Smash Cut

Tag: Best of 2025

  • ‘Marty Supreme’ is messy, mad, and mesmerizing

    ‘Marty Supreme’ is messy, mad, and mesmerizing

    Timothée Chalamet stars as a would-be table tennis star tears through New York City in the pursuit of greatness—and some cash—in “Marty Supreme”

    “Marty Supreme” is basically a comedy of errors, and series of unfortunate events, that pits would-be table tennis star Marty against his greatest enemy—failure. And for 149 glorious meteoric minutes, we want nothing more than for Marty to keep going. With a career-best performance by Timothée Chalamet, “Marty Supreme” is messy and maddening, but impossible to turn away from.

    “Marty Supreme” is in theaters on Christmas Day.

    After a series of setbacks that leaves a trail of black eyes, smashed cars, and orange ping pong balls, Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet) is told by a potential way out, “there are no second chances in life.” To which he responds with an emphatic, “why not?” That’s the attitude in which Marty walks (or perhaps “trounces” is more suitable) through life. He talks a mile a minute, lies like his life depends on it (because sometimes it does) and makes decisions like consequences don’t exist. And for 149 glorious meteoric minutes, we want nothing more than for Marty to keep going. Even if we can’t decide if we want to cheer, cry or hit him upside the head, there’s something intoxicating about the New York playground writer-director Josh Safdie allows Marty to play in.

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    We get to see this version of 1950s post-World War II New York the way Marty sees it, full of opportunity, danger and people that simply don’t understand if you want something you just have to try harder. Chalamet, sporting wire-framed glasses, greasy hair and even greasier mustache, is devilishly charming as we watch him float through the city trying to shake down his uncle for cash to get to the table tennis championships in London (armed robbery is the solution, of course). When he gets there, we get to understand what drives him: greatness. He doesn’t even say he’s competing in a tournament, which assembles the best table tennis players in the world, he says he’s winning it. Like this is a reality in his mind. The same reality that drives him to rack up a bill in the thousands at the Ritz Carlton, even after he’s told that treatment is reserved for the star players (he is one, in his mind).

    After watching him compete through several thrilling rounds of table tennis, which Safdie captures with sweat-dripping intensity, he makes it to the final against Japanese phenom Endo (Koto Kawaguchi. Despite his hard-hitting and running and diving, Marty is no match for Endo’s innovative technique. Marty is enraged, calling the win a sham and accusing him of cheating. There’s no way he lost (again, at least in his mind). It sets him on a course for revenge, if only he can gather the money to get to the next championship in Japan.

    “Marty Supreme” is basically a comedy of errors, and series of unfortunate events, that pits Marty against his greatest enemy—failure. As he tears through the city weaponizing his signature charm to try to gather the money for his flight, we see the limits of his own self-deluded confidence. From the Lower East Side to Chelsea to Jersey, Marty leaves a messy path as he storms through. We meet a cast of characters along the way including acclaimed Marty’s old gambling buddy Wally (a hilarious Tyler Okonma aka Tyler, The Creator), his mischievous mistress Rachel (a fabulous Odessa A’zion), and silent movie actress Kay Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow) whose husband Milton (Kevin O’Leary of “Shark Tank”  giving a surprisingly delightful performance) could hold the key to Marty’s success.

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    Like his previous movies “Good Time” and “Uncut Gems“, Safdie balances the dark comedy and devastating reality of male hubris to a dizzying effect that is not just hypnotic, but damn entertaining. Marty’s inability to get any part of his plan right is satisfying for an audience that knows exactly who this man is. A man who believes that he is owed success and will do anything to obtain it. Chalamet is so convincing as Marty that it feels like he truly believes his own lies as he switches effortlessly between a charm offensive, machismo, or straight-up violence to get what he wants. It’s masterful and sinfully entertaining. 

    However, it is to an end. While “Marty Supreme” could have easily been just another entry in the dirtbag scammer movie, Safdie casts it against a world in flux where there’s nothing but opportunity whether for a Jewish girl from the Lower East Side or a Japanese table tennis player with his country on his shoulder. It is about dreams and who is allowed to chase them. It’s where those opposing forces of hoping Marty will stop ruining his own life and urging him to go on come from. While it is all fun and games (I mean, it’s literally ping pong), it’s also the stuff humanity is made of.

    The movie may not be perfect. “Marty Supreme” is messy and maddening, but isn’t life?

  • ‘Presence’ is a ghost story like no other | movie review

    ‘Presence’ is a ghost story like no other | movie review

    Unfolding from the perspective of a ghost haunting their house, a family deals with family tensions in Presence.

    This review was originally published out of the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival.

    If you think you’ve seen every haunted house movie, Presence is here to prove you wrong. Steven Soderbergh ditches the usual ghost story formula by letting us see everything from the spirit’s perspective—turning voyeurism into an eerie, strangely emotional experience. With family drama, supernatural chills, and a sharp, unsettling look at loneliness, this is more than just a spooky flick. At 85 minutes, it’s a quick, haunting watch that lingers long after the credits roll.

    Presence is in theaters now.

    In many ways, director Steven Soderbergh’s Presence is a classic haunted house movie. An idyllic family moves into their dream home in the suburbs, only for it to turn into a nightmare when daughter Chloe (Callina Liang) begins to notice something is amiss inside the house. It starts small. She notices a notebook she thought she had placed on her desk now resting on her bed. A disembodied breath on her neck that she explains away with the classic, “It was the wind.” There are haunts, frustrating skepticism, psychic mediums—the works.

    However, this is no normal ghost story. Like many of our ghosts, the specter lurks in Chloe’s closet. We know this because we watch the movie unfold from its point of view.

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    There’s an uneasy feeling as we sweep through the empty house, visiting room after room, before the family enters for the first time with their real estate agent (a punchy cameo from Julia Fox). The sensation of taking the role of an unseen voyeur into this family’s life feels creepy—like the infamous opening shot from Michael Myers’s perspective in Halloween—especially when the specter dares to approach one of the family members. While most of them are unaware, Chloe senses something immediately. From there, still viewing the story through the ghost’s eyes, we get glimpses into the family’s lives.

    There’s headstrong, controlling matriarch Rebecca (Lucy Liu), who makes her preference for her athlete son Tyler (Eddy Maday) painfully evident—“I’ve never felt more connected to another human,” she says, to which he replies, “What about Chloe?” On the other hand, warm, caring patriarch Chris (Chris Sullivan) is more empathetic to Chloe’s plights. While she assumes the role of the typical black-sheep teenager in a ghost story, we learn it’s not without reason—her friend Nadia recently died of an apparent overdose. The ghost watches as these family tensions unfold. After a while, it begins to feel like the phantom itself has emotions—as Chloe’s relationship with her mother sours, she fights with her brother, and she catches the eye of her brother’s friend and the school’s popular boy, Ryan (West Mulholland).

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    Presence hits other familiar beats of the ghost story—like the family’s general skepticism when Chloe insists a ghost is haunting her room—before a dramatic moment finally forces them to believe her. But knowing the reason behind those supernatural moments makes them feel new, as if you’ve never seen them in another movie before. In a way, the film feels somewhat plotless and meandering—but in a surprisingly comforting way, like you’re simply drifting through this family’s life.

    At its core, however, Presence is a family melodrama—filled with biting infighting, teenage and marital angst, and a few, perhaps improbable, twists. However, shifting our perspective to that of the ghost—and therefore limiting us to bits and pieces of the story—smooths out the narrative’s jagged edges. Instead, it leaves us to contemplate some of the film’s more profound lines of dialogue, like when Chris asks Rebecca, “You ever notice how your advice always corresponds with us doing nothing?”

    For some, Presence will just be another experimental work from Soderbergh in his post-“retirement” era. However, there’s something more profound beneath its cinematic tricks. There’s a quiet melancholy, comforting in its relatability. Its portrayal of loneliness and isolation—so easily felt in life, even when you’re not alone—strikes a chord. And perhaps most telling is that, by the end of its breezy 85-minute runtime, you might just find yourself missing being someone’s ghost in a dark corner of their closet.

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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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