A running tab of movies and series I’ve seen in theaters or at home, and a quick comment about them. I’ve succumbed to the idea of assigning a personal score for each film. My scale:
- 4 Stars – One of the best, well recommended
- 3 Stars – Recommended, but some issues here and there
- 2 Stars – Problematic, hard to recommend
- 1 Star – Disappointment, stay away
2023 Movies | 2022 Movies | 2021 Movies | 2020 Movies | 2019 Movies | 2018 Movies | 2017 Movies
Interior Chinatown, Hulu, November 2024. I quickly made my way through this diverting but deliberately confusing 10-episode series. It played with a lot of interesting ideas but was sometimes too clever for its own good. Nevertheless, it was a better than average show with a number of winning performances, some good humor and a convoluted plot that at least made me think to try to keep up.
Wicked, Part I, Snowden, November 2024 with Allie and Barb. Allie had already succumbed to the pervasive blanket pre-release marketing machine and saw the film on opening night in Boston with some friends. But she liked it and we were eager to see it together on Thanksgiving Day. It was honestly, surprisingly better than I thought it would be. I remember seeing the play at least twice, including in London in 2011, and I remember Allie enjoying it and the soundtrack in her youth, but I didn’t remember details of the plot. Cynthia Erivo did a terrific job in the role of Elpheba and Ariana Grande was acceptable if a little wispy in the role of Glinda. John Chu’s production was jam packed with extras and eye candy but somehow held together. It was an enjoyable experience even if it was only Part I of the play. It’s troublesome to have to wait a year for Part II, especially since it’s already been filmed, but that’s where we are in this world of blockbuster franchises…and this will be a generational blockbuster franchise, I believe, revisted time and again by theater kids everywhere. A pop culture moment with built-in sequels like Part II and the sing-along versions.
Saturday Night, AMC Columbia, October 2024. A day after seeing the Bruce Springsteen documentary, my wallow in 1970s nostalgia continued with this quasi-documentary of the premiere of Saturday Night Live. More loving fan fiction than actual fact, the film squeezes a ton of legends, myths and actual skits from the first season of SNL into the purported 90 minutes before the first show. The cast does a pretty good job mimicking the real characters and guest stars pull of some fun cameos. The energy of the film starts out frenetic and gets crazier as air time approaches. It’s not exactly history, but a not-unsatisfactory facsimile that calls for fact checking and viewing some of the original series once again.
Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Hulu, October 2024. A surprisingly moving documentary of Bruce’s 2023-2024 tour (which I saw in Baltimore a month before). Filmmaker Thom Zinney captures behind the scenes rehearsals and prep for the tour as well as some rhapsodic performances and fan reactions. Springsteen had a hand in the script and storyline that evolves in the documentary. He has always been a consummate storyteller and I think the discipline of his stint on Broadway (which I regret not having made an effort to see, but I’m grateful for the Netflix documentary of the evening) further honed his skills. I didn’t fully appreciate the multiple levels of storytelling built into his concert setlist on this tour; I’m actually thankful for Bruce and this film spelling it out even more clearly. For years, Springsteen eschewed films or TV appearances of his concerts. I’m glad his attitude changed — he now has an extensive and smartly curated archive of visual as well as audio media. This film is simultaneously a good souvenir of the tour, an overview of Springsteen’s career and a valuable legacy statement of what has made Bruce and the band special for more than 50 years.
Reservation Dogs, Hulu, August 2024. I’ve come to really enjoy and admire this series, recently finishing its third and final season. I think I need to sit and binge the whole series over again to better appreciate the intricately weaved story lines. What started as an odd Indian reservation cross of Rob Reiner’s Stand By Me with Quinton Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs (which I’ve never seen) has grown into a sprawling multigenerational, multicultural saga told with humor, oddness, good spirits, some great cultural nuance and winning performances. Credit really goes to the main showrunner, Sterlin Harjo, I suppose.
Shogun, Hulu, June 2024. I find it dismaying that most of what I know about Japanese history comes courtesy of two TV miniseries adaptations of the 1975 James Clavell historical fiction novel that I don’t think I actually read. The novel is loosely based on actual characters including an English sailor (William Adams) who became a samurai in 17th century Japan. This 2024 version seemed to try to be sensitive to Japanese culture but who really knows. The real-life stories of Tokugawa Ieyasu and Adams seem more compelling than this fictionalized potboiler (no pun intended) but real history doesn’t lend itself to TV miniseries, I guess. Still, Barb and I managed to make our way through 10 episodes so I guess that counts for something. 3 Stars.
Hacks, Season 3 on HBO, May 2024. I was disappointed with this season of a show I enjoyed a lot at first and had a strong second season. The story lines became less believable and more like sitcom setups, the relationships even more stereotyped rather than more genuine, and the general attitude more full of itself. Jean Smart is still pretty terrific but Hannah Einbinder is getting on my nerves. Hoping for a rebound next season. 2 Stars.
Franklin, Apple TV+, May 2024. I’m not a fan of Michael Douglas but I guardedly enjoyed this miniseries despite Douglas bearing no resemblance to Benjamin Franklin. I thought the series did a pretty good job focusing on Franklin’s role in France, the French perspective of the American Revolution, and the central role played by the comte de Vergennes. I think they played fast and loose with some relationships, particularly Lafayette with Temple Franklin, but overall stayed fairly true to facts as much as we know them. 3 Stars.
Challengers, AMC Columbia, May 2024. Barb and I went to movies for the first time in months on a rainy Sunday mostly to get some popcorn, though when the time came I decided against getting any. I saw this mostly silly tennis/romance movie while Barb saw The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Neither will be Oscar contenders, I suspect. Challengers charts evolving relationships between three tennis players as they mature (or don’t) from their teens to 30s. Neither the tennis nor the romantic complications were very convincing, especially as it built to a ridiculous and overwrought climax. 2 Stars.
The Zone of Interest, on Max, April. It took me a while to get to this Best Picture-nominated and Oscar winning film about the family of the Auschwitz commandant. I was impressed on many levels but ultimately disturbed and disappointed by the film. Its perspective of family life just outside the walls of the concentration camp and killing chambers is provocative but I was confused on a number of points and had to research them later. It says something that a film is intriguing enough to prompt further research, but also indicates that maybe more should have been included/explicated in the film. My points of confusion included the basic timeframe of the film (1943, mostly, and later 1944, it turns out), the infrared scenes of a girl (which turns out to have been a Polish girl — I thought it was one of the daughters), the lack of information about the state of the war (it seemed like someone might be interested enough to tune into the news once in a while), and the last few scenes of the film which lacked a clear resolution though we mostly know what happened. There was a lot to admire about the film but it left me wondering why depict so much ambiguity about one of the clearest morality tales in history. 2 Stars.
Expats, on Apple TV+, March. This overwrought miniseries set in Hong Kong was a disappointment despite much filming on location and intermittent blasts of accuracy about the city and the class structures I recall. Mostly, though, the series is given over to the histrionic acting of Nicole Kidman and a string of interconnected caricatures that elicit very little sympathy. The fifth episode, which focuses on the Philippine amahs — themselves expats — that grease the high life of the Americans hints at what this series could have been but the rest of the 6 episodes were a weak soap opera. Not to mention, though it’s set during the 2014 Umbrella Movement, there is no real discussion of the political climate and China-induced changes in Hong Kong. 2 Stars.
Dream Scenario, on United from Sydney, March. An enjoyably odd film somewhat akin to Being John Malkovich. Nicholas Cage as a dweebish professor who starts inexplicably showing up in random people’s dreams. It’s a clever set-up, well acted by Cage and the rest of the cast, that turns darker and darker. I honestly can’t remember the end resolution but I wished it landed somewhere else. 3 Stars.
The Creator, on United from Sydney, March. This sci-fi/action flick had interesting ideas about a near future where the anti-AI USA (in the wake of a nuclear detonation) was fighting an AI-enabled “New Asia” which may have developed a next-generation “Creator” representing the next step in human/AI evolution. I wish the film leaned into its provocative premise rather than a Marines-focused combat shoot ’em up. 2 Stars.
Long Way Up (2020), Long Way Down (2007) and Long Way Round (2004) on Apple TV+, January. I belatedly binged this trilogy of motorcycle travelogues featuring Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman. I had little affinity for the motorcycle aspects of these journeys but did appreciate the interest in getting off the beaten track and seeing parts of the world I will never see. I never expected to be drawn into nearly 30 hours of motorcycle road tripping but each of the segments had some interesting moments and scenery, even if all of it was necessarily fleeting, and I found Ewan McGregor to be a pleasantly affable screen presence. Good for viewing when there was nothing else on. 3 Stars.
Rustin on Netflix, January. This Obama-produced biopic of Bayard Rustin and his organizing of the 1963 March on Washington was a mildly useful history lesson but not a particularly good movie. Colman Domingo nabbed an Best Actor nomination for his portrayal but I don’t think it was an award-winning performance, more of a broad caricature…though maybe that was the point for this evidently flamboyant character that has largely been scrubbed from Civil Rights history. 2 Stars.
Origin at AMC Columbia, January. Count me among those who thought Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste was unfilmable, but Ava DuVernay found a way. If anything, the film is more digestible and certainly quicker to consume than Wilkerson’s 500 pages. I’m still not entirely convinced about Wilkerson’s thesis that defining a class/caste of people as “others” is more pernicious or widespread than racism (she’d probably argue that’s a poor restatement of her thesis). Both caste systems and racism seem to be bad and all too common throughout history. And there’s still no prescription or effort to resolve or rise above the issue once she identifies it. But the performances and telling the story of how the book was written are worthwhile and affecting. 3 Stars.
Poor Things at AMC Columbia with Barb, Dan and David, January. I liked this resolutely strange film from Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone a bit more than Dan and David, and a lot more than Barb…but that’s not saying much. When you strip away the sex (which isn’t all that sexy, but there’s a lot of it) and the very dense, cinematic and skewed Victorian production designs and camera angles, you’re left with an interesting but overstretched parable of self discovery. Emma Stone probably deserves an Oscar nomination for bravery but I don’t think she should win Best Actress, nor should this be Best Picture (it wasn’t but she did). After reading some other reviews, the book might be more interesting than the film — I might give it a try. 2 Stars.
American Fiction at AMC Columbia, January. A well-crafted and enjoyable film that gently but thoroughly skewers White American attitudes toward Blackness while centering a Black author’s experience and family life as simply American. Jeffrey Wright is terrific in a role that seems written for him. It’s not a perfect film — I felt the characters played by Issa Rae and Sterling K. Brown were underdeveloped, though their performances were good — but still well recommended and a worthy statement. 3 Stars, maybe more.
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