Category: Uncategorized

The Secret Agent is an unsatisfying movie by design. The tale, ultimately, of a nation’s new generation sifting through records of its gravest modern chapter, its uneven narrative flow and tonal detachment mirror the patchwork of a curious, frustrated historian. I admire these structural risks, and the craft is admirable all around, but a viewing challenge like this needs intellectual payoff, and the bounty here is just too weak. Its main lesson is that the study of historical evils, drudgery and all, toughens us up, such that we might stand down similar evils in the present. The point is well taken, but it’s slight, and it’s been made many times before, including in last year’s I’m Still Here, another Brazilian film that covered such similar ground that the two films could pass for remakes of one another. The lesson is also a tad self-serving. The secret weapon against fascism, you ask? Slow, fragmented, historically accurate stories. You’re welcome!

Hamnet is the story of Shakespeare’s fictional wife, Agnes, a devotee to nature and all its powers, who sinks into depression after the death of her son. She’s resentful of her husband, too, whose city business kept him away while it occurred. (Men and their little projects—they’ll never understand.) But wait: William’s new creation has the town talking, and when Agnes witnesses its familiarly-named protagonist struggling with and accepting death, she knows what it’s really about. Maybe there’s not such a gulf between the endless rhythms of nature and the timeless compassion of great art—and, phew, maybe husbands have feelings after all. Of course, to the extent that this movie actually believes that Hamlet is a convoluted, masculine attempt to grieve, it’s wrong. But notice, as Hamlet dies, the audience’s reaction. Not only Agnes but everyone reaches out to comfort him: watching this grand tragedy, they all feel something; they all know, as she does, what it’s really about, and they’re all wrong, each in different ways. The masterpieces hold everything and everyone; no interpretation has authority; like nature, they belong to all of us. A celebration of that shouldn’t be missed, so I place this film among the year’s best—an emotional and meditative modern achievement.

One of the worst Best Picture nominees in recent years, F1 is less a movie than a feature-length commercial meant to drum up American interest in Formula One racing. And even in this regard, it’s dishonest—a wild misrepresentation of the sport that features drivers intentionally crashing into one another without consequence, cars launching into the woods and bursting into flames, lady engineers banging their drivers after discussing aerodynamics, and more. It’s like calling a movie PGA, then showing Happy Gilmore. But I can begrudgingly tolerate sensationalism; what really rankles me about this production is its corporate complacency: even its cliches, which are many, function not to lower the bar for accessibility—their usual and understandable role (if not for an Oscar contender)—but to give the movie a fake reason for existing beyond the obvious one: absorbing sponsorship cash. While movies about rogue bad boys are always paradoxically the most predictable, rarely has the irony extended this unbearably into basic integrity: after spending two plus hours emblazoned with a dozen brand names, vrooming past signs for Qatar Airways, Brad Pitt concludes with the line: “It’s not about the money.” The driver doth protest too much.

The Phoenician Scheme is another masterstroke from Wes Anderson, his third in five years (The French Dispatch; Asteroid City). Excluding Scorsese, he’s our greatest living American director, and when it’s all said and done, I think he’ll be the more important artist.

This latest output is a tad more subdued than his previous two, but it shares their meticulous commitment to style—detractors be damned—and their fabulous subject: the outrageousness of our inflated self-perceptions. His variations on Cervantes (always complete with their own Sancho Panzas) are a tonic to our fantasy-obsessed popular cinema, which keeps bombarding us with the message, better suited for children, that we can do anything. We can’t, of course, so I scratch my head at those who accuse Anderson of lacking humanity: he, more than any director, forces humanity upon us, reminding us, usually comedically, that we’re not the superheroes or celebrities that we’ve made ourselves out to be. The Phoenician Scheme winds down in a restaurant backroom, a single lightbulb above, a deck of cards on the table, smoke in the air, egos finally dissolved… Wes Anderson, robotic? Watch the movie again.

–Jim Andersen

One can view the Mission Impossible film series as a recurring effort to entertain audiences while making the least amount of logical sense possible—and of all eight entries, perhaps none stretches the gap as far as The Final Reckoning. Things start out uncertainly: the movie’s first half is strangely devoid of action, its only seeming purpose to add, via never-ending exposition, myriad layers of incoherence and inconsistency to the exciting things that are about to happen in the second half. Why, exactly, does The Entity want to destroy the world and hide in a South African bunker? Why would the IMF risk allowing it into the bunker, when they know that, otherwise, it would never carry out its nuclear threats? Why does Gabriel flee the bunker when Ethan has the MacGuffin he desperately wants—and why does Ethan not simply give it to Gabriel in midair, considering that he originally wanted Gabriel to have it? Why are they trying to kill each other on planes when they supposedly want the same outcome, and the destruction of either’s MacGuffin would mean catastrophic defeat for both?

But none of this matters. Not even the inexplicable first part of the film—an hour of my life sunken like the Sebastopol submarine—matters. Thanks to the reliably awesome action centerpieces provided (eventually) by Tom Cruise and company, it’ll remain a guilty pleasure for years to come.

–Jim Andersen

I’m Still Here is an intimate, subtle film about the emotional toll parents absorb on behalf of their children—especially in times of danger and violence. Fernanda Torres’ performance as Eunice, the wife of a former congressman murdered by Brazil’s military dictatorship, is the best I’ve seen this year. It’s a performance that combines passion with restraint: when the news of her character’s husband’s death inevitably arrives, she doesn’t fall into hysterics; after all, the kids are right around the corner. And when she announces that the family must move to Sao Paulo—a signal to the older children that their father may never come home—she continues with a heroic, “Pass the salt.” Sheltering her kids from horrible realities, though, has its price: later scenes reveal that, while they’ve grown up to be successful and well-adjusted, Eunice will never move past her husband’s disappearance—that it was, tragically, the central event of her life. People are not replaceable; families are not rebuildable. It’s apolitical messages like these that often make the most powerful political statements—in this case, a timely reminder to oppose those who would devalue human life from perches of leadership.

–Jim Andersen

Anora is a resonant, thought-provoking satire of modern relationships. I interpret it as an endgame case of the transactional approach to romance: Ivan, a young man of boundless wealth, marries Ani, his sexy escort, forging the shallowest marriage imaginable: neither has anything to offer the other beyond surface appeals. As Ivan’s handlers scramble to undo the misguided pairing, the ugly qualities of both newlyweds surge to the forefront—a fast-forwarded version, perhaps, of what would have, in less dramatic circumstances, gradually devolved into Real Housewives-type turmoil. Some may find such a story difficult to love, since none of the main characters appear capable of that emotion: Ivan and his family are evil menaces, and Ani is a gold digger, plain and simple. But wait. After Ivan returns to Russia, too ensconced by riches to learn any real lessons, Ani, forced by her humble situation to confront the events, reaches a different final note as the credits roll to the sound of windshield wipers—wiping away, perhaps, her old self, her old identity, clearing the way, as all great stories do, for someone new.

–Jim Andersen

In February 2024, I wrote in my review of Maestro: “Every year, I watch all ten nominees for the Best Picture Oscar, which means that every year, I have to spend a whole evening watching somebody impersonate a musician.” Well, here we are again. A Complete Unknown takes us to the 1960’s folk scene to teach us…nothing too interesting. That Bob Dylan was a very good musician, I suppose. And that Timothée Chalamet is a good actor (although this latter statement lands, in my opinion, less convincingly). If you’re a devoted fan of either person, you’ll probably enjoy this movie, but even then, idol worship only goes so far toward dramatic entertainment: the movie climaxes with Dylan’s decision to use an electric guitar at a concert—a watershed moment, apparently, for the music industry, but a pretty humdrum one as far as cinematic payoffs go. These types of movies are made for people who don’t like movies, and I do, so I’ll never be their intended audience.  Contextualize my thoughts accordingly.

–Jim Andersen

The Brutalist, a bold study of immigration’s unforgiving delirium, is one of the year’s best and most challenging films. When Laszlo Toth (Adrien Brody) arrives to Ellis Island, he sees the Statue of Liberty upside-down, then sideways. It foreshadows his ensuing struggle with the American dream: there will be liberty, yes, but it will always be crooked, askew, off-kilter: nothing will ever come straightforwardly. For the next three-and-a-half hours, Toth labors for a capricious America, which first disparages him, then lauds him, then stymies him, then helps him, then abuses him, and on and on—until he emigrates out of sheer exhaustion. In one sequence exemplifying this madcap saga, his osteoporotic wife wakes up screaming in pain; to soothe her, he doses her with secretly-stashed heroin; then, the two have passionate sex; soon after, she nearly dies by overdose; later, the two reconcile in a hospital. All in one night. Was his life really, then—as a peppy epilogue suggests—about the destination, not the journey? Which part of the film would you rather watch?

–Jim Andersen

I’m tough on movies, and I’ve criticized plenty that have had their merits. The utterly wrongheaded Emilia Pérez, though, has none. It enters catastrophic waters as early as its second full musical number: surely mine isn’t the only mouth from which an involuntary “oh, no” escaped when a lawyer began sauntering through a sex change clinic, ordering major surgeries like groceries. As a bandaged ensemble joined in, harmonizing cheerily from operating tables and wheelchairs, I realized with growing dread that the Academy had brought something unholy into the light: an experiment from the lab of political correctness gone horribly, intrinsically wrong; a landmark of faulty acclaim; Crash but worse, much worse. This tale of a mass murderer who gets off scot-free (nay, becomes a hero) after transitioning to a woman is every bit as problematic, reductive, and ethically unserious as it sounds, and even its music makes Joker: Folie a Deux sound melodiously lively. Watch it, and enjoy the surefire privilege, next year, of saying about an undeserving nominee: “At least it was no Emilia Pérez!”

–Jim Andersen