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Friday, June 27, 2025

Friendship (3/5 Stars)




Sometimes, as the iron is hot, it is best to strike it, whether you are ready or not, lest the opportunity pass you by. Tim Robinson is on the upswing. His sketch comedy show “I Think You Should Leave” is one of the best shows of the last five years. Given his success, now is the time for him to move onto bigger things, like a full scale movie. And given that he specializes in portraying a type of socially catastrophic middle aged man, someone had the bright idea to conceive of a movie in which he strikes up a friendship with the “I Love You, Man” middle aged man himself, Paul Rudd, whose comedic reputation is of the exact opposite nature. At the very least it should make for a great marketing campaign.

There is so much potential here that I kind of wish that someone had done just another rewrite of the script before they had jumped into it. This movie should be very good. Instead it is mediocre and the laughs are sparse. There are plenty of good moments, but too many of them are throwaway. The main problem is that an integral part of the storyline doesn’t quite make sense and so the movie is never truly grounded in reality. If the story does not have a base level of reality, it is hard to build jokes on top of it.

For those unacquainted with “I Think You Should Leave”, it may as well be the present vanguard of comedy. There is something special and new about what is going on in that show. If I were to pick one particular sketch to illustrate what is ground-breaking about it would be the “Haunted House Tour” in which the Tim Robinson character, after being informed that this was the “adult” tour that takes place after 10pm, decides to ask a bunch vulgar questions because, and this is important, he thinks that cursing is the socially acceptable thing to do in an “adult” tour. It is hard to describe and I think you should just watch it. But the main development comedically is the context. As a millennial, I grew up in a place and time where vulgarity was met with shock, and that shock value was funny. For the longest time, comedians seemed to be on an unending and ever more predictable quest to top themselves in vulgarity, a comedic strategy which sometime between There’s Something About Mary and Stepbrothers experienced diminishing returns. In the “Haunted House Tour” sketch, the vulgar questions aren’t met with shock. No-one is scandalized. It just feels weird and inappropriate. After all, it is 2022 and all the adults have seen StepBrothers, which came out in 2008. The incredible thing about the Tim Robinson character is that he wants to be socially acceptable, he is just utterly clueless as to how to do it and is making and committing to blindingly wrong choices to that end. In the “Haunted House Tour” the character is so well developed, and so well acted, that I experienced not only hilarity but a dramatic catharsis.

It is a very good idea to take this Tim Robinson character and insert him into a movie wherein Paul Rudd, that very cool and easy going guy, moves in across the street, and the chrance develops for them to develop a friendship, that is before Paul Rudd realizes just how strange and off putting the Tim Robinson character is. This is basically the plot of “Friendship”. It is a little like “The Cable Guy” but told from the point of view of Jim Carrey.

The main problem here is that the Tim Robinson character (named Craig Waterman) is inexplicably married to a successful business woman played by the beautiful Kate Mara. They have been married for so long that they have a teenage son. Craig Waterman also has a good, if not reputable, job as an advertising executive for addictive phone applications. Make no mistake, this is the Tim Robinson character, who is prone to giant social gaffes and inexplicable moments of wrath. So, what is he doing gainfully employed and happily married for more than a decade? That doesn’t really make sense. And you can’t blame his behavior on the added presence of Paul Rudd. Paul Rudd is playing the stereotypical Paul Rudd character. He’s just a cool guy. It’s not like he is driving Craig Waterman crazy.

What would make more sense is if Craig Waterman had an obscure dirty job and lived at home with his mother, and maybe one or both of them were hoarders. (That’s the backstory of the “Haunted House Tour” after all). I think this would make Craig Waterman more endearing, and Paul Rudd’s cute circle of friends more snobbish/elistish when they (understandably) reject him.

Still, besides the missed opportunity, there are several good moments in this movie. One of my favorites included the quick scene with an obscure actor named Connor O’Malley along with his character’s viewpoint about the forever war in Afghanistan. I also really like the toad-acid trip scene in which Craig Waterman orders a sandwich. Man, I just wished the move was better because the concept is such a good idea. And these opportunities, they don’t come around all that often.

Thursday, June 19, 2025

Sinners (4/5 Stars)




We have been waiting for this movie for ten years. In 2013, Writer/Director Ryan Coogler entered the scene with the impressive Fruitvale Station. We were all happy to see him hired by the biggest of studios (and definitely get paid) to make some wide release blockbusters like Creed (2015) and then Black Panther (2018). But unlike other auteurs that get scooped up into the money-making apparatus of reboots, remakes, and superhero franchises (Chistopher Nolan comes to mind), he either did not have the opportunity or chose not to take a step back and make some smaller movies in between his large ones. Ryan Coogler has not made a truly personal movie since 2013 until now. Sinners is undeniably Ryan Coogler’s movie. He built up a lot of good will (and box office) over the past decade, and here he is spending it.

Not that Sinners is a small movie. Yes, it takes place over the course of one day and one night in 1930s Clarkson, Mississippi, but it comes with all the technology and scope of a Marvel movie. Besides the obvious example of Oppenheimer, there has not been a more appropriate movie for an IMAX screen in the past several years than Sinners. I saw this movie in a regular movie theater and was consistently reminded by Coogler’s framing that I was seeing only a part of what he wanted to show me. My time to see it in IMAX has passed, but if it ever was released again in an IMAX theater, I would try to see it again.

The story as it is involves two identical twins, Smoke and Stack (both played by Michael B. Jordan) who have been gone from town for a while. First then fought in World War I and then they ran booze in Chicago for Al Capone. Despite the segregated reality of Mississippi, they have decided to open a bar/nightclub in their home town and spend the first half of the movie impressing the natives with their big city style and money and recruiting the best band they can for opening night. This involves rounding up an old bluesman like Delta Slim (played by Delroy Lindo) but more importantly an up-and-comer Sammie Moore (played by Miles Caton) whose voice is reminiscent of James Earl Jones.

The auditory aspects of Sinners are as impressive as its visual aspects.. Sinners has enough music in it to be classed as a musical, and Ryan Coogler shows his knowledge and very good taste in old school blues and old tyme folk music, which fill up the movie wall to wall. Sometimes it is hard to tell what makes good sound mixing or sound editing, but I would be very surprised if this movie was not going to show up next awards season nominated and perhaps winning those awards. (I do not believe there will be a nomination for Best Song because I think all of these songs are pre-existing, however, my category for Best Use of a Song will very likely include at least two entries from this movie).

I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of Sinners, but I sit here and wonder whether I really understood the overall theme and plot of this movie. The main storyline I have already described is clear enough. But halfway through the movie, vampires show up and they surround the nightclub with the aim (I think) of turning the talented Sammie Moore into one of them. Clarkson, Mississippi is known as the place where blues musician Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil in exchange for musical success. That might be relevant. I’m not sure. Sammie Moore seems to be plenty talented already. Honestly, I’m not exactly sure what the sins are that the film title Sinners appears to be referring to. Is it just basic drinking, carrying on, and fornicating? Because I don’t think the characters were doing anything heavier than that besides killing vampires.

Nor does the vampires’ desire to obtain Sammie Moore seem to be a not-so-veiled metaphor for the white man’s mission to steal the essence of their (supposedly) more artistic/creative black brethren (see Jordan Peele’s Get Out). After all, the vampires have their own music, and Ryan Coogler made sure to incorporate some very good samples of it. The vampire’s cover of Rocky Road to Dublin is awesome. Indeed, when attempting to be invited into the nightclub (basic vampire rules do apply here), the vampire's claim that they are not prejudiced and that to join them would be an opportunity to join an equal fraternity of undead. Whether it is better to be an undying and powerful vampire or to be a black person in the segregated South is an argument that gives the characters (and us) pause.

The movie devolves into bloody fist fights before the last remaining characters make it to the morning. Overall, the mission to open this nightclub is a dramatic failure even if the Klan get dealt a major blow near the end of the film, almost as an afterthought.

One more thing can be said about the performance of Michael B. Jordan. I’ve seen actors playing against themselves as identical twins, and this is not the best version of that. But more distracting is the fact that Michael B. Jordan is still built like Apollo Creed and Killmonger. Is it appropriate for a normal human in 1930s Mississippi to look like they’ve been into competitive body-building? It is even more distracting given that Michael B. Jordan was a respected actor (see The Wire, Fruitvale Station) before he became a human action figure, as opposed to, say, Arnold Schwarzenneger who doesn't really have the range to be anything but Arnold Schwarzenneger. Nicholas Cage did this for a few years (1996-1998) but then became normal again. If Ryan Coogler can escape the constraints of franchise movies, then I think it is time to release Michael B. Jordan as well.


Sunday, June 8, 2025

Low Cinema and "Dirtier Work"



My neighborhood, Ridgewood, Queens, NYC once again has a movie theater. The last one closed circa 2008 and was subsequently converted into a Blink Fitness gym circa 2018. This is not a commercial movie theater, more like one man’s hobby. It has about forty seats for one screen, which is more like the size of a large private screening room. There is a small concession stand, which sells popcorn and beer (good idea) at a reasonable price. There is only one bathroom, which I think is probably an oversight. The outside of the building doesn’t look like a theater at all. You would have to know it is one from a cursory review of online articles about the place or a knowledge of the cinema’s instagram page. So it feels like a secret, which has its own sort of appeal.

At this moment, it is hard to predict what types of movies the theater will choose to present, but I would think it will be a rare sighting for there to be any first run movies on their first weekend here. The movie I saw was a special edition of Norm MacDonald’s 1998 film “Dirty Work”, more on that below, and the screenings for that have all been sold out. The other movies on the calendar are even more obscure. Indeed, the whole thing is the brainchild of HBO’s John Wilson, creator of the documentary series “How To”, so I expect it will be mainly niche obscure films, or maybe even more of his documentaries that never made it to HBO. Still, the neighborhood is so starved for a movie theater, and the size of it is so small, that I think they could show almost anything and the place would be packed. And since the space has not been rented out from movie studios months in advance like first-run movie theaters are, an astute owner could even decide to rent it out as an event space. Want to get a somewhat large group of people to watch something, Low Cinema could be cool for that.

I was 12 years old when Norm MacDonald’s “Dirty Work” came out. I couldn’t see it in the theaters, but I have some sort of pride in my good taste remembering that I really wanted to see it based solely on the advertisements. The premise is exceedingly simple. Two losers open a “revenge-for-hire” business. Essentially, they are hired by nice(?) people to go around pranking the neighborhood jerks. That’s a good setup for lots of jokes and situational comedy. When I started buying DVDs about a year or two later, “Dirty Work” was one of the first ones I purchased. I have seen it plenty of times since then, but not lately. It has probably been a decade since I saw it at Low Cinema.

This is the “Dirtier” version of the movie. Apparently, in order to secure a PG-13 movie rating, the creators cut about five minutes of the randiest jokes, and in one notable scene set in the county jail, express out loud what in the regular version is only whispered. (Hint: it rhymes with Anal Rape.) The good thing is that the changes are minimal and the jokes inserted are funny enough to the point where the overall merit of the movie is hardly impacted. I could take or leave any one of them, except for the added lines for the sweet grandma that wants to hire the boys not to stop the demolition of her house (like in the original version) but to enact a gruesome form of revenge on the perpetrators. That scene I wish was in the original. I enjoyed seeing this movie in a movie theater with strangers, where I can attest, based on the laughter in the room, that it is still funny.

When someone restores a movie and adds five minutes just to show it to about 40 people in a niche theater in Ridgewood, Queens, it is because they really really like the film. Norm MacDonald’s comedic style has fallen into disrepute with the changing of the times in the past 10 years, more about that below. But beyond that, I feel his humor is generally underrated because most people are uncomfortable admitting that jokes that seem so dumb and simple made them laugh so much.

One of the best audiobooks I have ever listened to is Norm MacDonald’s reading of his autobiography. The vast majority of this book is bullshit, but he does kind of frame the subject matter loosely based on the vague geography of where he was in his life. In that portion of the book in which he flagrantly lies about his time at Saturday Night Live, he also gives a studious account of his idea of the perfect joke: it is one where the funny is so purely distilled that the setup and the punchline are almost identical. Here is the example of this “perfect joke” that the book cites from his time at the Weekly Update desk at SNL:

“Julia Roberts told reporters this week that her marriage with Lyle Lovett has been over for some time. The key moment she said came when she realized that she was Julia Roberts and that she was married to Lyle Lovett.”

In Dirty Work, there is another example of this type of joke, which is uttered with perfect delivery by the antagonist of the story, multimillionaire real estate developer Travis Cole (played by Chistopher MacDonald coming off of Happy Gilmore and at the peak of his 1990s douchiness). Speaking to a reporter outside of the restored Chelsea Opera House, Travis Cole boosts the opening performance of Don Giovanni and then makes a silver-tongued remark about its non-profit purpose:

“As you know, all the proceeds will be for the benefit of the homeless. And you know how I feel about homeless people. They are people. And they have no homes.”

Since then, we have coined a word for that sort of pretentious bullshit. It’s called “virtue-signalling”, and it comes about when people express an undue amount of pity or outrage on behalf of the lower elements of our society in order to, I guess, look good for and/or score points against the other bitches at the yacht party. Meanwhile, like U2’s Bono, they have no compunction with directing their accountants to cheat on their taxes as much as legally possible.

There are plenty of jokes here that could not be made so easily today because the tides of taboo have shifted dramatically since the 1990s. Take for instance the many jokes about gay sex. In the 1990s, those jokes would have been directed at the overall societal taboo against expressing the ideas at all. That is the, the target of the joke would have been the upright censors, and the audience would have felt a roguish thrill from watching something they shouldn’t have been watching. But now, given that the homesexuals have won a dramatic and unambiguous victory, one might watch the “movie theater” scene (which features a surprise screening of “Men in Black…Who Like to Have Sex With One Another”) and feel that it is not okay to refer to gay sex as anything but normal, and isn’t that stampede out of the theater offensive to the gays. The Director of Dirty Work, Bob Saget, whose live performances were extraordinarily raunchy, was also affected by the cultural shift.

Sure, I think that is mainly right. But I suggest one recognizes that Norm MacDonald seemed to think that all lust was funny, hence all the prostitutes in this movie. Indeed, he got a lot of funny mileage in needling people about areas in which they felt shame. And why he was especially good at doing that was, well, because Norm MacDonald seemed to be entirely non-judgmental about it himself. Norm was needling you because he thought it was funny that you would feel shame about it, not because he thought you were doing something shameful. The only person Norm MacDonald thought was guilty was O.J. Simpson, and even him, he didn’t really have strong feelings towards. Instead, he seemed to think it was funny that race politics could be so heightened that half the country was willing to acquit a murderer as a sacrifice for them. And the more backlash he received from this heightened political atmosphere, the funnier he thought it was, which eventually led to his firing at SNL, and even that he seemed to think was funny.

What accounts for this personality? You’ll never know for sure because he was an extraordinarily private person. But the context of his death provides a hint. In the late 1980s, he was diagnosed with cancer for the first time. This was a total secret. I heard about it for the first time in a posthumous documentary. A few years ago he died of that cancer. He didn’t tell anyone about it. But he wrote his “autobiography” knowing that he had a death sentence. And in that book, he talks about it in a very deep way. (Actually, maybe not, the words come from the context of a fictional make-a-wish child with cancer. That child wants Norm to realize his dream of clubbing a baby seal. This is accomplished and the child, covered in the blood of victory, is miraculously cured of cancer.) Norm also had a large gambling problem and in one interview he stated that he had lost everything at least three times. You do all that, and you just might be a little more zen then the rest of us.

Death hangs over this film. There is Chris Farley, at his best in a small role, bloated and about to die. There is Jack Warden, an accomplished actor that once played the President (see Being There) in one of his last roles, giving much needed veteran weight to a cast of young clowns. Then Bob Saget died too soon. Then Don Rickles died too late. And now Norm is dead. Somehow Artie Lange is still alive. That’s like John Belushi surviving the original cast of Saturday Night Live.

And the acting, it is terrible, (besides Jack Warden). Norm MacDonald of course is awful, even playing a character as much like himself as possible. The acting is so bad that Chevy Chase’s performance becomes impressive if only by contrast.

But none of it matters because the movie is wall-to-wall jokes that come fast and in a movie that has no other purpose but to amuse you. Whether you are in the right frame of reference for this movie may be judged by one particular scene. Norm and Artie have been hired by a movie theater in which the manager is played by Don Rickles, a famous insult comic. The script has no lines for Mr. Rickles, all the direction it contains is that he should insult Artie Lange in his style. So, Mr. Rickles insults Artie, focusing particularly on his weight. ("Look at you, you baby gorilla.") Should you laugh at jokes made at the expense of a fat person? What if I told you that Artie Lange considered it to be one of the best days of his life because he got to see one of his comedy idols at work close up. You want to enjoy Dirty Work, you’ll have to come down to our level. Otherwise, there is always Don Giovanni.




Sunday, May 25, 2025

Flight Risk (3/5 Stars)




The appearance of “Flight Risk” in movie cinemas would be a non-story if not for the unexpected pedigree behind the picture. The movie is a small-scale bottle episode that takes place entirely within a 90 minute plane flight from an unnamed non-descript town in Alaska to Anchorage, Alaska. The movie is so small the characters do not have last names. It appears to be the first produced screenplay by screenwriter Jared Rosenberg.

The conceit can be summed up in a few sentences. Winston, played by Topher Grace, plays a fugitive accountant for a mobster. He gets picked up by federal law enforcement, played by Michelle Dockery, and immediately surrenders and pleads for a deal. He appears to be much more afraid of his mobster boss then the feds. In order to get Winston to New York to testify in trial a trial that is happening right now (for the purposes of expediency, it is helpfully mentioned that the judge is a hard-ass and won’t agree to an adjournment) the feds charter a small plane to take Winston to Anchorage and then onto to Seattle and then New York. This plane is piloted by Daryl, played by Mark Wahlberg, who is not who he says he is. Spoiler alert, he works for the mobster, and the totality of the movie is contained in his efforts to kill everybody on board either slowly or immediately depending on his present circumstances. I really can’t say more without going into spoiler territory.

What is interesting about this movie is that it has a legitimate movie star, Mark Wahlberg, that seems out-of-place in such a small-scale project. Case in point, Mark plays a supporting character and yet he is the only person on movie poster. Mark's presence is likely explained by its director, one Mel Gibson. This is the first movie Mel Gibson has directed since 2016’s Hacksaw Ridge (a movie I did not get to review because it was unheralded on release, but one I ultimately considered the best of the year), and second movie since 2006’s Apocalypto (one of the more unique movies ever made). Mel Gibson would have directed plenty more movies since 2006 had he not gone off the deep end and said some very awful things. (I am generally forgiving about what people say and in particular what people say in private. For instance my bar is low enough to give Jon Gruden a total pass. Having said that, Mel Gibson said some crazy shit and as far as these things go, his cancellation is one of the more reasonable ones out there). Which is a shame because whenever he does put something out there, regardless of whether it is enjoyable or not, it is usually well made and distinctly original. If Hollywood truly cared about diversity (and you know I don’t), what it should do is employ more people like Mel Gibson because he actually has a different point of view from most of the movie industry. He has a different point of view from most people in general. I see online that he is making a sequel to Passion of the Christ, entitled The Resurrection of the Christ. It is about time, if only because of the tremendous commercial opportunity that it is likely to represent. It is easy to make a lot of money when you are the only person catering to a very deprived audience (see James Cameron’s Titanic and blockbuster movies made for women as of 1997).

“Flight Risk” feels like a director getting taking a practice run on a smaller project just to remind himself how it works. It is competent. The actors do their jobs with respectability. The screenplay is a little too on the nose with Topher Grace’s sarcasm and Mark Wahlberg’s creepy threats, but really, if you have confined yourself to the cockpit of a small plane for 90 minutes, this is basically as good of a movie as you are going to get. It has a brisk running time, enough action, and some of the jokes land. Michelle Dockery is likable. It came out in January. What are you going to do? Hey, at least it gave me an excuse to write about Mel Gibson as a director. I’ve been doing this blog for twenty years and I haven’t had that opportunity.

Saturday, May 24, 2025

The Penguin (4/5 Stars)






HBO’s new television series, The Penguin, starts off where the latest Batman reboot (Robert Pattinson’s 2022 The Batman) ends. Oswald Cobb, Colin Farrell reprising his role, breaks into the luxury apartment of the late crime boss Carmine Falcone to steal some blackmail material he knows is hidden in a wall-safe. He is surprised by Carmine’s son, Alberto Falcone and quickly turns on some subservient charm to distract from his trespassing. It works and they both relax over some drinks and start talking about Alberto’s inherited role as the boss of the Falcone family. Alberto feeling about it is one of smug entitlement. In an unguarded moment, Oswald describes a crime boss from his childhood, a guy who was feared but also respected, who helped the poor and knew everybody’s name. That was another type of power, Oswald reflects sincerely. Alberto finds Oswald’s take on power to be weak. He laughs and insults Oswald. In response, Oswald takes out his gun and shoots Alberto until he is dead. He sits there with a satisfied grunt until another moment passes and he realizes how enormously stupid his actions just were.

The Penguin above all else is an impressive exercise in character development. There are a lot of twists and turns that the murder of Alberto sets off in this eight episode arc in which Oswald schemes and cajoles and wrests power from the various organized crime syndicates of Gotham, but this first scene is especially important. The murder is not premeditated. It is an impulsive act. So despite where everything ends up, let it be known that Oswald did not have a plan. He may have a vague ambition of being the boss, but much of what he does here is scene-by-scene improvisation and self-preservation.

This matters as to the study of Oswald’s character. Much is made of whether the man can be trusted and whether he says what he means. It’s complicated and Colin Farrell’s performance is one in which Oswald seems to believe what he is saying in the moment, but as soon as options are limited or something different develops, well, he can adapt. Like the first scene, Oswald has this romantic idea of a godfather crime boss, but this isn't really who he is. He's too angry, too thin-skinned, and too reckless for that. 

Why can't Oswald measure up to his ideal? Well, that’s what makes The Penguin such an interesting TV series. The main impetus for Oswald’s character defects is also what makes him sympathetic. He has a disability, a bum leg. Combined with his ungainly height and weight, his bum leg makes him waddle, like a penguin, which is what people call him behind his back when they aren't saying it to his face. He is not helped by an ugly scar that crosses his face horizontally under the nose. (A shout-out to the magnificent makeup work here). Because of his poor looks and disability he is overlooked and mistreated. This is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because he is continually underestimated. A curse because his personality does not allow him to forget or ignore slights, which results in impulsive and sometimes stupid reactions. A blessing and a curse because he uses the way he is treated as an excuse to treat others poorly, which is helpful to his ambition if not his soul. And since he understands how mistreated people feel, he knows how to persuade and/or manipulate other mistreated people. 

There is this modern tendency in storytelling to treat disabilities as boons. The X-Men are a prime example of this. The series is a metaphor for discrimination (humans v. mutants), but the mutants all have superpowers. That is, their differences make them superior to normal people. In real life however, disabilities are exactly what they appear to be, a detriment to the people who have them. It is possible that a disability can provoke a more resilient type of character. For example, you hear some very successful people who have dyslexia claim that the inability to read correctly made them more creative with problem solving.  I do not doubt their experiences, but it is also true that the majority of people with dyslexia just straight up have a harder time learning and as a result don’t learn as much. There are many historical examples of people overcoming their disabilities and rising to greatness: Catherine the Great, FDR, etc. But most of the time, a person’s defects make them worse. It is a tough reality and it is rare that a movie shows it. But this is what makes The Penguin so interesting. Given what we are seeing on the screen, I think it is fair to say that Oswald would have been a better person if he didn’t have a limp. He would have been treated better and would have treated other people better in return. When Batman goes head to head with Oswald Cobb in the next movie, the best way to outfox him would be for that handsome billionaire to make fun of the Penguin’s waddle. It would likely provoke an impulsive error.

The weakness of The Penguin has to do with a story-line that too often solves political problems with murder. (One can contrast this with Shogun, a TV series that understood its society and people so well that the story resolved itself without the need of an actual battle.) There are several plot points where a multitude of people are liquidated just as soon as their presence in the storyline is no longer needed. Some are executed in crowded rooms with many people in them, as if the writers were in such a hurry that they didn't give the doomed men the courtesy of being dragged outside first and murdered on the lawn so that their blood wouldn't spill all over the nice carpets and hard-wood floors. It must be said that these types of murders should be much more traumatic to their many witnesses than are ever shown. Would you work for a boss that murdered an employee in the middle of an office meeting? Even minor characters deserve a little more for their deaths than what they get here. (Sometimes it is a major character that gets this treatment. I still haven’t forgiven the later seasons of Game of Thrones for how they dispatched Littlefinger).

There is also the character of Sofia Falcone (played by Cristin Milloti), which is in turns well-developed and also supremely outlandish. Her backstory is that she was the favored daughter of Carmine Falcone, but upon the outcome of a seemingly innocuous conversation, her father frames her for the murders of 10 women and has her committed to Arkham Asylum as a dangerous psychopath. Sofia is played by Cristin Milioti, a small woman. The type of corruption that would result in this type of framing and institutionalization is far out even for Gotham. I mean, come on. How does a small woman strangle anybody? They should have framed her for poisoning instead. Or just institutionalized her. That would have been enough.

Sofia Falcone makes a bunch of moves of her own, but ultimately, even though she has capacity for ruthlessness (and a decent wardrobe for it), her heart isn’t into it like Oswald's is. She makes the mistake of seeking revenge on a sociopath. She thinks she can hurt Oswald, like emotionally. But by definition, you can’t torture a sociopath emotionally. That’s what makes them so dangerous. And in particular, Oswald here has an uncanny ability to escape fatal situations while his enemies are pausing for dramatic effect. 

The look of The Penguin continues Matt Reeve's moody portrayal of Gotham as a very rainy, neon red, and dingy place. There is another nod to Nirvana, this time with a cover of "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" which Kurt Cobain famously covered from a Ledbelly song in his MTV Unplugged performance. And in the first two episodes, there are several scenes with very tasty martinis. Like most TV series, I bet it could have been a few hours shorter, but this is a good interlude between Batman movies. It is said a lot about franchise heroes, that after a few movies, it is the villains that become the attraction. Nowhere is that more true than for the Batman franchise and with this series has become truer still.

Tuesday, April 15, 2025

Oscars 2025


Ridgewood, Queens needs a movie theater. Its last one was converted into a Blink Fitness Gym. Documentarian John Wilson of HBO's How To fame is about to open one within a ten minute walk of my home, but his intent seems to be to only show obscure movies in obscure formats on his theater's single screen.


I am still seeing about forty movies and/or TV shows a year, but I am increasingly watching those movies at home and a significant time after their release. Some of this has to do with the lack of a theater within walking distance, some of it has to do with a lack of time because of greater responsibilities. Not an unimportant impediment to watching a lot of movies is the fact that I have much more of a social life than I did when I started writing reviews twenty years ago. That's right, in September 2025, this blog will hit its 20th year anniversary. I'm already thinking of what I will have to say about that. At the top of the list will have to be some sort of explanation as to why I continue to write a blog that next to no-one reads and why, at this point, I'm fairly confident I will never stop doing so. I'm also thinking of re-watching movies I haven't seen in 20 years and writing about that. That plan also requires a decent explanation.


The fact that I am writing reviews of movies I see at home and after a significant delay I don't think immediately affects the quality of the review. (Maybe, I didn't write a Dune 2 review because I felt the in-home experience probably affected my appreciation of the movie). It does however, affect the review's immediate relevance (assuming that it had any relevance to begin with, which is a tenuous proposition). I'm about to write a review about The Penguin, which came out almost a year ago. Much of this has to do with my reluctance to pay a movie ticket price for something I am watching at home. But another reason has to do with simply being late to watch movies in the first place. I spend the first three months of the year catching up on all the well-regarded movies from last year, so as of right now in April, I have barely seen any 2025 movies. So why pay the significant price tag to stream a movie on its opening weekend when I can take advantage of the decreasing price of the movie that came out in January/February that I have not yet seen.


This delay affects the Oscar picks of this year. In particular, three movies that contribute to a sizable amount of my picks may have come out in 2023, not 2024: Godzilla Minus One, All of Us Strangers, and Perfect Days. It isn't actually all that clear to me when these movies came out. I don't recall any of them ever being in any theater and a movie's theatrical release date isn't all that instructive of a movie's general availability nowadays anyway. For example, Godzilla Minus One was notable in that it was nominated for last year's Oscars but could not be seen anywhere at the time of the ceremony, the film being blackballed so that an inferior Godzilla movie could open without undue competition. But since Godzilla Minus One, All of Us Strangers, and Perfect Days were all great movies and I saw them in 2024, I am including them in my picks below. 


It is a good thing too because 2024 was yet another weak year for movies. It was a strong year for TV shows and I feel comfortable saying that even though I have not watched the vast majority of TV programs. I say that because I saw Shogun and that television series is primed to be a high water mark of some kind when we look back at it twenty years from now.


The Oscars Best Picture nominees were an eclectic bunch. Some were downright weird and simply not the sort of movie that the Oscars would normally nominate. This reflects the weak year but also the sort of homogenous groupthink that has a grip over Academy voters. What else explains the presence of Emilia Perez? I wrote at length about its poor taste and dubious morality. Something that escaped my critique, but was all over Mexican critiques, was the fact that the language was poorly translated from French into Mexican Spanish and that almost none of the actors were Mexican. This is something the Academy decided to disregard because the main character was transgender. Or take The Substance a disgusting, albeit effective movie. Imagine if such 1980s horror schlock movies like Evil Dead 2 or The Thing were nominated for Oscars. Apparently, the only thing that was missing from those movies was a feminist bent about women over the age of forty not being as hot as they were in their twenties. When the Academy expanded the amount of Best Picture nominees from 5 to 10, what they really wanted was for movies such as The Dark Knight and Wall-E to be nominated. This year, they welcomed the addition of Wicked and Dune: Part Two to the list. Kudos to the plan. But another unintended consequence is a movie like Nickel Boys, which no one saw and indeed wasn't nominated for anything else besides Adapted Screenplay. The movie was nominated because it is the best "Black" movie of the year, a conspicuous category since 2015 (See American Fiction, King Richard, Blackkklansman, Hidden Figures, Selma).


Then there is the Best Picture winner Anora, which is a great movie but which contains lots of graphic nudity and obscene language. As any reader of my blog can attest to, I love Sean Baker, but I never thought I would see the day when he wins four Oscars in a single night. I'm not sure if that is a sign that out-of-date taboos being cast aside or whether it represents the complete collapse of standards. More than anything else, it probably just signifies a weak year. Sean Baker could no longer be ignored because he was the only one that showed up in 2024.


Best Supporting Actor


Karren Karagulian - Anora

David Jonsson - Alien: Romulus

Guy Pearce - The Brutalist

Edward Norton - A Complete Unknown

Kieran Culkin - A Real Pain



Best Supporting Actress


Geraldine Viswanathan - Drive Away Dolls

Moeka Hoshi - Shogun

Margaret Qualley - The Substance, Drive Away Dolls, Kinds of Kindness

Deidre O’Connell - The Penguin

Felicity Jones - The Brutalist





Best Documentary


n/a




Best Production Design


The Brutalist

Conclave

Dune: Part Two

Nosferatu

Shogun





Best Costumes


Conclave

Dune: Part Two

Gladiator II

Nosferatu

Shogun



Best Hairstyling/Makeup


Dune: Part Two

Nosferatu

The Penguin

Shogun

The Substance




Best Use of Cultural Appropriation


All of Us Strangers - Tokyo Ghosts

The Penguin: Italian Mafia

Perfect Days - Lou Reed, Patti Smith, et al.

A Real Pain: Chopin

The Substance: Stanley Kubrick, 1980s Practical Effects




Best Sound Design


Dune: Part Two

Godzilla Minus One

Nosferatu

Shogun

The Substance




Best Film Editing


All of Us Strangers

Sean Baker - Anora

The Brutalist

Godzilla Minus One

The Substance




Best Original Score


Daniel Blumberg – The Brutalist

Conclave

Flow

Robot Dreams

Shogun




Best Use of a Song


“Always on My Mind” by Pet Shop Boys - All of Us Strangers

“Blue Bayou” by Linda Rondstadt - Drive Away Dolls

“Jean Kayak and His Acme Applejack” - Hundreds of Beavers

“Redondo Beach” by Patti Smith - Perfect Days

“September” Earth, Wind, and Fire - Robot Dreams





Best Original Screenplay


Sean Baker - Anora

A Real Pain

The Brutalist

Perfect Days

Self Reliance





Best Adapted Screenplay


Andrew Haigh, Taichi Yamada - All of Us Strangers

Conclave

Godzilla Minus One

The Penguin

Shogun




Best Visual Effects


Alien: Romulus

Dune: Part Two

Godzilla Minus One

Hundreds of Beavers

Nosferatu




Best Stunt Direction


Anora

The Fall Guy

Hundreds of Beavers

Monkey Man

Shogun



Best Cinematography


The Brutalist

Dune: Part Two

Godzilla Minus One

Nosferatu

The Substance



Best Actor


Andrew Scott - All of Us Strangers

Adrien Brody - The Brutalist

Jesse Plemons - Kinds of Kindness

Colin Farrell - The Penguin

Hiroyuki Sanada - Shogun




Best Actress


Mikey Madison - Anora

Sydney Sweeney - Immaculate

Cristin Milloti - The Penguin

Anna Sawai - Shogun

Demi Moore - The Substance




Best Director


Andrew Haigh - All of Us Strangers

Sean Baker - Anora

Brady Corbet - The Brutalist

Takashi Yamazaki - Godzilla Minus One

Frederick E. O. Toye et al. - Shogun





Best Picture


All of Us Strangers

Anora

The Brutalist

Conclave

Godzilla Minus One

Hundreds of Beavers

The Penguin

Perfect Days

A Real Pain

Shogun



A Very Good Year (Honorable Mention)


Margaret Qualley