The 2025-2026 Television I Didn't Watch

In advance of my top ten episodes list for the 2025-2026 season (I use the Emmy eligibility calendar), I want to talk about some of the shows that I didn't watch this year.  There seem to be more and more every year, so the titles discussed below are only the most high-profile ones that I actually have something to say about.  I reserve the right to revisit these choices in the future, but I still haven't seen anything from last year's list.

"Bait" - This is the Riz Ahmed series about a British Pakistani actor who is auditioning for James Bond.  And that's one of the most interesting and daring ideas for a show that I've heard about in a long while, and kudos to Amazon Prime for letting him do it.  However, I've long had an aversion to shows about actors and showbiz satires (still haven't gotten around to "Hacks") and "Bait" was putting up a lot of red flags on that front.  So despite the good notices, it's getting a pass for now.  

"Chief of War" - Here's another ambitious passion project, a historical drama about the clashes among the various tribes of the Hawaiian islands.  Jason Momoa stars as a warrior chief in the late 18th century who would play an instrumental role in the unification of Hawaii.  The dialogue is largely native Hawaiian, and the cast features an impressive collection of Pacific Islander actors.  And do I like epic war stories enough to watch nine episodes of this?  Not really, no.  

"I Love LA"  I really like Rachel Sennott in everything that I've seen her in.   However, I'm still at that age where comedies about attractive young people trying to get their post-graduate lives together don't have much appeal for me.  I think I lasted all of three episodes of "Girls," and with "I Love LA" I already knew it wasn't going to happen.  The cast also features Odessa A'Zion who was so great in "Marty Supreme," Josh Hutcherson, and a ton of celebrity cameos. 

"IT: Welcome to Derry" - This should have been right up my alley.  I love Stephen King.  However, this is a prequel to the Andy Muschietti "IT" movies, and one of those was okay and the other was pretty bad.  I'm also wary of the shared universe style spinoff shows that aren't directly based on King's work, so I've put this one and the Hulu show "Castle Rock" aside for now, to possibly come back to after I've finished all the other King series I haven't gotten around to yet.  

"The Chair Company" - Well, I watched the Tim Robinson film "Friendship," and I didn't connect with it at all, so I don't think I'm going to do any better with his latest television series, which has been described as a paranoid thriller and absurdist black comedy about a guy who becomes obsessed with a chair manufacturing company.  I think I'd probably start with episodes of "I Think You Should Leave" if I want to dip my toes into the Tim Robinson universe again.

"Half Man" - I have heard some fantastic things about this series, which is Richard Gadd' follow-up to "Baby Reindeer."  Gadd is playing a completely different character here, one of two brothers who share an intense and troubling relationship.   The other lead is Jamie Bell, who has always been good in everything I've seen him in.  The trouble here is the sheer intensity of the content.  Just reading some of the episode synopses had me cringing, so I'm going to keep my distance.

"Rooster" - Bill Lawrence has created a lot of good shows, and Steve Carrell is a dependable leading man.  The ensemble, which includes Danielle Deadwyler, Phil Dunster, and John C. McGinley, is also very tempting.  However, this came out around the same time as the college campus romance "Vladimir," and not too long after I finished the college episodes of "Man on the Inside," and more middle-aged campus hijinks were just not something I had the mental space for.

"Young Sherlock" - I like Sherlock Holmes media.  But Guy Ritchie doing Sherlock Holmes?  A young, cocky, arrogant Sherlock Holmes whose intellect is submerged under about a mile of bravado?  Yeah, no thanks.

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"Wuthering Heights" and "The Bride!"

Emerald Fennell made a new version of "Wuthering Heights," and Maggie Gyllenhaal did a new take on "The Bride of Frankenstein" called "The Bride!" and I need to talk about these two together.  Both take the original stories and rework them into something different, using anachronistic elements, a lot of camp, and a lot of emphasis on style over substance.  Both function as star vehicles for their leading ladies - Margot Robbie and Jessie Buckley respectively.  I think one movie mostly works and one mostly doesn't, but both are so bold and display so much ambition that I have to offer my sincerest appreciation to everyone involved for getting the 2026 "Wuthering Heights" and "The Bride!" to the big screen in their current forms.  If nothing else, these movies are big, uninhibited, and more than a little bit bonkers.  And I love that.  

"Wuthering Heights" starts out mostly following the plot of the Emily Bronte novel, with the impoverished but headstrong Catherine Earnshaw (Margot Robbie) growing up with her foundling adopted brother Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi) under the questionable care or Cathy's dissolute father (Martin Clunes).  To improve her family's fortunes Cathy marries a rich neighbor, Edgar Linton (Shazad Latif), though she really loves Heathcliff.  He disappears and returns many years later, unexpectedly rich, and Cathy finds her feelings for him have only increased.  And then the movie ditches Bronte and never looks back.  Cathy and Heathcliff's love affair is the centerpiece of the film, full of torrid imagery and scandalous behavior, but little actual sex.  Some of their encounters feel anticipatory of magazine photo spreads, with over-the-top costuming, dramatic color palettes, and increasingly campy, horny, and downright bizarre expressions of desire.  

And this all would have probably gone over a lot better if the movie wasn't called "Wuthering Heights," (the quotation marks are not optional) and the characters weren't called Cathy and Heathcliff.  As an adaptation, frankly the movie isn't even trying.  It tones down the notoriously cruel and damaged characters to the point of toothlessness.  It tacks on a hurried and compromised new ending that kneecaps any sense of the larger themes of the original novel.  If you have no familiarity with the original "Wuthering Heights," the new adaptation comes across as a messy, but fairly harmless bodice-ripper pastiche with a nice Charlie XCX score, inventive production design, and some amusingly trashy plot twists.  Robbie and Elordi do have some chemistry with each other, and understand the assignment - playing at a heightened, unhinged version of romance that doesn't need to make any kind of sense.  It would have probably been more entertaining if Fennell had fully embraced the darker, more sexually deviant elements that kept being hinted at, but alas this isn't "Saltburn," and nobody gets to be truly nasty in this universe.

On to "The Bride!" which is definitely guilty of trying to do too much.  Set in 1930s Chicago, Jessie Buckley plays a dual role as gun moll named Ida, and the spirit of Mary Shelley who possesses Ida one evening, full of rage and unfulfilled creative need.  This leads to Ida's tragic death and subsequent resurrection by Dr. Cornelia Euphronius (Annette Bening), who is working at the behest of a curious newcomer to the city named "Frank" (Christian Bale).  And I suppose it's not really a spoiler that "Frank" turns out to be the monster created by Dr. Frankenstein over a century ago, which means that both the monster and his creator, Mary Shelley, are characters in this movie.  The resurrected Ida, who I will now refer to as The Bride, goes on a journey of discovery exploring her identity, monstrosity, and capability for love and violence.  

"The Bride!" strikes out in a totally original direction from its very first frames, so we don't have to worry much about the source material here.  However, it's a very chaotic film that combines horror, gangster, camp, romance, and even musical elements with a big dose of metatextual commentary.  Trying to follow the "Bonnie and Clyde" plot feels like an exercise in futility, especially when a pair of detectives played by Peter Skarsgaard and Penelope Cruz show up to be boring.  However, when the movie is following Frank and The Bride, it's very watchable.  The performances are good - very good, even.  It's worth seeing the movie just to watch Jessie Buckley play The Bride with so much exuberant freakishness.  I've seen mixed reactions to the inclusion of Mary Shelley, who keeps breaking into the narrative with her rambling interjections, but I thought she was great, especially after I turned on the closed captioning so I could better parse what she was saying.      

However, the movie is simply too scattered and underdeveloped to leave much impact.  "Poor Things" was a much more subversive, more coherent take on a feminist "Frankenstein" narrative.  By comparison, "The Bride!" feels far too slick and surface level.  It's also often preoccupied with its references to Herman Melville, Mel Brooks, and 1930s movies, which are all jumbled up in increasingly obscure configurations.  I don't feel like "The Bride!" wasted my time, but I don't feel I got much out of it either, beyond a few good scenes in isolation and the most WTF needle drop of the year.  It's one of those movies that is so singular and strange that I'm happy it exists to be puzzled over, like "Megalopolis," even though I didn't vibe with it.   I also find it encouraging that Maggie Gyllenhaal got to make this at a major studio, which means that riskier films, made on this scale, are still occasionally possible.  

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"The Bear," Year Five

I was under the mistaken impression that the fourth season was the final season of "The Bear."  So imagine my surprise when eight new episodes were dropped a few weeks ago, plus an extra episode titled "Gary" that is about Richie and Michael taking a fateful day trip to Gary, Indiana.  It was probably meant to be a flashback at some point in this season, but it doesn't really fit into the flow of this batch of episodes anywhere, so I'm glad that they released it separately.  

 

Anyway, the fifth and final season of "The Bear" is required viewing if you enjoyed any of the previous parts of this show.  If you lost interest during the increasingly meandering and indulgent (but still very good) third and fourth seasons, it's time to get back in the kitchen.  Season five wraps up the whole series and pays off all the various character arcs, resolves some longstanding problems, and answers most of the big questions too.  The pacing issues are largely gone, with the show's creators taking a page from "The Pitt," and having seven of the eight episodes take place during one tense, nail-biting, stormy night at the The Bear where everything goes wrong, but the staff still has to pull off a miracle and keep the restaurant running through a full meal service.  The last episode serves as a coda that surveys the aftermath and lets everyone say goodbye.

What's great about this last season is that it shows us the characters at their best and working as a team at last.  After so many seasons of everyone being at odds, fighting their own personal demons, and only making progress in fits and starts, this final run of episodes lets them all succeed together.  There are still plenty of clashes and setbacks, and the writers engineer crisis upon crisis in the final push, but the characters get to rise to the occasion, showing all the ways that they've grown.  For those viewers who like "The Bear" because it lets them watch professionals work at the top of their game, this will be catnip.  I especially like the way that all these different, interlocking subplots develop involving the crew in the kitchen, the staff in the front of the house, and even Oliver Platt's Uncle Cicero, who gets to trudge around Chicago with a misfit crew on his own mission.    

I love that everything in this season feels like it's been taken back to basics.  There are still an array of impressive guest stars, but the show doesn't draw much attention to them.  The only major new character is the Computer's niece Cheese (Elsie Fisher), who tags along with Cicero's crew for the evening.  Some episodes run significantly longer than others, but not in a way that feels excessive or indulgent.  One of the longest episodes, "Caramel," is also the most tense and nerve-wracking, where we go through the process of creating every single course of the final dinner service, almost in real time.  The running time is close to a full hour, but it's an hour that flies by.  The humor worked for me throughout - even the Faks, who are deployed exactly as much as they need to be.  Also, the show backing off from being so singularly focused on Carmy helps it immensely.  You could absolutely make another season or two of "The Bear" with Sydney or Richie taking over at this point.  I don't really want that though - I feel like the show is already pushing its luck, and it would be a shame to undercut the finale.

Frankly, I'm a sucker for a happy ending, and that's exactly what "The Bear" gives us here.  Nearly every major character gets a win, even if it's coming to the decision that they need to throw in the towel. Best of all, the wins feel earned, never coming too easy and never feeling too telegraphed.  Sure, some loose ends don't get tied up, and I know there will be complaints about the resolution of Carmy's character arc, but I came away from "The Bear" thoroughly satisfied with the last course and inclined to leave a big tip.  

Check please. 

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So, About "Secretary"

I've spent a lot of this month clearing out my "To Watch" list.  One title that I've been eyeing for what feels like forever has been "Secretary," which has been pitched to me as the one good movie about a very verboten subject, sadomasochism.  "Secretary" was said to be the rare feature film that took the underlying relationship dynamics seriously, and dared to portray sadomasochistic behavior in a positive light.  This attitude was especially prevalent when "Fifty Shades of Grey" was popular, and I will disclose now that I've never read or watched anything from that franchise.  I have no particular issue with the content.  I just haven't gotten around to it.

Still, this means I built up "Secretary" in my mind to be something that it clearly isn't.  It is not a movie that depicts a sadomasochistic relationship realistically, with a clear-eyed, unbiased look at all the day-to-day give and take of making this dynamic work.  It's not an especially sexually explicit or prurient film, with most of the sensitive physical acts taking place just offscreen.  I can imagine the calls with the MPAA discussing shot lengths and camera angles.  The movie was released in 2002, mind you, which feels like a lifetime ago when it comes to content standards.  I'm pretty sure I've seen more nudity in random episodes of "Girls."  Oddly, there's not much direct acknowledgement of the sadomasochism in "Secretary" until almost the end, with no discussion of consent or boundaries before the leads get kinky - which I know that "Fifty Shades" at least made an attempt to talk about up front.

"Secretary" is pretty down-to-earth, and features characters who aren't fabulously rich or look like Dakota Johnson, but it's still operating in the realm of romantic fantasy.  Maggie Gyllenhaal plays Lee, a meek young woman who just got out of a mental institution after a botched round of self-harm was mistaken for a suicide attempt.  She gets a job as a secretary to a demanding attorney, E. Edward Grey, played by James Spader of course.  The two gradually discover that their sternly authoritarian employer/employee work dynamic is something that they both enjoy, and as the relationship moves from professional to romantic, their workplace activities go from flirtatious to provocative to extreme.  However, while Lee finds masochism empowering, enjoying sadism seems to spook Edward, and neither of them are sure how far their new unorthodox relationship can go. 

Directed by Stephen Shainberg and written by Erin Cressida Wilson, "Secretary" doesn't push too many obvious boundaries or take any big risks, aside from the way it frames its subject matter as a love story instead of a freak show.  I want to emphasize that it is a very low-budget affair.  On the sign for E. Edward Grey's law office, there's a "Secretary Wanted" panel that lights up like a motel vacancy indicator.  This signalled to me that "Secretary" would have used more fanciful filmmaking elements and fantasy signifiers if it had the money for them.  Instead, it mostly looks like a typical indie romance from the early 2000s, with a couple of throwback elements like typewriters instead of computers, and dated women's fashions.  There's one brief, vaguely surreal dream sequence that looks like it was made with consumer video software, and probably wasn't anything close to what the filmmakers had in mind.   

Almost all of the film's effectiveness is due to the performances.  Maggie Gyllenhaal is fantastic, and the smartest thing that the filmmakers do is to put her front and center the majority of the time.  "Secretary" is very one-sided in its portrayal of the sadomasochistic relationship, showing us nearly everything from Lee's perspective as a masochist, and spending considerable effort to show us what she gets out of her interactions with Edward.  It's an old adage that the MPAA is terrified of showing female sexual pleasure onscreen, and "Secretary" must have been a nightmare for them, because so much of it is built around Lee's uninhibited reaction shots to what would be abusive behavior in a different context.

James Spader, by contrast, is clearly in a supporting role.  Though we get plenty of voyeuristic views of Lee in various BDSM scenarios, E. Edward Grey is a very closed off character.  More is suggested than outright stated about what's going on in his head, but Spader hasn't been in a ridiculously high number of erotic thrillers for nothing, and has no trouble getting across E. Edward Grey's conflicted feelings, shame spiral, and eventual self-acceptance. Spader and Gyllenhaal also pair very well, with plenty of screen chemistry.  I cheered for them to get together and continue their deviant antics, despite not being convinced that the sadomasochistic part of their relationship was actually healthy for either of them.  

But I don't think that was the point of "Secretary" in the first place.      

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"Crime 101" and "Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice"

Two quick reviews of some interesting genre films today, which I don't want to see fall through the cracks.

First we have "Crime 101,"written and directed by Bart Layton.  This is his first proper narrative film after making earlier features that were either documentaries or documentary/drama hybrids.  And it's an old fashioned kind of crime film that you don't see much of anymore, because these projects tend to get turned into prestige miniseries on Apple TV+ or HBO these days.  "Crime 101" follows the fortunes of four characters in Los Angeles.  There's Mike (Chris Hemsworth), a very successful and principled jewel thief whose heists tend to happen near the 101 freeway.  There's Detective Lou Lubesnick (Mark Ruffalo), a detective who is investigating Mike's robberies, but is hampered by a police department that is more concerned with their clearance rate than justice.  Finally, there's Sharon (Halle Berry), who sells insurance policies to very rich people, and sees an opportunity after crossing paths with both Mike and Lou.  Finally there's Ormon (Barry Keoghan), Mike's unhinged new rival, who regularly chooses violence.

With a running time of 140 minutes, a fairly leisurely pace for the first hour, and a downright introspective tone at times, "Crime 101" is going to be pure catnip for some cinephiles, but it might be a tough watch for the more casual viewer.  However, the filmmaking is solid, the performances are excellent, and the script offers some genuine surprises.  While "Crime 101" never reaches the heights of the classics of this genre, like "Heat" or "Thief," it belongs in the conversation.  The action and chase sequences aren't too flashy, but they're very good at building up real suspense and tension.  The characters embody a lot of old cliches, but inevitably draw you in.  It's been a long time since I've seen Halle Berry in a role this thoughtful and grounded, and it's a shame that it doesn't happen more often.  Ruffalo and Hemsworth are playing variations on other roles I've seen them in recently - notably Ruffalo in "TASK" - but they have some memorable moments.  If this is your genre, but you're been weary of films like "Den of Thieves" that are all flash and no substance, give this one a try. 

On to "Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice," written and directed by BenDavid Grabinski, which is a time-travel comedy where most of the main characters are gangsters.  Nick (Vince Vaugh) is unhappily married to Alice (Eiza Gonzalez), who is having an affair with Mike (James Marsden), Nick's partner in crime.  Mike is trying to leave the mob, but is enlisted to help Nick with a job one night - kidnapping a different Nick.  And that's about as much plot as I think I should reveal before we get into spoilers.  

I really like "Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice," but I think it's a movie that's easy to oversell.  At its heart, it's a silly comedy about silly, cartoonish versions of tough guy gangsters in a ridiculous situation.  None of the characters are very deep and the plot feels sort of thrown together, with a lot of "Gilmore Girls" references and a retro soundtrack.  However, the movie kept surprising me because it managed to constantly be a little better than I was expecting in every department.  The humor worked for me.  The action scenes are inventive and well-executed.  Every single actor is charming and funny and endearing, especially Vince Vaughn in loveable asshole mode.  The plot, though its full of holes, turns out to be built around a truly touching character transformation that I found unexpectedly heartwarming.  

However, you'll notice that a lot of this depends on going in with pretty low expectations.  "Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice" is a Hulu original, and while it's significantly above average for a straight-to-streaming feature, it's still got a pretty modest budget and I don't think the dry, idiosyncratic humor is going to work for everyone.  Like "Crime 101," I also suspect I responded to it because it feels like a throwback to a different era of filmmaking, when theatrical comedies were more robust, and Vince Vaughn was a leading man with significantly more star wattage.  However, it's nice to be reminded that Vaughn can still carry a high concept comedy, and carry it well.  I hope to see more like this from him in the future.          

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My Top 25 of the Last 25: Girly Movies

I love girly movies.  And when I'm talking about girly movies, I don't necessarily mean films starring girls and women, or created by women.   I definitely don't mean romantic-comedies, though some of the movies below have romance and comedy in them.  I'm talking about the movies that are unapologetically, unabashedly, aimed at women.  These movies center on the female POV and treat the preferences, concerns, and tastes of women and girls seriously in a world that too often doesn't.  And though there are a few bittersweet entries, I find that the best girly movies focus on positivity and uplift, and are great for boosting my mood.

Legally Blonde - I resisted the charms of Elle Woods for a long time, but in the end it was impossible.  I love the character and I love this movie.  I love the notion of the ultra-feminine, bubbly blonde glam girl also being a whip-smart law student who uses her powers for good.  She can be a girly girl and do important, serious work.  She can reject the snobbery and privilege of the elites and choose sisterhood and solidarity, while still being her most fabulous self.  Is it a fantasy?  Yes.  Is it one we need?  Hell yes.

Catherine, Called Birdy - Easily the least popular film on this list, but it's such a great encapsulation of adolescent growing pains.  Catherine is growing up in an era where the rules of love and womanhood are completely out of step with how she wants to live her life, and her well-meaning father just doesn't understand.  And really, is that any different than how things are for some girls in every era?  And Bella Ramsay is perfect at embodying Birdy in all her rebellious, mischievous, stubborn impossibility.  

Pitch Perfect - It's "Glee" if it were from the creators of "30 Rock," which is more or less what happened here, because the main writer/producer of the series is Kay Cannon.  Honestly, the three "Pitch Perfect" movies have all blended together in my mind at this point, but I remember the first one being the funniest and it helped give Anna Kendrick and Rebel Wilson a significant boost in visibility.  And I appreciate that the comedy came first, inspiring other films like "Bottoms" to follow suit.  

One of Them Days - Let's hear it for the ones keeping it real.  Dreux and Alyssa, played by Keke Palmer and SZA, are just trying to come up with their overdue rent money and get through a bad day that keeps getting worse.  There are not enough theatrical comedies like this anymore - the right size and scope, aimed at the sorely underserved black audience, with the right combination of talent involved to give everybody the opportunity to shine.  A sequel is reportedly in the works, and I can't wait to see it.  

Bring it On - This has spawned six direct-to-video sequels so far.  Six!  Released in the year 2000, this barely made the cutoff date, and honestly this feels like a 90s movie more than a 2000s one culturally.  However, the impact of "Bring it On" is undeniable, a mixture of high energy sports movie, dance movie, and high school movie, with Kirsten Dunst and Gabrielle Union showing that they could carry a movie as they were transitioning from teen roles to leading lady status.  It holds up better that you'd think.

Lady Bird - There's probably too much Greta Gerwig on this list, but I had to have some Saoirse Ronan representation, and the best Saoirse Ronan movie is "Lady Bird."  She's an exceptional young woman, but like so many exceptional young women, she's got all the same problems that everyone else does growing up.  As the movie explores Lady Bird's universe, it's also a love letter to Gerwig's hometown of Sacramento and the benefits of a Catholic school education - not something you see much of in the movies anymore.

The Devil Wears Prada - Yes, part of the impetus for me writing this list was the hype for the arrival of "The Devil Wears Prada 2."  Do you remember in the mid-2000s when there was all this media about the fashion industry like "Project Runway" and "Ugly Betty" and "America's Next Top Model"?  Meryl Streep in this movie may as well have been the queen of that universe - a nightmare boss, but a figure of consummate taste, talent and professionalism to be admired, feared, and never taken for granted.   

Barbie - Everything about the promotional campaign, and later the awards campaign was so positive and fun.  It injected a burst of color and shine into the pop culture when we really needed it.  And Gerwig and Baumbach clearly understood the assignment, making a film that loves, hates, subverts, and pays homage to the titular toy representation of American femininity.  I would have liked it to be a little deeper, but then again I suspect America Ferrera's monologue and Ryan Gosling learning that he was  Kenough via dream ballet was probably as much as the general audience could handle.

Bend it Like Beckham - There were lots of good contenders for girly sports movies like "Whip It!" and "Blue Crush," but "Bend it Like Beckham" ended up being the one I couldn't leave off.  It's such a great snapshot of growing up as an immigrant kid, trying to balance all the competing demands of different cultures, parental expectations, and new opportunities.  It has one of the most genuinely sweet lesbian panic situations ever.  Oh, and this is the movie where most of us first saw Keira Knightley.

Kpop Demon Hunters - Finally, this is an unlikely charmer that I didn't see coming.  I've never really understood the appeal of K-pop.  However, the soundtrack is such an important part of why this movie works, delivering earworm after earworm to help enliven a familiar story about forbidden love and being a secret half-demon warrior.  The snazzy animation, wild humor, and some gentle ribbing of the music industry don't hurt either.  Thus, "Josie and the Pussycats" got edged out of the Top Ten.  

Ahem.

Josie and the Pussycats

Little Women

Whip It

Turning Red

The Princess Diaries

Romy and Michele's High School Reunion

Booksmart

Mean Girls

Polite Society

Eighth Grade

Bridesmaids

Frances Ha

Wicked

Miss Congeniality

Easy A

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My Favorite Jim Jarmusch Film

Jim Jarmusch is one of the undisputed stars of American independent cinema, who came out of the film school ecosystem in the early 1980s making these cool, sparse, almost experimental films, without much plot and even less action.  Forty years later, he's still making them, and his style hasn't changed much.  And it's taken me nearly that long to finally vibe with what he's doing.  I use vibe deliberately, because I think the key to Jarmusch is that he's an accomplished musician, and his filmmaking is an extension of his musical tastes and impulses.

Jim Jarmusch films don't tell stories in the traditional sense.  They have characters and settings.  They have moods and themes.  There are sometimes very precise patterns and rhythms of actions to be followed.  However, the most vital parts of Jarmusch movies are the ones where nothing in particular seems to be happening - the lulls in conversation, the pauses in activity, or the moments where a character seems lost in contemplation, thinking or weighing options.  Many of his films are collections of vignettes, where characters meet in various configurations, talk, and then separate.  And it's only at the end, after having witnessed all these seemingly incidental moments and encounters, or having followed along on an aimless journey to nowhere in particular, that it becomes clear that something has been gained from the experience.  

My favorite Jarmusch film is probably his most ambitious, filmed in five different cities, in four different primary languages, with a new cast and crew in each place.  It's essentially five short films with nothing to tie them together except for a basic premise - a taxi driver picks up a passenger or passengers one night, and they converse to pass the time during the trip.  The drivers and passengers are always strangers, often from very different walks of life, to keep things interesting.   The idea is that all of these stories are happening on the same night, at the same time, in different places across the globe.  This is "Night on Earth," where we start with a 7PM pickup at LAX airport in Los Angeles, and end in the suburbs of Helsinki roughly around 5:30 AM.       

Initially the premise feels like a fussy gimmick, but what's so fun about "Night on Earth" is that each of the segments is completely distinct, and feels very loose, improvisational, and unconstrained.  The direction taken by each of these stories feels largely driven by the performances, and there are some priceless ones here.  My favorite segment is the one set in New York, where an immigrant cab driver named Helmut, who is new to the job and can barely operate his vehicle, picks up the profane, fast-talking Yo Yo, who decides to drive the cab himself from Manhattan to Brooklyn, with Helmut as his passenger.  Yo Yo and Helmut are played by Giancarlo Esposito and Armin Mueller-Stahl, two performers with completely different energies and performance styles, who nonetheless play off each other wonderfully, especially when you throw Rosie Perez into the mix as Yo Yo's combative sister-in-law.  

Then there's the sexier, more mysterious Paris segment, where Isaach de Bankole's cab driver picks up a fiercely independent blind woman played by Beatrice Dalle as his fare, and the color barrier means nothing, but the difference in life experience means everything.  There's the awkwardness of the Los Angeles segment with Winona Ryder and Gena Rowlands, where the artifice is laid on thick, but it's hard not to get invested in the characters anyway.  And there's the Roman segment, the most blatantly comedic part of the movie, where a motormouthed driver played by Roberto Benigni takes a poor priest on the wildest  ride of his life.  And for a final note of existential melancholy, to help put everything into perspective, naturally we head to the frozen climes of Helsinki for a very sober Matti Pellonpaa to ferry home a trio of drunks as the sun comes up.  

Much of the music in the film was composed and performed by Tom Waits, who is one of Jarmusch's most frequent collaborators and appears in several of his films as an actor.  And as in all of Jarmusch's films, the music is half of the experience, setting the tone and the rhythm of each scene, and helping to define the tenor of each interaction as much as each of the five taxicabs define the physical spaces the camera and characters inhabit.  The steady beats of the nocturnal base accompany each transition in space and time, one of the only constants in the film.  

"Night on Earth" is not a piece of media to explain, but to inhabit, where we have an opportunity to share in these chance encounters with the characters, and see how barriers are crossed and common ground is reached - or at least sought out -  in every circumstance.  I think I love this film because it's so optimistic about human beings and human nature - the way that it captures our ability to find connections in unlikely places.  

And I get to enjoy a good, long drive without actually having to do any driving. 

What I've Seen - Jim Jarmusch

Stranger Than Paradise (1984)

Down By Law (1986)

Mystery Train (1989)

Night on Earth (1991)

Dead Man (1995)

Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai (1999)

Coffee and Cigarettes (2003)

Broken Flowers (2005)

The Limits of Control (2009)

Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)

Paterson (2016)

The Dead Don't Die (2019)

Father Mother Sister Brother (2026)

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