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The Time Machine (1960)
Dopey
Though time travel stories are a dime a dozen now, it's clear that the concept of time travel was still somewhat novel to 1960 audiences, because "The Time Machine" spends what feels like about 30 minutes at the beginning explaining the idea to us. It takes forever for chiseled-jaw Rod Taylor to get in his thingamajiggy and find out that the future of mankind promises a lot of war and possible nuclear destruction. Fun stuff. It's not until after he zooms past all that bad news that he finds a world inhabited by Yvette Mimieux in an art teacher smock (but still with a 1960s hairdo, which apparently will be back in fashion millenia from now), and helps her fend off a bunch of albino cave dwellers who want to....eat them, I think?
Taylor is a hunkadoodle, but he's kind of an ass in this. He shows up in some time and place he knows nothing about, and then starts mansplaining to anyone who will listen everything they're doing wrong. Just stop talking, Rod, and take your shirt off. You'll get a lot farther.
The biggest disappointment of "The Time Machine" is Mimieux's costume. Come on, I was expecting some kind of metal futuristic bikini or something like that, and what I get instead looks like a maternity gown.
The special effects won this film an Oscar back in 1960, and they have a certain nostalgic charm about them.
Grade: B-
Roadblock (1951)
Charles McGraw Is the Draw
I've seen a string of noirs lately that have left me disappointed by dangling a juicy femme fatale in front of me only to have her be abandoned by the movie, and "Roadblock" is another.
Joan Dixon gets faux fatale honors here, entering the movie as a shyster but turning disappointingly straight and narrow as the movie goes on. It's gravelly Charles McGraw who's the draw in this one, playing an insurance detective who thinks he has to go in on a heist in order to pay for his girlfriend's expensive tastes, long after she no longer cares about such petty material things. Watching the noose tighten on McGraw is the fun part of this film, and while I'm not sure this is one that's going to stick with me, I had fun enough in the moment.
Grade: B+
Mr. Soft Touch (1949)
Minor Noir
"Mr. Soft Touch" takes forever to really get going, and even when it does it's only nominally entertaining.
Glenn Ford spends the first half of the movie wandering around a community shelter, where he's hunkered down to hide from thugs who are after him. He flirts a lot with Evelyn Keyes, who looks adorable in this but doesn't get much to do. Ford has a charming, winning screen presence, so it's easy enough to hang out with him for a bit, but if you came here looking for a noir, you might be disappointed.
The noir part kicks in in the last half hour or so, and there are some shootouts and a burning building to escape from. The ending leaves us hanging -- Ford has been shot and lies in the arms of his love, but whether he dies or lives to see another day we'll never know.
Grade: B.
Mrs. Parkington (1944)
Greer Garson Makes This Very Watchable
A meandering family saga that remains supremely watchable on the strength of Greer Garson's performance.
I'm not even that much of a Garson fan. I don't actively dislike her, but she's not a go-to for me. But she's great here, playing her character in part of the movie as an elderly matriarch navigating the squabbling of her selfish children and grandchildren, and the other part as a young woman who goes from living in a small mining town to marrying a wealthy baron and experiencing the many ups and downs of a tempestuous marriage along the way. Walter Pidgeon and she have a ton of chemistry together. It's easy to see why they were so often paired. And MVP honors also go to Agnes Moorehead, playing Pidgeon's former lover who weirdly becomes best friend to Garson after she and Pidgeon get married. Moorehead's French accent is very convincing.
Garson and Moorehead were Oscar nominated as Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress, respectively, for their performances in this.
Grade: A-
Red Rocket (2021)
Why isn't anyone talking about Simon Rex's performance in this movie?
Why isn't anyone talking about Simon Rex's performance in this movie?
I'm writing this comment two days after the SAG nominations for 2021 were announced, and oh my god did they pick the most most boring, bland group of biopic performances imaginable. And meanwhile there's Simon Rex in this movie giving what's easily one of the best performances by anyone this year.
It wasn't until after this movie was over and I thought back on it that I realized what a truly despicable person Rex plays. Aside from charm and charisma, he has no redeeming qualities. But hoo boy, that charm and charisma is everything. As a former porn star on the skids who returns to his estranged wife and her mother so that he can take advantage of the sad, defeated people that populate their rural Texas town, Rex brings such an abundance of energy and humor to these people's lives that it's easy to think at first that he's good for them. But as the movie progresses and his true selfishness, at times monstrous, emerges, we realize how terrible he is for pretty much everyone he comes in contact with.
It is to Rex's extreme credit, then, that he manages to make this character so freaking likable. I was even rooting for him in a way, because he at least shows gumption and an acknowledgement that the white trash life his wife has chosen isn't good enough for him.
"Red Rocket" is another gem from a director who has cornered the market on movies that make us care about people most of us would prefer to believe don't exist.
Grade: A.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024)
Pale Follow Up to Fury Road
I wasn't all in on an origin story for the character of Furiosa from "Mad Max: Fury Road." I thought that movie was absolutely brilliant, a self-contained gem of epic action storytelling, and I wanted to just remember it as it was. And I don't particularly like Anya Taylor Joy, and especially not filling the shoes of Charlize Theron.
But I went to see "Furiosa" anyway, because George Miller. It's not a bad movie, but it never rises to the level of "Fury Road" and doesn't do much to justify its existence. Taylor Joy's performance didn't convert me into a fan, and it's not until you're watching her in the role that you realize how much of the first film's success rested on Theron's performance. It would be easy to overlook the acting in "Fury Road" amid Miller's stunning action scenes and world building, but it's Theron who made Furiosa such a compelling character, not anything inherent about the character herself.
And where "Fury Road" soared, "Furiosa" trudges along. "Fury Road" was exhilarating and weirdly beautiful despite its grungy, gritty setting. "Furiosa" mostly feels ponderous and heavy. I felt euphoric after watching "Fury Road." I felt mostly weary after "Furiosa."
If Miller continues this same story with a third installment, I think I'll pass.
Grade: B.
The Fall Guy (2024)
Just Awful
I'm a fun loving person. Yes, I like to read William Faulkner, but I also like to read P. G. Wodehouse. Yes, I like David Lynch, but I also like "The Naked Gun." I too crave fun, escapist entertainment that I don't have to think too hard about.
So then I go out to see a movie that promises to be just that, and I get a movie like "The Fall Guy." A movie so slapped together and terrible it's like its makers assumed the audience for it would be so stupid and undiscriminating that it would be entertained by any old crap thrown up on the screen.
If I taught a film class, I would actually use "The Fall Guy" as an example of the importance of a good screenplay. It's not like there isn't talent assembled for this film. It has appealing actors. It has cool action sequences. But it has an absolutely dreadful screenplay. It's just random stuff happening to the point that you don't care about any of it. Sometimes it can seem like certain kinds of comedies and action movies don't need strong screenplays in the way that more serious movies do, until you see one that has really bad writing, and then you realize how much good writing was going into those other movies that are so much better.
Ugh, what an utter waste of time.
Grade: D.
Cry Terror! (1958)
Rod Steiger Is So Creepy
"Cry Terror" belongs to the "family taken hostage by criminals" sub-genre of film noir. Rod Steiger is the leader of the pack, and man is this dude creepy. Steiger was mostly incapable of playing a character other than as an off-putting boor, which was a problem when we were supposed to like him, but serves him well in a movie like this. James Mason is the husband/father of the family that gets taken hostage, and Inger Stevens is his wife. They both have some cool set pieces to manage, Mason's involving a shinny through an elevator shaft and Stevens's a high-speed car drive through city traffic. Angie Dickinson is the female member of the gang, and she's even sexier (if that's possible) playing a cold hearted moll (and man, is she ruthless) than she was playing good guys.
Eddie Muller talked this one up quite a bit in his TCM intro. I don't think I liked it as much as he does, but it is a pretty good, suspenseful little noir.
Grade: A-
Ice Station Zebra (1968)
What a Fiasco
Good grief, what an utter fiasco!
"Ice Station Zebra" gets so bad before it's over that by the end I was howling at how terrible and ridiculous it was, so I guess there's some entertainment value to be had.
The plot is convoluted, having something to do with Americans and Russians wanting to race each other to the North Pole (or was it Antarctica?)...see, I don't even know.....someplace cold....to recover film dropped from a spy satellite (I think). Wherever they are, everything looks like it's made out of styrofoam when they get there.
Rock Hudson looks like he wants to be anywhere else but in this movie, and Ernest Borgnine proves once again that he was utterly incapable of delivering a line or facial expression the way a normal human being would.
It's hilarious to me that the movie makes a big mystery out of which person is the Russian spy, and then has it be the person who was literally introduced to the movie as a suspected Russian spy.
This movie comes with an overture, entr'acte, and exit music, because it thinks it's a Broadway show. It won't be long before we have "Ice Station Zebra: The Musical!"
This clunker was nominated for two Oscars: Best Cinematography and Best Special Visual Effects, in the year that Stanley Kubrick won that award for "2001: A Space Odyssey." Let that sink in for a moment. "Ice Station Zebra" and "2001: A Space Odyssey" came out in the same year. They seem like movies from completely different decades.
Grade: D.
Storm Fear (1955)
Pretty Bangin' Noir
Eddie Muller hated on "Storm Fear" so much during his TCM intro that it left me wondering why the station even decided to air it. So maybe chalk it up to really low expectations, but I thought this was a pretty bangin' noir.
It's in the "family taken hostage by gangsters" sub-genre, and it's all set in the snowy wilderness. Normally this would turn me off, because I prefer my noirs to be urban, but it all works here, and the quiet whiteness of all the outdoor scenes actually adds an eerie effect to the story. Jean Wallace gives an excellent performance as the wife and mother of the captive brood, a better performance than movies like this needs. And Lee Grant is a standout as well as a gangster moll who meets a tragic end. Dan Duryea struggles a bit with his role as the emasculated husband and father -- it's clear watching his performance in this why he was so much more often cast as the bad guy. And Cornel Wilde rounds out the cast as the crime gang's ringleader who's really got a good heart beating under that macho chest.
Don't let Eddie Muller keep you away from this one. It's a lot of fun.
Grade: A.
Naked Alibi (1954)
OK Film Noir
Meh, "Naked Alibi" is alright, but I prefer my noirs to take place in truly noir cities like New York or San Francisco, not Mexican border towns.
And good grief does this movie waste Gloria Grahame. She enters the film promisingly enough, shot first from the back in a nightclub singing a torch song, and then whipping around to entertain us all with some va-va-voom. So what if the singing voice doesn't match the actress. But she pretty quickly gets shunted aside into a boring love interest role and waits around for the men in the film to decide they need her for a plot point.
On the plus side, the film does have Sterling Hayden in one of his borderline psycho cop roles. When the movie opens, he's hounding a guy because he's convinced he's a murderer even though he doesn't have any proof, and then stalks him down to said border town to bring him to justice. But at some point the movie loses all ambiguity, and we know exactly who the good guys are and who the bad guys are, which is never as much fun.
Grade: B.
I Saw the TV Glow (2024)
Alternate Reality
Have you ever been so in love with a fictional world that you actually feel a version of homesickness that you can't live there? For me it's "Star Wars," and to a lesser extent "Harry Potter."
"I Saw the TV Glow" captures that feeling, as well as the comfort and the antidote to loneliness that comes from knowing a whole bunch of other people out there share your love of that same world.
The film is a study in how pop culture can bring people together, but also how it can highlight the shortcomings in our own lives.
I've been seeing a lot of comments from people who are reading the movie as one man's agonized effort to embrace his trans identity. Maybe that is what the filmmaker intended this movie to be about, but I didn't read it as so specific. To me it's not necessarily about being trans, but rather about finding yourself trapped in a life that feels like it's not of your choosing.
One thing I liked most about this movie is that it makes the point that we frequently imprison ourselves, and that our failure to be the person we want to be isn't due to someone actively preventing us, but because of our own fear.
This is one of those films that needles itself into your head and makes you think about it for days after you've seen it.
Grade: A.
Aku wa sonzai shinai (2023)
I Just Don't Jive with Ryusuke Hamaguchi
I guess I just don't jive with Ryusuke Hamaguchi.
This is the second film of his I've seen (the other was "Drive My Car") and neither of them made me feel much of anything. No, that's not completely accurate. "Evil Does Not Exist" did make me feel something, namely grumpy and frustrated.
I'm going to whine for a minute. Right now most of the movies in theaters that are made ostensibly to entertain large groups of people are crap. They're either Marvel movies, which I hate, or they're the fourth installment of some series that was never that good to begin with. So then I turn to critics to see what they are giving high scores to, and they are giving high scores to movies like "Evil Does Not Exist." I am a cinephile and have seen a lot of different movies in my time. I like to be challenged, and I can like having to do most of the work myself when appreciating a movie. But I also know that I need variety, and not a steady stream of any one thing. I feel like every movie lately that experts are telling me is good is like this one. It seems almost designed to be as un-entertaining as possible. Like moving the camera too much, or having anything resembling narrative momentum, or moving the film forward at anything other than a glacial pace is capitulating to the dumb ass masses. And then don't even get me started on these endings. The nice word I suppose is "enigmatic," but really they're just baffling and often feel arbitrary, like the filmmaker picked a random place to just end the movie because they didn't have a better idea. Where are the films that intelligent adults can enjoy but that also feel like entertaining movies? The other night I came across "Tootsie" on TCM and I felt like a parched desert wanderer stumbling across an oasis of refreshing, crystal clear water.
Ok, done whining. I'm going to give Hamaguchi the benefit of the doubt and say the problem is me. Maybe I wasn't in the mood. He's clearly a smart guy. I don't have to "get it" in the conventional sense of the word. I can just let it wash over me and see how it makes me feel. But again, it made me feel nothing except restlessness. Like are you trying my patience on purpose just to be a jerk? Would it kill you to frame actors sometimes so that we can actually see their faces while they're having a five-minute long conversation? Do we need such long, static shots of tree branches, and people chopping wood, and filling water jugs? I really do get it. We're exploring the relationship here between man and nature, and the fact that we all, just like the animals in the forest, are driven primarily by the instinct for survival. We will do what we must for what we think are our best interests and justify those actions in whatever way we can. So I'm really not incapable of enjoying or understanding a slow burn movie. I just ask that it gives me a reason to keep watching it.
I don't know what the ending means, and I don't care enough about this movie to try to figure it out. It really needed Dustin Hoffman tearing off a wig and shocking a room full of soap opera actors by revealing himself to be a man. That would have made as much sense to me in the context of this movie as the ending I actually did get.
Grade: C.
Gasoline Rainbow (2023)
You're Going to Have to Do All the Work
20 minutes into "Gasoline Rainbow" and I was pretty bored. This movie is why I don't want to hang out with 18 year olds. The kids in this can barely form a coherent, intelligent thought. Their vocabulary is limited to variations of the "f" word. They all seemed interchangeable. I barely knew their names. If they had interests, hobbies, aspects of their personalities that set them apart from each other, you don't learn about them.
But, while I'm not sure I ever completely got over my restlessness while watching this movie, this movie does work a kind of modest spell. By the time it was over, I realized that I had gotten to know these kids and had started to feel a little protective of them, and my wife and I had quite a bit to ruminate about after the movie was over. It made me appreciate living in a place like Chicago, with access to so much, and where I can expose my kids to the world. A lot of Americans who've never known anything other than big cities and the suburban areas immediately around them have no concept of the vast spaces out there, and how deadening and hopeless it can feel to grow up in them.
"Gasoline Rainbow" feels like a bunch of young people without any resources to actually make a movie decided to just go ahead and make one anyway. For that reason, it feels often like you have to do a lot of the work yourself. That can be wonderful, and many times is actually what I prefer in my movies. But it can sometimes also come across as lazy and half-baked. It's like paying for a meal in a restaurant and having to make half of it yourself. It feels like the directors gathered some friends together and just started winging it, hoping something substantial would emerge. It sort of does, but not enough to be really satisfying. If you're not going to have a strong screenplay and give your actors structure and direction, then you need to make sure they're really good at improvisation. Stoned, drunk people are actually really boring to hang out with.
So while I overall am glad I saw this, I can see why others would be bored to sobs by it. I don't blame them, and I'm not sure I could unequivocally recommend it to anyone else.
Grade: B.
Challengers (2024)
Lacks Erotic Sizzle
Young, attractive, wealthy people trying to win tennis matches and deciding who they want to screw. That's this movie in a nutshell.
These people are tedious, and I didn't care at all about how any of their conflicts were resolved. Zendaya has some appeal, but I'm not sure yet whether or not she has any real acting chops. Mike Faist gives the film's best performance. He and Zendaya have some chemistry, which helps. But Zendaya and Josh O'Connor, who plays the third in this love triangle, have none, so their tempestuous, on-again-off-again affair isn't convincing.
The thing that torpedoes "Challengers" is that it has no erotic charge at all. It's all supposed to be so sexy and hot, and it needed to be for me to care about anything happening, but it isn't.
And the film is too long, though it wouldn't have been if they had cut out all the slo-mo, which seriously probably adds a good half hour to the running time.
Grade: B-
Between Midnight and Dawn (1950)
Like Two Different Movies
"Between Midnight and Dawn" is like two different movies awkwardly slapped together into one.
For the first half, I was praising the movie for a crisp screenplay that finds cop buddies Mark Stevens and Edmond O'Brien vying for the affections of the new dispatch girl. Ok, so it's a little creepy that they both rent the apartment right next door to her so that they can more easily stalk her, but hey, this was the 50s, so what's romance without a little sexual harassment to go with it? But they're both winning, and the film is lighthearted and funny. Then mid-way through, a major character dies, which I was not expecting, and after that the film transitions into dark revenge territory. It also gets quite brutal and graphically violent for the time. A character gets shot in the head, you see bloody bullet holes actually appear in another, blood gets smeared on walls. Fairly extreme considering this was made at a time when characters in other movies like this would get shot without any apparent physical damage and then fall into a bloodless heap.
I liked it and thought it was a pretty entertaining noir, even if by the time it's over it feels like it's been all over the place. And I enjoyed the cinematography in this one, especially some POV shots from inside a patrol car while it cruises the dark streets that look like something out of "Taxi Driver."
Grade: A-
Strange Bargain (1949)
Great Plot Twist
I love a good plot twist, and "Strange Bargain" delivers one that I did not see coming.
Jeffrey Lynn gives a really good performance as a clenched, strait-laced suburban husband and father whose boss ropes him into a scheme to help his suicide look like murder in exchange for a pay off. A running theme in the film is financial desperation -- all of these guys trying to live up to the American dream and finding that it's too expensive.
This is one of those noirs with a protagonist who's not cut out for the mess he's landed himself in, and watching him dig himself deeper and deeper into a hole is like watching a car accident in slow motion.
And then there's that plot twist that had me tipping my hat and saying "well played, sir" to my television.
In the world of film noir, this one is much more on the modest side of the enjoyment scale, but it's fun.
Grade: B+
Absence of Malice (1981)
Where Have Movies Like This Gone?
I don't normally like it when people say "they don't make them like this anymore" when referring to movies, because it usually makes people sound like they're just old and resistant to new things. But I have to admit while re-watching "Absence of Malice" lately that I had that feeling myself. In this new world of fractured streaming entertainment, you can still find plenty of good movies made for grownups, but you have to try so much harder. I don't much like most of the mainstream stuff that now saturates movie theaters, and the more serious stuff is hard to find and then is many times so bleak and depressing when you do.
Back in the 1980s, there was a middle tier of movie that "Absence of Malice" is an example of, and that played regularly in theaters next to blockbusters. Intelligent enough to be enjoyed by adults, but accessible enough to be entertaining without stressing you out too much. Really great actors giving really good performances, a serious topic but dealt out in a way that doesn't make it feel like medicine, and an ending that isn't exactly happy but also isn't demoralizing. The romance is dumb and feels tacked on just to tick off a box, but it's not pushed too hard. There's a place for middlebrow, reliable entertainment like this.
Paul Newman and Melinda Dillon received Oscar nominations for their Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress performances, respectively, and the film won a third nomination for its original screenplay.
Grade: A-
Anastasia (1956)
Meh
Meh...I just don't get Ingrid Bergman.
People go on and on about how beautiful she is and what a wonderful actress she was. She's fine, but she never does much for me. The dramatic tension in "Anastasia" comes from everyone not knowing whether or not Bergman's character is the lost daughter of assassinated Russian royalty Nicholas and Alexandra, who some think survived the slaughter of her family. Yul Bryner really wants her to be, because he stands to gain financially if she is. So he totally Pygmalion's her into acting like a princess so everyone will believe her. This movie is like "My Fair Lady" but without any songs and without Rex Harrison there to be funny.
I never really cared much whether she was truly Anastasia or not, and the movie never tells us for sure anyway.
Bergman won her second Best Actress Academy Award for this movie, and she'd go on to win yet a third Oscar, albeit in a supporting category. Alfred Newman also received an Oscar nomination for the film's score.
Grade: B.
The Milagro Beanfield War (1988)
Poorly Edited But Winning Anyway
I loved the book "The Milagro Beanfield War," but I read it a long time ago and don't remember details very well. I can't speak to how faithful an adaptation Robert Redford's movie is, but I also don't really care because I think that's usually a boring conversation. Taken as its own thing, the movie "The Milagro Beanfield War" is in some ways actually poorly made, but it manages to be winning anyway.
I'm a sucker, as many people are, for an underdog-against-greedy-corporate-interests story, so that went a along way toward making me like this. It's also got a leisurely, meandering, lightly whimsical quality that I was in the mood for.
But it's also a terribly edited movie. There are a lot of characters and storylines to account for, and the film cuts frequently between them all, to disorienting effect. We will be watching two people have a conversation, and then the film cuts abruptly to two different people in the middle of a conversation somewhere else about a different topic, with little in the way of transition between. It makes for a choppy movie where no one actor really gets a chance to shine.
But I'm rounding up because I liked this movie anyway and I'm in a good mood today.
Dave Grusin won the Oscar for Best Original Score.
Grade: B.
The Hunger (1983)
Stylish But Baffling
Taken shot for shot, "The Hunger" is one of the most gorgeous movies ever made. Meticulous attention was given to individual images. But unfortunately someone forgot that all of these pretty pictures need to add up to a coherent story. Instead, the end result is mostly baffling.
I don't understand the vampire rules in this one. Why do all of Catherine Deneuve's vampire husbands die, but she doesn't? And why does she then arbitrarily die at the end and leave Susan Sarandon to continue her legacy? Can there only be one hot, immortal, female vampire alive at a time? And what do the monkeys have to do with anything? And was anyone else surprised at how little David Bowie is actually in this movie?
Is it possible I'm overthinking this film? I'm not going to say "no." But this film is frustratingly opaque, partially I think by design, but also partially because it's not made well.
Grade: C.
Black Angel (1946)
Holy Plot Twist
Holy plot twist!
"Black Angel" is a B noir from 1946, so it's little known now. But this movie has a plot twist on par with some of the biggest from much more prominent films.
It's a small miracle of misdirection, and the casting team made the brilliant choice of putting Peter Lorre in the role of what we assume is the villain. Peter Lorre in a film noir has to be the villain, right? The problem is, Dan Duryea is in this too, and he also frequently steps up as villain in films like these. What to do? You completely pull the rug out from under the audience, is what you do.
Not a major addition to the film noir canon, but a very satisfying one for lovers of the genre.
Grade: A-
Khartoum (1966)
Something's Missing
"Khartoum" has some things going for it: an intelligent screenplay that's more "Lawrence of Arabia" than typical Hollywood historical hokum; a for once restrained and actually kind of good performance from Charlton Heston; a terrific and magisterial score; some exciting battle sequences. But somehow the parts never add up to a satisfying whole, and I was left not caring that much how this historic episode (which I knew nothing about) turned out, and toward the end even slightly confused by what was happening.
Laurence Olivier appears in one of the most egregiously terrible brown face performances ever. I couldn't decide which was worse, his makeup or his acting. I think my favorite performance was probably Ralph Richardson's as a beleaguered and reluctant British military strategist.
"Khartoum" was nominated for Best Original Story and Screenplay at the 1966 Academy Awards, losing the award to the French film "A Man and a Woman."
Grade: B.
Conquest (1937)
Dull Romance
"Conquest" does what a lot of movies from the 1930s did: take a historical subject and turn it into a dreary romantic melodrama that feels like every other dreary romantic melodrama ever made.
I've really liked Greta Garbo in some things (hello "Ninotchka"), but roles like the one she plays in this movie were what she was most often given, and they're my least favorite. She yearns and sighs stoically like no one's business, but it's boring. Charles Boyer is another actor I've never really taken to. He gets the juicy role of Napoleon and won an Oscar nomination for it, but every other actor nominated with him that year (I've seen all of them) were more impressive.
"Conquest" won a second Oscar nomination for its art direction, courtesy of the billion times nominated Cedric Gibbons and his partner in this one, William Horning.
Grade: B-
Dream Scenario (2023)
Creative Exploration of Cancel Culture
"Dream Scenario" is a creative exploration of cancel culture, and the way social media creates a mob rule where the herd decides who belongs and who doesn't and the victim doesn't get a say.
I would have given the film a higher rating if it hadn't gone on quite as long as it did. It starts to lose its way a bit in the last third, and it felt like the story was ready to be over before the movie was. It also became literally difficult for me to watch after a time, because I felt so bad and frustrated for Nicolas Cage's character.
But I mostly enjoyed the film's originality and its ability to articulate a beef I have myself with our current culture.
Grade: A-