AMUSED TO DEATH: a review of "Digger"

 

"DIGGER"
Story by Sabina Berman & Alejandro G. Iñárritu and Jez Butterworth
Screenplay Written by Alejandro G. Iñárritu & Alexander Dinelaris Jr. & Nicolas Giacobone and Sabina Berman
Directed by Alejandro G. Inarritu
**** (four stars)
RATED R
RUNNING TIME: 2hrs 9min

By the time you read this review, this film will most likely have vanished from theaters. And what a profound loss that will be for the movies and movie going audiences. 

Director Martin Scorsese raised the ire of film goers a few years ago when he attested that the superhero genre, most notably the Marvel Cinematic Universe juggernaut, were essentially experiences that did not necessarily amount to much more than amusement theme park rides. While many were angered and offended, I, however, could see the point that he was trying to make. I do not believe that Scorsese was not negating any artistic value to the comic book movie genre or decrying those movies as existing in some form of "low art" basement. He was saying, basically what I have been saying for many years upon this site, even as one who has habitually gone to theater to see and have often loved those specific movies. I do not hate super-hero movies. I simply hate that they are being made at the expense of nearly every other film that could be made, and therefore, being released theatrically. 

Because of this reality, with actual choices diminished, audiences have become more conditioned to the "Marvel aesthetic," so to speak, all of the rhythms, beats and expectations that have come from the endless stream of sequels, prequels, remakes, reboots, re-imaginings and everything tried and true within all IP based franchises. Trailers give away every aspect of the movie in question, leaving nothing to the imagination or even a sense of wonder. And so, increasingly movies have run the risk of becoming increasingly disposable, fast food entertainment designed to be consumed, forgotten, and regurgitated into some similar cinematic fast food. Rinse and repeat. 

For this and other reasons, including decreased attention spans, lazier writing which has contributed to a serious decline in media literacy, a film like "Digger" never stood a chance.

Dear readers, Alejandro G. Inarritu's "Digger" is easily one of 2026's tallest achievements, if not the one that just might be sitting at the very top. Since the height of the pandemic, and the depletion of movie theaters in my city--once a haven for all; manner of movie theaters--my movie going has declined sharply. That being said, 2026 has been a year where my movie going interests has been re-ignited and ultimately, nearly everything that I have seen has proven to be of top tier quality (hence the series of high praise reviews that I have been writing as of late). With "Digger," I emphatically proclaim it to not only being one the best films of this year but additionally, one of the best films of the 21st century due to the exceedingly high artistry on display combined with the unapologetic boldness of its creative swings and the enormity and tremendous depth of its pathos during a period of our collective history that grows more precarious by the hour.   

Alejandro G. Inarritu's "Digger" stars Tom Cruise in the titular role of aging oil tycoon Digger Rockwell, who finds himself, through his company's oil drillings, wholly responsible for an ecological disaster which could prove cataclysmic. With that brief description, this is all that I feel comfortable sharing with you so as to not dilute the full experience of seeing it for yourselves-which incidentally, I feel was a master-stoke on the part of the film's cryptic trailers, which revealed not a stitch--some say to its determent but I deeply disagree. If you have not seen it, please trust me. I feel that this is one to enter into as blindly as possible.

What I am more than comfortable sharing with you is that even after the likes of "Babel" (2006), "Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue Of Ignorance)" (2014) and "The Revenant" (2015), Alejandro G. Inarritu has again created a high wire act of a motion picture experience overflowing with meta-textual, muti-layered ideas and an audio visual aesthetic that would be impossible to fully intake with just one viewing. The production design and art direction is masterful. Composer Cosmo Sheldrake's score and the impeccable sound design is enveloping and haunting. Emmanuel Lubezski's cinematography is startling, crisply hazy and hallucinogenic in its surrealist presentation where characters loom largely over our heads in increasingly grotesque rubber faced fury that feels like Gerald Scarfe illustrations brought to horrific flesh and blood life.

Yes, Inarritu has fashioned a satire that feels designed to echo Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb" (1964) or Terry Gilliam's "Brazil" (1985) while sitting more than comfortably alongside both films. I would extend this conceit that I often felt that I was viewing what could be complementary or even greater extension of both Charlie Kaufman's "Synecdoche, New York" (2008) and Wes Anderson's "Asteroid City" (2023). Furthermore, Inarritu displayed an unforgiving boldness this side of the late Ken Russell and certainly nothing I have seen since both Boots Riley's "Sorry To Bother You" (2018) and undeniably Coralie Fargeat's "The Substance" (2024).

And even further, if there was anything that rose to my mind more often than not was actually an album...most specifically, The Kinks' "Preservation Act 2" (released May 8, 1974), a terrifying, devastating concept album rock opera about two warring politicians wrestling for control of the pastoral Village Green, resulting in the end of the world.

As Digger Rockwell, Tom Cruise, in full prosthetics, and after decades of hurling himself into and out of one life threatening stunt after another for our entertainment and his sheer love of making movies, more than delivers again with a deeply multi-faceted performance that showcases precisely what a skilled actor he remains and has always been but is often forgotten due to his massive celebrity and controversies. Cruise proves himself equal to Alejandro G. Inarritu's absurdist vision with a performance that is superbly magnetic, charismatic and as feverishly committed as ever, containing literal and symbolic multitudes, stupendously culminating in an incendiary fever dream-ish, nearly 10 minute monologue that leaves absolutely no one spared...and that incudes all of us in the audience. 

Perhaps here is precisely where and most importantly, why "Digger" was greeted with a vicious response from critics and its now widely reported box office failure and rapid removal from theaters has become the undeserved and misrepresented story of the film rather than what Alejandro G. Inarritu was attempting to present through his work. I carried some of these same feeling when regarding the media's especially harsh response towards Adam McKay's "Don't Look Up" (2021). In both cases, I feel that media sources and their corporate owners and the oligarchs who own them would have quite the reaction towards a work of art that lays rightful blame directly at their feet as they all sling deflecting critiques that proclaim the work as being wither "smug," "unsubtle," or "on the nose"--words designed to dismiss, hoping potential audiences follow suit. Of course, everyone has an inherent right to having their own opinions but for "Digger," it all; felt to be more than calculated. That being said, I am not here to review the surroundings of the film. I am here to review the film itself, what I saw on screen and how it affected me personally. And what I can tell you is that Alejandro G. Inarritu's "Digger" left me more than shaken by film's end and it has not left me since. 

Through the tools of surrealism, what Inarritu has delivered extends far beyond being a satire about climate change and its ensuing destruction, giving us in the audience fingers of outrage to point towards enemies both real and imagined. As one character screams at one point, "Perception is reality!!!"--which is, in and of itself, a fallacy but is indeed a truth considering the times in which we are living when the sheer weight of empirical facts are weakening as they are are being debated often landing in one's sense of perception being declared as "this is my truth." 

Inarritu utilizes "Digger" as this specific trap door as the film surprises us over and again not by topping itself from one sequence to another but by upending itself over and again from one sequence to another, therefore altering our perceptions of everything we had seen and felt prior, leaving us constantly unbalanced until the film's conclusion, which only then continues to upend into the closing credits. 

I was so shaken by "Digger" because Alejandro G. Inarritu beautifully presented a funhouse mirror aesthetic as a full reflection of the funhouse mirror reality in which we are living in the 21st century. And in doing so, it is a film that questions the validity and purpose of satire, art, storytelling and even finding communion in artistic expression when reality itself is taking a daily plunge into cartoon nightmares from which we are unable to awake from. 

I feel that Inarritu is arguing in "Digger" that as a society, we are further away from anything Franz Kafka and George Orwell could have dreamed up for look at where we are. We are facing down an AI annihilation while Mother Nature is rightfully and righteously fighting back our lack of stewardship over this world that we have been gifted. Even knowing the ultimate outcome, our real world oligarchs are only continuing to destroy for the purpose of lining their pockets for money they cannot take with them. Too many of our leaders are monsters, including our own President of the United States, a mashed potato brained, incontinent, 34 time convicted criminal, adjudicated rapist, racist, pedophile and political tool of adversaries to whom he places an intense desire to find Father figures as he falls asleep on camera on a daily basis and still, even now, he is seen by some as the pillar of strength.  

And even then, there are all of US, including myself writing to you from my laptop, as WE are complicit in our own eventual eradication. 

Before I go any further, I wish to share a memory with you. I remember when I was 14 years old and my parents had indulged me by taking in the opening weekend showing of Terry Jones' "Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life" (1983). While my Mother surprisingly enjoyed quite a lot of it even proclaiming certain later sequences and moments in the film as being "poignant," my Father, however (and despite absolutely loving Terry Gilliam's inserted "The Crimson Permanent Assurance" segment), was overall dumbfounded. "I just don't get it!" he exalted. "The British...they just take it all too far. Honestly...why is this supposed to be funny?! I mean--Live Organ Transplants?! Why?!" he asked passionately as if his hands and arms were raised towards the skies. Well...there I was with all 14 years of wisdom at my disposal, took in my Father's questions and I answered, "It's all so absurd that the only reaction is laughter." 

I am detailing that memory for you as I think that Alejandro G. Inarritu's "Digger" is taking the adage of "we laugh so as to not cry," and turns it inside out. Certainly, he is not decrying the importance of finding communion in any sort of artistic expression for if he was, why would anyone, anywhere even want to see his film? That being said, Inarritu is forcing us to be faced with deeper, tougher questions, of which even he himself is not exempt. I feel that he with "Digger" is asking what is the purpose of art, even as a means of catharsis, when it is essentially meaningless if we are all facing extinction. Is any sense of catharsis even more meaningless if he art in question is only able to exist through the means and systems of the oligarchs we are pointing our fingers towards? Is our art and then, our catharsis then manufactured? If art is indeed that manufactured, is there any art at all and precisely who is allowed to partake of the expression regardless of the means in which it was created? 

In a cinematic world ruled by endless, repetitive IP, these are questions those in the power to greenlight new feature films do not wish for us to ask, I would think. The audacity of Alejandro G. Inarritu's "Digger" cannot be overstated. And neither can its tragedy. For this film is not depicting the tragedy of screaming into the abyss. 

It is the tragedy of screaming from the abyss.

WHAT'S THE WORST THING YOU'VE EVER DONE?: a review of "The Drama"

 

"THE DRAMA"
Written and Directed by Kristoffer Borgli
***1/2 (three and a half stars)
RATED R
RUNNING TIME: 1 hr 45 min

I sometimes wonder if filmmakers ever realize if or when their film has become more provocative than they may have originally intended.

Within the last year or so, Writer/Director Kristoffer Borgli appeared upon my personal cinematic radar vis his third feature film, "Dream Scenario" (2023), starring a very strong Nicholas Cage as a mild mannered Professor of Evolutionary Biology who inexplicably begins appearing within the dreams of his family, students and ultimately the world to increasingly nightmarish degrees thus causing his real life to fully unravel. It was a funny, surprisingly sad and deeply engaging film by turns surreal in a certain Charlie Kaufman-esque fashion merged with a sharp cultural commentary that took its aims towards the public town square of cancel culture and the shunning of public figures based upon feelings and perceptions rather than actual facts and evidence. It was more than good enough for me to try and keep a certain attention over whatever he attempt next.

And now that his next film has arrived, he more than delivered the goods.   

With Kristoffer Borgli's tantalizing, and at times infuriating, "The Drama," it truly feels more than fitting for it to be existing within a period during which I have been seeing films that have focused their attention upon aspects of the human condition regardless of genre. To that end, to see one film after another--from Olivia Wilde's "The Invite" to Curry Barker's "Obsession"--concerned with exploring the messy, difficult and even tumultuous terrain of interpersonal relationships in fashions designed to inspire discussions as well as copious self-examinations has been superbly refreshing to experience during a period when those films are especially lacking in our movie theater going culture. Alongside those two aforementioned films, Borgli's "The Drama" sits comfortably as it is also a deeply--and rightfully--uncomfortable film that subverts the standard romantic comedy by deftly understanding human frailties and failings and importantly, how we navigate those same frailties and failures when trying to commit your life to another's.

Kristoffer Borgli's "The Drama" stars Robert Pattison as Charlie Thompson, the head curator of the Cambridge Art Museum who is intrigued at first sight by literary editor Emma Harwood (Zendaya), sitting alone reading a book in a cafe. After an awkward "meet-cute," Charlie and Emma begin to date and two years into their courtship, they become engaged to be married.

With one week remaining before their wedding, and during a long, and increasingly drunken evening food and wine tasting with best friends, married couple and Best Man and Maid Of Honor, respectively, Mike (Mamoudou Athie) and Rachel (Alana Haim), the quartet begins to individually confess to the worst thing they have ever done. After Mike, Rachel and Charles each share their stories, it's Emma's turn. While initially reluctant and evasive, Emma eventually relays her tale which upends everyone and just might threaten to end the marriage before it ever happens. 

Utilizing the structure of a screwball romantic comedy but filtering it through the lens of a psychological thriller, Kristoffer Borgli's "The Drama" is consistently unsettling as it constantly keeps us off balance through a electric presentation that is as magnetic as it is harrowing.

As a full surprise to me, Robert Pattison was terrific in the leading role! I express this sentiment with the full disclosure that I have never truly given him a fair chance solely based upon his work, such as it was, within the entire "Twilight" film series (2008-2012), a pentalogy I initially and openly conceded that I was not the intended audience but over the course, fully rejected as I felt them to be very bad movies. 

In addition to his work which I have seen in two Christopher Nolan's films, "Tenet" (2020) and this year's "The Odyssey," respectively, I am now seeing his true gifts and within "The Drama," Pattison has delivered a performance that could have simply existed within the realm of what Hugh Grant accomplished during his string of romantic comedies as Pattison is all clipped British stammers and gorgeous floppy hair. But, Pattison fully subverts all Hugh Grant comparisons by eliciting a performance that descends into full unhinged panic and increased dilapidation as he feverishly wrestles between his love for Emma and this new information from her past which he cannot reconcile himself with.

Charlie's quandary reminds me very much of the intensely painful romantic dynamics created within Kevin Smith's "Chasing Amy" (1997), as Ben Affleck's character, in a full romantic relationship with Joey Lauren Adams' self identifying lesbian, is completely undone by discoveries of her sexual past...which has no real bearing upon their present union. Kristoffer Borgli's "The Drama" explores and extends this conceit with equal parts humor and squirm inducing uncomfortableness as we in the audience are also forced to ask of ourselves not only what is the worst thing that we have ever done but how long should we be judged for such actions should they be revealed?

I am reminded of a lyric composed by Prince for the song entitled "Electric Chair," which poses the following:

"If a man is considered guilty
For what goes on in his mind, 
Then, give me the electric chair 
For all my future crimes..."

This is indeed the crux of Borgli's film. Are past transgression-whether committed or not--ever ones that can be given, can there be atonement...ad even further, precisely who deserves to be forgiven? Even further, what were the means, the incidents or the traumas that inspired said transgressions in the first place? This aspect of "The Drama" reminded me very much of Author Jay Asher's intensely haunting novel Thirteen Reasons Why (2007), which explored the suicide and backstory of a high school Sophomore, for if we all just took moments or even seconds to think before acting, what consequences could be averted?  

Even with this already insightful material, here is the exact point where I question if Kristoffer Borgli inadvertently delivered something even more daring and worthy of debate than he even planned for and that is because of the following question that I had as I watched the film: 

Does this film know that Emma is Black?

Certainly, anyone with two eyes watching the film and the characters existing within the film can see that Emma is Black as she is indeed being portrayed by Zendaya. Yet, aside from one admittedly sharp moment between the married couple of Mike (a Black man) and Rachel (a White woman), a moment that exposes Rachel's own seriously unacknowledged blind spots due to her own performative liberalism and microaggressions, the concept of race is never mentioned within the film. I do not say this as a detriment to the film overall but as an observation. Truthfully, within the framework of the  approximated reality in the film, it is extremely realistic to me, as a Black man who largely moves within White spaces, to view this collective of characters never mention or even think to approach racial dynamics due to their varying levels of White discomfort...which is always centered at the expense of Black realities, including Black injustice and pain. 

Imagine if say, Florence Pugh portrayed this particular role? Knowing her skill, she would have been amazing and the film itself would have remained as strong as it already is. But, we do have Zendaya in this role, and because she is the one inhabiting Emma, there are richer, deeper layers at work, making "The Drama" rub shoulders with the likes of Cord Jefferson's "American Fiction" (2023), as I felt Borgli's film captured and expressed the intense loneliness that exists with being a Back face in a predominantly White world, a loneliness that sits at the core of not being as seen, as empathized with, as understood, and definitely not as forgiven as one's White counterparts. 

As with "Dream Scenario," Kristoffer Borgli's "The Drama" again tackles the aspect of the comments section culture extending itself into the real world but this time starring al most exclusively White characters standing in judgement over Emma's past. Borgli also stages the film entirely from Charlie's perspective, save for key flashback sequences depicting Emma's adolescence and the stages of her story. It would be more than fascinating, and undeniably powerful, to see this exact same film but from  Emma's entire perception, perhaps something more akin to the multi-perspective structure of Akira Kurosawa's "Rashomon" (1950). 

Even so, what exists, at least for me, was an exploration of the racial-social dilemma that pits what I like to refer to as "the perceived inherent goodness of White people" vs. "the perceived inherent evil of Black people," as Charlie and Rachel's horrific past acts are completely waved away--as well as Mike's due to his proximity to Whiteness through his marriage to Rachel--and yet, Emma's past is under such intense scrutiny that she is either firmly questioned of her humanity or dismissed altogether, regardless of her life ever since. 

There is such power just aching to be unearthed within "The Drama," and while I do not believe that it was necessarily afraid of it sown material, as some films can be, I again question if Kristoffer Borgli really grasped the entirety of what he had. All of that being said, "The Drama" is jarring, disturbing, and enormously engaging as it poses the dark corner questions of those closest to ourselves: 

Who are you? And by loving you, then who am I?  

SAVAGE CINEMA REVISITS: "ABOUT LAST NIGHT..." (1986)

 

"ABOUT LAST NIGHT..."
Based upon the stage play "Sexual Perversity In Chicago" by David Mamet (1974)
Screenplay Written by Tim Kazurinsky & Denise DeClue
Directed by Edward Zwick
RATED R
RUNNING TIME: 1 hr 53 min
Released July 4, 1986

It is astounding when there is a film that can meet and greet you at completely different life stages and feel undeniably true regardless of the life experience lived. 

This year, I have found myself with a new obsession: the film podcast entitled "The Rewatchables," hosted by journalist, sportswriter and pop culture analyst Bill Simmons and a revolving cast of collaborators. Just as suggested by the podcast moniker, "The Rewatchables" celebrates the motion pictures experiences that can be enthusiastically revisited over and again, from prestige classics to the so-called guilty pleasures (for if it is pleasurable, why feel guilty about it?) and everything in between. Informative, nostalgic and downright hysterical, it has been a wonder to listen to each episode as it genuinely reminds me of my youth as every "Siskel & Ebert" television show was a personal event. Frankly, "The Rewatchables" makes me think of it as a hybrid between the Chicago based "Siskel & Ebert" and the PBS program "The Sportswriters On TV," as the raspy voiced Simmons and his crew boisterously chop it up over the film in question, reminiscing, reviewing and heartedly cracking each other up with insights that range from profound to outright cheerful vulgarity.

A recently released episode truly piqued my attention as the show spotlighted a film that was as formative to me during my Chicago teen years as Paul Brickman's "Risky Business" (1983) and the entire John Hughes ouevre as I vividly remember my first viewing of it in the theaters and I rewatched it constantly during my high school years. What surprised me was the realization that alongside those aforementioned films, the film in question just reached its 40th anniversary this year plus the fact that as formative as the film was for me, I actually have not seen it again in decades. 

And, as you may have guessed from the subject of this posting, i am writing about Director Edward Zwick's debut feature film, "About Last Night...".

Returning to "The Rewatchables" for a moment, the first significant insight occurred when Bill Simmons mused about how when we are young, how much we actually learn about life and living is discovered within the movies...i.e. How do you smoke a cigarette? How do you look when you shoot a gun? How do you snort cocaine? How do you drive a car? And in the case of Edward Zwick's "About Last Night...," we are given a window in what adult romantic and sexual relationships are possibly like.

     

As previously stated, I vividly remember when "About Last Night..." was released and the initial reactions from both the late, great Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, both of whom elicited high praise for the film. Additionally, I was a devotee of Chicago radio raconteur and shock jock Steve Dahl, who spent several days on the air raving about the film, undeniably towards its riotously salacious content but surprisingly, he often spoke strongly of the film's perceptive emotional depth and validity in its knowledge of how adult relationships work and fail. 

At the film's time of release, I was 17 years old and getting closer to my Senior year of high school. It was a Summer where I obsessively spent early morning, afternoon and evenings riding around and around my neighborhood on my ten speed bicycle, headphones strapped to my ears and just beginning to try discovering whatever creative voice I had as a writer as I aimed for the John Hughes stars attempting to craft screenplays in my parents' basement. I did not live in the same Hyde Park neighborhood as my high school classmates and the kids that I ran with in my own neighborhood and I simply grew apart by our adolescence. Much of my Summer, I lived in my head, dreaming away, listening to music, re-watching movies and seeing new ones, and reading, all of which kept my worries and anxieties about the upcoming school year and the college prep process under the intensely watchful eyes of my demanding parents slightly at bay as time was moving rapidly and Summertime slow simultaneously. 

And while I was confident in my abilities to live inside of my head and be alone, I was also very lonely...longing and wishing for a girlfriend who would, at long last find me interesting and worthy of being in love with. 

One Summer night, I found myself invited to Hyde Park by a circle of friends which included a girl with whom I had long powerfully admired, kissed once at the age of 14 and somehow, feelings were never quite reciprocated despite the powerful warmth of our friendship which ebbed and flowed. As a group, we decided to see the filmed in Chicago "About Last Night..," as we were not only excited to see our city on screen again but we were all energized by the collective young actors populating or movies screens during those years, and we were more than game to witness the latest film starring Rob Lowe and Demi Moore, who just the previous Summer, more than engaged us in Joel Schumacher's "St. Elmo's Fire" (1985)--a film that I have had a stormy relationship with for these 41 years...but that's another story.

We saw the film at Chicago's Water Tower to a packed audience all abuzz. Yet, once the film concluded, we all exited. not lifted, but in a subdued state. Memory tells me that we all enjoyed the film and I unquestionably felt all of the praise was justified, feeling that it was one of the best films of 1986 that I had seen. But, there was something greater, something deeper at work. Something about the film reached inside all of us and performed something, I would gather, was somewhat transformative.

For "About Last Night..." was the film that taught us that maybe our romantic and therefore, sexual futures were bound to be exceedingly more complicated than any of us may have conceived of (especially with our limited knowledge and experience) ...and the overall effect was sobering to say the least.

Based upon David Mamet's rapaciously vicious 1974 stage play "Sexual Perversity In Chicago," Edward Zwick's "About Last Night..." stars Rob Lowe as Danny Martin, a 24 year old college dropout now salesman for a restaurant supply company who briefly meets and flirts with 24 year old advertising agency employee/artist Debbie Sullivan (Demi Moore) at a recreational softball game between their respective companies in Grant Park. Later that same evening at the game's afterparty at the legendary Chicago singles bar Mother's, Danny and Debbie meet again, eliciting a mutual attraction and even later that night, their first sexual tryst...much to the intense chagrin of Debbie's roommate Joan (Elizabeth Perkins).

Danny and Debbie's first night together leads to a second, and then further, a romantic day in Chicago together and of course, more incredible sex, a budding relationship extending itself into greater complications including Debbie's affair with her boss (Robin Thomas), the increased consternation of Danny's best friend, the boisterous, braggadocious Bernie Litko (James Belushi) as well as the rising intensity of the aforementioned Joan.

Debbie soon leaves Joan's apartment to move into Danny's, beginning their first adult relationship which unveils itself over the following several months from moments tranquil and serene, to baffling and irritating, to the emotionally wrenching and wrathful all punctuated with sex and their attempts to navigate the precarious dance of intimacy.   

In hindsight, Edward Zwick's "About Last Night...," just as explored by Bill Simmons on "The Rewatchables," was entirely a film that defined the modern romantic comedy as dictated by Woody Allen's "Annie Hall" (1977) while also serving as a bridge to Rob Reiner's "When Harry Met Sally..." (1989), as we were presented with an entry not dependent upon the prefabricated plots, structures, tropes and emotions that would further define the genre over the decades but by delivering characters that functioned as real human beings exploring true human emotions straddling the gap between movie romance fantasy and the realistic emotional truths that showcase just how difficult and messy adult relationships actually are. 

After listening to the podcast episode, found myself inspired to myself re-watch a film that, as previously stated, I have not seen in decades, perhaps since my very late teens to 20 at most, and as I watched, not only was I surprised with precisely how much I remembered from the film, I was further amazed with just how exceedingly well it holds up after 40 years. For at the age of 17, the events presented were all ahead of me. Now, at 57, these events are decidedly long behind me as I have existed within a committed relationship for the entirety of my adult life, with all of the requisite peaks, valleys that nearly ended us and everything in between. And at both life stages and ages, Edward Zwick's "About Last Night..." remains not simply emotionally true, the depth of the film only continues to reveal itself. 

First of all, and especially with its close proximity to "St. Elmo's Fire," it would have been more than easy for Zwick to pitch his film in the frivolous spirit of the then 1980's and call it a day. To a degree, the film is very much a product of its time (and how could it not be?), especially with the lightning rod casting of both Rob Lowe and Demi Moore. It is a bright and breezy aesthetic yet one that simultaneously and brilliantly captures all that is coarsely beautiful and beautifully coarse about Chicago and its citizens. 

The wildly and repugnantly hilarious opening credits sequence between Danny and Bernie, who is riotously recounting a previous evening's sexual escapade, largely pulled from David Mamet's original play and clearly inspired by the viciously crude and crass opening credit spoken dialogue between Jack Nicholson and Art Garfunkel in Mike Nichols' raw "Carnal Knowledge" (1971), sets the stage in terms of male sexual attitudes (and fears) towards women while also perfectly ensuring the city of Chicago, from its architecture, landmarks and dialects instantly becomes a full character. 

Much as how regarding my home city in Christopher Storer's resplendent "The Bear" (2022-2026), makes me feel homesick, regarding "About Last Night..." at my current age makes me homesick for the very Chicago in which I grew up, from streets that I once walked, the sights and sounds of the city forever in my DNA to my 1989 drought filled Summer--at the age of 20--during which I spent every Saturday morning cleaning Grant Park as part of a Summer Internship Program I was part of as well as the entire controversy surrounding the installation of night game lights at Wrigley Field--August 8, 1988, a date firmly stenciled into my consciousness--as represented by by Danny wearing a "NO LIGHTS!!" t-shirt in one scene, which elicited cheers from the movie theater audience.  

Where the film exceeds, both then and now, is within its exploration of young adult relationships, which is given a stronger, richer dynamic in Tim Kazurinsky and Denise DeClure's screenplay which softens Mamet's otherwise brutal stage play, but not to any detrimental degrees. Instead of the nine week time span of the play, "About Last Night..." stretches the time span to essentially one year in the lives of its characters and the city in which they live, Zwick gloriously showcasing Chicago in all of its seasons, from the stunning glow of the Spring and Summer Grant Park sequences, to possibly my favorite image from the film, a dark, snowy night on Chicago's L' train tracks, starring Danny and Debbie in the Winter of their relationship. 

In 1986, I knew very little about relationships and demonstrably less about sex and Edward Zwick's "About Last Night.." opened up an explicit window into both. I have long spoken about on this site about the wealth of films about falling in love as opposed to staying in love and the considerable work involved, and for me, this film may have been the very first one to fully resonate with me regarding the work of relationships, themes Zwick would explore to larger degrees upon his television work with creative partner Marshall Herskovitz on both "thirtysomething" (1987-1991) and "Once And Again" (1999-2002), and best of all with their production of Winnie Holzman's "My So-Called Life" (1994-1995). 

It is through Zwick's strict adherence to character, motivation and behavior that "About Last Night..." ascends miles above the soap opera superficiality of "St. Elmo's Fire," a quality Zwick with Lowe and Moore play into before delving significantly into dangerously deeper emotional waters. To that end, "About Last Night..." for me, holds much more in common with Amy Heckerling's "Fast Times At Ridgemont High" (1982), as scripted by Cameron Crowe, as it details the life experiences and challenges of two young people obviously not emotionally ready for the adult world they are just beginning to insert themselves in. 

During one of the film's most unassuming yet striking montage sequences in a film rife with montage sequences (as was a cinematic motif of the time), we are given the stage of Danny and Debbie's cohabitation as it is settling and growing into something beyond sex and "playing house," even as they are essentially playing house. Set to Bob Seger's wistful "Living Inside My Heart," Zwick creates a sublime marriage of music and images, which at the time, I vividly remember feeling my heartbeat slowing. 

Even as I watched the film now, that exact same emotional response occurred for here is the point in the film where Zwick is signaling to us that the sex and frivolity we witnessed before all comes at a cost for we are going to stretch and descend into an experience of stronger, more realistic emotional resonance, It is the sequence where the film changes into something more soulful which plays off handsomely in the film's second half--especially in the honestly painful and breathtaking breakup scene--taking Lowe and Moore's genuinely electric chemistry and allowing them to find new layers in their respective film personas, especially Lowe, who I think gave his finest screen performance in this film, presenting the real person behind the exquisite face and physique.

As Danny Martin, Rob Lowe effectively gives us a portrait of a young man for whom life has most likely been a parade t is now just beginning to receive some much needed scars in order for him to try and grow beyond his boyish charms and adolescent attitudes toward women and therefore, life itself. Early in the film, during post-coital conversation with Debbie, he announces that "What you see is what you get," a quality that to some may suggest that Danny lacks depth. I feel that while this may be true, it is because Danny has not yet discovered what the depth of his character could actually comprise of as he has not yet been tested. 

His first scar is from obviously his disappointment of not finishing college and ending up in what is essentially a dead end job, holding his dreams of becoming a restaurant owner at bay. In a way, this makes Danny somewhat of a spiritual cousin to the Chicago based twentysomething grad school drop out, aspiring writer Jefferson "Jake" Briggs (Kevin Bacon), who himself possesses a dead end warehouse job before finding work in advertising while navigating the growing pains of growing up in a young marriage with Elizabeth McGovern in John Hughes' masterpiece "She's Having A Baby" (1988).  

A powerfully intense scar formulates with Danny's friendship with his client Gus (Joe Greco), owner of The Swallow, an antiquated, family restaurant in business troubles with Danny's company and forced to close due to late payments. Danny's guilt and sense of responsibility upends him and as he has never existed in any relationship before Debbie, or held any healthy relationships with any women previously, he is unaware of how to connect with the woman he lives with aside from sexual...and so, he retreats into self pity and self loathing right at the point he needs to reach out to Debbie for connection, understanding and growth. Yet, Danny simply does not possess the emotional skill set to even know how to begin.      

Danny's friendship with Bernie is of an ever greater detriment, although neither of them really know it just yet, suggesting a friendship of convenience that grows to one of sheer longevity even as Danny will inevitably outgrow it and Bernie will cling on as long as he can for fear of being alone, much like the male friendship at the core of Alexander Payne's "Sideways" (2004). 

It's clear that Bernie thoroughly enjoys taking the younger Danny underneath his wing, so to speak, and James Belushi all but walks away with the film with his blustering loquaciousness, which is filled end to end with one standout line of dialogue after another delivered with blistering, nasty fury. And still, Zwick with Belushi, keeps probing in subtle ways. For all of his extreme talk of his sexual prowess as a Chicago Lothario, there is absolutely no way in Heaven or Hell that any of his stories are remotely true. To that end, and aside from one scene where sexual connection is inferred, Bernie is never once seen having any sense of sexual success with any woman during the film, suggesting Bernie's life is nothing but work, closing down Mother's at a bar stool every night and going home alone before doing it all over again the next day, making a character outwardly hilarious but ultimately a tragic class clown who never grows up.

And to that end, Danny is his only friend.

Danny and Debbie's budding relationship exists as much of as existential threat to Bernie as it is to Joan, who is easily Bernie's equal with a sardonic outlook and lines that bruise, masking and illuminating the pain of being the woman that men habitually pass over for the likes of Debbie.

For Debbie, while essentially being the same age as Danny, has undoubtedly gained just this much more life experience in regards to career opportunities, her illicit affair with her employer and even her ability to move onwards after her breakup from Danny, which has otherwise left Danny, at first cold but ultimately undone. That being said, her own maturity level with adult relationships is as naive as Danny's as evidenced by her reaction to a stitching made during her days as a Girl Scout intended for her hope chest ruined during a tense moment, which to me, signified girlish romantic fantasy clashing with adult reality and the result is wearying.

It may seem silly at points to some viewers when both Danny and Debbie airing laments over the adult lives with an air of seasoned fatigue as they are indeed so young but to me, this is precisely how it did feel during my twenties when you ae trying to figure out your place and space in the larger adult world and the values and reams you held so tightly rapidly feel further out of reach while yearning to reach that "next level" feel eons away. When I think of my own twenties, I recall vividly feeling that between the ages of 26-30 almost existing as one long year, with 30 feeling like a sigh of relief, For Danny and Debbie as they attempt painful small talk during home cooked dinners, for instance, these are two people emulating whatever they had seen from their parents, now playing house and dress up and aside from sex, they don't know each other at all and therefore, they have no idea of how to build a life together...or even if they should.   

The breakup sequence, as previously stated, truly packs an emotional wallop as demonstrates both Demi Moore and especially Rob Lowe, at their best, as they are now emotionally naked, which was more striking to witness, even after having seem them physically naked for much of the film. The film's final sequence, a bookend at another Grant Park softball game, finds Lowe in his finest acting moment, emitting true regret, loss, gained understanding and even a little bit of hope, however faint. 

Edward Zwick's "About Last Night..." reaches its pinnacle by burying under the surface. No,  am no suggesting that this film exists within the same neighborhood as something by Ingmar Bergman. But, I am expressing to you that what Zwick's film achieves greatly is that it is unafraid of making adult romance hurt, to show the illusion of love inside sex, no matter how great the sex happens to be, and depicting the failure of love when the two parties in question know nothing of each other despite their best intentions to try. I now think that it was the hurt my friends and I were wrestling with as we left that screening 40 years ago, a life lesson for us teenagers for whom pop culture presented a certain outlook to strive for no matter how unrealistic.

Now that it has been 40 years, I am extremely curious as to what young audiences of 2026 might think of this film. It would be seen as quite the an anomaly these days as we now live in a time where we have a recently released film in Will Gluck's "One Night Only," a sex comedy with no sex and apparently little to no nudity as test audiences were made uncomfortable by viewing nude sequences in public! How would today's audiences even comprehend a time when on screen nudity was commonplace and "About Last Night..." definitely pushed the envelope with graphic sex sequences, with no intimacy coordinators starring then 21 year old Lowe and 23 year old Moore openly displaying their bodies for mass audiences to view together.

Most importantly, it is all within the now archaic aspects of the film of having no cell phones or social media. Because of those absences, Edward Zwick's "About Last Night.." is a film that celebrates a time in which people were forced to interact in person, showing how people actually did meet, engage, connect and disconnect with each other. 

And even so, I would hope that new viewers, despite the difference in aesthetics and even tonality, would find that the concerns with growing up and finding love remain as universal and as deeply felt as they were 40 years ago...

...and as they always have.

ONLY THE LONELY: a review of "Spider-Man: Brand New Day"

 

"SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY"
Based upon the Marvel Comics series created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko
Screenplay Written by Chris McKenna & Erik Sommers
Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton
*** (three stars)
RATED PG 13
RUNING TIME: 2 hrs 25 min

It's still so strange to me when a movie that is often more than quite good ultimately becomes something that is not entirely successful.

At this stage in the elongated and ever continuing game for the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), which has expanded over the course of 18 years, a variety of television series and now, with the return of our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, 38 feature films in total (and with no conceivable end in sight), it is safe to say that some viewers--including myself--are far beyond any stretch of superhero fatigue and are now teetering on the edge of just not caring anymore and getting off of the Marvel train. 

Perhaps what was once innovative, the building block aesthetic of erecting an ongoing narrative and interconnected storylines starring the entirety of the Marvel Comics canon, has now grown tiresome as now even witnessing a new installment requires the homework level duty of having seen and therefore remembering very little detail from the collection of previous films. That, in and of itself, is exhausting and frankly, dilutes the entre purpose of these films in the first pace: that aspiring to being artful and not disposable, to carry true emotion al weight and intent, these things just need to be fun! 

Maybe it is also the CGI of it all as well for, as I have expressed upon this site over and again, we live in an age where special effects are so commonplace that special effects ae simply not special anymore and for the viewer, it feels like computers making entertainment for other computers while actors stand around on green screen sets reacting to nothing (provided they are on set at all and not just providing voice work).

Most of all, there is the aspect of quality control for when films are racing to meet a pre-determined release date without having a proper script and story firmly hashed out, the film suffers overall which then erodes trust between the viewer and studio in question. 

For everything that the MCU has performed at the peak of its powers, especially during its first 10 year stretch, culminating with the Joe and Anthony Russo's twin epics "Avengers: Infinity War" (2018) and "Avengers: Endgame" (2019), not every installment proved to be absolutely essential--Alan Taylor's "Thor: The Dark World" (2013) and Peyton Reed's "Ant Man and the Wasp" (2018) being the weakest offenders, and I am just not a fan whatsoever of James Gunn's self-congratulatory "Guardians of the Galaxy" (2014/2017/20223) volumes at all.   

The MCU post-Thanos has been considerably scattershot with some high points--Jac Schaeffer's "WandaVision" (2021), and Michael Waldron's "Loki" (2021/2023) were undeniably stellar--and too many sub par efforts--Sam Raimi's "Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness" (2022), Taika Waititi's "Thor: Love and Thunder" (2022), Peyton Reed's "Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" (2023) and Nia DaCosta's "The Marvels" (2023)--churned through the assembly line.

These storytelling stumbles (plus outside controversies involving actor Jonathan Majors, who otherwise performed formidable work as the emerging yet now fully abandoned multiversal threat of Kang The Conqueror) ultimately did not serve their growing multiverse saga well and moreso, it made my interest in seeing new installments diminish as there are some that I have skipped entirely due to my lack of enthusiasm. 

Yet, Spider-Man has retained his hold onto me due to all three installments directed by Jon Watts, reaching its zenith with the magnificent, masterful multiverse themed "Spider-Man: No Way Home" (2021), a film that scaled and plumbed into powerfully deep emotional waters making it one of the MCU's tallest achievements. Nothing would keep me away from the next installment as so much precarious emotional territory was left on the line at the previous film's conclusion. 

And so, here we are with "Spider-Man: Brand New Day," directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, taking over for Watts and who previously helmed the strong "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" (2021). What has resulted is simultaneously a more than worthy successor but also the least successful Spider-Man entry in this MCU incarnation of the character. I am not even about to suggest that what we have is anything I was necessarily disappointed by or felt was "bad" in any way. On the contrary, there is much about the film that might even exist as the very best qualities of the MCU Spider-Man portrayal so far but it is indeed hindered by MCU issues that have now become problematic regarding their stacked film/television world building, making the entire experience hover a short distance above being an MCU placeholder. 

Picking up four years after the devastating conclusion of "Spider-Man: No Way Home," when Doctor Strange, at Peter Parker's (Tom Holland) behest, conjures a magic spell to make the entire world forget about the existence of Peter Parker as a means to save the multiverse as well as protection for best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon) and true love MJ (Zendaya) from future dangers, we find Parker safeguarding New York City now anonymously as Spider-Man. 

While Spider-Man is beloved by the city, Peter Parker is firmly alone in the world, obsessively monitoring, working and battling one arch foe after another with his only significant interpersonal communication existing with NYPD Detective Jean DeWolff (Liza Colon-Zayas) and adversarial assistance from armed vigilante Frank Castle a.k.a. The Punisher (Jon Bernthal).  

A new, unseen threat arrives on the scene as several Department Of Damage Control (DODC) facilities have been attacked by a mysterious telepath with the ability of body/mind hopping from one person to another. Additionally, something strange is happening inside of Peter Parker's body as his arachnid side is metamorphosizing into new abilities as stronger sensory awareness and the ability to naturally produce webbing. 

With mounting danger and rising internal stresses, Peter Parker shoulders and struggles with his grief and loss combined with his sense of duty and purpose, especially as MJ again finds herself a target.

As with its predecessors, Destin Daniel Cretton's 'Spider-Man: Brand New Day" is a top fight production with the state of the art aesthetics that are now an MCU staple and expectation. What has changed is that Cretton has delivered a more traditional, street level Spider-Man, stripping him of the Tony Stark/Avengers accoutrements, ensuring the humanity of the character remains front and center. In doing so, we have a Spider-Man story that is moodier, darker, sadder and somber affair. No, we do not have anything resembling some sort of a dirge but there is a true emotional weight to the film that is as refreshing as it is poignant and palpable as we view Peter Parker, no longer in high school, but as a young adult navigating the world and clearly battling PTSD from past adventures, depression, isolation and powerful grief at lives lost and the friends as family he cannot reach out towards anymore because there have no memory of him.

As Peter Parker/Spider-Man, this fourth go-around for Tom Holland is easily his best work in the role thus far. He continues to capture the verbal/physical/emotional agility required of the character but again, he has done a wonderful job of internalizing everything this character has endured over the course of the continuing MCU story. Holland always allows us to remember every step of this character's journey as he has faced his triumphs certainly, but one tragedy after another undeniably, from the deaths of cherish family and the attainment and loss of treasured mentors, to the trauma of being snapped out of existence by Thanos only to return five years later, to this point where the people he loves the most and could lean on for emotional support never knew he existed. 

This is that key Marvel melancholy that sits at the soul of the character (and really, the entire Marvel canon) and is the crucial ingredient and his willingness to continue marching onwards despite the failures and the losses that ensures that we will follow him any and everywhere, including several sequences of startling poetry and painful intimacy between Peter Parker and MJ, another with the memory of Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) and a downright lovely moment between himself and Ned. Tom Holland nails every fragile note with skill, dexterity and humanity. His selfless sacrifice as Peter Parker carries this film and supplies new developments with significant gravity, making the film exist as an empathetic plea for the need of communication and community in an increasingly socially fragmented world. 

And still, "Spider-Man: Brand New Day" felt to be a tad slighter than previous installments. There are serious pacing issues, for instance. Yes, the action sequences are handsomely presented but they don't enthrall. One battle sequence between Spider-Man, The Punisher and one more (kind of, sort of) surprise guest star, that would have at one time dazzled my Marvel brain and then some, just felt to me more of the same old summer movie bombast. A character portrayed by Sadie Sink is of major Marvel significance yet it never truly felt to be wholly purposeful as she was seemingly placed into this story as a means of table setting for the next MCU projects to come. 

To that end, the film in totality felt to be a tad strained because as "Spider-Man: Brand New Day" builds upwards, it actually lessens. Earlier, I made the reference to some Marvel films existing as placeholders and while what Cretton's film accomplishes is more than that, it does however contain one too many elements that feel to be shoehorned into the story as mere set-ups for what will inevitably arrive in future films instead of natural foreshadowing. Again, there was nothing to the Sadie Sink character that felt to be organic and what her character eventually performs by the climax is akin to what we have already seen visually, emotionally and thematically in "Spider-Man: No Way Home," "WandaVision," Cate Shortland's "Black Widow" (2021) and especially, Jake Schreier's particularly strong "Thunderbolts*" (2025), essentially making "Spider-Man: Brand New Day" feel more than repetitive with its copy and paste developments and revelations. 

Table setting for all to come instead of ensuring that what we have presently is the absolute best that it can possibly be is what really kept Destin Daniel Cretton's "Spider-Man: Brand New Day" from web slinging itself over the top for me as it felt so tentative in its cinematic footsteps so as to not upset the MCU apple cart before the arrival of both Joe and Anthony Russo's "Avengers: Doomsday" and "Avengers: Secret Wars"--and possibly due to however much longer Tom Holland wishes to play this role. 

While in some ways, Cretton's film occupies a nearby arena to what I feel is the finest Spider-Man film to date, and that is Sam Raimi 's "Spider-Man 2" (2004), "Spider-Man: Brand New Day" suffers from an overstuffed aesthetic and derivative story beats where the grander moments underwhelm and the quieter moments are the ones that soar high above New York City.  

Frankly, our Spider-Man deserves a bit better. 

WHAT HAVE I WROUGHT?: a review of "The Odyssey"

 

"THE ODYSSEY"
Based upon Homer's Odyssey
Written for the Screen, Produced and Directed by Christopher Nolan
**** (four stars)
RATED R
RUNNING TIME: 2 hrs 49 min

Has Christopher Nolan been creating and recreating The Odyssey the entire time? Has his entire filmography essentially existed as all one long film?

It feels to be simultaneously impossible and extremely fitting that filmmaker Christopher Nolan would decided to take on nothing less than one of the oldest surviving works of literature ever written as his filmography has proven itself to being titanic in scope, depth, execution, purpose, intention and even critical and box office success. 

In our current precarious cinematic era where the likes of sequels, prequels, reboots, remakes and re-imaginings and anyone wearing a cape set to all manner of CGI bombast and bludgeoning rule the day at the near expense of any and every other film genre. A time when we really do not exactly have movie stars in the same way as years and decades past. Christopher Nolan has emerged as one of the few filmmakers who can open a film into theaters based solely upon his name. His commitment to the filmmaking process and the film going experience is unshakable and the purity of his fearsome commitment shining to blinding degrees with the release of each film, making each entry an event in and of itself...and that undeniably includes the ambitious, polarizing, noble misfire "Tenet" (2020). 

Now, we arrive at "The Odyssey," Nolan's adaptation and more importantly, his interpretation of Homer's epic poem--first composed around the 7th or 8th century--and what he has accomplished is a massive, downright Herculean production which takes the sandals, swords, Gods and monsters and miraculously delivers a resoundingly profound, poetic and haunting experience that is not only grounded in its humanity while more than overflowing with the spectacle, it serves as the culmination of his cinematic work to date as well as stretching and folding time itself (as is his wont) to ensure the history of the film remains strikingly present. I am not quite certain if this is Nolan's very best film as his quality control overall is exceedingly of high standard and I suppose if pressed, I might say that "The Dark Knight" (2008) may be my personal favorite film of his. That being said, Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey" is a masterful, mountainous achievement, making for not only being one of the best films of 2026 but one of the best films of the 21st century. It is deeply staggering to behold. 

As with Homer's poem, Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey" stars Matt Damon as Odysseus, King of Ithaca, confronting seemingly endless trials and tribulations during his arduous 10 year journey homeward after the 10 year Trojan War, fully initiated via the Trojan Horse, which covertly encased himself and his soldiers. 

Meanwhile back in Ithaca, and with Odysseus presumed perished during the war, his wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway), Queen of Ithaca, strategically fends off a collective of unruly suitors--including the insidious Antinous (a serpentine Robert Pattinson)--vying for her hand in marriage in order to obtain access to the throne. Odysseus and Penelope's son Telemachus, Prince of Ithaca (Tom Holland), a baby upon Odysseus' departure and now aged 20, is determined to discover the whereabouts of his Father despite all news and hopes to the contrary, aside from Odysseus' faithful and blind swineherd Eumaeus (John Leguizamo).

Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey" is a seismically staggering, sprawling, operatic experience which merges the war film, love stories, a coming of age tale and existential crisis masterfully. It is a muscular presentation fueled by a feverish adherence to the tactile experience of real sets, locations and props as opposed to the CGI green screen aesthetic that has now become so much the norm that special effects are so commonplace as to not be "special" anymore. Precisely like Phil Lord and Christopher Miller's outstanding "Project Hail Mary" from earlier this year, Nolan weaves movie magic so vividly and viscerally that you can nearly touch, smell and feel the weight and fabric of every perilous item and location just as the characters themselves. 

Enormous credit must be heaped upon frequent Nolan collaborator Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, Editor Jennifer Lame for expertly weaving together Nolan's traditional non-linear structure and good Lord (!!!), Composer Ludwig Goransson has created yet another innovative, astonishing score that serves completely as immersive soundscape and firmly announces him--again--as one of cinema's greatest young composers, who just one day may take that specific throne based upon his work for both Nolan and Ryan Coogler alone, and after we have all been enthralled for generations with the likes of John Williams, Hans Zimmer and the late Jerry Goldsmith. Goransson has more than proven himself as one who miraculously keeps topping himself, and his work of "The Odyssey" presents him in an especially imaginative and thunderous state. A remarkable achievement. 

Near the outset of this posting, I remarked that Christopher Nolan, for all of the considerable fire, brimstone, shock and awe, in fact created an experience that is surprisingly grounded and humane, as it could have very easily flown off into the Marvel-esque stratosphere. 

In its own way, it feels extremely in line with essentially Nolan's entire oeuvre, as "The Odyssey" stars yet another outer and inner journey of a tortured male figure. Nolan's Odysseus is not terribly far removed from his short term memory loss afflicted protagonist in "Memento" (2000), Al Pacino's sleeplessness plagued homicide detective in "Insomnia" (2002), the warring magicians in "The Prestige" (2006), the brooding, psychologically damaged Bruce Wayne in "The Dark Knight Trilogy" (2005/2008/2012), Leonardo DiCaprio's dream thief in "Inception" (2010), the outer space, time travelling astronaut of "Interstellar" (2014), and the inverted entropy voyaging CIA agent in the aforementioned "Tenet"," all of whom are wrestling with choices made and the often shattering consequences of their actions. 

Yet, even further for me, I felt "The Odyssey" was essentially the third act in Nolan's possible unofficial trilogy featuring "Dunkirk" (2017) and "Oppenheimer" (2023) existing as the first two acts, as all share themes and poetic visual cues and movements that feel to serve as echoes with each other--for me, a sequence featuring Odysseus and his soldiers all cramped together inside the Trojan Horse felt like a visual mirror to the sequence of submerged young soldiers facing bullets from above and drowning from below in "Dunkirk," for instance. 

Essentially, everything we view within "The Odyssey" stems from the consequences which erupt and befall Odysseus from the breaking of Zeus' law of caring for your neighbors, and feeding and housing the stranger as Gods were believed to walk among mortals in disguise. This tenet (ha ha), which ultimately serves as a stand in for "Do unto others...," upon being violated, unleashes the unthinkable which reverberates over time upending all that had existed before. 

In a strange way, I was deeply reminded of what is now the iconic nightmare world contained in "Episode 8" of David Lynch's "Twin Peaks: The Return" (2018), in which he posits that the first test of Oppenheimer's Trinity nuclear bomb test in 1945 White Sand, New Mexico, was an event so awesome in its destruction of the natural law that a fabric in time and space opened, creating a pathway for a greater evil to emerge. With regards to Christopher Nolan's interpretive reading within " The Odyssey," here is where I found the film for all of its massive scale, it remained an intimate experience that could be viewed and read on a dual level. 

Yes, we could take every moment presented at face value, interacting with the episodic structure and adventures within adventures literally. Or, on a deeper level, I feel that Nolan has delivered an ominous portrait of Odysseus wrestling with the PTSD from 10 years of war and his morality overall, over the ensuing 10 years before returning home, with the Gods and monsters themselves represented as more tangible figures than overtly existential, where claps of thunder and raging seas are the wrath of Zeus and Poseidon, respectively. 

Is the ethereal presence of the Goddess Athena (Zendaya), who occasionally appears at Odysseus' side during his journey actually present or is she a representation of Odysseus' conscience wrestling with choices made and consequences delivered --much like Nicolas Cage's tormented ambulance driver in Martin Scorsese's "Bringing Out The Dead" (1999)? 

Are the side quests and challenges with the Cyclops, a losing battle against the armor clad giants, a feverish nightmare section starring the witch Circe (an incredible Samantha Morton), the self-inflicted terror of hearing the Siren's Song and more all true tales of Odysseus' perilous travels back to Ithaca or are they traumatic hallucinogenic formations of the guilt and shame Odysseus is consumed by after the loss of all of his soldiers during a 7 year lotus flower induced haze? And to that end, is that haze one induced by the seductive nymph Calypso (Charlize Theron) or again, is she a psychological representation of Odysseus' penance as he is overcome with grief, loss, and self-mortification and the need to just forget?   

All of these qualities made "The Odyssey" a decidedly more emotionally wrenching experience than I had anticipated, for Odysseus' pain and pathos not only resides in his loss of morality but whether he can atone and repent, deserves to, or should even be allowed to, making us in the audience question whether the "home" he is desperately trying to reach is solely a physical space or additionally, some sense of spiritual deliverance, ascension or at least, a possible re-balance of the existential scales. 

Through Matt Damon's portrayal we are allowed to feel the weight of Odysseus' trauma and suffering as what is thought to being heroic is actually hubris at its most reckless, ruthless and disgraceful. This quality extends itself to the story in its entirety, just as depicted in "Dunkirk," the Trojan War is every war fought before and since. The towering persistence of women within a world ruled by the very men who overlook, covet, and desecrate them is urgently presented via Anne Hathaway's rigid tenacity and the aforementioned righteous fury of Samantha Morton. All of the obstacles and pitfalls showcase how our inhumanity begets more inhumanity. Empires are destined to one day fall, a striking statement to present in our current state of being in 21st century America, which is dying in real time, and like Troy and Ithaca, whatever remains and/or emerges afterwards will never quite resemble what existed before. 

All of these qualities and more makes Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey" feel so distinctly present, not remote and by film's end, deeply poignant, evocative and powerfully unsettling even as we have been unquestionably awed by the experience. 

Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey," even deeper within its core, is a presentation of the ultimate story, which is indeed a story about stories and storytelling, how stories are created, the ways in which stories are passed around and passed down and therefore, how myths are formed, possibly as Nolan might be arguing, forged as the lies we tell ourselves to assuage our own significant moral failures and hopefully, as lessons we can teach ourselves to transcend those failures. Which certainly feels like the story Christopher Nolan has been expressing to us with such force and vision throughout the entirety of his career.   

While "The Odyssey" can be read as a sort of summing up, I am already anxious to see what new cinematic chapter Christopher Nolan will undoubtedly return with. But, this one is more than sensational in its satisfaction.

SAVAGE POSTSCRIPT:     

If there is one quibble that I had with the film it is again a Nolan trademark and that is his controversial sound design, which again is unbearably loud. While I did not see the film in the IMAX format (it is just sensory overload for me--I cannot endure it), I did take a set of earplugs for my screening, which indeed helped considerably with the volume but did muffle some key dialogue here and there. 

You have been gently warned.  

I PUT A SPELL ON YOU: a review of "Obsession"

 

"OBSESSION"
Written and Directed by Curry Barker
**** (four stars)
RATED R
RUNNING TIME: 1 hr 49 min

"U ask me if eye love U
It's automatic
'Cause every time U leave me
Eye die
That's automatic 2..."
-"Automatic"
music and lyrics by Prince 

Everyone who knows me personally, as well as for any of you who have followed this blogsite over the years, knows that my relationship with the horror film genre is tenuous at best...despite some films within the genre existing as beloved to me. 

Curry Barker's "Obsession" has rapidly sailed to the top of my favorite films of 2026, as well as an entry in the horror genre that is so successful in its entirety that I deeply appreciated how it transcended any genre trappings--while simultaneously upholding them--to deliver what I felt to be a profoundly clever social statement about interpersonal relationships for a generation born and raised in the social media age. 

In its own way, it felt to be more than fitting that this was the first film I watched after experiencing Olivia Wilde's excellent third feature "The Invite," as what Barker has helmed feels designed to inspire deep conversations and debates long after the end credits have scrolled regarding the nature of the film's title and its implications, as well as statements and allegiances towards the film's primary characters. Curry Barker's "Obsession" clearly has much more on its mind than cheap thrills and excessive gore. It does what the finest horror films accomplish...it haunts superbly.

Curry Barker's "Obsession" stars Michael Johnston as Baron Bailey a.k.a. "Bear," an introverted, socially awkward  twentysomething who lives alone with his cat Sandy in the house inherited from his deceased Grandmother and works as a music store employee alongside his small circle of friends including Ian (Cooper Tomlinson), Sarah (Megan Lawless) and Nikki Freeman (Inde Navarrette), on whom Bear has housed a longtime crush yet is terrified to tell her.

When Nikki announces her intention to at long last leave the music store as well as move away from town, Bear urgently feels the need to finally express his true feelings but again crumbles. Out of frustration with himself, Bear, while holding a novelty item called a "One Wish Willow" (purchased when he attempted to buy a necklace for Nikki), cracks open the trinket and voices a wish that Nikki would just love him more than anything else in the world.  

And as the saying always expresses, be careful what you wish for...

I have to say that if Curry Barker's Obsession" is a signal to where the horror film genre can travel, I just may find myself more willing than ever to take the plunge to view them more often! Just as Zach Cregger's "Weapons" (2025), Barker's film accentuates story and character far above mere shock value ensuring the story carries weight and the experience resonates and "Obsession" has deeply accomplished that feat with me.  Also like "Weapons," Barker takes an almost Grimm's Fairy tale conceit and expands and deepens the concept so that exists beyond anything resembling the standard slasher throwaway or unconscionable torture porn. 

While nowhere near as volcanic and orgiastic as Coralie Fargeat's extraordinary "The Substance" (2024), Curry Barker's "Obsession" is offering a cultural commentary, a societal warning set in our smartphone addicted, post social-distance era of the COVID-19 pandemic as our interpersonal connections became more fragmented and strained, our collective societal development arrested and fractured, and sense of empathy and accountability eroded. I really do not feel this is terribly far off to suggest that not only does this film sit in good company with the likes of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris' "Ruby Sparks" (2012) and Jordan Peele's "Get Out" (2015)--which it is clearly honoring throughout--but also alongside David Fincher's "The Social Network" (2010) and Spike Jonze's "Her" (2013), films where social isolation and loneliness fuel destructive outcomes. 

The crux of Curry Barker's "Obsession" firmly lies within the character of Nikki and how she is embodied through Inde Navarrette's ferocious, wrenching performance whose twists and turns are delivered with such alacrity and a knowing pain, distraught, wrath, and sensitivity that is transcends anything that could, be construed as exploitative and ensures the film sails far above any "girlfriend from Hell" pitfalls. In fact, if there was a film that "Obsession" recalled for me the very most it was  none other than David Lynch's "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me" (1992), the tormenting, brutal story of the final seven days of Laura Palmer's life as portrayed in a shattering swan dive of a performance by Sheryl Lee, who I remain shocked that she was never fully recognized for the fearlessness of her work in a torturous performance.

For all of the hallucinogenics and dream logic, Lynch's film boldly depicted a story of a young woman grappling with familial abuse, repeated sexual assault and the society who completely let her down as she was suffering. With "Obsession," Inde Navarrette creates a frightening Matryoshka doll of a performance in Nikki Freeman (note the irony of her surname), discovering and unleashing the layers of a young woman fully robbed of her agency and made an emotional and sexual prisoner to Bear in a situation not of her making in the least and caused solely by to Bear's inability to speak and own his own feelings initially and due to his level of selfishness and self-preservation at the expense of Nikki's independence entirely. 

Granted, I would like to think that we have all existed in this space at one point or another, especially during adolescence, when powerfully intense feelings for another person are birthed and at times remain unsaid for fear of losing that particular object of desire. Honestly, who has not themselves uttered a wish just as Bear, for hoping that the one you love would reciprocate your feelings? The problem, and the ensuring tragedy, arrives once Bear with full knowledge continues the charade for his own benefit despite curious warnings from friends, his own doubts and fears and even with Nikki completely coming unglued in front of him. 

For that matter, much should be regarded for Michael Johnston's strong performance as Bear as he glides this precarious balance of sympathy and pity against the outrage and fury he deserves as he is unwilling to face the consequences of his actions as the fear of losing what he claims to have always wanted outweighs personal responsibility, his own guilt and shame and  the acknowledgement that he has intentionally violated Nikki for his own ends. In many ways, I am stunned that there is even any sense of debate whether to the relative "heroics" and "villainy" of both Bear and Nikki because for me, Curry Barker's film clearly knows which side it is on. Trust me, there is no way to think otherwise especially when hearing the nightmarish sounds that erupt during and continuing through a large portion of the closing credits. Barker's "Obsession" wants to ensure that we do not escape the horror easily...just as Nikki could not. And again, Inde Navarrette is a force of nature and believe me, I sincerely feel that she should be remembered during awards season as her work is pure and unforgettable.  

Much like Olivia Wilde's "The Invite," Curry Barker's "Obsession" feels like a throwback as well as a gauntlet thrown down in our current cinematic age for a return to pure  storytelling fueled by well drawn characters and situations, inventive filmmaking and a thoughtfulness that prevents the film in question from being another disposable entry that is forgotten before you even return to your homes. This film certainly delivers the goods, from shocks and terror to sudden blasts of the ultraviolence. But, it is so m much more than that.  Also like "The Invite," it is a cautionary tale about relationships, how we can tend to lose ourselves when wanting to earn and keep attraction and affection as well as what occurs when emotions and conversations go unsaid, unacknowledged and unaccounted for as the intense pain inflicted, whether intentional or not, wreaks emotional and psychological havoc.

I now have my eye on you, Curry Barker. After the grand success of "Obsession," I am excited to see what you come up with next!   

INDOOR FIREWORKS: a review of "The Invite"

                             

"THE INVITE"
Based upon "The People Upstairs (Sentimental)" Written and Directed by Cesc Gay (2000)
Screenplay Written by Will McCormack & Rashida Jones
Directed by Olivia Wilde
**** (four stars) 
RATED R
RUNNING TIME: 1 hr 47 min

"...It's time to tell the truth
These things have to be faced
My fuse is burning out
And all that powder's gone to waste
Don't think for a moment, dear, that we'll ever be through
I'll build a bonfire of my dreams
And build a broken effigy of me and you..."
"Indoor Fireworks"
-music and lyrics by Elvis Costello

I would imagine for anyone that has existed within a long term relationship of any kind, we have all found ourselves within this space at some point.

Dear readers, I firmly believe that we are finding ourselves at a stage where Actress Olivia Wilde has emerged and has fully arrived as a filmmaker. From her sharply funny teen film "Booksmart" (2019) and her deeply underappreciated, undervalued and misrepresented yet searing psychological thriller "Don't Worry, Darling" (2022)--a film that seemingly landed her in "Hollywood jail" due to behind the scenes controversies that would never upend any male Director combined with a clearly passionate narrative diatribe against a toxic patriarchal establishment--for me, Wilde has been upon my radar as she has already demonstrated strong confidence behind the camera, effectively weaving worlds and stories that feel fully and freshly conceptualized and realized. 

With her third film, "The Invite," Wilde helms and co-stars in a satirical comedy of manners is by turns ribald, wise, deeply sad and housing a perceptive quality that probes deeply and wounds while doing so as she gives us a portrait of a marriage precariously wobbling on the ropes. "The Invite" is an interior chamber piece that indulges us in hefty surprises and copious laughter while simultaneously leaving blisters and bruises. For those of you in relationships, I am doubtful if it is necessarily one that you would wish to watch together as the darkest corners of relationships are exposed to degrees that are uncomfortably relatable. That being said, "The Invite" is formidable, as it is through the excellence on display in the writing, performances and direction that we have not only Wilde's best film to date but one of the best films of 2026.

So to as not produce spoilers, I gently urge all of you to attempt to see this film as cold as possible to ensure the best overall effect. Olivia Wilde's "The Invite" stars Wilde and Seth Rogen as San Francisco married couple and parents to a 12 year old daughter; stay-at-home, frustrated artist Angela and failed indie rock musician now music teacher Joe. On this fateful evening, Joe returns home from work to discover Angela feverishly preparing their home for a dinner visit from upstairs neighbors, the alluring Pina (Penelope Cruz) and Hawk (Edward Norton), whom Angela desperately wishes to be befriended by and whom Joe wishes nothing to do with.

From this opening, Olivia Wilde's "The Invite" unveils an intimate dance between two couples who fluctuate between states of intense dilapidation and another with a seemingly breezy, free spiritedness that is wholly foreign, as well as attracting and threatening to the feuding Angela and Joe. The overall effect is as sobering as it is often electrifying as Wilde--alongside key collaborators Cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra, Editors Anthony Boys & Yorgos Mavropsardis and Composer Devonte Hynes, whose sinister score perfectly accentuates the intensity--places us upon an emotional knife's edge from which we and the characters threaten to fall from over and again. 

Enormous credit must be given to two distinct areas of Olivia Wilde's team and those belong to both Screenwriters Will McCormack & Rashida Jones, who more than know their way around navigating the intricacies of a relationship as evidenced in their previous screenplay for Lee Toland Krieger's "Celeste And Jesse Forever" (2012), and especially Wilde's set design crew who beautifully create an interior space that exists as much as a character as the people within the space as well as simultaneously functioning as an apartment, a source of shared history and the various nooks and caverns of two human hearts breaking over time, separately and together. 

This technique makes for an experience that serves as voyeuristic, confessional and seductive while also allowing for areas of risky peculiarities, boisterous moments and the boldly, dangerously dramatic, which places Wilde's "The Invite" is comfortable cinematic company with the likes of Sidney Lumet's "12 Angry Men" (1957), Mike Nichols' "Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf" (1966), John Hughes' "The Breakfast Club" (1985), Roman Polanski's "Carnage" (2011), and believe it or not, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's "This Is The End" (2013).  

Additionally, like Richard Linklater's "Before Midnight" (2013) and Nat Faxon & Jim Rash's "Downhill" (2020), Olivia Wilde's "The Invite" exists within the rarefied air of the sorts of cinematic love stories that we truly do not typically see and are the ones that I often wish for. We have more than enough films of people falling in love, but not nearly as many that are brave enough to explore and investigate the territory of what it takes to either remain in love or to question precisely why did the characters ever fall in love and should they even attempt to love again. 

Wilde orchestrates a visually and emotionally claustrophobic environment where the silence is thunderous, the distance feels interminable and where the sanctuary of home is now unsafe due to the eggshells laid out everywhere, threatening to be broken like explosives in a minefield. With Angela and Joe, personal slights have becomes chasms of anxiety and rage and when faced with Pina and Hawk, and their cojoined essence of virility, unpredictability, openness and ease, the couples contrast, congeal, and ultimately reveal layered truths of exquisite depth that are ripe for debate and conversation for viewers long after the end credits appear. 

This quality is a testament to the magic that can be created when in the company of great writing,  direction and performances and Olivia Wilde's "The Invite" contains all three crucial elements wonderfully. All four leading performances in the film are uniformly excellent. As Angela and Joe, both Wilde and especially, Seth Rogen, make for a painfully compelling and convincing couple, who both house levels of self loathing due to past failures and disappointments now metastasizing as real and perceived current failures and disappointments of who they each felt that they could and should be vs. who they each actually are regardless of whatever good fortunes may actually exist if they were only able to acknowledge them.  

Seth Rogen surprised me powerfully as he more than holds his own alongside his co-stars. Now, this is not to suggest that he has morphed into a Daniel Day-Lewis styled actor but I find it incredible that he has only continued to discover and unearth new layers to his screen persona and like his work in Danny Boyle's "Steve Jobs" (2015), scripted by none other than Aaron Sorkin, Rogen rises to the challenges of "The Invite" handsomely. Imagine Rogen's character from Judd Apatow's "Knocked Up" (2007) nearly 20 years later now deeply wounded and scarred, afraid at what his life has been and what it might never become due to the realities of aging. Rogen still possesses his brilliant comedic timing but now, itis fueled by a very real sense of pain and when Wilde catches him in his most interior moments, he is almost shattering to regard. 

When all is said and done, Olivia Wilde's "The Invite" feels like a throwback as well as a serious gauntlet thrown down in our current age of cinema. Trust me, I am as excited to see Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey" as any of you but Wilde has expertly delivered an experience that reminds you of a time when great writing, performances and direction were the only special effects...and that our current movie landscape more than deserves to have those kinds of films as readily available and in as many theaters as the epics.

For me, Olivia Wilde's "The Invite" is an invitation for us to an event and I gently urge you to accept.