The 2026 Summer Movie Wager

I am traditionally extremely bad at this, but I still have fun trying to guess how well the summer movies are going to do at the box office every year for the Summer Movie Wager.  Following the rules of the Summer Movie Pool, I'm going to predict the top ten domestic box office grossers of the season. It's not about which movies are the best or the most deserving, but which ones simply bring in the most cold hard cash.  Anything released between May 1st and Labor Day is fair game. Here we go.

1. Spider-Man: Brand New Day - The MCU has been having a rough time at the box office lately, but Spider-man is a marquee hero that is a franchise in and of himself.  We also haven't seen Tom Holland's Spidey onscreen since 2021, so this is definitely going to be an event.  I'm doing my best to steer clear of spoilers, but the new additions are promising, and the news of certain existing characters from the MCU making appearances in this film are even more promising.  

2. Moana - After "Lilo and Stitch" topped the summer box office last year, it's clear that the "Moana" remake has a massive potential audience.  It's only been a decade since the animated film, but "Moana" has consistently been a favorite on streaming, and Dwayne Johnson isn't getting any younger.  My only concern is that "Moana 2" wasn't very well liked, despite making so much money.  However, the Disney marketing machine will be going full force for this one.

3. The Odyssey - This is where I'm putting Christopher Nolan and Universal's massive gamble on a sword and sandals epic.  Never mind that Matt Damon hasn't had a hit in a long time, or that there have been complaints about the costuming and cinematography.  Nolan is going to ensure that this one is an event, and so many stars are crammed into the film that we're inevitably going to be hearing about it all summer long.  Do I think it will be good?  Does that matter?  

4. Minions & Monsters - Illumination's The "Despicable Me" franchise has traditionally done very well with young audiences, with the last three films all earning in the $300 million range domestically.  In a weaker year this would be higher up in the rankings, but I think that the competition is good enough that a new Minions movie won't be a top priority for most viewers.  I am curious as to whether the Gentleminions will make their return, however, after making a splash in 2022.

5. The Devil Wears Prada 2 - This is my riskiest bet, but women's films have a long history of surprising at the box office, and when it comes to Millennial nostalgia, few movies of this era are as iconic in pop culture as the original "The Devil Wears Prada."  There are already a ton of takes on the fashion glimpsed in the trailers, and the extraordinary cast list.  Is Anne Hathaway going to become overexposed this year?  Absolutely, but it'll be a fun trip getting there.  

6. Toy Story 5 - Ignoring the "Lightyear" flop, this should be higher up in the list, because "Toy Story" generally outperforms "Despicable Me" domestically, even with the long breaks.  There's also been an excellent teaser trailer with a great hook - toys versus screens!  However, my instinct is to be cautious after the audience's reception to PIXAR's last few films.  I'm not counting Woody and Buzz out completely, but I think they have an uphill battle.  

7. The Mandalorian and Grogu - It is very tough to tell what the audience appetite is for more "Star Wars" at this point, but I think there's enough goodwill toward "The Mandalorian" specifically that this should be a modest hit, leaning toward younger audiences.  I'm still seeing plenty of kids with Grogu merchandise.  However, I don't think it'll be a bigger hit without something more exciting to show than Jeremy Allen White playing a new Hutt villain.  

8. Backrooms - I'm guessing this is going to be the big breakout horror film this year. It's based on a viral internet creepypasta and subsequent short film that garnered a huge amount of attention. It's easily got the most hype out of any other horror title this year, especially among younger audiences, and is almost certainly going to make money. However, I doubt it'll be enough of a crossover hit to make it very high in the rankings, so I'm putting it in eighth.

9. Disclosure Day - We are long past the days of Steven Spielberg movies automatically being blockbuster gold.  However, there are occasionally films for older audiences that manage to break into the top ten list, and that's what I think "Disclosure Day" might do if it gets the right reception.  The lack of big stars and Spielberg's diminished presence over the last few years isn't helping any, but I'll always look forward to a new Spielberg movie about aliens.  

10. Supergirl - I really, really want this to do well, but looking at the recent track record of woman-led superhero films and DC films, this is where I have to put "Supergirl."  Maybe Jason Momoa's Lobo will raise some interest, and maybe the reviews will turn some heads, but right now I don't see how the math works out.  Frankly, it's a win that this movie got made to begin with, and it's my most anticipated big-budget film of the summer by far.  

Wild Cards (for extra points if one of them does make it into the top ten)

Masters of the Universe

Scary Movie 6

Mortal Kombat II

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My Top 25 of the Last 25: Out of the Box Casting

This list is going to require some explanation before we get started.  One of the major changes in the media of the new-ish millennium is that over the last fifteen years, Hollywood has embraced colorblind and genderblind casting in a big way.  Sometimes this has been great, opening up roles and opportunities for actors who never would have been considered in the past.  Sometimes this has led to terrible misfires, which I won't dwell on here.  Some have argued that the emphasis on diversity has gone too far, and some think we haven't gone far enough. In any case, this has definitely been a major characteristic of Western media in recent times, and I want to discuss it in the form of a list.  

As with the other Top 25 Lists, this list has 25 entries, but only the top ten get write-ups.  Entries are unranked.  

Hamilton - Theater has always been better about diverse casting than movies or television, and I strongly suspect that the most influential driver of more diverse casting across the whole media landscape was the success of "Hamilton" in 2015.  Suddenly we had black and brown actors playing the founding fathers, turning their cabinet meetings into rap battles, and it was a smash hit.  The now legendary cast was perfect for a show about "America then, as told be America now," and I'm thrilled every time I see any of them in other projects.

Aquaman - It was a long-running joke that Aquaman had the worst powers in the Justice League, because he was an ocean-themed superhero who talked to fish.  However, casting an actor known for playing badasses as Aquaman in the DCEU made Aquaman a badass character.  Jason Momoa looks nothing like the classic version of Aquaman, who is a blond with terrible fashion sense, but ten years after his debut in "Batman v. Superman," it's hard to imagine Aquaman being played by anybody else.  Are we getting that third "Aquaman" movie?  

Starbuck - I didn't watch "Battlestar Galactica" during its initial release, but the controversy over one of the main characters, Starbuck, being gender-flipped from a man to a woman definitely reached my ears.  The new Starbuck, Kara Thrace, is a completely different character whose only connection to the older version is that she's a hotshot pilot with a maverick personality.  And she's one of the clear highlights of the new "Battlestar Galactica," which ended up totally eclipsing the old show and helping to mainstream genre television in the 2000s.  

Death - Several characters in "The Sandman" had their genders and races changed in adaptation, but none were as prominent as Death, who was the most popular character from the original comic, and known for her appearance as a pale-skinned Goth girl.  However, it's difficult to imagine anybody better in the role than Kirby Howell-Baptiste, who totally embodies the warmth and the empathy of this version of Death, greeting every soul under her care like a dear friend.  Her too-brief introduction is the best part of the series by far.  

Elphaba - This is an interesting case, because while the original actress for the Wicked Witch of the West was white, the character herself is green.  Still casting a black actress in the movie version was novel, as the stage production of "Wicked" didn't have its first black Elphaba until 2025.  And I so appreciate that  Cynthia Erivo made wardrobe and styling choices that emphasized her heritage in the film version, making the character her own.  I'm not a big fan of "Wicked," but I am a big fan of Elphaba, and Erivo's version of her in particular.  

Louis and Claudia - Many changes were made to AMC's version of "Interview With the Vampire."  Louis de Pointe du Lac now inhabits a different era, profession and social reality as a black man.  Race and status are major parts of Louis' identity and inform his struggle to adjust to life as a vampire, as well as his relationship to Lestat.  Similarly, the new version of Claudia is now a little older, a little smarter, and far more complex.  Her search for other vampires is an extension of her search for answers about her own identity and place in the world.    

The Doctor - We've now had female and black Doctors headlining "Doctor Who," and though the show has had its ups and downs, the Jodie Whittaker and Ncuti Gatwa versions of The Doctor have never been anything less than excellent.  I especially enjoy Gatwa's very stylish fashion choices and refusal to stick to one outfit.  I also want to point out that we've gotten a superb female version of The Master, played by Michelle Gomez, and a pleasantly hammy one played by Sacha Dhawan.  Oh, and getting Archie Panjabi for the Rani was very satisfying.

Christine Baskets - In case you thought there weren't going to be any straight white men on this list, I would like to remind you that Louie Anderson won an Emmy in 2016 for playing Zach Galifianakis's mom on "Baskets."  Based on Anderson's mother, Christine is a warmly maternal, ever-optimistic woman whose life keeps being thrown into turmoil thanks to the antics of her ridiculous adult son.  Their relationship is the most important part of "Baskets," and Anderson's committed performance is easily the best part of the show.  

Hitler - Depictions of Adolf Hitler have to be handled with care, and Taika Waititi (a self described "Polynesian Jew") deciding to cast himself in the role for "Jojo Rabbit" was certainly a creative choice.  However, it also turned out to be a canny one, setting the farcical tone for his WWII coming-of-age comedy, and getting the audience to completely drop their guard.  Waititi doesn't make for a great Hitler, but you can see how a deeply confused Hitler Youth might have come up with a skewed version of the Fuhrer that acts like this one.

Melanie  - I don't expect that many people have heard of the UK zombie film "The Girl With All the Gifts," or the novel of the same name that it was based on.  However, a major difference between the two versions is that Melanie is fair skinned in the book and dark skinned in the film.  This adds a racial dimension to the story that is both thematically appropriate to the story, and allows for the casting of the excellent newcomer Sennia Nanua as Melanie.  

Tulip O'Hare ("Preacher")

Nick Fury ("The Avengers")

Hedda Gabbler ("Hedda")

Watson ("Elementary")

Ariel ("The Little Mermaid")

Anybodys ("West Side Story")

Fabulous Godmother ("Cinderella")

Michelle Fuller ("Bugonia")

Catwoman and Harlequin (various DC)

Matlock

Valkyrie (MCU)

David Copperfield and Gawain

The Duke of Hastings ("Bridgerton")

Macbeth ("The Tragedy of Macbeth")

The Wiz

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My Favorite Paul Thomas Anderson Film

I'm frequently left slightly off-balance by Paul Thomas Anderson movies.  I enjoy and admire them, because Anderson is one of the best filmmakers currently working, but I'm never quite sure if I get them the way that he means for me to.  Are the elements that I take seriously supposed to be funny?  Am I missing major themes or ideas that haven't been spelled out for me?  Things that are left open to interpretation sometimes make me feel anxious that I'm interpreting them wrong.  Everything is connected in "Magnolia," but I'm almost certain that there are connections that I missed somewhere.

The only Paul Thomas Anderson film I don't feel this way towards is "Punch-Drunk Love," and that's because I enjoy it so much that I don't much care if I am missing anything.  It is unabashedly a movie romance, filled with big emotions, vibrant colors, indelible images, and grandiose expressions of love.  It also stars Adam Sandler, made back in 2002 when Adam Sandler was a movie star known for playing one particular type of aggressive man-child character in his movies.  He's playing a variation on that same character in this movie too, but the difference is that in "Punch-Drunk Love," this is a liability.  The universe does not reward Barry Egan for his outbursts of violence or his juvenile behavior, until he finds a reason to change his life, and turn his worst habits to his advantage.

The Roger Ebert review of "Punch-Drunk Love" is legendary for Ebert changing his negative opinion of Adam Sandler once he saw Sandler in a role that gave him the ability to play a full-fledged human being.  For me, as someone who avoided the early Sandler comedies, it was a signal that Sandler was an actor that I should be paying attention to.  It was "Punch-Drunk Love" that made me a fan of his, and Barry Egan is still my favorite of his characters by far.  In Barry I could see all the loneliness, frustration, rage, and fear that drove his destructive behavior.  And for the first time, I could see and appreciate the sweetness and the wonder mixed in there too.  I shared his delight at finding an abandoned harmonium and the loophole in an airline mile giveaway program.  I rooted for him when he threw caution to the wind and followed the lovely Lena to Hawaii.

"Punch-Drunk Love" is also one of the most beautiful films of its era, thanks to Anderson and cinematographer Robert Elswit.  There's a lot of experimentation going on with light temperature, shape, and silhouette to make the visual contrasts especially bold.  There's a very limited color palette and the major colors are all associated with various emotions and characters - Barry is blue and Lena is red.  The action is broken up by abstract collages of bright colors, created by Jeremy Blake.  Once you start looking, there are stripes and blocks of color all over the place, and they all look amazing.  Even the lens flares look gorgeous.  The recurring aural motif is Shelly Duvall's kitschy "He Loves Me," from Robert Altman's notorious "Popeye" movie, and it's a goddamned delight.  

I've come to appreciate Paul Thomas Anderson's other films, to varying degrees, but "Punch-Drunk Love" remains my favorite, probably because it's so declarative and unsubtle.  We're meant to root for the guy to get the girl and stand up to the evil mattress salesman played by Philip Seymour Hoffman.  We want to see red and blue come together, and for color to chase away the images of blank walls and empty gray streets.  We want love to conquer all, and here it's allowed to.  There are Anderson films with smarter writing, better performances, and more accomplished filmmaking, but "Punch-Drunk Love" has what I love most about movies, which is that it provokes a purity of emotion that you just don't get anywhere else.

What I've Seen - Paul Thomas Anderson

Hard Eight (1996)

Boogie Nights (1997)

Magnolia (1999)

Punch-Drunk Love (2002)

There Will Be Blood (2007)

The Master (2012)

Inherent Vice (2014)

Phantom Thread (2017)

Licorice Pizza (2021)

One Battle After Another (2025)

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"She-Ra," Year One

Netflix's license to "She-Ra and the Princesses of Power" has expired, which finally spurred me to finish it.  I'm not going to write a post for each of the five seasons, but I wanted to single out the first one, just to put down some introductory remarks and talk about why this reboot of the old 1980s "She-Ra" series stands out from the crowd. Created by ND Stevenson, with Dreamworks Animation and NE4U, the new "She-Ra" is one of those rare animated programs that tells a complete, serialized story over the course of 52 episodes, split up into multiple seasons.  The original "She-Ra," was created to be a distaff counterpart to the popular "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe."  I don't remember much about that version, except that it featured a cast of female characters who all had the exact same Barbie-esque body type.

The new "She-Ra" is working off of the same basic premise and includes an impressive number of the old characters.  In the magical world of Etheria, the evil conquering Horde of the villain Hordak (Keston John) is at war with the Rebellion, led by Angella (Reshma Shetty), the Queen of the Kingdom of Bright Moon.  Hordak's sorceress Shadow Weaver (Lorraine Toussant) promotes a promising cadet, Adora (Aimee Carrero), to the position of Force Captain, over her best friend Catra (AJ Michalka).  However, Adora has a couple of encounters that prompt her to rethink life with the Horde.  First, she finds a magical sword that can turn her into a formidable warrior woman, She-Ra.  Then, she meets a few members of the Rebellion - Angella's daughter Glimmer (Karen Fukuhara) and her bestie Bow (Marcus Scribner).  Unfortunately, Adora changing sides doesn't sit well with Catra, who takes this as abandonment, and decides to become She-Ra's mortal enemy.

"She-Ra and the Princesses of Power" is a massive upgrade over the 80s series by every conceivable metric.  The softer, anime-inspired designs and more fluid animation are such a pleasure to look at, with Adora and the princesses being of all shapes and sizes and skin tones.  There's a lot of "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" influence here, with Adora and friends being a disparate group of personalities who have to learn to get along and work together to defeat the Horde.  They're much more obviously teenagers and young adults in this version, dealing with common interpersonal issues and anxieties, like Glimmer not wanting to disappoint her mother, and Adora trying to win over new allies.  Catra is very redeemable, but at the end of the first season she's heading further and further down the path of villainy as Adora embraces heroism.  However, a major throughline of the whole series is that Adora won't give up on her.

A lot of the buzz around the show at the time of release was that the new "She-Ra" was LGBT friendly and very diverse, but the more important thing is that it's an action show that is for girls that takes the tastes and interests of girls into account to a degree that you don't see very often.  There are pastel colors and sparkles and magic everywhere.  There's a mermaid princess character, Mermista (Vella Lovell), and another princess, Perfuma (Genesis Rodriguez), who can magically weaponize flowers and plants.  She-Ra also has a rainbow pegasus named Swiftwind (Adam Ray), like the original version, but now Swiftwind is a committed revolutionary, and can drop a one-liner like nobody's business.  The ensemble features a few male good guys, Bow and the pirate Sea Hawk (Jordan Fisher), who are portrayed as steadfast, supportive friends, and good examples of positive masculinity.  And this is never remarked upon or treated as anything novel.  

There's plenty of action, as you'd expect from a show about warring forces, though the robots take most of the damage.  She-Ra and her friends get plenty of chances to demonstrate bravery and fortitude and use cool weapons.  Because the show is for children, the fighting is never very intense, but I was surprised at how often "She-Ra" didn't pull its emotional punches.  There's quite a bit of material about childhood trauma, toxic relationships, and unhealthy coping mechanisms that get pretty dark by the later seasons.  However, we'll talk about that next time.

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"Zootopia 2" and "Wicked: for Good"

"Zootopia" is my favorite modern Disney animated film.  It's also one of the few that I thought was a natural franchise starter, being a buddy cop story, so I was looking forward to the inevitable sequel.  Frankly, I didn't think we'd have to wait this long.  Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde return, this time investigating a mysterious newcomer to the city, Gary De'Snake (Ke Huy Quan), who has something to do with the  powerful industrialist Milton Lynxley (David Straithairn).  Other characters include a conspiracy podcaster beaver, Nibbles (Fortune Feimster), ex-movie star turned politician, Mayor Winddancer (Patrick Warburton), Milton's son Pawbert (Andy Samberg), and Nick and Judy's therapist, Dr. Fuzzby (Quinta Brunson). 

Like the first "Zootopia," the sequel is about interspecies conflicts standing in for real-world issues.  This time immigrants and gentrification are the main targets, with reptiles being revealed as a hidden underclass in Zootopia.  Judy and Nick are also dealing with partnership frictions, as Judy is keen on proving to the still doubtful department that she and Nick can be great detectives, while Nick just wants to get through the case in one piece.  "Zootopia 2" follows the formula for most animated sequels, repeating many of the plot beats of the original and indulging in plenty of callbacks, while adding to the Zootopia universe.  We get to see more of the city, including a swamp neighborhood populated by aquatic denizens, and catch up with a few old friends.  Shakira is back with a new earworm, called "Zoo," and there continues to be plenty of slapstick antics for the kids and pop culture references and animal puns for the grown-ups.     

As formulaic as it is, the execution here is good enough that I have zero complaints with "Zootopia 2."  It's not very ambitious and doesn't break any new ground, but it functions just fine as a detective and mystery story, and is rousingly entertaining for the entire length of its running time.  It's not as good as the original "Zootopia," but it doesn't feel extraneous or padded out like some of the other recent Disney sequels, and I'll be happy to see more "Zootopia" sequels make their way to the big screen in the future.  

"Wicked: For Good" was exactly what I expected it to be, which is bad.  The second half of the musical it's adapting is not as good as the first half, and has none of the most famous songs or sequences.  Additional songs were composed to try and compensate for this, but it didn't help.  There's way too much story told in far too little time, and the movie still feels overlong and unwieldy.  What's worse, the first "Wicked" film did so well with family audiences, I suspect that the filmmakers felt it necessary to tone down some of the more challenging content to accommodate younger and more sensitive viewers.  The one really effective horror moment I remember from the musical is totally undercut in the film version, and all the bite and bitterness is quickly taken out of the Glinda/Elphaba hostilities.

Another issue is that the events of this film are supposed to take place at the same time as "The Wizard of Oz," so we're constantly getting bits of Dorothy's journey going on in the background, and catching glimpses of familiar characters.  The trouble is that John Chu and his collaborators can't get all the pieces to fit.  In addition to not being able to use the famous iconography of the MGM film (no ruby slippers allowed), there are so many instances of missing or muddled motivations, inexplicable behavior, and just plain mismatched storylines that I have to question whether we really needed Dorothy in this movie at all.  Then again, without her presence, the already moody, downbeat story would be even smaller scale and decidedly less spectacular.

Some things are improved - after all the criticism about the cinematography, commendable efforts have been made in that department.  The production values remain top notch, and "Wicked: For Good" looks gorgeous, if nothing else.  I also like the increased role of Glinda in the story, and the greater emphasis on her friendship with Elphaba.  Unfortunately, this isn't enough to compensate for some of the glaring, fundamental problems with the film.  There are enough good moments that I think this is still worth a watch for those who liked the first film, but expectations should be kept very, very low.

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"A Man on the Inside," Year Two

I've spent some time comparing and contrasting "A Man on the Inside" with the other major mystery show featuring go-getter seniors, "Only Murders in the Building."  I'm sorry to say that "A Man on the Inside" too often falls short.  It has no lack of talent, having been created by Michael Schur, features the work of writers like Megan Amram, and has a horde of great acting talent.  However, "A Man on the Inside" feels very slight this year, when I was hoping it would branch out a bit more and establish itself as a show that could sustain multiple seasons.

Moving past its original premise, Charles has taken on a new case investigating a theft at the fictional Wheeler College, where the provost, Holly Bidgemark (Jill Talley), is hoping to secure a major donation from a billionaire, Brad Vinick (Gary Cole), thus ensuring the school's future.  Someone has made off with a laptop full of sensitive material and left a threatening note.  The suspects include members of the faculty, including professors played by David Strathairn and Mary Steenburgen, so Charles is on the case, posing as a visiting lecturer as he searches for clues.

I love spotting familiar older actors in this series, like Constance Marie as Julie Kovalenko's estranged mother, and Jackee Harry as a new love interest for Calbert.  Strathairn is a highlight as a grumpy classics professor who immediately antagonizes Charles.  Unfortunately, the mystery doesn't offer much of interest, and the tone of the show has settled for being blandly pleasant and low stakes.  Most of Charles' attention is taken up with a new relationship - he's fallen head over heels for Wheeler's music professor Mona Margadoff (Steenburgen), and often neglects gumshoeing to pursue her.  Julie takes up some of the slack with the investigation, and we also spend more time with Emily, Didi, and some of the Pacific View Retirement Community characters from the first season. 

"Only Murders" has a similarly cuddly dynamic with its leads, but is much more lively and retains a darker humorous edge.  The crimes may be ridiculous, and the baddies may be overdramatic, but there's an urgency to the show that is completely missing from "A Man on the Inside."  It's not just a matter of murders versus thefts, but the universe of "A Man on the Inside" is generally a much nicer, friendlier, slower-paced sitcom setting that is prioritizing an older audience.  And as much as I appreciate this kind of content, I can't help feeling a little too young for it.  Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen, who have been a real couple for decades, are absolutely adorable in the show, but their romance did nothing for me.    

I like "A Man on the Inside" better when it's closer to its original format, with Charles eagerly jumping into situations without thinking them through, and discovering that being a spy is harder than it looks.  The season's best episode by far is the one where Charles recruits a couple of his Pacific View friends to help him steal Vinick's phone at a party, which has a lot of fun foibles involving code names and foiled plans.   The season is only eight episodes, but there are several episodes that feel too much like filler, just playing out old sitcom plots instead of moving the case forward.  Also, as much as I like Julie and Emily, the time spent with them that doesn't directly involve Charles feels like I'm watching a different show.  

I'm sure that "A Man on the Inside" could go on for a few more seasons with Charles taking on more cases and making more friends.  There's definitely an audience for this kind of show.  I'm just not sure that I should be part of it.  

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"Stranger Things" Year Five

Minor spoilers ahead.

So, I didn't hate the ending of "Stranger Things."  I thought that it delivered pretty much exactly what it advertised, giving us a final showdown between the kids of Hawkins and the horrors of the Upside Down, while offering a chance to say goodbye to these characters.  It did some things well and other things badly, but the quality of "Stranger Things" has always been extremely variable.  I wasn't surprised at all by the sloppy writing, unsatisfying character arcs, or prioritizing of the spectacle over the story.  However, it also had some highs and hit some bullseyes, and deserves the credit for those too.    

So, the citizens of Hawkins are living with the unwelcome presence of constant military activity and martial law in the wake of Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) having opened more access points to the Upside Down.  Vecna hasbeen making himself scarce, leaving the kids to deal with smaller threats like bullies and the latest evil government scientist, Dr. Kay (Linda Hamilton), while preparing for the next battle.  However, Vecna's been busy, and it soon emerges that his latest target is the youngest Wheeler sibling Holly (Nell Fisher) and some of her classmates.  There are a couple of other new faces, like Robin's girlfriend Vickie (Amybeth McNulty), and a new comic relief kid named Derek (Jake Connelly), but otherwise the show has its hands full keeping up with Mike, Dustin, Eleven, Will, Lucas, Max, Steve, Jonathan, Nancy, Robin, Erica, Hopper, and Joyce.  Frankly, there's little room for anyone else at this point.

The more time that the show spends checking in on the show's regular characters, and emphasizing the things we like about them, like Dustin and Steve's rekindled bromance, the more engaging it is. The more it ties itself in knots trying to justify all the new twists and turns of the plotting, the worse it is.  Sadly, Linda Hamilton is utterly wasted playing a generic villain whose actions don't seem to matter at all to the larger story.  Holly, a character I didn't remember existed before this season, suddenly becoming a main character was an odd choice.  It doesn't help that she's miscast - the actress is talented, but feels very off trying to play a much younger kid.  A lot of problems come from trying to juggle too many characters.  Robin shoulders a ton of exposition and emotional heavy lifting while characters like Mike and Jonathan simply don't have much to do.  Frankly, it's a minor miracle that the show finds its way to any kind of coherent ending at all.  

I'm happy to say that all the long-percolating questions about who Nancy will end up with, whether Max will wake up from her coma, and what's been bothering Will all get resolved at last.  We also get a lot more about the origins of the Upside Down, Vecna, and Henry Creel's past, those who enjoy the show's worldbuilding.  However, the vast amount of the show's time and resources, are spent creating big setpieces.  We get everything from home invasions to daring prison escapes to a giant monster battle.  Some of these are very good, and others are less so.  Suspension of disbelief is vital, as some of the plot developments make absolutely no sense, but I'm not inclined to complain because they're very entertaining.  Nancy and Jonathan hashing out their relationship in a room full of melting ectoplasm is weirdly sweet.  Erica taking point in a mass kidnapping scheme is priceless.  Will finally telling the truth is awkward, but I respect that the Duffers stopped the show in its tracks to let him do it properly.  

The three years it took to make these final eight episodes created all of this hype and anticipation that was never going to be matched by the actual finished product, and I feel bad for any fans who expected something more.  However, this wasn't the fatal stumble that the endings of the last "Star Wars" trilogy or "Game of Thrones" were for those franchises.  The ending of "Stranger Things" got the job done, without too many casualties (probably too few), and I can finally disentangle myself from this prolonged goodbye with a sense of relief.

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"The Running Man" and "Now You See Me: Now You Don't"

These two movies opened head to head on the same weekend, and one flopped while the other didn't.  I like them both for different reasons.

First, Edgar Wright's adaptation of Richard Bachman's "The Running Man" is an ambitious, noble failure, which makes it the far more interesting option.  Set in a future dystopia where the slightest rebellion means unemployment and poverty, a down-on-his luck father named Ben Richards (Glen Powell) signs on as a participant in the popular televised death game, "The Running Man."  His goal is to survive for thirty days without being killed, either by the public or by a team of professional "Hunters," to win a billion dollars.  This also means staying ahead of the omnipresent surveillance state, and the vile behind-the-scenes machinations of the show's producer Dan Killian (Josh Brolin), who deals in misinformation and propaganda to sway his audience's sympathies.

The worldbuilding of "The Running Man" is the best thing about it, offering a sobering look at a society where the flow of information is entirely controlled by the "execs," who subjugate the poor with impunity, and can deepfake anything except the ineffable human element to keep their death games interesting to the public.  There are so many well-considered little details, like public services being rationed, and a thriving black market in old CRT televisions that don't watch you back.  Wright and co-writer Michael Bacall have a lot of targets, spoofing the Kardashians and breakfast cereal ads among other things, but they spend most of their time on the rich/poor divide, passive consumption, and the culture of distraction.  "The Running Man" can only operate the way it does because  Killian and the host Bobby T (Colman Domingo) make up lies about the contestants and paint them in the worst light possible, prompting the public to hate them, thus making it okay to enjoy their deaths. 

Unfortunately, the part of "The Running Man" that's supposed to be a fun action film gets compromised in the process.  Glen Powell does fine at being a sympathetic action hero, but the script has some fundamental issues.  It's too long, it's repetitive, and the ending has every sign of trying to shoehorn a happier ending into the movie at the last minute.  Ben Richards has encounters with a lot of different allies and foes over the course of the game, including Michael Cera, Lee Pace, Emilia Jones, Karl Glusman, Daniel Ezra, and William H. Macy.  Some of these are a lot of fun, but there's a curious lack of the kind of inventive, idiosyncratic action sequences that Edgar Wright is best known for.  The action's not bad, but there are only two sections where Wright really feels like he's letting loose, and the rest are pretty generic.  The tone is also frequently a little too dark and dour - too much "Minority Report," and not enough "Robocop."  The movie does some things well, and I absolutely think it's worth seeing, but this is not the "Running Man" reboot or the Edgar Wright blockbuster I think most of the fans were hoping for.  

I also want to say a little bit about "Now You See Me: Now You Don't," which is the third of the "Now You See Me" films.  Ruben Fleischer is in the director's chair this time, and we have a quartet of new screenwriters, who actually manage a halfway decent story.  It's still not much of a story, but at least it's not the complete bungle that the first one was, and has more interesting stakes than the second.  Every member of The Four Horsemen magician team from the original film is back for this one, including Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), Merritt (Woody Harrelson), and Jack (Dave Franco), plus Isla Fischer as Henley, who sat out the last installment.  They're joined by a trio of young up-and-comers, Bosco (Dominic Sessa), June (Ariana Greenblatt), and Charlie (Justice Smith), with the goal of stealing a very big diamond from a two-faced South African mining heiress, Veronika Vanderberg (Rosamund Pike).

The "Now You See Me" films are full of impossible magic tricks that aren't all that impressive, because nearly all of them are accomplished with basic editing tricks and CGI.  However, they're still fun to watch because they're executed with a lot of theatrical style and bombast, and the actors get to play big and broad.  This time the character dynamics involve a lot of intergenerational sniping between the two teams - the Jesse Eisenberg and Dominic Sessa animosity is amusingly dorky - and the Horsemen have been split up for a long time due to some offscreen drama.  There are a lot of secrets to be revealed and a big twist, of course, but this one played fair, and did the setups and payoffs properly.  It was clunky and predictable, but I appreciate the effort.  

I don't know that I need more of these, especially as the franchise seems to be trying to set itself up as "The Fast & The Furious" with magicians, but the movies are pleasantly diverting enough that I don't mind if they stick around.

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How We Got To "Twisted Wonderland"

As someone who knows way too much about Disney, I've watched the uses of Disney IP change and adapt with the times.  Disney has branding that is so strong, it can be applied in all sorts of interesting ways.  Shared universes based on the classic Disney animated films have been especially prevalent over the last decade or so, with IP like the "Descendants" movies, the "Once Upon a Time" franchise, and the "Kingdom Hearts" games.  Recently, I stumbled across one that I wasn't familiar with - "Twisted Wonderland," which is a mobile game that looks very un-Disney at first glance 

In "Twisted Wonderland," the player is transported to Night Raven College, a magical academy where the students are split into seven dorms, each inspired by a classic Disney villain - The Evil Queen from "Snow White," The Queen of Hearts from "Alice in Wonderland," Hades from "Hercules," Scar from "The Lion King, " Jafar from "Aladdin," Maleficent from "Sleeping Beauty," and Ursula from "The Little Mermaid."  The story and character designs are by mangaka Yana Toboso, best known for the "Black Butler" series.  All of the characters are male, which strongly suggests that the intended target audience is girls and young women.  As you navigate through the school year, following the Night Raven students on their adventures, the main goal seems to be collecting up all the various cute guy characters and digital cards that feature them.     

There's a whole genre of games like this, known as gacha games, which are often built around lootbox mechanics and character-based collectibles.  The most popular titles like "Genshin Impact," "Honkai: Star Rail,"  and "Zenless Zone Zero" have millions of players and are especially popular in Asia.  It's no wonder that Disney wanted to get involved.  "Twisted Wonderland" launched in Japan in 2020 and did well enough that an English language version followed in 2022, along with the manga and anime adaptations.  But what I find so fascinating about "Twisted Wonderland" is how peripheral the use of Disney IP is in this game.  The characters are overwhelmingly original creations, with names like Azul Ashengrotto and Riddle Rosehearts, instead of variants of familiar Disney characters, like the ones in "Disney Heroes Battle Mode" or "Disney Mirrorverse."  But looking at other gacha games, there's a very obvious template for success here, and Disney is clearly trying to appeal to the existing audience.

Though the Disney villains are referenced frequently, and clips of their movies are used in the anime, none of them actually appear as characters in "Twisted Wonderland."  The only Disney character I spotted in the first three episodes of the anime series was the Magic Mirror from "Snow White," who is responsible for the player being brought to the "Twisted Wonderland" world, but doesn't do much else.  

Where the Disney influence is the most obvious is the character and environment designs.  The students from Maleficent's dorm all wear hats that resemble her horns.  The ones in Hades' dorm have his flaming blue hair, and the Queen of Hearts' dorm features a pack of characters named and designed after playing cards in her color scheme.  Others aren't so obvious - the trio from Ursula's dorm are very vibes based.  

The villains are referred to in-game as "The Great Seven," and the students revere them, but also ascribe various qualities to them that don't square with what we know.  Ursula is described as a "benevolent" wish-granter.  Hades has somehow inspired a dorm dedicated to the most technologically minded students.  The worldbuilding seems to be based on the idea that this is an alternate universe where the ruling  villains managed to create a series of fairly functional magical kingdoms despite being baddies.  There are Disney Easter eggs everywhere, and occasionally the characters will end up in places like the Seven Dwarves' mine.  Several minor and background characters are also based on other Disney villains, like the gym teacher who looks suspiciously like Gaston from "Beauty and the Beast."

It's fascinating to see the approach that was taken to adapt Disney IP to something as aesthetically different as a gacha game.  I have so many questions about the creative choices, like why these particular seven villains were chosen, while other fairly popular ones like Captain Hook were not.  Is it because all the ones in the game are magic users, except Scar who's there for the Furries?  Why theme everything after Disney villains in the first place, rather than Disney heroes or Tokyo Disneyland regions?

I know some of you are noticing that I haven't mentioned whether I think "Twisted Wonderland" is any good.  Well, after watching a few playthrough videos and three of the available anime episodes, the answer is that "Twister Wonderland" definitely isn't aimed at me.  Like most recent Disney multiversal media, I'm too old for it, and way too cynical to take it at face value.  However, the implications from an IP management standpoint definitely have my attention.

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My Top Ten Episodes of 2008-2009

Below, find my top ten episodes for the 2008-2009 television season below, in no particular order.  A few spoilers lie ahead, including the endings of "Avatar: the Last Airbender" and "Battlestar Galactica," and the second season of "Breaking Bad."

30 Rock, "Reunion" - "30 Rock" could always be counted on to turn common television storytelling tropes on their heads.  In "Reunion," we journey outside the show's usual New York City digs, and Liz goes to her high school reunion, where everyone is avoiding her or acting weird around her.  Because it turns out that Liz Lemon was a terrible person in high school and deserves it.  Alec Baldwin also gets to play Jack playing someone else, which is always a delight.  

Mad Men, "Meditations in an Emergency" - I love watching Don Draper outmaneuver his rivals, and this is one of the best examples, where an impending merger means he gets to show Pete and Duck exactly where he stands with the agency.  Betty and Peggy also have their own revelations to share, Betty ultimately choosing to remain with Don, while Peggy ends any possibility of a renewed romantic relationship with Pete in the coldest possible terms.  

Breaking Bad, "Phoenix" - I had a tough time picking a favorite episode, because I consider this one of the best seasons of television ever made.  However, Walt reaching a new low with his part in Jane's death was undeniably one of the most important, nerve-wracking moments in the series.  Cranston got a lot of kudos for his performance, and deservedly so, but Aaron Paul's work was what really got to me here, as Jesse's life takes yet another turn for the worse.  

Doctor Who, "Midnight" - My favorite Russell T. Davies "Doctor Who" story is a bottle episode where the Doctor and an assortment of travellers are trapped in a small space with a nightmarish monster.  We never see the monster, but it communicates well enough through possessing a passenger played by Lesley Sharp, quickly growing smarter and scarier.  There's nothing fancy about the production, but the episode makes for an excellent small scale paranoid thriller.  

Avatar the Last Airbender, "Sozin's Comet" - The entire feature-length finale is wonderful, but if I have to pick a specific episode, it's got to be the very last one, where Zuko and Azula finally have their duel, and Aang figures out how to defeat the Firelord in a way he can live with.  The series remains one of the most impressive pieces of long-form storytelling in any medium, animated or otherwise, with a satisfying climax that knew exactly when it was time to say goodbye.  

The Venture Bros., "The Buddy System" - This is the one where we meet Dermott, and Dr. Mrs. The Monarch gets a costume upgrade.  Fairly uneventful episodes like this one, where Rusty runs a day camp to make some quick cash, employing a bunch of his friends as unpaid counselors, were always my favorites.  There are so many wonderful bits of absurdity, like the Order of the Triad safety sketch, Billy getting shot, and the intense reappearance of Action Johnny.  

Dead Set, "A Way Out" - The best thing that anybody did with the "Big Brother" reality show was to let Charlie Brooker take it over and turn it into a zombie invasion horror miniseries back in 2008.  There are a couple of cameos from the regular host and a few prior participants, but all the major players in the miniseries are fictional  and played by actors.  Still, the use of the real sets counts for a lot, especially in this finale episode when things get really bloody and fun.  

The Middleman, "The Palindrome Reversal Palindrome" - I loved this weird little genre show starring Natalie Morales and Matt Keeslar as secret agents in a comic book universe.  It only lasted one season, but brought me much joy.  I decided to pick the show's jaunt into an evil mirror universe for this list, because I can't resist darkest timeline stories and Keeslar gets to dress up like Snake Plisskin.  If the series finale had been filmed, I probably would have picked that one.  

Battlestar Galactica, "Crossroads Part 2" - Going into a midseason hiatus, "Crossroads" revealed the identities of four of the Final Five Cylons to the rest of the cast, and finally let the fleet have a win.  It's an episode absolutely jam-packed with incident, capping off years worth of buildup and anticipation, and ends on one of the most quietly devastating scenes in the entire series.  I have qualms about some of these storylines, but I remain deeply impressed at how it was pulled off.

Top Gear, "The Vietnam Special" - I'm biased because this was the first of the "Top Gear" specials that I saw, so any repetition of the bits was lost on me.  I just adored watching this trio of hapless middle-aged Brits make increasingly ridiculous spectacles of themselves as they traversed South Asia on motorbikes on an epic eight-day journey.  As a movie nerd, I was also very pleased with the constant stream of Vietnam War movie references.

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"Eyes of Wakanda" and "Marvel Zombies"

Two Marvel universe animated miniseries were released last year, which both skewed nerdier and more mature than Disney+'s usual animated offerings.  Both run four episodes of roughly 30 minutes each, adding up to the length of two feature films.  

"Eyes of Wakanda" explores concepts from "Black Panther," tracking the efforts of multiple Wakandans over the centuries retrieving artifacts and going on special missions around the globe.  In the first episode, a former Dora Milaje travels to the Minoan Empire to retrieve a Wakandan agent who has gone rogue.  The second is set during the Trojan War, the third in China in the 1400s, and the fourth gives us glimpses of Wakanda of the future.  All the characters are new, and don't have obvious ties to the characters in "Black Panther," which means there's some time needed to adjust to the new reality of each episode.

The series is designed to be a showcase for black talent, with the episodes written by Geoffrey Thorne and Marc Bernardin, directed by Todd Harris and John Fang, and cast with an array of black actors including Steven Touissant and Anika Noni Rose.  What stands out are the visuals, featuring a dynamic, impactful animation style that makes the action scenes look great.  The production quality is strong the whole way through, but this is very much an anthology where the individual stories are designed to be self-contained and barely connected to each other, so "Eyes of Wakanda" ends up feeling very diverting but non-essential.  I'd love to see some of the episodes expanded, especially the third where we get a crossover with a different part of the MCU, but getting "Eyes of Wakanda" made was surely difficult enough. 

However, as unlikely as "Eyes of Wakanda" is, I'm downright baffled that "Marvel Zombies" exists.  This is a spinoff of the "What If…?" episode that takes place in a dystopian version of Earth where much of the population and the superhero community have been zombified.  It uses the same visual style and brings back many of the same characters.  "Marvel Zombies" has a mature rating because there is violence galore and characters are constantly being killed left and right.  We start out in the first episode with Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani), Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne), and Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) being gal-pal survivalists together in the remains of New York, who discover a mystery device inside a zombie, which might save the world.  This kicks off a long, winding journey through different realms of the zombified MCU, picking up friends and allies and much more trouble along the way.

  

I appreciate that the status quo is constantly changing in "Marvel Zombies," so it's impossible to guess what's going to happen next.  The stakes are also properly epic, as the miniseries builds to a big conclusion involving multiple big bads.  However, I wouldn't recommend this to anyone but the most die-hard adult MCU fans.  It takes a good amount of knowledge of the existing film continuity to keep all the various characters straight, and appreciate how they differ from their original versions.  The  inexpressive animation style is also not helpful in this regard.  It took me a while to realize that John Walker (Wyatt Russell) had shown up in one of the episodes, and I spent a few minutes of the finale trying to work out who another character was (It was London Master (Daniel Swain) from the second "Doctor Strange" movie).   

If you're confident in your nerd bona fides, however, and you like darkest timeline scenarios, "Marvel Zombies" can be a lot of fun.  A surprising number of MCU actors were convinced to lend their voices to the project, and I like what the series does with some of them.  A few of my favorites get great death scenes, and this is definitely the best use of Agent Woo (Randall Park) yet.  There's a focus on "Shang-Chi" and "Black Widow" characters, which hints at when "Marvel Zombies" was written, but also some fun cameos from other shows.  Also, we get an interesting version of Blade (Todd Williams) who provides hints at what his long-stalled feature was going to look like.  

Marvel doesn't get this dark very often, so if "Marvel Zombies" sounds like it would appeal to you, enjoy it while you can.        

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"Wake Up Dead Man" is the Best Blanc Mystery

I suspect that "Wake Up Dead Man" is the best Rian Johnson film.  It's easily the best of the three Benoit Blanc movies he's made so far, and I really liked the first two.  "Wake Up Dead Man" is another murder mystery featuring the Daniel Craig sleuth, with plenty of social commentary, and some good laughs in the mix.  However, this is a darker, more thoughtful story, set in and around a small Catholic church in upstate New York.  The new assistant pastor, Father Jud (Josh O'Connor) has written to Benoit Blanc about a murder.  Who the victim is probably counts as a spoiler, so I'll just say that the major figures involved in the crime are the charismatic firebrand Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin), his henchwoman Martha (Glenn Close), her husband Samson (Thomas Hayden Church), and local townsfolk played by Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, Daryl McCormack, Mila Kunis and Cailee Spaeny.

Unlike "Knives Out" and "Glass Onion," the rich aren't the targets of "Wake Up Dead Man."  Rather, we're looking at a different facet of privilege and power, with religion put under the microscope.  Christianity is examined from several different points of view, with Monsignor Wicks and Father Jud each offering their own contrasting viewpoints.  Benoit Blanc is the skeptical atheist who comes on the scene trying to find the truth, and it's a much more complicated story than it seems at first glance, touching on a lot of the different roles that Christianity and the church play in American society.  The only way to solve the mystery is to understand the worldviews of the suspects, and the lesson, ultimately, is the importance of empathy rather than faith.  Rian Johnson has described himself as an ex-believer in interviews, and you can absolutely tell how personal this material is to him.  There are some very funny scenes and suitably sharp zingers, but Johnson is also earnestly grappling with questions of how religion fits into the modern world, in a way that only someone very familiar with the church could.

"Wake Up Dead Man" benefits from a very strong cast.  The clear standout is Josh O'Connor, who has the tricky job of staying both sympathetic and untrustworthy in the minds of the viewers for most of the movie.  He has the vast majority of the screentime, and I find it very meaningful that he struggles honestly and openly with his role at the church in a way that feels far too rare.  Unfortunately, this means that the rest of the cast feel less well served.  Or rather, the other characters feel broad and caricatured the way that the characters in "Knives Out" and "Glass Onion" were, but few display the depth and the shadings that Father Jud does.  Wicks, for instance, is memorably vile, and I admire Brolin's performance, but I was never able to quite take him seriously as a threat to our heroes, and he wasn't outrageously nasty enough to be as entertaining as he could have been.  Actors like Andrew Scott and Kerry Washington barely have enough screen time for their characters to register, though they're good enough actors that they do.  Glenn Close, however, finally gets a role worthy of her talents in who knows how long.

Johnson gets a lot of great imagery out of the ecclesiastical trappings, and the visual storytelling is consistently excellent.  I love the local bar that's devil themed, and Father Jud's tattoos hinting at a past that can't be easily erased.  The running gag with Martha is pitch perfect every time it happens.  The editing is fabulous, deftly juggling the multiple POVs and jumps to different points on the timeline.  This is a long movie, and the investigation doesn't really get underway until Blanc shows up around 45 minutes in, but it never feels too slow or too indulgent.  Okay, Rian Johnson probably wouldn't have gotten away with some of the more venal jokes if this were the first Benoit Blanc movie, but he's earned some leeway from me.

Most importantly, the story feels fully explored and the tone is well balanced.  All the little things that used to bother me about Rian Johnson films have been addressed, or are compensated for.  This is the first film of his I'm comfortable calling a great film, and it's timely, entertaining, and genuinely moving too.  If this is the last Benoit Blanc film, the series is going out on a high note.  And it's leaving me wanting more.

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Rank 'Em: "Star Wars: Visions," Year Three

"Visions" is back with nine more shorts, working with mostly the same Japanese studios that produced the first season that premiered back in 2021.  Three of the new shorts are direct sequels to previous "Visions" installments, and I'd say that the quality is more consistently good this time out.   Without further ado, find my thoughts on each short below, ranked from best to least.  I watched the English language versions of all the shorts.

"The Duel: Payback" - Easily the best of the collection, as the Ronin teams up with a Twilek Sith, and fights a seriously warped rogue Jedi.  The combination of Japanese brush illustrations, feudal era aesthetics, and Star Wars concepts remains fabulous to look at.  Even the Ewok bits!  This has the best action and fight scenes of this season of "Visions" by far, and characters I'd love to get to know better.

"BLACK" - The shortest short is a psychedelic, violent "Star Wars" tribute that plunges us into the midst of the endless battle between the Empire and the Rebellion, with a snazzy jazz soundtrack.  This feels more like a combination of "Star Wars" and "Heavy Metal" than "Star Wars" and anime, though I appreciate the willingness to get experimental.  It's the most un-Disney piece made for Disney+ yet.  

"The Song of Four Wings" - This is one of the more visually impressive shorts, though there isn't much of a story to speak of.  The heroine, Princess Crane, rescues a little war orphan and the two of them and the Princess's loyal droid spend the rest of the short battling the Imperials, getting into chase and fight sequences, and making some really pretty explosions.  Bonus points for the X-wing transformation.   

"The Bounty Hunters" - The visuals here aren't the best, but the characters and story won me over completely.  We've got an anti-heroine with a heart of gold (voiced by Anna Sawai!), an assassin droid with two personalities, and a jerk of a villain who needs to be taken down. It's zippy and fun, the humor works, and it's definitely a "Star Wars" story, focusing on the scruffier side of the universe.       

"The Lost Ones" - This is a sequel to the first season's "The Village Bride," following the further adventures of the wanderer F as she tries to help out refugees on a different world.  This is a much more action-oriented story that delves in the background of F and gives her a worthy adversary.  There's nothing too fancy going on with the visuals or presentation, but it's all flawlessly executed.  

"Yuko's Treasure" - Here's another one from Kinema Citrus, about a little girl named Yuko who is protected and looked after by a big, cuddly bear droid named BILY.  It's a story aimed at smaller kids, or those who like to watch cute kids doing cute things, but the execution is solid.  I especially appreciate the kawaii design work that adapts "Star Wars" elements into much friendlier anime forms.     

"The Smuggler" - Studio Trigger's contribution this year is a very charming little adventure story where a smuggler helps out a prince in disguise.  I like the Jedi who shows up in this one, but otherwise the "Star Wars" imagery here is just for window dressing.  As a fan of older anime, the style was very nostalgic.  "The Smuggler" can't hope to match up to the more ambitious shorts, but I enjoyed it for what it was.  

"The Ninth Jedi: Child of Hope" - Naoyoshi Shiotani replaces Kenji Kamiyama as director for the follow-up to "The Ninth Jedi."  However, this one is much less interesting that the first installment, focusing on the character of Kara for what amounts to a generic kid-and-droid story.  It doesn't help that the English dub is pretty hard on the ears, with a squeaky heroine and a goofy droid that speaks in the third person.

"The Bird of Paradise" - I'm not a fan of the hybrid animation style, the immature protagonist, the awkward story structure, or the English language dialogue.  There are some lovely visuals, but often this feels more like a tech demo than a proper short film.  

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"Train Dreams" and "Jay Kelly"

More Netflix Oscar hopefuls today.

"Train Dreams" is the kind of contemplative, existential film that it's very difficult to do well.  Directed by Clint Bently, and based on a Denis Johnson novella, the story follows the life of a man in the late 1800s named Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton), who spends long stretches working on railway construction and logging sites in Idaho.  The work is dangerous, and forces Robert to spend too much time away from his wife, Gladys (Felicity Jones), and young daughter, but their options are few.  

Nearly all of "Train Dreams" is set in nature, specifically in the seemingly endless forests of the American Northwest.  However, the intrusion of the workers brings all the ugliness of westward expansion, industrialization and environmental degradation with them.  Robert has a front row seat to instances of brutal racism and exploitation that haunt him through the years, and his life is marked by too much tragedy.  His friendships are rare and fleeting, and he spends years trying to find a sense of connection with the rest of humanity.  Robert is a quiet man, who avoids trouble and keeps to himself, so many of the particulars of his life are relayed to the audience via narration provided by Will Patton.  

The pleasures of "Train Dreams" chiefly involve the skill of the filmmaking in evoking an older, bygone era of America that has largely receded from the current cultural consciousness. Adolpho Veloso's cinematography is intimate and lovely when it needs to be, and occasionally awe-inspiring as it explores the pristine landscapes.  Robert has meaningful encounters with memorable characters played by William H. Macy, Kerry Condon, Paul Schneider, John Diehl, and others.  However, as much as I admire and appreciate the commitment to this slower, more thoughtful approach to looking back at a chapter of American history, I rarely found it compelling.  Joel Edgerton is an actor who's been very hit-or-miss for me, and without a stronger narrative, the tale of his subdued everyman just couldn't hold my interest.  "Train Dreams" ends up being a lovely cinematic elegy that I wish that I liked more than I did.          

On to "Jay Kelly," the Noah Baumbach film where George Clooney is playing a fictionalized version of himself in the middle of a midlife crisis.  Jay Kelly is a famous movie star who starts behaving erratically after he has a bad encounter with an old friend (Billy Crudup), learns his mentor (Jim Broadbent) has died, and is caught off guard by his youngest daughter Daisy (Grace Edwards) decamping for Europe with friends before she goes to college.  Jay decides to accept a career tribute being offered in Italy that he previously turned down, so he can follow Daisy to Paris, with his longtime manager Ron (Adam Sandler) and publicist Liz (Laura Dern) in tow.  As the tribute draws nearer, Kelly's thoughts stray to regrets about his past and anxieties about his future, while Ron attempts to contain the crisis.  It's a very star-studded picture, with many familiar faces in the cast, playing figures from Jay Kelly's past and present.    

"Jay Kelly" strikes me as a film with some glaring fundamental flaws, and I suspect that it only got made because Clooney said yes to starring in it.  I mean, it's a fine idea to have a self-critical Baumbach film examining the cost of stardom, and highlighting all the little oddities of being extremely famous people, while trying to navigate travel in foreign countries.  However, the story choices and tonal shifts make the film constantly feel like it's floundering, the humor rarely works as intended, and Jay Kelly is surrounded by more interesting characters.  Clooney has the movie star wattage turned up high for the first time in a long time, but it's Adam Sandler and Billy Crudup who deliver the best performances, and have the juicier parts to play.  The plotting is also very messy - does the film only take place in Tuscany because Baumbach is trying to evoke Federico Fellini?   

Frankly, there's not much about "Jay Kelly" that worked for me.  I found it confusing, underdeveloped, and a waste of some very talented people's time.  This was a big swing for Baumbach, and I want him to keep aiming high, but too many of the choices here are wrongfooted, and I know Baumbach's capable of something much smarter and more thoughtful.  Better luck next time. 

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