‘Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere’ Delivered Me to Somewhere, And I Bet I’m Not the Only One

November 11, 2025

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Like a Boss, even when you’re not feeling like it (CREDIT: 20th Century Studios/Screenshot)

Starring: Jeremy Allen White, Jeremy Strong, Paul Walter Hauser, Stephen Graham, Gaby Hoffman, Odessa Young, Marc Maron, David Krumholtz, Grace Gummer

Director: Scott Cooper

Running Time: 119 Minutes

Rating: PG-13

Release Date: October 24, 2025 (Theaters)

Folks, I feel compelled to say something, and I’m going to be totally honest here: Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere isn’t really a biopic. Well, okay, I guess it does technically fit the definition of a biographical motion picture, insofar as it features actors playing real people (primarily Jeremy Allen White as American singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen) based on situations that actually happened. But in this case, the question of how closely the portrayals match the real deal feels especially beside the point. Instead, this whole movie is really a feature-long work of advocacy about the importance of mental health services. Bruce was in a dark place in the buildup to his 1982 album Nebraska, and it eventually becomes clear that he needs professional help if he’s going to make it through. That realization sneaks up on you, but it’s also what the story is building up to the entire time, and I hope whoever needs to see it gets to see it.

Grade: Good on You, Bruce and Everyone Looking Out for You

‘Venom: The Last Dance’ Might Have Been Better Off If It Were Just an Hour and a Half of Eddie and Mrs. Chen Dancing

October 23, 2024

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Eddie and Venom horsin’ around. (CREDIT: Sony Pictures)

Starring: Tom Hardy, Juno Temple, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rhys Ifans, Peggy Lu, Alanna Ubach, Stephen Graham, Andy Serkis, Clark Backo, Cristo Fernandez

Director: Kelly Marcel

Running Time: 110 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Aliens Eating Humans and a Couple of F-Bombs

Release Date: October 25, 2024 (Theater)

What’s It About?: Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) and his alien symbiote soulmate have been laying low after their last Venom-ous adventure. But then it turns out that Eddie’s one of the most wanted men in America (or at least the Bay Area), and also some guy named Knull (Andy Serkis) who’s the master of all symbiotes is on an intergalactic trek to regain control of Venom and his ilk. So they head out for safer pastures, eventually making their way to Nevada, where they converge with a group of science and military types looking to exploit symbiote technology for their own purposes, as well as Knull’s beastly minions and an extraterrestrial-obsessed family excited about the recent declassification of Area 51.

What Made an Impression?: Science vs. Soldiers vs. Power vs. True Love: At the core of the Venom film trilogy is the unlikely, occasionally destructive, but ultimately mutually beneficial relationship between a broken man and a needy extraterrestrial creature. The Last Dance theoretically could just be about Eddie Brock walking across the desert while talking to the chaotic being living inside him, but their interpersonal tension has mostly been resolved over the course of the two films. So instead there are a few external conflicts that criss-cross with each other, though they all struggle to get their narrative fill. Juno Temple plays Dr. Teddy Payne, the Avatar of Science who wants to keep dangerous aliens alive for the sake of science; while Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Rex Strickland, the Symbol of Law & Order who wants to arrest Eddie and keeps yelling at Dr. Payne about all the men he keeps losing in the line of duty. Meanwhile, Rhys Ifans is the UFO-loving, Hippie Wild Card who throws a kumbaya wrench into the whole proceedings. Ultimately, all of these opposing factions eventually realize that they need to team up to defeat the power-mad Knull, which results in a kinetically conclusive set piece, though the characterization that gets us to that point is a little thin and petty.
Aliens Are Always Bugging Out: How long has it been since insects have become the go-to design inspiration for big screen extraterrestrials? The xenomorphs of Alien are perhaps the proto-example, While the bugs of Starship Troopers were obviously a big deal in 1997. But it’s probably only been in the past decade or so that it’s become frustratingly de rigueur. The Last Dance continues this trend in the form of the creatures that are hunting down Venom and the other symbiotes, although there are some hints of creativity trying to break out. They’re basically giant, apparently indestructible, pointy-legged arachnids that can shoot out supersonic bursts (a weakness of the symbiotes). It sounds like it could be kind of cool in theory, but in practice, it’s just a chaotic swarm of fiery bursts and barely coherent screaming. And that’s The Last Dance in microcosm: there’s genuine personality scattered about, but it’s stuck in an inelegant mess. The desire to have fun is there, but it can’t quite hit it into overdrive.

Venom: The Last Dance is Recommended If You: Keep Your Own Personal Index of Every Single Marvel Comics Symbiote

Grade: 2 out of 5 Codices

Just a Bit About Venom Letting There Be Carnage

October 2, 2021

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Venom: Let There Be Carnage (CREDIT: Sony Pictures Entertainment/Screenshot)

Starring: Tom Hardy, Woody Harrelson, Michelle Williams, Naomie Harris, Reid Scott, Stephen Graham, Peggy Lu

Director: Andy Serkis

Running Time: 97 Minutes

Rating: PG-13

Release Date: October 1, 2021 (Theaters)

How much carnage did Venom: Let There Be Carnage let there be? Henceforth, “carnage” will refer to “stuff that I liked” (except when I need it to mean something different). Let me count the ways:

-That scene when Venom gives a heartfelt speech at a rave. That’s what it’s all about!
-The turmoil on Tom Hardy’s face as Eddie Brock tries to be happy for his ex’s engagement. That’s a lot of carnage in one man’s psyche!
-Dan (Reid Scott) gets to be heroic. That’s considerate chaos!
-Naomie Harris got the memo. A LOT of carnage in those eyes and that hair.
-Mrs. Chen gets in on the fun. Good call having her be in on Eddie/Venom’s secret.
-Michelle Williams really looks like she’s in a good place.
-Now onto the more literal aspects of carnage. When the subtitular symbiote makes his way into Woody H., it really starts pushing the limits of PG-13. A bunch of people caught in the mayhem get crushed or ripped apart. An entire truck is suddenly thrown off a bridge! What happened to the people in that truck? There’s no time to find out! All we know is the detective telling us that people keep saying they’re seeing monsters.

In conclusion: not as revelatory as the first one, but more heartwarming.

Grade: A Mostly Good Match

This Is a Movie Review: Old Hollywood and Working-Class England Come Into Each Other’s Orbit When ‘Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool’

December 27, 2017

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CREDIT: Sony Pictures Classics

This post was originally published on News Cult in December 2017.

Starring: Annette Bening, Jamie Bell, Julie Walters, Kenneth Cranham, Stephen Graham, Vanessa Redgrave

Director: Paul McGuigan

Running Time: 106 Minutes

Rating: R for Tenderly Shot Brief Nudity

Release Date: December 29, 2017 (Limited)

There’s something a little strange about that title, and it’s so small that you might not even notice it. It took a few weeks for it to even cross my mind. People frequently say “movie stars,” but who regularly says “film stars”? The title is the same as the memoir it’s based on, so I guess we have to pin this one on Peter Turner. Maybe it’s a British thing. But there is something appropriately spellbinding about this particular phrasing. “Film” is a traditionally more respectable term than the common and vulgar “movie,” so “film stars” has a way of lending gravitas to frivolousness. Such is the fate of big names whose times have passed them by like Gloria Grahame.

Grahame was, as one character put its, “a proper film star,” and as another clarifies, she “always played the tart.” She achieved fame in the late ’40s and early ’50s, primarily in noirs like The Big Heat and The Bad and the Beautiful (for which she won an Oscar). But as Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool opens, she is seeking stage work in London and looking for someone to take her disco dancing. Annette Bening acts the role with one layer upon another, wherein Grahame is always playing the part of the star in her day-to-day life. Or maybe a select few people really are just always that naturally alluring, i.e., they’re not really acting. Although, in a sense, everyone is always acting to some way, but perhaps with Grahame, her more outsize performances were much less of a put-on than the average person’s. Either way, into her orbit is drawn Peter Turner (Jamie Bell), and while their multiple decades age difference is a concern, it is no roadblock to genuine passion and affection.

Film Stars fundamentally tracks the importance of interpersonal acceptance. Gloria’s mother and sister are scandalized by her shacking up with a much younger man, while Peter’s family is there to take care of her when her cancer diagnosis becomes debilitating. But the greater struggle for acceptance is internal. Not only is it impossible for film stars to pass away in working-class English port towns, they cannot have diseases whose treatments are so aesthetically stripping. As Gloria comes to terms with her illness, the film takes on a woozy, dreamy quality. A humbling reality surrounds her, but a spectacular, star-making gaze is what she filters it through. It’s a little bit intoxicating.

Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool is Recommended If You Like: Billy Elliot (for the sake of the Jame Bell/Julie Walters reunion), Being Julia, Sunset Blvd.

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Magical Cancer Recoveries