Mank (4/5 Stars)

 

“Success has a thousand fathers. Defeat is an orphan.”

A movie by nature is a collaborative art form. More than one Oscar winner has taken the stage and decried the act of giving out individual Oscars when an individual’s work in the context of a movie depends so much on so many other people doing their jobs correctly. I mean just look at the amount of people in the credits. People are people however and sometimes no matter how much praise can be heaped upon a movie, egos can be large enough where there is not enough to go around. Such apparently is the case with “Citizen Kane”, which is arguably the best movie ever made. It had two writers: Herman Mankiewicz and Orson Welles and neither would acknowledge the other’s contributions. The truth is that they were both instrumental. Herman Mankiewicz wrote the first draft of the movie. Orson Welles took the draft and seems to have not paid much attention to it if all you pay attention to is what dialogue from the first draft actually shows up in the movie. But a screenplay is more than just dialogue. One of several great innovative elements of “Citizen Kane” is its multilayered narrative structure, which employs flash-forwards and flash-backwards from several points of view in a manner that is somehow not confusing. This is what Mankiewicz brought to the party in the first draft and is no mean feat. Nevertheless, “Mank” throws another log on this ever-burning fire by arguing that the writing of Citizen Kane was complete as soon as Mankiewicz wrote the first draft.

It is a strangely fitting way to tell this story. I mean when one takes a bird-eye view of Citizen Kane and considers its origins, production, and after affects, it is all one big axe-grinding affair. Two axe-grinders attempt to take down a great axe grinder and just when the history becomes the legend, they turn on themselves and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. After all, to engage in an argument about the truth of the writing and production of “Citizen Kane” is to engage in an argument about the veracity of the movie’s story, which turns out, is also not true.

The axe-grinders are Mankiewicz and Orson Wells. With “Citizen Kane”, they took an axe to William Randolph Hearst, the greatest axe grinder of them all, a one-man media conglomerate who sensationalized the news and started at least one war. (For Mank it appears personal. Orson probably was too young and stupid to know any better). They are about to succeed when their movie is acclaimed as the best of all time. Watching it, and knowing that it is about Hearst, but not knowing much about Hearst, one may be led to believe that Hearts died isolated and unloved with a hollowness no amount of physical assets could fill. 

But, as any story about the making of Citizen Kane will reveal (and which "Mank" shows), Hearst did not die isolated and unloved. He regularly hosted elaborate dinner parties in his mansion wherein very interesting people would be invited and would attend. And he had a late love in life, Marion Davies (here played by Amanda Seyfried) that was not a no-talent shrew who despised him, but whom had true talent and held him in true affection. Actually, it was Orson Welles who would end up an obese, alcoholic recluse. Mankiewicz, already a fat alcoholic when he wrote Kane, would go on to do no further notable work before dying in 1953. If only Mankiewicz and Welles had not turned on each other, you would not know of all their future failings and how Hearst had enjoyed a better fate than either of them. This whole thing is like a couple of magicians revealing their secrets in order to garner credit for their originality. Its short-sighted, the only winner being the rich guy in his mansion with all his beautiful and successful friends. The best scene in Mank is when our hero confronts a Hollywood producer about a shady power move thing that the studio is involved in. The producer explains that he is not a particularly smart guy, he just gets up every morning, he goes to work, he doesn’t make snide sarcastic remarks, he doesn’t get drunk, and he just generally gives a shit. That is why, he explains to Mank, he will win this particular battle.

I’m not really saying much about the movie. It is professionally and competently made by the Director David Fincher from a screenplay written by Jack Fincher (father of David Fincher). Gary Oldman does a particularly good job of being a sarcastic, overweight, alcoholic writer. Amanda Seyfried as Marion Davies, I think it must be noted how exquisite she has been lit in the black and white cinematography. A guy shows up as Orson Welles that does not really look like him, but the voice is there.

But really, this movie is pretty dependent on you having already seen Citizen Kane and liked it enough to delve into the history of it. But also maybe you shouldn’t. Perhaps Citizen Kane is better appreciated by not having knowledge of the artistic sniping and the erroneous history involved in it? Perhaps it would be more enjoyable if you came to it like one would a piece of pure fiction, uninformed of all the backstage axe grinding? I think it might be. So, I suggest watching Citizen Kane, and if possible, doing so before you see Mank or read this review.

The Personal History of David Copperfield (4/5 Stars)

 

Writer/Director Armando Iannucci is one of my favorites. He is responsible for the early career of the British comedian Steve Coogan (David Partridge) and the best TV show about British politics (The Thick of It). Thereafter, he made a great movie that crossed over his British political show into American politics (In the Loop) and then seamlessly transferred his skills to one of the best shows about American politics (Veep). Since leaving Veep, he made a masterpiece, The Death of Stalin, which I called in my review a perfect marriage of artist and subject matter. His work, a worthy successor of Monty Python, is defined by that very British and very cruel sense of humor (a worthy American successor of Monty Python along the same lines is South Park). 

In the spirit of Monty Python then, And Now for Something Completely Different! For the first time in Iannucci’s career, he has expended money on set design and costumes. The Personal History of David Copperfield is a lark to look at it. It adapts the 19^th century Charles Dickens' novel with color and flair. The stolid realism of his political films is completely gone. Moreover, the movie's storyline zips and churns through scenery and characters in a frenetic and fantastic pace. It is a giant leap in style for Iannucci and he accomplishes it like a natural.

The screenplay which Iannucci co-wrote with longtime collaborator Simon Blackwell. I have not read this particular Dickens work novel, but having read other of his books, I expect the screenwriters put in excellent work, omitting much extraneous details were successfully edited out while successfully retaining the emotional core and finding room for plenty of jokes. This does not feel like the usual Dickens adaptation, which is all the better because I have never felt Dickens to be especially adaptable.

In fact, I’m not sure I particularly like Dickens. I'm not sure I approve of the way he gave characters names that automatically signaled how you are supposed to feel about them, as if a book could be judged by its cover. Anyhow, if one were to adapt a Dickens book, what with all its contrivances, this would be the movie to show it is to be done. The unabashedly caricatures of personality are here. David Copperfield is as earnest as earnest comes. Mr. Murdstone is a mean monster. Uriah Heep is a total piece of shit. It is an unfair story told in an unrealistic abstract way as if to signal to the audience like a B movie would, hey this is not real life, have fun and enjoy yourself.

This brings me to the most noticeable part of the movie, what the movie has termed “color blind casting”. As you may suspect, this 19^th century British novel about British people ought to be entirely populated by British people. However, Iannucci has cast an Indian in the title role (Dev Patel of Slumdog Millionaire fame), and several black people, some other Indians, and a Chinese man (Benedict Wong) in several of the supporting roles. 

Does this work? I am reminded of one of the stupider conversations I ever had with someone, a former roommate that attended the same college as Lena Dunham. He believed that Leonardo DiCaprio’s role in The Revenant could have been played just as well as a black man. (This role is based on the real-life personage of a fur trapper in 1820s America in the Louisiana Territory). I thought that point of view was idiotic. The movie was attempting to be as realistic as possible. It went so far as to shoot only with natural light. An undisguised black man as the protagonist would have been absolutely weird. I still stand by this sentiment, but at the same time, as a resident of New York City, I have seen many productions of Shakespeare plays which rely on color-blind casting. And for Shakespeare plays, color-blind casting works very well. After all, Shakespeare never had production value so there is very little realism in his works. The merits of his plays rely almost exclusively on the poetry of his words and acting, which can be done by anyone who can master the correct accent and style of performance. The color blind casting here works in the same way. There are many different ethnicities represented by the actors, but every single one of them speaks their lines in perfect 19th century English accents. (Not coincidentally I suppose, but the actors, if not British, come from places that have ties to the British Empire, in particular India, Africa, and Hong Kong. There are no Latin or Arab cast members).

The way the movie is presented is itself more abstract then realistic. Within this environment it makes sense to simply find the best actors around. Dev Patel, who has a very Tom Hanksian earnest everyman quality to him, is well cast in the lead role of David Copperfield. And I always like seeing Benedict Wong in anything. It would have been awesome if that was Chloe Sevigny in blackface, but apparently there is a black woman who looks just like her with the name of Rosalind Eleazar. The rest of the cast that is white is a who’s who of interesting actors: Tilda Swinton, Hugh Laurie, and Peter Capaldi amongst them. Then there is Ben Whishaw who plays Dickens’ classic creep Uriah Heep. He does a particularly good job at making one’s skin crawl as soon as he shows up on screen. I am reminded once more by how much Dickens hated lawyers.

The movie moves swiftly from interesting caricature to interesting caricature and through comedic interludes and dramatic pratfalls. It ends with a artistic cop-out that is becoming as cliched as a story ending in marriage or death. The main character aspires to be writer. He writes a book about the people within the story. This story is published and becomes wildly successful. And The End, Happily Ever After.

I have seen this sort of ending perhaps a dozen times. What does it mean? Does it not say that all the hardships we endure in our lives can be automatically validated if the general populace pays attention to it and bestow upon the writer fame and fortune? Is that true? If two people have an argument, and only one is famous, and as a result only one side of the argument is told, is there then only one side of the story, and the argument won. Perhaps I am being a little cynical. However, it has been postulated that David Copperfield is a veiled autobiography of Dickens. If it supposed to be at all objective, is it fair to give your step-father the surname of Murdstone or to name anyone you once knew Uriah Heep. Apart from that, I really did like this movie.

A Blog Update

 

This is the fifteenth year I have been writing this blog and I think it is fair to say that 2020 was the worst year for movies in my lifetime. It is entirely the fault of the pandemic.

 

The crisis has made a few things clear though: First, it has been proven to me that seeing a movie in a theater is preferable to seeing a movie at home. The obvious differences are the size of the screen and the presence of an audience. These things are important, sure, and the presence of an audience is particularly helpful when watching a comedy or horror movie, but what I have come to respect even more is the focus that a movie theater provides the viewer. When one is at home there are a multitude of potential distractions that take the viewer out of the experience. Even a small pause in action would prompt me to look at my phone when I otherwise would not in a theater. For blockbusters this would not be all that important. You are not going to miss much when you look away for a few seconds. The movie I just watched, “The Personal History of David Copperfield” is a smaller movie, but it moves fast and has a lot of detail. Distractions can ruin the experience of this type of movie. I had to pause the movie several times and rewind so that I would not miss anything. I really wish I had seen this movie in a theater.

 

The pandemic also revealed one great thing about movie theaters I had completely taken for granted. As someone who lives in New York, I had the benefit of living in a market where almost every movie worthy of being released in theaters was available at some theater in the city. In effect, I always had the opportunity to see a particular movie at the time of its release. Now all the theaters are closed indefinitely. Since then, the movies that would have been given a theater release are now hoarded by streaming platforms. These streaming platforms, may they rot, don’t even allow movie night. That is, they do not allow a consumer to buy a single ticket to a newly released movie. I must subscribe to AppleTV, or Disney+, or HBOMAX to see anything on the service. Imagine my surprise, when I couldn’t see the latest Tom Hanks’ movie “Greyhound” earlier this year. I would have paid $15 to see it in a theater. I would have paid $15 to see it at home. But AppleTV wanted me to subscribe to AppleTV and would not sell or rent the movie to me otherwise. I believe I am like most people when I swear I will not subscribe to ten different streaming services (At this moment I have Netflix and Ami has Amazon Prime and Hulu). I’m not subscribing to a streaming platform just to watch one movie. That is stupid.

 

Worse, this development comes at the end-times of the rental market. For the first fifteen years of this century, movie-lovers lived in a golden era when every movie and TV show that was released was also put on DVD for general consumption in the rental market. In fact, all the great old movies were put on DVD too. With a Netflix DVD subscription, one had access to the entire DVD universe, which seemed to be almost everything. This golden era has ended. It is starting to become common that movies are not getting a DVD release (Compact Disc slots themselves are being omitted from new electronic devices). This would not be such a problem if there existed a general rental market where individual titles could be downloaded. However, that does not appear to be happening. “Greyhound” will not come out on DVD and it won’t be available to rent from AppleTV or any other streaming platform in the near or far future. It appears that it is fated to forever be locked within AppleTV. There are two ways a movie becomes widely seen. It is either widely marketed and highly anticipated. Many people see it immediately upon its release in theaters. Or it gains popularity once a critical mass of people have seen it and recommend it to other people. "Greyhound" did not get a release in theaters. A required subscription to AppleTV should severely limit any possible spread via word-of-mouth. It is hard to imagine a different scenario in which the rollout of this movie would result in it being seen by less people. It is almost as if Apple has no experience whatsoever in the business of making and marketing movies.

There is this idea of a shared popular culture which comes from a time (50s to 70s) when there were only five television channels and movies were expensive to make. Everyone in the country seemed to be watching or at least aware of the same cultural happenings. The splintering of our shared culture has been occurring for awhile now (let’s put the start of it at basic cable). The closing of movie theaters and the obsolescence of DVD rentals will only exacerbate that trendline. Where we go from here I do not know, but I am noticing the change.

I'm Thinking of Ending Things (3/5 Stars)

 

I saw “I’m Thinking About Ending Things”, the new movie written and directed by Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Synecdoche New York), without reading any reviews about it. Strange things occurred all over the place. Still I believe I grasped the basic concept of what was happening. My guess was that an old janitor at the local high school was reminiscing (and revising) a memory he had a long time ago when he brought a girl he liked back home to meet his parents for the first time. I was close. After I saw the movie I read an review/interview with Mr. Kaufman in which it was revealed that everything but the janitor going about his day at the school was entirely imagined. There was no memory the janitor was revisiting. The whole thing was a daydream.

 

Is that a spoiler? I’m not sure. A spoiler generally refers to revealing a detail of a plot too early. In this movie, the basic concept is never revealed. You can only guess at it. Furthermore, I’m not sure knowing what the concept is will change how you view the movie a second time. There is much in this movie that is just strange and is hardly justified by the movie’s concept. There is a dog that appears and disappears randomly, a mysterious basement that isn’t so mysterious, a dinner meal that is never eaten. In the third act, the movie delves into ballet and animation. Even now, when I know what was happening, I could not tell you why most of the strange choices were necessary. They appear to be arbitrary to me.

 

This is the sort of argument I would level against a David Lynch film, but I have also like some of what David Lynch has done (the Twin Peaks tv show in particular). And I liked the movie The Lighthouse last year, so strange happenings by themselves are not a complete turn off to me. However, there is a problem with static scenes that simply go on too long to be anything but boring after a while. There are two scenes that take place entirely in a car. Each must be at least fifteen minutes long and contain nothing but dialogue. Kaufman changes the camera angle a bunch of times, but that is not enough. After a while one cannot stave off the feeling that nothing has happened for an exceptionally long period of time.

 

The concept when finally understood (I recommend reading articles that explain this movie either before or after seeing it) is very sad. Apparently, this old janitor never got far in his love life because he was always so terrified at bringing a woman home to his depressing farm to meet his weird parents. Even his imaginary girlfriend (here played by Jessie Buckley, his imaginary self is played by Jesse Plemons) does not seem to like him. Even though she is a creation of his mind and implanted with various bits of culture he has picked up over the years (landscape painting, Pauline Kael movie reviews, his favorite poem), she can’t help want to end the relationship, thus the title. I can’t help but think of Fight Club, which was about a man who so loathed himself that his imaginary friend wanted and proceeded to beat the shit out of him.

 

I’m not about to tell Charlie Kaufman to stop being so depressing. (Surely solitary high school janitors deserve movie as much as anyone else.) However, it may be a good idea for him to stop directing his own screenplays. His best movies employed such inventive directors as Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation) and Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). They brought a colorful energy to Kaufman’s writing that is sorely missing from the bland palette of Kaufman’s own directorial visions (Synecdoche New York and Anomalisa). Perhaps if Kaufman went back to only writing his movies, he could find more time to make more of them. I note that Kaufman has only made two movies in the past decade. That is not nearly enough with someone with so much raw talent.

Bill & Ted Face the Music (4/5 Stars)

 

More than most other film franchises, Bill & Ted seems to benefit consistently from low expectations and the suspension of disbelief. The premise of the original movie involved two teenage boys from San Dimas California that dream about being rock-stars, call each other dude, and implore the people they meet to “Be Excellent to Each Other.” They are met by Rufus, a time-traveler from the future, (played by George Carlin), who informs them that they have a glorious destiny to unite the world in song but first have to pass a high-school history presentation. To help them in this regard, he lets Bill & Ted use his time machine to round up historical figures to help them pass. The film somehow works. I think it is because, although Bill & Ted know nothing about history, the movie itself is surprisingly literate. Importantly, the movie is also not snobbish about its education. It perceives the historical figures not as lofty great men, but people, and finds fun in what these people would think of the 1980s. It works much like Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris” would work like twenty years later. It is enthusiastic about the past but never uses that knowledge as a platform for superiority. It treats history in a most inclusive, accessible, and excellent way. A tip of the hat to the writers of all three movies, Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon. Also, San Dimas High School Football Rules!

Bill & Ted Face the Music keeps intact all of the elements of what made the first Bill & Ted movies work and does just enough to differentiate itself into a new movie. It is a more of a concluding chapter than a breaker of new territory however. There is time travel (like the first movie) and a trip to Hell (like the second movie), but no new surreal concept. What it concerns itself with is the tying up of loose ends. It was foretold in the first movie that Prescott and Logan would write and perform a song that would unite the world. In this movie, we see that destiny fulfilled.

The entanglements of time and heaven/hell travel are given the briefest of surface logic, which is fine for the movie’s purposes. Now middle-aged and so far unsuccessful in uniting the world in song, Bill & Ted are met by the daughter of Rufus (played by Kristen Schaal) who informs them that the world is going to end later that day unless the foretold song is played at a very specific time and place. How specific? Well the movie is about 95 minutes long and Kristen Schall says this at around the fifteen-minute mark, so like in 75 minutes. Classic Bill & Ted movie logic.

But Bill & Ted have not written the song yet. It has been twenty-five years they have been trying to do the same, so how could they do it now by the end of the movie. More Classic Bill & Ted movie logic coming up:

-        Wait, haven’t we been foretold to write this song. That must mean that we are going to do it. We have a time machine, why don’t we just go to the future when we have written the song and take it from ourselves.

-        Excellent idea.

-        Wait, except won’t that be stealing?

-        How is that stealing, when we’re stealing it from ourselves, dude?

But the thing is, it is stealing, and older versions of Bill & Ted don’t like what these younger versions are up to. They excoriate them for being selfish and cutting corners. These are the funniest scenes in the movie with double Alex Winters and Keanu Reeves light-heartedly arguing with each other about time travel ethics.

Meanwhile, Bill & Ted now have two daughters, Billie and Thea, who seem to be the very rare kind of teenagers who believe their parents are to be emulated and impersonated. They want to help and engage in their own most excellent adventure into the past to form a supergroup of all ages. Amongst the greats on their list: Jimi Hendrix, Louis Armstrong, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. They have great taste in music. It is unfortunate though that the artists play their most well-known songs. For Armstrong (played by Jeremiah Craft) that is “When the Saints Go Marching In.” I can think of ten other pieces of music I would have rather heard him play. Still, it is fun to see Satchmo on the screen. Really, the only musician I did not recognize was the most recent, a rapper named Kid Cudi. I have becoming familiar with his oeuvre all morning. Thanks for the tip Bill & Ted.

Like a lot of movies nowadays that derive from source material largely populated by white men, the movie has taken steps to get more people involved, perhaps even with the intention of handing off future installments to the girls Billie and Thea.  A lot of time I find this sort of inclusivity annoying because it seems to reflect not so much a moral imperative as much as a corporate bid to cater to the lowest common denominator in order to increase market share (the real money is in the international box office after all). It is almost axiomatic that most great movies are not inclusive (at least in terms of casting) because they concern specific subject matter and are thus intended for a specific audience. This adherence to particularity is what differentiates those movies from run-of-the-mill films which are designed to eschew controversy/personality in an effort to placate everyone. The usual result is that they resemble something you’ve seen a hundred times before because, spoiler alert, you have.

Here, though I give the inclusivity a pass. Given the personalities of Bill & Ted and the overall tone of the trilogy, uniting the world in song actually does seem to be in line with how the characters would act and where the plot would end up without undue contrivance. It would then make story sense to get everyone involved. The song could have been better, but you know, it is hard to create a transcendent piece of music that involves every musical style in the whole world going backwards and forwards through time. As it is pointed out, the point is not that the song is the best song, but that everyone is playing it, which is a very Bill & Ted argument. They never have been particularly good musicians.

First Cow (4/5 Stars)

I enjoyed being excited about “First Cow” this year, the newest filmmaker from Kelly Reichardt. It is a story about the first cow in Oregon in the 1920s and a odd couple of men, a cook named Cookie, played by John Magaro, and a Chinaman named King-Lu, played by Orion Lee, who conspire to steal its milk and use to it to sell pastries. As there are no other cows, they will have the best tasting pastries in the territory. A boon!

What a dumb idea for a movie and I enjoyed telling people I was anticipating “First Cow” because the plot seemed so enjoyably stupid. But that was only half of it. I enjoyed getting excited by “First Cow” because Kelly Reichardt had directed it and written it with her long-time collaborator Jonathan Raymond. There previous collaborations include: “Old Joy”, “Wendy and Lucy”, “Meek’s Cutoff”, and “Night Moves”. So even though it looked and sounded stupid, I knew it was going to be good. And “First Cow” is very good. One of Reichardt’s best. And I would know because I have now seen every movie she has made, even her obscure student film “River of Grass.”

When I last wrote a review for a movie of hers “Night Moves” in June 2014, I spent half the time trying to explain why I to liked Reichardt’s style. I will add to that here by saying that she is from a very specific place that filmmakers usually do not make films about. The location is Oregon. In addition, she sometimes makes films that are period pieces. And where else can you see a movie that takes place in Oregon in the 1820s.

That is when “First Cow” takes place, mainly in a trading village comprised of Native Americans, English trappers, but also the travelling Russians and Chinese. The only real house around belongs to the richest man in town, played by Toby Jones. He also brought with him to the territory the title cow.

Cookie is an unappreciated cook by his rougher compatriots. He saves the life of King-Lu one day in the woods when he hides him from vengeful Russians. They strike a tender and gentle friendship that is really nice to witness. John Magaro’s performance is especially nice. When King-Lu first invites him into his shack and asks him to take it easy before dinner, Cookie’s first instinct is to start sweeping the floor. Then he goes outside and picks flowers for the table. (I think this movie would make a hilarious double feature with “The Revenant”. They exist in the same time period (1820s) and general location (American West) but could not be more different in content and tone.)

King-Lu is ambitious. His last scheme left him flat broke, but he has not given up. King-Lu is excited by the possibilities of being the first people in a new territory. “History isn’t here yet. It’s coming, but maybe this time, we can take it on our own terms.” But how to start? Perhaps a crime, surmises King-Lu anticipating Balzac’s famous saying.

The crime is to sneak into the field of the rich man and surreptitiously milk his cow. Through this little tale, Reichardt seems to make lots of statements about history, capitalism, opportunity, and class, but true to form, she does not come close to hitting you over the head with it. One can simply watch “First Cow” in a state of zen, letting the music gently wash over you, and taking comfort in calm acting and simple storytelling. In jazz, they say it is the notes you don’t play that make all the difference. The same can be said about a Reichardt film.

Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (4/5 Stars)

Earlier this year I was going through the movies of Bong Joon Ho and watched “Snowpiercer” for the first time. It was a decent movie about the last living humans spending time on a high-speed train whose cars were divided by class. The poor cars were in the derelict overcrowded caboose and each subsequent car being nicer and more luxurious. The content of each car was a mystery before the main characters invaded them, so there was a pleasant anticipation every ten minutes in the movie. The second to last car was a electronic music rave party. Lots of music, lights, drugs, and grinding. I felt that was an odd choice for the highest strata of society. Then I saw “Eurovision Song Contest: The Son of Fire Saga”. Now I get it. This movie is the last car on the apocalypse train.

This is a Will Ferrell comedy, written by Will Ferrell and a recent collaborator Andrew Steele. Andrew Steele was the main writer for the very funny miniseries “The Spoils of Babylon” and the just funny “Spoils Before Dying”. This movie has a certain comedic professionalism to it. The story telling is very efficient. Within the first five minutes we know the lifelong goal of the protagonists Lars Erickssong and Sigrit Ericksdottir is to win the Eurovision song contest, that Lars Erickssong has a disapproving father and that Sigrit Ericksdottir is secretly in love with Lars but Lars doesn’t know it (and they might be half-siblings?).

These are all well-worn comedic premises but they still work not less because of general wit of the screenplay and the performances of Ferrell as Lars, Pierce Brosnan as his father, and Rachel McAdams as Sigrit. Besides everything about Eurovision is a ridiculous music video fantasy. The freshness of the subject matter enlivens the entire movie.

Not that Eurovision is a new thing. Apparently it has been going on since the end of the World War II. Its huge in Europe and no-one in America knows anything about it. That dichotomy, Will Ferrell, says is what drew him to the project. Eurovision is a contest in which European countries sponsor home-grown acts in a singing contest held in a giant stadium and shown to millions of people on TV. We are shown a clip of ABBA singing a song about Waterloo in the early 1970s.

Lars and Sigrit are from a small fishing village in Iceland. When Lars learns that he and Sigrit get into the semifinals for Iceland, Lars rings the emergency bell in the local church tower. This is against the law and Lars promptly gets arrested. But in the police station, Lars and Sigrit plead with the local cops to just “be cool” and the cops just let Lars go. At another point, after Lars and Sigrit have inexplicably gotten into the Eurovision contest, they take part in what is called a Song-A-Long in a gigantic mansion. Every participant has ridiculous over-the-top makeup, hair, and costuming and check all the boxes in terms of ethnic and sexual identity. These people don’t have a care in the world. This musical interlude is the last car on the Apocalypse train.

Eurovision was directed by David Dobkin, who has done some pretty bad work in comedies before (see the lost opportunity that was Wedding Crashers). He is probably better appreciated for his music videos. The material here is a much better fit for him than his other movies. The movie has music throughout and Dobkin knows how to shoot in stage choreography for film. In particular, the closest this movie has to an antagonist, the Russian Alexander Lemtov (played by Dan Stevens), has two kind of ridiculously number involving taming lions, lions represented by male dancers with chiseled abdominal.

I had a lot of fun watching this movie. I enjoyed all of the songs, even Ya Ya Ding Dong. This movie is like the opposite of all the concurrent crises we have in America. We could probably use something like Eurovision here. The closest thing I guess would be American Idol, but that is a celebration of individualism and Coca-Cola, when it isn’t explicitly an exercise in sadism, not something that would bring people together.

Irresitible (3/5 Stars)

At a small-town city council meeting in the tiny town of Deerlaken, Wisconsin, the Mayor and city counsel are voting to impose a voter identification law. In walks Jack Hastings, played by Chris Cooper, who objects to the I.D. law. He makes a reference to what appears to be a latino couple in the back of the room, references high-minded democratic ideals and some tenets of Christianity and leaves. This is all caught on camera and posted to YouTube.

The video is shown to a Democratic political advisor named Gary Zimmer, played by Steve Carell, who absolutely loves it. It is almost too good to be true. Here is a white middle-aged man, veteran, and farmer, from a swing-state no less, that is taking a pro-immigration stance using the symbolic authority (founding fathers and the bible) of Republicans. Gary carpetbags his way to Deerlaken with the intent to finance the candidacy of Jack Hastings for Mayor of Deerlaken on the Democratic ticket. He wants to make a big national deal about this tiny mayoral race in rural Wisconsin.

Jack Hastings, along with his daughter Diana Hastings, played by MacKenzie Davis, allow Gary to serve as campaign manager to the upcoming campaign. Deerlaken has major problems. Its economic base was centered on a military base that has since closed, throwing many local companies out of business. The population of Deerlaken has collapsed from 15,000 people to just 5,000. With problems like that, an astute observer may wonder why the locals would care about national immigration policy.

Gary Zimmer does not connect those dots. And he knows he does not have to meet his ultimate goal. With his connections, money, and election apparatus behind him, he knows that he can simply outspend the other side to victory. The mayoral race does not really matter to national politics, but because of the immigration issue, the location of Deerlaken, and the identity of Jack Hastings, it will make a great story for the national news cycle. A Democrat wins in this rural town with Democratic sound-bytes for the first time in fifty or so years. When the Republicans catch wind of what is happening, they send down Faith Brewster, played by Rose Byrne, to dramatically up the spending game. Gary loves this because it means even more time and money are going to be spent on this symbolic election. Even if Jack Hastings loses, the Democrats would still win because they would have been able to beat expectations.

This is Jon Stewarts’ second feature film as a writer/director following Rosewater. We all know him from his fifteen years at the The Daily Show, an excellent fake news broadcast on Comedy Central. There is a twist to the story which he springs in the final twenty minutes. I hesitate to discuss a twist, but I will because I believe if the movie had not concealed the twist, it might have made for a more effective and funnier movie.

As it is, the movie follows Gary Zimmer around as if he is the main character. But he is not the main character, and he makes a poor main character while the movie allows him to take on that role. The main character is Deerlaken and the people in it. The Youtube video was fabricated and the election is a scam. The people of Deerlaken, helped by an astute understanding of campaign finance laws, know that if their town’s local election can catch the attention of the national media, their local economy will be the recipients of a vast amount of unfiltered unaccountable cash. The town intends to use this sorely needed cash to rebuild the local infrastructure, stimulate the local economy, and do other things that actually matter (as opposed to a purely symbolic national immigration debate).

But you will not know this for the first 90 minutes of “Irresistible” and the marketing campaign for it has gone even further in pulling another bait-and-switch on the expectations of the audience. Jon Stewarts’ fan base is urban and liberal, which is why the marketing is presenting a political comedy between the idealistic democratic strategist Gary Zimmer and a nihilistic republican strategist named Faith Brewster, played by Rose Byrne. But Faith Brewster is not a main character of this story and the movie is not really about a tussle between Democrats and Republicans. Faith shows up, finds Gary’s scheming mostly boring, and does not pretend, like Gary, to patronize the locals. She is here to shower money on the local economy and remind the people that Gary doesn’t actually care about them. She doesn’t care about them either, but her straightforward unashamed manner is less annoying.

Jon Stewart does not actually have much to say about the Republican party here, which makes sense if his purpose is to enlighten and inform those in his audience, his audience being mainly urban and liberal. All his criticism focuses on Gary Zimmer, the out-of-touch liberal elitist, who likes to describe the rural white residents of Deerlaken, Wisconsin as small-minded to the intelligentsia at NYC dinner party fundraisers. It is the urban elitist who ultimately gets outmaneuvered by the small-minded rural folk. I admire Jon Stewart’s willingness to not preach to the choir. That man has got some big ol’ matza balls on him.

As a director, Jon Stewart is still a little happy-go-lucky with his camera. He has some distracting camera angles and shots here where a more straightforward and simple style would have been appropriate. He has an eye casting though. I always appreciate when Will Sasso, from MadTV way back when, shows up in any movie to play anybody. “Irresistible” is not all that funny in the first half. However, as things become clearer, it picks up more and more laughs as it gains speed through the midway point.

The movie ends with a conversation with Trevor Potter, the lawyer brought on screen in many Daily Show and Colbert Report segments to talk about the ridiculous of campaign finance laws. Jon Stewart asks, could a town actually do this? Could they raise all this outside money, funnel it into Super Pacs, and then spend that money on local issues instead of advertising for an election? Yes, Trevor Potter, states. There are no rules for Super Pacs. You can raise any amount of money for them, ostensibly for the purpose of influencing an election, but spend that money however you want. Jon Stewart, wisely suggests, that more people should abuse the law and use the enormous amount of money circulating through our election ecosystem to actually help local communities. I feel like that idea may have had the comic potential of the accounting scheme in “The Producers”, which as you know, was laid out very clearly in that movie’s first scene. I wonder what this movie would have been like if Jon Stewart had led with his great idea.

You Should Have Left (2/5 Stars)

“You Should Have Left” is one of those ninety-minute movies that are about sixty minutes too long. Given the information that is conveyed on the screen, the movie could have efficiently structured as an episode of the Twilight Zone, which run about thirty minutes long. It stars Kevin Bacon as an ex-banker, Amanda Seyfried, his young wife and actress, and a daughter. I could not figure whether the daughter was Kevin Bacon’s child from a previous marriage, Amanda Seyfried’s daughter from a previous marriage, or their own child from the present marriage. It is very hard to tell, but it also does not matter.

In the first twenty minutes of the movie, the plot hints at a secret from Kevin Bacon’s past. I do not know why it hints at this secret, because the movie does not do anything else with its time except make lame off-plot attempts at humor. So, the audience kind of just waits around for the movie to come out and tell the secret for no reason. The movie could have started at the twenty-minute mark and no one would have been the wiser.

This is a haunted house horror movie. The family Bacon go on vacation at a mansion in the Welsh countryside. After a day, the house starts presenting weird omens and doing horrific things. However, how the house works is never explained. It just does what it wants when it wants to do it. The movie bordered on interesting for a moment when Kevin and his daughter measured a room in the house as twenty-five feet and then went outside the house and measured the same room as twenty feet. Why is there an extra five feet? The movie does not say. It is a magic house.

It is easy to be manipulated by a magic house because there are no rules. Any defeats or victories are completely arbitrary. Thus, Kevin Bacon never stands a chance and there is no suspense. Is it a metaphor? I think such an analysis would be giving this movie too much credit. Why should I put more thought into this than the creator?

The creator is Writer/Director David Koepp. Looking at this guy’s resume, I was kind of blown away. He has worked at a high profile in this industry for decades. Koepp is the screenwriter of Jurassic Park, Mission: Impossible, Spider-Man, and War of the Worlds. He also wrote for and directed Kevin Bacon in “Stir of Echoes”, a much better psychological thriller. What he felt he needed to make this movie is anybody’s guess. It does explain how the movie got made in the first place. If any new movie director had pitched this to a producer, there would have been no way it would have been picked up. No one is asking for a horror movie that is solely concerned with the conscience of an aging white male ex-banker. No other character in this movie, the few characters that there are, is developed in any appreciable manner. I think they got that Welsh guy from the store to do the movie’s ending voiceover which helpfully explained the moral of the story in case you were an idiot and/or fallen asleep half way through.

Why is this movie $19.99 to rent? It is a new feature but it is not playing in a movie theater, which would, at the most, charge $17.50. Plenty of smaller movie theaters charge less. There is no theater to pay upkeep for and no theater employees to pay. Why is it more expensive than a movie theater ticket? The experience is less in many obvious ways. My TV screen is smaller, I have more distractions in the room, I don’t have the ability to purchase a wide range of concessions, drinks, and food as I do at Nitehawk, Alamo Drafthouse, or Syndicated. I feel like I got ripped off by this Bacon banker guy.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (3/5 Stars)

I had fun watching “Portrait of a Lady of Fire”. Perhaps that they may not have been the desired effect of Writer-Director Celine Sciamma and I do not mean to insinuate that the movie is so bad it is good. It is a good movie, well made, poetically composed, and filled with good performances. It just is too serious for a plot that has so little at stake and it moves so slowly and relies so heavily on looks and gazes e to move itself forward that the impatient among us are provoked to add their own comments to fill in the space. If you want to see this movie, you should not see it with me. I talked a lot during it.

The plot can be briefly summarized. A young woman, played by Noemie Merlant, is hired to paint the portrait of another young woman, Adele Haenel. They are both French and the entire movie takes place in a scenic isolated villa on the coast of France. There is lots of wind that blows through their hair, brunette for Noemie, blonde for Adele. Adele has endured a recent tragedy. She has a very French reaction. in full ennui she does nothing every day but walk through gorgeous cinematography looking striking and miserable.

There is a clear subtext in all the gazes between Noemie and Adele. The movie does not outright say it for the first hour of the movie, but they are totally lesbians. There is no one else in this villa but the maid, and every other scene is them looking at each other without talking. These types of pauses that generally lead to sex in most movies seem to happen every five or ten minutes or so. I incorrectly predicted that Noemie and Adele would start making out several times. I’m not going to spoil whether they ever do it…Not! They totally do!

There is a lot of painting in this movie and Celine Sciamma probably did a good job of portraying the process. I don’t know, I don’t know much about painting. However, I do know however when a woman is correctly framed and lit in cinematography. In this regard, Sciamma clearly knows what she is doing. It’s hot. I especially like the scene where the lady was on fire.

The Invisible Man (4/5 Stars)

The story behind the production of “The Invisible Man” reads like a cautionary tale for a terrible movie. “The Invisible Man” is one of several very old properties from Universal Studios that make up its monster movie franchises. (Others include “Frankenstein”, “Dracula”, and the “Wolfman”). When it appeared that franchises with endless chapters like Marvel, DC Comics, and Star Wars were the future of movie money, Universal was sad to contemplate that it did not have a ready franchise to pour all of its money into. All it had were theses monsters. So it attempted to create an interconnected “Dark Universe”. This led to the Tom Cruise led “The Mummy” flop, after which the “Dark Universe” appeared to be a dead idea. However, for shits and giggles, and because creative directors in movie studies are legendarily averse to new ideas, all the monster movies look like they will be rebooted anyway. “The Invisible Man” is one of those movies. A top-down directive is always a bad reason to make a movie.

The next bad idea for making a movie is to cash in on a political moment, in this case #MeToo. I’ve complained several times now about movies and scenes in movies that seem to exist solely to garner applause for being woke but have little to add to the cinematic experience. (“Game of Thrones”, “Captain Marvel” and my last movie review about “Wendy” come to mind). “The Invisible Man” fits squarely in the definition of a #MeToo movie. I bet the pitch for “The Invisible Man” probably went something like this:

Producer: We want to reboot “The Invisible Man”. The franchise made a lot of money in the past. There is a built-in audience and the horror movies are a safe genre to open in theaters.

Creative Director: I like it!

Producer: But it will be different. We’ll make it a #MeToo movie and market it as such. It’ll start Elizabeth Moss, an actress perpetually put upon by mean men in successful series like “Mad Men” and “The Handmaid’s Tale”.

Creative Director: Green Light! Is there a script?

Producer: I’ll get the monkeys to start typing it right away!

Well, sometimes even the worst ideas can turn out all right. I am happy to report that “The Invisible Man” is a hell of a movie. It well-directed, brilliantly acted, and is scary. I never saw the original movie, but I did see Kevin Bacon’s “Hollow Man”. This movie is much better and scarier than “Hollow Man” and I expect better and scarier than the original movie franchise. Credit for this is heavily dependent on the #MeToo premise. Movies in the past about invisible men, at least “Hollow Man”, told the story from the man’s point of view and leaned on the voyeuristic pleasures of being invisible, for example, peeping at naked women. Here, the point of view of the movie switches to that  of a visible woman, Elizabeth Moss playing a recent escapee from an abusive relationship who then becomes suspicious that her controlling ex has turned himself invisible to better continue harassing her. The voyeurism is gone because the audience generally does not know whether it is happening in any given scene. What replaces it is a sense of uneasiness and then terror. The #MeToo premise, far from being its usual anachronistic annoyance, makes the story far more effective as a horror movie.

If this movie has a predecessor in old cinema, I don’t think it would be the original movies, but “Gaslight” from 1944 starring Ingrid Bergman. That movie’s impact wound up verbing the name of the movie in the English lexicon. To “gaslight” is to “manipulate (someone) by psychological means into questioning their own sanity.” Here, the the invisible man pulls the ultimate gaslight. (Double Feature, anyone?).

The object of the ultimate gaslight, slowly questioning her sanity and being terrified out of her mind is Cecilia Kass, played by Elizabeth Moss. Because there are no other actors in the room, Elizabeth Moss is effectively in a one-woman-show. It is the sort of performance that would garner an easy Oscar nomination if it weren’t in the horror genre. She is perfectly cast in this movie for the reasons outlined along with her preternatural ability to bring a character through the gamut of all the emotions in the right order. She is helped by a wise script that knows that a woman does not need to win every scene in order for the movie to be considered feminist. To understand why this character is interesting and Captain Marvel is not, is to understand what makes characters interesting in general, a standard which applies equally to both the sexes.

“The Invisible Man” was written and directed by Leigh Whannel, who was awful person that wrote the first three “Saw” movies and helped provoke a decade of disgusting torture porn. Only within the last six years, has the horror genre entered a mini renaissance of talented writers and directors like Ari Aster, Robert Eggers, and Jennifer Kent whose movies are actually scary, not simply exercises in cruelty. “The Invisible Man” belongs in this mini-renaissance. It seems Leigh Whannel has learned something about making movies in the last few years. I suppose there is hope for every single last one of us.

Wendy (3/5 Stars)

I cannot say that I am all that familiar with the Peter Pan story. I have only seen untraditional versions of story, Spielberg’s “Hook”, the J.M. Barrie biopic “Finding Neverland, and now “Wendy”. From the first two I gleaned a few details I thought were: 1) Peter Pan is good; 2) Captain Hook is bad; and 3) Neverland is fun.

 “Wendy” the long-awaited second feature of Writer/Director Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild) kind of turns the whole thing on its head. The inhabitants of Neverland reminded me of H.G. Wells’ Eloi and Morlocks which would make Peter, the instigator, a sort of nefarious Pied Piper luring innocent children to a dangerous place. I don’t think Zeitlen wanted the movie to feel this way, but it does for the most part, because the dark side to Neverland is much worse than the boring real world that Wendy and her brothers escape from. This movie has what Beasts of the Southern Wild had in terms of precocious child actors, untamed cinematography, and soaring music. Apparently, Zeitlin even shot the movie on an island with an active volcano. None of this makes up for the dramatic lack of fun. Neverland is never a place without crisis and anxiety. I don’t think children after watching this movie would ever want to go there.

Peter is played by a boy named Yashua Mack. He has dreadlocks, a cool red coat, and a great screen presence. However, it is the sort of screen presence that is more unsettling than exciting. He lures adventurous children, including Wendy (played by Devin France) and her two brothers, onto a train, throws them off a bridge into the ocean, and then paddles them in a canoe to an island with a large active volcano. The kids have fun playing in the jungle for a while. Then one of the brothers dies. The other brother, now bereft of his best friend, starts physically transforming into an old person. This we are told is a condition of the island. If you do not have a best friend, you rapidly age. It is then revealed that on the other side of the island, amidst a ramshackle of decrepit buildings, lives a large group of old sick people. These were kids that Peter brought to the island before exiling them after they experienced a tragedy (i.e. lost their best friend) and were cursed to grow old. The cursed kids can’t even go back home because they would be unrecognizable to their parents. I’m not even sure they know how to go back home. Peter does not seem to care about any of this. Like I said, this is not fun.

The movie gets interesting halfway through the second act when Captain Hook shows up. Before that it is mostly uncomfortable. Captain Hook has a plan to kidnap the children, deprive them of their essence, and use it to become young again. Who would you like to win this fight? Captain Hook who was betrayed and robbed of his youth by Peter, or Peter who is an asshole.

The revision of the basic story extends most importantly to Wendy. Zeitlin in interviews has stated that he had feminist inclinations, that he did not like how the girl in the original story always depended on Peter and did not hold sway over the events of the story. Here, Wendy has a more active role, making decisions, coming up with ideas, and trying to persuade people. That’s nice, but it doesn’t make sense in this children’s story. The character Wendy is a girl true, but she is also a stand-in for the audience. It doesn’t make sense for the audience character to be responsible for fixing everything. Doing that takes the experience of being taken on a ride to a new, strange, and wonderful place and replaces it with a bunch of work. Peter isn’t of any help because boys are stinky and of no hlep. So, Wendy, bound by a feminist viewpoint, for all intents and purposes is the only adult in this movie. She isn't allowed to be a child. If you can’t be a child in Neverland, well, what is the point?

It took Benh Zeitlin an unconscionable eight years to make this movie. Beasts of the Southern Wild, an incredible feature debut, came out in 2012 and feels like ancient history. We have all become old waiting for Zeitlin’s next movie. Having seen “Wendy”, I’m not particularly looking forward to his next movie, which, given the man’s lack of productivity, may never happen. After Beasts of the Southern Wild, he was the new hot thing. Wendy will not make any headlines and Zeitlin may be forgotten by the time he makes another movie. 

OSCARS 2020

This year was notable in that I found several talented relatively new filmmakers that had been around for a few years whose movies I had not been aware. The main reason may be my general aversion to horror films, at least the kinds of horror films that I grew up with, which specialized in torture scenes. The horror movies that are coming out now, spearheaded by the very talented producers at A24, are very good movies that have more in common with the horror renaissance of the 1970s than the schlock of the 80s and the torture porn of the aughts. I saw my first Jennifer Kent movie last summer ("The Nightingale") which led me to see her brilliant first movie (2015's "The Badadook"). I saw my first Eggers Brothers movie last fall ("The Lighthouse") which let me to see their very good first movie (2015's "The Witch"). I just saw Ari Aster's extraordinary "Midsommar" and have put his first movie "Hereditary" on my list. Then outside of the horror genre, I saw the Safdie Brothers "Uncut Gems" leading me to put "Good Time" on my list, and I saw Keanu Reeves "John Wick 3: Parabellum" leading me to watch the first movie in the series. I already knew about Marielle Heller ("A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood") and Greta Gerwig ("Little Women"), so all in all I feel more caught up with new talent in movies than I have been in years.

Also, I feel like for the first time in forever, the races for Best Supporting Actress and Best Actress were just as competitive as the races for Best Supporting Actor and Best Actor. This probably reflects more and better roles for women.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Kathy Bates – Bobi Jewell – Richard Jewell

Laura Dern - Nora Danshaw - Marriage Story

Nicole Kidman – Gretchen Carlson - Bombshell

Scarlett Johansson – Rosie – Jojo Rabbit

Yeo-jeong Jo – Yeon Kyo - Parasite

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Baykali Ganabarr – Billy – The Nightingale

Brad Pitt – Cliff Booth - Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood

Joe Pesci – Russell Bufalino – The Irishman

Kang-ho Song – Ki Take – Parasite

Wesley Snipes – D’Urville Martin – Dolemite is My Name

BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING

1917

Bombshell
Jojo Rabbit
Joker

BEST COSTUME DESIGN 

Joker

Jojo Rabbit

Little Women

Midsommar
One Upon a Time…in Hollywood

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Joker

Midsommar

Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood

Parasite

BEST USE OF A SONG IN A MOVIE

Old Man Piano Medley – Under the Silver Lake

I’m a Believer and Heroes (German Version) – Jojo Rabbit

In the Still of the Night – The Irishman

Being Alive – Marriage Story

Beethoven (Pathetique Sonata) – Little Women

BEST SOUND EDITING AND SOUND MIXING

Ford v. Ferrari

The Lighthouse

They Shall Not Grow Old

1917

Ad Astra

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

1917

Avengers: Endgame

Captain Marvel

The Irishman

 Star Wars IX: The Rise of Skywalker

BEST FILM EDITING

Honeyland

The Irishman

Knives Out

Parasite

Uncut Gems

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

1917

Honeyland

The Lighthouse

Midsommar

Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood

BEST DOCUMENTARY

American Dharma

American Factory

Honeyland

One Child Nation

They Shall Not Grow Old

BEST ACTRESS

Aisling Franciosi – Clare – The Nightingale

Awkwafina – Billi – The Farewell

Charlize Theron – Megyn Kelly – Bombshell

Florence Pugh – Dani – Midsommar

Taraji P. Hensen – Ann Atwater – The Best of Enemies

BEST ACTOR
Adam Driver – Charlie – Marriage Story

Adam Sandler – Howard Ratner – Uncut Gems

Joaquin Phoenix – Arthur Fleck – Joker

Keanu Reeves – John Wick-  John Wick 3: Parabellum

Willem Dafoe – Thomas Wake – The Lighthouse

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Anthony McCarten - The Two Popes

Greta Gerwig – Little Women

Jojo Rabbit – Taika Waititi

Lulu Wang - The Farewell

Micah Fitzerman-Blue, Noah Harpster – A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Bong Joon Ho - Parasite

Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers - Spider-Man: Far From Home

David Robert Mitchell - Under the Silver Lake

Mike Leigh - Peterloo

Rian Johnson – Knives Out

BEST DIRECTOR

Ari Aster – Midsommar

Bong Joon Ho - Parasite

Safdie Brothers – Uncut Gems

Sam Mendes – 1917

Quentin Tarantino - Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood

BEST PICTURE:

This was the first year that a foreign language film won the Best Picture Oscar (Bong Joon Ho's "Parasite") and it will be the first year since I've started this blog (2005) where my pick for Best Picture was also the Academy's pick. So good job Academy.

1917
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
The Farewell
Jojo Rabbit
Knives Out
Midsommar
Once Upon a Time...In Hollywood
Parasite
Spider-Man: Far From Home
Uncut Gems