Rank 'Em: The Phase Five Marvel Movies

The release of "Thunderbolts*" means the end of Phase Five of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  It has not been a good one for Marvel, and I'm going to take this opportunity to talk about some of the franchise's more systemic issues as we go.  I haven't decided yet whether I'm going to rank the Disney+ shows of this phase, since it'll require catching up on a few programs I don't have much interest in.   

Watch out for all the spoilers ahead.

1. Thunderbolts* - I just posted a full review a few days ago, so I won't say too much here.  However, what I appreciate the most about "Thunderbolts" is that it's venturing into some new territory for Marvel.  We've seen plenty of takes on antiheroes, big team-ups, and evil Superman figures before, but approaching all of this from a mental health angle is something novel, and very effective.  The Void and his Hiroshima shadows and shame boxes are horrifying on a level I've never seen in the MCU before - and how he's defeated is absolutely perfect.  

2. Deadpool & Wolverine - This is the closest to a pure comedy as any MCU film has ever gotten, and it's definitely the first R-rating.  The results couldn't have been better.  Sure, the plot is just an excuse to be juvenile, super nerdy, and nostalgic for FOX media of yore, but the movie is really good at being all of those things, and wildly entertaining to boot.  Some commentators seem aghast that Ryan Reynolds and Shawn Levy now have a blank check at Marvel, but frankly I'm thrilled that the MCU is getting a shot of new energy from these guys right when it needs it the most.  

3. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 - Farewell James Gunn.  I'm glad that you got to leave on your own terms after the firing and rehiring drama that happened in 2018.  The movie was delayed, but ended up being worth the wait.  I was cool on the first two "Guardians" films, but connected to the third, where Rocket Racoon takes center stage.  There's such a boundless creativity on display, and a real sense of weirdo vision to the film that is easy to appreciate, even if Gunn's tastes don't really align with mine.  If this is goodbye to this corner of the MCU, then it went out on a high note.        

4. The Marvels - This is not a bad movie.  There are a lot of things that I like in it, particularly Iman Vellani's Ms. Marvel and a new use for alien cats.  Unfortunately, Monica Rambeau still doesn't have much of a personality.  Honestly, Carol Danvers doesn't either, and the less said about the villain Dar-Benn the better.  Still, I like this considerably more than "Captain Marvel," and the low box office performance reflects the changing attitudes of the audience toward the MCU more than anything else.  If this had been released a few years earliers, it would have done at least as well as…

5. Captain America: Brave New World - I didn't bother writing a full review for this.  While it's perfectly watchable, it's also perfectly disposable.  I like Anthony Mackie as Cap, I like Danny Ramirez as the new Falcon, and watching Harrison Ford return to the White House was diverting.  Not much else of interest is going on though.  There was clearly some trouble behind the scenes, as evidenced by the multiple delays, title changes, muddled script, and whatever happened with Tim Blake Nelson's character.  At least this was better than "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier," though not by much.  

6. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania - Boy is this movie depressing.  The first "Ant-Man" is one of the better solo superhero movies in the entire MCU, and it's just been steadily downhill from there.  "Quantumania" has my vote for the absolute worst film of the entire franchise.  It's awful as an "Ant-Man" film, taking place in a fantasy world that totally negates the fun of the Ant-Man powers.  Most of the plot involves setting up a villain for later movies who had to be scrapped.  MODOK happened.  Bill Murray happened.  The more I think about this movie, the worse it gets.

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Your 2025 Emmy Nominees

I watch too much television.  However, even I don't watch enough television to be able to give any informed opinion on how the Emmy races will shake out.  Who gets picked for what doesn't make sense to me and never will.  However, I've seen half of the Outstanding Comedy Series nominees, three of the five Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series, and all but one of the Outstanding Drama Series nominees (sorry "Slow Horses").  And that means I do have some opinions on how well the Television Academy did putting the nominations together, at least.

Generally, there's always a lot of politicking and a small number of shows getting the lion's share of the nominations, because people can't watch everything.  However, one thing that's improved has been the unfortunate inertia of some long-running shows getting kudos every year for mediocre seasons.  This is a practice that seems to be slowly going away.  The final season of "A Handmaid's Tale" got one nomination in a very minor category after racking up the trophies for years.  Not much attention is going to former favorites like "Yellowjackets," or "Squid Game" either.

New in the Outstanding Comedy race are "Nobody Wants This," "Shrinking," and "The Studio," the last of which garnered a massive 23 nominations.  I expected "The Studio" to do well, because Hollywood loves to navel gaze.  The show is not for me, but I appreciate that it's giving the "Entourage" crowd something to root for.  "Nobody Wants This" feels a little slight, but acceptable, and I continue to have no interest in watching "Shrinking."  Returning nominees include "Abbott Elementary," "The Bear," "Hacks," "Only Murders in the Building," and the last season of "What We Do in the Shadows."

Over in drama, new contenders include "Paradise," "The Pitt," and "The Diplomat," which I would have pegged as a comedy.  "The Diplomat," like "Shrinking," got acting nods for its first season and is getting a series nomination for its second season, which is a good sign that the Academy is making an effort to award consistency over just chasing the fastest out of the gate.  "Paradise" seems like an odd pick until you remember that its creator, Dan Fogelman, also created Academy favorite "This is Us."  Returning nominees include "Andor," "The Last of Us," "Severance," "Slow Horses," and "The White Lotus."

"The Penguin" showed up in Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series, but will almost certainly be clobbered by "Adolescence."  Cristin Milioti has a good shot at taking home a trophy for playing Sofia Falcone though.  I'm surprised that the Menendez Brothers miniseries made it in after all the bad press, but the return of "Black Mirror" is very welcome.  And going by the acting nominations, it looks like "Presumed Innocent" just missed the cut. 

The acting awards are very Oscar-like in that several of the nominated lead actress performances were for shows that didn't get other big nominations.  We've got Uzo Aduba in "The Residence," Sharon Horgan for "Bad Sisters," Kathy Bates for "Matlock," Meghann Fahy for "Sirens," and Cate Blanchett for "Disclaimer."  On the actors' side, it's just Brian Tyree Henry for "Dope Thief" and Jake Gyllenhaal for "Presumed Innocent."  "White Lotus" continues its takeover of the Supporting Actor and Actress categories.  However, one new wrinkle is that the guest actor slots for comedy are dominated this year by "The Studio" and it's ridiculous.  Ron Howard got a nomination for being mean, even.  And I know Cynthia Erivo played quintuplets, but there were so many guest actresses who did better work on "Poker Face."  Come on.

 

I like digging into the less prominent categories to see where the also-rans managed to get some recognition.  "Somebody, Somewhere" got a surprise Supporting Actor nomination for Jeff Hiller and another for writing.  "Four Seasons" got an acting nomination for Colman Domingo.  "Say Nothing" got one major nod, for writing. "The Rehearsal" didn't make it into Outstanding Comedy, but did pick up both writing and directing nominations.  I found "Day of the Jackal," "Étoile," and "Pachinko" in the cinematography categories.  James Burrows got a directing nomination for "Mid-Century Modern," because it's James Burrows.  On that note, there are eighteen slots for the major directing categories, and this year it's exactly nine women and nine men.  That's worth celebrating.  

Amusingly, I've seen all the Best Television Movie nominees (a category that everyone seems to pretend doesn't exist) for the first time, which includes "Mountainhead," "Nonnas," "The Gorge," "Rebel Ridge," and the latest "Bridget Jones" movie.  I'm rooting for "Rebel Ridge."  Apparently there's also some drama going on over in the documentary categories - rule changes mean that docs that didn't get Oscar nominations can "double dip" and be considered for Emmys.  "Will & Harper," for instance, made the Oscar shortlist but didn't get a nomination, so it still got to be considered for the corresponding Emmy categories.

Finally, the most unexpected nomination definitely goes to the "Lazarus" anime making an appearance in the category honoring achievements in main title music.  I feel it's well deserved. 

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"Thunderbolts*" Hits the Mark

Okay, I was wrong about the stupid asterisk thing. I still think the antics with the title are silly and bothersome.

Anyway, "Thunderbolts*" is the best MCU movie since "Avengers: Endgame," though there hasn't been much competition.  It collects up an assortment of oddball villains and side characters from several other MCU projects, and shows how they become their own unlikely superhero team.  And while it's full of shameless callbacks, especially to the first "Avengers" movie, there are a lot of things that it does surprisingly well. 

Yeleva Belova (Florence Pugh), Natasha Romanov's younger adopted sister, is our lead character.  She's initially working as a mercenary for the very sketchy Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis Dreyfus), who is finally revealed in this movie to be the director of the CIA.  Valentina is being investigated for her involvement in a new supersoldier project called Sentry.  While she and her assistant Mel (Geraldine Vishwanathan) are busy getting rid of all the evidence, Yelena is sent to a remote facility to stop an infiltrator from stealing secrets.  However, it turns out Valentina has sent Yelena, John Walker aka US Agent (Wyatt Russell), Ava Starr aka Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), and Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko) to the same place with the same orders, intending for them to kill each other, thus wrapping up loose ends.  There's also a strange amnesiac guy named Bob (Lewis Pullman) at the facility, who has no idea how he got there.  

You can probably work out most of the plot from there.  As the bickering antiheroes learn to work together to escape Valentina's hordes of murderous minions, they start to become a team.  Yelena's adoptive father Alexei aka the Crimson Guardian (David Harbour) gets involved.  So does a recently elected New York congressman, Bucky Barnes aka the Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), who is doing his own investigation into Valentina's crimes.  This is one of the most interconnected MCU installments, but you really don't need much knowledge of anything except the first "Avengers" movie to follow the story.  The dialogue is rife with  ironic, self-aware banter, punctuated by a lot of spiffy action scenes.  All of the "Thunderbolts*" team members are fairly underpowered, low-level fighters, so their fights are pretty grounded, with a lot of hand-to-hand combat.  We get a nice car chase sequence, plenty of picturesque shootouts, and the final showdown happens in New York City.  

And if you think that this all sounds very rote and familiar so far, you're right.  What makes "Thunderbolts*" special is that the whole film turns out to be one big mental health allegory, and it's a good one.  From the very first frame, Yelena is depicted struggling with her emotional well-being, and as she's building her team she's also building a support network.  The big bad of the movie is referred to as "The Void," and has the most unnerving character design and power set I've seen in a superhero film in a long time.  It resembles nothing so much as depression incarnate, which several of the characters are dealing with to various degrees.  The movie is surprisingly dark at times, and the discussions of mental health, trauma, and loneliness are handled with refreshing seriousness.  It turns out to be very easy to root for the Thunderbolts because they're classic underdogs - criminals and losers and D-listers - who find themselves massively outgunned at every turn.  However, the much bigger obstacles are their own flaws, failures, and self-doubt. 

So our leads get to have full, interesting arcs in this movie, and come to personal and emotional resolutions that are immensely satisfying.  That's practically unheard of in an MCU film.  It's so gratifying that the filmmakers understand that Yelena winning a fight isn't nearly as compelling as Yelena making up with Alexei, or Yelena giving Bob a hug when he really needs one.  For all the one-liners and cynical quips, there's an earnestness and emotional honesty to these characters that I didn't expect.  Florence Pugh anchors the movie and reveals herself to be one of the best actors in the current MCU roster.  Julia Louis Dreyfus and David Harbour remain incredibly fun to watch every time they show up onscreen, and I can't help liking Sebastian Stan a little more as Bucky every time I see him.  Lewis Pullman is doing just fine, and I hope the rest of the team get more chances to build on their appearances here.  Alas, it seems you can't have a superhero team-up movie without a few characters feeling shortchanged.

There are definitely some rough spots, and I suspect I would have liked the movie a bit better with the originally cast Steven Yeun and Ayo Edibiri.  Still, I'm looking forward to the next appearance of the Thunderbolts* in the upcoming "Avengers" movie. 

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My Favorite Victor Sjöström Film

Victor Sjöström  is one of the great silent film directors, who was successful both in his native Sweden, where he was one of the central figures of the early Swedish film industry, and in Hollywood, where he made several of his best films and was credited as Victor Seastrom.  In 1924, he directed the first film entirely produced by a newly formed studio called Metro Goldwyn Mayer, or MGM.  This was "He Who Gets Slapped," a psychological thriller starring Lon Chaney and Norma Shearer.      

 Victor Sjöström's films, particularly his American films, stand out from other silent films of the time for their rare emotional and psychological intensity.  He was very good at showcasing his actors' performances, possibly because he was an actor himself.  Here, he helps Lon Chaney to deliver one of his signature roles, the tragic clown who calls himself "He Who Gets Slapped," or simply "HE."  Based on a Russian stage play, with clear influences from the opera "Pagliacci," "He Who Gets Slapped" examines the history of a wronged man who has everything stolen from him, and decides to re-enact that humiliation every night in a circus act that largely consists of being slapped and abused by the other clowns to absurd extremes.  It's incredibly dark for a melodrama of this era, and I initially mistook it for a horror title, similar to Paul Leni's "The Man Who Laughs."  

The plotting is typical for melodrama, with our protagonist being swindled and persecuted by an evil Baron, and then falling in love with a fellow circus performer played by Shearer, before a heroic sacrifice leads to his last minute redemption.  However, the centerpiece of the film is the circus, with its white-painted clowns and ferocious animals.  There was never a more bleak and bitter depiction of a man's broken psyche, where the world has become an endless joke and his suffering is the punchline.  The clown act is mindlessly cruel, and all HE can do is smile and take it, as the crowds roar with laughter.  Sjostrom isn't shy about emphasizing the disturbing aspects of the farce, and Chaney ensures that the misery and despair of HE comes through in every frame.  Eventually HE is saved by the kindness of the female lead, and opportunity to overcome his oppressors, but the character is defined by his unrelenting sadness and grief.         

Lon Chaney, the "Man of a Thousand Faces," was famous for his ability to play sympathetic grotesques and other exaggerated characters through the skillful use of makeup.  "He Who Gets Slapped" came right between two of his most famous roles in "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" and "The Phantom of the Opera."  Though nowhere near as iconic as those characters, HE is still a fantastic screen creation, a painted clown whose permagrin does nothing to hide his actual feelings and state of mind.  Trained in clowning by real circus clown George Davis, Chaney's performance is carefully layered so that it works in both the context of the circus act and the encompassing melodrama.   It's his ability to elicit so much pathos, despite the heavy makeup and clowning mannerisms, that makes the character work.  "He Who Gets Slapped" was an important role for Chaney, giving him some of the best reviews of his career, and greater visibility as a leading man.

A less well regarded director probably wouldn't have had the clout to make such a dark film, but Victor Sjöström had been well established in the Swedish film industry for over a decade at this point, known for his sterling dramas and character studies.  "He Who Gets Slapped" was the second of eight films he made in the Hollywood studio system, including "The Scarlet Letter" and "The Wind."  Though his Swedish films were more important for their innovations in editing, cinematography and special effects, I prefer his later ones which benefited from collaborations with Hollywood acting talent and larger studio budgets.  Alas, Sjöström was one of the directors who was not able to adapt when the talkies came in at the end of the 1920s, and he acted more than he directed for the rest of his career.  Memorably, his final screen appearance was in a film made by one of the many directors he inspired - Ingmar Bergman's "Wild Strawberries."         

What I've Seen - Victor Sjöström

Ingeborg Holm (1913)

A Man There Was (1917)

The Outlaw and His Wife (1918)

Karin Daughter of Ingmar (1920)

The Phantom Carriage (1921)

Love's Crucible (1922)

He Who Gets Slapped (1924)

The Scarlet Letter (1926)

The Wind (1928)

Under the Red Robe (1937)

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And What Didn't Make My Top Ten Films of 2024

As a companion piece to my Top Ten list, every year I write a post to discuss some of the other major films that got a lot of positive attention. I find this exercise helpful in providing context for my own choices and how I feel about the year in film as a whole. It's also a lot of fun. Please note that I will not be writing about films listed among my honorable mentions, including "Dune: Part 2."

Let's start with the big award contenders.  This was a weird year for me, because I totally failed to connect with some of the big populist favorites.  "Conclave," for instance, struck me as a wildly contrived religious allegory with such ridiculous twists that I couldn't take it seriously.  The execution is fabulous on every level, and I adore everybody in the cast, but I was totally soured by the writing, especially the twist ending.  "Emilia Perez" is not as bad as its detractors are making out, but it was the wrong people making this film, and the incredibly tone deaf behavior of the cast and crew didn't help matters.  

"Wicked" was better than I was expecting, but it's just not very good as a film - a few too many technical problems, and a real drag of a second act.  I appreciate what James Mangold was trying to do with "A Complete Unknown," but I didn't think those intentions came across very well in the movie - and Timothee Chalamet's Dylan didn't do much for me.  "I'm Still Here" is a very good film about surviving a dictatorship, but without more background information for the non-Brazilians, I don't think it travels as well as its creators were hoping.  "Babygirl" is a daring piece of cinema, and I'm very happy that Halina Reijn and Nicole Kidman got to make it.  However, I found the trailer more compelling than the actual film.  And then we have "Sing, Sing" - Colman Domingo's performance is great, but the rest of the film doesn't live up to it.

Prominent foreign films include several excellent titles that I count as 2023 films - "Red Rooms," "Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World," "Evil Does Not Exist," and "Green Border."  However, I only liked "Evil Does Not Exist" enough that I would have considered it for last year's list.  To date, it's the only Ryusuke Hamaguchi film I've really liked.  "All We Imagine as Light" has been a big critical favorite, and I wish I liked it more than I did.  It's a lovely, intimate look at the lives of a group of Indian women, but too slight for my tastes.  I also didn't really get the "The Beast," Bertrand Bonello's genre-bending romance about past lives and existential terrors.  It all just felt overlong and overindulgent.  I've said my piece about "Flow" in previous posts - I'm glad it won an Oscar, but the movie is not for me.  

Let's talk about some of the trans-centered films, which got a lot of attention in 2024.  "I Saw the TV Glow" is a film I can appreciate for its depth of feeling and nightmare imagery, but the performances are so monotone and the mood is so depressive, it's a very difficult watch.  "The People's Joker" completely went over my head.  I didn't find it funny or insightful, and the no-budget production quality and amateur actors grated something awful.  The documentary "Queendom" ended up being my favorite trans film of the year. 

Box office winners that broke into the awards conversation included "Furiosa: A Mad Max Story," which I liked, but which suffered in comparison to "Fury Road," and for being a prequel.  The same can be said of "Nosferatu," which had some great atmosphere and performances, but often made me wish I was watching the older versions.  Then there's Alex Garland's "Civil War," which struck me as fundamentally a misfire with a few good moments - Jesse Plemmons' appearance is a contender for scene of the year.

There were several smaller films that had some really passionate champions.  "A Real Pain," which is about one very specific relationship, is very personal and very well made, but I liked other takes on this material better.  "The Wild Robot," is the best Dreamworks animated film I've seen in years, but I couldn't help noticing how tropey and formulaic it got in the last act.   "Megalopolis" is a miracle of a sort, but like Terry Gilliam's "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote," it wasn't worth the effort.

Finally, films that just missed my honorable mentions include "Wildcat," "Daughters," and "¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!"  There were also several contenders for my "Plus One" spot, for movies I hadn't seen in time for last year's list.  Along with the aforementioned "Evil Does Not Exist," these were "Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person," and "The Monk and the Gun" - my first Bhutanese watch!

And that's my 2024 in film.

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My Top Ten Films of 2024

I'm throwing in the towel early this year.  Every year is a good year for movies, but the discourse around a lot of the major films got pretty toxic around awards season, and I'm ready to be done.  Also, with the downturn in the industry, it feels like distribution woes are worse than ever, and I'm probably not going to get ahold of the last few remaining titles on my to-watch list any time soon.  Foreign films are great, but I don't have much interest in chasing after them lately.    

A few caveats.  My criteria for eligibility require that a film must have been released in its own home country during 2024, so film festivals and other special screenings generally don't count. Picks are unranked and listed in no particular order, previously posted reviews are linked where available, and the "Plus One" spot is reserved for the best film of the previous year that I didn't manage to see in time for that previous list. And here we go.

Challengers - I have no interest in tennis, or most sports in general.  However, in "Challengers" the tennis is standing in for the sex, and the film's ever-evolving relationships involving Josh O'Connor, Zendaya, and Mike Faist make the tennis matches positively breathtaking to behold.  Luca Gudagnigno continues to direct the most sensual screen romances of anybody currently working, and we're lucky that he's such a prolific filmmaker.  I want to see all three of the lead actors working with him again as soon as humanly possible.  

Anora - The backlash against "Anora" was swift after it won the Best Picture Oscar.  Frankly, movies this rude, this anarchic, and this uncompromised do not usually win the big awards, no matter how deserving.  And "Anora" is deserving.  It refuses to be easily categorized, to stay in its own lane, or offer any easy answers.  What kept it in my list all year was that it felt like a film that couldn't be made at any other time than in 2024.  Also, it's so much fun to watch, and totally unpredictable the whole way through.   

Love Lies Bleeding - The new Rose Glass crime thriller is a scummy piece of work.  Everyone looks terrible, with the exception of Katy O'Brien playing a lesbian bodybuilder who is the new girl in town.  I've seen O'Brien in several other big films and shows over the past few years, but so far Glass is the only director who understands what to do with her, and the kind of role that really gives her a chance to shine.  Paired with an intense Kristen Stewart, O'Brien has no trouble anchoring one of the best movies of the year. 

The Substance - Many of the films on this list are very visceral, emotionally fraught, unsubtle genre films.  And there's no film that fits that description better this year than "The Substance," which brings back '80s body horror in a big way.  Even before the birth of Monstro Elisasue, "The Substance" is relentless in its pursuit of squirm-inducing sights and sounds and suggestions.  I'd call it Cronenbergian, but Coralie Fargeat has a far more playful sense of humor, and Demi Moore adds a star quality that is entirely singular.

Hard Truths - Marianne Jeanne Baptiste gave the best performance of the year.  Pansy is one of the most memorable, miserable screen creatures I have ever seen, and one of the most poignant once you realize that what she isn't saying - or shouting - is as important as what she is.  It never fails to amaze me how Mike Leigh's best movies function as empathy generators, showing that even the most horrible and impossible people can be deserving of love and sympathy.  And there's always another side to everybody's story.   

Nickel Boys - We consume more visual media with a first person POV than ever before, mostly thanks to gaming and livestreaming.  However, it feels like we're only beginning to explore the possibilities of the first person POV narratively.  That's why "Nickel Boys" made such an impression.  It found a way to transcend the gimmick, and get the viewer to inhabit the world of the title characters in a novel, meaningful way.  It doesn't work for everyone, unfortunately, but for me "Nickel Boys" was a valuable experience.

The Girl With the Needle - A Danish film made by a Swedish-Polish filmmaker, but the story feels universal in its wartime bleakness and depictions of casual cruelty.  The content is horrific, but I found the depiction of two women grappling with the most painful parts of motherhood as they try to survive in difficult times to be absolutely enthralling.  The lead actresses, Vic Carmen Sonne and Trine Dyrholm, both turn in difficult, psychologically complex performances.  Dyrholm's maternal monster is one I won't soon forget.     

The Seed of the Sacred Fig - A sobering look at one family's descent into paranoia and self-destruction, presented in contrast to the recent social upheaval in Iran.  I was especially impressed with the use of real social media posts during the demonstration sequences, emphasis on the thin line between the oppressors and the oppressed, and how quickly the situation escalates to dark extremes.  There were several good depictions of life under authoritarianism at the movies this year, and this one hit me the hardest.  

The Brutalist - I think I appreciate this one the most for its ambition, for wanting to make grand, sweeping statements about the American experience, and having the right people involved to pull it off.  Brady Corbet deserves plenty of credit for getting the film made, and refusing to compromise on the running time.  I liked the ambiguous ending just fine.  However, it's Adrien Brody's performance that's going to haunt me, and Lol Crawley's towering feats of cinematography that I won't be able to forget anytime soon.  

My Old Ass - Finally, the movie I had the best time with this year was this very personal, very offbeat, very nostalgic little existential dramedy about a girl's last summer before leaving home.  It's a summery, beautiful hangout film for long stretches of time, with delightful fantasy sequences, engaging conversations, and sweet moments of discovery.  The laughs and the heartache snuck up on me in the best way.  And while I understand why some of the LGBT folks raised eyebrows, I like that our heroine is still figuring herself out.   

Honorable Mentions:

Blink Twice

September 5

Small Things Like These

Kinds of Kindness

Rebel Ridge

Dune: Part 2

Ghostlight

Didi 

Young Woman and the Sea

Inside Out 2

Plus One - Chicken for Linda

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"Lost," Year Four

Spoilers ahead.

I wasn't originally going to write a post for the fourth season of "Lost," expecting to combine it with the fifth season because it's only fourteen episodes - roughly half as long as any of the prior seasons due to a writers' strike.  However, I thought it was important to acknowledge that I've hit a very rough patch in my time with the show.  In short, "Lost" has pretty much lost me.   

Season four is when the freighter Kahana shows up with Daniel Faraday (Jeremy Davies), Miles Straume (Ken Leung), Martin Keamy (Kevin Durand), Charlotte Lewis (Rebecca Mader), Frank Lapidus (Jeff Fahey), Fisher Stevens, Zoe Bell, and the return of Harold Perrineau as Michael.  And frankly, I couldn't keep this bunch and their motives straight.  I know that they've been sent by Penny's father Charles Widmore (Alan Dale), and that they're after Ben Linus and his cult of Others, who I have an even less of a firm grasp on anymore.  Ben's pal Alpert (Nestor Carbonell) appears to be a real person and not a vision.  Ben is also making nice with John Locke, who puts together a splinter group that is mostly killed off.  And frankly, none of this interests me at all.

The third season had a fantastic finale where it was revealed via a flashforward that Jack and Kate got off the island, and Jack was convinced they "have to go back."  The entire fourth season is spent getting the story to that point, and we don't learn how six lucky survivors actually made it back to civilization until the end of the finale.  There are a few other flashforwards to give us hints and set up some smaller mysteries, but otherwise the fourth season spends a lot of time with the new characters and the escalation of hostilities.  There's a lot of trekking through the jungle, getting split up, and trying to keep track of who is where and with whom.  One group is still on the beach.  One group temporarily goes to the freighter.  There's a helicopter in play, which is at the center of a few big action sequences.

However, from a character standpoint, not much interesting happens.  There are way too many players now to really focus on anyone for more than an episode, and I simply couldn't bring myself to care about Charlotte and Faraday and even Michael, who is brought back to almost immediately hit an awful narrative dead end, one that makes me wonder why they bothered.  The best written episode of the season is "The Constant," which some consider the best episode in the whole show, but I didn't feel much emotional connection to its hero, Desmond Hume.  I dislike or maintain a steady disinterest in just about all the characters who "Lost" narratively favors at this point - Jack, Kate, Desmond, John Locke, and even Ben Linus after his storyline was so bungled.  The ones I'm more interested in - Hurley, The Kwons, Sawyer, and Sayid - remain present but secondary characters.

It's not that "Lost" is not a well made show, or that there weren't significant resources expended on its creation.  However, it's become clear to me that I can't get over the fact that "Lost" is a genre show of a different era, one that has far more in common with network soaps than the nerdier science-fiction and fantasy programs that I've become accustomed to.  Jack and Kate's romance will always be carried out with the maximum amount of eye-rolling melodrama, and now we've got multiple babies in the mix and way too many terrible dads.  It's frustrating because I can pick out a lot of the fun metaphysical and existential elements that Damon Lindelof would explore so much more successfully in his later shows, but "Lost" is still taking baby steps, even this late in its run.  It doesn't actually seem to want to be a mystery show or a puzzle show except to the extent that it can tease the audience to stick around.  It's no wonder viewers got so frustrated in these later seasons, because a series this tropey and unsubtle was never going to get away with presenting so many ambiguous non-answers. 

I admire "The Constant" for doing the "unstuck in time" plot, but at the same time, I've seen several other better variations on this story since the episode aired, some of them probably inspired by "The Constant," and it just can't compare in retrospect.  It's the "Seinfeld isn't funny" problem of something innovative and groundbreaking simply not holding up because its imitators have surpassed it so completely.  I think the fact that the central character is Desmond, instead of Sayid or Michael or Claire, also didn't help matters.  "Lost" keeps asking me to care about one more obsessive, shouty white guy after another, and it's honestly a relief that they appear to have killed off a few by the end of season four - well, temporarily anyway.     

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The "Eephus" Elegy

I'm the wrong person to be extolling the virtues of "Eephus," directed and co-written by Carson Lund, which I strongly suspect is one of the great baseball movies.  I don't just mean one of the great baseball movies of this decade or this era, but one of the great baseball movies, period.  The trouble is that I don't have much of an appreciation for the sport, and no nostalgia for it whatsoever, and "Eephus" is often about nostalgia.  

A ballfield in Massachusetts is about to be demolished to make way for the building of a new school.  Thus, the local recreational team, Adler's Paint, faces the end of the line.  The team spends one last day there, playing an eventful game against their rivals, the Riverdogs.  From the beginning, the game is a dodgy affair.  Adler's Paint almost has to forfeit because a player is late.  Balls are lost, players leave early, and everyone grumbles over aches and pains and all the compromises they need to make to keep the game going.  Nearly all the players are middle-aged men, some noticeably out of shape.  The spectators include politely disinterested family members, snide passersby, and one ancient recordkeeper.  As the game drags on, and the sun goes down, there seems to be no reason for any of them to be there, except their dogged determination to finish the game.

"Eephus" is very much a vibes movie.  There's not much of a plot, except for watching the game play out and listening in on people's conversations.  The characters all have names, but it's difficult to keep track of them, and I didn't recognize any of the actors.  Apparently the documentarian Frederick Wiseman contributed some voiceover work.  But no matter - the players are a ragtag collection of guys who are endlessly fascinating to observe.  No introductions are made, and we have to operate off of a lot of incidental information - this this one is married, that one is studying to be an engineer, and the pitcher specializes in the "eephus," a rare pitch that seems to slow down as it approaches the plate, causing the batter to misjudge its timing.  The film has chapter markers, each noting the time of day and offering a quote from one of the baseball greats, like Yogi Berra and Babe Ruth.  A radio in the dugout plays a recording of a far more exciting professional game from decades ago.       

I like the way that "Eephus" presents a picture of male camaraderie through a mosaic of small interactions - some ambivalent, some contentious, some with a fair amount of invective, but none of the disagreements leading anywhere serious.  There are complaints, encouragements, commiserations, invitations, and remembrances.  Their treatment of the game is unsentimental.  Throughout the day we hear repeated claims that one player or another shouldn't even be there that day, or should have left hours ago, or that the whole game is an exercise in futility.  However, without ever stating why or how, it's clear that the game does mean a great deal to many of the players.  They hunt down the lost balls, figure out substitutions as they lose players, and even engineer a nifty way to keep playing in the dark.  They perform the rituals of the game as best they can, from the national anthem, to the sharing of beers.

  

There's something instantly evocative about the way "Eephus" looks, its images of the schlubby players in their red or blue uniforms somehow a very  comfortable and familiar sight.  Everything about the cinematography runs contrary to the glorified images of baseball heroes, shots lingering on everyone looking tired, or bored, or exasperated.  However, there's also a wonderful patience to the film, letting us soak in the inviting New England small town atmosphere.  The passage of time is captured beautifully as daylight fades, and in the night sequences the lighting becomes more inventive and dramatic.  I love the way that fireworks are used in one of the final scenes.

 

In short, you don't have to like or know anything about baseball to enjoy "Eephus," though I'm sure it helps.  You do, however, have to be able to empathize and sympathize with the men who love baseball, beyond all hope of glory, to the bittersweet end.    

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"Andor," Year Two

Minor spoilers ahead.  

The second season of "Andor" is a little different from the first structurally.  Again, it's twelve episodes divided up into four groupings of three.  However, where the events of the first season took place over the course of a year, each three-episode chunk of the second season is spaced a year apart.  The first three episodes take place three years before the events of "Rogue One," the next three take place two years before, and so on.

You can distinguish each of these episode batches by the different missions and the characters' circumstances, but they're not as clearly delineated as the first season.  Cassian Andor remains an important focal point in the show, but storylines featuring Luthen, Mon Mothma, Syril Karn, and other characters often feel more important.  This year Luthen's assistant Kleya Marki (Elizabeth Dulau) becomes very prominent, especially in the final episodes.  So do informant Lonni Jung (Robert Emms), and resistance members Wilmon Paak (Muhannad Bhaier) and Cinta Kaz (Varada Sethu).  Ben Mendelshon's evil Orson Krennic and other characters from "Rogue One" also start showing up, and it may be helpful to start thinking of that movie as the proper finale to the "Andor" series.  

With the Rebellion building up its forces, and the Imperials amassing more and more power, the parallels to real historical conflicts become much more pronounced this season.  Multiple storylines center around the planet Ghorman, a prosperous world that the Empire wants to destroy to further its secret plans.  Ghorman essentially becomes WWII Vichy France, with a secret resistance group that the Imperials are trying to manipulate, ever-escalating restrictions on the populace, and lies and propaganda everywhere. For fans of WWII spy and war stories, it should be familiar territory, but "Star Wars" fans may be taken by surprise.  This year "Andor" fully commits to creating serious, adult-oriented stories set in this universe that really get into the darker, unromantic parts of fighting a war.  Nearly all the main characters have to grapple with the cost of doing the right thing, sacrificing their safety, personal relationships, and eventually all hope of living normal lives.  Some of the material is not only dark, but downright grim.

This also means a string of dialogue-heavy episodes that don't follow the template of your usual action show.  There's a lot of genre-hopping from political thriller to dystopian drama to dinner with Eedy Karn (Kathryn Hunter), the most terrifying mother in the galaxy.  I like that we get to spend time with characters like Syril and Dedra off the clock, and there's an unexpectedly touching episode entirely about Kleya and Luthen's relationship late in the series.  As for Cassian, the closer he gets to "Rogue One," the more he feels like a mythic figure - a Forrest Gump-like character who keeps witnessing all the big inflection points leading up to the war.  However, there's a cost to being that figure, and Cassian and Bix's relationship becomes increasingly bittersweet to follow.  And as harsh as creator Tony Gilroy is to his title character, the contrasting stories of the Imperials are even more gutting.  The Empire is merciless to the rebels, but treats their own just as badly.    

The budget for this season of "Andor" was reduced considerably, but the show still looks fantastic.  Most of the action on Ghorman takes place in one city set, for instance, but they get a lot of mileage out of it.  We hear a few more mentions of the Force this season, but there are still no jedi or lightsabers, and few aliens.  Droids, however, are a definite presence.  The Ghorman episodes feature the KX-unit droids, who are absolutely horrifying to see in action.  However, I think it's to the show's credit that I didn't miss much of the spectacle at all.  This is absolutely prestige television, and despite my own opinions on the intended audience for "Star Wars" media, there's no question that "Andor" is a fantastic new addition to the franchise and opens the door for more in this vein.      

It's very strange that we've got an episode of "Andor" that leads into an episode of "Star Wars Rebels," and bits of obscure lore from a '90s roleplaying game are now canon, but good TV is good TV.  Let's hope Disney is willing to take more risks with "Star Wars" like this is the future.  

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Thank Goodness for "Sinners"

I have dutifully watched black struggle movies every year for awards season, and supported the work of the black filmmakers who feel compelled to make so many miserable period dramas about the African-American experience.  Though I admire many of these movies, I don't particularly enjoy them, and most of the time they leave me feeling depressed.  "Sinners" starts in similar territory, set in the Mississippi Delta in the 1930s, where the local black community is very poor and under the thumb of rich white landowners.  However, the movie is definitely not operating like prestige cinema.

"Sinners" has a lot to say about race and prejudice and the historical roots of some persistent American social ills, but at the same time it does a fantastic job of being thoroughly entertaining.  The trailer heavily suggests, but doesn't spell out exactly what kind of film "Sinners" is, and not knowing the specifics is probably the best way to go into the film.  If you want to preserve the surprises, you can stop reading here, and I'll just say that the film is an excellent combination of several different genres, with a magnificent soundtrack, and well worth your time. 

Still with me?  Let's get into some details.  Written and directed by Ryan Coogler, "Sinners" is a total original, somehow a musical, a horror movie, and a quasi-western action flick all at the same time.  It is enthusiastically R-rated, not just for blood and gore, but plenty of sensuality and non-explicit sex scenes on the way there.  Michael B. Jordan stars in a double role as Smoke and Stack, twin brothers who have returned from working in Chicago with a wagon full of illicit goods and plenty of cash, intent on opening their own juke joint.  They recruit their younger cousin Sammie (Miles Caton), a preacher's son and gifted musician, Smoke's estranged wife Annie (Wunmi Mosaku), local blues player Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo), field worker Cornbread (Omar Benson Miller), and Chinese shopkeepers Bo (Yao) and Grace (Li Jun Li), to help them with their grand opening.  Two unexpected arrivals threaten to throw wrenches in the works.  First, there's Mary (Hailee Steinfeld), Stack's jilted lover who is the wrong color to be hanging around the twins' new enterprise.  Then there's Remmick (Jack O'Connell), an Irishman of malevolent intentions who is new to the area.

"Sinners" is a musical in the same way that "O Brother Where Art Thou?" and "Lovers Rock" are musicals.  While it doesn't follow the structure of a classic song-and-dance spectacle, "Sinners" is a movie where musicians and musical performances play a big part in the story, and are vital to the tone of the entire piece.  The first half of the film meticulously sets up the big night.  We learn all the ins and outs of community, and characters are introduced and brought into the story one by one.  Once we get to the juke joint, however, the musical performances start to drive the action and shape the structure of the film.  A singer named Pearline (Jayme Lawson) appears on the scene as a love interest for Sammie.  The most important set piece of the film is not an action sequence, but Sammie taking the stage and playing the blues so transcendently that it summons visions of the past and future.  Shortly afterwards, Remmick is at the center of another arresting number, featuring Irish folk music. Ludwig Gorransson takes the opportunity to pay tribute to the era's music and culture in many different forms.      

The mix of different traditions is great to see in "Sinners," which has taken pains to include not only the Caucasian and African-American communities of the Mississippi Delta, but also historically accurate Chinese characters, Native Americans, and allusions to other minority groups.  It all helps to create a more complex, nuanced picture of the Jim Crow South than we usually see in movies, and highlight the commonalities in the diverse characters.  While they inhabit a dangerous world full of unseen pitfalls and sudden cruelties, Coogler emphasizes that joy and optimism can exist here too.  Parts of the third act are a little indulgent, with a sharp turn into traditional horror movie territory, and Michael B. Jordan showing off his badass credentials, but it's awfully satisfying to watch.

"Sinners"  is long and winding and full of little digressions, but the journey is worth every step.  I appreciate the extra time given over to making the characters full, well-rounded personalities.  I love the cinematography, which plays with aspect ratios and spatial relationships in delightful ways.  The sound design is fabulous.  I don't feel I can single out any of the performances because the cast is so good across the board, but Miles Caton is one to watch out for.

And I haven't been so thrilled and entertained by the ending of any film in ages.  

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