Alexander Payne and Paul Giamatti Reunite for ‘The Holdovers,’ Making a Few New Holiday Friends Along the Way

October 24, 2023

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Hold it! (CREDIT: Seacia Pavao / © 2023 FOCUS FEATURES LLC)

Starring: Paul Giamatti, Dominic Sessa, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Carrie Preston, Andrew Garman, Naheem Garcia, Michael Provost, Brady Hepner, Jim Kaplan, Ian Dolley, Gillian Vigman, Tate Donovan

Director: Alexander Payne

Running Time: 133 Minutes

Rating: R for Cranky Curmudgeonliness and Teenage Boys Being Teenage Boys

Release Date: October 27, 2023 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Merry Christmas! Why, it’s still merely October, you say? Well, having the holidays thrusted upon you a couple months early is surely a more bearable fate than that borne by Barton Academy prep school student Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa) and his hidebound history teacher Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti) in the early 1970s. Angus is stuck at school over the winter break because his mom (Gillian Vigman) and stepdad (Tate Donovan) are too busy jet-setting, while Paul pulls the short end of the faculty stick as the guardian for all the kids who don’t have anywhere else to go. This is a formula that’s promising an explosive clash of strong personalities, but maybe head of the cafeteria Mary (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) can help to extinguish the eruptions.

What Made an Impression?: Not-So-Hidden Layers: If you’re 18 or younger, then Mr. Hunham will probably strike you as an absolute nightmare. I’m pretty sure everyone had at least one teacher who was so soul-crushingly set in his ways. But older viewers will likely be more willing to extend him if not affection, then certainly understanding. Right from the jump, he reveals that he’s more complicated than the stodgy traditionalist he’s presented as, and obviously a character played by Paul Giamatti and directed by Alexander Payne was always going to be plenty three-dimensional. The specifics of those dimensions mainly have to do with his frustration that’s directed at a world that appears to be falling apart as well as all the young, privileged kids who are blissfully unaware of their inoculation against all that.
Kindred Spirits: When Angus and Paul’s antagonism eventually begins to soften into something resembling mentorship, it’s because of that time-honored tradition of seeing themselves in each other. As it turns out, they’ve both been handicapped by some pretty bum deals in life, and they go about their days with simmering anger shaping pretty much every one of their actions. They’re the kind of people who secretly shoulder burdens all by themselves, only to generate a ton of sympathy when the truths are uncovered. They go through quite a rocky start, but it’s ultimately a blessing that they’ve found each other.
A True Three-Hander: I can imagine a version of The Holdovers that features just Angus and Paul as its only two characters, and that version probably would have been pretty satisfying. But the version we actually get is even more so, thanks to the straight-shooting performance of Da’Vine Joy Randolph. Mary is notably more emotionally open than everyone around her, which allows her to serve as the enzyme to get Paul to open up, at least a little bit. There’s a sweet early scene in which he joins her while she’s watching The Newlywed Game. He’s never watched it before, so he pinpoints the premise as a recipe for disaster, which she assures him is exactly the point. And ultimately this movie demonstrates that being open to even small new experiences like this one can start nudging us towards exactly where we need to go.

The Holdovers is Recommended If You Like: Rushmore, Armageddon Time, The Way Way Back

Grade: 4.5 out of 5 History Exams

Killers of the Flower Moon,’ AKA The Dusty, Bloody, Roaring ’20s

October 18, 2023

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Mmm, this one’s a killa (CREDIT: Apple/Paramount Pictures)

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone, Robert De Niro, Jesse Plemons, Tantoo Cardinal, John Lithgow, Brendan Fraser, Cara Jade Myers, JaNae Collins, Jillian Dion, Jason Isbell, William Belleau, Louis Cancelmi, Scott Shepherd

Director: Martin Scorsese

Running Time: 206 Minutes

Rating: R for Disturbingly Widespread and Remorseless Murder

Release Date: October 20, 2023 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Here’s an important piece of information that is emphasized right from the get-go in Killers of the Flower Moon: at a certain point in the early 20th century, the Osage were the richest people per capita in the entire world. But where oil flows, bloodshed soon follows. And so it was during the Osage murders that plagued Oklahoma in the 1920s, as detailed in David Grann’s 2017 book Killers of the Flower Moon and now the Martin Scorsese-directed adaptation of the same name. All of the action revolves around William King Hale (Robert De Niro), a white man who’s managed to keep all of Osage County in his iron grip. In the course of the long wealth accumulation game that he’s ruthlessly playing, he directs his nephew Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) to ingratiate himself with the native people. This takes the form of Ernest marrying and starting a family with a local woman named Mollie (Lily Gladstone). This could all be perfectly wholesome, if only Ernest weren’t involved with his uncle’s schemes to kill pretty much every member of Mollie’s family.

What Made an Impression?: Keeping Your Heart Afloat?: I had one major persistent question throughout Killers of the Flower Moon: could Ernest and Mollie actually be in love with each other? Of course, you don’t have to be in love to get married or to have kids together. But they do seem quite smitten with each other, despite being aware of the treachery afoot. Mollie knows that white men are just romancing the Osage to get their oil money. And Ernest surely knows that she knows. But she nevertheless still considers him as a pretty decent romantic prospect. Partly that’s because she and her sisters don’t really see many other options available for them. When Ernest eventually becomes fully culpable in William’s most murderous machinations, he’s already committed himself to his wife. And it never seems like an act. DiCaprio plays him like someone who never reckons with the moral implications of his behavior. This isn’t remorseless psychopathy. It’s more like family killing family, or friends killing friends, but with so much twisted rationalizing that it’s impossible to remain sane and/or sympathetic.
Shout, Shout, Let It All Out: Once the FBI takes an interest in all the Osage murders, we’re eventually led into a (somewhat) cathartic final act in which William is actually forced to answer for all his deeds in a court of law. Two towering performances in this section are bound to wake you up if you happen to be nodding off at this point. John Lithgow tries to keep things dignified for the prosecution, while Brendan Fraser casts up some fire and brimstone as Hale’s attorney W.S. Hamilton. I can’t help but chuckle at Lithgow whenever he’s in a courtroom, partly because it reminds me of the delightful short-lived NBC sitcom Trial & Error, and partly because his commanding voice is somehow simultaneously both so silly and so reasonable. Fraser meanwhile threatens to knock the entire proceedings off their axis. He’s just as over-the-top as he was in The Whale, but this time it affects me deeper to my core because everyone else is so modulated. These moments feel like being rumbled from a stupor, as all the crimes up to this point have been presented so matter-of-factly.
A Note on the Length: A different version of Killers of the Flower Moon could’ve been 2 hours or so, and it could’ve also been successful, but in a different way than it is now. At 3 hours and 26 minutes, you feel the full weight that goes along with reckoning with this dark chapter in American history. So if you’re planning on seeing it, get a good night’s sleep the day before and pop in some caffeine if you think it will help (but not too much!). And if you’re downing liquid while you’re watching and you don’t want to have to take a bathroom break, then pair it with something like popcorn or pretzel bites so that it won’t go straight through you.

Killers of the Flower Moon is Recommended If You Like: Dad books and Dad movies

Grade: 4 out of 5 Handsome Devils

‘Saw X’ Marks the Spot: Jigging Through My Personal ‘Saw’ Journey’

October 17, 2023

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He Saw you. (CREDIT: Alexandro Bolaños Escamilla)

Starring: Tobin Bell, Shawnee Smith, Synnøve Macody Lund, Steven Brand, Renata Vaca, Joshua Okamoto, Octavio Hinojoso, Paulette Herández, Jorge Briseño, Michael Beach

Director: Kevin Greutert

Running Time: 118 Minutes

Rating: R

Release Date: September 29, 2023 (Theaters)

On the occasion of reflecting upon watching Saw X and what it all means, I have decided to ponder out loud why I haven’t seen every single release in this iconic franchise.

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Will ‘The Exorcist: Believer’ Make a Believer Out of You, or Is It a Devil of a Time? Let’s Find Out!

October 5, 2023

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Will this movie make you a true beLIEVer? (CREDIT: Universal Studios)

Starring: Leslie Odom Jr., Ann Dowd, Jennifer Nettles, Norbert Leo Butz, Lidya Jewett, Olivia Marcum, Ellen Burstyn, Okwui Okpokwasili

Director: David Gordon Green

Running Time: 111 Minutes

Rating: R for Violent Contortions and Devilish Profanity

Release Date: October 6, 2023 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Thirteen years after Victor Fielding’s (Leslie Odom Jr.) wife dies during childbirth, his daughter Angela (Lidya Jewett) wanders into the woods after school with her friend Katherine (Olivia Marcum). They end up missing but reemerge after three days, although they have barely any memory of what happened, as they believe that just a few hours have passed. It soon becomes clear that something otherworldly has returned with them. Their doctors have no idea how to treat their sudden personality shifts, but of course we know that this is really  the latest battle in an eternal war between good and evil. The Catholic priests in this edition are mostly feckless, so instead Victor and Katherine’s parents (Jennifer Nettles and Norbert Leo Butz) turn to a trusty nurse/neighbor (Ann Dowd) and a certain someone else (Ellen Burstyn) who famously has experience in this area.

What Made an Impression?: A Healthy Dose of Skepticism: When I hear people who were alive at the time talk about the release of the original Exorcist in 1973, they often emphasize how moviegoers really believed in the presence of the devil on Earth. 2023 America, by contrast, is a more skeptical era, or at least it’s a time when much fewer people belong to organized religions. The Exorcist: Believer leans into that fact, or at least attempts to, by acknowledging the value of skepticism. The scope is further broadened by making it clear that exorcism isn’t strictly a Catholic ritual. Katherine’s family are Baptists, and there’s also a woman (Okwui Okpokwasili) assisting in the rite who appears to be practicing voodoo. It’s an intriguing hodgepodge, but one that could maybe have benefited from a little more rigor to figure out what it’s trying to say.
Here Comes the Exposition: As was the case with director David Gordon Green’s Halloween films, Believer serves as a direct sequel to the original that basically ignores all previous follow-ups. Although I kind of wish that Green instead employed the Fast & Furious technique of somehow incorporating every ridiculous plot twist into the main continuity. But in the case of The Exorcist, that concern doesn’t matter too much, since each entry mostly stands on its own. Still, the return of Burstyn as Chris MacNeil demonstrates both the potentials and the pitfalls of this fresh approach. It’s invigorating to have her impose some wisdom after her own daughter was possessed all those decades ago. But in an effort to explain what she’s been up to in the meantime, we get a huge exposition dump that also pretty much spells out all the themes of this movie. It kind of made me just want to have an Adventures of Chris MacNeil spinoff instead.
Effects vs. Special Effects: There’s something about the look and feel of movies from the past. In our era of digital cinematography and standard post-production VFX cleanup, everything just looks a little too polished. I’m fine with 2023 being 2023 and having its own visual style, but in the case of a possession flick, that means that the devil’s tricks feel like the work of a rather earthbound magician. The illusion is just too illusory.
Believing in Humanity: While a good chunk of Believer represents a missed opportunity, sometimes someone arrives to make you, well, believe. Maybe the cinematic devil isn’t quite as viscerally powerful as he used to be, but if you can’t accept religion, you can still put your faith in people. And with that in mind, thank God for Ann Dowd as the nurse who was almost a nun but might still be the secret weapon to end this possession. When she speaks, she commands the room like nobody else. And when she insists that God put her in these girls’ lives for a reason, it could sound hokey coming from anyone else, but out of her mouth, it’s the most powerful statement I’ve heard in quite some time. I don’t know if a new possession movie can ever be 1/666th the phenomenon that the original Exorcist was, but I can at least have faith that small miracles like Dowd’s performance are still possible.

The Exorcist: Believer is Recommended If: You can cut through the rust and find the devil in the details

Grade: 3 out of 5 Descents Into Hell

‘Foe’ Attempts to Upload an Artificial Consciousness Into a Dusty Dystopia

October 4, 2023

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Foe! Foe! Foe! (CREDIT: Amazon Studios)

Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Paul Mescal, Aaron Pierre

Director: Garth Davis

Running Time: 110 Minutes

Rating: R for An Intimate Relationship on Full Display

Release Date: October 6, 2023 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: It’s the future! We’ve already seen plenty of cinematic visions of the years to come, and the version in Foe is of the dystopian variety ravaged by climate change. Henrietta (Saoirse Ronan) and Junior (Paul Mescal) are living in a remote farmhouse in some vague portion of The Midwest in 2065. The whole area looks like a tinderbox that could be swallowed up in flames at any moment. They’re just muddling through, but then one day a stranger (Aaron Pierre) arrives with a mysterious offer. It turns out that Junior has been recruited to launch up into an orbiting space station for some important mission, and in the meantime, Hen will be kept company by a synthetic version of Junior built by artificial intelligence to replicate his consciousness.

What Made an Impression?: Where’s the Technology?: Sometimes dystopian movies feel like they take place in the past, as a catastrophic event has wiped out our most advanced forms of modern technology. That kind of seems to be what’s going on in Foe, which is weird because its premise is about a particularly timely technological breakthrough. A.I. is leaps beyond ChatGPT at this point, and yet TVs, computers, and cell phones are nowhere to be seen. It’s possible, I suppose, that Hen and Junior are choosing to live a life off the grid without modern amenities. But if that were the case, it would presumably be worth emphasizing, but it never is. And because that gap is never remarked upon, Foe is likely to give you a baseline feeling of cognitive dissonance.
Taking a While to Get There: The ending of Foe might make you want to go back and watch the whole thing again … if you have the patience for it. That conclusion assuaged some concerns I had, but it didn’t really make the ride any more thrilling in retrospect. For most of the movie, I lamented how it wasn’t taking full advantage of its premise, or quite frankly taking any advantage of its premise. And this is a story that’s been told more compellingly before, especially in the Black Mirror episode “Be Right Back.” And when you get right down to it, the A.I. element doesn’t add much of anything. Sci-fi has been grappling with the ethics of cloning for decades now, and that aspect goes about how you would expect this time as well. Maybe that’s why this future looks so much like the past!

Foe is Recommended: Only for the pretty people being horny and passionate

Grade: 2 out of 5 Consciousnesses

‘The Royal Hotel’ Shows What It Takes to Survive in the Outback

October 3, 2023

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Will they ever be Royals? (CREDIT: Neon/Screenshot)

Starring: Julia Garner, Jessica Henwick, Hugo Weaving, Toby Wallace, Ursula Yovich, Daniel Henshall, James Frecheville

Director: Kitty Green

Running Time: 91 Minutes

Rating: R for Maximum Drunken Boorishness

Release Date: October 6, 2023 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: If there’s one major lesson to be learned from The Royal Hotel, it’s that planning ahead is essential. Hanna (Julia Garner) and Liv (Jessica Henwick) would certainly agree after everything they go through. They’re vacationing in Australia, but then the cash runs out and they need to find a job. Alas, the only gig they can land on such short notice is bartending at the titular watering hole, which is located in the remotest part of the Outback. The owner (an unrecognizable Hugo Weaving) is an alcoholic nightmare, while the patrons have a bit too much of a knack for misogyny and violence. The girls do have at least one ally in the form of Carol (Ursula Yovich), the bar’s gruff second-in-command. But it soon becomes clear that they really only have themselves to rely on if they want to make it out of this place alive.

What Made an Impression?: A Descent Into Hell: The realism of The Royal Hotel can lull you into a false sense of security. The joint isn’t exactly inviting, or even really pleasant at all. But if you’re working there, it feels like any old awful job that you just have to survive, and at least Hanna and Liv can count on a preordained end point. But they’re like those proverbial frogs in burning water. Because soon enough, the folks who seemed friendly have revealed their Hyde-like alter egos, while the run-of-the-mill jerks have turned into psychopaths, and everyone genuinely on their side has disappeared. The normal rules of society don’t apply in a place this isolated. Nothing particularly supernatural happens, but it’s like a waking nightmare that feels like it couldn’t possibly be real when you reckon with it after the fact.
Killer Ending: Downbeat thrillers like this one can be a tough sell if you’re someone who likes to have fun when you go to the movies. I was certainly prepared to leave The Royal Hotel with a pit in my stomach, especially since Kitty Green and Julia Garner’s last collaboration didn’t exactly offer much in the way of relief. But this time around, they opt for a much more cathartic conclusion. It’s outrageous in its own way, and fittingly so considering the taste of hell that the leads have to swallow. The last line is one for the ages, and if you check into The Royal Hotel, chances are you’ll be pumping your fist or raising a toast in solidarity on the way out.

The Royal Hotel is Recommended If You Like: Thelma and Louise, That one GIF from Waiting to Exhale, Discovering resilience that you never knew you had

Grade: 4 out of 5 Broken Glasses

‘PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie’ Aims to Be Super

September 28, 2023

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Here they come to save the day (CREDIT: Spin Master Entertainment, Nickelodeon Movies, and Paramount Pictures)

Starring: Mckenna Grace, Taraji P. Henson, Marsai Martin, Christian Convery, Kim Kardashian, North West, Saint West, Chris Rock, James Marsden, Kristen Bell, Finn Lee-Epp, Ron Pardo, Lil Rel Howery, Serena Williams, Alan Kim, Brice Gonzalez, Luxton Handspiker, Christian Corrao, Callum Shoniker, Nylan Parthipan, Kim Roberts

Director: Cal Brunker

Running Time: 92 Minutes

Rating: PG for Dogs in Danger

Release Date: September 29, 2023 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Those dang pooches have superpowers now! The long-running canine kids show is back for a second big screen adventure. The PAW Patrol is still faithfully providing all the emergency services for Adventure City, but this time around, a meteor arrives and makes them even mightier than usual (hence the subtitle). But wouldn’t you know it, there’s a meteor expert in town who wants those space rock powers for herself. So she teams up with the ex-mayor/PAW Patrol nemesis to poke those pooches where it hurts. Will they continue to display the sort of teamwork that makes the dream work and stop this dastardly duo?

What Made an Impression?: In this particular review, I am serving as a representative to all you childless adults out there to let you know if there’s any way you could ever possibly be interested in PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie. (If any kids or parents also happen to read this review, that’s fine, too.) I’ve certainly enjoyed my fair share of entertainment that has a more youthful audience in mind, and I do love dogs of all shapes and sizes. So if you, like me, can summon your inner mutt-loving child, chances are you’ll find The Mighty Movie to be… perfectly pleasant. This is a rather safe movie, in all senses of the word “safe” (with the notable exception of one scene in which one of the PAW Patrol crew gets stuck on a failing plane). It’s not going to drive you nuts, and the wild list of credits is certainly entertaining. It’s a slight net positive for the world, as far as I can tell.

Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie is Recommended If You Like: Loyalty, duty, mentorism

Grade: 3 out of 5 Meteors

Does ‘Flora and Son’ Deliver Flora and Fun?

September 26, 2023

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The Title Characters (CREDIT: Apple TV+)

Starring: Eve Hewson, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Orén Kinlan, Jack Reynor

Director: John Carney

Running Time: 97 Minutes

Rating: R

Release Date: September 22, 2023 (Theaters)/September 29, 2023 (Apple TV+)

I really loved director John Carney’s last movie, 2016’s Sing Street, so the test for Flora and Son‘s success just had to be: would it make me want to run out of the theater and SING in the STREET? Not necessarily out loud, in my head would also count.

Alas, it was raining, so I was more focused on seeking cover. But when I got home, I immediately re-listened to “High Life,” the song from the last scene, so that was pretty much the next best reaction.

While I did quite enjoy the original songs, the scene that most affected me the most was Eve Hewson watching a vintage Joni Mitchell performance of “Both Sides, Now.” It made me cry! And then she started crying, too!

Grade: 4 High Lives out of 5 Dublin07s

‘It Lives Inside,’ Which is to Say: A Relentless Indian Demon Comes to High School

September 21, 2023

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TFW It lives inside… (CREDIT: NEON/Screenshot)

Starring: Megan Suri, Neeru Bajwa, Mohana Krishnan, Vik Sahay, Betty Gabriel, Gage Marsh, Beatrice Kitsos

Director: Bishal Dutta

Running Time: 99 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Demonic Lacerations

Release Date: September 22, 2023 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Samidha (Megan Suri) has been losing touch with her Indian heritage, but it hasn’t been losing touch with her. She’s drifted apart from her friend Tamira (Mohana Krishnan), who seems to have completely lost touch with reality. While holding tightly to a jar containing something foreboding, she desperately turns to Sam for help, while insisting that the spirits their family told them about when they were kids are actually real. Then she inexplicably disappears, leaving Sam to be beset by the same demon, known as a Pishach. It looks like she’s doomed to repeat the same fate as Tamira. But there’s some hope, as she has that example to learn from, and she can also seek support from a trusted teacher (Betty Gabriel), as well as her parents (Neeru Bajwa and Vik Sahay), if she can manage not to be completely estranged from them.

What Made an Impression?: Coming-of-Age Metaphor: Don’t we all feel like we’re being pursued by an immortal demon during our teenage years? Maybe not everyone would describe that transitional period with that precise description, but there’s a reason why this stage of life is so perennially ripe for metaphor. There had yet to be a mainstream American film featuring Hindu demons to get that point across (at least not that I’m aware of), so writer/director Bishal Dutta went ahead and corrected that little oversight. It was a fresh call, and I’m sure I’m not the only horror fan who will appreciate the invigoration.

Good Grub: Ultimately, It Lives Inside contends that the best way to keep a Pishach at bay is a strongly bonded community, particularly one that regularly makes time for actually sitting down for dinner. Throughout the film, Sam’s mom Poorna constantly chastises her for not showing up on the days when they gather with friends and family to celebrate their culture. It’s a straightforward, unsurprising espousal of values, but it definitely hits its target. And it’s all underscored by a message that a family that eats together will survive together. You can practically see the demon-fighting powers during the culinary close-ups. Overall, It Lives Inside keeps its ambitions tight and focused, as it pulls off its simple, small-scale goals.

It Lives Inside is Recommended If You Like: Learning how to be a better child to your parent, or a better parent to your child

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Pishachs

A Blue in Venice, A Haunting in Beetle

September 18, 2023

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CREDIT: DC, Screenshot/20th Century Studios, Screenshot

Blue Beetle:

Starring: Xolo Maridueña, Adriana Barraza, Damián Alcázar, Raoul Max Trujillo, Susan Sarandon, George Lopez, Elpidia Carrillo, Bruna Marquezine, Belissa Escobedo, Harvey Guillén, Becky G

Director: Ángel Manuel Soto

Running Time: 127 Minutes

Rating: PG-13

Release Date: August 18, 2023 (Theaters)

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