottie is frequently animated and outspoken.  They are role models for Trudy, but she doesn’t directly call out their influences, other than ensuring to kick her feet while swimming, so Ronning and Nathanson don’t directly connect the dots.

Through montages, we see Trudy skyrocket in the pool as she captures a collection of impressive records, trophies, and ribbons.  

She’s Janet Evans, Amanda Beard, or Katie Ledecky, decades before these ladies were born, and – due to her awareness of Bill Burgess (Stephen Graham), who swam the English Channel, she eventually sets her sights on the same goal.   

As mentioned earlier, Trudy’s drive and source for her athletic gifts aren’t explained or explored, but her path, from a clunky doggie paddle to resilient, assured freestyle strokes in the English Channel, is a winding one.  Like most highly successful people, Trudy faces setbacks, and they explicitly are due to inequitable opportunities for women and ineffectual coaching methods from Jabez Wolffe (Christopher Eccleston). 

Throughout the picture, Trudy’s obstacles are mostly emotionally driven, not physically sourced, which is a limitation of the film.  

“Nyad” (2023), the stressful, riveting Diana Nyad (Annette Bening) biopic, took a distinctly different approach.  That movie repeatedly pummels the audience with Diana’s absolute physical toil attempting to swim from Florida to Cuba, as the 65-year-old (at the time) Bening indeed looks like she’s dragging herself through a living hell, burned by extreme exhaustion that only comic book heroines could endure.  

Through Diana’s unreal and wholly compelling perseverance, Annette gives one of the very best performances of 2023.  

Ridley isn’t asked to match Bening’s struggles, or that’s how it plays out in the picture.  Certainly, Ridley must have spent oodles and oodles of time in the pool and open water, and she’s competent and believable as Trudy, battling through races and the Channel, including harrowing spots with a school of intimidating sea creatures and the final stretch between France and England.  Ronning and cinematographer Oscar Faura help ratchet up the drama in these moments with stunning visuals that look beautiful and intimidating on the big screen. 

The aforementioned close family ties and overcoming institutional chauvinism keep us more than simply afloat with interest in Trudy’s welfare.  Credit a talented ensemble for offering a few troubling villains to criticize, a slew of heroes to commend and applaud, and an extraordinarily courageous and daring all-time great athlete born in New York City on October 23, 1905. 

Jeff’s ranking

2.5/4 stars

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Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga – Movie Review

Directed by:  George Miller

Written by:  George Miller and Nico Lathouris

Starring:  Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Hemsworth, Tom Burke, Lachy Hulme, and Alyla Browne

Runtime:  135 minutes

‘Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’ enjoys smashup fury, but offering this Furiosa origin story – rather than racing a straight-up Furiosa adventure – is the wrong, winding road

“Conan the Barbarian” (1982) is an iconic action-adventure staple from the 1980s, a fantasy epic set in the fictional Hyborian Age, thousands of years before modern civilization.  Director John Milius’ (“Red Dawn” (1984)) picture features the long-awaited, big-budget project for Arnold Schwarzenegger, a seven-time Mr. Olympia bodybuilding champion, even though he starred in other film and television efforts like “Hercules in New York” (1970) and “The Streets of San Francisco” (1972 – 1977).  

It's a revenge tale that also showcases Conan’s origin.  Conan, as a small boy, witnesses the big baddie, Thulsa Doom (James Earl Jones), execute his mother.  

Thankfully, moviegoers didn’t have to wait very long to see Mr. Schwarzenegger arrive on the big screen.  In the movie’s 15th minute, a 10-year-old Conan (Jorge Sanz) is chained to a massive wooden wheel and asked to push it in the dirt, along with about 15 other enslaved persons.  By the film’s 17th minute, an adult-sized Conan is the lone one left pushing the wheel, and now our hero and bodybuilding actor can begin riding horses, gathering his posse, swinging a metal blade, and clashing with villains.  

Thank you, John and the writers, including Oliver Stone (yes, that Oliver Stone), for not procrastinating Conan’s/Arnold’s entrance. 

Director/co-writer George Miller didn’t get the memo because the film’s title star, Furiosa, played by the electric Anya Taylor-Joy, doesn’t appear on screen until the movie’s 57th minute.  I painfully know this because I looked at my watch (admittedly, it’s a couple of minutes slow) the second Ms. Taylor-Joy appeared on-screen.  

Until then, Furiosa is a (roughly) 10-year-old girl (Alyla Browne).  Furiosa’s child version is fierce and enterprising, but more often than not, she regularly sits in a cage or is thrown on a motorcycle like a knapsack, and she’s mute nearly the entire time.  

However, Miller does not deliver muted action, as “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” churns out some spectacular motorized Robrecht puzzles in the Australian desert in locales that resemble the Sahara or a Martian surface.  However, the screenplay’s unyielding and unsound determination to grant a Furiosa origin story rather than simply deliver a Furiosa adventure proves its undoing, even with several moments of turbulent car-crashing eye candy.  

“Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” (2024) is a prequel to the best film in the “Mad Max” series, the wild, swashbuckling thrill ride, “Mad Max: Fury Road” (2015) (4 out of 4 stars).  As the 2024 movie’s title suggests, it’s a Furiosa tale, and this 2-hour 15-minute (listed as 2 hours and 28 minutes, but there are 13 minutes of credits) origin story has Taylor-Joy playing the younger version of Charlize Theron’s imaging of the character in “Fury Road”.  

Unfortunately, Miller and co-writer Nick Lathouris focus so much time forging Furiosa’s origin brick by brick (or in the Australian desert, rock by rock) to eventually get us to “Fury Road”, that this big-screen escapade becomes less about our lead and much more about a power struggle between familiar outlaw Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme) and a flawed and inefficient scoundrel, Dementus (Chris Hemsworth).  

From a storytelling perspective, Furiosa is caught as a (mostly) passive observer in a business dispute between Immortan Joe and Dementus.  The latter scoundrel is a nomad searching for a home and power, a stake in a post-apocalyptic land, and Dementus and his band of motorcycle-riding desperados look to a triad of options:  Gas Town, the Bullet Farm, and Immortan Joe’s Citadel.  

Dementus – although blessed with an intimating barbarian-like physique and long, scraggly locks and a beard – is generally incompetent.  Sure, he poses a danger, but he inflicts harm through frustration and rash eruptions rather than during successful conquests toward his hopeful goals.  

He’s a clown who wants to be a three-ring lion tamer.   

Still, he’s the cause of Furiosa’s anguish, and within this hopeless circus, she rightfully wants revenge.  

Taylor-Joy possesses the physicality, intensity, and charisma to portray the strong, creative warrior.  Furiosa is a sharpshooter, a sniper with deadly accuracy, and she can move, fight, and drive quite comfortably in this distressing, desolate, and dystopian district.  Her skillsets were born from her mother and a collection of other Valkyries, and this wasteland warrior also learns from Praetorian Jack (nicely played by Tom Burke), a rare ally.  When Taylor-Joy’s Furiosa is called upon for thunderous conflict, she delivers, but these moments are too few and far between, as Immortan Joe’s chess moves and Dementus’ “king me” checkers attempts are the main attraction.  

Meanwhile, Furiosa attempts to dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge away from Joe and Dementus’ real estate debate, but she still has revenge on her mind, sitting in escrow.

The film looks big, bold, and brash in the same way as “Fury Road”, but rather than that film’s singular objective, “Furiosa” splits its time with Dementus’ frequent hiccups and Furiosa’s brooding digestion.  Even though Miller connects Furiosa’s childhood and her grown-up rescue of Joe’s harem in “Fury Road”, the emotional connection is oddly absent, as this slow, antiseptic journey to get from “back then” to Furiosa’s “current day” feels procedural, despite moments of motorized thumps, crunches, and smashups.  

Granted, when “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” begins streaming, it’ll be worth your time to fast-forward to the enormous action set pieces of demolitions and some comic relief from Joe’s two dunderhead sons.  But remember, in headshaking fashion, Taylor-Joy shows up at the 57-minute (again, if my watch keeps accurate time), unless you feel watching a mute kid stare and cope with her uneventful predicament for the first hour is worth your time.  

Maybe not.  Well, praying to Crom may help.  It worked for Conan, right?

Jeff’s ranking

2/4 stars

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