top of page

Eden: The Ship of Fools Goes to a Galápagos Island... And What Happened There Turned Out To Be an Incredible... and True... Story

February 2026

 

Ron Howard made a movie with full frontal male nudity?

 

Well... I didn’t see that coming...

 

So...

 

Now I know more about Jude Law than I ever expected...

 

And even though Eden has Sydney Sweeney...

It has been languishing on Amazon Prime for a while...

 

And it took me a while to bite...

And I am famously not discriminating...

 

Because the trailer made it look like Lord of the Flies set in the Galápagos ...

 

Which it is...

 

But I didn’t have to pay extra to rent it...

And winter nights are long...

 

And Ron Howard did not disappoint...

 

So I’m not sure why this film has received so little buzz...

 

Especially since it has Sweeney... who is hot right now...

 

In more ways than one...

 

But maybe this film’s low profile...

 

Is because she is barely recognizable...

 

As a mousy German housewife...

 

Where once again her affect in this film is as flat as Kansas...

 

Now... if you have seen Euphoria and that scene with Sweeney on the carousel..

You know the girl can emote...

 

But in Eden...

She is expressionless throughout the film...

 

Except when she is having a baby while being attacked by wild dogs...

And simultaneously being robbed of all her food ...

By the boy toys of the “Baroness”...

The villainess of this film...

 

Who is played with such elan by Ana de Armas...

That she dominates this movie...

 

But in a way, Sweeney’s character, Margret Wittmer...

Is the most interesting in this film...

 

Which is based on a truly amazing story...

 

That includes a doctor who imagines himself a “philosopher”...

A sort of George Soros without money...

Who spends all day on his typewriter working on his magnum opus...

 

His partner played by Vanessa Kirby...

Who is maybe a little too fond of her donkey...

 

And Margret’s husband...

Who dragged his wife and son out of Depression Germany...

To this desolate island because he bought Dr. Ritter’s nonsense...

About creating a utopia there...

 

And then the Baroness shows up... and the fun begins...

 

Now life on Floreana is hard...

 

Really hard...

 

But Margret and her husband...

Are industrious...

And up to the task...

 

In ways the others are not...

 

So, of course, everyone tries to steal from them ...

 

But Marget proves to be a steely character...

 

And so in Eden...

 

Sweeney’s flat affect serves her portrayal of Margret well...

Because you never know what that woman is thinking...

Or, more importantly...

What she is going to do ...

 

So Howard has made an interesting film...

 

About the problems of surviving in this harsh climate...

With a Ship of Fools cast of characters...

 

And when you read the postscript at the end of the film...

You realize who was the most clever of them all...

 

And the fact that this is a true story makes it even more compelling...

 

Especially since it involved several murders...

 

But what I found the most fascinating about the story told in Eden...

 

Which BTW...

Floreana was anything but...

 

Which is the reason why this film gave me a better understanding...

Of why the Galápagos Islands were where ...

Darwin came up with the idea of the survival of the fittest...

 

Because on Floreana it was strongest human who did survive...

And lived there until they died at age 96...

 

But the traits that enabled that survival....

Are what made this movie surprising...

 

So hat’s off to Howard...

 

For finding ... and filming...

Such an interesting... and true story...
 

Wuthering Heights... Or Barbie Does Bronte

February 2026

 

Wuthering Heights should really be called Withering Heights...

 

Because this film is so awful...

 

It may just wither the careers of its stars...

Jacob Elordi, Margot Robbie...

 

Along with poor Owen Cooper...

Who was just getting started after giving an Oscar-worthy performance in Adolescence ...

 

Because this movie is cringe on soo many levels...

 

That half-way through it...

 

I started to feel bad for everyone in it...

 

First off...

 

Margo Robbie as a blond Cathy...

Turns Wuthering Heights into Barbie does Bronte...

 

Because Robbie vacillates between Mean Girl and Seductive Charmer ...

But with a sunny Aussie girl vibe...

That seems completely out of place on a Yorkshire moor...
 

Or in a tragic love story...

 

Plus, she is too old to play Cathy...

 

And Jacob Elordi...

 

Who we know from Euphoria...

Is capable of playing a very complicated character...

And can do dark and brooding well...

 

And Heathcliff is a gold mine of a part....

Given the right screenplay...

 

But in this version of Wuthering Heights...

Elordi vacillates between love-sick puppy, vengeful lover, and evil sadist...

But he cycles back and forth... and back and forth...

So it looks like Emerald Fennel has never heard ...

Of that useful plot device...

 

Called a character arc...

 

And Elordi and Robbie go in and out of accents constantly in this film...

With neither sounding like anyone from the North of England...

 

And more like a couple who just flew in from LA...

 

So was there not enough money to hire a dialogue coach?

 

And since when did the Earnshaws live in what looked like a quarry?

 

And the Yorkshire moors have rock croppings that resemble papier-mache rocks...

That looked like they were the product of a 2nd-grade art project....

 

Now it did appear Fennel was going for a definite Tim Burton look...

For her Gothic romance...

 

But with occasional dollops of color...

Sprinkled with lots of grotesque...

 

As perhaps a homage to Guillermo del Toro?

 

Except Fennel seemed to be framing some shots just to capture a visual that caught her attention...

Such as the scene with the blood red velvet walls shot in contrast to a bright white staircase...

 

But unlike del Toro...this image, although striking, served no narrative purpose...

It seemed to be there...

 

Just cause...

 

Which could be said about way too many scenes in this movie...

 

So there were the curtains that seemed to be made of cling wrap...

 

And a dress that looked like someone crumpled together some cellophane and tied it with a bow...

 

Because Robbie looks great in anything?

 

And there were some frocks with fabric that had so much sheen...

Cathy looked like she just stepped off the stage in Vegas...

 

While others looked like they came from the Christian Lacroix “I Just Discovered Ribbons Collection”...

 

And it would not be an exaggeration to say...

 

That none of these confections would have ever been worn by a wealthy woman in early 19th- century England ...

 

But then again...

 

Edgar would not have been Pakistani...

Nor Nell Chinese...

 

And Robbie’s ever-changing hairstyles...

 

And there did seem to be a new one every five minutes...

 

Along with the interiors of the grand country house...

Where every room was a different color and style...

But all decked out in a manner that can be best described as “Late Versailles”

 

Were so over the top...

 

That along with that death scene...

 

Where the leeches on Cathy’s face crawl up the wall behind her bed...

With bright red blood pouring out of her body and off the bed like a waterfall of death...

 

Which... BTW... was very Frida Kahloesque...

 

Made me start to wonder if this film was intended to be camp...

 

And the quality of the acting... along with the screenplay...

Did little to disabuse me of that notion...

 

But then... there was the sex...

And there was a lot of it...

 

With almost a third of the film devoted to Elordi and Robbie going at it...

 

Which is probably why Suzie Weiss’s comment...

That this film has a lot of “emotional thrust”...

 

Was so on target...

 

Except Robbie and Elordi have zero chemistry...

And looked so bored ...

You would have thought they were reading the tax code.....

Rather than being deep in the throes of a long denied white-hot passion...

 

And Emerald Fennell has a bad habit ...

Of including scenes in her films...

That make you want to look away...

 

Which is why I’ll never be able to forget Barry Keoghan licking that bathtub in Saltburn...

 

But at least no one humped a grave in this Fennel film...

 

But she does take a deep dive into the salacious multiple times in Wuthering Heights...

And in ways that seem to say...

 

I’m going to do this because I can...

 

Which made the grotesque feel gratuitous...

 

And I am talking about that opening execution scene...

That just seemed to be there to get everyone talking about this film...

 

And yes...that mission was accomplished...

 

But it had little connection to the rest of the movie...

 

So I would describe Fennel as a director who is a bit too high on her own supply...

Especially when it comes to what she does visually...

 

But in Wuthering Heights...

 

This ended up being a distraction...

From a story that had lots of potential...

 

And from which Fennel never completely detached...

 

And that’s important...

 

Because...

 

Since she couldn’t manage to fully commit to being camp in this movie....

 

Wuthering Heights ends up a chimera...

Of camp mixed with lovelorn tragedy...

 

So that by the end of the film...

You don’t know whether to laugh or cry...

 

But you do know...

 

That if you were any of the actors in this movie..

You’d be hoping no one sees it...

Because the SNL skits write themselves...

 

Goodbye June: Some Hard Truths About What Really Happens When Mom Dies...    

February 2026

 

It was the cankles on the dad that first caught my eye...

 

Those swollen tree trunks of an aging body...

Filled the frame as dad sat on the toilet with his boxers draped around his feet...

While mom was struggling to breathe downstairs in the kitchen...

 

It was then I knew that Goodbye June...

 

This year’s entry in the Xmas Death Movie Sweepstakes...

Now streaming on Netflix...

 

Was going to go heavy on verisimilitude...

 

And it didn’t disappoint...

 

Because the pain on June’s face as she is dying of cancer...

And is suffering the increasing indignities that come with that process...

Is not forced... it’s just there...every day...

Building in intensity like a slow-moving storm...

 

And when she sits on the side of the tub suffering in solitary silence...

Away from the family that has come to be with her...

These are the scenes in which Helen Mirren shines...

 

And the fact that she wants to be alone in these moments...

Is significant...

But the reason why....

Is unfortunately missed by all her children...

 

But more on that later...

 

Yet for one moment this film belongs to Timothy Spall...

As the husband and father...

 

Who sits in the hospital room drinking beer...

And yelling at the TV...

When he isn’t at the pub...

As if none of this is impacting his life...

Which drives his children crazy...

 

But for one brief moment...

That comes in a single scene...

 

Spall owns this movie...

 

As his face slowly changes...

From what has looked like apparent indifference...

Melts into profound grief...

As he hovers over his dying wife...

 

Spall says nothing in this scene...

Which is a master class in acting...

And is profoundly moving....

 

But no movie is a single moment...

 

So credit should also go to Joe Anders...

Who wrote the screenplay...

 

Which is impressive for an initial effort...

Even if he is the son of Sam Mendes...

 

And to his mother, Kate Winslet ...

Who both starred and directed this movie...

 

And Winslet... in her directorial debut...

Has made a film that flows far better than Anemone...

The other movie that came out this year...

From another of the British Royal Families of Film ...

 

And her son has written a family story that gets so much right...

About family dynamics when a mother is dying......

 

Because dads do often check out if there are daughters...

To take over....

 

The son does often take it the hardest when mom is dying...

 

And there is usually one child who gives everyone a hard time...

And Andrea Riseborough as Molly...

Is a very angry woman who is certain she is right...about everything...

And verbally abuses... everyone she comes in contact with......

But especially the staff taking care of her mother...

 

Now that is usually the family member...

Who has the most guilt about how they treated mom...

And is the hardest on the people taking care of her.....

 

But in this film... none of the children, including Molly, give their mother that much trouble...

So this is one area where Anders misses the mark...

 

Another is that no one is allowed to spend weeks slowly dying of cancer in a hospital anymore...

In neither the UK... where this film is set

Nor the US...

 

Because if there is no room in hospice...

Dying patients are sent home...

 

Where the family ...

And, importantly, not the state nor the insurance company...

Bear the burden of providing care...

 

Because it costs these systems very little...

When an unpaid family member is doing most of the work...

 

And the people in charge of health care systems aren’t stupid...

 

Anders also gives in to the familiar trope found in films about people dying of cancer...

The Nurse as a Wise Angel of Comfort and Wisdom...

(See also Wit....)

 

Sometimes they are...

But often they are so overwhelmed ...

They do not have the time to be.... even if they wanted to...

 

And Goodbye June...

 

Also follows the arc of other Xmas Death Movies...

 

Which does seem a strange genre...

 

But every so often...

We get a film about a family coping with a mother’s impending death...

That is set around Christmas...

(See The Family Stone and One True Thing)

 

And these films usually feature a family in conflict...

That is reconciled as mom dies...

Through her final efforts...

 

So these films often have a postscript

Set a year later...

After mom has passed...

Where they all gather for Christmas...

 

To remember her...

And celebrate in a heart-warming tableau...

As a now united family...

Mom’s final gift to her family...

(See The Family Stone...)

 

Except.. let’s be real...

 

When the mother dies...

Families often fragment...

Because it is often mom who is the glue...

That holds it together...

 

So the ending of this film is wishful thinking...

 

Because frequently after their mother has passed ...

Siblings go their own way...

New families form...

 

As the old one withers away....

 

And knowing this makes Goodbye June especially poignant...

Because June’s life’s work was her family...

 

But if we are going to be realistic...

 

Most of us who have been through this...

Know what is going to happen when June is gone...

 

But that is not the story Anders wants to tell...

 

Because June is the fulcrum around which this family revolves...

And Anders presents her as a mother who loves...

And is well loved in return...

 

And so her entire family fills her room...

And plans a Christmas play they think she will like...

 

But...here’s the thing...

 

And I have seen this many times...

 

This is more for them than her...

 

Because if you watch June...

 

And this is where Mirren captures what happens when you die slowly...

She feels miserable...

Is in constant pain...

Has little energy...

 

And all the effort it takes for her to interact constantly with her family...

Drains her diminishing resources ...

 

So she sometimes sends them away...

 

But they don’t pick up on how she feels...

And ignore the signals she is sending them...

 

And so keep acting on the premise that they know what she wants in her final days...

 

When it is...

In fact...

Really what they want...

To make themselves feel better...

 

Which is a performance ...

To show how much they love her...

Even if it is not what June really needs...

As she lies drained and dying  ...

 

So the staging of the family Christmas play in Goodbye June......

And how this movie ends...

 

Taps into something very real...

About families and death...

 

And it is the medical staff in Goodbye June who understand what is happening as June’s life slips away...

And what she needs...

 

While the family does not...

 

As they insist on dragging her from her room...

 

To watch them perform...

 

So this is one of the many reasons why this fine film...

Should be seen by anyone with an aging parent...

Because that comes for all of us...
 

Eleanor the Great: Or How To Headline a Movie When You’re Over 90

January 2026

​

Talk about a late bloomer...

 

June Squibb...

 

Has not one...

 

But two recent films...

 

In which she is the star...

 

Thelma....

And now Eleanor the Great...

 

At 96!

 

Not even Jane Fonda has pulled that off...

And she’s eight years younger...

 

And neither have any of the much more famous older female actresses...

We are so used to seeing...

Judi Dench, Joan Plowright, Maggie Smith...

 

Oh wait...

 

The last two are dead...

And Dench is blind...

 

But Blythe Danner is still around...

And every once in a while we see Shirley MacLaine in something...

 

But only Helen Mirren manages to get top billing...

(See Goodbye June and Golda...)

And more on her soon...

 

But keep in mind...Squibb was 16 years old when Mirren was born...

And Mirren has been famous for a long time...

 

While Squibb was on no one’s radar screen until recently...

And she didn’t even appear in her first film until she was 60...

 

So where has she been all these years?

 

Well... mostly on and off Broadway...

When she wasn’t performing on cruise ships...

And as Santa’s helper at a shopping mall...

 

But after Woody Allen cast her in Alice in 1990...

She started to show up in small parts in TV shows and films...

 

But she was never the headliner...

 

Until now...

 

When she seems to be everywhere...

 

Showing up in Lost and Found in Cleveland and Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead...

 

In addition to the films that feature her as the lead...

 

So hers is a great story of an actress who languished for decades...

And then made it big when she was over 90...

 

Only George Burns had that kind of career resurgence...

And he just played George Burns...

 

But Squibb’s character in Thelma...

While she proved deceptively formidable...

Mostly fell and couldn’t get up or had to roll herself out of bed...

So she was there to show us how awful it is to be in your 90s...

 

But Eleanor runs around New York City like she was 60...

Cooks dinner for Shabbat...

And seems pretty spry for an over 90-year-old...

 

And what a character...

Played to perfection by Squibb...

 

Eleanor is an old Jewish lady...

 

With an often too easy way with the truth...

 

Who can gut you like fish... if you happen to be her daughter...

 

But Scarlett Johansson in her directorial debut...

 

Has given Eleanor an interesting surrogate daughter, Nina...

Who is well played by Erin Kellyman...

As a young woman who is raw with grief from the loss of her mother...

 

And, of course, these two bond...

 

Because Eleanor has just lost her oldest and dearest friend...

 

Which leads her to do something she shouldn’t...

That ends up hurting Nina...

 

There is a Holocaust angle here...

And the fact that Eleanor’s ties to Judaism may not be what they seem...

 

But this film is really about grief...

And what it makes people do...

 

So it is a bit disappointing in the end...

Which feels unsatisfying...

 

As if Tory Kamen ...

Who wrote the screenplay...

Couldn’t quite figure out how to end this story...

 

So the scene with Nina’s father on TV...

Seems tacked-on...

In that way writers do when they can’t figure out how to bring an end to what they have written...

 

But the answer was staring Kamen right in the face...

 

And it had to do with how someone important to Eleanor...

Wanted the story of her grief to be remembered...

Because she wanted to believe her life had meaning...

 

And the stage was set for this in earlier scenes in this film...

But for some reason, Kamen and Johansson couldn’t see it...

 

Which is a shame, because Eleanor the Great is a fine film...

 

That could have ended with a bang ...

 

But instead finished with a whimper...

 

But until that ending...

 

Squibb showed why you shouldn’t underestimate a little old lady...

Who will not be deterred...

 

No matter what...

 

So you might want to get out of her way...

 

Because it looks like after 90...

 

You stop giving a f...ck...

​

And that kind of looks like fun...

​

Return to Landman...With The Word According to Tommy Norris

January 2026

​

We have the Bible...

 

Then we have...

 

The Word According to Tommy Norris...

 

And I do love those words of wisdom from my favorite landman...

 

Tommy ...

 

The king of the self- aware, tell it like it is, cut to the chase, no bs reality check...

Served up on a regular basis in concise two-sentence aphorisms...

Whether you’re in the mood for them or not...

 

Such as...

 

“I don’t have an anger problem. I have an idiot problem.”

 

And “I’ve met smarter fence posts. And at least they know their job.”

 

Now Tommy is the kind of guy who hires a stripper...

To be his depressed father’s physical therapist...

 

And he is in rare form once again in Season Three of Landman...

Which is a real Taylor Sheridan gem...

 

So we have Tommy talking to city folks...

 

“Out here, remote work means no one can hear you scream.”

 

“That handshake tells me you have never lifted anything heavier than a laptop.”

 

And “This land doesn’t care where you went to school.”

 

As well as...

​

“You can be right. Or you can be rich. Pick one.”

 

Because...

 

“If Power Points drilled wells, y’all would be geniuses.”

 “In the city, mistakes get meetings. Out here, they get a funeral.”

 

So once again this season, we get another reminder of how dangerous it is to work on a rig...

 

So Tommy has to school the suits...

 

“A spreadsheet doesn’t stop a blowout.”

 

“Every bad decision in this field starts with ‘It’ll be fine’.”

 

“You dress for the job you want. I dress for the job that might kill me.”

“You measure success in quarters. We measure it by not dying.”

 

And this season, we learn about the danger from hydrogen sulfide leaking from an oil well...

That turned out to be a silent killer of pigs and men...

 

Because Landman...

​

Keeps reminding us that working in an oil field...

Is hot, dirty... and very dangerous...

 

But it can be lucrative for the guys on the line...

If they can survive...

 

So this series shows that there are jobs Americans will do...

You just have to pay them enough...

 

And then there are the Taylor Sheridan women on Landman...

And no one writes women better than that paean to western masculinity...

 

There is that tornado of a wife...

Who is many a man’s fantasy and nightmare all rolled into one...

 

Which is why her ringtone on Tommy’s phone...

Is the theme from a horror movie...

 

The smart as f...ck big city lawyer who will eat you alive while enjoying every minute of it...

But is afraid of flying and has a thing for the geologist with a mullet living in a trailer...

 

Who BTW...

 

Gave an excellent tutorial on the challenges of drilling for natural gas in the Gulf...

 

And the daughter... who, like the wife, is portrayed as a Texas stereotype...

All cotton candy sex kitten and about as deep as a puddle...

But like her mother... can be incredibly kind...

 

When she isn’t out shopping ....

 

But then this teenager takes on the Pronoun People at her college...

 

In what was one of those classic Taylor Sheridan takedowns of a woke shibboleth...

 

And reminiscent of Tommy’s retort to an environmentalist in the first season...

“You flew here on a jet to tell me oil is bad?”

 

So Tommy is surrounded by formidable women...

 

And he is pretty clear-eyed about his relationship with them...

 

So he gives his daughter the following advice...

 

“Relationships aren’t about chemistry. They’re about remembering birthdays while you still want to kill each other.”

 

And tells his son...

 

“You can be right or you can be married. Choose wisely.”

 

And then there is Cami...

 

A botoxed to the max Demi Moore...

Whose face refuses to move...

 

And turns out to be Tommy’s real nemesis this season...

As the widow of his boss at MTex..

Who doesn’t know what she doesn’t know...

Feels like she has something to prove...

While trying to run an oil company on emotion... and nostalgia...

 

And of course, there are still the cartels and the predatory insurance companies....

To contend with...

 

Along with Tommy’s son, Cooper

 

Who is played by Jacob Lofland....

 

And is Sheridan’s only casting mistake...

In a series that has Andy Garcia and Sam Elliot...

 

Because Cooper looks like some Beta Boy from Dartmouth...

Who got lost in Texas on his way to Coachella...

 

But Landman is Billy Bob Thornton’s show...

And he is terrific as Tommy....

 

In a series that is exceptionally well written by Taylor Sheridan...

Full of colorful characters...

And will educate you about the oil industry...

 

And that is why Landman is far better

 

Than many of the Oscar nominees this season...

​

That I will get to soon...

​​

Mercy....Or How To Make a Hot Mess of a Movie

January 2026

 

I can just imagine what went down at that pitch meeting for this sorry ass movie...

 

Let’s get Chris Pratt to play the detective...

 

Yea...

 

He’s hot right now... and he’s pretty apolitical...

So he won’t turn off the flyover country crowd...

 

And he’s looking to expand past his action hero roles...

 

So let’s tie him to a chair.....

 

And not let him get up for the entire movie....

 

He’ll like that.....

 

And we can make him a drunk...

So we’ll have something for the crowd that thinks all cops have issues...

 

But Pratt’s likable enough we can make him a sympathetic character...

Because we are going to need that...

 

And what do you think of having him facing the death penalty for the murder of his wife?

 

Good idea... because executing an innocent man pushes a lot of buttons...

Plus, that ramps up the suspense...

Especially if we give him an unrealistic time limit to prove his innocence...

 

Like 40 minutes?

 

That works...

 

And let’s make the chair he’s tied to throughout the entire movie look like an electric chair...

 

That is going to be used to execute him immediately if he’s found guilty...

 

Good visual....

 

And because he’s tied to it...

He can’t get up to go out and prove his innocence...

 

So it allows us to do that Ironside thing...

Where the clever police detective solves a crime while stuck in a chair...

 

Wait... How old are you?

No one is going to remember Ironside...

 

Let’s keep it anyway...

 

Because we just need a plot device that allows us...

To make Pratt look like some super smart detective...

 

What do you think about throwing in an AI angle?

 

Great idea ...that will make us look tapped in......

Because everyone is paranoid about AI right now...

 

So let’s have it be an AI court that tries Pratt for murder...

And we’ll call it the Mercy Court...

Because who doesn’t love an oxymoron...

 

And it will decide his guilt based on probabilities...

 

You mean like Polymarket?

 

No... ...

We’ll have Agentic AI be the judge and jury...

As well as the prosecution...

 

Ok...I get it...The Singularity ...

 

Cool...

 

And let’s make this court the tool of an authoritarian government...

That is using AI ...

To fight out-of-control crime...

 

 I love that...

 

And that will push some really hot buttons right now...

 

Plus... I think we should make this court part of a larger surveillance state...

With everyone’s ring camera and cell phone gathering warrantless evidence for the state...

 

You mean like China?

 

That’s not very original... but Ok

 

Hey... wait a minute ...

 

I think we might need to throw a bone to the law and order crowd...

 

So let’s include some scenes of homeless camps full of drug addicts...

 

As dystopian Escape from New York No-Go zones...

 

And we can also have someone reading the Anarchist’s Cookbook...

While building a bomb to blow up everyone at the Mercy Court...

That he puts in a truck and then drives to Court...

 

So we can have an OJ Simpson chase scene...

 

I like that...

 

What do you think of having that guy kidnap Pratt’s daughter....

 

Good idea.. Let’s do it...

 

Hold on a minute...

 

Maybe we shouldn’t lean too hard into the Timothy McVeigh angle...

 

So let’s have this guy trying to avenge the death of a friend...

Who was falsely executed by the Mercy Court...

Because he was the victim of police corruption...

That involved hiding evidence...

 

Yea... that’ll sell...

 

Ok...I think we are done here...

 

We now have something for everyone...

 

A smart, but troubled cop...

Scary AI...

A crime ridden city with No-Go zones...

An heavy handed authoritarian government that says it is fighting crime...

A surveillance state...

A looming miscarriage of justice...

And an evil anarchist... who is out to avenge injustice...

That is the result of police corruption...

All done in the name of law and order...

 

And, of course, a bankable star...

 

Are there any ideas we might have missed?

 

I don’t think so...

 

Oh wait....

 

Wouldn’t it be cool if the police could have flying cars...

So they wouldn’t get stuck in LA traffic...

 

Yea... I would love to have one of those...

 

So let’s do it...

 

Ok... is there anything we have left out?

 

Yea...making a decent movie...

 

That doesn’t look like it was the product of one of those skits in The Studio...

That are a send-up of how the suits in Hollywood tinker with a film ...
Until they turn it into a hot mess...

 

Avatar: Fire and Ash: Has James Cameron Stopped Caring and Is Now Just Cashing In?

January 2026

 

Too many animals were killed in the making of this movie...

 

Yea... I know they were all CGI...

 

But I still didn’t like seeing a whale-like creature with its eyes cut out...

And if I were one of those birds the Na’vi ride around on...

And keep getting killed...

I’d fly away the moment I saw one of them coming toward me...

 

So frankly... I was turned off pretty quickly by this movie

 

But...

 

I have avoided the previous Avatar movies...

So this take is based solely on this most recent in the series: Avatar: Fire and Ash...

And I only saw this one because one of my lovely grandchildren wanted to go...

 

So consider me Avatar naïve...

 

But I’m going to be honest here...

 

Most of this movie was simply ridiculous...

 

Like a chick with a bow and arrow would ever be able take out...

Enough military hardware to invade several Latin American countries...

 

And when you are trying to make your escape from the bad guys...

Maybe it’s not a good idea to remove that orange jumpsuit...

That hides the fact that you are...

 

A naked 10 ft-tall humanoid with a tail...

 

Because no one would notice one of those running around...

 

And although there was an impressive array of Na’vi necklaces on display..

And some were quite cool...

In every other scene, the characters were wearing a different one...

 

As if...

 

You are going to take the time to change your accessories...

When you are engaged in a pitched battle for survival...

 

But it was Eddie Falco walking around in that enormous robotic exoskeleton on stilts...

That made me actually break out in laughter...

 

Did no one realize how ridiculous she looked in that contraption?

 

Now the world James Cameron has created in Avatar...

 

Is occupied by Yellow Eyed People...

Which makes them all look like they have liver failure...

 

And all the Na’vi appear to have Treacher Collins Syndrome...

 

There also are the Green Eyed People...

Who have tattoos that appear to be inspired by the Māori...

 

And all the Na’vi bodies look like they were modeled on those pictures found on ancient Egyptian wall paintings...

 

But with dreds and braids, along with the occasional afro...

Like someone in the production design department had spent a lot of time in an African-American hair salon...

 

So there was so much cultural appropriation going on in this film...

I couldn’t keep up...

 

And we get in trouble for wearing a sombrero on Cinco de Mayo...

 

But I guess James Cameron gets a pass...

 

Because apparently the Avatar movies are a sci-fi cri de coeur...

About environmental degradation...

 

With the Sky People...

 

Who... of course...

 

Are us...

 

And have come to Pandora...

To rape and pillage its natural assets...

Because they have exhausted all of theirs...

 

And they...

 

Apparently like living in an oil refinery...

And have an impressive array of military hardware...

 

As well as an alliance with a square-jawed Avatar ...

Who talks like he came straight from Full Metal Jacket...

 

But he does get all the best lines in this film...

 

And I was amused when the evil badass leader of the primitive rival tribe, the Mangkwan...

Picked up an AR 15 for the first time...

And reacted like she had just discovered fire...

 

Oh... that was subtle...

 

And there was also such an impressive array of face paint...

That when the Na’vi start giving stirring speeches before a battle...

I had Braveheart flashbacks...

 

But as the film progressed...

 

Some of the face paint started to look like it had been done by preschoolers at a birthday party...

So I guess even costume designers lose focus in a three-hour movie...

 

But the real problem with this film...

 

Which does have some beautiful scenes...

And imaginative devices...

Like the merchant ships that are carried aloft by great big jellyfish creatures...

 

Was that it really has no plot...

Nor character development

And is just a series of set-piece battle scenes...

 

So we get the dragon-fly like air force..

The revenge of the octopus-like creatures...

The Tarzan battle... with the Na’vi swinging from tree to tree...

Lots of homage to Star Wars...

And a navy of big sea creatures ...

 

But Avatar: Fire and Ash....

 

Is just...

 

One Battle After Another...

 

And yes...I’m well aware that is the name of another movie...

 

But it is this film that really deserves that title...

 

Because it is nothing more than an array of mindless fight scenes...

That all bleed into each other...

As if Cameron couldn’t think of anything else to do with his fantasy world...

 

But three hours is too long...

For just that...

 

So I was left with the impression...

 

That he is out of ideas...

And is now just cashing in...

 

All’s Well That Ends Well: How the Ending of Hamnet Saved This Movie... And Made Me Cry

January 2026

 

Ok...

 

Hamnet made me cry...

 

And on the day I saw it...

At the end of the film...

It was eerily quiet in the theater...

 

As no one got up to leave as the credits rolled...

Which makes me think I was not alone...

So I suspect everyone just sat there...

Trying to compose themselves...

 

Because this is a powerful film...

 

But unfortunately...

 

Only at the end...

 

But what an ending...

 

As Hamnet’s mother watches her husband’s play...

Named after their dead son...

Unfold before a spellbound audience...

 

And what she...

And the audience do ...

As the Hamlet on the stage gives that final speech...

 

Is heart wrenching...

And a fitting ending for a story about how the Shakespeares reacted...

To their young son’s death...

 

And it is so well done...

I’ll forgive Chloé Zhao...

 

For borrowing a bit from Shakespeare in Love...

In how she staged the view of the audience from the stage...

 

And for casting an actor as the Hamlet on stage...

Who has no business doing Shakespeare...

Because he was simply awful...

 

So I suspect he was chosen because he resembled...

Jacobi Jupe who played young Hamnet...

 

Because... oh wait..

They’re brothers...

 

But when Noah Jupe said “The rest is silence”...

It sounded like he was in a high school production of Hamlet...

And didn’t really understand the significance of what he was saying...

 

Or why that line was so meaningful for this play...and this story...

 

Which stood in contrast to an earlier scene when

Paul Mescal as Shakespeare...

Is riveting as he repeats the lines he has written for his play...

In an effort to get his actors to convey the intensity of the emotion...

That led him to write the words ...

 

That made this such a powerful play...

 

So, Noah..

Watch Mescal...

This is how it should be done...

 

And Mescal is also fantastic in the final scene of the film...

Dressed as the Ghost...

With pain written on his face...

As he leaves the stage... and disappears into the darkness ...

 

And Jessie Buckley as the grief-ridden mother of Hamnet..

Watches all of this...

And her expression changes from anger to finally understanding...

How her husband has handled his grief over the loss of their son...

 

So this is a truly powerful ending...

 

If only the rest of the film had been as strong...

 

Because the first two thirds are a long slog...

With Buckley and Mescal given little to do...

But more importantly, little of note to say...

 

Because one of the central weaknesses of this film....

Is the screenplay...

Which was written by Zhao...

 

And this becomes glaringly evident when we get to the scenes that use the actual words of Shakespeare ...

Which soar...

 

And stand in unfortunate contrast to the dull dialogue of the rest of the film...

 

Now... one would think this would be a problem for any film about Shakespeare...

 

But it was not with Shakespeare in Love...

Because Tom Stoppard wrote that screenplay...

 

And oh...it would have been wonderful to see what Stoppard would have done with the existential questions raised by both the play... and this film...

That Zhao mostly ignores....

 

Because even though the Shakespeare scholar Stephen Greenblatt...

Consulted on this movie...

I got the impression that Zhao never actually read his Hamlet in Purgatory...

Which explores how the Reformation in Shakespeare’s England...

Upended how parents would have thought about what happens after the death of their child...

 

And why this play reveals so much about how a former Catholic like William Shakespeare...

Would have struggled with how to grieve the death of his son...

Because the old familiar ways were now denied him...

 

But Zhao doesn’t go there...

Which undermines Hamlet’s significance to this story of grieving parents...

 

And unfortunately, since Stoppard is no longer with us...

Zhao really needed someone...

 

Anyone....

 

With a poetic way with words...

To write this screenplay...

 

So maybe she should have called Ronan Day-Lewis...

 

Because the contrast between what Shakespeare wrote...

And how he speaks with his family in Hamnet...

Is so stark...

 

It creates a disconnect... 

 

Because nothing Shakespeare says when he is in Stratford...

Is profound... or even slightly well crafted...

 

Which makes you wonder...

Is this the same guy who wrote all those wonderful plays and sonnets?

 

And Will doesn’t really say that much for most of this movie...

He just sulks...

And then leaves for London...

 

While Agnes wanders in the woods...

 

So Mescal and Buckley are wasted in their scenes together...

Because Zhao gives them so little of interest to say...
Or do...

So their characters remain underdeveloped...

 

And this is a particular problem for Mescal

Who can often be too passive in a role...

(See Gladiator II...)

 

Now that is never a problem for Buckley...

And she surely could have made Agnes far more interesting...

 

Especially since she was portraying the woman whose sole inheritance from her husband...

 

Was the “second best bed”...

 

And we’ve all been wondering what was the story behind that...

 

But Zhao gives Buckley nothing to work with...

 

Other than be a girl...

 

Will saw one day...

Had sex with

Mostly because she was available...

 

Got pregnant...

Married...

And then left to raise their family in Stratford...

 

And I’m sorry...

 

Running off to have your baby in the woods...

Doesn’t make Agnes particularly interesting...

 

Just weird...

 

Now Zhao does get points for verisimilitude...

The dirty fingernails, the clothes that are worn forever, and the dark damp life of 16th-century England...

 

Where children dying was an unfortunate fact of life...

Because a third of them never made it to age five...

 

And most families also had one or more stepparent...

Because this was the age of plague, sweating sickness, and tuberculosis...

So parents died... a lot...

 

With childbirth the leading cause of death for women...

 

And Hamnet’s death from the plague...

Does show the impact of the disseminated intravascular clotting that characterized the end stage of this disease...

And would have been painful...

 

Although most people don’t die screaming in pain...

Their organs shut down enough at the end...

That they become comatose before they die...

 

But Jacobi Jupe’s portrayal of young Hamnet..

As a sensitive, sweet young boy...

Who adores his absent father...

And misses him terribly...

Makes his death even more sad...

 

And sets the stage for how we feel at the end of the film...

 

Which is moved...

 

But also wondering...

 

How a director who crafted such a powerful ending...

Managed to squander so many opportunities in the rest of the movie...
 

The Beast In Me: Who Knew Matthew Rhys Would Make Such An Excellent Psychopath...

January 2026

 

Has someone invented a device...

That helps murderers move dead bodies from place to place?

 

Inquiring minds want to know...

 

Because if you watch a lot of thrillers lately...

It sure seems something like that must exist...

 

Because there is no way Matthew Rhys could have picked up and disposed of all those bodies on his own...

 

For it’s not easy to lift a dead man into the trunk of a car by yourself...

Or move one from place to place....

 

Maybe The Rock could do it...

 

But not Rhys...

 

Who ...

 

Although he does look a bit like RFK, Jr....

Doesn’t appear to have spent much time in the weight room...

 

But I will give him credit...

He was surprisingly good in The Beast In Me...

 

And I wasn’t expecting that...

Because he hadn’t shown that much range before...

 

But Nile Jarvis is a great part...

And Rhys makes the most of this opportunity...

 

Now The Beast In Me is basically a series ...

In which a misanthrope goes mano a mano with a psychopath...

 

And Claire Danes...she of quivering lip...

Has that “woman with no friends for a reason” thing down cold...

 

While Rhys toggles skillfully between being charming and frightening...

 

Which is what draws Danes, as Aggie Wiggs, to him in the first place...

 

Because like all good psychopaths...

Nile sees her in ways others do not...

 

And that proved very seductive...

 

So Aggie and Nile play cat and mouse in The Beast In Me...

 

Which makes this series a bit like Sleuth...

Except one character is on the spectrum...

And the other a truly nasty piece of work...

 

Now these two are drawn to each other...

Because they each appreciate what makes the other different...

From everyone else they know...

 

And for Aggie...

 

It was how Nile could cut to the chase...

And be disarmingly honest in ways one wouldn’t expect...

 

And for Nile...

 

He recognized in Aggie a worthy adversary...

With whom he shared a secret...

 

But more importantly...

He couldn’t resist the challenge she presented...

 

Now this is all set within a story about how a big bad developer, the Jarvis clan...

Are going to make housing even more unaffordable in New York City...

So we have the usual suspects in another of those moral dramas Hollywood loves to make these days...

 

But what is interesting in this series...

 

Is that there is a character one would expect to be just the muscle for the evil developers...

Who actually has a bit of a moral compass...

That... although it is twisted...

Surprises you in the end...

 

And an innocent...

Who turns out to be anything but...

 

But because the two main characters each want something bad to happen to someone who has hurt them...

They both have the “beast” within...

 

And Nile knows this from the get-go...

 

But it takes a while for Aggie to come to grips with this reality...

 

And that journey...

 

Along with excellent performances by Rhys and Danes...

 

Make this a series worth a look...

And the best of this month's thrillers...
 

Down Cemetery Road: Emma Thompson Gets To Be a Badass

January 2026

 

Emma Thompson in combat boots with white spiked hair...

 

Girl... you rocked that look

 

Which is the main reason to see Down Cemetery Road...

 

And although Thompson is always terrific...

I loved seeing her play a take-no-bs PI...

Who I suspect is closer to her true personality than many suspect....

 

And if you doubt me... watch her on the Graham Norton Show...

 

And her performance here made up for the rest of this series...

Which is another of those conspiratorial government corruption tales...

With complicated and improbable plot lines...

 

Another Children of Scandal series...

 

That are now so stale...

My eyes glaze over whenever I see one...

 

Because they always involve the Intelligence Services...

Doing clandestine activities...

 

That I really doubt any of the current crop of bureaucrats...

Would ever be clever enough...

To pull off ...

 

Let alone ...think up...

 

And did no one think that the teddy bear given to the little girl everyone is after...

Might have had a tracking device...

 

Seriously...

You really could have tried a little harder...

 

But Fehinti Balogan was scary enough to bring some drama to this story...

With the kind of dead eyes and a flat affect...

That can haunt your dreams...

 

And Nathan Stewart-Jarrel was quietly tender...and a nice surprise...

 

And Darren Boyd was smug as always...so he’s perfect for these roles...

In part because he is tall enough to appear formidable...

 

And haughty enough to never be likable...

So he makes a perfect British bureaucratic villain...

 

But I am tired of Ruth Wilson as a damsel in distress...

And her motivation in Down Cemetery Road...

Made no sense...

 

But this is Emma Thompson’s show...

 

And thank god...

 

Because...

 

Although we have seen Thompson as repressed and lovelorn ...

(Remains of the Day and Sense and Sensibility...)

 

As the wife of adulterous husbands...

(Love Actually and Primary Colors..)

 

A formidable female fighting for a cause...

(The Children Act and In The Name of the Father...)

 

And even on occasion...  an inherently nasty woman...

(Saving Mr. Banks...)

 

This is the first time she has been such a badass...

And it was truly fun to watch...
 

The Problem With Malice... Is That It Is Hard To Hate David Duchovny

January 2026

 

A quick take on Malice...

 

Which is now streaming for free on Prime...

Which has become more like the old HBO On Demand...

Where you had to pay to watch what you were really interested in seeing...

Rather than function as a subscription streaming service...

 

But because I didn’t have to pay to watch Malice...

I gave it a look...

 

And it does take talent...

To play a likeable asshole...

 

But David Duchovny has that down...

(See Californication...)

 

So his Jamie Tanner in Malice...

Makes this series worth watching...

 

And as a VC mogul...

Who can be condescending to his wife one minute...

In that way successful men often are...

 

As well as ...

 

And let’s be frank here...

 

A lot of husbands on occasion...

 

And then genuinely loving the next...

 

So Duchovny strikes the right balance between a man who is used to getting what he wants...

Because he goes for it... and demands it...

And has had enough success to believe he is better than almost everyone else...

 

And a father and husband who actually cares...

As well as a boss who treats his employees with respect...

 

Jamie plays the game with money in that Darwinian way ...

That is reflective of his industry...

But he plays by the rules... and is shrewd enough to know when he needs to pull back ...

 

And he is actually fairly tolerant of his wife’s missteps...

For she is the one less committed to the marriage...

 

So this is a nuanced portrait...

That doesn’t turn Jamie into the stereotype of the heartless corporate exec......

Who has it coming...

 

And he is not a bad husband or father... just an imperfect one...

 

But who isn’t...

 

So he really doesn’t deserve what happens to him...

 

Which makes Duchovny’s performance...

Along with that spectacular house in Greece....

 

What keeps Malice from becoming just another generic Karma is a Bitch thriller...

 

In which someone with a grudge...

Comes in and slowly destroys a family’s life...

Because someone had it coming...

(See Disclaimer...)

 

But it obviously didn’t occur to the director

That there are cameras everywhere in London...

So the ease with which the disposal of a body takes place...

Is truly unrealistic...

 

Now the plot is always the same in these kind of movies...

The shrewd protagonist exploits each family member’s weakness...

To slowly erode the bonds that hold them together...

And then goes after the victim’s business...

In a way that is so cleverly disguised they don’t see it coming...

 

And then...

 

Boom...

 

Their life is destroyed...

 

With lots of collateral damage to the ones they love...

 

So there is not much that is original in the plot of Malice....

 

Which is why it took Duchovny to keep it from becoming...

Just another tale of a big bad corporate exec who had it coming...

Because he is a privileged asshole...

 

And so Duchovny...

 

Along with the reveal...

About the man whose business Jamie destroyed....

That sets his downfall in motion...

 

Are what..

 

Frankly...

 

Surprised me just enough...

To motivate me to write about this series...
 

Jay Kelly: Adam Sandler and a Mannequin Go to Italy

January 2025

 

What happened Noah Baumbach?

 

Did you have a stroke?

 

Because how else to explain how the director of The Meyerowitz Stories, Margot at the Wedding, and Marriage Story...

 

Put out Jay Kelly...

 

In which nothing happens...

 

Except George Clooney looks good...

And cries at the end...

 

And BTW... Clooney ...

 

You need to lighten up a bit on the spray tan...

 

And who knew Hollywood really does use Sharpies to fill in the eyebrows of their stars...

 

Oh wait...

 

I’ve been suspecting that for a while...

 

And now I’m pretty sure that explains the awful eyebrows on Sandra Bullock in The Bullet Train...

 

But seriously, Baumbach...

 

You had Adam Sandler...

 

Yes... I know...

 

But there are two Adam Sandlers...

The one who shows up in those stupid comedies I can’t stand to sit through...

 

And the Adam Sandler in The Meyerowitz Stories...

And Uncut Gems...

 

And it was Noah Baumbach who first convinced me ....

That Sandler could be more than a clown...

And was actually a decent dramatic actor...

By casting him in The Meyerowitz Stories...

 

But Baumbach gave him absolutely nothing to do in Jay Kelly but stand around...

And talk to his family on the phone...

 

What a waste...

 

But maybe it is hard for any actor to shine...

When they are acting with a mannequin...

Which is all Clooney is in this film...

 

And Noah... you even had a great cast of supporting characters...

Laura Dern, Greta Gerwig, Stacy Keach, and Eve Hewson...

 

But they just looked like they were dropped in as cameos...

To give us something to do....

 

While we sat through two hours of a film...

That had a thin plot...

 

And looked like Baumbach was mostly using it as an excuse to go to Italy...

Where most of this film takes place...

 

But Noah... I know you can do better...

 

So try harder next time...

And maybe don't hire Clooney...

 

Marty Supreme: How Marty Supreme Became Marty Annoying... And Why I Ended Up Hoping This Ping Pong Champ Would Lose

January 2026

 

Marty Supreme...

 

Would be better titled....

 

Ratso Rizzo goes to Japan...

 

Instead of Florida...

 

Because basically Marty is just Ratso Rizzo from Midnight Cowboy...

But with off-the-charts ping pong skills....

 

Another of those New York City characters...

You hope to never encounter...

Because they are always on the make...

And you’re the mark...

 

But Timothée Chalamet really could have worked on his accent more...

Especially since Fran Drescher plays his mother...

 

Because they don’t even sound related...

 

And there is no way even a very rich woman would have bicolored acrylic nails in the  1950s...  

So I wondered if Gwyneth Paltrow had cut a product placement deal for Goop...

 

And I’m done with the single fake tear...

Trailing down the cheek...

During an emotional moment...

 

Seriously, Hollywood...

 

You can’t do better than that?

 

But that said...

 

Chalamet’s portrayal of an overly confident, fast-talking, and always hustling ping pong player with bad skin...

Who sells everyone out...

When he isn’t trying to steal from them...

Keeps you entertained... at least for a while...

 

If for nothing more than just marveling at Marty’s chutzpah...

 

And then there is the steady flow of cameos...

That keeps you busy trying to figure out why they are showing up in this movie...

 

David Mamet as a stage director...

Penn Jillette as a murderous New Jersey farmer...

Isaac Mizarahi as a publicist...

Filmmaker Abel Ferrara as a dog-loving gangster...

Sandra Bernhard as Marty’s downstairs neighbor...

 

And there are others... who are even more obscure...

Such as Larry Ratso Sloman...

So following the cast list is like doing an arts scene version of the New York Times Crossword Puzzle...

 

But my favorite...

And the one with the biggest part...

 

Is Kevin O’Leary as a corporate tycoon...

 

And he is great...

 

At being Kevin O’Leary...

 

But all this means the plot of Marty Supreme...

Is overly complicated...

 

And the movie way too long...

 

As it starts to come across as a vanity project for Chalamet...

To showcase his acting chops...

 

So Marty starts to get on your nerves...

 

So even though you may have been initially charmed...

You start hoping he gets what he deserves...

 

And, sadly, don’t mind when he gets humiliated...

 

So the ending doesn’t work...

 

But you will have to see the movie to see why...

 

But let’s just say...

 

There is no way a guy like Marty would ever have a character arc...

 

Which is why the expression on his baby’s face at the end of the film ...

 

Says it all...

 

Which is as close to an “Oh Fuck” a newborn can have...

When looking at his father for the first time...

 

Because I think the kid knows...

That his mother is almost as much a duplicitous hustler as Marty...

So there is no way this kid is going to have an easy life...
 

Wicked: For Good... Or No Good Song Goes Unpunished

January 2026

 

Some quick takes on Wicked: For Good...

 

What were those furry things on the eyelids of Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo?

 

I know industrial-strength false eyelashes are on trend right now...

But they looked like caterpillars had attached themselves to their eyelids...

 

And if you have taken some heat for Grande being too thin...

And she does look like she went straight from Auschwitz to hair and makeup...

 

Maybe you shouldn’t call attention to her anorexia...

By attaching rhinestones to the ends of her clavicles...

That stick out like she is a Halloween skeleton in a pretty pink dress...

 

And the production design for the city of Oz...

 

WAS SERIOUS OVERKILL---

 

And looked like My Little Pony meets Ken Fulk...

(And for those of you not into interior design... Fulk is not known for restraint)

 

And it was so distracting...

That everything started to look like a blur...

 

And what was with the interiors?

 

Because some of them looked like they were inspired by Hollywood Regency from the early 60’s...

Which seemed a strange choice...

And others like they were left over sets from The Hobbit...

 

And the males were all dressed like the costume designer had been inspired by the cover art of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band ...

 

And John Chu...

 

A word...

 

Tons of extras singing and dancing...

Work well on stage...

But not on film...

 

And then there were the not-so-subtle subtexts of this film...

That were not in the original play...

 

Because...

 

Hollywood REALLY can’t control itself these days...

 

So this version of Wicked is a lesbian love story...

The Wizard of Oz is supposed to remind you of the manufactured “cult- like”  appeal of Donald Trump...

Who, of course, is an authoritarian...

And always on the look out for scapegoats...

So the munchkins meet the Border Patrol...

 

And Oz is just one great big branding exercise...

Full of influencers in ball gowns...

 

And what was with Michelle Yeoh as Madame Morrible?

Because she can’t sing...

 

Oh wait...John Chu does like to cast her...

(See Crazy Rich Asians...)

 

But I do always enjoy Bowen Yang... in anything

 

And we have another of those unremarkable male leads...

Of the sort you usually see in a Disney movie...

 

Now Erivo and Grande do have good voices...

Which worked well together in the duets...

 

But if I were Stephen Schwartz ...

I’d be pissed...

 

Because the two great songs from the original musical...

“Defying Gravity” and “No Good Deed Goes Unpunished”

 

Are almost unrecognizable ...

 

The orchestration for “Defying Gravity” overwhelms Erivo’s voice...

So the song loses its punch...

 

And Erivo makes stylistic changes in “No Deed Goes Unpunished”

Which sap the considerable power of this song...

 

So since...

IMO...

These songs were the best part of Wicked...

 

And the only reason to see it...

 

Because the rest of the music is unremarkable..

And the story goes on too long...

 

When you take away their emotional impact...

You are left with not much else...

And will have ended up wasting a couple of hours...
 

The Housemaid Has Lots of Eye Candy... and Little Else

December 2025

 

How to make a generic psycho thriller watchable?

 

Beautiful people....

 

With a little something for everyone...

 

Brandon Sklenar....

 

Hot off 1923 as Spenser Dutton

Who spends most of the movie in a wifebeater...

 

When he has a shirt on...

 

Sydney Sweeney...

 

Being undressed...a lot...

 

And Amanda Seyfried...

She of luminescent eyes like large pools of clear blue water...

A Teutonic beauty who is holding up well...

 

And this film needed every bit of this physical star power...

 

Because as a psychological thriller...

The Housemaid is pretty generic...

 

The tell?

 

The “too good to be true” love interest...

 

Whenever you see that... you know what is going to happen...

And who is going to do terrible things to whom...

 

Although there is an early plot twist that might throw you off...

 

And the fact that there are two narrators...

The characters played by Sweeney and Seyfried...

And since they look and sound alike by the end of the film...

It can get a bit confusing at times...

 

But it’s these beautiful people on the screen that hold your interest...

 

Although it is a bit ironic...

That they are each forced to engage in acts of self-mutilation...

 

But a final word on Sweeney...

 

She can look mousy with dirty hair, no makeup, and loose clothing...

As if she, on occasion, wants to channel the Brad Pitt ...

Who decides to look...

For a moment...

 

But only a moment...

Because neither of these actors are stupid....

 

Like he doesn’t care how he looks...

As if to establish his thespian bona fides....

 

And Sweeney follows suit...

In an effort to convince the world that she is more than just another pretty face...

 

Or in her case...a hot body

 

But, unfortunately, Sweeney does little in this film to enhance her reputation

As anything other than an actress that nature has blessed abundantly...physically

 

As she spends the bulk of the movie with such a flat affect...

You can’t decide...

 

Is Millie a psychopath....

Or just a girl with a bad temper... and little impulse control...
Or is she an avenging angel for abused women ...

 

And since the ending hints at a sequel...

Which looks like it will be a 21st-century Death Wish for women...

With Millie as a Charles Bronson character...

 

It might have been nice to have her character fleshed out a bit more in this film...

 

But that likely matters little to the crowd that is going to pay ...

To see on a big screen...
Sweeney in a low-cut crop top...

 

Song Sung Blue: Earworms, Bobbleheads, and Don Ho.. and How Hugh Jackman Saved This Movie

December 2025

 

Craig Brewer...

The director of Song Sung Blue...

 

Makes Wisconsin look like a musical desert...

 

Because apparently you can get a job there...

 

As a Don Ho interpreter...

 

Who knew...

 

But watching this movie...

 

I did also start to wonder...

 

Why have we been forced to listen to Meryl Streep sing in so many movies...

 

When Kate Hudson can actually sing...

 

She’s not Idina Menzel, mind you...

 

But the girl has a decent voice...

 

So why have we been made to suffer through Meryl Streep belting songs...

In films like Mamma Mia and Ricki and the Flash...

 

When Hudson has been out there all along...

 

And could have spared us from Streep’s reed-thin voice...

 

Which wouldn’t get anyone else...

The lead in a local theater production...
 

Of anything...

 

But I have long suspected that Hollywood...

Has been so intimidated by Streep...

That no one wants to tell her she can’t sing...

 

Now Hugh Jackman does not have that great a voice...

But it’s better than Streep’s...

 

And is he also not a naturally fluid dancer like Travolta...

 

But there is just something about him ...

When he is singing and dancing...

That makes you enjoy watching him...

 

I can’t quite put my finger on what exactly it is...

But I suspect it is because he looks like he is having so much fun ...

That his joie de vivre is contagious...

 

And clearly Craig Brewer knew that...

 

Because he gives us a lot of Jackman on stage in Song Sung Blue...

Performing Neil Diamond songs...

 

And Jackman is what saves this movie...

 

Which is based on a true story about a couple in Wisconsin...

Who became minor celebrities...

As Lightning and Thunder...

Performing Neil Diamond songs...

 

So Jackman was the only reason I could stand...

 

To sit through a movie filled with...

Sweet Caroline and Cracklin’ Rosie...

 

Because I’m sorry...

 

But for me those songs become such annoying earworms...

For days after I hear them...

That I want to kill myself...

 

So although I enjoyed watching Jackman perform in Song Sung Blue...

The film did have an unpleasant aftertaste...

Because of Diamond’s songbook...

 

But Brewer... much as he did in Hustle and Flow...

Captured the milieu surrounding a performer trying to make it out of oblivion...

 

And how it is often a team of true believers behind the scenes...

That help make things happen...

 

And these secondary players are well played by Jim Belushi, Michael Imperioli, and Mustafa Shakir...

As a lovable crew of fellow Midwestern strivers...

 

But I am never be able to look at Fisher Stevens...

 

In anything...

 

Without thinking of him as a bobblehead...

Sitting in some Hollywood gift shop...

Because his large head looks so precariously placed on top of a tiny neck...

 

So I still can’t believe that man once dated Michelle Pfeiffer...

 

But that aside...

 

Brewer is kind to the people of Wisconsin...

Who are definitely not portrayed in this film as music sophisticates...

 

But who are a decent lot...

Getting by as best as they can...

 

And for Hollywood these days...

That is saying a lot...
 

Ella McCay: James Brooks Makes a Tone Deaf Movie

December 2025

 

What rock has James L Brooks been living under lately?

 

Because who today would make a movie centered around a politician...

Who fights tirelessly to pass the “Mom Bill”...

 

That will send social workers out to rural communities ...

 

To give toothbrushes...

 

To poor kids who drink too much soda and have bad teeth...

So they don’t smile...

Which keeps them from finishing school...

 

And no...

This is not a parody...

 

And besides the fact that this reeks of condescension...

Toward everyone in flyover country...

 

Who Ella McKay assumes need her to save them...

From poor dental hygiene...

And a lifetime of poverty...

 

Even Mamdani would not waste money on something like this...

 

But besides the fact that this sounds like a phenomenal waste of money...

Proposed by a governor who ....

In the name of fiscal austerity...

Closely monitors the overtime of her security detail...

 

The fact that Brooks thinks the Mom Bill makes his protagonist, Ella McCay

Look like the type of politician we should all be electing...

 

Ignores the fact...

 

That you would have to be living in a cave...

To not know about the myriad scandals...

That have been associated with exactly these kind of government programs...

 

Which, if we are going to be honest, mostly benefit the people running the NGOs that administer them...

 

So there was the Paycheck Protection Program scandal...

Which involved over $200 billion in funds disbursed to fraudulent actors...

 

And exactly how many “green appliances” were bought with the $2 billion in tax dollars given to Power Forward Communities...

 

Apparently no one knows...

 

And the real biggie in the news of late...

 

The Feeding Our Future scandal out of Minnesota...

Which involved $2 billion dollars in fraud...

From a program that was supposed to distribute meals to school children during the pandemic...

But instead paid for a lavish lifestyle for the head of the nonprofit...

While some of the money may have been funneled to tribes in Somalia...

 

Which all make this plot point in Ella McCay

Look pretty tone deaf at the moment...

 

But maybe Brooks is just stuck in the 90s....

 

When NGOs had a better reputation...

Because we didn’t know what some of them were up to....

And we hadn’t yet wasted billions of dollars in an effort to end homelessness...

Which only got worse...

 

While the NGOs claiming to fight it multiplied like Tribbles...

 

And Ella McCay does seem very Hillary-like...

She is supposedly very smart, hard working, committed to the right causes...

And spends hours coming up with programs to help society...

 

But she is not great at charming other politicians in order to get things done...

Because she can be too intense...

So she is a policy wonk who is not a natural politician...

 

In contrast to her husband, Ryan...

Who can be a cad...

But has the political skills Ella lacks...

 

So tell me which power couple of old this sounds like....

 

Now Ryan is so well played by Jack Lowden...

Of Slow Horses fame... 

That I was sorry when he wasn’t in a scene....

Because... just as he was as Lord Darnley in Mary Queen of Scots...

Lowden is exceptionally charming...even when he is being a very bad boy...

 

But Emma Mackey, who plays Ella...

Is just there...

And is not dynamic enough to carry this movie...

 

But we did get a gravel-voiced Julie Kavner...

Whose deadpan delivery was perfect as the narrator...

And we need to see more of her...

 

But maybe less of Jamie Lee Curtis...

Who adds nothing to this film...

 

And I did wonder if the scene where an uptight good girl Ella discovers the wonders of marijuana...

Was the price Brooks had to pay to get Woody Harrelson to be in his movie...

 

And I do think Brooks might have someone on his staff who is not a Boomer...

Because there was a plot point about a brother with severe anxiety...

Who never goes outside...

But makes millions running a sports gambling website...

 

But sorry, James...

 

No security guard is going to give up a state pension...

To go work for an NGO...

Like the one run by Ella to protect tenants from eviction...

 

And seriously... do you never read the news?

 

Because if you did ...

You would be aware that the head of a rental assistance nonprofit...

Received a million dollars from the government...

For units that were never rented...

 

So either Brooks is just really naïve...

Or so old he is clueless...

 

Because Ella McCay is one of those movies that has what I call the West Wing Syndrome

Where all is right with the world because the “right” kind of politicians are running it...

 

But ...

 

Dream on, James...

The rest of us have been disabused of that notion for quite some time now...

 

So maybe next time make a movie that is less preachy...

And better rooted in the real world...

Not the one you think exists...

And maybe you should pay attention to the news once and while...
 

Eternity Goes Existential: Maybe What You Think of As Heaven Might Really Be Hell

December 2025
 

I’m sorry... but too often it’s the ears...

 

And I don’t know what’s in the water these days...

But there sure are a lot of leading men lately...

With ears like Dumbo...

 

For example...

 

Callum Turner as Luke...

The first husband in Eternity...

 

Who is supposed to be so handsome...

He’s irresistible...

 

Seriously?

 

Did the casting director look at those ears?

And those squinty little eyes?

 

I’m sorry...but he is about as physically appealing as Josh O’Connor...

Another actor with ears that look like they were drawn by a cartoonist...

With whom Turner shares such a striking resemblance...

They could be twins...

 

And O’Connor was chosen to play a young Prince Charles in The Crown for a reason...

And it wasn’t because Charles was attractive...

 

So David Freyne...

 

You couldn’t find anyone more attractive to play Luke?

 

I know Austin Butler or Jacob Elordi are now probably too expensive...

But what about Leo Woodall?

 

Because every time someone in this film referred to Luke as handsome...
I went...

 

Really?

 

Are you blind?

 

Now Miles Teller was perfect as Larry...

The younger version of the schlubby husband of sixty years...

 

And I love it every time Da’Vine Joy Randolph shows up...in anything...

 

Elizabeth Olsen was fine as Joan...

The woman who has to choose who to spend eternity with...

Luke or Larry...

 

And this is where Eternity gets interesting...

 

Because this film makes you think about...

What exactly is Heaven ...

 

In a way most of us likely have not done before...

 

For example...

What happens when you show up...

And your long-dead first husband is there...

Along with your current one ...

 

How are you going to feel about that?

 

Because Heaven is ahistorical...

And you don’t get to choose who’s there...

 

And it might be Cousin Martha...

A good woman... who just loves spending time with you...

And so will want to hang out with you a lot in Heaven...

But who you find very annoying...

 

Now I’ll wager most of us haven’t given much thought to how Heaven works...

Other than it is a place where everything is perfect...

 

But Eternity makes you think about what the definition of perfect really is...

 

Because the device of this film...

Is that after you die...

You are required to choose your perfect world...

Where you will spend eternity...

 

Will it be the beach... the mountains... or Paris?

 

But it turns out eternity is like the Hotel California...

You can check out... but you can never leave...

 

Because once you have made your choice...

 

That’s it...

You are there forever ...

 

And the more I thought about that as I watched this film...

 

The more that sounded like Hell to me...

 

So Eternity definitely messes with your head...

 

Whether or not you believe in Heaven...

 

So I began to understand why it has always been left largely undefined...

As this nice fluffy place in the clouds...

Where you will be reunited with your loved ones...

Your dog...

 

Or maybe 72 virgins...

 

But Eternity also raises another question...

 

If you had to choose with whom to spend eternity...

 

Would it be that handsome man you were in love with when you were young...

Or that cranky fella who has been sitting across the table from you for the last 60 years...

 

Now I’m not going to tell you which one Joan chooses...

 

But as someone who has been married for 50 years...

Which in itself is nothing short of a miracle ...

To someone who... on occasion...I have wanted to strangle...

Much as Joan at times feels about Larry....

 

I suspect those of us who have been married a very long time...

And have a lifetime of shared memories... good and bad...

Will know which decision we would make...

And why...

 

But that decision is likely rooted in the fact that...

We have seen a lot...

And no longer think the world ... and relationships...

Can.. or ever will be perfect...

 

But I also think my reaction to this film...

Might have been different 30 years ago...

 

So I suspect a younger generation....

Who... right now.... are not especially keen on marriage....

 

For a lot of reasons...

Will have a different reaction to this movie...

 

Which likely makes Eternity a Rorschach test ...

For another of those generational divides...

That seem to be so au courant right now......

 

But Eternity is also going to make...

 

All those dog owners posting about...

How their beloved deceased pet has crossed over that Rainbow Bridge to wait for them...

 

Start to wonder who else might be there with Fido...

​

That they don't really want to see...

​

What After the Hunt Reveals About Women in Academia ... And It is Not What You Think...

December 2025

 

In the month that saw the defenestration of Larry Summers...

 

We get After the Hunt ....

 

A film about sex and academia ...

 

But in order to unpack how this film reveals issues in academia...

That are well known to those of us who have worked there...

But are rarely acknowledged...

 

And I suspect...

Of which most are unaware...

 

I am going to have to reveal parts of the plot...

 

So consider this a spoiler alert...

But I won’t give away the big reveal at the end...

 

But I will explore how this  “Me Too” movie stumbles on some of the dirty little secrets of academia...

 

And no... I am not talking about Yale profs drinking with their students...

Which does seem to be a problem...

 

Just ask Tiger Mom Amy Chua...

Who was told by Yale she had to stop partying with her students...

 

And it’s a party at the home of a Yale professor, Alma

Played by Julia Roberts...

Where the liquor was flowing a bit too freely...

That sets the stage for what happens in this movie...

 

An accusation of a sexual assault...

The fallout from that accusation... especially for Alma...

And the complicated relationship between the accuser, Maggie, her mentor Alma, and the accused, fellow Yale prof Hank....

 

And a lynch mob of Yale students...

 

Now Luca Guadagnino does seem to be tapping into his inner Woody Allen in this film...

Which is filled with jazz playing in the background...

And has his usual thin veneer of intellectualism...

But instead of mentioning Marshall McLuhan while waiting to see a movie

As Allen did in Annie Hall...

Foucault is brought up...

 

But are grad students still reading him?

I mean he was on my reading list... thirty years ago ...

 

Now After the Hunt does have many of the marks of a Guadagnino movie...

 

It is completely lacking in emotional resonance...

 

Because in a Guadagnino film...

All the characters are so reserved...

It’s hard to feel anything for any of them...
Or believe they feel anything themselves...

 

Except for Michael Stuhlbarg...

Who always seems to give the most memorable performance in Guadagnino’s movies...

(See Call Me by My Name...)

Because he is the only character who is allowed an operatic persona...

 

And here he gives a master class in passive-aggressive behavior ...

As the wounded, ignored husband of Alma...

Who keeps coming in and out of the kitchen...

Trying to remind his wife... “Hey, I’m still here”...

While she is wrapped in a conversation with her “top” graduate student, Maggie...the accuser

(And I’m putting  “top” in quotation marks for a reason...)

 

But Stuhlbarg’s character is the Greek chorus of this story...

Where the “truth” is obscured for many reasons...

Which is a Guadagnino trope we also saw in Challengers...

 

So it is important to ask  ...

 

Why would a lesbian graduate student...

Invite a very clearly inebriated and hetero male professor...

Who has been flirting shamelessly with everyone all night

Up to her apartment for a “night cap”...

 

Yea...like that was REAL innocent...

 

And after the supposed assault...

Why did she not get a medical examination...

That would have provided proof of the assault...

Even though she confessed she considered it...

 

And why...

 

When she told Alma about the assault...

Was she so cagey about the details...

 

And instead of filing a Title IX complaint...

She chose to write about the assault in the Yale Daily News...

In order to present a narrative of how a black lesbian student was sexually abused by a white male professor ...

And was insufficiently supported by her older white female mentor... Alma

 

Even though Alma had gone to the Dean about the assault accusation...

Which led to Hank’s firing...

 

Maggie is upset because Alma did this without her permission...

But anyone who has dealt with the Title IX policies in many universities...

Would know that at many institutions Alma would have been required to do so...

 

And then Maggie gives the story to Rolling Stone...

 

Which, of course, raised quite an irony alert...

And made me wonder if Guadagnino was aware of the role of that publication

In the Duke Lacrosse player’s rape hoax...

 

But then this all gets even more interesting....

 

Because Hank had been flirting with Alma all night at the party...

And something was very clearly going on between them...

Of which Maggie took note ...

 

Because Maggie has a thing for Alma....

 

And that was before Maggie started surreptitiously rifling through Alma’s cabinets...

Which led to a hidden discovery about Alma’s past...

 

And Maggie took home some of the evidence she found in Alma’s home...

Which she later used against her...

 

And both Alma and Hank know that Maggie has been plagiarizing her dissertation...

But only Hank has let Maggie know he is aware of what she is doing...

 

But then we find out... Hank really can’t take no for an answer...

From anyone...

 

Ok...

 

And Alma can be cruel... and dishonest on occasion...

 

But she is the real crucible to this story ...

For Alma is a sphinxlike character...

Who has all the warmth of North Dakota in January...

A Veronica Lake hairdo... for some strange reason

A wardrobe from a 1990s J. Crew catalogue...

 

Oh... and an ulcer that is killing her...

 

And personal reasons to be skeptical of Maggie’s story...

Because of a secret Alma wants to keep hidden...

 

But she ends up the real victim ...

For not being supportive enough of her “favored” student...

Who BTW checks all the intersectionality boxes...

 

And this is where some of academia’s secrets get exposed...

By Maggie’s behavior...

 

First up...

 

Some students will flirt with professors to gain an advantage...

And some professors will take the bait... and give them that advantage...

 

And we all know that... and see it every day

But no one wants to talk about it...

 

Instead, everyone wants to focus on the predators who do more than that...

But although the Title IX process was designed to deal with that...

It is sometimes difficult to tell who was the mark in some of these situations...

 

Secondly...

 

Professors do love to be admired...

And will often cut students slack who do so...

And students are well aware of this dynamic...

And exploit it...

 

But again, no one wants to admit this...

 

Thirdly,

 

Making an accusation is often a way to immunize oneself in academia...

And Maggie is quite cognizant of this...

As are many others...

 

But to acknowledge this would bring blowback of epic proportions...

So no one does...

 

And finally...

 

And this is where I think Guadagnino may have unwittingly stumbled on something that is rarely discussed...

But which is a reality female professors like Alma face...

 

And that is because of their gender...

Students expect them to be more empathetic than male professors...

Which means they believe women professors will be more likely to give them extensions, let them make up exams or assignments, or hand out extra credit when their grades are in trouble...

 

In other words... cut them some slack...

 

But what happens when women professors don’t...

 

Well... those of us who have taught in an academic setting know that answer...

 

And research has shown as well...

That women in academia are judged by students in different ways than their male counterparts...

 

So, as a result, students often react more harshly when they believe a female professor has not lived up to their gendered expectations...

About how she should respond to their requests for special ... and often last minute...accommodations....

 

Than they do when a male professor says no...

 

So this is where Alma’s reaction to Maggie’s accusation comes in...

And helps explain the intense blowback she received...

 

Maggie assumed Alma would believe her because she was a woman...

And that she would be sympathetic...

And supportive...

 

And when Alma didn’t live up to Maggie’s expectations...

For reasons that were very complicated...

 

She was publicly humiliated by Maggie...

And attacked by the other Yale students ...

Who all set out to destroy her...

 

So to me...

That was the most interesting...

And most resonant message of this movie...
 

Why the Message of Nobody Wants This Should Be...  Run, Noah, Run!  

October 2025

 

It’s the mid-aughts...

 

I’m sitting in the Greek Theater on the Berkeley campus

When the band starts to play the theme from the television show The OC

 

As a prelude to giving out the Sandy Cohen Award...

Which was named after a fictional character on that TV show

Who was supposedly an alum of the law school whose graduation I was attending

 

Now Sandy was apparently the right kind of lawyer

Even if he wasn’t real...

So he got an award named after him...

Given to a University of California Berkeley law student....

Who was real...

 

It was one of those only in California moments....

 

And The OC did mark the high point of the career of Peter Gallagher, who played Sandy...

And was supposed to launch Ben McKenzie into hunk stardom...

 

But the most memorable character was Seth...

The wise-cracking, slightly awkward, but lovable teenage son of Sandy

 

And Seth is back...

 

This time in the form of Noah, a sweet rabbi who is romancing a sex podcaster...

 

Carrie Bradshaw redux anyone?

 

Now Adam Brody, who played Seth... and now Noah

Kind of disappeared for a while...

 

But judging from the reaction to Nobody Wants This...

I think he might have been missed ...

 

Although I doubt most of us gave him much thought until...

He showed up in Netflix’s hot romcom ...

 

Playing another one of those beta males...

Whose natural home seems to be in this genre...

 

And Noah, like Seth, is, of course, nonthreatening...

And possesses a quick wit and a winning smile...

 

So what’s not to like...

 

Now I suspect the draw of Nobody Wants This...

Was that everyone was rooting for Noah...

And hoping he would be able to overcome all the obstacles...

 

That family and religion were supposedly going to place in his way...

Hence the title of this series...

And end up with his true love...

 

The seemingly totally incompatible blond shiksa played by Kristen Bell

 

And this is all based on the true story of the series’ developer...

That had a happily ever after ending...

 

Now Nobody Wants This...

Should someday end up in a time capsule

Because it would be of interest to a future generation

Of cultural anthropologists ...

 

Who are studying the erosion of American Jewish identity in the 21st century ....

 

Because despite Jdate and all the young rabbis sponsoring Shabbat dinners

Who are desperately trying to keep the Jewish community culturally intact...

 

American Jews are intermarrying at rates that threaten to erode their identity...

Which if you weren’t Hasidim...

Had always been more cultural than religious...

 

And Nobody Wants This takes on their foreboding about this future...

And made this the central plot point of the first season of this series...

 

Because if the primary job of a rabbi like Noah...

Is to promote the preservation of Jewish identity...

Whose center for generations has been the Jewish family ...

Where the mother plays an important role in maintaining Jewish values and tradition...

 

Should a rabbi....

Marry someone who is not now... and never will be... Jewish?

 

And if so...

 

How does a shiksa sex podcaster who doesn’t believe in God...

Or religion for that matter...

Fit into Rabbi Noah’s life?

 

Well, obviously, from the title...

 

We know Noah’s family’s answer...at first

And then later the synagogue where he works...

As well as... at least for a while... that of the other Jewish women in this series...

 

And this is where Nobody Wants This...

Starts to become a bit problematic...

 

Because in the first season all the Jewish women .....

Are caricatures...

 

Who are hectoring and unlikeable...

 

So you begin to wonder why any man would want to be married to them...

 

So... of course... a cute blond shiksa is going to be way more attractive to the men in this series...

Than any of these women....

 

Ouch....

 

So this depiction of Jewish women in Nobody Wants This is just a bit antisemitic...

 

But the shiksa and her sister were the real reason I ended up hate-watching this series...

 

Because these girls are a type...

 

They are... hip

They.... get it

And they are ... oh... so judgy...

 

In contrast to Jewish Noah who is nice and thoughtful...

 

Which they think is cringe...

 

I mean... what boyfriend brings flowers to meet your mother?

 

So the sisters make sure Noah learns not to do that again.....

 

Because poor Noah is just not with it...

 

And although the sisters pride themselves on being authentic...

When Noah doesn’t live up to what they think is acceptable behavior in their world...

They work on changing him...

 

While at the same time disparaging Noah’s family traditions...

As well as his religious belief...

 

Because no one who is West LA With It believes in God...

 

The power of crystals... maybe...

 

But certainly not God...

 

And the sisters look down on those who do...

 

So in the first season, they think of religion as simply an accessory...

Which Noah’s new girlfriend might deign...

To put on and remove at will...

If it suits her purpose...

 

Which is to snag Noah...

 

So Nobody Wants This is more than a series about a culture worried about disappearing ...

 

It is also an example of the attitude... and I would also say ...animus

Toward religious belief by a couple of LA cool girls...

 

Because a guy whose cultural identity is rooted in Judaism

No matter how nice he is...

 

Is depicted as being out of step...

With the world...

That everyone else lives in.....

 

In contrast to the on-trend sisters...

 

So I suggest we ponder for a moment...

About the message that sends...

About people who hold religious beliefs....

 

But it isn’t their just their animus toward religion that Noah should watch out for...

 

Because in this second season...

The girlfriend does start to consider converting...

So basically that entire season is bogged down in “will she or won’t she”...

 

But by then I didn’t care...

 

Because by that time I wanted to scream at Noah...

 

RUN!

 

GET AWAY AS FAST AS YOU CAN!!!

 

Because this girlfriend...

For whom you gave up your dream job ...

Can’t stop herself from going all Mean Girl at an event...

In which you were auditioning as a new rabbi...

 

And why?

 

Because she wants revenge ...

For something that happened in middle school...

 

So petty and inconsiderate doesn’t even begin to describe her...

 

So the real problem with Noah’s girlfriend.....

Is not that she is not Jewish...

Nor that she has a deeply ingrained animus to religion...

 

It’s that she doesn’t care enough about poor Noah...

To not deep six his career...

Over something petty...

 

So she and her sister have too much of what I call the Sex and the City Syndrome...

 

Ah yes... We are back to Carrie Bradshaw...

 

They are so self-involved...

 

That the idea that a relationship might actually be a partnership...

In which they might... on occasion... want to think about what would be best for their partner...

Instead of themselves...

And reign in their natural inclination to be mean and condescending whenever they feel like it...

 

Is a foreign country ...

 

But as I’ve said before, this is how you end up sixty and single with a cat...

 

But if you’ve been reading articles about marriage in the New York Times recently....

 

You would know...

That right now...

That might actually be the goal...

 

So...

 

You Go Girl...

 

Be true to yourself...

But leave poor Noah alone...
 

The Morning Show: Why We Shouldn’t Let Our Daughters Watch This Series

November 2025

 

Hey...

 

Big girls don’t cry...

 

Which was one of the many reasons....

 

Why I hate-watched this season of The Morning Show...

 

Jesus...

 

This was the year “the women” took over UBN...

To show how they were going to be better than the men...

 

And what a mess they made...

 

They cried when something didn’t work out...

Slept with their boss’s husband...

 

I thought you girls were supposed to be better than that?

 

And ran to powerful men to bail them out whenever they screwed up...

 

Seriously...

 

This show was supposed to be an advertisement for women in the C Suite?

 

After watching it... I wouldn’t let any of these women run anything...

 

But this season of The Morning Show has other problems....

 

Story lines that start and stop abruptly...

 

Like when did Bradley fall in love with Cory?

I thought she was just using him...

 

Oh wait....she was...

 

Because one of the things these women do...

Is come on to powerful men to get what they want...

 

Now that’s a real advertisement for girl power...

 

Which is another reason we shouldn’t let our daughters watch this show...

 

And Alex seems to have a thing...

Much like Christine Baranski in The Good Wife...

For guys on the Right end of the political spectrum...

 

And you can see why...

Because all the other men on this show are saps...

 

And if I have to see Cory get all weepy about Mom again...

I’m going to throw up...

 

And Bradley wants to be Erin Brockovich...

Except that old canard about an evil corporation concealing its polluting ways...

Which is then exposed by an intrepid reporter who has only the best interests of society at heart...

 

And maybe her eyes on a Pulitzer...

 

Is so stale...

You start to wonder...

 

What decade does the showrunner think we’re in...

 

Michael Clayton came out 18 years ago...

 

And besides... wasn’t Bradley still under Federal house arrest...

For aiding and abetting her criminal brother...

And deleting the video evidence of his crime so it was never seen on the air...

Even though she was reporting on the event in which it took place...

 

Yea... Bradley is a real role model of integrity for aspiring reporters...

 

And how did she sneak off to Belarus...

When the Feds were monitoring her...

 

And BTW...

 

What whistleblower with evidence of corporate malfeasance decides to hide out...

 

In Belarus?

 

Gimme a break...

 

And then ...

 

(Spoiler alert)

 

There is the former Olympic athlete, Chris...

Who used performance-enhancing drugs... and had to admit to it on a podcast...

But her career was saved because she was mourning a dead baby at the time...

 

Maybe Lance Armstrong should have tried that one...

 

And if you are going to center your season around investigating an event that polluted a community...

​

Why not do East Palestine...

 

Oh wait... that might have been too current for this show...

 

Because even though The Morning Show has always tried to tap into what’s been in the news...

 

Which is why the first season had a Matt Lauer character...

And last year they brought in an Elon Musk facsimile...

 

This year their timing has seemed off...

As if the showrunner hadn’t quite caught up with the current zeitgeist...

 

So Alex is trying to get that big interview... with Biden

 

Ok....

 

But the real tell is the way identity politics dominates this season....

 

The black producer is pissed she doesn’t get the promotion...

The “white women” promised her...

So it’s clear Mia is now out for revenge...

 

And there is nothing more dangerous than a woman who feels she has not been appropriately appreciated...

 

Just ask any husband about that...

 

So it’s clear where this is headed...

 

But the highlight was the Asian American President of the News Division, Stella Bak....

 

And Greta Lee is excellent in this role...

 

And BTW has the best wardrobe on this show

Second only to Celine’s very understated... and very French ...look...

A reminder that American fashionistas often try too hard...

 

So Stella... in a moment of self-reflection...and self-criticism...

 

Regrets that she let “her inner white man come out”

 

Ok...

 

But the real problem with The Morning Show...

Is that everyone thinks they are Woodward and Bernstein...

 

While they are breaking laws...

Lying...

And selling each other out...

 

Because.. hey

 

It’s all about the truth...

 

Except....

 

If we have learned anything since 2016...

It is anything but...
 

Death By Lightning’s Lesson for Rahmanullah Lakanwal, Luigi Mangione, and Thomas Crooks

November 2025

 

Death By Lightning begins with a jar containing a brain

Falling out of a dusty box..

And rolling along the floor...

 

A long-forgotten remnant of a man who thought he would go out in a blaze of glory...

 

But whose name I didn’t remember...

If I ever knew it...

Until I saw this series...

 

And in fact, I didn’t remember much about the man he killed...

James Garfield... the 20th President of the United States

 

So much for legacies....

 

Now the story of this presidential assassination...

 

Has always been folded into the birth of the Civil Service...

Which was created in the wake of Garfield’s death...

Because supposedly his assassin... Charles Guiteau...

Was a disappointed office seeker in the spoils system ...

That preceded the Civil Service Act of 1883...

 

Which I’m not so sure is seen in such a positive light these days...

As it has led to the creation of its own monster...

An unaccountable fourth branch of government...

Run by people who now can’t be fired...

 

And after having successfully burrowed themselves into a byzantine bureaucracy...

That only they know how it works...

They have been loath to have anyone question what they do ....

 

So maybe the spoils system wasn’t so bad...

At least the bureaucrats got cashiered when the voters decided they no longer liked the policies of the President...

 

So there was some accountability in that system...

And none now...

 

But I digress...

 

Now Death By Lightning also touches on a time when our government was funded by tariffs...

Because there was no income tax before the 16th Amendment in 1913...

 

So this series...

 

Which also addresses the backlash to immigration, the political machinations behind government corruption...

And a Republican Party divided between reformers and the old guard...

Is an interesting history lesson for this moment in time...

 

With Michael Shannon...

Given the role in Death By Lightning...

As a “sainted” James Garfield...

A sort of everyman politician...

Living on his farm and minding his own business most of the time...

 

Exactly the kind of yeoman farmer Thomas Jefferson had in mind...

​

But who supposedly gave such a stirring speech at the Republican Convention in 1881...

That he became the dark horse candidate for the Presidency...

 

Except I can’t remember any of the speech delivered by Shannon ...

That supposedly jettisoned Garfield, a Congressman from Ohio ...

To national prominence...

 

In part, because Shannon is so laconic in this role...

So it’s hard to imagine his Garfield motivating anyone to do anything...

 

Ah... but Nick Offerman as Chester Arthur...

 

Now that was fun to watch...

 

Because he steals this series from everyone else...

And if the real Arthur was half as much fun as Offerman in this role...

It’s shame he has been consigned to obscurity...

 

But everyone in this story...

Has largely become a footnote in American history...

 

And that is why it is interesting...

 

Because the assassin, Charles Guiteau...

Is a character familiar to us today...

Even though we like to think our assassins are the product of our current culture

 

But although they may have different personalities...

And backgrounds...

From school shooters to our current crop of attempted Presidential assassins...

 

They all want to be remembered...

So they commit an act of violence...

That gets them in the news...

 

As if murdering someone in a high-profile way...

Will give their life meaning...

 

And Charles Guiteau was no different...

 

So in Death By Lightning he is much more than a disgruntled office seeker...

 

Who is played to perfection by Matthew Macfadyen...

Because no one is better at portraying men with an exaggerated sense of self-worth...

That is masking deep insecurities....

Than Macfadyen...

 

So his Charles Guiteau is Tom Wambsgans...

 

But with one of those 19th-century beards that look like a washboard...

 

A character who so much wants to go out in a blaze of glory...

That he chooses a gun he thinks will look good in a museum....

And tries to make money off his story...

 

So Charlie is an attention whore...

 

And one can only imagine what he would have been like if he’d had an X account in 1881...

Maybe Ryan Routh?

 

So he was not an assassin driven by ideology....

Or even the failure to obtain a government position...

 

So the long standard narrative that he was simply the victim of the spoils system...

That his crime helped destroy...

 

Is not where Death By Lightning takes Guiteau’s story

 

He simply wanted to be famous...

And be remembered...

 

Because to paraphrase Joe Jackson...

 

He wanted to go out in a blaze of glory

“Because you and I—you and I just fade away”

 

But guess what...

 

Who remembers the name of Leon Czolgosz?
Or in ten years will that of Thomas Crooks?

 

Because until Death by Lightning...

 

Most of us didn’t know who Charles Guiteau was...

 

So for over a century, he was just a brain in a jar that was left and forgotten...

In a box in the government archives...

 

So that blaze of glory...

Is like lightning...

 

It arrives in a thunderous flash ...

And then just as quickly fades away...

 

Nuremberg: A Film Which Despite Its Flaws... Needs To Be Seen Now More Than Ever

November 2025

 

Let’s see...

 

The main character in this movie...

Is introduced to us...

 

As an overweight charismatic narcissist...

Who has risen to a position of power...

By telling the people he is going to make their country great again...

 

Now that was subtle...

 

And the man sent to interview him...

Spends the rest of his life ...

Trying to warn America ...

 

That one day another charming narcissist will come along...

Who will be homegrown...

 

And will tap into the same sentiments that led the Germans to murder millions of people...

And this leader will tell us ...

That certain people do not deserve to be here...

 

Ok ...

 

But despite this rather leaden attempt at drawing a parallel to the current occupant of the White House...

 

Nuremberg is still a film worth seeing...

 

And not just because Russell Crowe is fantastic as Herman Goering...

The central protagonist of this film...

 

A man who almost got the better of Judge Jackson...

Truman’s pick to prosecute the Nazi War criminals...

 

Now that was no surprise, because even though Jackson was at the time a Supreme Court Justice...

He had never graduated from law school...

And most of his career as a lawyer had been spent in corporate law and government service...

So he had no experience trying criminal cases...

 

And at Nuremberg that became evident...

When he met his match in Goering...

 

And had to be saved by one those British politicians..

Who hone their rhetorical skills...

In those no-holes-barred Parliamentary debates...

 

But Jackson was an astute political animal..

And that was what really mattered...

 

Because the Nuremberg Trials were never about justice...

For the verdicts were a foregone conclusion...

 

And in these trials the Soviets managed to blame the Katyn massacre on the Germans...

When it had been their troops who had killed 11,000 Polish POWs...

 

But, of course, that is not brought up in this film...

 

Nor the fact that the Russian troops raped over 5,000 German women when they “liberated” Berlin...

 

But I will give James Vanderbilt credit

For touching on the fact...

Even if only lightly...

 

That the Nazis were not the only ones who killed innocent civilians during the war...

 

For in the scene where Jackson is flying over the bombed-out city of Nuremberg on his way to the trial...

He is shocked by the devastation wrought by the Allies ...

 

Now this is a brief scene...

 

But it reinforces one of the criticisms of the trials..

Which was that they were simply revenge taken by the victors...

Dressed up as a seminal moral moment...

 

Because this was a war in which noncombatants were killed by every side...

But only the Germans and the Japanese were punished...

 

And I will also give Vanderbilt some props for a bit of historical accuracy...

That maybe only someone who has written a book on executions would know...

 

For in the scene where the first Nazi is hanged...

The executioner had to go down and pull on his legs

Because the drop didn’t kill him because it was too short...

 

Why isn’t explained in this movie...

 

But this happened because...

 

Although the executioner was an American...

Who routinely used a standard 8 ft drop...

 

Because of a compromise among the Allies...

As a result of one of the many negotiations between the UK, US, France and USSR that were required by the trials...

He was forced to use the British method, which calculated the drop based on age, height, and weight...

Which proved inadequate...

 

And for legal buffs...

The negotiations for how to conduct the trials led by four countries...

With very different legal systems and rules of evidence..

As well as means of execution..

Is an interesting backstory...

 

But in the end those negotiations would be insignificant...

Except, of course, for those who were actually hanged...

Because everyone involved knew what the end result of the trials would be...

 

Which means there was very little suspense..

Associated with what happened in that courtroom...

So it makes sense that most of the film is spent as a character study of Herman Goering..

 

Who proves a fascinating subject...

Full of absolute self-confidence...

Who charms as he works to outmaneuver those sent to trap him...

And Crowe is obviously enjoying playing this character...

 

But the rest of the cast was less impressive...

 

Michael Shannon as Judge Jackson comes across as your standard cardboard cutout stoic figure of history...

Which foreshadowed his performance as James Garfield in Death By Lightning

 

Rami Malek is unlikable as the slimy psychiatrist on the make...

Sent by the military to interview Goering....

In order to find out what his defense will be...

 

Who in the end proves more unstable than his subject...

 

And what was with John Slattery?

 

In his one big speech...

He sounded like he was reading it off index cards he was seeing for the first time...

 

So basically it’s Crowe who carries this movie...

 

But this film is significant for more than its star’s formidable performance..

And why I am willing to overlook the clumsy TDS of the director...

 

And that is because the Nuremberg trials were really an exercise in public relations...

Intended to show the world what the Nazis had done...

 

And that is why it is important for people to see this film...

Especially at a time when antisemitism is on the rise...

 

Because like a dangerous bear ...

Who has always been there..

But has been out of sight for a while....

It has now emerged from hibernation...

 

On both the left and the right...

 

But because Nuremberg shows the real film reels...

That were used as evidence at the trials...

Of what the Nazis did...

 

Seventy years later...

They can still shock....

 

Even those of us of a certain age...

Who have seen some of these photos before...

 

But I suspect there are many now ....

 

Who have never seen these images...

And for whom this was just an event that took place in a century that seems very long ago...

 

So this is a film that should be seen for that reason alone...

 

Because the real genius behind how the Nuremberg trials were conducted...

Was that what had been done...

 

Was shown...

 

So no one could look away...

 

And we need that now more than ever...
 

Why Lost and Found In Cleveland Really Needed the Kelce Brothers

November 2025

 

Cleveland Sucks....

 

Or at least that’s the impression you are left with after watching Lost and Found In Cleveland...

 

With its shots of a postindustrial landscape filled with boarded-up buildings..

Sad museums celebrating men no one remembers...

With an occasional grand façade as a reminder of the city’s faded glory...

 

But which is now...

 

Like the Browns...

 

Something that was once great... but hasn’t been for a long time..

 

Cleveland is now just another footnote...

To a once prosperous time...

When the Upper Midwest mattered....

More than just on election day...

 

Now Lost and Found In Cleveland...

Is a series of intertwining stories..

Based on the PBS Antiques Roadshow...

 

Complete with actors playing preening PBS divas...

Who hate having to be in Cleveland....

 

But it is most notable for the rest of its cast...

 

Especially June Squibb...

And I want to know what that woman is drinking...

Because she is amazing...

 

And at 96...

 

She made Stacy Keach... who plays her husband

And is 12 years younger at 84....

Look older and more decrepit...

 

And Martin Sheen got five lovely minutes...

In which he gave a lecture on the history of art nouveau glassware...

That was actually kind of riveting...

 

Which proves you can give a good actor anything...

And he’ll make something worth watching out of it...

 

There is a fat kid who longs to establish his family’s connection to William McKinley...

Who few remember... except for the fact that he was assassinated...

Which gave us the far more famous Teddy Roosevelt...

 

But I guess there isn’t much else to be proud of if you live in Cleveland...

Even if McKinley wasn’t from... nor ever lived there ...

 

But Emma Goldman did give the speech in Cleveland ...

That may have motivated his assassin...

 

And there is a plot point about a clueless WW II vet....

In possession of some homoerotic Greek pottery..

That was gifted to him by a fellow soldier and “close friend” who died in the war...

 

Now this film had been in development since 2017...

And it shows...

 

And not just because the writers missed the opportunity to tap into Cleveland’s newfound fame...

As the home of the Kelce brothers....

 

And yes... I know they are from Cleveland Heights... which is a suburb...

But they speak frequently... and fondly of this city...

 

And I would have loved to have seen a walk-on by these two...

Because they are currently the city’s best ambassadors...

And can be pretty hilarious...as well as always entertaining...

 

But that was not to be...

 

Because I suspect Marisa Guterman doesn’t watch football...

 

And it’s clear from one scene in the movie...

She doesn’t think much of those who do...

 

And she certainly is not from Cleveland....

Because this film is full of the kind of stereotypes about people in the Midwest one would expect from someone living in LA...

 

But it also feels dated ...

 

Because no one told the director it’s not 2020 anymore....

 

So the wife reading White Fragility...

And the long lecture about racism from one of the judges...

Felt very five years ago...

 

But the real question was why was this little movie in my local theater?

 

Did they run out of mindless Marvel sequels and second-rate horror movies...

That few want to see anymore...

 

While Frankenstein made only a brief appearance ...

In order to be considered for the Oscars ...

And then moved on to streaming...

 

So Hollywood... you need to get your shit together...

 

Before your theaters end up like Cleveland...
 

bottom of page