‘Black Bag’ Review: The Couple That Spies Together, Rides or Dies Together

March 11, 2025

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

What’s in the Black Bag?! (CREDIT: Claudette Barius/Focus Features)

Starring: Michael Fassbender, Cate Blanchett, Marisa Abela, Tom Burke, Naomie Harris, Regé-Jean Page, Pierce Brosnan

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Running Time: 94 Minutes

Rating: R for Adults Talking About Their Adult Affairs, as Well as a Few Bursts of Violence

Release Date: March 14, 2025 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: George Woodehouse (Michael Fassbender) and Kathryn St. Jean (Cate Blanchett) are a happily married childless couple. But it’s a little complicated because they’re both spies and therefore can’t exactly always be 100% honest with each other. But somehow they’ve managed to make it work! It perhaps helps that they carefully cultivate relationships with some of the younger employees at their agency, even if things do occasionally get a little (or a lot) messy. When Kathryn flies out for her latest covert meeting, it looks like she might be turning treasonous, or perhaps it’s all a setup. So how far will George go to protect his wife, and is anyone foolhardy enough to stand in his way?

What Made an Impression?: Confusing, Until It’s Not: I’ve long since given up on trying to understand the plots of espionage movies, and the beginning of Black Bag didn’t do anything to change my mind. Instead, it felt like an homage to Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? that had me going, “Did the trailer just straight-up lie about this movie’s plot?” But then after about 40 minutes of finely deliberate setup, screenwriter David Koepp and director Steven Soderbergh finally showed their hands, and they had me going, “Ah, there are the stakes.” I won’t delve too much more into this point because much of the pleasure of Black Bag is that “a-ha” feeling. But let’s just say that Soderbergh has demonstrated once again that it pays to figure out what you want to do ahead of time and then go ahead and execute that plan.
Scenes From a Marriage: Are George and Kathryn #couplegoals? I’d certainly be happy to see that conversation play out in the wake of Black Bag‘s release. They undoubtedly have each other’s backs, and they also consistently give each other the benefit of the doubt. But on the other hand, they leave a bit of a trail of destruction in their wake, although that might say more about their profession than it does about them. And though they don’t have any kids, you can kind of think of the characters played by Marisa Abela, Tom Burke, Naomie Harris, and Regé-Jean Page as their stand-in children. But that interpretation makes things go a little wibbly-wobbly, as it probably isn’t the best idea for parents to subject their kids to a round of polygraph testing. And yet, that is something that indeed happens in this movie. In conclusion, George and Kathryn’s ultimate suitability as a couple remains uncertain, but their turns as Spy Daddy and Spy Mommy are finely fulfilled.

Black Bag is Recommended If You Like: Leather and wine

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Satellite Feeds

‘Presence’ Review: It’s Time for the Ghost’s Perspective

January 22, 2025

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Yay, Presence! (CREDIT: NEON, Courtesy of Sundance Institute)

Starring: Lucy Liu, Chris Sullivan, Callina Liang, Eddy Maday, West Mulholland, Julia Fox, Natalie Woolams-Torres, Lucas Papaelias

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Running Time: 85 Minutes

Rating: R for At-Home Profanity and Malicious Drugging

Release Date: January 24, 2025 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Rebecca (Lucy Liu) and Chris (Chris Sullivan) are in the market for a fresh start, so they settle into a charming three-bedroom suburban house along with their teenage kids Chloe (Callina Liang) and Tyler (Eddy Maday). Tyler’s trying to focus on the swimming team, while Chloe is reeling from the recent death of a friend. Their parents are also going through a rocky period, with the implication that Rebecca has recently done something illegal, possibly to protect Tyler. Meanwhile, Chloe suspects that there may be a supernatural entity lurking within their walls. And chances are that hunch is very correct, considering that this movie is in fact shot from the POV of the titular presence.

What Made an Impression?: Feels Like Home: As the spectral camera walked along every floorboard and peeked out of every window, I found myself thinking, “This looks so much like my grandparents’ house in southeastern Pennsylvania,” and also, “This reminds me quite a bit of my brother’s house in Westchester County.” Which is to say: it’s a lot like my own childhood home, but not quite. It’s the sort of suburban house right off a busy main road whose origins probably date back a few hundred years, back when the area was all farmland. This is exactly the sort of abode where you’d expect ghosts to be lurking .I imagine I’m not the only one who will find Presence giving them a sense of uncanny familiarity.
Friendly and Curious: If the spirit in Presence operates according to one overriding mission, it is to find the answer to the question “What am I doing here?” Perhaps the most common trope of ghost stories is that the undead have some unfinished business they must take care of before they can fully cross over to the afterlife. That certainly appears to be true of this particular ghost, but it’s taking some effort to figure out exactly what that unfinished business is, beyond the inkling that it has something to do with Chloe. So that results in plenty of aimless activity like just wandering around and moving objects from one spot to another (with the exception of a thrillingly revelatory climax). This existential ghost story requires a fair amount of patience, but it also offers sufficient rewards if you’re willing to stick with it.

Presence is Recommended If You Like: Paranormal Activity, Unsane, Casper

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Gasps

Please! One More! Okay, But This is ‘Magic Mike’s Last Dance’

February 7, 2023

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

(CREDIT: Warner Bros. Pictures/Screenshot)

Starring: Channing Tatum, Salma Hayek, Ayub Khan Din, Juliette Motamed, Jemelia George, Vicki Pepperine

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Running Time: 110 Minutes

Rating: R for Unstoppable Gyrations (with Permission)

Release Date: February 10, 2023 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: If Michael Jeffrey Lane stopped dancing, would there be any reason to make a movie about him anymore? I’d like to think so, but thankfully we haven’t had to face that possibility yet so far. Although, when we meet him at the beginning of Magic Mike’s Last Dance, he’s been out of the game for quite a while. Instead, he’s a gig worker serving bar at a generic fancy event, when he’s recognized by a satisfied customer from back in the day. Then word gets around to Max Mendoza (Salma Hayek, credited with her married name of “Pinault”), who hires for him a private dance. Then immediately afterwards she whisks him off to England to mount a live dance revue on a stuffy London stage. Max is basically using her obscene wealth to get back at her soon-to-be-ex-husband, but when the moves are this electric, who’s complaining?

What Made an Impression?: Magic Mike’s Last Dance kicks off with some narration that contextualizes Mike’s plight in the entire evolutionary history of dance. That voiceover comes courtesy of Jemelia George, who also plays Max’s over-it teenage daughter Zadie. We learn later that Zadie is writing a novel, so I then girded myself for the big reveal that Zadie was actually the author of Mike’s odyssey this whole time. Spoiler Alert: no such luck, but the narration is still plenty effective, offering a sort of grad school thesis-style framework. Channing Tatum’s piercing facial expressions can come across as empty in ungenerous interpretations, but with Zadie’s guidance, there’s no way not to see his journey as deeply yearning and humanistically profound.

Anyway, I’m sure everyone wants to know how much Tatum and Hayek sizzle up the screen together. And obviously they do, there’s no reason to worry about that. Mike and Max’s first encounter is the most brazenly sensual cinematic sequence I’ve seen since the last Magic Mike. For the rest of the movie, they settle into more of a sugar-and-spice odd couple routine, which is nice enough to move the whole thing along.

But obviously we’re all here for the grand finale. And let’s make no bones about it: Mike and his crew do not hold back. The staging is perfectly framed, the buildup gets all the right pieces together, and you can feel the crowd’s cheeky energy. Fascinatingly enough, I was most blown away by the emcee who introduces the dancers. She’s played by Juliette Motamed, who discovers untold delights in describing the fireworks shooting off around her. The pleasure is palpable, and there’s simply no reason to resist.

Magic Mike’s Last Dance is Recommended If You Like: Leaving Every Last Inch of Yourself on the Stage

Grade: 4 out of 5 Thrusts

Entertainment To-Do List: Week of 6/25/21

June 25, 2021

jmunney Cinema, Entertainment To-Do List, Music, Television , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Every week, I list all the upcoming (or recently released) movies, TV shows, albums, podcasts, etc. that I believe are worth checking out.

Movies
–F9 (Theaters) – Getting everyone back together.
–Werewolves Within (Theaters)
–No Sudden Move (July 1 on HBO Max) – Soderbergh on HBO Max again.

TV
–Central Park Season 2 Premiere (June 25 on Apple TV+) – Still catching up on Season 1, though.

Music
-Lucy Dacus, Home Video
-Doja Cat, Planet Her
-Modest Mouse, The Golden Casket
-Tyler, the Creator, Call Me If You Get Lost

Entertainment To-Do List: Week of 12/4/20

December 4, 2020

jmunney Cinema, Entertainment To-Do List, Music, Television , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

MANK (CREDIT: Netflix)

Every week, I list all the upcoming (or recently released) movies, TV shows, albums, podcasts, etc. that I believe are worth checking out.

Movies
–Godmothered (December 4 on Disney+)
–Mank (December 4 on Netflix) – Fincher on Mankiewicz.
–Mulan (December 4 on Disney+, without the premium fee)
–Let Them All Talk (December 10 on HBO Max) – Soderbergh directs Streep-Bergen-Wiest on a cruise.

TV
–Big Mouth Season 4 (December 4 on Netflix)
–MTV Movie & TV Awards: Greatest of All Time Special (December 6 on MTV)

Music
-Arctic Monkeys, Live at the Royal Albert Hall

Best Film Directors of the 2010s

June 24, 2020

jmunney Best of the 2010s, Best of the Decade, Cinema , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

CREDIT: YouTube Screenshots

I’ve got another extra-innings Best of the 2010s for ya. This time, the focus is on Film Directors, those folks who hang out behind the camera and let everyone know how they would like the movie to go.

Based on the eligibility rules of the poll that I submitted my list to, each director had to have at least two films come out between 2010 and 2019 to be considered. I made my selections based on a combination of how much I enjoyed their output and how much they influenced the medium and the culture at large.

My choices, along with their 2010s filmography, are listed below.

More

This Is a Movie Review: Steven Soderbergh Captures Claire Foy Possibly Losing Her Mind in His Latest ‘Unsane’ Experiment

March 20, 2018

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

CREDIT: Fingerprint Releasing/Bleecker Street

This review was originally published on News Cult in March 2018.

Starring: Claire Foy, Jay Pharoah, Joshua Leonard, Aimee Mullins, Amy Irving, Juno Temple, Polly McKie

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Running Time: 98 Minutes

Rating: R for Pill-Induced Distortion, Unsanitary Use of a Tampon, and a Violent Spree

Release Date: March 23, 2018

Steven Soderbergh has made a career out of messing around with the standard bounds of cinema, often in ways that could come off as a gimmick in the hands of a less assured director. His latest, Unsane, sets itself apart with its iPhone 7 Plus 4K cinematography (credited to Soderbergh himself). Smartphone photography is certainly advanced enough to make a feature film look as professional as it ought to, so for those who are capable, the smartphone option simply deserves to be added to the docket of available cameras. Thematically, an iPhone fits Unsane’s story of a woman committed to a mental institution against her will, as it compresses the depth of field and lends a dull sheen that lingers in the uncanny valley between intimate and detached.

Sawyer Valentini (Claire Foy) is a businesswoman rising up the corporate ladder, but she is haunted by a troubled past and feelings of loneliness in a new city. The nature of her job is never fully specified (kind of hilariously), but it appears to have something to do with customer service, and she also appears to have power to hire and fire. She has been dealing with occasionally crippling anxiety caused by a stalker . After one particularly bad episode, she drops by for a therapy session, which leads to her signing some forms, which somehow results in her being committed to a mental facility and unable to leave, as she has been declared a danger to herself and to others.

Sawyer’s circumstances quickly become too sinister for this to be a simple mistake or an innocent misdiagnosis, suggesting that a conspiracy is afoot. A staff member (Joshua Leonard) appears to be her stalker in disguise – has he orchestrated the whole thing? Or is the truth to be found from the most well-adjusted resident (Jay Pharoah), who divulges to Sawyer that she is the victim of an insurance scam in which the institution forces people to be committed for as long as their coverage will pay for it? Or is it some combination of forces, working together, or simultaneously coincidentally all ganging up on Sawyer? Of course, there is also the possibility that this could all be in her head, as everything unspools from her point of view the whole time.

This could be a formula for devastatingly unsettling ambiguity, but Soderbergh is not especially concerned about questioning the nature of reality. This is more just a setup for him to explore his particular tastes in psychological and claustrophobic thrills. In many respects, Unsane is satisfying simply on a lurid and pulpy level. Soderbergh does definitely dig deeper than that, presenting in stark terms how both institutional and corporate life can be dehumanizing, their loss of morals too easily justified with a sweep under the rug. Those moments of carelessness and lack of empathy do not usually result in ordeals as dangerous as Sawyer’s, but the opportunities for abuse are there for those who want to take advantage of them.

Unsane is Recommended If You Like: Side Effects, Shutter Island, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Gone Girl

Grade: 4 out of 5 Medical Forms

This Is a Movie Review: Steven Soderbergh and the ‘Logan Lucky’ Crew Pull Off a Heist at the Biggest Race of the Year

August 18, 2017

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Credit: Claudette Barius / Fingerprint Releasing | Bleecker Street

This review was originally published on News Cult in August 2017.

Starring: Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Riley Keough, Daniel Craig, Katie Holmes, Dwight Yoakam, Seth MacFarlane, Jack Quaid, Brian Gleeson, Katherine Waterston, Hilary Swank

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Running Time: 119 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Improvised Explosives and Slapstick Violence, Often Involving a Prosthetic

Release Date: August 18, 2017

If you follow the sports world, you will have noticed lately the several examples of the wonders that taking significant time off does towards extending a career. Roger Federer and Serena Williams, perhaps the two greatest tennis players of all time, have taken months-long breaks and at ages 36 and 35, respectively (ancient by athletic standards), they are still somehow in the primes of their careers. The physicality of sports and filmmaking are not exactly the same, but both can be similarly taxing. So while it is right to question the accuracy of Steven Soderbergh’s claim that he was retiring from directing, it is not right to question the wisdom of what he was actually doing, i.e., taking a nice, long, relaxing break, as Logan Lucky is the type of film that you make only when you are bursting with energy.

Logan is Soderbergh’s first directorial effort since 2013’s Side Effects and the HBO film Behind the Candelabra, but in premise, it most obviously brings to mind his Ocean’s trilogy. Recently unemployed West Virginia coal miner Jimmy Logan (Channing Tatum) recruits his one-armed Iraq War vet bartender brother Clyde (Adam Driver) and hairdresser sister Mellie (Riley Keough), along with incarcerated bleached-blonde demolitions expert Joe Bang (Daniel Craig) and Joe’s supposed computer expert brothers Fish (Jack Quaid) and Sam (Brian Gleeson), to rob the cash deposits at Charlotte Motor Speedway during the Coca-Cola 600, the longest annual race on the NASCAR calendar. So it is basically a hillbilly Ocean’s 11 (Logan’s 6, if you will), and that connection is referenced head-on with a sneakily well-timed joke. Now, don’t let that description fool you into thinking that this film looks down on the people that populate it. Its particular strength is how thoroughly and empathetically each character is rendered, despite their colorful personalities offering an easy temptation for stereotypes.

Accordingly, every actor is given plenty of opportunities to stretch, with Soderbergh guiding them along to their best instincts. Keough shines in her accounting of the West Virginia highway system, Driver is wholly convincing with his unassuming one-armed bartending prowess, Seth MacFarlane is Snidely Whiplash-levels ridiculous as a luxuriously coiffed, arrogant driver, Farrah Mackenzie (as Jimmy’s young daughter Sadie) charms enough to somehow make pageant culture a little less nauseating than usual, and when Special Agent Hilary Swank shows up, she makes an all-business demeanor just as much fun as criminality. But the biggest praise is rightfully reserved for Craig, who is delightfully unhinged in the friendliest way possible, as well as Dwight Yoakam, as a warden whose loss of control of his prison amazingly involves the most hilarious taking to task of George R.R. Martin I have ever witnessed.

The conflict of heist movies is such that their cool vibes always goad you into rooting for the criminals. While these robbers typically are not violent, and often target the most powerful and greediest, they are in fact still criminals. The fact that these are just movies should be enough to remove any feelings of moral crisis. But in case you want more than that, there is a Robin Hood-style resolution. Your mileage may vary on what that means in terms of ethical implications, but there is no doubt that it contributes to the good vibes.

Logan Lucky is Recommended If You Like: Heist Films, Southern-Fried Flavor, Feeling Pumped When You Walk Out of the Theater

Grade: 4 out of 5 Painted Cockroaches