My son's team won, 9-1.

Back to the reviews:

Thursday: took the train to Union Square in Manhattan for the 11:10am showing of "Highest 2 Lowest." (H2L is a remake of Akira Kurosawa's "High and Low": but the Kurosawa film was an adaptation of an Ed McBain novel, so Spike Lee is technically "repatriating" the material.)

I'm not going to focus on the plot here, because you get the impression Spike isn't that interested in the plot either. Other than one sharply directed sequence, a botched ransom drop set during the Puerto Rican Day Parade (guest starring salsa king Eddie Palmieri), Lee mostly uses the movie to work on his usual obsessions:

Loving, panoramic shots of New York City. Idolization of 1960s soul icons and New York athletes. Hating on Boston (especially the Celtics). NYC cops messing up shit. (Although Dean Winters is hilarious as a detective driven insane trying to keep track of the ransom money.) Fortunately, that also means he lets his actors cook, and we can luxuriate in Denzel Washington and Jeffrey Wright (as music mogul David King and his right hand man).

King is supposed to have been the greatest music producer of the early 00s, "the best ears in the business", and his Stackin' Hits label is a world wide brand. So why is the music in this movie such a needle scratch? For one thing, the basic score is terrible, a standard Hollywood orchestral score that melodramatically punctuates every emotional beat. This movie screams for a rap/hip hop pulse--but I don't think Spike Lee likes rap very much.

[Which brings up the point: what kind of music did Stackin' Hits produce anyway? The early 00s were the time of Snoop and Dr. Dre, Usher and Nelly. But Spike is too busy worshipping Aretha, Stevie Wonder and James Brown to make the music fit the character. It's about as realistic as 70 year-old Denzel chasing down 36 year-old A$AP Rocky in the climax.]

This could have been much better. (Lee's previous movie with Denzel, Inside Man, was a LOT better.) But it's still Denzel and Jeffrey Wright (together!) and there are worse ways to spend two hours.

After the flick, I popped down to Forbidden Planet to check out comic books and The Strand to ogle the rare book collection. I cut through Washington Square Park and stopped off at Generation Records on Thompson Street. (Yeah, I know, I don't own a turntable anymore. But I get a nostalgic thrill thumbing through the old vinyl.)

I went next door to Brown Bag Sandwich Co. for lunch--roast beef au jus and cheddar on Italian bread, and I got a Thin Cookies chocolate chip cookie in Soho. (Pretty good--not too sweet with just a touch of vanilla.)

*************

Back to work tomorrow. Sigh. Well, it couldn't last forever....

I am on vacation!

I took a full week off. It's been awhile since I've done that. But it was long overdue. I've been under a lot of pressure at the bank; with our assistant branch manager out on maternity leave (and no replacement coming), everybody gets a much bigger workload. I've been training the new tellers, and they've picked up enough of the job to the point where I can leave the line in their hands for awhile. (I'll clean up any messes when I get back.)

My birthday was on Sunday (#66...6). I already gave myself the best-est present ever (see previous post), but my wife wanted to know if I had anything in mind for the actual day. I had no idea. I hemmed and hawed and put it off (which irritated her no end).

Finally, she said: Hamilton is playing at our favorite Staten Island movie theater on Sunday morning. Wanna go?

Sold!

I was coming in to Hamilton cold. I hadn't studied the libretto, and I didn't know the numbers (aside from a brief snippet from a Tony awards ceremony). The performers? Those I knew: Lin-Manuel Miranda, Daveed Diggs, Jonathon Groff and Renee Elise Goldsberry were familiar from other projects. (And I have to compliment Miranda for giving these scene-stealers room to strut--literally, in Daveed Diggs' case. A less secure showrunner might not be so generous with the spotlight.)

Remember how I whined about the long runtime of Wicked (the movie)? Well, Hamilton ran just as long--but it flew by. I read about how much historical material was packed into this libretto, but I was still amazed by how DENSE it all was and yet didn't bog down into boring exposition. Miranda balanced the serious matter of nation building with biting humor and he used the anachronistic contrast of a hip hop soundtrack and colonial America to keep the audience off balance and engaged. (I freaking LOVED that cabinet meetings in the Washington administration were framed as rap battles.)

Diggs pranced like a rock star as Lafayette AND Jefferson(!!), and Groff was incredible, sauntering on stage as King George III, charming and terrifying the audience with a naked display of old world power. (Brilliant choice by Miranda to make the King's solo an old British music hall number. Made it SCARIER.) But the pleasant surprise for me was Philipa Soo as Hamilton's wife, Eliza. She was the emotional backbone of the entire production, and Miranda actually gave her the last word.

[Nitpicks? Not this time! Score, libretto, staging, performances--all top quality. I was puzzled, though, at the omission of John Adams as a major player. I guess Miranda had to cut somewhere; otherwise, we'd be running close to four hours.

The 10th anniversary edition has reminiscences from all the major players about the creation of Hamilton, the initial production off Broadway and the move to the Richard Rodgers Theater for its epic run. Pleasant, but not essential.]

To wrap things up, I was treated to a deluxe burger at the Parkway Diner and pastries from Villa Abbate.

Right now, I'm on the bus, heading for the UA Sheepshead Bay and an afternoon showing of Weapons. Tomorrow night: Spinal Tap! Thursday (or Friday): Spike Lee and Denzel! This weekend: Darren Aronofsky! (And maybe some actual house maintenance.)

I'll try to keep up with reviews. Watch this space.

Penn and Teller at Radio City Music Hall (8/21/25)

Busy social calendar this month. Last Thursday, the family unit ventured into Manhattan to see Penn and Teller on their 50th anniversary tour.

Penn and Teller's act really hasn't changed all that much in 50 years. They cycle in new magic tricks all the time, but the style remains the same: Penn Jillette, bombarding and distracting the audience with a stream of sarcastic patter; Teller, ever silent, Penn's able assistant and a fountain of physical comedy; and the tricks themselves--objects (envelopes, exotic needles, guys in gorilla suits) disappearing from plain sight or appearing where they simply could not be.

The real treat of a P&T performance is the high concept stunt that would tickle the brain on a deeper level than your average card trick. In the Radio City show, they opened the second half with two life sized inflatable Penn and Teller figures bouncing on to the stage. Penn's voice is coming out of the speakers, but are they really in there? (And should they be aiming sharp objects at Teller?) The show's conclusion was a brilliant, almost elegant stunt centered around the concept of entropy. (I'm not going to spoil it here; you can download it on the internet.)

One pleasant surprise for me was Penn's facility for working with audience volunteers, especially kids. He's still the same acerbic personality, but he knows when to dial it back to goose the trick along. Then again, as my wife reminded me, he's had 50 years of practice.

Great show. And on the way home, we bumped into an old friend of mine (from my international travel days) who I hadn't seen for at least a decade!

WICKED (on the Jumbotron) at Maimonides Park

Normally, I wouldn't pay to see a movie like Wicked. But if it's going to be FREE and projected onto a 50 foot screen? I can indulge my curiosity.

I'm going to be nice to any Wicked musical fans out there and praise the set design, costuming and choreography. Absolutely impeccable. Ariana Grande as G(a)linda and Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba? Divine. (I have loved Cynthia Erivo since Bad Luck at the El Royale.)

The problem? Every time I was really getting into the story, the damn musical got in the way.

It occurred to me--after we staggered out of the ball park, exhausted from the 160 minute runtime--that everything I loved about this movie was from the Gregory McGuire novel, and I would have been perfectly happy if it had been a straight drama. The ingenious inversion of the Baum story, with the wizard as a fascist dictator and the Wicked Witch of the West as the courageous freedom fighter, came through loud and clear without the singing and dancing.

[My favorite moment in the movie was non-musical: Grande's Galinda in a dramatic display of virtue signalling so spiritually empty that I had to laugh out loud.]

Were the musical numbers BAD? No, not really. (Except for the Wizard's. Jeff Goldblum is not much of a singer.) But I didn't feel they added much to the story, and it just went on... so... long.

So am I going to see the inevitable Part Two (Wicked: For Good)? Probably when it comes to TV.

THE WHO live at Madison Square Garden (8/30/25)

The farewell tour (and we mean it this time!). The last show at the Garden. There is no way in this universe I am missing this. I have my ticket. I'll tell you all about it on Sunday.

Super/Fantastic, Part One: Superman (written and directed by James Gunn)

(This is part one of a two part post. I'll deal with Superman here, and Fantastic Four: First Steps after I see it next Friday. Spoilers galore!)

AS the inaugural movie of James Gunn and Peter Safran's revamped DC cinematic universe, Superman has two main objectives: reintroduce Superman/Kal-El/Clark Kent and his relationships with his supporting cast; and give viewers a taste of a wider and (wilder) world that creative teams will develop in forthcoming projects.

Gunn gets the job done at both ends--but not without cost. In order to squeeze everything in that he feels necessary to cover his bases, Gunn hits some points a little too hard and the actual plot gets a little too messy. The characters are basically fine--but the script needed another run-through to knock out some of the remaining kinks (and maybe drop some plot-lets that don't work).

Let's start with the good stuff. David Corenswet is a fine Superman, maybe not as charismatic as Christopher Reeve, but a well-realized embodiment of everything we love about the character. He's as corny as Kansas at harvest time, he's passionately dedicated to the preservation of life (to a fault), he has a sneaky sense of humor and he's appropriately sad about his status as Krypton's orphan. I like that we're seeing him fairly early in his career; he doesn't have the confidence and commanding presence yet, and we empathize with him as he's working out his role in the world.

He also has mad chemistry with Rachel Brosnahan's Lois Lane, which helps the movie a LOT.

Brosnahan is the definitive live action Lois Lane (so far). Lois is supposed to be the world's greatest investigative reporter and Brosnahan sells it. She's whip smart, prickly, relentlessly inquisitive, and doesn't back down for anyone--not even her boyfriend, the most powerful man in the world. The marvelously uncomfortable "interview" scene between Clark and Lois is a both a stress test for their relationship and an insight into Lois' relentlessly confrontational personality.

But Brosnahan also shows Lois' soft side. When she visits the Kent farmhouse near the end of the movie and walks through Clark's boyhood bedroom, you can see her affection for Clark deepen, with a deeper understanding of how he was raised and why he is how he is.

(Lex Luthor? I'll get to him later. Hang on.)

As for the broader aspects of the new DCU, this is James Gunn's bread and butter: an assortment of metahuman weirdoes who both lend Supes a helping hand and drive our hero to distraction. Of COURSE Nathan Fillion is here, having way too much fun as Guy Gardner, an arrogant douchebag with a hideous bowl cut and a Green Lantern power ring. (How much did Fillion have to pay Gunn to get this job?) But the standout here is Edi Gathegi's Mister Terrific, a scientific wizard who matches Gardner in arrogance but has the brains, skill and confidence to back that attitude up. (Look for his miniseries in a couple of years...)

As you may have heard, Krypto nearly steals the entire movie.

[Aside: I want to give Gunn my heartfelt thanks for faithfully recreating a favorite obscure hero from my childhood--Metamorpho, the Element Man. When he changed into gaseous form and floated alongside Supes, it was like a panel from his own comic book, drawn by the great Ramona Fradon. A truly awe-inspiring moment of comic book geekery.]

See? The characters are all good! But now we have to deal with the plot.

To put it bluntly, I don't think the political plotline works. It brings up a serious issue-- and leads into that wonderful Clark/Lois scene I talked about earlier--but Gunn doesn't deal with the implications in any depth. If Superman can stop pseudo-Slobodan Milosevic from slaughtering everybody in that poor, fake east Asian country, who can stop him from sticking his super nose into every conflict around the world? If HE decides how humanity settles its conflicts, isn't he the dictator--however benevolent--that Luthor claims he is?

[One of my all time favorite Superman stories is "Must There Be a Superman" (written by Elliot S! Maggin and drawn by the immortal Curt Swan). The Guardians of Oa--the little blue guys who sponsor the Green Lantern corps--summon Superman to Oa for a chat. They suggest that maybe Superman's constant interference is holding back humanity's evolution. And Clark really DOES think about it, and considers resetting his boundaries. That story blew my mind as a kid. Gunn could have used some of that thoughtfulness here.]

But beyond that, these real world-ish plotlines force the viewer to consider the Superman character's limitations. We know he isn't going to drag Putin or Netanyahu to the world court. We know he isn't going to free North Korea. So we're straining our suspension of disbelief. Superman works best confronting supervillains and world-level catastrophes, crises no one else could handle. And if the threat is a metaphor for a real life problem? Great! (Rod Serling made his legend doing exactly that.)

Speaking of supervillains....

Another problem with the Borovia plotline is that it's tied up with yet another Lex Luthor land grab.

What? Again?

Why does every Superman movie with Lex have him angling for real estate? In the comics, Lex Luthor does not wake up, inhale the fresh morning air and exclaim: "Land!" (He's got bigger fish to fry.) It's an affectation from the Salkind movies that I hoped we could leave behind in the 70s.

Granted, Gunn does pull off that last minute swerve to reveal the underlying reason for Luthor's land dealings: Lex's burning envy of Superman (and his single minded dedication to Superman's destruction). But even that comes with some heavy handed exposition. Gunn should have just copied Grant Morrison (from All-Star Superman):

LEX: If it weren't for you, I could have saved the world!

SUPERMAN: You could have saved the world years ago if it mattered to you.

Short, and cuts to the bone.

Another leftover from the Salkind era is Eve Teschmacher, a character I had absolutely no desire to see again. I can believe that this version of Lex dates bimbos (they don't challenge him), but Eve just seems to be around to look pretty and excessively fawn over Jimmy Olson. (Why? Did Jimmy treat her with kindness and respect and she's really really grateful? The only other explanation is that Jimmy Olsen is an Unstoppable Sex Machine and my brain can't deal with that...)

************

My other major nitpick with the plot is the message from Jor-El and Lara. It's not the whole "Superman was sent here to rule" part; it's a relatively recent addition to the comics, but it's not a total shot from left field. No, my problem is that Superman, with all his advanced Kryptonian technology and after decades of trying, can't decrypt the message...

And Luthor does it in two seconds. (Who's the inferior species now, Jor-El?)

Besides, Supergirl is RIGHT THERE. She's part of the family. She probably could tell Clark that Kryptonians weren't all sweetness and enlightenment:

"Kara... did you know about this?"
"Well, yeah--everybody knew your dad was kind of a dick."
"WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME?!"

Minor nitpick: We could lose, oh, five minutes off the big Supermam/Engineer/Bizarro fight scene without much of a sweat.

***************

So, overall, a promising start. I'm actually now looking forward to the Supergirl movie next year. (Jason Momoa as Lobo! More Krypto! More partying under red suns!)

What would I like to see in a second Superman movie? Let's go cosmic! Bring on Brainiac (in its Kryptonian AI incarnation)! The bottle city of Kandor! The Green Lantern Corps! Have Mr. Mxyzptlk pop in to annoy everybody! Superman has over 80 years of fantastic adventures to draw on. We don't need Luthor every single time...

Let's go deep!

No.

At first, I couldn't believe what I was reading. It had to be a sick internet joke. But no--it was all too real. My last sustained memory of MT was the final episode of BUFFY and she was still a child. Now, she's dead before the age of 40, supposedly due to... natural causes.

"Natural"?! Dying at 39 is not natural.

As a BUFFY fan (and as a moderately empathetic human being) this was all upsetting enough. But then you dig into the reports about her life as a child actor, how she was abused by her schoolmates as "that girl on TV" during her pre-teen years and you wonder if the Hollywood that brought her fame and wealth also destroyed her health. And as a BUFFY fan, you are also forced to remember the horrifying rule on the set of BtVS:

Never, NEVER leave Michelle alone with Joss Whedon.

The reason behind that rule has never been made public, and until one of the cast breaks the silence, we can only speculate. But it's not speculation that her self image took a battering on that set. It's a chilling reminder that the Hollywood Dream Factory is, at its core, a factory. And factories often do not care who gets caught up in the gears.

Happy holidays everybody!

Three very different, very entertaining and/or thought provoking pop culture nuggets for your perusal:

American Fiction (written for the screen and directed by Cord Jefferson)

I have to give it up to the screenwriter/director. Given the premise--"serious" novelist pens sterotypical ghetto tragedy potboiler as a joke and winds up with runaway best seller--this could have been a wild, uninhibited farce with our protagonist squeezed into ever more embarrassing situations and parodic scenes from the novel filling up the movie.

But Jefferson does something interesting: yes, some of the farcical elements are here, as Monk (Jeffrey Wright) slams head first into a white-dominated media world that only seems interested in black suffering. But he deliberately undercuts the farce with more grounded scenes with Monk as he deals with his troubled family and his own conflicted self-image.

As a result, the movie is less about white liberal hypocrisy or even black family life, and more about Monk's growth as a character; how his serious novels (based on updates of Ancient Greek drama) and his elitist views of literature reflect his own detachment from the forces that shaped him, and how his "joke" novel allows some of those conflicts to seep out.

The movie never settles into easy answers to Monk's issues. There are no pat resolutions to the family drama--and even the "sellout" author who provokes his vicious parody (played beautifully by Issa Rae) is given the chance to state her case.

Some critics wanted a more caustic satire, more like the original novel or in the vein of Spike Lee's Bamboozled. But Jefferson isn't as didactic as Lee. Character comes first--and in that, he has the perfect partner in Jeffrey Wright. I think Wright is one of the best actors on the planet and this movie has done nothing to change my opinion. Thelonious "Monk" Ellison could have been an abstraction; Wright makes this very difficult character feel real and he holds the center of the movie.


Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special (written and directed by James Gunn)

As I am not blessed with a Disney+ subscription, I missed out on this seasonal treat a few years ago; so I was delighted when FX picked it up for holiday viewing.

A GotG Xmas special sounds weird, but fans of the franchise know this is right up James Gunn's alley: an absolutely sincere tribute to the cheeseball Xmas specials of holidays past, with just enough of an acknowledgement of their absurdities.

Wedged in between the second and third GotG movies, the plot is simple: Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) is depressed, and Mantis (Pom Klementieff) wants to cheer him up with a present for that strange Earth holiday called Christmas. But what to get him? Drax (Dave Bautista) has the perfect gift idea: why not bring Quill that great warrior he keeps blabbering about...

Kevin Bacon?

So Drax and Mantis warp down to Earth and kidnap Kevin Bacon.

Yeah, it's every bit as ridiculous as it sounds, but Gunn fires off some great comic riffs as Drax and Mantis bounce across Los Angeles like a pair of demented Christmas elves, photobombing the tourists, partying at the club, and terrifying poor Kevin Bacon (who just wants to sit quietly at home until Kyra Sedgwick and the kids come back from New York).

But once the silliness subsides and Kevin chills out, Gunn flips over to the sentimental side of these specials and it fits nicely into Guardians lore: Drax tells Kevin that Footloose inspired the Starlord dance moves that saved the galaxy; and Mantis gives Quill the best Christmas present of all--the sister he never knew he had.

It's not an all-time classic, but it goes down pretty smooth, and for devoted Marvel maniacs, it's an essential piece of the GotG story. (I will say, tbough, that the, um, unusual take on the legend of Santa Claus by the alien rock and roll band should be a perennial.)


Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (co-written and co-directed by Nick Park)

For a Wallace and Gromit fan, there is a feeling of happiness and reassurance from a simple trumpet fanfare. That familiar theme music tells you that you are back in the Claymation world of Nick Park and Aardman animation and you are safely in the hands of a master.

Vengeance Most Fowl is the first W&G movie in nineteen years, but Park and his team haven't missed a step. In fact, the backgrounds seem to be packed with more detail than ever before; the gags are even more exquisitely timed; and the supporting characters are better than ever in adding depth to Wallace and Gromit's world.

Thankfully, Wallace and Gromit themselves haven't changed at all. Wallace is still the model of dotty, kind hearted British eccentricity, tinkering with his gears and tubes and springs to the silent exasperation of Gromit, his ever loyal canine companion. (Ben Whitehead, taking over the voice of Wallace from the late Peter Sallis, is nearly flawless.) One of Wallace's inventions goes awry/falls into the wrong hands and Gromit has to dig in his paws and save the day.

The big improvement over the previous W&G movie is the return of the series' greatest villain: Feathers McGraw, the silent, beady-eyed penguin mastermind from The Wrong Trousers. One of the pleasures of the movie is watching McGraw's machinations slowly unfold. His plan to escape his prison (the local zoo, of course), get revenge on Wallace and Gromit, and complete his final theft is almost as detailed as the animation itself.

I could spend another ten paragraphs listing the great gags in this movie, from the terrifying antics of Wallace's automated garden gnome to the climactic barge "race"; but you should just see it for yourself. (Vengeance Most Fowl is in limited release in movie theaters, and debuts on Netflix in early January.)

It's been seven months since my last post? Really? Wow.

I have no excuse for my absenteeism. Yes, I've been busy at work, preoccupied with my health and hip deep in various household projects, but that doesn't mean I couldn't spare a minute to say hi. I guess it comes down to: I don't think anybody would be intetested in the details of my banal, domesticated tickytack life. (Hell, I'm not interested in the details half the time.) But maybe that doesn't matter. Maybe I need to talk about my banal, domesticated, tickytack life with you guys so I don't live in the echo chamber inside my head.

So what's been happening?

My job is my job. No change there.

The one truly positive development is that I've lost 20 pounds! I've bern carrying that extra weight for a couple of decades, and it's probably been a contributing factor to my elevated blood pressure. I'm on statins to bring the BP down and I'm hoping that the combination of weight loss and medication will bring me down to normal.

(There has been no recurrence of my deep vein thrombosis. But I will be on medication for that forever.)

BTW, my wife has lost 65 pounds! (Makes me look like an amateur.) The stress on her back and her ankles has disappeared. We go on extended walks together almost every night. It's kind of romantic--if passing the taco truck outside our local Walgreens can be romantic.

The Boy is in good health. He's 15 now, in his sophomore year at his Catholic high school. His soccer team made it to the city finals again! And they lost. Again.

He is....a teenager. He's hanging with his buds rather than mom and dad. (My wife refuses to accept this development.) He barely squeezes out two words when we ask him a question. If not properly motivated, he will sleep until dusk. He subsists on Doritos, peanut butter, chicken nuggets and Subway sandwiches.

He is also struggling with certain school subjects, which is new to him. I sometimes worry if he can handle the stress of the honors program and I wonder if we're pushing him too hard...or not hard enough. He's taller than both of us now, but there's still a lot of the quiet little kid in there. I want to protect him, stop him from making the same mistakes I did. But I know he's going to make mistakes
no matter what I do.

What else? We finished renovating the basement--it's basically my wife's GirlCave(tm)--and we had the entire first floor painted. The paint job is so beautiful my wife doesn't want to re-hang the pictures that were on the wall. (I'm going to have to wait her out on that one.)

I've been watching a lot of movies on our DVR, but nothing I felt worthy of a post. (The last movie I saw in the theaters was Deadpool and Wolverine--a massive disappointment.) I'm not particularly excited by the current and upcoming slate of movies. When is the Fantastic Four movie out? May? July?

I did venture out of my cubbyhole for two concerts recently: ELO at MSG (my first time at the Garden in decades), and last night, Beat at Kings Theater in Brooklyn. Adrian Belew, Tony Levin, Steve Vai and Danny Carey (the drummer from Tool) playing the 1980s King Crimson songbook. Now that concert was worthy of a post! Let's see if I actually write it. (Watch this space.)

Until then, take care everybody.

I am currently in a bit of a holding pattern. I'm done with antibiotics, but my endoscopy has been postponed until next month. I'll be done with blood thinners after Sunday morning, but I won't know if they worked on the clot until May 9th. I'm waiting for waterproofers to come in and give me an estimate on my basement, but that's still ten days away.

(My wife also had some vital tests postponed until early May. We are very annoyed.)

In the meantime, a brief pop culture review while I'm waiting....

*****************

Late Night with the Devil (written and directed by Cameron and Colin Cairnes) is a neat little horror movie, a mostly successful "found footage" film with a unique twist: with the exception of a brief documentary introduction, it takes place entirely within one episode of a late 1970s late night talk show.

The talk show in question is Night Owls, hosted by the affable Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian), who has been lagging behind Johnny Carson his entire career and is perpetually one step away from cancelation. In a desperate bid to boost ratings, Delroy turns his Halloween episode into a dive into the paranormal, featuring a 12 year old girl supposedly possessed by a demon.

The movie is most effective when it stays in its chosen lane and sticks to the confines of the talk show, with Delroy interacting with his sidekick, a psychic, and a Ricky Jay-like skeptic (played with bitchy flamboyance by Ian Bliss). The Cairnes subtly, incrementally ratchet up the tension, depending on their host to guide the action until the inevitable blood soaked finale.

And Dastmalchian, in the driver's seat for the first time in his career, delivers. He's made a living playing tragic weirdoes in the margins of big movies (Polka Dot Man anyone?), but he shows here that he's more than capable of handling a lead role. Throughout the movie, we wonder about Delroy's motives. Is he just interested in putting on a freak show for the rubes or does he have deeper motivations? Delroy never loses his show biz bonhomie, but Dastmalchian lets you see the struggles going on underneath. It's a finely tuned, engaging performance.

The movie is not perfect. There are "master tape" excerpts from the Night Owls studio during commercials and the camera is just a little too perfectly in place for key conversations. (It kind of breaks the illusion.) And in the hallucinatory final sequence, we find out that everything we thought we knew about Jack Delroy turns out to be... exactly what we thought. (It's not bad, but it's kind of anticlimactic.)

These flaws don't ruin the movie, though. It's a solid debut for the Cairnes, and it proves that Dastmalchian is ready for bigger things. He says he wants to play a vampire. Give this man some fangs!

[Late Night with the Devil is still in selected theaters and is currently streaming on Shudder.]

Well, I put it off for as long as possible--fifteen years, as a matter of fact. But in the quest to discover the mysterious origins of my deep vein thrombosis, my doctor insisted it had to be done. So I finally gave in.

I had the colonoscopy.

(No really, the leg is doing much better now! Can't we just put it off for another fifteen years?)

I finally decided that I was being a scaredy cat and I needed to get an accurate assessment of my health for my family's sake (as well as my own). So I emptied out my gut and my colon smiled for the birdie.

The results? A few stray polyps (that my GI man didn't seem too worried about), but more seriously:

Ulcers.

This was kind of a surprise. I haven't had much of a problem with spicy foods; peppers don't bother me and I like my sushi with Wasabi. But, weirdly enough, I've had bad reactions to both AFTER the colonoscopy. (It's as if the procedure scraped off a protective coating around the ulcers...) I'm taking Prilosec for the next month, but I think I need to rethink my diet in general. That's not going to be easy.

***************

In between all the medical drama, I've caught up on some recent notable movies and TV miniseries and my reactions ranged from wild applause to total disgust (with a few milder opinions in between). Let's break it down:

The Good Stuff

I already raved about Oppenheimer in a previous post, so I'm not going to repeat myself. It won all the Oscars it deserved to win. Same goes for Poor Things (directed by Yorgos Lanthimos), a brilliant deconstruction of the Victorian mindset (which persists--in many ways--to the modern world). Emma Stone is amazing (of course), but she almost gets the movie stolen out from under her by Mark Ruffalo, as a would-be Bohemian cad who isn't nearly as free from his era's social conventions as he thinks he is. (It's just pure evil fun to watch as Bella's quest for personal liberation completely strips him of his self delusions, leaving him a gibbering wreck.)

The makeup, costuming and production design combine to create a thoroughly believable steampunk alternate late 1800s and Lanthimos handles this expanded pallette with confidence and flair. If I have one complaint about the movie--and maybe this is just me--it's that Bella's logical, empirical methodology creates a bit of an emotional distance between the audience and the character. You root for her (because, yes, she's that awesome), but you don't get a lot of warm moments with her. (You get one between Bella and the courtesan in the Paris brothel, but I would have liked a little more.)

Pay no attention to my nitpicking. This movie is great. And we have another Emma Stone/Yorgos Lanthimos team up all ready to go? I'm there!

I've heard descriptions of Beau Is Afraid (written and directed by Ari Aster) ranging from "technicolor nervous breakdown" to "the world's longest Jewish mother joke." I think the closest I can get to classifying this very bold, very long, very weird movie is the counterculture novels of Terry Southern (like Candy or The Magic Christian), where a naive protagonist would go on a surreal, satirical journey through modern society--a bildungsroman on acid. But since Aster is a horror director, this movie is more like an anti-bildungsroman--the deeper he goes, the more he realizes he's always been fucked.

Whether you're willing to sit through a three hour anxiety attack depends on whether you liked Ari Aster's previous movies (Heredity and Midsommar) and how much you like Joaquin Phoenix. But, love it or hate it, give Phoenix credit--the man commits. His Beau is a vibrating mass of jangled nerves, constantly on the verge of helpless tears or outright implosion. It's a version of Phoenix we've rarely seen before--softer, intensely vulnerable--and he capably guides us through Aster's narrative circus act until the bitter, bitter end.

Is this movie for everyone? No. A lot of people will give up halfway through, muttering "self indulgent crap". But I loved it. It was John Waters' favorite movie of last year. (Have we ever steered you wrong?)


Should Have Been Better

I've been a fan of Nicole Holofcener for awhile now, admiring her idiosyncratic romantic comedies, like Enough Said (starring Julia Louis Dreyfus and the late--sniff!--James Gandolfini) or her screenplays for The Last Duel and Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Holofcener's latest, You Hurt My Feelings, teams her up with JLD again, but the movie just isn't as sharp as their previous outing, and the central conflict--semi-famous author discovers husband doesn't like her novel--comes off as rich people's problems and relatively slight. There are mentions throughout the movie of the author's abusive childhood, but Holofcener doesn't put much emphasis on past trauma, perhaps afraid it'll spoil the warm, relaxed vibe.

The big problem with the movie, though, is that it's not very funny. It's witty and well-observed (as usual for a Holofcener joint), but the big laughs (mostly) aren't there. The exception is a series of riotous scenes with David Cross and Amber Tamblyn as a married couple receiving no help from their couples counseling sessions. Cross and Tamblyn (married in RL!) bounce acid comments off each other and their hapless therapist at breakneck speed and it supercharges the whole movie. Maybe next time, Holofcener needs to get a bit more down and dirty.

Feud: Capote and the Swans, detailing Truman Capote's friendship with--and ultimate betrayal of--the ladies of Manhattan society has an incredible pedigree: written by playwright Jon Robin Baitz, directed by Gus Van Sant, and stocked with a-list acting talent (led by Tom Hollander as Capote), it should have been a knockout...

But once the relationship between Capote and his "swans" has been defined--he's both attracted and repelled by the Lifestyles of the Superrich--the drama spins its wheels for the rest of the series. There are occasional breaks in the inertia-- Chris Chalk drops in as James Baldwin, dispensing gay solidarity and hard truths--but no amount of bon mots can disguise the tedium at the heart of the enterprise.

Naomi Watts is superb as practically perfect Babe Paley (wife of CBS chairman William Paley), and Hollander devours Capote like a fine pate de fois gras. I just wish they were in a better show.


Complete Botch

How could they have blown it this badly?

Scott Frank (The Queen's Gambit) and Tom Fontana (Homicide: Life on the Street) take Dashiel Hammett's Sam Spade (Clive Owen) on an adventure to the south of France, where he encounters beautiful scenery, beautiful women, spies, jaded gendarmes and lots and lots of murder. It can't miss.

So why is it so boring?

Frank and Fontana somehow, inexplicably, make every wrong choice. The most interesting characters, like Brigid O'Shaughnessy and Spade's rich and beautiful French wife, Gabrielle? Dead before the first commercial. The main villain, the Sydney Greenstreet of the piece? Lost in the shadows for most of the runtime. Brigid's annoying teenage daughter? Does not shut up.

There is murder at a convent AND a mysterious boy who could be a prophesied messiah AND teams of uninteresting spies working at cross purposes AND much hand-wringing about the French/Algerian war. (An endlessly fascinating topic for American audiences, I've heard.) It's so convoluted that Alfre Woodard shows up in the last 15 minutes(!) and basically tells everybody to go home.

Owen tries his best, but Monsieur Spade is a complete botch from beginning to end. Pray there is no Season Two.

"Wait...this came out in 2022. And you're just getting to it now? I thought you were this biiiig Doctor Strange fan!"

Well...I was busy. (Shut up.)

******************
Warning: spoilers and extreme nerdiness ahead.

This movie almost works. Almost. Everything you need in a Doctor Strange movie is in there (plus a bonus at the end, which I'll get to). But the movie is overstuffed, and the vital material gets swamped under by extraneous action scenes, distracting superhero cameos and dangling loose ends from other corners of the MCU.

BUT before I start kvetching, let me focus on what I loved about this movie: the character of Stephen Strange himself. Not his sooperwizard powers--the man, who he is and where he's going. After we finished the movie, I told my wife: "It's comforting to know that, throughout the multiverse, Stephen Strange will always be an asshole." And it IS comforting! It's consistency of character, from his debut in Strange Tales #110 to right now. He was an arrogant prick as a high priced neurosurgeon and he's STILL an arrogant prick as a wizard. (Only now he saves the world. And he doesn't run up your insurance bill.)

It amused me greatly to see Dr. Strange screaming at everyone that Wanda was coming to kill them all, and the other characters nodded politely and said: "Yes, that IS a problem. But let's talk about YOU, Stephen." Stephen Strange may be the hero of the movie, but to most of the characters in it, HE is the biggest threat to the multiverse. And they're right! At least two other Stranges have destroyed their realities by fatally overestimating their ability to control the forces they've unleashed. So what makes our version of Dr. Strange any different?

That's the central question holding the movie together. Has he grown at all, or at least enough to avoid those catastrophic displays of hubris? Can he finally let go of Christine Palmer and move on with his life? Maybe. He does bow to Wong, a show of deference and respect. He defends and then empowers America Chavez, who must remind him of the little sister he lost. And he finally fixes that damn watch. (Symbolism!) Is he a humble Master of the Mystic Arts and lover of puppies at the end? Don't be ridiculous.

You see? All good! But to get to that good stuff, you have to deal with the plot. And that means dealing with the Scarlet Witch.

Look, I don't really mind that Marvel used this movie to clean up the loose ends of WandaVision; if you're going to continue the story of a powerful sorceress, a Dr. Strange movie is a good fit. But why does it have to be another "Wanda Goes Batshit" plotline? Speaking as a long-suffering Marvel reader, haven't we had too many of those already? In WGB stories, Wanda often seems like a gigantic plot device rather than a legitimate character, setting huge events in motion with her chaos magic, because she's crazy powerful (emphasis on "crazy").

Same here. Why does Wanda have to go apocalyptically evil because her "children" were magical illusions? Isn't there a better path here? (I feel there are a few steps missing between "dealing with grief" and "murderous rampage.") And if you say "the Darkhold is warping her mind", then why does she snap out of it so quickly when her "kids" are scared of her? Shouldn't an infamous book of dark magic have a better hold on its victims?

[Side note: boy, Sam Raimi loves his books of dark magic, doesn't he?]

I think this whole plotline was handled better in Avengers 184-186, when Chthon (the demon who created the Darkhold) actually possessed Wanda and sent her on a rampage. That might have worked better here. (If you're interested, that story is reprinted in the "Nights of Wundagore" graphic novel. Vintage John Byrne artwork. Pick it up!) So even though I wouldn't say Wanda's story was "botched" ("clumsily handled" is more accurate), it still left me with a sour stomach and detracted from the good stuff listed above.

But if I was slightly down on the movie when the credits rolled, that post-credits scene picked me right up:

Clea!

Charlize Theron as Clea!

Hell yeah!

For those of you unfamiliar with the comics, Clea is the niece of his arch foe, the dread Dormammu, occasional Queen of the Dark Dimension, with power levels off the charts... and (sadly) Stephen's ex-wife. (Clea is a courageous superheroine in her own right, not to mention stunningly beautiful, but Stephen just "couldn't make it work." What an asshole.)

Clea is one of the last pieces of the Dr. Strange mythos to fall into place, and it is the perfect set up for the third movie in...2031?

I can't have it right now?

Kevin Feige did not think this through.