A brilliantly conceived and faithfully executed homage to Jean-Luc Godard’s directorial debut, Breathless, in which he broke all the rules and pioneered independent cinema. Viewing Breathless beforehand, as we did, only made the recreation more telling, and amusing; the star here is Godard himself, although the radiant Zoey Deutch, as Jean Seberg, fills the screen wonderfully. In its rigor, a fitting companion to Richard Linklater’s simultaneously released Blue Moon.
A smart and entertaining romp with something fun every two minutes, smartly employing a cast of 80. Writer-director Noah Baumbach is a star. George Clooney is the meta lead, playing a handsome movie star (Jay Kelly even sounds like George Clooney), which meant I always saw him as George Clooney, acting, which made me less concerned by his personal troubles. (Interestingly, the clips of his Jay Kelly movies made him appear to be a terrible actor, emphasizing his role as “movie star,” not a person.) Adam Sandler was another figure recognizable only to Hollywood. Billy Crudup, by contrast, grabbed me as a person, not an actor. Key plot points fell apart upon examination, but I loved the ride.
Two hours of Jessie Buckley is a treat–what an actress!–but the movie is a bit of an unmodulated slog, careening from dramatic incident to dramatic incident. None of it would matter, of course, if it wasn’t William Shakespeare we were watching (and if you hadn’t read the book you might not realize who “Will” is until 90 minutes in). The point of it all shows up in the final ten minutes, at which time the film dispenses with its realism for a bit of “manipulation” (to quote director Chloe Zhao) that feels overdue and welcome.
What distinguishes America, according to a character in this movie, is “imagination,” which might be another word for greed. Director Tony Tost gives us an array of mid- to low-lifes, the kind you might find at a remote Badlands diner, in a smart, funny take on American dreams, in the language of Quentin Tarantino, which probably accounts for the title’s punctuation. Sydney Sweeney in the Shelly Duvall role and Halsey as Joan Jett are superb. This was my kind of Tuesday afternoon movie.
It was formulaic, but why shouldn’t it be? It’s fun to immerse yourself in a different world, and Formula 1 is that. Not understanding the sport, I couldn’t tell how accurate it was or even understand what was happening, which was probably a plus. Instead I could just admire Brad Pitt being Brad Pitt, the gorgeous maverick outsider with a troubled past and a soft heart. Javier Bardem and Kerry Condon command the screen as well. Great cinematography and good score too.
A remarkable challenge to Iran’s theocracy, this Cannes Award-winning film not surprising earned director Mohammad Rasoulof an eight-year prison sentence. The first half was a compelling political drama, intertwined with family dynamics and believable characters. The second half went off the rails, so much so that streaming it on two separate nights we felt we were watching different films.
Unremitting footage of Israeli bulldozers knocking down Palestinian homes made a depressing, discouraging point if not compelling cinema. All honor to the Palestinian-Israeli filmmakers who bravely documented the cruel destruction of a defenseless West Bank village, humanizing the Palestinians with their goats and chickens and dehumanizing the Israeli soldiers with their uniforms and tanks. Rather than offer even a sliver of hope, the movie left us with our knowledge of how much worse the Palestinians’ plight has since become.
A parade of moral dilemmas kept us hanging and thinking until the end, and beyond, as the Clint Eastwood film held off providing any answers at all. As in almost every courtroom drama, this realism-loving ex-lawyer found many “I-don’t-think-so’s” as the action proceeded, but the essential question of how to get to “justice” came through. And the interplay among 12 very human jurors struck a chord from my own limited experience.
This decidedly naturalistic film went off the rails near the end, and I’m not sure what track it was on before that. It seemed to raise a dozen issues about city life, health care, women’s roles, religions, corporate bullying, sisterhood, love, Indian culture in general, but none went anywhere, nor were the characters particularly interesting. The pace and mundanity reminded me of classic Satyajit Ray films of the ’50s, which meant very slow for 2024. And very unusual, I didn’t like the score.
A meditation/symposium on the subject of art repatriation, in this case from France’s Musee du Quai Branly to the Republic of Benin, not to be confused with the Kingdom of Benin from which the British looted art in 1897, five years after the French appropriated the objects at issue here from the Kingdom of Dahomey (renamed “Benin” in 1975). Director Mati Diop gives a voice to Object 26 then raises multiple issues through a discussion of university students. She offers no answers but expands our understanding with sympathetic portrayals of the Beninese people.
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