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SHORT TAKES: “#Skyking” “Ballerina”

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 20, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Richard “Beebo” Russell

“#SKYKING” My rating: B (Hulu)

91 minutes | Np MPAA rating

Most documentaries aim to neatly answer our questions.

Patricia Gillespie’s “#Skyking” leaves us in limbo.  

In 2018 28-year-old Richard “Beebo” Russell, who worked on the tarmac at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, singlehandedly stole an empty  Q400 turboprop air liner and, without benefit of formal flight training, took it on a aerial joyride.

He was in the air for 75 minutes, watching the fuel gauge approach empty.  Then he crashed on an island in Puget Sound.  He did not survive.

Apparently he didn’t plan to.

The backbone of this riveting documentary is the audio tape of Beebo’s radio exchanges with a Seattle air traffic controller.  The tape was only recently released and filmmaker Gillespie had the inspired idea of having the recorded conversation play while Beebo’s friends and family members heard it for the first time.

This setup allows Gillespie to stop the playback so that these individuals can respond to what they’ve just heard.  Along the way we learn a great deal about Beebo.

That he was fun loving and goofy.  That he was a devout Christian.  That he grew  up in small-town Alaska, was a high school athlete.  He met his wife Hannah while attending college in Oregon, and they later opened a bakery together.

The Beebo who emerges from the tape recording is friendly but evasive.  He’s embarrassed at having been hit with air sickness (or it could just be a bad case of nerves) and apologizes for making a mess in the cockpit.  He advises ground control that he has no intention of hurting anyone, and comments on the beauty of the mountain he is circling.

He does ask the perplexed controller if the Q400 is capable of making a barrell roll.  Told the aircraft was definitely not designed for such shenanigans, Beebo went ahead and did a successful barrell roll anyway.  

Remember, this was the first time the young man had even been in an airplane cockpit.

The question hanging over all this is why? What drove Beebo to this act?  

We learn that he was upset that his career was going nowhere.  But is that reason enough for suicide?

Maybe marital issues?  We may never know, since his widow refused to participate in the filmmaking process.

What we’re left with is the impression of a likable young man whose demons were kept in check until a final defiant statement in the air over Seattle.

Ana de Armas

“BALLERINA” My rating: C+ (HBO Max)

124 minutes | MPAA rating: R

“Ballerina” does not start off promisingly.

Set in the John Wick universe (Keanu Reeves makes a brief appearance) it centers on Eve (Ana de Arias), who as a little girl lost her father to assassins and has been raised by a crime syndicate both to dance ballet and serve as a killing machine. (Talk about multi-tasking!!!!)

Yeah, it’s a “La Femme Nikita” clone, and not a  particularly good one.  Not even pop-up appearances by Ian McShane and the late Lance Reddick reprising their “John Wick” roles can dispel the aura of cheesy revenge melodrama.

But here’s the thing…if  you can sit through the gosh-awful opening scenes, director Len Wiseman and his crew unleash a slew of spectacularly choreographed fight sequences.  Yes, they’re utterly preposterous, featuring staggering body counts while de Armas’ Eve absorbs enough punishment to lay low a battalion of tough guys. Yet she keeps on shooting, kicking, leaping and punching  — a veritable Energizer Bunny of mayhem.

The film climaxes with a gloriously over-the-top segment in which our girl finds herself in a scenic alpine village which is the headquarters of a rival gang (Gabriel Byrne is the chief baddy).

Turns out everybody in the burg — from the barmaid at the inn to a young couple casually dining in their ski outfits — is a trained killer. 

The acting?  Well, there’s not much of it.  But perhaps that’s the point — just keep a straight face long enough to sell the silliness.

| Robert W. Butler

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“CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS”: Herzog’s reverie

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on April 13, 2026| Leave a Comment »

“CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS” My rating: A- (In theaters on April 15)

90 minutes | No MPAA rating

Werner Herzog’s great documentary, first released in 2011, has been digitally spiffed up and is now playing at theaters. Thought I’d share my original review:

The art on display in “Cave of ForgottenDreams” is so jaw-droppingly beautiful that it can move a viewer to tears.

These are the oldest known paintings on Earth, created in charcoal on the walls of France’s Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc cave more than 30,000 years ago.

Discovered in the early ’90s, the cavern’s natural entrance was long ago blocked by a landslide, leaving the treasures untouched and hermetically sealed for millennia. This Pleistocene art is so fragile and priceless that only scientists and scholars are allowed to view it.

Except, that is, for director Werner Herzog, who got permission to take small 3-D cameras into Chauvet, emerging with a documentary so ravishing and eerily evocative that it’s like discovering the magic of art all over again.

Our Ice Age ancestors decorated the walls with incredible renderings of the animals they depended on. There are lions, huge rhinos, woolly mammoths, stags with immense horns, massive bison, all rendered with an eye for each breed’s characteristics that reveals a lifetime of observation. Three racing horses are uncanny … they look as if they were painted by Matisse.

There are also the handprints in red stain. We know they were made by the same person because of his/her broken little finger.

Herzog interviews the scientists. One produces a reproduction of a prehistoric bone flute and notes that it works on the same pentatonic scale used today. He demonstrates by cheekily blowing “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

But mostly Herzog lets his camera linger on the art, with the 3-D magically revealing how countless painters over several thousand years employed undulations in the cave walls to capture their subjects.

The camera floats across the cavern floor, littered with dozens of skulls of now-extinct cave bears who sometimes violated the manmade art by sharpening their claws on the limestone. A child’s footprint has been preserved. The remains of campfires have sat untouched since a time when glaciers sat a mile deep on the continent.

The experience is transcendent. Herzog may strike some as a pragmatic filmmaker, but “Cave of ForgottenDreams” is about nothing less than the birth of the human soul.

It will most assuredly do your soul good.

| Robert W. Butler

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SHORT TAKES: “The Testament of Ann Lee,” “Hamlet”

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 5, 2026| 2 Comments »

Amanda Seyfried as Shaker saint Ann Lee

“THE TESTAMENT OF ANN LEE” My rating: B (Hulu)

136 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Mainstream Hollywood rarely knows what to do with religion…unless it’s some sword-and-sandal silliness.

But Mona Fastvold’s “The Testament of Ann Lee” provides a sometimes brilliant evocation of ecstatic states while never commenting editorially on the truth (or falsehood) of its subject’s beliefs.

In the process it gives Amanda Seyfried the role for which she may some day be best known.

Ann Lee (Seyfried) was a British woman whose search for religious certainty led her to the Shaker movement, an offshoot of the Quakers in which dance and movement were essential to the spiritual quest. She left England for America in the years just before the Revolution, bringing with her a small band of followers who regarded her as an incarnation of Jesus. Over  years they established several communal settlements in New England, farming and manufacturing utilitarian but beautiful items of furniture that are still popular.

At one point the Shakers had nearly 5,000 members…a remarkable number given that total avoidance of sex was central to Lee’s ministry.  The church fed its ranks by adopting orphaned children who, upon reaching maturity, were allowed to decide whether to stay or seek a life in the larger world.

As scripted by director Fastvold and her husband Brady Corbet (their last outing was the spectacular “The Brutalist”), this is in many ways a straightforward historic biography.  

We follow Ann’s early life, her marriage to a blacksmith (Christopher Abbott) and the tragic deaths of their four children (a huge factor in creating her views on abstinence), her gradual rise to become a spiritual leader, her preaching partnership with her brother William (Lewis Pullman) and her determination to find a respite from persecution in the New World (only to discover that thuggish assholes are to be found just about everywhere).

It’s all been mounted with an almost documentary sense of time and place.

But here’s the twist:  in the many scenes of Shaker worship the film can only be described as a musical.

The congregants dance and sing in a reverential frenzy.  Like the whirling dervishes of Islam’s Sufi sect, the Shakers in this film seek transcendence through sound and movement, and just by observing we  can get a contact high from their shared exctasy. This is an astounding thing to say of an American feature film…simply watching it is a semi-spiritual experience.

Director Fastvold has said in interviews that while the songs and dance movements are based on real Shaker worship practices, they’ve been sweetened for this cinematic retelling. So while they may not be 100 percent authentic, they do achieve a heightened awareness in the viewer…heck, this looks like a worship service that might actually be fun.

At the core of it all is Seyfried’s performance, which makes Ann fully human even as she says and does things that many of us find, well, hugely eccentric. Apparently Ann Lee had no room for doubt, and there’s none in Seyfried’s work here. She exudes sincerity, reverence and a calm benevolence.  It’s remarkable.

Keeping “The Testament of Ann Lee” from being a near masterpiece are pacing problems.  The last third of the film drags a bit…to the point that viewers not naturally inclined to spiritual rumination may lose interest.

For the rest of us though, it’s a thought- and emotion-provoking experience.

Liz Ahmed, Timothy Spall

“HAMLET” My rating: B (In theaters)

114 minutes | MPAA rating: R

“Hamlet” can survive just about any amount of directorial tinkering.  What you can’t screw with are Shakespeare’s words and the necessity of having a charismatic leading man as your Hamlet.

The new version of the tragedy from Brit director Aneil Karia works most of the time.  All the familiar monologues are intact (if sometimes arranged in a different chronology) and in Riz Ahmed we have a fiercely emotional Hamlet who may very well be sliding into madness.

This “Hamlet” is a modern dress interpretation (Ehthan Hawke starred  in another modern version in 2000) and set in London’s South Asian community.  Elsinore in this retelling is not a royal palace but the name of a massive real estate development company founded by Hamlet’s papa.

As the film begins a crew of male friends and family are preparing the magnate’s body for a traditional Hindi cremation.  Hamlet (Ahmed) has been studying abroad and is appalled to learn that not only is his uncle Claudius (Art Malik) taking over the company, but he intends to wed Hamlet’s mother Gertrude (Sheeba Chaddha).

Michael Lesslie’s adapted screenplay puts Hamlet’s precarious mental state front and center…even to the point of reducing the roles of other characters.  This is particularly true in the case of Polonius (Timothy Spall), who in this version is not an amusing pedant but rather a grimly ruthless enforcer for the company. His daughter, the fragile Ophelia (Morfydd Clark, most recently seen as Galadriel in the “Rings of Power” miniseries) and son Laertes (Joe Alwyn) haven’t quite been boiled down to walk-on perfs, but it’s a near thing.

Hindu dancers perform the play-within-the-play

The good news is that director Karia uses the unique setting to good advantage.  For instance, in his encounter with his father’s ghost Hamlet and his father converse in Hindi (with English subtitles). And in a small masterstroke, the famous play-within-a-play ploy which Hamlet uses to expose his uncle’s crimes is now performed by a troupe of Indian dancers whose half-trad, half-Bollywood showcase is one of the film’s highlights.

Ultimately, though, it all boils down to our Hamlet, and Ahmed more than holds his own.  This actor oozes intensity and physical presence (remember his Oscar-nominated turn turn as a deaf drummer in “The Sound of Metal”?) and here he channels it into one of drama’s seminal roles.

| Robert W. Butler

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SHORT TAKES: “Fantasy Life,” “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple”

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on April 3, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Matthew Shear, Amanda Peet

“FANTASY LIFE” My rating: B (At the Glenwood Arts)

91 minutes | MPAA rating: R

With the serio-comedic “Fantasy Life” actor Matthew Shear makes a way-more-than-adequate writing/directing debut…and along with it he gives Amanda Peet what may be the best role of her career.

We first meet law clerk Sam (Shear) on the day he’s fired from his job.  

Sam is a somewhat chubby, bearded, bespectacled thirtysomethibng with a deer-in-the headlights stare.  If you look up the word “schlub” in the dictionary, it’s probably illustrated with his picture.

Anyway the newly unemployed Sam promptly melts down in a massive public panic attack. Visiting his psychiatrist (Judd Hirsch…God, I’ve missed him) and the shrink’s wife/receptionist (Andrea Martin), Sam learns that their son and his wife desperately need a babysitter — a manny — for their three young daughters.

A less ambitious film would amuse us with Mrs. Doubtfire-ish situations involving the male sitter and the fiercely manipulative little girls. Shear has bigger things in mind.

“Fantasy Life” is a couple of things at once.  It’s an insightful study of a troubled marriage…Dianne (Peet) and her husband David (Alessandro Nivola) are well-to-do Manhattanites (there’s family money involved) who look pretty  normal from the outside but are essentially living separate lives.

David isn’t home much since he got a gig performing with a touring musical group (sort of a mid-life crisis deal).

Dianne is a once-promising actress who hasn’t landed a role in a decade and some mornings can barely drag herself out of bed. By assuming many mothering chores the owlish Sam takes some of the pressure off of her.

Except that he finds himself falling for his fragile but often funny employer. Who cares if she’s 20 years  his senior? (Certainly not the men in the audience. This is where the fantasy comes in… there’s terrific comfort in the thought of Peet responding to a bumbling but sincere dweeb.)

One of the marvels of Shear’s screenplay is that it never takes the expected route; instead it is always pirouetting in different directions.  Another is the charity with which it approaches all of the characters…played by a murderer’s row lineup of thespian talent: Peat, Hirsh, Martin, Bob Balaban, Zoysia Mamet, Jessica Harper, Holland Taylor.

But ultimately this is Peet’s movie.  Her depiction of a woman lost in late middle age is  reminiscent of the great roles John Cassettes wrote for his wife, Gena Rowlands. Dianne’s constant battle to hide her anxiety and depression beneath an outward show of hip sardonicism is riveting and not a little heroic. Late in the film she has a breakdown in her therapist’s office that in a more just world would earn her an Oscar nomination.

Also remarkable is Shear’s ability to balance the film’s moments of poignancy and wry humor.  It’s the sort of thing that takes some directors an entire career to nail. He gets it right out of the gate.

Ralph Fiennes, Jack O’Connell

“28 YEARS LATER: THE BONE TEMPLE” My rating: C (Netflix)

119 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Sometimes it’s best to leave well-enough alone.

I was really looking forward to the second installment of “28 Years Later,” but “The Bone Temple” left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

It’s not like I can’t enjoy a good zombie apocalypse.  But “The Bone Temple” is so unrelentingly sadistic that you’ll need a shower afterward.

Basically we have two stories that meet at the end.  In one story, young Spike (Alfie Wiliams), the adolescent protagonist of the first film, becomes a reluctant member of the nomadic religious cult lead by the manipulative Sir Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell, who was so effective as the head bloodsucker in “Sinners”).

The clearly bonkers Sir Jimmy (think Charles Manson) calls the shots for a band of parent-less teens, all clad in filthy running suits and sporting raggedy blond wigs.  Claiming to be the son of Satan, Jimmy has his minions torture unfortunate survivors they encounter…and poor Spike is expected to participate.

The second plot centers on Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), the half-mad proprietor of the Bone Temple, a sprawling graveyard whose towering monuments are constructed of human remains. (Hats off to art director Karansinh Pratapsinh Chanda and crew…the Bone Temple is a visual tour de force.)

Though undeniably eccentric, Kelson (we met him briefly in the first film) still has a scientist’s curiosity, and a good chunk of the film is devoted to his efforts to drug and “civilize” the alpha zombie (Chi Lewis-Parry) who stalked Spike and his father in the first film.

Ralph Fiennes delivers a demonic floor show

Eventually the two plots collide in a moment of sublime lunacy. Kelson agrees to pretend to be Sir Jimmy’s father — yes, the Devil — so as to impress the kids. He does so by slipping an ancient Iron Maiden LP on the turntable and lip-syncing his way through the tune, proving suitably demonic choreography along the way.

The kids are impressed. Hell, I was impressed.

Like the first film, this one was scripted by Alex Garland.  But “Bone Temple” reeks of desperation.  It’s as if Garland was heaving ideas against a big bloody wall hoping some would stick.

Perhaps if Danny Boyle was back as director he could shape this material into something meaningful. But this effort was  helmed by Nia DaCosta, who made a splash last year with “Hedda” but here can’t find a compelling theme save unrelenting cruelty.

| Robert W. Butler

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SHORT TAKES: “Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man,” “Sisu: Road to Revenge,” “Nuremberg”

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 24, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Cillian Murphy, Barry Keoghan

“Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man” My rating: B- (Netflix)

112 minutes | MPAA rating: R

The new stand-alone final episode of “Peaky Blinders” isn’t bad — just unnecessary.

The Brit series, which ran on Netflix from 2013 to 2022, was exemplary television, a crime drama and family saga that occasionally reached Shakespearean heights.  Kind of an episodic “Godfather” with a Birmingham accent.

One wonders if creator Steven Knight’s decision to add a final filmic coda to the story of the outlaw Shelby clan was prompted by the Oscar win (for “Oppenheimer”) by Cillian Murphy, whose brooding presence as the ruthless and tormented Thomas Shelby  was the show’s driving force.

Certainly it wasn’t because Knight had some sort of important story to tell. “Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man” feels like it was thrown together, a movie in search of a reason for being. 

Oh, the atmosphere is as brooding as ever, and Murphy is always watchable. But the whole production seems to have been glued together from a bunch of pieces Knight had lying about.

It’s World War II and the British fascist Beckett (Tim Roth at his most reprehensible) is charged with smuggling into England several million dollars in fake pound notes counterfeited by the Nazis.  The idea is to crash the economy  and bring the German conquest of Britain to a swift conclusion.

To facilitate this scheme Beckett needs the assistance of the Peaky Blinders, the crime syndicate created by Tommy Shelby but now run by his estranged son Duke (Barry Keoghan). 

Duke apparently has no patriotic sensibilities.  But his father Tommy, long retired on his country estate and haunted by the memories of the loved ones he has lost, gets wind of the plot and comes out of retirement to foil it.

That’s all you need to know.  There are several solid action sequences and the production values are top notch, but something feels off.

Mostly it’s the feeling that Tommy’s newfound love of country has been manufactured out of whole cloth.  It’s a convenient but squishy plot device.

Moreover, Knight’s screenplay (the director is Tom Harper) has Tommy doing some pretty reprehensible things.  Like murdering a British soldier on leave because he and his pals are making too much noise in Tommy’s favorite pub. Not exactly the way to prove your nationalistic bona fides.

Along the way we get some wacko diversions, like Rebecca Ferguson as the twin of Tommy’s long-dead gypsy wife.  She periodically goes into trance in which her body is inhabited by the spirit of her dead sister.  No, really.

Jorma Tommila

“SISU: ROAD TO REVENGE” My rating: C+ (Netflix)

89 minutes | MPAA rating: R

“Sisu” was one of 2022’s guilty pleasures.

Alas, the new followup, “Sisu: Road to Revenge” mostly left me feeling guilty.

The original film was a combination of “Saving Private Ryan” and a Road Runner cartoon, with a silent Finnish commando taking out a platoon of goonish Germans in one spectacular action sequence after another.

This sequel once again features Jorma Tommila as Astami, the bearded loner whose survival skills are legendary.  The war is over and Astami (accompanied by his fluffy pooch) squares off against the Soviets who now occupy his old stomping grounds in eastern Finland.

It’s a road movie. Our hero has returned to dismantle the home he once shared with his now-deceased family so that he can rebuild on free Finnish soil.  The action takes place as he drives a flatbed truck loaded with lumber, pursued by same Russian war criminal  (Steven Lang) who murdered his family.

There are some spectacular (and, frankly, ridiculous) stunts with tanks, motorcycles and fighter planes, and a long sequence taking place on a train suggests that writer/director Jamari Hollander is well acquainted with Buster Keaton’s silent classic “The General.” 

Lang’s bad guy oozes menace.  Astami once again endures punishments that approach “Passion of the Christ” levels of torture porn.

But this time around it feels forced and phony — not that the original was realistic, but it at least radiated originality.  “Sisu: Road to Revenge” feels too calculated, too by-the-numbers.

Rami Malick, Russell Crowe

“NUREMBERG” My rating: B (Netflix)

148 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

James Vanderbilt’s “Nuremberg” starts off feeling like a made-for-TV movie with an A-list cast.

But stick with it and you’ll find a historical drama that resonates with uncomfortable lessons still relevant today.

The screenplay by Vanderbilt and Jack El-Hai focuses on the war crime trials that unfolded in Nuremberg, Germany, at the end of the World War II. 

The main focus is on Herman Göring (Russell Crowe), Hitler’s second in command, and an American military psychiatrist, Douglas Kelley (Rami Malek), assigned to befriend and evaluate the unrepentant Nazi before his trial can proceed.

So what we’ve got here are two Oscar winners in a duel of words and ideas.  Göring is pompous, arrogant and defiant, yet still capable of charm.  Kelley finds himself fascinated by his prisoner/patient…so much so that he develops an unhealthy interest in Goring’s wife and daughter.

There’s plenty of star power orbiting around these two.  Michael Shannon plays Robert Jackson, an American jurist prosecuting the case; Richard E. Grant is his British counterpart. John Slattery is the hard-ass officer in charge of the prisoners.  Leo Woodall is the German-speaking interpreter who must assist Göring while not revealing that most members of his Jewish family died in the Holocaust.

“Nuremberg” is most effective in hammering home the idea that the rise of Naziism was not some aberration but rather a sly exploitation of the fears, foible and prejudices that still afflict the human race.

It could happen all over again.  Hell, perhaps it already has.

| Robert W. Butler

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SHORT TAKES: “Sirat,” “War Machine”

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on March 7, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Buno Nunez, Sergi Lopez

“SIRAT” MY RATING: B+(AMC Town Center)

114 minutes | MPAA rating: R

A survival drama that verges on the surreal, Oliver Laxe’s “Sirat” unfolds with a matter-of-factness that lulls us  before pelting us with  one devastating event after another.

It starts out a bit like a documentary.  In the North African desert a crew of scuzzy-looking nomads unload and set up a massive wall of speakers.  Apparently they’re part of a network producing illegal raves.

Before long dozens of cars and busses have pulled up and unloaded hundreds of doped wraiths dancing to the seductive, incessant electronic music.

Sticking out like a sore thumb among these gyrating hipsters is Luis (Sergi Lopez), a pudgy middle-aged Spaniard accompanied by his young son Esteban (Bruno Nunez). Louis has been hitting the rave circuit in a weathered micro-bus in search of his runaway daughter, whom he hopes will be  found at one of these outlawed gatherings.

When the event is raided by military units of the local government (apparently some sort of civil war recently has been waged in the area), Luis and Esteban make a run for it with a group of ravers living out of a converted bus.  The goal is to elude the authorities and, hopefully, make the trek through the desert to the next designated party spot.

What unfolds in Laxe and Santiago Fillol’s screenplay is a slow-burning death trip.  There are moments of grace as Luis and son are more-or-less adopted by these goofy but weirdly compelling wanderers. (They’re played by Stefania Gadda, Joshua Liam Henderson, Richard Bellamy, Toni Javier and Jade Oukid…and each of them has some physical or personality tic that makes them memorable).

But the desert is not a friendly place.  Heat, wind, rough terrain and lack of water make for misery.  Not to mention the land mines left over from the recent conflict.

The film’s title may give a hint as to where Laxe is going with this.  In Muslim eschatology “sirat” is a bridge spanning hell while connecting this world to paradise. The righteous may pass unscathed, but sinners fall to a flaming punishment.

There’s no point in giving away the yarn’s devastating plot developments. Let’s just say that Lopez (he was the chief villain in Guillermo Del Toro’s “Pan’s Labywrinth”) is haunting as a Job-like Everyman being put through one horror after another.

Alan Ritchson

“WAR MACHINE”  My rating: C (Netflix)

106 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Movies don’t get much sillier than “War Machine,” a fascist wet-dream mated to a “War of the Worlds” actioner.

Alan Ritchson, the bulked-up leading man of Netflix’s “Jack Reacher” series, stars as 81, a candidate for the U.S. Army Rangers.

He’s called 81 because in this grueling training participants are expected to use a number rather than their actual names. 

81 is a silent, brooding giant determined to become a Ranger to honor his brother who died in Afghanistan.  He speaks only when spoken to, and often not even then.  But he runs harder, moves faster and lifts more than any of the other candidates.

The first half hour of Patrick Hughes’ film depicts the training, overseen by a couple of brusque NCO’s (Dennis Quaid, Esai Morales).  The episode so reeks of percolating testosterone that I found myself wondering if this was supposed to be a celebration of American macho or a satire of it. (Kinda like “Starship Troopers” in that regard.)

Finally our man and a few finalist candidates go out on their “Death March,” a war-playing exercise in the remote Rockies of Colorado.  Since this is for training only, they haul all the usual equipment save for live ammunition.

Well, wouldn’t you know it…out there in the woods they stumble upon an alien war machine, apparently the vanguard of an invasion of Earth.  This otherworldly bit of merchandise looks suspiciously like a Transformer toy.

Anyway, our guy has to stay alive, get his injured buddies back to safety and save the planet…without ammo for his gun.

Frankly you have to wonder about an alien race that can navigate across the galaxy but crash lands in one of the most remote and unpopulated places in the Lower 48.  And despite all the technology, the war machine is a crappy shot.  Must  have been trained by storm troopers from “Star Wars.”

| Robert W. Butler

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SHORT TAKES: “Predator: Badlands,” “Year 10”

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on February 16, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Elle Fanning

“PREDATOR: BADLANDS” My rating: B- (Hulu)

107 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

Having expanded the “Predator” franchise with “Prey” (set among 17th-century Native Americans) and “Predator: Killer of Killers” (an animated omnibus of yarns about predators visiting various cultures) , director Dan Trachtenberg swings for the outfield wall with “Predator: Badlands.”

Imagine your standard issue buddy movie — think “48 Hours” — as an interspecies dramedy.  

Our Nick Nolte character is Dek, a member of the Yaujta race, a warlike bunch who make “Star Trek’s” Klingons look like Teletubbies. Dek is considered the runt of his predator  clan; to prove his worth he decides to travel to the “death planet” Genna, where even the grass can kill you.  His goal is to be the first to bring back the head of the Kalisk, a fearsome creature that has killed every Yaujta warrior who dared confront it.

The Eddie Murphy character is Thia (Elle Fanning), a humanoid robot who lost her legs in an encounter with the Kalisk.  Thia is chatty, ironic, whimsical — everything the grunting, brusque Dek is not.  But she knows the territory and Dek is smart enough to use Thia as a navigational tool and survivalist encyclopedia. He carries her around like a talkative backpack.

There are plenty of encounters with Genna’s deadly life forms.  Along the way the grumpy Dek and Thia become friends of a sort.  They become a trio when they’re adopted by a vaguely simian creature Thia names Bud.

Trachtenberg and co-writers Patrick Aison and Jim Thomas carve out some new ground here while cross referencing other movies and franchises.  For starters, we’re meant to experience the story from the Predator’s point of view. Usually, of course, the Predator is the bad guy.

But Dek can talk (his voice is provided by Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi; his physical form apparently is all computer-generated).  We can understand him thanks to subtitles.

And then there’s Thia’s origin story.  She was sent to Gemma with dozens of other humanoid robots as a project of the  Weyland-Yutani Corporation, the villlainous entity of the “Alien” franchise.

Actually Fanning gets two roles here…as the goofy Thia and as her ruthless no-nonsense “sister,” Tessa.  The rest of the robots are all played by Cameron Brown, which makes for some head-messing moments when Dek squares off against dozens of enemies, all of whom share the same face.

I found “Predator: Badlands” intermittently amusing and enjoyed the way the yarn expands the whole Predator/Alien mythology. But like just about every action movie, the final third is devoted to a massive fight sequence. I found my interest waning with the repetitive mayhem.

Still, geeks of the franchise will be in Yaujta heaven with this one.

Alexander Anderson

“YEAR 10” My rating: B- (Prime)

96 minutes | No MPAA rating

The Brit “Year 10” is a pretty good example of imagination trumping a nearly non-existent budget.

Writer/director Ben Codger’s post-apocalyptic drama takes place in the woods (not much required in the way of sets) and features a cast of unknowns.

What really makes “Year 10” memorable is that not one word is spoken in the entire film.  Whether the muteness exhibited by the charactrers is the result of some environmental disaster or a survival technique is never explained, but the result is a movie that works entirely on the images it delivers.

Alexander Anderson plays Charger (we only know his name from the credits) who lives in a camoflaged hut with an old man (Ellis Jones) and a young woman (Emma Cole) who may be his lover.

As the film starts the girl is suffering from a wound that might kill her.  Charger goes out scrounging for antibiotics, a dangerous quest since the woods are patrolled by members of a cannibal gang.

This is, of course, essentially the same world depicted by Cormac McCarthy in his Pulitzer-winning novel The Road. Well, if you’re gonna steal, steal from the best.

I found “Year 10” surprisingly involving. I was especially taken with the film’s heavy, the cannibal leader (Luke Massy), a sort of unstoppable malevolent force.

| Robert W. Butler

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SHORT TAKE: “The Survivor,” “Honey Don’t”

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 9, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Ben Foster

“THE SURVIVOR” My rating: B+(HBO Max)

105 minutes | MPAA rating: R

How have I not discovered “The Survivor” before now?

This 2021 feature has so much going for it:  A famous director (Barry Levinson), a gut-wrenching real-life story and a lead performance by Ben Foster that made me rethink just about everything I’ve ever felt about this actor.

Hertzko “Harry” Haft was a Polish Jew who survived a series of Nazi death camps because of his boxing skills.  Haft fought more than 60 bloody bare-knuckle matches for the entertainment of S.S. officers who placed bets on the outcome.  Haft was betting, too…with his life.  The loser of each match was summarily executed.

Relocated to the States after the war Haft did the only thing he was good at.  For a couple of years he was a professional boxer; he even fought Rocky Marciano.

The script (by Justine Juel Kilmer, based on a nonfiction book by Haft’s son, Alan) alternates between Haft’s post-war life (these scenes are in color) and the horrors of his camp experiences (brilliantly captured by cinematographer George Steel in black-and-white images that uncannily evoke newsreels from the period).

“The Survivor” isn’t a sports movie; nor is it exclusively a Holocaust chronicle. It’s a character study of a man whose psyche was shredded by what he saw and by guilt over what he was forced to do.

Ben Foster is simply shattering in the role.  He appears to have lost 50 pounds for the concentration camp flashbacks; in the present (the film follows him through the 1960s)  he has the beefy look of a boxing pro.  In the latter scenes he’s absolutely believable as a man in a soft-stomached middle age.  It’s a transformation right up there with DeNiro’s in “Raging Bull.”

This is  a haunting performance capable of moving the viewer to tears. (Comparisons to Rod Steiger’s great performance in “The Pawnbroker” are apt.) 

I’ve not always been a Foster fan.  Following his solid feature debut (as a suburban Jewish teen in love with a black girl) in Levinson’s “Liberty Heights” he started landing roles as eye-rolling crazies (”3:10 to Yuma,” “30 Days of Night”).  But in recent years he’s shown both range and restraint (“Hell or High Water,” “Leave No Trace”).  How his work in “The Survivor” failed to register with the presenters of the various acting awards is a puzzler.

Vicky Krieps, Ben Foster

Other players include Danny DeVito and John Leguizamo as boxing coaches, Peter Sarsgaard as a sports  journalist, and Vicky Krieps as the Holocaust survivor aid worker who marries Haft.

Sonya Cullingford has a brief but unforgettable scene as Haft’s long-lost first love, with whom he  was reunited just weeks before her death from cancer.

The film’s main flaw is what it leaves out. We see in flashback how Haft escaped from a Nazi work party, but not how he survived on  his own until the end of the war.  That’s a deliberate choice.  According to his son’s book, the fugitive Haft killed three civilians he feared would turn him over to the Germans. The filmmakers obviously feared that showing those murders could turn an audience against their protagonist.

The good news is that this choice doesn’t significantly dilute the film’s power.

Margaret Qualley

“HONEY DON’T” My rating: C+(Netflix)

89 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Since splitting (temporarily, apparently) from his filmmaking sibling Joel, Ethan Coen has created two films centering on lesbian characters.  Margaret Qualley stars in both.

In 2004 ’s “Drive-Away Dolls” Qualley’s character goes on a road trip with luggage that includes a briefcase full of dildos and a severed human head.

In “Honey Don’t” she plays Honey O’Donahue, a lesbian private eye in sun-baked Bakersfield who wears high heels and hosiery with seams down the back.  The entire project (like “…Dolls” it was co-written with Tricia Cooke) plays like a Jim Thompson potboiler directed by a lesbian version of Russ Meyer.

It’s rude, it’s crude, it’s gleefully exploitative.

The cast includes Chris Evans (as the sexually voracious leader of a religious cult), Aubrey Plaza (as a gay cop), Charlie Day (as a horny police detective) and Lera Abova (as a mysterious Vespa-riding assassin).

It’s fun…until it wears out its welcome.

| Robert W. Butler

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SHORT TAKES:  “Secret Mall Apartment,”  “The Rip,” “Smashing Machine”

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 29, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Michael Townsend in a recreation of the secret mall apartment

“SECRET MALL APARTMENT” My rating: B+(Netflix)

92 minutes | No MPAA rating

It starts as a quirky news story, the sort of thing morning talk show hosts chat about between the really depressing news items.

In 2007 it was reported that the operators of the Providence Place Mall in Providence, R.I., had discovered a secret apartment in an unoccupied corner of the building.  For four years several local artists had been using it as a sort of clubhouse, occasionally spending the night in the unheated, unairconditioned space.  They had surreptitiously filled the area with thrift-shop furniture, a TV and a PlayStation.

From that tantalizing revelation filmmaker Jeremy Workman has fashioned a documentary that slowly expands to embrace not just the story of the secret apartment but an entire world view.

“Secret Mall Apartment” begins with the building of the mall in 1999.  Thie project encroached on the old buildings that provided studios and living space for local artists (Providence, home of the Rhode Island School of Design, evidently is rich with bohemian types). 

From the beginning the project rubbed many the wrong way.  The effort at gentrification not only displaced citizens, but once completed it was obvious that Providence Place was aimed at the well-heeled, not the struggling locals. And it was a death knell for area mom-and-pop retail outlets.

Curious about this leviathan of caste-conscious capitalism in their midst, eight artists from the neighborhood began exploring the imposing edifice.  Their leader was Michael Townsend, a red-haired string bean who first discovered the secret space and, ironically, became the only one of the squatters who faced criminal charges once the apartment was discovered. (In fact, Townsend refused to divulge the identities of his fellows; this film is the first time they have publicly acknowledged their participation.)

The key word here is “artist.” From the outset Townsend and his buds viewed their invasion of the mall as a sort of performance art — art that quietly defied the voracious system that had disrupted their community.

Perhaps the most amazing thing about all this is that the participants routinely recorded their activities with cheap video cameras purchased at the mall’s Radio Shack.  We can see them in action, struggling to move heavy furniture through crawl spaces and up steep ladders, even building a cinderblock wall (with mysterious locked door) to keep out intruders.

Of course their activities were secret, and some of their capers (like smuggling several tons of construction materials into the building while avoiding mall security) defy comprehension.  But it’s all here on scratchy videotape.

There’s more.  Townsend emerges as a sort of community-minded artist-as-angel.  Even while hanging out at the mall he created his own art form, using colored rolls of masking tape to make playful murals on the walls of a children’s hospital. In time the kids would make their own murals…which could be removed without damaging the paint job.

Very cool. In fact, Townsend turned his masking tape art  into a small business. His attitude permeates the film…playful, modest, unstoppably creative. Nevertheless, he’s been banned from the mall for life.

But here’s the cherry on the sundae:  “Secret Mall Apartment” played for a full year in the Providence Place Cinema inside the mall.

What goes around…

Ben Affleck, Matt Damon

THE RIP” My rating: C+(Netflix)
113 minutes | MPAA rating: R


“The Rip” is half a good movie…the first half.


The setup of Joe Carnahan’s thriller finds a unit of Miami cops mourning a fellow officer killed in what looks like a gangland hit.  Now they respond to a tip about strange goings on at a local house.


Members of the team (Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Steven Yeun, Teyana Taylor, Catalina Sandino Moreno) find the place occupied by a young Hispanic woman (Sasha Calle) who claims to be preparing the house — her late grandmother’s — for sale.


Except that hidden in a  wall the team finds several million dollars in cash.  Clearly the local cartel has been using the place as a sort of safety deposit box.


And then they notice that all the other homes on the street appear to be unoccupied. Creepy.


Protocol requires that the money be counted on the premises…which means the bunch must spend several hours thumbing through stacks of money, all the while awaiting the arrival of well-armed sicarios.  Why doesn’t the team leader (Damon) call for reinforcements?


This is where “The Rip” goes out of control. The screenplay by Carnahan and Michael McGrale postulates that any one of the team may be a traitor.  In fact, there’s a possibility that someone high in the force’s chain of  command may be pulling the strings. No one can be trusted.


The film’s opening moments are an intriguing melding of world-weariness and growing tension.  With the discovery of the cash you can feel the noose tightening. 


But little by little “The Rip” devolves into a b-the-numbers action flick.  The cast is strong, but they’re at the mercy of the material.

Emily Blunt, Dwayne Johnson

“THE SMASHING MACHINE” My rating: B- (HBO Max)
123 minuts | MPAA rating: R


Dwayne Johnson gives what may be a career-high performance in Benny Safdie’s “The Smashing Machine.”


As real life UFC fighter Mark Kerr, the Rock is practically unrecognizable beneath prosthetics and wig.  He seems to effortlessly slip into the persona of a reasonably decent guy who is undone by frustrated ambitions and addiction.


Johnson’s nuanced, pain-wracked perf is only one surprise in “Smashing Machine.” The other is real life UFC star Ryan Bader, astonishingly good as Kerr’s training partner and probable future opponent Mark Coleman.


And then there’s Emily Blunt.  I’m a huge fan, but here she plays Kerr’s on-again, off-again girlfriend Dawn. Talk about a toxic relationship!!  Any film that can make me hate Emily Blunt has much to answer for. Despite the movie’s strong  points, I was left with a bitter taste in my mouth.


| Robert W. Butler

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SHORT TAKES: “F1: The Movie,”  “All of You”

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on January 26, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Damson Idris, Brad Pitt

“F1: THE MOVIE” My rating: B- (Apple+)

155 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

Joseph Kosinski’s “F1” has just about enough plot to fill a teaspoon.

But it also has one of our most charismatic leading men and a whole shitload of cars roaring around at 200+ m.p.h.

That’s enough for a good time at the movies.  But a nomination for the Best Picture Oscar?  

Anyway, what we’ve got here is Brad Pitt as Sonny Hayes, an over-the-hill driver who, decades after a career-ending accident, lives out of his van going from race to race like a surf bum or struggling bull rider. He’ll drive whatever is put in front of him…the need for speed cannot be quenched.

As “F1” begins Sonny is recruited by an old pal from back in the day. Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) is a former racer now heading up his own Formula One team. But he’s struggling and needs an edge…one he believes Sonny can provide.

This does not sit well with the team’s other driver, the up-and-coming Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris).  He scoffs at the “old man.” They’re oil and water…Joshua is loud and brash while Sonny is self-contained, wryly ironic and largely uncommunicative.

The differences extend even to their training regimen…Joshua takes full advantage of the high-tech toys designed to improve strength and accuracy, while Sonny juggles tennis balls and jogs.

Pitt’s perfect for the role, He doesn’t have to do much emoting; Sonny’s quiet personality radiates intensity.

You can see where this is going.  Little by little the burned-out Sonny will get back in the game; eventually his bend-the-rules style and track smarts impress even the cocky Joshua. Does anyone doubt that by movie’s end they’ll be the perfect team?

A bit of romance is provided by Kerry Condon as Kate, who we’re told is the only woman car designer and engineer in the F1 universe.  Over several years I’ve become a huge Condon fan — she’s a fantastic actress whose unassuming beauty is way more lady-next-door than Hollywood glamourpuss.

But all this human stuff is merely window dressing on the main event. I’m talking about the cars, captured by cinematographer Claudio Miranda with fetishistic appreciation. The film often plants us behind the wheel (you don’t so much get into a Formula One car as put it on) and the race scenes are genuinely pulse-pumping.

I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the behind-the-scenes world of F1 racing depicted here, but it appears that putting together a competitive team is a technological challenge on the level of a NASA-sponsored trip to Mars.

Given its gruel-thin content, “F1’s” 2 and 1/2-hour running time isn’t warranted.  Still, I don’t regret the time spent on watching it.

Imogen Poots, Brett Goldstein

“ALL OF YOU” My rating: B (Apple+)

98 minutes | MPAA rating: R

The Brit romance “All of You” is far from perfect, but it’s got some of the best dialogue heard in ages while depicting a love story that simmers at low heat.

The initial setup is vaguely science fiction-ish.  Simon (“Ted Lasso’s” Brett Goldstein) and Laura (Imogen Poots) have been besties since college…they’re each other’s closest confidant, a dynamic made possible in part because they are not and never have been lovers.

In the opening passages Laura decides to take advantage of a new high-tech service guaranteed to find your perfect soulmate wherever he or she may be in the world.  Laura’s results hit fairly close to home…she’s hooked up with Lukas (Steven Cree) who, as advertised, seems perfect for her.

Marriage and motherhood follow.  But it’s obvious to those of us watching that Simon, who believes in finding romance the old-fashioned way, suffers from a world-class case of unrequited love.

The question is whether Laura and Simon will ever take the plunge.

The screenplay by Goldstein and director William Bridges centers mostly on encounters between Laura and Simon over the years.  Their dialogue is achingly honest and often bleakly hilarious…they’re so much on one another’s wavelengths that they’ll express thoughts that would drive away many a potential lover.

C’mon…if two people were ever made for each other it’s Simon and Laura.

Those with short attention spans will undoubtedly drift off during the couple’s prolonged bouts of give-and-take.  But Goldstein and Poots are so convincing, so perfectly tuned in to the dialogue and each other, that we’re sucked in.  

Maybe heartbreak is inevitable…but you won’t know until you try.

| Robert W. Butler

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