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WHAT I’M WATCHING: “Furious,” “Dance Life”

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on August 31, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Quincy Tyler Bernadine, Emmy Rossum

“FURIOUS” (Hulu)

Female rage is front and center in the aptly named “Furious,” a female revenge tale that is both cathartic and deeply disturbing.

This eight-part Hulu offering owes a lot to 1987’s “Black Widow,” the Debra Winger/Theresa Russell thriller about a female serial killer who marries wealthy men and then sneakily murders them for their fortunes.

This time around the serial killer is the streetwise Catherine (Lola Petticrew), who as a teen was sex trafficked by rich and powerful men (think Epstein) and now employs an arsenal of characters and disguises to seduce and murder the guys who done her wrong.

On  her tail is Alice Black (Emmy Rossum), a one-time NYPD detective now starting her career with the FBI. Alice serves on a  joint task force with Manhattan cop Danny (Scoot McNairy) and FBI agent Nora (Quincy Tyler Bernadine), who has spent her career down in the basement investigating sex crimes.

The two women are damaged goods.  Alice was frequently physically abused by her former policeman boyfriend (Jake Lacy), while Nora is a raging alcoholic, thanks in part to a job that has her watching and cataloging kiddie porn day after day.

Both women carry a tankful of contempt for the men they work with…well. all men, actually.  Danny is the sole exception, being a soulful guy who has long adored Alice from afar.

The plot of “Furious” centers on the authorities’ efforts to identify and capture the killer. But what really gives the show depth are the deep, soul-shredding performances of the three female leads.

Catherine has been driven borderline crazy by what she endured as a young woman. But neither Alice or Nora is your usual cop-show heroine.  Both are deeply troubled and do things that repel us even as we recognize how they got to this state.

Bernadine’s Nora is particularly effective, displaying a biting sense of humor and a “screw you” attitude toward her patronizing bosses. Despite the overall grimness of the show you’ll find yourself laughing at her savage put-downs.

Lola Petticrew

Even the merciless Catherine is fully rounded.  She survives as a caregiver for a wheelchair-bound young man (comic Steve Way, whose muscular dystrophy forces him to emote through an oxygen mask). On some level theirs is a love story.

Even the smaller roles are exquisitely cast and performed: Campbell Scott and Rob Delaney as two of Catherine’s targets; PeterMcRobbie as a dying industrialist addicted to watching old sex videos of himself and his victims, and Hope Davis as his daughter and partner in crime.

The show’s six writers and four directors display a deft touch in juggling moods, and as a study in the lingering fallout of abuse “Furious” s in a class of its own.

“DANCE LIFE” (Prime Video)

Back in the bad old days dancers ran the risk of being called sissies. If you ever thought that depiction accurate, the Aussie documentary series “Dance Life” will pretty much twist your head around.

Luke Cornish’s five-part series follows first-year dance students at Australia’s Brent Academy, an arts school not unlike that depicted in the “Fame” movie and TV series.

What sticks with you from the show — even more than the spectacularly performed and filmed dance segments — is the students’ devotion to their art through pain, injury and emotional turmoil.

The primary teacher is choreographer and dancer Cassie Bartho, a familiar presence on Down Under dance stages, who combines tough love and a surprising vulnerability in guiding her students through a killer curriculum.

The kids’ stories are varied and frequently moving. One girl dances through a congenital spinal injury. Broken toes and bloody feet are everyday occurrences.

Every viewer will develop his or her own favorites. I found myself being particularly drawn to Emily Smith, whose physique is just about the opposite of your typical reed-thin ballerina. While everyone else is in shorts and halter tops, Emily hides her figure in bulky sweatshirts…clearly she has a bad case of body image. What’s surprising then, are her eruptions of energy in hiphop and breaking routines — she’s like a tsunami of determined movement.

And then there’s Archer Rose, a trans dancer whose willowy figure and long blonde hair make him an icon of sexual ambiguity.

The series follows the kids through training, rehearsals and big public performances. By the time it’s all over you don’t just want to watch them…you want to be them.

| Robert W. Butler

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“THE DOG STARS”: Shoot first

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on August 30, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Jacob Elordi, Josh Brolin

“THE DOG STARS” My rating: C+ (In theaters)

118 minutes | MPAA rating: R

More is less.

That’s the inescapable lesson of Ridley Scott’s “The Dog Stars,” an overcooked adaptation of Peter Heller’s end-of-the-world novel.

On the printed page “Dog Stars” is apocalypse on an intimate scale, fueled not by big action moments but by a creeping sense of loss.  But Mark L. Smith’s screenplay pumps things up in an effort to please the lowest common denominator and the results have more in common with your average zombie flick than, say, Cormac McCarthy’s The  Road.

Ten years after a pandemic has wiped out most of humanity, Hig (Jacob Elori) and Bangley (Josh Brolin) eke out a living on an abandoned airstrip in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.

Hig is a pilot who has managed to keep one Cessna running; he periodically flies into what’s left of Denver to collect food and other necessities. He seems to be a decent guy. Hig loves his dog and visits a Mennonite community in a nearby valley to deliver food and medicine.

Bangley, on the other hand, is a long-time survivalist (no doubt he’s ex-military) who thrives on isolation. Early on he uses his long-range rifle to kill a couple of teens who have wandered into his domain.   His approach is to shoot first and question the corpses later.

The plot centers on Hig’s determination to reach Grand Junction after hearing a broadcast from that town’s airport.  Forced down by engine trouble, he stumbles upon a father and daughter  (Guy Pearce, Margaret Qualley) who have been living peacefully deep in the mountains.  The old man is suspicious of this interloper but the woman sees in Hig a last chance for a more-or-less normal existence.

The film’s first half is actually pretty good.  Then things go downhill fast.

Screenwriter Smith suddenly changes gears.  All that melancholy moodiness is tossed out on its ear in favor of two huge action sequences.  In one Hig and his newfound friends must outrace a mounted band called the Scavengers to his newly-repaired airplane.  Meanwhile Bangley undergoes  a siege by a small army of tattooed berserkers.

Jacob Elori, Margaret Qualley

Things get even more ridiculous when Hig and his new comrades set down in Grand Junction to find the place a fiefdom presided over by the bonkers Darlene (Allison Janney in scenery-chewing overdrive), who wears a spotless airline hostess outfit from the 1970s  (love the pillbox hat) and has developed an unconventional diet for her doped-up minions. (Use your imagination.)

At one point we’re supposed to believe that three hand grenades have the destructive power of a small thermonuclear device.

“The Dog Stars” at least looks good, thanks to Erik Messerschmidt’s cinematography  —  though Italy’s Dolomite Mountains don’t really look much like the American Rockies.

Acting honors go to Brolin for his tough-minded, utterly unsentimental Bangley, whose brusque approach to every action provides the film’s only brief flashes of humor. 

| Robert W. Butler

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SHORT TAKES: “Obsession,” “The Long Walk,” “The Devil Wears Prada 2”

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on August 7, 2026| 1 Comment »

India Navarette, Michael Johnston

“OBSESSION” My rating: B (Peacock)

109 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Curry Baker’s “Obsession” (he wrote, directed and edited) has been getting lots of love, and not just from horror geeks.

It deserves it.

The setup is as old as the Midas myth…a wish comes true but brings with it unexpected consequences. The delivery, though, is a slow-burn dose of creepiness featuring a couple of killer performances.

Bear (Michael Johnston, who looks like he could be Daniel Radcliffe’s little bro) has long been infatuated with his co-worker Nikki (India Navarette) but fears scaring her off  if he reveals his feelings. Bear’s pretty unsure of himself…he might still be a virgin.

But one day at a funky gift shop he picks up a novelty item called the One Wish Willow.  According to the label on the box if you take out the stick inside, snap it in two, and make a wish…well, that wish will come true.

So he wishes that Nikki would love him more than anyone else in the world.

Oh-oh.

Baker’s screenplay is a model of careful observation and unexpected eruptions.

Nikki does indeed announce her love for Bear, and they are almost immediately in a passionate romance.  She moves into his house.  She caters to his every whim.

So far, so good.

But in short order her love has turned oppressive. She’s a whimpering mess when not in his presence. She even tries to seal his front door with masking tape to keep him at home. On her day off she stands unmoving in his living room, a sickly smile of hopeful anticipation frozen on her face and a puddle of urine at her feet, until he comes back from work. 

She gets jealous — murderously so.

“Obsession” is creepy as hell.  It’s also weirdly funny.  A desperate Bear calls up the manufacturer of the One Wish Willow only to have the voice on other end (director Baker in a bored/stoned fugue) tell him that he only way to undo his wish is to die.  And Darin Toonder is grimly funny as the gift shop clerk who’s had it up to here with customers bitching about the One Wish Willow.

One generally does not turn to horror for great performances, but Navarette approaches Oscar-level intensity as Nikki, turning on a dime from caring cajoling to screaming threat.  

Be careful what you wish for.

Cooper Hoffmann, David Jonsson

“THE LONG WALK” My rating: B (Hulu)

108 minutes | MPAA rating: R

One might easily dismiss “The Long Walk” as a “Hunger Games”/“Battle Royale”  clone designed as fodder for the YA market. Especially since it was directed by “Hunger Games” veteran Francis Lawrence.

So it comes as a surprise to discover a personality-and-dialogue-driven melodrama that carries an unexpected emotional heft.

Cooper Hoffmann (yes, Philip Seymour Hoffman’s kid…you may recognize him from “Licorice Pizza”) stars as Raymond,  who as the film begins is preparing to participate in The Long Walk.

We learn (in bits and pieces sprinkled throughout the film) that 20 years ago the USA was engaged in a civil war and ever since has suffered through Depression-era hard times.

But each year the citizenry is rallied by a competition in which 50  young volunteers — one young man from each state — set off on a walk.  Special wristwatches measure their speed…if they fall below three miles per hour they run the risk of being shot by the mute and stony-faced soldiers who accompany this parade.  

There is no stopping, no sleeping, no leaving the pavement of the rural highway they are traversing. Eat, drink and defecate while maintaining a brisk pace.  Eventually — after days of nonstop movement through sun and rain— one lone survivor will be crowned the winner.

J.T. Mollner’s screenplay (based on a Stephen King novel) is remarkable in that the characters are developed almost exclusively through dialogue.  This is a walk-and-talk film…literally.  The performances are an intriguing blend of stream-of-consciousness chatter and segments in which the dialogue seems as carefully crafted as that of a stage play or classic ‘50s film.

Raymond is almost immediately befriended by Peter (David Jonsson), a black kid whose garrulous personality makes the unending drudgery of walking a bit less oppressive.  Indeed, the contestants are a regular smorgasbord of American youth — Asian, white, black, Native American. Intellectually they range from standard-issue rednecks to an aspiring author who hopes to turn his experience into a book.

What’s kinda unsettling is the way in which we the audience find ourselves participants in this exercise, sharing the ever-creeping exhaustion and growing desperation of the young men. There’s a kind of purity in the film’s narrow focus, a sort of cinematic minimalism that feels weirdly revelatory.The effect is not unlike that of “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?”

Drawbacks? Well, Mark Hamill’s performance as The Major — the officer in charge of the operation —might seem a caricature, a parody of the military martinet oozing motivational gung-ho.  But the Major is also the key to understanding what the US has become.  Clearly the civil war was not won by the humanists.

Not a happy film, but one that sticks with you long after the lights go out.

Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Stanley Tucci

“THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA 2” My rating: B- (Hulu)

119 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

Do we  really need “The Devil Wears Prada 2”? Especially those of us — meaning me — who  lack the fashionista gene?

So let’s admit that as time killers go, this sequel (directed by David Frankel, who helmed the original) is kinda charming.

Not for the too-familiar plotting or the clothes, but for the people.

I’m talking here mostly about Meryl Streep reprising her role as chilly, arrogant magazine editor Miranda Priestly and Stanley Tucci as her loyal doormat Nigel. (Is he gay? Straight? Sexless?)

In a weird way neither character is complete without the other. It’s a real oddball pairing, but I’d forgotten how terrific these two were together.

Of course Anne Hathaway is back as Andy.  Twenty years ago she was Miranda’s much-abused gofer girl; now she returns as a prize-winning journalist left jobless by media upheaval and hired to give Runway magazine a socially conscious vibe to go with the fashion and fluff.

Andy considered herself a serious journalist, something Miranda and Co. have little use or tolerance for. Humorous situations develop. Not to mention a hostile takeover of the mag.

Returning also is Emily Blunt as Emily, one-time Miranda acolyte now running a high-end boutique.  She’s engaged to a dweeby tech billionaire (Justin Theroux, cast against type and having the time of his life) but is at heart still a scheming witch.  She also gets the best line in Lauren Weisberger and Aline Brosh McKenna’s screenplay: 

“May the bridges I burn light the way.”

Has a character ever been so succinctly limned in just eight words?

Toss into the brew Kenneth Branagh and Lucy Liu and you’ve got a ridiculously attractive murderer’s row.

“Prada 2” isn’t entirely frivolous.  The film strives for relevance by protesting the demise of American journalism and the rise of the misinformed multitudes…well, it’s not so much a protest as a grumpy observation stirred in with the fun and fashion.  

Hey, audiences for this film didn’t come for a civics lesson.

| Robert W. Butler

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SHORT TAKES: “Couture,” “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die”

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on June 26, 2026| 1 Comment »

Angelina Jolie, Lopuie Garrel

“COUTURE” My rating: C+(In theaters)

106 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Four women come to grips with their futures (and mortality) in Alice Winocour’s “Couture,” set in the Paris during Fashion Week.

The film is ambitious, wearing its feminism on its sleeve, but unfocused, with some of the characters developing genuinely involving situations and others merely treading water.

American filmmaker Maxine Walker (Anglina Jolie), who usually specializes in horror, has signed on to direct a short film to open the runway show of a major label. It’s a high-tension job in the best of circumstances, but Maxine has just discovered a health crisis that threatens to upend her life.  

Ada (Anyier Anei) îs a naive 18-year-old refugee from the war in Sudan.  Recruited by video, she soon finds herself both delighted and intimidated by the big city, especially the catty attitudes of the other models with whom she shares an apartment.  She has a short learning curve but has to nail it…otherwise it’s back to a questionable fate in Africa.

Angele (Ella Rumpf) is a makeup artist kept busy zipping from one show top the next.  Her real love, though, is writing. Early on an agent shoots down her manuscript and she now must come up with a new idea.

Finally there’s Garance Marillier as Christine, a young seamstress facing a deadline to finish work on the dress that will open her fashion house’s big show.

Of these four plot threads only Maxine’s is fully worked out.  Faced with the need for an immediate surgery, she goes through all the stages of grief in just a couple of days. . The fact that Jolie is herself a breast cancer survivor gives extra oomph to her heart-wringing performance.

There are a couple of male roles…Vincent Lindon is quietly reassuring as Maxine’s new MD, and Louis Garrel is both sexy and sincere as a co-worker with who she has one last fling before surgery.

The highlight of the film — aside from Jolie’s perf — is it’s depiction of a runway show staged in a forest an nearly ruined by a thunderstorm.

Sam Rockwell (center)

“GOOD LUCK, HAVE FUN, DON’T DIE” My rating: B (Hulu)

124 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Sam Rockwell gets the best opening scene of any movie in ages with “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die,” a mind-bender that’s part apocalyptic sci-fi, part fiendish social satire, and part action epic.

It’s late at night in a Los Angeles diner.  There’s a flash of light outside the window and in walks the Man from the Future” (Rockwell), a bearded ragamuffin wrapped in a transparent raincoat and covered with wires, blinking lights and, it turns out, several bombs.

The Man greets the diners, calling some of them by name, even predicting what they’ll do or say next. He is, he says, from the future.  This is the 117th time he’s appeared at the diner to recruit a half-dozen eaters to go on a mission to destroy the AI that is poised to ruin the world.

So far the Man and those he’s chosen to accompany him (they’re different on every iteration of the mission) have failed miserably…killed and apparently resurrected as time resets.  But the sardonic, wise-cracking Man has to keep at it, learning from each mistake and getting ever closer to destroying the source of the electronic hell that is his future. 

On this night he’ll find just the right combination of subjects to pull it all off. And through a series of clever flashbacks we’ll learn how these folk became qualified for the gig.

Mark and Janet (Michael Pena, Zazie Beetz) are high school teachers terrified that their cellphone-addicted students are just a text away from becoming a sort of zombie mob.

Ingrid (Haley Lu Richardson) is a bad-tempered goth girl who works as a fairy princess for little girls’ birthday parties. She’s allergic to most kinds of electronic gizmos…being too near a cell phone gives her a nosebleed.

Susan (Juno Temple)  lost her teenage son to  a school shooter.  Recently she paid to have him cloned…though this new version of him is more robotic than human.

Together they will battle mysterious assassins, armies of hypnotized teenagers — even a giant creature that is part horse and part cat.  But will they be able to stop the inexorable creep of the electronic “other”?

“Good Luck…” — written by Matthew Robinson and directed by Gore Verbinski — is by turns funny and a bit frightening. Granted, it cannot keep up the high level of comedy/wonder that Rockwell establishes in the opening moments, but even in the slow moments it’s fun to watch.

And when it’s all over it leaves us satisfied, yet cautious.  We’re led to believe that our heroes have stymied AI…but perhaps even their presumed victory has been staged as part of vast virtual reality experiment. Who knows?

| Robert W. Butler

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WHAT I’M WATCHING: “Spider-Noir,” “Star City,” “Criminal Record”

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

Nicolas Cage

“SPIDER-NOIR” (Prime Video)

“Spider-Noir” is such a promising variation on the usual superhero tropes that I probably stuck with it longer than it merits.

Oren Uziel’s 8-part miniseries gives us Nicolas Cage as Ben Reilly, a down-on-his-luck private eye in Depression-era NYC who is also a web-slinging crime fighter.  

Or was.  Ben burned out and hasn’t done the Spidey-thing for several years.  Maybe it has to do with the fact that his costume consists of a  Sam Spade-ish trench coat and a Spy-vs-Spy fedora…not exactly the ideal duds for aerial acrobatics.

Anyway, Ben is a crotchety font of sardonic bad vibes, full of amusing too-weary-to-be-a-tough-guy banter. I loved getting to know him.

But the sad truth is that “Spider-Noir” ran out of compelling  ideas after the first two or three episodes.  I lost interest.

The plot?  Well, turns out the Big Apple is suddenly inundated with crooks flashing all sort of superpowers. Their origin story — and Ben’s — leads back to German experiments on Allied POWs during the Great War.

Ben must return to his Spider persona to battle this army of mutants, which is led by crime boss Silvermane (Brendan Gleeson, a good actor stuck here with comic book villainy).  There’s a love interest in the form of nightclub singer Cat Hardy (Li Jun Li), but that fizzles in the absence of any erotic chemistry between Cage and Li.

There are a couple of nice supporting perfs by Jack Huston as a mutant undergoing a crisis of conscience, and from Karen Rodriguez as Ben’s long-suffering Girl Friday.

The real heroes here are production designer Warren Alan Young and cinematographers Darran Tiernan and Peter Deming, who give the series a ravishing look that reminds of “Ripley.”  Prime Video has done something quite wonderful by allowing viewers to choose between color and black-and-white versions of the show.  I much prefer the shadowy, atmospheric B&W, which perfectly captures the atmosphere of film noir classics from Hollywood’s Golden Age.

Anna Maxwell-Harris

“STAR CITY”  (Apple+)

For several seasons “For All Mankind” has given us an alternative history of the U.S. space program, beginning with the early Mercury missions and moving on to the moon landings.  

But whereas in real life NASA reined in its explorations for nearly nearly 40 years, in this version we race on to establish bases on the moon, on Mars, and on asteroids being mined for rare minerals needed back on Earth.

The series appears to be scrupulously scientific in its approach. What makes it really interesting, though, are the ways we carry our human foibles with us to the stars.  Science advances.  Human nature…not so much.

One of more disturbing aspects of “For All Mankind” is its notion that the Soviet Union, far from breaking up, became more controlling than ever.

This notion is taken to the limit in “Star City,” a companion piece that follows the space race from the Russian POV.

Star City is the newly-built, top-secret complex where the Soviet space program does its work.

Rhys Ifans stars as the Chief Designer, determined to expand the USSR’s grasp of the cosmos even when he runs afoul of a stifling party apparatus. His main nemesis is a uniformed security official (Anna Maxwell-Harris) whose dedication to the Party is such that she will kill even a famous cosmonaut who runs afoul of the rules. Not even national heroes are safe.

“Star City” is a vast canvas that pits scientific outreach against the controlling interests of a police state.  We’re talking about hidden microphones in every apartment, neighbors who inform on neighbors, contraband records of American pop groups that can get you permanently exiled to a Siberian work camp.

Despite this downer premise, the series gives us a whole slew of interesting characters, many of whom we end rooting for despite their country’s soul-sucking repression.

Peter Capaldi

“CRIMINAL RECORD” (Apple+)

Peter Capaldi first hit the radar of cineastes as the goofy/gangly  sidekick in Bill Forstythe’s “Local  Hero” (1983) and over the last 50 years has racked up numerous film and TV appearances, including a 43-episode  stint as Dr. Who. 

A few years back his career shifted from charming to chilling…he was a prison inmate with possible supernatural abilities in 2022’s “The Devil’s Hour,” and puts his gray hair and cadaverous  features to good use in “Criminal Record,” playing a Brit police detective who may be as evil and conniving as the killers he goes after. (Nowadays he reminds me of John Carradine’s Dracula…a role he really ought to tackle.)

Cush Jumbo (“The Good Wife,” “The Good Fight”) stars as June Lenker, a cop who stumbles across evidence suggesting that a man doing life in prison for murder is in fact innocent. The cop who put together the case is Daniel Hegarty (Capaldi), an old wolf on the force (meaning possibly racist and misogynist) who isn’t  happy with this young woman questioning his arrest record.

Circumstances force June and Hegarty to work together…and she can never be sure that he isn’t planting little mines to explode in  her lap.

Paul Rutman’s series covers two seasons (in the second our heroes take on a right-wing conspirators who plan to use stolen military detonators to blow up London landmarks), but the scripts also find time to delve into the characters’ personal issues.  Hegarty has a twentysometing daughter with a heroin  habit, while June finds her devotion to the job taking a toll with her live-in boyfriend and teenage son from a failed marriage.

Jumbo makes for an intriguing protagonist (she has just enough foibles to keep her from being a goody-goody) and Capaldi keeps us wondering about where his loyalties lie.

| Robert W. Butler

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SHORT TAKES: “A History of Sound,” “Marty, Life is Short”

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 22, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Josh O’Connor, PaulMescal

“THE HISTORY OF SOUND” My rating:  B+ (Hulu)

128 minutes | MPAA rating: R

A terrific 2025 release that slipped past my radar, “The History of Sound” offers a love story that resonates on a whole bunch of levels.

Adapted by Ben Shattuck from his short story and directed by Oliver Herrmanus (”Beauty,” “Living”), the film stars Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor  as young men who spend the fall of 1920 traipsing around rural Maine with a primitive machine to record on wax cylinders the songs of the common folk.

That the young men are also engaged in a love affair is enough to earn “The History of Sound” the label of “gay movie,” but it is so much more than that.

The yarn unfolds from the perspective of Mescal’s Lionel, a Kentucky farm boy whose singing voice earns him a slot at the prestigious Boston Conservatory.  There he meets aspiring composer David (O’Connor), who is as urbane and charming as Lionel is shy and unsophisticated.

The two begin a relationship interrupted by David’s enlistment in the Army to fight in France. Upon his return David gets a university gig and invites his friend to accompany him on a three-month wander through fields and woods, recording the music made by the locals.

“The History of Sound” echoes a couple of movies: “Soundcatcher” and “Brokeback Mountain.”  If you’re going claim antecedents, those are winners.  Toss in atmospheric and narrative touches reminiscent of “Train Dreams” and you’ve got a low-keyed heartbreaker.

The screenplay follows Lionel’s life after David. He studies and teaches abroad. He has relationships with both men and women. But always gnawing beneath his seemingly imperturbable surface is a sense of loss.  For David has apparently dropped off the map.

Late in the film Chris Cooper appears as the elderly Lionel, a successful musician and academician who has grown gray resigned to a solitary life.  No one has ever touched him the way David did. No one ever will.

“The History of Sound” is a quietly beautiful experience, filled with longing, loss and a reverence for the ways in which music works upon the soul.  Technical aspects are first rate, from Alexander Dynan’s rich cinematography (it’s never show-off, but always feels right) and the musical soundtrack crammed with sorrowful folk ballads and plaintive fiddle playing.

The acting…well, as if I didn’t already love Paul Mescal to pieces, he here so fully inhabits Lionel that we can almost hear his thoughts beneath that respectful reticence. He’s perfectly matched by O’Connor as a man whose inner life is so carefully guarded that it becomes an unbearable weight.

Martin Short, Nancy Dolman

“MARTY, LIFE IS SHORT” My rating: B (Netflix)

99 minutes | No MPAA rating

Martin Short is one of the funniest men on the planet.

Which doesn’t mean he hasn’t endured some pretty hard knocks.

Lawrence Kasdan’s “Marty, Life is Short” is a cinematic tribute from one of Short’s good friends. Actually a lot of Short’s good friends.

Few people, in fact, are so beloved by so many heavy hitters.  Among the talking heads who testify to Short’s comedy genius and personal warmth are Steve Martin, John Mulaney, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, the late Catherine O’Hara, Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg.

The film of course features a ton of clips from Short’s career (I could endlessly watch him as geeky Ed Grimley or the pompously uninformed Jiminy Glick), but there are also tons of home movies, many shot during Short’s legendary party weekends.

And the doc also serves as a kind of love story, chronicling Short’s marriage to Nancy Dolman, a fellow actor and comic who appears to have been his ideal spouse.  If Short had given up comedy after her death in 2010 no one would have blamed him.  Instead he once again demonstrated the life-affirming resilience that has gotten him through career bumps and personal tragedy.

| Robert W. Butler

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SHORT TAKES: “Apex,” “Crime 101”

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on May 6, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Taron Egerton, ChalizeTheron

“APEX” My rating: B- (Netflix)

95 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Almost as diverting as it is unnecessary, “Apex” gives us Charlize Theron in yet another action-heroine role, this time battling a psycho killer in one of Australia’s mind-boggling national parks.

Jeremy Robbins’ screenplay borrows heavily from the Meryl Streep survival flick “The River Wild” while referencing ideas from the various filmic incarnations of the 1924 novel The Most Dangerous Game.

In the vertigo-inducing intro Sasha (Theron) and her squeeze Tommy (Eric Bana) are scaling a terrifying cliff face towering over a Norwegian fiord.  She wants to forge ahead; he advises caution.  Disaster ensues.

Months later Sasha shows up in a remote Aussie wilderness; apparently she’s trying to escape her demons by kayaking solo down a rapids-heavy river.  Except she has drawn the attention of Ben (Taron Egerton), a local  whose chatty demeanor masks demons of his own. 

What ensues is a life-and-death chase through some of the most spectacular scenery ever captured on film. Cinematographer Lawrence Sher was obviously inspired by the landscape of New South Wales’ Blue Mountains, where the shoot took place.

Theron is her usual capable self.  But Egerton is genuinely disturbing.  His Ben is a font of smarmy friendliness with a core of cold-blooded malevolence.  In retrospect it’s obvious that his turn last year in in the mini-series “Smoke” was a sort of dry run for the two-faced character he plays here.

Baltasar Kormakur’s direction is taunt and creepy, slowing sowing seeds of premonition that bloom into outright panic. Pulse-pounding stuff.

Chris Hemsworth

“CRIME 101” My rating: C+ (Netflix)

140 minutes | MPAA rating: R

The buzz on Bart Layton’s “Crime 101” was that of a crime drama in the same league as Michael Mann’s “Heat.”

Well, the films have a lot in common.  Both are stories of cops and robbers in L.A.  Both have a whole slew of characters played by an A-list roster of talent. Both aspire to epic status.

But Layton is no Michael Mann.  “Crime 101” is an OK ride, but it never gets close to the heights of “Heat.”

Chris Hemsworth is Davis, whose specialty is robbing jewelry stores and couriers carrying diamonds and other valuable stuff. He’s a real pro who plans carefully and prides himself on never physically harming his victims.

He’s also socially backwards, a guy who tries so hard to remain anonymous that he has abandoned his personality in the process.  In other words, he’s a lonely S.O.B.

His M.O. has attracted the attention of LAPD detective Lou (Mark Ruffalo), a vaguely seedy fiftysomething.  With no personal life to speak of, Lou dedicates his existence to identifying the man behind a series of jewel heists that invariably occur along the 101, the superhighway that bisects the city.

The plot is set in motion by a rift between Davis and Money (Nick Nolte) the aging crook who finances his capers. They break up their partnership, but Davis isn’t aware that Money plans on going ahead with their last planned job, taking on a blond psycho with violent tendencies (Barry Keoghan).

And then there’s the high-end insurance company agent (Halle Berry) whose insider knowledge of the rich and famous make her a font of useful info for a criminal mind.

Toss into the mix brief appearances by Jennifer Jason Leigh and Tate Donovan and you’ve got plenty of acting talent.  But the results are just so-so.

| Robert W. Butler

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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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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 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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