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 ...

Where do you begin with a film like this? I want to say that there has never been a film like this, but the Daniels wear their influences so well and rework them into something so wholly original that I’m chary of saying that “Everything Everywhere All at Once” reminds me of any of them. Was that a torturous sentence or what?   You are a Chinese immigrant woman who moved to the United States with her husband to run a laundromat. You have a daughter. You had dreams. You are a singer, a dancer, a novelist. And none of these have worked out. Even the laundromat is failing and under the scrutiny of an IRS audit.  Your elderly father has come to live with you and in addition to having to discuss the precarious situation of your business today with an auditor, you also have a Chinese New Year celebration for your customers and the neighborhood. Oh, and there’s your daughter. Why can’t she be normal but it’s okay. Her girlfriend seems nice enough and times are different. It’s just t...

I’ve seen all of Rian Johnson’s theatrical releases. That’s more than I can say of many directors whose work I’m fond of. It helps that he only has five, but each one is almost perfectly crafted. That includes the somewhat divisive “The Last Jedi”, but “Brick”, “The Brothers Bloom”, “Looper”, and the aforementioned addition to the Star Wars canon are all compelling stories, well-written, and often, immersive experiences. I will be the first to admit that I have never solved a murder mystery. I love the genre in literature and film, but not only have I never solved one, I can’t imagine writing one. I tried once. It was wretched. And shit. It was shit. But “Knives Out” is not shit. It is the farthest thing from shit. It is a percolating stew of family dissonance and antipathy. It is a drawing room drama. It is donut with a hole filled by another donut with a hole in it. It boasts some of the tightest performances in a mainstream film with mainly entertainment on its mind. ...