Tribeca Festival
“Nobu,” Matt Tyrnauer’s documentary on celebrity chef Nobu Matsuhisa, credits the autobiography “Nobu: A Memoir” as its source material, but for the most part the film looks like a corporate video for the namesake luxury hospitality empire that boasts a portfolio of some 57 restaurants and 21 hotels around the world. The use of A.I. for dialogue enhancement, as indicated by end credits, does not help blunt the corporate video charges.
The documentary’s New York premiere at the Tribeca Festival feels like a foregone conclusion, given Robert De Niro’s involvement in both organizations. Besides, he apparently has a lot more to say on the topic of Nobu, of which he is a founding partner, than he did during the “Rendez-vous With . . . Robert De Niro” at Cannes and “ ‘Casino’ 30th Anniversary Screening With Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese” at Tribeca combined.
Continue reading "Too Many Cooks" »
Universal Pictures
How to Train Your Dragon (2025)
Since Disney is resolved to mine and recycle all its animated I.P. into live action, DreamWorks is also joining in on the act – or at least that’s the logical conclusion that redditors on the r/DreamWorks sub are already drawing. The studio is so gung ho about the odds for the “How to Train Your Dragon” live-action remake that a sequel is already in the pipeline for 2027.
Continue reading "The Way of the Dragon" »
A24
Spoiler alert: Celine Song always chooses the white dude.
In “Materialists,” the follow-up to her much-lauded debut, “Past Lives,” Ms. Song once again finds her heroine – this time Lucy (Dakota Johnson), a professional Millionaire Matchmaker – amid a love triangle. At her clients’ wedding reception, she spots her next most eligible bachelor, Harry Castillo (Pedro Pascal). Thing is, he is more interested in her than being her customer.
Continue reading "White Knight" »
Courtesy photo
Joachim Trier’s Cannes competition title “Sentimental Value” often feels like an attempt to recapture the success of his Oscar-nominated 2021 film, “The Worst Person in the World.” Not only do we have Renate Reinsve in the lead again, he also frames her with a medium shot right in the center of the screen all the damn time. This is so pronounced that one might actually overlook some of his progression in terms of visual composition.
Continue reading "Daddy Issues" »
Mandarin & Compagnie - Kallouche Cinema - Frakas Productions - France 3 Cinema
I wasn’t a fan of “Titane,” and much of my aversion could probably be attributed to its undeserved Palme d’or win. To my pleasant surprise, Julia Ducournau’s Cannes Film Festival competition follow-up, “Alpha,” is nothing like it. The film is far more artful and mature, which just goes to show that the New French Extremity filmmaker was merely lauded prematurely. Though elements of body horror seen in “Titane” and “Raw” are still very much present, the new film better qualifies as a ghost story and a coming-of-age tale set in the Twilight Zone.
Continue reading "Ghost of the Past " »
Festival de Cannes
The Phoenician Scheme (2025)
“The Phoenician Scheme” is, for better or worse, an archetypal Wes Anderson movie. The Cannes Film Festival competition entry is, once again, a timeless motion storybook about affluent eccentrics that’s symmetrical, pastel and droll. While Mr. Anderson’s rigorous mise en scène is always to be admired, telling a tale like this in the techbro oligarchy era is a choice – sort of like the cinematic equivalent of let them eat cake.
Continue reading "Beyond the Dreams of Avarice" »
Schramm Film
Christian Petzold continues the exploration of his favorite theme – doubles – with “Mirrors No. 3.” Named after a Maurice Ravel composition, the film is apparently a modern Brothers Grimm fairytale per the German auteur during a post-screening Q&A at the film’s Cannes Directors’ Fortnight world premiere. He’s surprisingly frazzled in person, polar opposite of the clinical precision his work projects. This is a story about doppelgängers, but with a twist.
Continue reading "Second Family" »
A24
I often catch myself saying “during the pandemic” in reference to the Covid-19 lockdown, knowing full well that the virus is far from eradicated. Though people hardly mask up anymore, there are still deaths from it in 2025. The lockdown apparently remains very much on the minds of some of the world’s top filmmakers, as we find out from a few of the Cannes Film Festival selections that seem to have been inspired by it either directly or indirectly. Ari Aster’s “Eddington,” which takes place in late May of 2020 in the eponymous town in New Mexico, is a case in point.
Continue reading "Long Covid" »
Paramount Pictures
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (2025)
This is going to date me, but Tom Cruise’s first stab at “Mission: Impossible” in 1996 was also my first review assignment for my college campus newspaper. Even though my editor went at it with a heavy hand, the result was still fairly amateurish. Thankfully, my most embarrassing writings were at the infancy of the internet and left no digital trace. In 2011, I critiqued the fourth entry in the series, “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol,” on this very site when it was still somewhat thriving. And here I am again, checking out the eighth installment at its Cannes Film Festival premiere and sashaying down the same red carpet as the cast and crew. But enough about me.
I am bringing all this up because Late Cruise has been mostly trafficking in nostalgia. Hollywood’s last movie star reminds us all of the good ol’ days when marquee names could make or break the box office, the days before Netflix and venture capitalists spoiled everything. “Top Gun: Maverick” was the template. Sure, it had “it” boys like Glen Powell, but the most memorable moment for boomers and Gen-X had to be Mr. Cruise’s reunion with an ailing Val Kilmer. “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” sort of does the same thing. It gathers the likes of Henry Czerny and Rolf Saxon from way, way back. There are even montages of earlier films peppered throughout.
Continue reading "Last Action Hero" »
Courtesy photo
“Broke” is worth seeing just to watch Wyatt Russell slump against a wall, or stand next to someone, or hold out his hands to show he’s not a threat. He works with his hands, risks his life for a living and finds his joy in tiny moments of physical perfection. You see a lot of these men in the military or doing the kind of risky heavy work found on a farm. “Broke” reflects this way of moving through a focus on how its people express their feelings through doing instead of talking. It’s a fine story very well shown, not told.
Continue reading "Last Rodeo" »