Love For a "Left Handed Girl"

"Left-Handed Girl" is a Chinese language drama set in Taipei, about a little girl named I-Jing (Nina Ye) with a complicated, tumultuous family.  Her mother Shu-Fen (Janey Tsai) and adult sister I-Ann (Shih-Yuan Ma) don't get along, for reasons that aren't clear to I-Jing.  Her mother runs a noodle stall in the night market, while her sister works for a betel nut vendor, and there's never much money despite all their efforts.  Sean Baker co-wrote and co-produced this film, but is taking a backseat to his long-time collaborator Shih-Ching Tsou, who directed, co-produced, and co-wrote it.  

Through I-Jing's eyes, Taiwan is a buzzy hive of perpetual activity.  Her family may be poor, but she's happy.  She makes friends with fellow merchant Johnny (Brando Huang), goes to school by day, and plays in the market by night.  She reconnects with her mother's parents (Akio Chen and  Xin-Yan Chao), who are constantly fretting over their daughter's life choices.  It's from her grandfather that I-Jing learns that her left hand is her "devil hand," and I-Jing's attempts to stop using it only seem to cause it to act out and cause trouble.  Or maybe it's because Shu-Fen and I-Ann's troubles can't help but spill over into her life, no matter how much they try to keep things from her.  

It's the cultural specificity that makes "Left-Handed Girl" feel like such a distinct creation from the Sean Baker oeuvre, even though it's using many of the same guerilla filmmaking techniques and character types.  Tsou's vision of Taiwan is a familiar one for me, not just because of the iPhone cinematography, or the child's-eye first person views previously seen in "The Florida Project," but because it captures many sides of Taipei that I'm well acquainted with.  The grandparents' apartment looks like my grandparents' apartment.  The city streets teeming with scooters, the endless night market, the restaurants, the clubs, the shops, and above all else the people are all exactly as I remember them.  A visit with the extended family means a constant stream of bickering, gossip, nostalgia, and rehashing of old grievances.  Little I-Jing can't help but be affected by all the money troubles, bad relationships, and family secrets.   

Mother-daughter relationships are at the crux of the film, specifically the antagonism, guilt, and frustrations that come with having to depend on one another during hard times.  As the films goes on, we learn a lot about Shu-Fen and I-Ann, who have both been through many difficulties in their personal lives.  The family is moving back to Taipei after an absence of several years, which forces them to confront parts of their past that they're not ready to deal with.  There are also several glaring absences - the most prominent being Shu-Fen's husband, who abandoned the family years ago and saddled them with debt.  Everyone keeps trying to treat the emotional fallout like it's a thing of the past, but the situation is very much ongoing, and ignoring it has consequences.  

The only thing that didn't ring true to me is that the melodrama gets to be a bit much, with several storylines converging at the end in a very messy, public way.  Having the specifics of the family situation unexplained worked much better for me in the early parts of the film, and the big reveals came off as forced and unnecessary.  Still, I liked all of the performers, and got very invested in the characters' lives.  I appreciate Tsou's efforts to humanize everyone, even I-Ann's scummy boss A-Ming (Teng-Hung Hsia), who is shown to have his own complicated family life.  The overall tenor of the film is heartwarming, humane, and optimistic, even though everyone is still hustling and struggling in the end.

"Left-Handed Girl" is the first feature where Shih-Ching Tsou has a sole directing credit, and it comes two decades after "Take Out," her first feature that she co-directed with Sean Baker.  From what I've read about the film's history, "Left-Handed Girl" faced an uphill battle at just about every stage of its creation, and the fact that it got made at all is a minor miracle.  Even if the movie is imperfect and too much at times, I'm happy to report that it was well worth the trouble.   

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The Worst 2025 Movies I Bothered to Watch

It's April Fools Day, and if I'm going to do a "worst of" list, it's going to be today.  First, I should include the caveat that I'm not a professional critic and not obligated to watch the real bottom-of-the-barrel dreck that I do my best to avoid.  At the same time, I'm not going to go for the obvious choices, like Disney's live-action "Snow White" and Amazon's "War of the Worlds," because you already know that they're terrible.  Instead, I'm going to focus on more low-profile examples of very bad movies you may stumble across by accident.  Here we go.  

Havoc - This made the list because somebody might see that there's a new Gareth Edwards film starring Tom Hardy, and think that they're in for a movie like Edwards' "The Raid" films.  Unfortunately, the long-delayed "Havoc," shot all the way back in 2021, is not anything close.  It's a chaotic, barely coherent mobster movie with a couple of decent action scenes, but utterly hopeless plotting.  How were the performances?  I couldn't tell.

Opus - Ayo Edibiri had a tough 2025.  While "After the Hunt" and "Ella McKay" may have disappointed, "Opus" was clearly the worst thing she appeared in last year.  Written and directed by a first time filmmaker, this wacky cult film starts off well enough with John Malkovitch as the charismatic leader/pop star, but quickly falls apart as the plot turns into a series of absurd trials and sketches.  Was it supposed to be funny?  I wasn't laughing. 

Love Hurts - It ticks me off that we have two recent Academy Award winners, Ke Huy Quan and Ariana DeBose, and the best project they can get to star as the leads in is this very substandard action-comedy.  I don't want to pile on too much because it's clear that there was some effort put into the action and fight scenes.  However, it doesn't cohere at all, and I'm worried that Quan's not going to get more chances as a leading man.  

Wolf Man - I wonder if the whole elevated horror trend has gone too far.  Why does the new version have to be about generational trauma?  Just because the new "Invisible Man" was about gaslighting, do all the monster movies have to be social commentary now?  Is the werewolf as a metaphor for primal rage just not enough anymore?  Anyway, it was rough seeing Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner floundering through this mess.  

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning - There are some defenders out there who point out that the two big action sequences in "Final Reckoning" are very impressive and thrilling to watch.  However, the rest of the movie is still bad, especially a first hour that is composed entirely of montages, flashbacks and way too much exposition.  I like having Rolf Saxon back, it's just not worth the aggravation to get to the few scenes that work.

Playdate - I really shouldn't have watched this.  I don't like Kevin James movies in general, but I thought it was worth giving Alan Ritchson a shot.  Boy do I regret it.  Ritchson is playing the kind of aggro numbskull whose tough-love parenting tactics should have instantly attracted the ire of every Karen in earshot, and the whole movie makes a joke out of fatherhood in a way that's very unpleasant.  Even "The Family Plan 2" managed better.  

Oh. What. Fun. - I don't know what Michael Showalter and this overqualified cast were thinking with this premise.  A mom's response to being accidentally left behind on a holiday outing is to shame her family on national television?  If it were a darker, more astringent kind of comedy it might have worked, but instead this rarely strays far from the tone of your typical holiday streaming movie.  At least Joan Chen is still getting work.

The Old Guard 2 - Finally, the most disappointing sequel of the year was "The Old Guard 2," which managed to recruit Uma Thurman as a new baddie, but jettisoned everything we liked about the first film.  The lore makes no sense, the plot ties itself in knots, and to make matters worse, the ending just sets up a third film and calls it a day.  I don't think we're getting that third film, by the way.  

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My Top 25 of the Last 25: Endings

A good ending feels like a rarity these days, especially when we're talking about long-form media. As the franchises and revivals have become a fixture of modern movies and television, it feels like definitive endings are anathema.  However, there have still been some pretty good ones in the new millennium, and some are the reason that these titles are still remembered to this day.  

As with the other Top 25 Lists, this list has 25 entries, but only the top ten get write-ups.  Entries are unranked.  I regret to inform you that I was not a viewer of "The Shield," "Succession," or "Six Feet Under."  I'll try and keep the spoilers to a minimum, but you guys know what kind of list this is!

The Good Place - Chidi's quote about picturing a wave has quietly become the most enduring contribution of "The Good Place" to popular culture.  I find that fitting, because over the years the show became a sort of a stealth way for Mike Schur to talk about philosophical concepts related to morality.  It's only here, at the very end, that we really take on the concept of death, in a show where most of the characters are dead from the outset.

The Sopranos - Do you remember when the Clintons parodied this for Hilary's presidential campaign?  You wouldn't think just cutting to black during an uneasy moment would cause such a ruckus, but "The Sopranos" ambiguous finale definitely helped it to keep the show relevant for years after it went off the air.  David Chase is plagued with questions about it to this day.  My take is that whatever you think happened to Tony, he's a doomed man.

The Colbert Report - The ascension of the fictional Stephen Colbert to the pop culture pantheon was cool.  The celebrity sing-along with a crowd of notables including George Lucas and Henry Kissinger was fun.  However, my favorite part of the finale is the very end, where Stephen Colbert throws to Jon Stewart over at the "Daily Show" like the whole series had just been one long segment of the program where "The Colbert Report" originated.  

The Leftovers - There was never going to be a definite answer as to why the disappearances happened, but one is suggested if that's what you need from the show.  What's more important is that we get some emotional resolution for two of the main characters, when Kevin and Nora meet again after a long separation.  It's such a gentle, peaceful goodbye that ends the series on a hopeful and optimistic note, if not an entirely happy one.

The Return of the King - I had many complaints about this one the first time I saw it, but over the years, after too many multi-part franchise finales, I've grown much more fond of it.  Sure, the big battles and lengthy farewells are indulgent, but they're in service of truly epic storytelling.  I even wish that Peter Jackson had included the material that he shot for the coda sequence, that would have revealed the fates of some of the other characters.  

Mr Robot - The final twist of the very twisty "Mr. Robot" is one that I figured out well in advance, but I still enjoyed it immensely for how it unfolded.  For a show that depended so much on what was going on inside its protagonist's head, it was fitting that the finale mostly played out there, putting some of Elliott's lingering demons to rest.  And having the (almost) final title card drop being set to the Styx song (you know which one) was the icing on the cake.  

The Americans - The most terrible part of being foreign spies living fake lives turns out to be doing the job too well.  Getting away with it has a cost too terrible for Philip and Elizabeth to anticipate, as their mission reaches its inevitable conclusion and they have to say their goodbyes.  The confrontation scene with Stan finally happens as well, and it lived up to all the anticipation.  However, it's the confrontation that doesn't happen that will haunt me.

  

Avengers: Endgame - Clearly this was never meant to be a finale for the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe, but it was a good enough endpoint that plenty of viewers decided it was the right place to disembark.  The MCU actually has several good endings, notably the "Loki" finale.  However, "Endgame" was the first really meaningful one after over twenty films that killed major characters and even let one retire!  It's too bad it's not going to stick.  

Parks and Rec - There are happy endings, and there are happy endings so thorough at wrapping things up for each and every regular in the show, that you can't think about it without smiling.  Okay, so I wanted a little more for April and Andy, but Leslie and Ben?  Ron Swanson?  Garry?  Their endings are perfect.  For extra feels, the extended version also adds more material for minor characters like Bobby Newport and Shauna Mawae-Tweep.

The Wire - The fifth season of "The Wire" couldn't live up to the previous ones, but I still found plenty to like as the series wound down.  The finale doesn't have anything big and climactic, but simply checking in with so many of the characters in the series, from all walks of life, in an epic last montage, was enough to take my breath away.  Special love to Bubbles, whose story ends on a hopeful note.  

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

Twin Peaks

Gravity Falls

Avatar the Last Airbender

The Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien

No Time To Die

Toy Story 3

Breaking Bad

Mad Men

Andor

Picard

Angel

Fleabag

Review with Forrest MacNeil

Futurama (multiple)

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My Favorite Richard Linklater Film

I admit that I haven't been giving Richard Linklater his due, and I've taken him for granted.  Last year he made two excellent comedies that were wholly unlike each other, and I realized that he was well overdue for one of these posts.  One of my longstanding issues with Linklater's work is that he's best known for a couple of lovingly nostalgic films about his school days, but his experiences in high school and college in no way resemble my own, so I always found it difficult to relate.  However, there was one of his early films that did feel very much like my college experience.

"Slacker" is an experimental film that consists of a series of barely connected vignettes with a sprawling cast of various people in Austin, Texas, inhabiting a neighborhood on the edge of the UT campus.  They are of all backgrounds, colors, and creeds, and include a few familiar faces if you're from the area, but can generally be described as oddballs.  I love how scroungy and youthful this movie feels, with the POV jumping from fascinating character to fascinating character in a variety of environments.  Linklater himself starts off the chain of vignettes, an anonymous guy in a T-shirt telling his troubles to a taxi driver.  Each new scene feels like a chance encounter that you absolutely might have, just walking through an eclectic college town, trying to mind your own business.

In the commentary track Linklater recorded for the movie, he claims that "Slacker" was made so he could play with structure, so the content was often a secondary concern.  He relied on his cast and collaborators to fill in the individual stories, incorporating anecdotes from people's pasts, half-remembered third-hand gossip, conspiracy theories, and a few subtle references to classical literature and cinema.  There wasn't a traditional script, and much of the dialogue was improvised.  The subject matter veers from alien abductions to world politics to love lives to dietary concerns to Uncle Fester from "The Addams Family."  It doesn't make sense on paper, but the in media res vignettes, with no beginnings or endings, do form a coherent narrative in the mind of the viewer, because this is the way that we actually experience life.  

Linklater describes the film as taking place on the margins, a place for self-discovery, for discourse, and for expression.  The characters are fictional, though some are based on real people, and everyone we see is an actor.  Many were specifically recruited because they fit the profile of "slacker" - the misfit nonconformist who doesn't easily slot into regular society, but still has plenty of opinions to share.  Linklater never meant for the term to have the negative connotations it would pick up later.  The characters do not have names, and are credited by memorable descriptors like "Been on the moon since the '50s," "Sidewalk psychic," and famously "Pap smear pusher."  While the specifics may have been negotiable, the vibe was always very deliberate.

"Slacker" is probably best remembered for kicking off the '90s indie wave, specifically a generation of filmmakers who self-financed their first features and embraced DIY methods and aesthetics.  It was made with a $20 thousand budget and shot with no permits, and certainly looks like it.  However, "Slacker" got the attention of key critics, was embraced by younger audiences as a cult film, and made enough money to inspire other Gen X filmmakers to try and replicate its success.  

As for Richard Linklater, he's well known for never giving up his particular, collaborative, rule-breaking approach to filmmaking.  I strongly considered writing this entry about one of his decades-spanning projects like the "Before" trilogy and "Boyhood," or maybe one of his animated films like "Waking Life" and "Through a Scanner Darkly."    Or I could have gotten meta and talked about Linklater making a film about one of his filmmaking heroes, Jean-Luc Godard, inventing the improvisational style of filmmaking that Linklater put to use in "Slacker" and many of his other films.        

However, in the end I'm writing about "Slacker" because I genuinely like the film and I get the film in a way that I don't quite get most of his others.  I guess I just relate more to these characters and their experiences, which is to say that I guess I'm a slacker too.  

What I've Seen - Richard Linklater

Slacker (1990)

Dazed and Confused (1993)

Before Sunrise (1995)

Waking Life (2001)

School of Rock (2003)

Before Sunset (2004)

A Scanner Darkly (2006)

Bernie (2011)

Before Midnight (2013)

Boyhood (2014)

Everybody Wants Some!! (2016)

Last Flag Flying (2017)

Where'd You Go, Bernadette (2019)

Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood (2022)

Hit Man (2023)

Blue Moon (2025)

Nouvelle Vague (2025)

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"Battlestar Galactica," Year One

I've made a few attempts at watching the 2004 version of "Battlestar Galactica" over the years, because it's one of the most influential and popular science-fiction television series ever made.  However, there are some significant barriers to entry, not the least of which was that it kicked off with a miniseries that I had trouble getting a hold of.  But more importantly, "Battlestar Galactica" is a grim, visually unappealing show that is primarily about military forces at war with a brutal enemy.  I like some science-fiction in this vein, but the armed conflict wasn't such an overwhelming component of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" and "Babylon 5."  Also, I'd come across enough spoilers for the show and criticisms of its storytelling that I had a pretty good sense of its major weaknesses.

Still, I considered "Battlestar Galactica" a big blind spot that I was determined to try and address.  So, now I've watched the first season, including that pesky miniseries, and I find myself very ambivalent.  So far, I like many of the characters, especially Adama (Edward James Olmos) and Roslin (Mary McDonnell) as these constantly clashing military and administrative leaders of the Caprica survivors, and Starbuck (Katee Sackhoff) for being such a great maverick figure.  I'm less enthusiastic about Gaius Baltar (James Callis), the weaselly scientist who constantly sees visions of a seductress Cylon, Caprica Six (Tricia Helfer) trying to lead him astray, and the planetside adventures of pilot Helo (Tamoh Penikett) and Cylon Number Eight (Grace Park).  The fairly one-note Boomer (also Park), Apollo (Jamie Bamber), Tyrol (Aaron Douglas), and Saul Tigh (Michael Hogan) haven't had much of a chance to show what they're made of yet.

However, it's really the plot and themes that give me pause.  So far, the miniseries and the premiere episode, "33," have been the most impressive parts of "Galactica" because the stakes are so high.  They depict the conquest of the planet Caprica by the Cylons and the evacuation of the human survivors aboard a ragtag collection of spacecrafts.  This is a messy and haphazard business, and the first part of the season is largely spent trying to secure water, fuel, and other necessities for longer term survival.  The sacrifices that have to be made are horrible, and there's a real sense of urgency and terror as the situation develops.  However, as the season goes on, and the humans manage to establish a more manageable status quo, the business of finding a new homeworld and identifying the Cylon infiltrators are the new goals, and they're a lot less compelling.  I find the Cylons particularly disappointing, since artificial life forms are often the most interesting characters on science-fiction programs, but the Cylons just act like regular humans for the most part.  We don't learn much about Cylons as a species, except that Caprica Six and several of the others we meet are religious fanatics obsessed with divine plans and finding salvation.  There's religious symbolism all over the show, from the Twelve Colonies, to Gaius being set up to be both a Judas and Messiah figure. 

And all this would have been fine if "Galactica" had more interesting characters or the stories were more tightly written.  However, "Galactica" strikes me as rather dated in its worldbuilding and very limited in its production quality.  It's a convenient idea that all the human characters in the show are of non-Earth origins, so there's no need to deal with any real world political, religious, or cultural issues.  However, all the basic social structures are exactly the same as what we'd expect on Earth.  As a result the "Galactica" universe often feels very shallow, and often very limited by being framed from a military POV.  Most big crises only take an episode or two to resolve, but nearly everyone is harboring melodramatic secrets throughout the season.  You can see the creators pushing back against the "Star Trek" model that featured a more sanitized, utopian future.  "Galactica" has sex and swearing (kinda), everyone is very fallible, and the harsh realities of space travel come into play more often.  However, they're really fumbling the tone management.  Every time the creators try to venture outside of the narrow confines of the gritty military adventure, things get awkward.  Everything involving the politics and media comes across as oddly retrograde.  The costuming is awful.  The episode with the dinner party tries for a more humorous touch, which is a disaster.  And the theme music sucks.  

Part of the issue is that I've gotten used to shows like "The Expanse," and "Foundation" that have much bigger budgets, access to better acting talent, and movie quality effects.  This isn't the fault of "Battlestar Galactica," which was groundbreaking for its time, and noticeably more ambitious than its contemporaries like "Star Trek: Enterprise."  However, this does impact the watching experience, and though I've committed to finishing the series, it's going to take more effort and patience than I was hoping I'd need.

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The Movies I Watched on the Plane, 2026 Ed.

I really should be working on the backlog of prestige pictures I need to watch, but I recently spent a lot of time stuck on international flights with nothing to do except watch movies, so I ended up watching an awful lot of movies that I wouldn't have watched in other circumstances.  A few of them turned out to be very good, titles that had fallen into my cinematic blind spots.  So, I wanted to talk about some of these - both the movies and the blind spots.  

First, there were the bad movies that I knew were going to be bad: "A Bad Moms Christmas" (2017), "Bicentennial Man" (1999), and "Rambo: Last Blood" (2019).  The first two were exactly what I thought they would be, but I liked the actors involved so I sat through the crass comedy and the schmaltzy sci-fi with terrible writing for them.  I didn't know that "Rambo: Last Blood" existed, figuring that the series had ended with the 2008 entry, so I gave it a shot.  I appreciate the first half for being a more realistic take on "Taken," where the lone vigilante gets beaten up, and doesn't accomplish anything he set out to do.  The second half is just a standard orgy of violence against an endless stream of faceless Mexican baddies. 

Then there was "Hope Gap" (2019) is a small, personal British drama that I completely overlooked.  Even when I was browsing the movie selections on my flight, I repeatedly passed this over, confusing it with the similarly named romantic drama "Hope Floats."  It's the only film directed by noted screenwriter William Nicholson, and it was not very well received at the time of release.  There was zero awards attention, despite some very strong performances.  "Hope Gap" is a family melodrama with a very strong sense of place, and worth seeing if you like any of the three lead actors: Bill Nighy, Josh O'Conner, and especially Annette Bening as the difficult mother.  It reminded me a lot of "45 Years," but messier.

However, the three films I really want to focus on are "Step Up" (2006), "Legends of the Fall" (1994), and Hearts in Atlantis (2001).  These are all films that I knew about for years, but were never a priority for me.  All three were much better than I expected - not great, but certainly deserving of my attention.  The original "Step Up," directed by Anne Fletcher, and starring Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan, came out during a period when I wasn't paying attention to movies, and I had largely outgrown teen fare, so it was never on my radar.  I knew who Channing Tatum was eventually, and the "Step Up" sequels got some good press, but the franchise was always talked about in terms of spectacle instead of its dramatic bona fides.  The first "Step Up" isn't reinventing the wheel, and Tatum is still very rough as an actor, but it's a solid young adult romance that makes some of the old tropes feel new again.  There are parts of the film that are undeniably weak, but I still had a great time with it.

"Legends of the Fall" was a movie that I had meant to watch at a few different points over the years, because it has one of Brad Pitt's most famous thirst trap roles and it garnered enough of a reputation to keep it in the pretentious film nerd conversations.  It won a Best Cinematography Oscar.  However, it is very long and usually classified as a western.  I'm still not great with westerns.  However, I'm always on the lookout for good adult dramas and epic romances, which have gotten much rarer over the years.  So it was a nice surprise to find out that "Legends of the Fall" was earnestly an epic romance from start to finish.  There's some anti-war messaging and a silly shootout at the end, but for the most part, it's full of simmering family melodrama and improbably hot people angsting all over the place.  And sometimes that's exactly what I'm in the mood for.  There are a couple of other movies in this category like "A River Runs Through It" that I should probably get to.  Also, I haven't watched "Yellowstone," which is apparently heavily influenced by "Legends of the Fall," and I don't intend to.    

Finally, "Hearts in Atlantis" is an adaptation of a Stephen King short story, and had absolutely no traction with critics or audiences.  It wasn't a bomb, and it certainly has its defenders, but it tends to get passed over and forgotten, even by King fans.  I understand why, because "Hearts in Atlantis" is an outlier from King's work, more of a childhood memoir than a genre piece, and its exploration of the supernatural is much subtler and quieter than King's usual horror stories.  The movie, directed by Scott Hicks, is small in size and scope, about an eleven year-old boy and the few people in his life.  However, it is incredibly poignant in retrospect, because the boy is played by Anton Yelchin in his screen debut, and he's fantastic.  So is Hope Davis as his mother and Anthony Hopkins as the mysterious lodger who comes into their lives.  There are a couple of structural similarities to "Mr. Harrigan's Phone," but "Hearts in Atlantis" is a much more well developed piece of work, and I was delighted with it.  

Until next time.

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"Sentimental Value" and "Blue Moon"

The latest Joachim Trier film is about subject matter I'm not predisposed to enjoy.  Renate Reinsve plays Nora Borg, an actress who occasionally suffers from extreme bouts of stage fright.  Stellan Skarsgård plays her estranged father Gustav, a celebrated director who has a new film project he wants Nora to star in.  Nora turns Gustav down, so he brings in an American actress, Rachel (Elle Fanning).  As the project progresses, it stirs up many issues from the past, not only related to Gustav and Nora's relationship, but to Nora's sister Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas), and Gustav's long-deceased mother Karin, who suffered trauma from her experiences in WWII.   

I tend to have trouble with films about actors and acting, and foreign-language films about acting in particular for some reason.  There's always something about them that strikes me as indulgent and disingenuous.  "Sentimental Value," fortunately, isn't about acting for very long.  It's about navigating a tricky family situation and the place of art in trying to process and reckon with difficult emotions.  It's also about the inadvertent passing of trauma from one generation to the next, as Gustav has to reckon with the fact that his attempts to bring his children into the creation of his art might have had effects on them that he didn't anticipate.  The performances are key to why "Sentimental Value" worked for me while many similar films did not.  The parent-child dynamics between Gustav and Nora, and Gustav and Agnes feel genuine in their complexity, even if the specifics are unfamiliar.  Gustav's urge to create and collaborate is expressed wonderfully, as well his attempts to try and compromise for the sake of his loved ones.      

"Sentimental Value" is not a film that I'd seek out if it weren't for the awards buzz and Joachim Trier's involvement.  I found it very sweet, very personal, and more uplifting than I expected from a Scandinavian family drama, especially from this director. I'm used to his films being far more emotionally fraught, and was a little caught off guard by how gentle and approachable this one was.   Reinsve and Skarsgård absolutely deserve all of the awards and kudos they've been getting, and I hope that both continue to work with Trier in the future. 

On to "Blue Moon," a film that I had no real expectations for.  It's about Lorenz Hart, played by Ethan Hawke, the lyricist who was half of the famous Rodgers and Hart songwriting duo that wrote the song "Blue Moon" among others.  The movie takes place in 1943, specifically the opening night for "Oklahoma!" the smash hit musical that  Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott) has created with a different lyricist, Oscar Hammerstein II (Simon Delaney).  Hart knows that he's being left behind, and spends an eventful evening at Sardi's, the famous Manhattan Theater District restaurant, gabbing with the bartender Eddie (Bobby Cannavale), wooing his latest object of affection, the much younger Elizabeth Weiland (Margaret Qualley), and watching the success of "Oklahoma!" unfold. 

"Blue Moon" is a very small film, with really only one major location.  It does that awful thing that biopics do, where other famous names keep dropping in, and you find out that a minor character is somebody who's going to be a big deal a few decades in the future.  However, it has a script by Robert Kaplow that is wonderfully funny and full of clever wordplay.  Linklater's direction is nothing fancy, but holds plenty of appeal.  And "Blue Moon" also has one of the best performances of Ethan Hawke's whole career.  He plays Lorenz Hart at a low point - aging, balding, barely keeping his substance abuse issues at bay, and absolutely seething with resentment and jealousy about Rodgers' new success.  As someone who doesn't care much for "Oklahoma!" I was on his side almost immediately, listening to him grouse about the musical's obvious shortcomings.  Hawke has never looked worse on screen, and he made "The Lowdown" this year.  However, Hawke as Hart is also charming, engaging, and full of passions and yearnings he aches to express.  He chatters endlessly, revealing some surprising sides of himself as the evening goes on.

There's a slightness and a stageyness to "Blue Moon" that's keeping it off my list of favorites for the year, but I think that suits the film.  It's one rough evening in the life of a fascinating character, who tells some anecdotes, has a few fateful encounters, and imparts one or two life lessons before disappearing into the mists of theatrical history.  It doesn't need to be more than exactly what it is, silly cameos and all.  I enjoyed it very much. 

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