Reaction Shots

I don’t want to get too hopeful, but it feels like there’s a sea-change of sorts afoot. Pamela Anderson in The Last Showgirl , after Demi Moore in The Substance , has delivered a stunning performance that wouldn’t have been associated with her even a decade ago. I’m frankly over the moon for her. Between her accolades for her Broadway turn as Roxy Hart and her work here, it’s her turn, dammit. Anderson, of course, is not an idiot. She’s shown self-awareness throughout her career and pivoted production almost 20 years ago. It would be a mistake to conflate her Baywatch image with the woman; but that she’s had the ability to bring a nuanced, layered performance like this to the screen is surprise.  I’m going to go out on a limb and confess that I don’t think I’ve watched her work in a feature film since the very weird, silly   Barb Wire . She was fine in it and was both playing on and kind of sending up her sexpot image, but I wouldn’t say it was Chekov.  I’ve followed her ...

  To enter Andrea Arnold’s world is to be subject to some harsh reality. Many of her characters live marginal lives and abide in varying degrees of poverty, literal and  spiritual. No, let me amend that; very often, there is a spiritual nexus or tacit search for something like joy, if not redemption, in her characters, which leads to strangely life-affirming and dare I say, hopeful strains in her narratives. Arnold’s by no means miserablist. She is often mentioned in the same breath as Ken Loach and this is understandable, but she is very much her own filmmaker. She’s also fearless, a word that is batted around without merit in some cases, but she’s fearless in her clear-eyed look at economic disadvantage, social inequities, and lives on the margins. With   Bird , her latest film, she traffics in a different kind of fearlessness; it’s possibly her most hopeful film yet, all the while not turning a blind eye to child neglect, poverty, abuse,...

Bob Dylan contains multitudes (see also, I’m Not There ), is a towering cultural presence and has been for sixty years. The significance of his work is immeasurable and the man himself remains something of an enigma, and an artist who doesn’t look back. He reinvents himself routinely and has done so for all these decades.  In his eighties, he still tours relentlessly and if you’ve seen him more than once, you don’t know what you’re going to get which can be cause for elation or disappointment. But you can’t say Dylan is boring and I hate to say it, but James Mangold, Jay Cocks, and Timotheé Chalamet did a good job of rendering him so. Look, to me biopics are the lowest form of cinema. Few and far between are the ones I actually like and I don’t care how much they fudge the truth or indulge in hagiography, even (no, that’s not true; I hate that shit). However, it should be a criminal offense to make your subject so dead-eyed petulant and try to fob that off as edgy or to use that wo...

Halina Reijn has a sure eye for unique characters and perhaps the wryest of wits.   Bodies, Bodies, Bodies   was pretty fun and a rip on privilege, class, social media, all wrapped up in a murder mystery.   Babygirl   interrogates sex and power wrapped up in a kind of dramedy. I agree with a number of people that there are resonances with   Secretary   and Kidman’s earlier turn in   Eyes Wide Shut , but while those films were focused and more pointed,   Babygirl   doesn’t quite resonate with me. Kidman’s Romy Mathis is by any measure, a remarkable woman; she heads a robotics company on the cutting edge, is obviously successful, has a beautiful family and discovers she has a kink. Maybe more than one, but the principle one that is front and center is her BDSM relationship with an intern, Samuel, that threatens everything. For awhile, there’s a genuine dramatic tension that sustains the film until it ceases to evolve into anything more interest...

I finished last year strong with   Poor Things   and there is nothing of that ilk out right now. I am going to see Babydoll later as the first movie of 2025, but I knew Sis wanted to watch a flick and we had been discussing   Gosford   for years.  It’s not just that it’s a stacked cast with some of the greatest actors of several generations or that Fellowes delivered the sharpest script of his career; it’s that it’s one of those premier examples of how film is a collaborative medium and that Bob Altman knew that better than many, if not most.  When he fired on all cylinders, Altman turned out at least a dozen genuinely great films. When he wasn’t quite as inspired, he had control of his craft enough that even the most workmanlike movie was still pretty entertaining. And like everyone, he had his off cays and more than a couple of his sub-par works suck.  But not here.  Altman always had an eye on class and the codification of and limitations to re...

Dear god almighty. This was dire. A film based on script by Ed Wood, Jr., the great auteur of Plan 9 from Outer Space , Glen or Glenda , and one of my favorites, Jail Bait , that really, really needed his direction. That, friends, is dire. There’s diddly to say about it, except that on the good side, it does have Criswell turning in a performance almost as good as his Plan 9 run. It has Pat Barrington, a well regarded (maybe?) burlesque and topless dancer, doing double duty as the female lead and as one of the dancers in the vignettes. And maybe, a nod should be given in the direction of Fawn Silver as “The Black Ghoul", a knock-off Vampira in a role written for Maila Nurmi, the actual Vampira, but who had schedule conflicts. And no, Silver is not a Black woman. Sounds promising yet? No, please don’t think that’s the case.  Here’s the deal. A couple is driving along the highway in, I don’t know, the Hollywood hills. The woman is apprehensive about her companion’s desire to go to a...