‘Eddington’ Says: “Remember This? Oh, You Do? Well, How About THIS?”

July 22, 2025

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What would you do, if this Eddington-ed to you? (CREDIT: A24)

Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone, Austin Butler, Luke Grimes, Deirdre O’Connell, Michael Ward, Amélie Hoeferle, Clifton Collins Jr., William Belleau, Matt Gomez Hidaka, Cameron Mann

Director: Ari Aster

Running Time: 149 Minutes

Rating: R

Release Date: July 18, 2025 (Theaters)

My cycle of reaction to Eddington was pretty similar to my response to Don’t Look Up (2021). With the latter, I found myself going, “Yes, I know climate change is a looming disaster,” but then by the end, it got a little loopier, and I was like, “Oh, what’s this now?” As for Ari Aster’s latest, it pummeled me into an internal monologue of “Yes, I remember that 2020 was a volatile time, and yes, I know that young people fighting against injustice can be insufferable.” But then it takes a turn about halfway through, and I was like, “Oh, this is what you were building up to?” And then when it zooms into its unpredictable conclusion, I was like, “Okay, when did we get off this exit?” Maybe it could have sped up to driving off that cliff a little sooner, although perhaps Aster also wanted us to feel that like that frog in the boiling water first for a little bit.

Grade: 3 2020s out of 5 Conspiracy Theories

‘Red, White & Royal Blue’: Straightforward Queer Love Story, or Something Kookier?

August 10, 2023

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A couple of party dudes (CREDIT: Jonathan Prime/Prime Video)

Starring: Taylor Zakhar Perez, Nicholas Galitzine, Uma Thurman, Clifton Collins Jr., Sarah Shahi, Rachel Hilson, Ellie Bamber, Thomas Flynn, Malcolm Atobrah, Akshay Khanna, Sharon D. Clarke, Aneesh Sheth, Juan Castano, Stephen Fry

Director: Matthew López

Running Time: 118 Minutes

Rating: R for Explicit and Tender Sexuality

Release Date: August 11, 2023 (Prime Video)

What’s It About?: Alex Claremont-Diaz (Taylor Zakhar Perez) is the son of the first female President of the United States (Uma Thurman). Prince Henry (Nicholas Galitzine) is one of the grandsons in the British royal line of succession. (Although, just like a certain real-life prince, he’s a spare, not an heir). They’re forced to interact with each other at various diplomatic functions, but they hate each other’s guts. Do I need to make it any more obvious?

In case I do, it’s a modern-day queer Pride and Prejudice. Or at least that’s the first third of Red, White & Royal Blue. Alex and Henry are actually able to get past their shallow first impressions relatively quickly, and once they accept each other, the bigger question is whether or not everybody else can. The world that we see in the movie generally reflects the most progressive modern attitudes towards queer love stories, but there are a few snags. For one thing, there are worries that Alex’s dalliances could derail his mom’s re-election campaign. And more pressingly, there’s the question of whether or not there’s even a place for a gay prince in the royal family.

What Made an Impression?: Searching for Personality: It’s nice to see a globally released queer rom-com that doesn’t shy away from the most explicit parts. But it would have been even nicer if it didn’t feel so generic. Perez and Galitzine are charming enough, and their chemistry is serviceable, but the paint-by-numbers setting isn’t doing them any favors. A political backdrop certainly doesn’t need to perfectly recreate the real world, but it ought to at least be interesting if it’s going to be so integral to the story. Alas, we never really get a sense of what it’s like to have an America with a female president beyond mere platitudes. There’s at least some more urgency on the other side of the pond, as the presence of a gay prince is something that the crown hasn’t fully grappled with, and the juice of that drama is squeezed enough to feel the tension.
Strange Bursts of Personality: Thankfully, Red, White & Royal Blue isn’t entirely a slog through the most generic story beats possible. It has some sparks of coming to life, particularly a New Year’s Eve party soundtracked by perhaps the dirtiest mainstream hip-hop song of all time. Then when Alex opens up with his parents about what’s really going on, they have conversations that can best be described as “shockingly open-minded.” Thurman and Clifton Collins Jr. (as Alex’s senator dad) absolutely relish these opportunities to wax poetic about the likes of Truvada and gender-neutral bathrooms. I just wish the rest of the movie had been this inspired to let its freak flag fly. It’s what Alex and Henry (and those of watching) deserved.

Red, White & Royal Blue is Recommended If You: Can Handle a Watered-Down Version of Reality

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Giant Wedding Cakes

If You Were Promised Robots and Got ‘After Yang,’ What Would You Think?

March 1, 2022

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After Yang (CREDIT: A24)

Starring: Colin Farrell, Jodie Turner-Smith, Justin H. Min, Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja, Haley Lu Richardson, Sarita Choudhury, Clifton Collins Jr., Ava DeMary, Brett Dier

Director: Kogonada

Running Time: 96 Minutes

Rating: PG for A Mortality-Tinged Milieu

Release Date: March 4, 2022 (Theaters and Showtime)

After Yang opens with a really rousing dance number that establishes an initial joyous note, although the rest of the film quickly settles into a much more reflective and melancholy mood. This is a near-future vision in which “techno-sapiens”serve as live-in babysitters, although the particular techno-sapien we get to know is really more of a big brother. For those of you who are so excited by the potential of robotics that you just can’t keep still, After Yang‘s opening choreography is for you. This dance session is an opportunity for the whole family – dad Jake (Colin Farrell), mom Kyra (Jodie Turner-Smith), young daughter Mika (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja), and android Yang (Justin H. Min) – to get up and really get moving. It also appears to be some sort of worldwide tradition that other families of four are participating in. It’s a delightfully colorful good time, and quite frankly, I wanted it to last forever.

I like to think that Yang’s family is also chasing that dancing high for the rest of the film, if only metaphorically. (Or perhaps literally as well.) The trouble is, Yang starts to break down, and he’s an older model, so it’s difficult to find a place that will get him back to his old self. That sends Mika into a funk, as she can’t find the strength to go to school without Yang to rely on. I know how she’s feeling. It’s like trying to shake your sillies out the way you’ve always done, but then you discover that your shins have suddenly become massively inflamed. Indeed, the entire family starts behaving like they’ve lost a limb.

But maybe they can grow a new one back? In Jake’s efforts to figure out what to do with Yang, he ends up on a sort of spiritual quest, as he examines Yang’s memories and seems to be traversing new planes of existence. He discovers that Yang may have somehow developed a fully human romantic relationship, but the real kicker is the alternate perspective it provides to his family history. After Yang is pondering the big questions that science fiction has been pondering for decades, centuries even. That examination can be sublime, but it can also be frustrating, because definitive answers never really come. Sometimes it’s best to just devote your energy to dancing it all off, but the journey you take when you can’t do that is likely to stick in your craw.

After Yang is Recommended If You Like: Just Dance, Home movies, Contemplation

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Memories

At the ‘Nightmare Alley,’ the Circus Gets Pretty Dark

December 15, 2021

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Nightmare Alley (CREDIT: Kerry Hayes/20th Century Studios)

Starring: Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Toni Collette, Willem Dafoe, Richard Jenkins, Ron Perlman, David Straitharn, Holt McCallany, Mark Povinelli, Mary Steenburgen, Clifton Collins Jr., Tim Blake Nelson, Jim Beaver

Director: Guillermo del Toro

Running Time: 150 Minutes

Rating: R for Some Gunfire and a Little Hanky Panky

Release Date: December 17, 2021 (Theaters)

If you can’t trust circus folk, who can you trust? Actually, if Nightmare Alley is to be believed, carnies are the only people who can be believed (well, most of them anyway). It’s everyone else who’s trying to pull one over on you. This movie is two and a half hours long, which is to say: it takes Bradley Cooper’s Stanton Carlisle way too long to realize the truth about Truth. That’s probably because he’s fooling himself.

The movie itself is pulling a trick on us as well. Considering its spooky title, and its writer-director, we’re primed for some horror, or at least something supernatural. But instead it’s a full-on noir thriller, with all the moral prisons, femmes fatales, and cigarettes to prove it. We first meet Stanton burning away his past, quite literally. Then he wanders into the local big tent, and it’s unclear if he actually has any plans for anything at this moment. Only later do his machinations come to the fore. He gets roped into a job, which at first pays him a mere 50 cents (it would have been a dollar if he hadn’t snuck into the geek show), but then that’s followed up by steadier employment at the next town, and soon enough he’s one of the top mentalists around. That trajectory eventually leads to him teaming up with a psychologist (Cate Blanchett) for a con to bilk some big, big money out of a rich man (Richard Jenkins) who’s overcome by Stan’s promises that he can commune with the dead. But of course, there’s enough doubt and double-crossing in the air for everything to go sideways.

By the end of the whole plot, Stan essentially circles back to his original destitute and anonymous status quo. I was struck by both the futility and durability of his con man nature. The Universe, or the Fates, or God or whatever, or simply the randomness of existence has decided that his deception can go only so far. And while his reach exceeding his grasp might send him down to rock bottom, he’ll find a way to survive in the gutter if he has to. But why not do it a little differently? If Stan were a real person, and he were my friend, I would remind him that he seems happiest when he’s just hanging out with the circus crew. He found a family, but the genre that he lives in has ensured that he’s a nowhere man who’s never fully at home anywhere.

Nightmare Alley is Recommended If You Like: Hucksters, Snow, Trenchcoats, Biting heads off chickens

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Cold Reads