Did ‘Blue Moon’ Make Me Swoon?

November 5, 2025

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CREDIT: Sony Pictures Classics/Screenshot

Starring: Ethan Hawke, Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale, Andrew Scott, Jonah Lees, Simon Delaney, Patrick Kennedy

Director: Richard Linklater

Running Time: 100 Minutes

Rating: R

Release Date: October 17, 2025 (Theaters)

Was I born under a blue moon? Well, considering how much I enjoyed the movie Blue Moon, I would have to answer “yes.” Is that how these things work?

Anyway, I didn’t know a whole hell of a lot about Lorenz Hart before I watched this biopic about him, other than a general awareness that he was a significant contributor to the Great American Songbook. But I did know that I’m a fan of watching Ethan Hawke do whatever he does on screen, whether or not he’s collaborating with Richard Linklater. And I also had a strong suspicion that him teaming up with Margaret Qualley would result in some crackling chemistry. I wish she had been in more of it, but the parts without her were capably filled by other quip-throwers, like Bobby Cannavale and the guy playing E.B. White (Patrick Kennedy).

Should I now move into a house and nickname it the Blue Moon? I think it would fit me nicely.

Grade: Living Up to the “Blue” in Its Title in More Ways Than One

‘Unstoppable’ is Pretty Much Exactly What You’d Expect Out of a One-Legged Wrestler Biopic

January 16, 2025

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Photo of a Man Who Can’t Be Stopped (CREDIT: Amazon MGM Studios)

Starring: Jharrel Jerome, Jennifer Lopez, Don Cheadle, Bobby Cannavale, Michael Peña, Anthony Robles

Director: William Goldenberg

Running Time: 123 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Troubles at Home

Release Date: December 6, 2024 (Limited Theaters)/January 16, 2025 (Amazon Prime Video)

What’s It About?: Champion wrestler Anthony Robles is one of those athletes with an undeniable underdog appeal. His family struggled to make ends meet, his stepfather was unreliable, and also he was born with only one leg. But eventually he managed to be one of the top college grapplers in the country. So it’s hardly a surprise that there’s now a biopic starring Jharrel Jerome as him, as well as J. Lo as his mom, Bobby Cannavale as his stepdad, and Michael Peña and Don Cheadle as his coaches. It had a limited theatrical run at the end of 2024, and now it’s streaming on Amazon Prime.

What Made an Impression?: Head on Straight, Learning to Pivot: I think the ideal way to experience Unstoppable is for wrestling coaches to screen it for their teams or aspiring wrestlers and then bring in the real Robles for a motivational speech and Q&A session. Sports biopics are often inspirational to a fault, but this one certainly earns that spirit. The world wasn’t exactly designed for one-legged people, after all. Anthony doesn’t make excuses for himself, but he’s also far from perfect. For those of us watching, there are plenty of opportunities to really dig into his decision-making to help anyone who wants to follow in his footsteps to think both ambitiously and practically.
Standard Filmmaking Achieved: Ultimately, Unstoppable is one of those movies that I don’t find myself going absolutely ga-ga for, while also not really wanting to criticize it all that much. The acting is solid, the filmmaking is sufficient, and it gets its themes and emotions across effectively. But it doesn’t do anything spectacular. I doubt it will stick in my mind all that much, but I might stumble across it totally randomly a few years from now and go, “Oh yeah, I saw that movie. I hope Anthony Robles is still doing okay.” And if anyone is doing more than okay thanks to having watched Unstoppable, well then, I’m glad it exists.

Unstoppable is Recommended If You Like: High school wrestling, College wrestling, Olympic wrestling (probably)

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Pins

‘MaXXXine’ Underscores the Killer Pastiche with Surprising Vulnerability

July 3, 2024

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Blinded by the starpower (CREDIT: Justin Lubin/A24)

Starring: Mia Goth, Kevin Bacon, Giancarlo Esposito, Elizabeth Debicki, Moses Sumney, Michelle Monaghan, Bobby Cannavale, Halsey, Lily Collins, Sophie Thatcher, Ned Vaughn, Chloe Farnworth, Simon Prast

Director: Ti West

Running Time: 104 Minutes

Rating: R for Extravagant Gore, A Fair Amount of T&A, and Some Hits of Blow

Release Date: July 5, 2024 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Maxine Minx (Mia Goth) will simply never, never, never, never, never, never, EVER accept a life that she doesn’t deserve. It’s a lesson that her father instilled deep into her psyche from a very young age. Cut ahead to 1985, when she’s now one of the biggest names in adult entertainment, but anxious to cross over into mainstream cinema. Her talent is undeniable, especially to the casting team of “The Puritan II.” It’s a schlocky demonsploitation horror sequel, but the director (Elizabeth Debicki) is trying to make an artistic statement, and she sees a kindred spirit in Maxine. Everything she’s dreamed of looks like it’s about to come true, but a mysterious figure who knows her backstory as the lone survivor of a bloody massacre six years earlier threatens to derail everything by killing the people closest to her.

What Made an Impression?: It’s the 80s, Do A Lot of Coke And…: MaXXXine is the satisfying culmination of writer-director Ti West’s bloody little trilogy starring Mia Goth that began in 2022 with X and Pearl. While the former captured the early slasher era of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the latter adopted a sheen of Old Hollywood melodrama but with just as much gore. MaXXXine expands its slasher trappings by taking inspiration from the exploitative thrillers of Brian De Palma, while also situating itself amidst the Satanic Panic of the Day Glo decade. The soundtrack blasts classics of the era from the likes of Animotion and Frankie Goes to Hollywood, while also boogieing unexpectedly hard with an opening credits sequence set to ZZ Top’s “Gimme All Your Lovin’.” And the pastiche is more than surface-level. Indeed, it’s engagingly lived-in, with conversations that are both of the moment and eternal representations of the characters’ deepest desires.
Plenty of Scenery to Chew: Mia Goth pulled double duty in X, but she’s been able to flex her acting muscles a lot more in the solo spotlights of those two characters. Pearl wasn’t quite a one-woman show, but the inimitable titular farm girl was pretty detached from the rest of humanity. Maxine Minx, meanwhile, is just as fiercely independent, and Goth once again delivers a transcendent degree of steely resolve. But this time around, even though she may be reluctant to admit it, Maxine has people that she cares about and who care about her. And accordingly, this is quite the ensemble piece, with West giving his players plenty of space to find notes that they’ve never reached before. That’s especially true of Kevin Bacon as a private investigator tracking Maxine who’s saturated in the molasses of the New Orleans bayou. His performance absolutely gives a whole new meaning to the phrase”I smell bacon.”
A Cautionary Tale?: Without getting into too many spoiler-y specifics, I’ll tease that Maxine kind of does achieve exactly what she’s driving towards. But I hesitate to call it a happy ending. Nor would I call it a pseudo-happy ending. It’s complicated. Yeah, she gets the star-making gig, but she also has a cocaine habit that I don’t think she has under control. And while the future looks bright for her, I’m worried that her obsession with fame will leave her empty. But we do get enough moments of vulnerability to suggest that Maxine realizes she’s never quite fully allowed herself to just be a human. It’s been a great joy to watch her story unfold these past couple years, but I’m ready to simply hope that she can find some peace after escaping all the horror that wouldn’t let her go.

MaXXXine is Recommended If You Like: Video nasties, Escaping and confronting the past, Righteous defiance

Grade: 4.5 out of 5 Star Turns

‘The Irishman’ Is What an Irishman Does

November 30, 2019

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CREDIT: Netflix

I would venture to say that the most essential moment of The Irishman is when Frank Sheeran is trying to tell Jimmy Hoffa that it has been decided it’s high time for his ambitions to come to an end, and their conversation consists almost entirely of tautologies like “It is what it is.” If you don’t know the context, this discussion is essentially meaningless. If you do know the context, the implications are clear, but it is still striking how much these guys are slaves to a thick, suffocating tangle of codes. That point is made abundantly clear in those few minutes. In just a few seconds, even. So does The Irishman, then, really need to be three and a half hours long? Well, other points are made throughout, but that length also underscores this major point. The guys who paint houses and their associates are imprisoned in a ceaselessly brutish life that can feel mightily oppressive, and we start to feel that, too. So I enjoyed The Irishman in much the same contemplative way I enjoyed Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I’m not so excited that I’m screaming about it, but I can imagine that it’ll stick with me in the ceaseless time to come.

I give The Irishman My Radical Empathy.

With ‘Motherless Brooklyn,’ Edward Norton Takes Us Back to the Era of Mid-Century Urban Gumshoes, with a Purpose

October 30, 2019

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CREDIT: Warner Bros.

Starring: Edward Norton, Bruce Willis, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Alec Baldwin, Willem Dafoe, Bobby Cannavale, Cherry Jones, Michael K. Williams, Ethan Suplee, Dallas Roberts, Leslie Mann, Josh Pais, Robert Wisdom, Fisher Stevens

Director: Edward Norton

Running Time: 144 Minutes

Rating: R for Involuntary and Voluntary Profanity, and a Classic Mix of Guns, Knives, and Fists

Release Date: November 1, 2019

Motherless Brooklyn is basically Chinatown but if the lead character had Tourette syndrome. You’ve got a bigwig public official trying to control the city’s municipalities, a woman with surprising and controversial parentage, and a protagonist who gets his face roughed up when he starts to get involved way over his head. Comparisons to one of the most acclaimed crime films of all time can make for impossible-to-meet expectations, but this directorial effort from Edward Norton proves that there is plenty of room to play around in this sandbox. The mysteries come hard and intriguingly as private investigator Lionel Essrog (Norton) uncovers a web of power and corruption in 1950s New York City. What was his mentor Frank (Bruce Willis) getting involved with when he got himself killed? Why is city planner Moses Randolph (Alec Baldwin) the most powerful man in the city? Why do people within the orbit of young activist Laura Rose (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) keep finding themselves in deadly trouble? These are all compelling questions, and reason enough to give Motherless Brooklyn a go.

What might give some viewers pause, however, are Norton’s more unique directing and acting flourishes. Casting himself as someone who involuntarily spouts out a string of profanity and general word salad could certainly be controversial. But I think he handles it empathetically and sensitively, suggesting that we are all messed up in the head and that so much (or perhaps all) of life is the struggle to either keep that noise at bay or let it be part of who we are. Possibly even more controversial is the generally affected milieu embodied in the performances, music, and production design that basically shouts, “This is the 1950s!” It could play as indulgent nostalgia, but it avoids that pitfall by serving an essential thematic purpose, as Motherless explores what is lost when poor and minority neighborhoods are pushed aside in the name of urban beautification. Moses Randolph is a person who has somehow made himself a hero to the people while brushing away all the inconveniences that stand in his way of unmitigated power, while Lionel Essrog is forced to have his inconveniences be a constant part of his daily life. Take a wild guess which one of them is better company.

Motherless Brooklyn is Recommended If You Like: Chinatown, Mid-20th Century New York City

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Fedoras

This Is a Movie Review: ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’ Keeps It Cool for the Summer

July 6, 2018

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CREDIT: Disney/Marvel Films

This review was originally posted on News Cult in July 2018.

Starring: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Douglas, Michael Peña, Walton Goggins, Abby Ryder Fortson, Bobby Cannavale, Judy Greer, Hannah John-Kamen, Laurence Fishburne, Tip “T.I.” Harris, David Dastmalchian, Michelle Pfeiffer, Randall Park

Director: Peyton Reed

Running Time: 118 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Large-Scale and Small-Scale Action Movie Destruction

Release Date: July 6, 2018

Ant-Man and the Wasp has left me feeling a lot more peaceful than other recent Marvel movies. I would it put about on the same quality level as Black Panther and Thor: Ragnarok, but those blockbusters left me with nagging bits of emptiness, whereas Paul Rudd and company just give off good vibes. That is partly a function of my own expectations, but it is also a matter of how this franchise and its sub-franchises are promoted. The excursions to Wakanda and the garbage planet promised that they would be unprecedented game-changers. Whether or not they lived up to that hype, it is hard to match the buoyancy of their ad campaigns, and it takes effort for audiences to avoid every commercial. But with the original Ant-Man and now with The Wasp, you can just come in, be chill, and not have to worry about it being the best movie ever.

Director Peyton Reed and his team of five credited screenwriters (including Rudd) maintain those good vibes by allowing for some conflict, but avoiding true evil, and establishing that those who are at odds are ultimately really on the same team as each other. The main story thrust is the recovery of Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) from the “Quantum Realm,” a subatomic space where the normal laws of space and time do not apply. Her husband Hank (Michael Douglas) and daughter Janet, aka the Wasp (Evangeline Lilly), have the science skills to track her down, but they need the help of Ant-Man Scott Lang, as his previous venture into and escape from the Quantum Realm has allowed Janet to establish him as a point of contact. Standing in their way is a black market dealer (Walton Goggins), who sniffs out a big potential profit, but he does not have the killer instinct to tear them down. More serious are those who represent the skeletons in Hank’s closet, but their threat is neutralized by the ultimate realization that they can solve each other’s problems together.

A-M and the W has genuine, successful humor to match its laid-back style. The comedy in Marvel movies often has the cadence of a joke without actually being funny, but here there is a cast that is trained to find the laughter. Rudd obviously has more of a comedy background than any other Marvel headliner. Michael Peña delivers another round of his motor-mouthed, very detail-oriented storytelling. And the most delightful subplot features Fresh Off the Boat‘s Randall Park as a fastidious FBI agent hounding Scott while he remains under house arrest. If their jobs did not require them to be enemies, they would be friends for the ages.

It is certainly odd that Ant-Man and the Wasp arrives in the apocalyptic wake of Infinity War, but die-hard MCU fans will be happy to discover that the connective tissue is clear and satisfying. And those who are tired of every superhero movie being about the end of the world will be happy that that connectivity does not get in the way of everyone just having a good time.

Ant-Man and the Wasp is Recommended If You Like: The Marvel Cinematic Universe but with lower stakes

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Quantum Realms

This Is a Movie Review: Ferdinand is Not Your Typical Bull, But ‘Ferdinand’ is Your Typical CG-Animated Kids Movie

December 14, 2017

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CREDIT: Twentieth Century Fox

This review was originally posted on News Cult in December 2017.

Starring: John Cena, Kate McKinnon, David Tennant, Bobby Cannavale, Anthony Anderson, Peyton Manning, Jerrod Carmichael, Gina Rodriguez, Gabriel Iglesias, Miguel Ángel Silvestre, Flula Borg, Boris Kodjoe, Sally Phillips, Lily Day, Juanes, Jeremy Sisto

Director: Carlos Saldanha

Running Time: 107 Minutes

Rating: PG for Destruction Wrought by a Bull Who Refuses to Accept How Big He Is

Release Date: December 15, 2017

Based on Robert Lawson’s 1936 children’s book The Story of Ferdinand, the Blue Sky animated film Ferdinand is all about one of the most massive bulls in all of Spain. He is a beyond-perfect physical specimen for bullfighting, and in this country it goes without saying that calves spend their youths obsessing about the day they will get to face off against the matadors. But Ferdinand does not have the same pugnacious instinct as his peers. He would much rather spend his days on the farm, sniffing flowers, scarfing down carrots, and just hanging out with the preteen girl who dotes on him. But in a world that sees him as a beast, he must find a way to reconcile his hulking physicality with who he is on the inside.

Ferdinand the film, however, does not stick out from the pack as much as its titular character does. Its message of staying true to yourself is de rigueur in kids’ fare, and the CG animation, while certainly professional, does not pull off any truly lasting images. Thus, it lives and dies on the strength of its voice cast and the laugh-generating power of its gags. John Cena’s giant teddy bear persona is the correct vibe for Ferdinand, while Kate McKinnon is just right as the goat sidekick she’s versatile enough that she probably could have voiced any or all of the characters if the Ferdinand casting crew had been in the mood for that). While everyone else is at least adequate, the only significant standout is David Tennant as a heavily accented Scottish bull. Regarding the chuckles, there is some amusement to be had, as when Ferdinand sucks a caterpillar up his nose and sneezes it out as a butterfly or when the mostly blind owner of a china shop mistakes his tail for a feather duster.

Ferdinand also touches upon the fate of the bulls who are not deemed worthy of the bullfighting ring. I’m talking about the chop shop. This raises the question: are all films about talking animals secretly vegetarian propaganda? And if so, is that always, sometimes, or never intentional? A frequent, nigh-unavoidable trope of this genre is the slaughter that is just around the corner from failure or carelessness. When your lead character is an animal whose meat is favored by carnivores and omnivores, it is only natural to draw sympathy out of the threat of being eaten. Efforts to remain kid-friendly often result in daring escapes from pulverization as moments of triumph, and that is very much the case here. I do not mean to make a moral judgment one way or the other, but instead offer a philosophical pondering: are vegetarians drawn into working in the talking animal film business, or does the talking animal film business make its workers vegetarian?

Ferdinand is Recommended If You Like: Every Talking Animal Movie Ever

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 “Macarena”-Playing Flowerpots