Jay Kelly (2025)

Clooney plays a successful actor (wink wink) going through an existential crisis, who takes an impromptu trip to Europe, while his entourage follows him wherever he goes. It's a very "inside baseball" look at the entertainment industry, occasionally meandering and self-indulgent, but performances are strong and it's easy to get caught up in the glitz. It didn't quite work its magic on me, but it's a solid effort and an examination of a life lived good enough.

3 slices of cheesecake out of 5

Sleepers (1996)

Four boys from Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan, see violence everyday, in the streets and behind closed doors, but the sense of belonging they feel to the place where they grew up, where their lifelong friendship was forged, offers a kind of safety. When they're moved to a young offenders facility, the youths experience violence of a different kind, one that's inescapable, even after it ends. Years later, a chance for revenge may offer a semblance of closure.
Split between showing adolescence and adulthood, the film presents a story of loss and abuse of power that at times is reminiscent of Scorsese and Leone's period gangster films. In addition to upsetting imagery, a v/o provides a more personal insight into topics that are controversial and challenging.

4 snapping bolts out of 5

ALIEN: COVENANT [2017]

Director Ridley Scott's Alien: Covenant is a sequel to Prometheus and a prequel to Alien.
A colony ship's crew find a beautiful planet inhabited by a being that has a thirst for hugging their faces and bursting their chests.
As an Alien film it's really quite pointless but tries to make itself relevant by asking many questions about faith, science and the whole evolution jibber-jabber.   In the fog of all the one-dimensional characters it clumsily gives the Xenomorph a backstory that quite frankly neuters the horror of the creature.  Apart from a particularly wonderful action sequence, Michael Fassbender's performance and Jed Kurzel's Jerry Goldsmith-homage musical score, the film is an uninspired bore that really struggles to find a point in existing.

2½ John Denver transmissions out of 5

20TH CENTURY WOMEN [2016]

Director Mike Mills' third feature length 20th Century Women continues his firm understanding of lost souls amongst the ones they love.
Set in 1979 Southern California, the film tells of a teenage boy, influenced mostly by his single mother and two other females as the world around them is rapidly going through some significant cultural and social changes.
This funny and moving bittersweet ode to Mills' mother is never too heavy-handed but carries enough weight to become heavily invested within the tale of time flashing before one's eyes.  Poignantly perceptive from the eyes of both sexes the film never chooses sides and rather helps us understand and respect both man and woman, young and old.  The casting is pitch-perfect as each actor works with one another with a special type of chemistry most films yearn for.  It's a simple story but it's told with such grace and intimacy you can't help but become enthralled with it.

4 fights about clitoral stimulation out of 5

SPOTLIGHT [2015]

Tom McCarthy was well on his way to becoming one of my favorite film directors but then The Cobbler dropped out of his ass and all that blew to hell.
Fortunately he redeems himself with the biographical drama Spotlight.
Based on the 2001 true story of a group of Boston Globe investigative reporters who struggle to expose a massively buried series of child sex abuse scandals, spanning across decades, within the local Catholic priest community.
It's impressive ensemble cast are fully committed to allowing the story speak for itself making it all the more engrossing with unglamorous believability.  Quite often films like this seem to bury themselves in holier-than-thou self-gratification but Spotlight is just as interested in honest journalism as it is solid story-telling.  It's an engrossing testament to why we can't forget about the blood, sweat & tears put into disappearing newsprint journalism in the digital age of social media.

3½ missing documents out of 5

THE STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT [2015]

Based on real events, director Kyle Alvarez's The Stanford Prison Experiment, recollects a disturbing university behavioral experiment set in the '70's by psychology professor Philip Lombardo.
A mock prison is set-up where 24 students are randomly selected to play prisoners & guards as a psychological study of imprisonment, however it begins taking a life of it's own and the abusive tactics become very questionable as the subjects being losing a grip on reality.
The subject matter fires all sorts of questions of ethics and reasoning at the audience which will probably result in a wide variety of reactions to the film.  No matter how you feel about it, one can't deny Alvarez's wondefully effective use of the camera, colors and ever-building tension to keep the uneasiness constantly in the foreground.   Without a single weak link in the ensemble cast, everything is craftily glued together in such a way that it all holds together tight enough when it easily could have been a silly and/or boring disaster.

3½ sausages out of 5

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III [2006]

J.J. Abrams makes his feature film directorial debut with the third film in the immensely popular Mission: Impossible movie franchise.
Ethan Hunt comes out of retirement to hunt down a dangerous arms dealer who's kidnapped his wife.  Abrams does a wonderful job with a brisk pace that never slows down long enough to allow you realize how silly it all is.  It's pretty much a paint-by-numbers action film but has just enough enthusiasm and popcorn thrills to rise above boredom.  Cruise performs his obligatory bat-shit crazy stunt that never ceases to amaze but the rest of the action is nothing we haven't seen before.  It's tightly wound story never strays too far from it's mark and in the end will leave the action-junkie suitably satisfied, lens flare and all.

3 deadly head-aches out of 5

RUDDERLESS [2014]

Actor William H. Macy makes his directorial debut with Rudderless, a musical drama that does a mighty fine job at finding a way to your heart to both warm and break it.
Billy Crudup plays a broken man who rediscovers his love for playing music after tragically losing his musician son.  The movie starts off really strong but loses it's way a bit in it's formulaic third act.  Fortunately the acting, music and heart are all strong enough to not let it lose it's steam.  Macy seems to enjoy using a lot trick cuts and bizarre panning which are a bit distracting at times but they always seem to help tell the story so I suppose they can be excused.  With a few minor quips I couldn't help but be completely enamoured by the film and thoroughly enjoyed it's warmth, sadness and humor right up to the very end.

4 open mic nights out of 5

BIG FISH [2003]

Tim Burton's most mature work to date, an adaptation of Daniel Wallace's novel Big Fish is a fantasy flavored Southern Gothic tear-jerker that is sure to please fans of the director's work.
Like most of Burton's personal films, he ditches the idea of a standard narrative and tells it like a fairy tale vingette layered over a bigger picture as the heart of the picture, almost like a zanier version of Forrest Gump.  It's themes of father & sons, the curious mysteries of a bigger world and determination for what you believe all join each other seamlessly and will form a lump in your throat as you realize this.  It relishes itself in fantasy and larger than life storytelling but never loses touch with reality enough to insult your intelligence or lose your belief in it all.

4 soles in Spectre out of 5

WATCHMEN - THE ULTIMATE CUT [2009]

Clocking in at over 3½ hours, Zack Snyder's Ultimate Cut of the film adaptation of Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons' acclaimed graphic novel Watchmen is the definitive version without a doubt.
As faithful as the film is to it's source material, in the end it's the dedication that hurts the experience most.  Snyder pretty much films exactly what is seen on the pages of the graphic novel and forgets to translate it into film with a voice of his own and in turn adds nothing to the works that wasn't already said in it's original form.  However visually and stylistically it's a wonder to watch such gritty, violent beauty on film.  I applaud Snyder's putting all his heart and soul into a hard R-rated film that would be a hard sell to franchise greedy Hollywood executives.

3½ Black Freighters out of 5