Review: The Last Showgirl

Image courtesy of Roadside Attractions.

"The Last Showgirl" doubles as the best performance by Pamela Anderson and the best work to date from director Gia Coppola ("Palo Alto" and "The Seven Faces of Jane"), niece of Sofia and granddaughter of Francis Ford.

Anderson's work here as Shelly, one of the last of her types on the Las Vegas strip, is a genuine surprise. While some might think that Anderson taking on a stripped down, dramatic role like this is an example of attention seeking by all involved, they'd be wrong. It's an impressive piece of work from both the leading lady and director.

In the film, Shelly is a longtime performer in a Razzle Dazzle show, making her somewhat of a dinosaur in the modern world of live entertainment in Las Vegas, such as Cirque de Soleil or racier burlesque shows. A short way into the film, she is notified by longtime co-worker and friend Eddie (Dave Bautista) that the show will soon give its last performance to make way for a flashier, circus-like entertainment group at the casino where she works.

Although she pretends otherwise, Shelly has likely lived a life not completely without regrets, namely due to the fact that she gave up her child, Hannah (Billie Lourd), who mysteriously pops up early in the film, to live with relatives so that she could continue on in the Vegas show. She tells younger girls in the show that the Razzle Dazzle girls were once considered celebrities around town and that they'd grace the covers of magazines or be shuttled around the world for soirees.

But now, the company barely pulls in 20 people per performance and it'll soon be curtains up. Shelly is a mentor, of sorts, for a few of the younger girls in the show - Marianne (Brenda Song) and Jodie (Kiernan Shipka), whose background has some striking resemblances to Shelly's. Her best friend is a former showgirl named Annette (a brassy Jamie Lee Curtis), who now works two jobs, one of which involves her serving drinks in a bikini and occasionally doing dances to "Total Eclipse of the Heart."

If Shelly's life was once glamorous - at least, that's how she describes it - her present situation is far from it. She's no longer featured as prominently in the show, and when she is given a paycheck that was obviously smaller than expected, you can see the wheels turning as to how she'll pay the rent.

Meanwhile, Hannah is back in her life to a degree after having been raised elsewhere. Shelly's vague on details about who the father was, and there's some obvious tension between the two women that only later reaches a peak when Hannah confronts her after having finally watched her mother's show.

In some ways, "The Last Showgirl" follows a somewhat formulaic route, but its mood and tone are effective and the performances - especially Anderson and Curtis - are solid. Anderson, of course, is best known for her work on the long-running TV show "Baywatch" and she'd occasionally pop up in movies - such as "Barb Wire" - but it's great to see her nab a role that allows her to utilize her talent. It's one of the year's most surprising turns.

Review: The Damned

Image courtesy of Elation Pictures.

If you're looking for something to shake you out of your winter doldrums, I'm note sure that Thordur Palsson's "The Damned" will be the thing. Set in 1871 in Iceland, the film's chilly visual style combined with its gorgeous - but frigid - scenery made up of miles and miles of ice and snow might send shivers down your spine in more ways than one.

The film, which is the first release of 2025, is a horror movie, of sorts, although opinions as to whether it is a supernatural or psychological one may vary. Set in a remote spot, the film follows Eva (Odessa Young), a widow whose husband once ran a fishing station that she took over upon his death, and a group of men as they attempt to catch food for their community, where it is seemingly scarce. Due to the weather, they are unable to leave the spot until it clears up - which could be days or weeks.

One day while preparing to fish, they spot a foreign boat that has crashed in a treacherous spot between two rocks known as The Teeth. There's a debate as to whether they should attempt to save the boat's inhabitants, but the mission is deemed too risky. It's not too risky, however, to make their way out to the boat once they assume its crew is dead to see what they can scavenge.

Surprisingly, upon arriving at the scene of the boat, they realize that some of its crew members are still alive. They jump in the freezing water, hoping to be saved, but a struggle ensues to prevent these crew members from capsizing the boat and one of the foreigners is killed with an axe.

Eva and her crew flee back to their winter home with what they've plundered, but an older woman living there warns them of the draugr, ghost-like creatures of Nordic legend that emerge at night, are fueled by hatred, and attempt to get into their victims' heads. They are often borne out of a tragedy that results in revenge - such as the one involving the men at the crashed boat. 

Shortly thereafter, members of Eva's group begin disappearing or winding up dead. It's difficult to tell whether they're being haunted or - much like in "The Shining" - the isolation, with the addition of some guilt regarding their actions, is causing them to lose their minds. The men begin to turn on each other and one of them counsels Eva that "the living are more dangerous than the dead." A sort-of plot twist late in the film makes the viewer question how much that has been taking place is psychological, rather than literal.

I'll give credit where it's due: "The Damned" is long on atmosphere and has some great locales. On the other hand, it tends to drag a bit at various points after the visit to the boat, becoming yet another in a long line of horror movies in which groups of people are haunted or tormented by something they've brought on themselves and begin dropping like flies. Young is a solid lead and the rest of the cast - which includes Rory McCann of "Game of Thrones" and Joe Cole of "Peaky Blinders" - is good as well.

But other than its locations and cinematography, "The Damned" doesn't offer much that hasn't been done before in this genre. It's intermittently engrossing and well-enough made, but I believe that the best work of this director - who has obvious talent - is likely ahead of him. 

Review: Nosferatu

Image courtesy of 

There have been countless tales of the count since the birth of cinema - but oddly, my favorite film versions of Bram Stoker's "Dracula" tend to be the ones with the name "Nosferatu." There have been some very good versions under other names - Tod Browning's 1931 "Dracula" with Bela Lugosi and Francis Ford Coppola's "Bram Stoker's Dracula," to name a few - but F.W. Murnau's creepy 1922 "Nosferatu" and Werner Herzog's brilliant and atmospheric "Nosferatu: Der Vampyre" remain my favorites.

Robert Eggers' adaptation of the Stoker novel has much more in common with these latter two films as it is artfully rendered and more cryptic than your average Hollywood adaptation of the story, although it veers off from the novel a bit (never a complaint in my book). There are some breathtaking shots here - the most memorable is the approach via coach through the Carpathian Mountains toward the count's castle.

There's not much of a point in describing the plot in depth here, since most viewers and readers likely know it. Of course, every version differs slightly, but suffice it to say that the film starts with Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult) traveling to Count Orlok's (Bill Skarsgard) castle to make a land deal on a new home to which the count will relocate in Germany.

Meanwhile, Hutter's wife, Ellen (Lily Rose Depp) is having night terrors in which a voice - that of the count - calls to her to submit to its will. Without going too much into it, Ellen has long been tormented by the count, and not just due to her husband's visit to his castle. Orlok's coffin is transferred via boat and he kills all aboard before it reaches its destination. Once there, a plague overtakes the town and a local doctor (Willem Dafoe) recognizes that it's the work of an evil force.

There are some curious changes to the story. Instead of the Harkers and Van Helsing, here we have the Hutters and Albin Eberhart (Dafoe). The ending of the story is more tragic than that of the original novel. Eggers' film is certainly gorier - this film's Renfield character pulls an Ozzy Osbourne on a pigeon - and more sexual than Stoker's novel.

Eggers comes at the material with a painterly touch and the film is filled with gorgeous imagery. One of my favorite shots is of Nosferatu reaching his hand out of a window and it appearing as if it were devouring the entire German town in which he has relocated.

Eggers' work is primarily period piece horror films that deal with folklore and mythology. His debut, "The Witch," was an entrancing tale of witchcraft in the Colonies, while "The Northman" was a gory viking epic. My favorite of his was "The Lighthouse," a seriously weird mythological horror film set in the late 1800s in New England.

"Nosferatu" seems like a natural choice for the filmmaker. It might not be the greatest movie ever made about the count - that's a tossup between the Murnau and Herzog versions - but it's a unique artist's inspired take on a timeworn classic. 

Review: A Complete Unknown

Image courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.

Although it's a bit on the nose, there's a scene in James Mangold's "A Complete Unknown" that adequately sums up the film and the life of its subject, troubadour Bob Dylan. 

"I wish they'd just let me be," he says to a stranger, who turns out to be Mike Bloomfield, of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, in an elevator. "Be what?" Bloomfield asks. "Whatever it is that they don't want me to be." 

In this case, what they want him to be is an acoustic folk singer, but Dylan later shocks them all when he goes electric in an iconic moment at the Newport Folk Festival of 1965. In the late 1970s, his music took a religious turn. In recent years, he has recorded American standards. Whenever people want one Bob Dylan, he gives them another.

Although Todd Haynes' remarkable "I'm Not There" is still the definitive statement on the chameleonic folk singer-turned rock star because that picture captured his essence through a series of vignettes portraying Dylan as all of us, Mangold's film portrays him as a more singular being, one who doesn't take kindly to direction, even when it's provided kindly - in this case, through the mentorship of Pete Seeger (Edward Norton).

Dylan has been portrayed many times on film - whether it's Haynes' phantasmagoria, Martin Scorsese's straightforward "No Direction Home" or the more pranksterish "Rolling Thunder Revue." There's the more sarcastic and prickly Dylan in D.A. Pennebaker's "Don't Look Back" and even the wacky "Renaldo and Clara." Timothee Chalamet does an outstanding job of channeling Dylan in Mangold's film, even convincingly singing the songs himself. 

Like many films about unique artists, "A Complete Unknown" covers a specific period in the artist's life - in this case, from his mysterious arrival in New York City in the early 1960s up until that groundbreaking moment at the Newport Folk Festival. In the film's beginning, Dylan shows up at a hospital to meet his hero, Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy), and serenades him to "Song to Woody," which he wrote, and impressing Seeger, who's there to visit.

Seeger takes Dylan in and helps him to get some gigs, where he runs into Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), with whom he has an on-again-off-again relationship, and meets Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning), a fictionalized version of Dylan's first New York girlfriend, Suze Rotolo, who is on the cover of Dylan's first great album, "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan."

The film portrays Dylan as a genius who is quick with a barb - he says that Baez's music sounds like an "oil painting at the dentist's office" - and is not above using his friends occasionally (he defends allowing Baez to cover his "Blowin' in the Wind" because it will help to raise his profile). There's a warmth to his friendship with Seeger, which makes their eventual clash all the more heartbreaking.

While Mangold's film may not be as inventive as "I'm Not There," it's an engaging music biopic with a terrific lead performance, great supporting performances (Norton especially), a lot of great music, a compelling depiction of the New York City folk scene of the early 1960s, unique takes on historic events (the Cuban Missile Crisis, for instance), and a few surprise cameos of legends - Johnny Cash and Dave Von Ronk, to name a few.

There are a lot of great moments involving the creation of Dylan's music, from a rousing moment when he performs "The Times They are a Changin'" for the first time to an audience at the Newport festival to smaller moments, such as when Al Kooper introduces the organ in "Like a Rolling Stone" or when Dylan buys a siren whistle on the streets of New York and puts it to good use in "Highway 61 Revisited."

"I'm Not There" not only remains the definitive Dylan movie, but likely the best and most unique movie ever made about a musician. Therefore, I thought that making a straightforward Dylan biopic was probably unnecessary after that former film did such a fantastic job of capturing his essence. But I was pleasantly surprised by Mangold's film. It does about as good a job as one could do in trying to sum up the life - or, at least part of it - of someone who has gone out of his way to defy classification and easy summarization. 

Review: Babygirl

Image courtesy of A24.

Halina Reijn's offbeat and kinky "Babygirl" features a solid leading performance from its leading lady, Nicole Kidman, as well as plenty of intriguing moments and an interesting storyline about a woman in power who comes to find that she doesn't need to seek permission from anyone.

That being said, the catalyst at the center of the earth-shattering upheaval in Romy's life - an intern named Samuel (Harris Dickinson) - is a bit of an enigma to the extent that we never really learn what his motivations are or what he gets out of the bargain, other than the obvious.

As the film opens, Romy is a CEO and founder of a company that manufactures robotics for warehouse delivery systems, thereby removing the need for humans. She projects confidence and has a young assistant, Esme (Sophie Wilde), who wants to follow in her footsteps as a powerful woman at the head of a company.

At home, Romy is seemingly unfilled with her sex life, namely due to the fact that her seemingly nice-guy husband (Antonio Banderas) isn't interested in such bedroom behavior as placing a pillow over her head while having sex. After a tryst early in the film, she sneaks off to the bathroom to watch porn on a laptop. Ironically, her husband is a theater director overseeing a production of a Hedda Gabbler play about a woman who is unhappy in her marriage.

Things take a turn for the strange when Romy spots Samuel, the intern, and is immediately taken by him. His behavior toward her is, by all workplace standards, alarmingly inappropriate. Upon her first meeting with a pool of interns, he asks probing questions and, as time goes on, he continually engages in behavior that is probably frowned upon in a workplace.

Eventually, an unspoken game begins between them, starting when he orders her a glass of milk from across the room when workers from the company are at a bar. She defiantly drinks it down, and on the way out the door at the end of the night, he whispers "good girl" to her. In a later scene at a hotel room, she crawls on the floor and laps up milk from a plate upon command.

On the one hand, "Babygirl" is - much like another 2024 movie, "The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed" - a film about a woman involved in a relationship built around domination, but it's also about the balance of power. Romy believes that she, as a person in a position of power, would be seen as a villain for having a sexual relationship with an intern, who seemingly holds no power. Then again, as Samuel tells her, he holds power over her if he threatened to reveal their relationship to anyone at the company.

Further complications ensue - Romy and Samuel's relationship continues to threaten her increasingly dysfunctional home life, while it also comes out that Esme is having a relationship with Samuel, albeit one that does not involve domination. 

The element that makes "Babygirl" mostly work is Kidman's solid lead performance. Its biggest issue is that Dickinson's character is enigmatic almost to a fault. He exists solely for Romy to use as a method of liberation if that, indeed, is what she is seeking or achieving. Otherwise, Samuel is a cypher with seemingly no motives or purpose.

Reijn's previous film was the horror movie "Bodies, Bodies, Bodies," which had a great punchline of an ending but was an otherwise rote slasher movie with some arthouse pretensions. "Babygirl" is a step up, undoubtedly, and Kidman's performance is among her best in recent years. Even if the film doesn't work entirely, it's unusual and provocative enough to remain interesting throughout. 

Review: Mufasa: The Lion King

Image courtesy of Disney Studios.

Much like the "Star Wars" films or "Wicked," Barry Jenkins' "Mufasa: The Lion King" is an origin story of a popular film. In this case, it's the story of the father of the titular character from the 1994 Disney classic and its 2019 live-action - although I'm not sure if this phrase truly applies here - version of the same story.

As such, it's not particularly necessary, but also not half bad. The unexpected quality on display in a film that could be seen as a cash grab - although its opening weekend gross seems to suggest this has backfired - is probably due to the fact that it's directed by Barry Jenkins, one of the most interesting American filmmakers to break through in the past decade with his now-classic "Moonlight" as well as "If Beale Street Could Talk" and the TV series "The Underground Railroad."

In other words, there's a little more artistry than one might expect in a blockbuster film based on a beloved Disney property that is being released right before the holidays. The film even features Jenkins' trademark close-up shots of faces, albeit in this case of digitally-created lions and not people.

The film provides the origin story of how Mufasa (once voiced by the great James Earl Jones and now by Aaron Pierre) and Taka (Kelvin Harrison, Jr.), better known as Scar, came to be brothers and then enemies. At the film's beginning, Kiara (Blue Ivy Carter) is sad while awaiting the return of her parents - Simba and Nala - from a mysterious mission. The wise old mandrill Rafiki (John Kani) is left with storytelling duties.

Rafiki tells Kiara how Mufasa was, as a child, separated from his pride by a flood and attempted to wander his way home. On the way, he meets another pride and quickly bonds with Taka, although a rivalry is thrust upon them by that pride's leader, who wants Taka to one day be king. Taka's mother takes a shine to Mufasa and teaches him how to hunt.

When a group of vicious white lions led by Kiros (Mads Mikkelsen) attacks the pride, Mufasa and Taka are told to flee. They set out toward a mythical land that was once described to Mufasa by his mother. Along the way, they meet Rafiki as well as a female lion, Sarabi (Tiffany Boone), which sets up a love triangle of sorts. 

Although Taka has feelings for Sarabi, she begins to have her own for Mufasa after she is impressed by his courage and his ability to commune with nature. The film ends with a battle scene involving the white lions in a place that is iconic to "The Lion King" story as well as a betrayal that we can all see coming.

Despite the film being another in a long line of origin stories trying to cash in on the success of the original, "Mufasa: The Lion King" becomes an increasingly engaging adventure film. Although its target audience skews younger, it's dark and suspenseful enough to engage adults. 

It's filled with songs written Lin-Manuel Miranda and, I hate to say this but, although they vary in catchiness (I could have done without the "bye-bye" song) they don't really add much to the proceedings. This was similar to how I recently felt about the acclaimed "Emilia Perez," a movie I liked well enough, but one that could have done without musical numbers.

Regardless, "Mufasa: The Lion King" is decent for what it is. Would I prefer to see an original creation from Barry Jenkins? Well, of course. But his presence here has elevated what could have been another run-of-the-mill blockbuster origin film into something that's reasonably enjoyable. 

Review: All We Imagine As Light

Image courtesy of Janus Films.

A film about sisterhood and creating one's own family when the one assigned to you has failed you, director Payal Kapadia's "All We Imagine as Light" is also a poetic city symphony - in this case, of Mumbai - and the best picture to come out of India in some time.

The movie is what one could call a slice of life, and indeed it starts out - and occasionally circles back to - what come off as documentary-like interviews with Mumbai citizens, who briefly tell of their circumstances, before diving into the story of its three main protagonists.

All three of the women at the center of Kapadia's film have, in some form or fashion, been let down by their families. There's Prabha (Kani Kusruti), a dedicated nurse whose husband from an arranged marriage has been living abroad and working in Germany for years. He rarely calls her and to describe the couple's relationship as estranged is accurate. Prabha is friends with Dr. Manoj (Azees Nedumangad), who is new to the city and is clearly taken with her - but she remains aloof to his overtures.

Prabha's roommate, the much younger Anu (Divya Prabha), who works at the same hospital as Prabha, is secretly seeing a young man named Shiaz (Hridhu Haroon) because her family would not approve of her dating a Muslim. The young couple sneak off for the occasional make-out session in the rain, but do not have anywhere where they can consummate their relationship.

Prabha's widowed friend, Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam) is in danger of being evicted from her home of many years after her now-deceased husband failed to leave her any information or documentation proving that the home is hers. She visits a lawyer who tells her that no evidence that she can provide will hold up in court. Nearby is a luxury property with a sign reading "Class is a Privilege Reserved for the Privileged." Prabha and Parvty toss rocks at the sign, putting holes in it.

The film's first half is primarily concerned with introducing these storylines, with the occasionally lovely flourish filled with haunting music that is accompanied by gorgeous night-time shots of Mumbai, teeming with life and filled with lights of varying colors.

In the second half, Prabha convinces Anu to help her to move Parvaty back to her seaside village, which sets all three women off on their own adventures. Unbeknownst to the others, Shiaz has followed them to the village, so he and Anu finally have a moment alone in the woods.

Meanwhile, Prabha stumbles upon a scene along the shore where an unconscious man is pulled from the water. She revives him, saving his life, and helps to place him in a house where he can rest. A woman tending to the room mistakes Prabha and the man as husband and wife, so Prabha - in one of the film's few mystifying moments - fantasizes that the man is her estranged husband, and carries on a conversation with him as if this were the case.

While the three women were somewhat adrift prior to this journey - Prabha seemed conflicted about her relationship with the kindly Dr. Manoj and spent more time than was healthy prying into Anu's love life, while Anu purchases a burqa for the purpose of sneaking into Shiaz's neighborhood for a tryst and Parvaty struggles with her possible eviction - a final stop at a cafe suggests that these three women, all disappointed with their actual families, might form one of their own.

"All We Imagine as Light," which is an impressive feature film debut, was one of the hits of this year's Cannes Film Festival and has made frequent appearances on year-end lists. It's easy to see why. This often luminous, gentle, and very well acted drama is of the type that sneaks up on you and works its magic. It's a subtle film - but like the city it depicts, it's teeming with life.