Eddington (2025)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Have you ever got the feeling that a movie was made just for you? Eddington, Ari Aster's directorial project last year, has not so much left a mark on me as just fit into the grooves I already have. It won't be for everyone; it's too uncomfortable, expansive yet shallow, and quaintly recent for that. Yet in tackling this subject matter with so much humor and absurdism, Aster spins a tightly wound nightmare and ensnares his attentive viewer. He has no intention of explaining or even offering insight into the social phenomena that plague our current age. Anyone hoping him to make a clear statement about politics, technology, big tech, masculinity, whiteness, etc., will be confused and disappointed. But, by putting a mirror up to the audience and forcing us to watch the insanity unfold, he makes a strong metafictional case for art imitating life.

Just the opening scene is a masterclass in exposition dumping. In less than thirty seconds, we're shown a long man, shoeless and in grungy jeans, walking down a desert road while yelling obscenities and non-sequiturs without taking a breath; as we're trying to parse his vicious-sounding but hollow monologue, and figure out if he's under the influence of substances or experiencing a mental health crisis, the camera pans up and stops to see, in the distance, a sign for a new, incoming data center. This movie clearly has a lot on its mind, and this ain't even the half of it. It helps that we get veteran A-list crew: cinematographer Darius Khondji and editor Lucian Johnston together immerse us into the story while keeping us at an intentional remove.

Do you remember May in 2020? When we were told that things would fully open up again when summer finally it, maybe at latest July 4. After we had been told things would be open by Easter, a few weeks prior. When George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis and waves of protests erupted across the country. When we all became even more dependent on our phones than we had been six months prior. When we became more polarized, more isolated, more rude, more paranoid. If you, like I, choose to forget many of those scary, frustrating days, Aster is determined to shake us out of our stupor. Almost every line of dialogue sounds familiar, as if ripped from our memories and forced back into our waking eyes and ears. I had a similar experience while watching Sick, which is the other Covid-set film I highly recommend to anyone.

And he doesn't say anything about them. Piling on references to policies vs. laws, viral crime videos, police brutality, Black Lives Matter, Antifa, stolen land, AI, viral media, Trumpism, mask mandates, conspiracy theories, rape and abortion, and more, Aster seems determined merely to overwhelm us with the unpleasant, discomfiting experience of hearing and seeing it all again in real time. There's a case to be made that society fractured during those months in 2020, and Aster here lays out the evidence for us to survey. Why is this satisfying for me? I'm still not wholly sure, because a mirror in and of itself isn't artful. But my conclusion is that Aster isn't after us to rethink any of those viral social movements or to get fired up about these issues again; Aster wants to show us how easily we lose ourselves.

Remember the constant confusion, anxiety, guardedness, defensiveness, mistrust, and division that we felt? That's what Aster's reproducing here. Much as he made Beau is Afraid to function as an extended anxiety attack, he basically repeats the formula here. The arguable difference is that he's being deliberately provocative for anyone who might see the film. None of his characters are sympathetic or likable, and they're all so complex and, frankly, realistic, that it's hard to label any. Thankfully, many of them label themselves -- and each other -- with political and ideological words meant to convey meaning but which, by film's end, feel as superfluous as the energy with which they are hurled. It's like he wants people, after the film, to discuss and argue hot button topics not because they are hot but because they're so much more complicated than we ever say on social media.

And amidst all this chaos I'm describing, Aster crafts a gorgeous film for cinephiles. His tendency for playing with genre reaches a high point here, shifting effortlessly from a Western structure to a political thriller, a crime drama, a black comedy, and back again. Joaquin Phoenix plays the weary, put-upon sheriff like an aging John Wayne of a small New Mexico town. His antagonist is the incumbent mayor, played by Pedro Pascal, on roughly the opposite side of the political spectrum. They have family issues -- some of which intertwines, to their lasting resentment -- yet going head-to-head in the coming election destabilizes an already shaky community to the point that it's all-out war. The secondary and tertiary characters provide a lot of context despite not having much screen time, and the ensemble cast are messily overplaying at exactly the necessary pitch: Emma Stone, Austin Butler, Deirdre O'Connell, Michael Ward, Luke Grimes. 

Social media ruins the race. Protests become riots. Police brutality approaches marshal law. Outside influences arrive to add fuel to the fire. Shadowy gunmen assassinate leaders. There's a version of this very same script that could have been penned by Tom Stoppard or Samuel Beckett, so absurd and bleak is its depiction of civilization collapsing on itself. I was also reminded starkly of Don't Look Up, which used anxiety to create comedy rather than the other way around as Aster does. It should be noted that the characters aren't depicted sympathetically: they jump to conclusions and do strange things, so don't go in to this film expecting psychological realism. Go in expecting to feel a little guilt about things you yourself did during those hellish months.

Two-and-a-half hours as it is, I still don't think it's long enough. The final act devolves into a bit of a silly chase sequence and a lack of climax for any but its primary characters. Thrilling though it still is, part of what makes the first half of the film so riveting is the moving parts of its ensemble. When Phoenix enters a store without a mask, we know it's going to be bad, and then his nemesis the mayor is revealed to be behind him in line! When a viral media darling arrives at a private dinner with the sheriff's wife in starry-eyed tow, we know he's trouble, but then he starts talking about getting abducted and raped by an Epstein-like figure and then hunted down like The Most Dangerous Game -- and eventually revealing himself to be an evangelical Christian! It can be a bit tonally tough to swallow, and I imagine some viewers will balk at the screenplay's relatively equal treatment of issues. I don't mean conservative versus progressive so much as I mean effectively giving equal side-eye to protesters of George Floyd's murder as to those who stubbornly refused to wear a mask in public. While we may be laughing at the absurdity on display, it's admittedly difficult to swallow making fun of teens screaming about how they as white people shouldn't even be speaking about the problems of racism in one scene, while the next scene has the lone Black cop in the precinct being framed for the sheriff's crimes. However, because this isn't formally an "issue" story, I don't see how these elements could have been any more reasonably and artfully balanced.

Aster remains one of the best in his craft, and this production feels like an unpredictable turn in his career. I'm eager to see what he turns his attentions to next.

Joker: Folie a Deux (2024)

Score: 3 / 5

Polarizing to some as it may have been, Joker was a breath of fresh air in the stale, stagnant chamber of superhero films. Approaching one of the most iconic villains in comic book history from an intimate psychological perspective, it shifted the lore to suit its character drama, a gamble that paid off magnificently. Paired with its dank, oppressive mise-en-scene, the film unflinchingly faced its realistic horrors and forced us to do the same, effectively making this viewer, at least, feel both complicit and implicated in its depravity. "Dark" and "edgy" don't really come close to what writer/director Todd Philips was doing with the material or with us.

So when a sequel -- from the same creative team -- was announced, I was thrilled. Ushering in Lady Gaga as Joker's paramour was an act of pure genius, if a risky one, as few other actresses working today can carry off the bizarre mix of sensuality, bravado, and unhinged personality that is Gaga's brand. And whenever Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix are on screen, this film delivers on its promises in spades. They play intriguingly off each other, each looking pretty miserable until they suddenly, fabulously, don't; they mine their characters for organic embodiment and uncanny movement work that had me gasping for air. And then, like in Chicago or Cabaret, they break into song.

Some will call this film a musical, but that's not strictly accurate. If anything, it's a jukebox musical, but even that suggests either full musical numbers or music informing/mobilizing the plot. The musical scenes in Joker: Folie a Deux do neither of these things, instead using specific (and usually repeated) musical motifs to showcase not the mental fantasies of its characters but rather their perverse fixations on certain words and ideas that manifest in glamorous, ego-feeding spotlight moments. It's not about them escaping into a nostalgic world (a la La La Land) or working to create their delusional paradise (think Sweeney Todd or even moments of American Horror Story); it's about them dwelling in their own selfish desires and expressing themselves through pirated emotions.

That said -- and truly, I did thoroughly enjoy watching this film -- as a sequel, I was disappointed. I'd have liked less time in Arkham or at least more interesting things for Brendan Gleeson and Catherine Keener to do. I'd have liked a bit more of, well, something: more fully realized musical numbers to indicate the insanity at work in Arthur Fleck and Lee Quinzel or the chance for them to build their criminal résumés together out in Gotham proper. Instead, we're forced into comparatively dull doldrums as Arthur makes a firm distinction between himself and his "Joker" persona and most of his interesting and heartbreaking reality of civilian life is ignored in favor of heavyhanded sequences of his institutional abuse. The closest the film comes to caring about his internal reality is in suggesting -- through classic big band music and some dialogue -- that Arthur is still within a television show of sorts, which surely locked his brain in place at the climactic moment of the first film. And then there's the utterly wasted potential of Harley here, as Gaga is never allowed to go full-blown crazy.

Thankfully, their romance is flipped a bit. Notorious for its questionable abuse and even consent in previous media, here Lee and Arthur develop an earned camaraderie, even though we eventually learn that Lee is the controlling, demanding party in their relationship. Then comes the trial, which is so laughably absurd in its conception and execution, cinematically, that I was actually wishing the film would end soon. Spoiler: it doesn't. Unlike the riveting climax of the first film, here things stretch on through sillier and sillier twists until a false deus ex machina offers hope for transcendence before putting us (and Arthur) literally back where we started.

Performances rarely make a film worth watching, but this is the exception to that rule. Phoenix and Gaga are incredible. I just wish Philips (or, rather, someone else) gave them better material to work with and a more coherent project to bring to life.

Napoleon (2023)

Score: 4 / 5

Thank heaven Ridley Scott is still making movies. His style may not always land for everyone, and his subject matter certainly doesn't, but I've liked every title I've seen of his directorial filmography. With this ambitious biopic and historical war thriller combination, however, I think the vastness that is Napoleon might be slightly beyond Scott's grasp. At least as a lesson in history. The film, while endlessly engaging and fabulous in spectacle, tries to do far too much in its two-and-a-half-hours, and rumor has it that a four-plus-hour director's cut is in the works already. I certainly hope it is.

Scott is here doing what he does best -- or, at least, most famously -- in fictionally dramatizing real historical events mobilized by massive wars. He's also creating a project few filmmakers have dared attempt, though the most immediate comparison point I can conceive might be Oliver Stone's storied (and in my opinion, utterly brilliant) biopic of Alexander the Great. His focus, of course, is here Napoleon Bonaparte, who Scott tries to epitomize from the French Revolution in 1973 (as he apparently watches the beheading of Marie Antoinette) right through his defeat in the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. That's a massive amount of time -- and accomplishments -- to fit into any film, but it does flow rather nicely for what amounts to a bullet-pointed summary.

I confess not knowing a lot about the Napoleonic Wars, but I followed this film generally well, though my notes include several questions for light research. While I knew Egypt was part of his empire, I didn't know about the Battle of the Pyramids; while I knew his invasion of Russia is usually considered a failure, I didn't know that Moscow had been abandoned and burned in 1812. A better screenplay would have found ways of providing more context and information in addition to the "dramatic bits" that seem to dominate the dialogue. And really, that's my only complaint with this film in general: David Scarpa's screenplay just doesn't get deeper than a surface-level survey of Napoleon's wars, shallowly avoiding insight or even much explanation while tying together massive set pieces and Big Ideas. Stringing us from battle to battle, the screenplay only dramatizes Napoleon to the extent that he starts as a terrified soldier and ends as a tragically confident emperor, with only an enigmatic and erotic marital arrangement to flavor his life between wars.

The deeper parts of the screenplay -- and yes, they do exist -- are the more melodramatic and private. Scott's film is wielding a dual purpose: one, to chronicle Napoleon's imperial ambitions, and two, to dramatize the obsessive and contentious romantic relationship he shared with Josephine, an aristocratic widow who takes notice of him after his heroic victory in the Siege of Toulon (which is one of the film's best and most graphic battle scenes, and be warned if you dislike the idea of seeing a horse's torso explode from cannonball impact). Their meeting in 1795 starts a lifetime of passionate lovemaking, grueling political intrigue, and letter-writing that apparently served as inspiration for the entire project. Joaquin Phoenix is never less than arresting as Napoleon (though not always believable with his lack of discernible accent and his age, which doesn't always match the age of the character), but it is Vanessa Kirby whose performance deserves more attention. Kirby has the thankless job of playing a mysterious character mostly lost to history, whose sole purpose in the film -- and, arguably, in life -- is to be a mirror of sorts to the emperor, policing his ego, stroking his ambition, and of course providing sustenance for his desires. Josephine's inability to provide Napoleon with an air becomes the central problem in their relationship, but beyond that familiar plotline is a wealth of weighty power dynamics and sensual challenges between them.

Frankly, I'd have liked this film to either be a miniseries (which, with a potential four-plus-hour cut, I guess it essentially will be) or two separate films, one focusing on Napoleon's wars and public persona and one on his private struggles with family and politics. Both are deserving of more screen time and more dramatic and thematic depth. What is it about Josephine that makes Napoleon all but go mad for her? What is it about him that she apparently loves so much? We're never really given insight into their relationship; the actors are both masters of creating backstory and internal conflict with little more than a silent look, but the screenplay could and should help its audience a bit more. Especially since the film suggests to a lesser extent that it's in pursuit of Josephine that Napoleon finds his motivation for warmongering and empire-building. Neither the director nor writer seem interested in making broad statements about Napoleon as a man, tyrant, or anything else; there's nary a moment of insecurity about his height or attempts to compensate (as pop culture would otherwise imply), about colonialism, madness (I mean, not even a hint of insight into the Napoleon Complex, if you please), or anything that makes Napoleon out to be more than a figurehead, fated to rise and fall in preordained beats of life or a cinematic reel.

So, while it's frustrating to not know much more about Napoleon after viewing the film than before, it's also clear that Scott and his team aren't interested in a history lesson or character discussion. Those are movies that could (and should) be made. This is a period war movie, one that takes its apparent purpose as something akin to war epics of decades gone by. It uses relentlessly impressive battle scenes on enormous scale to cow us into awe, alternating these massive sequences with private bedchamber scenes to underscore Napoleon's "home" life and how it interplays with the man we know from history. With the graphic battle scenes, and the film's closing text discussing the estimated three million deaths during the Napoleonic Wars, I wish the film had leaned into an understanding of him as a warmonger, yes, but also a deathmonger; he seems most lively on screen only when battle rages around him and the threat of death is imminent. This would have been a fascinating lens to view the film through, especially given the contrasting desperation for new life Napoleon craves in begetting a son. It's telling that, once his son is born, he completely disappears from the film and is not mentioned even in the closing text.

Beau is Afraid (2023)

Score: 5 / 5

Some of the best film scholarship and criticism of 2023 will be written about Beau is Afraid, so I'm going to take a backseat for now and just relay some of my rabbit-trail thoughts about it. Because it's magnificent, and I'll need to see it at least once or twice more to develop a better relationship with it, although frankly just once was enough to fill my soul and bother my mind for several weeks.

Much as his co-artists in what I'm calling the triumvirate of horror auteurs (Jordan Peele and Robert Eggers), Ari Aster has already created two major titles: one, a razor-sharp and sickly specific breakout horror gem, and the second, an expansive and daring assault on both senses and sensibilities. This is true for all three, and the other two have since released a third film each, which while horrific in their own ways, also branch out to include other genres, science fiction and historical war/fantasy respectively. Aster now follows suit with his own break-out-of-the-mold horror comedy and psychological "trauma drama." At least, that's what I'm going to call Beau is Afraid, because its three hour runtime spans the gamut of topics and ideas, most relating to self identity and perception, family relationships, and the psychological damage that comes from and informs each.

It might be fair to say that Beau, the titular character played magnificently by Joaquin Phoenix, is afraid of everything. He seems afraid of living, as his apartment in squalor suggests; the literally sparking elevator made me shriek with each appearance. His demeanor is one of perpetually making himself smaller, stooping his shoulders and tightening his mouth and brow, pulling back his voice into a childlike whimper. He's afraid of everyone outside, who Aster dramatizes in bizarrely raucous fashion as a madhouse of pure insanity. He's afraid of his mother, who he calls early on and whose ominous presence will inform the rest of the story. You see, it's almost her birthday, and as Beau is preparing to fly to her, many surreal setbacks (including loud gaslighting neighbors, stolen keys and luggage, and a water outage) stop him. She manipulatively complains before dismissing him, inciting the plot, which is effectively his journey to her.

Beau's odyssey through the world is hard to define, as we are presented it primarily through what he must experience it as being. His anxiety is palpable, but we're not really given a precise diagnosis, even by his psychiatrist (Stephen McKinley Henderson), who prescribes a new experimental drug that must be taken with water. Naturally, when Beau's tap water stops running, he panics, getting the whole thing off to a bang when he wanders across the essentially war-torn neighborhood street to buy water from the convenience store and, in his absence, allows the entire block party of criminals into his unit to trash it. Then he gets a call from a UPS delivery person who says his mother is dead. The whole thing is the definition of a tragicomedy, and by this point it's clear that Beau is little more than a little boy who never really developed and is suddenly dealing with an aging body. He also needs to deal with some serious mommy issues.

Apart from conversations about Beau and his mother (played to award-worthy perfection by Patti LuPone), their relationship, and of course the psychosexual mental disorders that characterize both, it's important to note that the film equally demonizes everyone, and while we are clearly meant to follow Beau's journey, he's not exactly a likable or even reliable point of reference. More importantly, Aster clearly wants all of his film to be symbolic of other, loftier ideas, riddles with which we are meant to dwell and meditate on our own relationships with everything from psychotropic drugs, society as a whole, domesticity, parent-child relations, virginity and sexuality, existential purpose, artistic license in storytelling, mental illness and disorders, and of course questioning the dangerous codependency of our cultural systems. Sound like a lot for one film to handle? It is.

And Aster does it all with such passion and enthusiasm, it's remarkably easy to get swept up in it. Ruthlessly funny, alarmingly vindictive, Aster takes us on a trippy roller coaster of excess, forcing us to feel at once claustrophobic and agoraphobic. How he does it will take many theorists time to unpack, but he does it apparently effortlessly, forcing us into a headspace where we have to laugh to keep from screaming, and where we must constantly attempt to keep ourselves oriented even as it makes us question our own reality. The narrative is, despite all these chaotic musings, sharply defined by distinct chapters of various tonal shifts with unique characters all along the way. There is mother herself, who finally appears near the end in all her glory and horror, aptly named Mona (close to mom, close to money, and of course the sexual and painful "moan" that she offers multiple times). Her surname, and presumably Beau's, is Wassermann, which combines the German for water and of course an exaggerated man, of which there is no strong example in this story (Aster's use of water would be a fascinating study here, used variously as amniotic fluid, a dirty bathtub, a means of medicating, a theatrical flood, and the floor of a prosecutorial arena).

When Beau eventually finds himself injured and taken to the home of a doctor and his family (played by Nathan Lane and Amy Ryan), I was reminded briefly of the unhinged and surreal family of I'm Thinking of Ending Things. It's kind of funny except that it's deeply horrifying, and the themes of filial guilt and complicity are hammered home several times before Beau flees in terror. Later, he finds himself in a Shakespearean forest complete with traveling band of actors, and he completely loses himself in their play; we're treated to an animated sequence of experiencing Beau's own fantasy story as if on the stage, and this is where the arts all collide, where Aster himself hammers home his own messaging about the relationship between art, the subject, the object, and the audience who pours themselves into it. It should also be noted that Beau occasionally endures flashbacks to his youth, where his psychosexual issues are rooted, and wherein he attempts to relate to a young girl his own age as well as a younger version of his mother, played similarly to award-worthy perfection by a mesmerizing Zoe Lister-Jones.

Despite my only barely scratching the surface of this movie here, let it suffice to say that it requires repeat viewings and lots of dialogue with other viewers. I'd love to hear Aster's shot-by-shot commentary on this, but I doubt he'd do one, much less explain the significance of everything. It's meant to be interpreted and projected upon, mused and debated over, and ultimately enjoyed for the holistic, horrific experience it is. Endlessly funny and deeply disturbing, Beau is Afraid is unlike anything we've ever seen, and it's already in my top ten favorites of the year.

Joker (2019)

Score: 5 / 5

Forget Brightburn. Joker is the comic book horror movie of the year. It's also one of the most daring, haunting, and unforgettable cinematic features of 2019.

We're quickly pulled into the world of one Arthur Fleck, an earnest but rather bad party clown who lives with his mother in Gotham City. Facing poverty, abuse, and crime slowly breaks Arthur, whose apparent mental illnesses are exacerbated as he tries to care for his ailing mother and make himself a star. When he finally defends himself by killing two thugs -- and executing a third in a chilling scene -- he becomes a pseudo-vigilante in the crime-ridden, deeply divided city. Having (perhaps unwittingly) started a social rebellion, he continues his ascent to infamy, especially losing it when he discovers that his father is Thomas Wayne. At least, so Arthur's possibly insane mother says. But when you have so little and the world still shits on you, you take what you're given and you run with it.

Disturbed yet? You should be. Joker is essentially asking us to understand how domestic terrorism happens, and to do so by shoving our own complicity in our faces. This movie is ugly. Ugly in its portrayal of evil: prevalent, pitiful, and terrifying. Ugly in the way it considers mental illness: Arthur's only explicit condition is a tendency to laugh when least appropriate, but there are clearly more serious problems here. Ugly in its lack of totally sympathetic characters: Arthur is arguably the one we're supposed to identify with, and therein lies the horrific nature of the film. Ugly in its depiction of Gotham's unjust class divisions: but wait, that hits a little too close to home.

This Gotham is America. Just as Us sought to blast open US cultural wounds with dynamite, Joker slyly unmasks the hideous face beneath the veneer of our sociopolitical culture under Trump. Wayne seems to be a benevolent guy, but is his money really going toward projects that will help the disenfranchised of Gotham? We never really know on any big scale, but we can see nothing is helping Arthur or his mother. And that so many people are so quick to praise, support, and even emulate the "killer clown" (who pointedly killed the Wayne Enterprises businessmen first) even to the point of setting Gotham on fire suggests Arthur is less unique than we at first supposed.

Sure, we can argue that sympathizing with a terrorist is a dangerous move for a film to make, especially in the current climate. But what is art if not challenging and disturbing? Moreover, while the film perhaps does a disservice to the mentally ill or to the poor, isn't the film far more critical of those who treat Arthur and his ilk with disdain, contempt, and violence? And frankly, the ugliness of Joker helps make it one of the most beautiful movies of the year for me. Joaquin Phoenix's performance is unbelievably daring, the cinematography (Lawrence Sher of Godzilla: King of the Monsters) is suggestive and precise, the score (Hildur Gudnadottir of Mary Magdalene and Chernobyl) is one of my favorites yet this year.

In fact, Joker has become one of my favorites of 2019. It's the kind of movie you cannot watch without needing to reflect and discuss afterward. You can spend time dissecting fanbase concerns about an iconic character's origin story, and you can needle your way into hyperspecific critiques of certain scenes (like how soft-spoken, often noncommunicative Arthur, on live television, is able to suddenly deliver a scathing manifesto about his newfound place in Gotham and the order of the world as he sees it). But the sheer mysterious power of this film is undeniable. Whether you're interested in the cinematic homage to other films, the social commentary, the psychological issues, or the aesthetics involved, you won't really be able to reach a consensus with anyone. And that's what great cinema is all about.

Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot (2018)

Score: 3.5 / 5

In a year of men dealing with pretty intense therapeutic issues (Beautiful Boy, Boy Erased), Gus Van Sant's newest flick probably flew under your radar. And rightfully so, as its slyly humorous approach pales in comparison with those other films' gravitas. We follow in it -- the plot is not quite linear -- John Callahan as he struggles with alcoholism and his recent paralysis to become the noted controversial cartoonist. Oddly, the film seems to work against any notion of plot, almost deliberately blurring the lines of conventional narrative in order to force us to care about the characters.

Thankfully, this is one Gus Van Sant film in which he very much succeeds in this endeavor. Joaquin Phoenix (who, like his director here, is often either wholly likable or entirely unknowable) plays Callahan as almost too endearing, rendering the artist and commentator familiar and fun. His "everyman" approach works well for the character, whose real-life counterpart is apparently quite inflammatory, because it gets us to think about both behavioral problems and physical limitations that we may ignore, not understand, or take for granted. That's not dissimilar from many dramas involving disabilities or diseases, but here the focus is clearly on the human spirit as much as the body.

While some may argue that a lack of narrative structure makes the poignant observations and insights of this film feel like a random assortment of sentimental vignettes, I'd argue that it disturbs our conventional understanding of these tales and gets us to laugh along until something really surprises us. One of the biggest surprises for me was Jonah Hill as a most unlikely mentor for Callahan. He's an ex-alcoholic gay Christian and borderline hippie, living off inherited wealth and referring to God as "Chucky". Anachronistic (and maybe anarchistic) as the movie seems at times, Hill is a wonder to behold. His usual explosive, postmodern humor is so toned (and his appearance so caricatured) that he was almost as chameleonic as Phoenix usually is. His measured speech and perceptive character belie a warm heart that is as entrancing as the film itself.

That's not to say it's all comedy and sweetness. The film suffers in ways that, while perhaps not fatal, stopped me from giving myself over. Rooney Mara and Jack Black support the leads in roles that utterly waste their talents. Mara trips over her accent while Black is all but buried behind his mustache and villainous eyebrows. And as a biopic, the film utterly fails. I didn't learn a single thing about Callahan. The character could have been anyone, and as a drama been okay. Its determination to limit its scope to Callahan should have, in my opinion, had a purpose or point. Something that commented on, if not present culture (Callahan, after all, arguably represents a noteworthy shift in society from Reagan-era conservatism), then at least politics or society of its own time. Instead, we get a portrait of a man empowering himself and building a community of support. It's nice, but nothing new, important, or ultimately memorable.

Also, I made the mistake of doing some research. Apparently Robin Williams had initially been set to star. Imagine that movie for a bit, and it'll be much harder to praise this one.

IMDb: Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot

The Sisters Brothers (2018)

Score: 2.5 / 5

Re-watch-ability is one of those things I usually scoff at others for valuing. Who cares if you don't want to watch it again? What matters is your experience of the art in the moment. Sure, we might love things more that we watch often (correlation or causation?), but surely that's just a measure of our personal taste. The more people I talk with, the more I find that their ideas of "good" movies heavily include their opinion of a film's re-watch-ability. I usually disagree.

Then I saw The Sisters Brothers and I had to concede.

The story follows the eponymous siblings as they roam the frontier in the employ of "the Commodore," a wealthy asshole who hires the brothers as hitmen. Their bounty: Hermann Warm (Riz Ahmed), a chemist whose new formula will help him easily find gold in California riverbeds. The Commodore had previously dispatched an assassin (Jake Gyllenhaal), but rather than murdering Warm, they had teamed up to strike it rich together. They make a handsome couple -- far more handsome and intelligent than the brothers teamed up to hunt them down.

The Sisters are almost immediately unlikable. Violent, brusque, and laughably grotesque, they stick out like cactus thorns. Joaquin Phoenix and John C. Reilly are in turns funny and pathetic, with the occasional spice of hostility, but they're also irritating, mean, indulgent, and simple. They harbor dark secrets that do not endear them to us. They're fascinating, to be sure, like the film around them, but only enough to keep us interested for one go-round.

Bleak, dry comedy characterizes this picture, and while it's somewhat fresh and intriguing in the genre, it's also not enough to save the flick from its other trappings. Some moments feel inspired; I think immediately of the nightmarish scene in which a beastly tarantula enters a sleeping John C. Reilly's mouth and they each bite each other. Horrific, to be sure, but also weirdly inconsequential.

Later, in the bizarre town of Mayfield -- in which everything is named Mayfield -- the brothers run afoul of the town's namesake, who they think is conspiring against them. There is no proof of this, and her denial of knowledge of their bounty is only painted as dubious because of our perspective (though she then hires hitmen to eliminate the drunken, dangerous brothers). Surviving, the brothers torture and interrogate Mayfield before murdering and robbing her. It's an awkward series of disjointed, sharply edited images, culminating in the brutal death of a woman in power; it doesn't help that the actress (Rebecca Root) is a trans icon.

Then again, the film has its occasional charms. When Carol Kane shows up in the final scene as the mother Sister, my heart leapt for short-lived joy. And that's nearly the same sensation I felt with the picture in general. It's entertaining and diverting for its run time, but little in it feels important or memorable, and it leaves a somewhat confused aftertaste. And it's not one I ever need to see again.

IMDb: The Sisters Brothers

You Were Never Really Here (2018)

Score: 4.5 / 5

An action thriller shot like a horror movie, You Were Never Really Here is a tightly wound knot of violence that had my skin crawling for its entire 90-minute run time.

Joaquin Phoenix delivers a typically arresting performance as mercenary Joe who rescues abducted girls and wipes out traffickers. Joe suffers as a result of childhood trauma and his past in the military and FBI, and we see his flashbacks as he does, without introduction or even much rhyme or reason. They assault us as they assault him, often at inopportune moments, forcing us to question reality. Unfortunately, Joe has become world-weary and seems to be in constant agony. Whenever he's not caring for his elderly mother (Judith Roberts), he's obsessed with violence and death, often locating his anxiety around his own person. His suicidal fantasies blur together with actual suicide attempts in increasingly vivid scenarios.

It's an amazing performance, seconded only by the filmmaking. Writer and director Lynne Ramsay (We Need to Talk About Kevin) exerts her considerable control in full force here, proving her understanding not only of Joe's character but of cinematic craft. The story is a web of strands that don't always make sense; she controls our attention not on those secondary plotlines but on the psychological maze Joe travels. She gives us only the tiniest bits of information amidst impressionistic (or maybe expressionistic? I'm really not sure if this film distinguishes between the two) images and sounds, not allowing audiences to be lazy in the slightest.

The hallucinations and fantasies and flashbacks cloud the narrative enough to keep us engaged, but the close-up, clear-cut cinematography and razor-sharp editing keep us on the edge of our seat. Sure, when the blood spurts you might flinch, but I found the most violent moments to be the simplest, when Joe's agonizing existence rips through his cold exterior and he breaks down alone in his car or at the foot of his bed. When he remembers his mother counting as they hide from his abusive father. When, after shooting the man who murders his mother, he lies down next to him and holds his hand as they sing along to a song on the radio.

And, for all the violence, what impressed me most about this film is that, for a story about a hitman, the emphasis here is on the man. It's a dense character study with a few brutal punches to throw on screen, but a far more insidious agenda for your mind.

IMDb: You Were Never Really Here