Review: I'm Still Here

Image courtesy of Sony Pictures.

Although it's set in early 1970s Brazil, director Walter Salles' Oscar-nominated "I'm Still Here" resonates in a profoundly disturbing way at this given moment. The film follows the story of the family of Rubens Paiva, a former congressman, after he is taken prisoner by the country's military dictatorship and his wife, Eunice (a fierce Fernanda Torres), searches for answers.

The film takes a long and patient approach to the material. Its length is meant to convey the long, arduous journey that Eunice and her five children went through as they waited for news of their husband and father. At one point in the narrative, Eunice and one of her daughters, Eliana (Luiza Kosovski), are taken in for questioning and Eunice languishes for what seems like weeks in a dank cell.

The reason for Rubens' arrest, despite that it has been years since he was involved in Brazilian politics, is that the country's dictatorship is seemingly rounding up anyone that it might deem to be a threat. There are accusations that Rubens was abetting terrorists, which Eunice sees as ludicrous, but her disinterested tormenters just keep repeating the same questions.

The film starts in 1970, skips ahead late in the film to 1995 when the Brazilian government began to release information on those who disappeared during those horrific days, and finally to a 2014 family reunion in which Eunice, still alive at age 85, seems haunted still, although we learn that she suffered from Alzheimer's later in life.

The film, which boasts gorgeous cinematography and a great soundtrack of Brazilian music as well as a terrific performance by Torres, is Salles' best since his 2004 "The Motorcycle Diaries," one of the better Che Guevara chronicles. And much like that film, "I'm Still Here" is about an educated individual who becomes politically active after witnessing first-hand the cruelty of politics.

Grounded by Torres' powerful performance, the film is an often nerve-wracking experience as it places us inside the household of a family whose patriarch has been disappeared by a corrupt political regime. There are a few dramatic moments - the scene in which Rubens is arrested is pretty tense and the sequences in the police barracks where Eunice is kept while questioned are scary - but the film's overall tone does a great job of capturing the devastating effect of not knowing. 

We see the years pass and while the family, due to its determination to stick together and their becoming activists in one form or fashion, gradually heals, all the while we know that below the surface they continue to suffer from not knowing the truth. Salles' film, which was a surprise Best Picture nominee at this year's Oscars, is a powerful political drama about a terrifying subject at a moment in time that is also greatly unsettling. 

Review: Heart Eyes

Image courtesy of Screen Gems.

Obviously inspired by the "Scream" films and blending the genre that Wes Craven's film revitalized with the rom com, "Heart Eyes" is a gory thriller that also doubles as a love story between two advertising copywriters. The film takes its love story seriously, while also not skimping on the gore, which it has in abundance.

Although its central story is somewhat half baked - and its ultimate explanation during the final scene is even more so - the premise is that a serial killer known as Heart Eyes targets young couples in love on Valentine's Day and hacks them to pieces. 

The picture opens at a winery where an obnoxious man is attempting to propose to an equally obnoxious woman, although both of them are prioritizing whether the moment is adequately caught by a photographer snapping photos from the woods. Needless to say, their moment is literally cut short.

In Seattle, a young ad copywriter named Ally (Olivia Holt) is struggling at her job after her difficult boss doesn't like her ad concept about doomed love - she references "Titanic," "Bonnie and Clyde," and "Romeo and Juliet" - to sell fancy rings. 

Earlier in the day, Ally has a Meet Cute with a smooth and charming fellow named Jay (Mason Gooding) at a coffee shop. However, she is none too pleased when she realizes that he's a star copywriter who has been brought in to fix her campaign. They don't exactly hit it off.

But that doesn't prevent the Heart Eyes Killer - who is in town for Valentine's Day to wreak havoc - from picking the duo to be among his victims after he sees them kiss. Unbeknownst to the killer, the kiss only occurred to make Ally's ex-boyfriend jealous after they bump into him while exiting a restaurant on Feb. 14.

Most of the film involves Ally and Jay - who are seemingly more resourceful than the other couples who are easy prey for the killer - attempting to escape Heart Eyes' clutches, while numerous others do not. This leads to beheadings, eye gouging, an inventive murder of a couple coupling in the back of a van, and multiple stabbings.

For the most part, "Heart Eyes" is fun and breezy on the rom com side and somewhat icky on the horror side. It's clever enough and Holt and Gooding have good chemistry. There's somewhat of a twist involving Heart Eyes' identity and while I could see that coming, I was underwhelmed when the killer gives the speech about the modus operandi. Truth be told, it's a little lame.

That being said, "Heart Eyes" is a mostly amusing blending of two genres that don't typically mesh. If it's a success, it'll likely face the endless parade of sequels that this type of film tends to generate. For now, at a moment when there's a glut of gory horror movies, this one is slightly better than average.

Review: Companion

Image courtesy of New Line Cinema.

How much do we want to humanize AI? Do we want our computers and gadgets thinking for themselves? Some of the lazier variety, perhaps, want the items they own to anticipate the need, so to speak, thereby making humans almost useless - which, come to think of it, is what AI might end up doing anyway.

These questions are not exactly pondered in Drew Hancock's "Companion," a film that I must refer to as a horror movie, even though it's not particularly frightening, even while it's often gory and isn't funny enough to be considered a comedy. But they are thoughts that I pondered afterward.

I'm not going to be able to discuss the movie at any length without giving away a major spoiler - assuming that it even is one at this point - but you've been warned. In the film, a guy who the filmmakers want you to believe is a nice one, Josh (Jack Quaid), but who you secretly know probably isn't, takes his seemingly docile girlfriend, Iris (Sophie Thatcher), to a secluded cabin for a weekend getaway.

They are joined there by a woman named Kat (Megan Suri), who seemingly doesn't like Iris, as well as a creepy Russian named Sergey (an unrecognizable Rupert Friend), and a gay couple - Eli (Harvey Guillen) and Patrick (Lukas Gage). Something seems off from the beginning, especially when Josh tells Sergey that he's welcome to spend the morning at the beach alone with Iris, while he and Kat remain at the house where they're all staying.

A death occurs and it comes out that - in case you hadn't guessed it - Iris is a robot, albeit a lifelike one who dotes on the every need of its companion and has sex with them. But there's a plot afoot among some of the characters and Iris is quickly seen as a liability - and a scapegoat - in the scenario. Josh tries to shut her down but she escapes, and spends much of the rest of the film trying to stay away from the other characters and, in some instances, being captured and abused by them.

There's clearly something to be said in this film about toxic masculinity. Josh naturally thinks he's a good guy, despite the overwhelming evidence that he is not - and he treats women poorly, regardless of whether they're human beings or robots. 

But while "Companion" could have also had something to say about whether it's a good idea to give robots minds of their own - as the "Terminator" films did - this one is clearly in the AI's corner because Iris is more likable than the horrendous Josh or Sergey. Instead, there's simply a lot of plotting involving how Iris - and another character who is a robot - can be programmed or deprogrammed. 

"Companion" is amusing enough, and yet it's not quite enough, considering the topics it covers at this particular point in time. It has a few good laughs and it's occasionally gruesome, but the manner in which it addresses a capitalistic society in which everything is commodified, toxic masculinity, or the dangers of AI are mostly window dressing. The film has its moments, but I feel that it could have been more.

Review: Presence

Image courtesy of Neon.

The title of Steven Soderbergh's latest, an experimental first-person POV ghost story, does a lot of lifting. It refers not only to the presence that is haunting the house of the appropriately-named Payne family, but the lack of presence that the family members have in each other's lives.

As the film opens, the family visits a massive, recently renovated house and quickly cuts a check. Rebecca (Lucy Liu) is behind the push to purchase the house as she believes it will enable her jock son, Tyler (Eddy Maday), to get into a good school in the neighborhood where it's located. Rebecca's husband, Chris (Chris Sullivan), seems distracted and there's an occasional reference to some possibly shady behavior involving his wife from which he appears to be distancing himself.

And then, there's Chloe (Callina Liang), the film's lead character who is in the process of grieving her best friend's death to drugs. An element of mystery is introduced when we learn that Chloe's friend was one of two young women who died similarly from an overdose and that Chloe knew both of them. 

The young woman is noticably upset and the rest of the family mostly walks on eggshells around her, although her brother is prone to occasionally insensitive comments toward her and Rebecca, who clearly favors her son, shrugs and says that the only thing that can help Chloe is time. Chris points out - and possibly accurately - that this conclusion might have to do with the fact that it enables both he and his wife to do nothing about the situation. When the atmosphere in the house isn't funereal, it's tense.

And all of these proceedings are witnessed by a ghost who lingers in the house. It's not until late in the film when we learn whether the spirit is malevolent or benevolent, but it occasionally causes a disturbance by rattling shelves or glasses and makes things fall off the wall. During one unnerving sequence, it moves Chloe's books around and stacks them neatly.

Another character, Ryan (West Mulholland), a jock friend of Tyler's from his new school, is introduced a ways into the film and he will end up playing a central role. There's a scene late in the film involving him that is particularly chilling, although it's one of the few scenes in which the film loses the tight grip it has formed because there's too much expository dialogue in the sequence during a monologue that is delivered in a manner that isn't completely convincing.

"Presence" is a slow burn and, as such, it begins slowly before ultimately building to something powerful that makes an impact. It's one of Soderbergh's more experimental efforts - like "Bubble" or "The Girlfriend Experience" - but more so in terms of style and camera work, rather than narratively. Much like Robert Altman, Soderbergh is a director who likes to dabble in genres and put his own unique spin on them. As such, "Presence" is the first movie of 2025 that I can recommend.

The Best Movies of 2024

Image courtesy of A24.

Needless to say, 2024 was not a good year. For movies, it was a slow burn, starting off with a few highly recommended films and then ending with a bang following a gap in which only a few films of interest were released. 

It has been nowhere near as good as the banner year of cinema in 2023, but not so dire as some lesser years of recent memory. My top 20 this year had more genre - mostly horror - films than in recent years, and while my two favorites of the year were epics in length, my top 10 had some shorter entries than usual.

Three of the films in my top 10 were from actors-turned-directors, though to be fair one of them already had a few under his belt. Also, only two of my top 10 films this year were from directors who had previously cracked the list. The other eight were all newbies.

Also, while this wasn't one of the best years in film in recent memory, there were as always a number of films that just missed my top 20 that deserve to be recognized. These include: Malcolm Washington's "The Piano Lesson," Steve McQueen's "Blitz," Agnieszka Holland's "Green Border," Josh Greenbaum's "Will & Harper," Nuri Bilge Ceylan's "About Dry Grasses," and George Miller's "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga."

There are also a few acclaimed films that I have yet to see. Once I catch up with them, I'll add them to the top 20, if warranted. These include Aaron Schimberg's "A Different Man," Paul Schrader's "Oh Canada," Greg Kwedar's "Sing Sing," Mohammad Rasoulof's "The Seed of the Sacred Fig," Gints Zilbalodis' "Flow," Tim Mielants' "Small Things Like These," and Tim Fehlbaum's "September 5." Also, Francis Ford Coppola's "Megalopolis," which I liked, also deserves points for its sheer chutzpah and existence.

These are my 10 runners up (20-11) for 2024:

20. Nosferatu (Robert Eggers) - One of the better adaptations of Bram Stoker's novel in recent years. Atmospheric and cryptic. Reviewed here.
19. Oddity (Damian McCarthy) - Hands down, the scariest horror movie I've seen in recent years. This Irish picture is long on atmosphere and features some of the most gasp-inducing moments of recent memory.
18. The Wild Robot (Chris Sanders) - At a time of such discord, this lovely film is a good-hearted and gorgeously animated fable that will lift your spirits.
17. Juror #2 (Clint Eastwood) - This legal thriller/morality tale is Eastwood's best film in a few years. It deserved more attention than it got. Reviewed here.
16. Perfect Days (Wim Wenders) - Some might considered this a 2023 movie, but it didn't make it into wide release until February - so, in my book, it's fair game. Wender's film is his best in a long time and it makes a strong case for living a life of simplicity. Reviewed here.
15. Hit Man (Richard Linklater) - This film's tone often swings wildly, veering from comedy to romance to dark noir territory, but Linklater handles it all deftly. One of the year's most flat-out enjoyable films. Reviewed here.
14. A Complete Unknown (James Mangold) - While Todd Haynes' "I'm Not There" is the definitive Bob Dylan movie, Mangold's more traditional biopic is surprisingly engrossing, very well performed, and makes the wise choice of focusing on a specific period of the icon's career, rather than doing an all-encompassing career overview. Reviewed here.
13. Challengers (Luca Guadagnino) - The sexiest movie about tennis ever? Guadagnino's first (and best) of two films this year is a wildly entertaining sports movie and romantic triangle drama. Reviewed here. 
12. The Substance (Coralie Fargeat) - Nothing I can say will prepare you for the insanity of this horror/satire revolving around the pressure on women in Hollywood - and American society - to remain young-looking and beautiful. Demi Moore gives what is likely her best performance and viewers' jaws are likely to hit the floor again and again. Reviewed here.
11. Longlegs (Osgood Perkins) - Nothing more and nothing less than a great genre picture, Perkins' serial killer thriller is long on spooky atmosphere and unsettling imagery. Also, Nicolas Cage gives one of the year's most frightening performances. Reviewed here.

And, now, for the top 10:

10. I Saw the TV Glow (Jane Schoenbrun) - It took a little extracurricular reading before I fully got this occasionally dreamy, sometimes nightmarish allegory for gender dysphoria, but I grew to really like it. The film has mid-career Gregg Araki vibes, but with the low-fi style to which Schoenbrun fans have become accustomed. This one will stick in your memory. Reviewed here.
9. Woman of the Hour (Anna Kendrick) - One of the year's genuine surprises, Anna Kendrick's directorial debut is a true crime thriller about an actress who comes across a serial killer on a game show. Tense and chilling, this is a harrowing thriller about a society that doesn't listen to women's concerns. 
8. Nickel Boys (RaMell Ross) - It's a rare thing when I love a movie based on a book that I revere. This is likely because I prefer something new over adapting a story with which I'm already familiar. But in this case, Ross' adaptation of Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer winner is something new - a first-person POV account of two young Black men who were abused at a reformatory school during the height of segregation. Unique and powerful. Reviewed here.
7. Conclave (Edward Berger) - Less about religion than it is about power structures, Berger's film about the choosing of a new pope plays like a paranoid 1970s thriller. It features a great Ralph Fiennes performance and a bevy of solid supporting performances as well as a genuinely surprising ending. Reviewed here.
6. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia) - As luminous as its title suggests, Payal Kapadia's directorial debut is a moving and visually gorgeous tale of sisterhood as well as a city symphony of Mumbai, where it is set. One of this year's biggest hits the Cannes Film Festival - and it's easy to see why. Reviewed here.
5. Anora (Sean Baker) - Although "The Florida Project" remains my favorite Baker joint, his latest is a crass, stylish, brassy, and all-around film that starts as a tale of amour fou before slowly transitioning into a chronicle of the haves vs. the have nots. Mikey Madison gives a star-making performance. A firecracker of a movie. Reviewed here.
4. Hard Truths (Mike Leigh) - If Leigh's "Happy Go Lucky" was the story of an overly pleasant person, then his latest is a chronicle of an overly unpleasant one. But in the case of both films, there's much more to it than that. A film about the difficulties of living in the modern world, which - I don't have to tell any of you - is a lot. Reviewed here.
3. A Real Pain (Jesse Eisenberg) - Eisenberg's sophomore feature is a major leap forward. Easily the year's funniest, but also among its most moving, the film suggests that it's an honorable thing to try to put oneself in another's shoes to understand their pain, but a lot harder than one might think. Reviewed here.
2. The Beast (Bertrand Bonello) - I saw this film back in April and have been thinking about it ever since. Although I'm still not 100 percent sure I could explain it to you, Bonello's latest is part period piece with Giallo touches, part futuristic Cronenbergian sci-fi chronicle, and part Lynchian surveillance thriller set in Los Angeles, with a Henry James short story as a jumping-off point and an overall concept having to do with the fear of falling in love. Reviewed here.
1. The Brutalist (Brady Corbet) - In this third film as a director, actor Brady Corbet aims for an American epic in the vein of "There Will Be Blood" or "Once Upon a Time in America," and succeeds, although the film's style and imagery clearly has been inspired by the European masters. "The Brutalist" is also fascinating in that it is many things at once - an immigration tale, a saga of how capitalism destroys art, and an increasingly mysterious story about obsession that culminates in an epilogue that shines a new light on the entire endeavor. Reviewed here.

Review: Nickel Boys

Image courtesy of MGM Studios.

It's often the case that my favorite movies are not based on great novels - and that my favorite novels are often better than the film adaptations. This is, perhaps, because I'd prefer to see something new, rather than a new representation of a story with which I'm familiar.

So, what makes director RaMell Ross' adaptation of Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "The Nickel Boys" - a book that I loved - special is that it is something new. The basic concepts and characters of the novel remain intact, but Ross - who was best known up until now for the documentary "Hale County This Morning This Evening" - has taken an experimental approach to the material.

"Nickel Boys," the film, still tells the story of Elwood and Turner - two young Black men who suffer at the hands of the staff of a horrific reformatory school in Florida during the early 1960s - but the picture adopts the concept of seeing the world through someone else's eyes. The film has a first-person point-of-view format in which the audience is literally seeing through the eyes of either character at any given time - therefore, other characters address the camera when speaking to them, and so on.

This approach can be a little disconcerting, at first, but it also allows for a fair amount of compelling experimentation. Rather than going step-by-step through Whitehead's story - although it does follow it pretty faithfully - the film gives us snippets of what the two young men experience; just enough so that we can tell what's going on, but allowing the audience to fill in some of the story themselves.

Elwood (Ethan Herisse), a book-smart young man from Tallahassee, unfairly gets into trouble after he hitches a ride to college with the wrong man, a convict of some sorts, and winds up getting sent to the Nickel Academy. There, he meets Turner (Brandon Wilson), whose reason for being there is a little more nebulous. Elwood not only suffers from the mistreatment of the horrible men who run the place - especially Spencer (Hamish Linklater) - but also from other boys being held there.

Throughout the course of the story, which takes place from the early to late 1960s, we seen scenes from later years in one of the young men's lives, at times in the 1980s and possibly later. For reasons that those who've read the book will understand, we only see this character from behind. Some years later, he is still trying to process what happened to him at Nickel Academy, especially as the academy pops up in the news once bodies of some of the young men who were kept there are unearthed.

Due to the time in which it is mostly set, the story is interspersed with imagery from that era - the space race and shots of Martin Luther King Jr. giving speeches. But the film also takes an experimental approach, occasionally showing images - a few of which border on surreal - that aim to capture the essence of the Black experience in America. Most of these images are not familiar, but add to the film's occasional free-floating mood of melancholy.

This is not a film that will guide you step by step. There are scenes where, if you blink, you might miss what happened to a particular character. I was only able to fill in the blanks because I've read the book. Therefore, "Nickel Boys" is a film that involves active participation, and those who are willing to take on a challenge will be rewarded. 

This is an often devastating, frequently moving film about the struggle against societal bigotry, but it's also about perseverance, survival, and writing wrongs. For fans of the book, the film might not be the film version they'd expect, but it's a unique - and, ultimately, effective - approach to this story. I'd highly recommend it.

Review: The Brutalist

Image courtesy of A24.

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free," a character states early in Brady Corbet's epic "The Brutalist," quoting Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe. Late in the picture, another notes during a speech at a celebration of sorts that she refutes the old adage that "it's not the destination, it's the journey," and believes the opposite, which certainly holds true for several of the main characters in this incredible film.

The picture's title refers to a type of architecture and its lead character, Laszlo Toth (Adrien Brody), a Hungarian Jew who finds his way to the United States in the post World War II years after surviving a concentration camp with his wife and niece, is a practitioner of that particular style. However, the title could also refer to more than one of the film's characters, whose brutal treatment of others or themselves provides much of the drama in the movie.

The film opens with a remarkable sequence in which Brody is seen making his way through a rowdy crowd in tight quarters, and it's not until he has broken through to the daylight that we realize he is on a boat approaching Ellis Island in New York City. His first sight of the new world is the Statue of Liberty, but based on the boat's position in the water, we see the iconic monument inverted, which I'm sure is meant as a symbolic gesture.

After one of the more creative title sequences of recent memory, Toth makes his way to Philadelphia to meet up with his cousin, Attila (Alessandro Nivola), who emigrated to the U.S. some years before and runs a furniture business known as Miller & Sons. "Who's Miller?" Toth asks his cousin. This is, of course, the anglicized name he has taken to assimilate. 

The cousins get a job refurbishing a library after being hired by a man named Harry (Joe Alwyn), who wants to surprise his father, Harrison Van Buren (Guy Pearce), an extremely wealthy man, with the renovation. But while Laszlo and Atilla are working on the house, Harrison comes home and finds his home in disrepair, throws a fit, and kicks them out. Atilla blames Laszlo for the loss of the job and gives him the boot, sending him to live in a shelter, where he gives in to heroin addiction and befriends another immigrant named Gordon (Isaach de Bankole).

Some time later, Harrison seeks out Laszlo after discovering his work in a European architectural magazine and seems fascinated by him. During a dinner at Harrison's swank house, the wealthy man asks Laszlo why he chose architecture. Toth cites the destruction of the Holocaust and how his structures - like many great pieces of art - are built to survive for generations. "My buildings were designed to endure such erosion," Laszlo says.

Van Buren lures Laszlo with a new project that he wants him to build. It's meant to be a community center dedicated to Van Buren's late mother, but more keeps getting added to the project - a gymnasium, a reading room, a chapel - almost to the point of it being farcical. And yet, Laszlo tackles the project with the requisite seriousness and proposes a structure that is awe inspiring to Van Buren.

Laszlo is all but forced to move in with his benefactor, who utilizes his wealthy and powerful friends to help Laszlo's wife, Erzsebet (Felicity Jones), and a niece, Zsofia (Raffey Cassidy), who has been orphaned and will play an important role late in the picture, get to America. As time goes on, Harrison becomes more abusive toward Laszlo, culminating in an act that could best be described as past the point of no return, although there were a fair amount of indignities that preceded it.

One of the elements that makes "The Brutalist" so compelling is that while it's at once about many things, it is never pigeonholed into one particular storyline or theme. On the one hand, it's an epic about the immigrant experience, but it's also about how capitalism (in this case represented by Pearce's Van Buren) destroys art (represented by Toth) by attempting to control the artistic process and taking what it needs from it before tossing it aside.

The film is also about obsession and the prisons we create for ourselves. Van Buren's obsessions are fleeting and costly, whereas Toth's become all-consuming. There are a series of scenes in which he haggles over what seem to be some minor measurements regarding the structure he's building for Van Buren that take on a fascinating new meaning during the aforementioned speech given during the epilogue. This also ties back to the Goethe quote at the film's beginning in a compelling manner.

As the film nears its end, it becomes increasingly mysterious and some major acts that seemingly occur are either left to the imagination, or the audience is left to come up with its own reasons as to why they take place. At three hours and 35 minutes, this is a long film that takes a little work on the viewer's part. Its first half is the more propulsive, while the second is slower and becomes increasingly vaguer on the details. But there is major thematic payoff at the film's end.

There are many things to admire about this third film from actor-turned-director Corbet, whose first film, "The Childhood of a Leader," was an impressive directorial debut and whose "Vox Lux" was overall pretty good. But this picture is a major leap forward. The film, shot in VistaVision, is filled with stunning imagery and imaginative use of camera movements and angles. It also brings back the vibe of a moviegoing event with an overture that opens the film and a 15-minute intermission, which is frankly a practical move for those needing a bathroom break.

Corbet aims for the Great American Novel narrative style of classic films such as "The Godfather," "There Will Be Blood," or "Once Upon a Time in America," though the film's pacing, camera work, and visual style suggests a careful study of the great European masters.

The performances are phenomenal across the board. Pearce is brilliant as Van Buren, a man who can seductively lure people into his orbit so that he can get what he wants out of them. His most memorable scene involves his character expounding upon how he once got revenge on his grandparents. But it's Brody who carries the film in what is likely his best performance to date. Laszlo is at once a tragic figure, a genius, a survivor, and even occasionally a brute himself. It's a tough act to juggle, but Brody gives a performance that ranks as one of the year's very best.

This is a great film - the movie event of the year - but it's also one I appreciated for its mere existence. It is difficult in America to even get a movie financed these days that is aimed at adults, much less a three-and-a-half-hour arthouse epic that becomes more open ended as it goes along. "The Brutalist" is both deeply engrossing and intellectually stimulating, a rarity in modern American filmmaking.

Review: The Room Next Door

Image courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

For a filmmaker whose works are so eye popping and full of life, the subject of death might not seem like a natural fit for Pedro Almodovar. His first picture in English, "The Room Next Door," is a drama about friendship and death that is, for much of its running time, a two-woman show about some old friends who reconnect, which leads to a proposition that one be present when the other commits suicide in the next room.

Tilda Swinton plays Martha, once a hard-charging war photographer who is estranged from her daughter (just wait until you see who plays her) and has a tragic back story about the daughter's father who was messed up during his time in Vietnam. Julianne Moore is Ingrid, who learns from another old acquaintance during a book signing that Martha is back in town and is losing a battle with cancer.

Ingrid pays Martha a visit at the hospital and the two of them begin spending more time together. Shortly after this reconnection, Martha tells Ingrid that she has a pill that will kill her that she plans to take, rather than waste away from her disease. However, she wants someone to be in the room next door when she does this so that she's not alone.

She asks Ingrid to go for an extended stay in a remote locale in Woodstock, New York, where her death will ultimately take place. While there, she says, Ingrid can work on her latest book or - as she puts it - 
"go on a vacation." Martha tells Ingrid that they must plan how she will deal with the police, who could possibly see Ingrid as an accomplice to a suicide, and notes that she'll know that the day has come when, in the morning, her bedroom door is closed.

"The Room Next Door" poses the question as to how far a person would go to help a friend. On the one hand, it's humane to help someone who is suffering from a disease by being there if they decide that their life is over. On the other, there are legal ramifications and, let's face it, the entire scenario would be tough to stomach for most.

Despite the heavy subject matter, "The Room Next Door" is filled with the gorgeous color palettes one would expect from an Almodovar film, from striking shots of the two women wearing bright, different colored sweaters as they ride along in a car or Swinton's face surrounded by the dark blue of the night sky as she looks out on the horizon. In other words, the picture looks great.

There are multiple references to James Joyce's "The Dead," a personal favorite of Martha's as well as one of my own favorite short stories. The final line of the story is referenced multiple times: "His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead."  In Joyce's story, the protagonist mourns the loss of a love who was taken too soon, but in Almodovar's film the loss is one that has yet to occur.

Swinton and Moore are, not surprisingly, very good as always, and John Turturro is made good use of as a former lover of both women and a writer with a pessimistic view of the fate of mankind. Almodovar has made some of his best films in recent years - namely, "Parallel Mothers" and the astonishing "Pain and Glory." His first film in English doesn't quite rise to the level of those movies, but it's good nonetheless as a quiet meditation on death and friendship. 

Review: Hard Truths

Image courtesy of Bleecker Street Media.

Pansy is angry. An aging wife and mother, she often finds herself venting to anyone who will willingly – or more often, not – listen about mostly everything. Occasionally, her anger is righteous – for instance, an incident involving a brazen man who demands that she move out of the parking spot in which she is taking a moment for herself – but more often than not, it’s way out of proportion.

So, she finds herself shouting at supermarket workers, dentists, doctors, employees at furniture stores, her husband, her son, her well-meaning sister, pretty much everyone.

Why is Pansy so angry, her sister, Chantelle (Michele Austin), asks during a Mother’s Day visit to the gravesite of their mother, a moment that should have been a somber one, but instead resorts in the typical releasing of Pansy’s vitriol. Why can’t she enjoy life? “I don’t know,” Pansy answers in frustration.

Portrayed by Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Pansy is one of the year’s most intriguing characters in one of 2024’s finest and deceptively complex performances. This is Jean-Baptiste’s first role in a Mike Leigh film since his phenomenal “Secrets and Lies,” a Palm d’Or winner that represents the best of British cinema from the past three decades.

But while Jean-Baptiste’s work in that film was of a quiet nature, Pansy is a force of nature. Much like Sally Hawkins in “Happy Go Lucky,” David Thewlis in “Naked” or Brenda Blethyn in “Secrets and Lies,” Pansy dominates every scene she’s in and everyone else merely revolves around her as planets circling a seething, burning sun.

If “Happy Go Lucky” was Leigh’s story of an overly pleasant person – albeit one whose happiness was, perhaps, an intentional mask worn to survive a difficult world – then his latest is a story of an overly unpleasant one. That’s not to say that Pansy isn’t a sympathetic character. Clearly, she’s hurting and the concept that “hurt people hurt people” is clearly at play here.

Just as we never quite knew what was going on under the surface with Hawkins in “Happy Go Lucky,” it’s never quite spelled out what makes Pansy so upset. She claims she doesn’t feel well, but can’t exactly put her finger on what ails her. She has little patience for her husband, a quiet handyman named Curtley (David Webber), or her son, a hulking and mostly silent 22-year-old named Moses (Tuwaine Barrett), who lives at home and seemingly has no ambitions.

Pansy spends most of her days vigorously cleaning her home, when she’s not complaining about the service she receives at furniture stores, dentist’s and doctor’s offices, or supermarkets. Scenes vacillate between being laugh-out-loud funny and awkward during her tirades. During one at the dinner table, she goes from attacking charity workers outside of stores to racist police within a few breaths.

At the cemetery, a visit planned by her sister that acts as a sort of centerpiece for the story, it is hinted that Pansy bore the brunt of the pressure from their single mother, while Chantelle – a single mother and hairdresser who seemingly has a joyful life at home with her two grown daughters – felt less of the burden. It was Pansy who discovered their mother’s body at the time of her death.

Throughout the course of the film, we watch as the other characters suffer from workplace indignities, health issues, or various annoyances. Moses is picked upon due to his size by two young men on the street. Curtley suffers a back injury at work. Aleisha (Sophia Brown), one of Chantelle’s daughters, has a massive amount of work dumped on her at her job, while a work-related research project completed by her sister, Kayla (Ani Nelson), is condescendingly dismissed by her boss, despite it being obvious how much work she put into it.

All of these characters suffer their problems in silence. Pansy, on the other hand, can’t let the smallest thing go. She is willing to die on every hill. And, the film seems to suggest, while this may have to do with past traumas, it could very well be because living in the world in this day and age is – let’s be honest – a lot. People are difficult. Work is difficult. Everyday life is difficult. The societal fabric seems to be tearing. The fact that most of us manage to compose ourselves on a daily basis seems like a small miracle.

“Hard Truths” is the best film by Leigh in about a decade. Rightfully considered England’s greatest living filmmaker, his body of work includes such classics as “Secrets and Lies,” “Happy Go Lucky,” “Naked,” “Life is Sweet,” “Another Year,” and “Mr. Turner,” but also a great second tier of pictures that includes “Topsy-Turvy,” “Vera Drake,” and “Career Girls.” His latest, much like “Happy Go Lucky,” is a great film about an outsized personality whose foibles may often provoke a laugh, if only to cover up the pain inside.

'Wild At Heart And Weird On Top': RIP David Lynch

David Lynch in "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me"

Today, I learned of the death of David Lynch, a singular artist who I’d count among the few who I can honestly say have changed the way I looked at the world and viewed art.

When I was young, I considered myself a “Twin Peaks” fan and will never forget the amount of discomfort I underwent seeing “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me” on my 15^th birthday with my parents (who are about as open-minded as parents can be and do not easily squirm at movies).

In my teens, I was blown away by “Blue Velvet” and, in my first year of college, was mesmerized so much by “Lost Highway” that I went to see it multiple times, each time bringing along a new convert to be perplexed and freaked out by it.

When I moved to Los Angeles, I’ll never forget seeing “Mulholland Drive,” arguably the best film of the 21st century, at The Regent Showcase Cinema Palace. This was another that involved multiple screenings. When I lived in New York City, I was crazy enough to sit through “Inland Empire” for two back-to-back screenings. My open-minded folks, while visiting, attended a third screening of that film with me.

In 2017, “Twin Peaks: The Return” was a TV show experience like no other. Upon watching the much-vaunted Episode 8, I wondered how Lynch ever convinced a television network to air what must be the most avant-garde hour of TV ever made. I wrote a long piece about “The Return” here.

I’d always hoped that Lynch’s “Unrecorded Night,” a TV show he announced prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, would finally be realized. Alas, it will never be seen, much like other mythical never-to-be-realized Lynch projects, such as “Ronnie Rocket.”

It’s difficult to sum up Lynch’s work, other than to use the obvious words: nightmarish, surreal, dream-like, absurdist. Another word that best describes his work is intuitive. By this, I mean that what occurs in his films from frame to frame is less the mechanics of plotting, but rather what feels like should happen next. Another way to describe his style is that it operates on dream logic.

Sure enough, Lynch once described how he came up with the sinister, otherworldly Red Room from “Twin Peaks”: He leaned against a hot car and the image came to his mind. He then found a way to insert it into the series. Many of his films, he often noted, included imagery from his dreams.

However, Lynch notably did not like to discuss his films. His responses in interviews to what they mean have been intentionally vague and bland. The DVDs of his films often don’t even have chapter titles. Critic J. Hoberman does a lovely job of summing up Lynch’s life and work in The New York Times.

So, needless to say, Lynch is one of my favorite filmmakers. And it is undeniable that he is among the most unique ever to pick up a camera. He was also an avid painter and contributed wonderfully atmospheric music to some of his films (when composer Angelo Badalamenti wasn’t the one doing it).

“The world is wild at heart and weird on top,” says one character to another in the director’s 1990 Palm d'Or winner, “Wild at Heart.” That’s a great way to describe Lynch’s work in general – and the way that he enabled those of us who love his work to see the world.

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.