My Top 25 of the Last 25: Villains

I've thoroughly enjoyed all the "Best of" lists celebrating the superlatives of the first quarter of the twenty-first century. And I'm going to be fashionably late to the party and make some of my own lists this year, looking at movies and television from 2001 to 2025.  However, I'm not going to make "Best Movie" or "Best Show" lists.  No, I'm going to do the fun stuff, starting with my favorite villains.

Each list will get 25 entries, but only the top ten will get write-ups.  Of course, I plan to cheat, but no antiheroes will be forthcoming.  Minor spoilers ahead.

1. Homelander ("The Boys," 2019) - One of the criteria for inclusion on this list was that these villains had to be a reflection of their time, in some way.  The 70s birthed serial killers, the 80s brought corporate creeps, and the superhero age gave us a new kind of supervillain - the superhero gone bad.  Though similar to Omniman, Sentry, and other evil Superman-type supervillains, Homelander stands out from the crowd for his utter lack of empathy and morals, despite being held up as a symbol of patriotism and justice.  His most defining trait is his smile, provided by Anthony Starr - empty, joyless and disturbing.

2. Joker ("The Dark Knight," 2008) - Heath Ledger's performance in "The Dark Knight" was so good, his Joker instantly became iconic.  The initial reaction to publicity stills and sneak peeks was fairly negative, but once we got to see the full effect of the anarchic, repulsive Ledger Joker in the haphazard clown makeup who just wants "to watch the world burn," he was undeniable.  It influenced every subsequent Joker interpretation - and there have been several.  Recent films also gave us Joaquin Phoenix's Arthur Fleck from "Joker," but this version strikes me as more of an anti-hero than a villain. 

3. Villanelle ("Killing Eve," 2018) - One trend I'm glad to see in recent years is the rise of the female villain - more specifically the self-possessed and self-aware villainess who is acting of her own accord.  Female serial killers were fairly rare in fiction for many years, and fun female psychopaths the heroes can banter with are a pretty recent development.  Villanelle is easily the most prominent example, a twisted manic pixie dreamgirl with a knack for dispensing violence.  "Killing Eve" steadily went downhill after a strong first season, so it's easy to forget the impact she had when she was first introduced to the world.

4. Anton Chigurh ("No Country For Old Men," 2007) - It feels like cheating to include a Coens brothers movie, but Anton Chigurh remains one of the most instantly recognizable villains of the 2000s.  Like the Joker, he's symbolic of uncontrollable forces of anarchy, almost like a natural disaster in human form.  It's hard to remember sometimes that this was many people's first introduction to Javier Bardem, whose screen persona is usually so charming and urbane.  Chigurh, by contrast, is brutal and implacable, somehow both animalistic and mechanically impersonal as a killer.  And he's scary as hell too.    

5. Amy Dunne ("Gone Girl," 2014) - Amazing Amy, the overachieving "cool girl" turned psycho, is an avatar of modern feminine rage.  Fueled by entitlement and resentment, she weaponizes the media and society's fascination with true crime against her cheating husband, going to insane extremes to get what she wants.  You could have framed this as an uplifting empowerment story if Amy's revenge weren't so out of proportion with her perceived victimhood, and if her narcissism and vindictiveness weren't so apparent.  The horror is so potent, because Amy's brand of evil is both personal and familiar.  

6. Killmonger ("Black Panther," 2018) - Killmonger is here as an example of the righteous villain - someone who has a very good reason for doing terrible things, but is trying to right the wrongs through harmful and unacceptable actions.  Killmonger is a dark mirror to King T'Challa, a charismatic warrior who is deeply concerned with the injustices done against his people.  It doesn't hurt that he's played by Michael B. Jordan, who instantly steals every scene he's in.  Other MCU villains I considered were Loki, who evolved into an anti-hero, and Thanos, a solid threat, but rarely compelling.  And then there's… 

7. Killgrave (Jessica Jones," 2015) - It feels like you can't classify Killgrave as a comic book villain.  He's so much more intense and deeply disturbing than the usual superpowered baddies, a man who uses mind control to turn people into his personal playthings.  Jessica's past with him is treated as analogous to an abusive intimate relationship, and she's still deeply traumatized from the experience when we meet her.  David Tennant, best known for playing everyone's favorite The Doctor, made my skin crawl every time he showed up onscreen.  It's no wonder many people treated "Jessica Jones" like it was over when he left.

8. Gus Fring ("Breaking Bad," 2008) - The "Breaking Bad" universe had a lot of great villains, but the one everyone remembers is Gus Fring.  Portrayed with unflappable menace by Giancarlo Esposito, Gus has many admirable qualities - he's unfailingly polite, a smart businessman, inspires loyalty from his underlings, and he worked his way up from nothing.  However, if you cross him he can make your life a nightmare.  There were many points in "Breaking Bad" where I was rooting for Gus as much as I was rooting for Walt and Jesse.  Eventually, he had to go, but at least he went out with a fantastic exit.  

9. Dolores Umbridge ("Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," 2007) - I wanted a "Karen" on the list, someone to represent all the privileged, entitled busybodies that seem to exist to make everyone around them miserable.  The "Harry Potter" franchise provided me with Dolores Umbridge, who is easily the most hated "Potter" villain after the evil Dark Lord Voldemort - who is pretty generic as genocidal overlords go.  Umbridge, however, is very specific and very memorable in her villainy.  And as a bureaucrat and administrator, she taps into real world frustrations like no one else on this list. 

10. Cersei Lannister ("Game of Thrones," 2011) - Finally, Joffrey was on this list for a long time, but when you look at the "Game of Thrones" villains, the one who got the most done was really Cersei, Joffrey's mother.  She instigated many of the main conflicts of the series, and took out more than her share of other power players.  However, what lands Cersei a place on the list is how complicated and interesting she is as a character - a natural schemer born to privilege, but constantly stymied by societal expectations, and doomed to endless heartache because she genuinely cares about her family. 

The next fifteen, in no particular order:

Kingpin ("Daredevil," 2015) 

Hannibal ("Hannibal," 2013)

Alonzo Harris ("Training Day," 2001)

The Trinity Killer ("Dexter," 2009)

Alice Morgan ("Luther," 2010)

Stringer Bell ("The Wire," 2002)

Hans Landa ("Inglorious Basterds," 2009)

King Joffrey ("Game of Thrones," 2011)

Phoenix Buchanan ("Paddington 2," 2017)

Pennywise ("IT: Chapter One," 2017)

Red ("Us," 2019)

Terence Fletcher ("Whiplash," 2014)
Edmund Kemper ("Mindhunter," 2017)

Princess Azula ("Avatar the Last Airbender," 2005)

Mother Gothel ("Tangled," 2010)

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"Only Murders," Year Five

After two years of showbiz capers, this year's "Only Murders in the Building" murder sticks closer to home.  Lester (Teddy Coluca), the beloved doorman of the Arconia is found dead in the courtyard fountain, and someone's severed finger is found in Oliver's shrimp cocktail.  This means the "Only Murders" gang gets to dig into the history and secrets of the Arconia.  Potential suspects include Lester's widow Lorraine (Diane Wiest), new doorman Randall (Jermaine Fowler), local mobster Nicky Caccimelio (Bobby Cannavale) and his wife Sofia (Tea Leoni), a trio of billionaires, Bash (Christoph Waltz), Camila (Renee Zellweger), and Jay (Logan Lerman), Mayor Tillman (Keegan Micahel Key), and a pop star named The (Beanie Feldstein).  With Meryl Streep and Da'Vine Joy Randolph still making occasional guest appearances, you don't need to have won an Oscar to be in this season, but it certainly helps.

There's a lot going on this year, which means that none of our intrepid trio really gets much of a personal subplot, and I think that's for the best.  Oliver is a newlywed, but Loretta's career keeps her busy without much time to have any relationship issues.  Charles has a new love interest in Sofia, but she's not a very serious one.  Mabel knew The back when she was known as Althea, and spends most of the season trying to get over their past falling out.  It's all very low stakes, familiar territory, and our leads don't spend quite so much time feeling gloomy or in crisis, which is nice.  There is a bigger, looming threat that affects all of them in the second half of the season, but it's a threat to the Arconia rather than any of them personally.   And arguably, it's the Arconia that gets the most fleshing out this time.  Last season revealed the lives of the tenants living on the west side of the building, and this year reveals other secret parts of the Arconia that we haven't seen yet.  The second episode, which covers Lester's entire time as doorman over three decades, is easily the highlight, especially as it gives us glimpses of many familiar characters before we knew them, sometimes in surprising circumstances.  

It feels like the show is getting more gimmicky.  There's an episode told from the POV of a robot.  There's an episode that suspiciously resembles a "girls' night out" episode.  However, "Only Murders" remains consistently entertaining, and it always feels like everyone involved is having a blast.  Other highlights of this season include a spoof of the rich billionaire getaway weekend plot, and everything involving Sofia Caccimelio's pack of overgrown, cheerfully lunkheaded sons.  I'm a little surprised it took "Only Murders" this long to dip a toe into "The Sopranos" territory, but they did it right.  The Caccimelios  are involved just enough that they're a fun break from the norm every time they appear.  I expect that if the whole season had been built around them, it wouldn't have worked half as well.  

The performances remain the best part of the show, and this year's guest stars are a great bunch.  You've got Christoph Waltz and Logan Lerman as two different versions of rich egomaniacs, with Renee Zellweger as the evil Martha Stewart in their midst.  You've got Tea Leoni radiating untrustworthiness as the mob wife, but understand immediately why Charles is attracted to  her.  Teddy Coluca as Lester is wonderfully warm and charming, and I wish we could have gotten more of him. However, he's not the only performer I wish got more screen time.  There definitely wasn't enough Diane Wiest, Jermaine Fowler, or Bobby Cannavale.

I'm already looking forward to next year's mystery, which is supposed to take place in London and will hopefully give some UK acting talent the opportunity to join in on the murder mystery hijinks.  As is tradition, next year's murder happens at the end of the current season, and it's delightfully silly, self-aware, and tongue-in-cheek in all the right ways.  Just like the rest of the show.

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"Caught Stealing" Caught Me Off Guard

I was expecting very little from "Caught Stealing," the latest Darren Aronofsky film.  The discourse around this one has been very, very quiet, and I completely missed the initial release.  It was at the tail end of my "To Watch" list for a while, because while I recognize and appreciate Aronofsky's talent as a filmmaker, his work is generally so bleak and nihilistic that I rarely enjoy his films.  Well, I enjoyed "Caught Stealing."  This might even be my favorite Aronofsky film.

Written by Charlie Huston, and based on his book of the same name, "Caught Stealing" follows a bartender named Hank (Austin Butler) who inadvertently becomes embroiled in a conflict involving at least two New York criminal organizations, when he agrees to watch a cat belonging to a disreputable neighbor, Russ (Matt Smith).  Set in Lower East Side Manhattan in 1998, "Caught Stealing" features a New York that is grungy, dirty, largely ungentrified, and full of people of every ethnicity living on top of each other.  It is also a very violent film, with Hank constantly on the run from terrible people, and his own life marked by the memory of past traumas.  Because it's Darren Aronofsky, the violence is graphic and upsetting.  Yet somehow, the movie avoids being bleak, and might even qualify as intermittently fun by the time the credits roll.

This is accomplished largely due to two things.  First is the performance of Austin Butler, playing a baseball-loving, hard-drinking, but generally decent guy who keeps trying to do the right thing, keeps getting knocked down for it, and gives us someone to root for.  He's got plenty of charisma, and yet he also fits the nastiness of the surroundings.  He credibly gets into very physical fights, and does a great job of adjusting to each new phase of the story as it keeps morphing into different things.  And the film's unpredictability is its other major strength, where Hank keeps being thrown into one unlikely situation after another, with a parade of colorful characters.  One minute he's in the middle of a ridiculous car chase with Russ and a corrupt police officer, and the next he's having dinner with a nice Jewish lady played by Carol Kane, the mother of  the Drucker brothers (Liev Schreiber, Vincent D'Onofrio), a pair of Hasidic mobsters.  

Darren Aronofsky manages to juggle a lot of disparate elements and some serious tonal whiplash.  This is a story where Russian thugs send Hank to the hospital in the first act, and several nasty deaths occur, and yet there's room for Hank being cute with his girlfriend Yvonne (Zoë Kravitz) and several appearances by the grouchy cat.  It has all the uncomfortable subjective tactility and emotional intensity of Aronofsky's earlier, more paranoid films, but it sidesteps the existential horror.  Hank experiences tragedy, but unlike most of Aronofsky's other protagonists, he's not a tragic character.  His jaunts into subjective introspection reveal that he's got his reasons for angst, but he's perfectly redeemable and I was pleasantly surprised to see him successfully work through a lot of his personal baggage.      

It feels strange, spotting all of these stylistic flourishes that I associate with Aronofsky's grimmest work being used to tell a story that feels so un-Aronofsky.  There are a few places where the dissonance was too much for me, but in the end I found that I liked "Caught Stealing" very much.  It's chaotic while still being perfectly coherent, and pulls off some great surprises, especially when it comes to the cast.  I didn't recognize Schreiber or D'Onofrio at all in their Hasidic regalia.  Matt Smith delivered my favorite performance, sporting a massive mohawk and studded leather jacket, and seemed to be having a ball playing a total reprobate.  Regina King, Bad Bunny, Action Bronson, and Griffin Dunne also appear in roles I will not spoil.  

After "mother!" and "The Whale," I was resigned to cringing my way through all future Darren Aronofsky projects, but "Caught Stealing" gives me hope that this doesn't have to be so.  I'd like very much for this this is a new direction for him, and not just a brief digression from his nihilistic norm.  

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My Top Ten Episodes of 2010-2011

Below, find my top ten episodes for the 2010-2011 television season below, in no particular order.  And a few spoilers ahead, including that one episode of "Mad Men."  I've decided to adjust my personal rules for this series a bit, and allow the inclusion of two episodes from  a show that happens to be having a very good year.

The Walking Dead, "Days Gone Bye" - It started so well, didn't it?  Frank Darabont directed the pilot of AMC's long-running zombie action series, where Deputy Rick Grimes begins his long journey through dystopian America.  "The Walking Dead" was one of a handful of ambitious genre shows that helped to fuel the rise of television series with higher production quality and more risky content.  Fifteen years and seven spinoffs later, I'm not surprised it's still going.

Game of Thrones, "Baelor" - However, if you want to talk about game-changing genre shows, nothing matches the first season of "Game of Thrones" for cultural impact.  The HBO fantasy series was perhaps the final major television show that just about everyone watched and used as a point of common reference.  It broke so many narrative rules the first year, especially in this episode, which concludes with killing off a major character who nobody expected to die.  

Parks and Rec, "Flu Season" - "Parks and Rec" continued to steadily improve in its third season, and spends most of this episode maneuvering various romantic partners closer into each other's orbit, and helping to squash some minor squabbles.  And it's the episode where everyone is sick, loopy, and off their game, which is always great for the comedy.  Amy Poehler shines, but Chris Pratt's "network connectivity problems" ad lib is surely one for the ages.  

Community, "Cooperative Calligraphy" - "Community" was also regularly delivering great episodes as part of the same Thursday lineup, often rife with metatextual commentary.  So we have to have the bottle episode that popularized the term "bottle episode."  And what an episode, where everyone being stuck in close proximity quickly devolves into madness.  A close runner up was "Paradigms of Human Memory," the clip show featuring clips from episodes that don't exist.

Mad Men, "The Suitcase" - No surprise that this episode is here, where tensions between Don and Peggy boil over when Don forces Peggy to work late on her birthday.  It's such a joy to watch Jon Hamm and Elizabeth Moss let loose, revealing so much about their characters' priorities and worldviews as they clash and reconcile.  I especially appreciate that the scope of the show narrows down to focus almost entirely on Don and Peggy, giving them the space to really make an impression. 

Sherlock, "A Study in Pink" -  This is where we were first introduced to Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes and Martin Freeman as Dr. John Watson, reimagined as modern day sleuths by Stephen Moffat and Mark Gatiss.  The show had its ups and downs, but the premiere was so much fun because Cumberbatch nailed the character, and Moffat did a fantastic job of getting the tone right, doing an updated version of "A Study in Scarlet" with nicotine patches and texting.

Futurama, "The Late Philip J. Fry" and "The Prisoner of Benda" - The Comedy Central era of "Futurama" had some of my favorite episodes of the show's entire run, including these two.  I couldn't pick between them.  You've got a time travel episode that runs through a dozen major metaphysical and philosophical concepts (most notably eternal recurrence), and the body-switching episode that Ken Keeler created a new mathematical proof for.  This is the kind of absolute nerdery I adore.

Top Gear, "Series 15 Premiere" - First aired in June of 2010, this is the episode where a Bentley Continental Supersports is reviewed, a Chevrolet Lacetti is retired, and a Toyota Hilux is driven up an Icelandic volcano.  It is also the episode that features the segment on the three-wheeled Reliant Robin, which is still one of the funniest things I've ever seen on television.  The sight of Jeremy Clarkson rolling that car over and over again never fails to make me guffaw with glee.

Louie, "Bully" - Finally, I want to give a little love to the first season of "Louie," which really felt like something fresh and unusually creator-driven at the time it was released.  With a tiny budget and not many resources, Louie C.K. was able to deliver an insightful, delightfully unvarnished look at life in New York from a very personal point of view.  I'm picking "Bully" as the standout for its casual disregard of the rules of time and space, and pitch perfect writing.  

Honorable Mention: "Luther" Season One 

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"One Battle After Another" Lands On Top

I read exactly one Thomas Pynchon novel in high school - the shortest one - before I decided that I didn't know enough about politics to read Thomas Pynchon novels.  Since then, I've learned a little more about politics and history, and watched a few adaptations of Pynchon's work - enough to mostly parse what's going on in Paul Thomas Anderson's "One Battle After Another," which is loosely based on Pynchon's "Vineland."  It centers around the members of a far-left militant revolutionary group called the French 75, who do things like liberate an immigrant detainment center in the opening sequence.

The French 75 and its members are modelled after the militant groups of the 1960s and 1970s, like the Weather Underground, but "One Battle After Another" takes place now, with plot points involving smart phones and DNA testing.  This results in an interesting mix of old and new satirical elements and cultural signifiers.  Paul Thomas Anderson used a lot of the same tropes in "Inherent Vice," his adaptation of a Pynchon 1970s neo-noir, so I knew some of the character types already - the drug-addled hero "Ghetto" Pat Calhoun, aka Bob Ferguson (Leonardo DiCaprio), his complicated ex, Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor), and the evil embodiment of the government hunting them down, Col. Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn).

"One Battle After Another" is doing a lot, as it explores the ins and outs of the far-left groups that Bob is part of and interacts with.  Most of the film is about the conflict that erupts when Lockjaw tracks down Bob and teenage daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti) to the sanctuary city of Baktan Cross, and decides to go to war.  This means Bob has to get back into the revolutionary game, and he does a terrible job of it.  "One Battle After Another" is one of those movies that's filled with a multitude of enjoyable little character portraits.  Bob and Willa are helped out by other revolutionaries played by Regina Hall, Paul Grimstad, April Grace, Shayna McHayle, and Benicio Del Toro as the unflappable Sensei Sergio.  Meanwhile, Lockjaw is trying to get into the good graces of an exclusive enclave of right-wing power brokers known as the Christmas Adventurers Club, so we get slimy appearances from Tony Goldwyn, Kevin Tighe, and Jim Downey.  

If you're here for the politics, Anderson does a very good job of highlighting the dysfunctions and difficulties of being a revolutionary, while never pretending for a moment that the corrupt, violent government thugs and moneyed elites deserve any mercy from them.  It takes a while to get oriented in the chaos of the militant code-names and torrents of Marxist sloganeering, but once Anderson lays out all the major characters and relationships, "One Battle After Another" turns out to be wildly entertaining.  It's clever and funny and a lot of good actors like DiCaprio, Penn, and Del Toro get to be absolutely ridiculous onscreen.  There are also some fantastic action set-pieces, including a mass exodus of undocumented immigrants, multiple clashes between the revolutionaries and the agents of the government, and an extended car chase in the last act through a hilly stretch of California highway.  The ending hinges on the actions of a minor character, Avanti (Eric Schweig), a Native American assassin who reaches the end of his patience.    

It's the performances that stand out.  I wouldn't be surprised if this is the role that Sean Penn ends up being remembered for.   Lockjaw is a biting caricature of a career military man - loathsome, self-hating, and utterly obsessed with achieving his goals.  DiCaprio's Bob is a walking shambles, but he does a great job of maintaining an anxious energy throughout.  Perfidia is already a figure of controversy - a committed revolutionary whose loyalties are pulled in too many directions, who commits several cardinal sins.  And then there's Chase Infiniti making a name for herself, taking the lead for much of the second half and going toe to toe with every scene partner, no matter what the star wattage.  And of course, we all wish we were as cool as Benicio Del Toro.  

"One Battle After Another" is very Thomas Pynchon in the sense that it features layer upon layer of satire.  You have the characters with names like Mae West, Billy Goat, and Junglepussy.  You have the atmosphere of paranoia with the secret societies and underground revolutionaries who communicate in pop culture-heavy codespeak.  However, the movie is also extremely relevant to the modern state of America, and at its heart is about a contemporary father and daughter learning to relate to each other.  Unlike "Inherent Vice," there's a clear path through the mountains of obscure references, and a satisfying resolution at the end.  You can tell this is material near and dear to Paul Thomas Anderson, and he nailed it.

Viva la revolucion!

   

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My Favorite Ralph Bakshi Film

Fans of American animation all eventually have to reckon with the work of Ralph Bakshi.  As someone raised on the animated fantasy worlds of Disney and Hanna Barbera, I avoided Bakshi's work for a very long time.  The existence of his films, especially the early ones full of X-rated sexual imagery, plentiful vulgarity, and grotesque character designs, was something I initially wanted to write off as a fluke or deviation.  However, Bakshi proved that adult animation could be financially successful, and was massively influential on the state of modern animation as we know it.  He remains the most important example of an independent animator being able to make projects with a very personal, uncompromised artistic vision.  And that vision was daring, subversive, and often in direct opposition to the prevailing tastes and norms of the artistic establishment.  

One of the reasons I was so hesitant to explore Ralph Bakshi's work was the actual animation in his films.  With a much smaller operation and more limited funds than what the established studios were working with, the quality of the animation was always extremely haphazard.  You'd have incredible character designs, but in motion they were constantly off model.  Shortcuts were employed regularly, such as live action backgrounds and rotoscoped characters.  For a while, I latched on to the notion that rotoscoping - animation produced by tracing over live action footage - didn't count as real animation.  I got over this idea eventually, because I learned that all the major animation studios use reference footage to some extent, and the use of rotoscoping can create a very distinct, interesting aesthetic if it's done well.  And Ralph Bakshi understood how to do it well.    

One of the reasons that Bakshi survived in animation for as long as he did and got as many films produced as he did was that he evolved with the times.  He transitioned from his gritty "urban" films exploring city life to fantasy spectaculars like "Fire and Ice" and "The Lord of the Rings" in the 1980s, and helped kick off the television animation resurgence with "Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures" in 1988.  One of the important early transitional titles was "American Pop," an almost entirely rotoscoped animated film that played as a straight drama, and contained very little of the X-rated material that characterized Bakshi's first few features.  Instead of garish, oversexed caricatures, the film is about very down-to-earth human beings.  The story is a series of vignettes about a Russian Jew named Zalmie who immigrates to America to escape the pogroms in 1905, and the four generations of descendants who follow him, all lovers of music in one way or another, with the last finally reaching pop stardom in the present day.

I suspect that "Heavy Traffic" is probably the best representation of Ralph Bakshi's artistic style and rebellious verve, and "Fritz the Cat" and "Coonskin" have the greatest historical importance for their boundary-breaking impact.  However, "American Pop" is the only Ralph Bakshi film I truly love because I find the characters - a series of troubled, flawed men trying to find their way through different eras of American life - to be truly touching and relatable.  There are episodes of tragedy, grief, humor, and triumph that are presented with a sympathy and humanism I don't see often in Bakshi's other work.  "American Pop" feels like a very personal film, though Bakshi has claimed that the stories were based on the experiences of musician friends instead of his own life.  And you simply cannot beat the soundtrack, which features Jimi Hendrix, the Mamas & the Papas, Peter Seger, Sam Cook, The Doors, and Pat Benatar.  

The rotoscoped animation is stiff at times, but the visual storytelling is excellent, and the performances shine through the layers of abstraction.  This style felt awkward for Bakshi's fantasy features like "The Lord of the Rings," but not in "American Pop," which is designed to be a family album of a kind, and incorporates mixed media and other artistic devices, like the prologue sequence in Russia being relayed in woodcuts.  Historical events like the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire and WWII combat footage are recreated along with clips of the Nicholas Brothers and Jimi Hendrix, all rendered in the same rotoscoped visual style as the lives of our heroes, making them feel like they're part of one, heightened, slightly surreal animated  continuity.  I've never seen another film achieve something quite like this.   

Watching every Ralph Bakshi film was difficult, because many of the films have significant shortcomings, or have not aged well, and even the best ones are rarely to my taste.  However, the fact that they exist at all feels miraculous.  That animated movies this uninhibited, this outrageous, and this iconoclastic found an audience is downright inspirational.  And I can't think of anyone aside from Walt Disney whose work changed our understanding of what animation could and should be to such an extent, and left its mark on the industry forever.

What I've Seen - Ralph Bakshi

Fritz the Cat (1972)

Heavy Traffic (1973)

Coonskin (1975)

Wizards (1977)

The Lord of the Rings (1978)

American Pop (1981)

Hey Good Lookin' (1982)

Fire and Ice (1983)

Cool World (1992)

Cool and the Crazy (1994)

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Your 2026 Oscar Nominations

There's been a lot of change in the air for the Academy Awards.  There's a new Casting category, with Stunts coming next year!  There are only three ABC telecasts left until the Oscars move to Youtube!  I may need to write a separate post on that in the future, but for now, the nominees!

I got a bit sidetracked when it came to the actual races, and was surprised by the contenders for Best Picture.  I didn't realize that "Bugonia" and "F1" were in this race at all.  Where is "No Other Choice"?  What happened to "The Testament of Ann Lee"?  Nothing for "Wake Up Dead Man?"  There is a list of other also-rans a mile long.  However, kudos to "Sinnners" for breaking the nomination record, and "One Battle After Another" getting pretty close.  These two films have dominated the season so far, and I expect this will continue.

I've been able to watch more of the nominees this year than usual, so I only have three of the big contenders left to track down at the time of writing - "Hamnet," "Sentimental Value," and "Marty Supreme."  It's been a very good year, so all the nominees are decent.  I'd maybe single out "F1" as the weakest out of the Best Picture field from an artistic standpoint, but it's pretty immaculate on a technical level, and noteworthy for its innovations.  I didn't connect with  "Train Dreams" or "The Secret Agent," but I absolutely understand why others did.   There's no "Emilia Perez" level "Oscar villain" for people to rage at, which is a relief.  I assumed that role was going to be filled by "Jay Kelly," but the Academy didn't bite.  No big blockbuster like "Wicked: For Good" or "Avatar: Fire and Ash" in the mix either.

In the acting categories, I think the only surprise is Delroy Lindo in Supporting Actor, which feels like both a make-up nomination for missing out on "Da 5 Bloods" and a tailcoat nomination for "Sinners."  I'd rather have Miles Caton in the race, but Lindo's been around long enough that he's overdue for the recognition.  I'm absolutely tickled that Amy Madigan made it in for "Weapons," and a little disappointed that Chase Infiniti didn't for "One Battle After Another."  Kate Hudson was great in "Song Sung Blue," but Chase Infiniti was better.  Then again, if I had my way, we'd be talking about Kathleen Chalfant and Tessa Thompson.  

The first ever Best Casting nominees didn't offer much new, pretty much mirroring the Best Picture nominees.  However, notice that four of the five nominees are female, which is a big clue as to why Casting hasn't been recognized as a category before now.  Of course, there are male casting professionals, but this has traditionally been a female-dominated role, and all of the casting directors that I know off the top of my head, like first-time nominee Nina Gold, are women.

On to some of the smaller races.  There are two French films in Best Animated film, and none of the big 2025 box office winners from Asian countries like "Ne Zha 2" and the most recent "Chainsaw Man" and "Demon Slayer" movies.  The last two weren't likely from the beginning due to narrative impenetrability, and it turns out that "Ne Zha 2" wasn't even submitted!  Documentary has a few notable omissions, but I'm very thankful that "The Alabama Solution" and "The Perfect Neighbor" made it in.

The Academy did a decent job of recognizing a good variety of titles.  So "Blue Moon," "It Was Just an Accident," "If I Had Legs I'd Kick You," "Weapons," and "Sirat" may not have been big contenders, but at least that all got something.  I'm delighted  that a few smaller films got single nominations in some of the below-the-line categories.  "The Ugly Stepsister" and "Kokuho" are in Best Makeup and Hairstyling.  "The Lost Bus" is in Visual Effects.  Opera documentary "Viva Verdi!" swung a Best Song nomination. 

Still, as usual, there are a lot of films that I wish would have been recognized, including "Hedda," "Left-Handed Girl," "28 Years Later," "Nouvelle Vague," and all of the previously mentioned titles.

Conan O'Brien will be back for the ceremony in March, and I can take it easy knowing that I don't have to cram much this year, and might just skip "Wicked: For Good" entirely.

Kidding.  I could never resist a musical.

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"Relay" and "Swiped"

How about a Lily James double feature today?

"Relay" is a new thriller from British director David Mackenzie, which has a very good first two acts, before a rather generic and unwieldy third act deflates it.  However, those first two thirds are good enough that "Relay" really should be getting more attention.  It's set in the modern day, but has the sensibilities of a much older film, specifically the paranoid neo-noirs of the '70s like "Klute" and "Marathon Man."

An anonymous fixer (Riz Ahmed) operating in New York City, helps out whistleblowers and other victims of corrupt corporations by acting as an intermediary.  He only communicates through the Tri-State area relay service for the deaf, meant to assist those with hearing disabilities communicate via telephone, because its ironclad privacy guarantees ensure he can never be traced.  A woman named Sarah Grant (Lily James) becomes his newest client, because she's being targeted by her former employers for taking incriminating documents.  A team led by a man named Dawson (Sam Worthington) is surveilling her.   

I don't want to get too much into the particulars of the plot, because "Relay" is the kind of film that reveals information slowly, and you don't learn certain things about the characters until you need to.  That willingness to maintain the ambiguity for so long is what helps give "Relay" an uncommon enigmatic atmosphere and persistent tension.  It's also a rare thriller that was shot almost entirely on location in New York and New Jersey, so it feels very grounded and genuine compared to similar films.  This also makes the fixer's carefully planned, impossibly perfect schemes, executed with lo-tech ingenuity, all the more impressive to see play out.    

Riz Ahmed and Lily James are both very good in this movie, credibly building a relationship through a series of tense phone calls conducted through intermediaries.  They both spend long stretches of screentime alone in the frame.  Many of the action and chase sequences featuring Ahmed are carried out in silence, and you can't take your eyes off him.  However, Lily James has no trouble carrying the film by herself, especially in the first half where she's the main driving force of the story.  "Relay" is a very no frills genre piece that's a refreshing break from the norm, and impresses with solid fundamentals and a few new twists on classic tropes.

Now, on to "Swiped," which is a middling tech entrepreneur biopic about  Whitney Wolfe Herd, the founder of Bumble, and one of the co-founders of Tinder.  Lily James plays Wolfe, from naive nonprofit booster, to the Chief of Marketing at Tinder in its crucial early days, to harassment survivor determined to beat her former colleagues at their own game.  "Swiped" ends up being a mishmash of Silicon Valley tell-all tropes and female-centric melodrama.  But after several years of much juicier projects about the rise and fall of tech startups, Wolfe finding herself on the wrong side of tech bro culture feels rather ho-hum. The only thing remotely novel is a subplot with a Tinder Co-worker, Tisha (Myha'la), who gets Wolfe to recognize her own attractive white woman privilege over the course of the film.

Wolfe's story is rendered in the most unsurprising terms, and James is so much better than this material deserves.  She's able to give a certain level of believability to the haphazardly constructed story (large portions of which were invented because Wolfe didn't participate in the making of the film) by effortlessly conveying that Wolfe is intelligent, charismatic, and naive enough to ignore all the red flags thrown up by Tinder co-founders Sean Rad (Ben Schnetzer) and Justin Mateen (Jackson White).  However, by the time Dan Stevens shows up, halfway through the film to play Wolfe's financial backer Andrey Andreev with the same wacky Russian accent he used in the Eurovision movie, it's pretty clear that "Swiped" has little interest in exploring its heroine in much depth.

Wolfe is framed as the youngest female self-made billionaire, and clearly the filmmakers were going to strive to stay on her good side and portray her in the best light possible.  However, reducing her to the heroine of a tepid girl-power Lifetime movie feels like such a disservice.  And Lily James should be getting far better roles than this.

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"Alien: Earth" Evolves

Noah Hawley has made the first season of an "Alien" television series, and it's bound to frustrate and disappoint some fans as much as it'll intrigue and delight others.  Set a few years before the original "Alien" movie takes place, it follows the fate of a research vessel, Maginot, that crashes on Earth after returning from deep space with alien specimens, including a few familiar critters from the "Alien" movies.  Immediately, a conflict arises over the retrieval and ownership of the specimens.  Weyland Yutani, one of the five giant conglomerates that rule Earth, owns the Maginot.  Unfortunately, it crashes on the property of a different corporation, Prodigy.

As all "Alien" fans know, "Alien" may feature Xenomorphs and Facehuggers as major antagonists, but the series has always really been about the dystopian vision of the future that is populated not only with humans, but with artificial "synths," cybernetically enhanced cyborgs, and a new kind of lifeform being introduced in "Alien: Earth."  Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin), the head of the Prodigy Corporation, has created a group of "hybrids" - the conscious minds of terminally ill children transferred into artificial, immortal bodies with major enhancements.  The first to undergo the process is Wendy (Sydney Chandler), who is grateful for the chance at a new life, but misses her family, especially her brother Joe (Alex Lawther), who thinks that she died.  

The hybrids eventually cross paths with the alien specimens, but more importantly they encounter the dark realities of the world outside the control of Boy Kavalier and his minions, which encourages an unstable situation to spin out of control.  The show offers a whole slew of fascinating characters, like the sinister Weyland Yutani cyborg Morrow (Babou Ceesay), human Prodigy scientists Dame and Arthur Sylvia (Essie Davis, David Rysdahl), and starkly inhuman Prodigy Synths Kirsh (Timothy Olyphant) and Atom (Adrian Edmondson).  Boy Kavalier names all the hybrids after "Peter Pan" characters, so precocious Wendy is joined by Slightly (Adarsh Gourav), Smee (Jonathan Ajayi), Curly (Erana James), Nibs (Lily Newmark), and Tootles (Kit Young).  Lots of good performances here, with Babou Ceesay delivering some particularly good menace.

I expect how viewers react to the hybrid storyline will determine how receptive they are to "Alien: Earth," because Noah Hawley is far more interested in them than he is in the aliens.  There are some very impressive creature and action sequences, and I especially appreciate the introduction of some new extraterrestrial menaces to terrify us.  There's a freaky little eyeball parasite that's a standout.  However, the vast majority of the time is spent watching the hybrids grapple with being kids in synthetic adult bodies, the adults nervously trying to keep them in line, and so much being determined by the hubris of one selfish techbro with way too much power.   The aliens are potent chaos agents, but often feel like a secondary concern.

And that's fine with me.  What worried me the most about the prospect of "Alien: Earth" was getting something like "Dune: Prophecy," a piece of media too focused on callbacks and evocations of its source material to tell its own story.  Whatever "Alien: Earth" is, it doesn't have that problem.  Hawley isn't afraid of expanding the "Alien" universe, specifically looking at how Earth functions under the control of a handful of runamok corporations and immoral individuals who like playing God.  The themes are similar to the Ridley Scott-directed prequels, starting with "Prometheus," but taken in an entirely different direction.  I find the characters here much more compelling, especially the kids rushing to grow up in a hurry, but finding that all their mentor figures - both human and non-human - are terrible.  

I enjoyed "Alien: Earth" very much, but there's no getting away from the fact that it feels very truncated, with an ending that is a lot of setup without much payoff.  Still, the setup is good enough that I had no issue with the lack of resolution.  Either that, or Noah Hawly has pulled this kind of thing  so often that I've just come to expect it of his shows.  I predict that "Alien" fans who wanted a more straightforward horror or adventure program will be disappointed.  Yet, there is a whole episode designed as a homage to the original 1979 "Alien" film, which was clearly made just for them.  

And finally, kudos on the Xenomorphs still being guys in suits.  Occasionally it looks kinda silly, but it also looks very "Alien."   

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Finagling "The Fantastic Four"

"The Fantastic Four: First Steps" is the third big budget attempt to launch a movie franchise with the Fantastic Four superhero team.  These have been tough characters to crack for a number of reasons, chief among them being that the heyday of the Fantastic Four comics was back in the 1960s.  Instead of trying to modernize them the way that the previous films did, "First Steps" chooses to lean into the retro vibe, taking place in an alternate universe that looks an awful lot like 1964.  Our main characters also feel like superheroes of another era - larger than life celebrity do-gooders with a long list of powers and accomplishments.

Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal) is a brilliant scientist whose body stretches like rubber.  His wife Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby) controls light, can make things invisible, and creates energy shields.  Sue's brother Johnny (Joseph Quinn) can become a flying, flaming Human Torch.  Finally there's Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss Bachrach), The Thing, a strongman who appears to be literally made of stone.    All four got their powers from "cosmic rays" during a space flight a few years ago, and have since then kept busy fighting villains and bringing peace to the world.  However, this is all prologue.  Our story starts when two things happen - Reed and Sue discover that they're expecting their first child, and a Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) comes to Earth, heralding the imminent arrival of Galactus (Ralph Ineson), an implacable cosmic being who goes around literally eating planets.

The production design is the best thing about the film.  We don't just get a 1960s themed Marvel movie, but the kind of comic-book retrofuturist world where the Fantastic Four have a robot assistant named H.E.R.B.I.E. (Matthew Wood), get around in a flying "Fantasticar," and it turns out there's a hidden subterranean civilization led by a cranky Mole Man (Paul Walter Hauser), who Sue Storm brokered a peace deal with before the events of the film.  I was a little taken aback at how broad and cartoonish some of these elements were at first, but I got used to it quickly.  By the end, I was reminded that it's been an awfully long time since we've had a superhero film that's properly family friendly, and we could use more of them.  And with the big focus on family the film keeps emphasizing, it feels appropriate that "The Fantastic Four" is very all-ages.

And ultimately, I think that's why "First Steps" works.  Yes, it's goofy a lot of the time.  Yes, the CGI baby isn't always convincing.  Yes, they tried to stuff too much into one film, so it doesn't feel like some storylines and character arcs quite came together.  Apparently John Malkovitch got left on the cutting room floor somewhere.  However, it commits to telling one story from start to finish, gives us crystal clear stakes and motivations for everyone involved, and delivers plenty of excellent spectacle along the way.  It's an old fashioned, earnest superhero story in the best way, with the fate of the world in the balance, and the heroes being faced with tough moral decisions - but we know that they'll choose right in the end.  I'm not really a fan of Galactus, because he's a very one-note villain, but he sure does deliver on scope, and ultimately he feels like the right kind of threat for this kind of superhero story. 

Compared to the previous iterations of these characters, these versions of the Fantastic Four feel more idealized, and more functional as a team and family unit.  This is great for the superheroics, but also makes them less interesting to follow as characters.  Ben Grimm is lonely, but doesn't deal with any self-hatred.  Johnny expresses some frustrations, but is not the hothead loose cannon in any sense.  We learn plenty about them through their interactions with each other and with other characters, but no one on the team gets the spotlight individually for long enough for any real character development.  Reed and Sue experiencing new parent anxieties and trying to protect their kid are probably the biggest real arcs.  

I don't know if a sequel is in the cards, but we'll be seeing more of these characters very soon in the upcoming "Avengers" movies.  Hopefully they'll get a little more fleshed out there, even with the limited time.  I'm not sure if these are the best screen versions of the Fantastic Four, but they're certainly strong enough to warrant a few more appearances in the MCU.  

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State of the Superhero, 2026

2026 is going to be a big year for superhero franchises, but let's recap 2025 first.  The big winner was the newly rebooted "Superman," which cleaned up at the summer box office, but also signals that James Gunn isn't too keen on embracing family audiences.  The heightened level of violence and the tie-ins to the very adult second season of the "Peacemaker" series mean a more limited audience.  Over in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (hereafter the "MCU"), none of their three theatrical releases did as well as Disney hoping, with "*Thunderbolts"/"The New Avengers"  putting in especially concerning numbers for a summer release with good reviews.  Disney is also scaling back their Disney+ shows, having finally released the long-delayed "Ironheart," "Wonder Man," and "Daredevil" series.

So, what's coming up in 2026?  The Sony Spider-verse is extinct at this point, with the very limited exception of the third "Spider-verse" movie tentatively scheduled for 2027.  However, Tom Holland's Spidey will return in "Spider-man: Brand New Day," the big MCU release for the summer.  The hope is that this will be the start of a new trilogy for the character.  However, the real test for the continued viability of the MCU will be "Avengers: Doomsday," which has announced a massive cast and has already had its release date moved back once, to December.  This will be the first "Avengers" film in seven years, and attempt to provide some kind of climax to Phases Four, Five and Six of the MCU.  I expect that both films will make a lot of money, and solve none of the franchise's problems.

Currently, the only MCU live action series scheduled to premiere on Disney+ in 2026 are the second season of "Daredevil: Born Again," and "Vision Quest," which is the sequel series to "WandaVision" featuring Paul Bettany's Vision.  After crossover attempts with some of the features, the MCU is no longer going to try and tie in their streaming series into the feature continuity so heavily.  We'll still get some cameos, like characters from "Davedevil" reportedly showing up in the next "Spider-man" movie, but probably not more situations like "The Marvels" or "Thunderbolts" where major characters who were introduced in one of the streaming series go on to headline a film.  This should reduce the concerns about too much "homework" to keep up with the current releases.  It is not looking good for "She-Hulk" on the big screen.    

Over at DC, James Gunn is taking his time.  He's not sticking to a wider roadmap, but claims he's greenlighting films based on whatever finished scripts are ready to go.  So "Supergirl" with Milly Alcock is coming in June, which has an uphill battle as a female-led superhero movie, but does have the benefit of a good director in Craig Gillespie and good source material behind it.  The other DC release is a much smaller horror film, "Clayface," featuring a Batman villain who can change his appearance at will.  The only live action DC series in the works for 2026 is "Lanterns," which will feature not one, but three Green Lanterns in the DC equivalent of "Training Day."  They have the right cast, with Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre playing Hal Jordan and John Stewart, but I'm curious whether the tone is going to be closer to the feature films or the more adult series like "Peacemaker" and "The Penguin."  

What's concerning are the titles that aren't anywhere on the schedules for 2026 or 2027.  Aside from "Spider-man," the MCU hasn't made a sequel to any of its films released since 2020, and has fumbled several already announced titles, including "Blade" and "Armor Wars."  We still get announcements for projects in development, but not much concrete.  I don't see another three-movie year for the MCU for the foreseeable future.  DC is in better shape, and 2027 should see sequels to both the 2025 "Superman" and "The Batman" if everything works out.  However, it also quashed some projects, including the "Sgt. Rock" movie that was potentially going to be directed by Luca Guadagnino.  

As superhero films continue to recede at the box office, we'll likely see the MCU and DC offerings continue to shrink.  They won't be totally gone anytime soon, but it's clear to me that their dominance of the box office is quickly fading, and we're likely to see a transition away from interconnected universes back to individual character franchises.  Batman, Superman, and Spider-man will all be okay, but everyone else will need to watch their step.

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Honoring "The Las Culturistas Culture Awards"

Award shows haven't been doing well over the past few years.  Their ratings have been sinking and their cultural cachet has plummeted.  Therefore, it's the perfect time for  a satirical awards show to rear its head.  It's time for the "Las Culturistas Culture Awards 2025," honoring the best of pop culture.

Hosted by the "Las Culturistas" podcast hosts, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, the ceremony runs an efficient ninety minutes, the winners have all been notified in advance, and all the boring parts of the ceremony have been effectively curtailed, leaving all the bits of an award show that the majority of people care about - spotting celebrities, fun musical numbers, well-edited clip packages, and zippy presenter banter.  It helps that Rogers and Yang are comedians, and able to both land a joke and pull off a song-and-dance number with enthusiasm and flair.  Everyone involved is aware that the awards are totally arbitrary, and the point is just to enjoy themselves and the spectacle of it all.  Will the award for "Most Amazing Impact in Film" be awarded to shirtless Jeff Goldblum in the thirty year-old "Jurassic Park" just to get him to come to the ceremony?  Yes it will.  Will the obvious product placement (Dunkin, Volkswagen) and promotional appearances (Jamie Lee Curtis for "Freakier Friday," in theaters August 8th) be delivered with a knowing wink at the audience?  Yes, it will.  

I haven't listened to "Las Culturistas" much beyond clips of a few random interviews, as I figured out quickly that the show is not for me.  It's obsessed with the pop part of pop culture to a degree that I will never be, and is especially focused on all the drama and gossip that I try my best to avoid.  However, I appreciate that it's so unapologetic about serving its audience of women and members of the LGBT community.  The "Culture Awards" came about from a bit on the show, where the hosts would randomly announce nominees for silly categories like "The Creatine Award for Straight Male Excellence" or "Tiny Woman, Huge Impact."  Whoever decided to let them take over the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles and do the same thing with all the pageantry and glitz of a real awards show is a genius.  The best thing about the "Culture Awards" is that it makes no attempt to appeal to everybody, the way too many other awards shows have.  There were a couple of geek-adjacent categories for me, like "Best Batman Woman," where the winner was a fake Riddler henchgirl, but most of the focus was on fashion, music, and lots of celebrities I had never heard of.  And I didn't mind at all, because the show was so entertaining.  

And this is a valuable thing.  The woman-centric parts of pop culture have too often been framed as existing in opposition to the male-centric parts of pop culture, and the played up rivalry is simply tiresome and not necessary.  Aside from a vague mention of terrible things happening in the country right now, the "Culture Awards" sidesteps all politics, and leans into the celebration of all that is fabulous and iconic.  Lisa Rinna is called on to model all the Outfit of the Year categories, and walks away with the trophy (a spray painted West Elm doorstop).  Matt and Bowen dancing to Lady Gaga's "Abracadabra" and substituting the "In Memoriam" montage with an "In Absentia" montage of all the celebrities who passed on participating is fabulous stuff.  The point of view provided by "Las Culturistas" exists in reaction to nothing else except the pop culture that it adores, and the awards show stands on its own without bothering to justify itself or explain itself.  

The "Culture Awards" ceremony aired on Bravo in August, and may be the most interesting thing they've produced in years.  It's currently available on Peacock.    

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"Eddington" Gets Halfway There

Let's see if I can write this review without getting too political.

Ari Aster's latest film, "Eddington" reminds me an awful lot of his last one, "Beau is Afraid."  Not only is Joaquin Phoenix returning to star as Sheriff Joe Cross, but the whole film takes place in a heightened version of reality where Joe's deepest fears and insecurities seem to be amplified.  However, this time the film's reality is closer to our own.  "Eddington" takes place in a small New Mexico town in 2020, right at the beginning of the COVID pandemic.

This isn't the first film to try and address the conspiracy and paranoia that ran rampant in the United States thanks to the pandemic and social media, but this is probably the most ambitious in its scope to date.  A dark satire of the culture wars and political polarization, Aster uses "Eddington" to take aim at just about everybody.  Joe refuses to wear a mask, for reasons he can't ever seem to articulate, but the dislike seems to be tied to his distrust of the government, embodied by Eddington's mayor, Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal).  Buzzword-spouting Ted is the ex-boyfriend of Joe's mentally fragile, perpetually ailing wife Louise (Emma Stone).  After a few clashes with Ted, Joe decides to run for mayor himself, enlisting the help of his underlings Guy (Luke Grimes) and Michael (Michael Ward), the only black officer in town.  Tensions escalate when the BLM protests hit Eddington, led by Sarah (Amelie Hoeferle), a social justice influencer.  Conspiracy theories are everywhere, many of them being parroted by Joe's hostile mother-in-law Dawn (Deirdre O'Connell), and a cult leader, Vernon Peak (Austin Butler), who Louise becomes infatuated with.  

The first half of the film is everything that Aster does well - putting together these incredibly anxiety-ridden scenarios, ratcheting up the tension scene by scene, and creating plenty of terrible people for us to alternately laugh at and despair of.  I love all the little details of the worldbuilding, from hardly anybody wearing a mask correctly, to somebody always filming in every public space, to the new data center Ted is trying to get built having a ridiculous name that is both a Reddit and a "Pokemon" reference.  I could argue that Ari Aster is unfairly mean to the BLM protesters, who are a bunch of annoying white kids whose idea of discourse amounts to a lot of self-flagellation and unhelpful theatrics, except that the film goes on to prove them mostly right.  I really enjoyed when Joe started taking matters into his own hands, revealing his own biases and blind spots.  However, this is where "Eddington" started going off the rails.

Up until the third act I was on board with how Aster was treating the politics - trying to represent all viewpoints and concerns, showing the absurdity of everyone's behavior,  and taking the opportunity to clap back against some of the most ridiculous antics.  However, past a certain point he tips completely over into conspiracy fantasy in order to raise the stakes and set up a big action finale.   This derails the more interesting examination of Joe as an increasingly troubled, morally compromised man, and sticks us in pure genre territory for almost the entirety of the rest of the film.  The big action finale also winds up being kind of a dud, because the cinematography becomes unreasonably dark and difficult to see.  Sorry Darius Khondji, but I had to read the Wikipedia summary afterwards to figure out what happened.  "Eddington" is also very long in the tooth at 149 minutes.  It's not as long as "Beau is Afraid," but there are a lot of unnecessary digressions and rambly dialogue-heavy scenes that wore on my patience.  And a few good retorts aside ("You're white!"), the pitch black humor wasn't to my taste.

Still, I admire what Ari Aster accomplished here, successfully addressing difficult material and blending satire, paranoid thriller, and character study.  The use of social media as a storytelling device is handled very well. The assembled cast is impressive all around, with Joaquin Phoenix continuing his streak of playing hapless, incoherent men struggling in vain against an uncaring universe.  Joe is a fairly sympathetic picture of someone who falls prey to conspiratorial thinking and develops a persecution complex, though his flaws are always very clear and his comeuppance is well deserved.  I also want to highlight a few performers new to me, including Michael Ward, Amelie Hoeferle, and William Belleau as a Pueblo officer who shows up in the second half.

However, with current events unfolding the way that they are, "Eddington" can't help feeling premature as an examination of the COVID era.  The more I think about some of its treatment of the various players, the more tone deaf the film comes across, even if you take all the events that unfold as being from Joe's very subjective and biased point of view.   The shaky existential underpinnings of "Eddington" don't help matters, leaving too much open to interpretation.  I expect that that the conspiracy theorists will inevitably totally misread and embrace the film's narrow, cynical POV as justification for their own beliefs, instead of taking its timely warnings to heart.

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"Poker Face," Year Two

What I appreciate the most about "Poker Face" is that it's committed to its format.  Following the lead of the old case-of-the-week anthology detective shows of yore, every new episode means a new location with almost an entirely new cast.  And to that end, "Poker Face" is a gold mine for performances by character actors, or in a few cases bigger stars getting to stretch some acting muscles that we haven't seen them use in a while.  This season has its ups and downs, but there are a lot more hits than misses, and Natasha Lyonne continues to be a lot of fun as the human lie detector, Charlie Cale.  We get twelve episodes this year, up from ten last season.  

Some of the highlights this year include Kumail Nanjiani and Gaby Hoffman as dueling Florida cops, John Cho as a charming con artist and Melanie Lynskey as his latest mark, Giancarlo Esposito and Katie Holmes running a funeral home, John Mulaney as a desperate FBI agent, Sam Richardson and Corey Hawkins working at a big box store, Method Man running a gym, and Justin Theroux as an assassin.  My favorite guest performance of the year, however, is Eva Jade Halford as a pint-sized psychopath who Charlie encounters while working as a lunch lady at a fancy prep school.  "Poker Face" is also amassing a nice roster of recurring characters, including Simon Helberg as Agent Clark, a helpful FBI agent, Patti Harrison as Charlie's new gal pal Alex, and finally the voice of Steve Buscemi as a sage trucker who Charlie encounters over the CB radio.  

Like last year, there are some season-long conflicts and antagonists to deal with.  Benjamin Bratt is nowhere to be seen, but Charlie has gotten on the wrong side of mobster Beatrice Hasp (Rhea Perlman), and is on the run from her for the majority of the year.  I'm happy to report that these episodes are as good as the stand-alone ones, and offer the chance for bigger setpieces and larger scale stories.  However, "Poker Face" remains at its heart an ode to the media of the 1970s and '80s, and everything is refreshingly low-tech.  Well, mostly low-tech.  The few times when we move out of that milieu tend to feel tonally off.  For instance, the season opens with Cynthia Erivo playing quintuplets caught up in a murder investigation of one of the sisters.  The digital effects aren't all that complicated or showy, and Erivo does a fine job, but this brand of spectacle doesn't feel like it's in the spirit of the show.  The big car chase in the finale, however, feels like something out of "Smokey and the Bandit" or "Cannonball Run," and is exactly right.

The performances, however, remain the main event.  One of the chief pleasures I get out of the show is seeing actors pop up who I haven't crossed paths with in a while - Jasmine Guy, Lauren Tom, John Sayles in a rare acting role, and Katie Holmes, who I feel like I totally lost track of for a decade at least.  This was always part of the fun of older whodunnit shows like "Murder She Wrote," which would often feature veteran actors from Hollywood's Golden Age proving that they could still chew scenery with the best of them.  "Poker Face" affords its guest cast the chance to play some different characters - Alia Shawkat as an evil temptress, Margo Martindale as a school principal with a secret, or Richard Kind in what looks an awful lot like a dramatic role.  Not quite a dramatic role, but pretty close. 

After the end of the first season, I liked "Poker Face" but I wasn't sure that it could maintain the same level of quality over multiple seasons.  Not only did the second season prove me wrong, but it now feels like it's at the forefront of the recent trend of longer seasons of streaming shows that look and behave more like traditional television.  So as long as Rian Johnson and company keep making this show, I'll keep watching.     

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