And you know what?  It’s pretty great!

The first three of the four episodes are, in fact, EXCELLENT.  They deliver everything that I’ve been missing from the live-action MCU in recent years.  The fourth episode was a bit of a letdown — and, spoiler alert, it ends on a cliffhanger, which really irritated me because a second season has not been announced, meaning that even if it does get made, it’s years away.

Despite that, I’m glad I wound up watching this show.  I had a blast watching those first three episodes.

The show picks up on the status quo left at the end of the first-season zombies What If…? episode, which is that Earth has been overrun by Zombies.  Here in episode one, we catch up with Kamala Khan, Kate Bishop, and Riri Williams.  They’re living and working together, managing to survive the zombie hordes in New York City.  But then they find a crashed quinjet with a miniaturized (by Pym particles) device that can transmit an S.O.S. to the Nova Corps, who have the technology to come and stop the zombies.  All they need is a way to transmit the signal off-planet.  And so begins their quest.

Right away, this show hooked me with the brilliant decision to team up Kamala (Iman Vellani), Kate (Hailee Steinfeld), and Riri (Dominique Thorn).  This is an inspired grouping, and I loved seeing all three of these characters given a chance to shine!  I’ve enjoyed all of them in their TV shows so far (Ms. Marvel, Hawkeye, and Ironheart), and they were fantastic here working as a team.  I’d love to see lots more of all of these three great heroes in live-action.  For now, it was a delight to get to see them given a spotlight here on this show!

Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel winds up being the central hero of this series, and it is an absolute pleasure.  Iman Vellani was instantly iconic in this role when we first met her in the Ms. Marvel show.  I loved getting to see her in the movie The Marvels.  This show allows Kamala to really step into center stage as a central hero of the MCU (in the way I hope will happen in live-action eventually).  One of the moving moments in the series is when Thor dubs Kamala an Avenger.  (“You are the Avenger now.”)  And we get to see her meet Peter Parker/Spider-Man, a moment I have been desperate to see ever since first seeing Kamala in her TV show (and that I really hope we see happen soon in live-action!!)!

This series also centers Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) and Katy (Awkwafina) in a way that delighted me, and that I have been waiting for.  Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings was the first post-Endgame film to embrace the opportunity to introduce new characters into the MCU.  Now, I have been continually defending Marvel from the criticism it’s been receiving for the past several years, and I stand by that.  I think that overall the quality of the movies and shows has continued to be pretty great, with just a few hiccups (Secret Invasion was a huge disappointment, and The Marvels and Captain America: Brave New World both seem to have been re-edited and re-shot to the point of incomprehensibility).  But I have been holding up as my example of the biggest problem of post-Endgame Marvel the fact that we haven’t seen Shang-Chi again since his movie, even in a small cameo.  I’ve been waiting years to see him pop up again and interact with other MCU heroes, even if just in a small supporting role!  That sense of interconnectivity was one of the key innovations of the MCU.  While people liked to complain about that as the MCU continued (“I have to watch all these other movies to understand this movie??”), I always thought that was a dumb complaint (the vast majority of the movies and shows stood on their own just fine), and that interconnectivity was what kept bringing people back and getting us excited to see the stories continue.  I think it’s a huge mistake that we haven’t seen Shang-Chi again since his movie, and I loved how central he was in this story.  And Katy too!!!  Even better!!!  I LOVE that Katy got to wield five of the ten rings!!  What a great idea (that they should definitely use in live action)!

The Black Widow movie didn’t set the world on fire, but there’s no question that Alexei/Red Guardian (David Harbour) and Yelena (Florence Pugh) really popped, and I loved seeing their stories continue in Thunderbolts*.  So I was delighted that they both got a lot to do here, as well as Melina, Rachel Weiss’ character (who is voiced here by Kari Wahlgren).  (However, Melina’s death was one of the dumber moments in the show; there was zero reason for her to stay behind, as opposed to escaping with Red Guardian and Yelena.)  I absolutely loved how well they were able to use Red Guardian.  He got a ton of funny moments, but also a strong emotional arc as he deals with loss after loss.  (I love that it’s Kamala, in one of the many great hero moments they gave her character on the show, who is able to reach Alexei in a key emotional moment.)  And Red Guardian even gets to finally fight Captain America!!!  (Albeit in zombie form!  The end of that fight had me laughing out loud in amusement and disgust.  It was great.)

This series did yet another thing the main live-action MCU has failed to do, which is to give us Blade!  And he is SO PERFECT!  I’ve never been a huge fan of the Blade character (either in the comics or his three original movies), but I loved Blade here!  What a genius idea it was to make Blade the new Moon Knight.  I loved the design of the character.  (Paul Rudd’s Ant Man to Blade: “Wearing white in the zombie apocalypse?  That’s a choice!”)  I love how kick-ass he was.  And bravo to voice actor Todd Williams, who makes his Blade sound exactly like Mahershala Ali (who was supposed to play Blade in the MCU — and did voice the character from off-screen in The Eternals — but who so far has yet to actually appear).

As was the case in What If…?, I was thrilled that so many of the live-action actors returned to voice their characters on this show.  That was fun.

In addition to all the characters I’ve already mentioned, many other familiar MCU characters pop up, and they were all well-used.  I was thrilled to see: Paul Rudd as Ant Man; Elizabeth Olson as Wanda Maximoff; Randall Park as agent Jimmy Woo — his buddy comedy business with Death Dealer was fantastic; Wyatt Russell as John Walker; Tessa Thompson as Valkyrie; Kerry Condon as F.R.I.D.A.Y. (the A.I. in the Iron Man armor)… they even got F. Murray Abraham to return as Khonshu!!  (He voiced the character in Moon Knight.)

There were also some other characters with different voices, but across the board I was impressed how well these new voice-actors channeled the vibes of these characters from live action.  This includes: Shang-Chi’s father Xu Wenwu (voiced here by Feodor Chin); Zemo (voiced here by Rama Vallury) — who finally gets to be a Baron, like he is in the comics!!; Thor (voiced here by Greg Thurman); and Spider-Man (voiced here by Hudson Thames).  We also got to see Ikaris from the Eternals fighting Captain Marvel, which was awesome.  (Though the show doesn’t do a good job establishing on-screen who Ikaris is.  I didn’t realize it was the Eternals character until after watching the show.  Still, I am a defender of the Eternals movie, and so I was happy to see an Eternals character pop up!)

The animation in the show is great.  They do a good job capturing the look of these characters and actors from the MCU.  This world feels epic, with lots of different locations.  The battle scenes are particularly great.  This show does not pull it’s punches.  This surprised me!!  I was impressed how much carnage and gore there was in this series!!  In particular, we see a LOT of heroic Marvel characters die horribly.  (This was the type of alternate-universe fun that I always loved in the What If…? comic books I read as a kid, and that I wished had been more present in the What If…? show.)  There are a lot of wonderfully exciting and violent battle scenes in this show.  This made me very happy.

I’d have declared this series a masterpiece had not episode four let me down.  First off, the set-up didn’t make sense to me.  If Banner/Hulk has absorbed the energy of all of the Infinity Stones, then he has ultimate power, right?  So he should be able to defeat the zombies with the snap of his fingers.  So I don’t understand why he’s in jeopardy and our heroes need to have this whole last stand to protect him.  Then they bring in zombie Thor, and while the Thor/Hulk fight was cool, I don’t buy the premise.  We saw in Thor: Ragnarok that Thor could barely hold his own in a fight with a normally-powered Hulk.  So an Infinity Stones-powered Hulk should be able to annihilate Thor in a second.  I also don’t understand why the Scarlet Witch would be able to get all the Infinity powers just by touching the Hulk.  If I accept that’s the case, then why don’t one of the other heroes just do that and use the power to defeat the zombies?  None of this makes sense to me.  And then there was the cliffhanger.  I expected that a zombie story wouldn’t end well for our heroes, and watching this I was curious whether they’d give any of our heroes a happy ending or have a totally bleak ending.  I feel like they tried to dodge that dilemma with the cliffhanger ending, and it pissed me off.  As I have written over and over again on this site, I think a cliffhanger in today’s era of streaming shows is a huge mistake and unfair to the audience.  We have no idea if there will ever be a second season of this show, and if this winds up being the ending, I don’t find it satisfying.  Even if Marvel does wind up making a second season, it will likely be YEARS before we see it.  (This show came out months ago, and a second season has still not been announced.)

Other thoughts:

• I mentioned above the great Red Guardian vs. zombie Cap fight from the first episode.  I also loved seeing Blade fight Ghost.  (The way he dices her into pieces at the end was incredible.)
• Episode two kicks off with an astonishing action sequence as we follow Shang-Chi, Katy, and Jimmy Woo running through the city during the zombie attack.  That was really cool.
• I really liked the idea that the ten rings can hold back Shang’s zombie infection.  I’d have liked to have seen him have to struggle with allowing the rings to leave his arm during fights — wouldn’t that allow the zombie infection to spread?  But the show doesn’t go there.
• I loved the Mad Max Skrull fight in episode two.
• I loved how Zemo is making use of the Raft (the superhero prison from Captain America: Civil War).
• It was fun to see Namor again; I loved the zombie Atlanteans.  (I smiled to hear Blade pronounce Namor’s name the way I’ve always thought it should be said: NAY-more.)
• I liked that episode three connected the dots between where things ended in that What If…? episode and the start of this show.
• I was happy to see Rocket and Groot, but that got me wondering where Peter Quill was, when Earth was in jeopardy?
• I’m glad T’Challa was involved in this story, despite the death of Chadwick Boseman.  They handled this very thoughtfully, with Spider-Man narrating Black Panther’s big scene in episode three.  That was very well done.

So, OK, episode four disappointed me.  But episodes 1-3 were a BLAST!  I’m really glad I watched this.  This series has the fun MCU crossover energy I’ve been missing.  I hope Avengers: Doomsday can deliver the way this show does.

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I found myself quite taken by Noah Baumbach’s film, despite my initial resistance towards feeling any empathy towards someone as rich and famous as a George Clooney-type mega-star.  It was Adam Sandler who really grabbed my attention.  I have enjoyed Mr. Sandler in serious dramatic roles before this (Punch-Drunk Love, Spanglish, Funny People, and most especially in Uncut Gems), but he is next-level great here.  He steals the movie from George Clooney (who is also terrific, by the way).  (It’s interesting to me that both Jay Kelly and Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere spotlight the long-suffering manager working on behalf of a famous star!)  I thought that Adam Sandler’s character Ron was written to be a fascinating character; someone who has always put his clients first and worked tirelessly on their behalf.  Ron considers Jay to be family, and calls him by an endearingly sweet nickname (“puppy”).  But does Jay feel the same way?  Is Ron just an employee?  This is a fascinating and potentially fraught dynamic.  Mr. Sandler is magnificent in bringing the layers of Ron to light.  When Ron feels hurt by Jay — and when he really gets misused by his other client Ben (played by Patrick Wilson) — I was moved by the way Mr. Sandler played Ron’s heartbreak and disappointment.  On the other hand, it’s not crazy to think that perhaps Ron has been deluding himself, and that his view of his relationship with Jay might not truly be accurate.  I love this tension in the film’s story, and Mr. Sandler plays every note of this beautifully.

None of which is to say that George Clooney isn’t great, too!  I’ve always felt that Mr. Clooney was a great actor (even though one could be pardoned for thinking he’d become a big star just because of his looks), and it’s fun to see him get to sink his teeth into a role like this.  Casting George Clooney in this role as the world-famous Jay was obviously intended to cause the audience to feel as if there were autobiographical aspects to this character and his story.  I have no idea if there are or aren’t, but I love how well Mr. Clooney makes us believe in this character and his life.  It’s a wonderfully naturalistic performance; it really does almost feel like Mr. Clooney is just playing himself!  But there are layers here.  We can see the ways in which Jay chafes under his superstar fame, and also the way he’s come to almost depend on it.  I really enjoyed watching Mr. Clooney in this film.

That powerful duo of Mr. Clooney & Mr. Sandler in the lead roles are surrounded by one amazing supporting turn after another.  I loved seeing Laura Dern as Jay’s publicist, Liz.  She’s more open (and honest?) than Ron is about being exasperated at Jay’s behavior.  I loved the flirtatious way that Ms. Dern & Mr. Sandler played their scenes together.  (Though that kiss before Liz departs the story felt like a misstep for the movie.  That’s a pretty big faux pas for a married man in my opinion, and the film just ignores it after it happens.)  I understand why Liz isn’t involved in the film’s second half — it makes sense to focus in on Jay and Ron — but I missed her after she left the train and the movie!  Billy Crudup (Almost Famous, Mission: Impossible III, Watchmen, Jackie) is only in two sequences early in the movie, but he makes an enormous impact as Timothy, an old acting-school buddy of Jay’s who we learn always seemed like the more talented one, back in the day.  Yet Jay became a superstar, and Timothy never made it.  It’s a heartbreaking look at the other side of the coin in Hollywood, and a pivotal character in launching Jay on his emotional journey that carries him through this movie.  It’s a pivotal role, and if it didn’t work, this movie wouldn’t work.  Mr. Crudup hits it out of the park, beautifully playing the rollercoaster of emotion that Timothy goes through when he unexpectedly encounters Jay.  It’s impressive work.

Stacy Keach (American History X, Escape from L.A., W., Nebraska) is memorable as Jay’s difficult (to put it mildly) father.  It’s a pleasure to see that Mr. Keach is still so powerful an on-screen persona, even at age 84!  Jim Broadbent (Brazil, Cloud Atlas, Brooklyn) is wonderful and heartbreaking as Peter Schneider, the director who gave Jay his big break but whom Jay unfortunately declined to help in his later years.  Riley Keough (The Girlfriend Experience, Mad Max: Fury Road) really blew me away with her work as Jessica, Jay’s estranged older daughter.  Grace Edwards (one of the Stargazers in Asteroid City) does a great job as Daisy, Jay’s younger daughter.  Patrick Wilson (Watchmen, Young Adult, Aquaman) is pitch-perfect as Ben Alcock, a younger actor who Ron also manages, but who doesn’t value him the way Ron deserves.  Greta Gerwig (Greenberg, Jackie, and the talented director of films such as Lady Bird and Barbie) sparkles in her small role of Lois, Ron’s wife.

Mr. Baumbach & Ms. Mortimer’s script wisely keeps the film jaunty and playful, for the most part, rather than becoming too dour or saccharine.  The structure allows us the time to dig into the characters of Jay and Ron, and there is depth there, but the story keeps moving along at a pleasant pace, so we don’t wallow in too much naval-gazing.  My worry when watching a film like this is that it might resolve too neatly or simply.  The bad dad learns the error of his ways, everybody hugs, the end.  I was pleased this story didn’t resolve into a pat, happy ending.  There’s a sense that perhaps Jay has learned something along this journey.  Ron too.  I’m not quite sure where their relationship (both professional and personal) is left at the end of the story.  I was a little surprised we didn’t get more clarity, but when thinking about it, I think the ending feels right to me.

This is a fine film, and it’s available to watch on Netflix right now.  It was one of my favorite movies of 2025.  If you missed it, it’s worth a watch.

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I enjoyed the first two seasons of Star Wars: Visions, and these nine new episodes in season three are fun to watch as well!

I’m a little disappointed they went back to only using Japanese animation studios.  I like the work of most of these Japanese animation studios, but I really dug the global reach of season two, and how wildly different the animation styles were.  I missed that here in season three.  There was a bit too much sameness in terms of style and approach in these new episodes.  There were some fun experiments — the last two shorts are pretty wild — but overall I wish these shorts felt more different from one another.

I was surprised that three of these nine new shorts are sequels to shorts from season one.  The Duel: Payback is a sequel to The Duel; The Ninth Jedi: Child of Hope is a sequel to The Ninth Jedi, and The Lost Ones is a sequel to The Village Bride.  While I enjoyed being back in the feudal Japan looking world of The Duel, the other two sequels left me fairly cold.  I’d much prefer that these shorts be new stand-alone stories.  I thought that’s what this series was all about!  Spending three of these nine shorts on sequels to older installments felt like a mistake to me.

Let’s dive in!

The Duel: Payback — The Duel was one of the standout shorts of season one, so I can understand why they wanted to return to this story.  As I’d written above, I thought this was the most successful of the three sequel stories included in this season.  I liked the idea that this time the former Sith hunting Sith has to face off against a Jedi Grandmaster whose thirst for vengeance has turned him, if not fully evil, then at least morally questionable.  I still like the look of this universe, and we got some great fights in this short.

The Song of Four Wings — A young princess must rescue a cute alien and destroy an Imperial mining facility in cute short.  I enjoyed this one.  I liked seeing the droid become a mech suit, and the animation on the battle with the AT-ATs was great.

The Ninth Jedi: Child of Hope — Young Kara stumbles across a huge derelict ship maintained by a single droid, unable to reach his injured Jedi master.  I like the concept, and I liked the look of the huge cathedral-like ship.  It was a bummer that this short didn’t move forward any of the characters or concepts introduced in the first Ninth Jedi short.  This felt like a disconnected side-quest.  At the end of this short, Kara & co. are still exactly where they were at the end of the first short, on the run and looking for her father.  Apparently The Ninth Jedi is getting a full-fledged spin-off series, but I can’t say that this short left me super-excited for that.

The Bounty Hunter — Sevin is a bounty hunter working to earn the credits necessary to repair her medical droid, whose personality is occasionally overwritten by an assassin droid.  I liked Sevin and loved the split-personality droid.  There was some cool animation in this one, nice and fluid with some awesome action.  I wish the story wasn’t so paint by numbers.  It’s immediately obvious that the wealthy businessman who offers Sevin a job is a villain, and that the kids in his care are slaves.  If the story had been more cleverly written, this could have been much cooler.

Yuko’s Treasure — A young orphan protected by a droid in the shape of a large bear is menaced by mercenaries looking for treasure they believe his dead parents have or had.  This was a fun story.  The bear droid was a bit overly cutesy, but I liked the idea of this type of caregiver droid for a little kid.  I loved hearing Steve Buscemi’s voice as the bad guy!

The Lost Ones — After helping survivors of a planet decimated by a Carbonite cloud, the on-the-run Jedi F is captured by the Empire.  This short had a lot of great elements, though I wish I felt they worked together better as a satisfying, complete story.  I loved the idea of the weaponized Carbonite cloud; that was a cool concept.  And the end-battle between F and her former master, now turned evil, was a great action sequence.  I wish we got to know the characters in this short better — from F to the crew trying to clean up on the Carbonite-frozen planet to the kids on the refugee ship.

The Smuggler — A young smuggler must help a prince being hunted by the empire escape their clutches.  Here too, there were a lot of great elements in this story; I wish they fit together better into a more satisfying story, and I wish we got to know these characters better.  The main smuggler character felt particularly flat to me.  But I loved the old woman who was revealed as a hidden Jedi; I loved that her lightsaber was stored in her robotic arm!  This felt like a pilot for a longer series, which was interesting, but left it not fully satisfying to me as a stand-alone short.

The Bird of Paradise — An overconfident Jedi padawan is blinded in battle and must go on a physical and spiritual journey to survive and regain her connection to the Force.  This was my favorite of all of these shorts!  I loved the concept, in that we got to see this young woman, Nakime, struggle and eventually achieve a fuller understanding of the lessons her master had been trying to teach her about being at peace and connected to the Force.  This was a fascinating story, and I loved how it was structured to take place over many days as we follow each step of Nakime’s spiritual journey towards enlightenment.  The animation was absolutely gorgeous.  The action scenes were intense, and I particularly loved the metaphorical aspects of the animation, as we see Nakime gradually move from blindness to a more complete sense of the world around her.  This was a terrific short!

Black — Coming off of The Bird of Paradise, my favorite short, comes Black, which is even more ambitious, though I didn’t think it worked nearly as well.  In this bizarre, stream-of-consciousness short, we’re following what might be the final moments before death in the mind of a Stormtrooper, or perhaps in the mind of many stormtroopers!  There is no linear story in this one, just an array of imagery, some of which is familiar (we see Star Wars battles around the Death Star, and at Hoth), while some is more mysterious.  There are many ways to interpret what we’re seeing.  I respect the experimental nature of this short.  It definitely breaks from the “sameness” I was feeling from many of the other shorts this season!  But I’ll admit that after several minutes of this, I tired of it, and I found the jazz score to be somewhat grating.  This was a cool attempt, it just didn’t quite work for me.

So that’s it for Star Wars: Visions season three!  I wonder if there will be more?  I’d be happy to watch future installments…

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Uncut Gems made me a fan of Josh & Benny Safdie, and left me eager to follow them both to whatever they’d do in the future.  They’re working separately now, with Josh directing & co-writing Marty Supreme (with co-writer Ronald Bronstein, who also co-wrote Uncut Gems), while Benny wrote & directed The Smashing Machine (a film I haven’t seen yet, but hope to get to soon).

As was the case with Uncut Gems, Josh Safdie’s skilled directing and editing keeps Marty Supreme as taut as piano-wire.  This is a tense movie!!  It’s thrilling to watch (though beware: the cringe factor is high as you watch Marty make one bad decision after another).  I was on the edge of my seat for almost the entire run time of the film, absolutely gripped by the story as we watch Marty get backed into one corner after another, slowly becoming more and more desperate.

Timothée Chalamet’s performance is magnetic and captivating.  This is a true movie-star role.  I continue to be impressed by Mr. Chalamet, as he turns in one amazing performance after another (just last year he crushed it in both Dune Part Two and A Complete Unknown).  Mr. Chalamet seems completely committed to his performance as Marty, throwing himself into the character’s brash self-confidence and “I can talk my way into or out of anything” energy.  He commands the screen, and absolutely carries this movie.  It’s a magnificent performance and the main reason to watch this movie.

The supporting cast isn’t too shabby either!  Gwyneth Paltrow is fantastic as Kay Stone, a wealthy, bored former movie star with whom Marty enters a romantic relationship.  Ms. Paltrow has only been acting sporadically these days, but it’s great to be reminded what a powerful actor she is.  I loved her chemistry with Chalamet’s Marty.  I wasn’t familiar with Odessa A’zion’s work before, but she is spectacular as Rachel Mizler, a married young woman who is nonetheless having sex with Marty when the movie opens, and who winds up a part of Marty’s schemes in the film’s second half.  I was blown away by the way Ms. A’zion played all the levels of Rachel, from a wronged, angry woman to someone who has the same con-artist energy as Marty does.

Tyler Okonma (also known as Tyler, the Creator) is a hoot as Marty’s friend Wally; I loved seeing the easy way he & Marty slipped into their con-man ways.  Fran Drescher is perfect as Marty’s frustrated mother, and I loved seeing Sandra Bernhard as her friend & neighbor.  Kevin O’Leary (famous from Shark Tank) is perfect as Kay’s husband Milton Rockwell, a potential threat to Marty.  Géza Röhrig is wonderfully nuanced as Hungarian table tennis champion Bela Kletzki, and Koto Kawaguchi is wonderfully stoic as Koto Endo, the deaf table tennis champion from Japan who seems to be the only competitor with the skills to beat Marty.  I loved seeing director Abel Ferrara as Ezra Mishkin, a bad dude with whom Marty crosses paths, and I really smiled to see Larry “Ratso” Sloman as Murray Norkin, Marty’s uncle who owns the shoe shop where we see Marty working at the start of the movie.  Emory Cohen (who was wonderful in Brooklyn) is great as Rachel’s husband Ira.  It wasn’t until I was reading about this movie after I saw it that I realized that Penn Jillette played the gun-wielding dude (who might have the dog Marty is looking for); he was terrific!  And I’ve only scratched the surface of the wonderful array of actors who populate this movie.

I love that Marty Supreme (like Uncut Gems) has a strongly Jewish main character and many Jewish supporting characters.  It’s nice to see.  Marty is a deeply flawed human being, not a heroic character at all, but I think Jewish characters (as is the case with characters of any race, religion, or ethnicity) should be able to be depicted as heroes or villains or anywhere in between.  I appreciate that Josh Safdie is telling these Jewish stories with Jewish characters.  I will say that I was thrown out of the movie briefly in the moment when we see Marty and his taxi-driving friend Wally use a Jewish slur towards Marty (talking about “Jewing him down”).  In the moment, we can see that this is friendly banter between Wally and Marty, and it is (unfortunately) very likely accurate to the time period that this would have been said between two characters like this.  But here in 2025/26, with Anti-Semitism and Jew-hatred rising everywhere, I just don’t need to hear this in a movie.

I’m also still not quite sure what to make of the bizarre story that Bela tells about his time in the concentration camp, and his fellow Jewish prisoners licking honey off of his body.  I’m unsure how to read this moment in the context of the movie.  Is Bela telling the truth, or is he making this up as a way to mock the rich, condescending Milton Rockwell?  For us as an audience, is this moment supposed to be funny or heartbreaking?  In this fascinating interview with Josh Safdie, he discusses this sequence at length, describing it as “a beautiful story” meant to express “the camaraderie and the tight knit community”… and “how the Jews, particularly in the Holocaust, banded together to survive.”  That’s fascinating.  I’m not sure the scene reads so clearly in the movie, which might be a problem, though I also think it’s wonderful when movies can allow for ambiguity, pushing the audience to lean in and think about what they think a certain moment means.

Later in that interview, Mr. Safdie talks about how fear of Hitler and the Holocaust “manifested a certain sort of ‘pervasive anxiety’ that exists to this day within [his mother]” and other Jews.  “Pervasive anxiety” is a great way to describe the experience of watching Marty Supreme (and Uncut Gems)!  It’s fascinating how Mr. Safdie has incorporated that visceral type of anxiety-producing experience into the movies he makes.  It’s done with incredible skill, and it makes the experience of watching his movies uniquely memorable and affecting.

My only criticism of Marty Supreme is that it might be a little too long.  I feel like this would have been even more of a masterpiece if Mr. Safdie & his team had been able to shave off about 15-20 minutes.  At a certain point, I did start to feel somewhat beaten down by the mounting anxiety of watching Marty continue making bad decision after bad decision.  I got the point already.

That being said, I was riveted by this movie, and I loved going on this ride.  It’s a delight to see such high-level filmmaking unfold before my eyes, and Timothée Chalamet’s astonishing performance is not to be missed.  This was one of my favorite movies of 2025!

Please support my website by clicking through one of my Amazon links the next time you need to shop!  As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.  That means I’ll receive a small percentage from ANY product you purchase from Amazon within 24 hours after clicking through.  Thank you!

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Since my last news post, Marvel has released all four Avengers: Doomsday teasers.  Here’s the fourth, with the Wakandans and Ben Grimm:

These trailers have been… fine.  It’s fun to see these characters, but these are such tiny teases, they haven’t gotten my blood pumping the way a great trailer should.  (Marvel has generally put our awesome trailers for their films.  Remember this great trailer for Avengers: Infinity War?  I’m looking for something like that!  I know Doomsday is still a year away, but I’m hoping for a more substantive trailer soon that will get us all more excited.)

Here’s a full trailer for Christoper Nolan’s The Odyssey:

That looks huge.  I have high hopes!

I am super duper pumped for the upcoming Darth Maul show!

The animated Clone Wars and Rebels series turned Maul from a lame nothing character into one of the most interesting and complex characters of the entire Star Wars saga!!  It was one of the many great miracles of those two fantastic animated shows.  I got super-excited by the tease of Maul as a crime-lord in Solo, and I was sad when that went nowhere.  Until now!!  Charting Maul’s journey in the eras between The Clone Wars and the OT is a fantastic idea.  If done well, this could be great.  That trailer is spectacular.  Here’s hoping!!

For All Mankind is finally returning for season five!  Here’s a teaser:

I can’t wait for this.

Here’s a trailer for Monarch: Legacy of Monsters season two:

The first season was a wonderful surprise to me; I unexpectedly loved it.  Can they do it again in season two?  That trailer looks great.  It’ll be fun if Kong and Godzilla really do wind up being more of a part of season two.  And I’m thrilled both Wyatt & Kurt Russell are back for season two!  (The way season one ended, they could have continued without those two big stars.)  I am hoping not to be disappointed!

Here’s a great trailer for the Muppet Show special with Sabrina Carpenter:

Yes, this looks great!  They’re doing what seems like so obviously the clear and correct thing to do with the Muppets, which is to return (finally!!!) to the classic Muppets Show format, of the gang putting on a song & dance & comedy show with a fun guest star.  Why has it taken decades to get back to this idea??  Sabrina Carpenter seems like the perfect choice for host.  I hope this is great and that it kicks off a new Muppet Show series.

here’s a trailer for Daredevil: Born Again season two:

Like the Doomsday trailer above, it looks… fine.  I was a little let down by the first season of Born Again (especially the lame ending to the finale, which didn’t leave me as excited as I’d wanted to be for a second season).  The elements are here to make a great Daredevil show, and I am beyond thrilled that Kristen Ritter is finally back as Jessica Jones!!  That’s fantastic!  I hope this is great.

Here’s a trailer for the Stranger Things animated spin-off, Tales From ’85:

That looks interesting, though I think I might be done with Stranger Things after the series finale.  Also, it’s a bummer the actors from the original series aren’t involved and voicing their characters.  (Though the voice-actors do sound pretty solid in that trailer.)  We’ll see…

Huge news last month was that Kathleen Kennedy was stepping down as head of Lucasfilm (click here for an interesting “exit interview” with Ms. Kennedy), being replaced by Dave Filoni & Lynwen Brennan.  That second name means nothing to me, but I’ve been a huge Dave Filoni fan for years.  I hope he’s able to succeed and guide Star Wars into the future.  He definitely understands the franchise and has storytelling chops.  Kathleen Kennedy’s era gave us some fantastic highs.  The Force Awakens was an exciting return to classic Star Wars (even though I have a ton of problems with the movie).  Rogue One and Andor are some of the very best Star Wars stories ever told.  The Mandalorian was a brilliant expansion of the franchise and showed that a Star Wars live-action TV show could be amazing.  We got to see the cancelled animated Clone Wars series given a proper finale, wrapping up with four final episodes that stand tall as some of the best and most emotional Star Wars stories ever.  Many of the recent Star Wars TV shows (such as The Acolyte and The Skeleton Crew) were amazing and under-appreciated.  We got the spectacular Galaxy’s Edge theme park.  Those are high highs!  There have also been lows.  The sequel trilogy petered out with the awful Rise of Skywalker, and the Star Wars movie franchise has been dead ever since.  They’ve announced new movie after new movie, and none have actually gotten made.  The TV shows have floundered, with some bad shows (the disappointing Obi-Wan Kenobi and The Book of Boba Fett both should have been great, but were instead big let-downs), and even some of the great recent shows have seemed to have been abandoned (The Acolyte was cancelled with its story unfinished; I’d have loved to have seen more of Skeleton Crew; etc…).  I’m hopeful that the next few years will bring focus to the franchise and a return to strong, successful movies and TV shows!

By the way, speaking of Galaxy’s Edge: Disney has finally decided to do something which I’ve thought for years they should do, which is bringing in aspects of the Original Trilogy timeline and characters to Galaxy’s Edge!  I admired the ambition of the original idea to set Galaxy’s Edge in a specific place in the canonical Star Wars timeline (specifically during the Sequel era).  But on the other hand, don’t we all want to see classic OT ships and characters when visiting Galaxy’s Edge?  I know I do.  This seems like a slam dunk idea.

This is an exciting surprise: Rifftrax and Shout! are working together to create four new episodes of Mystery Science Theatre 3000!!  I’ve always loved MST3K, and I love the Rifftrax podcast with MST3K stalwarts Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett continuing to create MST3K-like riffs on new and old movies.  To see the three of them back in official new MST3K episodes is exciting!!!  You can back the Kickstarter here.  (I just did!)  The only downside is it seems that original MST3K creator and star Joel Hodgson’s reinvention of MST3K is dead.  Mr. Hodgson did incredible work bringing the series back to life in recent years, using crowdfunding to create three incredible seasons (#s 11, 12, and 13) of new MST3K episodes!!  I’d backed all of those projects and I LOVED all the new episodes they’d created.  Unfortunately, Mr. Hodgson’s efforts to raise money for a fourth new season failed back in 2023 (I think the timing with the writers’ strike hobbled the campaign), and it’s been mostly radio silence since then.  I’ve been hoping Mr. Hodgson & co. would be able to regroup and try again.  I’m bummed that now doesn’t look like it’s happening.  But if our consolation prize is new episodes with Mike, Kevin, and Bill, then I’m pretty happy!!!

On the other side of the emotional spectrum, I was stunned to read of the death at the too-young age of 71 of the magnificent Catherine O’Hara.  Ms. O’Hara was a comedic genius who brought laughs to so many movies and TV projects.  I think I will always love her best for her role in A Mighty Wind (which I just rewatched last month!!), but of course I’ve loved her in so many other projects: Beetlejuice, Schitt’s Creek, Home Alone, Where the Wld Things Are, Best in Show, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and so much more.  She was so amazing just recently in The Studio!!  It’s hard to fathom her not being a part of the second season of that show!!  What a loss.

I was sad to read of the death of Roger Allers, who co-directed The Lion King and was a major player in the reinvention of Disney animation in the late eighties & nineties with The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin.  (I also know of Mr. Allers from the documentary The Sweat Box, which chronicles the tumultuous making of the film that would become The Emperor’s New Groove.  Mr. Allers was unfortunately railroaded off of the project mid-way, which has always seemed like a real shame to me.  I love The Emperor’s New Groove, but I wish Mr. Allers had been able to complete the film he’d originally intended.)

Click here for a fascinating in-depth interview with George R. R. Martin.  I remain flummoxed (as do fans worldwide) by his inability to complete the next Game of Thrones novel, so I find any peek into his life and work these days to be fascinating.

I got to see the extended edition of The Fellowship of the Ring in a movie theatre last month, and it was glorious!!  (I wish I’d had time to also see The Two Towers and The Return of the King!)  It’s awesome to hear this re-release made money.  I wish the Hollywood studios would do more of this sort of thing.  I also wish they’d allowed the LOTR movies to play for a longer time in theatres!  I went to see Fellowship on one of the last days of this run, and the theatre I was in was almost completely sold out.  I bet they’d have continued to make money if they’d let these films play for a few more weeks…!

I loved Judd Apatow & Mike Bonfiglio’s documentary Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!  (Click here for my review!)  Click here for a wonderful in-depth interview with Mr. Apatow about the project.

Jury Duty season two is coming in March!!  I can’t wait!!  I loved the first season and am excited to see if they can recapture the magic.

We’ve gotten our first look at the four main actors in character & costume/makeup as the Beatles in Sam Mendes’ mad-sounding four-film Beatles “Cinematic Event”.  They look good.  I am fascinated to see what these movies are going to be like.

Speaking of first looks, we’ve recently gotten to see our first look at Henry Cavill in the Highlander remake.  I’m not sure I can dare to believe this will be good… but wouldn’t it be fun if it is??

I was worried that Shrinking, a show I dearly love, would be ending with this current third season.  So I was thrilled to read that the show has been renewed for a fourth season!

But the best recent news is the announcement of some specific information, including photos, of Ted Lasso season four!!  I’m so excited for this series to return.  Will they be able to recapture?  I don’t know, it’s risky.  I know that it’s the hope that kills you.  But I believe in belief.

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I was captivated by this film right from the beginning.  It’s a beautiful and heartbreaking story, anchored by a magnificent lead performance by Ethan Hawke as Lorenz Hart.  Hart is on-screen for pretty much every second of the film; we’re with him for every moment of this story.  I’ve never seen Mr. Hawke play a character quite like this, someone so clearly talented but also so beset by demons (alcoholism, jealousy) that lead him to self-sabotage.  I felt great empathy for Hart as someone who has been left behind, but also pity as we can clearly understand that Hart brought much of this upon himself.  There’s a sense of looming tragedy in the film, as we’ve learned Hart’s ultimate fate right at the beginning.  We know where this story is going.  And yet, Mr. Hawke brings such powerful charisma and magnetic energy to the performance, that I was rooting for Hart throughout.  We could see his talent, and we could see that so many people liked him and cared for him.  That combination of potential and self-delusion make a potent mix.  This is a wonderful character, and an incredible performance.

Blue Moon was directed by Richard Linklater.  I’m always excited for a new Linklater movie!  He’s made so many wonderful films, and they’re all so different from one another!  Dazed and Confused, School of Rock, Boyhood, Hit Man… Mr. Linklater makes great movies.  He’s done a beautiful job directing Blue Moon.  There are no showy directorial tricks here, rather, Mr. Linklater allows us to float along through the evening, closely following Hart and being in careful touch with the rise and fall of his emotions as the night progresses.  A film set in one location could have been static and dull, but Mr. Linklater creates a sense of motion and propulsion that keeps the story feeling alive from start to finish.

The film has a phenomenal script by Robert Kaplow.  Mr. Kaplow’s novel Me and Orson Welles was adapted by Mr. Linklater into a film in 2008.  Watching Blue Moon, I thought for sure it had been adapted from a play!  It has the feel of a play, in all the best ways, with the entire story set around the bar where Hart is waiting for the Oklahoma! opening night celebration to begin.  And there’s something about the back-and-forth banter between the characters that felt very much like a play to me.  That’s a compliment.  The film also allows many of its characters, most especially Mr. Hawke, to deliver some wonderfully rich monologues.  I loved the dialogue in this film, and how that dialogue allows us to unpack the history between these characters and the dynamic between them.  The film is fictional, but it’s based on the actual letters between Hart and Elizabeth Weiland (played by Margaret Qualley in the film).  Mr. Kaplow has done a wonderful job in presenting this fictionalized version of these people and this world.

Bobby Cannavale (Blue Jasmine, Chef, Ant Man, The Irishman) is spectacular as the bartender Eddie, who seems to be Hart’s closest friend that we see, and certainly the person who is the most constant and attentive to Hart’s continual narrative during the course of the evening.  Mr. Cannavale is magnificent, just magnetic to watch, and he delivers Mr. Kaplow’s dialogue with perfection.  Margaret Qualley (Drive Away Dolls, Honey Don’t!) plays Elizabeth, the young woman about whom Hart spends most of the evening obsessing.  Ms. Qualley is terrific.  We understand why Hart is in love with her, but Ms. Qualley’s performance (aided by the wonderful way her character is written) elevate Elizabeth beyond a one-dimensional object of someone’s affection.  I get the sense that she’s not naive; she has some understanding of who Hart is, even if she also sees him through slightly rose-colored glasses.  Andrew Scott (Fleabag, Sherlock, Wake Up Dead Man) is also terrific as Richard Rogers.  A lesser film might have presented Rogers as a villain, but I loved the nuanced way Mr. Scott played him here; he cares for and values Hart, but he’s also sick of Hart’s shenanigans.

By the way, I also want to applaud Ethan Hawke for allowing himself to be depicted as incredibly short!  Many other leading men might not have been willing to go this route, but clearly Mr. Hart’s diminutive size was an important aspect of his character, and the film repeatedly reminds us just how short Mr. Hart was.

I am always interested in films that explore the challenges and perils of creating art.  In this depiction of Lorenz Hart, we see the heartbreak of feeling left behind, and outshone by others.  This is the potential dark side of creating art.  The film is something of a cautionary tale of a man whose success has curdled into jealousy and bitterness (despite his protestations to the contrary) and self-sabotage.  I found it sad and deeply moving.  But this film isn’t a dreary slog!  The sharp writing by Mr. Kaplow and the fluid directing by Mr. Linklater keeps the story moving, and often funny!  Additionally, I was pleased that they avoided the cliche approach of having Hart throw a pathetic scene or something like that in the third act.  There is almost grace in the way Hart allows Elizabeth to slip through his fingers at the end.  I liked that choice.  Throughout the film (as I was describing above), I was endlessly captivated by Mr. Hawke’s performance.

Blue Moon is a lovely film, and I’m glad to have seen it!  (It was one of my favorite movies of 2025!)

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The film is directed by Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio.  I’ve been a fan of Mr. Apatow’s for forever, ever since Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared, two brilliant and hilarious cancelled-before-their-time TV shows from around 1999-2001.  Mr. Apatow has written and directed a number of fantastic movies (such as The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Funny People, This is 40, Trainwreck), and he’s been involved behind-the-scenes with so many other comedy classics (such as Anchorman, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Superbad, Pineapple Express, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Bridesmaids, The Big Sick, and so many more).  I’ve enjoyed his books (his two Sick in the Head books which are stuffed full with fascinating interviews with an array of comedians, and his recent Comedy Nerd).  I’ve enjoyed his forays into stand-up comedy.  (His recent schtick at the Golden Globes was by far the funniest moment of the night!)  Mr. Apatow directed the extraordinary two-part documentary The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling, and he and Mr. Bonfiglio co-directed the every-bit-as-good George Carlin two-part documentary George Carlin: American Dream.  (If you are a comedy fan and you have not watched those two documentaries, you must do so immediately!!)

Mr. Apatow and Mr. Bonfliglio have reunited to shine a well-deserved spotlight on another titan of comedy — the incomparable Mel Brooks!!

I cannot remember not knowing and loving Mel Brooks.  I think it was Spaceballs (which I saw in the theatres) that made me first fall in love with Mr. Brooks as a kid.  Then I went back and discovered The Producers and Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein (all of which hold up today as spectacular comedies), and so much more.  I own all of Mr. Brooks and Carl Reiner’s The 2,000 Year Old Man albums.  One of my most prized DVD sets in my collection is The Incredible Mel Brooks: An Irresistible Collection of Unhinged Comedy, a multi-disc set that collects a wonderful array of Mr. Brooks’ TV appearances from over the decades.  I was lucky enough to have seen The Producers on Broadway with Nathan Lane & Matthew Broderick, and the soundtrack has remained in regular rotation for me in the years since.  I read and loved Mr. Brooks’ recent autobiography All About Me.  I an a huge Mel Brooks fan!

This documentary was an absolute pleasure to watch.  Mr. Apatow & Mr. Bonfiglio were able to find ways to explore the emotion of the many highs and lows Mr. Brooks has experienced in his remarkably long and creative life.  I appreciated their efforts to dig beneath the surface of the many well-worn anecdotes Mr. Brooks has told over and over.  (It’s funny to watch the moments in the film in which they’ve edited together clips of Mr. Brooks telling the same anecdote, sometimes years apart.)  At the same time, the film never gets too schmaltzy or lugubrious.  This is a very funny documentary packed full with lots and lots and lots of very funny Mel Brooks clips from throughout his life!

I’m impressed at how well Mr. Apatow & Mr. Bonfiglio and their team were able to curate so many wonderful clips from throughout Mr. Brooks’ career.  There are lots of great clips from his movies, of course, which I was happy to see.  But I was even happier to see so many incredible clips (many of which I’d never before seen) of Mr. Brook’s vast history of appearances of TV shows of all kinds from over the decades.  Mr. Brooks has always been a talker and a storyteller, and it’s tremendous fun getting to see so many clips of Mr. Brooks cracking wise from over the years… and also to hear him talking about his movies and his other projects back when he was working on them (or promoting them).

One of the most wonderful things Mr. Brooks has appeared in, in recent years, was the extraordinary episode of Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, in which we got a peek into Mr. Brook’s regular nighttime ritual of going over to Carl Reiner’s house, to have dinner together (on little TV trays) while they sat together and watched a movie.  I thought that was just about the sweetest thing ever.  I’m thrilled the doc included clips from that episode, as well as reflections from Mr. Brooks on his life-long friendship with Carl Reiner.

The documentary is anchored by an extensive interview with the now 99 year-old Mel Brooks.  It’s incredible to see how vibrant Mr. Brooks still is, even at the extraordinary age of 99 years old!!!  Mr. Brooks certainly appears to still be sharp and extremely funny.  He’s still a spectacular storyteller.  What a treasure and a blessing this project is, to have allowed us to hear so extensively from Mr. Brooks, taking us through the journey of his long life and career.  I like how we get to often hear Mr. Apatow, asking questions of Mr. Brooks and giving him gentle pushes to talk about what he was thinking and feeling at different moments in his life.  I loved getting to hear Mr. Brooks talk about his love for his late wife, Anne Bancroft, as well as for some of the mentors in his life, like the great Sid Caesar and, of course, the afore-mentioned Carl Reiner.

It’s also great fun to hear from all the other interview subjects Mr. Apatow & Mr. Bonfiglio have assembled.  It’s fascinating to hear from Mr. Brooks’ children, giving their insider’s perspective on what he was like as a father.  (No surprise, it seems Mr. Brooks was a little hard to live with sometimes.)  I loved getting to hear from all the comedians talking about their respect for Mel and his work, including Jerry Seinfeld, Sarah Silverman, Dave Chapelle, Ben Stiller, Nick Kroll, Amy Schumer.  It’s heartbreaking to see the late Rob Reiner, taken from the world so tragically, on screen, talking about his father Carl’s close relationship with Mr. Brooks.

It’s a miracle that the great Mel Brooks is still alive and kicking at age 99!  May he continue ever onward!  This documentary is a worthy salute to this comedic genius.  It’s a must-watch for anyone who loves comedy.  I want to watch the whole thing again soon…

Please support my website by clicking through one of my Amazon links the next time you need to shop!  As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.  That means I’ll receive a small percentage from ANY product you purchase from Amazon within 24 hours after clicking through.  Thank you!

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I love Pretend It’s a City so much (it’s one of the only streaming series I have made time to rewatch — multiple times! — from the pure joy of it, as opposed to rewatching because during the multi-year gap between seasons of a show I had forgotten everything that happened so felt forced to go back and rewatch), so I’m not sure why it’s taken me so long to watch Public Speaking!!  (Actually, that’s a lie.  I know exactly why it’s taken me so long.  I discovered this movie existed soon after watching Pretend It’s a City.  But when I saw it was only available on DVD, I decided to wait in the hopes that, following the release of (and strong reviews for) Pretend It’s a City, they’d release a blu-ray version so I could watch this on high-def.  But it’s been several years with no movement, so recently I finally decided to just order the DVD.)  (Public Speaking does not seem to currently be available to stream anywhere.  This is why I like to own physical media!!)

To my surprise and pleasure, Public Speaking is presented in almost exactly the same format as Pretend It’s a City!  It’s like one long episode of that series.  As was the case in Pretend It’s a City, we get lots of scenes of Fran chatting with Marty, sitting at a table in a warmly-lit New York City restaurant (The Waverly Inn), intercut with footage of Ms. Lebowitz walking around New York, lots of funny interview clips with Ms. Lebowitz from throughout her long career, as well as the occasional clip of another New York luminary who comes up in the conversation.  (I was particularly taken by the clips of James Baldwin, eloquently speaking on the subject of racial equality.)  I’m amused to see that Mr. Scorsese mimicked the format of Public Speaking so closely when he went on to make Pretend It’s a City.  But the format clearly works!

If you’re not familiar with Fran Lebowitz, just watch this film, or an episode of Pretend It’s a City, and I suspect you will fall in love with her immediately, as I did.  Ms. Lebowitz came to fame in her twenties, writing columns for Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine.  That was followed by the publication of two collections of her essays: 1978’s Metropolitan Life and 1981’s Social Studies.  In the years since she’s continued to write (though since the nineties she’s gone through a very public case of writer’s block. which she frequently discusses in interviews) and participate in all sorts of speaking appearances.

Ms. Lebowitz is a sharp wit and a crank.  She has VERY STRONG opinions on almost every topic imaginable.  The fun of this movie is listening to her wax poetic on all sorts of subjects, but mostly aspects of modern life and, particularly, life in her beloved New York City.  For the most part, Mr. Scorsese just lobs Ms. Lebowitz general topics and then sits back as she holds forth.  I was enraptured listening to her talk.  Sometimes I was laughing out loud and other times I was rolling my eyes, but she was endlessly interesting and very funny.

Mr. Scorsese & his team have assembled a fantastic array of clips to punctuate the film.  I smiled watching her banter with a very young Conan O’Brien.  I particularly enjoyed the warm rapport Ms. Lebowitz seemed to share with Toni Morrison in several clips of the two of them onstage together, in conversation.

But for the most part, the film sits easily on Ms. Lebowitz’s shoulders, as we watch and listen to her sit in her cozy booth and tell amusing stories and recollections and express her sharp, clever, and always very funny opinions on all sorts of different topics, from cars to books to telling time to the state of the arts and culture and so, so much more.

Public Speaking is a brisk 80 minutes.  I could have kept watching for twice as long.

Give it a watch if you can find it, or stream Pretend It’s a City on Netflix!

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First off, I must once again applaud show-runner John Hoffman and the entire Only Murders in the Building team for managing to successfully continue to release a new season of their show on an annual basis.  This is a nearly unheard-of feat in today’s streaming age.  I am extraordinarily grateful that we’re able to get 10 new episodes of this show once a year, and that they’ve been able to maintain the quality of the show.

I know some feel that’s not the case, and that the show has lost some of it’s original appeal.  I agree that the first season was the best season.  The delightful surprise that first season represented is hard to duplicate.  And in watching a show like this, you have to suspend a significant amount of disbelief that murders keep happening in and around the orbit of the Arconia and the show’s trio of sleuths.  But if you’re willing to go with that, I think the show continued to offer an array of pleasures here in its fifth season.  I had a great deal of fun watching all ten of these new episodes, and I was left completely satisfied by the end of this latest run.

I continue to thoroughly enjoy the main trio.  Steve Martin, Martin Short, & Selena Gomez are as good as ever; they’re a delightful threesome who seem able to anchor this series with a near-effortless ease.  They’re all so funny, and also able to continue to play the emotional beats with the needed dramatic heft.  Many great TV comedies get broad in their later years (even the great Seinfeld suffered this curse), but this trio have managed to maintain the perfect calibration of their performances.  It’s a testament to their skill that the show is at its best when these three are on screen together.  Each season the writers like to find ways to split the threesome up and provide moments for them to be at odds with one another; I understand this, but I am happiest when the three are together in scenes and bouncing off of one another.  With a show like this, it could easily become all about the guest stars, but I am happy that I still love the main three leads the best!

Which is not to say that the guest stars aren’t once again fantastic!  I loved all three of the weirdo maybe-evil billionaires introduced this season.  It’s a pleasure to see Renée Zellweger back on screen and putting her comedic talents to good use.  She’s wonderful as the icy, Martha Stewart-esque Camilla White.  Christoph Waltz has made a career out of playing villains; it’s fun to see him lean into his silly side as the Steve Jobs-like tech giant “Bash” Steed.  I will love Logan Lerman forever for his lead performance in The Perks of Being a Wallflower; it’s wonderful to see him grown up as Jay Pflug, the Mark Zuckerberg-ish social media magnate.  They teased Téa Leoni (Spanglish, Jurassic Park III) as Sofia Caccimelio at the end of season four, and she’s as much fun as I’d hoped as this mysterious wife of a mobster.  I loved her flirtation with Steve Martin’s Charles.  Their scenes together were great!  Their strange date night was a highlight of the season for me.  I always love Bobby Cannavale (The Station Agent, Ant Man, Spy, The Irishman, and this fall I saw him on Broadway in Art, in which he was spectacular), and he’s great here as the shady mobster Nicky.  This season also introduced Dianne Wiest (Hannah and her Sisters, Bullets Over Broadway, The Birdcage) as Lester’s widow Lorraine, and the always-funny Keegan-Michael Key as Mayor Tillman.  Jermaine Fowler was great as the new doorman, Randall; I hope we see more of him in the future.  And Beanie Feldstein (Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising, Lady Bird, Booksmart, Drive-Away Dolls) was hilarious as Mabel’s childhood rival Althea (sorry, I mean: “Thē”).  This is a powerful array of new guest-stars on the show!

Thankfully, many familiar recurring faces also popped up this year.  I’m glad they’ve managed to keep Meryl Streep involved with the show, as Oliver’s now-wife Loretta.  It strains credulity a bit that Oliver and Loretta aren’t living together full time, but I don’t mind the story-telling convolutions required to keep Martin Short’s Oliver on the show full-time and Loretta involved occasionally.  Ms. Streep is of course a pleasure whenever she pops up.  (I’d love it if she was on the show more in the future, but I’m happy with a once-a-season appearance if that’s all that can be arranged.)  Someone who I’d REALLY love to see more of is Da’Vine Joy Randolph (Office Christmas Party, Dolemite is my Name, The Holdovers) as Detective Donna Williams.  I love Ms. Randolph on the show — she makes me smile whenever she’s on screen!  Her love-hate relationship with the main trio is never not funny.  Plus, it makes story-sense that this cop would continue be involved with all these murders!  So let’s get more Da’Vine Joy Randolph next season, OK??  Moving on…  I was happy to get to see Nathan Lane and James Caverly back as Teddy & Theo Dimas.  Michael Cyril Creighton is always amusing as Howard Morris; I loved his story this season with his obsequious obsession with the Arconia’s new robotic doorman.  I was happy that Richard Kind, introduced last season as one of the “Westies”, popped back up this season.  And I’m always happy when they find a way to get Tina Fey back involved with the proceedings somehow, as podcaster Cinda Canning.

While I’m always sad to see a member of the ensemble killed off, it also usually means that now-deceased character gets some well-deserved time in the spotlight.  So it was nice getting to spend time with Teddy Coluca as the doorman Lester, and to get to explore his life.  I enjoyed getting to know him better, and the path that led him to the Arconia.  Overall, I enjoyed the twists and turns of this season’s mystery, and I was satisfied by how the pieces fell into place by the end.

Other thoughts:

• I loved Sofia’s wacky pack of children.  They were good for a laugh whenever they showed up.
• I enjoyed getting to see glimpses of the Acronia’s history in the episode 2 flashbacks; it was fun to see how Lester crossed paths with the younger versions of so many of the show’s characters over the years.
• Sometimes in this type of story, characters will do dumb things in order to move the plot forward.  I understand that.  But I’m not sure I’ve ever yelled at the screen more when watching this show than in episode 3, when our trio decide to conduct an autopsy on Lester’s body by themselves, in Charles’ apartment.  Illegal, dangerous, stupid… oy!  This stretched the reality of the show too far for my tastes.
• Though the end of episode 4 also rivaled that for me, when the gang idiotically allow themselves to sign a podcasting contract that legally prevents them from investigating the billionaires.  Duh.  I thought it was painfully obvious that was happening, and didn’t like our characters being so dim as to not recognize that.
• I liked getting to explore a little of Oliver’s youth in Flatbush.
• I’m intrigued by the latest murder victim as revealed at the end of the finale!  I look forward to getting to explore that character further next season!

I’m so pleased this show continues to chug along.  These ten new episodes were a lot of fun.  I can’t wait for season six, next year…!

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The post Josh Reviews Only Murders in the Building Season Five appeared first on Josh Edelglass.

Supported by Netflix, Mr. del Toro’s Frankenstein has finally arrived, and it is a wonderful film. sweeping and spellbinding.  Would I prefer Mr. del Toro be creating original stories with all-new monsters and creatures?  Well, yes, I would.  But if he’s finding joy in creating new versions of classic monster/fantasy stories like Pinocchio and now Frankenstein, when they’re at this level of quality, who am I to complain?

Mr. del Toro has always been an incredibly inventive visualist.  His films — and most especially the fantasy creatures who populate them — always have brilliantly creative and original looks.  I was hoping that would continue to be the case here with Frankenstein, and wow is it ever.  This is perhaps Mr. del Toro’s greatest achievement in this film: he has completely shed the shackles of the iconography of the classic Universal version of Frankenstein.  The imagery of that film and its sequels (The Bride of Frankenstein, etc.) — particularly the look of the monster — have become iconic and extremely well-known.  I love how Mr. del Toro and his team managed to completely put aside those well-known visuals, creating a film with a look and feel entirely its own.

Oscar Isaac (A Most Violent Year, Show Me a Hero, Moon Knight, Dune) delivers a fierce, magnetic performance as Victor Frankenstein.  It’s a pleasure to see Mr. Isaac, whose work I have always enjoyed, throw himself so completely into this role.  He’s compelling as Victor; we can see early on that his brilliance is (un)balanced by a petulant bitterness and selfishness (though the film wisely allows us to spend a good chunk of time with Victor as a child, in which we can see how the tragedies of his childhood shaped the man he would become), which then curdles into madness and rage as the story unfolds.  I loved this performance!

Then there is Jacob Elordi, who is wonderful as the Creature.  Mr. Elordi brings a perfect gentle soulfulness to the Creature.  And he’s able to channel fearsome rage at times as well.  So much of this character is brought to life through Mr. Elordi’s wonderfully expressive eyes.  Many actors might not be able to ensure their emotions can shine through these types of elaborate make-up and effects, but Mr. Elordi delivers a masterful, memorable performance.  His work is enhanced by the beautiful design of the Creature by Mr. del Toro and his team.  Making us forget about the familiar “Frankenstein” look might have been one of the central challenges of creating this film, but they have succeeded brilliantly.  I love the look of the Creature!  It balances gruesomeness and beauty into a perfect balance.  We get the clear sense that this Creature’s body was stitched together from many different parts of different corpses.  That could have been horrific, but in this film Victor Frankenstein shares Guillermo del Toro’s skills as an artist and master of his craft, and so the design is not horrific at all, but almost beautiful.  (Remember, Victor and his sponsor Henrich Harlander’s goal was to create a perfect human body!)  I also loved the look of the energy-channeling devices that Victor creates, to bring life to his Creature.  The chest-piece we see over the Creature early in the process was really cool.  (I should also make note of several striking images, before the Creature is brought to life, of its body, mostly assembled but with its back entirely split open, as Victor works to establish all the right connections needed to bring life to this inanimate flesh.  That image has really stuck with me since seeing the film.  That particular image definitely leans more to the horrific, but Mr. del Toro keeps it strange and fantastical rather than totally of the “avert your eyes” variety.)

As I’ve already noted, the classic image of Frankenstein’s monster from the Universal films is iconic and memorable.  So too is Frankenstein’s lab where the monster is brought to life.  Here too, I was so impressed by the totally new and original design that Mr. del Toro and his team created, both for Victor’s original work-space in Edinburgh and then for the the tower inside which he brings his work to fruition.  I loved how beautifully this location was brought to life — from the top of the tower, to the huge shaft running through it, to Victor’s laboratory (with that striking enormous stone carving of the face of Medusa), to the basement where the Creature is, for a time, imprisoned.  Each of those locations was memorable and iconic, and brought to gorgeous life.  I love seeing Mr. del Toro working in this gothic tone (as he did previously in Crimson Peak).

This entire film is a visual feast for the eyes.  I look forward to revisiting it and being able to pay more attention to all of the beautiful costumes, props, and settings.

I enjoyed the structure of the film, in which we shift perspectives midway through from Victor to the Creature.  That was cleverly done.  I love that this story belongs to BOTH of them, rather than exclusively one or the other.  (I did notice a few narrative cheats in the Creature’s half of the story, in which we see Victor in moments when the Creature wasn’t right there, but I could go with that.)

While this film sits on the shoulders of the performances of Oscar Isaac and Jacob Elordi, the rest of the ensemble is wonderful as well.  Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained, Spectre) is entertaining as Victor’s patron, the wealthy Henrich Harlander.  (I loved Mr. Waltz’s smooth delivery of the Godfather-like moment in which Henrich smoothly gives Victor a version of the “one day, and that day may never come, I may ask you for a favor” line.)  Mia Goth doesn’t have much screen time, but she does a nice job bringing life and personality to Elizabeth, who is the object of affection for all the main male characters in the film.  Felix Kammerer hits all the right notes as Victor’s gentle younger brother William.  We need to like and care for William, as Victor does, rather than being annoyed or bored by him, and Mr. Kammerer’s performance accomplishes that.  Lars Mikkelsen (Grand Admiral Thrawn in Ahsoka) turns what could have been a nothing role — Captain Andersen, whose main role in the movie is to sit and listen to the stories being told by Victor and the Creature — into a memorable character.  Charles Dance (Game of Thrones) gets to portray yet another asshole dad as Victor & William’s father, Baron Leopold Frankenstein.  David Bradley is well-known for playing scary characters (Walder Frey in Game of Thrones and Argus Filch in the Harry Potter films), but he’s great here as the kindly old blind man who is one of the few people who show kindness to the Creature.  (I will admit, though, that as soon as I saw that exterior shot of the small farm-house, I knew what was coming and my mind jumped to Gene Hackman in Young Frankenstein!)

I feel like this film has gone somewhat under the radar during the end of the year awards season (possibly because it had a tiny theatrical release before being released on Netflix — click here to watch it now), but Frankenstein is a wonderful film and stands among the many great works by Guillermo del Toro.

Please support my website by clicking through one of my Amazon links the next time you need to shop!  As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.  That means I’ll receive a small percentage from ANY product you purchase from Amazon within 24 hours after clicking through.  Thank you!

The post Josh Reviews Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein appeared first on Josh Edelglass.