"The Life of Chuck"

  ☆☆☆½ 

It seems so long ago, but it wasn't, that TV commercials used to be slick affairs with significant budget, little 30-second movies unto themselves. They could make us cry. Back when we used to care enough to send the very best or to reach out and touch someone, commericals about parents and children — or, especially, grandparents and children — were enough to make grown people teary.

Here we are in the ad-free-tier 21st century, when commercials tell us we smell or we need pharmaceutical intervention for diseases we never imagined we could have. Trying to make us cry with sappy sentimentalism is no longer the purview of advertisers.

Leave it, then, to Stephen King. Yes, the conjurer of nightmares is an old softie at heart (something, to be fair, we've known at least since Stand By Me), and he is the master manipulator behind The Life of Chuck, which began as a novella-length short story and now is a movie from the man who directed Doctor Sleep.

I wasn't a fan of Doctor Sleep. which struck me as dull and reverential. The Life of Chuck is reverential, though it's never dull, but its sentimentality has about as much depth as those old commercials. It involves parents and children — and, especially, grandparents and children — and at times it is enough to make grown people teary.

Yet it earns those tears about as fairly as the ads did. It takes a hard heart to watch (this will seem like a spoiler, but isn't) a dying person wish for more life, to watch his family cry for him, and not feel something.

The Life of Chuck is about a dying man whose story is told roughly backward, from the actual moment of his death through to his youth. It's got an interesting structure, and even though I knew the basic contours of the plot (as most people likely will) going in, the first third of the movie was incongruous and puzzling enough to draw my attention. Chiewetel Ejiofor and Karen Gillen star in the first third, playing engaging but weirdly anonymous who are living through some odd sort of apocalypse in which the strange presence of a man named Chuck plays a vital role.

The second third tells us more about Chuck (mostly played by Tom Hiddleston, also weirdly anonymous), and the third third tells us about Chuck as a youngster, when he learned to dance — a fact that makes the second third much more interesting in retrospect.

It's a curious and almost-effective structure, with genuine pathos in the second third that is largely undone by a final act that — despite the animated presence of Mark Hamill — is unexpectedly anodyne and inert. The last couple of shots should wrap everything up, but don't; and the movie, which already feels long, seems to be truncated.

None of which is to imply that The Life of Chuck is bad or not recommended. It's worth seeing, but only just, and only by those who don't easily get toothaches from sweet things. It's very sweet. Very, very sweet. So sweet, it might make you cry just a little ... and maybe want to brush your teeth after.

Viewed June 19, 2025 – AMC Topanga 12

2015

"Sinners": A Second (Third and Fourth) Look

The first time I saw Sinners, I was dazzled and numbed by its virtuosity, the bold and brazen but respectful ways it borrows from other disparate films — most notably The Color Purple and From Dusk Til Dawn, two movies rarely mentioned together — but applies a sensibility so unexpected that it becomes something astonishing.

Right off the bat, it was clear Sinners was the kind of film people will still be watching and talking about and studying decades from now. It left me feeling a way I almost never feel at the movies: That I had seen something new.

I saw Sinners again in 70-millimeter IMAX. Writer-director Ryan Coogler, one of the few people Hollywood is wise to let do anything he wants from now on, has spoken extensively about shooting in 15-perforation IMAX. The experience didn't disappoint — except that the IMAX moments were so visually stunning, so impressively immersive, that even though the rest of the film didn't suffer, the IMAX scenes left me craving more of them. I was even more viscerally dazzled than the first time.

Then, I saw it again, projected digitally in a more-or-less standard format, and while the cinematic experience might not have been overpowering, the story came even more into focus.

Then I saw it one more time projected in 70-millimeter film (see above), a format so visually rich and tactile that it made me regret not having appreciated the nature of film growing up as a movie fan.

Each of the experiences has been unique and memorable, but at the core, of course, is Ryan Coogler's movie, and with every viewing Sinners becomes deeper and more rewarding. One of the many beauties of Sinners — which I have no hesitation saying is the best film of the year, because it's the best film I've seen this decade — is that it works so well as a casual moviegoing experience. The movie begins as an exquisitely crafted period drama (following a scene that jolts with a taste of the horrors to come), featuring characters that can't help but hold your attention.

Then, almost exactly midway through, Sinners becomes something else: a movie about vampires. It's not entirely fair to call it a horror film, though it becomes both nerve-wracking and grotesquely violent. Then again, life for its central characters was nerve-wracking and grotesquely violent — harsh truths offset by the joyful noise of blues music.

Still, none of that explains why Sinners is a movie I've gone back over and over to see. I don't watch a lot of horror films intentionally, and I generally eschew violence. Why would a violent movie about vampires leave me mesmerized?

The answer, I think, comes in the most unexpected place: A mid-credits scene. These scenes, popularized by Marvel movies, are usually gimmicky and exist as little comedic flourishes or, worse, as advance trailers for upcoming films. The decision to place the mid-credits scene in Sinners is clearly a deliberate one, but one of the only mistakes I think Coogler has made with this incredible film. The problem is that every single time I've seen Sinners, at least a third of the audience has walked out of the cinema when the scene begins.

And the scene is a stunner. In it, an older version of Sammie, the blues musician played by Miles Caton, remembers the significance of the night that forms the core of the movie, a night in which an entire community falls prey to a pack of vampires. Sammie is one of the only survivors. Sinners, it turns out, has really been his story.

Though twins Smoke and Stack, both played by a stunning Michael B. Jordan, are ostensibly the main characters, it turns out every bit of Sinners revolves around Sammie, from the spoken prologue to all three of the film's final shots. He's key to the first and last shots in the main narrative, to the final shot of the mid-credits scene and, most intriguingly, to the short "stinger" that ends the film — a brief scene of Sammie playing the guitar by himself that holds tantalizing possible meanings.

Every element of Sinners seems to exist at multiple levels simultaneously. The main narrative can be understood upon first viewing, but takes on a different meaning entirely once you've seen that mid-credits scene — the movie is an elegy, a remembrance and appreciation of a moment in time that can never happen again. It also sets up the important theme of community that runs throughout the film, and of the blues music that is vital to the community. There's also an ominous moment that turns out to be hugely important involving the Ku Klux Klan.

Later, as the film introduces its primary antagonist, the vampire leader Remmick (played with charm, depth and even pathos by Jack O'Connell), the mood turns to bloodletting and vampirism. Yet all of that careful character work and scene setting is not merely a setup — it is vital to understanding what Remmick wants and needs, what he's preying on. Yet, if the meaning eludes you, Sinners still works perfectly. This is a movie that never insists on being "understood," but provides enormous depth to those who want to look beneath the surface.

Yes, the White, Irish Remmick is out to steal from Black culture. But the movie goes far, far further than that, and Coogler takes pains to present Remmick almost as a victim of circumstance as much as a demanding predator. Community is as important to Remmick as it is to the residents of Clarksdale, Mississippi, and as the sun sets and Remmick rises to power, Coogler makes it devastatingly clear how appealing and seductive the community he depicts is — not just to Remmick but to us; Clarksdale may be poor, but it's uncommonly idyllic.

Then there are the twins themselves — Smoke and Stack, each one complimenting each other. They can't exist on their own, they are as much a "hive mind" as the vampires themselves. They've just returned from Chicago, where they have proven to be violent predators and terrors; perhaps they really did bring the devil to Clarksdale, or they're just getting what they deserve. But no one is easily defined in Sinners, as the title suggests, everyone has some blame. It's just that Coogler makes them so damned appealing.

Added to all of this is Sammie, whose presence is explained by the mysterious prologue, but whose role in the story gets deeper with every viewing, as does that KKK subplot. Both factor into the ending in ways that seem merely to serve the plot at first —but with every viewing, it becomes clear that both elements are far more integral to the story than they may have seemed. Remmick offers warnings about both — and though Sammie is far from a malevolent force, that truly final shot of the film, the one that plays after the credits roll, indicates that there is the slightest possibility Sammie knows more, or serves an even deeper function, than he seems.

I'll finish with the dime-store film-school analysis now, and go back to the way the movie, despite its violent nature and its gruesome action sequences, plays so beautifully on the emotions. Like a piece of blues music, it never denies its baser instincts, but it also knows how to roll them into something that captures the heart.

It's that mid-credits scene that is the real key to everything I've grown to love about Sinners. It's both the first scene Coogler shot, and the one he says is the key to understanding the movie. He's right. Sinners can be enjoyed without it, but not truly appreciated. Sinners, for all its horror-movie trappings, turns out to be an exquisite, profound meditation on loss, on regret, and on the all-too-human failure not to see and understand the beauty that is right in front of our eyes until it's far too late.

That final scene, in which blues legend Buddy Guy takes on the role of Sammie for a few brief minutes, takes an already great movie and raises it to dizzying heights. It moves Sinners from the ranks of the simply great into the realm of the all-time classics.

If you haven't seen it, do. And if you've already seen it, see it again. And, dare I suggest, again.

"Bob Trevino Likes It"

  ☆☆☆☆½ 

A few years ago, as streaming movies became ubiquitous after the pandemic and movie theaters began suffering in ways they haven't suffered since the mid-1960s, I made a decision not to review movies I hadn't seen in the cinema. I enjoy staying home and watching a movie as much as anyone else, but I've also developed a strong belief that there's something fundamentally different about watching a film for the first time on the big screen and watching it at home.

I'm breaking my rule.

Ten or 15 years ago, a movie like Bob Trevino Likes It would have been pretty easy to find in theaters, particularly in a city like Los Angeles, where I live. If Bob Trevino Likes It actually saw the light of a single movie screen, I'm not aware of it. That speaks volumes about the state of the industry, because Bob Trevino Likes It is a remarkable film, a movie so charming and likable and ultimately so overwhelmingly moving that it doesn't just deserve to find a bigger audience — it has to find a bigger audience.

You need to see this movie.

It begins inauspiciously enough. For twenty minutes or so, it seems like it might be nothing more than an indie cringe comedy about a 25-year-old woman who has trouble finding her place in the world, who gets dumped and makes her psychologist cry and has a terrible father and a life that seems to be going nowhere. An early scene between this woman — whose name is Lily Trevino and who is played by Barbie Ferreira in one of the most endearing performances of the year or, more likely, the decade — her father Bob (French Stewart) and a bemused single 60-year-old woman, will make you think you know the direction this movie is going.

You don't.

It's best not to say anything more, except that Lily Trevino crosses paths with another man named Bob Trevino, played by John Leguizamo, and things begin to change for both of them.

Watch closely and you'll see some careful foreshadowing about what the unexpected things that happen in the movie's final act, but the beauty of Bob Trevino Likes It is that it's all unexpected. In many ways it reminds me of The Station Agent one of the great movies of the first decade of the 21st century, in that it is about people who discover that they aren't whole. They've gotten so used to thinking they are that when they find someone else who isn't whole they are surprised because it's like looking in the mirror and being sad about it.

Leguizamo, Ferreira and, in a tricky and almost thankless role, Rachel Bay Jones. As much as the whole cast stunned me, Jones left the biggest impression, because her character — the wife of Leguizamo's Bob Trevino — cannot find ways to say what she thinks and feels and wants. I read a couple of reviews that criticized Jones for her performance, but I thought it was the film's secret weapon, especially when ...

Never mind. Don't worry about what will or won't happen in Bob Trevino Likes It. And be prepared, because it's not a perfect movie. Some bits never quite match up, some storylines feel frustratingly vague, and yet its minor flaws make it imperfectly wonderful. Just like the two people at its center.

If you're still not sure, just try it. Trust me. Really. I'm so confident, I promise to give you your money back if you don't like it. I don't think there's a chance I'd need to pay out.

Viewed May 31, 2025 — Amazon Prime

"The Amateur"

   ☆☆ 

I have a confession. I saw a movie called The Amateur nearly a month ago. I also saw a movie called The Amateur in 1982. Both are based on the same novel. I remember the 1982 film, which I saw one time in a movie theater, about as well as I remember the 2025 film.

I meant to write this review the day I saw the film, then I got busy, and then I more or less forgot I had even seen it.

The Amateur is an entirely adequate action-thriller about a quiet CIA data analyst who trains to become a ruthless killer in order to avenge the murder of his wife at the hands of international terrorists. That is the kind of summary you would see if you found this movie on Hulu, where it might already be playing for free:

A quiet CIA data analyst (Rami Malek) trains to become a ruthless killer in order to avenge the murder of his wife at the hands of international terrorists.

Everything that you expect would happen in a movie with that summary happens in The Amateur. It is not a bad movie in the sense that it is not incompetently made or poorly acted, though in the case of Laurence Fishburne it is, at least, apathetically acted. It has good scenery and made me want to go to Paris, and it has some strong visual effects. It has one of those scores you can hear in your head right now because you hear it every time you turn on a CBS TV series.

It's about two hours long, it looks like a movie, it feels like a movie, and yet, it makes absolutely no impact. When it's over, the first thought is, "Should we go home or get something to eat?"

The Amateur is made for streaming. It's a wonder it got a theatrical release because it is precisely the kind of movie you'd watch on a Sunday morning when you have to iron the clothes or mop the floors or cut your nails and there is nothing else that looks interesting. It's a good movie to nap to, or a good movie to exercise to, maybe, and when it's over the "UP NEXT" icon will come on and for once you won't feel irritated to see it, because when The Amateur is done you will probably want to watch something next — something maybe a little better. Or not. That's life in the streaming age, filled with movies like this, that don't see to have any purpose other than to help you pass the time.

Viewed May 3, 2025 — AMC Universal 16

1645

"Sinners"

  ☆☆☆☆☆ 

There's an exhilarating rush that comes from watching Sinners and recognizing, in real time, that you're experiencing a movie that people will probably still be watching, talking about, analyzing and, most importantly, enjoying many decades from now. It's akin to the experience of watching Alien, The Exorcist or — and, yes, I think it's a fair comparison — Star Wars back in the 1970s. When you watch Sinners, it's clear you're watching something special.

Ryan Coogler's movie is deeply influenced by other films, which is hardly a criticism. Just as Alien was influenced by 1950s B movies and Star Wars was influenced by Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, it's clear that Coogler has a lot of admiration for some wildly disparate films. Most notably, Steven Spielberg's 1985 The Color Purple and Robert Rodriguez's 1996 From Dusk Till Dawn come to mind, though Sinners is a movie steeped in film history, in American history, in African history, and in global myths and legends. It's easy to draw parallels, but in the end all the individual parts add up to something refreshingly, thrillingly new.

Constructed with remarkable care, Sinners takes its time introducing its big, sprawling cast of characters, and establishing the histories of its two leads: brothers Smoke and Stack, both played by Michael B. Jordan so convincingly and matter-of-factly it's easy to forget this is the same actor appearing with the aid of sophisticated visual effects.

The less you know about the story going in, the better, though it's almost impossible not to be aware that this is a vampire movie. Sinners tells its story in such an absorbing way that it's easy to forget the quiet, rambling drama will turn into something else.

Along the way, it becomes something else yet again, in a stunning and impeccably realized scene that involves music, dance, history and grander themes of cultural assimilation that might feel indulgent and even out of place in a film made with less skill.

At every turn, Sinners surprises by becoming something it didn't seem at first to be. With the help of a remarkable cast that shines with every role — though none quite as brightly as Wunmi Mosaku, whose Annie is the magnificent (and unexpected) emotional core of the film — Sinners is a bold, unique and, fair warning, bloody and violent film with astonishing depth. Then, in its final moments, it becomes something else yet again, with a sequence that is presented as a "post-credit scene," but brings an entirely new kind of gravity and meaning to everything that's come before it.

We live in an age of exhausted filmmaking ennui, when everything has begun to look and feel depressingly the same. Now along comes Sinners to shock the system — which is does brilliantly. Let's hope the system responds.

Viewed April 25, 2025 — AMC Burbank 6

1900

"Drop"

 ☆☆☆½ 

Has there been a worse start to a year of movies than 2025? It's been a depressing year for anyone who likes movies but dislikes "content," which means I guess it's been a pretty good year if you want to spend your money going to see reheated remakes, retreads and CG-laden brand extensions. Searching for something with more substance? This has been an awful few months to do it.

Given that lousy state of affairs, it's easy to believe Drop feels as good and as exciting as it is because there are too few movies like it. Three decades ago, movies like Drop were a dime a dozen, now they're worth their weight in gold if only because of their scarcity.

But Drop isn't just good relatively — it's an uncommonly satisfying thriller, the kind of movie that makes you glad movies exist, not because of its artistic merits or its literary ambitions or its virtuosity, but because it really has none of those things. Drop just wants to entertain you, and it does that unusually well.

After seeing Drop, my head filled with questions, ranging from the general, non-spoiler kind (do people really play the "game" at the core of this movie?) to the incredibly specific, spoiler-filled kind, which I wouldn't dream of repeating here. But there are a lot of questions, some of which, it turns out, tear huge holes right through the story's plot.

And I don't care.

Drop does exactly what it sets out to do: Get us gripping the arm of our seat, or the arm next to us, and watching scenes through gritted teeth and half-closed eyes that can't quite take the suspense. And there's a lot of suspense. Despite what the movie's marketing wants you to believe, Drop isn't up there with Hitchcock, but it's at least up there with Stanley Donen, who made Charade.

The director here is Christopher Landon, whose other movies I haven't seen. In Drop, he and screenwriters Jillian Jacob and Chris Roach have created a crackling thriller that takes place almost entirely in one location — a swanky Chicago restaurant atop a high rise where single mom Violet (Meghann Fahy) has a first date with photographer Henry (Brendan Sklenar) that goes very, very wrong. Violet is targeted by what appears to be a prank — her phone is pummeled with messages urging her to play a game that seems suspiciously contrived. No matter. In short order, it's clear she's been targeted by someone very, very bad with even worse intentions.

It's a cat-and-mouse game caught inside a single-set location, all wound so tightly that there is barely time to breathe, much less question what's happening on screen. Even the preposterously overblown finale can't undo what's come before, in part because Fahy and Sklenar perform cinematic magic by getting us to believe in these characters. They're more than just pretty faces.

Whether the ultimate reveal of Drop is worth the wait is probably a bit suspect, but even there the movie doesn't pause long enough to let us overthink it. It's all wound tight, runs flawlessly, and entertains grandly. And after a movie year that has been this bad, any film that can do all those things is worth the price of admission. Drop most certainly is.

April 13, 2025 — AMC Topanga

1535

"Anora" and "I'm Still Here"

 ☆☆☆☆½ 

A bit of a catch-up here — so just a couple of capsule reviews of Best Picture nominees as, after what feels like too long, I get back in the habit of writing the blog.

Anora is the movie Pretty Woman could have been, the version of that allegedly "Cinderella"-like fairy tale that, in the Disney version, ended with laughter and tears of joy as formerly poor prostitute Julia Roberts was whisked away by her wealthy Prince Charming. That movie famously started life as a gritty drama called "3,000," and had Hollywood been a bit bolder, there might not be room for Anora.

Thank God Hollywood wasn't bolder 35 years ago.

Anora has, too, been described as "Cinderella," but that seems to desperately misunderstand everything "Cinderella" is about. Anora bears no resemblance to "Cinderella." Even the moment of apparent love depicted in the poster (above) is a sham. The whole movie proceeds from the cynical notion that almost all of life is a sham—for everyone, the wealthy as well as the destitute. What writer-director Sean Baker understands, as he did in his captivating Best Picture nominee The Florida Project, is that the best parts of life happen when we forget the cruelty.

Life is cruel to Annie (Mikey Madsion), who works as a stripper and prostitute at a seedy club. When ultra-wealthy Russian heir Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn) sees her, it might be love, or it might just be a booze-and-drug-fueled vision, one that will give him the freedom he seeks from the bottomless wealth of his parents. Vanya and Annie both want freedom. They'll both do what's necessary to get it—including marriage. But things go disastrously, sometimes hilariously, wrong as Anora turns into a sort of cross between Pretty Woman and Fargo, and better than both of those movies. It's a thrilling, emotionally resonant blend of drama and comedy, and with it Baker proves himself one of the best filmmakers working right now.

*****

 ☆☆☆☆☆ 

A military helicopter roars above the sun-soaked beach of Rio de Janeiro in the opening moments of Walter Salle's I'm Still Here, bringing an oppressive sense of dread to what seems to be a slice-of-life family drama. It's 1970, and Brazil is six years into life under a U.S.-supported dictatorship.

The family in question led by former Congressman Rubens Paiva and his wife Eunice. They have an enviable lifestyle, with a villa on the beach in Rio and loving children. Things take a turn when Rubens (Selton Mello, whose presence dominates even when he's not on screen) is "requested" by a group of ominous men to give a "deposition." He leaves the house with a forced smile, and his wife Eunice (Fernanda Torres) tries to keep the family whole. It's not long before she and her teenaged daughter are also brought in for questioning, and I'm Still Here grows ever more tense.

It should come as no surprise that Rubens never returns. Superficially, I'm Still Here begins to resemble the all-but-forgotten 1982 Costa-Gavras film Missing, in which a wife tries to learn the truth of what happened to her "disappeared" husband. But thanks to the warm and rich performance by Torres—and, briefly, by her mother, Fernanda Montenegro—the film becomes a testament to learning how to live under the hardest of emotional circumstances.

I'm Still Here earns a surprising emotional release in its final 15 minutes, when the film drives home the enormous price Eunice has paid for her stoicism.

For many Americans, I'm Still Here offers a dark, disturbing glimpse into a possible future, as well as an affecting and inspiring reminder that even when faced with the worst that mankind can offer, there is humanity and hope in courage and perseverance. It's a compulsively watchable exercise in masterful filmmaking and storytelling.

Anora — Viewed: Feb 9, 2024 — AMC Universal 16 — 1515

I'm Still Here — Viewed Feb. 12, 2024 — AMC Burbank 8 — 1410