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‘Red, White & Royal Blue’ is the sappy gay fairytale we deserve | review
Red, White & Royal Blue follows the star-crossed romance between the First Son of the United States and a British prince

Red, White & Royal Blue is every bit as corny and sappy as you’d expect for a romantic comedy with a premise as improbable as the First Son of the United States and the Prince of Great Britain falling in love — but it’ll have you grinning from ear to ear. With a clear queer perspective and strong chemistry between Taylor Zakhar Perez and Nicholas Galitzine, it’s almost impossible to resits.

Red, White & Royal Blue is streaming on Prime Video.

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Red, White & Royal Blue is a fairytale. A gay fairytale. Like “first 50 rows at a Lady Gaga concert” gay fairytale. One where a line like “first 50 rows at a Lady Gaga concert kind of gay” is eye-roll-inducing but oddly charming at the same time. It’s an especially hard line to tow when the gay rom-com canon ranges from good (Fire Island and the unfairly maligned Bros) to tragic (Spoiler Alert) to “set gay rights back 20 years” (Love, Simon). However, writer-director Matthew Lopez finds a way to keep his adaptation of Casey McQuinton’s book of the same name from becoming an international incident (between gays and the book’s largely straight female fan base)… unlike the start of Alex’s (Taylor Zakhar Perez) and Henry’s (Nicholas Galitzine) improbable romance.

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If you’ve somehow avoided the “Best Sellers” section at every bookstore in the United States and United Kingdom, Red, White & Royal Blue is a star-crossed romance between Alex, the son of the President of the United States, and Henry, the Prince of Great Britain. It’s a plot straight out of the romance textbook. After a gruesome run-in between the pair and a comically large cake at the heir to the British throne’s wedding, Alex and Henry must quash their beef (at least in front of the cameras) to appease both the King (Stephen Fry) and President Ellen Claremont (Uma Thurman). One mistaken assassination attempt and entrapment in a janitor’s closet later and the pair’s beef turns into a swoon-inducing banter-filled friendship… that quickly develops into more when they admit that their vitriol for each other was just meant to cover up an intense attraction. Enemies-to-lover girlies, this one’s for you.

Perez and Galitzine, despite a shaky start, are convincing in their love affair with sharp repartee sweet and soppy enough to cause a toothache. Their conversations eventually culminate in a fateful New Year’s Eve party underscored by Flo Rida’s “Low” — the most romantic of early 2000s bops — where Henry confesses his feelings for Alex. While their romance is surprisingly devoid of real stakes — this is a fairytale after all, a happily ever after is inevitable — both actors put in surprisingly deft work to make their characters full of depth as they talk about their insecurities in both of their unique positions. Their interactions, despite all other parts of the plot being completely heightened, feel genuine. It in large part stems from a screenplay, though imperfect, that strives to be authentic to the queer experience.

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There are knowing touches that make watching the movie as a gay man more satisfying, at least more than the book which I found enjoyable but wanting for more. Those details are most apparent in the tender centerpiece sex scene that has caused more of a stir than its actual impact in the movie — while it’s more graphic than a typical rom-com sex scene it is surprisingly tame for an R-rated movie. Lopez lingers on small moments — the slight push on a lower back, a shaky exhale — that feel like they come from experience rather than some romantic ideal of what it is to be a man with another man. Contrary to the vague objectification I felt from the book, the movie feels made for and by us.

Additional to the success of “rom” part, Lopez also excels in bringing the comedy. Sarah Shahi‘s scene-stealing Chief of Staff Zahra is a highlight, whose sass reminds us that reading is fundamental (her delivery of “little lord f-ckleroy” is a highlight before a sarcastic curtsy brings the house down). On the other hand, Uma Thurman’s performance, slathered in a deep southern drawl, looks camp right in the eye (never in my life did I think I’d hear Mia Wallace say “Truvada”). The light tone makes the surprisingly robust two-hour runtime fly by.

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Red, White & Royal Blue benefits from its themes at a surface level. While Alex has more recently begun his bisexual awakening and Henry has already accepted himself as gay — even if his duty quashes any possibility of being open — Lopez intelligently doesn’t hold those themes precious to the story (even if Ellen does say the line “the B in LGBTQ is not invisible.”) They’re engrained into the characters and their journeys, but it doesn’t stop them from charmingly referring to Henry’s… ahem, excitement as “Stonehenge” and “Big Ben.” It’ll have you giggling and swinging your feet like you’re a lovelorn teen again. And isn’t that exactly what the movie is trying to achieve?

Cynics will find nothing but fault in Red, White & Royal Blue, a story that ends with the United States presidential election coming down to a single state (who could have seen it coming when Alex mentioned his Texas strategy plan at least a dozen times in the lead up) and the British public holding demonstrations in support of a gay prince. But the fairytale-like improbability of the plot is a feature, not a bug, as are cheeky if not corny lines like “I went to an English boarding school. Trust me, you’re in good hands.” It’s okay for gay men to have our silly little romantic comedies that require a suspension of disbelief. Even better if it’s told by a person that is chasing that very fairytale ending… even if it’s not with a prince.

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August 10, 2023
‘American Fiction’ satirically rewrites race into Hollywood | review
TIFF 2023 | American Fiction follows a fed-up Black author who facetiously writes a “Black novel” to poke fun at media’s desire for tragic POC stories only to find himself with his most success to date

American Fiction is an uproarious absurd comedy, uplifting family drama, and swoony romantic comedy, and all wrapped up in a hilarious crowd-pleasing satire about the stories the media deem worthy of telling about marginalized people. It’ll have you crying from laughter and then asking, “Am I the problem?” With a stellar ensemble cast anchored by Jeffrey Wright giving a career-best performance, American Fiction is one of the most-entertaining and best movies of the year.

American Fiction premiered at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival.

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In adapting the 2001 novel Erasure, writer-director Cord Jefferson basically delivers three separate movies. On one end, American Fiction is a Nora Ephron-esque romantic comedy about a cranky writer and the love he finds with his newly divorced neighbor. On the other, it’s a family drama about a Black family and their various personal struggles. Bridging the two is a witty comedy about the (very white) media machine and its hunger for stories about marginalized people — only if they’re sad. If it sounds like a lot, you’re right. However, through clever writing, a stellar ensemble and plot that keeps you guessing, the result is a hilarious crowd-pleasing satire that will have you nodding and laughing along in agreement, but also wondering, “Am I the problem?”

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Because while American Fiction chides the stereotypical “tragedy porn” that typically encompasses the most popular Black stories — think Oscar successes 12 Years a Slave or Precious — it also emulates them. It’s like the book that first frustrates author Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (Jeffrey Wright) about the hypocrisy. After speaking on a sparsly attended panel at a book festival, Monk walks by a packed conference hall where Sintara Golden (Issa Rae) is addressing a largely white audience about her best-selling debut novel We’s Lives in Da Ghetto. She reads a passage and it’s every bit as bad as you’d imagine it’d be — the audience eats it up.

Things are excasserbated when Monk goes to a local bookstore looking for a copy of his book. Instead of finding it in historical fiction an unassuming teen employee guides him to the “African-American” stories section. When Monk questions him on why it’s there, he responds, “I imagine this author is Black.” Monk retorts, “The blackest thing about this book is the ink!” After his book agent Arthur informs him another publisher has passed on his newest novel for “not being black enough,” Monk faceciously writes My Pafology. As he types, the two characters Willy the Wonker (Keith David) and Van Go Jenkins (Okieriete Onaodowan) enter the room and enact the story. There’s a drug deal, shootout, missing father reveal. Everything that Monk hates about the state of Black media. He signs the manuscript Stagg R. Leigh and sends it off to Arthur to send to publishers as a “f— off.”

They love it.

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From there, Monk deals with the fallout from the book’s success including a potential movie adaptation that a producer (Adam Brody) is circling, becoming a finalist for a literary prize that Monk is on the jury for, and a small hitch where people inadvertadly become convinced “Stagg” is a wanted fugitive on the run from the authorities (it adds to the mystique!). All the while, Monk is dealing with his kooky family — responsible doctor sister Lisa (Tracee Ellis Ross), immature gay plastic surgeon brother Clifford (Sterling K. Brown), aging mother Agnes (Leslie Uggams), and childhood nanny Lorraine (Myra Lucretia Taylor) — and potential romance with his newly single neighbor Coraline (Erika Alexander).

If that sounds like a lot of story to balance, you’d be right. But Jefferson never loses control of any of the plotlines. The romance is romantic. The family drama is compelling. The satire is incisive. Each thread delivers its own resonant commentary that eventually layer into the thoughtful themes of American Fiction.

While sitting on the jury for a literary prize that he’s never won — they ask him to be on the judging panel after calls for diversity — Monk and Sintara sit amongst three white authors as they debate the authenticity and worthiness of My Pafology as a story. Monk and Sintara are understandably dubious about the novel while the other three white judges proclaim, “we need to listen to more Black voices!” — all as they ignore the two in the room. To add insult to injury, one gleefully says, “I’m thrilled to read about a BIPOC man harmed by our carceral state.” Monk and Sintara can just roll their eyes. What American Fiction understands is people will pay attention to Black stories and opinions when it feels comfortable for them.

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The beauty of the movie, though, is that while it in some ways emulates the kinds of stories its criticizing, it leaves room for joy on the screen. The balance between sincerity, parody, and satire is nothing short of miraculous.

American Fiction is packed to the brim with jokes, hijinks and gags. From Monk sting like a hardened criminal in a meeting with a film producer to sell the book’s rights or when the family arrives at the beach house to be greeted by two speedo-clad gay men making breakfast with Clifford or a montage on a Hallmark-like channel celebrating Black stories all of which are about slavery, poverty, or gangs, there’s nary a moment without something to laugh at. But within those absurd moments, there’s poignancy. In particular, Clifford confides to Monk his regret about not coming out to their father before he died. “He never knew the entirety of me,” he laments. That line neatly packages what Jefferson is trying to communicate. Monk, in another scene, observes that the media people consume about the Black experience “flatten our lives.” American Fiction tries to add color back into those stories — and it’s one of the year’s best because of it.

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Hey! I’m Karl. You can find me on Twitter and Letterboxd. I’m also a Tomatometer-approved critic.

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September 17, 2023
‘Unicorns’ is a glittering unlikely queer romance | review
TIFF 2023 | Unicorns follows a South Asian drag queen and Essex mechanic’s sparkling will-they-won’t-they romance of queer discovery and joy

Unicorns is a gorgeous glittering hidden gem. Full of queer life and spirit, it charmingly mines familiar tropes of queer repression and exploration to examine the unlikely relationship between a single dad and a drag queen. Ben Hardy and newcomer Jason Patel make an intoxicating pair that hold your attention with their electric chemistry from beginning to end.

Unicorns premiered at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival.

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Towards the end of Unicorns, writer-director James Krishna Floyd’s directorial debut that premiered at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival, Ashiq (musician Jason Patel, also in his feature film debut) tells mechanic Luke (Ben Hardy) that “she wasn’t real,” referring to his drag queen persona Aysha who we see him as for the majority of the movie. In response Luke says, “she was real to me.”

The main tension of Unicorn is between warring identities, not just between our protagonists but within them. Ashiq, when we first see him out of drag, rolls out his prayer mat and begins prayers like he wasn’t just twirling for tips in a gay club an hour ago. Luke, the father to a young son, finds himself in crisis when he discovers his attraction for Aysha. It’s that exploration of the fluidity of gender and sexuality that elevates Unicorns past its perhaps familiar tropes and themes. The beauty of the romance is it isn’t necessarily one of sexuality discovery than it is a discovery that gender in matters of love doesn’t matter.

The result is a gorgeous glittering gem that captures your attention from beginning to shimmering end.

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Luke first meets Aysha when he stumbles down a dark corridor to a basement gay club where she is performing (more like slaying the house down boots mawmah) on stage mixing the electronic techno trappings found in any gay bar with traditional South Asian music and dance. The way Floyd, along with co-director Sally El Hosaini, captures Aysha is with mysticism. A spectacle you can’t look away from. Even the way that Luke finds himself in the club feels like Alice tumbling down to Wonderland.

Sequined for the Gods and twirling for her tips, Luke is transfixed by her and she knows it. She strikes up a conversation before going in for a kiss that gets interrupted when Luke realizes that Aysha is a drag queen. The kiss sends him into a tailspin. But unlike other versions of this story, Luke never moves to full blown homophobia or violence. He holds back as if aware that deep down he liked it — and Aysha noticed it too.

Despite their not-so-meet-cute ending with hostility, Aysha seeks Luke out to drive him to gigs after her usual driver falls through. Not being able to turn down the cash — perhaps a glimmer of curiosity in Aysha — he accepts. What follows is an all-night romp that includes three more hilarious drag queens, a private mansion party and a broken nose following a brawl. And Luke comes back for more, becoming Aysha’s regular driver and escort to gigs. They begin to form a close bond that hinges on their experience in boxes that they’ve found themselves in that spirals into an irresistible will-they-won’t-they romance.

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There’s so much texture to Luke and Aysha. Unicorn takes some incredulous turns along the way that in a weaker movie may take you out of the story but the purely intoxicating screen presence of Patel and particularly Hardy, who nearly runs away with the movie, is enough to keep you engrossed. Patel, who’s most at home as Aysha, eats every frame without saying a word — a rare star quality. Hardy, on the other hand, gives a physical performance communicating his internal struggle that he holds in his body. Both his resistance and attraction to Aysha could be felt through the screen in a way that feels raw and authentic.

Queer repression is a familiar theme. Movies like Brokeback Mountain, God’s Own Country, and Moonlight all mine the too relatable experience of feeling your sexuality repressed in the name of “normalcy.” Unicorns doesn’t quite reach the heights of those movies in the canon, but what it does is give us a dazzling invocation of the queer experience that is steeped mostly in joy rather than tragedy. To see drag queens read each other — “he didn’t know I was a queen” / “was he blind?” — or gaysians communing is so rare but so uplifting. Throughout the movie, Luke physically sees more of Ashiq under Aysha — something that she is resistant to sharing. First it’s a wig, then it’s makeup, then it’s seeing his bare chest. But with the physical unpacking, there is the emotional one. And that is a wonder to watch both actors perform. A sparkling wonder.

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Hey! I’m Karl. You can find me on Twitter and Letterboxd. I’m also a Tomatometer-approved critic.

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September 9, 2023
‘The Worst Person in the World’ and the millennial crisis | review and analysis
The Worst Person in the World explores the millennial urge to reinvent yourself every time things get hard through an aimless 30-year-old navigating her life in Oslo

How do you balance living for yourself while also being a good person? Isn’t that the mad irony of our existence? We’re given a set amount of time on this earth and we’re meant to immediately know what we want to do with that time. As if that wasn’t enough, we’re also expected to spend some of that limited time leaving something behind, even if that’s just in the people that have known us. The almost unspoken impossible nature of that is what makes the title The Worst Person in the World is so apt for Joachim Trier’s fifth film and third in his Oslo Trilogy.

As we go through our lives, we weave and shape them in ways that change the design of everything entirely. We make decisions, some for the better and some for the worse, and we have no choice but to live with them. As millennials, we are particularly hard on ourselves — it feels like we can never make the right decision, and when we go for a decision that makes us feel good, the world around us tells us we’re being selfish. But what if for a moment we could make the world stop? What if we could make a decision without worrying about how it’ll affect the people around us or how it’ll change the trajectory of our lives? What if we could live in the now? Well, it might make us the worst person in the world.

But at the very least we lived.

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Our protagonist Julie (Renate Reinsve) (antagonist in her own eyes), is at a point in her life where she is confronting those decisions at a rapid pace. The movie, which is broken into twelve chapters, starts with a prologue where Julie, like many of us, blows up her life. She stops pursuing a medical degree on a whim in order to chase a different whim — becoming a photographer because she took one good photo with her iPhone. She quickly dumps a model she met pursuing that career path for a guy she meets at a bar. Immediately after, she moves in with him. And that’s all before the movie truly begins.

In a post-screening Q&A, Reinsve said that she hopes that those who watch the film, whether they’re Julie’s age, just starting out in life, or in their final chapter, find at least some of their own experiences in it. Which is what helped me love the film – after all, how much could I, a gay Asian-American man living in New York City, relate to a story about a straight Norwegian woman living in Oslo? Or how could a person in the final years of their life identify with a person just starting theirs? It turns out a lot. That’s because the movie presupposes that the millennial experience is a universal one. We’re just the first generation to talk about it.

Julie is in the midst of experimenting with the shape of her life – she’s trying out different versions of herself until she finds one that fits. The trouble is, that instead of looking inward, she looks for herself in a career, hobbies, or in a significant other. Aksel (Anders Danielson Lie), the guy at the bar from the prologue, represents an exciting new version. He’s older and has an accomplished career as a comic book artist, two things that Julie is chasing. And for a time, their toe to toe wit keeps their relationship alive. However, Julie, like so many millennials when we taste stability, begins to question her decisions.

Trier isn’t precious about the themes, though. He’s focused on Julie as a singular character and a marvelous one at that. Reinsve’s sardonic wit and doe-eyed patina is at times charming, funny, and painfully relatable. The entire movie is. Not a moment passes that you aren’t laughing, crying, or doing both while cursing the screenplay’s ability to know you so well.

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And that’s the odd comfort of The Worst Person in the World – for an international film, it fluently speaks the language of a generation.

In the same ways life does, the movie takes many twists and turns. New people crop up — mainly Herbert Nordrum’s Eivind, who makes Julie question her current situationship — while others fall away. Moments of tragedy strike unexpectedly and the past is revisited in both joy and pain. But what Trier assumes is that the sum of these moments, the ones that make us laugh, cry, and scream (and the movie will have you doing all three), add up to a full picture of your life, with the realization that happiness isn’t an end in of itself, but rather the journey of your life in all its ebbs and flows and thinking, “it’s all going to be okay.”

In the end, does Julie find the right version of herself? Maybe. Maybe not. But at the very least, she doesn’t feel like the worst person in the world — and neither do we.

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Hey! I’m Karl. You can find me on Twitter and Letterboxd. I’m also a Tomatometer-approved critic.

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January 20, 2022
‘John Wick: Chapter 4’ is an action magnum opus | movie review
Keanu Reeves returns as an assassin trying to survive an onslaught from the all-powerful High Table in John Wick: Chapter 4.
John Wick: Chapter 4 takes the over-the-top action it’s known for and cranks it up to the highest level. After a slow start it moves like a beast through some of the best action sequences of the series. It lacks some of the forward plot machinations that make the other three films so breezy. Still, it’s thrilling and innovative — and even the funniest of the sreies. The house sequence is maybe one of the best action scenes in a decade. It’s imperfect but so much fun. Oh and Rina Sawayama slays.

Over the last decade, the John Wick series has been an unlikely success story in a Hollywood that has been increasingly reliant on well-known IP and action movies that include men in tights saving the world — I love Marvel, don’t come for me. Even the franchise’s director Chad Stahelski and producer David Leitch thought that the movie was going to flop. As they put it, who would want to watch a movie about a man that viciously murders more than 80 people to avenge his dog? Apparently, a lot since the franchise has grossed over half a billion dollars. By the time we reach John Wick: Chapter 4, Wick has been battered, bruised, stabbed, and shot more than any man should be able to handle. But he is no man. He’s the boogeyman.

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The Marquis de Gramont (Bill Skarsgård), a high-ranking member of the all-powerful High Table, tells blind assassin Caine (Donnie Yen) there are three types of people: those who have something to live for, those who have something to die for, and those who have something to kill for. He then says that John Wick (Keanu Reeves)has none of those. He did at one time. He had his wife Helen. And then her final gift to him — his canine companion whose untimely demise sets up the start of the series. Then he killed his way out of New York City and back again to protect his friend and send an FU to the High Table. What does he have left to kill for?

That’s what John Wick: Chapter 4 grapples with as Wick once again finds himself at the center of the High Table’s target list. This time, though, they’ve sicked the ruthless Marquis de Gramont on him—and this time The Continental rules are out the window as evidenced by the Marquis’ destruction of the New York branch while he strips the title of manager from Winston (Ian McShane). With no place to turn and his pool of friends shrinking, Wick goes to the Osaka Continental Hotel managed Shimazu (Hiroyuki Sanada) and his concierge and daughter Akira (musician Rina Sawayama in her film debut — Pixels, rise up!) for safe housing.

This first third of the movie is surprisingly meditative compared to past entries of the series that have tended to throw us into the action immediately. The first action sequence of John Wick: Chapter 3 is among the great action scenes of all time. However, this slow start is not without reason. As Marquis’s right-hand man Chidi (Marko Zaror) and his army of High Table mercenaries descend on the hotel, Shimazu, imbued with stoic power by Sanada’s performance, tells his daughter they must fight for those they love. And we’ll come to learn what it is each character is fighting for.

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What it lacks in propulsive plot momentum, Chapter 4 makes up for in perhaps the most ambitious action sequences in the series’ history. Seemingly endless sections of the movie are dedicated to Wick carving his way through the High Table’s infinite supply of henchmen—two sequences even clock in at nearly thirty minutes. The Osaka Contintental sequence is classic John Wick as the staff of the hotel, largely donning swords, knives, and bows-and-arrows, take on the heavily armed High Table army. Grandiose and epic in scale, it’s perhaps the most ambitious set-piece of the series… up until that point at least.

What’s particularly refreshing is our point-of-view switches between Shimazu, Akira, John, and even Caine, who has been coerced into helping the High Table in a bid to protect his daughter. Each character moves the plot forward as they all push forward with their own motivations as their futures are entwined. However, what’s apparent is that while everyone else falls into one of the three categories the Marquis lists, John does not.

Eventually, John and Winston reunite and concoct a way out of their precarious position with the High Table: challenging the Marquis to a duel. However, to do that, John has to secure the blessing and crest of his estranged Bulgarian family. So begins a classic John Wick tale that will bring him around the world and back — and perhaps to redemption. Along the way, another assassin known as The Tracker (Shamier Anderson) and his trusty canine sidekick — cinematic parallels! — are roped in the Marquis’s scheme, John fights his way through a crowded club in a callback to Chapter 2, and participates in perhaps the greatest action sequence of all time.

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John Wick: Chapter 4 is an immense action magnum opus. It is near non-stop wall-to-wall combat, car chases, and shoot-outs on a level not seen since Mad Max: Fury Road. The sequence following John Wick through Paris, around the Arc de Triomphe, into an abandoned haussmann-style house (where one of the greatest single-take action sequences will blow your mind as the camera moves in near impossible ways), and up a set of stairs in the funniest and most brutal fights of the series, could bring any action fan to tears.

However, what sticks with you is that initial question. What does John Wick have left to fight for? Where the movie ends up with that question may divide fans. What won’t be controversial is why the other characters old — Winston, King of the Bowery (Laurence Fishburne) — and new — Akira, Caine — are still fighting. Why they have something to live for, to die for, or to kill for. As a series, John Wick, dripped in all its glorious violence and bloodshed, has always been about love. And by the time you watch John claw his way through dozens of men up a flight of stairs you realize that no matter the motivation, you will always root for John Wick.

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Hey! I’m Karl. You can find me on Twitter and Letterboxd. I’m also a Tomatometer-approved critic.

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March 13, 2023
‘TÁR’ wants you to kill your heroes | review and analysis
TÁR follows world-renowned conductor-composer Lydia Tár as she prepares for a career-defining concert as the objectionable actions of her past come back to haunt her.

In one of the opening scenes of TÁR, director Todd Field’s first feature film in nearly two decades, which is playing at the 60th New York Film Festival, world-renowned composer-conductor Lydia Tár (Cate Blanchett) chides a BIPOC gender non-conforming Julliard student who suggests he can’t appreciate Bach as he was a racist white man. Tár—a self-proclaimed “Uhaul lesbian” draped in harshly structured suits pulled out of a Muji catalog—retorts, “you must stand in front of your audience and God and obliterate yourself.” She’s saying you need to compromise your humanity—your values, identity, and beliefs—for your craft. And the way Blanchett delivers the stunning monologue, which is presented as an unbroken ten-plus minute take, convinces you that she’s right.

She’s not, of course. And over the course of two-and-a-half hours, we’ll learn exactly why.

Ironically, Lydia is unapologetically her human self in every moment of TÁR—something we as the audience can’t help but find admirable and maybe even charming (she’s funny!)… until it’s not.

Refreshingly, Field presents her as an anti-hero, a title often reserved for male characters. Like it’s impossible for a woman to be both “difficult” and a human at the same time. The concept is broken down in Brett Martin’s book Difficult Men, which explores the television revolution of the 2000s through the villainous men we rooted for until the end—Don Draper in Mad Men, Tony Soprano in The Sopranos, Walter White in Breaking Bad. However, often times the women in those stories are simply seen as the villain—Skylar White in Breaking Bad being the prime example.

TÁR, on the other hand, is on Lydia’s side. Or perhaps, we the audience are on her side and the movie challenges us to stay on her side similarly to her partner (in both life and the orchestra) Sharon Goodnow (Nina Hoss). However, she makes it difficult at every turn. We learn that Lydia, the first female conductor of the Berliner Philharmoniker in Germany, is set to conduct a recording of the fifth symphony of legend Gustav Mahler. An accomplishment that will cement her greatness status even more than the EGOT she already achieved—Mel Brooks, eat your heart out.

Though she’s more than devoted to the work as we see through prep for the concert and rehearsals, Lydia is human after all despite the android-like demeanor she maintains. It comes in handy when she bullies her young adopted daughter Petra’s (Mila Bogojevic) bully into leaving her alone. She hilariously approaches and says, “I am Petra’s father” before assuring her if she doesn’t leave her daughter alone that she will get her. I’d be terrified too. However, it also prevents her from seeing her true nature like when she’s auditioning new members for the orchestra and cheats the blind audition system to admit young Russian cellist Olga Metkina (Sophie Kauer) to whom she takes a liking.

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But like any good anti-hero story, Lydia’s past eventually catches up to her and exposes her truest human nature—and forces us to reckon with how we treat, forgive, and don’t forgive genius. A past protégé that she tries to sweep under the rug, political intrigue around the orchestra (who knew philharmonics were so dramatic!), and her interest in Olga all eventually start to crush the perfect world she’s built around her. It leads to the movie exploring the power dynamics of fame (and grooming), cancel culture, and the narcissism of greatness.

That’s not to say the movie is preachy or precious about those themes. TÁR is a surprisingly fun movie that moves swiftly through its two-and-a-half-hour runtime.

Lydia herself is a few degrees removed from full-blown satire—not quite Julia Louis-Dreyfus screaming about croissants and dildos in Veep but close. And at first, that’s part of her charm until you see that Lydia’s emotional crassness goes beyond words and into action. But when the world puts you on a sky-high pedestal, you’re bound to get too close to the sun. Is Lydia a self-imposed victim of circumstance or is she a sociopathic narcissist? The movie’s ending—completely unexpected—doesn’t give us the answer. Yet, it’s still boldly satisfying like everything else about TÁR. Like a perfectly composed symphony, every note has a purpose—even the ones that don’t seem to.

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However what really pushes TÁR into greatness is that Lydia isn’t actually our point-of-view character.

However, what really pushes TÁR into greatness is that Lydia isn’t actually our point-of-view character. Sure, we see the events of the movie from her perspective, but it’s actually Sharon who represents us in the movie. When Tár makes the rash decision to hold auditions for a cello solo rather than giving it to the first chair as is tradition—in an effort to give the solo to Olga—Sharon’s confused, disturbed, then angry face says it all. When things finally come crumbling down, Sharon delivers the final blow. Hoss, with far less screen time and internal exploration, makes Sharon into the movie’s most complex character.

Still, it’s Blanchett’s performance that feels like a magnum opus—in a career that seems to hit a peak but then continues to climb. I can’t fathom that Tár is fictional because she makes her so real. Like I could open Wikipedia and go on a bender through her early life, personal life (“Tár is openly gay”), and controversies section. It’s what makes TÁR one of the year’s greatest. So rarely does a movie feel so imminently relevant while also having no agenda, no references, and no preconceived notions. TÁR is a movie to chew over. To analyze like a historian. If only those dead old white guys were this interesting.

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October 6, 2022
‘Marriage Story’ NYFF review: Now processing heartbreak
Marriage Story follows an actress and her director husband as they go through a messy bicoastal divorce.

One-sentence review: Marriage Story is a heartbreaking but funny and entertaining sendup of marriage, divorce, and what it means to be a couple.

Where to watch Marriage Story: Streaming on Netflix.

I just went through a breakup. A five-year relationship that seemed to be endless gone in a single night. There’s so much sadness and anger and denial and grief. However, the overwhelming feeling is confusion. It’s not hyperbolic to say it feels like you’re going to die. Perhaps that is hyperbolic. At the very least, there’s a constant sense of dread. You ask yourself so many questions. Am I making the right decision for me? How about for him? Should I have fought harder? Is he going to be alright? Those are the things that are the hardest to process. I bring this up to give you context for why watching writer-director Noah Baumbach‘s latest film Marriage Story, which premiered at the 57th New York Film Festival, a wrenching and difficult but ultimately cathartic experience.

The thesis of Marriage Story is delivered via two numbers from Stephen Sondheim’s classic musical Company. The first features Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) — along with her mother Sandra (Julie Hagerty) and sister Cassie (Merritt Weaver) — singing “You Could Drive a Person Crazy.” In the song, the three women that the perpetual bachelor main character Robert is seeing sing in an Andrews sisters-style number about his inability to commit.

The second is Sandra’s ex-husband Charlie (Adam Driver) singing finale number “Being Alive” in the middle of a bar surrounded by the theater company he founded with Sandra. The song sees Robert finally accepting the notion of love and commitment. In particular, the challenges that come along with the vulnerability that a relationship requires. The song is a moment of acceptance in both Marriage Story and the musical. In the musical, it’s about being able to accept love and all the things that make it complicated. In Marriage Story, the song is about the acceptance that sometimes love isn’t enough.

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New York vs. Los Angeles: A battle of desires

The movie begins with Charlie confessing about what he loves about Nicole. A montage of the couple’s life in happier times with their son Henry (Azhy Robertson) plays beneath the voiceover. Then, the movie switches to Nicole’s perspective as she talks about what she loves about Charlie. In so many ways, what they admire about each other are in opposition as is often the case with couples. That’s why they work. Baumbach gives us a chance to explore deep care the couple has — perhaps had — for each other. They’ll question it throughout, but we know it’s there.

There are these moments where they will be speaking in their Brooklyn apartment like things are normal, then one of them walks away and immediately begins crying. It’s the death of the normalcy that’s the hardest. However, things are changing for the pair. Nicole is heading to Los Angeles to star in a TV pilot while Charlie is hard at work on his latest play with the theater company. They decide that Henry will temporarily stay with Nicole in LA while she’s filming and Charlie will fly back and forth.

Laura Dern and Scarlett Johanson in Marriage Story. Credit: Netflix.

Nicole took the pilot because she wanted to do something truly for herself for once. The two met in their 20s. Young, free, artistic, and ready to take on the world. She had a promising career in film as hinted by with a clip from her breakout role in the teen romance “All Over the Girl,” but after falling for Charlie she flew across the country to be at the center of his theater company. She always had yearnings of returning to LA and even discussed it with Charlie, which he’d placate her with “one day” and “in the future.”

However, Charlie has never been able to see past his own grand vision for life. “We’re a New York family,” as he often said during the divorce proceedings when they really get rough. However, their son Henry says he likes LA and Nicole’s TV pilot looks like it might be going to series — still, what he thinks is right for the family is for them all to be in New York. It perpetuates the reason Nicole wanted to split up in the first place — this is Charlie’s life, she’s just living in it.

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Divorces have to get ugly before they get better

After it becomes clear that Charlie won’t accept the family moving across the country, Nicole hires celebrity divorce lawyer Nora Fanshaw (Laura Dern) to represent her. Dern is an absolute knockout in the role of a woman whose understanding of relationships and the male psyche would better suit her as a therapist. However, her veracity also makes her the perfect lawyer. She explains to Nicole that hiring her isn’t a shot across the bow, but a claiming of her wants and desires as her own.

Charlie is shocked by the decision as he’s hilariously served papers in a standout scene by Nicole’s sister Cassie. He sees it as a shot across the bow. He even says it feels like the divorce is happening to him — another sign that he just doesn’t get it.

From here, the movie devolves into a series of messy arguments and tactics in an attempt to get each side what they want. And at every turn, it feels like Charlie is losing — he can’t use a specific lawyer because Nicole already consulted with them, he needs to establish residence in LA to be close to his son but needs to maintain one in New York to prove they’re a “New York family.”

This is a movie about the process of divorce and how messy it is — morally and legally. At one point, Dern’s Nora and Charlie’s lawyer Jay (Ray Liotta) go up against each other in court by twisting things Nicole and Charlie have said about each other in increasing preposterous ways to smear the other’s reputation. It highlights the need for a divorce to be messy to actually work. In the case of Charlie and Nicole, it’s a wakeup call.

It’s a man’s world

Charlie is obsessed with saying what he thinks is right for other people. I mean, he’s a director after all — that just bleeds into his own life too. Despite all indications pointing to LA being the right place for their son to grow up — hilariously, characters always remark at how much space there is in LA — Charlie is insistent that they need to be in New York because he wants to be in New York. He just disguises it as what he thinks is best for them.

Scarlett Johanson, Azhy Robertson, and Adam Driver in Marriage Story. Credit: Netflix.

As Nora delivers in a fiery monologue, we live in a society where women are meant to bend their desires to men and whatever they deem comfortable. Even Nicole’s mom seemingly sides with Charlie because of her old-fashioned view of things. For once, Nicole is doing something for herself, and in Charlie’s view that makes her the bad guy. In our view too. The movie is largely told from Charlie’s perspective, so our sympathies automatically lie with him. Then, Baumbach pulls the rug out from under us and reminds us that we’re so immeshed in these societal expectations that we don’t even realize why we’re thinking in that way.

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The only way to get over sadness is to go through it

However, it’s called Marriage Story for a reason. Except, instead of the making of a marriage, it’s the breaking of one. Like I said at the beginning, as messy as the actual logistics of it are, it’s the emotional gymnastics that we have to do to get through it that’s that hardest.

I’ve been trying so hard to convince myself that I’m going to be alright in my breakup — and that he would be alright. And we both will be, but not right away. Maybe it will take weeks, months, or even years to get over it. To get over the emotional ties that we have to each other. There hasn’t been a day that I’ve woken up feeling utterly alone and just crave the normalcy we once had. But that’d be unfair.

Like Nicole and Charlie, we met each other at a specific time in life. One where we were still forming who we are. The sad fact of the matter is that it changes with time. Your wants and desires clear up, your lifestyle comes into focus, and that causes rifts. There are some that you should bend for and some you shouldn’t. It’s so hard to be honest about them, but in the long run you’re only causing more hurt if you continue to ignore them.

Nicole realizes that. Society taught her to not want, but she slowly realizes that she’s allowed to. Charlie doesn’t realize that. His nature tells him he’s doing the right thing for his family. Those final two songs from Company tell us exactly where they are in emotional maturity. Nicole is past acceptance and Charlie is just getting there. He gets there when he is finally able to be sad and angry about what’s going on. Because the only way to get over it is to go through it.

Marriage Story brings us through it, unveils truths about ourselves and society, and does it in a funny and entertaining way. It’s a nearly impossible feat to make a 136-minutes movie about a divorce entertaining, but it is. The process is inherently silly and the things we do make no sense. The way people around us react doesn’t help, but it just exposes truths about life — it’s consistently inconsistent. As messy and devastating as the process of breaking up is, it makes you feel alive. Maybe it’s a good thing in the long run.

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Hey! I’m Karl. You can find me on Twitter and Letterboxd. I’m also a Tomatometer-approved critic.

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October 12, 2019
‘Bacurau’ NYFF review — The weird western Tarantino never made
Set in a Brazillian village in the near future, Bacurau follows the inhabitants as they become the victims to a sinister set of events.

One-sentence review: Bacurau is a wonderfully weird western that is as funny as it is hard hitting and thrilling.

Details: ? Kleber Mendonça Filho & Juliano Dornelles // ?? Brazil // ⏳ 130 minutes

The cast: Sônia Braga, Udo Kier, Bárbara Colen

Where to watch Bacurau: Playing at the New York Film Festival October 1st & 2nd. Tickets here.

The inhabitants of the small remote fictional Brazilian village Bacurau don’t know it yet, but they’re at the center of a sinister act of greed, racism, and privilege. There are signs of the impending events. One night dozens of horses stampede through the center of the town. Another night the truck that supplies the village with water arrives with bullet holes in its side. When one of the village’s leaders and teacher (Wilson Rabelo) goes to show his students where Bacurau is on a map, it’s missing. Oh, and there’s a UFO-shaped drone stalking people.

All the oddball energy extends to the cast of characters that call the village home. There’s the boozed-up doctor unafraid to speak her mind (Sônia Braga), an outlaw who can never turn his machismo off (Thomas Aquino), and a DJ who doesn’t have a radio station and instead just broadcasts on giant speakers for anyone to hear.

The tone of Bacurau, which had its North American premiere at the 57th New York Film Festival, is so unexpectedly delightful. It’s like the weird western that Quentin Tarantino never made — perhaps even lighter and sillier than even Tarantino. There are so many subtle quips and observations from characters that make you want to delve even deeper into their inner lives and history — the movie might have taken inspiration from Bong Joon-ho’s work including his most recent work Parasite, also playing at the fest. It makes the ensuing events even more difficult to stomach.

The community is tight-knit. Almost alarmingly so. They’re so wary of outsiders that even when the skeevy mayor (Thardelly Lima) pays a visit they all disperse as he tries to buy their affection with less than stellar gifts — books dropped off by garbage trucks, illegal prescription medicine, expired food. It’s a less-than-subtle indictment of Brazil’s current powers-that-be. However, directors Kleber Mendonça Filho & Juliano Dornelles make it a point to center the movie of the community. The inhabitants of Bacurau are the strong beating heart at its center.

The cast of Bacurau.

It would be extremely difficult to review Bacurau without revealing at least in some part where the movie leads. However, that’s also part of the fun. So, I will say this before diving further into details. This movie is a genre-bender. It’s a western, a satire, a comedy, an action movie, a mystery all rolled up into beautifully packaged — and wild — narrative. And it ends up nowhere you think it would.

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⚠️ Light spoiler warning.

Eventually, the villagers realize that something is amiss. Along with all the weird events happening, they discover some inhabitants murdered. It’s revealed that the village is about to be besieged by a group of heavily armed American tourists in a twist of The Most Dangerous Game or The Purge. Another inspiration, as evidenced by the score and opening credits, is John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13.

We get to know this group and their motivations as well as the villagers. And it’s laid out pretty bluntly that this is an allegory for colonialization, class warfare, and the current political climate in Brazil and throughout the world. Exploring those themes as a sendup of 70s westerns and exploitation movies is a brilliant decision.

While a lot of the movie’s themes and its portrayal of the community and its lore, which in some parts nearly veer into fantasy, are so specific to Brazil. There are so many threads connecting it to what’s happening in the United States. In fact, the white tourists, who are clearly parodies of rural Americans, feel entitled to their “hunt” of the villagers. For them, it only makes sense.

If I have one complaint about Bacurau it’s that, whether intentional or not, the filmmakers clearly outline — almost too clearly — the message they’re trying to get across. It’s almost propagandist. However, that is forgivable because they go so hard on the quirkiness and camp of it all. Bacurau is a pure, hilarious, violent, and surprising delight.

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September 20, 2019
‘Barbie’ is hot pink-splashed post-modern meta romp | review and analysis
Barbie leads a perfect life, until something goes horribly wrong. To save herself, she needs to leave her pink utopia Barbieland and venture into the real world. Ken’s there too.

Barbie looks camp right in the eye and turns it into a hot pink-splashed post-modern meta exploration of existentialism, feminism, the patriarchy and masculinity packaged in a satirical surreal musical comedy homage to classic. It isn’t just a movie of our time. It is the movie of our time.

Barbie is in theaters now.

Before I begin: I want to vocalize by full support of the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild as they fight for a fair deal.

I’m so happy I live in a world where a major studio gave a female filmmaker a $145 million dollar budget to make a post-modern meta-exploration of existentialism, feminism, the patriarchy and masculinity packaged as a satirical surreal musical comedy homage to classic cinema based on a children’s toy. They’d probably faint if I tried to explain this to a Victorian child. Barbie is a movie of today. Or, more aptly, Barbie is *the* movie of today.

Writer-director Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird, Little Women)—she co-wrote the movie with her husband Noah Baumbach—captures our current societal, political, and cultural moment with confident hot pink-splashed ease as she double winks at the audience with the surreal absurdity of Barbieland. That is the most remarkable achievement of the movie. Barbie knows that we know that they know that we know exactly what they’re doing. It’s like a movie of a dream sequence in a movie in a dream. Things don’t quite make sense, but it adds up. In the case of Barbie, it adds up to a sharp, incisive, and profound reflection of our world—that also happens to be a hilarious summer romp that we’ve been craving.

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We begin in Barbieland, a picturesque bright idealistic world made of plastic. It’s basically the “how society would look if” meme if it was pink. Every morning the “Barbies” wake up, brush their teeth with comically-sized toothbrushes, “shower” with no water, and float down from their roofs to begin their day of… well, being perfect. Barbie is president (Issa Rae in a charming supporting role). She also holds every seat on the Supreme Court. She’s a doctor. A lawyer. Barbie is everything. As narrator Helen Mirren puts it in a cheeky voiceover, “all problems of feminism and equal rights have been solved” in the real world because of Barbie… or so the Barbies in Barbieland are led to believe—more on that later.

All the visual gags and well-publicized hyper-stylized quirks are as delightful as you’d imagined (Her heels don’t hit the ground! They drink from cups with nothing in them! Gravity is more of a concept than reality!). The specificity and absolute absurdity of the world-building is joyous, as is the “giant blowout party with all the Barbies, and planned choreography, and a bespoke song.” Margot Robbie as our protagonist Stereotypical Barbie (her words not mine)—aka the Barbie you think of when someone tells you to think of a Barbie—is perhaps the most charismatic and perfect of them all (if that’s even possible).

But then at the end of their perfect Disco-inspired musical number to Dua Lipa’s “Dance the Night” a though creeps into Barbie’s head: “Do you guys ever think about dying?” Cue the record scratch.

The next day, Barbie’s perfect morning isn’t quite perfect. Her “shower” is cold, waffles burnt, and, most alarmingly, her feet are flat (*gay gasp*)! She laments, “I would never wear heels if my feet were shaped this way.” There are countless of those precise observational quips. This leads her to Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon)—a Barbie who was played with too hard and can’t seem to keep herself out of the splits—who explains that someone playing with her in the real world is making her this way (she even starts to get *gulps* cellulite on her thigh). Weird Barbie offers her a red pill and a blue pill. Well, in the world of Barbie it’s a pink sparkly pump and a Birkenstock. Go to the real world and fix the problem or stay here and suffer—she chooses the pump. Weird Barbie makes clear it wasn’t an option to begin with. So Barbie takes a car to a bike to a rocket to an RV to a boat into the real world… oh, and Ken (Ryan Gosling) is there too.

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Like Singin’ in the Rain—a clear inspiration for the movie—delightfully wrestled with the change from silent movies to sound, Barbie wrestles with the change from Barbie’s ignorant utopic existence in Barbieland to the bleak reality of the real world where she’s ogled on by men in a world ruled by them. Ken, on the other hand, is like a teenage boy discovering the Joe Rogan podcast. His eyes are “opened” to the possibilities of being a man and a world ruled by the patriarchy—and learns its limits. His world shifts from only have a good day if Barbie looks at him to seeing he can have that power all to himself—what could possibly go wrong?

Gerwig bakes the themes of the movie into the world and story seamlessly. She makes the concept of Barbie inseparable from gender and gender roles—her very existence is rooted in the experience of being a woman. In a climactic scene, Gloria (America Ferrara), a Mattel employee in the real world, lists the all the reasons why being a woman is so frustrating (you have to be skinny, but you can’t say you’re skinny you have to say you’re “healthy”; you have to strive to be successful, but you can’t be mean). It calls into question Barbie’s place in the real world—is she there to just make women feel bad that they can never achieve that level of success? Though Mattel is directly involved in the movie, they are just as much of a target of the movie’s dismantling of the paradoxes that make up our society—represented here by a bumbling CEO played by Will Ferrell and low-level intern Aaron (Connor Swindells).

Like any hero’s journey, Barbie’s adventure leads her back to Barbieland where things are looking different—and with more horses. From there, Barbie evolves to a battle of philosophies that call into question the foundations of our society.

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While Robbie’s performance is pitch-perfect playing up the plastic perfection (and realistic ignorance) of Barbie as she discovers what it is to be human (it’s giving Tyra Banks in Life Size), it’s Ryan Gosling’s performance as Ken that perhaps best encapsulates the high wire act that Gerwig accomplishes between the energetic larger-than-life tone and complex societal themes. In a scene that is destined to be his Oscar clip, Gosling portrays a devastated Ken experiencing real emotion for the first time while throwing himself around the Barbie dream house in what can only be described as a slapstick tantrum over the nearly impossible balancing act of existing not for something but yourself.

It’s difficult to watch Barbie and not be enamored by the sheer audacity of it all. It looks camp right in the eye and turns it into an artful, wildly entertaining, sharply funny deconstruction of the very fabric of our existence and the existence of our society. That isn’t even a hyperbolic statement. The intro parody of 2001: A Space Odyssey isn’t only brilliantly hilarious, it’s the perfect cinematic comparison. Barbie exists in a different meta-plane than other movies. By the time an Avengers: Endgame-level battle is levied between Gosling’s Ken and Simu Liu‘s Ken using sports equipment that eventually devolves into a “Greased Lightning”-inspired musical number it feels like you’ve seen the bounds of cinema expanded. As Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?” underscores and an emotional montage on screen you can help but be moved by this movie about a doll.

So take the sparkly pink pump and step into Barbieland.

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July 18, 2023
‘The Little Mermaid’ review: Halle Bailey swims to stardom

Disney’s 1989 classic The Little Mermaid makes a splashy return to the screen with a refresh that finally bucks Disney’s live-action adaptation losing streak

The Little Mermaid is largely successful off the back of recreating the original film — but how wonderful it looks in live-action. Bolstered by a star-is-born turn from Halle Bailey as Ariel, this is the Disney live-action to finally capture some of the magic from our childhood for the new generation.

The Little Mermaid is in theaters May 26.

“Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. Before we continue I’d like to apologize to anyone who might be upset or offended by what you saw before the break. It’s not every day you see a demonic possession on live television.” That’s how host Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian)follows up a segment of the Halloween episode of his late-night talk show where he interviews suspected possession victim young teen Lilly (Ingrid Torelli). While it might seem bizarre for a 1977 late-night show, it’s by design. Night Owls with Jack Delroy is lagging in ratings behind a little program known as The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson and it’s sweeps week — the time of the month when Nielsen comes up with its ratings for what Americans are watching on TV. If you were desperate enough you’d commune with the devil too.

After enduring expressionless hyperrealistic animals in The Lion King and an eerily artificial genie in a surprisingly dull Aladdin, Disney has finally broken their live-action losing streak with Rob Marshall’s adaptation of the 1989 classic The Little Mermaid. And there were two clear reasons for the movie’s success.

There’s Marshall himself, who has become the go-to movie musical adapter since winning Best Picture for Chicago in 2002 — though The Little Mermaid is easily his best film since. And, of course, there’s Halle Bailey who makes the jump from musician to actor with the ease of Lady Gaga in A Star is Born, Janelle Monae in Moonlight and Hidden Figures, and Rina Sawayama in John Wick: Chapter Four (What? Like it’s hard?). If anyone keeps the movie afloat, it’s her Ariel.

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This version of The Little Mermaid largely follows the story of the original. Ariel, a young mermaid who longs to live in the surface world, gets the chance to live her dream when sea witch Ursula (a deliciously camp Melissa McCarthy) strikes a deal to make her into a human in exchange for her siren call. Of course, there’s a catch. If she doesn’t get the swoon-worthy Prince Eric (Jonah Hauer-King) to give her true love’s kiss by the third sunset, she will revert to a mermaid and find herself pledged to Ursuala.

Her journey to the surface world is aided by her father King Triton’s (Javier Bardem) trusted advisor Sebastian (voiced by Hamilton’s Daveed Diggs), her (terrifying looking) fish friend Flounder (Jacob Tremblay), and squirrely seagull Scuttle (Awkwafina). And while the surface world brings its own kind of magic, it is ahem… under the sea that is the most impressive.

Where Jon Favreau strived for realism in The Jungle Book or The Lion King (because a lion version of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” just begs for realism), Marshall was unafraid to infuse surrealism into the world — it is a movie about mermaids after all. There’s no better example than the colorful musicality of “Under the Sea”, which largely errs to the original sequence. As Diggs joyously laments on the wonders of their ocean world, colorful sea creatures dance around the coral reef — whether sea turtles marching to the beat or sea fans mimicking burlesque fans. It’s the kind of energized musical number that was lost to the uncanny valley of The Lion King.

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“Kiss the Girl” is formed by the sounds of the environment — wind through the trees, bird fluttering their wings — bringing the impossible magic of the cartoon into the real world. McCarthy, taking note from Ursula’s original inspiration Divine, brings us a deliciously camp “Poor Unfortunate Souls” that teems with the spellbinding antics of the original number while bringing a new sense of danger with the live-action elements. The movie’s sense of stakes was a welcome surprise.

And while the classic numbers certainly do the heavy lifting, the movie charts new territory. Screenwriter David Magee (Life of Pi, Finding Neverland) expanded the lore in ways that help the movie reach new depths (though others leave it shipwrecked). Moving the story to an unspecified Caribbean island adds a fresh perspective to the well-worn Disney Princess genre — and adds an island musicality that keeps the scenes between musical numbers light and airy.

New numbers like “For the First Time” fall into step with the classic score, while still feeling like it fits within the tone and possibilities of this adaptation. The island kingdom itself has a new life (and music) to it — adding a new complexity to the themes of the original.

At the core of the movie’s success, however, is Hauer-King’s Prince Eric, who feels more than just a love interest thanks to added character development — and a new musical number that plays suspiciously like “Edgar’s Prayer” from Barb and Star Go To Vista Del Mar — and, of course, Bailey’s singular Ariel who teems with charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent. Her version of “Part of Your World” (and its subsequent reprises) have bore themselves into my psyche since seeing the movie — and likely the rest of the audience if judging by the applause break after her final ethereal riff.

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Bailey’s take on “Part of Your World” is perhaps the greatest characterization of the movie’s success. Her rendition has a deep reverence for Jodi Benson’s iconic original but finds ways to push the song in new directions to feel one with herself. As much as she is the lead of the movie, the movie is her. From her palpable chemistry with Hauer-King to her doe-eyed wonder at the surface world to her teenage angst of where she came from, her performance drives (sails?) The Little Mermaid to its peak.

Does The Little Mermaid change my mind about Disney’s commitment to producing films off of existing IP? No. I’d rather they focus on creating new stories for this generation to fall in love with. Still the movie, for all its imperfections and missteps — I will never forgive Lin Manuel Miranda for subjecting me to “The Scuttlebutt” rap — finds heart within material that already had one beating strong in it. And that heart is Halley Bailey, the Disney princess a new generation needs and deserves.

May 22, 2023
‘Mafia Mamma’ review: Toni Collette’s mob comedy needs to get whacked
Mafia Mamma follows a down-on-her-luck California woman who unwittingly becomes the head of her family’s crime operation in Italy

Mafia Mamma tries to be Under the Tuscan Sun, Goodfellas and a raunchy 2000s comedy yet fails at all three. The jokes are so low-brow (and vaguely offensive) to even laugh at let alone with. Sloppily made. Frustratingly repetitive. Toni, I’m so sorry.

Mafia Mamma may have been the greatest comedy of all time… back in 2008. Today, not so much. It’s not fault of the actors, who are doing their absolute best with material that reads like it was written by a screenwriter that has since been canceled. Toni Collette is such a master at comedic line delivery that she could make War and Peace funny. The problem here is that the jokes are so broadly-written that even good line-delivery make the punchline land—it’s what happens when jokes are only punchlines.

It’s a shame that a concept ripe for laughs (and camp) goes to waster (sleeping with the fishes, if you will). Kristin, a California wife and mother, is surrounded by men who think her job is to kowtow to their will—worst of all is her man-child husband Paul (Tim Daish) who, of course, is in a band. So when she gets a call from her late grandfather’s no-nonsense Italian “assistant” Bianca (Monica Bellucci) asking her to come to Italy to help settle his affairs, Kristin is hesitant… that is until she catches her husband in a compromising position in their basement.

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Seeing an opportunity to get herself out her rut—and with some encouragement from her friend Jenny (Sophia Nomvete) who insists she have an “Eat, Pray, Fuck” vacation—Kristin travels to Italy. However, at the funeral the mourning is quickly interrupted by gunfire (and maybe one of the worst “walking away from an explosion” shots I’ve ever seen—Angela, show them how it’s done). Turns out, Kristin’s grandfather was the boss for one of the most powerful crime families in Italy, The Balbanos, and he wanted her to be his successor much to the chagrin of his nephew Fabrizio (Eduardo Scarpetta).

Kristin ambles her way through the crime org including negotiating peace between crime families, managing their sh-tty wine cover operation, and trying to get d-ck. That last part is what makes Mafia Mamma nearly unbearable to watch. While Collette is completely immersed in Kristin’s naïve doe-eyed persona, that one-note doesn’t often change even when the movie takes a turn towards female empowerment. In many cases, it’s her dopiness that saves her rather than her own skill. Throw in Super Mario Bros.-levels of Italian stereotypes, unnecessary levels of gross-out gore, and a plot that doesn’t actually go anywhere despite it going everywhere and you have a crime-comedy that’s dead-on-arrival.

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April 12, 2023
‘Babylon’ review: Pure magic and bad taste
Babylon follows the rise and fall of several figures during the 1920s Hollywood silent film era. But sound (and change) are on the horizon.

Babylon is “a confluence of bad taste and pure magic,” as Jean Smart’s character describes star-on-the-rise Nellie LaRoy. In the mess of its unfocused plot and spectacle is a rousing story of evolution, fame, and, yes, the power of movies that’s greater than the sum of its parts.

Diego Calva and Margot Robbie’s storylines are the most successful as two Hollywood dreamers on parallel paths to success. However, the movie gets distracted by its own flash and their character development gets stunted. Still, the movie manages to land on its feet, just barely.

It is a huge swing. If it’s a hit or miss I’m not entirely sure. What I do know is it didn’t lose me for its three-plus hour runtime and the ending left me reeling. Did it earn it? Not quite. But Chazelle knows how to put a movie together, even if he’s not fully mastered the storytelling part.

Babylon is now streaming on Parmount+. Get one week free here.

By the time the title card for Babylon roars onto screen we’ve seen every bodily fluid imaginable—blood, sweat, tears, cum, bile, spit, shit (both human and animal). There’s song, dance, contortion, acrobatics, and an elephant. Welcome to Hollywood circa the late 1920s. The film industry is hitting its stride and dreamers from all over converge to have their hopes crushed and realized. But that’s what all of the films in director Damien Chazelle’s short but prolific filmography are about—people fighting to realize their dreams. In Babylon, our dreamers are New Jersey-born aspiring actress Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie) and Mexican-American film assistant Manny Torres (Diego Calva). For them, unlike the pair at the center of La La Land, the dream is very real. They shoot for the moon and actually get there. Unfortunately for them, there’s also this thing called gravity.

However, before the crash, Babylon is a cocaine-fueled, debaucherous love letter to excess and the people who dare to dream. Nellie and Manny meet for the first time at a… party. Let’s just say that this makes The Hangover look quaint. In classic Chazelle style the camera whips around the hilltop mansion catching glimpses of people dancing, drinking, fucking, and doing every illicit substance imaginable—it’s pure heartracing movie magic. In the chaos we also meet our cast of characters. There’s Nellie and Manny, of course. Then there’s silent film star Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt), the man everyone wants to meet and with one glance can send you to stardom. On stage playing the sax is trumpeter Sidney Palmer (Jovan Adepo) who along with his band support a song from Lady Fay Zhu (Li Jun Li), a sort of composite between screen legends Anna May Wong and Marlene Dietrich. Lastly we have Elinor St. John (Jean Smart), a journalist covering the industry with kink for sensationalism.

Over the next decade or so we follow each character as they grow in the industry. After the party, Manny is tapped to be Jack’s assistant while Nellie is asked to fill in on a film for an actress that… had a little too much fun. Just when you thought Babylon couldn’t get any more impressive, Chazelle treats us to another quick-cutting romp through the silent movie era as we watch multiple projects being filmed at the same time on the same studio lot. There’s Nellie’s prostitute in a bar movie where the director (Olivia Hamilton), in awe, watches as she’s able to cry on command in a hundred different ways. Then there’s Jack’s Grecian war epic, hilariously directed by Spike Jonze playing a very angry German director, complete with real explosions causing real injury to the extras. Meanwhile, Manny is tasked with retrieving a specific camera before the sun goes down and they lose their light. After that day, Nellie and Manny are hooked and on the up and up.

The kinetic energy of the first hour of the movie is equal parts overwhelming and enthralling. There’s isn’t a minute when something, whether in the foreground or background, keeps you hooked on the screen. And there’s of course Margot Robbie whose expressive face, spot on New Jersey accent, and full commitment to the off-the-wall but genuinely talented Nellie keep you rooting for her and Diego Calva whose charm, leading man good looks, and earnest, if not, naïve demeanor keep you hooked on him whenever he’s on screen. It’s always satisfying to watch people succeed (the same way it’s so satisfying to watch Sebastian and Mia fall in love in La La Land).

But then, along comes sound.

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And just like Singin’ In The Rain before it, nobody is ready for change as evidenced by perhaps one of the funniest scenes of the year where an entire studio can’t get on the same page to film a scene with sound—it ends with someone dying (if you know, you know). However, the fall is nowhere near as graceful as the rise. The movie begins to fall apart when it loses focus on its main characters. With asides to Adepo’s Sidney, whose storyline involving race is stunted by his screen time, and Lady Fay, who we never really get to know, we start to lose track of the development of our main protagonists. Even Jack’s climactic final scene, which is impactful regardless because of Chazelle’s sensitive direction, loses some impact because we don’t get to experience his journey there as deeply. It’s like the studio asked Chazelle who the main character was and he just said, “yes.”

As Elinor writes a story about Nellie’s latest film, she calls it “a confluence of pure magic and trash.” That is exactly what Babylon is. When it is great, it lands among the stars. But when it misses, it crashes back down to earth—albeit in spectacular fashion. The third act, which takes us back to the lunacy of the first with a delicious appearance by Tobey Maguire, recaptures some of the magic and brings the movie to a roaring crescendo that leaves us buzzing. It helps the movie become greater than the sum of its parts. Even with a disappointing middle hour, Babylon is worth its three-hour runtime. The greatest litmus test for an ensemble movie like this is whether I’ll miss hanging out with its characters—and I will. Unhinged Nellie, steadfast Manny, enigmatic Lady Fay, they all left something of an impact. And that is all they ever wanted.

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December 16, 2022
‘Beef’ is road rage revenge well done | Non-spoiler review
Beef starts as a road rage revenge comedy that quickly careens into a dark but profoundly complex character study of the Asian-American experience
Beef is a delightfully unhinged road rage revenge dark comedy that careens into a complex character study of the American Dream and two different people united by their dissatisfaction with life — and enraged by the people around them. Steven Yeun and Ali Wong are sublime anti-heroes.

Beef begins streaming on Netflix on April 6th.

While the inciting incident of Netflix’s new series Beef is dramatic, it’s perhaps not quite as dramatic as you’d expect. When we are first introduced to Danny Cho (Steven Yeun) he’s in line at a home improvement store called Forsters suspiciously returning three portable grills and a carbon monoxide alarm. “You’ve tried to return these three times before,” the cashier quips before Danny sulks back to his car. However, as he backs out of his parking spot he nearly hits a white Mercedes SUV. The driver honks their horn a touch too long, which annoys the already aggravated Danny. To make matters worse, they stop, roll down their window, and flip Danny the bird.

The ensuing chase is reckless as Danny tries to get a look at the driver. Flower beds are destroyed, red lights are run, and near crashes abound. However, they never come face to face. Instead, Danny memorizes the license plate and vows to track her down. The cold open is so concise and sharp. Without the context of the participants it’s shocking. However, as “The Birds Don’t Sing, They Screech in Pain” goes on, we learn exactly why Danny and Amy’s (Ali Wong) reactions make sense and how it careens both of them into an existential tail spin — that’s where the real dramatics start.

When you’re at the edge of a cliff, the smallest nudge will send you plummeting over the edge.

We’re introduced to both of our protagonists’ — or are they antagonists? (only time will tell) — inner circles. There’s Amy’s house husband George (Joseph Lee), a paragon of the wealthy Los Angelean holistic bohemian, who instead of asking Amy what’s troubling her when she returns home tells her to take a deep breath and focus on the positive — “let’s fill out our gratitude journals,” he suggests. On the other side, Danny’s brother Paul (Young Mazino) is a man-child who spends his days playing video games and trading crypto instead of working with Danny on his contractor business. While both characters fill archetypes — as does all of the supporting cast — the series progressively challenges our assumptions about them each episode.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFPIMHBzGDs

Amy, a successful entrepreneur who founded a luxury plant brand, is in the throes of a deal with Jordana Forster (Maria Bello), the egregiously wealthy owner of the Forster line of home improvement stores. Wong’s portrayal of Amy as a product of the #girlboss generation is instantly intriguing as she makes sure to show the cracks in the facade. Glimmers of her 1,000-watt smile fading tell us everything we need to know about her — she has to remain in control but is slowly losing it. Even in couples therapy where Amy and George are working through his penchant for liking her employee’s thirst trap pictures on Instagram — “Baby I can explain, I’m just saving the captions” — she has a rehearsed, well-studied response that is designed to appease anyone with a psych degree. It doesn’t. Eventually someone under that much pressure will eventually crack.

However, there are moments when Amy shows her hand. Like when she lets slip about her mother, “she thought that talking about your feelings is the same as complaining.” It’s those flashes of biting commentary about the first generation Asian-American experience that surprise you amongst the nearly slapstick chaos of Beef. Danny, seemingly a chronic failure to start, would rather lie and tear the people around him down to make them than seem like he’s failed again. Amy, a workaholic, can’t seem to let go of the ladder that she’s been climbing for decades, one that she doesn’t seem to want to climb, even if it means leaving those she cares about on the ground.

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The eponymous beef between Danny and Amy gives them both purpose. Even if that purpose is to win at all costs. What’s incredible about Beef‘s trajectory, is that when blood is spilled in the final episodes, we almost forget what exactly they were beefing about in the first place.

In “The Drama of Original Choice,” we learn more about both Amy and Danny’s pasts as Beef further digs into its exploration of the Asian diaspora. However, we don’t just see their pasts, we see their parents’. We see the hope and dreams that they put upon their kids — just like the bagel in Everything Everywhere All At Once — and the sacrifice they had to make to give them the opportunity. That amount of pressure will cause anything to break, even if it becomes a diamond first like Amy.

By series end, all the periphery characters become victims of both Danny and Amy’s own pride — and their beef. No one makes it out unscathed or unchanged. Whether it’s Paul who lives constantly in Danny’s shadow (and unwanted protection) or Amy’s husband George who has to find validation from his mother Fumi (Patti Yasutake) rather than his own wife. There’s Amy’s neighbor and Jordana’s confidant Naomi (Ashley Park), whose seemingly idealistic housewife life is threatened by Amy’s success — “I work,” she tells Amy, “I have my non-profit.”Beef is about trauma and our response to it. But the road rage incident isn’t the trauma. It’s the inciting incident of Danny and Amy’s reckoning with their pasts, how it affects their presents, and their paths for the future. It is one of the most incisive deconstructions of the first generation Asian-American experience.

In the series’ most-powerful moment — and Ali Wong’s future Emmys clip — Amy asks her therapist, “do you think love could really be unconditional?” The series answers that question in its own way. Even if things need to be destroyed to get there.

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Hey! I’m Karl. You can find me on Twitter and Letterboxd. I’m also a Tomatometer-approved critic.

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March 19, 2023
‘Black Bear’ is Aubrey Plaza’s best performance to date | movie review
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A young couple’s relationship is thrown into turmoil when an enigmatic filmmaker moves in with them to try and complete her latest film in Black Bear.

With its sharp script, interesting structure, and a watershed performance by Aubrey Plaza, Black Bear is a deliciously entertaining and satirical quasi-thriller romp about what it is to be a creative.

Black Bear is streaming on Paramount+. You can subscribe here.

Black Bear, which premiered in the NEXT section of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, invokes feelings of a cross between a relationship drama like Before Midnight and a meta satire like One Cut of the Dead. And if that combination sounds crazy, it kind of is. Black Bear could have easily felt like a party trick of a film where a mid-movie shift changes everything you know about the film. Still, it manages to be more than a clever gimmick.

While Lawrence Michael Levine’s careful direction and sharp screenplay help, it is Aubrey Plaza’s dynamite performance as protagonist Allison that does a lot of the work to pull the movie off. Allison at first comes off like an alternate version of Plaza herself. She is a writer, director, and actress who escapes to the mountain home of a friend of a friend to get over a bout of writer’s block—and she maintains the same dry deadpan wit that is patently Plaza.

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The homeowners who are hosting Allison, Gabe (Christopher Abbott—also in Possessor at the festival) and Blair (Enemy’s Sarah Gadon), are a long-term couple—important to note that they’re not married—who are expecting a child. They’ve been offering their isolated lake home to creatives hoping to help inspire them, as they are with Allison, a filmmaker trying to complete writing her latest film.

From the start, it’s clear that there is some simmering tension between the trio. Blair and Gabe seem to constantly contradict each other and take subtle jabs that they know sting. At the same time, it’s clear that Gabe is attracted to Allison, which Blair picks up on. It leaves her in the odd position of hosting Allison while trying to steer her boyfriend in the right direction.

The tension that Levine derives is palpable, though something seems off. Things seem maybe a touch too perfect. Or maybe too dramatic? Perhaps it’s that the dialogue is hyper stylized? Or maybe too natural. Eventually the movie answers at least part of the question of what’s going on, but I will spare you the detail because the reveal is all a part of the trick that makes the movie work.

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Black Bear is about everything and nothing. Not that it doesn’t have a clear purpose, but because of its experimental structure its allegiances are unclear. There are threads for and against the creative process, relationships, and gender dynamics that could have all easily become overwrought. But because of the way the movie twists to a sharp, satirical tone that is at times uproariously funny you’re never left too deep in dramatic waters. Until the climax.

The only proper way to end this review is with a full paragraph of praise for Aubrey Plaza’s performance which I’ll begin with ARE YOU F#CKING KIDDING ME!? Plaza’s performance is mind-blowing in its complexity. Allison herself is a character that code switches depending on who she’s talking to, but at the same time seems susceptible to manipulation. Or is she? Her thoughts are opaque and oh so transparent at the same time to the point that you can at times see her thinking through how she should come off at any given moment. But when that scene happens, and you’ll know it when you see it, you know exactly what she’s thinking. Give her the damn Oscar.

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December 2, 2020
‘Air’ balls hard | movie review
Ben Affleck’s Air tells the story of how Nike struck the biggest partnership in sports history with Michael Jordan and the Air Jordan

Air is a sturdy crowd-pleasing “based on a true story” dramedy that leverages every aspect of the biopic genre to a precision level.

There’s always that one scene in movies about inventors or companies where the main character gets up and gives an impassioned speech about why what they’re doing is important or matters. Ben Affleck’s Air is no exception. However, when Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon) gives a speech to convince a young Michael Jordan (Damian Young) to partner with Nike on what will eventually become the Air Jordan, Affleck cuts the scene with archival footage from the real Jordan’s life. News clips covering his highest highs and lowest lows. In one cut we see an archival news report about his father’s murder before cutting back to the film’s version of James Jordan (Julius Tennon). The effect is nothing short of show-stopping, especially since the film takes care to never let us get a full look at the young Michael.

That emotional impact was particularly surprising to me considering I don’t have much of an attachment to the subject matter at all.

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The movie begins with a breezy montage of 1984. Everything from Princess Diana to Tetris is displayed setting the backdrop. Further adding to the background is perhaps the most shocking true fact the movie exposes: “Nike… 17%.” That’s the share of the athletic shoe market that Nike commands (today it’s over 40%). And while the upstart company had a fast start, their biggest competitors Adidas and Converse continue to cover the majority of the feet in the nation. Air has such a distinct sense of its time and place that it makes it hard to fathom the colossus it eventually becomes.

That’s thanks in part to the performances by the ensemble — and Affleck in particular as Nike founder and CEO Phil Knight — that perfectly captures the energy of a startup that is finding its footing as it finds wider success. The movie is even interspersed with title cards the ten principles of Nike’s mission statement — their inclusion, as someone who has worked in many start-ups, felt facetious. In direct opposition to Knight, who has become somewhat of a corporate shill (despite still traversing the office barefoot), is Sonny. Hilariously, and like many companies, Sonny’s role is obscure and a bit undefined with the goal of “making things better.” However, he can be boiled down to a talent scout.

With Nike’s back against the wall and the NBA draft behind them, it’s Sonny’s job to find three basketball players to split a $250k partnership with Nike to save their failing basketball shoe brand — wild to think about. After going through all the potentials from the top draft picks, Sonny sets his sights on young upstart Michael Jordan. He could just see the spark of greatness, even when others doubt him. So sets off his campaign to lock down MJ, even if it means betting his entire career — and Nike’s entire budget — on it. Even Sonny’s greatest supporter in the office, Howard White (Chris Tucker — doing scene-stealing comedic character work) is skeptical of their chances. Still, Sonny fights for it.

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Like Ford v. Ferrari or Moneyball, as two recent hall of fame examples, Air is the epitome of a dad movie. As in, dads will watch it and nod along like they too are an expert in athlete-brand partnerships at a major shoe corporation. There’s something about process movies — or movies about people just passionately and effectively doing their job well (i.e. every Tom Hanks movie) — that gets dads going. Well, call me a daddy because I was nodding along with them.

Affleck breezily moves between scenes of Sonny analyzing game tape, working with wacky designer Pete Moore (Matthew Maher), or strategizing around their pitch meeting — “Phil, you have to walk in seven minutes late.” It’s the kind of technical fodder that we see more often in journalism movies, here it’s a little more fun. And further tying into the theme of startup culture, more than once a character references the scramble to create the pitch feeling like “the old Nike days” — that glorious period of a startup’s life where you have nothing and everything to lose, but you’re having fun scrappily surviving.

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Even with that momentum, Air takes a few moments to breathe (pun intended) thanks to two key players. First is George Raveling (Marlon Wayans), Jordan’s coach for the 1984 Olympic Games, who in a barnburner biopic inspirational one-scene special recounts how Martin Luther King, Jr. gifted him his “I Have a Dream” speech. Second is Viola Davis as Michael’s mother Deloris Jordan who, for lack of a better phrase, is the heart of the movie in both of her expertly-acted scenes (she’s not an EGOT winner for nothing). In particular, a negotiation scene late in the movie, performed with steady confidence only an actress Davis’ stature can muster, evokes the strongest emotional response of the movie.

Air is as sturdy of a crowd-pleasing “based on a true story” dramedy as they come — this coming from someone who thinks Argo, Affleck’s last directorial effort, is one of the worst Best Picture winners in recent memory. However, where Argo’s emotional manipulation feels like… well, manipulation, Air feels genuine. It never overstates its stakes or forces you to care about its characters. Even a mid-movie soliloquy where marketer Rob Strasser (Jason Bateman) tells Sonny about his divorce and estranged relationship with his daughter only mines the smallest of eye rolls. Does Air do anything to reinvent the biopic? Far from it. Does it leverage every aspect of it to a precision level? Absolutely. It’s the equivalent of watching Michael Jordan fly through the air to dunk. An athlete performing to his highest technical level, but with extra magic that only he could assemble.

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Hey! I’m Karl. You can find me on Twitter and Letterboxd. I’m also a Tomatometer-approved critic.

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April 6, 2023